The Judas Strain - James Rollins [28]
“Monsignor Verona, this is Painter Crowe.”
“Director Crowe, thank you for taking my call. I’ve been trying to reach Gray for the past two hours, but there’s been no answer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Is there a message you’d like me to forward?”
Painter didn’t bother to explain about the current situation. Though Monsignor Verona had helped Sigma in the past, the matter here was on a need-to-know basis, already coded in black.
“There’s been an incident here at the Vatican…in the Secret Archives precisely. I’m not entirely sure of its import, but it strikes me as a message or warning. One left for both myself and perhaps Commander Pierce.”
Painter stood up and circled around his desk to his chair. “What sort of message?”
“Someone broke into a vault here last week and painted the symbol for the Royal Dragon Court on the floor.”
Painter sank into his seat, disturbed by the coincidence. Two years ago, Gray and Monsignor Verona had teamed up to root out and destroy a brutal sect of the Dragon Court. They had succeeded—but not without help, requiring an alliance with an enemy, an operative from the Guild.
Seichan.
And now the assassin was here.
Painter was not one to swallow coincidences easily. Not in the past, and certainly not now. If nothing else, his stint as director of Sigma had honed his edge of paranoia to a razor’s sharpness.
“Did anyone get a look at this trespasser?” he asked.
“Briefly. Whoever it was, they came alone. Slipped past all of Vatican security. We captured only a shadowy image on one security camera. This was no casual thief. Only one person I know could have crossed into the inner sanctum and out again with no more than a shadow captured. The same someone connected to our joint involvement with the Dragon Court in the past.”
So it seemed the monsignor was no less suspicious than Painter.
“And the dragon painting on the floor,” Vigor continued. “It was plainly a message, perhaps even a reminder of a debt owed.”
“You believe it was the Guild operative, Seichan,” he said. “The one who helped you defeat the Dragon Court?”
“Exactly. If we could find her, ask her—”
Painter knew that any further secrets would only hamper discovering the true threat. It seemed the need-to-know status of the situation had just extended to Rome.
“Seichan is here,” he said, cutting the monsignor off. “We have her in custody.”
“What?”
He quickly related the night’s return of the assassin, dropping out of nowhere, bloodied and on the run.
Vigor was stunned for a moment—then spoke in a rush. “She must be interrogated. If for no other reason than to ask her why she painted the message on the floor.”
“We’ll do that. Once she’s treated, we’ll conduct a thorough interview. Behind very stout bars.”
“You don’t understand. There’s something larger going on. Possibly larger than the Guild itself.”
“What do you mean?”
“The dragon symbol was painted around an ancient inscription carved into the floor of the archive vault. Carved possibly back when the Vatican was first being built, back to the time of Galileo. The symbols are the characters from what some conjecture might be the most ancient of all written languages. Older than proto-Hebrew. A writing that may even predate mankind.”
Painter heard the anxiety in the other’s voice. “What do you mean predate mankind? How could that be?”
Vigor answered him.
Painter kept the shock out of his reaction, along with his disbelief. He ended the call with a deep frown. The monsignor’s assertion was plainly impossible, but true or not, he immediately understood the monsignor’s distress. They needed to question Seichan as soon as possible—before anything else happened to her.
Painter hurriedly confirmed ETA on the medical team, then had his aide patch him through to the guard stationed at the safe house.
Who was on duty out there?
He called for Brant to contact security and have them forward video feed from the safe house to his office plasma screens.
As Painter waited, Vigor’s final words echoed through him.
Those symbols