she left last night and has not come in this morning.'
'If she does show up, can you let her know I called?' Gray left his number.
Pocketing his cell phone, he sagged in his seat. He stared at the passing scenery as the taxi sped along the interstate toward downtown Rome. Rachel had arranged a room at a small Italian bed-and-breakfast. Gray had stayed there before. Back when they were dating.
He struggled to think of any other reason why Rachel would not have shown up. Where could she be? Worry edged toward panic. He willed the taxi to go faster.
He would check for any messages at the hotel, then head directly over to her apartment. It was only a handful of blocks from the hotel.
Still, it would take time to get there.
Too much time.
With each passing mile, his heart pounded harder, his left hand tightened on his knee. As they finally passed through one of the ancient city gates and headed into central Rome, the taxi's passage became a crawl. The streets grew narrower and narrower. Pedestrians scooted sideways; a bicycle zigzagged between the cars.
At last the taxi pulled into a side street and came to a stop in front of the small hostelry. Gray hopped out, grabbed his bag, and left Kowalski to pay the driver.
The hotel appeared nondescript from the street. A small brass plaque on a wall, no larger than Gray's palm, read Casa di Cartina. The hotel had been converted out of three adjoining buildings, all dating from the eighteenth century. A half flight of stairs led down to a small lobby.
Gray headed below. The reason for the hotel's name became apparent as soon as the brush of the hanging bell announced Gray's entrance. All four walls of the room were covered with ancient maps and bits of cartography. The hostelry's owners came from a long line of world travelers and mariners, stretching back to before Christopher Columbus.
A wizened old man in a buttoned vest met Gray behind a small wooden front desk. His face cracked into a warm smile. 'It has been a long time, Signor Pierce,' the proprietor said warmly in English, recognizing Gray.
'It has, Franco.'
Gray exchanged a few pleasantries, long enough for Kowalski to come striding into the space. The larger man's eyes swept the walls. With a background in the navy, he nodded his approval at the choice of decor.
'Franco, I was wondering if you had heard any word from Rachel.' Gray forced his voice not to sound strained. 'I was hoping she'd left a message.'
The man's face crinkled in confusion. 'A message?'
Gray felt a sinking in his chest. Clearly there had been no message. Maybe she was back at her-
'Signor Pierce, why would la signorina Verona leave a message? She is already up in your room, waiting for you.'
Gray's relief felt like a rush of cold water. 'Upstairs?'
Franco reached into a cubby behind his desk, removed a key, and passed it to Gray. 'Fourth floor. I gave you a nice balcony room. The view of the Coliseum is very nice from that room.'
Gray nodded and took the key. 'Grazie.'
'Can I have someone bring up your bags?'
Kowalski scooped Gray's duffel from the floor. 'I got it.' He bumped Gray in the rear with his bag to get him moving.
Gray thanked Franco again and headed to the stairs. It was a narrow, winding way, more ladder than stairwell. They had to go single file. Kowalski eyed it doubtfully.
'Where's the elevator?'
'No elevator.' Gray set off up the stairs.
Kowalski followed. 'You've got to be goddamn kidding me.' He wrestled to get himself and the bags up. After two flights, his face had turned a deep red and a string of curses flowed in a continual stream.
Reaching the fourth floor, Gray followed the wall signs to find their room. The layout was a convoluted maze of sharp corners and sudden dead ends.
He finally reached the correct door. Though it was his room, he still knocked before using the key. He pushed open the door, anxious to see Rachel, surprised at the depth of his desire. It had been a long time...maybe too long.
'Rachel? It's Gray.'
She was seated on the bed, framed against the window, bathed in the morning sunlight. She stood up as he quickly entered the room.
'Why didn't you call?' Gray asked.
Before she could speak, another woman answered, 'Because I asked her not to.'
Only now did Gray notice the handcuff that bound Rachel's right arm to the headboard. Gray turned.
A slim figure, wrapped in a robe, stepped from the bathroom. Her black hair was wet, freshly combed straight past her shoulders. Almond eyes the color of cold jade stared back at him. Her legs, bare to mid-thigh, crossed casually as she leaned on the bathroom door frame.
In her free hand, she leveled a pistol at him.
'Seichan...'
1:15 A.M.
Washington, D.C.
'We're not going to get anything more out of her,' Monk told Painter as he sank into the seat across the desk. 'She's exhausted and still in a state of shock.'
Painter studied Monk. The man looked just as exhausted. 'Did Creed finish his assessment of the genetic data?'
'Hours ago. He still wants to crunch the data past a statistician to be sure, but for the moment, he confirms Andrea Solderitch's story. Or at least as much as we can verify.'
Painter had kept current with the status reports. Dr. Malloy's assistant had described a conversation with the professor just an hour before he was murdered. The professor had been compiling the genetic assay that made up the bulk of the file that Jason Gorman had e-mailed his father. It had revealed a genetic map of the corn harvested in Africa. Radioactive markers showed which genes were foreign to the corn.
Two chromosomes.
'And what about that original file?' Painter asked. 'The one Jason Gorman sent to the professor two months ago. The one that contained the genetic data from the seeds originally planted in that field?'
Monk ran a hand over his bald scalp. 'The techs at Princeton are still trying to recover the data. They've checked all the servers. The professor must have kept the file isolated to his own computer. The one torched by the assassins. All evidence of it is gone.'
Painter sighed. They kept hitting dead ends. Even the gunmen had vanished. No bodies had been found. The assassins must have escaped the blast and slipped past the cordon around the laboratory.
'Though we don't have hard proof, I believe Andrea's story,' Monk continued. 'According to her, the professor found only one chromosome of foreign DNA in the original seed. He believed the two files showed that genetic modification was unstable in the harvest.
'But without that first file,' Painter said, 'we can't prove it.'
'Still, it had to be why the professor was tortured and murdered. The assassins must have had orders to destroy all evidence of that first file...and everyone who knew about it. And they almost succeeded.'
Painter frowned. 'Still, all we have is Ms. Solderitch's word. And according to her, even the professor wasn't entirely certain about that instability. The samples could have come from two different genetic hybrids. They might be unrelated to one another.'
'So what do we do next?'
'I think it's time we go to the source of all this.'
Monk stared at the seed-shaped logo printed atop the file on Painter's desk. 'Viatus.'
'It all seems to come back to that Norwegian corporation. You've read the intelligence report on that symbol burned into the boy and the professor.'
Monk's face tightened with distaste. 'The quartered circle. Some pagan cross.'
'Initial conjecture is that it might represent an ecoterrorist group. And maybe it does. Maybe some lunatics
