He whispered as he pulled her fully to him, 'Why say it, when I can prove it?'
10:15 P.M.
Terni, Italy
Gray stood guard before the window, staring out at the dark garden behind the old country farmhouse. He also had a view of the parking lot and the nearby Via Tiberina road. They had traveled eighty miles to reach the small town in the Umbria region, noted for its ancient Roman ruins and baths.
Rachel had suggested the location. The two-story farmhouse had been converted into a hotel, but still retained much of its original charm, with chestnut beams, bricked archways, and iron chandeliers. It was also remote and off the beaten path.
Still, Gray refused to let his guard down. After events in Rome, he wasn't taking any chances. And he wasn't the only one.
Down in the garden, he noted a flicker of red ash. He hadn't known Seichan smoked-but then again, he knew almost nothing about her. She was an unknown quantity and a needless risk. He knew the standing orders out of Washington: capture her at any cost.
Still, she'd guarded their backs today, saved his life in the past.
As he watched her patrol the grounds, he heard the water shut off in the neighboring bathroom with a heavy thunk of the pipes. Rachel had finished her shower. After an hour in the sewers, they'd all needed some time with soap and very hot water.
They also needed a moment to regroup, to decide on a course of action. Moments later, Rachel exited the steaming bathroom, barefooted, wrapped only in a towel, her hair still dripping.
'Shower's free,' she said, then glanced around the room. 'Where's your partner?'
'Kowalski's gone downstairs. Fetching a late dinner from the kitchen.'
'Oh.' She remained standing in the doorway, her arms around her chest, suddenly awkward. She wouldn't meet his eyes. They hadn't been truly alone together since crashing back into each other's lives. He knew he should turn away, allow her a moment of privacy, but he couldn't.
She slowly stepped over to the bed, still favoring her left leg. Tylenol and a brace had helped her wrenched knee, but she needed at least a day of rest. On the bed was a stack of new clothes, still tagged and wrapped in tissue: for her, jeans, a midnight blue blouse, and a calf-length coat.
As she walked, she clung to her towel like a shield. There was no need. Gray knew intimately what lay under that towel. What his hands hadn't explored, his lips had. But it wasn't just the flesh that stirred him now. It was the memory of warmth, of soft words in the night, of promises that were never fulfilled.
He finally had to turn back to the window-driven away not by shyness, nor even out of politeness, but from an overwhelming sense of loss for what might have been.
He heard her shuffle by the bed, listened to the rustle of tissue paper. She didn't return to the bathroom to change. She shed her towel and dressed behind him. He sensed no seduction in her boldness, more an act of defiance, challenging him, knowing it both pained him and shamed him.
Then again, maybe it was all his imagination.
Once dressed, she joined him at the window and stood at his shoulder. 'Still keeping watch, I see,' she said softly.
He didn't answer.
She stood with him for a quiet moment. Down in the gardens, the sudden flare of a match illuminated Seichan's form as she lit another cigarette. Gray felt Rachel stiffen beside him. She glanced at him, then turned swiftly away and crossed back toward the bed.
Before either could speak, a rap on the door drew their attention. Kowalski entered, burdened by a wide wooden tray and two bottles of wine under one arm.
'Room service,' he said.
As he stepped inside, he quickly noted the discarded towel in the middle of the floor. His eyes flickered between Rachel and Gray, then rolled slightly. He carried his burden to the room's table, whistling under his breath.
He left the tray on the table, but kept hold of both bottles of wine. 'If you need me, I'm going to take a long hot bath. And I do mean long. I may be in there for at least an hour.'
He glanced significantly at Gray in what passed as subtlety for the big man.
Rachel's face turned to a pale shade of crimson.
Gray was saved from further embarrassment by the ringing of his cell phone on the bedside table. He checked his watch. That had to be Painter. He collected the phone and moved back to the window.
'Pierce here,' he said as the secure connection clicked through.
'So are you settled?' the director asked.
'For the moment.'
Gray appreciated focusing back on the matter at hand. Kowalski headed into the bathroom with his two bottles of wine. Rachel sat on the bed and listened to his end of the conversation. Over the next fifteen minutes, Gray and Painter compared notes: three murders on three continents, the violence perpetrated to cover up what was going on, the significance of the pagan symbol that seemed to link everything together.
Painter described his plan to travel to Norway to investigate Viatus and its CEO.
'And Monk is going with you?' Gray asked, both surprised and glad for his friend.
'Along with John Creed, our new resident geneticist. He was the one who decrypted the data from Jason Gorman's e-mail.' Painter's voice firmed to a more serious tone. 'Which brings us to what Lieutenant Verona discovered, what someone apparently wanted destroyed.'
'The mummified finger.'
Gray glanced at Rachel. They'd had a long discussion on the train ride out of Rome. Father Marco Giovanni had been working at an excavation site in northern England, somewhere in the mountainous and remote region that bordered Scotland. They still had no more details about the excavation. All they knew was that Vigor's former student had been researching the roots of Celtic Christianity, when pagan worship merged with Catholicism.
Gray had already related some details to Painter. But he hadn't expanded on what Rachel had divulged on the train.
'Director, maybe you'd better hear this from Lieutenant Verona herself. I'm not sure of the significance, but it's worth noting if only for thoroughness.'
'Very well. Put her on.'
Gray crossed back to the bed and passed her the cell phone. 'I thought you should tell Painter what you learned.'
She nodded. He remained standing near the bedpost. After a few pleasantries, Rachel cut to the strange matter of the priest's obsession.
'Before everything went to hell in Rome,' Rachel explained, 'I had acquired a list of published papers and treatises written by Father Giovanni, some going back to when he was a student. It was plain he was fixated on a specific mythology of the Catholic faith, an incarnation of the Virgin Mary known as the Black Madonna.'
Gray listened with half an ear as she explained. He was familiar with the subject. He had studied comparative religions before joining Sigma and knew the history and mysteries surrounding the cult of the Black Madonna. Over the centuries, going back to the very start of Christianity, statues and paintings had appeared that depicted the Mother of Christ with dark or black skin. These came to be revered and treasured. Over four hundred of the images still existed in Europe, a few dating all the way back to the eleventh century. And a large number of them were still worshiped and venerated: the Black Madonna of Cz__stochowa in Poland, the Madonna of Hermits in Switzerland, the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. The list went on and on.
Despite this ongoing veneration, controversy continued to surround these unique Madonnas. While some claimed miraculous properties associated with them, others declared the dark skin was due to nothing more than accumulated candle soot or the natural darkening of wooden statues or old marble. The Catholic Church avoided acknowledging any significance or spiritual powers for these incarnations.
Rachel continued with Father Giovanni's fixation. 'Marco was convinced that Celtic Christianity built its foundations upon the Black Madonna, that this image represented the fusion of the old pagan Earth Mother with the new worship of the Virgin Mary. He spent his career searching for this connection, the true source behind the mythology.'
