With a black-market sale being organized, the strike team had to move fast, before the Crucible could employ its doppelganger as a weapon in a retaliatory action—against them or, worse, another global target.
Gray pictured Paris burning, knowing the greater ruin that had been narrowly avoided. It was why they also needed Monk and Mara’s program on site ASAP. He checked his watch. His best friend was already en route from Madrid. He should reach the estate only fifteen minutes behind the strike team.
Gray intended to have things locked down by the time they arrived.
He lowered his arm, drawing confidence in the fact that Monk had not betrayed the team. Not that Gray had ever fully believed it. Monk would do anything to protect his family, but Sigma was also his family. They had spilled blood together, fought through fire, been at death’s door too many times to count, shoulder to shoulder through it all.
Both Monk and Kat.
Gray prayed that what had been gained by all that subterfuge—some piece of encrypted tech—helped rescue Harriet and Seichan. They had no choice but to leave that operation in the hands of Director Crowe.
“Target in two,” Zabala radioed.
Gray glanced down to the glowing tablet in Bailey’s hand. “If you’re right about the significance of the estate being built here, then I think you’ve solved a mystery that had been plaguing your contacts with the Key.”
Bailey frowned, not understanding.
“The Guerra family—its wealth, its influence, its history—all sitting atop the holiest of Holy Offices.” Gray shook his head. “I think it’s obvious who must be running all of this, who must be the current leader of the Crucible. Eliza Guerra is not just a major player in all of this. She is the—”
6:40 P.M.
“Inquisitor Generalis,” Mendoza moaned, dropping to his knees on the floor of the computer lab. The tech bowed his head to the floor, both out of obeisance and to hide his shock that this petite woman in a trim suit was their true leader and master.
Todor remained standing. He kept one fist clenched, his teeth close to breaking as he kept his fury in check. Inquisitor Guerra came flanked by two taller men. One was her same age, who it was whispered she had taken as a consort; the other was an older man of seventy who acted as her counsel in most matters. The trio composed the Tribunal. But Todor knew the woman, whose family had ruled the Crucible with an iron fist for centuries, was far harder than either of her companions.
She still cradled her left arm in a sling, her shoulder fractured by the bullet he had fired at her upon her order. This was the first time Todor had seen her since the solstice. A week earlier she had given him his orders at this very estate, down in the High Holy Office.
You are God’s merciless soldier. Prove this by shooting without hesitation, without any show of remorse.
As much as it had pained him, under her merciless glare at the library, he had obeyed. In that moment, she proved she was willing to spill her own blood for the cause. Seeing her now, he felt some of his anger draining, confusion rising to fill the void.
The Inquisitor General had arrived an hour ago after evacuating the Holy Office in San Sebastián. She had clearly abandoned any pretense of keeping her identity a secret from the lower caste of the order. This alone signified the magnitude of this moment. Her eyes swept the lab, her fervor shining bright, both angry and exulted.
Behind her, more men gathered, trying to peer inside. They represented the highest of the order, all come to witness what lay hidden here.
Todor kept his back to the sight, to the window overlooking the sealed chamber. He could feel the radiance of those hundred Xénese devices, each housing a demon, glowing with malevolence, a black sun at his back. On the table directly behind him, near Mendoza’s bowed head, rested the infernal device that had brought Paris low.
Guerra’s gaze shifted from the next room to Todor.
She smiled warmly upon him. She reached out and brushed his fist with the back of her hand. His fingers instantly relaxed. He could not stop them, feeling the love in that touch.
“Mi soldado,” she said. “You’ve done well. You should be proud.”
His legs trembled. He wanted to drop to his knees, but he kept upright. He waved back to the window. “?Por qué?” he pleaded. “Has this all been about earthly wealth? To gain riches from selling these accursed devices?”
Guerra’s smile saddened. “In part, Familiares Y?igo. That I cannot deny. But it is only to swell the coffers of the Crucibulum. Which we will need in the dark times to come.” She stepped past him, forcing him to turn, to face what shone in the next room. “I will cast these seeds far and wide. Once out there, they will pit country against country, governments against terrorists. Mistakes will happen. Ruin will spread. And if not . . .”
She tapped Mendoza and motioned the tech up, clearly wanting him to explain.
“We . . . we built a back door into each of these Xénese devices.” He pointed to the unit on the desk. “Controlled by this master program.”
Blood drained to Todor’s legs, leaving the rest of his body chilled. He stared at the screen, at the fiery angel in her blasted garden.
The Inquisitor elaborated: “If ruin does not come to the world through its own treachery, I will reach out from here, to my dark army of a hundred, and take control. The Crucible will rule all.”
Awed by this plan, Todor finally crashed to his knees, bowing his head, ashamed for having ever doubted her.
“Inquisitor Generalis,” he acknowledged.
Then sirens suddenly sounded, blaring loudly from above.
Blasts echoed.
Gunfire.
He straightened, staring up.
We’re under attack.
Guerra showed no surprise; her eyes never left the next room. She waved to Mendoza and nodded to the window.
“Free them,” she said. “Unleash this dark army of God.”
6:54 P.M.
Gray piled out of the helicopter into the middle of a raging firefight.
When their tactical chopper had landed in the bricked courtyard, its lights ignited, blazing brightly. Exploding flashbangs lit windows even more brilliantly. Smoke billowed from the shattered panes of others. A sting of tear gas wafted, whipped about the yard by the aircraft’s blades.
Gunfire chattered sporadically as the leading strike team swept the building.
Overhead, the other chopper circled a huge stone bell tower. Tracer fire peppered down at it, taking out snipers in windows. The gunfire shattered sills and window frames, raining rocks down to the bricks below. One barrage struck a bell up there, setting it to clanging loudly.
Gray caught sight of a pair of large white dogs bounding through the gates, heading toward the open mountains.
“Over here!” a soldier shouted from the shattered main doorway, its timber frame still smoking.
Zabala led them across the open courtyard. Gray and the others were surrounded by an armed phalanx of their protection detail. Gray had his SIG Sauer in hand. Kowalski braced his bullpup against his shoulder, his cheek fixed to the stock. Father Bailey and Sister Beatrice kept low, running with them to the door.
They crossed the threshold without incident and entered a cavernous hall. A bonfire burned in a huge hearth, a match to the blaze climbing wooden shelves on the opposite side. Flames ate their way through the library, spreading outward across the paneled walls, devouring old oil paintings. Smoke choked the rafters.
“This way,” the soldier said. “We found something.”
He rushed them out of the fiery hall and down cool stone stairs. They reached a lower basement, where another two soldiers stood posted outside a door hanging crookedly in its frame, its lock blown open.
A fresh spate of gunfire echoed to the left.
Gray hurried through the blown door with the others and discovered a computer lab, but it was the sight in the next room that caught the breath in his throat.
“That can’t be good,” Kowalski said.
It wasn’t.
Through a window into the next room, scores of Xénese devices glowed in the darkness, a hundred spheres of danger.
“They made more than one copy,” Bailey said, his voice hushed with horror.
“And not just of her device,” Gray said.
He pointed to a set of abandoned cables running to a dark monitor. The last image frozen on the screen was a familiar one, last seen in the catacombs: a dark garden under a black sun, lorded over by a glowing, fiery figure.
Eve’s doppelganger.
“They copied her corrupted program,” Gray said.
He placed a palm on the tabletop, knowing the Xénese device taken from the catacombs had been sitting right here.
But where is it now?
He turned and faced the guard who led them here. “Was anyone inside when you blasted your way through the door?”
The soldier shook his head. “Non.”
Kowalski shifted closer to the window, raising his weapon higher. “Let’s trash those motherf—” He glanced back to the nun with a tired sigh. “I mean one good grenade and problem solved, right?”
“Wrong,” Gray answered.