The Doomsday Key by James Rollins Read Free Book Online

decoration left by a supplicant or tourist?
    She noted a mark burned into the leather. It held no significance. It was a crude spiral, like some magic charm.

    Disappointed, she turned the small leather pouch over. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw what was burned into the leather on this side.
    A circle stamped with a cross.

    She had seen this mark before.
    In the forensics report on the body of Father Marco Giovanni.
    The same symbol had been branded into the forehead of the dead priest. It had to be significant, but what did it mean?
    Rachel knew one place to look for an answer. She teased open the pouch and dumped the contents into her palm. She frowned down at the single object. It looked like a small blackened twig. She lifted it closer—and immediately realized her error.
    The twig had a fingernail.
    Horrified, she almost dropped it.
    What she held wasn’t a twig.
    It was a human finger.
    2:55 P.M.
Washington, D.C.
    Painter sat at his desk in his windowless office and rolled a bottle of aspirin between his palms. A dull ache had taken root between his eyeballs, presaging a full-blown migraine. He shook the aspirin bottle and wished for something stronger, perhaps something chased by a tall single-malt Scotch.
    Still, he would trade it all for one neck massage by his girlfriend. Unfortunately, Lisa was off on the West Coast, visiting her rock-climbing brother in Yosemite. She wouldn’t be back for another week. On his own, he would have to settle for the comforts of Bayer Extra Strength.
    For the past hour he’d been analyzing data and reports, most of which were still posted on the giant LCD wall monitors that surrounded his desk. As he glanced at one of the screens, he wished for the thousandth time that his office had an actual window. Maybe it was that part of him that was half Mashantucket Indian, but he needed some bit of connection to blue skies, trees, and the simple rhythms of an ordinary life.
    But that was never going to happen.
    His office, along with the rest of Sigma Command, was buried beneath the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall. The covert facility occupied the Castle’s old WWII-era bomb shelters. The location had been picked both for its convenient access to the halls of power and for its proximity to the Smithsonian Institution’s many research facilities.
    At the moment, Painter would’ve traded it all for one window. Still, this had been his home for the past few years, and he was very protective of it. After last year’s assault on the facility, Sigma was still recovering. The damage had gone much deeper than just scorched walls and destroyed equipment. Washington politics was a complicated web of power, ambition, and bitter enmities. It was a place where the weak were torn apart by the strong. And fair or not, the assault had damaged Sigma’s position among U.S. intelligence forces.
    To make matters worse, Painter suspected that the true masterminds of the attack were still at large. The man who had led the assault, a division chief for the Defense Intelligence Agency, had been dismissed as a rogue agent, but Painter wasn’t so sure. To pull off the assault, someone had to have been supporting him, someone buried even deeper within the web of Washington politics.
    But who?
    Painter shook his head and glanced at the clock. Such questions would have to wait. In a few minutes, he would be heading into another firestorm.He wasn’t ready to butt heads again, but he had no choice in the matter. He’d already had a heated discussion two hours ago with Gray Pierce. Gray had wanted to bring Monk Kokkalis with him to Italy, but Painter wasn’t convinced Monk was ready for a full operation. Medical and psych had not yet given Gray’s partner a clean bill of health.
    Besides, the details were still sketchy coming out of Rome. Painter was unsure which of Sigma’s operatives were best suited for the mission, which scientific discipline would complement Gray’s expertise in