All for a sack of bones.
And though the cathedral had been built around those bones, and countless kings had bowed before them, even this very mass was a Feast to those long-dead men — the Feast of the Three Kings — one question rose foremost in Jason’s mind.
Why?
Images of the Three Kings were found throughout the cathedral, done in stone, glass, and gold. In one panel, the Wise Men led camels across a desert, guided by the Star of Bethlehem. In another, the adoration of the Christ child was depicted, showing kneeling figures offering of the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
But Jason closed his mind to all of this. All he could picture was Mandy’s last smile. Her soft touch.
All gone.
The boots stopped outside his door.
He silently cried for an answer to all this bloodshed.
Why?
Why steal the bones of the Magi?
DAY ONE
1
BEHIND THE EIGHT BALL
JULY 24, 4:34 A.M. FREDERICK, MARYLANDTHE SABOTEUR had arrived.
Grayson Pierce edged his motorcycle between the dark buildings that made up the heart of Fort Detrick. He kept the bike idling. Its electric engine purred no louder than a refrigerator’s motor. The black gloves he wore matched the bike’s paint, a nickel-phosphorous compound called NPL Super Black. It absorbed more visible light, making ordinary black seem positively shiny. His cloth body suit and rigid helmet were equally shaded.
Hunched over the bike, he neared the end of the alley. A courtyard opened ahead, a dark chasm framed by the brick-and-mortar buildings that composed the National Cancer Institute, an adjunct to USAMRIID, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Here the country’s war on bioterrorism was waged across sixty thousand square feet of maximum-containment labs.