Free Black Order by James Rollins Page A

opened. Fortunately for us, the Bible and our most valuable items are kept hidden in a floor vault at night. Also, the police responded promptly to the alarm, chasing them off. The burglary remained unsolved, but we knew who came after it.”
    “The sniveling prat…,” Fiona mumbled.
    “Since that night, we’ve kept the Bible in a safe-deposit box in a bank around the corner. Still, we’ve been vandalized twice this past year. The culprit bypassed the alarm, and the place was ransacked each time.”
    “Someone was searching for the Bible,” Gray said.
    “So we supposed.”
    Gray began to understand. It wasn’t just monetary gain that was the deciding factor in unloading the Bible, but also to relieve themselves of the burden. Someone wanted the Bible, and eventually the pursuit might escalate into more violent means to gain possession of it. And that threat might pass on to the new buyer.
    From the corner of his eye, Gray studied Fiona. All her actions were done to protect her grandmother, to protect their financial security. He noted the fire in her eyes even now. The girl plainly wished her grandmother had remained more reticent.
    “The Bible might be safer in a private collection in America,” Grette said. “Such troubles might not pass over the proverbial Pond.”
    Gray nodded, reading the sales pitch behind the words.
    “Did you ever find out what so possessed the stranger to pursue the Bible?” he asked.
    Now it was Grette’s turn to search off into the distance.
    “Such information can only make the Bible more valuable to my client,” Gray pressed.
    Grette’s eyes flicked to him. Somehow she knew the lie behind his words. She studied him again, weighing something more than just the truth of his words, looking deeper.
    At that moment, Bertal shambled into the office, nosed longingly at a set of tea cakes beside the kettle on the desk, then crossed to Gray’s side and slumped to the floorboards with a sigh. His muzzle came to rest atop Gray’s boot, plainly comfortable with this stranger to their shop.
    As if this were enough, Grette sighed and closed her eyes, and whatever hard edge softened. “I don’t know for sure. I only have some suppositions.”
    “I’ll take what you can give.”
    “The stranger came here looking for information regarding a library that was sold piecemeal after the war. In fact, four such items are up for auction this afternoon. The de Vries diary, a copy of Mendel’s papers, and two texts by the physicist Max Planck.”
    Gray was well aware of the same list on his notepad. They were the very items that had sparked special attention among the questionable entities. Who was buying them up and why?
    “Can you tell me anything else about this old library collection? Is there any provenance of significance?”
    Grette stood and stepped toward her files. “I have the original receipt from my father’s purchase back in 1949. It names a village and a small estate. Let me see if I can find it.”
    She moved into a shaft of sunlight below the back window and pulled open a middle drawer. “I can’t give you the original, but I’d be happy to have Fiona photocopy it for you.”
    As the old woman rustled through her files, Bertal raised his nose from Gray’s right shoe, trailing a rope of drool. A low growl burbled from the dog.
    But it was not directed at Gray.
    “Here it is.” Grette turned and held out a sheet of yellowed paper in a plastic protective sleeve.
    Gray ignored her extended arm and concentrated on her toes. A thin shadow shifted across the patch of sunlight where Grette stood.
    “Get down!”
    Gray leaped toward the sofa, reaching for the old woman.
    Behind him, Bertal barked sharply, almost masking the crack of glass.
    Gray, still reaching, was too late. All he could do was catch Grette Neal’s body as the front of her face dissolved in a shower of blood and bone, shot from behind by a sniper outside the window.
    Gray caught her body and pitched down to