Free Map of Bones by James Rollins

Torres spoke up. “We should arrange for them to be sent here immediately. Safeguarded at the depository.”
    “Until that can be arranged, I’ll have security tightened at the basilica,” the cardinal said. He motioned to Uncle Vigor. “On your return trip from Cologne, I’ll have you stop off and collect the bones in Milan.”
    Uncle Vigor nodded.
    “Oh, I was also able to arrange an earlier flight,” the cardinal continued. “The helicopter will take you both to the airfield in three hours.”
    Both?
    “All the better.” Uncle Vigor turned to Rachel. “It looks like we must disappoint your mother once again. No family dinner, it seems.”
    “I’m…we’re going to Cologne?”
    “As Vatican nuncios,” her uncle said.
    Rachel tried to keep pace in her head. Nuncios were the Vatican’s ambassadors abroad.
    “Emergency nuncios,” Cardinal Spera corrected. “Temporary, covering this particular tragedy. You are being presented as passive observers, to represent Vatican interests and report back. I need keen eyes out there. Someone familiar with thefts of antiquities.” A nod to Rachel. “And someone with a vast knowledge of those antiquities.”
    “That is our cover, anyway,” Uncle Vigor said.
    “Cover?”
    Cardinal Spera frowned, a warning tone entering his voice. “Vigor…”
    Her uncle turned to the secretary of state. “She has a right to know. I thought that had already been decided.”
    “ You decided.”
    The two men stared each other down. Finally, Cardinal Spera sighed with a wave of an arm, relenting.
    Uncle Vigor turned back to Rachel. “The nuncio assignation is just a smoke screen.”
    “Then what are we—?”
    He told her.
    3:35 P . M .
    S TILL STUNNED, Rachel waited for her uncle to finish a few private words with Cardinal Spera outside the doorway. Off to the side, Father Torres busied himself with shelving various volumes that had been piled on his desk.
    Finally, her uncle returned. “I had hoped to grab a brioche with you, but with the timetable accelerated, we must both get ready. You should grab an overnight bag, your passport, and whatever else you might need for a day or two abroad.”
    Rachel stood her ground. “Vatican spies? We’re going in as Vatican spies ?”
    Uncle Vigor lifted his brows. “Are you really that surprised? The Vatican, a sovereign country, has always had an intelligence service, with full-time employees and operatives. They’ve been used to infiltrate hate groups, secret societies, hostile countries, wherever the concerns of the Vatican are threatened. Walter Ciszek, a priest operating under the alias Vladimir Lipinski, played a cat-and-mouse game with the KGB for years, before being captured and spending over two decades in a Soviet prison.”
    “And we’ve just been recruited into this service?”
    “ You’ve been recruited. I’ve worked with the intelligence service for over fifteen years.”
    “What?” Rachel almost choked on the word.
    “What better cover for an operative than as a well-respected and knowledgeable archaeologist in humble service to the Vatican?” Her uncle waved her out the door. “Come. Let’s see about getting everything in order.”
    Rachel stumbled after her uncle, trying to see him with new eyes.
    “We’ll be meeting up with a party of American scientists. Like us, they’ll be investigating the attack in secret, concentrating more on the deaths, leaving us to handle the theft of the relics.”
    “I don’t understand.” That was a vast understatement. “Why all this subterfuge?”
    Her uncle stopped and pulled her into a small side chapel. It was no larger than a closet, the air stagnant with old incense.
    “Only a handful of people know this,” he said. “But there was a survivor to the attack. A boy. He is still in shock, but slowly recovering. He is at a hospital in Cologne, under guard.”
    “He witnessed the attack?”
    A nod answered her. “What he described sounded like madness, but it could