Darkness fell over them completely.

A scratch of flint sounded, and a small flame flickered to life. It illuminated Seichan's face as she held up her lighter.

"Now what?" she asked.

Gray knew they only had one chance. Rachel's life-all their lives-hung on one hope. "We must find that key."

Chapter 30

October 14, 3:33 P.M.

Clairvaux, France

Krista stalked across the cloister's garden. The day had turned to twilight as smoke choked the sky, occasionally stirred by a passing helicopter.

Throughout the prison grounds, hundreds of fires burned. Sirens continued to blare, punctuated by gunshots and men's screams. The prison guards had enough to manage with loose prisoners, raging fires, and utter chaos. They wouldn't bother with the ruins for the moment. But to ensure their continuing privacy, she had the second assault team set up a perimeter, guarding all access points to the area. Overhead, the helicopters with their gun mounts added air support.

An especially loud explosion drew Krista's gaze to the west. A fresh curl of flame shot into the sky. An exploded fuel tank off by the small heliport, she guessed. The area had been one of their first targets.

Krista had wanted the prison as isolated as possible, for as long as possible. Before the strike, she had the major phone and communication trunks severed. She had the one road out to the prison planted with mines. Eventually a response would reach here, but she planned on being gone before that happened.

Or so she hoped.

Her second-in-command met her in the walkway. He was a hulking black Algerian named Khattab. He scowled and shook his head. "Still no contact with the targets."

She had a team scouring beyond the ruins of the cloister. A soldier had shot at one from the group; from the description, it had been Grayson Pierce. But where did they all go? The shooter's report made no sense. He had shown her where the others had vanished. But Krista found no window or door. The walls were solid. Had they slipped through the shadows and escaped?

So far they had not been spotted again.

All they'd found were a scared guard and an old woman out in the ruins. She had questioned them, but they didn't know anything.

She stood in the walkway with Khattab and stared at the brass compass in the middle of the garden. They'd been doing something over there when her team flew in.

She pointed. "Get two men on that compass. See if there is anything unusual."

"And what about the targets? Do our orders remain the same?"

"I have new orders." She had hoped to secure the Doomsday key, but she recognized that was one brass ring beyond her reach. "Shoot to kill."

As she stepped away, her boot heel skidded on some sand. It drew her eye to the stones underfoot. She knelt down. She had missed it before in the shadows, but a sandy line of grated limestone delineated a rectangle on the floor. Half-hidden behind a pillar, the location was where the shooter had seen their escaping targets vanish.

Krista pinched some of the crushed stone. She rubbed it between her fingers. Her eyes narrowed.

"Khattab, scrub those orders. I want men over here. Someone with demolition experience."

Maybe that brass ring wasn't quite so far out of reach.

3:34 P.M.

With his flashlight in hand, Gray led the others down a brick tunnel. It descended steeply in a straight course. As well as Gray could get his bearings down here, it seemed to be leading them beneath where the old abbey had once stood. By now, they had to be four stories underground.

No one spoke.

They all knew everything depended on finding that key.

Gray followed the beam of his flashlight. The sides of the tunnel vanished up ahead. Despite the urgency, he slowed everyone down. He remembered the booby trap he had inadvertently activated. Now was not the time for a careless mistake.

Holding his breath, he edged down the last of the tunnel. His flashlight's beam diffused into a much wider space. He stepped to the opening and gazed out at the chamber beyond.

His first impression was of a subterranean cathedral. Brick walls lined by four giant pillars supported a massive circular dome. The structure was similar to the vaults along the edges of the cloister. But here the dome was really one massive vault. Arched ribs rose from each of the four pillars and crossed at the top. Viewed from below, Gray knew what the pattern must look like: a circular dome quartered by crossed ribs.

It formed the pagan cross.

The quartered circle.

If there had been any doubt about the symbolic representation, he had only to look below for confirmation. Sculpted in bronze and embedded in the limestone floor lay a massive design. It stretched thirty yards across. It curled in one continuous pattern, sweeping out, then back in again, forming three perfect spirals, all entwined together.