Brockton and Miranda link the bones to the haunting image on the Shroud of Turin, revered by millions as the burial cloth of Christ, and then a laboratory test finds the bones to be two thousand years old. The finding triggers a deadly tug-of-war between the anthropologists, the Vatican, and a deadly zealot who hopes to use the bones to bring about the Second Coming—and trigger the end of time.
Set against an international landscape, and weaving a rich tapestry of religion, history, art, and science, The Inquisitor's Key takes Jefferson Bass to an exciting new level of suspense.
PROLOGUE, KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE. THE PRESENT - EXCERPT
The gate, like the rest of the fence, was topped with shiny coils of concertina wire. Above the gate, the unblinking eye of a video camera kept constant vigil; other cameras monitored the perimeter of the fence, which enclosed three wooded acres. A large metal sign wired to the mesh of the gate proclaimedUniversity of Tennessee Anthropology Research Facility. Keep Out. Official Use Only. For Entry or Information, Contact Dr. Bill Brockton, Anthropology Department, 865-974-0010. The gate was secured by a padlock whose shackle was as thick as the man's index finger.
The man in the jumpsuit—Brockton himself—unclipped a large ring of keys from his belt, selected one, and opened the padlock. Swinging the chain-link gate outward, he proceeded to a second, inner gate, this one made of solid planks. The wooden gate, part of a high privacy fence shielding the enclosure from prying eyes, was secured by a second padlock, which was fastened to a heavy steel chain threaded through holes bored in each door of the gate. When the lock clicked open, Brockton fed one end of the chain through the hole in the board, link by clattering link, and then pushed the wooden gate inward. It opened onto a small grass clearing surrounded by locust trees, oaks, maples, dogwoods, and climbing honeysuckle vines. Stacked at one edge of the clearing, just inside the gate, were three aluminum cases, each the size and shape of a no-frills coffin. Faded shipping labels hung from the cases, along with red Biohazard warnings.
Retracing his steps, Brockton exited the enclosure, returned to a white University of Tennessee pickup idling just outside the fence, and backed it through the gate and into the clearing. At the far edge of the grass, he tucked the truck between two trees and shut off the engine. Opening the camper shell and the tailgate, he slid out a sheet of plywood, pulling it across the tailgate until it was close to dropping off.
His muscles strained with the effort, for atop the plywood lay a black vinyl bag seven feet long by three feet wide, as thick and lumpy as a human body. He lowered the end of the plywood to the ground, forming a ramp, and then slid the bag down. Kneeling beside it, he tugged open the zipper—a long C-shaped zipper edging the top, one side, and the bottom of the rectangular bag—and then folded back the flap. Inside was a fresh corpse, a white male whose abundant wrinkles and sparse white hair seemed to suggest that he'd lived out his allotted threescore years and ten, maybe more. The face appeared peaceful; the old man might almost have been napping except for the unblinking eyes ... and the blowfly that landed and walked unnoticed across one of the corneas.
From the back of the truck Brockton retrieved two thin dog tags, each stamped with the number 49-12 to signify that the corpse was the forty-ninth body donated to the research facility in the year 2012. With a pair of black zip ties, he fastened one tag to the corpse's left arm and the other to the left ankle: a seemingly insignificant act, yet one that conferred a whole new identity on the man. In his new life—his life as a corpse, a research subject, and a skeletal specimen—the man would have a new identity. His new name, his only name, would be 49-12.
Upriver, the bells of a downtown church began to toll noon as Brockton lay 49-12's hands across his chest. The anthropologist looked up, listening, then smiled slightly. Peering into the vacant eyes of the corpse, he plucked a line of poetry from some dusty corner of memory. "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls," he advised 49-12. "It tolls for thee."
At that moment, the cell phone on Brockton's belt chimed. "And for me," he added.
A Bell JetRanger helicopter skimmed low across a wooded ridge and dropped toward a river junction, the confluence where the Holston and the French Broad joined to form the emerald-green headwaters of the Tennessee. Beneath the right-hand skid of the chopper, a rusting railroad trestle spanned the narrow mouth of the French Broad. Just ahead, at Downtown Island Airport, a small runway paralleled the first straightaway of the Tennessee, and a single-engine plane idled at the threshold, preparing for takeoff. The helicopter pilot keyed his radio. "Downtown Island traffic, JetRanger Three Whiskey Tango is crossing the field westbound at one thousand, landing at the Body Farm."
"Three Whiskey Tango, this is Downtown Island. Did you say landing at the Body Farm, over?"
"Roger that."
"Three Whiskey Tango, are you aware that the Body Farm is a restricted facility?"
"Downtown Island, we're a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation aircraft. I reckon they won't mind."
Two miles west of the airstrip, the modest skyline of downtown Knoxville sprawled above the right-hand riverbank. The skyline was defined by two twenty-five-story office towers built by a pair of brothers who began as bankers and ended as swindlers; a wedge-shaped pyramid of a hotel, Marriott-by-way-of-Mayan; a thirty-foot orange basketball forever swishing through the forty-foot hoop atop the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame; and a seventy-five-foot globe of golden glass balanced on a two-hundred-foot steel tower like a golf ball on a tee—the Sunsphere, a relic of a provincial World's Fair orchestrated by the swindling banker brothers in 1982.
The epicenter of Knoxville, though—its beating heart if not its financial or architectural nucleus—lay another mile downriver: the massive oval of Neyland Stadium, home and shrine to the University of Tennessee Volunteers. During home games against the Florida Gators or the Alabama Crimson Tide, the stadium roared and rattled with the fervor of 102,000 rabid fans. Beneath the stadium, in a grimy building wedged under the stands, nestled the university's Anthropology Department, home to twenty professors, a hundred graduate students, and thousands of human skeletons.
A mile beyond the stadium, the TBI helicopter crossed to the river's hilly, wooded left bank. Easing below the treetops, it touched down just outside the fence of the Body Farm. Brockton emerged from the research facility's entrance. Fighting the blast of the rotor wash, he wrestled the wooden gate into place and locked it, followed by the outer fence. Then he ducked under the spinning blades and clambered into the cockpit. As he swung the door shut, the turbine spooled up and the chopper vaulted upward, buffeting the fence and shredding oak leaves as it climbed. The pilot banked so steeply that Brockton found himself looking straight down at the naked form of 49-12, and he realized with a queasy smile that if his harness should fail and the door fly open at this moment, he would deliver his own fresh corpse to the Body Farm. But luck and latches held, and the chopper leveled off and scurried upriver with the anthropologist strapped safely aboard.
The GPS screen on the instrument panel displayed a map and a course heading, but the pilot didn't need either. He simply aimed for the plume of smoke twenty miles to the east.
The plume marked the smoldering remnants of an airplane hangar, and the charred remains of a dead undercover agent.
Paris, France
March 18, 1314
Jacques Fournier has three advantages over most of the spectators filling the square of Notre Dame. He's uncommonly tall, so he's able to see over everyone else; he's uncommonly stocky, so he's able to push his way through the throng; and he's uncommonly dressed—in the white cassock and black scapular of a Cistercian monk—so he benefits from grudging deference as he nudges his way toward the cathedral. If someone moves to protest or shove back, he makes the sign of the cross, and that generally settles the matter. Nudge by nudge, foot by foot, cross by cross, Fournier edges toward the front of the cathedral, where a platform has been built for this morning's spectacle. The cathedral's façade is shadowed, backlit by the rising sun, but the massive rose window—fired from within by sunbeams slanting through the nave—blazes red and gold.
A murmur of excitement stirs the crowd, and a shout sweeps across the plaza like rolling thunder: "They're coming! They're coming!"
To a chorus of cheers and jeers, a chevron of royal guards pushes through the square leading four shackled men. The men are France's most famous prisoners: the last and most illustrious of the Knights Templar, the warrior-monks who acquired staggering wealth and power during the Crusades. For more than a century, the Templars were highly valued by both the king and the pope. Escorting pilgrims to the Holy Land, the Templars provided safe passage and carried letters of credit—less appealing to bandits than gold or silver—and, upon arriving in Jerusalem, cashed in the credit for currency from their vaults on the Temple Mount. But when the Holy Land was lost to Saladin and his Muslim hordes, the Templars began falling from favor. And seven years ago, in 1307, King Philip the Fair arrested hundreds of the knights, charging them with acts of heresy and perversion. "God is not pleased," the arrest warrant began—a phrase Fournier finds applicable to many situations and many people. "We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom."
The shackled prisoners are led up the steps and onto the platform just as Fournier reaches its base. The first is Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Templar. A tall, silver-haired seventy-year-old, de Molay appears gaunt and haggard—seven years of captivity have taken their toll—but he walks with as much dignity as chains, weakness, and advanced age allow. Behind him shuffles Geoffrey de Charney, the Templars' chief commander in Normandy, followed by Hugues de Peraud and Godefroi de Gonneville. After the prisoners and guards have mounted the stage, one of the cathedral doors opens and a procession of sumptuously robed clergymen emerges: the high-ranking officials who have decided the Templars' fates. At their head is William, Archbishop of Sens, who serves also as Inquisitor of France and as the king's own confessor. The archbishop is followed by Cardinal Arnold Novelli—Fournier's own Uncle Arnold. Three years ago, when he was made cardinal, Uncle Arnold handpicked Jacques to succeed him as head of Fontfroide Abbey, a remarkable opportunity and honor. Three weeks ago, a missive bearing Cardinal Novelli's wax seal arrived at Fontfroide, inviting Jacques to journey to Paris for the sentencing: "an event," the cardinal wrote, "that cannot fail to reinforce your zeal for protecting the faith." And indeed, the young abbot already feels a surge of inspiration as he surveys the solemn clerics, the chained heretics, and the mighty façade of Notre Dame.
The cathedral occupies the eastern end of the Île de la Cité, the slender island at the center of the River Seine. The island's western end is dominated by the royal palace and gardens, and this division of the island into two halves—God's half and the king's—is pleasing and instructive, Fournier thinks. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, he reminds himself, and unto God that which is God's. Evenly ballasted by church and state, the boat-shaped isle maintains an even keel, at least most of the time. Occasionally the balance of power on the island shifts to one end or the other, causing France itself to tip precariously. But not today; today, king and cardinals alike agree that the Templars must be punished, for the good of the kingdom and the salvation of their souls.
As the watery late-winter sun rises above the twin bell towers, the archbishop steps forward. Quieting the crowd, he reads the Templars' names and the charges against them. "Having confessed to these crimes fully and freely," he tells the four, "you are hereby sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. May Almighty God have mercy on your souls." The crowd roars, some in approval, some in protest.
De Molay, the old Grand Master, steps to the front of the scaffold and raises his hands for silence. After a scattering of whistles and catcalls, the noise subsides. "Listen to me, and hear me well," de Molay calls out, his voice thin but strong. "We have indeed confessed to these terrible crimes." He pauses to let those words sink in, and the archbishop bows his mitred head gravely. Then de Molay shouts, "But those confessions were false—forced from us by torture!" Geoffrey de Charney steps forward, nodding and shouting that what de Molay says is true; meanwhile, the other two prisoners shrink back, distancing themselves from de Molay and de Charney. At the other end of the platform, the Archbishop of Sens, Cardinal Novelli, and the other clerics huddle in consternation; then the archbishop hurries to the captain of the guards, whispering urgently and pointing at de Molay. "The Order of the Knights Templar is holy and pure," de Molay cries as the soldiers converge on him. "Our sin was not heresy—our sin was weakness! We betrayed the Order! We signed false confessions! These clerics are the real traitors to God!" A blow from one of the guards knocks the old man to his knees, and the crowd surges forward, on the brink of mayhem. As the soldiers drag the prisoners from the scaffold and force their way back to the prison, swords and lances at the ready, Fournier feels a mixture of outrage and sadness: outrage at de Molay's brazenness; sadness for Uncle Arnold and the other holy men, publicly denounced by a lying heretic!
Word of de Molay's outburst is relayed to the palace. King Philip—taking a late breakfast—roars his rage, rakes the dishes to the floor, and roundly cudgels the unfortunate messenger. Next, he swiftly convenes a council of civil and church lawyers. The lawyers, no fools, assure the king that a relapsed heretic—what better proof of heresy, after all, than denying one's heresy?—can be executed immediately, without further trial or appeal. With equal parts fury and satisfaction, the king decrees that de Molay and de Charney will die before the sun sets.
The news spreads across the island, and out to the rest of Paris, like wildfire. Within the hour, boats begin delivering bundles of kindling to the place of execution: the Île aux Juifs—the tiny Isle of the Jews, a stone's throw upstream from the royal palace—where countless unbelievers have been executed over the years.
And so it is that six hours after the dramatic scene in the cathedral square, Fournier is jostling and nudging and sign-of-the-crossing his way forward once more, this time toward the western end of the Îlede la Cité—the king's end of the island—to see de Molay and de Charney put to the torch. Fournier bulls and blesses his way to a choice viewing spot on the shore and sizes up the stack of firewood accumulating across the narrow divide of water. There's fuel enough to incinerate ten heretics, he judges, let alone two.
Fournier's assessment is based on more than a little experience with heretic burnings. Happily, he was a theology student here four years before, when King Philip burned fifty-four Templars for the same shocking crimes as de Molay and de Charney: spitting on the cross, denouncing Christ, worshiping a pagan idol, and performing acts of sexual depravity. Burning the fifty-four Templars consumed two full days and a veritable forest worth of wood; this immolation should require only an hour, or perhaps two, if the fire is kept small to prolong the pain.
Satisfied that the fuel is more than adequate for the task, the young abbot turns in a slow circle and studies his fellow spectators. They're a mangy and flea-bitten lot, most of them—enemies of the faith, thinks Fournier, or unreliable friends, at best—but a few arm lengths to his right, he notices a cluster of other clerics. They're Dominicans, judging by their habits: a handful of novices; two friars who appear to be about his own age, possibly younger; and an older man, seemingly the group's leader. The older man is talking—lecturing, more like it—about heresy in general and the Inquisition in particular. That's not terribly surprising, since the Dominicans are the pope's chosen order for detecting and uprooting heresy. But there's something about the man's easy confidence that Fournier finds grating.
He edges closer, listening to the older man's comments with keen interest, a critical ear, and rising irritation. Fournier's no Dominican, but he's taken a keen interest in the Inquisition since his arrival at Fontfroide. Geographically, the center of the Inquisition—Toulouse—is near Fournier's abbey; theologically, the spirit of the Inquisition is close to Fournier's stern and austere heart. During the past year, in fact, he's spent weeks in Toulouse, observing and admiring the work of Bernard Gui, the devout Dominican whose masterful wielding of physical pain, theological cunning, and abject terror has broken hundreds of heretics during his seven years as Chief Inquisitor. Fournier wonders if Gui is here today, but he doubts that the Inquisitor's busy schedule allows him time to travel from Toulouse to Paris, even for such a worthy cause.
Suddenly, from the knot of Dominicans, he hears Gui's name spoken aloud, as if the older friar has somehow been reading his thoughts. The man is speaking in Latin so that the rabble around him cannot understand, but his words are clear to Fournier. The Dominican is criticizing Gui—and not just criticizing him, but mocking him: mocking a brother friar, and the Chief Inquisitor at that. "He has the fierceness of a bull," the man says with a smile. "The intelligence of a bull, too."
Fournier pushes sideways, further closing the distance between himself and the Dominican. The movement catches the eye of the friar, and when he meets Fournier's gaze, Fournier calls to him in Latin: "Would you dare to say such things about Bernard if he were here to listen?"
The older man registers mild surprise, but not the contrition and fear that Fournier expected from him. "My words will reach his ears soon enough, I feel certain," he says to the hulking young Cistercian. "When you relay them, be sure to tell Brother Bernard who spoke them: Johannes Eckhart, master and chair of Dominican theology here at the University of Paris." He bows, with a slight smile and a sideways tilt to his head—is he mocking Fournier now?—and then turns his back on the indignant abbot.
"God is not pleased," Fournier mutters beneath his breath. He considers pushing through the half-dozen people who stand between them, considers teaching the old man a lesson in respect. Suddenly a shout ripples up the shore, like a bow wave from the boat that is making its way upstream toward the Isle of the Jews, making its way toward the towering stake and the stacks of wood.
The boat, rowed by eight men, carries half a dozen of the king's guards, as well as Jacques de Molay and Geoffrey de Charney. One of the guards raises a flaming torch high overhead, and the mob roars.
The pyre burns until midnight. The two Templars are long since incinerated, but the crowd lingers, loath to leave until every stick of wood is consumed.
When the flames finally gutter and die, the Order of the Knights Templar has been extinguished. But hanging in the air, like the lingering smoke and the scent of charred flesh, is the dying cry of Grand Master Jacques de Molay: "I summon the king and the pope to meet me before God!"
Chapter 1
Sevierville, Tennessee
The Present
I heard a click in my headset, followed by the voice of the TBI pilot. "Dr. Brockton, you okay back there?"
"I'm still kinda puckered from that takeoff," I answered, "but yeah, I'm fine."
He laughed. "I'll go easier on the landing."
He circled the plume of smoke, which rose from the ruins of a house. Fifty yards away was what might have been an airstrip except for the fact that it was hemmed in by houses. I pointed at the ribbon of asphalt. "What's up with that? Looks like they accidentally put a runway smack-dab in the middle of a neighborhood."
"They did, but not by accident," the pilot said. "This is Smoky Mountain Airpark. A subdivision for aviation nuts. Instead of a garage, every house has its own airplane hangar."
A small fleet of vehicles ringed the smoldering hangar and half-burned house we landed beside. In addition to the helicopter, I counted four fire trucks—two of them still spraying water on the house—plus three Sevier County Sheriff's Office cruisers and four unmarked cars, which I supposed were TBI vehicles.
I was only half right, I learned when four investigators met me halfway between the helicopter and the house.
"Good to see you again, Doc," shouted Steve Morgan over the ebbing noise of the turbine and the rotor wash. Steve had majored in anthropology, but he'd been working for the TBI for about ten years now, and he was the one who'd called to ask if I could take a quick look at a death scene. "Where's your assistant? Miranda? I thought you two were joined at the ileum."
"She's in France for the summer," I yelled. "Left a couple days ago. On a dig with some fancy French archaeologist." Whatever expression my face was showing, it made him laugh.
"Doc, do you know Dave Pendergrast, from our Sevier County office?"
"I didn't, but I do now. Good to meet you." I shook Pendergrast's hand.
"This is Special Agent Craig Drucker, of the FBI," Steve went on. He turned and nodded toward a man striding toward us from the ruined building. "And Special Agent Robert Stone of the Drug Enforcement Administration."
I smiled. "No need to introduce me to this guy," I said. "Rocky Stone and I go way back. Last time we worked together was that big meth-lab explosion that killed a couple guys up in Scott County. That was, what, three, four years ago, Rocky?"
"Ha. More like six or eight." He grinned. "My oldest kid was being born while you were piecing those two bodies together." I smiled, remembering how antsy Rocky had been to get to the hospital to see his wife and the baby, and how proud he'd been the next day when I dropped by the maternity ward to see them. "Thanks for coming on such short notice," Rocky said. "Sorry we kept you in the dark on the ride over."
"Hey, I'm not complaining," I assured him. "I'll do just about anything for a helicopter ride."
The subdivision wasn't just an aviation nut's dream; it was also, the DEA agent explained, a drug runner's dream. "For the past year," Rocky said, "we've been investigating a smuggling ring based in Colombia. They've been flying cocaine into small airports all over the Southeast, changing the drop point every time. But this place is perfect as a more permanent base—a clandestine hub, I guess you could call it. No control tower, very little traffic, virtually no risk of detection. You land whenever you've got a shipment, taxi the plane into your own private hangar, lock the door, and unload in complete privacy. This operation could have run without a hitch for years."
"So what happened?" I asked, nodding at the smoking ruins. "Turf war? A raid that got too hot to handle?"
"I wish," Rocky said. "One of our undercover agents had infiltrated the operation. What's left of him is there, in what's left of the hangar. We've got an arson investigator coming, but we'd like you to examine the body. See if he died during the fire or died before the fire. We need to know if it was an accident or a homicide."
"Dr. Garcia's the medical examiner," I pointed out. "He's got primary jurisdiction here." Dr. Edelberto Garcia—Eddie—served as ME for Knoxville, Knox County, and several surrounding counties.
"Actually, we called Dr. Garcia just before we called you. He says if the body's rotten or burned, you're the guy to look at it."
"That's damned decent of Eddie," I joked, "letting me have all the good ones." All four agents smiled.
"The scary thing is," Rocky said, "the Doc's not being sarcastic. He actually means it."
The truth was, Rocky was right. I actually did.
The dead agent was Maurice Watson, alias "Perry Hutchinson," whom the DEA had planted as the manager of the airpark. Six months before, working through the drug smugglers' distributors in Atlanta, Hutchinson had offered them a sweet deal: a house, a hangar, and a key to the gas pump in exchange for a small cut of the profits.
"They brought in the first load two weeks ago," said Rocky. "It was small—just a test run. Smooth as silk. They were planning another run next week. A big load. We were all set to come down on them. But somebody got spooked—or got tipped off." He shook his head grimly. "You ready to take a look?"
"Sure. Let's go."
The intense heat of the fire had reduced the hangar to scorched brick walls and sagging steel roof trusses silhouetted against blue sky and gray smoke. Entering through a side door, I found myself sloshing through an inch of muck—a slimy mixture of water, ash, soot, and petrochemicals—and I was grateful that I'd put on my waterproof boots before delivering corpse 49-12 to the Body Farm.
Occupying one side of the hangar was a blackened Ford pickup; on the other side was a scorched plane, a V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza; and tucked between them was a riding lawn mower, its gas cap removed. Lying on the floor next to the mower, face-up in the muck, was the corpse, its facial features all but obliterated, its left hand still clutching a five-gallon gasoline can. The heat of the fire had shrunk the flexor muscles of the arm, locking the man's fingers around the handle in what was, quite literally, a death grip. "So, looks like an accident," Stone said. "Might even have been an accident."
"Mighty convenient accident," I said, "the way the fire just happened to break out so close to so much gasoline."
"Damned convenient," Rocky agreed.
I knelt beside the body. "I assume he's not carrying his DEA badge," I said, "but have you checked him for other identification? What was his undercover name? Hutchinson?"
Rocky nodded. "He's got the Hutchinson driver's license. Can you get a DNA sample so we can be sure? Or did the heat ...? Is the DNA ...?"
I finished the question for him. "Is the DNA cooked? Probably not. The femur is pretty well insulated by the muscles of the thigh, and most of that tissue's still there, so we can probably get a good DNA sample. But the dental records might be quicker and easier. Can you get me those?" Tugging on a pair of gloves and kneeling beside the corpse, I opened the mouth. "Agent Stone? Unless your man had just come from a barroom brawl, he wasn't refueling his lawn mower when he died." Leaning back so Rocky could get a better view, I showed him the teeth. All eight incisors had been snapped off at the roots.
"Shit," Rocky muttered. "That doesn't look like something the fire did."
"No way," I told him. "See how the teeth are folded backward into the mouth? That's called a ‘hinge fracture,' and it means somebody swung something at him—a baseball bat or a steel pipe or the butt of a rifle—and caught him square on the mouth." I studied the face with my eyes, and then with my fingertips, pressing and squeezing in order to feel the bones through the burned flesh. From there I worked my way down the entire body. When I finally got down to the feet, I looked up at Rocky. "I'll X-ray the body when I get it back to the Regional Forensic Center," I said, "but I can tell you already he's got multiple fractures. Half a dozen, at least. I hate to say it, Rocky, but somebody broke your man, bone by bone, before they killed him."
Stone's eyes had gone narrow and cold, and his jaw muscles pulsed rhythmically, forming knots the size of walnuts. "Damn those bastards to hell," he said. "How long will it take you to do the exam?"
"The exam itself, half a day," I said. "But I've got to get the tissue off the bones to do it right. And that'll take a couple weeks—we'll put him out at the Body Farm and let Mother Nature clean him off."
He grimaced. "Isn't there any other way? Something more respectful? More dignified?"
I shook my head. "I could dismember him, put him in kettles, and cook him down. That'd be a little faster. But it seems less respectful, to my way of thinking. And an aggressive defense attorney would claim that I damaged the bones in taking him apart."
He sighed. "All right, do it the way you think is best. Just find everything—everything—so we can nail these scum-sucking bastards." He looked at the vehicles. "Thank God we got the fire out so fast. If the gas tanks had gone up, I doubt there'd've been any of him left for you to look at."
"Wait. Wait." I looked up, my gaze swiveling from his face to the blackened vehicles. "You're saying there's still unburned gas in here?" He nodded. "In the truck and in the airplane?"
"Yup. The truck holds twenty-six gallons; the plane holds ninety."
"There's almost a hundred gallons of high-octane aviation fuel sitting right over our heads? We shouldn't even be in here, should we?"
Stone shrugged. "Fire's out."
"There might be an ember somewhere in that plane. One of the tanks might fail. The roof could collapse. A spark from—"
I was interrupted by a metallic clatter—the clatter of metal punching through metal—and a neat round hole suddenly appeared in the side of the airplane.
"Shots! Shots! Take cover!" yelled one of the agents. Another bullet slammed into the plane, this time into the wing, and a thin stream of pale blue liquid began dribbling from the wing and pooling atop the muck.
"Jesus, that's avgas," said Stone. "We gotta get outta here." He hoisted me to my feet and began pulling me toward the door. All around us, agents and deputies were scrambling, staring and pointing in various directions, drawing weapons. Another bullet chipped a cinder block and ricocheted off in a shower of sparks. A flame bloomed at the base of the far wall. From there it followed a finger of gas, a finger beckoning it toward the center of the hangar, toward the leaking airplane.
I tore free of Stone's grasp and ran back toward the plane. Behind me, I heard him shouting, "Doc, come back! Get out!"
A wall of flame had engulfed the far wing of the plane by the time I reached the dead agent. Grabbing his feet—the closest things to me—I tucked them under my arms and dragged him behind me like a sleigh, slipping and staggering as I hauled him through the muck. I'd almost made it to the door when the plane exploded, and a fist of fire slammed into my back.
Rocky Stone helped me carry the body of his dead agent to the most secluded corner of the Body Farm and lay him at the foot of a big oak. Unzipping the body bag, I tugged it free, fastened ID tags on the left arm and left ankle, and then draped the bag over the corpse.
"You broke half a dozen procedures and every rule of common sense, going back for him like that," Stone said. "And I am incredibly grateful. If you hadn't gotten him out, we wouldn't have a prayer of making a murder case."
"I wish the shooter hadn't gotten away."
"You and me both, Doc. He was only a couple hundred yards away—up on that low ridge—but by the time any of our guys got there, he was gone." Stone knelt and laid a DEA medallion on top of the bag. Closing his eyes, he said a few silent words, then stood. "So, you say it'll take about two weeks to get us a report?"
"More or less. More if it turns cool, less if it gets really hot. Once the bugs and I have cleaned him off, I'll take photos of all the fractures." I had already documented them, or at least most of them, with X-rays, which I took with a portable machine at the loading dock of the Forensic Center. But if the case came to trial, the prosecutors would need crisp photos to corroborate the fuzzy X-ray images.
Normally I'd have delegated the cleanup to my graduate assistant, Miranda Lovelady, who ran the bone lab and did much of the legwork at the Body Farm. Miranda had left for France only three days before, but already I was feeling her absence. I missed her help, and I missed her camaraderie. At the moment, though, I was relieved she hadn't been with me in Sevierville. I'd narrowly escaped being incinerated; in fact, the hair on the back of my head was singed, and if I'd been wearing my usual outfit—jeans and a cotton shirt—instead of the Nomex jumpsuit, my clothes would surely have caught fire. Thank God Miranda wasn't there, I thought.
She'd left on short notice, under circumstances that remained slightly mysterious to me. A week earlier, she'd received an urgent e-mail and then a phone call from a French archaeologist, Stefan Beauvoir, asking her to come help with a hastily arranged excavation. The site was a medieval palace dating from the thirteen hundreds—practically prehistoric by American standards, but nearly modern for Europe.
I'd hesitated before saying I could spare her; after all, during half a decade as my graduate assistant, she'd made herself indispensable. I valued and respected Miranda's intelligence and forensic expertise. But it went deeper than that, I had to admit: She was as important to me personally as she was professionally. In some ways, I felt closer to Miranda than to anyone else on earth, even my own son. If you took DNA out of the equation, Miranda was my next of kin. I felt certain that the bone lab and the Body Farm could limp along without Miranda for six weeks, but I wasn't sure I could manage that long.
"Excuse me, Doc?" Rocky's voice seemed to come from far away, not so much interrupting my thoughts as awakening me from some dream. "So if we're done here, I guess I'll be taking off. The TBI's gonna think we've hijacked their chopper."
"Sorry," I said. "Didn't mean to check out on you there. Hang on—I'll walk you out and lock up."
I bent to straighten one corner of the body bag, and as I did, my cell phone began bleating. Fishing the phone from the pocket of the jumpsuit, I glanced at the display. I didn't recognize the number; it started with 330, an area code I didn't know, and it looked longer than a phone number should be. I stared dumbly for a moment before I realized why. It was a foreign call, and 33 was the country code—the code, I suddenly remembered, for France. Miranda! I flipped open the phone, but in my excitement, I fumbled it, and it fell onto my foot and skittered beneath the body bag. Flinging aside the bag, I rooted for the phone, which had lodged—ironically and absurdly—beside the dead man's left ear. I had just laid hold of it when it fell silent. "Damn it," I muttered. I punched the "send" button, only to be told by a robotic voice that my call "cannot be completed as dialed," doubtless because it was an overseas number. "Damn damn damn," I muttered, but just as I finished the third damn, the phone rang again, displaying the same number.
This time, I did not drop it. "Hello? Miranda? How are you?"
"Ah, no, sorry, it is not Miranda." The voice was a man's, accented in French. "This is Stefan Beauvoir. The archaeologist Miranda is helping. She wanted me to call you."
My internal alarms began to shriek. "What's wrong? Has something happened to Miranda? Tell me."
"The doctor says it is—merde, how do you say it?—the rupture of the appendicitis?"
"Miranda's got a ruptured appendix?"
"Oui, yes, a ruptured appendix. She asked me to call and say, please, can you come?"
"Can I come? What, to France?"
"Oui. Please, can you come to France? To Avignon?" Ah-veen-YOHN. I didn't like the sound of it. "She is having the surgery now, and she will be very grateful if you can come."
"Doesn't she want someone from her family?"
"Ah, but it is not possible. I call her mother and her sister. Neither one has a passport. So she thinks next of you, and asks if you can please come quickly."
"Of course. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll get on a plane this afternoon."
"Bon, good. You can fly into Avignon, but the flights are better if you come to Lyon or Marseilles. Marseilles is one hour by car."
Racing down the path and out the gate, I frantically flagged down the TBI chopper, which was quivering on its landing skids, transitioning toward flight. Stone took off his headset, scrambled out of the helicopter, and hurried over to me.
"Doc, is something wrong?"
"Can you guys give me a ride? I need to get someplace fast."
"Where?"
"France."
Praise for THE INQUISITOR'S KEY
“This series . . . just keeps getting better. [Bones of Betrayal] features both the most compelling story and the best portrayal yet of Brockton, who has completed the transition from fictional representation of coauthor Bass to fully realized protagonist.” ―Booklist
“Carved in Bone has a unique corpse, solid science, quirky humor and a loveable protagonist. That a novel like this can be described as charming is a tribute to the team that created some very human, down-to-earth characters.” ―USA Today
“A superb mystery novel—well-plotted, filled with memorable characters, based on accurate forensic science and written with more flair and literary sensibility than anything by John Grisham. The novel, in fact, is in Cornwell’s league, high praise indeed.” ―Charlotte Observer on The Devil's Bones
“The Sherlock Holmes for bones has arrived. . . . A privileged glimpse into the world of a ground-breaking pioneer.” ―Katherine Ramsland, Author of The Forensic Science of C.S.I.
The mystery that surrounds the bones will keep readers interested in the story. A storm of questions will brew and will continue to do so until the very last page. Readers will also get a history lesson about the Inquisition and the demolition of the Knight’s Templar’s in the 14th century. Jefferson Bass confers on the history of art and religion, the geography and architecture of modern-day Europe, and the science of forensic anthropology.
The writing style of Jefferson Bass is incredible and the details brought upon this book are unparalleled compared to others. With an author who founded The Body Farm at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, readers get a firsthand look at the interesting works of forensic anthropologists. This novel was definitely cooked from intelligence, experience, and history. A combination that is not easy to put together in a book. Longtime readers and newcomers to the series will find The Inquisitor’s Key to be a thrilling entry into an already concrete series. The book’s new direction towards religion and art history is also a great way for newcomers to taste the adventures of Dr. Bill Brockton without having to dive into the previous ones.
You can purchase Inquisitor's Key at the following Retailers:
Photo Content from Jefferson Bass
JEFFERSON BASS is the writing team of Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. Dr. Bass, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist, founded the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility -- the Body Farm -- a quarter-century ago. He is the author or coauthor of more than two hundred scientific publications, as well as a critically acclaimed memoir about his career, Death's Acre. Dr. Bass is also a dedicated teacher, honored as National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Jefferson is a veteran journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. His writings have been published in theNew York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, and Popular Science and broadcast on National Public Radio. The coauthor of Death's Acre, he is also the writer and producer of two highly rated National Geographic documentaries about the Body Farm.
My favorite non-reading activity is taking my dog Shadow for a run and a swim at the beach. We're there just about every day.
ReplyDeleteSleep. With 2 little boys, full time job, husband. If I can't read I catch up on my sleep!
ReplyDeleteI love to eat....
ReplyDeleteEating is somehow my passion...
I am a movie addict...
ReplyDeleteI love dancing. Ballet, tap, jazz, en pointe. I miss taking classes, but Zumba has been a good alternative!
ReplyDeleteMovies!!! I love eating popcorns while I watch a relly nice movie!! ileana-rafflecopter
ReplyDeleteWrite, draw, fandub, anime and manga :D
ReplyDeleteSpend time with my family and work on cars.
ReplyDeleteWhen I am not reading I am either working, spending time with my family or sleeping! :)
ReplyDeleteWalk :)
ReplyDeleteI LOVE to shop!
ReplyDeleteI love programming when I'm not reading ;) That's why I choose it as a profession.
ReplyDeletei love to sleep! :))
ReplyDelete