The Doomsday Key

They owed him a favor.

Gray's own outfit-designated Sigma-served as the muscle behind DARPA. The team consisted of former Special Forces soldiers who had been retrained in various scientific disciplines to act as its field operatives.

One of the modifications to the bike was a head's-up display built into his helmet. Across his face shield, data flickered on the left side, noting speed, RPM, gear, oil temperature. On the right side, a navigational map scrolled data that projected best possible gear ratios and speeds to match the terrain.

From the corner of his eye, Gray watched the tachometer slip into the red zone. The navigational array blinked a warning. He was coming at the corner too fast.

Ignoring the data, Gray kept hard on the throttle.

The distance between the two bikes narrowed further.

Thirty yards now separated them as they hit the curve.

Ahead, the rider tilted his bike and roared around the bend. Seconds later, Gray hit the same turn. He sought to eke out another yard by hugging tighter around the blind corner, skimming the center yellow line. Luckily, at this early hour the roads through here were empty of traffic.

Sadly, the same couldn't be said for the wildlife.

Around the corner, a black bear crouched at the shoulder of the road with a cub at her side. Both noses were buried in a McDonald's bag. The first motorcycle sped past the pair. The noise and sudden appearance startled the mother bear into rearing up, and the cub acted on pure instinct and fled-right into the road.

Gray could not get out of the way in time. With no choice, he swung the bike into a hard skid. His tires smoked across the blacktop. As he hit the soft loam of the opposite shoulder, he let the bike drop and kicked away. Momentum slid him across the moist leaves on his back for a good twenty feet. Behind him, the bike hit an oak with a resounding crash.

Coming to a stop in a wet gulley, Gray twisted around. He could see the hind end of the mother bear hightailing it into the woods, followed by her cub. Apparently they'd had enough fast food for one day.

A new noise intruded.

The roar of a motorcycle, coming up fast.

Gray sat straighter. Down the road, his target had swung around and was barreling back toward him.

Oh, great...

Gray ripped away the chinstraps and tugged off his helmet.

The other cycle rocketed up to his position and braked hard in front of him, lifting up on its front tire. The rider was short, but muscled like a pit bull. As the bike came to a stop, the rider pulled off his helmet, too, revealing a head shaved to the skin. He frowned down at Gray.

"Still in one piece?"

The rider was Monk Kokkalis, a fellow operative with Sigma and Gray's best friend. The man's stony features were carved into an expression of concern and worry.

"I'm fine. Hadn't expected a bear in the road."

"Who does?" Monk cracked a wide grin as he booted his kickstand into place and climbed off the bike. "But don't go thinkin' of welshing on our bet. You set no rules against natural obstacles. Di

"Fine. But I want a rematch. You had an unfair advantage."

"Advantage? Me?" Monk stripped off one of his gloves to expose his prosthetic hand. "I'm missing my hand. Along with a fair amount of my long-term memory. And been on disability for a year. Some advantage!"

Still, the grin never wavered as Monk offered his DARPA-engineered prosthetic. Gray took the hand, feeling the cold plastic fasten firmly on him. Those same fingers could crush walnuts.

Monk pulled him to his feet.

As Gray brushed wet leaves from his Kevlar motorcycle suit, his cell phone chimed from his breast pocket. He pulled it out and checked the Caller ID. His jaw tightened.

"It's HQ," he told Monk and lifted the phone to his ear. "Commander Pierce here."

"Pierce? About time you picked up. I've called you four times in the past hour. And may I ask what you are doing in the middle of a forest in Virginia?" It was Gray's boss, Painter Crowe, director of Sigma.

Fighting for some adequate explanation, Gray glanced back at his motorcycle. The bike's GPS must have betrayed his location. Gray struggled to explain, but he had no adequate excuse. He and Monk had been sent from Washington to Quantico to attend an FBI symposium on bioterrorism. Today was the second day, and Gray and Monk had decided to skip the morning lectures.

"Let me guess," Painter continued. "Out doing a little joyriding?"

"Sir..."

The ster

As usual, Painter had surmised the truth. The director had an unca

Gray looked over at his friend. Monk stood with his arms locked across his chest, his face worried. It had been a hard year for him. He had been brutalized in an enemy's research facility where a part of his brain had been cut out, destroying his memory. Though he had recovered what was left, gaps remained, and Gray knew it still haunted him.

Over the last two months, Monk had been slowly acclimating back to his duties with Sigma, restricted though they might be. He was on desk duty and offered only minor assignments here in the States. He was limited to gathering intel and evaluating data, often beside his wife, Captain Kat Bryant, who also worked at Sigma headquarters and had a background in Naval Intelligence.

Gray knew Monk was straining at the bit to do more, to gain back the life that had been stolen from him. Everyone treated him as if he were a fragile piece of porcelain, and he'd begun to bristle at all the sympathetic glances and whispered words of encouragement.

So Gray had suggested this cross-country race through the park that bordered the Quantico Marine Corps Reservation. It offered a chance to blow off some steam, to get a little grit in the face, to take some risk.

Gray covered the phone with his hand and mouthed to Monk, "Painter's pissed."

His friend's face broke into a broad grin.

Gray returned the phone to his ear.

"I heard that," his boss said. "And if you're both done having your bit of fun, I need you back at Sigma Command this afternoon. Both of you."

"Yes, sir. But can I ask what it's about?"

A long pause stretched as if the director was weighing what to say. When he spoke, his words were careful. "It's about the original owner of that motorcycle of yours."

Gray glanced at the crashed bike. The original owner? He flashed back to a night two years ago, remembering the roar of a motorcycle down a suburban street, ru

Gray swallowed to gain his voice. "What about her?"

"I'll tell you when you get here."

1:00 P.M.

Washington, D.C.

Hours later, Gray had showered, changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, and sat in the satellite surveillance room of Sigma headquarters. He shared the space with Painter and Monk. On the screen shone a digital map. It traced a crooked red line from Thailand to Italy.

The path of the assassin ended in Venice.

Sigma had been tracking her for over a year. Her location was marked by a small red triangle on a computer monitor. It glowed in the middle of a satellite map of Venice. Buildings, crooked streets, and winding canals were depicted in precise gray-scale detail, down to the tiny gondolas frozen in place, capturing a moment in time. That time was shown in the corner of the computer monitor, along with the approximate longitude and latitude of the assassin's location: