"So you removed our tracker." Gray pictured the crooked path on the surveillance monitor. "But you still kept it with you."

"I found it useful. It allowed me to hide in plain sight. I could park the tracker somewhere for a while, then move off on my own."

"Like you did in Venice."

She shrugged.

"The city where the curator you murdered lived. Where his family still lives."

Gray let the accusation hang. Seichan shook her head very slightly and glanced away. He had a difficult time reading the play of emotions that flickered past.

"The girl had a cat," she said more quietly. "An orange tabby with a studded collar."

Gray knew the girl must be the curator's daughter. So Seichan had indeed gone to check on the family, moved in close enough to observe the simple routine of their lives, a family shattered by the death of a husband and a father. She must have planted her tracker on the cat's collar. It was a smart move. The cat's wandering through the neighborhood streets and rooftops would make the tracker seem active. It was no wonder the agents on the ground could find no trace of her in the Venetian neighborhood. With the hounds following the false trail, the real cat had escaped.

Gray wanted more answers from this woman. One question was foremost in his mind, a conversation they'd never completed. "What about your claim that you're a double-"

Seichan glanced sharply back at him. Her expression didn't change, but her eyes turned rock hard, warning him to back off. He had been about to question her assertion that she was a mole planted in the Guild, a double agent put there by Western forces, but plainly this was a conversation she didn't want in public. Or maybe he misread her expression. Maybe the bitterness in those eyes merely scoffed at his gullibility. He remembered her last words in Bangkok.

Trust me, Gray. If only a little.

Staring at her now, he let the question drop.

For now.

"Then why are you here in Rome? Why meet like this?" Gray gestured toward Rachel.

"Because I need a bargaining chip."

"Something to leverage against me?" Gray glanced at Rachel.

"No. Something to offer the Guild. After events in Cambodia, suspicions have run high concerning my loyalty. As well as I can tell, the Guild has been sniffing around the recent bombing at Saint Peter's. Something has piqued their interest. Then I heard that Monsignor Verona was involved in this incident-"

"Incident?" Rachel burst out. "He's in a coma."

Seichan ignored her. "So I came here. I believed I could benefit from this situation. If I could acquire some key piece of information about this bombing, I could buy my way back into the full trust of the Guild echelon."

Gray studied Seichan. Despite the callous nature of her words, the reasoning matched her claim two years ago. She had supposedly been sent into the Guild to root out its leaders. The only way to keep rising in the shadowy hierarchy-up the bloody food chain-was to produce results.

"I'd hoped to interrogate Rachel," she explained. "But when I got here, I found someone ransacking her apartment."

Gray turned to Rachel, who nodded confirmation, but there remained an angry glint in her eyes.

"The Guild determined that the assassins were after something the murdered priest had in his possession, something they wanted desperately. The assassins probably searched the man's body, but the explosion left them time for little else. Like searching the monsignor."

"So someone assumed Vigor must have had it," Gray realized and turned to Rachel. "And that his niece might have ended up with it after acquiring his possessions from the hospital."

Seichan nodded. "They went to look for it."

A wince of dread tightened in his gut. If they'd found Rachel, they would have carried out a brutal interrogation, then killed her. And after failing to find anything at her apartment, they were probably hunting for her right now, setting up surveillance at likely locations: apartment, place of work, even the hospital.

There was only one way to protect Rachel.

"We have to find out what they're looking for," Gray concluded aloud.

Rachel and Seichan shared a glance.

"I have it," Rachel said.

Gray could not hide his shock.

"But we have no idea of its significance," Seichan said. "Show him."

Rachel reached into a pocket of her jacket and pulled out a tiny leather satchel, no larger than a coin purse. She briefly described her discovery, how she found the object hanging from a bronze skeleton's finger in Saint Peter's Basilica.

"Uncle Vigor led me to it," she finished and handed over the satchel. "But Seichan and I haven't been able to determine anything else. Especially about what's inside."

Seichan and I...?

From the casualness of her statement, it almost sounded like the two were partners, not kidnapper and victim. Gray glanced toward the bathroom. While Rachel had talked, Seichan had stepped out of view, leaving her towel on the floor. He heard her shuffling in there, and he was equally sure she was listening to them. Any attempt to make for the door and she'd be on them.

"Are you truly all right?" Gray whispered to Rachel, catching her eye.

She nodded. "She only handcuffed me when she took a shower. Not exactly the trusting type."

At the moment, Gray appreciated Seichan's caution. Rachel was head-strong like him. Given the chance, she'd have bolted for her freedom. That might have ended badly. If the other hunters had caught her, they would not have been so gentle.

Kowalski stepped closer now that Seichan was out of sight. He pointed at the satchel. "What's in that thing?"

Gray had already teased open the leather strings. Now he emptied the contents into his palm. He sensed the weight of Rachel's gaze on him, waiting for his assessment.

"Is that-?" Kowalski had leaned over Gray's shoulder. He pulled away. "Oh, man, that's sick."

Gray didn't disagree, scowling his distaste. "It's a human finger."

"A mummified finger," Rachel added.

Kowalski's expression soured. "And knowing us, it's probably cursed."

"Where did it come from?" Gray asked.

"I don't know, but Father Giovanni was working in the mountains of northern England. At an excavation there. There were no more details in the police report."

Gray rolled the leathery digit back into the purse. As he did so, he noted the crude spiral burned into the leather. Curious, he turned the satchel over and spotted another mark on the other side. A circle and a cross. He immediately recognized it from Painter's description of events back in D.C. There had been two other murders on two continents, both bodies bearing this same mark.

Gray faced Rachel. "This symbol. You said you knew the satchel had to be connected to the bombing. Why were you so certain?"

He got the answer he was expecting.

"The attackers branded Father Giovanni"-she touched her forehead-"with the same mark. It was a detail left out of the press. Interpol was investigating its significance."

Gray stared down at the pouch in his palm.

Make that three murders on three continents.

But how were all these deaths connected?

Rachel must have read something in his face. "What is it, Gray?"

Before he could answer, the hotel phone on the nightstand rang. Everyone froze for a moment. Seichan stepped back into the room, dressed in black slacks and a burgundy blouse. She pulled on a battered black leather jacket.