The Midnight Watch: A Sigma Force Short Story by James Rollins

It was in such a crucible of scientific inquiry that the two had become each other’s admirers, colleagues, and most of all, friends.
    Father Kircher’s gaze settled upon the emissary, still on bended knee before his overloaded desk. “And who is your companion?”
    “He comes with a package from Leopold I. It would seem the emperor has remembered enough of his Jesuit education to send something of import to your doorstep. Leopold appealed to the Grand Duke to have me present this man to you with some urgency, under a cloak of dire secrecy.”
    Father Kircher lowered his quill. “Intriguing.”
    They both knew the current emperor had an interest in science and the natural world, instilled in him by the Jesuit scholars who had tutored the man in his youth. Emperor Leopold himself had been headed into the church until the death of his older brother to the pox had placed the pious scholar onto that cold northern throne.
    Father Kircher waved to the messenger. “Enough of this foolish posturing, my good man. Stand and deliver what you’ve traveled so far to present.”
    The emissary rose up and pulled back the cowl of his hood, revealing the face of a young man who could not be more than twenty years. From a satchel, he retrieved a thick letter, plainly sealed with the emperor’s sigil. He stepped forward and placed it upon the desk, then quickly stepped back.
    Kircher glanced toward Nicolas, who merely shrugged, equally in the dark about the particulars of this matter.
    Kircher retrieved a knife and slit through the seal to open the package. A small object rolled out and toppled to the desktop. It was a bone, frosted with crystalline rock. Pinching his brow, Kircher pulled out and unfolded a parchment included with the artifact. Even from steps away, Nicolas saw it was a detailed map of eastern Europe. Father Kircher studied it for a breath.
    “I don’t understand the meaning of all of this,” Kircher said. “This map and this bit of old bone. They come with no letter of explanation.”
    The emissary finally spoke, his Italian thickly accented. “The emperor chose me to deliver the other half of this message, words I was sworn to set to memory and reveal only to you, Reverend Father.”
    “And what are those words?”
    “The emperor knows of your interest in the ancient past, in those secrets buried in the bowels of the earth, and requests your aid in investigating what was revealed at the site marked on the map.”
    “And what might be found there?” Nicolas asked. “More bones, such as this?”
    He stepped closer and studied the ossified sliver, the crusts of whitish rock. He sensed the great antiquity of what lay upon the desk.
    “Bones and much more,” the messenger concurred.
    “And who do these bones belong to?” Kircher asked. “Whose grave do they mark?”
    The young man answered, his words shocking. Then before either man could respond, the messenger swiftly drew out a dagger and sliced his own throat from ear to ear. Blood poured forth as the man choked and collapsed first to his knees, then to the floor.
    Nicolas rushed to the young man’s aid, cursing at such brutal necessity. It seemed those final words were meant only for Father Kircher and himself, and once dispatched, were never to be spoken again.
    Father Kircher rounded his desk and dropped to a knee, taking the young man’s hand between his palms, but his question was for Nicolas. “Could it be true?”
    Nicolas swallowed, dismayed by the last message spoken through those bloody lips.
    The bones . . . they belong to Adam and Eve.

 
    Chapter 1
    April 29, 10:32 A.M. CEST
    Karlovac County, Croatia
    W E SHOULDN’T BE HERE.
    A trickle of superstitious dread stopped Roland Novak on a switchback of the trail. He raised his hand against the morning sun and stared at the craggy mountaintop ahead. Black clouds stacked in the distance.
    According to Croatian folktales—stories he had heard as a child—during stormy nights, witches and