Map of Bones by James Rollins

exam, and now this mysterious summons by Director Crowe. He knew he was due for a dressing-down. He shouldn’t have gone in alone to Fort Detrick. It had been a bad call. He knew it.
    But still riding the adrenaline surge from this morning’s near disaster, Gray couldn’t sit idle and simply wait. Director Crowe had gone off to a meeting over at DARPA headquarters in Arlington. There was no telling when he’d be back. In the meantime, Gray needed to move, to let off some steam.
    He pulled on his small riding backpack.
    “Have you heard who else has been summoned to the meeting with the director?” Monk asked.
    “Who?”
    “Kat Bryant.”
    “Really?”
    A nod.
    Captain Kathryn Bryant had entered Sigma only ten months ago, but she had already completed a fast-track program in geology. There were rumors that she was also completing an engineering discipline. She would be only the second operative with a dual degree. Grayson was the first.
    “Then it can’t be a mission assignation,” Gray said. “They wouldn’t send someone so green out into the field.”
    “None of us is that green.” Monk grabbed a towel and headed for the showers. “She did come out of the intelligence branch of the Navy. Black ops, they say.”
    “ They say a lot of things,” Gray mumbled and crossed to the exit.
    Despite the number of high IQs, Sigma was no less a rumor mill than any corporation. Even this morning’s summons had followed a flurry of memos and a recall of operatives. Of course, some of this activity was the direct result of Gray’s mission. The Guild had attacked one of their members. Speculation abounded. Was there a new leak, or had the ambush been planned based on old intel, prior to Sigma’s move to Washington from DARPA’s headquarters in Arlington and the purging of its operations there?
    Either way, another rumor persisted in the halls of Sigma: a new mission was being planned, one commanded high up the chain, one of vital national interest. But nothing else was known.
    Gray refused to play the rumor game. He would wait to hear from the commander himself. Besides, it’s not like he would be going anywhere soon. He’d be warming the bench for some time.
    So he might as well meet his other obligations.
    Crossing out of the gym, Gray strode through the labyrinth of hallways toward the elevator bay. The space still smelled of fresh paint and old cement.
    The subterranean stronghold of Sigma central command was once an underground bunker and a fallout shelter. It had been a place to secure an important think tank during World War II, but it had long been abandoned and closed off. Few knew of its existence, buried beneath the mecca of Washington’s scientific community: the campus of museums and laboratories that made up the Smithsonian Institution.
    Now the underground warren had new tenants. To the world at large, it was just another think tank. Many of its members worked at laboratories throughout the Smithsonian, doing research and utilizing the resources at hand. The new site for Sigma had been chosen because of its proximity to all the research labs, covering a wide range of disciplines. It would have been too expensive to duplicate all the varied facilities. So Sigma had been buried at the heart of Washington’s scientific community. The Smithsonian Institution became both a resource and a cover.
    Gray pressed his hand on the elevator door’s security pad. A blue line scanned his palm print. The doors whooshed open. He climbed inside and pressed the top button, marked LOBBY . The cage rose silently, climbing up from the fourth level.
    He sensed more than felt the scan over his body, a proprietary search for hidden electronic data. It helped aid in the prevention of information being stolen out of the command center. It had its drawbacks. During the first week here, Monk had set off a system-wide alert after absentmindedly carrying in an unauthorized MP3 digital player after an afternoon run.
    The doors