Map of bones : a sigma force novel / James Rollins.

Previously published : London : Orion, 2006.

The horrific theft of a priceless relic ... a secret society reaching back to the Middle Ages ... and the top-flight US team who must stop them. 'Shots rang out across the cathedral. Sporadic. Cries suddenly silenced. Death stalked the cathedral as the monks slaughtered the few remaining survivors ... All for a sack of bones. Why? Why steal the bones of the Magi?' When a group of parishioners is burned to death in a German cathedral, the US sends in Sigma force. For this tragedy is more than a case of arson - someone has stolen the priceless treasure stored in the cathedral's golden reliquary: the bones of the biblical Three Kings. Commander Gray Pierce leads a team on the hunt for the Royal Dragon Court, a clandestine aristocratic fraternity of alchemists that dates back to the Middle Ages and seeks to establish a new world order using the mystical bones. Pierce and his team follow a trail that leads from Europe's Gothic cathedrals through the remnants of the seven wonders of the ancient world to a mystical place where science and religion unite to unleash a threat not seen since the beginning of time itself ...