Map of Bones (Sigma Force, #2)

by James Rollins

Why? Why steal the bones of the Magi?

Why indeed? As with all the Sigma novels, there is always a historical mystery at its core. In this case, I had been reading about the history of Catholic "relics," those bits and pieces of saints cherished by the Church. I stumbled upon the controversy surrounding the bones of the Biblical Magi, those three kings who came bearing gifts to the Christ child. I knew there was something to be explored here, but the idea sat idle for years--until I woke up one Sunday morning with a strange thought: What if someone poisoned the chalice of communion wafers at a church, and during the subsequent mass, everyone who partook of communion died? I found this oddly intriguely. Maybe because I was raised Roman Catholic and gone to Catholic school during most of my young years. Either way, I knew then that I had a story to tell, one connected to the relics of the Magi (and don't worry, I'm not really spoiling anything, as this all occurs in the prologue to the novel).

Gray knew the giant globe’s nickname at the base. The Eight Ball.

I've highlighted this as a cautionary tale about research, which I love to do (to a fault). The "Eight Ball" is a cold-war-era research facilty in Fort Detrick. It gained that nickname as it's a huge spherical biowarfare containment chamber sitting atop massive pedestal legs, which lift it three stories high. Its so unusual and such a relic of that time that it's been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977. Knowing I was going to set a scene here, I wanted to know exactly where on Fort Detrick's base that this massive lab was located. So I called up the base and set about going up the slow chain of command until I could reach someone to talk to. While doing so, I was playing with an early version of Google Earth on my laptop, which allows a user to zoom in pretty much anywhere on the globe--including Fort Detrick. So when I finally reached someone willing to talk to me at Fort Detrick, I was promptly told that the exact location of the Eight Ball was classified and could not be given out. Well, at that same time, on my computer I was staring down at Fort Detrick via Google Earth and identified the unusual structure of the Eight Ball from the air, along with its location--which I casually told the base personnel on the phone. They stammered a bit, and the call ended abruptly. Subsequently, months later I wanted to double check something else at Fort Detrick. So again I utilized the eyes-in-the-skies of Google Earth. Only I discovered the entire base was now grayed-out and unobservable. I think my call triggered that. So be careful when you research. There's no telling the unintended consequences. BTW, I'll save the story about my call to NASA, when I wanted to investigate blowing up the space shuttle (for my novel Deep Fathom). I think I'm still on some FBI watch list.

She wore a black turtlenecked bodysuit, not unlike the one he wore, hugging a slim, lithe frame. A silver pendant dangled from her neck, bright against her suit, bearing a tiny curled-dragon charm.

Ah, here is the first appearance of Seichan into the Sigma universe, a deadly assassin who...well, keep reading. But to be honest, this is NOT Seichan's first true appearance in my books. During book talks, I've told how difficult it was to get my first novel published. It was rejected by 49 different agents, until that 50th agent saw something worthy of standing behind. And she eventually found a home for it at Avon Books. That novel was Subterranean, a deep-earth adventure involving a group of characters thrust two miles under the ice of Antarctica into a newly discovered cavern system. My editor (who is still my editor today) told me that the front of the book was too long. She wanted those characters down that hole by page 50. In my first draft, they didn't get down there until page 150. So I had to find 100 pages to cut away. Determined to do so, I kept trimming and hacking. I cut out 10 pages easily enough. Then the next 50 were pretty painstaking. I tried to cajole my editor into letting my characters get down that hole on page 70. She insisted on that 50 page mark. So I got out my axe and continued to cut--as painful as it was. One of the last scenes I cut (though it killed me to do so) was the appearance of a Eurasian terrorist who supplied the villain of the story with some C4 explosives. Here is her description that never appeared in the published novel: "He had been told to look for a woman wearing a silver pendant of a Chinese dragon. She was small of frame but generous of physique, black hair, shorn in a severe crop, almond eyes, wearing jeans and a black sweater." Sound familiar? Yes, that was Seichan in her earliest incarnation. While she ended up on the cutting room floor of that first book, I ressurected her for the Sigma series.

His father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the very early stages, shortly after his parents had moved out here. It had started with small bouts of forgetfulness: where he had placed his keys, telephone numbers, the names of neighbors.

Gray's relationship with his father carries through this novel and several others. With both men being stubborn and strong-willed, they had a tempestuous and strained relationship in the past, but with his father's failing mental state, that relationship would come to change. But it is a slow arc, something that you can only achieve in a series. It's a complicated struggle for the both of them, leading to new animosity, some resolution, and an ebbing and flowing of the tides between them. Still, that arc wasn't planned as such. It came about as both my parents began to slide into Alzheimer's (my father) and Lewy Body Dementia (my mother). I don't know if I was already sensing that change in my dad, and because of that, it led me to unconsciously add this aspect of Gray's father into this first book. Either way, I think much of Gray's relationship with his father was me working through the stress of the same in real life, to try to make sense of such a cruel disease and its impact on families.

It had been an entirely new elemental state of gold, classified as m-state. Rather than its usual metallic matrix, the white powder was gold broken down into individual atoms. Monatomic, or m-state. Until recently, scientists had no idea that gold could transmute, both naturally and artificially, into an inert white powder form.

Another feature of the Sigma novels is the exploration into esoteric sciences and how it might impact (or threaten) us today. I subscribe to dozens of scientific and technical magazines. I search through them, looking for those scientific facts that make me go "What If?" In this case, I had read an article about monatomic gold, a rare state of gold that seemed to bear some astounding and strange properties. I consulted with material scientists and physicists to try to separate fact from fiction. What I learned was startling, so much so that I knew I needed to build a book around it.

Monk also had a Scattergun-built shotgun, strapped to his left thigh, hidden under a long jacket. The weapon had been custom-designed for such service, snub-nosed and compact, like Monk himself, with a Ghost Ring sight system for riflelike accuracy in low light.

But not everything is about science and religion. I grew up reading Clive Cussler and Tom Clancy. They instilled into me an avid interest in all manner of military hardware. While guns might be the go-to weaponry for most thriller novels, I'm always looking for what's coming next. You'll often find Sigma Force carrying hardware that is at the forefront of military tech. Mostly because I adhere to the philosophy of Lester Dent, a pulp novelist of the 30s and 40s, who once wrote: "You should never kill your characters the same way twice." It's a philosophy I plan on sticking to as long as I can write.

“But did you know that only the Gospel of John tells the story of Doubting Thomas? Only John portrays Thomas as this dull-witted and faithless disciple. The other Gospels revere Thomas.

Besides the mystery of the relics of the Biblical Magi, I've always been interested in the earliest foundations of the Catholic Church, especially in regard to the gnostic texts that predate the fourfold Gospel canon that would become the established Bible. I was especially intrigued by the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, which leaned away from organized religion and into more of a personal quest for faith, summed up as "seek and you shall find." Some scholars believe that the story of "Doubting Thomas" (as told only in John's account) was an attept to discredit the philosophy of Thomas in order to cement a more Church-centric orthodoxy. Is that a valid assessment? I don't know, but I'll keep searching.

But Alexandria itself was once home to another of the Seven Wonders, the last to be built, though it no longer stands. The Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria.

Besides delving into the histories and mysteries of the early Church, I wanted Map of Bones to be a great treasure hunt among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, those great architectural marvels that seem to defy our understanding of the capabilities of ancient builders and scientists. Like the Pharos Lighthouse along the Egyptian coast. The limestone structure stood taller than the Statue of Liberty, and it was said that it's golden light was so intense that it could burn ships at a distance. Even today the means by which the Egyptian pyramids (another of the Seven Wonders) were construced remains a matter of debate. It makes one wonder about how much knowledge has been lost in the depths of time--and what might yet be discovered.

He brought the ax down in a steady hard swing. The ax severed the man’s hand at the wrist.

SPOILER. I had resisted doing a series for the longest time. All my earlier thrillers were stand-alone stories. I had a problem with series where one character appears in book after book. I call it the "Jessica Fletcher Syndrome," named after the main character of Murder She Wrote. Here was a woman from Cabot Cove who was always stumbling over a dead body. You must eventually wonder "What's wrong with that woman?" Also it's hard to maintain jeopardy with a series' character. For example, if someone holds a gun against Jessica Fletcher's head, you know the trigger will never be pulled because she's in next week's episode. I finally agreed to write a series based on Sigma due to the fact that it was based on a "group" of people (versus one individual). So I could freely kill and maim major members of Sigma universe because the unit could always recruit someone new to take their place. In other words, no one is safe in the Sigma. And with this first main book, I wanted to make that clear. That ax did fall and someone important lost a hand.

Monsters of muscle, leather, and teeth stalked out, snarling, frothing, driven mad by the thunder and blood. Each pit-dog stood chest-high, massing close to a hundred kilos, twice the weight of most men.

As a veterinarian, I love folding animals into my books. They appear throughout my novels--playing both hero and (and in this case) a deadly threat. I've read so many novels where animals appear, and they're so unrealistically and poorly portrayed that I expect them to break into song like in a Disney movie. Instead, I love to flesh out the bestiary in my books, to portray them as authentically as possible, whether it be a sign-language speaking gorilla (The Bone Labyrinth) or a military war dog (Bloodline). And in the past, I even created a few creatures of my own design--what veterinarian wouldn't want to do that?!? In my upcoming Sigma novel, Kingdom of Bones (out April 19, 2022), that is exactly what I get to do--only amped up to the nth degree. So fair warning: be careful what you reach down to pet in one of my books.