| “ | The Guild is everywhere and nowhere. | „ |
| ~ Painter Crowe describing the group |
The Guild, actually named "Bloodline", is an international shadow organization and a dangerous terrorist group that serves as the main antagonists of James Rollins' Sigma Force novel series. It is a SPECTRE-like group that has infiltrated government agencies and commercial enterprises in its quest for world domination. To fund itself, the Guild steals emerging technologies and sells them to the highest bidder. The Guild is ruthless and is led by trained assassins from around the world.
The Guild's main opponent is Sigma Force, a covert U.S. ops squad dedicated to stopping their plans. Sigma Force is aided by Seichan, an assassin mole in the Guild with connections to the group's founder.
Biography[]
Background[]
Bloodline was founded by the descendants of the original 9 members of the Templars. They were a matrilineal clan even more shadowy than the Guild members faced by Sigma. Bloodline allegedly was involved with the Rockefellers and other famous families, and were a legend within the presidential families (James Gant remembered hearing about them like a "boogeyman" story).
Robert Lee Gant (father of Seichan) was approached by Bloodline and offered leadership of their forces. He took control with the goal of uniting the world's top assassins, renegades, and criminals into one group for world domination and profit. Ambition, vengeance, and skill were highly valued and considered necessary to move up in hierarchy. The U.S. government belived that the Guild was formed from ex-KGB agents and Russian mobsters and grew into a SPECTRE-like international organization. The Guild gained a reputation for brutality when a MI6 operative tracking a cell in India was found scalped and his head stabbed with electrodes.
Five years prior to Sandstorm, Seichan, an early Sigma Force operative (and long-lost daughter of Robert Lee), was placed into the Guild as part of an infiltration scheme. She rose to become one of the group's top assassins, competing with her lover Amen Nasser for the No. 1 position. Seichan's position as a mole remained unknown even to the new Sigma team until The Judas Strain. In Bloodline she decides to put her evildoing behind her and live an honest life with Pierce.
Sandstorm[]
The Guild's first major scheme involved infiltrating Sigma Force and its parent agency DARPA. Vice Admiral Anthony Rector, the secret leader of the Guild, was promoted to DARPA Director. Using the codename "The Minister," he convinced Sigma Force member Cassandra Sanchez to work for the Guild. On a mission to stop a Chinese hacker from stealing weapons files, Cassandra attempts to flee with the hacker under the guise of a kidnapping. However, her partner, Painter Crowe, realizes her betrayal and has her arrested.
The Guild helps break Cassandra out of prison and she pursues Painter, who is investigating an underground lake of antimatter connected to the lost city of Ubar in Oman. While on an expedition in Oman, Cassandra and a Guild cell attack their ship and blow it up, kidnapping Safia al-Maaz, the Ubar expert. Cassandra and her henchman John Kane force Safia to help them unlock the puzzle to where Ubar is. They lose her in a battle with Painter's forces when she is rescued by the Guardian women of Ubar. However, they realize where Ubar is, and move Guild troops and equipment there. She also reveals information to Painter that he sent to Sigma Director Sean McKnight, convincing Painter that Sean is a Guild mole.
With the help of the women of Ubar and Omani Desert Phantom soldiers, Painter and his team discover the lost city. However, they battle the Guild's forces with the help of an approaching sandstorm. Painter kills John Kane while Cassandra and her men follow him into the lost city. The approaching sandstorm destabilizes the antimatter lake, resulting in lightning strikes that kill all of the Guild henchmen (who are out in the open). Cassandra works with Painter to stay alive while Safia uses ancient technology to drain the lake and prevent an explosion. A lightning strike causes Cassandra to fall into melting glass and die, where she expresses her regret at betraying Painter.
In the end, Cassandra's laptop, which Painter stole, proved that Rector was the Guild leader, and his goal was to frame McKnight so that he could put a Guild member as new Sigma Director. Rector shoots himself before he can be arrested, but Painter is convinced a new Guild leader will arise.
Map of Bones[]
In revenge for the death of Cassandra Sanchez, operative (later revealed to be Sigma mole) Seichan attempts to detonate anthrax over Fort Detrick Military Base. The plan is stopped by Sigma Commander Gray Pierce.
The Guild offers its services to the Dragon Court, as both groups are looking to find a source of lost alchemical knowledge relating to monatomic gold, a powerful substance known to the ancients. Seichan aids Court leader Raoul de Sauvage in his fight against Sigma; however, she becomes distrustful of his misogynist and unstable persona. She later leaves a clue for Pierce hinting that she wants to defect.
Raoul uses a Guild-chartered yacht to fight Sigma in Alexandria. After trapping Pierce and his allies in a cave, Raoul leaves Seichan to die in a spear booby trap as the cave collapses. A bitter Seichan is saved by Pierce, and she helps him free his teammates from Raoul's castle. Once the Dragon Court has been defeated in Avignon, Seichan leaves Pierce to return to the Guild and cover up what she did.
The Judas Strain[]
The Guild gets word that a viral contagion known as the Judas Strain has emerged in Indonesia, with the power to turn normal bacteria into mass killers. However, it is later revealed that the Guild purposely moved a shipwreck infected with the Strain to release it into the ocean and thus test its potency.
Dr. Devesh Patanjali, a Guild leader and chief scientist, leads a team to hijack a cruise ship being used as a pathological study center. He takes Sigma members Monk Kokkalis and Lisa Cummings hostage and forces them to study Patient Zero. Monk escapes and teams with a medical assistant to find help and stop Devesh. The cruise ship later docks at an island populated by native cannibals.
Meanwhile, Seichan avoids an assassination attempt put out on her by top Guild assassin and former lover Amen Nasser, but is wounded and goes to Pierce for help. They avoid an ambush by Nasser, but Pierce's parents are captured as leverage. Seichan and Pierce meet with former ally Vigor and go to Istanbul, where the Guild is following a historical trail left by Marco Polo relating to the Judas Strain. Nasser pursues them through the Hagia Sophia, later an island off Iran, and finally to Angkor Wat, where the secret to the virus lies.
On the cruise ship, Dr. Cummings realizes that the Judas Strain, once in the brain, turns its victims into ravenous zombies. Monk uses a ward breakout as cover to rally the native cannibals and lead a sneak attack on the ship. Devesh tries to flee by opening the wards and releasing the zombies to fight the cannibals, but is betrayed by his partner and left to die at the zombies' hands. Monk fights Devesh's henchman Rakao, sacrificing himself in the process to allow Cummings and her allies to boat out of the island. A dying Rakao activates a self destruct button, blowing up the island's camouflage supports, which fall onto the ship and cause it to burn and sink.
Pierce, Seichan, and the Sigma team later kill Nasser in Cambodia and stop the release of the virus from its source in Angkor Wat. Seichan has a tracker implanted in her stomach so Sigma can monitor her actions with the Guild.
The Devil Colony[]
Sigma is called to a rediscovered American Indian burial site that is connected to a neutrino burst in Utah. The Guild is drawn into this discovery, and it is revealed that a group of Caucasian Indians (descended from ancient Israelites) had an understanding of nano-enhanced gold technology. Sigma squares off against Rafael Saint Germaine, a Guild leader who will stop at nothing to get these artifacts.
The Guild plants a bomb that kills Harriet Pierce, mother of Gray, that was initially intended for Gray. After consulting with Painter, he learns that the Presidential Family- the Gants- may have an important role in the Guild's history.
Bloodline and Defeat[]
The Guild kidnaps Amanda Gant-Bennett, the pregnant daughter of U.S. President James Gant, and plan to conduct genetic alteration experiments on her coming baby, William. As Sigma investigates, it soon becomes apparent that the Guild itself is involved and being led by a higher power. Pierce assumes this to be James Gant himself, and he is taken into Sigma custody.
This power is revealed to be Bloodline- an ancient, matrilineal secret organization dedicated to immortality and absolute control of the world. This group is descended from the original 9 people who founded the Templars centuries ago, and are thus the most secret of secret societies.
Bloodline is led by First Lady Teresa Gant, who was responsible for all the Guild's plots from Sandstorm to the present. Bloodline decides to personally go into action by seeking immortality, manipulating the Guild's scientists into experimenting with women who can carry children with triple-helix DNA before planning to assassinate both President James Gant, as well as as his brother, State secretary and Guild founder Robert Lee Gant. This would Teresa to exploit national mourning and sympathy into becoming the President and thus the Bloodline's external arm.
Pierce fakes James Gant's assasination to throw the Guild off the trail. James collaborates with Sigma to get his daughter back while the group tries to root out Bloodline's leaders.
Teresa is eventually defeated and badly injured in the final battle with Sigma, and the Guild/Bloodline falls apart. A public announcement claims that she was put into a coma by a "car accident." James Gant plans to keep her alive with new life support technology (ironically used on Amanda), giving her a fate worse than death. He departs her room, saying "Welcome to Hell."
Seichan kills Petra, the Bloodline's assassin, thus putting a stop to their plans to destroy the original Sigma members.
Members[]
| “ | We don't even know who the group's Osama is | „ |
| ~ Painter Crowe |
Due to its cell system of operation, the Guild's master leadership remains unknown. This was done on purpose, as each cell could be activated when the time was right, and if one was compromised, the organization would still survive. Seichan states that her lifetime mission as a mole was to find out who leads the Guild. The Devil Colony establishes that all of the previously killed villains were just pawns to a larger figure.
Bloodline reveals that the Guild's leader is Teresa Gant, wife, of U.S. President James Gant.
Supreme Leader[]
- First Lady Teresa Melody Gant
- Robert Lee Gant (formerly)
Agents[]
- Dr. Devesh Patanjali
- Amen Nasser
- Vice Admiral Anthony Rector
- Rafael Saint Germaine
- Wallace Boyle
- Annishen
- Cassandra Sanchez
- John Kane
- Surina
- Seichan Gant (Sigma mole)
- Petra (also works for Bloodline)
- Rakao
- Balthazar Pinosso
- "Tweedledee"
- "Tweedledum"
- Dr. Eloise Chabrier
- Patanjali's Somalian Bodyguard
Trivia[]
- Unusually, most of the Guild's assassins have been female (although it can be argued that this a literary choice of femme fatale).