The Last Odyssey: A Thriller

by James Rollins

  “How hot is it?” Mac asked.

  “About the equivalent of a chest X-ray for every minute you’re exposed.”

  “Then let’s leave it here for now.” Mac herded them back into the ship’s hold. “We’ll continue to keep guards posted at the channel entrance in case word of this treasure reaches the wrong ears. We can come back later with some lead shielding and extract the device. Get it somewhere safe.”

  They clambered out of the frozen ship and back to the shore of the icy river. Mac’s plan made sense, but Elena hated any delay. She stared longingly back at the stranded ship, anxious to know its history.

  As she turned around, a thunderous boom shook through the channel. The river sloshed its banks. Chunks of ice crashed into the water.

  She hurried closer to Mac. “Another glacialquake?”

  “No . . .”

  As the blast echoed away, a new noise reached them. Rapid popping, like a chain of firecrackers going off.

  She stared up at Mac.

  “That’s gunfire,” he said and took her hand. “We’re under attack.”

  2

  June 21, 12:28 P.M. GMT

  Reykjavik, Iceland

  Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

  Joe Kowalski huffed loudly and sank his large bulk deeper into the steaming heat of the hot spring. Sweat pebbled his brow. His fingertips had desiccated into sickly prunes. Curling his lip with distaste, he inhaled the rotten-egg odor of the sulfurous waters. He feared he’d stink like this all day.

  So much for a romantic detour.

  That was the excuse his girlfriend, Maria Crandall, had given for stopping at the Blue Lagoon. The resort lay nestled within a black lava field, dotted with mounds of mossy green. It was also positioned halfway between Iceland’s Keflavík International Airport—where they had landed an hour ago—and the smaller domestic airfield just at the edge of Reykjavik, which offered the only flights to Greenland. Unfortunately, the next scheduled departure wasn’t for another three hours.

  So, Maria had suggested this side trip while they waited.

  With a sigh, he rolled his forearm out of the water to check the time—then shook his head at his bare wrist. His missing watch reminded him of the three warnings given to them upon checking into this corner of the resort, called the Retreat.

  First, they were told that in order to preserve the purity of the waters, they would be required to shower naked before entering the baths. It was the only part of the experience he had appreciated. He remembered soaping every square inch of Maria’s sleek body in their private changing room’s shower, appreciating her curves as she leaned on one long leg, the way she twisted her wet blond hair into a pile atop her head, how her breasts would lift with each . . .

  Nope. He shifted his bulk. Best think of something else right now.

  This was a public pool.

  To distract himself, he remembered why he was even here in the first place.

  The second warning about this resort concerned cell phones. Such devices were forbidden within the confines of the interconnected pools. Kowalski was fine with this. Especially considering it had been an unwelcome call from his boss, Director Painter Crowe, that had set him on this path from sultry Africa to the icy freeze of Greenland.

  He and Maria had been visiting the Congo, where they were scheduled to spend a week at Virunga National Park. Maria had been hoping to visit—or at the very least, spot—Baako, the western lowland gorilla she had released into the wild two years ago. He had hoped for the same. The big hairy lug had left an ape-sized hole in his heart. So, he had to hide his disappointment when Painter had called about some discovery in Iceland and wanted Maria’s input. Maria had dual degrees in genomics and behavioral sciences, with a specialty in all things prehistoric. It seemed an ancient ship with a priceless treasure had been found deep within the ice of Greenland. Maria was immediately intrigued and suggested they recruit a former colleague of hers from Columbia University, a friend who specialized in nautical archaeology.

  They were due to meet up with her in Greenland as soon as they landed. He almost checked the time again, then remembered the third warning about this place. The geothermal seawater was rich in caustic silica and risked damaging anything metallic. That meant any chains, rings, watches would have to be left in the changing room. Which included his cheap Timex.

  But that wasn’t the most disappointing item he had to abandon.

  He sulked deeper into the water.

  He had thought the reunion with Baako might have made for the perfect moment. Then that got screwed up. So, when Maria suggested a romantic detour to these hot springs, it sounded like a great fallback position. He had pictured palm trees, bubbling baths, glasses of champagne. He scowled at the reality: an interconnected series of concrete swimming pools filled with sulfurous waters, all surrounded by severe cliffs of black volcanic rock.

  He shook his head.

  Maybe it’s not meant to be.

  Maria was certainly out of his league.

  He was just a navy seaman who had stumbled his way into an elite covert group tied to DARPA. His fellow Sigma teammates had been pulled from various special forces groups and retrained in scientific fields. He only had a GED and an innate skill at blowing things up, which cast him as the unit’s demolitions expert. Though he was proud of his role, he could also not escape a deep vein of insecurity—of being a fraud. Sigma’s symbol was the Greek letter ∑, which represented the “sum of the best,” the merging of brain and brawn, of soldier and scientist. But Kowalski knew Sigma counted far more on the thickness of his bicep than on the sharpness of his mind.

  And I can accept that.

  But he feared someone else would not.

  A sharp whistle drew his attention to Maria’s slim figure as she swam on her back, scissor-kicking her legs to propel her toward him. She impressively held aloft a drink in each raised arm.

  “How about giving a girl a hand, big guy?”

  He smirked and gave her a slow clap. “You know you ought to throw away your lab coat and start waitressing. Especially in that bikini. You’ll make a fortune.”

  She slid up beside him and sat on the submerged bench, not spilling a drop from either glass. “Take this.”

  He accepted the tall glass filled with some sickly green concoction. “I’m guessing this is not beer.”

  “Sorry. It’s all healthy living here.”

  “So, you got me a mug of algae.”

  “It’s fresh. They scraped it off the bottom of the pool this morning.”

  He glanced at her to see if she was serious.

  She rolled her eyes and leaned against him. “It’s a smoothie, jackass. Kale, spinach, I think . . .”

  He held his glass away. “I think I’d rather have the pool algae.”

  “There might be some in there actually. But they blended it with bananas. Which only seemed appropriate, considering . . .” She lifted her glass and tapped it against his. “To Baako.”

  He sniffed the contents with a grimace. “Ugh. I don’t think even a starving gorilla would drink this.”

  “Not even when I bribed the bartender into adding three shots of rum to yours?”

  “Really . . . ?” He reconsidered his drink and took a sip. He tasted the banana—then the sweet burn of rum on his tongue and up his nose. He nodded his approval.

  Not half bad.

  She took a deep swig from hers and turned those deep blue eyes toward him. “Of course, I had them put four shots in mine.”

  He gave her a wounded look.

  Her hand slid up his bare legs and under the edge of his trunks. “I can’t let you get too intoxicated. I have plans for you when we get back to that shower. And I know you can’t hold your liquor for sh—”

  “Excuse me,” a voice said behind them.

  Kowalski hadn’t even heard the slim man in a Blue Lagoon polo approach behind them. He hated being caught off guard, especially now.

  “What is it, bub?
” he barked a tad harshly.

  The man lowered a tray with a cell phone resting atop it. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but the caller said it was an emergency.”

  Kowalski met Maria’s eyes over the tray.

  The caller could only be one person.

  Maria slid her hand off his thigh. “The director seems determined to keep interrupting us.”

  More like cock-blocking.

  Kowalski took the phone and held it to his ear. “What’s wrong now?”

  12:40 P.M.

  Back in the private changing room, Maria buffed her hair dry with a towel. She avoided the dryer on the dressing table, fearing the loud blower would keep them from hearing the ring of the satellite phone.

  A few minutes ago, Director Crowe had used the resort’s house line to tell them there was trouble in Greenland and to expect a fuller briefing on Joe’s encrypted phone once they got somewhere private.

  But she had already heard enough.

  Trouble in Greenland . . .

  Fearing the worst, her breath had grown tight in her chest. She had been the one to suggest Elena check out the shipwreck.

  If anything’s happened to her . . .

  In the mirror, she watched Joe as he climbed back into his black jeans. Crossing to the rest of his clothes, he scratched at the damp mat of hair on his chest that did little to hide the mass of his pectorals and the well-defined ridges of his abdomen. With a grunt, he hauled on a gray hoodie and slapped a Yankees ball cap over the stubble of his shaved head.

  As he turned back to her, she tried to read the hard planes of his face, the firmness of his lips under the slight crook of his nose. But all she sensed was an impatience that equaled her own. He stepped to the dressing table, his six-foot-plus frame looming next to her. She elbowed him back a step, both to reach her own blouse and to give herself more room to breathe. Joe filled whatever room he entered. Sometimes it was too much.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She hid the warmth rising to her cheeks as she buttoned her shirt. “Just worried. I hate this waiting.”

  “She’ll be okay.”

  “You don’t know that,” she snapped back.

  She shoved her feet into a pair of worn hiking boots, her anxiety burning toward anger. She knew Joe was just trying to reassure her, to protect her feelings, but it was a trait that was beginning to grate on her.

  When they’d first met two years ago, she had found the guy exciting—dangerous even—certainly unlike the men she had dated before. Then again, her pool of candidates in the academic world had been limited to a more intellectual set—until this huge beast burst into her world. Loud, brash, addicted to the foulest cigars. She had never imagined herself attracted to such a man. But he made her laugh—often and deeply. And sure, the physicality of the guy was intoxicating. The sex was mind-blowing.

  But was that all there was?

  During that tumultuous first meeting, she had caught hints of a hidden depth to the man, especially in his interactions with the young gorilla Baako. There was a tenderness that showed through small cracks of his tough demeanor, especially when he communicated in sign language to the gorilla. The two had become like father and son. But over the past months, those tender cracks had seemed to seal up. It was one of the reasons she had suggested Joe accompany her on this trip to Africa. She had hoped a reunion with Baako might break through whatever callus had formed, to let what was buried and hidden shine forth again.

  But that had not happened.

  It made her wonder if there was any future here?

  And more important—do I even want that?

  She had grown up with an identical twin sister, Lena. Though Maria loved the intimacy of a relationship that could only come from two who shared the same womb, the same DNA, she also fought against that genetic codependency. She craved independence, to be her own person, to be free of anyone’s shadow.

  Then Joe came into her life. A man who naturally cast a huge shadow—and not just physically. Of late, he had become more and more overprotective, bordering on possessive.

  To make matters worse, he had seemed more closed off these past weeks, barely speaking to her beyond grunts. Maybe the novelty of their relationship had subsided, and he’d become bored with her.

  Or am I bored with him?

  Before she could give this more thought, the satellite phone rang loudly.

  Joe snatched up the device and moved next to her. He bent low so she could eavesdrop. “You’ve got us both,” Joe said. “What the hell’s happening out there?”

  “I don’t mean to alarm you, but ten minutes ago, we received a report of gunfire, maybe an explosion at the glacier where Dr. Cargill was investigating the archaeological site.”

  Maria tensed. Oh, god . . .

  “But the entire coast is socked in with a thick fog, so we’ve got no visuals. It could just be hunters or someone scaring off a polar bear. Still, I’m not taking any chances. The closest village—Tasiilaq—has a small police force, but they’re involved with a search-and-rescue mission far inland. Still, the one officer left in town was dispatched to investigate.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “I want your boots on the ground out there ASAP. I contacted the navy. Although the U.S. had decommissioned its base in Iceland, we were recently granted permission to station a few P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol planes to monitor Russian submarine activity up in the Arctic.”

  “Let me guess,” Joe said. “We’re hitching a ride.”

  “A Poseidon is fueling on the tarmac at the international airport. The jet can get you to the Kulusk airport—which is fifteen miles from Tasiilaq—in forty-five minutes. There a helicopter will be waiting to take you over to the glacier, weather permitting.”

  Maria heard the director’s stress on those last two words. “What about the weather?”

  “Patterns are rapidly shifting out there. An unseasonal piteraq is building inland and could strike the coast in the next two to three hours.”

  “What’s a piteraq?” she asked.

  “A fierce windstorm. They can blow a hundred miles per hour with gusts twice that. If it strikes, it’ll ground all aircraft along the entire coast.”

  Joe snorted. “And you want us to duck under that hurricane before it shuts down the place.”

  “You’re the only ones who can get there in time,” Painter admitted. “In the meantime, I’m mobilizing everyone here in D.C. in case things go sideways. I’m hoping that won’t be the case.”

  “But you’re not taking any chances,” Maria added.

  “And you know why.”

  She did. Dr. Elena Cargill was not just a good friend; she was also a senator’s daughter. Maria shifted to catch Joe’s eye, to let him see her fear, her guilt.

  And I put her in harm’s way.

  3

  June 21, 10:48 A.M. WGST

  Helheim Glacier, Greenland

  Elena shivered in the cold darkness of the ancient dhow’s hold. Terror had driven her heart into her throat, while her mind spun with a dizzying array of possible escape scenarios: flee farther up the river channel, hide in a crack in the ice, try to swim past who was coming.

  She came to only one conclusion.

  We’re trapped.

  Mac and the geologist Nelson sheltered in the ship with her. They flanked the crack in the hull, while John lay on his stomach between them, armed with their only weapon. As gunfire echoed to them, the Inuit had slipped a shotgun from under the seat in the skiff’s stern before they all retreated here.

  Now it had gone deadly quiet.

  The blasts had stopped a minute ago, but she was under no misconception that the attackers had been driven off. From the ferocity of the firefight, there had to be a score of assailants. And from the loud explosion that shook ice, the thieves had come with more than just assault rifles. Likely grenades. Finally, a loud scream had punctuated the end of the assault, which made John flinch, a reminder that the man’s cousins ha
d been guarding the channel’s entrance.

  With a deadly focus, John kept his cheek fixed to the stock of his shotgun, the double barrels aimed down the length of the meltwater channel. Next to him lay a leather bandolier holding red shells. Eleven total. Not counting the two rounds already loaded in the chambers. Mac had told her each shell was a solid lead slug versus being full of loose shot. The rounds were designed to punch a hole through a polar bear.

  Still, even this formidable weapon would not hold off a large force.

  They needed another plan.

  Nelson finally offered one, a possibility she had not even considered. “Why don’t we just give the bastards that gold map?” he said. “Place it out at the water’s edge for them to take. As priceless as it is, it’s still not worth us dying over.”

  Elena balked at this. She hated to lose such a significant historical artifact. “Will handing it over make them leave? They might believe there’s more treasure than just that map.”

  “She’s right,” Mac said. “There’s no telling who leaked the news of our discovery or how inflated the story got before it reached these thieves’ ears.”

  “Still, it’s worth trying, isn’t it?” Nelson pressed. “From our hiding place, we can do our best to convince them that there is no other treasure. And if our words don’t work, there’s always John’s loud and deadly counterpoint. They may prefer to haul ass out of here with something worth millions versus another protracted fight.”

  “True,” Mac conceded and glanced over to Elena. He kept a palm shielded over the beam of his flashlight, but she read his apologetic look. “As Nelson said, it’s worth trying. It’s not like we have a lot of cards to play here.”

  Elena crossed her arms, still unconvinced but plainly outvoted.

  “Okay, then let’s grab it,” Nelson said. “Before it’s too late.”

  The geologist headed toward the ship’s bow, drawing Elena with him.

  Mac held back long enough to reassure John. “We’ll be right back.”

  When Mac joined them, he lowered his hand from his flashlight. Elena blinked away the sudden glare. Stumbling a step, she crushed a potsherd under her boot heel. She instinctively cringed at the damage. An archaeologist’s primary goal was to preserve what history had kept safe for centuries.