The Last Odyssey: A Thriller

by James Rollins

  Elena got further support from an unexpected source. Monsignor Roe had interjected, confirming that Strabo’s “Syrtis” was the ancient name for modern-day Djerba, an island along the Tunisian coast.

  Nehir had accepted this rationale and left.

  Shortly after that, the Morning Star had swung to the south and sailed three hours to reach the African coast.

  But what now?

  She held out one hope. If Joe and the others had a functional version of the map and the original Daedalus Key, maybe they could beat these bastards to the final destination.

  She held tight to this thin lifeline.

  But would it be enough?

  1:40 P.M.

  An hour later, voices drew Elena’s attention to the library’s glass doors. Nehir was back, speaking to Kadir. But she had not come alone.

  Elena stiffened at the sight of her father. Despite her anger, his familiar face triggered a flush of warmth inside her, her body instinctively reacting to the man who had raised her, who had taught her right from wrong, forged her moral compass, who instilled in her a love for the sea, for nautical history.

  The momentary flush turned cold. She had heard the term “heavy of heart,” but only now did she realize that the phrase was not just metaphorical. Her heart felt like a leaden weight in her chest, each beat dull and listless. She rubbed a knuckle along her breastbone, trying to unknot the pain there, but failed.

  Nehir unlocked the library door with an electronic keycard and ushered her father into the room. She followed behind, drawing Kadir in with her.

  Her father opened his arms wide and crossed the library. “Elena, my dear.”

  She stood and icily accepted his hug, but she did not return it.

  He seemed not to notice and finally broke the embrace. “I’m sorry it took me so long. There’s an EU summit going on in Germany. It was already on my schedule as chair of the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations. A bit of fortuitous timing, offering me the perfect excuse to fly here. Though, of course, I’m participating remotely after getting the word about, well—” He waved to encompass the breadth of the yacht.

  Elena tightened her jaw, but it was actually good news. If word of her apparent survival had reached her father, it implied Joe had made it safely to those in authority.

  “Luckily,” her father continued, “the Morning Star is equipped with a sophisticated communications system, capable of bouncing signals all around—not only is it masking my location, but it’s making it look as if I’m teleconferencing from my hotel room in Hamburg.”

  Elena finally found her voice. “Dad, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Ah, yes, that’s why I came down here during a break at the summit.” He lifted a hand to the table by the glass wall. “Come and I’ll explain.”

  She wanted to tell him to fuck off, but she also wanted answers, so she followed him to the table. They took the remaining two seats, joining Monsignor Roe and Rabbi Fine.

  Nehir came along and stood nearby.

  As they settled to the table, her father glanced around and asked, “What do you know about the Apocalypti?”

  Roe flinched, his eyes widening and staring hard at her father, but the priest remained quiet.

  “I never heard the term,” Elena admitted. “Unless it’s plural for Apocalypse.”

  Her father smiled. It was the wry, boyish grin that had won him four terms in the Senate. “I suppose, in a way, that’s true. I learned of the group during my second tour in the Middle East. During a combat mission, my infantry troop rooted out an Apocalypti cell in Baghdad. A prisoner was taken, along with a great number of texts. While guarding the man, I learned about who they were and what they were about. After talking with him, after reading the core texts of the Apocalypti, I was swayed. I recognized that we shared a common goal.”

  Elena glanced to Nehir, to Kadir. “Are . . . are you saying the prisoner secretly converted you to Islam?”

  Her father gave a short laugh. “Of course not. I’m as devout in my belief as they are in theirs. I know they’re wrong. And they know I am. But like I said, we both share a common goal.”

  “Which is what?” Elena asked.

  “To bring about the Apocalypse by any means necessary.”

  Elena felt her heart drop even farther in her chest. She pictured the horrific weapons stored in Hunayn’s dhow—and the radioactive hellfire that fueled them. The group here must be planning on using the dreadful power and the lost knowledge hidden in Tartarus to bring about a global war, to unleash Hell upon the world at large.

  Her father continued. “After we bring about Armageddon, we’ll let the chips fall where they will. Ambassador Firat believes he will become the legendary Mahdi of his faith, the twelfth imam who’ll guide the world to its end. Whereas I follow the teachings of Christian scholars who view Armageddon’s path and outcome very differently.”

  He shrugged. “But it is not only our two religions. The Apocalypti accept all who would see the world end according to their own beliefs. The Rapture and Tribulations of the evangelicals. The Hindus who await Kalki, the final incarnation of Visnu. Buddhists who watch for the appearance of the seven suns that will destroy the world. Even those of Jewish faith, who share some form of apocalyptic vision.”

  He waved to the rabbi. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the prophetic books of Zechariah and Daniel.”

  Rabbi Fine frowned. “Indeed. They speak of a Messianic Age, when the Jewish diaspora would gather in Israel, and a great war would ensue, during which time the Jewish messiah would return, and a new world would be born out of that destruction.”

  Her father nodded, an exalted glow rising in his eyes. She knew her father was devoutly Catholic, discovering the depth of his faith after Elena’s mother died of breast cancer two decades ago. It was one of the reasons many considered him to be the new JFK—only her father adhered to a far stricter code of moral ethics than Kennedy.

  Or so I thought.

  Elena challenged her father. “So, you’re telling us the Apocalypti are a coalition of religious zealots that adhere to a shared apocalyptic viewpoint.”

  “Not to be a stickler, but your use of ‘religious zealots’ implies a level of blind faith. In fact, we are open to multiple viewpoints. We include many members in the scientific field. In fact, we have members who have no religious affiliation at all, strict atheists, who cling to their own versions of the Apocalypse. Whether it be something current like climate change or a global pandemic or something far in the future revolving around the end of the universe.”

  “That’s an awfully large tent,” Elena noted.

  “But as I said, we share a common goal.”

  Roe leaned back with a slight moan. “To force the hand of God. To strive to trigger Armageddon.”

  “As they say, God helps those who help themselves.” Her father grinned. “I don’t know which of our groups will be proven correct when we open the gates of Hell and purge the world with fire. Will Ambassador Firat become the fabled Mahdi and help forge a new paradise out of the ashes? Or will I rise to fulfill my own destiny?”

  Before Elena could ask her father what he meant by that, he waved to Elena, then Nehir. “Either way, it does seem like the hand of providence is guiding us. Look how events have united my dearest daughter with the First Daughter of Mūsā, who together will help us open those very gates?”

  Elena wasn’t ready to assign the Hand of God to such a union. She wasn’t even willing to believe it was coincidence. Last night, unable to sleep, she had reevaluated her upended world. It had been her father who had encouraged her love of history, guided her into archaeology, even instilled in her a love of the sea. Had he been grooming her all along to serve his own ambitions? Had he guided her into a field where she would seek out lost knowledge, all to help him fulfill his destiny?

  Which was what?

  She swallowed hard. “If you’re not going to be Mahdi, what do you think you’re fated to become?”


  The exalted glint grew to a fire in his eyes. He clearly had been wanting to tell her this for ages. “Jeremiah, chapter twenty-three, verse five.”

  Roe shook his head. The monsignor clearly understood. Even Rabbi Fine looked sickened.

  “What?” Elena asked.

  Her father quoted from the Book of Jeremiah. “‘For the time is coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.’”

  Elena understood what her father was implying. Apparently he had greater ambitions than just being the president of the United States. She stared at her father, seeing the madness behind the exaltation, the ambition behind the bloodshed.

  “You intend to be King David reborn.”

  2:01 P.M.

  Such blasphemous kuffār . . .

  Nehir scowled, deeming them all infidels for denying the blessing of God. She cast her dark gaze upon Elena Cargill. The woman’s father had declared it divine providence that had brought them together. Nehir refused to believe this, to accept being bound to this weak woman—not by fate, certainly not by Allah.

  Prior to heading to Greenland, Nehir had been told that her target was a senator’s daughter, but Mūsā had never informed her that the woman’s father was a high-ranking member of the Apocalypti. As First Daughter, she should have been privy to this knowledge. She had come close to killing the woman last night after she tried to escape. If Nehir had done that, she would have been hunted down and brutally punished, most likely tortured and killed.

  Only at the last moment had Mūsā told Nehir the truth, more out of necessity than anything. Afterward, he had ordered her to bring the woman to the Morning Star—Mūsā’s personal stronghold. It was normally considered an honor to walk these decks, but since setting foot here, Nehir had felt nothing but a hot anger burning in her gut, a heat that was all too familiar.

  For her entire life, men had betrayed her, used their power to try to control her.

  She had believed Mūsā to be different, placing her trust in him.

  She clenched a fist and took a deep breath, trying to quell the flames inside her. She reminded herself that it was a minor treachery committed upon her by Mūsā, one she would strive to forgive—must forgive.

  As she listened to Senator Cargill declare himself to be the heir to King David’s throne, the gall of such a claim dampened some of her fury. She knew in her heart that Mūsā would be Mahdi, the prophesied “guided one” who would lead all the Sons and Daughters to greater glory.

  And as First Daughter, I will sit at Mahdi’s right hand.

  Only that path—followed faithfully—would bring her dead children back to her. Still, she found it hard to stand in this room with these kuffār. Did not the holy Qur’an state clearly in Sura 8:58 that unbelievers are one’s sworn enemies?

  Long ago, Nehir had asked that same question of Mūsā. He had tried to calm her misgivings about the Apocalypti, explaining the practical necessity of this confederation with the infidels, teaching her how using an enemy’s own resources to bring them low honored the Qur’an. Over time, she came to accept that the Apocalypti were more powerful together. Come Armageddon, all infidels would burn in a purifying fire. Only those of proper faith would emerge, made all the stronger by those flames, forged into an almighty sword to lead the righteous into a new world.

  Until then . . .

  We are stronger together.

  As if hearing this—or perhaps moved by Allah—Senator Cargill expounded on this very idea to those seated at the table. His words reinforced what Mūsā had taught her, helping to douse the fire inside her. Or perhaps it was the looks of dismay around the table that softened her scowl.

  “We are everywhere,” the senator explained. “We have loyal followers in religions all around the world. In governments. In militaries. In universities. And even thousands more who do not know they are us, who unwittingly support our cause. In fact, if you simply believe the world will soon come to an end and do nothing to stop it, you are one of us.”

  The anguish in Elena Cargill’s eyes brought Nehir great joy.

  The woman’s father continued: “Only those at the highest echelon of the Apocalypti have full knowledge of our global breadth. It is why you cannot move without us seeing you.” He reached and gripped his daughter’s hand. She pulled away, but he held tight. “For example, we know your friend Joseph Kowalski has joined his friends.”

  Elena gasped.

  “So, to rid you of any hope that help will come,” her father said, “I must teach you a hard lesson. From the Book of Ezekiel. Chapter thirty-three. Verse eleven.”

  Nehir smiled, feeling the last embers inside her smother to a cold satisfaction.

  The Catholic priest explained, quoting that passage, “‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.’”

  26

  June 25, 2:22 P.M. CEST

  Palma, Spain

  Kowalski rolled his eyes and paced before the ruins of the golden map. “I don’t know how many times I can go over it. That’s everything I remember.” He pressed a palm to the sharp twinge in his lower spine. “And my back is killing me. I’d really like to try out that spa of yours.”

  “Not yet,” Gray said as he and Father Bailey tried to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

  Kowalski knew it was a lost cause.

  The two men knelt on either side of the Da Vinci map, doing their best to fish out the last lapis lazuli shards from the innards of the map mechanism. Maria, Seichan, and Mac sat to one side, collecting the blue pieces, slowly reconstructing the expanse of the Mediterranean Sea on the coffee table. The group had spent the last ninety minutes examining the remains of the broken map, searching for any clue to where the device wanted them to go.

  Bailey sighed. “Half the gears and mechanisms were knocked awry when that mainspring blew. Maybe with time and by consulting the old designs that Da Vinci worked from, we might be able to figure something out.”

  “Doubtful,” Gray said. “Even if we had the time, I suspect the map was engineered to obscure its ultimate intent. According to what Kowalski told us about the journal found aboard the dhow, only Captain Hunayn had the tools necessary to make the map unlock its secrets.”

  As Kowalski feared, Gray turned those icy eyes on him. “Tell us again everything you remember. Start from the beginning.”

  Kowalski groaned. Not again. But he knew everyone was counting on him; even Maria looked at him, her face hopeful, giving him a small nod of encouragement. So he started from when he had first met Elena. That memory alone awakened the burn in his thigh from the branding iron.

  “They were using me to force Elena to cooperate,” Kowalski started. He continued step by step, stopped often by Gray, who consulted his e-tablet to look up some reference that Elena had mentioned. There had been so very, very many.

  He racked his brain for every detail, for every bit of conversation, but he harbored no hope that this line of inquiry would lead anywhere. Elena had certainly not figured out where they needed to go, so how could sharing what they’d talked about offer any clues?

  “She was really obsessed with that Strabo guy’s book, Geographica. It was huge, over two thousand pages. She read mostly in silence. If she learned anything more from it, she kept it to herself.” He threw his hands high. “That’s it. End of story.”

  Gray spent another ten minutes in silence, searching through his e-tablet. “I’m missing something.”

  Maybe a few screws, if you think you’re going to solve this.

  Gray turned to him.

  Kowalski growled back. “If you ask me one more time . . .”

  “No, that’s fine. But I think Dr. Cargill was on to something.” He pointed to his e-tablet. “I listed all the books you mentioned she used as references. By comparing the texts that she studied at the beginning to those she reviewed later, Elena had begun to make a notable change in
her research.”

  “How so?” Bailey asked.

  Gray kept his eyes on Kowalski. “You mentioned that Elena had started looking at geology books.”

  Kowalski shrugged. “So?”

  “When you reached the island of Vulcano, you said she went on and on about the history of that island.”

  “Mostly about the god Hephaestus.”

  “But near the end, she made an offhand comment, mentioning how all of the volcanic activity that generated the mythology about Hephaestus was really due to tectonic activity.”

  Maria nodded. “The science behind the myths.”

  “But even then, Elena didn’t seek out any geology texts,” Gray said. “Only later, after the map was activated, carving a fiery line across the Mediterranean.” He stared hard at Kowalski. “Tell me again what she said at the time, try to remember exactly, every word.”

  Kowalski closed his eyes. He pictured the blaze of the map, the golden flames. Elena had leaned closer to it, clearly awed by the display. “All I remember is her mumbling something about it being like a fiery version of tectonic plates banging together.”

  Gray nodded. “And after that, she started asking for geology texts?”

  “I guess so.”

  Gray returned to his e-tablet. Kowalski stepped to look over his shoulder, to see what the guy was trying to figure out.

  What difference did it make if Elena wanted to read geology books?

  Kowalski watched Gray bring up a topographical map of the Mediterranean, very much like the golden version on the coffee table. He squinted at—

  A thunderous blast jolted the entire length of the cruise ship. The liner’s stern shoved up, tilted high and rising. They were all thrown toward the bow.

  The Steinway broke from its perch, rolled, and crashed into the window, breaking out several panes. Bottles and glassware flew from the bar, shattering and rolling after the piano.

  The gathered group tumbled toward the balcony doors, which had been left ajar. Maria went flying through, landing and skidding across the deck. Kowalski lunged forward, sprawling on his stomach, and caught her ankle with one hand and grabbed the jamb of the door with the other, stopping her.