The Last Oracle: A Sigma Force Novel

by James Rollins

  Something was happening.

  She needed answers. Her voice grew sharper. “And no one saw Konstantin, Kiska, or Pyotr leaving their dorm rooms? No one!”

  Again the blank stares.

  Motion at the back of the room drew her eye. A toadish-looking man stepped into the room and nodded to her. Lieutenant Borsakov, her second in command. He was dressed in his usual gray uniform, including a stiff black-brimmed cap. He’d found something.

  At last.

  She turned to the trio of teachers standing to the side. “Confine them to their dormitories. Under close guard. Until the matter is settled.”

  She climbed the stairs and exited the auditorium, drawing Borsakov in her wake. Pock-faced and scarred, he stood only as high as her shoulders, which she preferred. She liked men shorter than herself. But he was bulky with muscle, and sometimes she caught him staring at her with a flicker of hunger. She preferred that, too.

  He trailed a step behind her as they crossed through the school to the exit. Once outside, she found two of his men. One had a chained Russian wolf at his side. It growled and rumbled, curling back lips to expose sharp teeth. The guard yanked on the lead, scolding it.

  Savina gave the creature a wide berth. A mix of Russian wolfhound and Siberian wolf, its muscular form stood almost to Borsakov’s chest. The beast came from their animal research facility—nicknamed the Menagerie. It was where they experimented with new augments and tested various applications, using all manner of higher mammals: dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, chimps. It also served as a macabre petting zoo for the village. They’d found over the years that the children bonded with the animals and the relationship helped stabilize them psychologically. And maybe the bond wasn’t entirely human-animal, but also augment to augment, a shared commonality.

  Even the wolf bore a surgical steel device.

  The augment capped the base of the dog’s skull, attached via titanium screws and wired in place. With the touch of a button on the radio-transmitter, they could feed pain or pleasure, enhance aggression or docility, dull senses or stimulate arousal.

  “What have you found, Lieutenant?” she asked.

  “The children are not in the cavern,” he said.

  She stopped and turned.

  “We searched the entire village, even the deserted apartment complex, but when we circled wider, we discovered a scent trail along a back wall, behind the animal facility. It led to one of the service hatches to the surface.”

  “They went outside?”

  “We believe with the American from the hospital. The children’s trail came from the hospital.”

  So that at least answered one question. The American hadn’t escaped, then kidnapped the children. It seemed it was the other way around. The children must have helped him escape.

  But why?

  What was so important about the man?

  It was a question that had nagged Savina since the man had first arrived. Two months ago, Russian intelligence had been alerted about a plague ship that had been pirated in the Indonesian seas. Intelligence services around the world were looking for it. She had been tasked to see if her subjects could find it. A test. One she had passed. Primed, the twelve Omegas had pinpointed the island where the ship was being held. A Russian submersible was sent to investigate and came upon the lagoon just as the ship was sinking.

  It was victory enough—until Sasha had begun scribbling with a fervor that almost burnt her augment out. A dozen pictures, from a dozen views, of a drowning man, being dragged down by a net. Believing this was significant—and being curious herself—Savina had alerted the Russian submariners. They already had divers in the water.

  They found such a man, barely conscious, tangled in a net. They rushed up in diving sleds, forced a respirator into his mouth, and rescued him back to their submersible.

  Savina had ordered the man brought here, believing he must be significant. But once at Chelyabinsk 88, he claimed to be just one of the cruise ship’s electricians. During their interrogation, the man had not seemed especially bright to her, just a scarred and shaven brute of a man with a coarse vocabulary and missing one hand. Likewise, Sasha had showed no interest in him. Neither did any of her fellow Omega-class subjects.

  It made no sense, and the man proved to be a nuisance, caught one day tapping into a surface broadcast trunk, wired to his prosthetic cuff. They did not know what he was doing nor what type of signal he had sent out, but in the end, it had no repercussions. For security’s sake, they had the cuff surgically removed.

  Over the weeks, Savina had grown to believe that the girl’s intensity had just been a childish fear for the drowning man’s life. Done with the matter, she had turned the American over to the care of the laboratory group at the Menagerie. They were studying memory, and a living human subject was raw material not to be wasted.

  Savina had sat in on his surgery.

  What they had done to him…

  It still made her shudder.

  But now he was gone—vanished with the brother of Sasha, who was also missing. What game were these children playing?

  She didn’t know, and this late in her own plans, she didn’t have time to figure it out.

  “Your orders, General-Major?”

  “Search the surface.”

  “I’ll bring all the dogs,” his voice snapped.

  She stopped him. “Not just the dogs.”

  Borsakov stared at her, his eyebrows pinched questioningly. But he knew what she wanted done. “General-Major? What about the children?”

  She strode away. Now was not the time for subtle actions. She still had ten children. That would be enough.

  She confirmed her order. “Loose the cats, too.”

  11:45 A.M.

  Pyotr sat between Marta’s legs. Her strong, warm arms wrapped around him. He didn’t like to be touched, but he let her. The sweet earthy smell of her damp fur swelled around him. He heard the hush-hush of her breathing, felt the beat of her large heart in his own spine. He had known Marta all his life. He had known these arms. After Pyotr’s first operation at the age of five, she was brought to his room.

  He remembered her large hand. It had scared him, but she lay there for most of the day, her head resting on the edge of his bed, staring at him. Finally, one of his hands had drifted to hers. His fingers danced along the wrinkled lines of her overturned paw, curious. She had stared at him with large brown eyes, moist and knowing. Long fingers wrapped around his.

  He knew what it was.

  A promise.

  Others would play with her, cry in her arms, sit long nights with her…but Pyotr knew a truth that morning. She had secrets that were his alone. And his secret was hers.

  In those arms, he stared out at the strange woods. They were allowed up here sometimes, to wander the forest with a teacher, to sit in the quietness. But it still frightened Pyotr. A wind whispered through the forest, knocking limbs and shedding twirling falls of leaves. He watched them and knew something was coming.

  He was not like his sister.

  But some things he knew. He leaned deeper into Marta, away from the leaves. His heart beat faster and the world faded, all except for the leaves. Drifting, twirling, dancing…terrifying…

  Marta hooted quietly in his ear. What is wrong?

  He trembled and quaked. His heart was in his throat, pounding a warning as more and more leaves fell. He searched in the spaces among the leaves. Konstantin had once told him how he could multiply so fast in his head.

  Every number has a shape…even the biggest, longest number is a shape. So when I calculate, I look to the empty space between those two numbers. The gap also has a shape, formed by the boundaries of the other two numbers. And that empty shape, too, is a number. And that number is always the answer.

  Pyotr didn’t fully understand. He could not do math like Konstantin, nor could he solve puzzles like Kiska, nor could he see far like his sister. But Pyotr knew no one else who could do what he could do.

 
He could read hearts…all sorts of hearts.

  Great and small.

  And something was coming, something with a dark, hungry heart.

  Pyotr searched among the falling leaves as his own small heart hammered. He filled in the emptiness one space at a time.

  Sweat beaded on his forehead. The world was just falling leaves and the dark spaces between, swirling and churning, reaching for him. In the distance, he heard Konstantin shout his name.

  Marta’s arms tightened around him—not protecting him against the others, but holding him safe. She knew his heart, too.

  He had to see.

  Had to know.

  Something was coming.

  He filled the spaces with ink and shadow, with the teeth and growl, with the pound of pad on hard ground. He saw what was coming.

  SECOND

  8

  September 6, 12:05 P.M.

  48,000 feet over the Caspian Sea

  Two hours until touchdown.

  Gray stared out the windows of the Bombardier Global Express XRS. The day wore rapidly onward as the private jet streaked across the sky. During the course of their journey, the sun had risen on a new day, climbed over their heads, and had begun to fall again behind them. They would be landing on fumes, traveling at a squeak over supersonic speeds. The modified corporate jet had been gifted to Sigma by the billionaire aeronautics financier Ryder Blunt for past services rendered. Two U.S. Air Force pilots pushed the engines to get them to India by midafternoon local time.

  Gray turned his attention back to the group assembled around a teak table. He had allowed everyone to sleep for six hours, but most looked exhausted. Kowalski still had his chair reclined flat, snoring in time with the engines. Gray saw no reason to disturb him. They all could use more sleep.

  Focused on the dossier in front of her, the only person who showed no weariness was the newcomer to their small group. With expertise in neurology and neurochemistry, the same disciplines as Archibald Polk, it was no wonder Painter had assigned this member of Sigma to join their band.

  Dr. Shay Rosauro was a little over average height, her complexion a cinnamon mocha, and her dark amber eyes sparked with flecks of gold and a fierce intelligence. Her shoulder-length black hair was bound back from her face with a black bandanna. She had served in the air force, and from her records, she could have piloted the Bombardier herself. She even wore a uniform blouse top with a wide black belt over khakis and boots.

  And while Gray had never worked with her before, it seemed she had met Kowalski. She had done a double take when the large man had stepped into view. Kowalski had grinned, given her a bear hug of a greeting, then passed to climb into the plane. As she followed, she had stared back at Gray with an expression that read you’ve got to be kidding.

  With everyone rested, Gray wanted to get his team on the same page by the time they were wheels down in India, especially in regard to whom they were meeting. “Elizabeth, what can you tell us about Dr. Hayden Masterson? In what capacity was your father working with this professor from Mumbai?”

  She nodded, stifled a yawn with a fist, then more firmly balanced her glasses on her nose. “He’s originally from Oxford, actually. Trained as a psychologist and physiologist, specializing in meditative techniques and brain function. He’s been in India for the past thirty years, studying the country’s yogis and mystics.”

  “A line of research parallel to your father’s.”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “I know of Masterson’s work,” Rosauro said with mild surprise. “He’s brilliant, but eccentric, and some of his theories are contentious. He was one of the first researchers to advocate for the plasticity of the human brain, controversial at the time but now readily accepted.”

  “What do you mean by plasticity?” Gray asked.

  “Well, until the past few years, neurology stuck by an old tenet that the human brain was hardwired, that each section of the brain served one purpose only. One location, one function. For the last two decades, neurology’s goal has been to map out what each part of the brain does. Where speech rises from, which section of the brain handles hearing, which neurons make you feel your left hand, or control balance.”

  Gray nodded.

  “But now we understand that the brain is not hardwired, that these brain maps are changeable, alterable. Or in other words, plastic. It is such fluidity of function that explains how many stroke victims are able to regain function of paralyzed limbs after a portion of their brains are destroyed. The brain rewires itself around the damage.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Dr. Masterson was extending his research to studies with yogis. Through such mystics’ abilities to control their own metabolism and blood flow, he sought to show how the brain is not only changeable—but trainable. That the brain’s plasticity is moldable.”

  Rosauro leaned back. “With the possibilities of harnessing this plasticity, it’s a Brave New World out there for neurologists. Increasing intelligence, helping the blind to see, the deaf to hear.”

  Gray pictured the device found on the skull. The deaf to hear. The device had looked like some form of cochlear implant.

  Gray asked Elizabeth, “Did Dr. Masterson say when he last saw your father?”

  “The professor said he’d tell me more, but he first wanted to talk to the people who had hired my father. He sounded scared. I couldn’t get anything else out of him.”

  “Hired him?”

  Luca Hearn, the final member of their group, spoke, his Romani accent thicker from his exhaustion. “That would be our clan. We hired Dr. Polk.”

  Gray turned to the man. Before landing, Gray had intended to discuss the role of the Gypsies in Dr. Polk’s story. Much had been left unanswered after their flight from the safe house. Such as, why Polk had chosen to contact Luca rather than anyone else? Had it been paranoia? Had the professor believed he could trust no one else? Considering his murder was followed by the suspicious sweep by agents of his own government, maybe Dr. Polk had been right.

  “How did you get involved with the professor?” Gray asked.

  “He approached us two years ago. He wanted to collect DNA samples from certain members of our clans. Those who practiced pen dukkerin.”

  “Pen what?”

  Kowalski answered from his sprawl on his bed. He had stopped snoring, but his eyes were still closed as he spoke. “Dukkerin. Fortune-telling. You know, palm reading, gazing in a crystal ball.”

  Luca nodded. “It is a tradition among our people, going back centuries, but Dr. Polk didn’t want anyone who was performing hokkani boro—the great trick.”

  “Fakers,” Kowalski added. “Tricksters.”

  “Dr. Polk knew there were those among our clans who we ourselves respected for their skill in this art. The rare ones. True chovihanis. Those with the gift. Those were who he sought.”

  Elizabeth shifted straighter. “My father was doing the same with yogis of India. Taking DNA samples, looking for some commonality.”

  Gray remembered how her father sought out those rare cases of documented yogis and mystics, those who demonstrated heightened abilities of intuition or instinct. The fortune-telling and tarot-card reading of the Gypsies would fit that mold. But the genetic angle was new.

  It raised another question in Gray’s mind. “Why the sudden switch from studying yogis to Gypsies? What’s the connection?”

  Luca stared at him as if he were dense. “Where do you think the Romani clans come from?”

  Now it was Gray’s turn to be baffled. He actually didn’t know much about the nomadic Gypsy clans, certainly not their origins.

  Luca noted his confusion. “Not many know our story. When our clans first moved into Europe, we were thought to have come from Egypt.” He rubbed the back of his hand across his burnished face. “Because of our dark skin, dark eyes. We were called aigyptoi or Gyptians, which later became the word Gypsies. Until only recently, even our clans were unsure of our origins. But linguists recently discovered that the Roma
ni tongue has its roots in Sanskrit.”

  “The language of ancient India,” Gray said, surprised, but he was beginning to understand the connection now.

  “We arose from India. That is amaro baro them, our ancestral homeland. Northern India, to be precise, the Punjab region.”

  “But why did you migrate away?” Elizabeth asked. “From what I understand of your history, you had a hard time in Europe.”

  “Hard time? We were persecuted, hunted, killed.” Fire entered his voice. “We died by the hundreds of thousands at the hands of the Nazis, forced to wear the Black Triangle. Bengesko niamso!” This last was plainly a curse at the Nazis.

  Elizabeth glanced away from his vehemence.

  Luca shook his head, calming himself. “Not much is known about our early past. Even historians can’t say for certain why the clans left India. From old records, we know the Romani clans fled India sometime in the tenth century, passing through Persia to the empire of Byzantium and beyond. War plagued northwest India during that time. Also India had come to adopt a strict caste system. Those left at the bottom, classified as casteless, were deemed untouchable. These included thieves, musicians, dishonored warriors, but also magicians, those whose abilities were considered heretical by the local religions.”

  “Your chovihanis,” Gray said.

  Luca nodded. “Life became unbearable, unsafe. So the casteless banded together into clans and left India, headed west, for more welcoming lands.” He snorted bitterly. “We are still searching.”

  “Let’s get back to Dr. Polk,” Gray said, redirecting the conversation. “Did you cooperate with the professor’s request? Did you supply him with those samples?”

  “We did. A payment in blood. In exchange for his help.”

  Gray studied the man. “Help in doing what?”

  His voice fired up again. “To find something stolen most brutally from us. The very heart of our people. We—”

  The plane bumped violently. Glasses rose in the air, as did Kowalski. He scrabbled from his blanket with a shout of surprise. Gray, belted in his seat, felt his stomach climb into his throat. They lost elevation fast.