The Last Oracle: A Sigma Force Novel

by James Rollins

  The searchlight revealed more debris floating in the water, bits of trash and more bottles. Too much. Something was wrong here. Their prey had never been this foolish. Suspicious, Borsakov reached to the pilot and squeezed his shoulder. He motioned him to slow down.

  Monk heard the engine’s roar lower to a rumble.

  Crouched with the children, he watched the airboat glide into view around the last bend in the channel, plainly throttling down, going too slowly.

  Not good.

  The searchlight speared forward, gliding across the water straight at them. They would be spotted in a second. Their only hope—

  —from out of the dark forest to the left, a dark shadow leaped headlong over the boat. It flew high, clearing the blades, but from its clenched feet, a handful of dark objects were tossed at the boat.

  They struck the giant fan like bomb loads.

  The shotgun shells from the cabin.

  Monk heard them pop against the blades. The fan sliced through the plastic casings, which didn’t ignite, but which still exploded outward with stinging birdshot.

  Cries erupted, half surprise and half pain as the crew was struck by flying pellets. The pilot, high in his seat, ducked and dropped in fear. He hit his stick, and the engine roared to life. The boat kicked forward like a stung jackrabbit, off kilter by the turn. The pilot wrested the control stick.

  The searchlight blazed down the channel and swept over them, highlighting them in its brilliance. Monk saw the copilot scream and point.

  Too late, buddy.

  The two soldiers in front were suddenly flung backward. They struck the others. Tangled in a group, they hit the metal guard at the rear of the boat. The airboat jackknifed into the air and barrel-rolled.

  Monk heard a scream of agony and a stuttered grind of blades. Blood and bone sprayed out of the back of the fan like a contrail—then the boat struck the water upside down, landing hard with a gasp of diesel smoke and a drowning choke from its engine. The searchlight still glowed out of the murky water.

  Monk turned away. Earlier, with the children’s help, he had braided fishing line from the cabin into a translucent rope as thick as his finger—then he rigged it shoulder-height across the channel. It had clotheslined the crew and flipped the unstable boat.

  From out of the trees above the raft, Marta dropped and landed leadenly to the planks. Pyotr was immediately in her arms. She sat on her haunches, gasping, panting. Still, she hugged Pyotr. Her eyes, though, were fixed on Monk, glassy and bright in the moonlight.

  Monk nodded to her, grateful, yet at the same time, slightly unnerved.

  He had needed the airboat to fly up the channel, drawn by the sure trail of their prey. Marta’s bombardment had been intended only as a distraction to keep them from seeing the rope strung across the channel.

  She had done her job brilliantly.

  Pyotr clung to her. After explaining the plan earlier, the boy had sat with Marta and held out the shotgun shells. He spoke slowly to her in Russian, but Monk suspected the true understanding between the pair arose from much deeper. In the end, she had taken the shells in the toes of her feet, leaped into the trees, and vanished.

  Monk poled out across the next channel. Here a sluggish current propelled them onward. Toward the distant shore. Though relieved that his trap had worked, Monk knew with certainty that they were sweeping toward even greater danger.

  But he had no choice.

  Millions of lives were at stake.

  Still, Monk studied Marta and the three children. To him, with no memory of another life, they were his world. They were all that mattered. He would do all he could to protect them.

  As he urged the raft along the current, he recalled the painful flashback at the cabin as he had half drowsed.

  The taste of cinnamon, soft lips…

  What life had been stolen from him?

  And could he ever get it back?

  12:04 A.M.

  Washington, D.C.

  Just after midnight, Kat hung up the phone and stood up from the table. She glanced toward the window into the neighboring hospital room. She had finished a conference call with Director Crowe and Sean McKnight. The two were up in Painter’s office, waging an interdepartmental war from their bunker. Both men were engaged in a power struggle across the various intelligence agencies.

  All over the fate of the girl.

  Kat, with her own background in the field, had offered what counsel she could, but she could do no more. It was up to the two of them to find some way to thwart John Mapplethorpe.

  Kat knew where she could do the most good.

  She crossed toward the door that led into the hospital room. It was guarded by an armed corpsman. She paused by the window of one-way glass and stared into the room.

  Propped by pillows in the bed, Sasha sat with a coloring book in her lap and a box of Crayola crayons. With an intravenous line still in her arm, she worked on a page, her face intent but calm.

  Sasha suddenly glanced up from her work and stared straight at Kat. The glass was mirrored on the other side; there was no way the child could see that she was there. But Kat could not shake the sense that the girl was looking at her, could see her.

  To one side, Yuri sat in a chair. He had pulled Sasha from the brink of death, proving his skill. He seemed as relieved as Kat at the girl’s recovery. Satisfied and exhausted, he sat slumped in his seat, chin on his chest, lightly drowsing.

  Kat turned and nodded to the guard. He had already unlocked the door and swung it open for her. She crossed into the room. McBride still sat in the same chair. He had only moved to make a few phone calls and to use the restroom, always under guard.

  On the other side of the bed from Yuri, Lisa and Malcolm stood, both with charts in hand. They compared notes and numbers, as cryptic as any code.

  Lisa smiled at her as she joined them. “Her recovery is remarkable. I could spend years just studying the treatment regimen.”

  “But it’s only a stopgap,” Kat said and nodded to Yuri. “Not a cure.”

  Lisa’s expression sobered and turned back to the girl. “That’s true.”

  Yuri had related the long-term prognosis for Sasha. Her augment shortened her life span. Like a flame set to a candle, it would burn through her, wear her away to nothing. The greater the talent, the hotter the flame.

  Kat had asked how long Yuri expected the child to live. The answer had turned her cold. With her level of talent, another four or five years at best.

  Kat had balked at such a pronouncement.

  Contrarily, McBride had seemed relieved, expressing his assurances that American ingenuity could surely double that life span, which still meant Sasha would not reach her twentieth birthday.

  Lisa continued, “The only hope for her is to remove the implant. She would lose her ability, but she’d also survive.”

  McBride spoke up behind them. “She might survive, but in what state? The augment, besides heightening her savant talent, also minimizes the symptoms of her autism. Take the augment away, and you’ll be left with a child disconnected from the world.”

  “That’s better than being in the grave,” Kat said.

  “Is it?” McBride challenged her. “Who are you to judge? With the augment, she has a full life, as short as that might be. Many children are born doomed from the start, given life sentences by medical conditions. Leukemia, AIDS, birth defects. Shouldn’t we seek to give them the best quality of life, rather than quantity?”

  Kat scowled. “You only want to use her.”

  “Since when is mutual benefit such a bad thing?”

  Kat turned her back on him, frustrated with his arguments and justifications. It was monstrous. How could he rationalize any of this? Especially with the life of a child in the balance.

  Sasha continued to work in her coloring book. She drew with a dark green crayon. Her hand moved rapidly across the page, filling in one spot, then another, totally at random.

  “Should she be coloring?” Ka
t asked.

  Yuri stirred, roused by their talking. “Some release is good after such an episode,” he mumbled, clearing his throat. “Like opening a pressure valve. As long as the augment is not activated remotely, triggering her, such calm work will ease her mentally.”

  “Well, she does seem happy,” Kat admitted.

  As she worked, Sasha’s face was relaxed with a faint ghost of a smile. She straightened and reached a small hand to Kat. She spoke in Russian and tugged at her sleeve with her tiny fingers.

  Kat glanced to Yuri.

  He offered a tired grin. “She said you should be happy, too.”

  Sasha pushed her book toward Kat, as if she wanted Kat to join her in coloring the pages. Kat sank into a seat and accepted the book. She frowned when she saw the girl had not been filling in lines but had been working on a blank page. With amazing clarity, she had drawn a scene. A man poled a wooden raft through a dark forest with a faint suggestion of other figures seated behind him.

  Kat’s hands began to tremble. She saw who manned the raft. She struggled to understand. It looked like Monk. But she had no memory of Monk ever being on a raft. Why would the girl draw such a thing?

  Sasha must have sensed her distress. Her smile wilted to confusion. Her lips trembled, as though fearful she had done something wrong. She stared from Yuri to Kat. Tears glistened. She mumbled in Russian, apologetic and scared.

  Yuri scooted closer and reassured her with the soft voice of a grandfather. Kat forced down her reaction—for the child’s sake. Still, her heart pounded. She remembered seeing Yuri stiffen when he saw the child’s earlier picture. At the time, for a split second, she had thought maybe he had recognized the face on the paper, but that was impossible.

  McBride climbed out of his chair and approached the bed, plainly curious.

  Kat ignored him. It was none of his business. Instead, her gaze fixed on Yuri. The man met her stare over the top of Sasha’s head. Like the child, he wore an apologetic expression.

  Why would—

  A muffled explosion rocked through the facility, echoing down from above. Alarm bells rang out. All eyes turned toward the ceiling, but Kat leaped to her feet. She was a fraction of a second too slow.

  McBride lunged out and grabbed Dr. Lisa Cummings by her blond French braid. He pulled her toward him while he backpedaled to the wall. Kat Bryant grabbed for him but missed. He slammed back into the corner, out of direct sight line from the door and the window.

  His other hand pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket. He pressed a button on its side, and the top half flipped in his fingers, revealing a small barrel. He shoved it hard against Lisa’s throat, pointing it up toward her skull.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered in her ear.

  Cell phone guns had become the scourge of security forces. But the device Mapplethorpe had given him was state-of-the-art. He could even take calls on it. It had passed through the security search and scanner without a blip of concern. Chambered in .22-caliber rounds, there was unfortunately a limit to the weapon.

  “I have five bullets!” he shouted to the stunned room. “I will kill the doctor first—then the child.”

  A guard leveled a weapon at him, but he kept shielded behind Lisa’s body.

  “Drop your gun!” he boomed at the man.

  The guard kept his position, weapon never wavering.

  “No one has to die!” McBride said. He nodded his head upward. “We only want the child. So put down your pistol!”

  Kat straightened from her tumbled grab. She had come close to nabbing him. He would have to watch her closely. In turn, she eyed him, studying him like a book. Still, the woman motioned for the guard to lower his weapon.

  “Drop it and kick it over here!” McBride ordered.

  With another nod from Kat, the sidearm skittered over to his toes.

  McBride’s mission was simple: to secure the child until Mapplethorpe and his forces arrived.

  “All we have to do is wait!” he said. “So no sudden moves, no heroes.”

  As the explosion rocked though the subterranean bunker, Painter instinctively turned to the wall monitor on his left. The large screen displayed a live feed from Sasha’s room.

  Painter shot to his feet. His heart pounded, and his vision narrowed with fury. He brought up the sound with a blind punch to his keyboard.

  “No sudden moves, no heroes!”

  Sean rose on the other side of the desk. Gunfire echoed down to them. Painter brought up the camera feed from the top level of Sigma and displayed it on the screen behind his desk. He tore his eyes away from Lisa and checked the other monitor. Smoke filled the passageway. Helmeted figures in Kevlar vests and face masks ran low through the pall, rifles on their shoulders.

  “I can’t believe the bastard’s goddamn nerve,” Sean said.

  There was no need to guess who he meant.

  Mapplethorpe.

  “They’re going for the girl,” Sean growled out.

  A bullhorn echoed from the topmost level of Sigma. “EVERYONE DOWN ON THE FLOOR! ANY RESISTANCE WILL BE MET WITH DEADLY FORCE!”

  Sean crossed to Painter. “There’s no way this is sanctioned. We would have been issued a stand-down order first. The bastard’s gone rogue.” Sean turned toward him. “You know what you have to do.”

  Painter’s attention returned to Lisa. He saw the weapon pressed under her jaw, a tender neck he kissed each morning. But he slowly nodded. There was a fail-safe if Sigma was ever under attack by a hostile force.

  But first he needed to get his people out of harm’s way. This war was between Painter and Mapplethorpe. He picked up the phone. “Brant.”

  “Sir!” His aide’s voice was curt and ready.

  “Sound Protocol Alpha.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A new klaxon rang out, ordering all personnel to evacuate to the nearest emergency exit. Mapplethorpe just wanted a clear path to the child. To protect his people, Painter intended to provide that.

  Sean headed to the door. “I’m going up. I’ll attempt to negotiate, but if I fail…”

  “Understood.” Painter turned, pulled a drawer, and removed a Sig Sauer P220 pistol. “Take this.”

  Sean shook his head. “Firepower isn’t going to get us out of this.”

  His friend left. Painter gripped the pistol and studied the screen. He had one last duty to Sigma. He shifted to his computer and typed in the fail-safe code, then pressed his thumb to the fingerprint reader.

  A red square appeared, layered over a blue schematic of the facility’s air-ventilation system. The default countdown was set at fifteen minutes. Painter doubled the time and synchronized it with his watch to go active at 0100. He stared between the door and the wall screen. He had a lot to accomplish in such a short time. Still…

  Typing rapidly, Painter entered the final code to activate. The numbers started counting down.

  With pistol in hand, he ran for the door.

  7:05 A.M.

  Southern Ural Mountains

  As the sun first peeked over the surrounding mountains, Monk shoved with his pole and drove the raft deep into the reeds. The prow ground into a muddy bank. At long last, they’d made landfall, as soggy as that might be.

  “Stay here,” he ordered the kids.

  Using the pole, he tested for solid footing. Satisfied, he climbed off the raft, then turned and helped Pyotr and Kiska onto a hillock of grass nearby. Konstantin leaped on his own, as spry as ever, but the boy landed roughly. His exhaustion showed in the dark lines under his eyes and the tremble as he stood. Marta fared little better, lunging with both legs and landing in a knuckled crouch.

  Monk waved them onward. The way remained muddy and sodden for another quarter mile, but slowly the ground rose out of the swamp and firmed underfoot. The forest shed the watery willows and stood taller with birches and spruces. Meadows opened, green with wild gentian and edelweiss.

  They reached the top of a rise, and a clear view spread ahead of them.
/>   A mile away, a small town, split by a silver-flowing creek, dotted the lower slope of the neighboring mountain. Monk studied the place. It appeared long deserted and abandoned. The derelict mix of stone and wooden buildings climbed the slopes around a switchbacking gravel road. An old mill neighbored the rocky creek. Its waterwheel lay fallen and broken across the stream like a bridge. Several other structures had collapsed in on themselves, and the place had a wild overgrown look to it, buried in high grasses and lush with juniper bushes and fir trees.

  “It’s an old mining town,” Konstantin explained. The boy unfolded the map, to check their bearings. “No one lives there. Not safe.”

  “How much farther until we reach the mine shaft?” Monk asked.

  The boy measured with his thumb on the map, then pointed to the ramshackle collection of buildings. “Another half mile past the town. Not far.”

  Konstantin glanced off to the right of the town. His expression soured. He didn’t have to say anything. Half hidden behind the shoulder of the mountain, a large greenish black body of water stretched off to the horizon.

  Lake Karachay.

  Monk checked his badge. It still registered a reddish hue. But to reach the town, they would have to head directly toward the lake, deeper into its radioactive shadow.

  “How hot is that place?” Monk asked, nodding to the town.

  Konstantin refolded the map and stood. “We should not stop for a picnic.”

  Monk stared back at the boy, appreciating his attempt at levity. But neither of them laughed. Still, Monk hooked an arm around the boy as they marched ahead. He gave Konstantin a reassuring squeeze and earned a silly grin in response. A rare sight.

  Pyotr and Kiska followed with Marta in tow.

  They had made it this far.

  There was no turning back.

  Half a mile away, Borsakov watched his targets vanish over a ridgeline. With a silent curse directed at the man who led the children, he knelt beside the beached raft used by the others and slipped his rifle from his shoulder. Before he continued, his weapon needed to be cleaned. After the long swim and slog through the swamp, his rifle was caked with mud and full of water. He broke the weapon down and carefully inspected each section: barrel, bolt assembly, magazine. He rinsed and dried all the parts thoroughly. Satisfied, he reassembled the rifle. The familiar routine returned him to a calm, determined status.