Crucible

by James Rollins

  Knowing what she was losing—what they were all losing—she had been doing her best to stay professional throughout this ordeal. She plastered on a confident and competent face for Monk, but deep inside, she was grieving. Her ribs ached from suppressing her sorrow, holding it in with each breath.

  Finally, Julian turned from the surgical table and gave Lisa a thumbs-up. Nurses and doctors readied Kat for transport. It took a herculean effort, as her body was covered in a chaos of tubes, wires, and lines and was still hooked to a ventilator.

  Lisa headed down to meet Julian. By the time she got to the recovery room, the neurology team had stripped gloves, masks, and gowns. Their excited chattering irritated her, but their manner seemed positive.

  A moment later, Julian followed Kat as she was wheeled inside. The recovery room had already been cleared and prepped for this next stage of the procedure.

  Lisa joined him. “How did things go?”

  “As good as can be expected,” he answered. “But from here . . .”

  Julian shrugged and directed the nurses to position Kat’s bed between two computer stations. On one side, an EEG machine waited to have its cap of electrodes returned to Kat’s shaved head. On the other rested a new piece of equipment, a shoe-box-sized unit that trailed wires to a dangling series of anode and cathode contact pads.

  It was hard to believe such a small device held the promise of reviving Kat. The procedure—known as transcranial direct-current stimulation, or tDCS—would deliver a low-level current of electricity into specific areas of Kat’s brain, hopefully waking her out of her vegetative slumber.

  If successful, they would quickly return to Julian’s MRI suite, where with any luck his deep-neural-net computer could help Kat communicate once more.

  That was the plan.

  But to accomplish even this brief miracle was not without significant cost to the patient—literally the final price.

  Once the bed was locked in place, the net of EEG electrodes was draped over Kat’s scalp, while Julian directed placement of the second unit’s leads.

  “Position and tape the first set of pads over her prefrontal cortex,” the neurologist ordered. “Here and here. Then the second on the lateral sides of her neck. But be careful of the basilar skull fracture. Be as gentle as possible.”

  Lisa hovered at his side, making sure this last order was followed.

  Julian shifted to calibrate the tDCS unit. “The plan is to run a continuous high-frequency current into her prefrontal cortex,” he told her, “while directly stimulating both the patient’s vagus nerve in her neck and thalamus in her brain via the implanted electrodes.”

  Lisa pictured all that electricity flowing into Kat’s nervous system. “What’s the chance of success? Of waking Kat back up if she’s in there?”

  “We’ll do our best. We’re employing two techniques shown to wake patients in minimally conscious or vegetative states. The first was developed at the University of Liège in Belgium, where stimulating the thalamus with electricity temporarily aroused fifteen people from various degrees of coma, enough so that they could respond to questions. The thalamus basically acts as the on/off switch for the brain. Stimulate it at ten hertz, you go to sleep. Target between forty and a hundred, you wake up. It’s been repeated successfully here in the States, even used on an outpatient basis for caregivers to administer at home.”

  Julian sighed.

  “What?” Lisa asked.

  “Your friend is in far worse shape than those patients. It’s why I’m hoping that stimulating her vagus nerve at the same time—which connects to the brain’s arousal and alertness centers—will help us wake her. At least, the technique has shown great success in reviving patients at a French research hospital.”

  Lisa prayed it would work.

  “But it’s not a cure,” Julian reminded her. “If it works, the effect will only be temporary. And either way—with as much amperage as will be flowing into her already fragile state—this attempt will likely leave the patient brain dead.”

  In other words, we’re about to fry Kat’s circuits.

  She nodded, having warned the same with Monk. “She would’ve wanted us to try.”

  Still, Julian hesitated, looking concerned.

  “What’s bothering you?” she asked.

  “The unknown.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He waved a hand over the efforts here. “We still know so little about how the brain functions. While those research hospitals had success with electrical stimulation, we’re still in the dark as to why it works.”

  Lisa couldn’t care less at this moment.

  As long as it worked.

  “All set, doctor,” a nurse reported and stepped back from the patient.

  Julian reached to the switch on the tDCS unit. He cast one final look her way.

  Lisa repeated Monk’s last words to her. “Do it.”

  He flipped the switch.

  1:49 P.M.

  Out of the blackness, a star burst far above. It was only the barest twinkle, but it was enough to disturb the darkness. Awareness coalesced, hazy, frayed throughout. It took a seeming eternity to draw forth consciousness and memory, to even remember her name.

  Kat . . .

  She focused on that light. It remained faint, yet in such endless darkness, it was a bright beacon. Kat felt as if she had fallen into a deep well, where only a single pale star was visible. She knew she had to climb out of that pit, toward the light. But it remained hard to concentrate, her awareness waxing and waning, fading in and out.

  Still, she built a mental palace inside her mind’s eye, picturing the stone walls of that well. She dug in fingers, braced her legs, and slowly climbed toward that light. As she struggled, the star brightened.

  But this reward came with a punishment.

  With each inch gained, pain grew. The star pulsed, casting forth waves of agony. Kat had no choice but to weather that storm, to push both against it and into it. She clawed upward into that light, into that unrelenting torment. She now burned in the darkness, her fingers were flame, her eyes boiling in her skull.

  She faltered, slipping down that mental well.

  With all her strength, she pinioned her fiery limbs against the walls and caught herself. Overhead, the light dimmed. She wanted to cry, to succumb, to fall back into the cool darkness, but—

  Must keep going.

  She pictured why.

  A baby at her breast. Kissing the barest wisp of hair. A tiny body swaddled, smelling of innocence and trust. Later, laughter under blankets. Salty tears wiped, hurts consoled. Endless questions about everything and nothing.

  She climbed again, using those memories like a balm against that burn.

  After an interminable and unknowable time, murmurs rose around her, ghosts in the darkness, voices too garbled to make out.

  She soldiered onward into the fire, knowing she must keep fighting.

  Even if it kills me . . .

  Finally, one voice grew clearer, a stranger, his words fragmented but there.

  “. . . sorry. . . . not working . . . must accept she’s not . . .”

  Then the star vanished, blinking out, severing everything.

  The well vanished around her.

  No . . .

  Unsupported, Kat tumbled back into the swallowing darkness. She screamed as she was consumed.

  I’m still here, I’m still here, I’m still—

  7:02 P.M. WET

  As the F-15 banked toward its final approach, Monk tilted his helmet to the craft’s canopy and studied the Portuguese coastline. The dark Atlantic below crested against the lights of Lisbon, a bright starscape, a man-built reflection of the clear winter sky.

  The pilot straightened the jet’s wings. The nose dipped steeply. Monk’s stomach climbed as the aircraft dropped swiftly earthward.

  Almost there.

  Upon arriving at the coast, they had been ordered into a holding pattern by the tower at the Sintra Air Base,
a Portuguese military facility twenty miles outside central Lisbon. Monk had imagined the base’s air traffic control was not accustomed to having a U.S. military jet request a priority landing on one of its runways.

  Considering his earlier impatience and anxiety, he should have been aggravated by the delay. Instead, he wished the pilot could circle several more times. He was still struggling with the news from Lisa’s call ten minutes ago.

  We failed. She’s gone.

  The doctors had used the words brain dead, a term that in a thousand years could never be used to describe Kat. How could all that brilliance have gone dark?

  With the visor of his flight helmet locked over his face, he couldn’t even wipe his tears. Not that he wanted to. She deserved those tears. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back. Their steep dive still held his stomach pressed against his diaphragm, which quivered with barely restrained sobs that threatened to rack his entire body.

  Kat . . .

  The jet suddenly shoved its nose into the sky. The plane shot upward, going nearly vertical, engines screaming toward the stars. Monk could not even gasp, not with a grizzly sitting on his chest. The g-forces pinned him back into the seat. His vision darkened at the edges.

  Then the jet leveled as suddenly, jacking Monk’s body up against his restraints.

  What the hell?

  The pilot radioed back. “Sorry about that. New orders. D.C. wants us to divert to Paris. Immediately.”

  Paris?

  “Also, got another call asking for you,” the pilot said. “Patching it over.”

  Monk expected Painter had an explanation for the sudden change in itinerary. He also hoped this diversion had something to do with the woman pulling their strings, some good news to offset the last call.

  As soon as the connection was made, Monk cut to the chase: “What’s going on? Please tell me you’ve learned something about Valya.”

  A pause followed, long enough to make Monk wonder if the sudden maneuver skyward had knocked loose a communication cable. This was further reinforced when the speaker finally spoke, the voice modulated and robotic.

  And unfortunately, all too familiar.

  The ransom video played again in his head.

  “It seems you’ve learned my identity,” the caller said.

  Monk pictured Harriet’s scared face, his girl balanced on the knee of her kidnapper. Rage swelled through him.

  The alteration of the voice ended, allowing the pale witch’s Russian accent to shine forth clearly.

  “Just as well. Now we can talk more freely, da? Just you and I.”

  16

  December 25, 9:28 P.M. CET

  Paris, France

  Gray gazed out the limo’s window at the famed City of Light, made all the more glorious by its celebration of Christmas. Apparently, Paris was determined to outshine any other metropolis during this holiday season, intending to live up to its famous name.

  Everywhere he looked, with every turn, Paris revealed more of its wondrous beauty. Window displays glittered with holiday decorations; magical manèges de Noël—Christmas carousels—spun at the hearts of parks or squares; skaters whisked under the stars across tiny ice rinks. Every lamp pole along the route had been wrapped in illuminated pine boughs, each window and roofline glowed with lights, transforming the street into something out of a fairy tale.

  Earlier, their Cessna Citation X+ had landed at Orly, the smaller of Paris’s two international airports, the one closer to their destination. During their descent, the jet had passed over the Eiffel Tower, its iron skeleton lit up like some avant-garde Christmas tree. Around its base—spread like a sparkling skirt—was a vast winter holiday market centered on a giant spinning Ferris wheel.

  Gray was not the only one who appreciated all this glorious pageantry. The entire city seemed to be enjoying this final night of the holiday. People bustled about, bundled in heavy coats. The limo driver braked as a group of boisterous carolers crossed Rue Gaston-Boissier, singing loudly on their way toward a celebration in a park surrounding a small Catholic church.

  The sight of a children’s choir readying for a performance set Gray’s heart to pounding harder, knowing what the enemy—the ancient Crucibulum—planned for the city.

  He had to turn away.

  A large marble building filled the opposite side of the street. Carved under its roof, it stated LABORATOIRE NATIONAL DE METROLOGIE ET D’ESSAIS. Apparently, it was the home to one of France’s national laboratories—in this case, dedicated to the study of engineering, manufacturing, and measurement.

  Gray gave a small shake of his head, wondering if fate had stopped them here for a reason, at this crossroad between religion and science. He glanced across the limo’s bench seat, which he shared with Father Bailey and Sister Beatrice, both members of the Thomas Church. Behind them, in the second row, Jason sat with Mara and Carly, young men and women of science. In the very back, Kowalski—all muscle and instinct—stretched his bulk across the limo’s third row.

  All facets of humanity.

  Gray remembered his earlier feeling of the tides of fate swirling around him, bringing him full circle from his first mission with Monsignor Vigor Verona to today. He sensed it even stronger now, almost as if there were some pattern to all of this he could not appreciate, that remained hidden.

  Finally, the carolers cleared the way and the limo continued deeper into the 15th arrondissement of Paris. They were almost to their destination.

  Seated next to him, Bailey cleared his throat as he watched the passing streets, the lights, the festivities. “I suspect the Crucible originally planned their attack for today, for Christmas, when they’d wreak the most havoc.”

  “Likely it wasn’t just for that reason,” Gray added, having come to the same conclusion during their ninety-minute hop from Lisbon. “An attack on a major holiday would strike the city at its most vulnerable, when its defenses were lowered, when law enforcement was reduced to skeletal shifts and distracted by all the festivities.”

  “It might also serve a symbolic role,” Bailey said. “To destroy a notoriously decadent city on the day our Lord was born.”

  Gray nodded. “But if we’re right, even the enemy’s original timetable would’ve been tight. The Crucible had planned to steal Mara’s tech on the night of December twenty-first, which would leave them only four days to orchestrate this cyberattack. This suggests they had everything prearranged here in Paris. Setting up their dominoes in advance—just waiting to tip the first one once they had their hands on Mara’s work.”

  “Which now they have.”

  Gray nodded, waiting to see if Bailey could put the rest together on his own.

  The priest suddenly turned his gaze from the streets to Gray. “You don’t think—no, of course, they would.”

  Gray confirmed his fear. “Mara’s quick thinking four days ago certainly disrupted their plans. But if everything had been set up in Paris and remains in place, the enemy might still try their best to keep to their timetable. For all the reasons we just stated.”

  “You think they’ll launch their cyberattack tonight.”

  “I know they will.”

  Anticipating this, Gray had informed Director Crowe of the situation while flying here. He shared all that he’d learned, including the threat to Paris. In turn, Painter had alerted French intelligence services, who helped facilitate Sigma’s operations on the ground here. Grainy mug shots lifted from the library’s security footage were already being distributed throughout the city and outlying areas.

  And more help was coming.

  Gray checked his watch. By now, Monk should have landed at Villacoublay Air Base, a French military facility eight miles southwest of the city. His friend would rendezvous with Gray’s team at their rallying point here in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.

  After another two turns along Paris’s decorated streets, their destination appeared ahead, a tower of glass and steel surrounded by black-iron gates. It was the headquarters for
Orange S.A.—formerly known as France Télécom—the country’s largest telecommunication and Internet provider. The company ran France’s main network of communication, both cellular and landline, along with television service and broadband.

  From this building’s infrastructure, a complex web spread throughout the city.

  Gray intended to drop a spider into the heart of that digital web.

  He looked over his shoulder at Mara Silviera.

  He needed her skill and knowledge of her project to monitor every strand of this vast web, to watch for any vibration, any indication that her creation had been set loose here in the city—and if so, hopefully trace that quivering strand back to its source.

  Mara noted his attention, her face lined with worry. Jason would lend his expertise in the task ahead, and Carly would be there, too. The ambassador’s daughter had insisted on coming, after assuring her father and sister that she was safe. At first, Gray had balked at bringing her, but now seeing Mara’s hand grasped tightly to Carly’s, he recognized how much Mara needed her friend’s support.

  Too much was at stake not to gather every bit of aid. Mara would have the weight of the entire city on her shoulders this night, maybe the entire world.

  She could not fail.

  Still, Gray read the deeper fear in her haunted eyes.

  For even this plan to work, there remained one unsurmountable danger. In order for Gray’s team to track the enemy’s location, they had to wait for one of those strands to begin vibrating, which would only happen if the Crucible started using Mara’s program, loosening it enough from its virtual prison to wreak havoc. And when that happened, there was a risk the demon could escape into the wider world. If that happened, there would be no stopping it.

  As the limo drew to a stop at the curb, Mara stiffened in her seat.

  Carly pulled her friend closer for a breath, whispering, “We’ve got this.”

  Gray swung back around.

  We sure as hell better.

  10:02 P.M.

  On the fourteenth floor of the telecom building, Mara typed furiously at a computer station. Everything she had requested had been prepared, awaiting her arrival in Paris.