Crucible

by James Rollins

  “Is . . . is she—”

  “She’s unharmed. Scared, shook up, but otherwise, healthy.”

  Monk sagged, turning his back on the others.

  Thank God . . .

  “I’m not sure why Penny was released,” Painter continued. “But I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on Valya. She still holds the other hostages. Maybe it’s a sign of good faith.”

  No . . .

  Monk closed his eyes, knowing the director was mistaken.

  It’s proof that bitch could keep her word.

  To save his other girl, Monk would have to do the same.

  He had made a promise to Valya.

  And, more important, to Kat.

  He turned back around, the SIG Sauer in his hand. He pointed it at Jason. Before the kid could respond with more than a confused expression, he fired.

  Jason crashed to the floor.

  3:15 A.M.

  What the hell just happened?

  Her ears ringing from the pistol blast, Carly stepped in front of Mara. To her right, Jason sprawled on his back across the floor, blood seeping through his pant leg.

  Monk kept the pistol pointed at his teammate. “Simon, take his weapon. Easy. Two fingers. Slide it over.”

  “Oui, oui . . .” The Frenchman held his palms up, crossed over, and did as instructed.

  Jason pushed to a seat. His expression agonized—though seemingly more from the betrayal than the pain of the bullet wound. He gasped out, “Monk, what . . . what are you doing?”

  His question was ignored. Monk turned toward Carly, his eyes cold and frighteningly calm. “Carly, you’re going to have to keep pressure on his wound. Simon, I need you to unhook all of Mara’s equipment. Then you’re going to help me carry it out of here.”

  Simon nodded rapidly and turned to obey.

  “Mara, you help him,” Monk ordered.

  Carly reached back and stopped her. “We’re not doing anything.”

  “Then Jason will bleed out.” Monk shifted his weapon toward them. “And I don’t want to have to shoot anyone else.”

  But he would.

  Carly read the seriousness of this threat.

  Mara pushed her from behind. “Help Jason.”

  She stumbled toward the wounded man. She searched around, then shrugged out of her jacket. She knelt down and set about wrapping a sleeve around his thigh, intending to use it as a pressure wrap.

  Jason assisted her, while glaring at his partner. He seemed to have come to some conclusion, some explanation for all of this. “If you give Valya what she wants, she’ll still never follow through. She’ll keep Harriet and Seichan. Those two are too valuable.”

  “Maybe, but she forced me to pick which of my two girls to be freed. You can’t know that particular hell. And if Harriet dies . . . if my choice kills her . . .” He waved the gun as if driving off this thought. “Then there’s Seichan, her unborn child.”

  Jason pressed on. “Even if Valya lets them all go, Gray will never forgive you.”

  Monk shrugged. “As long as Harriet, Seichan, and his baby survive, I can live with that.”

  Jason looked like he was going to say more, but Carly tightened her makeshift tourniquet. He moaned and fell back to his elbows.

  “Sorry . . .” she whispered.

  Simon snapped closed the titanium valise that held the hard drives and stood up with it. “We . . . we’re done here.” He stepped over to where Mara had secured her Xénese device into its specially designed cushioned case and picked that up, too. He struggled under the weight of both.

  Mara folded her laptop into a leather messenger bag.

  Monk held out his hand for the satchel, but Mara pulled it over her own shoulder.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Monk kept his arm out. “No, you’re not.”

  Carly agreed. “Mara, what are you doing?”

  She answered them both. “Where Eve goes, I go. And if you’re taking my device to some other buyer, they’re going to want proof it works. For that, you’ll need my expertise.”

  Monk paused for a breath, then lowered his arm, clearly conceding the point. He stepped over and relieved Simon of the larger of the two cases. He kept his pistol pointed at Jason, at her.

  “Once we’re out, I’ll send Simon for help. He can lead rescuers down to you.”

  With that feeble promise, Monk led the others away.

  At the exit, Mara glanced back to her, her expression apologetic. She looked ready to say something more, but Monk herded her out.

  Carly listened as their footsteps faded into the darkness.

  A low rumble shook the room. The crack in the roof widened, spilling sand and dust. Fearing a cave-in, she helped shift Jason farther back, then settled next to him.

  She continued to eye the crack. “What do we do now?”

  “Just pray.”

  She glanced over to him. He was staring at the exit, not the roof.

  “Pray that Monk knows what the hell he’s doing.”

  4:55 A.M.

  “You didn’t kill us,” Kowalski said. “I’ll give you that much.”

  Gray sat on a concrete pier jutting into the Seine. They were soaked, shivering, both in handcuffs.

  But we’re alive.

  No thanks to the French military.

  He glared over to a clutch of armed soldiers gathered around a pair of urban assault vehicles.

  After being ambushed by the attack helicopter and cutting his own engines, Gray had utilized a unique feature of rotor-winged aircraft, called autorotation. With his chopper dropping like a rock, the rush of air continued to spin the powerless blades, slowing their descent to a stomach-churning fifty feet per second. At the very last moment, Gray had flared the chopper’s nose up, braking against the airstream and skidding into the Seine.

  He and Kowalski then evacuated the flooded helicopter and swam for shore, only to be met by an armed escort. He had tried his best to explain the situation, but his efforts fell on deaf ears.

  Or maybe my French is not as good as I think it is.

  Finally, two soldiers stalked over. The one in the lead—a lieutenant, from the stripes on his uniform—came forward with a satellite phone. The other circled behind Gray and unlocked his cuffs.

  “Je suis désolé, Commandant Pierce,” the lieutenant said in apology. “It’s been a confusing night.”

  Gray stared across the breadth of Paris in the distance. Fires still burned but not as many. Even from here, he could see massive jets of water fighting the blazes that remained.

  Freed, Gray rubbed his wrists. Considering what Paris had suffered, he could hardly complain.

  The lieutenant held out his phone. “You have an urgent call. From the States.”

  “Merci.” He took the phone, knowing who’d be on the other end of the line. “Director Crowe?”

  “Gray, I heard what happened. So I’ll be brief. Father Bailey contacted me about a lead on the Crucible in northern Spain. I need you to join him immediately. This is far from over.”

  No doubt.

  Gray twisted around to stare across the dark Seine. He pictured the trail of smoke wafting behind the enemy aircraft as it had fled away.

  “But that’s not all,” Painter said.

  The director’s final words made no sense.

  Gray hung up and held the phone long after the connection ended.

  Kowalski hauled to his feet, glaring at the soldier who retreated rapidly with his set of cuffs. He noted Gray still seated. “What’s wrong?”

  Still numb, Gray repeated Painter’s last words, having difficulty even saying them. “Monk . . . betrayed us.”

  Fifth

  Dust to Dust

  28

  December 26, 2:55 P.M. CET

  Madrid, Spain

  From the hotel room window, Monk stared out across the snow-swept rooftops of central Madrid. In the distance, the twin spires of a huge cathedral jutted into the cold blue sky. Though he wasn’t Catholic, h
e prayed for Harriet, for Seichan and her baby.

  This is all for you.

  He clutched a palm over his watch. He had cut it close. Valya’s deadline expired in two hours. He had already lost half a day getting to Madrid. After exiting the catacombs in Paris, he had commandeered a car and fled to the outlying suburbs that still had power. From there, he traveled six hours south to the city of Toulouse, where he connected to a TGV high-speed train, which rocketed the last leg to Madrid at 200 miles per hour.

  He had arrived here ninety minutes ago, texted Valya of his arrival on a burner phone, and now awaited instructions on where to meet in order to hand over what he had stolen.

  What is taking that bitch so long?

  He looked again at the time, remembering the threat. He pictured Harriet, her wishbone-thin wrist on a chopping block. He had suffered a similar fate many years ago, losing his hand. He would not allow Harriet to face that same horror. He would do anything to keep that from happening, even if it meant dancing with the devil.

  He took some consolation in the fact that Penny was safe. His deal with Valya had at least secured the release of one of his daughters. Still, it had been an agonizing choice. He had to trust that Seichan would keep Harriet safe until he could secure both their releases.

  However, their fate was not only dependent on Monk.

  He turned his back on the window and crossed over to where Mara worked with her equipment, making sure everything was undamaged after their rushed flight from Paris. To facilitate this inspection, Monk had secured a hotel room in a low-rent corner of Madrid. The room reeked of cigarette smoke. The beige coverlet on the single bed was clean but threadbare. In the neighboring bathroom, the sink leaked, the ping of its dripping faucet already grating on his nerves.

  This was a necessary stop.

  Valya had texted that her acquisition team would be coming with a computer expert, someone to verify that Mara’s Xénese device was authentic and contained a working version of her program. He imagined her people were gathering the proper diagnostic equipment and setting up shop somewhere in the city.

  Mara’s device could not fail to pass muster.

  “How’s Eve?” Monk asked.

  “She appears fine,” Mara answered glumly.

  On the screen, the AI’s avatar moved through her garden, looking none the worse for wear, though even to Monk she seemed agitated. It reminded him of a lion pacing a cage, a wild beast who had long ago given up any hope of escaping and expressed that frustration with every step.

  Back in Paris, Eve had briefly glimpsed what lay outside her world before being sent into a senescent state. She had slumbered away the hours it took to get here, her systems idling in low-power mode, fueled by a battery backup system built into her hardware.

  Clearly Eve’s sleep hadn’t made her any calmer.

  On the screen, the avatar folded her fingers into a fist. Monk found himself doing the same, unconsciously sympathizing with her plight.

  We’re all just puppets.

  Even Mara.

  On the journey here, Monk had not needed to threaten with his weapon to keep her at his side. As long as he kept firm hold on her Xénese device, she came along willingly. Where it went, she intended to follow. He had even fallen asleep briefly on an empty upper deck of the high-speed train, taking a catnap alongside her. He took the aisle seat, trapping her against the window, with the device’s case under his feet. He also kept his ears tuned for any peep out of her, leaning on his years with the Green Berets, where one learned to power nap with one ear piqued for any threat.

  While en route, he had also explained to her why he had betrayed his teammates, why he needed her creation. He had shown her pictures of Harriet, which was as painful for him as it was informative to her. He had told her what Valya had threatened, which brought tears to his eyes.

  His account had somewhat mollified her, even drawing a word or two of sympathy, but it was a far cry from cooperation. She still disagreed with him handing over her program to another hostile party. In fact, his story of Valya’s callousness only seemed to make Mara more determined to keep Eve out of the woman’s hands.

  As soon as they had settled here at the hotel, Mara hastily set about on some plan. She powered her Xénese device up, hooked it to her laptop, and daisy-chained it to the remaining hard drives secured in the titanium valise.

  At first, he had feared she might attempt to damage her creation, to sabotage it before it could be given away. But when he confronted her, she vehemently denied it, looking at him with disgust. She explained why she would never do that.

  Someone else out there has another device, one housing a corrupted version of Eve. If it’s unleashed again—or worse, if it escapes—Eve may be our only hope.

  Apparently, this was Mara’s original objective in creating Eve, a friendly AI. Though he doubted Mara ever expected her creation to be challenged from the outset—let alone be faced with its own evil doppelganger.

  He stepped to the side of the hotel desk. Needing a distraction, he bent down and examined several labels on the hard drives: BIOBANK, KANTIANISM/ETHICS, WORLD HISTORY, SEMIOTICS. One was simply labeled WIKIPEDIA, which was fairly self-explanatory.

  “You’re continuing Eve’s education,” he said as he straightened.

  “As much as I can in the time we have. Luckily she’s learning a thousandfold faster than the first time.” She waved at the screen. “She barely registers each upload into her system, but simply incorporates it immediately.”

  “Why are you even bothering?”

  “To give her some capacity for free will.” Mara glared over at him. “Before you turn her over. It’s why I insisted on coming.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She hit the ENTER key, loading another subroutine, then turned to him. “If Eve is to be given over to a hostile power, I want her to be as independent as possible. Look what happened in Paris. We witnessed how a half-finished, imperfect version of my program could be used as a tool, a weapon of destruction.”

  Monk nodded, beginning to get it. “That doppelganger was incompletely formed.”

  “And when someone abuses a child—”

  “They can become abusers themselves later.”

  “If I can push Eve to the point where she can think for herself, recognize right from wrong, then maybe, just maybe whoever acquires her will find they’ve not obtained a slave who they can abuse, but someone who can refuse, who can say no.”

  “In other words, we’ll be turning over something useless to them.”

  “You’ll be turning it over,” she reminded him. “And keep in mind, what I’m trying to do here will only buy the world some time. Whoever secures Eve could simply study her, reverse-engineer what I’ve carefully nurtured, erase her, then reconstruct a version that they can control.”

  So, I’ll still be handing over the keys to the AI kingdom.

  “Now, can I get back to work?” she said. “Even with Eve’s accelerated learning, I’ve a lot to accomplish and very little time.”

  As a reminder of this, Monk’s burner phone rang in his pocket.

  Finally.

  He pulled it out and read the text.

  16:00. Plaza Mayor. Do not be late.

  He had already familiarized himself with a majority of Madrid’s landmarks. Plaza Mayor was a major public square in the heart of the city. It was a ten-minute walk from their current location. Another text followed with a specific address within the plaza.

  He checked his watch and mumbled, “Coldhearted little—”

  “What’s wrong?” Mara asked.

  “You’ve got forty minutes to finish what you’re doing and pack up.”

  Monk suspected why Valya had kept him waiting, why she set the drop-off only an hour before her deadline. With such a tight schedule, she intended to leave him no wiggle room, no time for haggling or last-minute negotiations. Either he brought her a working version of Mara’s creation—or Harriet would suffer immediatel
y.

  He glanced over to Mara.

  I hope you know what you’re doing.

  3:22 P.M.

  Mara knew it was time.

  Still, she nervously studied Eve while her second-to-last database—one marked PHYSICS—uploaded into her systems. Over the past two hours, she had systematically given Eve the sum total of human knowledge. Okay, maybe not everything, but at least enough bread crumbs for Eve to follow during her own exploration of the world at large.

  After this subroutine, there was only one more hard drive left in her case.

  Anxious, Mara stood, stretched a kink from her back, then bent down to switch a USB-C cable over to this final drive. She glanced to Monk. He had returned to gazing out the window. She read the tension in his shoulders, noted the way he kept covering his wristwatch, as if trying to stop time physically.

  She remembered the tears in his eyes as he spoke of his daughter. She could only imagine the pain he must be in. But she also pictured this same man cold-bloodedly shooting Jason. At least, afterward he had proven himself to be a man of his word—sending Simon off to fetch help after they left the catacombs.

  Mara pictured her last sight of Jason and Carly. Her friend had been terrified—but looking back now, she realized Carly hadn’t been scared so much for her own safety, nor even Jason’s.

  It was me she was worried about.

  Mara tried to come to terms with how that made her feel. Before she could, the computer chimed, indicating the upload was complete. She returned to her chair and started a diagnostic program. Before she proceeded to the last hard drive, she had to make sure Eve was prepared for this next step.

  As the program ran, Monk turned away from the window. The view across the city opened up. From the dusting of pristine snow across the rooftops, it must have been a white Christmas here in Madrid. Off in the distance, she noted a familiar pair of spires, marking the location of the city’s largest cathedral, the Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena. The Moors—her mother’s ancestors—had invaded Madrid in the eighth century. According to legend, before being conquered, the townspeople had hidden an icon of the Virgin Mary within the city walls to preserve the sacred image from being destroyed. Then, seven centuries later, when the city was wrested back from the Moors, the section of wall crumbled away, revealing again the benevolent countenance of the Virgin.