The Last Odyssey: A Thriller

by James Rollins

  “Until they reached too far,” Mac added, nodding to the dark and haunted city as they finally neared the bottom of the stairs.

  “Well, they learned something,” Joe said. “That’s for sure.”

  Maria considered this. From her study of primitive anthropology, she knew knowledge had indeed passed from one culture to another. As one period of invention died somewhere in the world, another picked it up. In the Western world, the torch of invention passed from the Greeks to the Romans. And when the Roman Empire fell, it moved to the Arab world, igniting their Islamic Golden Age. Then when that age turned dark, Europe again carried the torch forward.

  So, was it possible that these seafaring people made this leap all on their own?

  Or was another hand involved?

  Two years ago, Maria had been involved in another adventure with Sigma, where she met Joe, and where Baako played an important role. Back then, Sigma had come across the trail of mysterious teachers of the ancient past. A people whom Sumerian texts called Watchers, a shadowy group who also appeared again in Jewish texts.

  She stared around the dark city.

  Is this place further evidence of these Watchers’ influence?

  Either way—whether self-taught or at the hands of unknown teachers—the Phaeacians had certainly produced miracles.

  Both wondrous and monstrous.

  At the bottom of the long stairs, the promenade ended at a vast bowl polished into the limestone. It was an empty lake easily a quarter mile across and half as deep. The other stairways terminated here, too. Along the rim of the dry basin was a circle of hundreds of giant bronze fish, the scales dark and tarnished. Each had a high curled tail and was posted at an angle, noses pointed high, mouths sculpted open.

  She imagined water spraying high from those open mouths, hundreds of fountains arching into the mirror of a vast indoor lake. Directly overhead was a bronze disk, meant to represent the sun, imbedded in the roof.

  She pictured the populace picnicking here under that cold sun, parents watching children splashing in the waters, dancing under the spray of the fountains. She imagined little boats plying its placid surface.

  It was indeed wondrous.

  But also monstrous.

  On the opposite side of the lake from the palace, one final bronze sculpture loomed over the dry bowl. It towered three stories high, perched at the lake’s edge but with two clawed forelimbs dug into the dry bed itself, as if it were about to wade in. The creature looked like some monstrous mother to the hundreds of bronze fish, an amphibious beast, with six long necks snaking high over the lake, ending in crocodilian heads.

  She stared up at the gaping jaws lined with sharklike teeth.

  Okay, maybe kids wouldn’t want to come down here to play after all.

  And that wasn’t the only danger.

  Joe pointed his weapon toward the lake’s center, where a large drain hole gaped, dropping straight into the earth. “You know, maybe that’s the true entrance to Hell.”

  As steep and smooth as the bowl’s walls were, no one was willing to go look.

  Especially as we’re running out of time.

  Gray got them moving faster again. He pointed around the edge of the lake, to a narrower stairway that led up to the city’s palace. The steps over there reflected the glow of their flashlights.

  “Looks like they’re gold, too,” Mac noted.

  “Apparently a red carpet wasn’t good enough for these royals,” Joe muttered.

  They headed quickly around the lake toward those steps—when a thunderous boom echoed over the vast space. They all froze momentarily, sharing glances. Except for Aggie, who chirped on Seichan’s shoulder and ducked his face into the crook of her neck.

  Joe shook his head. “Sounds like we got company.”

  39

  June 26, 6:52 P.M. WEST

  High Atlas Mountains, Morocco

  Aboard the cruiser, Elena ducked as the rocket blasted a hundred yards away. The noise, trapped between the two sheer walls of limestone, was deafening. She straightened enough to see a flume of rock dust and smoke billow from the cave opening.

  Lower down, black figures ran out of the woods toward the cliffs.

  Elena had already heard what had happened earlier, how Nehir had failed to get through some hidden bronze doors before they closed. Then two men had returned from the helicopter to the south. One had hauled the tube of a rocket launcher, while the other had carried two long rocket-propelled grenades.

  From the cabin of the cruiser, Elena watched the soldiers scale the cliff and vanish into the fading smoke. She waited several breaths. No one came back out. Apparently there was no need to fire the second grenade.

  They did it.

  They must have succeeded in blasting their way through the gates.

  Elena turned, worried for Joe and the others. But what she saw next made no sense. Charlie drew a pistol from under a pillow and lifted it as she turned. With both Monsignor Roe and Kadir equally focused on the cliff, Charlie stepped forward and fired.

  The first round struck the monsignor in the leg, dropping his thin form away from the doorway. As he fell, the second shot hit Kadir in the head—or rather his helmet. The round ricocheted away, but the impact knocked the man back, tripping him over the stern and into the water.

  Charlie grabbed Elena’s arm. “C’mon.”

  They ran out onto the deck and over to the gunwale nearest the beach. The Son of Mūsā posted on that side popped his head up, never suspecting the prisoners were suddenly armed. Charlie was not so lax, having sized up every position. From a yard away, she fired into the man’s face. His body flew back, sprawling across the sand.

  They leaped over the rail together. Charlie darted toward the front of the boat, ducked low, and fired under the curve of the bow. A scream rose on the far side.

  Charlie rounded the cruiser. Elena hurried to follow. Running low, Elena caught sight of Charlie closing in on the Daughter of Mūsā who had been guarding that side. The Daughter was down on her hip, her ankle blown out and bloody. Still, she crawled toward the submachine gun she had dropped in the sand when she fell.

  Charlie stalked over and, with cold deliberation, shot her in the back of the head, low, under the edge of the helmet. The woman’s body jerked and went limp.

  “Grab the rifle,” Charlie ordered, covering Elena with her pistol as they retreated toward the woods.

  Elena obeyed—or tried to. She reached for the weapon’s strap, only to have the sand blast up near it, chasing her off. The chatter of automatic fire drove her away.

  Kadir . . .

  Charlie fired toward the cruiser’s stern, momentarily forcing the giant into hiding. It bought them enough time to reach the dense cedar forest. They crashed through the branches, burying themselves into the cover.

  Then the world exploded to Elena’s right.

  Needles, branches, and bark blasted and pelted into them.

  She pictured Kadir’s weapon with its under-barrel grenade launcher.

  Charlie grabbed her arm and hauled her in the opposite direction—only to be met by another explosion ahead. They dodged away. Kadir might be blindly shelling into the forest, but it only took one lucky shot.

  “Run!” Charlie yelled.

  “Where?”

  “Away!”

  Right.

  For now, that was all the plan they needed.

  Together they fled deeper into the forest.

  6:54 P.M.

  Thirty yards down the dark tunnel, Nehir heard muffled booms echo behind her. She glanced back to the sunlit cave, still hazed with smoke. The rocket-propelled grenade had blown away one of the gate’s doors. It lay crumpled behind her.

  Her remaining twenty-two Sons and Daughters gathered with her in the tunnel.

  She weighed whether or not to send one or two back to investigate. But as she strained her ears, she heard no further explosions. Satisfied, she turned back around and waved the others to follow. Until she roote
d out the Americans hiding here, she wanted every soldier left to hold this place.

  If there were truly any problem behind her, she trusted Kadir to have her back—as he had her entire life.

  Content with this thought, she ran with the others, rifles raised. From their weapons’ rail-mounted flashlights, sharp beams of light lanced through the darkness ahead.

  Then a new noise slowed her pace.

  Not a boom, this time—but a low, deep, ominous rumble, coming from all around. She felt it in her legs. It shivered all the small hairs on her arms.

  What’s making that noise?

  She lifted a hand, halting the team.

  She glanced behind her again. She stared at the sunlit cave, which was almost out of sight as the tunnel curved. Still, she spotted the crumpled bronze door, the relic of their forced entry.

  Maybe that was a mistake.

  Sixth

  Prometheus Unbound

  Now of another portent thou shalt hear.

  Beware the dogs of Zeus that ne’er give tongue,

  The sharp-beaked gryphons, and the one-eyed horde

  Of Arimaspians, riding upon horses,

  Who dwell around the river rolling gold,

  The ferry and the frith of Pluto’s port.

  Go not thou nigh them.

  —AESCHYLUS, PROMETHEUS BOUND, 430 B.C.

  40

  June 26, 6:52 P.M. WEST

  High Atlas Mountains, Morocco

  “Forgive us our trespasses,” Kowalski muttered.

  By the time the group had circled the huge lake and reached the golden stairs leading up to the palace, the entire city had begun to rumble all around them.

  “When the others broke in here,” Gray said, “they must have triggered some sort of defense mechanism.”

  “Look!” Mac pointed to the left, toward the highest tier of the city.

  At the top of the nearest stairway, the bronze gate that had closed off a tunnel up there had begun to open. Dark water gushed out from beneath the rising door. Kowalski turned a full circle, noting the same was happening at the top of all five main stairways.

  As the bronze gates opened wider, the flowing water became a whitewater torrent down the steps, transforming the stairways into churning spillways. The strong smell of the sea accompanied the flows, stinging the air with salt and spray.

  “Get back!” Gray hollered, pushing them up the narrower gold stairs toward the palace.

  To either side, the nearest torrents reached the lowest tier and splashed thunderously into the empty lake basin. All around, the other spillways did the same. Waters swirled across the bowl, slowly filling it.

  But that wasn’t the only purpose of those streams.

  Bailey grabbed Gray’s arm and swept his light along the edge of the nearest spillway. Kowalski squinted, noting a line of something blurring there along the banks of the new river, spinning in place, driven by the rushing flow.

  “Bronze waterwheels,” Bailey said. “Hidden behind the statuary.”

  Gray frowned but waved them all higher, running for the palace.

  “What are they powering?” Maria asked.

  The fiery answer started at the top tier. Hundreds of torches burst with golden flames, then more and more, sweeping the full breadth of the cavern—then descending, lighting the place tier by tier.

  “They must be pumping Medea’s Oil throughout Tartarus,” Bailey said. “Their version of gas lines feeding streetlamps.”

  But it wasn’t just the torches being supplied.

  Movement drew Kowalski’s eye to the left. One of the statues stirred at the water’s edge. Plates of tarnished bronze shifted, leaking a glowing green oil from every seam, as if the statue were being pumped so full it couldn’t hold any more. As it reached some boiling point, fire burst within it, fierce enough to rattle its form. Flames lapped through cracks in its armor. The explosive force drew the statue straighter. As it turned with a grind of gears, its single eye swung in their direction, the black gem lit by an inner fire.

  A Cyclops . . .

  But the giant was not the only creation waking. A massive eagle lifted razor-edged wings of bronze. A wolf lifted its head and howled at the bronze sun, flames shooting from its throat. A man-sized cobra reared up with a shuffle of bronze scales, leaking flames as it moved. It shook a wide cowl with a silent hiss, revealing curved fangs dripping with glowing green oil.

  All across the city, the statuary awoke, the mythic bestiary stirred.

  Mac waved all of them low. “No noise from here,” he warned and pointed toward the palace walls.

  They’d already scaled halfway up the gold stairs, but the palace doors now seemed an impossible distance away. Especially as Tartarus woke around them. Torches burned everywhere. Creatures waded out of the torrents, leaving streamlets of fire behind in the water. The bronze army slouched and lumbered into the city streets, searching for the trespassers who woke them.

  Gray led the others up the gold stairs. Fiery guardians closed in on both sides. Still, with luck and speed, they reached the top. The palace sat perched on the city’s middle tier. Its bronze walls curved outward in a half circle, reaching nearly to the steps. Towers spiraled high to either side. The golden doors lay directly ahead, some twenty yards from the top of the golden staircase.

  “Stay here,” Gray hissed.

  He raced low across the open stretch and flattened close against the gold surface. He tried one door, then the other. His frustration glowed in the sheen of his sweat. He turned to them with a shake of his head.

  Locked.

  “Told you,” Mac warned, reminding them all of his earlier fear.

  Then it looks like it’s time to cross that bridge.

  Kowalski stood and raised his AA-12 combat shotgun. He waved Gray to the side—at the same time as something shambled into view on the right. Gray ducked and stayed where he was.

  Kowalski stood his ground.

  The dark beast was huge, some rendition of a bear, only the size of a dumpster. Its four legs dug bronze claws into the limestone. It had a flat muzzle, with a rounded head and short ears. Fire burned behind gemstones.

  Kowalski stayed silent, hoping it might pass if they remained quiet. Still, as a precaution, he lifted his shotgun higher and aimed it at the beast.

  The bear’s head swung toward him.

  Kowalski cursed Mac.

  Seemed some of these bastards could see—or at least, detect motion.

  But either way, the damage had been done.

  The bear roared in Kowalski’s direction, flames bursting out, revealing a maw lined by jagged sharp plates, a literal bear trap.

  Kowalski roared back at the monster—and squeezed the trigger on his weapon. Auto-mode unloaded six shells in rapid succession. The armor-piercing FRAG-12 rounds exploded into the monster, ripping away plates of bronze, exposing its fiery heart. One shell flew down its gullet and blasted inside, shattering its inner gearworks. The bear stumbled and crashed to the stone.

  Gray ran across and pointed to the golden door. “Get us in there!” He waved to the rest of the group. “Everyone down.”

  With a grin, Kowalski turned, balanced the gun with its giant drum magazine on his hip, and fired another six-round burst at the gold door. The Frag shells exploded brilliantly against the metal gates. The noise deafened, each blast a punch in the gut.

  As the smoke cleared, the doors remained intact.

  Dented, scarred, but still closed.

  “Behind us!” Maria shouted.

  Kowalski turned.

  The blasts had been heard.

  All across the city, trails of flames had been shifting aimlessly, but now they all turned and flowed toward their position. Closer at hand, a pair of fiery dogs, each the size of a pony, appeared on the golden steps below. Green oil slathered from their jaws, splashing into flames on the steps. The pair stalked up toward the group at the top.

  More movement rose to the right and left.

  Smoke a
nd fire.

  Closing in from all sides.

  7:04 P.M.

  Nehir reached a high terrace overlooking the fiery city of Tartarus. Flames danced everywhere. Hulking creatures stalked about in cloaks of smoke, blazing brightly with fire from within. Tumbling rivers spilled into the churning maw of a large black lake.

  This truly is Hell.

  Then a sharp series of blasts drew her eye across the cavern to a mighty castle of tarnished bronze and golden gates. She spotted smaller figures there, lit by firelight.

  At long last.

  The others appeared to be pinned down before the gold doors as fiery shapes moved inexorably toward their position. Fearing the bastards might escape into the shadow-riven depths of the city and vanish, she turned to her second-in-command.

  “Ahmad, bring up the launcher.”

  The man dashed back and returned with the long black tube of the weapon, already preloaded with a rocket-propelled grenade. She took it from him, balanced it on her shoulder, and dropped to a knee. She steadied her aim and centered the sight’s crosshairs on the milling group.

  She savored the kill to come and squeezed the trigger—just as something massive rose in front of the terrace, filling her weapon’s sight, throwing off her shot. With a blast of smoke and fire, the rocket arced high across the cavern, trailing smoke, then blasted into a section of the city beyond the castle.

  Shocked, she fell on her rear and scooted backward.

  Before her, a wall of bronze with a bullet-shaped head and rings for eyes rose into view. It ignored her, perhaps blind. It heaved up a huge boulder of bronze, the size of an SUV, over its head.

  “With me!” she yelled to her team.

  She rolled to the side, onto her feet, and sprinted for the ramp that led down to the topmost tier. Teammates followed, racing with her, pounding behind her.