The Doomsday Key and The Last Oracle with Bonus Excerpts

by James Rollins

  “After so long?” Monk asked.

  Karlsen shrugged. “The mummies were only a thousand years old. In Israel, botanists grew a date palm from a seed that was over two thousand years old. And peat was a perfect preservative. So yes, we were able to grow the spores, to learn more about the fungus. Examination of the remains also showed how the fungus got into the bodies to begin with.”

  “How was that?”

  “It was ingested. Our forensic pathologist determined that the mummified people had starved to death, yet their bellies were full of rye, barley, and wheat. The fungus was in all of it. It’s a very aggressive crop mold, like ergot in cereal crops. The fungus is capable of infecting any vegetation. All for one purpose.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To starve any animal that eats the infected plant.” Karlsen acknowledged the shocked looks on all their faces. “Crops infected by the fungus turn indigestible. Additionally, the fungus will invade the animal’s gut, further reducing food absorption. It’s the perfect killing machine. It starves the host to death with the very stuff that is meant to sustain it.”

  “So you eat and eat, yet still starve to death.” Painter shook his head. “What advantage is that to the fungus?”

  Monk answered. “Fungi are one of the main reasons dead things decompose. Dead trees, dead bodies. Doesn’t matter. By killing the host, the fungus was creating its own fertilizer, its own growth medium.”

  Painter pictured the mushrooms growing in the bellies of the mummies. But he also remembered Monk’s description of the discovery in the lab, of the sporulating pods that matured out of those same mushrooms. That was how it spread, casting out airborne spores that would infect more fields and start the whole process over again.

  Karlsen drew back his attention. “The goal of our research was only to extract the chemical that made those grains indigestible. If we could engineer it into the corn, we’d be able to decrease its digestibility. With less digestible corn, you’d have to eat more to have the same caloric benefit.”

  “So once again,” Painter said, “you’d be restricting the food supply.”

  “And in a way that gave us total control. By manipulating this gene, we could turn a grain’s digestibility up or down like twisting a dial. That’s all we intended. And it’s not as if we were the first to seek such genetic control.”

  Painter focused on those last words. “What do you mean?”

  “In 2001 a biotech company called Epicyte announced they’d developed a corn seed engineered with a contraceptive agent. Consumption of the seed lessened fertility. It was proposed as a solution to the overpopulation problem. All this blatant announcement got them was a huge amount of bad press, and the corn seed vanished. As I said, addressing this issue openly only welcomes retribution. It has to be kept underground, out of the public eye. That was the lesson. And I learned it.”

  And that was the point where everything went wrong. Painter kept his voice neutral. “But your new GM corn wasn’t stable.”

  Karlsen gave a slight shake of his head. “The fungus proved more adept than we imagined. This organism has evolved alongside its host plants over eons. We thought we were only engineering one aspect of the fungus—its effect on digestibility—but it mutated in successive generations and returned to full potency. It regained its ability to kill, to germinate again into its mushroom form. But worst of all, it regained its ability to spread.”

  “And when did you learn about this?”

  “During the project in Africa.”

  “Yet you had already initiated seed production in the U.S. and abroad?”

  Karlsen’s expression grew pained. “It was at the insistence and assurance of our project leader and chief geneticist. She said the results of preliminary safety tests were sufficient for us to move forward. I trusted her; I never checked the results myself.”

  “Who was this woman?” Painter asked.

  Senator Gorman guessed, his voice bitter and hard. “Krista Magnussen.”

  5:52 A.M.

  Ivar Karlsen knew he could no longer avoid the senator’s fury. But it took him a moment to meet the man’s eyes. Instead, he stared down. From a pocket, he had removed a coin and let it rest in his palm. It was the Frederick IV four-mark, minted in 1725 by the traitor Henrik Meyer. His reminder of the cost of betrayal.

  Karlsen’s fingers clenched the coin, recognizing how far he had fallen, led astray by Krista Magnussen. He finally lifted his eyes and faced Senator Gorman. The man had paid a stiff price in blood. Ivar could not deny him the truth.

  “The senator is right. I hired Ms. Magnussen when we started the Crop Biogenics division six years ago. She came with a slew of recommendations from Harvard and Oxford. She was young, brilliant, and motivated. She produced results year after year.”

  “But she wasn’t who she claimed to be,” Painter said.

  “No,” Ivar said. “About a year ago, we began having serious problems at our facilities. Arson in Romania. Embezzlement at another. A rash of thefts. Then Krista revealed that she had access to an organization that could shore up our global security, quietly and efficiently. She described it as a corporate version of a private military contractor.”

  “Did this organization have a name?”

  “She called it the Guild.”

  Painter failed to react to the name. Not even a twitch. His total lack of response convinced Ivar that the man knew about the Guild, possibly more than even Ivar did.

  “It was all staged,” Painter said. “The accidents, the arson, the theft … the Guild made those happen. They needed you. So they softened you up to earn your trust. They pulled your butt out of the fire enough times, and you began to relinquish control. You grew dependent on them.”

  Surely that wasn’t possible. But the pattern Painter laid out … it was so clear, like a deadly hand of cards.

  “Let me guess,” Painter continued, adding to the pattern. “When things really began to go wrong … at the test farm in Africa … who did you turn to?”

  “Krista, of course,” Ivar admitted, his voice catching. “She reported the mutations, that some of the camp refugees were becoming sick after consuming the corn. Something had to be done. But we’d already planted production fields around the world. She said the situation could still be salvaged, but she and her organization would need a free hand. She warned I must harden my heart. To save the world, what were a few lives? Those were her words. And dear God, I was desperate enough to believe them.”

  Ivar’s breathing grew harder. His heart pounded in his throat. He pictured Krista naked, kissing him, her eyes fierce and bright. He had thought he’d known the game being played.

  What a fool I’ve been …

  Painter continued the story, as if he’d been standing beside Ivar these past days. “The Guild razed the village and told you that was necessary to prevent the organism from spreading. They took the bodies of some of the afflicted villagers for study and justified what came next. Let their deaths not be in vain. If more could be learned, others could be saved. And with seed production already begun, time was essential.”

  Senator Gorman sat with his eyes wide, his fists clenched on his knees. “What about my son?”

  Ivar answered that agonized plea. “Krista told me she found Jason copying secure data. She said he planned to sell it to the highest bidder.”

  Gorman pounded his fist into his thigh. “Jason would never—”

  “She showed me his e-mail with the stolen files attached. I privately confirmed that the file was sent to a professor at Princeton.”

  “Princeton wouldn’t engage in corporate espionage.”

  It pained Ivar to tell the man about his son. “Her organization had proof that the money trail led to a terrorist cell operating out of Pakistan. To expose him would expose us. It would also destroy your career. Krista tried talking to him, to convince him to give up his contacts, to keep silent. She said he refused, tried to run. One of her men panicked and shot him.”


  Gorman covered his face.

  Ivar wanted to do the same, but he had no right. He knew that the boy’s blood lay on his hands. He had ordered Jason held and questioned by those brutal mercenaries.

  Then Painter tore away the last of Ivar’s delusions. “Jason was innocent. It was all lies.”

  Ivar stared across the table, dumbstruck. He wanted to dismiss what the man was saying.

  “Jason was killed because he inadvertently sent the incriminating data to Professor Malloy. It was why they were both murdered. To cover up proof of the crop’s instability. The Guild didn’t want that exposed.”

  Painter stared hard at Ivar. “Once the information was leaked, they needed a scapegoat. You were to be thrown to the wolves. After they killed you in Svalbard, the Guild could safely fade away and take all the prizes with them: both a new bioweapon and the means to control what had already been unleashed. The global contamination by your crop would be blamed on the reckless ambition of a dead CEO. And with you eliminated, no one would be the wiser. To the Guild, you were no more than a pawn to be sacrificed.”

  As Ivar sat perfectly still, cold sweat trickled down his back. He could no longer deny it. Not any of it. And down deep, maybe he had known the truth all along but dared not face it.

  “But I have one last question,” Painter continued. “One I can’t answer.”

  He slid a sheet of paper across the table. Written on it was a familiar symbol.

  A circle and a cross.

  Painter tapped the sheet. “I understand why the Guild would kill Jason and Professor Malloy, but why murder the Vatican archaeologist? What does this have to do with the Guild’s plan?”

  6:12 A.M.

  Painter knew Karlsen was near the breaking point. The man’s eyes were glassy, his voice a hoarse whisper. He clearly struggled with the depth of betrayal perpetrated against him. But the Guild were masters of manipulation and coercion, of infiltration and deception, of brutality and violence.

  Even Sigma had once fallen prey to them.

  But Painter offered no solace to the man.

  Karlsen slowly answered his question. “Father Giovanni approached our corporation two years ago to fund his research. He believed that the mummified bodies found in the peat bog were the victims of an old war between Christians and pagans. That the fungus was used as a weapon to corrupt crops and wipe out villages. And this secret war was buried in code in a medieval text called the Domesday Book. His supporting documents were impressive. He believed a counteragent existed to the spread of the fungus, a cure, a way of eradicating it from land and body.”

  “And you financed the search for this counteragent?”

  “We did. What could it harm? We thought he might turn up some new chemical that we could exploit. But about the time we began to suspect that our new crop was unstable, we heard that Father Giovanni had made a huge breakthrough. He had found an artifact that he was sure would lead to the location of this lost key.”

  Painter understood. “Such a counteragent, if it existed, would solve all your problems.”

  “I had Krista interview him to judge the validity of his claim and to secure the artifact.” Ivar closed his eyes. “God forgive me.” “But the priest ran.”

  Karlsen nodded. “I don’t know what happened. Whatever he told her over the phone drew the full attention of her organization. And after the disaster in Africa, we had to secure that artifact. If there was even the remotest possibility of a counteragent …”

  “But you lost it. Father Giovanni was killed.”

  “I never learned the exact details. After the mess in Africa, I had more immediate fires to put out. I left the matter to the Guild to pursue, to see if there truly was any validity to Father Giovanni’s claim.”

  “And how did that go?”

  He shook his head. “The last I heard from Krista was that another team was still searching for the key.”

  That had to be Gray, Painter thought.

  “Krista assured me that the Guild had a mole on that team.”

  Painter went cold at his words.

  If the Guild had infiltrated Gray’s team—

  He struggled for any way to help them, to get word to them. But he didn’t even know if they were dead or alive. Either way, there was nothing he could do for them.

  They were on their own.

  28

  October 14, 12:18 P.M.

  Troyes, France

  A library was an unlikely spot to plan a prison break.

  But they had to start somewhere.

  Gray shared a desk with Rachel. Stacks of books were piled around them. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows of the modern library in the city of Troyes. Computer stations dotted rows of tables in the research room.

  Despite its glass-and-steel architecture, the library was ancient. Founded in a convent in 1651, it remained one of the oldest libraries in all of France. Its main treasure was a collection of manuscripts from the original Abbey of Clairvaux. After the French Revolution, the entire abbey library had been moved to Troyes for safekeeping.

  And for good reason.

  “It was Napoleon who turned the abbey into a prison,” Gray said, pushing back a book and stretching a kink out of his neck.

  Since driving from Paris, they had spent all morning in the library, researching the abbey and its saints. They’d had little sleep, only what they could manage in the airport or on the short plane hop from England.

  With the clock ticking, Gray faced two challenges: how to reach the ruins that lay at the heart of Clairvaux Prison and what to look for once they got there. With much still to learn, he had no choice but to assign tasks and split everyone up.

  Gray accompanied Rachel and Wallace to Troyes. The town lay only eleven miles from the prison. Its library contained the greatest collection of historical documents about the abbey. To expedite their research, Gray divided their tasks. Rachel concentrated on Saint Malachy’s life, death, and entombment at the old abbey. Wallace was off with a clerk to the restricted Grand Salon of the library to review original documents concerning Saint Bernard, the founder of the monastic order and a close friend of Malachy’s.

  Gray concentrated on digging up every architectural detail he could find on the original abbey. He had a stack of books equal to Rachel’s. Open before him was a text that dated to 1856. It contained a map of the original abbey precinct.

  A tall outer wall surrounded the property, interrupted by watchtowers. Inside, the grounds were divided into two areas. The eastern ward held gardens, orchards, even a few fishponds. To the west spread barns, stables, slaughterhouses, workshops, and guest lodgings. Between them, secured behind its own inner walls, stood the abbey itself, including the church, cloisters, lay buildings, and kitchens.

  With the book open before him, Gray studied the nineteenth-century map.

  Something kept drawing him back to this picture, but the more he concentrated, the less sure he became. For the past half hour, he had used the map to pinpoint the few surviving structures of the abbey. All that still stood were a couple of barns, a few sections of walls, a nicely preserved lay building, and the ruins of the original cloister.

  It was the latter—le Grand Cloître—that most intrigued Gray.

  The Grand Cloister lay immediately next to where the old abbey once stood. And it was beneath that church that Saint Malachy had been buried.

  But was he still there?

  That was another worry. According to Rachel, after the French Revolution, the tomb of Saint Malachy disappeared from the historical record.

  Did that mean something?

  Which brought Gray back around to a question that still nagged him.

  “Why did Napoleon turn the abbey into a prison?”

  Wallace had returned and overheard the question. “It’s not that unusual,” he explained as he sat down. “Many old abbeys from the Middle Ages were converted into penal facilities. With their thick walls, towers, and monastic buildings, they were
an easy conversion.”

  “But of all the abbeys in France, Napoleon picked this one for his prison. He picked no others. Could he have been protecting something?”

  Wallace rubbed his lower lip in thought. “Napoleon was a key figure during the Age of Enlightenment. He was fixated on the new sciences but also fascinated by the old. When he led his disastrous campaign into Egypt, he brought a slew of scholars with him to scour the archaeological treasures there. If he had learned of some forbidden knowledge hidden at the abbey, he might well have guarded it. Especially if he thought it might threaten his empire.”

  “Like the curse.” Gray remembered the word written in the Domesday Book.

  “Wasted.”

  Had something scared Napoleon enough to lock it up?

  Gray hoped so. If the Doomsday key had been buried in Saint Malachy’s tomb, it might still be there.

  Rachel didn’t have time for them to be wrong.

  Over the course of the past hours, she had begun to run a fever. Her brow was hot, and she was prone to chills. Even now, she wore a sweater buttoned to her neck.

  She didn’t have the luxury of mistakes.

  Gray checked his watch. They were scheduled to meet Kowalski and Seichan in another hour. The pair had gone off to the prison, to scope it out and study it for weaknesses. It was up to Seichan to discern a way into the maximum-security facility. She had left with a doubtful expression fixed to her face.

  Rachel stirred from her book, her complexion waxy and pale, her eyes red and puffy. “I can’t find anything more than I have,” she finally conceded in defeat. “I’ve read Malachy’s whole life story, from his birth to his death. I still could not discover a reason why Malachy, an Irish archbishop, was buried in France. Except that he and Bernard were the deepest of friends. In fact, it states here that Bernard was buried with Malachy at Clairvaux.”

  “But are they still there?” Gray asked.

  “From everything I’ve read, the bodies were never moved. But the historical record after the French Revolution goes blank.”