The Last Oracle: A Sigma Force Novel

by James Rollins

  What did he mean? Gray knew it had not been an idle threat. Something else was scheduled to happen. Even the name of Nicolas’s plan—Operation Uranus—had bothered Gray before. The name was taken from an old Soviet victory during World War II against the Germans. But the victory was not won by the single operation alone. It was accomplished via a perfectly executed tandem of strategies. Two operations: Uranus followed by Saturn.

  As Gray fled the hangar, Nicolas had hinted as much. Another operation was set to commence, but where and in what form?

  The phone finally rang.

  Gray flipped it open and pressed it to his ear. “Director Crowe?”

  “How are you doing out there?” Painter asked.

  “As well as can be expected.”

  “I’ve got transportation arranged for you. There’s a private airstrip a few miles outside the Exclusion Zone, used to accommodate the ceremony’s VIP guests. British intelligence has offered the use of one of their jets. They’re apparently trying to save face for not listening close enough to Professor Masterson, one of their own former agents. By the way, I’ve gone ahead and sounded the alarm. Word is spreading like wildfire through intelligence channels about the aborted attack at Chernobyl. For safety’s sake, evacuations are already under way, but so far you’re ahead of that chaos.”

  “Very good.” Gray could not discount that the director’s firm voice had helped take the edge off his anxiety. He wasn’t alone in this.

  “You’ve certainly had a busy day, Commander.”

  “As have you…but I don’t think it’s over.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Gray related what the Russian senator had said and about his own misgivings.

  “Hold on,” Painter said. “I’ve got Kat Bryant and Malcolm Jennings here. I’m putting you on speaker.”

  Gray continued, explaining his fears of a second operation, something aimed at a larger number of casualties.

  Kowalski also listened as Elizabeth packed a bandage over his wound. “Tell them about the jelly beans,” he called over.

  Gray frowned at him. Back at the hangar, Elena had attempted to warn Kowalski about something before she’d departed to Nicolas’s side, but the man had clearly misunderstood, losing something in the translation.

  “You know,” Kowalski pressed. “The eighty-eight jelly beans.”

  Kat’s voice whispered faintly from the phone. “What did he say?”

  “I don’t think he understood what—”

  “Did he say chella-bins?”

  “No, jelly beans!”

  Kowalski nodded, satisfied. Gray mentally shook his head. He could not believe he was having this conversation.

  A confusing bit of chatter followed as Painter, Kat, and Malcolm discussed some matter. Gray didn’t follow all of it. He heard Kat say something about the number eighty-eight drawn in blood.

  Malcolm’s voice spoke louder, excited, directed at both Gray and Kat. “Could what you both have heard been the word Chelyabinsk?”

  “Chelyabinsk?” Gray asked aloud.

  Kowalski perked up.

  Gray rolled his eyes. “That might be it.”

  Kat agreed.

  Malcolm spoke quickly, a sure sign the pathologist was excited. “I’ve come across that name. During all the tumult here, I hadn’t had a chance to contemplate its significance.”

  “What?” Painter pressed.

  “Dr. Polk’s body. The radiation signature from samples in his lungs matched the specific isotope content of the uranium and plutonium used at Chernobyl. But as you know, subsequent tests clouded this assessment. It wasn’t as clear as I’d initially thought. It was more like his body had been polluted by a mix of radioactive sources, though the strongest still appeared to be the fuel source at Chernobyl.”

  “Where are you going with all this?” Kat asked.

  “I based my findings on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s database of hot zones. But one region of the world is so polluted by radioactivity that it’s impossible to define one signature to it. That region is Chelyabinsk, in central Russia. The Soviet Union hid the heart of its uranium mining and plutonium production in the Ural Mountains there. For five decades, the region was off-limits to everyone. Only in the last couple of years has the restriction been lifted.” He paused for emphasis. “It was in Chelyabinsk that the fuel for Chernobyl was mined and stored.”

  Gray sat straighter. “And you think it was there that Dr. Polk was poisoned—not at the reactor, but where its fuel was produced. In Chelyabinsk.”

  “I believe so. Even the number eighty-eight. The Soviets built underground mining cities in the Ural Mountains and named them after the local postal codes. Chelyabinsk forty, Chelyabinsk seventy-five.”

  And Chelyabinsk 88.

  Gray’s heart pounded harder again. He now knew where they had to go. Even had the postal code.

  Painter understood, too. “I’ll alert British intelligence. Let them know you’ll be going on a little detour. They should be able to get you to the Ural Mountains in a little over an hour.”

  Gray prayed they still had enough time.

  Millions will die.

  As the limousine reached the second checkpoint and was waved through by a bored-looking guard, Painter continued. “But, Commander, in such a short time, I can’t get you any ground support out there.”

  Gray spoke as the limousine sailed out of the Exclusion Zone and into the open country. “I think we’ve got that covered.”

  To either side of the road, older-model trucks had parked in low ditches or pulled into turnouts. A good dozen of them. Men sat in the open beds and crowded the cabs.

  In the front seat, Luca leaned over to Rosauro and spoke in a rush. She slowed the limousine, and Luca straightened and waved an arm out the passenger window.

  The signal was plain to read.

  Follow us.

  As the limousine continued, the trucks pulled out and trailed after them. Like Director Crowe, Luca Hearn had sounded his own alarm, using the phones back at the hotel after they’d initially failed to raise central command.

  Gray recalled the man’s words in describing the Romani: We are everywhere. Luca was proven right as his clarion call was answered.

  Behind the limousine, a Gypsy army gathered.

  11:38 A.M.

  Southern Ural Mountains

  The farther Monk descended into the mine, the more he became convinced the place was deserted. He heard no echo of voices or thrum of distant machinery. And while this eased his mind that they’d not be discovered, it was also disconcerting. With the silence, it was as if the place were holding its breath.

  Monk headed down a steeply slanted access tunnel, his wounded leg burning and painful. Without a map, Monk had to follow the trail of whoever left the cigarette butts and bottles at the front gate to the mine. It wasn’t a hard track to discern. The sandy bed of the floor showed clear boot prints. The miner took a direct route back, crossing down some steep access chutes.

  And though the place seemed deserted now, Monk had found plenty of evidence of past activity: fresh tailings dumped into shafts, shiny new gear leaning on walls, even an abandoned ice chest half filled with water and floating cans of beer.

  Konstantin trailed with his sister, while Pyotr remained glued to Monk’s hip. The child’s eyes were huge upon the dark passages. Monk felt the fever of his terror as Pyotr clutched to him. It wasn’t the cramped spaces that scared him, but the darkness. Monk had occasionally clicked the lamp off to search for any telltale evidence of light.

  At those moments, Pyotr would wrap tight to him.

  Marta also closed upon the boy, protective, but even the chimpanzee trembled in those moments of pitch darkness, as if she shared Pyotr’s terror.

  Monk reached the bottom of the chute. It dumped into another long passageway with a railway track and an idle conveyor belt. As he searched for boot prints, he noted a slight graying to the darkness at the end of the tunnel. He crouche
d, pulled Pyotr to his side in the crook of his stumped arm, and clicked off his flashlight.

  Darkness dropped over them like a shroud. But at the far end of the passage, a faint glow was evident.

  Konstantin moved next to Monk.

  “No more light,” Monk whispered and passed the boy the darkened flashlight. If he was wrong about the place being deserted, he didn’t want to announce their approach with a blaze of light.

  Monk swung up the rifle he had confiscated from the dead Russian sniper. “Quietly now,” he warned.

  Monk edged down the tunnel. He walked on the ends of the railroad ties, avoiding the crunch of the gravel bed. The children followed in his footsteps. Marta balanced along one of the rails. As they continued, Monk strained for any voices, any sign of habitation. All he heard was an echoing drip of water. It was a noise that had grown louder the deeper they descended. Monk was all too conscious of the neighboring presence of Lake Karachay.

  He also became aware of a growing odor, a mix of oil, grease, and diesel smoke. But as they reached the bend, Monk’s keen nose detected another scent under the industrial smells. It was fetid, organic, foul.

  Cautiously rounding the turn, Monk discovered the passage ended in a central cavern, blasted out of the rock. It was only a hundredth the size of Chelyabinsk 88, but it still rose three stories high and stretched half the size of a football field.

  Most of the floor was covered in parked equipment and piles of construction material: coiled conduit, stacks of wooden beams, a half-dismantled column of scaffolding, piles of rock. Off to one side rose a tall drill rig, mounted on the back of a truck. The place looked as if it had been hurriedly evacuated. There was no order to it, like someone packing a moving van in a hurry, just dumping things haphazardly.

  At least they’d left the lights on.

  Several sodium lamps glowed at the opposite side of the room.

  “Careful,” Monk said. He motioned the children to hang back, to be ready to bolt and hide among the debris if necessary.

  Monk crept forward, staying low, rifle ready at his shoulder. He zigzagged across the space, holding his breath, cautious of his footing. Reaching the far side, he discovered a tall set of steel blast doors, sealed and reflecting the lamplight. They looked newer than the mine works. To the right stood a small shack, about the size of a tollbooth. Through its open door, Monk spotted a few dark monitors, a keyboard, and rows of switches.

  Nobody was here.

  Monk noted the tremble in his rifle. He was wired and edgy. He took a deep settling breath. The fetid reek was much stronger. Off to the left, Monk noted black oil pooled beyond a stack of equipment. He crept out and peeked around the corner.

  Not oil. Blood.

  He found the source of the smell. A tumble of bodies draped the back wall, tangled in a heap, outfitted in mining gear or white laboratory coats. Blood and gore spattered the walls behind them.

  Death by firing squad.

  Someone had been cleaning house.

  Behind him, Konstantin appeared, creeping out into the open. Monk returned, shook his head, and pointed to the computer shack. He didn’t want the children to see the slaughter. He motioned to Pyotr and Kiska to remain where they were.

  Konstantin joined Monk as he strode toward the blast doors. “I’ve been here before,” the boy said. “We’re allowed to ride the train sometimes. These are the substation controls.”

  “Show me,” Monk said.

  Konstantin had already highlighted what General-Major Savina Martov was planning, nicknamed Operation Saturn. It lay beyond these doors.

  The two crammed into the shack, and Konstantin studied the substation’s controls, his eyes flickering over the Cyrillic lettering. Monk could almost hear his mind flying at speeds beyond normal mentation. After a moment of study, his hands flew over the board, flipping switches with deft assuredness, as if he’d done this a thousand times before.

  As he worked, Monk asked, “How did you learn about Operation Saturn?”

  Konstantin glanced to him with a wincing look of embarrassment. “My skill is rapid calculation and derivative analysis. I work often in the Warren’s computer laboratory.” He shrugged.

  Monk understood. You could turn a boy into a savant but he was still a boy: curious, mischievous, pushing boundaries.

  “You hacked into her files.”

  He shrugged again. “A week ago, Sasha—Pyotr’s sister—she drew me a picture. Gave it to me in the middle of the night. When we were all woken by one of Pyotr’s nightmares.”

  “What picture?”

  “The train here, with many children on board, all dead and burning. It also showed the mining site just past the blast doors here. So…so the next day, I broke into the files about the operation. I learned what was planned and when it was scheduled to happen. I didn’t know what to do. Whom to trust. Sasha left with Dr. Raev for America, so I talked to Pyotr.” Konstantin shook his head. “I don’t know how Pyotr knew…maybe he doesn’t even know…it’s sometimes like that.”

  Konstantin stared up at Monk for understanding.

  Though he didn’t completely, Monk still nodded. “What did Pyotr know?” he pressed.

  “He is a strong empath. He sensed you would help us. He even knew your name. Said his sister whispered it to him in a dream. They are very strange, those two, very powerful.”

  Monk heard a trace of fear in the boy’s voice.

  Konstantin even glanced warily back toward Pyotr, then set back to work. “So we came for you.”

  With a final flick of a switch, a row of monitors glowed to life across the top of the control board. They showed black-and-white images, views from different angles of a small cavern, rigged with scaffolding. On the floor was bolted a large steel iris.

  The heart of Operation Saturn.

  Motion drew Monk’s eye to the centermost screen. It showed a train rested outside the mining site. Open ore cars were loaded with children. Some had climbed out and stood around in confusion. Others appeared to be laughing and playing.

  Konstantin clutched Monk’s sleeve. “They…they’re already here.”

  Savina sat in the brightly lit control station, flanked by two technicians. They were running final diagnostics on two computers. The station was in a converted subbasement bunker beneath one of the abandoned apartment buildings. There were no windows. Their eyes on the world came from seven LCD screens wired into the walls. They displayed video feed from the cameras in the tunnel and at the operation site.

  She stared at the parked train for another breath, then stood up, unable to remain seated. She felt a familiar crick in her back. She had failed to take her steroid injection, too busy with all the final preparations. She turned away from the view of the train. Not because it hurt to look—which it did—but because anxiety ran through her.

  She checked her wristwatch. It was more than half past eleven o’clock, and she had still not heard from Nicolas. She exited the control room, so the others did not see her wring her hands. It was a weak matronly gesture, and she forced herself to stop. She headed to the stairs and climbed toward the level above. Not with any destination in mind, only to keep moving.

  From her contacts in the intelligence community, she had already heard the rumblings of an “accident” at Chernobyl. A radiation leak. Dead bodies. The place was being evacuated. And if Nicolas had been successful, such a mass departure was too late. Perhaps her son had been caught up in the resultant chaos and had been unable to report to her yet. Her operation was set to commence in another forty-five minutes, once she heard confirmation from Nicolas.

  As she climbed the stairs, she imagined him gloating in his success, possibly even enjoying a secret tryst with little Elena. It would not be unlike Nicolas to celebrate first and attend to business afterward. Anger tempered her anxiety.

  She finally reached the floor above the control station. It had been converted into a domicile for the technicians: bedrooms, exercise space, and a central communal area ful
l of sofas and dining tables. The only occupants at the moment were ten children. She knew each by name.

  They turned to stare at her, their heads swiveling all at once, like a flock of birds turning in midflight. Savina felt a flicker of apprehension, a recognition of the foreignness of their minds. The Omega subjects were savants so talented that their skills crossed the threshold of the physical to a realm where Savina could not travel.

  Boris, a thirteen-year-old with eyes so blue they appeared frosted, seemed almost to be studying her. His talent was an eidetic memory coupled with a retention that frightened. He even remembered his own birth.

  “Why were we not allowed to go with the others?” he asked.

  More heads nodded.

  Savina swallowed before answering. “There is another path for all of you. Do you have your bags packed?”

  They just stared. No answer was necessary. Of course their bags were packed. The question displayed the level of her own nervousness. Before her lay the power that would fuel the Motherland into a new era. And deep down, Savina knew such a power remained beyond her full comprehension.

  “We will be leaving in an hour,” Savina said.

  Those ten pairs of blue eyes stared back at her.

  Footsteps sounded behind her. She turned as one of the technicians joined her.

  “General-Major,” he said, “we’re having some glitch with the blast doors on the other side of the tunnel. If you could advise us how to proceed.”

  She nodded, glad to focus her mind upon a problem.

  She followed the technician back to the staircase. Still, she felt those ten pairs of eyes tracking her, cold and dispassionate, icy in their regard. To escape their judgment, she hurried down the stairs.

  “Open the doors!” Monk called to Konstantin.

  From inside the control station, the boy nodded. Electric motors sounded, and large steel gears began rolling the blast doors out of the way, splitting down the middle.

  Konstantin came running over to him, out of breath. “Five minutes,” the boy warned.

  Monk understood. Konstantin had sent the tunnel’s digital camera system into a diagnostic shutdown and reboot. The clever kid had engineered a five-minute blackout. They had that long to evacuate the children from the train before the cameras were back online.