Rogue Oracle

by Unknown

  “Mostly.” Tara spread her hands open. “Once upon a time, the Pythia’s word meant something. I hope that it still does. But … I think the Steves mean well. I’ll ask them to look after you while I’m gone.”

  Cassie’s ears pricked up, hearing the wrong pronoun. “You’re not taking Harry.” It was an accusation. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone.” She said it as if she was declaring judgment on the entirety of Tara’s life, not just the case.

  Tara shook her head. “No. And I don’t want him to follow. He’s got enough on his hands here.” She glanced past the closed door. “These kinds of incidents—the deaths, the bomb at the airport—are the kind that can ruin a career. Whether he wants to or not, he needs to be here to do damage control.” That was only half true. Tara didn’t want to tell Cassie that the Pythia was leading Tara to the Chimera’s trail.

  “You’re not telling him, either.” Cassie frowned at her.

  Tara sighed. “No, I’m not telling him. This is something I’ve got to do on my own. And I know that he won’t like it.”

  TARA WOULD HAVE PREFERRED TO HAVE SLEPT CURLED UP IN Harry’s arms, listening to his strong heart beat inside his chest.

  But after her shower, she collapsed into bed. The sunshine felt too warm and she felt too drowsy to resist; exhaustion swept over her. She was barely conscious of the zing-zing sound of someone walking into the bedroom in a protective suit. For a moment, a cool shadow blotted out the red sunshine behind her eyelids. The shadow kissed her forehead before she fell into dreams. Perhaps she imagined it. But in the sunshine, it felt real enough.

  She dreamed of sunlight, too, gentle heat against her skin. In her dream, she was sitting in the prow of a gondola, gliding across water. The water stretched from horizon to horizon, under a blue sky. Behind her, in the boat, the lion lolled. He occasionally reached over the edge of the gondola to slap at the water. Behind him in the boat were arranged six swords, buried point-down in the hull of the boat. She recognized the card from her deck: the Six of Swords, the card of journeys.

  The boat seemed to move of its own accord, as if pushed by an unseen hand.

  Tara’s brow narrowed. She certainly felt pushed by the invisible force of the Pythia’s will. Try as she might, she couldn’t see very deeply into the cloudy water. It seemed that shadows roiled beneath, too far below the surface to clearly discern.

  In the distance, she could make out a dark line of land. The boat moved inexorably toward it. As they moved close to the dark land, Tara felt the sun grow hotter and hotter on her face. When she looked down, her hands were sunburned. It was as if the radiation extended from the black land growing on the horizon.

  The black land filled her with dread. The lion in the boat growled, flattening his ears as the dark shoreline curved into sight. Tara’s skin crawled as they approached, and she feared setting foot on that black beach unarmed.

  She turned to the back of the boat. No. She wouldn’t be unarmed. As the boat was propelled into the shallows, she reached for the swords. She pulled them out of the bottom of the hull, one after the other, slinging them over her shoulder.

  Where she wrested the swords out, holes were exposed in the bottom of the boat. Water began to trickle in. The lion growled, clambering to the prow of the boat, balancing with his butt on the seat and paws on the edge. Tara sloshed back, nearly losing her balance with her burden of swords. Where the cloudy water touched her, it felt ice cold, cold as if sun had never touched it. The water pooled and rolled in the bottom of the boat like mercury or some unnatural element that was reaching out to drown them.

  Tara twisted around in the boat. The shoreline was almost upon them. Black sand gave way to charred trees, twisted and turned at odd angles. The grasses below them were wild and ragged, blackened under the touch of that relentless, invisible heat that radiated from the land.

  Cold water licked at her skirts, and the boat’s course began to falter and founder. Picking up her skirts with one hand and the swords under the other arm, Tara stepped off into the water.

  The water closed over her and drove the breath from her lungs. She clawed to the surface, but the swords were heavy, pulling her down into the sea.

  Something in the water bit her. She struggled, but the creature held her fast in its jaws, dragging her through the shallow water and up into the sunlight, up onto the sand of the shore.

  She fell on her hands and knees, dumping the swords before her and gasping. Diluted blood from her shoulder dripped down into the water, staining the swords. Black sand was soft between her fingers, tasting metallic in her mouth. The soggy lion stood over her, tail switching, staring down the beach …

  … where a figure stood at the edge of the forest. In this dazzling light, she couldn’t distinguish it.

  Tara didn’t know if it was blood loss or the blinding brightness, but the image faded, consumed in a roar of golden light.

  TARA WOKE UP WITH OSCAR STRETCHED OUT ON HER CHEST, his face buried in the crook of her shoulder and her jaw. The sunlight had faded from the glass beads in the windows, and night had washed in. Cassie lay asleep beside her, and the loft was quiet. She was freezing, despite the warmth of the cat on her and thick covers drawn up to her chin.

  Tara disentangled herself from the cat and climbed out of bed. Oscar burrowed under the covers into Cassie’s armpit. At the foot of the bed, Maggie looked up at her. Tara could see the questioning whites of her eyes in the dim light. But Maggie didn’t react when Tara padded around the corner of the bed and left the room.

  The skylights overhead cast squares of lighter darkness on the polished floor. Tara skirted around their edges, made her way to the balcony. She unlocked the door, stepped out into the warmth of night. City lights spread as far as the eye could see, reflected in the black water of the marina. She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the deck boards under her bare feet. It was nothing like the scorching heat of the sun in her dream, but it served to chase a bit of the trance-chill from her bones.

  She smelled cigarette smoke. Her mind immediately flashed on the Pythia. Her eyes snapped open, and she turned to see the glowing ember of the cigarette in the darkness.

  It wasn’t the Pythia, though. It was just the Cowboy, sitting in a plastic deck chair in the darkest shade of the building, smoking a cigarette.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you,” the Cowboy said, taking another drag.

  Tara relaxed. “What are you doing out here in the dark?”

  The Cowboy shrugged. “Light draws bugs.” He reached down beside the chair and picked up a thick yellow envelope. “Courier dropped this off for you a little while ago.”

  Tara took the envelope, stared at it. There was no return address on it from the courier service. She ripped it open. The envelope contained no explanatory note. But it included an itinerary, train tickets, three stacks of foreign currency in various denominations, mostly Ukrainian hryvnia. And flight information for a plane leaving three hours from now from Baltimore. Baltimore was the nearest airport still open for business; both Dulles and Reagan National had closed down in light of the attack.

  Her blood curdled. This was from the Pythia. She knew Tara was here.

  And she knew Cassie was here.

  “That from Cassie’s crazy aunt?” the Cowboy’s voice issued out from under the brim of his hat.

  “Yeah. It’s from her. How’d you know?”

  “The crazy aunt seems pretty persistent.” The Cowboy blew a wreath of smoke in the direction of the water, kicked his boots up on the balcony railing. He had the attitude of a man waiting for a story.

  “She’s dangerous,” Tara said. “But she’s promised to leave Cassie alone. For now, anyway.”

  “Dangerous in what way?” The shadow of the hat inclined toward Tara.

  “She’s got a lot of money. A lot of power. And a massive network of knowledge available to her.” Tara lifted the envelope. “This is proof.”

  The Cowboy nodded toward the envelope. “
What does she want?”

  “She wants me to go chase down the man who sold the information that made the bombing possible.”

  “Deep pockets.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You gonna go?”

  “I have to.” Tara’s mouth tightened. “But I don’t like the idea of leaving Cassie behind.”

  “We aren’t going to let anyone hurt the little squirt.” The Cowboy’s hat dipped. “We’ll take care of her till you get back.”

  Tara was humbled. “Thank you. I mean it. I owe you guys …”

  The Cowboy waved away her thanks. “I’ve got a daughter about her age. Fiesty, like her. Takes after the ex, traipsing around third-world countries, looking for artifacts and such.” The hat shook ruefully. “I’ll watch over her like she was my own.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Does Harry know about this?”

  Tara bit her lip, stared out at the water. “He knows about the crazy aunt, but he doesn’t know that I’m leaving.”

  “He won’t like that.”

  “Trust me. He doesn’t want to get tangled up with her crazy aunt any more than he already is.”

  The Cowboy shrugged. “That’s not what I mean. When Steve and Harry and I were out in the desert chasing those damn critters, he talked a lot about you.”

  Tara’s eyebrow lifted. “Oh?”

  “Says you’re the most enigmatic, frustrating dame on earth.”

  Tara snorted. “That’s high praise, coming from Harry.”

  “He loves you, you know.”

  Tara blinked. She knew it, but it had never been put so matter-of-factly before. “He wouldn’t have said that.”

  “Didn’t need to.” The Cowboy laughed, stretched out his denim-clad legs. “He loves you, and he’s going to be pissed that you left without him.”

  Tara swallowed. “I know.”

  “So, where you going?”

  “Chernobyl.” The word itself tasted hollow and metallic, like the sand she’d tasted on the beach in her dreams. “In three hours.”

  The Cowboy hesitated, then ground out the red light of his cigarette in his ashtray. “Then we need to get a couple of things for you from the store.”

  He swung his legs off the railing and headed back into the house. Tara followed him, curiosity prickling as she followed him down the steps into the shop. He flipped on the fluorescent lights, illuminating the mountains of surplus gear in flickering, cold light.

  “I appreciate it, Steve, really,” Tara said. “But I’ve been told that this is one of those places where your bags leave lighter than when you arrived.”

  “I was over in Serbia for a while. I know what it’s like.” The Cowboy disappeared in the back of the store, began digging around in boxes. “There’s no point in packing your gun. That will get taken away from you. You’re much better off buying one when you get there.”

  “I can do that?” That sounded like a certain way to get into trouble with the local authorities.

  “If you’re discreet. What’ve you got so far for your trip?”

  “A couple of Tyvek suits, some latex gloves. A Russian phrase book.”

  The Cowboy dumped a black deployment bag on the glass counter, started arranging odds and ends beside it: a compass, what looked like a wallet with straps, and a handheld electronic device that looked like a cell phone.

  “What’s this?” Tara asked, picking up the device.

  “That’s a universal portable navigator. It’s GPS-enabled, should work anywhere you can get a satellite signal.”

  Tara pointed to the cheap plastic compass. “Then what’s that for?”

  “That’s what you use if this gets stolen from your bags.” A smile played around the Cowboy’s mouth. He pointed to the wallet. “That straps on under your clothes, to keep your cash and passport in. Should keep thieves’ fingers out.”

  “Gotcha.”

  The Cowboy rummaged around in a bin full of boots. “What’s your size?”

  “Eight and a half.”

  The Cowboy peered at the tongues of the boots, muttering to himself, until he found a pair of shockingly ugly boots to hand to Tara. “Try these.”

  Tara jammed her feet into them, wiggled her toes. “These feel good.”

  “Great.” The Cowboy opened a frayed cardboard box and lifted out a face mask apparatus with a tube extending from the nose. “This is a flight respirator. Will do in a pinch in low-level radiation settings … which reminds me …” He rummaged around under the counter. “Try these on. Nomex flight gloves. Should be pretty airtight.” He slapped a pair of gray gloves on the counter. “I know it’s here, somewhere … unless Steve moved it …”

  Tara tried on the gloves. They fit like a second skin, much better than the latex gloves she’d gotten at the archives.

  “A-ha.” He dug out an item that looked like a pager. Immediately, he popped open the compartment and began rooting around for a battery. “This is a personal dosimeter. It detects gamma rays and X-rays. Sometimes they’re used by the paranoid in nuclear submarines, mines, nuclear medicine, that sort of thing.”

  “Okay. How do I use it?”

  The Cowboy jammed a AAA battery into the back of it. “Clip it to your belt. It’ll chirp when it’s accumulated more than ten microroentgens per hour. Or, you can turn the chirp off, and watch the readout, here.” He pointed to the window. “Anything over fifty microroentgens means that you should get the heck out of the area.”

  “Gotcha. Thanks.”

  “It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got on hand.” The Cowboy glanced at his watch. “Better get packed up if you want to catch your plane.”

  He looked past Tara at the stairs and fell silent.

  Tara turned to see Cassie leaning on the banister, dressed in one of Tara’s T-shirts and leggings. Tara was startled to see the girl venturing this far into the dungeon of weaponry. She clutched the stair rail and stared at Tara.

  “You’re leaving now?”

  Tara crossed the room, reached out to hug the girl. “It’s gonna be okay. The Steves will watch over you.”

  “I know,” Cassie said, bravely. She nodded and tried to smile.

  Tara thought she still detected a bit of a tremor in the girl’s shoulders when she said good-bye.

  At least she could say good-bye to Cassie.

  She wished she had that luxury with Harry.

  Chapter Seventeen

  WHAT DO you mean, she left?”

  Harry slapped his hand on his desk. The blow sloshed his cup of coffee on a stack of file folders and caused an agent at the copier to turn around and give him the stink eye.

  The Cowboy’s voice on the other end of the line was tense. “She left last night for Chernobyl. To chase your suspect.”

  “Why the hell didn’t she tell me?” Harry struggled to keep the anger from seeping into his voice. It wasn’t directed at Steve. It was directed at Tara for being a maddeningly obscure and independent oracle.

  “From what I understand, the crazy aunt arranged the trip. She didn’t want you to get involved with what Cassie calls ‘family politics.’”

  Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. He didn’t understand that fucked-up tie Tara and Cassie had to the Pythia. He doubted he’d ever understand why they kept walking back into the arms of that monster over and over again. But he didn’t have to tolerate it.

  “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

  “What are you gonna do?” the Cowboy drawled.

  “Well, as I see it, I’ve got two choices, Steve. I can kick back and do nothing, and hope she comes back. Or I can go after her.”

  “That just about sums up your options,” the Cowboy agreed. “The second one would be sorta detrimental to your career.”

  Harry poked at the files on his desk and glared in the general direction of Aquila’s office. “DHS and TSA have taken over the dirty bomber case. I’m just window dressing, at this point.” He leaned back in his chair. “Figuring out the route Tara took is go
nna be the hard part.” He knew that she’d let her cards lead her down whatever dark alley tickled her intuition. And he had no hope of guessing where that would be. Her intuitive processes were opaque and inscrutable to him, like trying to look through obsidian glass.

  “You guys will work it out,” the Cowboy said.

  Harry made a noncommittal noise and hung up.

  He’d been busy trying to track down what he could see and understand, from Veriss’s point of view. He’d been digging through Veriss’s files and diagrams. As near as he could determine, he’d isolated part of the decaying spy network tied to the disappearances. All the people who had turned up missing had been looking for unaccounted-for parts from the Chernobyl plant. Some time after the disaster, the other reactors continued to run, until the last one was shut down in 1999. There had never been a thorough accounting made for that material, and Veriss had been sniffing circles around the folks who had been looking for it.

  As he always did, he returned to Tara’s line of thinking. She was convinced that their suspect was on the flight to Rome, but they had no proof, just an inarticulate hunch. The plane in Rome was long gone, but Harry was driven to find some overlooked bit of evidence that might show that she was right, that the Chimera really had been there. DHS said there was no way that he could have gotten through the Geiger counters at security, that Harry’s fears that the Chimera had slipped through their grasp were unfounded.

  Besides, DHS had bigger worries now.

  Harry rested his chin on his hand and watched the airport surveillance video. He had obtained copies from Dulles. DHS and TSA were combing the footage for Zahar’s movements, but Harry was much more interested in what was happening around the international departures. He scanned the people around the gate for the Rome flight, unsure what he was looking for …

  … until he spotted it. A man in a straw hat and casual shirt exited the men’s room and walked up to the departures board. Under the brim of the hat, Harry recognized him. Harry clicked his mouse to freeze the image, zoomed in.

  It was Norman Lockley’s face. But the guy was walking. Harry struggled to reconcile the two. Shit. It had to be the Chimera, gussied up in Lockley’s Halloween mask.