The Last Oracle (Sigma Force 5)

He stared down at a child’s scrawl in black crayon. In crude but deliberate strokes, it depicted the main room of the safe house. Fireplace, chairs, sofa. Exactly as the room was laid out. Four shapes were drawn there, too. Two sat on the sofa, one on a chair. A larger figure leaned by the hearth with a shoe in his hand and had to be Kowalski.

It was a child’s picture of their room.

Gray stared back at the video monitor.

Movement drew his attention to the other feeds from the three exterior cameras. Men stepped into view, also in Windbreakers. Gray watched one guard, then the other appear, held at gunpoint.

Kowalski stepped to Gray’s side, having crossed silently on his stocking feet. He also studied the screen, then sighed.

“Great,” Kowalski commented. “What do you all do? Post the addresses for your hideaways on the Internet?”

Outside, the guards were forced to their knees.

The house was surrounded.

They were trapped.

On the other side of the world, the man named Monk sought his own path to freedom.

As the three children stood guard at his hospital room door, Monk struggled into a pair of thick denim coveralls, dark blue to match the long-sleeved shirt he wore. It was difficult with only one hand. All that remained on the chair were a black cable-knit wool cap and a pair of thick socks. He tugged the cap over his shaved head and pushed into the heavy socks, then into boots that were a bit snug, but the leather was worn and broken in.

The privacy allowed Monk to gather his wits about him, though it had done little to fill in the blanks of his life. He still couldn’t remember anything beyond waking up here. But at least the exertion of dressing helped steady his feet.

He joined the oldest of the boys, Konstantin, at the door, which was steel and had a locking bar on the outside. The stoutness of the door confirmed he’d been a prisoner and that this was an escape.

The youngest of the trio, Pyotr, took Monk’s hand and tugged him down the hall, away from the glow of a nurse’s station. He remembered the boy’s earlier plea.

Save us.

Monk didn’t understand. From what? The girl, who he had learned was named Kiska, led the way to a back stairwell, lit by a red neon sign. Passing under it to the stairs, Monk stared up at the sign’s lettering.

Cyrillic.

He had to be in Russia. Despite his lack of memory, he knew he didn’t belong here. His thoughts were in English. Without a British accent. That meant he had to be American, didn’t it? If he could recognize all that, why couldn’t he—

A cascade of images suddenly blinded him, frozen snapshots of another life, popping like camera flashes in his head—

…a smile…a kitchen with someone’s back turned to him…the steel head of a sharp ax flashing across blue sky…lights rising from deep in dark water…

Then it was gone.

His head pounded. He tried to catch himself on the stair railing and instinctively grabbed out with his stumped arm. His scarred forearm slid along the railing. He barely caught his balance. He stared down at his stump and recalled one of the flashes of memory.

…the steel head of an ax flashing across blue sky.

Was that how it had happened?

Ahead, the children rushed down the stairs. Except for the youngest boy. Pyotr still held his one good hand. He stared up at Monk with eyes so blue they were almost white. Tiny fingers squeezed his own, reassuring. A gentle tug urged him onward.

He stumbled after the others.

They encountered no one on the stairs and exited out a back doorway and into a moonless, overcast night. The air had a chill to it and hung still and damp. Monk took in deep breaths, slowing his hammering heart.

The massive hum of a generator filled the space. Monk studied the size and breadth of the hospital, sprawling out in low wings and encompassing two five-story towers.

“Come. This way,” Konstantin said, taking the lead now.

They hurried down a dark cobblestone alleyway between the hospital and a wall that climbed two stories on their left. Monk looked up, trying to get his bearings. A few lamps glowed beyond the wall, highlighting the tile roofs of hidden buildings. They reached a corner and slipped behind the walled enclosure. The ground became raw rock, slippery with dew. There were no lights here on the back side. All Monk could make out was the wall they followed, built of concrete blocks. His palm ran along it as they ran. From the rough mortaring and uneven lay of the bricks, it must have been hastily constructed.

Monk heard an eerie yowl echoing over the wall. This was followed by muffled barks and stifled sharper cries.

His feet slowed. Animals. Was this some form of zoo?

As if the tall boy ahead had read his thoughts, Konstantin glanced back and mouthed the word menagerie and waved him onward.

Menagerie?

They reached the far corner, and the path sloped steeply downward from there. From the vantage of their height, Monk stared across a bowled valley and a picturesque village of cobbled lanes and cottages with peaked roofs and flower boxes. Ornate black streetlamps flickered with gas flames. A three-story school filled one corner of the village, surrounded by ball fields and an open amphitheater. The small village clustered around a central square, where a tall fountain’s spray danced and glittered.

On the far side of the village rose row after row of industrial-looking apartment buildings, each five stories, squared and laid out in a practical grid. Dark and lightless, it had a dilapidated, deserted feeling to it.

Unlike the village below.

People milled in confusion below. Shouts echoed. He saw children gathered in nightclothes, mingling with adults, some similarly attired, woken from their beds. Others wore gray uniforms and stiff-brimmed hats. Flashlights danced through the narrow streets.

Something had roused the place.

He heard names called, some beckoning, some angry.

“Konstantin! Pyotr! Kiska!”

The children.

A flaming red flare arced upward from the town center, lighting up the sleepy little village, laying stark the buildings beyond, dancing fire over the concrete walls and hollow-eyed windows.

Monk’s gaze tracked the flare as it reached its zenith, popped out a tiny parachute, and floated downward.

Monk’s attention remained above.

The sky…it wasn’t just moonless.

It wasn’t there at all.

The ruddy glow of the flare revealed a massive dome of rock, stretching overhead in all directions, swallowing up the entire place. Monk gaped, stumbling around in a stunned circle.

They hadn’t made it outside.

They were inside a giant cavern.

Possibly man-made from the blasted look of the roof and walls.