The Last Oracle (Sigma Force 5)

All except those caught during the initial attack.

After setting the fail-safe, Painter had stopped first at the communication nest of central command and had tapped into the video feed. He’d found that outside communication had been cut off, indicating someone had the schematics to the command structure, but they’d left internal lines open. From the top floor’s cameras, he watched Mapplethorpe’s commandos gather a dozen hostages, their wrists secured behind their backs with plastic ties.

It could’ve been worse. At this late hour, Sigma had been lightly staffed. Satisfied, Painter had prepared what he’d needed, and once done, he turned his attention to the danger closest to his heart. He shoved open the door to the stairwell and almost knocked Kat Bryant on her rear end.

She carried Sasha in her arms.

He struggled to comprehend.

Beyond Kat, he spotted Malcolm Jennings and a security guard.

“What? How?” he stammered out.

Lisa shoved past Malcolm and hurried up to him. She was covered in blood. His heart hammered, but she seemed uninjured. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a fast hug. He felt the shudder of her relief, matched by his own—then they parted, professional again.

“What happened?” he asked.

Kat related in terse, dispassionate thumbnails, finishing with, “We’re attempting to evacuate.”

“You’ll never make it out with Sasha,” he said. “All the exits are surely covered.”

“Then what do we do?” Lisa asked.

Painter checked his watch. “Well, by escaping on your own, you’ve already made my life easier.” He pointed back down. “Take Sasha to the gym locker room. Secure her in there. All of you.”

“What about you?” Kat asked.

He kissed Lisa on the cheek, turned toward the door, and headed out. “I’ve got one last thing to do—then I’ll join you.”

“Be careful,” Lisa said.

Kat called back to him. “Director! Monk’s still alive!”

Painter halted, glanced behind him, but the stairwell door slammed shut. What? He had no time to inquire what she had meant. It would have to wait. He sprinted back down the hall and returned to where he had started, back to the communication nest. Slowing, he tested the air. A sweetness permeated the space, as it should all of central command.

It was the first stage of the fail-safe program: feeding a gaseous accelerant into the air. It took a minimum of fifteen minutes to reach critical levels. And while it was safe to breathe for at least a couple of hours, they didn’t have that long. In another ten minutes, the fail-safe would ignite sparks throughout the base and trigger a firestorm across all levels of central command. The flash fire would last only a few seconds, fed by the accelerant in the air, searing every surface within the concrete bunker. Then sprinklers would kick in, dousing the flames immediately.

Inside the communication nest, Painter checked the row of monitors, receiving video feed from cameras on every level.

He stalked along them until he found the one he was looking for. It showed Mapplethorpe standing beside Sean McKnight. He held a pistol to Sean’s back. Behind them, commandos began disappearing down an open stairwell door.

Painter tapped on the audio from the camera.

“—madness,” Sean said. “You can’t circumvent channels like this. Do you think you can perform an unsanctioned assault upon another agency, then try to clean it up afterward?”

“I’ve done it before,” Mapplethorpe growled. “It’s all a matter of producing the results to match the offense.”

“In other words, the ends justify the means,” Sean scoffed. “You’ll never get away with it. Two people are dead.”

“Is that all? Like I said, I’ve done this many times before. Abroad and here.”

Painter cut into the conversation. He spoke into a microphone that broadcast through speakers on that floor. “Mapplethorpe!”

The man jolted, but he kept his pistol steady. He searched around, then found the camera on the wall. He regained his composure, his lips settling into a sneer of derision. “Ah, Director, so you haven’t evacuated with the rest of your people. Very good. Then let us end this quickly. Bring up the girl, and no one else needs to get hurt.”

Painter spoke into the microphone. “We’ve already taken out your man, Mapplethorpe, and hidden the girl where you won’t find her.”

“Is that so?” Mapplethorpe sniffed a bit at the air. “I see you’ve activated Sigma’s fail-safe program.”

Painter felt a chill. The man had obtained more than just their base schematics; he’d tapped deep into their protocols. Sean had warned him about Mapplethorpe. The bastard had his fingers everywhere, a black spider dancing in the intelligence web. His oily and bland demeanor hid a much more dangerous core.

“And I believe you’ve set the timer for zero one hundred,” Mapplethorpe said, confirming the depths of his intel. “We’ve been unable to decrypt the code to stop it, but something tells me we won’t have to. Not with my holding twenty hostages above. Twenty of your men and women. With families and lives beyond these walls. I don’t think you’ve got the brass balls to let them die, to be slain by your own hand. Whereas I—”

Mapplethorpe lifted his gun to the back of Sean’s head.

“—have no such qualms.”

The man fired. The pistol blast overloaded the speakers, turning into a digital pop and squawk. Sean fell to his knees, then to the floor.

Painter’s chest tightened, unable to take a breath. Disbelief rang through him. A part of him expected Sean to stand back up, to shake off the attack. But just as quickly, a flame as hot as the coming firestorm burned through Painter. Stunned at the man’s brutality and callousness, Painter could form no words.

Unlike his adversary.

Mapplethorpe’s voice returned. “We’re coming for that girl, Director. And no one is going to stop us.”

18

September 7, 10:38 A.M.

Pripyat, Ukraine

Gray secured the black belt over the Russian field jacket, camouflaged in forest green. He stamped his feet more securely into the boots. Kowalski tossed him a furred cap. The stolen uniform fit decently, but his partner’s outfit looked ready to burst at the seams. The two Russian soldiers, stripped to their underclothes, had been posted at the front of the jailhouse. Caught by surprise, it had not been hard to knock them out and secure the uniforms.

“Let’s go,” Gray said and headed to a motorcycle.