The Last Oracle (Sigma Force 5)

The boy had vanished during the chaos.

1:15 P.M.

Kyshtym, Russia

Elizabeth studied the image on the computer screen. It displayed the wall mosaic from the temple in India. Five figures sat on tripod chairs surrounding the central omphalos. From the hole in the stone, smoke swirled upward like a steaming volcano. A fiery boy rose above it, half buried in a column of the smoke.

But it wasn’t just the smoke that lifted him.

At her elbow, Elizabeth had papers covered with scribbled lines of Harappan, Sanskrit, and Greek. She had images of the inscriptions on the wall and omphalos. She was not entirely certain of her translation.

The world will burn…

She studied the mosaic closer. Five women slouched in their chairs, as if in a trance, but each held one arm raised toward the smoky boy. Her first thought was that it represented a conjuring of the boy or summoning of him. But now she knew better. They weren’t conjuring him, they were supporting him.

She glanced to the line she had freshly translated in full.

The world will burn…unless the many become one.

It was a warning. The mosaic foretold what must come to pass or the world would be destroyed in some great fire. Elizabeth remembered Gray’s concern that whatever operation was at work in these mountains would kill millions and most likely involved a nuclear or radiological event.

She pictured a mushroom cloud, burning and smoking with hellfire.

It was not unlike the billowing smoke from the mosaic.

…unless the many become one.

She scrolled down to the bottom of the image, below the newly translated warning. She touched a finger to what lay there.

A chakra wheel.

Her fingertip traced a petal to the center. The chakra wheel represented the same warning. The numerous petals all led to one center.

The many become one.

She stared again at the five women, lifting a boy high.

Certainty grew in her—not only about the accuracy of her translation, but also about its importance. Elizabeth’s body trembled with dread. She had to get word out to someone. She crossed to the satellite phone Gray had left her. He had instructed her to call Director Crowe if there were any problems.

Still, she hesitated. What if she was wrong? What if she caused more of a mess? She considered keeping silent. But she remembered her father, and all his secrets. Of Masterson and his. She was done with secrets and half-truths, of words not spoken.

No more.

She would not be her father.

Knowing her discovery was important, she raised the handset and tapped in the number Gray had left.

3:18 A.M.

Washington, D.C.

Painter watched as the child was prepped for the operation. He stood with Kat Bryant in a neighboring observation room off Sigma’s small surgical suite. Sterile-wrapped equipment waited to be employed for the delicate operation: ultrasonic aspirators, laser scalpels, stereotactic localizers. Trays of steel tools and drills with various burrs lined tables. Inside the room, Lisa, Malcolm, and a neurosurgical team from George Washington University Hospital continued the final preparations.

In the middle, Sasha lay under a thin surgical drape. All that was visible was the side of her head, shaved, coated in orange antiseptic, and trapped in a rigid frame attached to a scanning device. In the center of the surgical field, her steel implant reflected the lights.

Kat, pale and worried, stood with one hand on the window.

Over the course of the past hour, a series of EEG results and CT scans had shown progressive brain damage in the child. Whatever was happening to Sasha, it was slowly burning out her brain. It was decided, while the child was still strong, to remove the implant. It seemed to be the focus around which the storm of neurological hyperactivity centered.

Lisa had used the term “lightning rod.”

The only way to save her was to remove it. The neurosurgeon had studied all the scans and X-rays. He believed the device could be removed safely. It would be a delicate procedure, but not beyond his abilities.

That had been the first good news all night.

Painter’s phone jangled in his pocket. He considered not answering it, but he tugged it out and checked the I.D. From Kyshtym, Russia. He turned his back on the window, flipped open the phone, and answered it.

“Painter Crowe here.”

“Director,” a woman spoke, sounding greatly relieved. It was Elizabeth Polk. “Gray left this number.”

He heard the anxiety in her rushed voice. “What’s wrong, Elizabeth?”

“I’m not sure. Something I discovered, translated…anyway…”

Painter listened as she stated her case, her fears, what she believed was the message buried in an ancient mosaic.

“The oracles were all slumped in their chairs, unconscious, drugged, drained. Their sole reason for existing was to support the one who could save the world from destruction. I know this sounds crazy, but I think it’s connected to what’s going on today.”

As she talked, Painter had swung back to the window overlooking the surgical suite. Her words resonated through him. Slumped, unconscious, drugged…

Like Sasha’s collapse.

He remembered Kat reporting the girl called out her brother’s name just before she collapsed.

Their sole reason for existing was to support the one who could save the world from destruction.

Painter saw the surgeon lift his scalpel, ready to begin the operation.

No.

He bolted for the door.

Kat called to him. “What’s wrong?”

Painter had no time. He burst through the sterile prep area and into the operating room. “Stop! No one move!”

1:14 P.M.

Southern Ural Mountains

“General-Major, you should head downstairs to the bunker,” the soldier warned. He stood a head taller than her, thick with muscle. “We shall make a stand here.”

Another soldier dragged Dr. Petrov’s screaming form into the room from the hallway. His leg had been blown off at the knee. Blood poured. Other soldiers ran in with the children carried over their shoulders. The group had been chased back to the apartment by the collapse of the Russian forces, retreating before the guerrilla assault.

The large soldier pointed a beefy arm toward the stairwell. “Please, General-Major. We will hold off as long as we can.”

“The children…” Savina said, knowing her plan was crumbling around her. She could not let anyone else steal what she had started. “Shoot them all.”

The man’s eyes grew large, but he was a soldier.

He nodded.

Savina retreated down the stairs. She could not watch. Her legs stumbled under her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. The door to the room was four-inch steel. Barricaded inside, she would wait out the war above. Ahead, she noted the flicker of the screens beyond the doorway. In the center screen, water flooded poison into the earth. As she holed up here, she would take solace as she watched.