The Last Oracle (Sigma Force 5)

A tingle of misgiving iced through Gray. He suddenly knew why the professor had come here. “By any chance do you know an Archibald Polk?”

She fixed him with a more solid stare. “My father? Why?”

3

September 5, 7:22 P.M.

Washington, D.C.

“Dead?”

Gray sat on the edge of the desk in the museum’s storage room. He knew the pain of what he had to tell her. Elizabeth Polk slumped in the chair, collapsed within her lab coat. There were no tears. Shock locked them away, but she took off her slim eyeglasses, as if readying herself.

“I heard about the shooting on the Mall,” she mumbled. “But I never thought…” She shook her head. “I’ve been in the cellars here all day.”

Where there was no cell phone reception, Gray noted silently. Painter had mentioned trying to reach Polk’s daughter. And she was right across the Mall the entire time.

“I’m sorry to press you on this, Elizabeth,” he said, “but when did you last see your father?”

She swallowed hard, starting to lose control. Her voice quavered. “I…I’m not sure. A year ago. We had a falling-out. Oh, God, what I said to him…” She placed a hand on her forehead.

Gray read the regret and pain in her eyes. “I’m sure he knew you loved him.”

Her eyes flashed to him, going harder. “Thank you for your words. But you didn’t know him, did you?”

Gray sensed the tough core hidden behind that mousy, bookish exterior. He faced her anger, knowing it was directed inward rather than at him. Kowalski had retreated to the far side of the room, plainly uncomfortable with the whole scene.

Gray twisted where he sat and pointed to the desktop. The rows of ancient coins still lined a paper blotter there. “I know because we found a coin on your father’s body.” Gray recalled what Painter had told him about it. “A coin with the bust of Faustina the Elder on one side and the Temple of Delphi on the other.”

Her eyes widened. She stared down at the gap in the row where the coin once lay.

Gray lifted an arm. “He came here before he was shot. To your office.”

“It’s not my office,” she mumbled, glancing around, as if searching for the ghost of her father. “I’m doing research for my doctoral dissertation. In fact, it was my father who pulled some strings and got me this graduate position at the Delphi Museum in Greece. I’d been out there until a month ago. I’m overseeing the installation of this exhibit. I didn’t think my father knew I was here. Especially after our—” She waved away what she was going to say next.

“He must’ve been keeping tabs on you.”

A few tears did flow, just enough to trickle down one cheek. She brusquely dabbed her face with the sleeve of her lab coat.

Gray gave her a moment. He stared over at Kowalski, who was walking in a bored circle around the stone omphalos, like a slow orbiting moon. Gray knew Elizabeth’s father had followed that same orbit. But why?

Elizabeth voiced the same question. “Why did my father come here? Why did he take the coin?”

“I don’t know. But I’m fairly certain your father knew he was being tracked, hunted.” He pictured Polk haunting the edges of the Mall, seeking some way of contacting Sigma in person, staying hidden. “He might have taken the coin in case he was murdered. The coin was grimy, easy to miss in a pocket if the assailant did a cursory search of the body. But a more thorough exam at a morgue would’ve revealed the strangeness of the coin. I think he hoped it would lead here. To this office where he would’ve known you’d report it stolen.”

The woman’s tears had dried as he spoke. “But why would he do that?”

Gray closed his eyes, thinking hard, putting himself in the man’s shoes. “If I’m right about the coin, your father was worried he would be searched. He must’ve known the hunters were after something. Something he possessed…”

Of course.

Gray opened his eyes and stood. He drew Elizabeth up, too. Her eyes studied the room, but not for ghosts this time. Gray saw the understanding in the pinch of her brows. She donned her eyeglasses.

“My father might have hidden here what his murderers were looking for.”

Gray headed to where Kowalski waited beside the conical-shaped stone. “Your father seemed particularly interested in the temple’s omphalos.”

Elizabeth followed with a frown. “How could you possibly know that?”

Gray briefly explained about the radiation exposure and lifted the Gamma-Scout. “Your father’s trail led here, and for me to get such a strong reading from it, he must have spent some time near the artifact.”

Elizabeth had paled a bit upon hearing of her father’s affliction. Still, she waved to Kowalski. “There’s an emergency flashlight plugged into that wall over there.”

He nodded and fetched it.

She approached the stone. “While it looks solid, it’s actually hollow inside. No more than an upended bowl of carved granite.” She pointed to the hole at the top.

Gray understood. Her father could have easily dropped something inside it. He accepted the flashlight from Kowalski, leaned over the stone, and pointed the beam down into the heart of it. It was indeed hollow. At the bottom, the slats of the pallet that supported the stone were illuminated. He shifted the beam around and spotted something off to one side. It looked like a polished stone, roughly the size of a cantaloupe.

“Can’t tell what it is,” he mumbled and straightened. “We need to lift the stone.”

“It’s heavy,” Elizabeth explained. “Took six men to uncrate it. But there’s a crowbar among the tools in back. We should be able to tilt it up. But we’ll have to be careful.”

“I’ll go get it,” Kowalski said.

As he stepped away, the telephone on Elizabeth’s desk rang. She crossed toward it and checked the caller ID on the handset. “It’s security.” She checked her wristwatch, then glanced to Gray. “It’s already after closing hours. They must be checking on how long I’ll be working down here.”

“Tell them at least another hour.”

She nodded and picked up the phone. She confirmed who she was, then listened. Her eyes widened. “I understand. We’ll be right up.” She hung up the phone and turned to Gray. “Someone called in a bomb threat. Here at the museum. They’re evacuating the building.”