The Last Oracle (Sigma Force 5)

Gray urged her to crawl. But Elizabeth was too afraid to move. The sniper couldn’t shoot her if she remained where she was. Gray corrected her of this misconception.

“He’s pinning us down!” he hollered to both Elizabeth and Hayden, who also seemed unwilling to move. “Trying to hold us here!”

Elizabeth understood what that implied. She gained her hands and knees. They had to move. Now.

More gunmen were on their way here.

9

September 6, 1:01 P.M.

Southern Ural Mountains

As the bear charged, the large man shoved Pyotr down the steep riverbank. Arms out, he struck hard and rolled. Branches poked, something scraped his cheek. Pyotr tumbled toward the river, scrabbling amid the wet ferns and slippery beds of pine needles. He didn’t know how to swim. Water terrified him.

Sharper screams cut through the bear’s roar.

His friends.

Konstantin and Kiska.

Pyotr’s knee struck a rock with a pain that shot to his spine. He landed flat on the riverbank’s edge. Water swirled past his nose.

He cringed back from his reflection in the dark waters. His image swam and churned, sunlight glinted and sparked as a strong gust stirred the branches overhanging the river.

Pyotr hung there in that scintillating moment of terror, suspended above the dark, dazzling water.

He’d had no warning of the brown bear until it rose up before them. Its gentle heart had been overshadowed by the hunger that hunted them, its steady beat muffled by the strident siren behind them.

Still, Pyotr’s terror spiked higher.

Not because of the water.

Not because of the bear.

Light and dark swirled under him. Oil on water.

Not the bear.

Not the bear.

He panted in dread.

The bear was not the danger.

Something else…

1:02 P.M.

Monk raised his pack, his only weapon, as the bear pounded down upon him. He had shoved Pyotr toward the water and the other two children into the underbrush on the other side. Marta leaped to a low branch and swung down toward Pyotr.

Monk hollered and swung his pack high in the air.

The bear barreled straight at him. Monk flung the pack hard and leaped to the side. Too late. As he flew, the bear struck his legs like a freight train, flipping Monk sideways. The pack bounced uselessly off its furry shoulders.

Monk hit the trunk of a larch tree broadside and crumpled to its base. With the wind knocked from him, he gasped and fought to his feet, his arms up to protect his face and head.

But the bear ignored him and charged onward down the deer track.

Monk stumbled back to the path. Forty yards away, the bear bowled into two shadowy shapes lurking there. Two tall wolves, long limbed and snarling. The bear swatted a massive paw and sent one wolf flying, end over end. The other leaped for the bear’s throat but found only yellow teeth and a fierce bellow of rage. The wolf howled, but still fought.

Monk noticed the cap of steel on the back of the wolves’ skulls. Hunters from the underground city. Scouts. There could be more.

Monk quickly gathered Konstantin and Kiska. Marta appeared, with Pyotr riding her back. Monk collected the boy and pointed.

“Run!” he whispered.

They took off together. If there were other hunters on the trail behind them, they would have to get past the bear. It offered some protection.

Monk glanced back as the battle continued amid roars and howls. The bear had reacted with swift and deadly aggression, responding with a blind hostility that bordered on fury. Did the bear have experience with these wolves? Had the soldiers hunted the woods with them? Or was it something more fundamental, a reaction to an affront against nature. Like a lioness swiftly killing off a deformed cub.

Either way, it bought Monk and the children some extra leeway.

But for how long?

2:28 P.M.

Agra, India

Gray herded everyone across the shattered restaurant. Without a clear target, the continual barrage from the sniper had died down to bursts, enough to keep them pinned low.

Moving in a crouch, Gray aimed for the fire exit. The stairwell opened beside the elevator. They dared not use the lift. Whoever arranged this ambush surely had people posted in the lobby, watching the front exit and elevator bay. To call for the lift would only alert any men posted below. They’d be trapped. The only hope was to use the stairs to reach another level of the hotel and hole up in one of the rooms and regroup.

Their route to the stairwell was confounded by the rotation of the floor, but Gray knew the motion had also saved Dr. Masterson’s life. That first bullet had been meant for the back of the professor’s skull. The rotation of the floor must have thrown off the sniper’s aim, turning a fatal shot into a grazing wound.

Gray had to give the old guy some credit. After the initial shock, he seemed hardly fazed. He pressed a cloth napkin against his ear, already soaked with blood. He had somehow managed to grab his white hat and had it perched aslant on his head. Rosauro kept to his side, bearing the man’s ivory-handled cane.

Gray and Elizabeth reached the stationary lobby of the restaurant, followed a step behind by Rosauro and Masterson. “The stairs,” Gray said.

“On it.”

Rosauro dashed across the lobby in two running strides, then slid low to the door like a baseball player stealing home. She smoothly slipped a Sig Sauer semiautomatic from an ankle holster. Staying on her knees, she reached up, yanked the handle, and used her shoulder to nudge the door open, just wide enough to cover with her pistol and observe the stairs.

Gray heard it immediately. Boots pounded up the tile stairs. Many boots.

“Seven to ten,” Rosauro assessed.

They were too late.

“Hold them back,” Gray ordered and rolled over to the elevator.

Noting his destination, Elizabeth reached for one of the call buttons, but Gray blocked her before she could press it. According to the lighted display above the doors, the cage was still waiting at the lobby level. It was surely under watch.

Gray scooted over to one of the restaurant’s service stations and found a carving knife and an armful of folded tablecloths. He returned to the elevator and slipped the knife between the doors. He levered the blade enough to get his fingers and the tip of a boot through the gap. With a single heave, he shoved the doors open.

As he did so, the crack of a pistol blasted—followed by a cry of surprise and pain from the stairwell. A short spat of gunplay followed. But Rosauro had the higher ground. Gray didn’t know how long that advantage would hold out. If they rushed her post, she’d be swamped.

They had to move fast.

Beyond the open doors, the elevator shaft was pitch dark. Two oily cables dangled. There was also a metal service ladder to one side.