The Last Oracle (44 page)

Ahead, the jeep raced alongside the four hundred yards of tracks. The vehicle was almost to the end. It would be close. Gray was still a football field away from the road.

And they’d been spotted.

An arm pointed toward their racing motorcycle. From the distance, Gray and Kowalski would appear to be Russian soldiers out for a joy ride. Confusion should reign for a moment in the jeep. That’s all they would have.

“Kowalski!”

“What?”

“Can you take out one of their rear tires as they make that curve?”

“Are you nuts?” he asked, his voice rattling with the bike.

“Hang on.”

Gray angled the bike into a dry sandy wash. Floods had swept the stretch fairly flat and smooth.

“Take your shot!” he yelled to Kowalski.

The large man already had his assault rifle up. Kowalski braced himself in the sidecar and brought the rifle to his shoulder. Gray heard him almost purr to his weapon. “C’mon, baby, make Daddy proud.”

Directly ahead, the jeep had reached the end of the tracks. It slowed to make the sharp turn but still took the corner hard. The driver fought to hold his vehicle to the road.

Gray heard a
pop-pop
from the sidecar. The Russian AN-94 fired double shots with every squeeze. At the same time, the jeep suddenly fishtailed as the driver lost control, his left rear tire smoking and tossing tread. It skidded sideways and slammed into a concrete pylon between the ends of the track.

Kowalski hooted his satisfaction and rubbed the side of his weapon. “Thank you, baby!”

Further self-congratulation was cut off as their cycle left the sandy wash and sailed back into coarser terrain. Spitting rocks, the cycle tore forward and reached the roadway in seconds.

The Russian jeep rested where it had crashed, one side crumpled, killing one of the soldiers in the front passenger seat. The other three occu
pants had piled out and retreated into a jumble of concrete barriers and low metal shacks that filled the space between the two track rails.

As Gray rounded into view, a roar of clapping erupted from the grandstands, along with cheering. The ceremony was reaching its climax. Covered by the noise, Gray barely heard the shots fired at them. The bike’s front tire blew, but Gray had anticipated an attack and aimed the cycle to the far side of the crumpled jeep. He slammed to a skidding stop behind it and rolled off the bike.

Kowalski tumbled out alongside him, and together they sheltered behind the crashed vehicle.

More rounds pinged off the front of the jeep.

Gray risked a fast peek around the rear bumper. He spotted a suited figure fleeing straight down the center of the tracks, which rose eight feet tall to either side, built of concrete and steel.

Nicolas Solokov was making a three-hundred-yard dash for the goal—in this case, the back end of the rolling archway. Gray tried to get a shot at him, but a bullet struck the bumper and whistled past his ear. He caught a glimpse of a smoking pistol, borne aloft by a raven-haired woman.

Elena.

Cursing, he dropped back.

Kowalski yelped, nicked in the shoulder.

The woman and a soldier held them pinned down.

Gray checked his watch.

Ten minutes.

Nicolas heard gunfire behind him and tried to race faster down the concourse between the raised tracks, but he’d twisted his left ankle after the crash. He had to trust Elena to keep him safe.

Two workers walked behind the backside of the steel Shelter. The massive structure rolled slowly along the rails, creeping a foot a minute on Teflon bearings, drawn by the massive hydraulic pulling jacks to either side.

A garage-door-size service hatch lay open ahead and offered access to the inside of the looming Shelter. It was the main reason Nicolas had fled
from the others. He could not be sitting in front of that open door when Operation Uranus came to fruition.

He hobbled as fast as he could down the packed gravel roadway between the tracks. He had to get through that door, across the interior of the Shelter, and out the rear side before it closed.

Even he couldn’t stop Operation Uranus.

All he could do was get out of its way.

The plan had been formulated back in 1999, when the Shelter Implementation Plan had first started. The SIP’s goal was to stabilize and cover the old Sarcophagus. Engineers had been warning for years that the old crypt could collapse at any moment, exposing two hundred tons of radioactive uranium to the atmosphere. By that time, sections of the old Sarcophagus had already begun to crumble. Tiny holes and fissures had formed. So the first phase of the SIP sought to stabilize the Sarcophagus. That meant patching holes, shoring up structural wall pillars, and securing the rickety ventilation stack. This was all done while the Shelter’s massive arch was being constructed a safe four hundred yards away.

That initial structural work was completed in 1999—but it held some secrets. After the fall of the Soviet Union, corruption ran rampant. It had cost little to have four concussion charges secretly planted into the new wall pillars. They had remained dormant and inactive until yesterday. Last night, one of Nicolas’s men had sent a signal to the buried charges, setting the timers to match the closure of the Shelter over the Sarcophagus. Once set, there was no turning back.

At exactly two minutes before the Shelter sealed, the charges would blow. No one would even hear them. All that would be noted was a crash of concrete, followed by the collapse of an entire section of the Sarcophagus’s wall—the side that faced the grandstands. For an entire two minutes, the stands would be bathed in massive amounts of radiation before the Shelter finally sealed against the concrete wall behind the Sarcophagus. The exposure would not be enough to cause immediate fatalities. In fact, no one would feel anything. But during those two minutes, everyone in attendance would absorb a lethal dose of radiation.

They would all be dead within a matter of weeks.

In attendance were the Russian prime minister and president, alongside the leaders from across the Americas and the European Union. If successful, Nicolas’s mission would throw the major world governments into disarray, so that when the radiological bloom spread globally from his mother’s operation at Chelyabinsk 88, the world would need a strong voice, someone who had spent his career warning of just such a catastrophe.

They would turn to the only survivor of Operation Uranus.

And over the coming months—guided by the secret cabal of savants—Nicolas would demonstrate a remarkable prescience, intuitive knowledge, and brilliant foresight.

Out of the fire to come, Nicolas would quickly rise to power in Russia, and from there, stretch his influence globally. The Russian Empire would rise from these radioactive ashes to guide the world in a new direction.

It was such a thought that fueled him now.

He limped up to the two men following the back end of the Shelter. He pulled the pistol from his pocket. Two head shots. Almost point-blank. They dropped like leaden sacks to the gravel. There could be no witnesses.

Nicolas hurried through the open service hatch that pierced the back wall of the hangar. It took a dozen steps to cross through the hatch. The Shelter’s steel walls were twelve meters thick.

Once through, Nicolas entered the heart of the Shelter.

Despite his desperation, he gaped at the sheer wonder of the massive space. The arch of steel climbed a hundred meters overhead and was two and a half times as wide. Cavernous did not describe the place. Like stars in the night sky, hundreds of lamps lit the vast interior, positioned along steel scaffolding that lined the inside of the Shelter. Overhead, a maze of yellow tracks crisscrossed the roof. Giant robotic cranes waited stationary, ready to tear apart the old Sarcophagus. Giant hooks the size of ships’ anchors and skeletal pronged grips hung from the trolley cranes.

Just inside the Shelter, Nicolas stopped long enough to hit the giant red button that closed the service hatch. It trundled slowly closed behind him, creeping down on giant gears.

According to their original plan, Nicolas and Elena were to hole up outside in a control booth on the far side of the Shelter. The booth, which controlled the winch engines, was heavily lead-lined to protect the operator from any radiation. It was also positioned on the opposite side from the concussive charges, so exposure should be minimal.

Nicolas needed to reach that booth, but if Elena remained pinned down between the tracks back there, he wanted to protect her from the burst of radiation that would come. Though not in a direct line of the exposure like the grandstands, her position could still be exposed to scatter radiation through the open rear hatch—maybe not enough to kill her, but it could destroy her chances of having healthy children.

So to protect his own future genetic heritage, Nicolas sought to shield her. But more than that, he could not totally discount that he did care for the woman. His mother would interpret such tender feelings as weakness, but Nicolas could not deny his heart.

As the door slowly lowered, Nicolas headed off.

“Elena!” Gray called out from behind the jeep. “You must help us!”

There was no answer.

At least not from Elena.

“Pierce, I don’t think you’re going to talk your way out of this,” Kowalski said. His partner crouched a few steps away. His shoulder wept blood through his jacket, but it was only a graze. “She’s one crazy bitch. Why is it always the crazy ones who are such good shots?”

“I don’t think she’s crazy,” Gray mumbled.

At least he hoped not.

He had seen how she had reacted to the revelation that Sasha was Nicolas’s biological daughter. A mix of shocked dismay and protectiveness. There was some connection between Elena and the girl, something more than just an augmented sisterhood.

He had to trust he was correct.

“Sasha came to me!” Gray called out. “Sought me out. She guided us here for a reason.”

Silence stretched. Then a soft voice finally spoke. “How? How did Sasha guide you here?”

Elena was testing him.

Gray took a deep breath. He lifted his rifle in the air and tossed it aside.

“Pierce…,” Kowalski growled. “If you think I’m throwing my gun away, you’re as nutty as she is.”

Gray stood up.

Across the gap, the Russian soldier’s rifle shifted toward him. Elena also rose and barked at the soldier, keeping him from shooting outright. Elena wanted to know more about Sasha. Across the way, the Russian pair shared a fortress of concrete pylons. Elena kept her pistol pointed at him.

Gray answered her question. “How did Sasha guide us? She drew pictures. First she guided the Gypsies to my door. Then she drew a picture of the Taj Mahal, which guided us to India, where we discovered your true heritage and history. You have to ask yourself
why.
Sasha is special, is she not?”

Elena just stared at him with her hard, dark eyes.

Gray took that as agreement and continued, letting her see and hear the truth in his words. “Why were we sent to India? Why even engage us at all? Why now? There has to be a reason. I think Sasha—consciously or unconsciously—is trying to stop what you’re planning on doing.”

Elena showed no flicker of acknowledgment, but Gray was still alive.

“She sent us on a path to discover your roots: from the Oracle of Delphi, through the Gypsies, to now. I think there was some reason your lineage was begun. Perhaps the fulfillment of a great prophecy that is yet to come.”

“What prophecy?” Elena asked.

Gray noted a flicker of both recognition and fear. Was there some nightmare etched into their psyches? Gray pictured the mosaics found at the Greek stronghold in India, including the last mosaic on the wall, a fiery shape rising out of smoke from the omphalos. Gray took a chance and quickly described what they had found, finishing with, “The figure looked like a boy with eyes of fire.”

The pistol in Elena’s arm began to tremble—though it still didn’t waver from its aim at his chest. Gray heard Elena mumble a name that sounded like Peter.

“Who is Peter?” Gray asked.

“Pyotr,” Elena corrected. “Sasha’s brother. He has nightmares sometimes. Wakes screaming, saying his eyes are on fire. But…but…”

“What?” Gray pressed, intrigued despite the time pressure.

“When he wakes, we all do. For just a moment, we see Pyotr burning.” She shook her head. “But his talent is empathy. He’s very strong. We attributed the nightmares to some quake of his talent that radiated outward. An empathic echo.”

“It’s not just an echo from Pyotr,” Gray realized aloud. “It’s an echo going back to the beginning.”

But where does it end?

Gray stared over to Elena. “You cannot truly want what is to come. Sasha plainly did not. She brought me here. If she wanted Nicolas’s plan to work, all she had to do was remain silent. But she didn’t. She brought me to
you,
Elena. To you. To this moment. You have the chance to either help Sasha or destroy what she started. It’s your choice.”

Her decision was instantaneous, perhaps born out of the fire in her brain. She pivoted on a toe and fired. The Russian soldier dropped, killed instantly.

Gray hurried over to her. “How do we stop Operation Uranus?”

“You cannot,” she answered, her voice slightly dazed, perhaps dizzy from the sudden reversal of roles, or perhaps merely waking from a long dream.

Elena handed Gray her pistol, as if knowing where he must go. He was already sidling past her and heading off between the rails. If she didn’t know how to stop Operation Uranus, perhaps Nicolas did.

“You must hurry,” she said. “But I…I may know a way to help.”

She turned and glanced toward the back side of the complex, where Nicolas been headed originally.

Gray pointed to the motorcycle. Though the front tire was flat, it would still be faster than on foot. “Kowalski, help her.”

“But she shot me.”

Gray didn’t have time to argue. He turned and sprinted through the forest of concrete pylons. The way opened ahead, lined by the tracks to either
side. At the other end of the concourse, he spotted Nicolas limping through a wide door in the massive steel wall and vanishing into the darkness.