The Last Oracle (23 page)

Coming after them.

Kowalski followed. “They’ve taken the bait.”

6:33 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

A knock on the door startled Painter. He had been close to dozing off, seated in his chair, elbows on the desktop, a pile of notes and test results from Lisa and Malcolm beneath his face. Earlier, he had ordered Kat to take a nap in one of the medical center’s spare beds. Up all night himself, he should’ve taken that same advice.

He pressed the lock release under his desk, and the door swung open. He’d been expecting Lisa or Malcolm. Painter sat straighter in surprise and gained his feet.

A tall, wide-shouldered man entered, dressed in a blue suit. His red hair had gone mostly a whitish gray, combed neatly back.

“Sean?”

Sean McKnight was the director of DARPA and Painter’s immediate superior. He’d also been the man to recruit Painter into Sigma over a decade ago, when Sean had sat in Painter’s chair. McKnight had been the visionary first director of Sigma, taking Archibald Polk’s concept and turning it into reality. But more important, Sean was a good friend.

The man waved Painter back into his seat.

“Don’t get up for me, son,” he said. “I’m not about to take
that
chair again.”

Painter smiled. On his first day as director, Sean had sent Painter a crate of antacids. He had thought it was a good gag gift—but a couple of years later, Painter had gone through half the crate.

“Something tells me, Sean,
your
job isn’t any lighter.”

“Not today it’s not.” Sean sank into a chair across the desk from him. “I’ve been checking into that man Commander Pierce saw outside the museum. Mapplethorpe. John Mapplethorpe.”

“So it wasn’t a false I.D. he’d spotted?”

“On the contrary. Mapplethorpe is a division chief for the Defense Intelligence Agency. His oversight is the Russian Federation and its splinter states.”

Painter recalled Malcolm’s initial assessment about where Polk had been fatally exposed to radiation. Chernobyl. What was Mapplethorpe’s role in all of this?

“The man has powerful allies among intelligence agencies,” Sean continued. “Known for his ruthlessness and manipulation. But he’s also known as someone who can get results. A valuable commodity in Washington.”

“So how is he involved in all of this?”

“I’ve read your update. You know all about the declassified Project Stargate. How it was discontinued in the middle 1990s.”

“But it wasn’t,” Painter said. “In its final years, it vanished into the Defense Intelligence Agency.”

“That’s correct. It became Mapplethorpe’s project. He was approached in 1996 by a pair of Russian scientists—who were running the Soviet Union’s version of Stargate. They were strapped for funds and sought our aid. We agreed to help—for our mutual benefit in this new world of borderless enemies. So a small cabal of Jasons was assigned to work jointly with the Russians. That’s when the whole project went deeply classified. Vanished. Only a handful of people were even aware of its continuing existence.”

“Until Archibald came stumbling to our doorstep,” Painter said.

“We believe he sought to expose them. To bring out evidence.”

“Of the atrocities being committed in the name of science.”

“In the name of
national security,
” Sean corrected. “Keep that in mind. That’s the oil that greases the wheels in Washington. Do not underestimate Mapplethorpe. He knows how to play this game. And he believes himself a true patriot. He’s also gone a long way to establish himself as such in the intelligence communities. Here and abroad.”

Painter shook his head.

Sean continued, “Mapplethorpe has got every intelligence agency in the country looking for that skull you acquired. Every combination of ini
tials imaginable. CIA, FBI, NSA, NRO, ONI…I wager he’s even employed the network of retired spies with the AARP.”

Sean tried to smile at his own joke, but it came out tired. “I can’t keep a lid on this much longer. Archibald was shot right on your doorstep. His ties to the Jasons, to Sigma, will not go unnoticed for long. And after last year’s government oversight on our operations, there are many classified trails that lead here.”

“So what are you saying?” Painter asked.

“I think it’s time that the skull made a reappearance. The wolves are circling closer. I can broker the skull through another intelligence agency, so it doesn’t leave a trail back to Sigma.” He met and held Painter’s gaze.

“But that’ll buy you only a half a day grace period with the girl. If Gray and his team don’t have answers before then, we may be forced to give her up.”

“I won’t do that, Sean.”

“You may have no choice.”

Painter stood. “Then you meet her first. You look at her, what was done to her. And you tell me how I can hand that girl over to Mapplethorpe.”

Painter saw his mentor balk. It was easier to condemn the faceless. Still, Sean nodded and stood. He never shied from the difficult. It was why Painter respected the man so much.

“Let’s go say hello,” Sean said.

They exited together and descended the two levels to where the child was being kept.

As they reached the lower floor, Painter spotted Kat and Lisa at the end of the hall near the door to the girl’s room. Kat seemed frantic. Painter knew the woman had been upset after seeing the child draw a picture of her husband, Monk, but Kat had eventually calmed down. She had admitted opening her wallet to show the girl pictures of her own daughter, Penelope, as a baby, hoping to establish a bond with the child. She’d had a picture of Monk among the photos.

But I’m sure she didn’t see it
, Kat had said.
At least I’m fairly certain
.

The only other explanation, as wild as it might be, was that the girl had somehow plucked Monk’s image out of Kat’s head, someone close to the woman’s heart.

Either way, Kat had calmed down and agreed that it was best she take a nap. Exhaustion had put her on edge.

Spotting the men now, Kat came down the hall to meet them, plainly too anxious to wait.

“Director,” she said in a rush, “we were about to call you. The girl’s fever is spiking again. We have to do something. Lisa thinks…thinks she’s dying.”

2:35 P.M.
Agra, India

Gray hurried down the street. The closer he got to the major intersection ahead, the worse the traffic snarled. Pedestrians were now packed shoulder to shoulder, slowly flowing through the creeping vehicles. The festival closed off the major thoroughfare. Traffic was diverted to secondary roads.

Horns blared, bicycle bells rang, people yelled and cursed.

Behind them, the scream of the motorcycles had wound down to a deep-throated growl. Even the hunters had become mired in this bog of humanity. Still, Gray made sure to stay low.

Kowalski shoved closer to him, ducking under the nose of a horse-drawn wagon. “Some of ’em are on foot now.”

Gray glanced back. The three black motorcycles had been slowly losing ground. The cycle’s passengers had abandoned the bikes and now followed through the crowd behind them. Two flanked the road, and one came down the center of the street.

Three threats had become six.

“Don’t like those odds,” Gray mumbled. He came up with a fast plan and told Kowalski what to do and where to meet. “I’ll take the high road. You take the low.”

The large man crouched in front of a truck. He stared at the muck of droppings from horse, donkey, and camel underfoot. “How come I have to take the low road?”

“Because I’m wearing white.”

With a shake of his head, Kowalski dropped even lower, one hand on the asphalt. In a crouch, he shuffled
back
toward the hotel.

Holding the Panama hat atop his head, Gray leaped to the trunk of the taxi ahead and fled across the top of it toward the festival. His boots pounded a timpani across the taxi’s rooftop and hood—then he bounded over to the next car in line and continued down the street, leaping and clambering across the tops of cars, taxis, and wagons. Shouts followed him, and fists shook in his wake. But in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the high road was the faster mode of travel.

Gray glanced over a shoulder. As he’d hoped, the hunters had spotted him. In order not to lose him, the three on foot had mounted the high road, too. They came after him from three different directions, but at least they were too unbalanced to risk a shot at him.

Crouching low, using Masterson’s cane for balance and support, Gray leapfrogged his way toward the noisy, boisterous festival. He had to lure the three footmen away from the motorcycles.

Divide and conquer.

Sliding across the roof of a van, Gray surveyed the congested sea of humanity behind him. Only this sea had a new shark in its waters now. Gray could not spot Kowalski, but he witnessed the man’s handiwork. Farther back, the lead motorcycle edged alongside a truck. When it reached the front, the cyclist suddenly jerked upright, his body shaking. Gray heard a distant
pop-pop-pop,
like the celebratory firecrackers that echoed from the festival.

The driver and cycle sank into the churning sea.

Kowalski remained hidden. With the hunters’ eyes on Gray’s flight, it was easy for the large man to drop back, lie in wait, then jab his stolen M4 carbine into the rider as he passed. Point-blank, muffled.

But the shark wasn’t done hunting these seas.

Gray left the large man to his bloody work and continued toward the confusion and chaos that was the festival. It sang, danced, cheered, laughed, and screamed. Music blew from horns and rang out with the clash of cymbals. It was the festival of Janmashtami, a celebration of the birth of Krishna.

From his vantage, he spotted patches of folks dancing the Ras Lila, a traditional Manipuri dance representing Krishna’s early, mischievous years when he had dalliances with milkmaids. The packed crowds were also dotted with piles of young men forming human pyramids, striving to reach clay pots strung high across the street. The pots, called
dahi-handi,
were filled with curd and butter. The game reenacted Krishna’s childish exploits, when he and his boyhood friends used to steal butter from neighbors.

Gray heard the traditional chant of support.

“Govinda! Govinda!”

Another name for Krishna.

Gray raced across the top of vehicles toward the festival. With the road ahead blocked off and traffic diverted, Gray’s high road ended at the street party. He leaped off the hood of the last taxi and into the crowd.

As he landed amid the mass of revelers, he shed the white hat and coat, removing his disguise and blending into the crowd. He kept the cane in one hand and his pistol pressed to his thigh as he pushed through the masses of people. He aimed for the edge of the festival where shops and food wagons crowded with patrons lined the street square.

The plan was to regroup with Kowalski at the northwest corner of the square. They dared not continue to the rendezvous at the fort until they knew they’d shaken their tail. Gray reached a building with a fire escape. The metal ladder was pulled down, the balconies crowded with people enjoying the festival below. Gray climbed to the second floor for a good vantage place to observe the crowds and watch for Kowalski.

Reaching the level, Gray spotted one of his pursuers as he leaped from the hood of a truck into the mass of the festival. His other two compatriots were already in the mix, readily discernible by their black helmets. One bent down and lifted a soiled, trampled white hat. He threw it away in disgust and frustration.

Gray hoped they’d realize the hopelessness of their situation and retreat. But nothing was ever that easy.

Kowalski burst into the crowd. His suit jacket was a rumpled ruin. His hands were empty, his cheek bloody. But his worst feature was his
height. The man stood a head and shoulder higher than the average partier. He surveyed the crowd with a hand shielding his eyes against the glare as he pushed through the sea of revelry.

Only this time, Kowalski wasn’t the shark in the waters.

One of the helmeted men pointed in the big man’s direction, recognizing him. They closed in on him from all directions.

Not good.

Gray turned, but the balcony had grown even more crowded, the ladder jammed up with people. He’d never reach the center of the crowd in time.

Twisting back around, Gray mounted the top of the balcony’s railing, then leaped off it—
straight up
.

Overhead, a thick, oily wire was strung from the balcony above and across the square. Gray swept his arm high and hooked the ivory handle of the cane to the wire. His momentum and swing of his legs sent him skating along the wire, weighted down in the center by one of the large clay
dahi-handi
pots. He clutched the cane and swung his other arm straight down.

As his heels passed over the head of one of the helmeted hunters, Gray fired between his legs. The impact pounded the man to the ground, the helmet shattering like a walnut shell.

Then Gray hit the top of the human pyramid that was climbing for the clay pot. He knocked the topmost man down a peg and took his place at the top. As he scrabbled to keep from falling, the cane went toppling down the side of the pyramid—along with Gray’s pistol.

Faces stared up at him.

Including the remaining two gunmen.

Weaponless, Gray balanced on the shoulders of the man below him and shoved up. He grabbed the bottom of the large clay pot, unhooked it, and with a silent prayer to Krishna, he lobbed it down at the nearest gunman.

His prayer was answered.

The heavy pot hit the man square in his upraised face, exploding with a wash of shards and butter. He went down hard.

The third gunman lifted his arm, cradling a pistol. As the crowd screamed, he fired two shots at Gray—but Gray was no longer there. The human pyramid crumpled under him. Bullets whined past the top of his head as he fell.

He landed in a tangle of limbs.

Gray struggled around, trying to find a footing. The gunman stalked toward the human dog pile, his gun raised. Before he could fire, a flash of white blurred in front. The man’s head cracked back, struck in the face by the ivory handle of Masterson’s cane. Kowalski had wielded the recovered cane like a batter swinging for the bleachers.