The Last Oracle (50 page)

And on top of resecuring the facility here, he was fielding nonstop calls from every branch of the intelligence agency: both about what had happened here and about the aborted terrorist act at Chernobyl. Painter stonewalled about most of it. He didn’t have time for debriefings or to play the political game of who had the bigger dick. The only brief call he took was from a grateful president. Painter used that gratitude to buy him the latitude to put off everyone else.

Another attack threatened.

That was the top priority.

And as the latest problem was tied to that matter, he gave it his full and immediate attention. Reaching the medical level, he crossed to one of the private rooms. He entered and found Kat and Lisa flanking a bed.

Sasha lay atop it as Lisa repositioned an EEG lead to the child’s temple.

“She’s sick again?” Painter asked.

“Something new,” Lisa answered. “She’s not febrile like before.”

Kat stood with her arms crossed. Lines of worry etched her forehead. “I was reading to her, trying to get her to sleep after everything that had happened. She was listening. Then suddenly she sat up, turned to an empty corner of the room, called out the name Pyotr, then went limp and collapsed.”

“Pyotr? Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Yuri mentioned Sasha had a twin brother named Pyotr. It must have been a hallucination.”

While they talked, Lisa had retreated to a bank of equipment and began powering them up. Sasha was wired to both an EKG and EEG, monitoring cardiac and neurological activity.

“Is her device active?” Painter asked, nodding to Sasha’s TMS unit.

“No,” Lisa answered. “Malcolm checked. He’s already come and gone. Off to make some calls. But something’s sure active. Her EEG readings are showing massive spiking over the lateral convexity of the temporal lobe. Specifically on the right side, where her implant is located. It’s almost as if she’s having a temporal lobe seizure. Contrarily her heart rate is low and her blood pressure dropped to her extremities. It’s as if all her body’s resources are servicing the one organ.”

“Her brain,” Painter said.

“Exactly. Everything else is in shutdown mode.”

“But to what end?”

Lisa shook her head. “I have no idea. I’m going to run some more tests, but if she doesn’t respond, I can think of only one possible solution.”

“What’s that?” Kat asked.

“Though the TMS implant is not active, the spiking EEGs are cen
tered around it. I can’t help but believe those neuro-electrodes are contributing to what’s happening to her. Her electrical activity is frighteningly high in that region—as if those wires in her brain are acting like lightning rods. If I can’t calm her neural activity, she may burn herself out.”

Kat paled at her assessment. “You mentioned a solution.”

Lisa sighed, not looking happy. “We may need to remove her implant. That’s where Malcolm went, to make some calls to a neurosurgeon at George Washington.”

Painter crossed and put an arm around Kat’s shoulders. He knew how attached she had become to the child. They had lost many lives protecting her. To lose her now…

“We’ll do everything we can,” Painter promised her.

Kat nodded.

Painter’s beeper buzzed on his belt. He slipped his arm free and checked the number. The Russian embassy. That was one call he had to take. Gray should be landing at Chelyabinsk in another few minutes.

As he glanced back up, Lisa waved him away with a small tired smile. “I’ll call you if there’s any change.”

He headed for the door—then a sudden thought intruded, something he had set aside and not yet addressed. He frowned questioningly over to Kat.

“Earlier,” he said, “I don’t know if I heard you correctly.”

Kat looked at him.

“What did you mean when you said Monk was still alive?”

12:20 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

Monk sidled along the train in the pitch dark. He ran his stumped forearm along the cabs as he moved down the tracks. He stretched and waved his other hand in front of him. Stumbling over railroad ties and larger stones in the gravel, he worked his way from the front of the train toward the back.

A moment before, as Monk had stepped out of the train, Pyotr had stopped screaming. It had cut off abruptly. The silence was even worse,
creating a stillness as complete as the darkness. Monk’s heart pounded.

Reaching the next ore car, he hiked up over the edge and waved his arm into the open space. “Pyotr?”

His voice sounded exceptionally loud, echoing down the tunnel. But he didn’t know where the boy was or even if he was still on the train. The only option was to work methodically backward.

Monk hopped back down and moved toward the next car. He stretched his right arm out again, sweeping ahead of him—

—then something grabbed his hand.

Monk yelped in surprise. Warm leathery fingers wrapped around his. He reflexively yanked his arm back, but the fingers held firm. A soft hoot accompanied the grip.

“Marta!” Monk dropped and gave her a fumbling hug in the dark.

She returned it, nudging her cheek against his, and gave a soft chuff of relief. Her entire body trembled. He felt the pounding of her heart against his chest. She broke the embrace but kept hold of his hand. She urged him to follow with a gentle tug.

Monk gained his feet and allowed her to guide him. He knew where she was taking him. To Pyotr. Moving more swiftly, Monk reached the last cab. Unlike the open ore cars in the middle, the last cab was enclosed.

Marta hopped through an open door.

Monk climbed in after her. The old chimpanzee shuffled and herded him to a back corner. He found Pyotr on the floor, flat out on his back.

Monk’s hand patted over him, defining his shape out of the darkness. “Pyotr?”

There was no response.

He felt the boy’s chest rise and fall. Fingers checked his small face. Was he injured? Had he taken a fall? His skin was feverish to the touch. Then a tiny hand wandered like a lost bird and discovered Monk’s fingers—and gripped hard.

“Pyotr, thank God.” Monk scooped him up and sat with the boy in his lap. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Small arms wrapped around his neck. Monk felt the burn of the boy’s skin, even through his clothes.

Pyotr spoke, at his ear. “
Go
…”

Monk felt a chill pass through him. The tone sounded deeper than Pyotr’s normal tentative falsetto. Maybe it was the dark, maybe it was the boy’s raw fear. But Monk felt no tremble in his thin limbs. The single word had more command than plea.

Still, it was not a bad idea.

He stood and lifted the boy up. Pyotr seemed heavier, though Monk was past the edge of exhaustion into a bone-deep fatigue, near collapse. Marta helped guide him to the door. He jumped out and landed hard. With the boy in his arms, he hurried back toward the front of the train. He had brought one rifle with him, but he’d left the other in the front cab.

Reaching the car, Monk asked, “Can you—?”

Even before he finished the question, Pyotr clambered out of his arms and gained his own feet.

“Stay here.” Monk quickly climbed inside, grabbed the second rifle, and slung it over his shoulder.

He returned to Pyotr. The boy took his hand.

Monk expelled one hard breath. Which direction? The train had stopped halfway along the tunnel. They could either return to Konstantin and the other children or continue ahead. But if they had any hope of stopping this madwoman, Monk saw no advantage in going back.

Perhaps Pyotr thought the same thing. The boy set off in that direction. Toward Chelyabinsk 88.

With two rifles strapped to his back and a boy and chimpanzee in tow, Monk marched down the pitch-black tunnel. They had come full circle and headed back home. But what sort of welcome would they face?

The doctor shook his head. “I’m sorry, General-Major. I don’t know what’s wrong with the children. They’ve never demonstrated this type of catatonia before.”

Savina stared across the room. A pair of nurses and two soldiers had helped spread the ten children on the floor, lined up like felled trees. They’d brought in pillows and blankets from the neighboring bedrooms.
Two medical doctors had been summoned: Dr. Petrov specialized in neurology, and Dr. Rostropovich in bioengineering.

In a sheepskin-trimmed jacket, Petrov stood with his fists on his hips. The medical team had been in the process of evacuating when called over here. A large caravan of trucks and vehicles was already lined up for departure.

“I’ll need a full diagnostic suite to better understand what’s happening,” he said. “And we’ve already dismantled—”

“Yes. I know. We’ll have to wait until we reach the facility in Moscow. Can the children be transported safely?”

“I believe so.”

Savina stared hard at the doctor. She did not like his equivocation.

He nodded his head with more certainty. “They’re stable. We can move them.”

“Then make arrangements.”

“Yes, General-Major.”

Savina left further details to the medical staff and headed back down to the control bunker below. While dealing with the matter here, Savina had also been in contact with her resources in the Russian intelligence and military communities. The information gridlock at Chernobyl seemed to finally be loosening. Contradictory reports and rumors swirled around events at the ceremony: everything from a full nuclear meltdown to a foiled terrorist attack by Chechen rebels. The firming consensus was that there had definitely been a radiological leak, though the extent remained unclear.

And why had Nicolas remained silent?

The worry gnawed a ragged edge to her temper and patience.

And now the strangeness with the children.

Savina needed to clamp down on the chaos and focus on the matter at hand. No matter what the circumstances were at Chernobyl, Operation Saturn would proceed. Even if Nicolas had somehow failed, she would not. Her operation alone would unsettle the world economies, kill millions, and spread a radioactive swath halfway across the globe. It would be harder, but with the savant children still under their control, they would persevere.

With such a focus in mind, she cast aside the confusion and sought the cold dispassion of the resolute. She knew what she must do.

Reaching the bunker, she found the wall screens still dark, except for the grainy view of M.C. 337. She studied the spread of small bodies on the rocky floor. There was still no sign of movement over there.

She turned to the two technicians. “Why aren’t the other cameras back online?”

The chief engineer stood up. “The diagnostic reboot finished a few minutes ago. We were waiting on your orders to power systems back online.”

Savina sighed and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. Did everyone have to be dragged by the nose? She motioned to the board. “Do it.”

Despite her desire to snap at the man, she kept her voice even. While she had ordered the shutdown, she had indeed left no standing order regarding the power situation.

To avoid any further misunderstanding, Savina pointed to the view of M.C. 337. “Keep the power cut off to the other substation. All except its camera.” She didn’t want any more surprises from that side.

As the two technicians set to work, lights flickered across the board, and the dark screens filled with images of the tunnel and the heart of her operation. Everything appeared fine—except for one glaring exception.

The train was no longer parked beside the mining site.

Savina pointed to the screens. “Bring up the cameras, sequentially down the tunnel. Find the train.”

Fingers punched keys at the master control, and snapshots of the tunnel flipped across the screen, dizzying her head. Then halfway down the passage, the train appeared. It sat idle on the tracks. Savina stepped closer to that monitor and studied the ore cars and cabs. She saw no movement. Someone could be hiding, but Savina didn’t think so.

“Continue down the tunnel,” she ordered.

More digital images flowed. She spotted movement on one.

“Stop!”

A single wall lamp lit this section of the dark tunnel. It lay about a quarter klick from the blast doors. As Savina watched, figures appeared out of the darkness, walking into the light from the deeper tunnel.

Savina’s fingers tightened on the edge of the control board.

It was the American…leading a child by the hand.

As they drew farther into the glow, Savina recognized the boy.

Pyotr.

Straightening, Savina glanced to the grainy image from M.C. 337. All the children remained collapsed. So why was this one boy still up and moving?

“General-Major?” the engineer asked.

Savina’s mind spun but failed to settle on any explanation. She shook her head. As if sensing the eyes upon them, the pair stopped in the light. The American looked behind him. His eyes narrowed with confusion.

As the power returned and pools of lights flickered into existence, Monk knew the cameras must also be online. Without much reason or ability to hide, Monk continued several steps, heading toward the nearest lamp. It was only then that he realized something was amiss.

Or rather
missing.

He searched behind him. Marta was gone. He had thought she had been following him in the dark. She moved so silently. He stared back down the throat of the tunnel. He saw no sign of her. Had she remained back at the train? Monk even searched ahead, thinking maybe she had gone scouting in advance of them. But the tunnel ended in two hundred feet at a set of tall blast doors.

Marta was nowhere to be seen.

Speakers off by the doors spat with static, then a crisp voice spoke in English. “Keep moving forward! Bring the boy to the door if you wish to live.”

Monk remained frozen, unsure where to go from here.

12:35 P.M.
Kyshtym, Russia

Seated in an old farm truck, Gray led the caravan through the gates of the airstrip and out onto a two-lane road that headed off into the mountains.
Walls of towering fir and spruce trees flanked the road, creating a handsome green corridor.