The Last Oracle (15 page)

He whispered into their kiss.

“That went well.”

10:25 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter joined Gray near the front entry and stared at the video feed. He studied the guards held at gunpoint.

The shadowy man on the stoop called through the door, as if sensing their presence. “We mean no harm,” he said, his accent sharp, marking him as Eastern European.

Painter stared at the stranger on the screen. Then to the girl who stood beside him, holding the stranger’s hand. She was staring straight into the hidden camera.

The man called again. “We are allies of Archibald Polk!” He sounded unsure of himself, as if he didn’t know if those in the house would know what that meant. “We don’t have much time!”

Elizabeth hovered behind Painter. They shared a look. If there were to be any answers about the fate of her father, a risk had to be taken. But not too large of a risk. Painter hit the intercom button and spoke into it.

“If you are allies, then you’ll free our men and drop your weapons.”

The man on the porch shook his head. “Not until you prove you can be trusted. We have risked much to bring the girl here. Exposed ourselves.”

Painter glanced to Gray. He shrugged.

“We’ll let you inside,” Painter said. “But only you and the girl.”

“And I will keep your men out here to ensure our safety.”

Kowalski grumbled next to them. “One big happy family.”

Painter motioned Gray to take Elizabeth around the corner.

Painter kept his body to the side of the door. Kowalski flanked the other side, standing in his stockings. The large man raised his only weapon: the shoe in his hand.

That would have to do.

Painter undid the bolt and cracked the door open. The stranger lifted his palm to show it was empty. The girl held his other hand. She appeared no older than ten, dark-haired in a checkered gray-and-black dress. The man had an olive complexion with a heavy five-o’clock shadow. Maybe Egyptian or Arabic. His eyes, so brown they appeared black in the porch light, smoldered with wary threat. He wore jeans and a dark crimson Windbreaker.

The stranger turned his head, but his gaze never wavered from the open doorway. He barked to his men. Painter didn’t understand the language, but from the tones it sounded like a command to stay alert.

“He’s a Gypsy,” Kowalski mumbled.

Painter glanced to the large man.

“Had a family down the street from mine.” Kowalski thumbed at the stranger. “That was Romani he was speaking.”

“He is right,” the stranger said. “My name is Luca Hearn.”

Painter pulled the doorway wider and motioned the man inside.

The stranger stepped across the threshold cautiously, but he nodded a greeting to Painter and Kowalski.
“Sastimos.”

“
Nais tuke,
” Kowalski answered. “But just so you know, that’s about
all
the Romani language I remember.”

Painter led Luca and the child back to the main living room. She moved with a slight tremble to her limbs. Her face gleamed with a feverish cast to it.

Luca noted Gray to the side, holding a pistol.

Painter waved for Gray to holster the weapon. He sensed no direct threat from the man. Only an unwavering caution.

Elizabeth stepped forward. “You mentioned my father.”

Luca crinkled his brow, not understanding.

Painter explained, “She is Archibald Polk’s daughter.”

His eyes widened. He bowed his head in her direction. “I am sorry for your loss. He was a great man.”

“What do you know about my father?” she asked. “Who is this girl?”

The child pulled free of the man’s hand and crossed to the table. She sat down on her knees next to it and rocked back and forth.

“The girl?” Luca said. “I don’t know. A mystery. I received a message from your father. A frantic voice mail. It was chaotic, spoken in a rush. He ordered us to buy a dozen Cobra Marine receivers from Radio Shack and to tune them to a certain wavelength. He sounded crazy, babbling off numbers. He wanted us to stake out the national Mall. To watch for a
package
that set off the receivers.”

“Package?” Painter asked.

Luca glanced down to the child.
“Her.”

“The girl?” Elizabeth asked, shocked. “Why?”

Luca shook his head. “We owed your father. We did as he asked. We were even on the Mall when he was shot, though we didn’t know it was your father until later. But we did pick up the trail of the child.”

Painter studied the girl. There must be a bug, a microtransmitter somewhere on her person.

“We followed her to the zoo, where we were able to collect her without anyone knowing.”

“You kidnapped her?” Painter asked.

He shrugged. “The last words on the message were to
steal the package
and bring it to something or someone named Sigma.”

His words jolted Painter.

“The message cut off abruptly,” the Gypsy said, “with no further direction or explanation. Once we had the girl, we had to move fast. We feared others would come looking for her. Someone able to track her like we did. Especially with an Amber Alert raised across the district. But we had no idea what the professor meant by Sigma. As we raced around, trying to figure it out, the girl began to draw furiously.”

He pointed to the child, who had gained her feet and walked to a blank wall. She bore a piece of charcoal from the fireplace in her fingers
and drew on the wall in a haphazard manner, jerkily, starting in one place, then moving to another.

“She wouldn’t stop,” Luca continued. “She drew a silhouette of a park with trees and a picture of Rock Creek bridge.” He nodded out the window. “Then after that, a house, set in the same woods. We had to circle the entire park, looking for it, believing it was important. By the time we found this place, she had drawn the picture that I slid under the door.”

Luca stared at them. “A picture of all of you. Friends and family of Dr. Polk. So I must ask you, do you know this Sigma?”

Painter slipped out a glossy black identification card. It had his photograph fixed with the presidential seal. Etched into its surface was a holographic Greek letter.

Luca examined it, angling it to study the holograph. His eyes widened as he recognized it.

While they had talked, Gray had crossed to the girl. He sat on his haunches, studying the girl’s work. He rubbed his chin. Something had drawn his attention. Gray lifted a finger, half hidden between his knees, like a catcher signaling a pitcher. He pointed toward the girl.

Her face shone brighter. Her head lolled slightly to one side. Her eyes were open, but they were not following the path of her scrabbling piece of charcoal. As disturbing as her manner was, it was not what Gray had indicated.

Painter had noted it, too. Her hair, damp with fever sweat, had parted slightly behind her ear. A glint of steel shone through. The shape was unmistakably the same as the device attached to the strange skull.

Only here it was on a
living
subject.

What had Archibald delivered to them?

As Painter’s mind spun on possibilities, Elizabeth hung farther back in the room. She pointed toward the wall. “Come see this,” she said, her voice quavering with an edge of fear.

Painter retreated to her side. She pointed to the artwork forming on the wall. From this far away, what looked like mindless scribbles had be
gun to take form. He watched the transformation unfold over the course of four long silent minutes.

Elizabeth stuttered her amazement. “That’s…that’s…”

“…the Taj Mahal,” Painter finished.

In the silent wonder that followed, a distant sound reached them.

—whump, whump—

A helicopter, flying low, coming closer.

Gray straightened and reached for the girl. “Someone’s found us!”

6:02 A.M.
Kiev, Ukraine

Nicolas rolled off of Elena and onto his back.

The hotel room fan cooled his sweating body. His lower back ached and his shoulders bore deep scratches that still burned. Elena rolled smoothly to her feet, with an easy swing of her hair, tangled to midback. The curving rise and fall of her buttocks as she strode toward the shower came close to arousing him again. He stirred, but he knew he had another interview in a half hour.

News of the failed assassination had already spread far and wide. He would be on every international newscast. He’d already learned that the sniper, shot by the police, had died before reaching the hospital.

With the death, no one would suspect that it had all been preplanned. Even the sniper—a mine worker from Polevskoy whose brother had been killed in an industrial accident last year—never knew how artfully he’d been manipulated into the assassination scheme.

It had all unfolded with technical precision. Elena had timed her touch perfectly. A skill of hers. When primed, she could calculate probabilities to the nth degree. Her statistical analyses of business spreadsheets rivaled the world’s best economists. And having studied the technical specifications on most pistols and light arms, she had only to see how a weapon was held and pointed to calculate its precise trajectory.

Trusting this, he had put his life in her hands this morning.

And survived.

At that moment, behind the podium, he’d never felt such a total lack of control, his very survival at the mercy of another. After a lifetime of control, to release that grip even for a moment had quickened his pulse. Afterward, he could not return to the hotel fast enough.

Elena stepped wet from her shower and leaned naked in the doorway. The lust in her eyes slowly died—trailing the last spark of erotic stimulation from her augment’s neural array. The fiery lioness was becoming a sleepy kitten. Still, Nicolas studied that last ember of fire—an arousing blend of need and hatred—but even that would fade to a simple cold obedience.

Such stimulation of her implant was necessary—not only to make the coupling intense, but also to trigger the proper physiological response to increase the chance of fertilization. Nicolas had read the studies. And his mother wanted children from him, even approved of the union of Nicolas and Elena. It was a perfect match: his will and her cold calculation.

Nicolas had done his best to make his mother happy this morning.

And he had the bruises and scratches to prove it.

However, his mother might not have approved of him allowing Elena to tie him to the bedposts and whip his thighs with a scrub brush. But as his mother always told him when he was growing up:

The ends always justifies the means
.

Ever practical, his mother.

The phone rang at his bedside table. Elena strode over, answered it, then held the receiver out for him.

“General-Major Savina Martov,” Elena said formally, gone cold again. “For the senator.”

He took the receiver with a sigh. As usual, the woman’s timing was impeccable. She must have heard about the failed assassination attempt. She would want a full debriefing and must have wondered why he hadn’t already reported in. The schedule in the next days would tighten to an unbreakable knot—at both their ends—leading up to the formal sealing of Chernobyl. Nothing could go wrong.

Nicolas shifted his weight off his bruised buttock with a wince.

The caller spoke before he could. “We have a problem, Nicolas.”

He sighed. “What is it, Mother?”

10:50 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Gray cradled the girl in his arms and hurried across the front yard. The crisp September night contrasted with the feverish heat of the child. He felt the burn of her skin through his shirt. Her fever had spiked while laboring on her artwork. She had collapsed when Gray had pulled the charcoal from her fingers. She was conscious, but her eyes stared blankly, and her limbs were oddly stiff and wooden, as if he were carrying a life-size doll. Her waxy features heightened the comparison.

Gray touched her face, noting the fine delicacy of her tiny eyelashes.

Who could do this to a child?

They had to get her to safety.

Out in the yard, Gray searched the skies. A single black helicopter—military design—swept low down the street. Another idled higher at the other end of the block. And a third circled the park behind them.

Triangulating in on their position.

Their sedan still stood in the driveway. Luca and his men had three identical Ford SUVs parked down the street. The Gypsy clan leader had
already gathered his men. He barked orders in Romani and pointed his arms out in various directions, instructing them to split up. Three men took off on foot toward the park, where they would divide again. Another two ran across the street and disappeared between two houses. A dog barked at their passage.

Ahead, Kowalski marched with Elizabeth toward the Lincoln Town Car in the driveway. She had her cell phone to her ear.

Painter headed toward a small car parked at the curb, a Toyota Yaris that belonged to one of the security guards. Gray followed him. The guard was already behind the wheel after being freed by Luca’s men.