The Last Oracle (41 page)

Gray remained guarded, but he could think of no upside for this man freeing them from the cell.

Masterson continued in a wheezing rush. “I was recruited after I graduated from Oxford and stationed in India during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. I retired ten years ago, then stumbled into this mess when someone offered me good money to spy on Archibald. It didn’t take long to learn the Russians were behind it. So I contacted MI6 and let them
know. It was designated low priority. No one considered Archibald’s work a threat to global security. To tell the truth, I didn’t either. Not until he was kidnapped and ended up dead in D.C. I tried to light a fire under MI6, but who listens to an old man these days? I couldn’t wait. Call it old instinct. I knew something bloody large was afoot. So I’m afraid, after losing Archibald, I had to use all of you to force an introduction.”

“Use us,” Kowalski said. “They killed Abe.”

Masterson winced. “I tried to stop them, but our friend was too quick with that whip-sword of his.” He shook his head sadly. “Maybe this is a younger man’s game after all.”

“But wait!” Kowalski stumbled with a sudden realization. “You were going to shoot
me
!”

Gray dismissed his concern. “Masterson was putting on an act.”

A nod. “I had to be convincing.”

“You damn well convinced me!”

“And it was lucky I was so successful.” Masterson turned to Gray. “The bloody bastard is planning on taking out half the world’s leaders today.”

“What?”

Masterson drew them to a stairwell next to the old guard station and lowered his voice. “More men downstairs. They’ve had me holed up here. As much a prisoner as any of you. I’m off to free Elizabeth and Dr. Rosauro.” He waved down the hall past the guard station. “If I could borrow that shapely companion of yours, we’ll try to reach a phone and start an evacuation.”

“Take Luca, too,” Gray said. He wanted the civilians as much out of harm’s way as possible. Plus the Gypsy leader’s presence would go a long way to convincing Rosauro that Masterson was aboveboard.

Luca nodded his agreement.

“Fine. I can use his help,” Masterson said. He pulled a Russian Army walkie-talkie from his jacket and passed it to Gray, so they could communicate. “But in the meantime—”

Gray cut him off. “—I have to stop Senator Solokov.”

Masterson nodded. “You’ve got less than an hour. I don’t know what he’s planning, something to do with the ceremony over at Chernobyl.”

“What ceremony?”

Masterson pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, unfolded it, and passed it to Gray. “They’re enclosing the old Sarcophagus at Chernobyl,” he said and nodded to the sheet. “Under a large steel hangar.”

As Gray studied the sheet, Masterson listed the dignitaries and leaders who would be in attendance at the event and quickly summarized the morning’s ceremonies. “As to Nicolas’s specific plans, all I could get was the name. Operation Uranus.”

“Operation Your Anus?” Kowalski said. “That sounds painful.”

Gray ignored him and headed for the stairs. “Where’s Solokov now?”

“Headed to Chernobyl.”

As Gray descended with Kowalski, he pictured the towering ventilation shaft. Whatever the bastard was planning, it must involve the reactor. But the name for the offensive—Operation Uranus—why pick that name? While training for the Army Rangers, Gray had learned of its historical context from his strategic studies classes. Operation Uranus was a Russian
offense during World War II that ended the bloodiest battle in human history, the Battle of Stalingrad.

So why that name?

Something troubled Gray, something nagging, but the tension locked it away. Ahead, two guards manned the exit to the jailhouse. They had their backs to Gray.

He lifted his stolen Rook pistol.

Worries would have to wait.

17

September 7, 10:07 A.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

As the sun shone on a crisp morning, Monk crunched along the gravel road that wound through the ghost town. Weeds and bushes grew waist high, making it feel as if they were wading through green water. Konstantin kept abreast of him, while Pyotr and Kiska trailed. Marta followed, too, but she was drowned away in the green sea, parting the grasses as she maneuvered through them.

“There’s little coal in the mountains here,” Konstantin lectured around a bone-cracking yawn. “All the mining in the region is for metal or metallic ores.”

Monk knew the kid was wired between exhaustion and terror. The tall boy spoke quietly to keep himself awake and to combat anxiety.

“Cobalt, nickel, tungsten, vanadium, bauxite, platinum…”

Monk let him prattle as he kept a watch on the town to either side. The buildings looked hastily constructed, made of clapboard with elevated plank sidewalks that bordered the road. They passed a one-room schoolhouse with intact windows and still lined with wooden desks inside. A couple of old trucks, Soviet-era green, sat rusted into the roadbed. The only brick building had Cyrillic lettering along the facade. Monk could not read it, but it appeared from the shelves inside to be a general store and post office. Next to it stood a saloon with dusty bottles still on the shelves.

It was as if one day the townspeople had simply stepped out of their respective doors and left without ever looking back.

Monk did not have to guess why. From this higher vantage point, Lake Karachay spread wide, rimmed by muddy banks and reflecting the sunlight in a sparkling lie that hid its toxic heart. Monk glanced to the badge hanging from his pack. The red hue had grown to a darker crimson. He checked it every few minutes.

Konstantin noted his attention. “We must stay no longer than another hour. It is very dangerous here. We must get underground soon.”

Monk nodded and stared up. The entrance to the mine lay another mile above them. He could make out the steel outbuildings and skeletal derricks that framed a larger structure hugging against the mountain. Two large metal wheels flanked the central building,
tailing
wheels, used to dredge up debris from the diggings below. The gravel underfoot probably came from that mine.

Monk set a faster pace.

Ahead, the only other substantial structure appeared as the road swung a hard switchback to climb another level up the mountainside. The mill rose three stories high, the tallest building here. It was built of logs with a tin roof. Its wooden waterwheel, green with moss and lichen, had broken off its moorings and lay toppled across the creek. An old flood must have torn it free.

As they headed toward it, Kiska cried out.

Monk swung around and saw Pyotr standing stock still, as upright as a pole, his eyes huge, bright with terror.

Monk’s chest clenched.

No…not here.

Marta loped a circle around the boy, also sensing his distress. Like Monk, she didn’t know where the danger lay or from where it might strike—but they both knew what the boy sensed.

Monk flashed back to the tiger charging at him, one ear gnarled.

Zakhar.

The beast shouldn’t have been able to track them, not across all that open water. But tigers were strong swimmers. The hunter must have forded the swamp and waited to ambush its prey here. Monk did not doubt such cunning from Zakhar.

Monk searched the tall grasses, the jumble of buildings. The creature could be hiding anywhere. The hairs along Monk’s arms prickled, almost sensing the feral eyes upon him. They were out in the open, exposed. And without a single weapon. They’d lost their only dagger when Marta had attacked Arkady.

“Back,” Monk said, pointing to the brick building. “Move slowly. Toward the store.”

Despite all the windows, it would make the stoutest stronghold. They might find something they could use for defense among its shelves. Monk pulled Pyotr to his side. The boy quaked under him. As a tight group, they retreated along the path they’d forged through the grass.

Monk kept an eye behind him, mostly because Pyotr did the same. He trusted the boy’s intuition. Where the road curved toward the mining station, the mill house towered across the creek. Monk knew tigers often sought the highest ground: a tall boulder, a lofty tree branch, a mountain ledge, someplace where they could leap upon their prey.

As if sensing it had been discovered, a shadowy striped shape slid like a flow of oil from one of the upper-story windows near the back of the mill. If Monk hadn’t been concentrating, he would’ve missed it. The tiger vanished into the tall grasses.

“Run,” he urged Konstantin and Kiska.

Monk pulled Pyotr up into his arms with one tug.

The two children ahead of him shot forward, stung by terror and fueled by adrenaline. Monk followed, with Marta racing beside him.

Behind Monk, a heavy crack of board sounded as something heavy bounded off the waterwheel and across the creek. The general store’s door was open, only thirty yards away. It would be close. He prayed for a walk-in freezer, somewhere they could barricade.

The
crack
of a rifle split through his terror.

Gravel exploded with a bright spark at his toes.

Monk dove to the side, rolling through the high grass, cradling and cushioning Pyotr with his own body. He kept rolling until he ended up behind one of the rusted hulks of an old truck.

The sniper had shot from the lower half of the street.

It had to be one of the Russian soldiers.

Turning, Monk spotted Konstantin and Kiska leaping like frightened deer across the planked sidewalk and through the open door of the store. Marta followed them with one bound. One of the windows shattered as a rifle shot echoed. But the trio had made it inside safely.

Monk sheltered behind the truck and hunkered down. He could not reach the store without crossing open ground.

He glanced up the street.

There was no sign of the tiger. Not a blade of grass moved. No rasp of gravel under heavy paw. The sudden shot must have dropped Zakhar low, startling the cat as much as them. It lay hidden out there.

Monk crouched, trapped between the tiger and a sniper. But that was not the only danger. Another hazard smothered over them all. Beyond the town’s edge, Lake Karachay shone brightly, radiating outward with its toxic pall. Even standing still here was death.

12:30 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

As an alarm klaxon continued to sound, Yuri stood alongside Sasha’s bed, shielding her with his body from McBride. The child had snugged into her sheets, hands over her ears, hypersensitive to the bells and shouts. Across the bed, Kat Bryant went to Sasha, consoling her with a palm atop her head. Behind the woman stood the pathologist Malcolm Jennings and a guard.

Yuri faced McBride. The man crouched a few steps away, his back to the corner of the room, his hand twisted in the blond braid of his hostage, Dr. Lisa Cummings. He held his cell phone pistol against her neck.

They were at an impasse.

And Mapplethorpe was already pounding his way down here with commandos. Yuri’s blood burned with the thought of the bastard getting his oily hands on Sasha. He could not let that happen.

Yuri shifted to the stainless-steel instrument table and picked up a syringe from among the vials of drugs used to treat Sasha.

“Yuri!” McBride snapped at him with warning.

He answered in Russian, knowing McBride understood. “I will not let you have Sasha,” he said and stabbed the needle into her intravenous line.

As he pushed the plunger, he saw McBride shift his gun away from his hostage and toward him. The syringe just contained saline, a ruse. Yuri whipped around and flew straight at the man. At the same time, Lisa stamped her heel on the man’s instep and smashed her head back into his face.

The pistol fired, explosive in the small space.

Struck in the shoulder, Yuri spun half a step. He barely noted the pain. He crashed into McBride, knocking Lisa out of his grip. Yuri slashed at McBride’s throat and jammed the
second
syringe he had palmed off the instrument table, popping into the jugular. The syringe contained a non-diluted concentration of Sasha’s medications. At full strength, it was a toxic pharmacology of chemotherapeutics, epinephrine, and steroids.

Tangled together, McBride emptied his clip into Yuri’s stomach. Muffled by his body, it sounded like loud claps and felt as if someone were punching him in the gut. Still, Yuri slammed the plunger home, sending the poisonous slurry straight for the heart.

McBride screamed.

Yuri fell with the man to the floor. He knew what McBride was feeling: flames shooting through his veins, pressure detonating in his head, heart squeezing with agony. Hands pulled Yuri off McBride and rolled him to the floor. He spotted Kat draped over Sasha, protecting her from the gunfire, keeping the child’s head turned away.

At his side, McBride writhed up into a convulsive seizure, spittle flying, turning bloody as he bit through his tongue. The body would live, but not his mind. The drugs would burn through his brain, leaving him a hollowed husk.

Lisa leaned over Yuri. “Help me!”