The Last Oracle (2008)

More digital images flowed. She spotted movement on one.

Stop!

A single wall lamp lit this section of the dark tu

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 tu

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.

In the rearview mirror, Gray watched the small mountain town of Kyshtym recede and vanish into the dense forest. The town lay on the eastern slopes of the Ural

Mountains, only nine miles from their destination, Chelyabinsk 88. Like the entire area, the town was not without its own legacy of nuclear disaster and contamination. It lay downwind of another nuclear complex, designated

Chelyabinsk 40, also known as Mayak, the Russian word meaning beacon. But

Mayak was not a shining beacon to Russian nuclear safety. In 1957, a waste tank exploded due to improper cooling and cast eighty tons of radioactive material over the region, requiring the evacuation of hundreds of thousands. The Soviets had kept the accident a secret until 1980. As the road turned a bend, the town vanished, like so much of the Soviet Union's nuclear history.

Continuing onward, Gray settled into his seat. The road crossed a bridge with guardrails painted fire-engine red. A warning. The bridge spa

Behind Gray trailed a dozen trucks of different makes and models, but all well worn and muddy. Gray shared the front seat with Luca and the driver, who were conversing in Romani. Luca pointed ahead and the driver nodded.

Not far, Luca said, turning to him. They already sent up spotters to watch the entry road. They report lots of activity. Many cars and trucks heading down the mountain.

Gray frowned at the news. It sounded like an evacuation. Were they already too late?

In the bed of the truck, four men lounged, half covered in blankets. Gray had been impressed with their arsenal hidden under the blankets: boxes of assault rifles, scores of handguns, even rocket-propelled grenades.

Luca had explained the lax control of such weaponry on the Russian black market.

The small army, gathered from local Russian Gypsy clans, had met them in

Kyshtym. They swelled the ranks of the men Luca had brought with them from the

Ukraine. Gray had to hand it to Luca Hearn: if you needed to gather a fast militia, he was the Gypsy to call.

In the trucks behind them, Kowalski and Rosauro followed. They had left

Elizabeth back at the jet, safely out of harm's way, guarded by a trio of

British S. A. S soldiers.

Everyone had to move swiftly. Speed was essential. The plan was to strike the underground facility, lock it down, and stop whatever was pla

Operation Saturn remained a mystery. However, considering it was in the heart of the former Soviet Union's plutonium production facilities and uranium mines, it had to be radiological in nature.

Senator Nicolas Solokov's words still haunted him.

Millions will still die.

Gray had learned the man was born about ninety miles from here, in the city of

Yekaterinburg. This was the region the man represented in the Russian Federal

Assembly, which meant he knew the area and its secrets. If someone wanted to plot a nuclear event, here would be a great place to do it.

But what was pla

Back in Kyshtym, Elizabeth paced the length of the jet. Her arms were folded over her chest, her chin low in concentration. She was worried for the others, fearful after hearing what Gray and the others sought to stop.

Millions will die.

Such madness.

Anxiety kept her on her feet, for the team, for the fate of millions. She had a laptop open on a table. She had tried to work, to keep busy. She had begun downloading her digital pictures from her camera. Professor Masterson had kept her camera safe after she was kidnapped by the Russians. He had returned it to her following their escape from the jail in Pripyat.

On the screen, the photos scrolled as they downloaded into the laptop.

Pacing past, she caught a glimpse of the omphalos, resting at the center of the chakra wheel. Despite her worry, her heart still thrilled at the thought that the stone was the original Delphic artifact. For two decades, historians knew the smaller stone at the museum was a copy, the fate of the original a mystery.

Some scholars hypothesized that perhaps some oracular cult had survived the temple's destruction and that they'd stolen the stone for their secret temple.

Elizabeth drew back to the laptop. She stared at the omphalos. Here was that proof. She sank into the chair as a sudden realization struck her. She remembered what was carved inside the museum's copy: a curving line of Sanskrit.

It was an ancient prayer to Sarasvati, the Hindu goddess of wisdom and secret knowledge. No one knew who inscribed it there or why. But it was not unusual to see religious graffiti from one religion marking another.

Still, Elizabeth began to suspect the truth. Perhaps the copy of the omphalos had been left behind like a road marker. She scrolled through the images and came upon the photo of the wall mosaic, depicting a child and young woman hiding from a Roman soldier underneath the dome of the omphalos, where the Sanskrit poem was written. It read, She who had no begi

Goddess Sarasvati protect her. It could definitely be referring to the last

Oracle, a prayer to protect her lineage. Lastly, the goddess Sarasvati herself made her home in a sacred river. Many religious scholars believed that this mythical river was the Indus River, where the exiled Greeks made their new home.

Elizabeth suspected that someone had left that secret message for others to follow. As she and her father had.

She brought up the image of the original omphalos again. She had taken several pictures, including the triple line carved upon the stone that warned of the trap written in Harappan, Sanskrit, and Greek. She brought up that image.