The Last Oracle: A Sigma Force Novel Page 3

  But who was trying to kill him? And why?

  The homeless man lifted a palsied arm, failing with each ragged breath. From the entry point and amount of blood, the shot had struck a kidney, a fatal wound for one so debilitated. The man reached to Gray’s thigh. His fingers opened to drop the tarnished coin he had been holding. He had somehow kept his grip on it. The coin bounced off Gray’s leg and rolled to the grass.

  A final gift.

  A bit of charity returned.

  With the deed done, the homeless man’s limbs went slack. His head fell to Gray’s shoulder. Gray swore under his breath.

  Sorry, old man.

  His other hand freed his cell phone. Thumbing it open, he hit an emergency speed-dial button. It was answered immediately.

  Gray spoke rapidly, calling a mayday into central command.

  “Help’s on the way,” his director announced. “We have you on camera outside the Castle. Seeing lots of blood. Are you injured?”

  “No,” he answered curtly.

  “Stay put.”

  Gray didn’t argue. So far no further shots had been fired. No ringing impacts against the sheltering sign. There was a good chance the shooter had already fled. Still, Gray dared not move—not until the cavalry arrived.

  Pocketing his cell phone, Gray retrieved the man’s coin from the grass. It was heavy, thick, crudely minted. He lifted it and absently rubbed at its surface. Using the dead man’s blood on his fingers, he polished the grime off the surface to reveal an image of what appeared to be a Greek or Roman temple, six pillars under a peaked roof.

  What the hell?

  In the coin’s center stood a single letter.

  Gray thought it was the Greek letter Σ.

  Sigma.

  In mathematics, the letter sigma represented the sum of all parts, but it was also the emblem for the organization Gray worked for: Sigma, an elite team of ex–Special Forces soldiers who had been retrained in scientific fields to serve as a covert military arm for DARPA, the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency.

  Gray glanced to the Castle. Sigma’s headquarters were here, buried beneath the foundations of the Smithsonian Castle in former World War II bunkers. It was perfectly situated to take advantage of the proximity to the halls of government, the Pentagon, and the various private and national laboratories.

  Focusing back on the coin, Gray suddenly realized his mistake. The letter was not a Greek Σ—but merely a large capital E. In his panic, his eyes had played tricks, seeing what had been forefront in his mind.

  He closed his fist over the coin.

  Just an E.

  It wasn’t the first time in the past few weeks that Gray had assumed connections that weren’t there—or at least that was the consensus among his colleagues. For a solid month, Gray had been searching for some confirmation that a lost friend, Monk Kokkalis, could still be alive. But so far, even utilizing the full resources of Sigma, he had reached only dead ends.

  Chasing ghosts, Painter Crowe had warned after the first weeks.

  Maybe he was.

  Across the way, doors crashed open in the front of the Castle. A dozen black-suited figures fled outward with weapons raised, clutched near shoulders in double grips.

  The cavalry.

  They moved cautiously, but no one fired shots at them.

  They reached Gray’s side quickly and flanked around protectively.

  One of the men fell to a knee beside the homeless man. He dropped a paramedic’s pack, ready to offer aid.

  “I think he’s gone,” Gray warned.

  The medic checked for a pulse, confirming Gray’s assessment.

  Dead.

  Gray climbed to his feet.

  He was surprised to see his boss, Painter Crowe, at the side entrance. Jacketless, his sleeves rolled to the elbows, Director Crowe shoved through the door. His expression was stormy. Though ten years older than Gray, Painter still moved like a lean-muscled wolf. The director must have assessed the risk to be minimal. Or maybe, like Gray, he merely sensed that the sniper had already fled.

  Still, what didn’t the man understand about desk job?

  Painter crossed to him as sirens sounded from the distance. “I have local P.D. locking down the Mall,” he said in clipped tones.

  “Too little, too late.”

  “Most likely. Still, ballistics will narrow down a trajectory radius. Figure out from where the shots were fired. Was anyone following you?”

  Gray shook his head. “Not that I could assess.”

  Gray read the calculations in the director’s eyes as he surveyed the Mall. Who would attempt to assassinate Gray? On their own doorstep. It was a clear warning, but against what? Gray had not been active in any operation since the last mission in Cambodia.

  “We already pulled your parents into security,” Painter said. “Just as a precaution.”

  Gray nodded, grateful for that. Though he could imagine his father was not too happy. Nor his mother. They had barely recovered from a brutal kidnapping two months ago.

  Still, with the immediate threat waning, Gray turned his attention to who might have tried to kill him—and more important, why. One possibility rose to the forefront: his current line of inquiry. Had his investigation into his friend’s fate struck a nerve somewhere?

  Despite the death here, hope flared in Gray.

  “Director, could the assassination—?”

  Painter held up a hand as his brows pinched with worry. He sank to one knee beside the homeless man and gently turned his face. After a moment, he sat back on his heel, his eyes narrowed. He looked more worried.

  “What is it, sir?”

  “I don’t think you were the target, Gray.”

  Gray glanced to the sidewalk and remembered the sparking strikes at his heels.

  “At least not the primary target,” the director continued. “The sniper may have tried to eliminate you as a witness.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Painter nodded to the dead body. “I know this man.”

  Shock rang through him.

  “His name is Archibald Polk. Professor of neurology at M.I.T.”

  Gray cast a skeptical eye upon the man’s jaundiced pallor, the grime, the scrabbled beard, but the director sounded certain. If true, the fellow plainly had fallen on hard times.

  “How the hell did he end up like this?” he asked.

  Painter stood and shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ve been out of touch for a decade. But the more important question: Why would someone want him dead?”

  Gray stared down at the body. He readjusted his own internal assessment. Gray should have been relieved to learn he wasn’t a target of an assassin, but if Painter was correct, then Gray’s investigation had nothing to do with the attack.

  Anger surfaced again—along with a certain sense of responsibility.

  The man had died in Gray’s arms.

  “He must have been coming here,” Painter mumbled and glanced to the Castle. “To see me. But why?”

  Gray held out his hand, remembering the man’s urgency. The ancient coin rested on his bloody palm. “He may have wanted you to have this.”

  2:02 P.M.

  As sirens sounded in the distance, the elderly man walked slowly down Pennsylvania Avenue. He was dressed in a dusty gray suit. He carried a beat-up traveling valise on one side and held the hand of a girl on the other. The nine-year-old child wore a dress that matched the older man’s suit. Her dark hair was tied back from her pale face with a red ribbon. The polish on her black shoes was marred by a drying splash of mud from the playground where she’d been playing before being picked up a moment ago.

  “Papa, did you find your friend?” she asked in Russian.

  He squeezed her hand and answered in a tired voice. “Yes, I did, Sasha. But remember, English, my dear.”

  She shuffled her feet a bit at the reprimand, then continued. “Was he happy to see you?”

  He flashed back to the s
ight through the sniper rifle’s scope, the fall of the body.

  “Yes, he was. He was quite surprised.”

  “Can we go home now? Marta misses me.”

  “Soon.”

  “How soon?” she asked petulantly and scratched at her ear. A glint of steel flashed through her dark hair where she itched.

  He released her hand and gently pulled her arm down from her ear. He smoothed her hair with a pat. “I have one more stop. Then we’ll head home.”

  He neared Tenth Street. The building rose on his right, an ugly box built of slabs of concrete that someone attempted to decorate with a row of flags. He turned toward its entrance.

  His destination.

  The headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  3:46 P.M.

  A rattling buzzed from inside Gray’s locker.

  He hurried forward, half slipping on the wet floor. Fresh from the shower, he wore only a towel around his waist. After debriefing Director Crowe on the details of the shooting, he had retreated to the locker room in the lowest levels of Sigma’s bunkers. He had already taken one shower, followed by a rigorous hour in the gym working free weights—then showered again. The exertion had helped settle his mind.

  But not completely.

  Not until he had some answers about the murder.

  Reaching his locker, he tugged the door open and caught his BlackBerry as it rattled across the bottom of the metal locker. It had to be Director Crowe. As his fingers closed on it, the vibration ceased. He’d missed the call. He checked the log and frowned. It was not Painter Crowe.

  The screen read: R. Trypol.

  He had almost forgotten.

  Captain Ron Trypol of Naval Intelligence.

  The captain had been overseeing the salvage operations at the Indonesian island of Pusat. He had a report due today on his assessment of raising the sunken cruise ship, the Mistress of the Seas. He had two navy submersibles on site, searching the wreckage and surrounding area.

  But Gray had a more personal interest in the search.

  The island of Pusat was where his friend and partner, Monk Kokkalis, had last been seen, spotted as he was dragged under the sea by a weighted net, tangled and caught. Captain Trypol had agreed to look for Monk’s body. The captain was a good friend and former colleague of Monk’s widow, Kat Bryant. This morning, Gray had gone over to the National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Maryland, hoping to hear any word. He had been rebuffed, told to wait until after the full debriefing. It was why he had been storming back here, prepared to demand that the director pressure the navy.

  Flushed with a twinge of guilt for having set aside his cause, Gray hit the callback button and lifted the phone to his ear. As he waited for the connection to NMIC, he sank to a bench and stared at the locker on the opposite side. Written in black marker across a strip of duct tape was the name of the locker’s former owner.

  KOKKALIS.

  Though Monk was surely dead, no one wanted to remove the tape. It was a silent hope. If only sustained by Gray.

  He owed his friend.

  Monk had climbed through the ranks of Sigma alongside Gray. His friend had been recruited from the Green Berets at the same time as Gray had been pulled from Leavenworth prison, where he’d been incarcerated after striking a superior officer during his stint with the Army Rangers. They had become quick friends, if not a bit of an odd couple at Sigma. Monk stood only a few inches over five feet, a shaven-headed pit bull compared to Gray’s taller, leaner physique. But the true difference lay deeper than mere appearance. Monk’s easygoing manner had slowly tempered the uncompromising steel of Gray’s heart. If not for Monk’s friendship, Gray would have certainly washed out of Sigma, as he had the Army Rangers.

  As he waited, Gray pictured his former partner. They’d been through countless scrapes together over the years. Monk bore the puckered bullet wounds and scars to prove it. He had even lost his left hand during one mission, replaced with a prosthetic one. As he sat, Gray could still hear the barking bellow of Monk’s laugh…or the quiet intensity of his voice, revealing the man’s genius-level I.Q., disciplined in forensic medicine and science.

  How could someone so large and vital be gone? Without a trace?

  The phone finally clicked in his ear. “Captain Ron Trypol,” a stern voice answered.

  “Captain, it’s Gray Pierce.”

  “Ah, Commander. Good. I had hoped to reach you this afternoon. I don’t have much time before my next meeting.”

  Gray already heard the dire overtones. “Captain?”

  “I’ll get to the point. I’ve been ordered to call off the search.”

  “What?”

  “We were able to recover twenty-two bodies. Dental records show none of them to be your man.”

  “Only twenty-two?” Even by conservative estimates, that was only a small fraction of the dead.

  “I know, Commander. But recovery efforts were already hampered by the extreme depths and pressures. The entire bottom of the lagoon is riddled with caverns and lava tubes, many extending miles in tangled mazes.”

  “Still, with—”

  “Commander.” The man’s tone was firm. “We lost a diver two days ago. A good man with a family and two children.”

  Gray closed his eyes, knowing the ache of that loss.

  “To search the caves only risks more men. And for what?”

  Gray remained silent.

  “Commander Pierce, I assume you haven’t heard any more word. No further cryptic messages?”

  Gray sighed.

  To gain the captain’s cooperation, he had related the one message he had received…or possibly received. It had occurred weeks after Monk had vanished. Following the events that occurred at the island, the only piece of his friend to be salvaged had been his prosthetic hand, a state-of-the-art piece of biotechnology built by DARPA engineers, which included a built-in wireless radio interface. While transporting the disembodied hand to Monk’s funeral, the prosthetic fingers had begun to tap out a weak S.O.S. It had lasted only a few seconds—and only Gray had heard it. Then it had gone silent. Technicians had examined the hand and concluded it was most likely a mere glitch. The hand’s digital log showed no incoming signal. It was just a malfunction. Nothing more. An electrical ghost-in-the-machine.

  Still, Gray had refused to give up—even as week after week passed.

  “Commander?” Trypol said.

  “No,” Gray admitted sullenly. “There’s been no further word.”

  Trypol paused, then spoke more slowly. “Then perhaps it’s time to lay this to rest, Commander. For everyone’s sake.” His voice softened at the edges. “And what about Kat? Your man’s wife. What does she have to say about all this?”

  It was a sore point. Gray wished he’d never mentioned it to her. But how could he not? Monk was her husband; they had a little girl together, Penelope. Still, maybe it had been the wrong thing to do. Kat had listened to Gray’s story with a stoic expression. She stood in her black funeral dress, ramrod straight, her eyes sunken with grief. She knew it was a thin lifeline, only a frail hope. She had glanced to Penelope in the car seat of the black limousine, then back to Gray. She didn’t say a word, only shook her head once. She could not grasp that lifeline. She could not survive losing Monk a second time. It would destroy her when she was already this fragile. And she had Penelope to consider, her own piece of Monk. True flesh and blood. Not some phantom hope.

  He had understood. So he had continued his investigation on his own. He had not spoken to Kat since that day. It was a silent, mutual pact between them. She did not want to hear from him until the matter was resolved one way or the other. Gray’s mother, though, spent several afternoons with Kat and the baby. His mother knew nothing about the S.O.S., but she had sensed that something was wrong with Kat.

  Haunted, that was how his mother had described Kat.

  And Gray knew what haunted her.

  Despite what Kat had decided that day, she had graspe
d that lifeline. What the mind attempted to set aside, the heart could not. And it was torturing her.

  For her sake, for Monk’s family, Gray needed to face a harsh reality.

  “Thank you for your efforts, Captain,” Gray finally mumbled.

  “You did right by him, Commander. Know that. But eventually we have to move on.”

  Gray cleared his throat. “My condolences for the loss of your man, sir.”

  “And the same to you.”

  Gray ended the connection. He stood for a long breath. Finally, he stepped over to the opposite locker, placed a palm on its cold metal surface, as cold as a grave.

  I’m sorry.

  He reached up, peeled a corner of the duct tape, and ripped it away.

  Gray was done chasing ghosts.

  Good-bye, Monk.

  4:02 P.M.

  Painter spun the ancient coin atop his desk. He watched the silver flash as he concentrated on the mystery it represented. It had been returned from the lab half an hour ago. He had read the detailed report that had accompanied it. The coin had been laser-mapped for fingerprints, both its metallic content and surface soot had been analyzed with a mass spectrometer, and a multitude of photographs had been taken, including some taken with a stereo-microscope. The coin’s spinning slowed, and it toppled to the mahogany desktop. Carefully cleaned, the ancient image on the surface shone brightly.

  A Greek temple supported by six Doric pillars.

  In the center of the temple rested a large letter.

  E

  The Greek letter epsilon.

  On the opposite side was the bust of a woman with the words DIVA FAUSTINA written below it. From the report, at least the origin of the coin was no longer a mystery.

  But what did—?

  His intercom chimed. “Director Crowe, Commander Pierce has arrived.”

  “Very good. Send him in, Brant.”

  Painter pulled the research report closer to him as the door swung open. Gray stepped through, his black hair wet and combed. He had changed out of his bloody clothes and wore a green T-shirt with ARMY emblazoned on the front, along with black jeans and boots. As he entered, Painter noted a shadow over the man’s features, but also a certain weary resolve in his gray-blue eyes. Painter could guess the reason. He had already heard from the Office of Naval Intelligence through his own channels.