The Last Oracle

“All this, to kidnap one child?”



McBride rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We suspected you Russians were hiding something, yes?”



Yuri kept his face passive. McBride was right, but he had no idea of the breadth of what was hidden.



“We will use this child,” he continued, “to start our own program here in the United States. To study in greater detail what you’ve done to the child. Despite our repeated inquiries, your group has not been forthcoming with a full account. You’ve been holding back key data from the start.”



And they had—not just data, but also future plans.



Yuri asked out loud, “What about Sasha’s medications?”



“We’ll manage. With your cooperation.”



Yuri shook his head. “Never.”



“I was afraid you’d say that.”



A flick of McBride’s eye drew Yuri’s attention over his shoulder.



Mapplethorpe held a gun in his hand.



He fired at point-blank range.



9:45 P.M.



Gray was not one to stomach coincidences. Two scientists on the same project go missing at the same time—then one turns up in Washington, irradiated and on death’s door.



Gray massaged an ache behind his temples. “Elizabeth, all this has to somehow tie back to your father’s original research.”



Painter nodded. “But the question is how? If we knew more details…perhaps something not in your father’s records.”



The question hung in the air.



Elizabeth glanced down to her lap. Her hands were clutched tightly together. She seemed to finally note the tension there and unlatched her fingers, stretching them a bit.



She mumbled dully. “I don’t know. These last years…we weren’t talking much. He wasn’t happy I was going into anthropology. He wanted me to follow in his…” She shook her head. “Never mind.”



Gray reached out, poured a mug of hot coffee, and passed it to her. She accepted it with a nod. She didn’t drink it, just held it between her palms, warming them.



“Your father must not have been too unhappy with your career choice,” Gray offered. “He obtained that research position for you with the museum in Greece.”



She shook her head. “His assistance wasn’t as altruistic as it sounds. My father had always been interested in the Delphic Oracle. Such prophetic women tied into his studies about intuition and instinct. My father came to believe there was something inherent in these women, something they shared. A genetic commonality. Or a shared neurological abnormality. So you see, my father got me that position in Delphi only so I could help with his research.”



“But what sort of research was he doing exactly?” Gray said, encouraging her. “Anything you know might help.”



She sighed. “I can tell you what started my father’s obsession with intuition and instinct.” She glanced between them. “Do either of you know of the earliest experiments the Russians did involving intuition?”



They shook their heads.



“It was a horrible experiment, but it meshed with my father’s own line of neurophysiology. A couple decades ago, the Russians separated a mother cat from her kittens. They then took the litter down in a submarine. While monitoring the mother cat’s vital signs, the Russian submariners killed one of her kittens. At the exact moment this happened, the mother’s heart rate spiked, and her brain activity registered severe pain. The cat became agitated and confused. They repeated it with the other kittens over the next few days. Each time with exactly the same results. Though separated by distance, the mother seemed to sense the death of her kittens.”



“A form of maternal instinct,” Gray said.



Elizabeth nodded. “Or intuition. Either way, to my father, this was verifiable proof of some biological connection. He focused his research to seek a neurological basis for this strange phenomenon. Eventually he teamed up with the professor in India, who was studying similar abilities among the yogis and mystics of that country.”



“What abilities?” Painter asked.



Elizabeth took a sip of the hot coffee. She shook her head slightly. “My father began reading up on anecdotal stories of people with special mental talents. He weeded out crackpots and charlatans and sought out cases with some measure of verifiable proof, those rare cases substantiated by real scientists. Like by Albert Einstein.”



Gray did not mask his surprise. “Einstein?”



A nod. “At the turn of the century, an Indian woman named Shakuntala was brought to universities around the world to demonstrate her strange abilities. She had no more than the equivalent of a high school education, but she had an inexplicable skill with mathematics. Doing massive calculations in her head.”



“Some form of savant talent?” Painter asked.



“More than that, actually. With chalk in hand, the woman would begin writing the answer to a question before it was even voiced. Even Einstein bore witness to her skill. He posed to her a question that took him three months to solve, involving an intricate number of steps. Again before he could finish even asking the question, she was chalking out the answer, a solution that covered the width of the blackboard. He asked her how she was able to do that, but she didn’t know, claiming that figures just started to appear before her eyes and she simply wrote them down.”



Elizabeth stared over at them, plainly expecting disbelief. But Gray simply nodded for her to continue. His acquiescence seemed to irritate her, as if Gray dismissing such stories would somehow vindicate something inside her.



“There were other cases, too,” she continued. “Again in India. A boy who pulled a rickshaw in Madras. He could answer mathematical questions without even hearing the question. His explanation was that he would be overcome with a sense of anxiety when someone with a mathematical question was near him. And the answer would appear lined up in his head ‘like soldiers.’ He was eventually taken to Oxford, where he was tested. To prove his skill, he answered mathematical questions that were unsolvable at the time. Oxford recorded his results. Decades later, when higher levels of mathematics were developed, his answers were proven correct. But by that time, the boy had died of old age.”



Elizabeth set down her mug of coffee. “As astounding as these cases were, they also frustrated my father to no end. He needed living test subjects. So, as he continued to collate anecdotal evidence, he found many of the most intriguing cases clustered in India. Among their yogis and mystics. At the time, other scientists were already discovering the physiological basis for many of the yogis’ amazing skills. Like withstanding extreme cold for days by adjusting the flow of blood to their limbs and skin. Or fasting for months by lowering their basal metabolic rate.”



Gray nodded. He had studied many of such yogis’ teachings. It all came down to a matter of mental control, of tapping into bodily functions that were considered to be involuntary.



“My father immersed himself in Indian history, language, even with the ancient Vedic texts of prophecy. He sought out skilled yogis and began to test them: blood tests, electroencephalograms, brain mapping, even taking DNA tests to track the lineage of the individuals with the most talent. Ultimately he sought to scientifically prove that there was an organic basis in the brain for what the Russians had demonstrated with the mother cat.”



Painter sank back into the sofa. “It’s no wonder he was tapped for the Stanford project. His research certainly dovetailed with their objective.”



“But why would my father be murdered over this? It’s been years.” Her eyes met Gray’s. “And what does that strange skull have to do with any of this?”



“We don’t know yet,” Painter answered, “but by morning, we should know more about the skull.”



Gray hoped he was right. A team of experts had been called into Sigma to examine the strange object. It was with some reluctance that Gray allowed the skull to be couriered over to central command. Sensing it was the key to the mystery, he hated to have it out of his sight.



A knock at the door ended further discussion.



Painter craned around; Kowalski stood up, one of his shoes in hand.



Gray climbed to his feet, too.



Two plainclothed guards had been posted outside the house. If there was any problem, they would have radioed. Still, Gray unsnapped his holster and slipped out his semiautomatic pistol. Outfitted with radios, why would one of the guards be knocking?



He waved the others back and approached the front entry. He kept to the side and crossed to a small video monitor split into four views, each a live feed from exterior cameras. The upper left featured a view of the porch.



Two figures stood there, a few steps from the door.



A wiry man in a red Windbreaker held the hand of a small child. A girl. She fidgeted with a ribbon in her hair. Gray read no overt threat in the man’s manner. In his other hand was a thick sheet of paper. Maybe an envelope. The figure bent down to the bottom of the door.



Gray tensed, but it was just a sheet of yellow paper. The man slid it under the door. The sheet skittered across the waxed wooden floor of the entrance hall. It sailed to Gray’s toes.



He stared down at a child’s scrawl in black crayon. In crude but deliberate strokes, it depicted the main room of the safe house. Fireplace, chairs, sofa. Exactly as the room was laid out. Four shapes were drawn there, too. Two sat on the sofa, one on a chair. A larger figure leaned by the hearth with a shoe in his hand and had to be Kowalski.



It was a child’s picture of their room.



Gray stared back at the video monitor.



Movement drew his attention to the other feeds from the three exterior cameras. Men stepped into view, also in Windbreakers. Gray watched one guard, then the other appear, held at gunpoint.



Kowalski stepped to Gray’s side, having crossed silently on his stocking feet. He also studied the screen, then sighed.



“Great,” Kowalski commented. “What do you all do? Post the addresses for your hideaways on the Internet?”



Outside, the guards were forced to their knees.