The Last Odyssey (Sigma Force #15) - James Rollins Page 0,112
glanced down at his chest, heat entering his words. “In your stubbornness, you failed to learn the lesson your father tried to teach you with that gunshot. You still lied. And it was I who had to bear the pain of your deceit.”
His eyes found hers again. Only now a fire burned behind the glaze of the morphine. “But sacrifices are necessary. I know this well. I was the one who convinced the Americans to bring the Daedalus Key to Castel Gandolfo, to see if it could be useful to us. When it proved not, when the Americans could offer no better insight, I was the one who called down the air strike upon my own head.”
Elena noted the fervent passion growing in the monsignor’s voice, the speckle of spittle on his lips. The glow in his eyes had turned fanatical. The pain meds had clearly let loose what the man had hidden for so long, clearly also making him more talkative.
“Only when the Americans proved clever enough to escape the vaults below Castel Gandolfo did my faith in them momentarily return. Needing to remove them from the protective shield dropped around Castel Gandolfo, I brought them to Sardinia, to my ally Rabbi Fine. I wanted to test them one last time, offering what we knew, seeing if they could come up with any new insight. But alas, again nothing.”
“So you tried to eliminate them and secure the Da Vinci map.”
“And the original Daedalus Key. How could I not?”
“When that failed, you came to Firat’s yacht to run the same scam on me.”
“Yes, but you proved far more clever.” His gaze sharpened, his eyes ablaze with a zealous fire. “You shall see. Soon all my sacrifices will bear righteous fruit. My pain will be my badge when the Lord returns.”
She turned away from those fanatical flames. She imagined the monsignor had been a member of the Apocalypti far longer than Firat or her father—two who believed themselves to be either Mahdi returned or King David reborn. Still, neither of them could match the manic zeal in the man seated across from her.
And I’ve pointed them all to a cache of mythic weapons, along with an unknown power source, that could in the wrong hands ignite a holy war.
She held out one hope.
She prayed Joe and the others had used the bronze rods to unlock their version of the map, that they’d somehow already secured the site.
Don’t let me down, Joe.
33
June 26, 5:02 P.M. WEST
High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
“Over here!” Kowalski called to the others.
The group had spread out along the base of the cliff and gathered toward him.
With his fists on his hips, he studied the stretch of wall. The rocky layers looked like a scattered stack of newspapers, crookedly aligned, some rippled, others torn. The team had already searched the dry spillway closest to the waterfall and had moved on to the next, the centermost of what was once five rivers toppling over the cliff.
This one had plainly been a monster from the size of the divot in the cliff’s edge. Easily thirty yards across.
“What did you find?” Gray asked.
Kowalski pointed fifteen feet up the cliff face. “Look at that pile of rocks sitting on that broken ledge. To the left of it, I think there’s a crack in the wall.”
Gray squinted.
Seichan shaded her eyes. “He’s right. I’ll go check.”
Before anyone could object, she scaled her way up. The strata below the ledge stuck out haphazardly, creating a series of crooked giant steps, offering a crude stairway up to the crack.
“I guess I could’ve done that,” Kowalski groused.
Seichan reached the top and vanished inside. Gray paced a few nervous steps back and forth.
Mac stared up. “If this valley truly had been flooded long ago, the water level here might have reached that ledge. Look at the slight difference in coloration of the rock layers below the ledge compared to above it. They’re a more grayish white. Even the lower strata look smoother than those above. Likely worn by waters long dried up.”
Kowalski tried to imagine it. He pictured a ship sailing over his head and tying up to the ledge above.
Maybe the guy’s right.
Seichan popped back into view and burst all their bubbles. “It’s a dead end here, too.”
Gray swore under his breath.
Seichan waved. “But I think you all should come up and see this anyway.”
Gray cupped his mouth and called. “What did you find?”
“Just come see.” She turned and slipped back through the crack.