The Last Odyssey (Sigma Force #15) - James Rollins Page 0,18

to have reverted to its original state. The tiny silver boat had returned to a port in what appeared to be the coastline of Turkey. Looking down from above, she suddenly guessed that city.

“Troy,” she whispered aloud.

The woman turned to her, cocking her head slightly, her dark eyes twinkling.

“It seems whoever brought you here had not been misguided.”

Elena took little solace from this assessment. She noted the scar that split the woman’s lower lip and carved a pale path down her chin, along her throat, and vanished under the edge of her wetsuit. It made her no less attractive. Still, Elena sensed a palpable danger wafting from her, like the radiation off the golden map.

Both were beautiful but deadly.

The woman’s penetrating eyes fixed on Elena. “Where is it?” she asked.

“What are you talking about?”

The team leader pointed to the hollow space in the map that once held the silver sphere of the astrolabe. In the depths of the empty cradle, bronze gears shone brightly. Elena pictured those cogs and wheels turning the astrolabe like the hands of an intricate clock.

“Where is the Daedalus Key?” the woman pressed.

The Daedalus Key?

Elena let her confusion show in her face and used it to reinforce her lie. “I don’t know what you mean. That’s all we found.”

The leader straightened and commanded in Arabic to someone behind Elena. Elena made out one phrase. Taelimuha. Which meant “teach her.”

She turned and found a hulking figure standing silently at her shoulder. She had not even heard the large bodyguard leave the Zodiac. He stood over seven feet, and surely suffered from some form of genetic gigantism. His face was all crags and scars. His brow heavy and thick. His eyes as dead and cold as those of a great white.

The man balled a fist and slammed it into Elena’s side.

She cried out and crumpled to the ground. Sharp pain radiated outward, making it hard to breathe. The tears she had been trying to hold in check burst forth hotly.

The woman stared down at her. “Do not lie again.” She then pointed to the ship and barked to her men in Arabic, loud enough for Elena to easily translate. “Secure the key. Kill them all.”

4

June 21, 11:18 A.M. WGST

Airborne over the Denmark Strait

Too wired to sit, Kowalski paced the length of the P-8 Poseidon’s cabin. It was his fourth circuit over the past twenty minutes.

He finally reached the “wine racks” at the stern of the aircraft, which held rows of cylindrical sonobuoys. He leaned on a barrel-sized rotary launcher that shot the buoys into the seas to assist the maritime patrol plane in monitoring Russian subs in the area. He tapped a finger on the launcher’s canister. His other hand—still in a pocket of his long leather duster—crinkled the cellophane around a Cuban cigar.

Maybe they won’t catch me back here if I took a couple puffs . . .

No one was around. The large jet had a crew of only nine, all of them stationed up front. With the crew busy at their monitors, it was aggravatingly quiet aboard the plane, which only got on his nerves.

Across the length of the bird, he spotted the Poseidon’s commander exit the cockpit and head toward the monitoring stations amidships. He stopped to say something to Maria, who was belted into a seat beside one of the two observer’s windows. The man laughed at something she said. His hand rested too long on the back of her seat.

Kowalski felt a bit of heat rise in his neck. The commander was young, smiled often, and looked way too much like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

He left his cigar in his pocket and headed aft.

He marched past the sections of the plane that housed its avionic compartments and antisubmarine armaments. He ended up meeting the commander at the row of five seats lining the port side, where a team of four men and one woman were bent over various glowing screens, monitoring the aircraft’s sophisticated APY-10 multi-mode search radar and ALQ-240 Electronic Support Measures Suite.

Earlier, upon learning that he was former navy, the tactical coordinator of the group had tried to explain to Kowalski some of the equipment and its capabilities. He barely understood every third word. It reminded him how much of an old sea dog he actually was. Apparently modern warfare had outgrown him.

The commander nodded to Kowalski. “I just came back to tell you we’ll be landing in ten minutes, so it’s best if you join Dr. Crandall and get