The Last Odyssey (Sigma Force #15) - James Rollins Page 0,88
around his thigh. Maria had heard about him being burned by branding irons.
Joe fiddled with the wraps, then unsheathed a trio of thin bronze rods that were pinned and secured under his bandage. “Elena found these. Gave them to me for safekeeping. She didn’t want those bastards finding ’em. Maybe feared she might give them up under torture or something.”
“What are they?” Maria asked.
“Elena called them ‘the Beams of the Death Star’ . . . or something like that.” Joe pointed to the astrolabe. “You stick ’em in there to make the map work.”
Gray took and inspected the rods.
Bailey looked over his shoulder, his words breathless. “They’re the tools to unlock the Daedalus Key.”
12:28 P.M.
Kowalski did his best to explain all that had happened with the other map. He paced in a circle around the coffee table. Gray and Father Bailey sat on their knees before the map. The two searched together to match the proper symbols to the flags on the bronze pins.
Everyone else hovered around them.
Kowalski finished his account, “Before the damn thing could complete its run, we were interrupted.”
“So, you never saw where the ship ended up?” Gray asked as he inserted a second pin.
“Like I said, we were interrupted. Maybe Elena saw something that I missed. She was closer, willing to risk getting radiation poisoning.” He shrugged. “I plan to have kids someday.”
He gave Maria a quick glance.
Right?
She frowned and waved him back toward Gray.
Bailey rotated the astrolabe in one hand, then pointed to a spot on the inner sphere. “Here. That’s the last symbol, isn’t it?”
Gray squinted closer and nodded. “Hold it steady.” With great care, he slid the third rod into place.
Bailey then twisted on his knees and gently lowered the astrolabe into its gold cradle. Bailey bit his lower lip and glanced at Gray.
Kowalski knew everything depended on what happened next. “Now you just have to flip the lever on the side,” he said. “And stand back.”
Bailey frowned at the map. “If only it were that easy. I’m afraid it’ll take a little more elbow grease.”
“I’ll let you do the honors,” Gray told the priest.
“Okay.” Bailey shifted to the side and reached to a little wheeled crank. He began to slowly turn it and explained to Kowalski. “Without that fiery fuel source, we have to do this manually.”
Still, Kowalski took a cautious step back.
He did want kids.
He ended up next to Maria and took her hand. They watched together as the priest wound and wound the crank. On the map, the tiny silver ship set sail from the golden coast of Turkey and over the azure gem of the Aegean Sea.
“It’s working,” Maria whispered, her fingers tightening.
The ship bounced around some islands, pausing here and there, then spun away from Greece and across the Ionian Sea. It then ducked under Italy’s boot and slipped between the toe and the island of Sicily.
No one breathed, all eyes on the map.
“Next stop, Vulcano,” Kowalski whispered.
“Hush,” Maria scolded, as if he were spoiling the plot.
The boat rounded Sicily and stopped at the chain of islands with little rubies on top of them. Maria glanced at him.
He shrugged. Told you so.
Bailey continued to turn, but nothing happened. His brow furrowed. “I think something’s wrong.”
Kowalski waved for him to continue. “This next part takes a bit longer.”
Nodding, trusting him, the priest wound the little crank. Finally, the map box jolted on the coffee table as some spring-loaded mechanism gave way inside.
Kowalski drew Maria back a step. “Don’t get too close.”
As before, the lapis lazuli of the Mediterranean split along invisible lines, shattering apart in a maze of cracks, spreading outward from the volcanic islands in a complex, byzantine pattern.
“The false paths,” Kowalski explained.
Bailey slowed his cranking, his expression both pained and awed. “I wish Monsignor Roe were here to see this.”
Gray warned him, “Keep going. Don’t stop.”
The priest sped up his turning. As he did so, the seams drew together and closed, returning a perfect surface to the sea. Only one crack remained and slowly widened and extended. It stretched from Vulcano, to southern Sardinia, then down to northern Africa. The tiny ship set off, dipping into the seam, carried by a tiny rod, maybe magnetized to some bit of iron hidden in the keel of the silver ship.
“That’s disappointing,” Kowalski mumbled.
“What?” Maria asked.
“Where’s all the steam? The fire?”
“No fuel,” she reminded him.
He harrumphed, dissatisfied.
The ship ran along the exposed crack, sailing west across the coast of Africa, catching up with the extending seam at the Strait of