James Rollins - The Eye of God - A Sigma Force Novel

To seek and you shall find .

Had they not done that these past days?

“We found St. Thomas’s tomb,” Vigor said softly, stifled by awe and tears. “The Nestorians, along with Ildiko’s last testament, must have convinced Genghis to build this shrine to the saint. That’s why his gospel was crafted and left in Hungary. It was a written invitation to find this crypt. The first site preserved Thomas’s words—and this last, his very body and legacy.”

Vigor allowed his fingers to touch that sacred bone, to lift the skull from the golden reliquary.

Gray stayed at his shoulder. As Vigor cradled the relic of St. Thomas in his palms, his friend shone his flashlight to the bottom of the chest.

In a sculpted gold bed rested a simple black cross.

It looked heavy, metallic, as long as an outstretched hand.

“The cross of St. Thomas,” Gray mumbled. “But can we be sure?”

Despite the gravity of the moment, Vigor smiled.

While Vigor had no doubt, Gray needed proof .

“Duncan will know,” Vigor said.

Gray checked his watch. “We only have an hour left. I’ll go check on their status.”

“Go,” Vigor said. “I’ll wait here.”

Gray squeezed his shoulder and quickly departed.

Only then did Vigor sink to his knees, cradling the relic of St. Thomas in his lap.

Thank you , Lord , for allowing me this moment .

Still, despite his reverential awe, a flicker of fear remained. He was still haunted by the eyes of the shaman—and his warning.

You are suffering much , but you will suffer more.

9:04 A.M.

Gray skidded his ATV out of the tunnel’s mouth and into the bright morning sunshine. The vehicle spun a full three-sixty on the ice before coming to a stop. He had dared not waste a minute and needed to be outside the cave for his satellite phone to work.

He punched Monk’s number. It was immediately picked up.

“Where are you?” Gray asked.

“On a bus. Driving across the ice. We’re just about to the island.”

Gray bit back a groan. The others were running behind schedule. “I need you to come straight here. I’ll call Seichan in a moment and have her do the same. I’m three miles north of Burkhan Cape, along the coast, out on the ice at the entrance to a sea tunnel. I’ll leave my ATV in the sunshine as a marker.”

“Did you find the cross?” Monk asked.

Flustered, Gray realized he hadn’t even mentioned that. “Yes. But we need Duncan to confirm it.”

And the Eye brought here.

In the background, he heard Jada call to Monk, “ Tell him not to move the cross. ”

“What’s that about?” Gray asked.

“I’ll let her tell you. I’m going to see about a shorter route to your coordinates.”

“What are you—?”

But Monk was gone and Jada came on the line. “You haven’t moved the cross since you found it, have you?” she asked, sounding scared.

“No.”

He hadn’t even wanted to touch it without corroboration.

“Good. I think the best chance for us to break the quantum entanglement between the cross and the comet is to keep the cross at its current spatial coordinates.”

“Why?”

“Because the cross is currently fixed to a specific point in the curve of the earth’s space-time. I want time to remain the only variable. I can show you my calculations, but—”

“I’ll take you at your word. Just get that Eye here in time.”

“Monk is working on—”

In the background, Duncan could be heard yelling, “ That’s your plan! ”

Gray heard a rising commotion, people yelling. “What’s going on?”

Jada answered, flustered, but clarifying little, “We’re on our way.”

The connection abruptly ended.

Gray simply had to trust that they knew what they were doing. He called Seichan next. After a longer than expected delay, the connection was picked up.

“Where are you?” Seichan demanded, sounding angry.

Not having the time to analyze her curt response, he simply told her and ended with, “Come straight here.”

She cut off the connection just as brusquely, not even bothering to acknowledge him.

Gray shook his head and headed on foot back inside.

He would have to trust she would do the right thing.

29

November 20, 9:06 A.M. IRKST

Olkhon Island, Russia

Seichan didn’t know what to do.

Pak leaned close to her face. She smelled the tobacco on his breath from the cigarettes he had been chain-smoking since he got here.

“Tell me what they said! Where are they?”

He still held her phone in his hand. Behind Pak, the stone-faced North Korean unit leader—whose name she had learned was Ryung—continued to hold a pistol to Rachel’s chest. Pak had forced Seichan to find out where Gray was, then ended the call before she could warn him in any way.

Both of the North Koreans were clearly losing patience.

Pak stalked across the common room of the inn, angrily puffing on a cigarette. Ju-long hung back by the fire, looking none too pleased about any of this. Seichan got the feeling he was under some coercion. He was a man driven by money and position in Macau. For him, there could be no profit in what was happening here.

Not that such sentiment would lead him to help them.

Rachel was bound to a chair across from her. Both of them had been expertly immobilized by Ryung’s men. There was no magical way to free themselves from this situation. No secret knife, no way to break the chair or slip her bonds.

Seichan knew the reality of the situation. They were both at Pak’s mercy—an emotion she doubted existed in the man.

Recognizing this, Seichan had told them earlier where Gray and the others had gone, to Burkhan Cape. If she had failed to do that, they would have shot Rachel. She had no doubt of that. She only had to stare over to the innkeeper’s legs sticking out the kitchen door, one shoe fallen off, sprawled in a pool of blood, to be certain.

So she told them about Gray’s sunrise meeting at the coast. She sought to buy time, hoping to create a long enough delay for Monk to arrive at the inn and possibly upset the scenario, maybe even rescue them, or at least allow Seichan a possible opportunity to free herself and Rachel during the chaos.

After her earlier confession, Ryung had dispatched a handful of men to Burkhan Cape. They returned thirty minutes later, getting confirmation that Seichan had spoken the truth. But while they were questioning the shaman, the man simply stepped out of the mouth of his cave and threw himself to the rocks below, never revealing where Gray had gone from there.

The North Koreans had to accept she didn’t know either—not that they didn’t use the time to rough the two women up. Rachel and Seichan had matching cigarette burns on the back of their hands as proof.

Then came the damned call.

Pak had used the opportunity to get an update.

“Don’t tell them,” Rachel said around a split lip. “You know what’s at stake.”

Clearly growing frustrated with Seichan’s delaying tactics, Pak stubbed out his cigarette and returned from his angry stroll around the room. He came back rubbing his palms, a gleam of dark amusement in his eyes.

Seichan went cold.

“Let’s make this interesting, shall we?” he said.

Parting his palms, Pak revealed a North Korean silver coin in his hand. On the surface was the smiling visage of the dictator Kim Jong-il.

“You know I am a betting man,” Pak said. “So a game, a wager. Heads . We shoot your friend. Tails . She lives.”