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

Seichan glared at the man’s needless cruelty.

“I am going to keep flipping this coin until you tell me,” Pak pressed. “The first head that comes up, she dies.”

Ryung fixed his pistol more firmly to Rachel’s chest.

Stepping back, Pak flipped the coin high into the air. It flashed silver in the lamplight.

Seichan relented, knowing she could delay no longer. “Fine! I’ll tell you!”

“Don’t!” Rachel warned.

The coin struck the floor and bounced until Pak trapped it under his boot, wearing a mean smile, enjoying this way too much.

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” he said. “Now tell me.”

She did, telling him the truth, changing tactics. If stalling no longer worked, her best hope was to get them all moving. Once under way, she might find an opportunity to break free.

“Very good,” Pak said, pleased with himself.

He lifted his shoe.

The fat-cheeked face of Kim Jong-il smiled up from the floor.

Heads.

“Looks like you lose,” Pak said and signaled his man.

Ryung stepped back, aimed his gun, and shot Rachel in the chest.

Horror as much as the blast made Seichan jump, rocking her chair back, almost toppling over.

Equally stunned, Rachel stared down at the blood welling through her shirt—then back up at Seichan.

Seichan gaped at Pak, at his betrayal.

He shrugged, looking surprised at her response. “It’s the usual house rules,” Pak said. “Once the dice are in the air, all bets are final.”

Across the way, Rachel’s head slumped to her chest.

Seichan despaired.

What have I done?

9:20 A.M.

Cold darkness enfolded her.

All her strength and heat seeped out the single hole in her chest, taking at last the fiery pain with it. With each fading breath, she felt a small ache remaining, more spiritual than physical.

I don’t want to go . . .

Rachel struggled to stay, but again it was not a fight of muscle and bone, but of will and purpose. She had heard the others leave the inn, abandoning her to her death.

But Monk would come . . .

She held on to that hope. She knew he could not save her, not even with his considerable medical skill. Instead, she clutched to that thinning silver strand of her existence for one purpose.

To tell him where the others had gone.

Hurry . . .

She drifted deeper into that darkness—when the creak of a door, a rush of footsteps, held her a moment longer from oblivion.

A hand touched her knee.

Down that dark well, faint words fell to her, nearly unintelligible, but still the desire rang through.

Where?

She took her last and deepest breath and told them, hope slipping from her lips—not for her, not for the world.

Instead, she pictured storm-blue eyes.

And was gone.

30

November 20, 9:22 A.M. IRKST

Olkhon Island, Russia

“This is nuts!” Duncan yelled.

“This is faster, ” Monk said.

Duncan could only watch as his partner hauled on the wheel of the bus, careening its long length around a point of the coastline. He fishtailed across the shore ice, coming close to clipping an ice-fishing hut. Then he was trundling onward.

After Gray’s call, Monk had commandeered the bus, sending passengers and driver fleeing out the door. Monk then got behind the wheel and headed west from the southern tip of the island, blazing his own trail across the open ice. Monk must have anticipated this earlier, as he had spent much of the bus ride from Sakhyurta talking to their driver, asking about the thickness of the frozen shelf, how far it stretched from the coast this time of year.

Duncan somewhat understood his partner’s reasoning. Both of them had plenty of time to study a map of Olkhon Island after landing in Irkutsk. A topographic chart showed that the road from the ferry station to the village inn was circuitous and winding. It would be a slow slog.

Additionally, the island was crescent shaped, bending toward the west at its northern end—where they needed to go.

So the most direct path, from point A to point B, was as a crow flies—or rather a seal swims. By traveling straight across the shore ice, they could halve their time in reaching Gray’s team.

Still . . .

Jada clung to her seat, her eyes huge.

Ice boomed under them. Cracks skittered in the wake of their passage. People watched from the shoreline, pointing at them.

This far out, the thickness of the ice was questionable at best, so they dared not slow. Momentum was their best hope.

“That must be Burkhan Cape!” Jada yelled, pointing to a craggy promontory sticking out of a forested bay.

Duncan spotted the timbered houses of a small town hugging that same bay. Must be Khuzhir .

“Three more miles!” Monk called and pointed to the windows on the right side of the bus. “Gray said he’d left his ATV parked on the ice as a marker for the sea tunnel. Keep watch for it!”

Duncan moved to that side as Monk finally began angling closer to shore, where thankfully the ice should be thicker. After another long tense five minutes, Jada hollered, making him jump.

“There!” she called out and pointed. “By that big rock shaped like a bear!”

With rounded ears and stubby muzzle, the boulder did look like a grizzly’s head. And past the granite beast’s shoulders, a black dot marked the presence of a lone ATV, a small flag waving from its rear.

“That’s gotta be it,” Monk said.

As they drew nearer, the mouth of a tunnel appeared in the cliff, lined by massive icicles. Duncan thought he spotted movement in the woods at the top of the escarpment, but with the sun rising on the other side of the island, the forest was in deep shadow.

If anyone was up there, it was probably stunned onlookers come to watch the bus.

The brakes squealed as Monk slowed them—or at least, he tried to.

The bus spun sideways, skidding across the ice.

They broadsided the ATV and bulldozed it in front of them, pushing it back toward the mouth of the tunnel.

Duncan and Jada both retreated to the opposite side of the bus as the cliff wall came rushing toward them.

But the vehicle finally slowed to a shuddering stop, coming to rest ten yards from the mouth of the sea tunnel.

Monk rubbed his palms on his thigh. “Now that’s what I call parallel parking.”

Duncan scowled. “Is that what you call it?”

They all tumbled out the door, wanting to make sure they were at the right place before unloading their gear.

Gray came running from the shadows of the tunnel, drawn by the commotion, his eyes huge at their means of transportation. He clearly must have recognized the bus from his own icy sojourn from the mainland to the island.

“What?” he asked with a grin. “You couldn’t find a cab?”

9:28 A.M.

Gray gave Monk a fast hug. It was good to see his best friend, even under the circumstances and his unusual means of transportation.

He quickly shook Jada’s hand, but he pointed his finger at Duncan. “I need you to get that Eye up to that vault. Kowalski’s back there and can show you. We found the cross, but we have no way of telling if it’s energized in any way.”

“I’ll go with him,” Jada said, offering her expertise.

Gray nodded his thanks, staring out across the ice, wondering what was taking Seichan and Rachel so long. He had expected them here before Monk and the others.

Jada stepped back toward the bus. “I left my pack—”

A sharp whistle pierced the morning, followed immediately by a massive blast of fire and ice. Jada got blown into Duncan, who caught her. The concussion knocked them all off their feet and down the tunnel, accompanied by a barrage of broken icicles.