Her face remained impassive, as hard as the scales on her dragon, not accepting his excuse.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped out, tasting blood on his lips. “I . . . I love them so much . . . please help them.”
“Why should I help you? After what you’ve done?”
“I tried . . . how I could . . . to help.”
A single line creased her brow.
“How did you think you found us?” he said, gasping around a twinge of pain. “Tracked Pak and me to this island?”
“Like you, I have ears everywhere. I heard you left North Korea for Mongolia. So I followed, trailed you. I knew you must still be going after—”
He cut her off. “Who do you think spoke to those many ears of yours? I told them to speak to you.”
It was the truth. Ju-long had to be discreet while with Pak. Using the excuse of monitoring the assassin’s tracker, he was able to regularly call Macau and manipulate matters from afar. While he could not raise his own army in Macau without alerting the North Koreans and risking his pregnant wife’s life, he attempted to raise another, to stoke the hatred of Guan-yin to come to his aid.
He remembered the surprise of the sword piercing his chest.
Apparently he had stoked that hatred too well.
A small miscalculation.
“I drew you here to kill Pak, possibly to free me,” he said with a small laugh full of blood. “To perhaps mend our fences in the end.”
Now all that matters is my beautiful Natalia . . . and the son I will never see . . .
Guan-yin leaned back. He saw she believed him. Still, was that enough for her to help? She was not known for the quality of her mercy.
“I will find them,” she finally promised. “I will free them.”
A single tear of relief rolled down his cheek. He knew she would not fail him.
Thank you.
With this burden lifted from him, he allowed his eyes to close—but before they did, another face appeared next to Guan-yin, the pretty assassin who had caused so much trouble.
Only then did he see the resemblance.
One next to the other.
Mother and daughter.
He now understood the cause of his small miscalculation. In the end, it had never been about money or turf—only family.
No wonder you stabbed me.
Finally recognizing the error of his ways, his own silent laughter followed him into oblivion.
9:56 A.M.
“So that’s how you knew how to find us,” Gray said, standing behind Seichan and her mother, eavesdropping on the conversation.
He carried a pistol and guarded over them, as Monk and Kowalski helped the rest of the Triad mop up the situation on the ice.
Guan-yin stood. “Yes, it’s how we knew you were on the island, but the last word to reach us claimed Ju-long would be at an inn at Khuzhir.”
Gray understood. Ju-long must not have had time to call and update his spies before moving here. “Then how did you know to come out here?”
A sad look swept over her features. “We found a woman, shot, still alive. She told us.”
Rachel . . .
Guan-yin read the rising hope in his face and quashed it. “She did not make it. But it was her dying words that brought us here.”
And saved us all, Gray realized. And maybe the world.
Guan-yin touched his arm. “I think she was hanging on just to get that message out.”
Grief ripped through him, but he held it in check until later.
They were not finished here.
He headed toward the tunnel.
Besides saving the world, he had another mission still to go, one even closer to his heart. As much as it would destroy the man, Vigor deserved to know the fate of his niece.
9:57 A.M.
“And Rachel?” the monsignor asked.
Duncan read the hope in the man’s eyes as they crossed the threshold into the chamber of gold. Jada hobbled on the far side of Vigor, looking upon Duncan with an equal expectation of good news.
After climbing the frozen waterfall, he had caught up with Jada and Vigor on the small pond that served as an antechamber to the golden ger.
Duncan explained as best he could as they scaled the stairs. He had told them about Seichan being held at gunpoint, about the turning of the tides by the arrival of new allies—which still baffled him.
Still, he knew one truth.
“Rachel was killed,” Duncan said, seeing no way to blunt the news.
Vigor stopped a few steps into the room, staring at him in disbelief, his face crashing into ruin. “No . . .”
Jada stayed next to Vigor as grief felled the old man to his knees. She pushed Duncan toward the rock pillar in the center of the room.
“Check the cross,” she hissed, dropping her pack, going after the Eye inside. “But don’t move it.”
He understood. They needed confirmation that the artifact was what they all sought. He hurried to the nest of three boxes: iron, silver, and gold. A skull rested on the gold floor next to the cairn.
Keeping clear of the relic, he looked down into the innermost box. A heavy black cross rested inside, seated in a sculpted bed of gold that matched its shape.
He reached a hand inside, but even before passing through the outer box of iron, he felt the magnets in his fingertips respond. Again he sensed pressure, as if a force were resisting him. He pushed deeper into that field, drawing his fingers closer to its dark surface.
Again, he recognized the same oily, unnatural feel to the energy, but as his tips drew to within a hairbreadth of the cross, he noted a subtle difference. With this unadulterated power wafting off the meteoric metal, he recognized that this energy—while much the same—had a different flavor to it.
Or color.
It couldn’t be described any other way.
While he had gripped the Eye, he sensed a blackness to it, like the darkness between stars, beautiful in its own right.
Here, he could only express this energy as white.
Jada had said the two items—the cross and the Eye—were opposites, different quantum spins from each other, separate poles on an axis of time.
But there was another fundamental difference.
With the Eye, he found its touch repellent.
Here, he had to restrain himself against grabbing that cross. It was nearly irresistible. Despite the warning from Jada, the tip of his index finger brushed the surface.
As contact was made, that whiteness enveloped him, blinding him.
From his background in physics, he knew black holes sucked all light into themselves, while theoretical white holes cast it all back out.
He felt that way now, cast out, thrust somewhere else, possibly sometime else. Through the brilliance, a figure approached, all in shadows. Like a dark mirror of himself, this shape reached to his outstretched hand, as if going for the cross, too.
As their fingertips touched, Duncan found himself blasted away.
The room returned, snapping so suddenly back he stumbled to the side, clenching and unclenching his hand.
“What’s wrong?” Jada asked.
He shook his head.
“What about the cross?”
“It’s . . . it’s got energy.”
He retreated from the pillar, but not before noting again the skull on the floor, picturing the shadowy figure in the light.
Could it be . . . ?
Not wanting to think about such a possibility, he reached Jada’s side. “What do we have to do?”
“I think just touch the Eye to the cross. Bringing their opposite energies together should trigger an annihilation, thus breaking that quantum entanglement.”
Duncan pictured that field snuffing out.
“Okay,” he said, holding out his hand for the Eye. “Let’s do this.”
Jada lifted the sphere, but she pulled it away from him.
“What?”
She glanced around. “I think we need this room s
ealed when it happens. Gold is one of the most nonreactive metals. Pure gold won’t even tarnish.”
“Like silver and iron will,” Duncan said.
“Maybe the ancients knew something. Felt such insulation was important.” Jada stood up. “Either way, I feel it would be safer if everyone else was outside this vault after it’s sealed. It could be dangerous to be in here when those two forces annihilate.”
“Then you and Vigor head out and close the door.”
“Maybe I’d better perform this,” Jada argued. “I’m less sensitive to these energies than you.”
Duncan could not let her risk it.
The stalemate was decided by another.
Vigor surged to his feet and snatched the Eye. He strode toward the ancient boxes. Duncan stepped after him, but the monsignor shoved an arm up, pointing a finger at him, his tone both commanding and grief-stricken.
“Go!”
Duncan recognized that Vigor would not relent.
Jada checked her watch and tugged Duncan’s sleeve toward the door. “Someone has to do it. And we’re out of time.”
With a heavy heart, he fled with Jada for the threshold. As they stepped out and began closing the doors, he watched Vigor step before the pillar, his shoulders slumped, weighted down by grief.
No matter the outcome . . . thank you, old man.
Duncan closed the door and latched it tight.
9:59 A.M.
Vigor stood before the reliquary of St. Thomas, cradling in his palms a crystal sphere holding the very fires of the universe. Within the triple chests lay a cross forged among the stars and carried by a saint. He should have felt exultant, elated to be allowed this hallowed moment at the end of his life.
Instead, he felt only loss.
He had made accommodation for his death, happy that Rachel would live on in his stead. Maybe part of his inner peace was selfish pride, knowing he would be remembered, that she would tell her sons and daughters, even her grandchildren, about her uncle Vigor and the adventures they had shared together.
He wanted to curse God—but as he stared at the cross, he felt a measure of comfort. He knew he would see Rachel again. He was certain of it.
“I have no doubt,” he whispered.
He followed it with a short, silent prayer.
He had time for no more.
But was that not the lament upon every deathbed? Regret about what could never be, the finality of death, the great destroyer of possibilities.
Sighing, he pictured all his friends, old and new.
Gray and Monk, Kat and Painter, Duncan and Jada.
Rachel had sacrificed everything to keep them safe, to allow them the fullness of their lives, though hers was cut short.
Could I do any less?
Vigor raised the Eye and placed it where the relic of St. Thomas had rested for millennia. It came to fit perfectly upon the small gold pillars that had supported the skull . . . as if the Eye were always meant to be there.
Only when the sphere touched the cross—
10:00 A.M.
Duncan gasped, stumbling back as if struck in the face by a fierce gust of wind—only he never really stumbled.
Instead, his consciousness blew out of the back of his skull. For a moment, he found himself staring at his body from behind, standing next to Jada, both of them facing the doors.
Then he snapped back, so hard he actually fell forward and hit the door. He caught himself with a palm on the jamb.
Jada stared at him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m suddenly glad I wasn’t in there.”
“What happened?”
He attempted to explain his out-of-body experience.
Instead of being incredulous, she nodded. “The blast from the annihilation of energies likely created a local quantum bubble, bursting outward. And for a sensitive like yourself, where your consciousness is highly attuned to quantum fields, it had a physical effect.”
“And what about someone in that room? At ground zero?”
10:01 A.M.
It was a good question, Jada thought.
And one that frightened her.
Especially after hearing what Duncan had experienced.
“I don’t know,” she admitted in regard to Vigor’s fate. “Nothing or everything. A flip of the coin.”
She realized Vigor was like Schrödinger’s cat. As long as the door remained closed, he was both alive and dead. Only once they opened it would his fate be decided one way or the other.
She pictured the universe splitting, depending on that answer.
Duncan reached for the door to collapse that potential, but before he could do so, a commotion drew their attention behind them. From the tunnel by the pond, Gray crawled into view, spotted them, and rushed up the stairs.
He quickly took in the situation and noted who was missing.
“Where’s Vigor?” he asked.
Jada turned to the sealed door. “He agreed to take the Eye in there, to join it with the cross.”
“Did he do it?”
“Yes,” Jada said.
Gray frowned at the closed door. “How can you be certain?”
Duncan rubbed the back of his head, as if making sure it was still there. “We’re sure.”
Gray stepped to the door. “Then let’s get in there.”
Jada put her hand over the latch, suddenly feeling foolish, as if stopping Gray could truly leave Vigor’s fate undecided.
“There’s a good chance he didn’t make it,” Duncan warned, plainly trying to prepare Gray.
Jada nodded and dropped her hand.
Gray pulled the latch and swung the door open.
10:02 A.M.
Gray stepped into the golden chamber, finding it little changed. The vast murals depicting the life of St. Thomas remained. The cairn of stones stood in the middle of the room. The triple boxes sat on top of the pillar.
Only now Vigor lay crumpled on the floor, his head resting against the relic of St. Thomas.
Gray rushed to his side and rolled him over.
His chest didn’t move.
Fingers at his throat found no heartbeat.
Oh, God, no . . .
Tears welled up.
He stared at his friend’s face, noting the look of peace, of calm release.
“Did he know?” Gray said, not looking away. “About Rachel.”
“He did,” Duncan said hoarsely.
Gray closed his eyes, praying they were together again, finding a note of comfort in that thought, wanting it to be true, needing it to be so.
Be happy, my friends.
He kept bowed over Vigor for a long breath.
To the side, Duncan stepped to the boxes. He passed his hands over the sphere, picked it up, and examined the cross. He finally shook his head and passed his verdict.
“The energy is gone.”
Did that mean they had succeeded?
Gray had a more important question. “Were we in time?”
Jada checked her watch. “I don’t know. It all happened right at the cusp. It could go either way.”
33
November 21, 1:08 A.M. EST
Washington, D.C.
Painter waited with the others on the National Mall. The president and key members of the government had been evacuated. Coastal areas had been sandbagged and cleared. Even Monk and Kat had taken the girls for a short “vacation” in the Amish country of Pennsylvania, away from the potential blast zone.
Though that potential was not high, no one was taking chances.
Even his fiancée, Lisa, had suggested returning early from New Mexico to join him, but he discouraged her.
Washington, D.C., was under a voluntary evacuation order. But like Painter, not everyone had abandoned the nation’s capital. A vast number of people crowded the Mall. Across the swaths of grass, tents had been pitched, candles lit, and much alcohol was drunk. Songs echoed to him, along with a few prayers and angry shouting matches.
From the s
teps outside the Smithsonian Castle, Painter stared across that great mass of humanity, with their faces raised to the skies—a few in fear, most with wonder. He never appreciated his fellow man more than at this moment. Here were curiosity, awe, and reverence, all the best traits of humankind squeezed down to this one moment, making each soul smaller against the grandeur of what was about to happen and far, far larger for being a part of it.
A scuffle of feet drew his attention behind him. Jada and Duncan came running across the street from the doors of the Castle. He noted their hands clasped together—though they broke apart once they drew closer.
He didn’t say anything about that.
Painter faced Jada. “Don’t tell me that the estimates from the SMC have suddenly changed?”
Jada smiled, carrying a cell phone in her other hand. “I keep checking in. So far it looks like Apophis is on track to hit the earth, but only a glancing blow at best. Still, it should be spectacular.”
Good.
Painter pictured the destruction shown on the satellite image. By severing the quantum entanglement that was drawing Comet IKON’s corona of dark energy toward the earth, they had stopped the potential warping of space-time around the planet, preventing a catastrophic bombardment of asteroids from pummeling a swath across the globe.
He remembered Antarctica, a sneak peek of what might have happened globally. That event had led to the death of eight navy men, and that number would have been much higher, if not for the brave efforts and ingenuity of Lieutenant Josh Leblang, who had heroically rallied his men to safety. Painter was considering recruiting the kid into Sigma. He had great potential.
Still, they were not entirely out of danger—what had already been set in motion by the comet’s passing could not be stopped. A few meteors struck in the remote outback of Australia, more in the Pacific. A large rock hit outside of Johannesburg, but the impact did little more than frighten the animals in a nearby safari park.
The biggest danger was still posed by the asteroid Apophis. It had already been shifted from its regular path, and nothing could be done about that. While Sigma had succeeded in severing that quantum connection, it had done so too close to the point of no return. In the end, it proved too late to stop Apophis from striking the earth, but it was at least in time to keep the comet from pulling the asteroid into a direct path toward the Eastern Seaboard. Instead, the asteroid was destined to hit elsewhere.