Rogue Oracle (22 page)

Tara’s eyebrow lifted. “Oh?”

“Says you’re the most enigmatic, frustrating dame on earth.”

Tara snorted. “That’s high praise, coming from Harry.”

“He loves you, you know.”

Tara blinked. She knew it, but it had never been put so matter-of-factly before. “He wouldn’t have said that.”

“Didn’t need to.” The Cowboy laughed, stretched out his denim-clad legs. “He loves you, and he’s going to be pissed that you left without him.”

Tara swallowed. “I know.”

“So, where you going?”

“Chernobyl.” The word itself tasted hollow and metallic, like the sand she’d tasted on the beach in her dreams. “In three hours.”

The Cowboy hesitated, then ground out the red light of his cigarette in his ashtray. “Then we need to get a couple of things for you from the store.”

He swung his legs off the railing and headed back into the house. Tara followed him, curiosity prickling as she followed him down the steps into the shop. He flipped on the fluorescent lights, illuminating the mountains of surplus gear in flickering, cold light.

“I appreciate it, Steve, really,” Tara said. “But I’ve been told that this is one of those places where your bags leave lighter than when you arrived.”

“I was over in Serbia for a while. I know what it’s like.” The Cowboy disappeared in the back of the store, began digging around in boxes. “There’s no point in packing your gun. That will get taken away from you. You’re much better off buying one when you get there.”

“I can do that?” That sounded like a certain way to get into trouble with the local authorities.

“If you’re discreet. What’ve you got so far for your trip?”

“A couple of Tyvek suits, some latex gloves. A Russian phrase book.”

The Cowboy dumped a black deployment bag on the glass counter, started arranging odds and ends beside it: a compass, what looked like a wallet with straps, and a handheld electronic device that looked like a cell phone.

“What’s this?” Tara asked, picking up the device.

“That’s a universal portable navigator. It’s GPS-enabled, should work anywhere you can get a satellite signal.”

Tara pointed to the cheap plastic compass. “Then what’s that for?”

“That’s what you use if this gets stolen from your bags.” A smile played around the Cowboy’s mouth. He pointed to the wallet. “That straps on under your clothes, to keep your cash and passport in. Should keep thieves’ fingers out.”

“Gotcha.”

The Cowboy rummaged around in a bin full of boots. “What’s your size?”

“Eight and a half.”

The Cowboy peered at the tongues of the boots, muttering to himself, until he found a pair of shockingly ugly boots to hand to Tara. “Try these.”

Tara jammed her feet into them, wiggled her toes. “These feel good.”

“Great.” The Cowboy opened a frayed cardboard box and lifted out a face mask apparatus with a tube extending from the nose. “This is a flight respirator. Will do in a pinch in low-level radiation settings … which reminds me …” He rummaged around under the counter. “Try these on. Nomex flight gloves. Should be pretty airtight.” He slapped a pair of gray gloves on the counter. “I know it’s here, somewhere … unless Steve moved it …”

Tara tried on the gloves. They fit like a second skin, much better than the latex gloves she’d gotten at the archives.

“A-ha.” He dug out an item that looked like a pager. Immediately, he popped open the compartment and began rooting around for a battery. “This is a personal dosimeter. It detects gamma rays and X-rays. Sometimes they’re used by the paranoid in nuclear submarines, mines, nuclear medicine, that sort of thing.”

“Okay. How do I use it?”

The Cowboy jammed a AAA battery into the back of it. “Clip it to your belt. It’ll chirp when it’s accumulated more than ten microroentgens per hour. Or, you can turn the chirp off, and watch the readout, here.” He pointed to the window. “Anything over fifty microroentgens means that you should get the heck out of the area.”

“Gotcha. Thanks.”

“It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got on hand.” The Cowboy glanced at his watch. “Better get packed up if you want to catch your plane.”

He looked past Tara at the stairs and fell silent.

Tara turned to see Cassie leaning on the banister, dressed in one of Tara’s T-shirts and leggings. Tara was startled to see the girl venturing this far into the dungeon of weaponry. She clutched the stair rail and stared at Tara.

“You’re leaving now?”

Tara crossed the room, reached out to hug the girl. “It’s gonna be okay. The Steves will watch over you.”

“I know,” Cassie said, bravely. She nodded and tried to smile.

Tara thought she still detected a bit of a tremor in the girl’s shoulders when she said good-bye.

At least she could say good-bye to Cassie.

She wished she had that luxury with Harry.

Chapter Seventeen

W
HAT DO
you mean, she left?”

Harry slapped his hand on his desk. The blow sloshed his cup of coffee on a stack of file folders and caused an agent at the copier to turn around and give him the stink eye.

The Cowboy’s voice on the other end of the line was tense. “She left last night for Chernobyl. To chase your suspect.”

“Why the hell didn’t she tell me?” Harry struggled to keep the anger from seeping into his voice. It wasn’t directed at Steve. It was directed at Tara for being a maddeningly obscure and independent oracle.

“From what I understand, the crazy aunt arranged the trip. She didn’t want you to get involved with what Cassie calls ‘family politics.’”

Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. He didn’t understand that fucked-up tie Tara and Cassie had to the Pythia. He doubted he’d ever understand why they kept walking back into the arms of that monster over and over again. But he didn’t have to tolerate it.

“Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

“What are you gonna do?” the Cowboy drawled.

“Well, as I see it, I’ve got two choices, Steve. I can kick back and do nothing, and hope she comes back. Or I can go after her.”

“That just about sums up your options,” the Cowboy agreed. “The second one would be sorta detrimental to your career.”

Harry poked at the files on his desk and glared in the general direction of Aquila’s office. “DHS and TSA have taken over the dirty bomber case. I’m just window dressing, at this point.” He leaned back in his chair. “Figuring out the route Tara took is gonna be the hard part.” He knew that she’d let her cards lead her down whatever dark alley tickled her intuition. And he had no hope of guessing where that would be. Her intuitive processes were opaque and inscrutable to him, like trying to look through obsidian glass.

“You guys will work it out,” the Cowboy said.

Harry made a noncommittal noise and hung up.

He’d been busy trying to track down what he could see and understand, from Veriss’s point of view. He’d been digging through Veriss’s files and diagrams. As near as he could determine, he’d isolated part of the decaying spy network tied to the disappearances. All the people who had turned up missing had been looking for unaccounted-for parts from the Chernobyl plant. Some time after the disaster, the other reactors continued to run, until the last one was shut down in 1999. There had never been a thorough accounting made for that material, and Veriss had been sniffing circles around the folks who had been looking for it.

As he always did, he returned to Tara’s line of thinking. She was convinced that their suspect was on the flight to Rome, but they had no proof, just an inarticulate hunch. The plane in Rome was long gone, but Harry was driven to find some overlooked bit of evidence that might show that she was right, that the Chimera really had been there. DHS said there was no way that he could have gotten through the Geiger counters at security, that Harry’s fears that the Chimera had slipped through their grasp were unfounded.

Besides, DHS had bigger worries now.

Harry rested his chin on his hand and watched the airport surveillance video. He had obtained copies from Dulles. DHS and TSA were combing the footage for Zahar’s movements, but Harry was much more interested in what was happening around the international departures. He scanned the people around the gate for the Rome flight, unsure what he was looking for …

… until he spotted it. A man in a straw hat and casual shirt exited the men’s room and walked up to the departures board. Under the brim of the hat, Harry recognized him. Harry clicked his mouse to freeze the image, zoomed in.

It was Norman Lockley’s face. But the guy was walking. Harry struggled to reconcile the two. Shit. It had to be the Chimera, gussied up in Lockley’s Halloween mask.

He swore, reached for the phone, dialed the main switchboard. “Get me someone in the Interpol Central Bureau.”

He drummed his fingers at the frozen face on the screen, the eerie death mask of Lockley’s face. Tara had been right all along.

“Central Bureau.”

“This is Harry Li from the U.S. Department of Justice. I’ve got a problem that may have now become yours.”

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. “That’s how it usually goes. Hit me.”

“We were pursuing a subject for several murders of retired intelligence operatives. We think he found his way to Rome.” Harry gave the agent the flight information.

“Do you have a description?”

“I’ll send you a photo. The guy appears to be approximately six feet tall, in his late sixties, balding, in a green-patterned shirt and straw hat. But this is a disguise. We don’t know what his true face looks like.”

The agent paused. “By the airport information I have, that flight has already landed.”

“Is the plane still at the terminal?”

“Yes. But the passengers are long gone, disembarked hours ago.”

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can you do a quick radiation sweep of the plane?”

“Do you think it was contaminated by the dirty bomb?”

“I think it was contaminated by the suspect in my case. He’s a Chernobylite, and he tends to leave sticky radioactive particles wherever he goes.”

“I’ll forward this information to our agents in the field immediately.”

“Thanks.” Harry hung up the phone and downloaded the picture to send to Interpol. Sweeping the plane for radiation would be confirmation that the Chimera had been there, but wouldn’t provide him with information he didn’t already know.

A bright yellow interoffice envelope slapped down on his desk. Harry looked up to see one of the women from the LOC standing over him. He vaguely remembered her as the one who’d stolen Veriss’s projector. A librarian in Special Projects was bad news. He opened his mouth to say something like:
Hold it right there … you need to be searched.

The LOC woman gave him a dirty look. “You’re welcome.” She reached over his desk with an insolent gaze, deliberately picked up his stapler, and walked away with it.

“Hey!” Harry yelled. “Gimme that!”

She gave him the finger and kept on walking.

Harry picked up the envelope. There were no markings on it to say who it was from, only his name in cursive writing. He unwound the red cord securing the envelope and dumped the contents out on his desk.

It was a book.
Russian for Morons
. When he opened the front cover, an electronic stub for a plane ticket leaving from Baltimore fell out. The destination was Kiev, with a plane change in Athens. His brows drew together in puzzlement. Had Tara sent this to him?

Harry’s phone beeped. “Li,” he answered in clipped tones.

“Hello, Harry,” a musical voice greeted him.

Harry paused in rifling through the documents. “Amira. You weren’t satisfied traumatizing Cassie? Had to go ahead and screw with Tara, huh?”

“I didn’t intend to traumatize anyone,” the Pythia said smoothly.

“You did a bang-up job, let me tell you. If you ever lay a finger on Cassie, I will personally burn that farmhouse of yours to the ground.”

The Pythia
tsk
ed. “I promised that I’m not going to force Cassie to return. And I meant it.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “What games are you playing now?”

The Pythia chuckled. “No games, Harry. As I explained to Tara, our goals converge. For the moment.”

“What goals?” Harry crossed his arms. “I’m never quite clear on what your goals are, you and the rest of the Amazons on Paradise Island. World peace? World domination? A really good jewelry sale?”

“I don’t discuss my plans with outsiders, Harry.” The Pythia’s haughty tone scraped the receiver. When she said
outsiders,
she made it sound like
dog shit
.

Harry pressed on. “Why did you send Tara to Chernobyl? Alone? This guy is dangerous.”

“I didn’t send her alone. You got my present just now?”

Harry picked up the copy of
Russian for Morons.
“This was you?” He’d been hoping it had come from Tara, and his heart dropped just a little bit further.

He could hear the huff in the Pythia’s voice. “Tara needs you, Harry. Sometimes I don’t have the faintest clue why, but she does. Since you have your useful moments, I am sending you along with her. Your paths will cross in Kiev.”

“One can’t help but feel used when you’re involved, Amira.”

“I’m not concerned about your feelings, Harry. Or Tara’s.”

Harry glanced at the tickets. “I notice that these are one-way tickets.”

The Pythia snorted. “You have an hour to make your plane, Harry.”

She hung up, leaving Harry to stare at the ticket. She could just be screwing with him.

Or it might mean that he wouldn’t be coming back.

W
HAT DID THE
C
HIMERA WANT
?

Tara stared at her reflection in the black glass of the plane window. She knew the Chimera was going to Chernobyl. The Pythia had sensed it, too. And the Chimera was dying, whether he knew it or not. Was he crawling off to his home den to die alone, like a wounded wolf? Or did he want something more? Something about the situation nagged at her, from Cassie’s star charts to her own readings to the Pythia’s demands. She felt as if she had a blind spot in her vision, something she couldn’t quite resolve.

She glanced sidelong at her seatmate. The old woman in a pink sweat suit was snoring with her mouth open, dentures slipping slightly over her tongue. This flight was full, and Tara would need to be discreet if she wanted to consult her cards.

She picked up her purse and crawled over the old woman to the aisle, muttering apologies. She elbowed her way to the lavatory, closing the door securely behind her. She kicked the lid of the toilet down and spread her jacket on the plastic lid. She dug into her purse, dumped her cards out of the cigarette pack she’d concealed them in. She shuffled her cards, mindful to hurry. Under new security procedures, a flight attendant would no doubt be checking on her if she took more than a few minutes.

Kneeling before the jacket, she began to deal out the cards quickly, in a line of five cards left to right.

“Distant past,” she whispered, picking up the card on the far left. It was Death, showing a black-robed skeleton riding through a green countryside on a white horse. Death’s horse stepped over the pale bodies of men and women as he rode, and red sunset shone behind him.

On a cursory level, that made sense. If the Chimera was from Chernobyl, he’d have had his fill of Death all around him.

“Recent past,” she whispered, picking up the next card. The World, reversed, showed the Sacred Androgyne from her dreams, the figure that fused with everything it touched. Now, Tara understood its significance, and why it was reversed in her reading, giving it a sinister connotation. Perhaps as a result of the accident, as a result of one of the terrible mutations of radiation, the Chimera had become what he was.

“Present.” She flipped over the Moon. The shape of a serene moon goddess’s face shone from a full moon. Below her were two pillars, one dark and one light. Wolves lifted their heads to howl at her, and a crayfish crawled from the ocean to gaze at her.

Tara rested her hand in her chin. Before, she’d drawn this card in relation to Lockley, the master of deception. The Chimera was doubtlessly using his talents to escape, the arts of subterfuge and trickery. But the Moon also spoke of the subconscious, of hidden motivations. What else was the Chimera hiding? Were his motives even fully known to himself?

A knock sounded at the door, causing Tara to jump. “Ma’am, are you all right in there?”

“I’ll be just a moment longer,” Tara called.

She turned her attention back to the cards, turned the next one over. “Near future,” she muttered under her breath. This card puzzled her. It was the Ten of Wands, depicting a man whose back was bent under a heavy load of rods he was carrying. The card traditionally represented overwork and exhaustion, but that meaning didn’t seem to fit here.

The knock at the door sounded again. “Ma’am—”

“I’ll be out in a minute, please.” Damn that nosy flight attendant.

Tara flipped over the last card. “Distant future.”

Her breath snagged in her throat. The Tower was the structure from her dreams and her earlier readings, struck by lightning. It was the card of ultimate disaster, the one that had come to her to symbolize Chernobyl. Her brow furrowed. But its placement was all wrong here. It belonged in the distant past, the foundation of the situation, not the future …

Someone jiggled the door, someone with a key. A man’s voice, another attendant, echoed: “You have to get out of there, now, ma’am.”

Tara stuffed the cards into her purse. She had enough time to pull her jacket off the toilet and push the lid back before the door folded open.

Thinking quickly, Tara clapped one hand over her mouth and the other around her stomach. She glared blearily at the flight attendants, remembering what it felt like to have the flu and summoning all that misery to her face.