EPTEMBER 6, 11:04 P.M.

PUNJAB, INDIA

“We can go no farther,” Abhi Bhanjee said.

Gray didn’t argue. The Mercedes SUV was up to its axles in mud. Exhausted, his nerves stretched to a piano-wire tautness, he drove the truck up to a stonier piece of ground.

For the past two hours, rain had dumped heavily out of low skies. It seemed impossible for clouds to hold such volumes of water. They had left the mango orchards thirty miles ago and trekked through a landscape just as wooded, but here the terrain was wild. The rolling hills had given way to a broken escarpment of steep hills and cliffs. With the rain, creeks swelled and surged throughout the landscape. It was as if the entire world wept.

But at least the torrent of rain had drowned away the helicopters. The hunters had given up the chase after losing their prey among the thousands of acres of property. Abe knew the lands around here well and had guided them along a steep-walled valley out of the orchards and into this inhospitable terrain.

No one comes here, the man had said. Not good for farming.

That was an understatement.

“We are not far,” Abe assured them as Gray braked to a stop. “Less than a kilometer. But we must walk from here.”

Gray hid the SUV under the draping boughs of a banyan tree. Turning off the engine, he stared out at the cliffs and pictured the temple on the Greek coin. Abe claimed such a structure lay out among these lands. It was where Dr. Polk had been headed the day he disappeared. Only a few local villagers knew of this place. It was a site both revered and feared by Abe’s people, sacred ground for the achuta.

Why had Dr. Polk come out here? What had so excited the professor?

Water sluiced over the windshield, blurring the view.

“Perhaps it’s best if we wait for a break in the weather,” Masterson suggested. “We can look for this temple after it stops raining.”

Gray checked his watch. It was nearing midnight. He didn’t want to be anywhere near here by morning. Come daylight, the helicopters would be out searching again. The tank-size Mercedes SUV would be easy to spot in the open hills. Gray had already taken measures and disabled the truck’s GPS unit, fearing that was how the Russians had tracked them from Delhi.

He had many unanswered questions in his head, but he knew one thing for certain. If they were going to track the last steps taken by Dr. Polk, they’d better do it now.

He swung around to address the passengers. “I’m going with Abe. But the rest of you might want to stay with the vehicle.”

Elizabeth raised her hand. “I’m going with you. If there’s some lost temple out there, you may need my help.”

Kowalski nodded. “And where she goes, I’m going.”

Elizabeth glanced to him with a look that started out annoyed but melted into something less sure.

“We should stay together,” Rosauro said, grabbing their pack of gear.

Luca nodded.

Masterson rolled his eyes. “It looks like we’re all going to get wet.”

With the matter decided, they piled out of the SUV and into the rain. After a couple of steps, Gray was soaked to the skin. His clothes seemed to have gained twenty pounds.

Kowalski cursed and glanced longingly back toward the SUV, but once Elizabeth moved, he followed in her footsteps.

“Over this way,” Abe said and pointed to a shattered cliff that rose up into ragged plateaus covered in trees. Roots tangled out of the sandstone walls, like the gnarled faces of old men, worn from the cliffs by rain and wind. Lightning crackled across the sky, booming with thunder.

The storm worsened.

Bone tired, Gray began to have further doubts about his plan. Since leaving Delhi earlier in the day, he’d been unable to contact Sigma. They’d lost the team’s satellite phone during the assault at the hotel. The prepaid cell phone he’d purchased in Delhi had no reception in this remote area.

They were on their own. And while Gray normally preferred to operate with as little oversight as possible, he had the civilians to consider.

Abe set out toward a narrow ravine cut into the cliff. A creek flowed down the center of it, chugging leadenly with runoff. A narrow path bordered it, with sheer walls rising to either side.

Gray followed Abe to the path. Once in the canyon, the rains lessened, as the winds were blocked. Still, water poured down the walls. The creek’s rumble, trapped in the ravine, grew louder.

They continued single file.

The canyon zigzagged like a thunderbolt, growing narrower and taller as it cut into the high hills.

Abe narrated as he walked. “Our people sometimes retreat here during times of persecution. My great-grandfather told stories of purges, where entire villages were destroyed. Those who escaped fled here to hide.”

No wonder the achuta keep this place secret, Gray thought.

“But these walls do not guarantee protection,” Abe added cryptically. “Not forever.”

Gray glanced to him, but Abe stepped ahead to where the canyon split into two courses. Abe ran his hand along one wall, as if assuring himself of something—then continued onward to the left.

Gray fingered where Abe had touched. There was writing inscribed into the wall, barely visible through the rain, just shadows on the rock.

image

Elizabeth studied the writing closer. “Harappan,” she said, surprised, and stared around her. “We must be in the outer edges of the Indus Valley. A great civilization once made their home here.”

Masterson agreed with a nod. “The Harappans lived along the Indus River five thousand years ago, leaving behind the ruins of sophisticated cities and temples. You can find them throughout the region. Perhaps our young Hindu friend mistook one of the old Harappan ruins for the temple inscribed on the strange coin.”

Gray continued onward. “There’s only one way to find out.”

After another two turns, the canyon suddenly widened into a small bowl. Water tumbled into it on the far side, dumping over a short cliff and into a pool that fed the creek they’d been following.

Abe stopped and waved an arm around the bowl. “We are here.”

Gray frowned. The canyon was empty—then lightning crackled with a brilliant display that lit the basin. Silvery light bathed the cliffs and reflected off the central pool.

All around the bowl, the sandstone walls had been dug out into notched tiers. Each level sheltered cliff-dwelling homes. They climbed from floor to the lip that overhung the valley. Sections of homes had broken away over the centuries into boulders and rubble. It reminded Gray of the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians. But from the style of architecture, no Indians—neither Native Americans nor the peoples of India—had built these dwellings.

Gray stepped forward and turned in a circle. The facades of the homes were white marble, stark against the darker stone. The cliffs, composed of softer sandstone, had long been worn down by centuries of wind and rain. The homes looked like they grew straight out of the walls. The white marble reminded Gray of fossilized skeletons jutting out of a cliff face.

Despite being half swallowed by the storm-melted walls, the basic architectural elements of the marble structures were still evident. Low triangular roofs supported fluted columns. Carvings and sculptures, long softened by age, decorated pediments and cornices.

There was no doubt as to the source of the architecture.

“It’s Greek,” Elizabeth said with awe. She stared around, water streaming down her face. “A Greek temple complex. Hidden here.”

Masterson stood beside her. He had his sodden hat in hand and combed his fingers through his soaked white hair. “Simply amazing. Archibald, you old fool, you could’ve told me…”

Gray also gaped, wonder washing away his exhaustion.

Elizabeth pointed. “That’s a temple in antis, one of the simplest Greek architectural units. Over there’s a later-era prostyle structure. And look at that rounded facade of columns. It must mark a tholos, a circular temple, burrowed into the cliff.”

While she spoke, Gray’s attention focused upon a structure on the far side of the bowl. His heart beat harder. A temple lay halfway up the cliff face. Boulders were strewn at the foot of it, marking where a part of the canyon’s lip had cracked and fallen. Rainwater flowed through the upper crack and streamed across the front of the temple, giving it a watery, illusory appearance.

But there was no mistaking it.

Six columns supported a triangular roof and framed a dark doorway.

“Just like on the coin,” Rosauro said, noting his attention.

Abe headed toward the tall temple. “That is not all.”

Straining with curiosity, Gray followed and dragged the wet party with him.

Once they reached the pile of boulders, Abe crossed to one side and waved them to follow. He mounted the stack of boulders and clambered higher. He seemed to know a path up the rubble.

Climbing single file, they followed the Hindu man.

Elizabeth and Masterson continued an ongoing dialogue. “Why do you think they built the temple complex here? And in such an odd manner?”

“They were clearly hiding,” Masterson said. “It’s a bloody hard place to find, especially buried into these walls. But I’ve seen similar cliff-dwelling arrangements among the Harappan ruins deeper in the Indus Valley. Perhaps these builders took over an old Harappan site, modified it to their tastes.”

“That could be. It was common for one civilization to build atop another.”

As they talked, Gray stared at the temple. Closer now, he saw that what he’d thought were black shadows on the marble columns were actually old scorch marks. Finer details emerged. Cracks and fissures marred the facade; one large section of the upper pediment had broken away.

Gray suspected the damage was not from age alone. It looked like an ancient battle had been fought here.

Ahead, Abe jumped off the top boulder and climbed between two pillars. Gray went next and shimmied onto the marble floor of the temple, finally out of the rain. The six support columns stood a yard from the building they fronted, creating a small porch.

He stood to make room for the others. Kowalski and Luca helped Elizabeth and Masterson. Rosauro came last, burdened with a pack. With everyone gathered, Gray headed to the door, but Abe knelt for a moment and whispered a prayer. Gray waited, sensing to do otherwise would be like trespassing.

Abe stood and nodded.

Gray took out a small flashlight and flicked it on. He entered first, his light blazing into the dark interior.

The chamber was large and perfectly square, twenty feet on a side and again as tall. More columns lined the walls, several broken into rubble. Dug out of the center of the floor was a fire pit, deeply blackened. To either side, arched openings led into side chambers, like chapels in a church.

Gray noted something piled in the smaller rooms. He shifted for a closer look as the others entered the temple. Abe kept to the side, his arms crossed nervously. He didn’t follow.

As Gray pointed his flashlight, he understood the Hindu man’s reluctance. Bones filled the room, stacked like cords of wood, topped by hundreds of skulls. All human. From the rotted appearance and yellowing, the skeletons were ancient.

Gray pictured the scorch marks on the building.

Abe spoke. “We were told stories, passed from father to son, mother to daughter. Of a great battle here. A thousand years ago. It is told how our ancestors found this place full of bones. In honor of the dead, we gathered their remains and interred them in these temples.” He waved toward the bowl outside. “There are many more bones out there.”

Gray turned away from the room. Someone had discovered these people and massacred them. He remembered Abe’s cryptic words from earlier.

These walls do not guarantee protection. Not forever.

The fate of the original inhabitants was a warning to Abe’s people. It was a good place to hide, but one could not escape the world forever.

Gray stepped over to the only other feature in the room.

Like the temple facade, this feature was also depicted on the coin.

Gray crossed to the back wall and shone his light across its surface. The wall of creamy marble had been inset with stark black stone, forming a familiar symbol, climbing twenty feet tall.

image

“A chakra wheel,” Elizabeth said, mystified. She pulled out a pocket-size digital camera and began taking pictures. “Like the other side of the coin.”

Luca ran a hand along the wall. Gray could read his thoughts. Was this the ancient symbol that was the source of the Romani emblem?

Had Archibald Polk wondered the same?

Kowalski sighed, clearly not impressed with the room. “What a let-down.”

“What are you talking about?” Elizabeth chided. “This is the archaeological and anthropological discovery of a lifetime.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but so what? Where’s all the gold and jewels?”

Gray hated to admit it, but he agreed with Kowalski. He stepped away. He swung the flashlight in a full circle around the chamber. Something was missing, but it wasn’t gold or precious gems.

Rosauro joined him. “What’s wrong?”

“Something’s not here,” he mumbled.

“What?”

Others heard them in the confined space. They stared over.

Gray made one more circle. “On the coin…there was that prominent E? The Greek letter epsilon.”

“He’s right,” Elizabeth said.

Gray wiped drips of rain from his face. “Everything on the coin is found here—the temple facade, the chakra wheel—so where is the Greek letter?”

“It’s one minor detail,” Masterson said. “What does it matter?”

“It’s not minor,” Elizabeth argued. “Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to mimic the temple complex at Delphi. What we saw outside…the temple in antis was the shape of the Delphi’s treasury buildings, the round tholos temple looked like a fair facsimile of the one built to worship Athena at Delphi. And this place here. The exterior and interior are how the Oracle’s temple was laid out. And the E was one of its most prominent decorations.”

Gray recalled his discussion with Painter, about how the Delphic E grew to symbolize a cult of prophecy, a code trailing throughout history in art and architecture.

Luca stepped forward. “I may also know of this letter.”

Gray turned to the Gypsy clan leader.

“I told you of the children who were stolen from us,” he said. “Those of my people who first came upon the massacred camp spoke of a stone church there. The door had been broken open, but upon the shattered planks a large bronze E was found. No one knew what it meant. The only ones who knew were buried in that mass grave. The secret died with them. Perhaps this is the same E?”

Marking the chovihanis, Gray thought. Gypsy fortune-tellers. Another cult of prophecy.

“All well and good,” Masterson persisted, plainly growing tired, too. “But what does it matter if the E is missing here?”

“Maybe nothing,” Gray admitted, but he said it with little conviction. He turned to Abe. “When did you first show Dr. Polk this site?”

He shrugged. “I took Dr. Polk here the first time a year ago. He looked around, took notes, and left.”

Elizabeth’s eyes looked wounded. “He didn’t tell me anything about this discovery.”

“Because he respected our secrets,” Abe said stiffly. “He was a good man.”

Gray studied Masterson’s sour expression. The professor had initially been surprised by the discovery, but after the shock faded and he found no real worth to his own line of research, his interest had waned. Had Dr. Polk experienced the same? The archaeological discovery was significant, but because he couldn’t connect it to his own research, he’d respected the achuta’s secret and had kept quiet about it.

If so, why the sudden urgency to come out here just before he disappeared? He must have discovered some new connection, something bearing on his own line of study.

Gray asked Abe, “Was there anything that triggered Dr. Polk’s sudden need to come here? Anything unusual that led up to that day?”

The man shook his head. “He came to visit the village. Like he had done many times. We were talking about an upcoming election where an achuta candidate was up for a mayoral position. I had found a new coin and showed him, but he asked to see the one with the temple on it again. He glanced at it without too much interest, even spinning it on the table as we spoke. Then suddenly his eyes got huge, and he jumped up. He wanted to immediately come here, but I had obligations with the election. I asked him to wait until I returned…”

His voice trailed off and was picked up by Elizabeth. “My father was not known for his patience.”

Masterson nodded. “That was the day I got the frantic call from him. He claimed that he had discovered something that would shake our understanding of the human mind once it was known.”

As an idea jangled through him, Gray turned to Rosauro. “Let me see that coin again.”

She passed it over.

Gray examined it: temple on one side, chakra wheel on the other. “Elizabeth, you said your father obtained that position for you at Delphi so you could explore how it might connect to his own research. What did you end up telling him about Delphi’s history?”

“Just the basics,” she said. “He was less interested in the history than he was in the discovery of ethylene gases near the temple site. My father wanted more details into the Oracle’s rituals, looking again for physiological support for her intuitive powers.”

“So if he wasn’t interested in the history, when did he learn about the significance of the Greek letter epsilon?”

“I sent him a paper on it.”

“When?”

“About a month before he—” Her eyes suddenly widened.

Gray nodded. He knelt on the marble floor and placed his flashlight down. Propping the coin up on its edge, Gray flicked it and sent it spinning on the floor, lit by the flashlight beam.

He leaned down, studying it.

The spinning coin formed a blurry, silvery globe. The E, positioned in the center of the coin, now rested at the core of the whirling globe. Gray sensed the symbolism. Painter had said that the E may have had its roots in the earliest worship of the Earth mother, Gaia. Now it rested at the center of the silvery sphere, like Gaia herself in the physical world. But the letter also represented human’s intuitive potential, rising out of the core of the human body, out of the brain.

Gray let his own mind relax, seeking significance.

What had Archibald Polk realized?

The coin spun, a silvery mystery, hiding an ancient secret.

But what—?

Then Gray knew.

Reaching out, he slapped the coin flat against the marble.

Of course!

11:35 P.M.

PRIPYAT, UKRAINE

“The Americans have Sasha,” Nicolas said sharply as he stepped into the bedroom. He was naked under an open robe, but his anger kept him warm.

Elena lay draped across the bedspread, nude. She had one leg up, and an arm draped to the side, waiting for him. They had returned from the gala to their hotel outside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where many of the dignitaries were being housed prior to tomorrow’s event.

Nicolas had spent the past half hour on a scrambled satellite phone, making sure every last detail was addressed before the morning. A call to his mother at the Warren revealed the latest bit of upsetting news. With her ties to former operatives in the KGB, she had heard the rumblings coming out of Washington’s intelligence communities. The city had been in turmoil over the past twenty hours, searching for a girl. It must be Sasha. Then things had gone deathly quiet. Even Yuri went silent. Both he and his mother knew what that implied.

Someone had found her.

And Nicolas suspected who it was.

His fingers clenched into a fist.

It was likely the same organization that had been plaguing him in India, dredging up Dr. Polk’s research, stirring something that Nicolas had thought had ended with the man’s death. One attempt to quash that trail had already failed. But maybe it was just as well.

He’d had one communication, brief, after the failure.

It seemed the team in India was closing in on a secret that Dr. Polk had kept from everyone. Something vital to the professor’s research. Something significant about the children. But what?

Elena stirred on the bed and lifted to an elbow. Concern rang in her voice. “What will you do about little Sasha?”

Nicolas knew all the children grew close. Raised together in the Warren, the older children often took on parental roles with the younger ones. Elena had been especially fond of little Sasha and her brother.

The pair was important to Nicolas, too.

He sank to the bed, and she curled into him, worried and angry. One of her hands slid up under his robe and rested on his thigh. Her skin was hot, feverish. He had kept her waiting too long.

Then long fingernails suddenly clamped onto his thigh, stabbing deeply.

Elena stared up at him. Fire burned behind her eyes, waiting to be unleashed. A trickle of blood ran down Nicolas’s inner thigh, as exciting as the tip of a hungry tongue.

A hard certainty entered Elena’s voice. It brooked no argument, demanding, commanding. “Nothing must happen to little Sasha.”

Her fingers tightened yet again, sending pain shooting to his groin.

He gasped and promised her. “Measures are already under way. All we need—”

Nails dragged up his leg, trailing pain.

“—is something to trade.”

11:45 P.M.

PUNJAB, INDIA

As thunder boomed and lightning lit up the temple chamber, Elizabeth followed Gray to the giant chakra wheel on the wall. He laid his palm there. Since spinning the coin, he had clearly come to realize something.

But what?

Gray spoke as he stared upward. “From my studies of Indian philosophy, the center of a chakra wheel usually holds a Sanskrit letter, representing one of the energy centers. Muladhara, the root chakra at the base of the spine. Manipura, in the region of the solar plexus. Anahata, the heart.” He stared upward. “This one is empty. Blank.”

“The same on the coin,” Elizabeth said tentatively, not understanding where this was leading.

“Exactly.” Gray had collected the coin and passed it to her now. “But flip the coin over. If you could stare through the center of the chakra wheel to the other side of the coin, what’s positioned there?”

Elizabeth turned the coin back and forth. The capital epsilon lay in the center of the temple, in the exact position as the axle of the chakra wheel on the other side. “It’s the E,” she mumbled.

“It stands on the reverse side of the wheel.” Gray turned to Masterson. “May I borrow your cane?”

The professor passed it reluctantly.

Gray stepped back, reached up, and pushed on the edge of the center circle of black marble. His muscles strained, and the small circle shifted out of place, pivoting around a vertical axis, like a valve in a pipe.

“A secret door,” Masterson exclaimed.

Gray waved to Kowalski. “Give me a leg up.”

Kowalski crossed, dropped to a knee, and laced his fingers. Gray stepped into his grip and climbed high enough to shove the balanced slab of marble wider open. The lower edge of the secret door stood ten feet off the ground. With Kowalski’s boost, Gray wiggled through the opening.

“There’re stairs!” he called back as his legs vanished. “Leading down! Cut into the sandstone back here!”

Elizabeth could hardly wait. She crossed to Kowalski. “Help me.”

She stepped to his knee, but he grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up. She squeaked a little in surprise. He was strong. She grabbed the edge of the opening to steady herself and blindly sought for a foothold to push through the door.

“Ow, that’s my nose,” Kowalski griped.

“Sorry.”

He grabbed her ankle and shifted it to his shoulder. She shoved and fell the rest of the way through. She found Gray down a few steps, shining his light over the walls. Writing decorated all the surfaces, a mix of shapes and letters.

“Harappan again,” she said with a strain, and gained her feet.

“And look at this,” Gray said. He swung his flashlight and shone it on the reverse side of the black marble door. A large capital epsilon had been carved deep into the stone.

He’d been right.

Elizabeth freed her camera and took several pictures while Rosauro and Luca joined them, crowding the stairs.

Gray leaned out. “Dr. Masterson?”

Through the opening, Elizabeth saw the professor back away.

“Such clambering is for younger folk than I,” he said, clearly exhausted, limping back with his cane. “Just let me know what you find.”

“I’ll remain here, too,” Abe added, but his voice sounded more scared than tired. Elizabeth had noted how nervous he had grown the closer they got to here.

Gray called down. “Kowalski, stay here. In case we get into trouble.”

“Fine by me,” he answered. “Doubt I could fit through there anyway.”

Kowalski’s eyes flicked to Elizabeth. He nodded, silently warning her to be careful.

Thunder again rumbled, felt in the stones.

“Let’s go,” Gray said.

He led the way down with his flashlight. Elizabeth followed, trailed by Rosauro and Luca. Her fingers traced the wall. Harappan script flowed down the stairwell. The ancient language had never been deciphered, mostly because of the scarcity of the script that survived. Archaeologists were still searching for the Rosetta stone for this language, some codex that would allow them to crack their ancient code.

She gazed around her. This could be it.

Thrilled and amazed, her heart thumped in her chest. She was surprised no one else could hear it. At the same time, she pictured her father following these same footsteps. She imagined his heart had thundered the same as hers. In this moment, she felt a strange intimacy, a closeness they’d never shared in life. And never would. Her throat closed a bit as emotion racked through her.

The stairwell was not long and ended in a small chamber, cut from the sandstone. Water gurgled and echoed on the far side. A natural spring poured out of a knee-high hole in the wall and flowed through a crack in the floor, then vanished out the opposite wall.

“A Harappan well cave,” Elizabeth said, recognizing the configuration. “Living alongside the Indus River, the civilization grew skilled at irrigation.”

Gray shone his light around the space. It was crudely circular. Cut into the stone floor was another chakra wheel. But the center of this one wasn’t empty. A large egg-shaped stone rested there.

“It’s a copy of the omphalos,” Elizabeth said.

She and the others were drawn to it. It stood as high as her midriff and was twice as large as the one from the Delphi museum. The dome’s outer surface was carved with trees and leaves.

Elizabeth swallowed hard and stared around her. “Someone has re-created the original adytum, the inner sanctum of the Oracle, where she cast her prophecies.”

Elizabeth stepped over to a toppled bronze chair. It had three legs. “Here’s a tripod. The classical seat of the Oracle.”

“Or oracles.” Gray had wandered a few steps away. He pointed his flashlight to more toppled chairs.

Five total.

Elizabeth snapped several pictures. What was this place? What was it doing here?

Rosauro called from the wall, hiking up her pack. “You might want to see this,” she said.

Luca stood farther down the wall. His arm was raised to the surface, but not touching. Even in the shadows, Elizabeth noted how his hand shook.

Elizabeth crossed to Rosauro. A mosaic, nearly black with age, covered the wall. Several tiles littered the floor, fallen away. Someone had wiped sections of the mosaic down, removing centuries of mold and grime. It looked hastily done. Elizabeth imagined her father swabbing a cloth over the artwork, seeking what lay beneath.

She stared at what was revealed.

From floor to ceiling, it depicted a siege on a temple set amid mountains. “Parnassus,” Elizabeth mumbled. “Under attack by Romans. It’s showing the downfall of the Temple of Delphi.”

The next section revealed a room not unlike the one they were in, even with an omphalos in the center—but the stone was shown in cross section. Hidden beneath its dome crouched a small girl, cradled in the arms of a young woman, curled tight together as a Roman soldier searched for them.

Elizabeth glanced to the stone behind her. It couldn’t be…

She stepped along the wall. The next tableaux revealed a caravan of horses, donkeys, and carts. At the head of the train, the same slender woman led the child. The long caravan climbed up and over a mountain. The last cart was hauled by two fiery stallions, clearly representing the steeds who drew Apollo’s sun chariot across the skies. But they were not dragging the sun here. In the back of the cart rested the same stone that had protected the woman and child. The omphalos of Delphi.

Elizabeth turned and faced the stone behind her. She trembled all over. “That’s not a copy,” she said with a shudder. “That’s the original omphalos. The one spoken of in the histories of Plutarch and Socrates.”

“And see this,” Rosauro said.

The woman drew Elizabeth to the next scene. It was a picture of the canyon, a joyous scene of the Greeks building temples into the cliffs. The adytum was also depicted, but instead of one Oracle seated atop a tripod, there were five. They circled the omphalos, which smoked like a volcano from the hole at its top. The smoke formed a figure of a young boy with outstretched arms. His eyes were fire, and flames climbed from his open palms.

Was the boy indicative of prophecy in general or something more specific?

Either way, Elizabeth found those fiery eyes staring back at her.

At her shoulder, Gray had also followed the story. He waved an arm along the wall, encompassing the tale.

“The last Oracle, the child, must have been spirited away after the downfall of the temple. In secret, the Greek temple guardians and supporters fled the Roman persecution and settled here, where they rebuilt among these Harappan ruins, and stayed hidden.”

Elizabeth remembered Abe’s story of this place. “They remained safe for seven hundred years, perhaps intermingling with the local tribes in secret. And after so many generations, the Greeks were slowly absorbed into the Indian culture.”

“Then they grew afoul of religious persecution and the growing Indian caste system,” Gray said. “All the bones. A massacre occurred here.”

Luca spoke at the end of the wall. “And they fled again,” he said.

They joined him. He stood a step from the churning spring. The art here was not mosaic tiles, but someone had painted a hurried frieze. It was done in black paint, showing the attack of the temples. People fled in all directions, but one group, highlighted by radiant streaks, escaped in a caravan of tall wagons with large wheels. It faded smaller and smaller across the wall, heading far away.

Luca placed his fingers gently to the wagons. His voice cracked with emotion. “These are our people,” he said. “The Romani. This is where we came from. This is our origin.”

Gray shifted back. He stared across the wall, his face stunned.

The Greek guardians escaped with the last child and the omphalos, hiding in this valley and absorbing over the span of seven centuries into Indian culture, then that same culture persecuted them and sent them wandering once again, but under a new name.

Gypsies.

Gray waved an arm to encompass the wall. “The story depicted here must trace a genetic line that has been preserved throughout history. Flowing from Greece, to here, and out again. A genetic line of savant power.”

“This is why we wander,” Luca said, still staring at the caravan. “As the Hindu man said, no place is safe forever. So we kept moving, trying to protect the secret held within the heart of our clans.”

“Until the secret was stolen from you,” Gray said.

“A secret that trails all the way back to Delphi,” Elizabeth added.

She pictured the child back in Washington. Could she truly be a descendant of the last Oracle of Delphi?

Rosauro stepped to the fresco and pointed to the lines of other figures fleeing the besieged complex in various directions. “These refugees,” she said to Elizabeth. “This must be why your father found all the genetic trails led to this region, why the markers are so concentrated in this area, especially among the lower castes. It’s where the refugees were absorbed into the populace.”

As they talked, Gray had crossed down the wall one more time, studying each image more closely. He came to the last mosaic, the one with the fiery boy. “There’s writing below here,” he said.

Elizabeth stepped closer. There were three lines. The topmost was a handsome line of Harappan script, the next line Sanskrit, the last Greek. Below the lines rested another chakra wheel.

“I can’t read the Harappan hieroglyphics,” she said. “No one can. And below that, I can make out only the first few words of the Sanskrit and Greek. The rest has been worn away. What I can translate, reads ‘the world will burn…’” She took some snapshots, especially of the fiery figure. “The rest is lost.”

Gray leaned lower and touched the chakra wheel inscribed below the lines. “This must be important. It’s repeated over and over.”

He straightened and turned toward the larger chakra wheel carved into the floor. The omphalos rested at its center. Elizabeth could almost read Gray’s mind. If the chakra was important, then what lay at its center must be doubly so. The man’s eyes narrowed as he stalked over to the stone. They’d only given it a cursory glance.

“Your father hid the skull inside the stone at the museum. Maybe there was a reason.”

Gray climbed on top of the domed omphalos.

“Be careful,” Elizabeth squeaked out, fearful of marring the piece of ancient history. She circled the stone and noted the bottom rim was inscribed with three languages again: Harappan, Sanskrit, and Greek.

She took more pictures.

Balancing on top of the omphalos, Gray shone his light down through the hole and into its hollow heart.

“What do you see?” she asked.

“Gold…in the shape of two eagles.”

Elizabeth’s breath shortened. “Are they facing away from each other?”

Gray glanced back to her. “Yes.”

“It’s another lost artifact from Delphi, representing Zeus’s eagles. According to mythology, the pair was sent in opposite directions from his shoulders to pinpoint the center of the world. They came to roost at Delphi, marking the navel of the world.”

“Your father surely must have found them, too.” Gray reached inside. “Maybe there’s some reason they’re hidden here, the same reason your father hid the skull in the omphalos at the museum.”

As he strained, Elizabeth edged around the stone, continuing her translation of the three lines.

“I think I can reach them…,” Gray said.

Elizabeth mumbled the words found there, tracing each letter with her finger. “‘Greed and blasphemy bring doom to all.’”

Elizabeth stopped.

Oh, no!

“Got it,” Gray said as he reached the golden idols.

Elizabeth snapped straight. “Don’t!”

Startled, Gray slipped.

Something loud thumped inside the stone, followed by a thunderous crack underfoot. A low roar followed, coming from the rear of the chamber, growing in volume, like a freight train barreling toward them.

Everyone froze for a breath, then Gray shoved an arm toward the stairs. “Everybody out!” he screamed.

Too late.

From the spring’s hole, an explosion of water blasted out with the power of a fire hose—in a column two feet thick. Fissures skittered across the wall, radiating out from the opening.

A man-made flash flood.

The water smashed against the far wall and swept into the room, knocking them all off their feet with the force of its current.

Elizabeth tangled into the others as the room swelled rapidly with icy water. Gray nabbed her elbow and dragged her toward the stairs.

“A trap…” She coughed in shock. “Pressure switch! My father…tried to warn us…”

Gray cried. “Out! Out!”

She climbed the first few stairs on hands and feet. Behind her, Gray fished Luca out of the water and shoved him toward the stairs. The level had already climbed to the top of her thighs and rose higher with every breath. Gray remained below, braced in the stairwell opening, searching the small cave.

Elizabeth knew why.

Where was Rosauro?

Gray had lost sight of her. She had been closest to the spring when it blew. The blasting water swirled like a whirlpool in the cavern and reflected his flashlight’s beam. He could not see beneath the surface. By now, the water had climbed to his waist. Still, Rosauro should be able to stand, and even if knocked out, her body should be buoyant enough to reveal her location.

Unless…

Gray turned to Luca and held out his arm. “Your dagger!”

With a flash of silver, a blade appeared in the Gypsy’s hand. He slapped the grip into Gray’s palm. In turn, Gray tossed him the flashlight.

“Hold the beam underwater!” he ordered and dove out into the growing lake.

The current grabbed him and whipped him around the edge of the room. He didn’t fight it. He let the force churn him to the far side of the cave. He knew when he’d reached it, sensing the raw power of the jetting spring below. He twisted and kicked toward the opposite wall.

Conscious or not, only one thing could be holding Rosauro down beneath the water.

Pressure.

Gray dove to where the spring had drained out of the cavern. In the dim light of the flashlight, he spotted a struggling form trapped in the drainage slot. Rosauro had been sucked tight against the hole, one arm swallowed down its throat. Gray heard of people drowning, pinned to swimming pool drains. This was a force a hundred times as fierce.

Gray grabbed her free arm and pulled himself down to her. He braced his legs to either side of the trough. She stared up at him. Even in the weak light, he saw the raw panic on her face.

Gray slashed out with the dagger. He’d lost one teammate to drowning—he wasn’t about to lose another. The blade sliced through the straps of Rosauro’s backpack. Half the bag had been sucked into the hole, holding her trapped. Once cut free, Gray dropped the dagger, grabbed her around the chest, and heaved with his legs.

For a moment, she remained stuck. Then the pack shifted deeper into the hole, weakening the pressure enough for Gray to pop her out. He tumbled back with her in his arms. He let the spin of the current carry them toward the light and the stairwell.

The water had risen to within a foot of the roof.

A grinding boom of stone echoed. The current suddenly slammed harder as the cavern wall gave way behind him.

Surging forward, Gray kicked off the bottom and up into the flooded stairwell.

Gasping, he surfaced into Luca’s arms. Luca helped Gray haul Rosauro up the stairs. She coughed and choked. Water spilled from her lips. But she took deep gulping breaths between.

She used one breath to spit out a curse in Spanish that would burn even the hairs off Kowalski’s ears.

Behind them, the chamber flooded to the roof, and the water level suddenly churned up after them.

“Time to go,” Gray said.

He pulled Rosauro to her feet and waved Elizabeth and Luca ahead. Rosauro was weak-kneed, but with water surging at their heels, she steadied enough to run on her own. Still, she cradled her left arm, strained from the suction.

They fled upward, chased by a flume of rising floodwaters.

Reaching the top, Elizabeth slithered backward out the opening, hung from her hands, then dropped to the floor below.

“Go!” Gray called to Luca when the man hesitated.

Luca obeyed and disappeared.

Gray helped Rosauro through the black marble door. She dangled from her good arm, then dropped. Gray followed her as water flooded the last step and washed over him in a wave.

He leaped away, clearing his fingers a second before the surge of water struck the door and slammed it closed. He landed and stared up. With the marble door cut at an angle, it could only rotate in one direction. The water pressure now held it closed.

Self-sealing.

Turning, he heard a roar echoing from the canyon. Lightning flashed. Churning white water flowed across the valley floor. The canyon was flooding, too, but this was a natural flood—not the consequence of Gray’s ham-fisted fumbling.

He stared at the volume of water coursing through the canyon.

No wonder these buildings had been built into the cliffs.

Gray realized one other thing.

Luca had noted it, too, and whispered, “Where is everyone?”

As if hearing his question, Masterson limped into view by the door, leaning on his cane. He’d been out of sight on the porch outside. Probably keeping an eye on the flooding waters with the others.

“Thank God,” the professor said. “You’d been down there bloody long enough. What did you find?”

Elizabeth stepped forward, excited. “The answers to everything! It was amazing.”

“It that right?”

Behind Masterson, more figures rushed into view.

Others flooded in from the two side rooms. They all wore black, bristling with assault weapons ready at their shoulders.

The Russian commandos.

“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” Masterson said. “Since your father refused to.”

Kowalski was shoved into view at the outer door, hands on his head. His right eyebrow was split, bleeding down his face. Soldiers forced him to his knees.

“They killed Abe,” he growled out. “Shot him like a dog.”

Masterson shrugged. “And why not? He was achuta. Dogs are treated better in India.”

The soldiers spread out around them.

Elizabeth stared at the professor, stunned, hardly able to speak. Still, heat fired through her words, realizing the depth of the betrayal here. “It was you! You betrayed my father!”

“I had no choice, Elizabeth. He’d been getting too close to the truth.”

Gray went cold. He understood the game that had been played out here. Masterson had been paid to keep an eye on Dr. Polk’s research, to feed his data to his superiors…but once Elizabeth’s father got too close, he had to be taken out of the game.

Who was behind it all?

Masterson must have recognized the icy fury in Gray’s eyes. He backed a step away, though there was nothing Gray could do. Masterson waved his cane. “Commander Pierce, it seems for now you and the others are needed alive. But maybe not the big fellow here.”

He pointed his cane at Kowalski.

“Kill him.”

Kowalski’s eyes got huge.

Gray lunged forward, but three rifle barrels butted against his chest.

Elizabeth shouted out, “Please, Hayden, no! I beg you!”

Gray heard the catch in her voice, so did Masterson.

The professor glanced between Elizabeth and Kowalski—then rolled his eyes. “Fine. Only because I owe your father. But at the first sign of trouble from any of you, we start shooting.”

Masterson stared over to Gray. “You wanted to know where Archibald went?” He turned and headed away. “You should be careful what you wish for.”