“Are you saying with that much cognitive power, she’s able to see into the future?” Gray asked.
“No, it’s not magic. She only anticipates the best move in a game with far more variables. The game of life.”
“And you’re counting on this to get you through that gauntlet?”
Monk tapped his wristwatch. “It’s not like we have any other choice but to try it.”
Gray stared at his friend for several breaths.
He’s right.
8:14 P.M.
With his back against the wall, Monk suddenly had much less confidence in Eve’s plan. He eyed the charred torso a yard away.
I hope you know what you’re doing.
That thought was for both him and Eve.
A moment ago, when their group had reached this crossroad, Zabala had made the same objections as Gray. Monk didn’t have time to do the coin trick again. He simply grabbed the agent and shoved him away from the mouth of the tunnel and took the man’s place. Gray had the agent radio his men. Already soldiers had gathered here, with more coming, ready to move if Monk was successful.
Which was a huge if.
I’M WITH YOU.
He whispered an answer, “No, you’re in a little glowing ball. I’m the one about to step out there and put his butt on the line.”
Only a step away, Gray heard him. “Something wrong?”
“Just making sure someone understands the stakes.”
“You don’t have to—”
Oh, but I do.
Monk swung into the mouth of the tunnel, his SIG Sauer already raised in his prosthetic hand. In a fraction of an instant, his gaze extended down the hall, taking in every detail. Too much detail. It set his brain to blazing.
Time slowed as data filled his skull.
. . . two rectangular squares in the wall marking spy holes.
. . . eddies of air current indicating breath.
. . . stirring of dust as a weapon is shifted.
. . . the barest blink of light reflecting off the glass of a gun sight.
His prosthetic hand shifted the pistol, moving on its own volition, too fast for even Monk to register. The trigger was squeezed twice. With time slowing even more, he could almost follow the bullets’ trajectories. One round, then the other, pierced the tiny spy holes, shredding each gun sight. He pictured, with painstaking accuracy, two skulls exploding, heads blowing back from where the snipers’ eyes had been fixed to scopes.
GO.
Monk headed down the booby-trapped corridor, stepping around the blast crater, the body on the floor. He never blinked, fearing he would miss something. He moved cautiously at first, as his preternatural awareness expanded.
It made the migraine in his head flare more hotly.
. . . dust motes resting atop a tripwire.
Step over it.
. . . a tile on the floor sits two millimeters higher than its neighbor.
Avoid the hidden land mine.
. . . the grout line of another is a shade lighter.
Move your boot to a safer spot.
As his pace increased, he quickly grew accustomed to Eve’s commands. Her instructions became less heard, more instinctual. He pictured that stallion with its rider. It took a while for such a pair to learn each other’s ways: how weight shifted, how to balance in a turn, how much to draw on a rein. With time, the two grew to be in sync, moving as one.
It was the same now.
By the time he was halfway down the tunnel, it became hard to tell where he ended and Eve picked up. The expansion of his senses felt like his own. Her words—spoken and comprehended far faster than ordinary speech—became nearly inseparable from his own thoughts.
He was soon running down the last several yards.
In that moment, joined intimately, he sensed there was more to Eve’s ability than she had shared. It wasn’t just analyzing a trillion variables in a split second to decide where to place a boot. He sensed something far larger and infinitely precise.
The turn of a spiral galaxy.
The spin and magnetic moment of an electron around a nucleus.
Eve had not told them the entire truth, not even a fraction. He could almost comprehend it and struggled toward this knowledge, knowing at the same time that it might destroy him.
Too focused in that direction, the stallion stumbled.
Rider and steed fell momentarily out of sync.
Eve’s shout filled his skull.
MOVE!
He heard the crack of the pistol, the doppler shift of the round as it flew at his back. Despite all the expansion of his senses, he still did not have eyes in the back of his skull.
He tried to tur—
The round exploded his shoulder. In slow motion, blood arced forward, following the bullet’s path as it pinged off the steel door seven yards ahead of him. His body was thrown forward, twisting the rest of the way around, the pistol flying from his fingertips.
He fell toward a tripwire directly in his path.
8:18 P.M.
The pistol blast had deafened Gray.
He turned to the crowd of people gathered at the mouth of the tunnel. After the two snipers had been eliminated, those nearest had shifted into the open to watch Monk’s progress. At first there had been murmurs of disbelief at Monk’s first steps, then gasps of amazement as he continued, finally a low cheer built as he neared the end.
Until a gunshot shattered everything.
Fixed on Monk’s run of the gauntlet, Gray had not noted someone lift a weapon higher. On the other side of the tunnel opening, Agent Zabala cradled his pistol in both hands, arms extended, muzzle smoking.
Gray lunged, but he already saw the bastard’s finger twitch on the trigger.
Never make it.
As the man fired, something dark struck the underside of his wrist, hard enough to knock his gun high. The round sparked brightly off the roof of the tunnel and ricocheted harmlessly away.
A flash of silver swung wide through the air. It struck Zabala square in the nose, cracking bone; blood spurted as his head snapped back.
Gray finally reached the shooter’s side and tackled him the rest of the way down, but the man was already out cold by the time he hit the floor, knocked out by the blow.
From the floor, Gray looked up as Sister Beatrice lowered her ebony cane to the floor and returned to leaning on its silver handle. Her expression had not changed.
Kowalski skidded up behind him. “Phew. I thought nuns were only wicked with their rulers.”
Bailey shifted behind Beatrice. Clearly the two had been sticking close to Agent Zabala, wary all along, knowing someone had tipped off the Crucible in San Sebastián.
Gray twisted on his hip to check on Monk.
His friend was propped awkwardly off the floor, balanced on his toes, braced atop his good arm.
What is he doing?
8:19 P.M.
Only at the last moment did Monk stop himself from landing on the tripwire. He had jacked out an arm and caught himself. Agony shot through his body with the impact, flaring brightly, blackening his vision for a breath.
Instinct kept him frozen in place until his sight returned.
He took quick account of his situation. The thin nylon line had been strung twenty-two inches above the floor. A look behind revealed his left foot resting at the edge of a tile hiding a land mine.
If he moved his foot, he would lose his balance and fall on the tripwire. If he tried to push away from the tripwire, his weight would shift onto the mine’s sensitive plate.
It didn’t take Eve’s massive intelligence to reach a conclusion. Still, she offered her counsel.
HOLD PAT, she warned.
Easy for her to say.
Blood poured from Monk’s shoulder, pooling under the nylon line and spreading. His arm had already begun to tremble, from exertion, from pain, from loss of blood.
His vision narrowed.
Not going to make it.
The trembling of his limb became quaking. His body weaved drunk enly above the tripwire. His knees shook. As his sight darkened, he sank helplessly—then fell.
Arms caught him.
As he was lifted, he imagined some archangel had come to carry him to heaven.
“Monk . . . I got you.”
He blinked several times as he was rolled in strong arms and put back on his feet. One arm continued to hug under his shoulders, carrying most of his weight.
His vision cleared enough to recognize Gray.
“How . . . ?” he croaked out.
Gray shifted him to stare back down the corridor. The answer was written across the tiles. The earlier blast that killed two soldiers had also powdered the tiles with a fine coating of rock dust, enough for Gray to follow in Monk’s footsteps.
“But we’re not to the finish line,” Gray reminded him.
Faced forward again, he saw there was still another seven yards to reach the steel door.
“Can you do it?” Gray asked.
Maybe with a little help from a friend—and a superintelligent AI.
Guided by Eve, propped by Gray, Monk crossed the final yards. He directed Gray to carry him to the electronic keypad next to the steel door.
“Lower . . .” Monk said.
Gray shifted his face closer to the pad. They were lucky the Crucible hadn’t employed a retinal, palm, or some other biometric lock. But considering the countermeasures already in place in the corridor, it was likely deemed unnecessary.
Monk stared hard, cocking his head one way, then the other.
. . . oil of a fingertip on one number.
. . . thinner film here.