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If so, why the sudden urgency to come out here just before he disappeared? Heon his own line of study

Gray asked Abe, "Was there anything that triggered Dr Polk’s sudden need to co unusual that led up to that day?"

The e Like he had doneelection where an achuta candidate was up for a mayoral position I had found a new coin and showed hiain He glanced at it without tooit on the table as we spoke Then suddenly his eyes got huge, and he juations 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 fro that would shake our understanding of the huh hiain"

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 ithim 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 ain 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 thethe coin up on its edge, Gray flicked it and sent it spinning on the floor, lit by the flashlight bea coin forlobe 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 hu out of the core of the human body, out of the brain

Gray let his own nificance

What had Archibald Polk realized?

The coin spun, a silveryan ancient secret

But what--?

Then Gray knew

Reaching out, he slapped the coin flat against the marble

Of course!

11:35 PM

Pripyat, Ukraine

"The Americans have Sasha," Nicolas said sharply as he stepped into the bedrooer kept him warm

Elena lay draped across the bedspread, nude She had one leg up, and an ar for hiala to their hotel outside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, wherehoused prior to tomorrow’s event

Nicolas had spent the past half hour on a scra sure every last detail was addressed before theA call to hisnews With her ties to for out of Washington’s intelligence communities The city had been in turirl It one deathly quiet Even Yuri went silent Both he and his mother knehat that implied

Someone had found her

And Nicolas suspected who it was

His fingers clenched into a fist

It was likely the sa up Dr Polk’s research, stirring soht 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 see in on a secret that Dr Polk had kept fro vital to the professor’s research Sonificant 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 hiry 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