The Mongol Objective Read Online Free

all along. You killed so many of the Keepers.”
    “Bygones, Caleb. Besides, I’ve watched you since then, you don’t trust your new friends either. None of the other Keepers. Even your wife.”
    That point chilled his blood. His eyes snapped open. Does she know about the tablet? She had to have RV’d him, and would have seen the vault where he’d hid it away.
    She knows, damn it, she knows!
    “I tried to see you.” He had to stall her, think of a way out of this. “But—”
    “You didn’t try, lover. Admit it. You forgot all about little old me. Let your gift languish, too wrapped up in guilt over the things it kept showing you. You let it wither until that Keeper tramp Lydia came along and fired you up again. Tell me, who was better at freeing your powers? Me, or the little missus?”
    Caleb tried not to look at the gun pointed at his heart. His mind reeled. How did she survive? The first trap under the Pharos Lighthouse had released a torrential wave of water that had smashed her against a pillar, and she fell and was sucked out into the Alexandrian harbor, her body never found.
    A sudden flash appeared in Caleb’s head, like the lifting of a veil, and he saw . . .
    . . . a recompression chamber, a familiar one, the same he had once spent a day in. On board Waxman’s boat, only in this vision Nina was inside, motionless.
    And then he was back in the icy cave with Tarn pointing the gun at him and Andy Bellows grinning. “Fine,” Caleb said. “You got me, Nina. Got us. The Morpheus Initiative. Played us, but for what? We’re here.”
    “That’s it, Caleb. That’s all there is. I just wanted you to know who it was, wanted you to know that back then you shouldn’t have dropped me.”
    “Nina,” he said, slumping over, “I couldn’t—”
    “Goodbye, Caleb. Mr. Tarn, Mr. Bellows, thank you for your service.”
    Andy looked up. “What?”
    Tarn lowered the gun, said, “NO!” and in a burst of surprising speed, ran for the cave’s exit just as an enormous explosion rocked the tunnel—followed by a series of detonations above them.
    Caleb looked up and didn’t even have time to cry out as the ceiling collapsed.
    #
    Phoebe held her breath. What just happened? She heard the name and remembered. Nina Osseni. A beautiful European, one of George Waxman’s first recruits for the Morpheus Initiative. She was exotic and cat-like, always seemed a little dark and mysterious around Phoebe, but she had never had much contact with the woman, especially since Phoebe was confined to that relic of a wheelchair and couldn’t go on any more globe-trotting expeditions with the team.
    But then the tragedy under the Pharos. Nina and Waxman going in too strong, believing they had decoded the symbols on the door, but having them all wrong, releasing the first trap, which killed everyone in their group except for Caleb, Waxman and their mother.
    And apparently, Nina.
    Somehow she had survived, and then what? She had tracked Caleb ever since, hoping for some misguided revenge? Maybe revenge for Waxman, or for Caleb’s inability to save her?
    After taunting Caleb and the others, Nina shut the laptop, unplugged the microphone, and pressed a button on a small device.
    A distant rumbling vibrated the station, overpowering even the chopper blades. Phoebe felt the trembling under her body and she realized what Nina had done.
    Nina turned and left through the door without so much as a look behind her.
    Then Phoebe sprang up and looked around frantically for the explosive charges. In another moment, she heard the chopper ascending and then it was quiet outside, except for the screeching wind.
    Thoughts of Caleb blown to bits—
    No, can’t think that yet.
    She continued looking around the room, then stuck her head under the desk. There was something there, a round device like a hockey puck, with a blinking red light. She took hold of it, but it was stuck. She was about to kick it free when she thought better of that idea.
    Could