The Judas Strain

13 Witch Queen

The drums pounded louder than the rumbles of thunder overhead. Lightning spattered, flashing the jungle into stark greens and blacks, limned in silver by the reflection off the wet leaves.

Bare-chested, Monk pulled Susan by the hand up a steep turn in the jungle path. They’d been following the trail for the past two hours in the dark, sometimes waiting for lightning to show them where to step next. Rain continued to pour through the canopy. The switchbacked trail had become a running stream. But the remainder of the jungle was a dense tangle of grappling vines, heavy leaves, thorny bushes, root-choked trunks, and sopping mud.

So they kept to the trail, heading up, always up.

Ryder climbed behind them. He had their group’s one pistol. A 9mm Sig Sauer P228 with a Teflon finish. Unfortunately he had no spare magazines. Only the thirteen rounds already in the gun.

Not good.

Monk knew that once the storm broke, the jungle would be scoured by Rakao’s men. This island was their base of operation, giving them the home-field advantage. Monk did not delude himself into thinking he could escape being tracked and captured.

He glanced back through a break in the jungle. They were about three hundred feet up. The giant cruise ship sat in the center of the lake, a quarter mile out. Somewhere on board was his partner, pulled alive from the black waters, out of the grip of some nasty calamari.

But was she still alive?

Until he knew for sure, Monk would not give up hope.

Not for Lisa, not for himself.

To that end, Monk needed allies.

Drums continued their perpetual beating, louder and more urgent, as if striving to drive the typhoon away. They had climbed high enough that each pound of leather drum now reverberated against his rib cage, down to the bone.

Monk pushed through a drape of branches, waterlogged and drooping low. He spotted a glow ahead, flickering.

Firelight.

He took another two steps and stopped.

Only now did he realize they weren’t alone. To either side of the path, sentinels stood, half hidden by the dense foliage, but plainly in the open, wanting to be noted. Men stood, bare-chested, wearing wide grass hats tied to their heads. Their faces had been painted with oil and ash, turning their countenances pitch-black. Polished white boar tusks and yellowed rib bones pierced noses. Brilliant feathers and snail shells were threaded around upper arms.

With a shout, Ryder lunged forward, his pistol raised.

The sentinels were unimpressed.

Monk shoved down Ryder’s arm and stepped forward, holding up his hands, palms forward. “Don’t spook the natives,” he whispered to Ryder.

One tribesman shifted onto the trail. He wore a breastplate of bone braided together by leather. His waist was circled by a kilt of long feathers. His legs and feet were bare, painted with grease and ash, too. He carried a sharpened shoulder blade of some animal.

At least Monk hoped it was an animal.

Monk heard a rustle behind him, knowing their back trail was already being closed off. Drums pounded ahead. The firelight spat momentarily brighter.

The man on the path turned and led the way toward the glow.

“Looks like we’re invited to the party,” Monk said, putting his arm around Susan.

Ryder followed, pistol in hand.

If things went awry, they might need the billionaire’s remaining thirteen rounds to blast their way to freedom. But for now, Monk knew their best bet was to cooperate.

The path ended at a cliff face in the volcanic rock. A natural coved amphitheater had been carved out of the reddish-black rock, roofed over with thick palm thatching. The downpour drained in a sheet of rain off the roof ’s front edge, creating a watery curtain.

Beyond the flow, lit by a massive bonfire within, Monk spotted lines of drummers along both walls, working hard, pounding away. Two massive drums, as wide as his outstretched arms, hung from the rock walls and were struck with bone hammers. Each stroke shook the thin waterfall that cascaded from the thatched roof to the rock floor.

They were led forward.

A single boar rooted through the open space in front and squealed back from the strangers’ approach. More pigs huddled under an overhang, squeezed tight together, rump to rump.

Monk led Susan through the sheet of water and under the large overhang. He shivered as the rain cascaded over his bare chest. The heat of the fire inside was welcome, but the smoke choked and stung, doing its best to exit a narrow flue in the thatching.

Around the fire ahead, a crowd had gathered, some standing, some squatted. Monk estimated over a hundred. Men, bare-breasted women. But cave openings lined the walls. More faces peered out. A few naked children stood staring, wide-eyed. One cradled a piebald piglet.

At some signal, the drums suddenly stopped with one resounding note. The quiet intimidated.

In that sudden silence, a voice called out.

“Monk!”

Startled, he turned. A thin figure stood pressed up against the bamboo bars of a cage built into a back corner. He wore a torn shirt and a pair of muddy white briefs.

“Jessie?”

The young nurse was still alive!

But before they could continue their tearful and heartfelt reunion, a towering figure stepped forward, though for the tribe, towering was about five-foot-nothing. The old graybeard looked like someone had sold him a skin suit two sizes too large. He was greased and daubed in ash, too. He wore some sort of twisted gourd over his privates and a shock of purpled feathers in his hair, sticking straight up, as if startled. And nothing else.

Monk recognized that this was the tribe’s leader.

It was time to perform, to dance for his supper — or rather, to dance not to become supper.

Monk lifted his arm toward the elder. “Boogla-boogla rah!” he intoned solemnly, then tensed his forearm and reached his other hand to pull the toggle at his wrist.

Freed from its electromagnetic contacts, his prosthetic hand dropped to the muddy volcanic stone.

A gasp arose from the crowd.

The leader fell back a step, almost into the fire.

Monk lowered his arm, staring down at his disembodied hand.

Besides looking authentically fleshy, the prosthetic was a marvel of DARPA engineering, incorporating direct peripheral nerve control through its titanium wrist contact points. It also was bioengineered with advanced mechanics and actuators, allowing sensory feedback and surgically precise movements.

But that was only half the story.

Monk’s stumped end of his wrist was encased in a polysynthetic cuff, surgically attached to the end of his wrist and wired into nerve bundles and muscle tendons. In actuality, it was the other half of his prosthesis. The hand might be the brawn, but the wrist cuff was definitely the brain.

With his remaining hand, he manipulated the titanium contacts on the cuff. It was the best feature of his artificial hand. Monk performed this stunt at parties all the time. So why should this be any different?

The cuff and hand were linked wirelessly, a digital radio interface.

As Monk tapped a practiced sequence on his wrist, his severed hand lifted up onto its fingers and began to dance across the rock like a five-legged spider.

This time the cannibal leader did step into the fire, searing his backside enough to yelp and leap away.

Monk sent his hand chasing after him.

By now a wide ring cleared around the party.

Ryder had drawn Susan back into the shadows of the cliff face, giving Monk the stage.

“Now that I have your attention,” Monk bellowed.

He strode toward the fire.

Guessing no one spoke English here, he had to sell it with a bravado of expression and a great pounding of his bare chest. Still, it wasn’t good enough just to scare the superstitious folk. He needed to win them over. It was time for an American-led coup of Cannibal Island.

Turning on a heel, Monk pointed back to Susan.

On his signal, she unwrapped Monk’s borrowed shirt from around her head. Ryder reached and stripped the hospital gown from her shoulders and let it fall away. Susan lifted her arms, bare-breasted like the women here.

Only she glowed in the shadows.

A hushed amazement spread through the tribespeople.

Monk gaped at Susan himself. She glowed even brighter than when he had first seen her. Significantly brighter. Her skin shone with an inner moonlight, turning her skin almost translucent.

Ryder motioned to Monk, urging him from the sideline to continue.

Rattled, Monk collected himself. He stepped to Susan, dropped to his knees, and shouted the only word he knew in the cannibals’ language, taught to him by a toothless pirate.

A name.

“RANGDA!” Monk called out, naming the cannibals’ queen of the island, mistress of the lagoon’s glowing demons.

Glowing like Susan.

He bowed down.

“All hail the witch queen of the islands!”

Devesh entered Lisa’s room, tapping his cane.

Sprawled in bed, hooked to an IV, Lisa knew she could not stall any longer. Earlier, as she was hauled back onto the ship from the tender dock, she had swooned in her guard’s arms, catching him by surprise and collapsing with a bone-jarring thud to the deck.

Lisa had split her lip doing so, but she’d had to make it look convincing. It hadn’t been hard. With her calf sliced open by a sword, her body torn and lacerated in hundreds of places by the clawed grip of the predatory squids, and her lungs still coarse from the near drowning, only adrenaline had kept her on her feet.

So she had collapsed, even passing out for a few breaths.

The act had her rushed up to the scientific suite, where she was treated by the ship’s doctor and one of the WHO medical staff. Her leg had been cleaned and stitched, along with the worst of her lacerations. An IV catheter was established, streaming in fluids, antibiotics, and pain relievers. She now lay in her old room, an inside cabin with no balcony or window, under guard. Beneath the thin sheet, her body was a patchwork of bandages and taped gauze.

Such care was not administered out of mercy or compassion. It was done to serve one end: to make sure she completed her promise to Devesh atop the deck.

The Judas Strain. I know what the virus is doing.

For such a revelation, Devesh was not about to lose her, especially with Susan Tunis vanished somewhere on the storm-swept island. Devesh needed Lisa. So she stretched her advantage, stalling. She had tasked Devesh with some busywork, various assignments for the head of his clinical labs.

Her justification: to test and confirm her hypothesis.

But that could stretch for only so long.

“So,” Devesh said. “Results are being compiled right now. It’s time to have our little delayed chat. If I don’t like what I hear, we’ll begin slowly reversing all your medical care. I imagine reopening your wound with pliers will persuade you to cooperate.”

Devesh turned on a heel and waved to a waiting nurse.

Lisa’s IV catheter was quickly pulled and taped over.

Lisa sat up. The room swam a bit, then steadied.

Ever the gentleman, Devesh held out a thick cotton robe with the ship’s logo. Lisa stood up, draped in a thin hospital gown, but naked underneath. She tolerated his politeness to pull on the robe and cover herself. She cinched the belt snugly.

“This way, Dr. Cummings.” Devesh crossed back to the door.

Barefoot, Lisa was led out of her cabin. Devesh headed across to the infectious-disease suite.

The door stood open. Voices could be heard.

Following Devesh inside, Lisa immediately recognized two familiar faces: the bacteriologist, Benjamin Miller, and her confidant since arriving, the Dutch toxicologist Henri Barnhardt. The two clinicians were seated on one side of a narrow table.

Lisa glanced around. The back half of the suite had been emptied of all furniture and refilled with laboratory equipment, much of it stolen from Monk’s gear: fluorescence microscopes, scintillation and auto-gamma spectrometers, carbon dioxide incubators, refrigerated centrifuges, microtiter and ELISA readers, and along one wall, a small fraction collector.

Some universities weren’t so well equipped.

Dr. Eloise Chénier, the Guild’s virologist and chief administrator of the infectious-disease lab, stood on the other side of the table, dressed in an ankle-length lab coat. In her late fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a pair of reading glasses hung on a chain around her neck, she looked like some quaint schoolmarm.

The virologist had an arm raised to a pair of computer stations behind her. Data flowed across one monitor, the other displayed a jumble of overlapping files. She was just finishing some explanation with Henri and Miller, accented heavily in French.

“We gained an excellent viral load by washing a sample of the cerebral spinal fluid through a series of phosphate buffers, then fixed it with glutaraldehyde, and pelleted it by centrifugation.”

Chénier noted their arrival and waved them to the table.

Devesh joined his colleague while Lisa found an empty stool next to Henri. Her friend placed a reassuring hand on her knee. Henri glanced at her, his expression asking, Are you okay?

She nodded, glad to be seated.

Devesh turned to Lisa. “We’ve completed all the ancillary tests you requested, Dr. Cummings. Perhaps now you can explain why?”

His accusing gaze weighed heavily on her.

Lisa took a deep breath. She had delayed for as long as possible. Her only hope for further survival was to offer the truth and pray her ingenuity proved of great enough value to overcome her earlier betrayal.

She remembered Devesh’s first lesson: Be useful.

Lisa started slowly, relating her discovery of the strange retinal glow in Susan’s eyes. But as she spoke, she read the disbelief shining already in Devesh’s expression.

Lisa turned to Henri, seeking substantiation. “Were you able to perform the fluorescent assay on the spinal fluid sample?”

“Ja. The fluid sample did demonstrate a low fluorescence.”

Chénier agreed. “I spun the sample down. The bacterial pellet did glow. And was confirmed to be cyanobacteria.”

Miller, the bacteriologist, nodded his agreement.

Devesh’s skepticism shifted to interest. His eyes focused back to Lisa. “And from this, you determined the bacteria migrated from the brain, down the optic nerve, and colonized the fluids of the eye. So you ordered the second spinal tap.”

She nodded. “I see Dr. Pollum is not here. Was he able to finish the protein assay on the viral shell?”

Lisa had ordered this test, too. It wasn’t truly necessary, but it had promised a good couple hours of extra labor.

“One moment,” Chénier said. “I have the results here.” She turned to one of the monitors and began collapsing screens while narrating. “It might interest you to know that we were able to classify the virus from genetic assays into the Bunyavirus family.”

Henri noted the pinch to Lisa’s eyes and explained. “It was what we were discussing before you arrived. Bunyaviruses typically infect avian and mammalian species, causing hemorrhagic fevers, but the vector for transmission is usually arthropods. Biting flies, ticks, mosquitoes.”

He slid over a notepad.

Lisa glanced to the open pages. Henri had diagrammed the pathway of infection.

Henri tapped the center. “Insects are necessary to spread the disease. Bunyaviruses themselves are seldom transmissible directly from human to human.”

Lisa rubbed her temples. “Unlike the Judas Strain.” She picked up a pencil and altered the diagram. “Instead of an insect to spread the disease, it takes a bacterial cell to pass the virus from one person to another.”

Henri frowned. “Yes, but why did—?”

Gunfire blasts cut off his words. All of them jumped.

Even Devesh dropped his cane. With a muttered curse, he recovered it and headed to the door. “You all stay here.”

More blasts followed, along with guttural cries.

Lisa stood up. What was happening?

Devesh collected two guards stationed in the science wing and hurried over to the middeck security post by the elevators. Automatic gunfire erupted in sporadic bursts, as loud as detonations in the confined space.

Shouts rang out between the blasts.

Keeping his guards ahead of him, Devesh followed more cautiously as the post came into view. Six men manned the security detail. The leader, a tall African soldier from Somalia, noted Devesh and fell back to his position.

He spoke tersely in Malay. “Sir, a dozen of the afflicted broke out of one of the back wards. They rushed our line. Attacked.”

The leader nodded to one of the guards, seated to the side, cradling a bloody arm. He had his sleeve rolled back, revealing a deep bite wound.

Devesh took a step forward and pointed absently to the wounded man. “Isolate him.”

Beyond the security post, a hallway extended toward the stern. Some doors stood open, others closed. Down the passageway, a few bodies sprawled, riddled with bullets, blood soaking into the carpet. The closest two — a naked obese woman and a shirtless teenage boy — were tangled together. Devesh noted the bubbled rashes and the blackened boils on the corpses.

He fought to control his temper, breathing heavily through his nostrils. The stern section of this level housed the most debilitated patients, making them readily available to the research team. Devesh had outlined a firm protocol when dealing with patients on this level. Such lapses would not be tolerated. Not when he was this close to success.

“I’ve called in reinforcements,” the sentry leader said. “When we started firing, some of the afflicted fled into open rooms. We’ll have to flush them out.”

A moan arose from farther down the hall.

A man rose up to an elbow. His other shoulder was a bloody ruin. He wore a medical smock. One of the doctors. Caught in the firefight.

“Help me,” he croaked out.

From an open doorway at his shoulder, a hand lashed out and grabbed his jacket. Another tangled in his hair. He screamed as he was yanked halfway through the door. His legs still protruded into the passageway, his heels kicking and pounding.

The sentry leader glanced to Devesh, asking permission to proceed forward.

Devesh shook his head.

The doctor’s screaming suddenly cut off — but his heels continued to beat a rhythm of agony.

Devesh felt no sympathy. Someone had been careless with a restraint or door lock. He heard the booted tread of reinforcements echoing up the stairwell.

Devesh turned away but waved an arm back to the hallway. “Exterminate them.”

“Sir?”

“The entire deck. Clear it all out. Cabin by cabin.”

Still in the virology lab, Lisa listened to the spats of rifle fire.

Screams also reached her.

No one spoke.

Devesh finally returned. He seemed unfazed, only a little red in the face. He pointed his cane at Lisa. “Come with me. There is something I would like you to see.” He turned on a heel and stepped briskly away.

Lisa stood and followed, hurrying to keep up.

Devesh led her past the security station and down the next hallway.

It was a slaughterhouse. Blood splashed walls. Bodies lay rolled up against the walls, macerated by automatic gunfire.

Lisa swallowed hard, choking on the stench in the confined passageway.

As they passed along the hallway, the cabin doors to either side all lay open. She glanced inside and spotted more bodies, lifeless, twisted, bloody. Some had been shot while still handcuffed to their beds.

More gunfire blasted — not scattered, purposeful.

Farther down, a pair of guards exited a cabin, rifles smoking — then moved to the next room.

“You…you’re slaughtering the patients,” Lisa said.

“We’re winnowing the patient load, that’s all.” Devesh lifted an arm and vaguely motioned ahead. “This is the second breakout. An hour ago, a pair of patients escaped their restraints, biting off their own fingers in order to free themselves. They attacked their doctor, killing him before they could be stopped. In such a deranged state, these patients are strong, hyped on adrenaline, oblivious of pain.”

Lisa remembered the video footage of Susan Tunis’s husband, raving and attacking. It was starting here now, too.

Devesh glanced back to her. “From EEG studies, it seems you were right. The pathology appears to be some form of catatonic excitement, accompanied by deep psychotic breaks.”

More gunfire chattered, causing her to jump.

Responding to her reaction, he sighed. “This is for everyone’s safety. We’re seeing a rapid decline in condition among patients. Shipwide. With medical supplies already running low, we must be efficient. Once a patient devolves to this level of debilitation, they pose a grave physical threat to all around them and serve no real purpose.”

Lisa understood the sentiment behind his words. Devesh and the Guild were using the ship’s patients as the equivalent of living culture media for the Judas Strain, harvesting the deadly pathogens and storing them as potential bioweapons. And like any field after it had been thoroughly reaped, Devesh was plowing it over.

“Why did you bring me out here?” she asked, aghast.

“To show you this.”

Devesh stepped to the only cabin door that was still closed. He keyed it and held the door open for her.

A stronger stench struck her.

Lisa crossed the dark threshold, unsure what to expect. The hall lights revealed an inside cabin, similar to her own: a small bath, a couch, a television, and a small bed in back.

Behind her Devesh reached inside and flicked on the lights. The bulbs flickered, then steadied into a low thrum of fluorescents.

Lisa stumbled back, a hand at her throat.

A body lay draped across the bed, soaked into the bedding and cushions. His two bare legs were tied to the bedposts, arms to the headboard. But it appeared as if a bomb had gone off in his belly, hollowing out his abdomen. Gore splattered ceiling and walls.

A hand over her mouth, Lisa went cold, falling reflexively back to the clinical, her only safe haven.

Where were his internal organs?

“They were found feeding on him,” Devesh explained. “Patients whose minds had rotted beyond restraint.”

Lisa shivered once violently. She was suddenly too aware of her bare feet, her near-naked body under the robe.

“We’ve seen this before,” Devesh continued. “In this state of catatonic excitement, the virus appears to stimulate a ravenous appetite. Insatiable, in fact. We’ve watched one of these victims gorge himself to the point his stomach exploded. And still he continued to eat.”

Oh God…

Past the shock, Lisa needed another moment for the significance of his words to strike her. “You watched…where…?”

“Dr. Cummings, you don’t think we were just studying Susan Tunis. To be thorough, we must also understand every facet of the disease. Even this cannibalism. This insatiable hunger bears a striking similarity to Prader-Willi syndrome. Are you familiar with it?”

Numb, Lisa shook her head.

“It’s a hypothalamic dysfunction, triggering an insatiable appetite that can never be quelled. An endless sense of starvation. A rare genetic defect. Many of the afflicted die at a young age of stomach ruptures from gorging.”

Devesh’s cold clinical assessment helped anchor her back inside her body, but her breathing remained heavy.

“Autopsy of one of the psychotic’s brains showed toxic damage to the hypothalamus, similar to the pathology in Prader-Willi patients. And coupled with the catatonic excitement and adrenal stimulation. Well…” Devesh waved to the bed.

Lisa’s stomach churned. As she turned away, she finally noted the victim’s face: the agonized lips, the blank staring eyes, the corona of gray hair.

Her hand covered her mouth as she recognized the man. It was the John Doe patient, the one suffering from flesh-eating disease. From Susan’s medical history, Lisa even knew the patient’s name now.

Applegate.

To put a name to the cannibalism here, to personalize it…

Lisa hurried out of the room.

Devesh’s eyes glinted with dark amusement. Lisa realized the bastard had brought her purposefully down here, half naked, unnerved, knowing she’d identify him. It was all some awful bit of sadism.

“So now you know what we truly face here,” he said. “Imagine events magnified worldwide. That is the threat I’m trying to prevent.”

Lisa held back a sharp retort. Trying to prevent, my ass.

“We are facing a pandemic,” Devesh continued as he headed back down the hallway toward the scientific wing. “Before the World Health Organization had responded to Christmas Island, early patients had already been airlifted to Perth in Australia. Prior to that, tourists traveling through Christmas Island had spread to the four corners of the world. London, San Francisco, Berlin, Kuala Lumpur. We don’t know how many, if any, were infected from early exposure, like Dr. Susan Tunis, but it would not take many. Without proper disinfection like we employ here, the virus may already be spreading.”

Devesh led her back down the hall to the virology lab. “So perhaps now you’ll be a bit more forthcoming and open.”

As they reentered the lab, questioning glances were cast their way.

Lisa simply shook her head and sank to her stool.

Once they were settled, Dr. Eloise Chénier shifted from her seat in front of the computer. “While you were gone,” she said, “I pulled up Dr. Pollum’s files. Here is the protein schematic you ordered. From the virus in the toxic soup.”

The doctor backed from the screen so all could see the rotating image, spinning like a toy top on the monitor.

It depicted the icosahedron shell of the virus: twenty triangular sections, forming a sphere, like a soccer ball. Except some of the triangles bulged out with alpha proteins, while others were sunken in by beta proteins. Lisa had wanted it all mapped out to better test her hypothesis.

Lisa pointed. “Can you stop the rotation?”

Chénier tapped a button on her mouse and the spinning halted, freezing the image on the screen.

Lisa stood back up. “Now, on the other monitor, can you bring up the protein map of the virus recovered from Susan Tunis’s cerebral spinal fluid?”

A moment later, a second soccer ball appeared, spinning. Lisa moved closer, studying it. She manipulated the mouse button herself this time, freezing the image where she wanted it.

She faced the others.

Devesh shrugged, using his whole upper body. “So? It looks the same.”

She stepped back. “Picture the two side by side.”

Henri stood up, eyes widening. “They’re not the same!”

She nodded. “They’re mirror images of each other. They may superficially look the same, but they are really exact opposites. Geometric isomerism. Two forms of the same geometric shape, just mirrored one upon the other.”

“Cis and trans,” Chénier said, using the technical term for the two sides of the same coin.

Lisa tapped the first screen. “Here is the trans form, or the bad form of the virus. It infects bacteria and turns them into monsters.” She waved to the other screen, depicting the virus found inside Susan’s skull. “Here is the cis form, or the good virus that heals.”

“Cis and trans,” Miller mumbled. “Good and bad.”

Lisa elaborated her theory. “As we already know, the trans virus toxified bacteria in order to weaken the blood-brain barrier, thus allowing it to penetrate that virgin territory of the inner skull. It even brought along some company.”

“The cyanobacteria,” Miller said. “The glowing bacteria.”

“And normally the toxins produced by the bacteria corrupted the brain in such a manner that it triggered catatonic excitement with psychosis. But in Susan’s case, something else happened. The virus, when it hit her brain fluid, somehow altered. Changed from its evil trans form over to its beneficial cis form. And once altered, the new virus swept out and began reversing all the damage done by its evil twin, healing the patient and sending her into a deep recuperative stupor, contrary to the manic excitement phase of the other patients.”

“Even if you’re correct,” Henri said, “which I believe you are, what was so special about Susan’s biochemistry to trigger this change?”

Lisa shrugged. “I wager over the next days or weeks, we’ll see a handful of other patients make the same transformation. Susan was infected five weeks ago. So it may be too soon to judge. But I think it’s still a very rare event. A random quirk in her genetics. For example, are you familiar with the Eyam phenomenon during the Black Plague?”

Chénier raised her hand as if in a schoolroom. “I am.”

Lisa nodded. Of course, an infectious disease expert would know the story.

Chénier explained, “Eyam was a small village in England. Back in the sixteen hundreds, the Black Plague struck the village. But after a year, most of Eyam still lived. Modern genetic studies revealed why. A rare mutation was present in the villagers. In a gene called Delta 32. It was a benign defect that was passed from one family member to another, and in such an isolated township, inbred as they were, a good portion of the town had acquired the mutation. Then the plague struck. And this strange little mutation, just hanging about, saved them. Made them immune.”

Devesh spoke up. “Are you suggesting our patient carries the Delta 32 equivalent against the Judas Strain? Some random protein that enzymatically switched the virus in her from trans to cis.”

“Or maybe it’s not that random,” Lisa mumbled. She’d been struggling with this question ever since her discovery of the altered virus. “Only a very small percentage of our DNA is actually functional. Only three percent, in fact. The other ninety-seven percent is considered genetic junk. It doesn’t code for anything. But some of that junk DNA bears a remarkable resemblance to viral code. The current belief is that such coding might serve a protective role, to help us survive future disease.”

As Lisa continued, she pictured the body of Susan’s friend, attacked and eaten. “Like cannibalism, for example.”

Her strange statement drew everyone’s eyes from the monitors.

Lisa elaborated. “Genetic markers found worldwide show that most humans carry a specific set of genes against diseases that can only be acquired by eating human flesh. These findings suggest that our ancient ancestors might have all been cannibals. Maybe Susan has a similar genetic marker to protect her brain against the attack by the Judas Strain virus. Something left over from our long-lost genetic history. Something buried in our collective past.”

“Intriguing as usual, Dr. Cummings.” Devesh rocked back and forth on his toes, plainly excited. “But whether the transformation was random chance or was triggered by some viral genetic marker from our past…it doesn’t truly matter. Now that we know about this new virus, we can use this knowledge to produce a cure!”

Chénier looked less sure. “Possibly,” she stressed. “It will take more study. Luckily we have a boatload of sick patients upon which to test potential treatment regimens. But first, we’ll need more of that cis virus.” She glanced significantly over to Devesh.

“No worries,” he said. “With Rakao and his men already hunting the island, we’ll soon have Susan Tunis and the others back. But with that matter settled—”

Devesh turned to Lisa. “It’s now time to discuss your punishment.”

As if on cue, a figure stepped forward, carrying a doctor’s satchel in her hands.

Her long black hair had been retied into a braid.

Surina.

Monk climbed the steep switchback, following the naked rear end of one of the cannibals. Another dozen tribesmen scaled the crooked trail in the rock ahead of him. Behind Monk, more followed, another forty strong.

His cannibal army.

Rain poured out of the dark skies. But at least the winds had mostly died down, snapping with only occasional gusts across the jagged peaks. Monk had purposefully timed this ascent, waiting for the eye of the storm to crest over the island. It had been an agonizing delay, but his patience had opened a small window of opportunity.

He continued on. Though the path they climbed was sheltered, cut deep into the rock, the downpour made the rocks slippery, treacherous, requiring crawling at times on hands and knees.

Monk glanced behind him.

Ryder and Jessie had his back. Strung out behind them, a line of tribesmen followed, dressed in feathers, shells, bark, bird claws, and bones.

Lots of bones.

The improvised strike team bore short spears, sapling bows, and sharpened clubs. But half of them also carried rifles and a smattering of old assault weapons — Russian AK-47s, United States M16s — along with bandoliers strapped with extra magazines and cartridges. It seemed the cannibals had been trading for more than just two-legged meat with the pirates that shared their cove.

From this height, Monk had a wide view of the dark lake. The cruise ship glowed like a sodden wedding cake in the middle. It was the goal of the cannibal strike team.

It seemed whatever Rangda, the witch queen, wanted, the mesmerized cannibals would make sure she got.

And Rangda wanted that cruise ship.

Her wishes and orders were translated by the young Jessie. He spoke Malay, and as it was the official trading language of the pirates, most of the cannibals understood it, too. They were much in awe of the young nurse, that he should understand the language of their queen and was able to pass on Rangda’s desires. She even bestowed a kiss on her interpreter’s cheek, blessing the young nurse.

No one dared disobey him.

But while Jessie had been integral in organizing the assault, the plan here was all Monk’s.

He turned his back on the cruise ship. With the waters surely watched, they’d never manage an assault by boat. And swimming was certainly not an option. Even from this height, Monk noted the occasional flashes streaking through the lagoon far below. The storm had the denizens stirred up and hunting the shallows.

So it had left only one choice.

Monk climbed higher, all the way to the roof of the world. They had finally reached the giant steel support posts and massive cabling that anchored this section of the island’s net.

Monk stared out across the net’s underside.

Rain poured from it, soaking through all the camouflaging vegetation woven into the web’s upper side. Someone had to be maintaining that illusion. And Monk guessed it wasn’t just the pirates.

Proving this, one of the cannibals scurried up the nearest cable, his bare feet frogging his lithe form up the span. He vanished through the netting. A rope ladder cascaded back down.

Others began scaling up.

Monk turned to Jessie. “You can still go back down, join Susan at the beach. We can pick you both up there.”

Jessie swept rain-soaked hair out of his eyes. “I’m going. Otherwise, who’s going to translate for you?” Before Monk could argue, the nurse grabbed the ladder and scurried up.

Ryder followed next, clapping Monk on the shoulder as he passed. Once the billionaire had shoved through the net overhead, Monk grabbed the lower rung, staring back at the spread of his dark army. Feathered, armed to the teeth, ready to do the bidding of their queen.

Monk felt a momentary misgiving at abusing their superstitions in this regard. Many of them would die. But if Lisa was right, the whole world was threatened. He had no choice but to use the resources at hand.

They had to reach Ryder’s boat. Get Susan out of here — and hopefully rescue Lisa. Monk refused to believe his partner was not still alive.

Monk pulled himself up the ladder.

He climbed through the whipping tangle of camouflage. Even in the eye of the storm, the gusting winds sought to kite him from his perch. He beached himself out onto a narrow ribbon of planking, bolted atop the net. It was a crude utility bridge. The span offered a means to crisscross the net, to maintain it, to refresh its camouflage as needed.

Already the forefront of his army headed across the bridge, on its belly, clinging to the bridge’s slats.

With rain sweeping down in stinging sheets, Monk scooted after them. Occasional winds thrummed through the net, jumping and rolling it under him. Like riding Aladdin’s flying carpet.

Monk craned around. Overhead the cloud cover had thinned enough to reveal a few stars, but all around dark clouds churned in a continual whirl. The eye of the storm was smaller than Monk had hoped. To all sides, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled.

Monk hurried onward. He and his army had to be off the net when the storm’s eye swept away from the island. He recalled earlier lightning strikes, the cascades of electricity ripping across the metal skeleton.

It would be death to be up here then.

Slowly, they inched toward their goal.

As he followed, Monk stared below, between the slats. At least, Susan was out of harm’s way.

Her face greased with ash to hide her glow, Susan sat on a boulder, buried in the jungle, not far from the lagoon. She had spent the past hour trekking back down to the beach, to await Monk there.

But she was not alone.

A dozen tribesmen, her royal escort, stood guard in the jungle, buried in the forest. Only a woman, whose name was Tikal, kept her immediate company, knelt beside the rock, her forehead pressed to mud. She had not moved since they had stopped.

Susan had attempted to engage her, but the woman only shivered.

So Susan waited, seated on her rock. She wore a cloak of dried pigskin, draped with feathers, shells, and polished stone beads. Her head was crowned by a circlet of rib bones, tied to her forehead by bark fiber. All the bones splayed outward, like some macabre flower. She was given a polished staff, topped by an impaled human skull.

All fitting apparel for the witch queen of Pusat.

And despite the ghoulish ornamentation, the cloak was warm and her staff proved useful in climbing down from the highlands and back to the beach. Her escort had also woven a temporary shelter of thatched palm leaves overhead, keeping their mistress dry.

Susan stared up toward the vast netting. She had known she was too weak to attempt to cross with the others. So she had not argued when Monk ordered her down to the beach, to keep hidden, to await the outcome of the cannibal assault upon the cruise ship.

But she knew it would be a long vigil.

Too long.

Abandoned, she began to absorb the full impact of all that had happened after waking aboard the cruise ship. Though alive herself, those closest to her heart had not survived.

Gregg…

Her husband flooded back to her: his crooked grin, his galloping laugh, his dark eyes, the musky scent of his skin, the taste of his lips…on and on.

He filled her up.

How could all that be gone?

Susan knew she was still far from fully comprehending her loss. But she knew enough. Her body felt physically bruised, all the way down to her core. Her throat closed up, and she began to tremble. Glowing tears swelled and ran over her ash-blackened face.

Gregg…

She rocked in place for a long stretch, merely letting her grief rack through her. It was impossible to stop it. The surge of sorrow was a tidal force, as inescapable as the pull of the moon.

But after a stretch of time, even a tide must ebb. In its aching wake, another primal sensation remained, washed up from even deeper shoals, something she had again avoided acknowledging until now. But it was there, as inescapable as her grief.

Susan extended an arm from her cloak, staring at the breadth of her skin, glowing because of the cyanobacteria in her perspiration, in her pores. She turned her hand, palm up. The glow did not heat the skin, but there was a strange warmth — it harkened more to fever than sunlight.

What was happening to her?

As a marine biologist, Susan knew all about the organism. Cyanobacteria, commonly referred to as blue-green algae, were as ubiquitous as the sea itself. They grouped into myriad formations: thin filaments, flat sheets, hollow balls. They were instrumental to evolution, being the predecessors of modern plants. Early in the earth’s history, cyanobacteria also generated the planet’s first oxygen atmosphere, making the world livable. And since then, they had adapted to millions of ecological niches.

So what did the colonization of her body mean? How did it relate to her exposure to the Judas Strain virus? It made no sense.

Despite all her questions, Susan knew one truth.

Something was still coming.

She sensed it deep inside, a welling sensation that defied any description.

As unstoppable as any rising tide.

She stared across the forest, across the lagoon, beyond the island. As surely as she could sense the sun rising beyond the curve of the planet, Susan knew she was not done changing.

From a hundred yards away Rakao spied upon his quarry. Hidden in a rain poncho, he held the infrared goggles to his brow. He counted the red glows, body-heat signatures, spread along the edge of the beach. His hunters outnumbered the tribesmen two to one.

With a raised fist, Rakao signaled his team to spread out to either side, to keep their distance. His men knew to move only with each rumble of thunder. The tribesmen had keen senses. He did not want to spook his prey.

Rakao studied Susan Tunis, seated on a rock. He had followed the cannibal party down from the highlands to the lagoon. Where were her companions? They could not be far.

So while he could snatch her up at any time, he was a patient hunter. As his men spread out in a snare, securing the trap, Rakao knew the best use to put the woman.

As bait.

14 Ruins of Angkor

Six hours of travel deposited Gray in another century and a mishmash of cultures. He climbed out of the taxi into the heart of the old French district of Siem Reap, a small riverside hamlet in the middle of Cambodia, nestled between rice paddies and the great expanse of an inland lake. With dawn still an hour away, the place slumbered, air heavy and humid, buzzing with mosquitoes and hissing with the flicker of gas lamps. From the neighboring river, the lazy chirping of frogs added to the soft somnolence of the early morning.

A couple of low skiffs poled through the river’s shallows, oil lamps hanging on extended poles as fishermen in wide bamboo hats checked crab and crayfish traps or stabbed at the unwary frog, fetching fresh catch for the town’s many restaurants and cafés.

The rest of Gray’s party climbed out of the taxi in various poses of exhaustion. Vigor, hunched and bleary-eyed, looked like someone had washed him and put him away wet in the humid air, whereas Seichan stretched like a waking cat, one hand protecting her wounded side. Her eyes smoldered past him to inspect their accommodations. Kowalski scratched at his armpit and did the same, whistling between his teeth, which set a dog to barking a block deeper into the village.

Nasser had arranged their spectacular accommodations.

It was where they were to await his arrival.

In another two hours.

Across a curved entry road the three-story colonial hotel spread from the river in yellow wings of plaster and timber, roofed in red stone, anchored in manicured French gardens. Its history typified the entire region. The seventy-five-year-old lodge used to be named the Grand Hôtel des Ruines, servicing French and British tourists wishing to visit the nearby complex of Angkor ruins, which lay only five miles away. Both hotel and village had eventually fallen into near ruin during the bloody and brutal years of the Khmer Rouge, where millions were murdered in one of the most heinous acts of genocide, annihilating one-fourth of Cambodia’s population. Such atrocities put a damper on tourism. But with the fall of the Khmer Rouge, people had returned. The hotel rose from its ashes, meticulously renovated in all its colonial charm and renamed the Grand Hôtel d’Angkor.

Siem Reap had similarly been revitalized — if with a bit less care. Hotels and hostels had multiplied in a continual creep out from the river’s east and west banks, along with restaurants, bars, Internet cafés, travel agents, fruit and spice stands, and myriad markets selling Cambodian carved curios, filigreed silver, postcards, T-shirts, and trinkets.

But here in the early hours — with neither tourist nor sun yet risen — some of the charm and mystery still remained in its architectural mix of Asian and French culture. An ox-driven cart laden with spiky-skinned durian fruit ambled down the road toward the Old Market, while a manservant in a pressed white jacket slowly swept the hotel’s porch.

As Gray climbed the stairs, leading his group, the sweeper smiled shyly, set aside his task, and opened the door for them.

The lobby was bright with marble and polished woods, perfumed by large flowering displays of roses, orchids, jasmine, and lotus. An antique elevator cage, wrapped in intricately twined wrought iron stood beside an inviting curve of stairs.

“The Elephant Bar is around the corner,” Seichan explained, pointing an arm. It was where they were to meet with Nasser.

Gray glanced to his watch for the hundredth time.

“I’ll get us checked in,” Vigor said.

As the monsignor headed over to the reception desk, Gray searched the lobby. Were there Guild agents already here? It was the question that Gray had been asking himself since they landed in Bangkok and switched planes for the short hop here. Seichan had confirmed that the Guild had operatives throughout the region, with deep ties in China and North Korea. It was practically Guild home turf.

Gray did not doubt that Nasser had spies planted along their entire route from the island of Hormuz to Cambodia. To spare his parents’ lives, Gray had been forced to reveal where Marco’s historical trail ended: the ruins of Angkor. It convinced Nasser to delay any immediate plans to murder his parents. But as Gray feared, it had not bought his parents their freedom.

With the sword still poised over his parents’ heads, Gray had refused to elaborate on his second bombshell — the cure for the Judas Strain. Not until Nasser was face-to-face with him and supplied concrete evidence that his parents were released and safe.

So they had agreed to rendezvous here.

An exchange.

Information for his parents’ freedom.

But Gray was no fool. He knew Nasser would never release his parents. This was all a trap by Nasser — and a pure delaying tactic by Gray. Both men knew this. Still, they had no choice but to continue this dance of deceptions. All Gray could do was keep Nasser strung along, to keep hanging that carrot in front of him, in order to buy Director Crowe as much time as possible to find his mother and father.

Gray had risked a short call Stateside after hanging up with Nasser, using Seichan’s disposable phone. Fearing that Nasser might quickly tap the cell towers in the remote region, Gray had to keep their talk short as he updated Painter. The director had only grim news in return. Sigma had no new leads on his parents, and there continued to be no word on Monk and Lisa’s whereabouts. Gray had heard the frustration and fury in the man’s voice.

Add raw terror to the mix, and it matched Gray’s mood.

Painter had again offered to send assets to support Gray out here, but until his parents were safe and secure, he dared not accept them. As Seichan had warned, this was Guild home turf. Any mobilization would only reveal that Gray was still secretly in communication with Washington. It was a small advantage, but one Gray did not want to risk losing. But more importantly, if Nasser got a whiff that a line of communication was open between Gray and Sigma command, he would immediately kill his parents. Gray needed Nasser to feel fully confident that his team was cut off.

Still, Gray had taken one small risk and had asked for a tiny concession from Painter. Afterward, with the matter settled, all Gray had to do was keep extending that time frame.

He still had another two hours.

The elevator door chimed open behind him. He heard the old wrought-iron door ratchet back. “I see you all arrived safely,” a voice spoke calmly behind him.

Gray turned.

Nasser stepped out of the cage and into the lobby, dressed in a dark suit, no tie. “It looks like we can get this meeting started early.”

Men in khaki uniforms and black berets appeared from the halls to either side. Behind him, Gray heard the pound of boots on the porch outside. A score more soldiers clambered down the curved stairs ahead. Though no weapons were in sight, Gray did not doubt they were all armed.

Kowalski must have sensed this, too. He already had his hands in the air.

Seichan merely shook her head. “There goes my hot bath.”

Vigor stepped back to Gray’s side.

Nasser joined them. “So it is time to discuss this cure.”

“From what you just told me,” Dr. Malcolm Jennings said, “Gray has nothing to offer the Guild. Nothing of real value.”

Painter listened quietly, letting the man run through his thought processes. He had summoned Jennings, the head of Sigma’s research-and-development department, up to his office to get his input. Luckily, Jennings had already been on his way up here.

“From the details in Marco’s story,” Jennings said, pacing in front of Gray’s desk, “Polo and a handful of others were protected against the Judas Strain by consuming blood and sweetmeat, a delicacy derived from the thymus gland. And according to the story, the blood and gland were harvested out of another man.”

“Basically cannibalism.”

“Or as Gray had read into the text — and I believe he’s correct — it could represent a crude form of vaccination. The thymus gland is a major source of white blood cells, the body’s cellular defense against disease. And the blood is a major way antibodies against infections are distributed. By consuming such tissue, you could theoretically confer the equivalent of an immunization.”

Painter agreed. “That’s what Gray believes protected Polo’s companions.”

“But such a revelation is meaningless,” Jennings argued. “It offers no real cure. Where did the blood and gland come from? Not from one of the sick. You’d just get infected. There is a missing piece of this puzzle. For such a cure to work, you’d need to harvest cells and antibodies from someone cured, someone who survived the Judas Strain. It’s just circuitous logic. It takes a cure to find a cure.”

Painter sighed. “And you can’t think of anything in the story that might offer some elaboration.”

The doctor slowly shook his head.

As Painter feared, Gray was running a dangerous bluff. Amen Nasser was not a fool. The bastard would also recognize the lack of any real answer. All Gray’s bluff could hope to achieve was to buy time. And with the trail gone cold after the raid on the butcher shop, it seemed a wasted effort, a needless risk. Painter had hoped Jennings might have some new insight.

But no such luck.

Painter resigned himself. “So it seems Marco’s story leads to a dead end.”

“Not necessarily.” Jennings waited a breath. “Director, there is something else I wanted to discuss. It was why I was headed up here. It may even relate to this topic. In fact, if you have an extra minute, perhaps you’d better see this for yourself.”

Painter truly didn’t have that extra minute. He stared at the pile of papers in front of him, a plethora of reports. Down the hall, Monk’s wife, Kat, had taken over minding the satellite recon of the Indonesian islands. With her background in the intelligence services, Kat had proved skilled at enlisting foreign aid and orchestrating cross-satellite platform surveys. But still, hampered by the local storm, they’d had no success locating the cruise ship.

Anxious and short-wired, Painter wanted to get back down there himself. But he trusted Jennings not to waste his time with trivialities. “What do you want me to see?”

Jennings waved to one of the office’s plasma wall monitors. “I’d like to conference with Richard Graff in Australia. He’s expecting my call, if you’re willing.”

“Graff?” Painter asked. “The researcher who had been working with Monk at Christmas Island?”

“Exactly.”

It was Dr. Graff who had radioed a tanker passing Christmas Island and had alerted the world about the hijacking of the cruise ship. The oceanographer was currently sequestered and quarantined in Perth.

“You’ve read his debriefing with Australian authorities?” Jennings asked.

Painter nodded.

“But there is something odd that the researcher has discovered since then.”

Painter waved to the monitor. “Okay. Show me.”

Jennings came around his desk and quickly established a live conference feed. “Here we go.”

The monitor went dark, flickered, then a jittery image of the scientist appeared. Dr. Graff wore blue hospital scrubs and his arm was in a sling. He blinked behind his glasses at Painter and Jennings.

Introductions were made — though Jennings passed themselves off as researchers associated with the Smithsonian Institution.

“Can you demonstrate what you found?” Jennings asked. “What you showed me earlier? I think my colleague should see it.”

“I have the specimen waiting right here.” Graff slipped offscreen. The camera angle widened and shifted to reveal a white conference table.

Graff reappeared, carrying a large red object in one hand.

“Is that a crab?” Painter asked, sitting straighter.

“Geocarcoidea natalis,” Jennings explained. “The Christmas Island red land crab.”

On the screen, Graff nodded and settled the crab to the tabletop. Its large pincer claws were rubber-banded closed. “The little bugger — or rather a horde of them — helped save my life back on the island.”

Curious, Painter stood up and approached the screen.

Graff put the crab on the table and released it. It immediately scrabbled across the surface, aiming in a determined straight line. Graff hurried around to the table’s far side to catch it.

Painter shook his head. “I don’t understand. What are you trying to show me here?”

Graff explained. “Dr. Kokkalis and I found it strange that these crabs were not killed off by the toxic exposure, but their behavior certainly was affected. They were attacking and tearing each other apart. So I had hoped to study the behavior to see if it offered any insight into the toxicity.”

While narrating, Graff had settled the crab twice more to the table, but no matter where he placed it, no matter which way he faced the creature, the determined crustacean would turn and make a beeline, hitting the same corner of the table before almost toppling off.

He demonstrated it a few more times.

Strange.

Graff explained his supposition. “The Christmas Island land crab has a finely attuned nervous system that guides its annual migration pattern. Most crustaceans do. But the toxic exposure seems to have rewired the crab’s nervous system, turned it into the equivalent of a fixed compass. The crab always crawls in the same direction, the same compass heading.”

Graff collected his crab and deposited it in a tank. “Once things calm down over at the island,” he finished, “I’d like to test other crabs to see if they are similarly rewired to the same setting. It’s a fascinating study. I would be happy to write up that grant proposal you mentioned earlier, Dr. Jennings.”

“It certainly is an intriguing anomaly, Dr. Graff,” Jennings said. “My colleague and I will consult and get back to you. I appreciate your time.”

The call was disconnected, and the screen went blank. But Jennings continued typing at Painter’s computer station. A new image appeared on the plasma screen, fed from the computer, a globe of the world.

“When I heard about this anomaly,” Jennings said, “I went ahead and collated Dr. Graff ’s data and tracked the crab’s trajectory.” A dotted line appeared encircling the globe. “I didn’t think my results proved anything until you sent down the update from Commander Pierce.”

The globe spun and zoomed large on the screen.

Painter leaned in close. The view swelled with the image of Southeast Asia. The dotted line traversed Indonesia, spanned the Gulf of Thailand, and ran straight across Cambodia.

Jennings tapped the screen, noting one spot crossed by the crab’s trajectory. “Angkor Wat.”

Painter straightened. “Are you suggesting—?”

“A rather odd coincidence. It makes me wonder if this crab had been rewired to march itself straight over there.”

Painter stared at the screen, picturing Gray Pierce, reminded of the deadly bluff being played out there. “If you’re right, then Marco’s trail might not be such a dead end after all. Something must be there.”

Jennings nodded, hands on his hips. “But what?”

Vigor reminded himself never to play poker with Gray.

The commander sat in a rattan lounge chair in the hotel’s bar. The facility was closed at this hour, but Nasser had rented the space out for privacy. The Elephant Bar gained its name from the pair of large curved tusks near the entrance. Continuing the motif, the lounge was appointed with bamboo furniture upholstered in zebra and tiger prints.

Gray sat across a glass coffee table from Nasser, playing a cautious game.

Seichan had sprawled herself across a sofa, ankles crossed. Kowalski sat at the long bar, staring at the gemlike spread of bottles. But Vigor also noted how the large man continued to spy upon Gray and Nasser in the bar’s mirror.

Not that there was much any of them could do.

Nasser’s men stationed themselves at all the exits and lined both walls.

With a clank of metal on glass, Nasser returned one of the gold paitzus to the tabletop. Before he even entertained any discussion about cures, Nasser wanted to verify that the ruins of Angkor were indeed where Marco Polo had first encountered the Judas Strain. Gray had laid it all out, decoding the entire story as he had aboard the seaplane.

Vigor stood over the table, studying the angelic script, the star chart, the map of the ruins. He had again listened to the complete decipher.

Nasser finally accepted the truth. He leaned back. “And this cure?”

Vigor fought against flinching. On the flight here, Gray had explained his take on the last story of Marco Polo: his theory of vaccination through cannibalism. It was intriguing, but in the end, it offered no real cure.

Because of the risk of this bluff, Gray had attempted to shuffle Vigor onto a different flight when they changed planes in Bangkok.

“It’s too dangerous,” Gray had warned. “Go back to Italy.”

But Vigor had refused. Besides the fact that Nasser had ordered all of them to Cambodia, Vigor had his own reasons for continuing. Somewhere among these ruins, Friar Agreer had vanished, a fellow brother of the cloth, sacrificing himself to save Marco and the others. Vigor could not turn his back on such selfless bravery. But he also had a more important argument to offer Gray.

“The natives who had offered the cure recognized something in Friar Agreer, some commonality,” Vigor had explained. “Why did they seek him out? If there is some answer beyond where Marco left off, it might take another brother of the cloth to find it.”

Gray had reluctantly agreed.

Still, Vigor had one last reason for continuing, one he left unvoiced. Something he had noted in the young man’s eyes. Desperation. As these last cards were being played out, Gray was getting reckless. Like this risky bluff, walking into a trap with no secondary strategy. All Gray’s hopes lay with Director Crowe, trusting that his boss would find some way to secure his parents in time, freeing Gray to act.

But was Gray up to the game being played here, especially plagued by the worry for his parents? Plainly some of the sharp edge of his mind had been dulled.

Vigor stared down at the spread of maps and angelic scripts.

For example, how had Gray missed seeing this earlier?

“The cure,” Nasser persisted, pulling Vigor’s attention up. “Tell me what you know.”

Across the table, Gray remained cool and calm, not a bead of sweat on his brow. “I will give you an airport locker number. Back in Bangkok. Tell you where to find the key to confirm what I’m about to say. We stashed the third and final scroll in that locker. In that last document, Marco describes the cure. It is in two parts. I will tell you the first part, free of charge.”

Nasser shifted, one eye narrowing.

“Once I’m done, as a mark of good faith, you’ll release one of my parents. And I will expect satisfactory confirmation. With that, I will tell you the locker number and location of the key. You can verify my claim. Is that satisfactory?”

“It depends on what I hear.”

Gray merely stared, not blinking.

Vigor knew it was all a stalling tactic, stretching out the reveal for as long as possible. The scroll had indeed been secured in an airport locker in Bangkok, but it was a wild-goose chase. There was no second half of the cure.

Gray sighed, as if relenting. “Here then is the story found within the third scroll. According to Marco…”

As Gray related what the embroidered scroll revealed, Vigor studied the documents on the table, only half listening. The commander kept to the truth, knowing that more time would be bought with the facts than lies. After Gray was finished, Nasser would make the necessary calls, arrange to have the scroll recovered from the locker, then translated. All of it would take time. The discovered scroll would verify Gray’s story and make it more likely Nasser would buy any fabrication to follow. And even if Gray’s lies failed to convince, at least one of his parents would be saved by then.

That was the plan.

Gray finally finished his narration, laying out the science. “So clearly the cannibalism served some means of vaccinating against the disease. But exactly how that was achieved will wait until I know one of my parents is safe.”

Gray folded his hands in his lap.

Nasser sat silent for a moment, then spoke slowly. “So we really just need someone who is cured of the Judas Strain, someone who survived. Then we can construct the vaccine from their white blood cells and antibodies.”

Gray remained silent, offering only a slight shrug of his shoulders, quietly stating that any further answers would wait until one of his parents was free.

Nasser sighed, reached to a pocket, flipped open the phone, and pressed a button. “Annishen,” he said. “Pick one of the hostages. Your choice.”

Nasser listened.

“Yes, that’s fine…go ahead and kill them.”

Gray lunged across the table.

He had no plan, reacting on pure instinct.

But Nasser must have signaled one of the men. Gray’s head exploded with pain, clubbed from behind, his vision blew away into brightness, then collapsed into momentary darkness. His body struck the cocktail table and rolled with a thump to the floor, jarring back his sight.

Five guns now pointed at Gray.

More at Seichan and Kowalski.

Vigor stood with his arms crossed.

Nasser had not moved, his phone still lifted to his ear. “Hold, Annishen. For the moment.” He lowered the phone, half covering the receiver with a hand. “It seems this is the end, Commander Pierce. Of many trails. Polo’s last scroll only confirms what I’ve heard from the Guild contingent in Indonesia. The scientific team has come to the same conclusion. A potential cure does reside within the body of a survivor. One who happens to glow, like revealed in Polo’s story.”

Gray shook his head. Not in denial, he just had difficulty comprehending what Nasser was saying. Blood pounded in his ears, deafening him. His plan had failed.

Nasser lifted his phone again. “So it seems our historical trail has run full circle back to the scientific trail. This is the end of the proverbial road. For you. For your mother and father.”

Gray sensed the world closing in on him. Even his vision narrowed, voices sounded more hollow. Until Vigor stepped closer.

“Enough,” the monsignor snapped out with the command of a professor in an auditorium.

All eyes turned to him. Even Nasser paused.

Vigor stared at their captor. “You make many assumptions, young man. Assumptions that will not serve you, or your associates.”

“How so, Monsignor?” Nasser kept his tone civil.

“This cure. Have your scientists tested it yet?” Vigor stared at Nasser, then a small snort escaped him. “I wager not. All you’ve come up with are theoretical conjectures, supported perhaps by Marco’s story. But that is a far cry from certainty. And I’m sorry to discount your statement that the historical trail has ended. It may indeed have run into the scientific trail, but rather than ending, I believe the more accurate description is that the two trails have merged here. Do not be too quick to ignore history. Not yet, young man. The historical trail continues.”

Gray’s mind sought to work through what the monsignor was saying. Was he lying, bluffing, or telling the truth?

Nasser sighed, apparently weighing the same. “I appreciate your attempt, Monsignor. But I see nothing here to warrant further investigation. The scientists can handle it from here.”

Now Seichan snorted. “That is why you will never rise higher in the Guild hierarchy, Amen. Pawning off your responsibility to others. I suggest you listen to the monsignor.”

Nasser glared, but he did glance back to Vigor. “Marco’s map points here to the ruins. It ends here.”

Vigor bent down and lifted the map of Angkor’s extensive complex of ruins. “This covers over one hundred square miles. That’s a lot of territory. Does this strike you as an end?”

Nasser’s eyes narrowed. “Do you propose we search all one hundred square miles? To what end? We have the cure.”

Vigor shook his head. “There is no need to search the entire complex. Marco pinpointed the most significant site for us.”

Nasser turned to Gray, ready to threaten, his eyes dark on him.

Vigor stepped between them. “Commander Pierce has not held anything back. He does not have this answer. This I swear on my soul.”

Nasser frowned. “Yet, you do.”

Vigor bowed his head. “I do. And I will tell you. But only upon your sworn word that you’ll allow Commander Pierce’s parents to live.”

Nasser’s features hardened, suspicious.

Vigor lifted a hand. “I’m not asking for you to release them. Only to hear me out, and I think you’ll understand the need to follow the trail to its end.”

Gray noted the wavering uncertainty in Nasser’s countenance.

Oh, please, God, let Vigor convince him.

Vigor continued. “Once you follow the trail to the end, then make your decision. About them, about us. It would be foolish to destroy hostages or resources until you discover what lies at the true end of that trail.”

Nasser sank to his seat. “So then show me where it ends. Convince me, Monsignor.”

“And if I do so, as a man of honor, will you keep Gray’s parents alive?”

Nasser waved a hand. “Fine. For now. But if you are lying, Monsignor…”

“I’m not.” Vigor lowered to one knee before the table.

Gray joined him.

Vigor shifted forward three sheets of paper: the map of Angkor, the obelisk’s angelic code, and the line of three symbols from the keys. The monsignor lifted the sheet of angelic code.

“As Commander Pierce has already related, all the blacked-out diacritical marks — the circles that accent the script — actually represent temple sites that make up Angkor.”

Nasser nodded.

“And here again are the three symbols from the keys.

“Now compare these three symbols to the matching circled symbols on the obelisk. What do you see different?”

Nasser leaned forward, as did Gray.

“There’re three blacked-out circles on the symbols on the obelisk,” Nasser said.

“Representing three temples,” Vigor said. “Now, how many blacked-out circles are there among the three key symbols.”

“Only one,” Gray said. He understood now. He had been so certain he had solved the puzzle earlier that he had failed to look one step further. “One temple. That blacked-out circle doesn’t just represent the Portuguese castle — it represents one of the temples!”

Gray shifted the map to him and took a pen to circle the corresponding temple and connected them.

Nasser leaned closer to read the temple marked on the map of Angkor. “Bayon.” He leaned back. “But how can you be sure it’s significant?”

“The Bayon was the last temple ever built in Angkor,” Vigor said. “Built about the time Marco came through the area. The strange thing about the temple is that after it was constructed, all building stopped in the area.”

“But what’s there?” Nasser asked.

Vigor shrugged. “I have no idea. Perhaps the source of the Judas Strain, perhaps some other answer. All I know is that Marco believed it was important enough to preserve. And even if I’m wrong, after following this trail halfway around the world, why stop when you are only steps from the very end?”

Nasser stared around the room.

Seichan stirred. “We can be there in half an hour, Amen. It’s worth at least going there.”

Gray feared to agree with them, lest he only stir up Nasser’s wrath.

Vigor was not as bashful. “Marco went to much trouble to preserve the location of this temple. The Vatican mystics went through as much trouble to secure it in code. Even the locals here claim the temple still holds many hidden treasures. It bears investigation.”

Kowalski raised his hand. “And I have to take a leak. Bad.”

Nasser frowned, but he gained his feet. “We’ll head over there. To the Bayon. But if there’s nothing discovered by noon, it’s over.”

Nasser lifted the phone to his ear. “Annishen, stay that execution order.”

Gray reached and gripped Vigor’s knee under the table.

Thank you.

Vigor glanced to him with an expression that read, We aren’t out of the woods yet.

Nasser proved it. “Annishen, the one parent you chose. We’ll spare their life as per my word to the monsignor. But we’ll still need some incentive to encourage the commander’s continued and heartfelt cooperation.”

Nasser’s eyes fixed to Gray. “For every hour in which we don’t have satisfactory results, cut off one finger. And since we’ve stalled here for much longer than an hour due to Commander Pierce’s futile attempts to barter, you may take that first finger now.”

Nasser snapped his phone closed.

Gray knew silence would serve him better, but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “You goddamn bastard. I will kill you.”

Unperturbed, Nasser turned away. “By the way, Commander Pierce, the parent Annishen chose…it was your mother.”

As the hood was ripped from her head, Harriet knew something was wrong, dreadfully wrong.

She had been dragged from a closet where she’d been locked up and forced to sit on a steel chair. With the hood pulled away, she saw they were in an abandoned warehouse. The space was cavernous, with concrete floors and walls. Steel exposed beams and pipes ran across the ceiling, and chains hung from rusted pulleys. It smelled of motor oil and burned rubber.

Harriet glanced around.

No windows. The only light came from a few bare bulbs, pooling patches in the darkness. A steel staircase rose to one side. Beside it, an old freight elevator stood open.

It all appeared deserted — except for their captors.

A step away to the left Annishen leaned on a table, a cell phone at her ear, standing silent. It appeared she was listening in to some conversation. A pistol lay on the table, next to a pair of bolt cutters and a small blowtorch. Three other men patrolled the basement’s darkness.

Directly across from her, Harriet’s husband sat slumped in a similar chair. Like Harriet, his wrists were in handcuffs. One of the three men stood guard over him with a hand on a holstered pistol. But Jack was no threat. His head hung, trailing a rope of drool. They had stripped him of his pants. He had urinated on himself, soaking the front of his boxers. His left leg, from the knee down, was strapped into his prosthesis. The old industrial accident had stripped so much of Jack’s pride. Nature had taken the rest.

And not just nature.

Harriet felt the weight of the unused pills in her sweater pocket.

Tears welled up and streamed down her face.

Annishen spoke, finishing her call with a snap of her cell phone. She faced Harriet and motioned to another of the guards. “Undo her cuffs.”

Harriet did not object. She lifted her arms to allow the handcuffs to be keyed open. Their weight fell away. She rubbed her wrists.

What was going on?

Obeying a signal from Annishen, one of the men dragged her in her chair over to the table. The loud squeak of steel on cement drew up her husband’s bleary face.

“Harriet…” he mumbled. “What time is it?”

“It’s okay, Jack,” she mumbled tenderly. “Go back to sleep.”

Annishen stepped over to him. “I don’t think so. He’s done enough sleeping. Those little pills you gave him finally kicked in, really knocked him out. But now it’s time to wakey-wake.” She cupped his chin and pulled his face up. “Hold him like this,” she instructed his guard. “He should watch the show.”

Jack did not offer any fight as the man pinned his head.

Annishen returned to the table, wiping Jack’s drool on her pant leg. She nodded to the guard beside Harriet’s chair. He reached over, grabbed Harriet’s left arm, and yanked it hard over the tabletop, pinning her wrist against the wood.

Instinctively, Harriet fought back, but the man just dragged her arm farther, stretching her limb until her armpit was jammed against the table’s edge. She felt the cold muzzle of a pistol against her cheek, held by the third guardsman.

Annishen sauntered over. “It seems we must teach your son a little lesson, Mrs. Pierce.”

She picked up the blowtorch and pulled the trigger on the self-igniter. A blue flame spat out the torch’s muzzle with a sharp hiss. She settled it to the table near her hand. “For cauterizing the stump.”

“What…what are you doing?”

Ignoring her the woman picked up the bolt cutters, pulling the handles wide. “Now which finger shall we cut off first?”

Gray rode in the backseat of a white van. Seichan sat pressed against his side, the pair of them pinned between two armed guards. Nasser faced them from the bench seat ahead, flanked by more guards.

Kowalski and Vigor rode in the vehicle behind theirs. Another two vans followed front and rear, piled in with more khaki-dressed gunmen.

Nasser was taking no chances.

Through the windshield, Gray dully watched the spires of Angkor Wat rise out of the mists ahead, five massive corncob-shaped towers, lit by the first rays of the rising sun. Angkor Wat was the first of many temples spread across a hundred square miles of ruins. It was also the largest and best preserved, considered a Cambodian icon, with its immense jumble of chambers, walls, scalloped towers, carvings, and statues. This temple alone covered five hundred acres, encircled by a wide moat.

But it was not their goal.

They were headed to Angkor Thom, another mile north. And while not as large as Angkor Wat, the walled ruins of Thom housed the great Bayon temple, considered to be the heart of all of Angkor.

A resounding bump shook the van.

Gray caught his own reflection in the rearview mirror. His cheeks were sunken, shadowed, his lips cracked, the stubble over his jaw and chin looked like a black bruise. Only his eyes still shone flinty and hard, fueled by his anger and vengeance. But deeper in his chest, there remained only grief and guilt.

Seichan, perhaps sensing him sinking into a numbing despair, gripped his hand in her own. It was not a tender gesture. She squeezed hard, nails biting, refusing to let him slip away, dragging him from the edge of that well.

Nasser noted her gesture. A shadow of a sneer appeared, then vanished away again. “And I thought you were smarter than that, Commander,” he muttered. “Is she fucking you yet?”

Gray focused back at him. “Shut the hell up.”

Nasser laughed, once, sharp, amused. “No? Too bad. If you’re being screwed over, you should at least get something out of it.”

Seichan slipped her hand from Gray’s. “Fuck you, Amen.”

“Not anymore, Seichan. Not after I kicked you out of bed.” Nasser’s eyes turned to Gray. “Did you know? That we were once lovers?”

Gray snapped a glance toward Seichan. Surely Nasser was lying. How could she…with the bastard who had just ordered his mother’s torture? Just the thought of his mother spilled more acid into his stomach.

But Seichan refused to meet Gray’s eye, glaring instead at Nasser. Her fingers curled into a fist on her knee.

“But all that ended,” Nasser said. “The ambitious bitch. We were both vying to rise to the next station in the Guild hierarchy. The last rung to the very top. But we came to a difference of opinion. About how to acquire you.”

Gray swallowed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Seichan wanted to use her wiles to lure you into cooperating of your own volition, to help the Guild follow Marco’s trail. I, on the other hand, believed in a more direct approach. Blood and coercion. A man’s way. But when the Guild decided against her plan, Seichan sought to take matters into her own hands. She murdered the Venetian curator, stole the obelisk, and fled to the United States.”

Seichan crossed her arms, glowering back in disgust. “And you’re still piss-sore that I beat you to the prize. Again.”

Gray studied Seichan.

All her talk of saving the world…could it have all been a lie?

“So I followed her to the States,” Nasser continued. “I knew where she’d be going. It was easy enough to lay a trap.”

“Where you missed killing me,” she scoffed, “once again proving your incompetence.”

He pinched his fingers up between them. “By a fraction of an inch.” He lowered his arm. “Still, you kept to your original strategy, didn’t you, Seichan? You still sought Commander Pierce out. Only perhaps as more of an ally now. You knew he’d come to your rescue. You and Gray against the world!” He laughed coarsely. “Or are you still playing him, Seichan?”

Seichan merely sniffed in derision.

Nasser turned back to Gray. “She is nothing if not ambitious. Ruthless. She’d step over her own dying grandmother to rise up in the hierarchy.”

Seichan leaned forward, glaring. “But at least I didn’t kneel quietly while my mother was murdered before my eyes.”

Nasser’s face clenched hard.

“Coward,” Seichan mumbled, falling back into the seat with a satisfied sneer. “You even murdered your father while his back was turned. Still couldn’t face him.”

Nasser lunged at her, a hand going for her throat.

Gray instinctively knocked Nasser’s arm away.

Maybe he shouldn’t have.

Still, Nasser pulled back on his own, his eyes sharpened by hate. “Best you know who you’re in bed with,” he said savagely to Gray. “Should be careful what you tell that bitch.”

The combatants settled silently to their corners. Gray eyed Seichan, realizing that for all her bluster she had never denied Nasser’s statements. Gray reran the past days’ events over in his skull, but it was hard to concentrate with his head pounding and fear wormed deep into his belly.

Still, there were some realities that were hard to dismiss. Seichan had murdered the Venetian curator to get the obelisk. In cold blood. And when they’d first met years ago, she had even tried to kill him.

Nasser’s words echoed in his head.

Best to know who you’re in bed with…

Gray didn’t know.

Ultimately, he didn’t know whom to believe, whom to trust.

Gray knew only one thing for certain. There could be no missteps from here. Any failure threatened more than just his life.

Harriet struggled, sobbing in terror. “Please, no…”

Her wrist was clamped in the vise of the guard’s grip, pinned to the table, her hand flattened under the same guard’s fist. The blowtorch hissed a few inches away.

Annishen held the open jaws of the bolt cutter over Harriet’s splayed fingers. “Eenie, meenie, minie, mo…”

She lowered the jaws toward Harriet’s ring finger. The diamond on her wedding band glinted under the bare bulb.

“No…”

A loud crack echoed, startling them all.

Harriet turned her head as Annishen straightened. Two yards away, the guard who had been cradling Jack’s chin, forcing her husband to watch the impending mutilation, cried out and stumbled back. Blood poured from the guard’s nose.

Jack lunged out of the chair, twisting away from where he had just head-butted the guard. As he turned, he yanked the guard’s pistol out of its holster and swung it around in his cuffed hands.

“Get down, Harriet!” he said, firing at the same time.

The guard who had been holding the pistol against Harriet’s cheek took a round to his chest. He flew backward. His gun skittered into the darkness.

The second guard released Harriet’s arm and went for his weapon.

— BANG—

From the corner of her eye, Harriet saw the man’s cheek and ear vanish in a mist of blood and gore. But her full attention was on Annishen. The woman had already dropped the bolt cutters with a clatter and snatched her pistol from the tabletop. She was whip-fast, turning on Jack.

Harriet, her arm still on the table, lunged and grabbed the blowtorch. She flashed the flame over the woman’s hand and wrist. Annishen screamed. Her gun fired. A wild shot struck the cement floor and ricocheted away. The woman’s sleeve caught fire as she fell back, dropping her pistol.

Jack fired again, but pain only made Annishen faster.

The woman danced to the side, kicked the table over, and dove with a trail of flame out a back doorway.

Jack fired another two shots, chasing the woman off — then was at Harriet’s side. He hauled her up, hugged her tight, then hurried with her toward the stairs. “Must get out of here. The shots—”

Already shouts rang above their heads. The blasts had been heard.

“The freight elevator,” Jack said.

Together they rushed toward the open cage, Jack hopping a bit with his prosthesis. Once inside, Jack hauled the gate closed and punched the button for the sixth floor. The second from the top.

“They’ll have the main floor guarded. We’ll head up. Seek a fire escape…a telephone…or just find a place to hole up.”

He pulled Harriet to the elevator’s back corner as the cage climbed past the main floor. Shouts reached them. Flashlights bobbled through the darkness. At least twenty men. Jack was right. They’d have to find another way out or some way to call for help. Failing that, they would have to hide.

The elevator continued to climb.

Jack held her.

She clung to him. “Jack…how…you were so—?”

“Gorked?” Jack shook his head. “Jesus, Harriet, do you think I’m really that bad off yet? I know I had an episode at the hotel. I’m sorry I hit you.”

His voice cracked a bit at the last.

She clutched to him, accepting his apology. “When they zapped you with the Taser, I thought something had gone worse neurologically.” She squeezed him again. “Thank God.”

“Stung like a son of a bitch. But later, when I realized you were only pretending to give me those damn pills, I figured you were trying to tell me to act up, to fake being worse off than I was, so they’d let their guard down.”

She glanced up. “So you were faking all along?”

“Well, I really did piss myself,” he said angrily. “But they wouldn’t take me to the goddamn can.”

The elevator stopped.

Jack opened the gates, waved her out, then closed them again. He reached through the slats of the wooden gate and pressed the basement button, sending the cage back down.

“Don’t want them to know which floor we got off on,” he explained.

Together they headed off into the gloom of the warehouse. It was full of old equipment. “An old canning plant, from the looks of it,” Jack said. “There should be plenty of places to hide.”

Somewhere far below, a new noise rose up.

Barking…agitated, excited.

“They have dogs,” Harriet whispered.

15 Demons in the Deep

IT HAD TAKEN too long to cross the island’s net.

While Monk and his army crept over the roof of the world, the storm’s eye had passed over the island and was headed back out to sea. To the east, the typhoon rose like a mighty wave, ready to crash again onto the island.

The winds were already kicking up.

Monk clung to the bridge’s slats as the net rattled. Thunder boomed like cannon fire, and lightning crackled in shattering displays across the black skies. As the clouds opened up, rain slashed down with whipping snaps.

Clinging white-knuckled, Monk stared below.

The Mistress of the Seas floated in the lagoon, bright and inviting.

Ropes slithered from the net’s underside and snaked down to the helipad atop the sun deck. Monk wished the helicopters were still here, but the birds had flown the coop before the ship had entered the island’s lagoon.

That left only Ryder’s boat.

More ropes dropped, making an even dozen, swaying in the wind.

Ahead, Jessie yelled out orders in Malay. The young nurse was only thirty yards away, but the winds tore most of his words away. Jessie sat on the net, his legs wrapped tight. He motioned and waved down.

The closest tribesmen ducked headfirst through the net, dropping away, like diving pelicans into the sea. Monk spied under the net. The trio reappeared, clinging to ropes. They slid with practiced skill as more ropes were mounted.

Slowly the army began to crawl again, flowing toward the rigged lines and down. Monk followed along the bridge. He reached Jessie as Ryder grabbed a rope and leaped through the net. The billionaire did not hesitate.

Monk understood his hurry.

Lightning slammed into the net’s far side. Thunder clapped, deafening. Blue energies shot outward along the canopy’s skeleton, but it faded before it reached them. The smell of ozone hung in the air.

“Keep off anything metal!” Monk screamed.

Jessie nodded, repeating his warning in Malay.

In another minute, Monk had joined Jessie. “Get below!” he ordered, and pointed down.

Jessie nodded. As he rolled off the bridge, the storm crested the island and blew with a sudden and sharp gale, roaring like a freight train. Jessie, caught in midreach, unanchored, was shoved bodily off the slatted bridge. He rolled out onto the looser camouflaged netting. His weight tore through it.

Monk lunged and grabbed his ankle. His prosthetic hand clamped hard as Jessie fell away. Monk’s shoulder wrenched with fire as he caught Jessie’s weight. The young nurse hung upside down below him, screaming a string of Hindu curses…or maybe it was prayers.

“The rope!” Monk yelled down to him.

One of the rigged lines hung ten feet away.

Monk began swinging the man. Jessie understood, his arms out, hand clawing for the rope. It was still too far. But only by a foot.

“I’m going to throw you!”

“What? No!”

He had no choice.

Monk’s shoulder burned as he swung Jessie one last time. “Here we go!” Monk tossed the nurse underhanded toward the line.

Jessie tangled into the rope, scrabbling for the wet line. His body began falling, sliding, kicking. Then he hooked a leg and found a grip. He braked and halted his plunge. He clung to the rope, his cheek against it. His lips moved in a silent prayer of thanks — or maybe a curse aimed at Monk.

With the boy safe, Monk rolled back atop the bridge and crawled with caution. The winds pounded him, but he reached the nest of rigged ropes.

Another lightning strike blasted behind him.

Monk flattened as thunder deafened. He stared back over a shoulder as the net jolted like a trampoline. The rear of the bridge shattered upward from the strike, the wooden slats on fire. One of the tribesmen flew high in the air, arms pinwheeling, while electric-blue current crackled through the netting to either side — but the acrobat landed safely among his brethren.

Lucky man, but there was no going back now.

Only one way to go.

Monk grabbed the nearest rope and dropped through the net.

He slid down toward the rain-swept helipad and landed cleanly.

The rest of the army followed.

Ducked low, Monk hurried to where the others had gathered near the staircase that led down from the helipad. Jessie was already directing the tribesmen, pointing toward Monk, toward Ryder. They would split up from here. Monk would go after Lisa. Ryder and Jessie would head down, clearing a path and readying the boat.

Behind Monk bare feet slapped the decking as the last of the army drained down from the sodden net.

Monk turned to Ryder and Jessie. “Ready?” he asked.

“As we’ll ever be,” Ryder answered.

Monk glanced over at the raiding party, armed with bone axes and AK-47s. Lightning flashed, limning the army with fire. Eyes glinted from ash-painted faces.

In that momentary flash Monk felt a twinge of misgiving, a moment of unease. He shook it away. It was just the storm feeding his fears.

“Let’s go find my partner, and get the hell out of here.”

Lisa lay strapped to a steel surgical table, tilted at a forty-five-degree angle. She hung from her arms, wrists snugged in plastic ties over her head. Her legs were loose, unable to touch the floor. She wore only her hospital gown. Cold sweat plastered the thin cotton to her skin, while the steel of the table chilled her back.

She had been tied here for over an hour.

Alone.

Hopefully, forgotten.

To one side a stainless-steel tray held a line of tools used for forensic autopsies: cartilage saws, dissecting hooks, snipping scissors, postmortem needles, spinal cord chisels.

Dr. Devesh Patanjali had removed the tools from a black leather satchel, held open by Surina. He had precisely lined each instrument atop a stretch of green surgical drape. A steel bucket hung from the foot of the inclined table, ready to catch the flow of blood.

While he laid out his tools Lisa had attempted everything to dissuade him from the torture to come. She had tried appealing to his reason, explaining that she could still be useful. That once Susan was recaptured, Lisa would lend her full support to derive a cure from the woman’s blood and lymph. Hadn’t Lisa already proven her ingenuity?

Despite her best arguments, Devesh had ignored her. He simply lined up each tool, one after the other, on the tray.

Eventually, her arguments turned to tears. “Please…” she had begged.

With Devesh’s back turned, Lisa’s attention had turned to Surina. But there was no hope to be found there, only a deadened disinterest, her face carved in cold marble. The only bit of color was the ruby bindi dot on her forehead, reminding Lisa of a drop of blood.

Then Devesh had received a call. He answered it and grew plainly excited, pleased with what he was hearing. He spoke rapidly in Arabic. All Lisa understood was the word Angkor. Devesh left, stalking out of the room, shadowed by Surina. Devesh hadn’t even looked back.

So Lisa hung here, not knowing what was happening.

But she knew her fate.

The polished surgical instruments glistened. If she shifted, the blood pail rattled at the foot of the table. She teetered between exhaustion and a keening edge of terror. She almost welcomed the return of Devesh. The waiting, the anticipation, threatened to unhinge her.

Still, when the door finally did open, she cringed, gasping out slightly. She couldn’t see who entered, but she heard the click-clack rattle of wheels.

A gurney appeared into view, pushed from behind.

A small figure was draped atop it, tied down, spread-eagled.

Devesh spoke, shoving the gurney so it came to rest directly in front of Lisa. “Sorry for the delay, Dr. Cummings. My call took longer than I anticipated. And it took me some time to track down our subject here.”

“Dr. Patanjali,” Lisa begged, staring at the gurney. “Please, no…”

Devesh stepped over to his tools. He wore a white apron over his clothes, having shed his jacket. “Now where were we?”

Off to the side, Surina glided into view, hands folded, demure. But her eyes held a rare flicker of fire. Angry.

Devesh continued to speak. “Dr. Cummings, you were quite correct earlier. Your expertise may prove of value as we finalize our study. Yet still, it seems some punishment is in order. Someone will have to settle the debt of blood that I can’t collect from you.”

Lisa stared down at the gurney, at the gagged and wide-eyed figure.

It was the girl, the same child whom Devesh had threatened earlier — then let go and murdered Dr. Lindholm instead. But there would be no scapegoat this time. Devesh intended to slaughter this little lamb, while making Lisa watch.

Devesh pulled on a pair of latex surgical gloves and picked up the cartilage knife. “The first cut is always the worst.”

As Devesh turned, gunfire chattered, sounding distant but still loud.

He paused.

Another blast of a rifle erupted, echoing up from the floor below. “Not again,” he sighed out in irritation. “Can’t they keep these patients restrained?”

More blasts.

Devesh slammed his knife to the tabletop, rattling the other tools. He nicked himself and lifted a bloody finger to his lips. With a deep scowl, he headed again to the door.

“Surina, watch over our guests. I’ll be right back.”

The door slammed closed.

As if caught in the wind from the swing of the door, Surina flew to the table. She collected the cartilage knife and returned to the strapped child.

“Don’t hurt her,” Lisa warned, a threat in her voice, impotent though it might be.

Surina’s eyes flicked with disinterest at Lisa. She swung her attention to the child, raised the knife, and slashed out in strokes of flashing steel — the child’s bonds fell away. The strange woman scooped the child in her arms, to her shoulder, then glided to the door.

Lisa heard the quiet clicks as the door opened and closed, leaving her alone again.

Lisa frowned. She remembered Surina offering a candy to the same child earlier, a rare compassion. Lisa recalled Surina’s eyes when she first came in here, feral and wild, like a lioness. Angry. It seemed this lioness retained some compassion for the most innocent. Perhaps this rescue was some bit of grace to compensate for her other cruelties.

Either way, she was gone.

Lisa imagined Devesh’s rage when he returned, already inflamed by another breakout. There would remain only one person here upon whom he could vent his frustrations. Lisa struggled against her wrist ties. The pail bumped and clanked.

Gunfire continued, some blasts louder than others, coming from different directions. Lisa realized more than one firefight was under way. She searched around. What was happening?

Automatic fire exploded accompanied by crashes of glass, sounding just yards away. More gunshots followed, accompanied by shouts and a strange ululating war cry. The fighting went on for a long minute.

Behind her the door burst open.

Lisa froze.

A half-naked figure leaped into view, streaked in black, nose pierced by a sharpened tusk, crowned by a shock of emerald feathers. He hefted a sharpened blade, bloody to the elbow.

Lisa pressed back against the table, frozen in fear.

“In here!” a familiar voice yelled.

It was Henri.

Boots pounded behind her. A cold blade slipped between her wrists. Plastic ties snapped and popped away. Lisa slumped off the inclined table, scrabbling not to fall. A figure caught her.

He spoke in her ear. “So if you’re done just hanging around, how about we kiss this Love Boat good-bye.”

She sank into the man’s arms, shaking and weak with relief. “Monk…”

Devesh knew something was wrong when a flurry of rifle fire exploded above his head, two decks up. It rang out from the direction of the science wing.

Devesh stood halfway down the lower-deck passage, surrounded by a group of seven guards and their Somalian leader. Blood flooded the carpet here — but they had found no bodies.

Now the gunfire above.

Devesh craned up. Before he could react, klaxons erupted, ringing throughout the ship, sounding the general alarm.

What was going on?

More gunfire blasted above. Again from the science wing.

“Back up!” Devesh yelled, and pointed his cane at the stairwell.

Turning in unison, the guards headed back — but down the hall, a short figure flashed past an intersecting passageway: bare-legged, dressed in feathers and rattling bones, his body daubed in black.

One of the island’s cannibals.

He’d had an assault rifle in his hands.

The guard leader swore.

Gunfire rattled behind them. Rounds tore into carpet and walls. One of the guards fell back as if punched. Blood coughed out his nose and mouth as he crashed to the floor. The other guards flattened to all sides, returning fire. The Somalian dragged Devesh behind him, crouching and blasting with a pistol in his other hand.

But no one was there.

A door to one side popped open. A bone ax chopped down, cleaving deep into another guard’s skull. Then the door slammed closed again. The guard crawled, an ax handle protruding from the back of his head, then dropped flat.

Another man fired into the door. Rounds pounded through it.

But Devesh read the door’s sign: EMPLOYEES ONLY. It led to the cruise ship’s inner passages. The killer had surely fled.

Another cannibal.

The ship was under attack, its defenses breached.

Flurries of gunfire erupted elsewhere on the ship, echoing hollowly down to them. They were losing control of the ship. The Somalian leader stepped to Devesh’s side. The remaining guards stood ready, half facing forward, half backward, wary of all doors.

“Sir, we must get you somewhere safe,” the Somalian growled.

“Where?” Devesh half moaned.

“Off the ship. We can take a tender over to the island town and secure you there. I’ll gather another hundred men, along with stiffer armaments, and return to clean out the ship.”

Devesh nodded. Until matters were settled, he wanted off this boat.

The Somalian led them swiftly back to the stairwell. Alarm bells and rattling blasts accompanied them. They hurried down. They passed four bodies, fellow pirates.

When they reached the level of the tender dock, Devesh paused.

“Sir?”

“Not yet.” Devesh had grown angrier with each level he had descended. He would not abandon the ship without some reprisal. And he knew what to do. He headed down the stairs again.

Toward the ship’s bowels.

To where he maintained a special set of locked wards.

Before he left, he would make matters more difficult for those who sought to take his ship. To fight fire with fire.

The island was not the only source of cannibals.

Susan stood at the fringe of the jungle, staring toward the Mistress of the Seas. Alarm bells rang across the water, along with muffled blasts.

The assault was under way.

She held her hands clenched to her belly, scared, praying.

She heard stealthy noises in the forest around her: the slip of a wet leaf, the squelch of mud. Her escorts closed around her, drawn to protect their queen, but also curious, coming to watch the fireworks.

Just ahead, pulled up on the beach, a dugout canoe rested in the sand, ready to ferry her swiftly to Ryder’s boat.

If it should ever arrive.

The knuckles of Susan’s fingers ached as she squeezed.

Please let them come…

Buried in his poncho, Rakao waited in his hidden blind. He stared through his infrared goggles, watching his team cinch the snare tighter.

He no longer had to wonder where the other escaped prisoners had gone. Minutes ago, another of his guards had spotted suspicious movement atop the cruise ship. Rakao had diverted his attention on his target long enough to roll aside and survey the ship. While he failed to spot any movement atop the ship, he did make out what appeared to be storm-loosened strands of the net weeping down toward the helipad.

Ropes.

With a silent curse Rakao knew what had happened.

An assault over the canopy’s bridge…

Rakao had lived on this island for a decade, rising through a series of bloody coups to assume the leadership of the pirate clan there, whose history stretched back a full century. But he had larger ambitions. Beyond even the spoils of a cruise ship and black-market slaves. There was a wider world to plunder, and the doctor offered him access to it, through an organization that stretched back far longer than a century. Where ambition and ruthlessness were recognized and rewarded.

So when he had discovered he’d been outmaneuvered, Rakao seethed, but he knew better than to lash out. He had the dried tongues of his predecessors nailed to the lintel above the door to his village house. He hadn’t climbed to his position by reckless actions.

Staying focused, Rakao had his radioman retreat thirty yards so as not to be heard, then contact the ship, to warn them of an impending attack. But as Rakao waited, shots rang out — followed by alarm bells. His warning had reached the ship too late.

So be it…

Rakao maintained his position.

If the sneak attack aboard the ship failed, his radioman would let him know. If not, Rakao knew where the victors would end up.

The true prize was here.

Rakao watched his target, standing at the edge of the jungle.

It should not be long.

Monk raced down the last flight of stairs. Lisa followed with a pair of WHO scientists: a Dutch toxicologist and an American bacteriologist.

At the bottom of the stairs a pair of pirates lay tangled in a widening pool of blood. A cannibal stood a step away, motioning for them to leave the stairwell.

He was another of Ryder’s bread crumbs, leading a safe path through the besieged ship. It was a circuitous route down flights of stairs, through a passenger hallway, along the outer deck, even trespassing across a kitchen. Gunfire continued in sporadic bursts of guerrilla fighting.

At least the alarms had finally gone silent.

But was that good news or bad?

Monk led the way across the bloody landing and out into the main starboard hallway. They had reached the lower deck that lay even with the waterline. Ryder’s private launch was on this level. Monk took a breath to orient himself. This deck also housed the ship’s tender dock, along with a theater, day-care center, video arcade, and the Midnight Blue disco. Ryder’s launch was near the ship’s bow.

“This way!” He headed to the right, stopped, turned around again. “No, this way!”

They headed off again, trailing tribesmen.

He spotted furtive movement ahead, rising from a middeck stairwell, not far from the opening to the tender dock. He recognized the shabby uniforms.

Pirates.

Both parties spotted each other at the same time.

Monk shoved Lisa into the arcade. “Get down!”

His group scattered into other doorways or behind support pillars. One of the cannibals took a round to the head, flying back. But Monk’s party outnumbered the pirates. They laid down a continual swath of return fire, chewing down the passageway. Three pirates fell. The tallest shoved a slender man back into the stairwell and fled away.

Monk led a handful of the cannibals forward. One ripped a fresh weapon from one of the dead pirates’ hands and tossed aside his smoking rifle. Another pinched one of the corpses’ cheeks. Not in affection. Just testing for tenderness.

“That was Devesh hightailing it out of here,” Lisa said, joining Monk and pointing down the stairwell as they passed it. “The Guild leader here.”

Monk glanced toward the tender dock. “They must have been planning on crossing over to Pirate Town, to gather reinforcements.”

The thought spurred him faster down the hall toward the ship’s bow. Monk wondered if reinforcements weren’t already headed there, radioed in.

The hallway curved ahead, following the shape of the ship’s front end. As they rounded the bend, Monk spotted the open doorway to Ryder’s private launch.

They’d made it.

Before he could continue, shrieking cries erupted from the hall behind him.

Monk turned.

From the middeck stairwell, a dozen figures tumbled out into the hallway, scrambling, fighting, agitated, half naked in ripped and soiled hospital gowns. Limbs were blistered and weeping. Bloody lips peeled back in savage snarls. Even from fifty yards away, Monk recognized the sheen of madness shining from eyes caked with pus.

“Patients,” Lisa whispered, grabbing Monk’s arm and drawing him back. “In a catatonic psychosis. They’ll attack anyone. Devesh must have set them loose.”

“Bastard.” Monk waved the last of his party around the bend, out of sight. He hurried toward the open door to Ryder’s launch. More cries arose from ahead, past the door, where the hallway curved around to the port side.

Feet pounded in that direction, running toward them.

Monk lifted his weapon — but a familiar figure raced into view, one hand along the outer wall, keeping him upright. Jessie spotted his group, face brightening with relief. He was followed by a clutch of seven cannibals. The last two supported a third, a man bleeding heavily from a rip to the neck. From his green surgical scrubs, he was one of the WHO doctors.

The two groups met at the open door to the launch bay.

“You made it,” the young nurse gasped out.

Ryder, drawn by the commotion, appeared at the doorway with his own escort of cannibals. He smelled of gasoline, wiping oil from his hands on a rag. “What’s happening?”

Monk nodded. “Is your boat gassed up?”

A nod. “She’s ready to fly.”

To the side, Jessie allowed Lisa to hug him briefly while nodding to the other two WHO doctors. “Dr. Barnhardt. Dr. Miller.” He waved a hand to the man in the green scrub smock. “I need help with him.”

The cannibals lowered the wounded man to the floor. Blood, dark and heavy, pumped from his neck wound.

Lisa knelt to one side, the other two doctors on the man’s other side. Jessie already had his shirt off and passed it to Lisa. She bunched it and pressed it against the wound.

The man convulsed once, coughing blood. Then he lay still, unmoving, eyes open. Only his chest collapsed a bit deeper, sagging with death.

Still holding the bundled shirt to the wound, Lisa checked for a pulse on the other side of the man’s neck. She shook her head. There was nothing they could do for the man.

As she had worked, Jessie had related his story, wiping his brow and smearing blood there. “We rescued him. He was being attacked by one of the patients. We had to shoot her. But others are rising up from below. They’re already rampaging through the lower decks and moving up. Hundreds of them.”

Punctuating his words, savage cries echoed amid more shooting.

“Time to abandon ship,” Ryder said.

Monk turned to Ryder. “How many can your boat hold?”

“Six seats…but we can squeeze in one or two others.” Ryder eyed the number of people gathered here.

Jessie shook his head and backed a step. “I’m not going.”

Lisa took his elbow. “Jessie.”

“Someone has to defend the people, the children, still on board. From the pirates, from the madness. The tribesmen are their only hope. And they know me. They’ll listen to me.”

Dr. Barnhardt stepped to the young nurse’s side. “I’ll help him. We’ll attempt to set up some secure barricade. Gather as many as we can. To wait you all out.”

Dr. Miller stared with reluctance toward the open hatchway, then down to the dead doctor. He nodded. “These…these are our people. Our friends and colleagues. We can’t leave them.”

Lisa hugged each one in turn. “Henri…” she mumbled in a half plead to the last one.

The older man squeezed her and pushed her toward the open doorway. “Go get Susan. More than our lives, the cure must be taken beyond the Guild’s reach.”

Lisa nodded and allowed Monk to turn her.

They followed Ryder into the launch bay.

Monk’s steps faltered as he cleared the doorway and spotted Ryder’s boat.

“Holy Mother of Christ!”

Devesh descended toward the darkened stage of the ship’s musical theater. The glittering crimson curtain hung closed. He followed the broad back of the Somalian guard down the theater stairs. After being ambushed and driven away from the tender docks, Devesh and the guard had fled up.

Down was not an option.

Not any longer.

The screams and cries had chased them up the stairwell. Down in the ship’s bowels, Devesh had opened all five storage holds, unleashing the horrors contained within. They’d been feeding on one another, the strongest preying on the weakest.

Over two hundred.

Kept for experimentation.

Devesh had sought to use the unleashed madness to combat the cleverness of the ship’s attackers, to thwart them long enough for him to orchestrate a return to the ship with grenades and machine guns. He would then slaughter the whole lot of them.

He would retake his ship.

But for the moment, he was caught in his own trap.

It was his Somalian bodyguard who had come up with this plan to escape. To reach the tender docks, rather than descending any of the main stairs, the Somalian had led Devesh to the upper balcony entrance of the ship’s three-story-tall theater. They used the theater’s stairs to descend the three levels back down to the deck that housed the tender dock.

The theater’s lower doors lay directly across the hallway from the dock. A short dash, and they’d be motoring away from this hellish battle.

Devesh used his cane to thump down the last few stairs.

The Somalian guard held up a hand and headed to the door. “Stay back. Let me make sure it’s clear.” He clutched a large pistol in his other fist.

He cracked open the door, checked the hall, covering it with his pistol. He waited a breath, then opened it farther. Turning, he announced with relief, “Hall’s clear.”

Devesh took a step toward him — but movement over the man’s shoulder stopped him. One of the feathered tribesmen stepped out of hiding, sheltered within the hatchway that led down to the tender dock.

The cannibal held a drawn bow in his hands.

The large Somalian must have read something in Devesh’s expression. Even before fully turning around, the man began firing blindly.

The cannibal took three shots to the chest, falling back with a sharp cry.

But the tribesman had already let loose his bowstring.

The arrow pierced the guard’s throat, sprouting like some bloody tongue out the back of his neck. The large man stumbled, fell to his backside. Still, he kept his pistol pointed toward the door.

But the cannibal did not rise again, and the hall remained quiet.

Devesh knew he had to take the chance. He rushed to the guard.

“Help me,” the man croaked out, eyes winced with pain, slipping back to one arm to support himself. The other arm trembled to hold the pistol up.

Devesh kicked the man’s supporting arm out from under him. The Somalian fell back, startled. The arrow tip cracked against the polished wood floor. Devesh knelt on the man’s shoulder and tossed his cane aside. He needed a better weapon. He wrestled the pistol from the man’s grip.

But the large man refused to relent, fingers clenched with fury and pain.

“Let go!” Devesh shifted his knee to dig against the embedded arrow.

A loud wooden crash stopped their struggle.

The doors on the opposite side of the theater had banged open behind them. Devesh yanked the pistol free and turned. A figure flew into view, swift on tiny feet, swirling in silk, stained with swaths of blood.

“Surina!”

But she was not alone.

A roil of shapes pursued her, fueled by adrenaline and hunger. They poured in after her. Some slipped on the polished wood, down to knuckles, then up again, bestial in their hunt. But the tangled stumbling slowed them long enough for Surina to gain half the theater.

Devesh scrambled to his feet, both relieved and horrified at her arrival.

He didn’t want to be alone.

Surina flew to his side, one arm sweeping down. Her fingers collected his abandoned cane, and in a breath, wood slipped off of steel. She brandished the sword.

Devesh headed toward the open door. “This way!”

Cradling the pistol in both hands, he leaped over the Somalian, who groaned, only half conscious, blood spreading over the dark wood. At least the man’s body might distract the cannibals.

As Devesh landed, he felt two sharp bites at the backs of his knees.

He took a startled step, but suddenly his legs lacked any ability to hold him upright. He fell to a knee in the doorway, then harder to an elbow, knocking the pistol away. The pain rang up his arm to his skull. From the corner of an eye, he watched Surina rise from a low stance behind him, her sword held out to one side, blood spattered from its tip.

Devesh kicked to stand. But he had no ability to control his legs. He watched blood pouring through the knees of his pants. As Surina slipped past him, he realized what had happened. The bitch had sliced through the tendons at the back of his knees, hamstringing him.

She sailed across the hall and vanished into the darkness of the dock.

“Surina!”

Devesh tried to crawl, dragging his legs.

Toward his pistol.

But other hands fell upon him, drawn by the blood, digging into his flesh. He heard the guard’s agonized scream from the depths of the dark theater. Devesh was dragged back to join him, his palms scrabbling through the smears of his own blood, fingers dug for some purchase, some last mercy.

He found none.

As screams and gunshots echoed down to them, Lisa joined Monk at the bottom of the launch bay’s stairs. She shivered in the damp breeze.

Ryder’s private bay was small, arched in steel, reeking of gasoline and oil. In the center rested what looked like the aluminum tracks of a roller coaster, consisting of a pair of cushioned rails, tilted at an angle and aimed toward an open hatch in the ship’s side. Beyond the hatch, the dark lagoon beckoned, brushed with sweeps of rain.

But it was what rested atop the tracks that continued to hold her partner’s full attention. “That is no goddamn boat,” Monk blurted out.

Ryder led them forward, hurrying. “It’s a flying boat, mate. Half seaplane, half jet boat.”

Monk gaped at the sight.

Lisa was no less awed.

Seated on the launch tracks, the craft looked like a diving hawk with its wings tucked back. The enclosed cabin ended in an aerodynamic point at the bow. Its stern supported two raised propeller engines. And over the top, two wings lay folded over the cabin, tips touching just in front of the upright tail section and propellers.

“She’s built by Hamilton Jet out of New Zealand,” Ryder said as he ran a hand along her hull and led them to the open side hatch. “I call her the Sea Dart. In the water, her twin V-12 petrol engines pump water from the front and shoot it out the stern’s dual nozzles. Once you get her up to speed, all you have to do is explode the hydraulics to snap wide the folded wings, and she sails into the sky…where her rear props keep her aloft.” Ryder patted its side. “She’s quick on her legs, too. Sky or water. Clocked her airspeed up to three hundred miles per hour.”

Ryder held out a hand toward Lisa. He helped her up the steps beside the launch track. She ducked into the cabin. It was not that much different from a Cessna: a pair of seats for a pilot and copilot in front and four more seats in the back.

Ryder climbed in behind her and scooted forward to settle into the pilot’s seat. Monk clambered in last, closing the hatch.

“Strap in!” Ryder called out.

Monk took the seat nearest the side hatch, ready to haul Susan inside when they reached the beach. Lisa climbed forward and took the seat next to Ryder.

“Hold on,” he said to her.

Ryder triggered an electronic release, and the Sea Dart rolled smoothly down the inclined tracks and dumped into the lagoon with a slight jar.

Water washed over the windshield as the boat’s bow bobbed deep.

Lisa immediately heard the rumble of engines behind her, throaty and growling with horsepower. She felt it in the seat of her pants, too.

The Dart began to glide forward across the water with a gentle burbling from the stern. Rain rattled in fits and splashes over the top of the cabin.

“Here we go,” Ryder mumbled, and throttled the speed.

The boat lived up to its name and shot like an arrow across the storm-swept water, throwing Lisa back into her seat.

Behind her an appreciative whistle flowed from Monk.

Ryder angled the boat, skimming over the water as if on ice. He sailed the boat around the cruise ship’s bow, a gnat before a whale.

Lisa stared up at the mighty ship. Away from the gunshots and screams, the Mistress of the Seas looked peaceful, gently aglow in the storm’s gloom.

But she knew the ship was anything but peaceful.

As she settled back, she could not escape a slight twinge of guilt. For Jessie, for Henri, and Dr. Miller. And for all the others. She still felt like she was running from a fight, abandoning the others for the sake of her own skin.

But she had no choice.

Ryder swung the boat and aimed for the island, where they were to rendezvous with Susan. The boat sped toward the expanse of dark jungle, trimmed by a narrow beach.

She silently repeated Henri’s last words to her.

The cure must be taken beyond the Guild’s reach.

Lisa watched the jungle swell ahead of her, the beach stretch wide.

They could not fail.

Rakao watched the strange craft sweep around the cruise ship and speed straight toward his location. Through his infrared binoculars, the boat was a hot crimson smear across the colder water.

He signaled his team to be ready. They were waiting for his first shot before launching the full assault.

Rakao lowered his binoculars and brought to his eye the telescopic sight on his rifle. He fixed again upon his target, the escaped woman. She had stepped out of the jungle, easily discernible now, and waited on the beach.

Rakao heard the rumbling of the approaching boat.

She lifted an arm. Her limb seemed to catch the moonlight as it was raised. But there was no moon.

Rakao felt a chill at the sight. Still, he did not let it distract him. He had a mission here. Answers would come later.

Out on the beach, one of the tribesmen shoved the lone dugout canoe off the beach and into the shallows. He beckoned the woman to come. She crossed to the water, climbed aboard, and sat awkwardly in the back.

Standing behind the stern, the tribesman bent down, ready to shove the woman out toward the coming boat. They did not have long to wait.

The craft swept up, turning smoothly to expose its starboard flank, idling about seven meters out.

The side hatch was already open.

Rakao spied a man inside, braced in the opening.

Perfect.

Rakao shifted his rifle, aimed, and fired.

Monk jumped at the crack of a rifle.

From his perch in the hatchway he watched the tribesman behind Susan collapse into the water. His falling body bumped the canoe, sending it drifting toward him.

A flurry of gunshots followed, tiny flashes of fire in the dark jungle.

Another tribesman stumbled out, bleeding from chest and shoulder. He held an arm out toward Susan in the water, hoping the witch queen could save him. But another crack of a rifle, and his head flew back and the lower half of his face exploded.

He fell to the sand.

This was all a trap…with Susan as bait.

A spat of rounds peppered the flank of the Sea Dart, driving Monk back inside. Ryder swore harshly. Monk scrambled to the assault rifle on the backseat, fumbling around with it.

But a barked shout stopped the strafing of the boat.

In the silence Monk warily crept back.

A man with a familiar tattooed face stood knee-deep in the water. Rakao held a spear in one hand and a Sig Sauer pistol in the other. With his arm extended, he aimed the pistol’s muzzle at the back of Susan’s head as she floated in the canoe, crouched low in the stern.

Susan’s eyes, aglow in the darkness, stared back in terror toward Monk.

Rakao yelled across the water in English. “Cut your engines! Throw out any weapons! Then one at a time, you’re going to jump and swim to me.”

Monk turned. “Lisa, I need you here. Ryder, do not cut those engines. When I yell go, you blast the hell out of here.”

Lisa struggled with her straps but finally freed herself.

Monk shifted his rifle to grip it by its stock and held it out the open hatchway. A single round pinged off the side of the Sea Dart. Rakao barked at the stray sniper, angry. No damaging the merchandise. Rakao must recognize a prize well worth preserving.

Monk climbed into view, exposing himself fully in the hatch. He held his rifle out to one side, his other hand open and high.

Lisa whispered to him. “What are you doing?”

“Just be ready,” he murmured.

“For what?”

It would take too long to explain.

Rakao noted his appearance and stepped farther into the water, his muzzle only a foot from the back of Susan’s head. The bow of the canoe pointed toward the Sea Dart, slightly tilted up from Susan’s weight in the stern.

Monk called, “We’re coming out!”

To demonstrate his sincerity he tossed his rifle to the left in a dramatic underhanded throw. It cartwheeled through the air. As he had hoped, Rakao’s eyes flicked to follow it, the reflex of a hunter toward movement.

Monk leaped a fraction of a second after it. He jumped high, like he was planning on doing a cannonball into the lagoon. Instead, he landed on the tilted bow of the canoe. His weight and momentum slammed the bow deep. The stern of the canoe catapulted up like a seesaw.

Susan flew over Monk’s head — thrown straight at the Sea Dart.

A shot rang out from Rakao, but the stern edge of the boat had clipped the Maori’s hand, sending the pistol flying.

Monk heard a splash behind him as Susan landed.

Then the canoe crashed back to the water, throwing Monk into a sprawl on the dugout’s bottom. He lifted himself up on an elbow. He caught sight of Susan’s legs as Lisa dragged the woman through the side hatch.

Good girl.

Monk bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Ryder! Go!”

But the Sea Dart just idled.

Monk prepared to yell again, when the canoe jarred.

Rakao had hauled into the canoe, rising to his feet. The canoe spun, but he expertly kept his balance. He drove his spear at Monk with both arms.

Monk reacted instinctively. He tried to block the deadly plunge by grabbing its shaft. Prosthetic fingers locked onto it.

A mistake.

A fierce jolt of electricity ripped through his body. He remembered Rakao’s earlier rescue of Lisa, striking out with his electric spear.

Monk’s body clenched with agony. Muscles spasmed with a bone-breaking intensity. Still, he heard the fresh barrage of gunfire pelting at the Sea Dart.

Why was Ryder still here?

Monk fought the electrocution. He should have been killed at the outset as the volts fried through him. He only lived because of the dampening insulation of his prosthetic hand. But now he smelled plastic burning.

Ryder…get the hell out of here…

“Wait!” Lisa screamed over the rattle of bullets against the flank of the Sea Dart.

Lisa lay beside Susan on the floor. She had a view of Rakao, leaning his weight on the spear, trying to drive its electrified steel tip into Monk’s chest. Monk fought. Black smoke rose from his prosthetic hand.

The canoe spun, close…or at least close enough.

“Now!” she yelled.

A loud explosive pop sounded over her head, detonating the hydraulics above. The Sea Dart snapped out its wings, chopping out like a pair of ax blades. One wing cracked into Rakao’s shoulder, sending him flying from the canoe and dumping him in a sprawl into the lake.

The barrage of rifle fire momentarily stopped as the maneuver stunned the shooters.

Lisa yelled into the ringing silence, “Monk! Above your head!”

GROGGY, MONK HEARD Lisa’s command.

It took him a moment to realize what she meant. Something was above his head. One of the wings of the Sea Dart. Trembling in a continuous quake, he gathered his legs under him — and leaped.

He didn’t trust the strength in his real hand. Smoking plastic fingers latched on to one of the wing struts. He clamped tight, twitching a signal to lock down.

Go…

“GO!” LISA HOLLERED, still on the floor, bracing herself against the seats.

Under her belly she felt the twin engines rev. The Sea Dart leaped away, swinging its stern toward the beach as the snipers again opened fire, finally shaken free of their momentary stun.

Lisa watched a stray round strike Monk’s flailing right leg.

Blood burst from his calf. She read the twist of agony in his face. His lower leg hung crookedly as Monk shifted. The bullet must have shattered through his tibia, breaking it.

Thank God, he still held on…

Ryder aimed away from the beach, flying across the water, out of range.

Lisa wanted to weep.

They would make it.

Rakao choked and sputtered his face out of the water. His toes, then heels, found rock and sand underfoot. He stood chest-deep in the lagoon. The roar of a motor drew him around.

The enemy’s boat shot across the lagoon, dangling a figure from one wingtip. Furious, he waded toward the beach. His left arm was on fire, burning in the seawater. He fingered the upper arm on that side, felt the sharp point of bone protruding through his skin, broken by the blow that had sent him flying.

He clutched his spear in the other hand.

Luckily he had not lost the weapon, having clung to it.

He might need it.

Already Rakao noted the flashes of fire under the water, aiming for him, drawn by the blood. He turned his back on the beach and retreated step-by-step. He kept his weapon poised, ready to use it. The shock might sting him, but it should drive the squids away.

Reaching waist-deep water, Rakao allowed himself a breath of relief.

Once out, he would hunt the others down.

No matter where in the world they landed, he would find them.

This, he swore.

Lightning cracked overhead, momentarily lighting the black waters, bright enough to illuminate the depths. A tangle of arms spread wide around his legs. The longest arms winked with a yellow glow. The bulk of the monster rested quietly in the sand only a step away. Then the flash ended, turning the lake into a dark mirror, reflecting the terror in his face.

Rakao stabbed down with his spear, thumbing the charge to full.

Blue fire crackled across the water. He gasped at the pain, like a steel trap snapping closed over his midsection. But it lasted only a fraction of a second — then the spear popped in his hand. With a final zap of electricity and an acrid spurt of smoke, the weapon shorted out, overloaded by his battle with the American.

Rakao stumbled back, splashing, his broken arm screaming.

Had the charge been enough?

The answer came in a slash of fire across one thigh. Chitinous hooks tore into the meat of his leg. He fought as the creature tugged him toward the deeper waters. Its bulk surfaced, rolling an eye.

Rakao stabbed at it. The weapon might not have a charge — but it did have a sharp point. He felt the blade sink deep. The grip on his leg spasmed, then went slack.

With grim satisfaction, he retreated again.

But the waters suddenly erupted all around him with streaks of fire: blues and emeralds, but mostly a blaze of crimson. More of the pack had been lying in wait. Rakao read the fury in the flickers. They swirled like a luminous whirlpool around him.

Something bumped his leg. Teeth clamped to his ankle.

Rakao knew it was the end.

Too many.

His men would never reach him in time.

Rakao stared across the waters at the fleeing boat. He dropped his spear and clutched to a holster at his shoulder. He kept it with him at all times. It held no gun. Only insurance. He twisted the T-handle that protruded from the leather holster and pulled the plunger out.

A tentacle wrapped around his waist, ripping with teeth.

If he couldn’t escape, no one would.

Rakao shoved the plunger as a tangle of tentacles lashed out of the water like flailing whips. From all directions, they fell upon him, ripping cloth and flesh, taking his legs out from under him. He felt his right ear torn away as he was dragged beneath the water.

Still, he heard the explosions, thunder from above, pounding through the water, reaching him as the monsters dragged him deep.

Boom, boom, boom…

Lisa watched the fiery explosions lighting up the island’s highlands. At first, she thought it was lightning strikes — but they exploded sequentially, rimming around the top of the island.

“What the hell?” Ryder called from the pilot’s seat.

Sections of the island’s canopy began to fall in fiery ruin.

She yelled. “Someone’s blowing up the net! It’s all coming down!”

Ryder cursed.

Explosions continued. Fires lit the skies, speeding around the island’s heights. Unless they fled faster, reached the lagoon’s exit, they’d be smothered under the net when it all came down.

“I need to get airborne!” Ryder called back.

That would be a problem.

Concussive blasts lit up the rim of the island.

Monk understood.

The net…

The Sea Dart suddenly sped faster, trying to outrun the explosions. The boat lifted out of the water a few inches as it surpassed takeoff speeds.

But Monk’s swinging weight unbalanced the boat, tilting it. His toes skimmed the waters. Ryder corrected, slowing the speed. They struck the water, bounced, then settled again.

Pain shot up Monk’s broken leg. Still he hung clamped to the strut.

Even if he had wanted to, he could not detach. His tussle with Rakao’s spear had fried the electronics of his prosthetic hand. It had shut down after clamping to the wing strut. He was hooked like a slab of beef in a butcher’s shop.

He twisted around, watching the explosions continue around the island. The entire back half of the net drifted down, raining fire amid the storm’s downpour.

And more of the sky fell with each explosion.

Monk stared back toward the exit to the lagoon, the narrow crack in the volcanic caldera. The Sea Dart had to reach it before the explosions completed their circuit around the volcanic rim and dropped the net over the lake. Monk calculated their odds. Not good. And they’d never make it — not while dragging a side of beef from one wingtip.

“CAN YOU RETRACT the wings?” Lisa called to Ryder.

Maybe they could pull Monk in close, get him inside, then extend the wings out again. All without slowing.

Ryder dashed this thin hope. “Once extended, the wings are locked out! A built-in safety feature!”

Lisa understood. It would not be good to have the wings retract while in midair.

Lisa watched Monk struggling. He was digging at his prosthetic wrist with his good hand. What was he doing?

Then it dawned on her.

Monk must have realized the threat he posed.

“No!” she called to him. “Monk! No!”

She didn’t know if he heard her past the explosions and wind.

Still, he did twist his head and faced her. He pointed toward the lagoon’s distant beach. He yelled something, but one of the thunderous blasts battered away his words.

He returned to his efforts.

Monk…please, no…

DAMN IT ALL…why can’t I let go…?

His fingers dug at the plastic wrist. The toggle that manually released his hand from its wrist attachment had melted. His fingernails tore into the bubbled synthetics.

Finally the toggle snapped open.

Thank God…

He reached a finger inside.

“Monk!” Lisa called to him.

Relenting, he pointed again to the beach. He would make for shore. They had to go on without him.

Lisa knelt in the opening, wind whipping her hair. He read the defeat there, too. There was no alternative.

Monk reached through the open toggle and pressed the release button.

Wrist detached from hand.

He fell, tumbling to the water, skipping along, like a skimmed stone. Then he sank into the depths. He kicked his good leg to reach the surface; his other leg felt like someone had jabbed a burning poker through his calf.

Treading water, he watched the Sea Dart speed across the lagoon, heading for the crack in the caldera that led out to the open sea.

Ryder didn’t hesitate. He understood the sacrifice.

As the last explosions ripped along the rim of the island, Monk stared up. The netting swamped down toward him. He glanced back. Across the lagoon, the canopy fell like a fiery shroud over the Mistress of the Seas, starting at the stern and working toward the bow.

In seconds the cruise ship was swamped under it, caught like a dolphin in a tuna net. And the collapse continued, sweeping toward Monk. He had no hope of reaching any beach. The closest lay five hundred yards away.

In the other direction, he watched the Sea Dart escape into the air, pulling up, lifting off the lake, and racing toward the opening in the caldera wall.

They would make it.

This thought helped settle his heart as the net fell atop him, heavy with cabling and sodden rope. It dragged him down, down, down…

Monk struggled for a way through it, to reach the surface again. But his broken leg confounded him. And the net had folded a bit on itself. He could find no way through.

He stared up at the lights of the cruise ship.

With only one regret…a broken promise…

He’d sworn to Kat that he would return from this mission, and he had kissed Penelope with the same silent promise.

I’m sorry…

He reached one arm up, praying for some rescue.

His hand found a hole in the tangled net. He used the stump of his other arm to force it wider. He kicked both legs, ignoring the pain from his right calf. He struggled to worm through the opening.

Then something snagged his broken leg, latching to his ankle, and tugged hard. Bone ground against bone. Agony lanced from leg to spine. Monk gasped out his last breath and stared down.

Lights in the water streaked up toward him.

Arms climbed his body, wrapped around his waist, over his chest. A rubbery limb clamped across his face, across the same lips that had once made a promise, once kissed a child.

Lights flashed around him as Monk was dragged down, down, down…

Still, he searched up one last time.

As the glow of the cruise ship faded and darkness closed over him, he sent his heart out to the two women who gave his life any meaning.

Kat.

Penelope.

I love you, love you, love you…

Lisa sat in the backseat of the Sea Dart, bent over her knees, sobbing.

Susan sat next to her, resting a hand on her back.

No one spoke.

Ryder fought the winds as he flew the Sea Dart across the open water. The island of Pusat faded behind them.

The storm blew them like a leaf in a gale. There was no use fighting it. They simply fled with the wind, skimming north.

They had no radio. A stray round had punched through the unit.

“The sun’s rising,” Susan mumbled, staring out the window, ignoring the navigation map on her lap.

Her words broke some barrier.

Ryder spoke from the pilot’s seat. “Maybe he made it to shore.”

Lisa sat back. She knew Monk had not. Still, she wiped her eyes. Monk had sacrificed himself so they might escape. So that those left behind aboard the Mistress of the Seas had some chance of rescue, that the world had some hope of a cure.

Still, Lisa only felt numb and dead.

“The sun…” Susan said.

Ryder banked east, skirting around another island peak. Off near the horizon, there was some sign of an end to the night’s storm. The black clouds split enough to allow sunlight to stream toward them. The first edge of the day’s sun peeked above the horizon.

Through the windshield, light flooded the cabin with brilliance.

Lisa stared toward it, seeking some absolution, to bask in the brightness, to let it inside her, to chase away the darkness there, too.

And it seemed to work — until Susan let out a terrifying scream.

Lisa jumped and turned. Susan sat bolt upright in her seat, staring wide-eyed toward the sun. But something in her eyes shone even brighter.

Raw fear.

“Susan?”

The woman continued to stare. Her mouth moved, breathless. Lisa had to read her lips. “They must not go there.”

“Who? Where?”

Susan didn’t answer. Without looking down, she took a finger and placed it on the navigation map in her lap.

Lisa read the name under her finger.

“Angkor.”

16 Bayon

GRAY MARCHED WITH the others toward the massive gates of the walled temple complex of Angkor Thom. The morning sun, low on the horizon, cast long shadows across the south causeway. Cicadas buzzed, along with the morning chorus of frogs.

Except for a handful of tourists and a pair of saffron-robed monks, they had the bridge to themselves at this early hour. The causeway stretched a full football field in length, framed along the edges by rows of statues: fifty-four gods on one side and fifty-four demons on the other. They overlooked a moat, mostly dry now, where once crocodiles swam, protecting the great city and the royal palace inside. The deep moat, bordered by earthen embankments, now languished in emerald expanses of algae-covered pools and swaths of grass and weeds.

As they marched, Vigor reached out to one of the bridge’s demon statues and placed a palm upon its head. “Concrete,” he said. “The original heads were mostly stolen, though some remain in Cambodian museums.”

“Let’s hope what we’re looking for wasn’t stolen,” Seichan said dourly, plainly still upset after the conversation in the van with Nasser.

Gray kept his distance from her. He wasn’t sure which of the two Guild agents was the more dangerous.

Nasser’s team of forty men spread ahead of them and behind, an escort in khaki and black berets. Nasser kept a yard behind them, continually searching around warily. Some of the tourists showed interest in their large group, but mostly their party was ignored. The ruins ahead held everyone’s attention.

At the end of the causeway, thirty-foot-tall walls of laterite stone blocks enclosed the four square miles of the ancient city. Their goal — the Bayon — lay within the enclosure. Dense forest still enveloped the city ruins. Giant palm trees shaded the walls, shrouding the massive eighty-foot-tall gate. Four giant faces had been carved into the stone tower, facing each cardinal direction.

Gray studied the faces, painted in lichen, worn by cracks. Despite the corruption of age, there remained a certain peacefulness in their expressions: broad foreheads shadowed downcast eyes, while thick lips curved gently, as enigmatic as any Mona Lisa.

“The Smile of Angkor,” Vigor said, noting his attention. “The face is that of Lokesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.”

Gray stared a breath longer, praying for that compassion to spread to Nasser. Gray checked his watch. Twenty-five minutes until the next hour mark, when Nasser would order another of his mother’s fingers chopped off.

To stop that they needed some bit of progress to appease the bastard, to hold him off longer. But what?

Gray’s breathing became more pained at this thought. His objectives tugged between two extremes: a desire to hurry forward and discover those clues that would stay Nasser’s hand and an equally strong need to delay Nasser for as long as possible, to give Director Crowe more time to find his mother and father.

Stretched between the two, Gray fought for focus, for his center.

“Look…elephants!” Kowalski said, and pointed a bit too excitedly toward the massive gateway. He took a few hurried steps forward, his long duster jacket billowing out behind his legs.

Past the entrance, Gray spotted a pair of whitish-gray Indian elephants, trunks hanging slack to the stones, eyes smattered with flies. One of the tourists, burdened by a massive camera around his neck, was being helped to mount the great animal’s back, where a teetering colorful saddle, called a howdah, had been strapped. A hand-painted sign stood on a post cemented into a tire, announcing in a variety of languages: ELEPHANT RIDES TO THE BAYON.

“Only ten dollars,” Kowalski read.

“I think we’ll be walking,” Gray responded, disappointing the man.

“Yeah, straight through elephant shit. Before long, you’ll be wishing we paid that ten bucks.”

Gray rolled his eyes and waved Kowalski to follow the trail of Nasser’s men through the gate and into Angkor Thom.

Past the wall, a paved walkway shot straight ahead, shaded by towering silk-cotton trees, whose twisted roots snaked under and over stone blocks. Seedpods from the trees littered the way, crunching underfoot.

The forest grew denser ahead, obscuring the view.

“How much farther?” Nasser asked, joining them, but keeping a yard away, a hand in the pocket of his jacket.

Vigor pointed ahead. “The Bayon temple lies a mile into the jungle.”

Nasser checked his watch, then glanced significantly toward Gray, the threat plain.

One of the ubiquitous tuk-tuks buzzed past them, the main means of transportation, basically a rickshaw hooked to a two-stroke motorbike. A pair of tourists snapped pictures of their legion in black berets, chattering away in German. Then they vanished ahead.

Gray followed its trail of exhaust, picking up the pace.

Kowalski stared into the dense forest of palms and bamboo. His face pinched with suspicion.

Vigor spoke as they walked. “Over one hundred thousand people once lived here in Angkor Thom.”

“Lived where?” Kowalski asked. “In tree houses?”

Vigor waved an arm toward the forest. “Most of the homes, even the royal palace, were made of bamboo and wood, so they rotted away. The jungle consumed them. Only the temples were made of stone. But this once used to be a bustling metropolis, with markets selling fish and rice, fruit and spices, with homes crowded with pigs and chickens. The city planners had engineered a great irrigation and canal system to support the populace. It even had a royal zoo, where elaborate circuses were performed. Angkor Thom was a vibrant city, colorful and boisterous. Fireworks filled the skies during celebrations. Musicians outnumbered the warriors, ringing out with cymbals, hand bells, and barrel drums, playing harps and lutes, blowing trumpets made of horns or conches.”

“A regular orchestra,” Kowalski groused, unimpressed.

Gray tried to picture such a city as he studied the dense forest.

“So what happened to all these people?” Kowalski asked.

Vigor rubbed his chin. “Despite what we know of daily life, much of Angkorian history remains a mystery, or at least remains purely hypothetical. Their writings were in sacred palm-leaf books called sastras. Which, like the homes here, did not survive. So Angkorian history was gathered piecemeal from studying the carved bas-reliefs on the temples. As a consequence, much of its history remains a mystery. Like what happened to the populace. Their true fate remains cloudy.”

Gray kept pace with the monsignor. “I thought they were invaded by the Thai, who trampled the ancient Khmer civilization?”

“Yes, but many historians and archaeologists believe the Thai invasion was secondary, that the Khmer people had already been weakened in some manner. One theory is that the Khmer had become less militarized due to a religious conversion to a more peaceful form of Buddhism. Yet another theory holds that the massive irrigation and water-management system that sustained the empire fell into disrepair, silting up, weakening the city, leaving it susceptible to invasion. But there is also historical evidence of repeated and systematic outbreaks of plague.”

Gray pictured Marco’s City of the Dead. They were walking those same death fields, now overgrown with forest and jungle. Nature had returned, erasing the hand of man.

“We know that Angkor persisted after Marco,” Vigor continued. “There is a brilliant account of the region by a Chinese explorer, Zhou Daguan, a full century after Marco passed through here. So the cure that was offered Marco must have eventually allowed the empire to survive, but the viral source must have persisted and continued in outbreaks of plague after plague, weakening the empire. Even the Thai invaders did not occupy Angkor. They left the vast infrastructure abandoned and fallow, letting the forest take it over. Makes you wonder why? Had they heard the stories? Had they purposefully shunned the region, believing it somehow cursed?”

Seichan had drawn closer during Vigor’s account. “So you’re suggesting that the source may still be here.”

Vigor shrugged. “Answers await at the Bayon.” He pointed through a break in the forest.

Ahead, framed by the jungle, a sandstone mountain appeared, climbing high, stippled by the morning sun into shining outcroppings of dew-damp rock and pockets of deep shadows. Smaller peaks surrounded it, clustered close, massed together into a single crag. The temple reminded Gray of something organic, like a termite mound, an ill-defined pile, as if the centuries of rain had melted the sandstone into this pocked and flowing mass.

Then a cloud passed over the sun, and shadows deepened, shifted. From out of the mass, giant stone faces appeared, pushing forth with their sphinxlike smiles, covering every surface, staring outward in all directions. The initial mass of peaks became discernible as scores of towers, rising in different levels, piled close and tight, each decorated with massive visages of Lokesvara.

Vigor mumbled, “‘Lit by the fullness of the moon, a great mountain towered above the forest, carved with a thousand faces of demons.’”

Gray’s skin chilled. He recognized the words from Marco’s text. It was where Polo’s confessor, Friar Agreer, had last been seen heading, toward a mountain carved with faces. Gray was suddenly conscious of his own feet slowing with dread. He forced his pace back up.

They had followed Marco’s trail here…now it was time to follow the last steps of Polo’s confessor. But where did Friar Agreer go?

As the temple grew before them, a heavy silence fell over the group. Most eyes were raised toward the ruins ahead, but Vigor took the moment to study his companions. Ever since they had arrived at Angkor Thom, he had sensed an unspoken tension between Gray and Seichan. While the two had never been bosom companions, there had always been a strained intimacy between them. And though their arguments had remained heated, the physical distance between the pair had diminished over the past day, a narrowing of personal space.

Vigor doubted either one was aware of it.

But since they’d stepped out of the vans here, it was as if some internal polarity had reversed inside them, repelling them far apart. Not only did they keep well away, he noted a heaviness to Gray’s study of Seichan when her back was turned, and Seichan had grown harder again, her eyes tighter, her lips thinner.

Seichan kept closer to Vigor, as if needing some reassurance from him, but was unable to ask for it. Her gaze remained fixed on the ruins. They were close enough that the true breadth of the Bayon was now discernible.

Fifty-four towers clustered on three rising levels.

But the most striking feature was the number of carved faces.

Well over two hundred.

The morning light shifted with the clouds, creating the illusion that the faces were alive, moving, observing those who approached.

“Why so many?” Seichan finally mumbled at his side.

Vigor knew she was asking about the stone visages. “No one knows,” he answered. “Some say they represent vigilance, faces staring out from a secret heart, guarding inner mysteries. It is also said that the Bayon’s foundations were built upon an even earlier structure. Archaeologists have discovered walled-up rooms, where more faces were hidden, forever locked in darkness.”

Vigor waved ahead. “The Bayon was also the last temple ever built in Angkor, marking the end of a period of almost continuous construction that spanned centuries.”

“So why did they stop building?” Gray asked, moving closer.

Vigor glanced to him. “Maybe they uncovered something that discouraged further excavations. When the Khmer engineers built the Bayon, they dug down. Deep. A quarter of the Bayon is buried.”

“Buried?”

Vigor nodded. “Most of the Angkor temples are based on the design of mandalas. A series of stacked rectangles, that represent the physical universe, surround a circular tower in the center. The middle tower represents the magical mountain of Hindu mythology, Mount Meru, where the gods reside. By partially burying the temple, the central tower embodies Mount Meru, demonstrating the penetration of this magical mountain from the earth up to heaven. Stories persist of both treasures and horrors hidden in those lower levels of the Bayon.”

By now they had reached the end of the pathway. It widened into an open stone plaza. The bulk of the temple rose ahead of them. Dozens of faces stared down. Tourists could be seen climbing about the temple’s various levels.

They continued forward, crossing alongside a row of parked tuk-tuks. Ahead, a small line of roadside stands proffered fruits in all their variety: mangoes, jackfruit, tamarind, Chinese dates, even small softball-size watermelons. Thin-limbed children dashed among the stands, reviving a little of the ancient city’s vibrancy with their laughter and calls. Off to another side, a more solemn group of six saffron-robed monks sat on woven mats, heads bowed, praying amid a cloud of incense.

Vigor added his own silent appeal as he passed, praying for strength, wisdom, and protection.

Ahead, their man Kowalski had stopped at one of the stands. A wrinkled old woman with a perfectly round face stood bent over an iron brazier, cooking breakfast on sticks. Chicken and beef roasted alongside turtle and lizard. The man sniffed at an appetizing skewer.

“Is that soft-shell crab?” he asked, leaning closer for a whiff. The skewer speared something meaty with jointed legs, blackened and curled by the fire.

The woman nodded her head vigorously, smiling broadly at his interest. She spoke rapidly in Khmer.

Seichan stepped to Kowalski’s side, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s fried tarantula. Very popular for breakfast in Cambodia.”

Kowalski shuddered and backed away. “Thanks. I’ll stick with an Egg McMuffin.”

A less picky thief — a macaque monkey — bounded out of the ruins, grabbed an ear of corn from behind the woman, and dashed straight in front of Kowalski. The large man startled back, bumping into Gray, scrambling out of the way.

Kowalski’s hand jerked back under his jacket.

Gray stopped him, pinching his elbow hard, too hard. Gray’s eyes flicked back to Nasser, then away again. “It was only a monkey.”

Kowalski shook free of Gray’s hand. “Yeah, well, I don’t like monkeys.” The large man glowered and stormed ahead. “Had a bad experience with ’em once before. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Vigor shook his head and led them around to the eastern entrance to the Bayon. The stone causeway here was a ruin of jumbled blocks, studded with giant date palms and more of the silk-cotton trees with their snaking tangles of roots. They crossed in a crooked line through the entrance to the first level, passing under the watchful gaze of more bodhisattva faces.

They entered an inner courtyard, framed in galleries. The walls were carved in intricate bas-reliefs, covered from top to bottom in strips of story. Vigor glanced at the nearest. They depicted everyday scenes: a fisherman casting nets, a farmer harvesting rice, two cocks fighting amid a crowd, a woman cooking skewers over a charcoal. The last reminded Vigor of the old woman with the fried tarantulas, demonstrating how the past and present were still entwined.

“Where do we begin?” Gray asked, daunted at the ten acres of temple grounds to search.

Vigor understood his consternation. Even from here, it was evident that the temple was a veritable three-dimensional maze of stooped passages, squared archways, dark galleries, steep steps, sunlit courtyards, and cavelike rooms. And all around, towers or gopuras rose in giant spears and cones, decorated with the ubiquitous faces.

It would be easy to get lost in there.

Even Nasser seemed to sense this. He waved a portion of his men into a tighter clutch around Gray’s group. He sent a few others running forward to take up key positions in the courtyard here, covering all the exits, setting another level of defense.

Vigor felt the noose around his neck, but there was only one way to go. He pointed ahead.

“From a map I studied, the next level from here is another square court, like this one. But I think we should continue directly to the third level. To where the central sanctuary lies. We can get to it by going this way.”

Still, as they made their way around the first level, Vigor paused by a spectacular bas-relief on the north wall, larger than all the rest, covering an entire section all by itself. His feet slowed as he passed it.

It depicted two forces — gods and demons, the same as the statues along the causeway. They were playing tug-of-war with a great snake as a rope. Between them, the snake was wrapped around a mountain seated on the back of a turtle.

“What is it?” Gray asked.

“One of the main Hindu creation myths. The Churning of the Ocean of Milk.” Vigor pointed out details. “On this side are the devas or gods…on the other are the demonic asuras. They are using the snake god Vasuki as a rope to turn the great magical mountain. Back and forth, back and forth. Stirring the cosmic ocean into a milky froth. It is from this froth that the elixir of immortality called amrita will be churned. The turtle underneath the mountain is an incarnation of the god Vishnu, who aids the gods and demons by holding up the mountain so it doesn’t sink.”

Vigor pointed to the central tower of the Bayon. “And supposedly there is that mountain. Or at least its representation here on Earth.”

Gray glanced to the fifteen-story tower, then back to the bas-relief. He trailed a finger along the carved mountain, his brow furrowed. “So what happened? Did the elixir get made?”

Vigor shook his head. “According to the story, there were some complications. The snake Vasuki got sick from all the tugging and vomited a great poison. It sickened both gods and demons, threatening to kill them all. Vishnu saved them by drinking up the poison himself, but in the process of detoxifying it, he turned blue, which is why he is always depicted with a blue throat. And with his help, the churning continued that produced not only the elixir of immortality but also the dancing celestial spirits called apsaras. So all ended well.”

Vigor tried to urge them onward, but Gray remained where he was, staring at the bas-relief, an odd expression on his face.

Nasser came up to him. “Time has run out,” he said, tapping his wristwatch with his cell phone. His voice was thick with disdain. “Do you have any sudden insights?”

Vigor felt coldness flowing from the man amid a dark amusement. He was enjoying torturing Gray. Vigor started to step between them, fearing Gray might react badly and attack Nasser again.

But instead Gray only nodded. “I do.”

Nasser’s eyes widened, surprised.

Gray placed a palm on the bas-relief. “The story here. It’s not a creation myth. It’s the story of the Judas Strain.”

“What are you talking about?” Nasser asked.

Vigor had the same question.

Gray explained. “From what you told us about the exposure over in Indonesia, the disease all started with seas in the area glowing with bacteria. Seas described as frothy and white. Like churned-up milk.”

Vigor straightened, stepping around Gray to view the bas-relief with new eyes. He stood with his hands on his hips.

Seichan joined him. Off to the side, Kowalski remained where he was, studying a line of bare-breasted women, his nose close to the stone.

Gray continued, pointing to the snake. “Then a great poison was released that threatened all life, good and bad.”

Seichan nodded. “Like the toxic bacteria, spewing poison and laying a swath of death.”

Nasser looked unconvinced.

Gray pressed his point home. “And according to this myth, someone survived the exposure and saved the world. Vishnu. He drank the poison, detoxified it, and turned blue…”

“As if he were glowing,” Vigor mumbled.

“Like the survivors described in Marco’s book,” Gray added. “And like the patient you described, Nasser. All glowing blue.”

Vigor slowly nodded. “It’s too perfect to be coincidence. And many ancient myths grew out of true histories.”

Gray turned to Nasser. “If I’m right, here is the first clue that we’re on the right track. That perhaps there is more yet to learn.”

Nasser’s eyes narrowed, momentarily angry — but he slowly nodded. “I believe you may be right, Commander Pierce. Very good. You just reset the clock for another hour.”

Gray attempted to hide his relief, letting out his breath with a slight rattle.

“So let us continue,” Nasser said.

Vigor drew them toward a shadowed flight of steep stairs. Behind him, Gray lingered a moment more, studying the carving. He reached out and ran a finger along the carved mountain — then back to the central tower.

Gray’s eyes met Vigor’s. Vigor noted the barest shake of the commander’s head when he turned away.

Did Gray know something more?

Vigor ducked into the narrow stairs. Before Gray had turned, Vigor had noted something else, something in the commander’s face.

Fear.

“They must not go there…” Susan moaned again.

The woman lay sprawled across the rear seats of the Sea Dart, slipping into and out of consciousness, close to rolling back into a full catatonic stupor. Susan fought to pull away the fire blanket that Lisa had spread over her.

“Lie still,” Lisa urged. “Try to rest. Ryder will be back soon.”

The Sea Dart rocked and bumped against the end of the fuel dock. They had landed in the sheltered bay of a small island, somewhere off the coast of Borneo. Rain continued to pour out of low clouds, but the dark anger of the typhoon had swept away. Thunder rumbled, but it sounded distant and fading.

Still leaden with grief over Monk, Lisa stared past the Sea Dart’s windshield. While she waited, her thoughts slipped easily into recriminations. She could have done more. Moved faster. Thought of something clever at the last moment. Instead, Monk’s prosthetic hand still hung from the wing’s strut. Ryder hadn’t been able to pry it off.

Lisa glanced to the hatch, wishing Ryder would get back soon. He had topped off his boat’s petrol tank and gone in search of a telephone with a fistful of emergency cash he had stored here.

But his chances looked doubtful. The nearby village lay dark along the beach, storm-damaged with stripped roofs, downed palm trees, and beaches littered with overturned skiffs and debris. There had been no power at the dock’s fuel pumps. Ryder had to hand-crank the petrol, passing a wadful of cash to a wet dog of a man in flip-flops and knee-length shorts. The man had left with Ryder on a motorcycle, assuring him they could find a phone near the island’s small inland airport.

The tropical island of Natuna Besar served the tourist trade with its abundant snorkeling reefs and excellent sport fishing. But it had been evacuated with the threat of the typhoon. The place looked deserted.

Most of the islands they had flown over had been in a similar state of shambles.

From the air, Ryder had spotted the airport on Natuna Besar. “Surely someone down there has a sat-phone we could borrow,” he had said. “Or a way to repair our radio.”

Needing to fuel anyway, they had made a landing in the sheltered bay. Lisa now waited with Susan.

Worried, Lisa placed a hand on the woman’s damp brow. In the dimness of the cabin, Susan’s face shone with a deeper glow, seeming to rise more out of her underlying bones than her skin. Lisa felt a burn under her palm as she rested it on Susan’s forehead.

But it was not a fever.

Lisa lifted away her hand. It still continued to burn.

What the hell?

Lisa frantically rinsed her palm with water from a canteen and dried it on the fire blanket. The smolder subsided.

Lisa stared at the sheen of Susan’s skin, rubbing the sting from her fingertips. This was new. The cyanobacteria must be producing a caustic chemical. And while it burned Lisa’s skin, Susan remained resistant or protected.

What was happening?

As if reading her thoughts, Susan squirmed an arm out from under the blanket. Her hand stretched toward the square of weak sunlight flowing through the hatch window. The glow in her flesh vanished in the brighter light.

The contact seemed to settle Susan. She let out a long sigh.

Sunlight.

Could it be?

Curious, Lisa reached to Susan’s hand and brushed a fingertip across her sunlit skin. Lisa yanked her arm back, shaking her fingers. Like touching a hot iron. She again doused her skin with water, the fingertip already blistering.

“It’s the sunlight,” Lisa said aloud.

She pictured Susan’s earlier outburst, when she’d first set eyes on the rising sun. Lisa also remembered one of the unique features of cyanobacteria. They were the precursors to modern plants. The bacteria contained rudimentary chloroplasts, microscopic engines to convert sunlight into energy. With the rise of the sun, the cyanobacteria were ramping up, energizing in some strange manner.

But to do what?

Lisa glanced to the navigation chart on the floor. She remembered Susan’s earlier outburst, pointing down to a spot on the map.

“Angkor,” Lisa mumbled.

Lisa had attempted to convince herself it was just a coincidence. But now she was less sure. She remembered eavesdropping on a conversation while strapped to a surgical table. Devesh had been on the phone, speaking in Arabic. She had made out only one word.

A name.

Angkor.

What if it wasn’t a coincidence?

And if not, what else did Susan know?

Lisa suspected one way to find out. She shifted over and cradled Susan’s shoulders in her arms, keeping the blanket between them. Lisa lifted Susan into the shaft of sunlight flowing through the front windshield.

Susan shuddered as soon as her face touched the brightness. Her eyes fluttered open, black pupils shifted toward the weak light. But rather than constricting in the brightness, Susan’s pupils dilated, taking in more light.

Lisa remembered the bacterial invasion of the woman’s retinas, centered around the optic nerve, direct conduits to the brain.

Susan stiffened under her. Her head lolled — then grew steadier.

“Lisa,” she said, thick-tongued and slurred.

“I’m here.”

“I have to…must get me there…before it’s too late.”

“Where?” But Lisa knew where.

Angkor.

“No more time,” Susan mumbled, and swung her face toward Lisa. Her eyes twitched from the sunlight, shying from it. Frightened. And not just because of the danger to come. Lisa saw it in her eyes. Susan was scared of what was happening to her body. She knew the truth, yet was unable to stop it.

Lisa lowered Susan out of the sunlight.

Susan’s voice momentarily steadied. One hand clutched Lisa’s wrist. Out of direct sunlight, the touch burned, but it was not blistering hot. “I’m…I’m not the cure,” Susan said. “I know what you’re all thinking. But I’m not…not yet.”

Lisa frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I must get there. I can feel it, a pull at my bones. A certainty. Like a memory of something buried just beyond my ability to recall. I know I’m right. I just can’t explain why.”

Lisa recalled her discussion back aboard the ship. About junk DNA, about old viral sequences in our genes, collective genetic history in our code. Were the bacteria awakening something in Susan?

Lisa watched the woman withdraw her other hand from the square of sunlight and pull a corner of the blanket over her face. Did she know it, too?

As Susan burrowed into her blanket away from the sunlight, her voice grew fainter. “Not ready…”

Still one hand remained clamped to Lisa’s wrist.

“Get me there…somehow.” Susan sagged, slipping away again. “Or the world will be lost.”

A loud knock startled Lisa.

Ryder’s scruffy face appeared in the hatch window. Lisa leaned forward and unbolted the lock. Ryder climbed in, sopping wet, but wearing a huge smile.

“I found a sat-phone! It’s only a quarter charged, and the bloody thing cost me the equivalent of a small beach house in Sydney Harbor.”

Lisa accepted the large device. As Ryder returned to the pilot seat, Lisa joined him in front. Even soaked to the skin, he looked like he had just returned from a grand lark, eyes bright with the excitement of it all. But Lisa also noted a serious edge to the man, a hardness around the corner of his lips. Ryder might enjoy his wild adventures, but one didn’t achieve his level of success without a steely core of practicality.

“Satellite signal will be stronger away from the cliffs,” he said, and engaged the jet pumps. With a burbling of the engines, he idled them clear of the rocky heights.

As he did so, Lisa related what Susan had said.

I am not the cure…not yet.

The two came to a consensus together.

Ryder pulled the navigational chart and propped it open on the wheel of the craft. “Angkor lies four hundred and fifty miles due north. I can fly this little blowie there in about an hour and a half.”

Lisa lifted the sat-phone and pinpointed a strong signal.

She had one last person to convince.

“Lisa?” Painter shouted into his headpiece’s receiver. The signal was faint, but most of his boisterousness had nothing to do with a weak connection. It was pure elation and heady relief. He stood behind his desk, back straight. “Are you okay?”

“Yes…for now. I don’t have much time, Painter. Not much charge left on the phone.”

He heard the anxiousness in her voice. He kept his voice firm, pulling back from his elation. “Go ahead.”

Lisa quickly related all that had happened, speaking tersely, as if reporting a terminal diagnosis to a patient, sticking to the facts. Still, Painter recognized a tremble behind her voice. He wanted to reach through the phone and hold her, to squeeze her fear away, to clutch her to him.

Still, as she related an account of disease, madness, and cannibalism, he sank into his seat. His back bowed. He asked questions, filled in some blanks. She gave coordinates to an island. Pusat. He slid the notes to his aide, to fax to his superior, Sean McKnight. A team of Aussie commandos from the Counterterrorism and Special Recovery Team were already awaiting a target, stationed in Darwin, ready to coordinate a rescue operation. Before Painter finished this conversation, jets would be in the air.

But the danger was larger than a single hijacked cruise ship.

“The Judas Strain?” Lisa asked. “Has the disease spread?”

Painter only had bad news there. Early word had cases already being reported in Perth, in London, in Bombay. More would surely come in.

“We need that woman,” Painter finished. “Jennings in research believes such a survivor is the key to a cure.”

Lisa agreed. “She is the key, but she’s not the cure…not yet.”

“What do you mean?”

Painter heard her sigh from halfway around the world.

“We’re missing something. Something tied to a region in Cambodia.”

Painter straightened again. “Are you talking about Angkor?”

A long pause followed. “Yes.” He heard the surprise in her voice. “How did you—?”

Painter told her all about the Guild’s search along the historical trail and where it ended.

“And Gray is already there?” Lisa asked, sounding suddenly frantic. He heard her mumble, as if quoting someone. “They must not go there.” Her voice grew firmer. “Painter, is there any way to call Gray off?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice had begun to cut in and out. Her phone was losing power. “The bacteria are doing something to Susan’s brain. Energizing it in some manner, using sunlight. She has this strong urge to get to Angkor.”

Painter recognized what she was implying. “Like the crabs.”

“What?”

Painter related what he knew about the Christmas Island crabs.

Lisa understood immediately. “Susan must have been rewired in the same way. A chemically induced migratory impulse.”

“If that’s so, then maybe she’s mistaken about the necessity to go there. It might just be a blind drive. There’s no reason to risk going there yourselves. Not until things quiet down. Let Gray play out his game.”

Lisa was not convinced. “I think you’re right about an underlying biological drive. And in a lower life-form, like a crab, it might be nothing more than blind instinct. Crabs, like all arthropods, have only rudimentary—”

She stopped talking. Painter feared he’d lost the connection. But sometimes Lisa did that when she had a sudden insight. She would just switch off, using her full faculties to pursue some angle of thought.

“Lisa?”

It took another moment for her to respond.

“Susan could be right,” she mumbled — then louder, firmer: “I have to get her there.”

Painter spoke rapidly, knowing that they were about to lose the connection. He heard the resolve in Lisa’s voice and feared he would not have time to dissuade her. If she was going to Angkor, he wanted her somewhere out of harm’s way.

“Then land at the large lake near the ruins,” he said. “Tonle Sap Lake. There’s a floating village there. Find a phone, contact me again, but stay hidden there. I have a campaign being organized in the area.”

He barely made out her next words, something about doing her best.

Painter attempted one last exchange. “Lisa, what did you figure out?”

Her words cut in and out. “Not sure…liver flukes…virus must—”

Then the call fully died away. Painter called out a few more times, but he failed to raise her again.

A knock at his door drew his eyes up.

Kat rushed in, eyes sparkling, cheeks bright. “I heard! About Dr. Cummings! Is it true?”

Painter stared up at Kat. He read the question in Kat’s expression, in her whole body, a yearning to know. Lisa had told him. First thing. She had spoken in a rush, needing to unburden herself. Afterward, Painter had compartmentalized it away.

But confronted by Kat, by her hope, by her love, the truth struck him hard.

He stood and stepped around the table.

Kat saw it in his face.

She backed away from him, as if she could escape what was coming.

“Oh, no…” She grabbed a chair arm, but it failed to hold her. She went down to a knee, then collapsed to the other, covering her face with her hands. “No…”

Painter joined her on the floor.

He had no words to offer her, only his arms.

It wasn’t enough.

He pulled her against him, wondering how many more would die before this was over.

They were running out of places to retreat.

Harriet waited for her husband at the foot of the stairs that led up to the top floor. She stood in the stairwell doorway. Jack had gone out to leave more false trails for the hunting dogs. She had already stripped her husband’s shirt and helped him hide pieces of it across the lower two floors: tossed into boarded-up offices, shoved into piles of refuse, hung from the metal drawer in a maze of secretarial cubicles. They did their best to confound the pursuers.

Jack had been hunting all his life. Duck, pheasant, quail, deer. He’d had his share of retrievers before the oil-rig accident required amputating his leg below the knee. He knew dogs.

And he still had three rounds left in the pistol he had stolen from the guard. Harriet sought any measure of hope. But she heard the dogs barking below. Annishen had been systematically clearing each level. She knew they were up here, periodically calling out to them, taunting them.

All the exits were well guarded. Even the fire escapes. No neighboring buildings were close enough to reach. And the entire district looked long abandoned. Not a light shone, except far off in the distance. There was no one to hear a call for help. They’d tried a few dusty wall phones, but they were all dead.

Like the desperate fleeing a high-rise fire, they had nowhere to go but up. And only one last floor remained. That and the roof.

Harriet heard a scuffle, and her husband appeared out of the gloom, dressed only in his boxers, carrying the pistol. He limped up to her.

“What are you still doing here?” he whispered in a hard voice. His face shone with sweat. She recognized that his angry tone only masked his fear for her. “I told you to get up there.”

“Not without you.”

He sighed and hooked an arm around her. “Then let’s go.”

They headed up to the top floor, using one of the narrow back stairs. Below them in the stairwell, a waste-management Dumpster had been shoved down the steps long ago, blocking the way up from lower levels.

It should have been safe.

A low growl dismissed this conceit. A scuffling sounded on the lower landing, from beyond the Dumpster.

They both froze.

“Whatchu smell in there, girl?” a voice barked. Footsteps entered the lower stairwell. A flashlight’s glow flowed up to them.

Harriet and Jack edged to the walls.

The snarling grew more intense.

“Get up there now. Go on. Squeeze on through there.”

Jack pushed Harriet up the stairs. They moved quietly.

Below, the snarling had softened to a heavy snuffling, along with a frantic scrabbling of claws on tile.

“There you go,” the voice said. “Flush ’em out. I’ll go on around.” The voice headed out of the lower stairwell, plainly seeking another way up. A crackle of radio trailed after him along with some mumbling as he reported in.

They were sending the dogs up to the next level.

As Harriet and Jack fled up toward the door at the next landing, a sharp bark echoed to them, half triumphant, half savage. Something large pounded up the steps.

“Run, Harriet,” Jack urged.

She fled ahead and reached the next landing. The door to the top floor lay a yard away, closed. Behind her, Jack missed his footing in the dark and fell. He crashed two steps below. The pistol skated across the landing to Harriet’s toes. She quickly gathered it up. As she straightened, lights through the tiny window in the stairwell door caught her eye.

Flashlights bobbled across the dark top floor.

Annishen called out. “We’ll search through here and work down. Squeeze them out.”

Harriet turned. Jack scrabbled up toward her. Beyond his form, a dark shape rounded the lower stairs and bounded toward her husband. A thick growl flowed.

Harriet lifted her pistol. If she fired, Annishen would hear the shot. Their captors would know where they were hiding and swarm here in seconds.

She hesitated too long.

Snarling savagely, the massive dog leaped at her husband.

Seichan stood a step away as Gray circled the central altar.

It had taken them almost twenty minutes of backtracking and searching to discover the route up to the central sanctuary of the Bayon’s third level. The ten-acre complex was a veritable maze of dark galleries, sudden sunlit courtyards, stooped passages, and precipitous drops. The low ceilings scraped heads, some walkways had to be traversed in single file, shuffling sideways, and many corridors merely dead-ended.

By the time they reached the small inner sanctuary, they were all dusty, covered in sweat. The morning had rapidly warmed, and humidity weighted the air down. But they had reached their destination.

“Nothing’s here,” Nasser said sourly.

Seichan recognized his attitude, read the hard stance to his posture. She doubted his patience would last until noon. Unless there was some real progress soon, she expected he would end things in the next hour. Order Gray’s parents killed. Execute all of them here. And move on.

Ever practical.

No damn imagination.

It made him a dull lover.

Ahead, Gray circled the altar a third time. He was drawn thin, covered in dust and dirt, black hair plastered to his forehead, sticking out in damp tufts. Dried blood caked at his collar, where he’d been pistol-whipped behind the ear by one of Nasser’s men back at the hotel.

He still refused to look at her.

It made her angry, mostly because it hurt, and she hated that even more. She sought that place of cold dispassion where she once easily lived, a dispassion that allowed her to sleep with Nasser to get what she needed, as she’d been trained to do.

Seichan turned her attention to the guards, going practical, strategizing some way out of here. The guards were mostly locals, including many former Khmer Rouge soldiers, long recruited by the Guild, gathered after the fall of the genocidal dictator Pol Pot. They would be fierce fighters. They guarded the four exits to the chamber, heading off in each cardinal direction. More men had taken posts throughout the ruins, discouraging tourists from disturbing them.

“According to what I read about this place, a giant statue of Buddha once rested here,” the monsignor announced, pacing Gray around the altar. Vigor waved an arm across the two rectangular slabs, stair-stepped one atop the other. “But when the religion changed to Hinduism, the Buddha was torn down and tossed into that large well we passed coming up here.”

The only other bits of decoration in the stone room were four more shadowy faces of the bodhisattva Lokesvara. Only these were all gazing inward, toward the altar and its missing Buddha. Kowalski leaned against one face, staring upward.

The great central tower of the Bayon rose above the altar, climbing forty meters. Cored through its center like a chimney, a square shaft cut straight up to the sky above. It was the only source of light.

“This has to be the place,” Gray said, finally stopping. “There has to be a way down from here.”

“Down to where?” Nasser asked.

Gray lifted a hand toward the monsignor. “Vigor mentioned how the foundations of this tower were buried underground. Deep. We need to find some access to those lower rooms. And I wager under the altar would be a good place to look.”

Vigor stepped next to him. “Why do you think it’s important?”

Gray swiped the hair from his brow, plainly weighing how much to say.

Nasser also read the man’s hesitation. “We’re past another hour mark.” He tapped a finger on his wristwatch. “Tick tock, Commander.”

Gray sighed. “The bas-relief we saw earlier. Of the Churning of the Milk. Every piece of the story was important. The snake, the frothing seas, the poison, the world threat, the glowing survivor. But one piece stood out as odd and unexplained. It didn’t fit with the others.”

“What’s that?” Nasser asked.

Seichan saw it pained Gray to speak. Each word came out with a wincing reluctance.

“The turtle,” Gray finally admitted.

Vigor scratched at his chin. “The turtle in the relief represents the god Vishnu, an incarnation of himself. In his turtle form, he supported Mount Meru as it was churned back and forth, to keep it from sinking.”

Gray nodded. “On the bas-relief, the turtle was carved beneath the mountain. Why a turtle?” He leaned and drew in the dust on the altar. He sketched a crude doodle of a mountain with a domed shell beneath it.

He tapped the shell. “What does this look like to you?”

Vigor leaned down. “A cave. Buried beneath the roots of the mountain.”

Gray stared up the shaft of light. “And the tower here represents that mountain.”

Seichan drew closer. “You think there is a cavern beneath this tower. Beneath its buried foundations.”

He answered her, his eyes flicking to her briefly, then away. “The only way to find out is to get down into the foundations — then search for some access to that cavern.”

Nasser scowled. “But what can be so important about the cavern?”

“It could be the source of the Judas Strain,” Vigor said. “Maybe when they were excavating the temple, they broke into that cavern, released something that lay buried down there.”

Gray sighed, tired. “Many disease vectors have appeared in the world as mankind spread into regions normally unpopulated. Yellow fever, malaria, sleeping sickness. Even AIDS appeared when a road was being built through a remote region of Africa, exposing the world to a virus found only in a few monkeys. So perhaps when the Khmer cultivated and populated this region, something was released.”

Gray rubbed his neck. His eyes held a steady stare at Nasser.

Too steady.

Seichan sensed Gray was still holding something back. She studied again his stylized pictogram. The mountain and shell represented the tower and cave. So what else was here? Then she realized.

The turtle itself.

Of course…

Her eyes rose to Gray’s.

He must have felt her attention. He turned to her, casually, but the weight of his gaze was heavy. He knew she had realized what he’d left unspoken. He willed her to be quiet.

She stepped back, folded her arms.

He stared another breath — then away again.

Seichan felt a measure of satisfaction. More than she had been expecting.

Nasser breathed deeply through his nose, nodding. “We must find a way down there.”

Gray frowned. “I had hoped there would be some evidence of a secret passage.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Nasser said. “We’ll blow the entrance.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Vigor said, aghast. “If this is the source of the Judas Strain, it may be horribly toxic down there.”

Nasser remained unperturbed. “That’s why I’ll be sending you all down first.”

To be canaries in a coal mine.

Seichan again matched gazes with Gray. He raised no objections. Like Seichan, he knew that there was something larger than just the source of the Judas Strain down there.

The turtle’s shell might represent the cavern—but the turtle itself represented the god Vishnu—suggesting more than just a cavern rested beneath the Bayon temple. Possibly something else waited for them down there, too.

Gray stepped toward Nasser. “Does that demonstrate enough cooperation to spare my mother for this hour?” he asked, his voice tight.

Nasser shrugged, agreeing. He moved to the shaft of light, seeking better reception for his cell phone.

“I should perhaps hurry, then,” Nasser said, flipping open his phone. “It’s already after the hour. Annishen has little patience. No telling what she might do.”

Harriet remained frozen on the landing.

The slathering dog leaped at Jack’s sprawled form on the stairs. It was impossible to tell the breed in the dark stairwell, only that it was large and muscled. Pit bull. Rottweiler. Jack rolled to his back and kicked out — but the dog was faster, attack-trained. With a growling snarl, it bit deep into his ankle.

Jack tugged at his knee and kicked out with his other leg, square in the dog’s chest.

The dog went flying down the stairs, bouncing hard, still latched on to her husband’s prosthetic leg. Jack had unstrapped the limb, freeing himself.

Harriet helped Jack up to the landing.

Below, the dog struck the wall and scrambled back to its paws. It refused to let go of the prosthetic leg, ripe with her husband’s scent. Angry, confused, it thrashed its head back and forth, tossing drool, shaking the captured limb.

Harriet drew Jack up the next set of stairs, passing the closed landing door. She glanced through its small window. Flashlights continued to search the top floor. That left Harriet and Jack only one way to go.

The roof.

Down the stairs, the dog continued savaging the captured limb, triumphant with its prize.

Jack leaned on her shoulder. He hopped and hauled his way to the roof door. They had already searched the exit and found it chained, but only loosely. At some point, someone had used a crowbar to bend back the lower corner of the steel door. There was just enough room to squirm under the loose chain and through the bend in the door.

Once out into the night, Jack used an abandoned length of pipe to prop the door closed. It wouldn’t hold long. But it didn’t much matter. There were a half-dozen other roof access points. They couldn’t block them all.

“This way,” Jack said, and pointed. He had scouted the roof and discovered an old heating-and-air-conditioning unit, half gutted of equipment. There was enough room inside to hide two people.

But neither held out much hope.

The dogs would scent them out before too long.

They crossed the roof to the unit, circled it to put its bulk between them and the door. Both sank to the tar paper roof, remaining outside the HVAC unit for the moment. The stars shone above, along with a sliver of a moon. A plane passed by far overhead, winking lights.

Jack put his arm around Harriet and drew her close to him.

“I love you,” he said.

It was a rare admission, seldom spoken aloud. Not that Harriet ever doubted it. Even now, he said the words matter-of-factly. Like saying the earth was round. So simple a truth.

She leaned into him. “I love you, too, Jack.”

Harriet clung to him. She didn’t know how much time they had left. Eventually the search below would end. Annishen would turn her attention to the roof.

They waited together in silence, having spent a lifetime together, sharing joy and heartbreak, tragedies and victories. Though not a word was spoken, they both knew what they were doing, fingers entwined. They were saying good-bye to each other.

17 Where Angels Fear to Tread

JULY 7, 9:55 A.M.

Angkor Thom, Cambodia

Gray leaned against the brick wall of the cavelike cell.

Beyond the narrow opening, a half-dozen men stood guard. The closest had their weapons in plain sight. Nasser had ordered them in here while he set about arranging for munitions to blow the altar stone. Gray checked the illuminated dial of his dive watch.

They’d been here almost an hour.

He prayed Nasser was busy enough with his plans to skip his hourly threat against his parents. Something had certainly upset Nasser — beyond the delay in obtaining armaments. After sending them here, he had stormed off, phone to his ear. Gray had overheard the mention of a cruise ship. It had to concern the scientific leg of the Guild’s operation. Painter had related the story of the hijacked ship and the unknown whereabouts of Monk and Lisa.

Something had plainly gone wrong.

But was that good news or bad regarding the fate of his friends?

Gray shoved off the wall and paced the length of the cell. Seichan sat on a stone bench next to Vigor.

Kowalski leaned near the opening. One of the guards had a rifle pointed at his stomach, but he ignored it. He spoke as Gray neared. “I just saw some guy climb past with a jackhammer.”

“They must be about ready,” Vigor said, and stood up.

“What’s taking so long?” Gray asked.

Seichan answered, still seated. “Bribes take time.”

Gray glanced back to her.

She explained, “I heard some shouting in Khmer. Nasser’s men are clearing the ruins of tourists, chasing them off. It seems the Guild has rented the Bayon for the remainder of this private party. It’s a poor region. It wouldn’t take much to get the local officials to look the other way.”

Gray had already guessed as much. The guards were no longer making any effort to hide their weapons.

Vigor leaned a palm on a column near the door. “Nasser must have convinced the Guild of the value in investigating the historical trail a bit longer.”

Gray suspected it was something more than that. He remembered the agitation concerning the cruise ship. If something had befallen the scientific trail, the value of the historical trail would be that much more important.

He had confirmation a moment later.

Nasser shoved through the guards. The earlier fury of his manner had died back down to his usual cold cunning. “We’re ready to proceed. But before we continue, it seems we’ve crossed another hour mark.”

Gray’s stomach muscles tightened.

Vigor came to his defense. “You’ve locked us up all this time. Surely you can’t expect us to have any further insight.”

Nasser cocked an eyebrow. “That’s not my concern. And Annishen grows impatient. She certainly needs something to entertain her.”

“Please,” Gray said. The word slipped out before he could stop it.

Nasser’s eyes sparked with amusement, allowing Gray to stew.

“Don’t be an ass, Amen,” Seichan said behind them. “If you’re going to do it, then do it.”

Gray’s fist squeezed. He had to resist swinging on her, to shut her up. He didn’t need Nasser antagonized. Not now.

The cool lines of Nasser’s brow had knotted up in anger. He raised his fingers and smoothed them out, refusing to rise to her bait. He turned away and headed back through his guards. He didn’t say a word.

“Nasser!” Gray called back to him, his voice cracking.

“If we skip this hour,” Nasser answered without turning, “I’ll expect even greater results once we penetrate the altar. Anything less, I’ll take more than a finger from your mother. It’s time we lit a larger fire under you, Commander Pierce.”

Nasser raised an arm, and the guards brought them out of the cell.

Seichan crossed past Gray, bumping his shoulder. Her words were low, barely discernible. “I was testing him.”

She continued past.

Gray, caught in her wake, followed — then edged next to her.

She spoke under her breath without looking at him. “He was bluffing…I could tell.”

Gray bit back an angry retort. She was risking his parents’ lives.

She glanced aside at him, perhaps sensing his anger. Even her words responded in kind, going harder. “What you must ask yourself, Gray, is why? Why is he bluffing?”

Gray relaxed his jaw. It was a good question. The back of her hand brushed his. He reached a finger toward her wrist, to acknowledge the merit. But she had already stepped beyond his reach.

Nasser led them back to the central sanctuary. The demolition team had been hard at work. Holes had been drilled into the massive, double slab of sandstone. Wires trailed out, winding together into a single braid. At the four exits, men stood with red fire extinguishers strapped to their backs.

Gray frowned. What did they expect to burn? It was all stone.

Nasser spoke to a dwarfish man wearing a vest full of tools and a coil of wire over one shoulder, plainly the demolition expert. Nasser got a nod from the man.

“We’re ready,” Nasser announced.

They were marched down the western exit and around the corner.

Vigor somewhat resisted. “An explosion could bring all this down on top of us.”

“We know that, Monsignor,” Nasser said, and lifted a radio to his lips. He gave the go order.

A moment later a sonorous thud as loud as a thunderclap thumped chest and ears. Once. Along with a fiery flash. Then a sharp acrid scent rolled over them, burning both nose and throat.

Vigor coughed. Gray waved a hand in front of his face.

“What the hell was that?” Kowalski asked, spitting into a corner to rid himself of the taste.

Nasser ignored him and led them forward.

He followed one of the men with the fire extinguishers. The man pulled down a face mask and triggered his hose. A foggy stream jetted out, spraying floors, walls, and ceilings. The narrow passageway filled with a cloud of fine powder, coating every surface.

Nasser led them back to the sanctuary.

Through the fog Gray noted other men with extinguishers converging on the chamber ahead. Under their combined spray, the view into the sanctuary momentarily clouded over. Gray could barely discern the four men spraying.

Nasser held them up.

After another half minute the spraying stopped, and the dust literally settled. The room, still foggy, reappeared. Sunlight streamed from the tower’s chimney.

Nasser took them forward. “Neutralizing base,” he explained, waving the residual dust from his face.

“Neutralizing what?” Gray asked.

“Acid. The demolition holds an incendiary charge paired with a corrosive acid. Engineered by the Chinese during the building of the Three Gorges Dam. Minimum concussion, maximum damage.”

Gray entered the chamber behind Nasser and gaped at the sight.

The walls were covered in white powder, but the change was dramatic. The four bodhisattva faces looked like someone had melted their features away. What once had been beatific visages were now ruins of slag. The floors were equally scoured, as if someone had taken a sandblaster to them.

The altar in the center, lit from above, was a cracked ruin. One corner section had fallen through into a lower chamber.

Some space was definitely under there.

Most of the slab still held.

Another demolition-team member stepped into the chamber, bearing aloft a sledge. Nasser signaled him forward. Another man followed, dragging a jackhammer.

Just in case.

The first man swung his sledge, smashing square in the center. Fiery sparks blasted out from around the hammer’s head, and the great mass of sandstone gave way.

The altar tumbled into the pit.

Susan screamed, arching up out of the backseat.

Lisa, strapped in the copilot’s seat, jarred around. She had been staring down at the expanse of the great inland lake as the Sea Dart circled, readying to land. Below, a floating village drifted from the shoreline, a tangled accumulation of Vietnamese junks and houseboats.

It was where Painter had told her to go into hiding. The fishing village lay twenty miles from Angkor. Out of harm’s way.

Lisa fumbled with her seat harness as Susan wailed. Freeing herself, she stumbled to the back of the plane.

Susan thrashed out of the fire blanket, gasping. “Too late! We’re too late!”

Lisa gathered the blanket and urged her to lie down. She had been sleeping quietly for the whole ride here. What had happened?

Susan clawed out a hand and grabbed Lisa’s forearm. The grip seared her skin, burning away the fine hairs.

Lisa yanked her arm away. “Susan, what’s wrong?”

Susan pulled herself up in the seat. The wildness in her eyes ebbed slightly, but she continued to quake all over. She swallowed hard.

“We must get there.” She mumbled her usual mantra.

“We’re landing now,” Lisa said, trying to calm her. She even felt the Sea Dart bank downward.

“No!” Susan reached again for her, but then withdrew her hand, noting Lisa shying away. Her fingers curled and slipped back under the fire blanket. She took a shuddering breath. Her eyes rose to Lisa’s. “We’re too far. Lisa, I know how this sounds. But we have only minutes left. Ten or fifteen at most.”

“Left for what?”

Lisa remembered her earlier conversation with Painter, about the Christmas Island crabs, about chemically induced neurological changes, triggering manic migratory urges. But in the sophisticated mind of a human, what did those same chemicals do? What other changes were wrought? Could Susan’s urges be trusted?

“If I don’t get there…” Susan said, shaking her head as if trying to jar a memory loose. “They’ve opened something. I can feel the sunlight. Like fiery eyes burning into me. All I know…and I know it in my bones…if I’m not there in time, there will be no cure.”

Lisa hesitated, glancing back to Ryder.

The lake rose up as the Sea Dart swept downward.

Susan moaned. “I didn’t ask for this.”

Lisa heard the grief in her words, sensing that the pain encompassed more than the biological burden. Susan had lost her husband, her world.

She turned back to the woman.

Susan’s face shone with a blur of emotions: fear, grief, desperation, and a deep loneliness.

Susan placed her palms together. “I’m not a crab. Can’t you see that?”

Lisa did.

She swung around and called to Ryder. “Pull up!”

“What?” Ryder glanced back.

Lisa motioned her thumb in the air. “Don’t land! We have to get closer to the ruins.” She clambered up and used the seat backs to pull herself up to the copilot seat. “There’s a river that runs through the town of Siem Reap.”

She sank into the seat. She had studied the navigational maps of the region. The town still lay six miles or so away. She remembered Susan’s warning.

Ten or fifteen minutes at most.

Would that be close enough? Her own blood was now ignited by the urgency. It took her another breath to realize why. Susan’s last words.

I’m not a crab.

Susan didn’t know anything about the Christmas Island land crabs. Lisa hadn’t spoken aloud about Painter’s conversation, not even with Ryder. Maybe in her stupor, Susan had overheard her end of the discussion. But Lisa couldn’t recall if she’d used the word crab.

Either way, she flipped open the nav-chart and searched.

They needed somewhere closer to land.

Another lake or river…

“Or here,” she said aloud, pulling the chart closer.

“What’s that, lass?” Ryder asked. He dragged up the Sea Dart’s nose and sent them sailing high over the lake.

Lisa flipped the chart toward him and tapped at it. “Can you land here?”

Ryder’s eyes widened. “Are you bloody crazy?”

She didn’t answer. Mostly because she didn’t know the answer.

Ryder’s face split into the wide grin. “What the hell! Let’s give it a try!” Ever up for a thrill, he reached and patted her thigh. “I like the way you think. How firm is that relationship of yours back home?”

Lisa leaned back into the seat. After Painter heard about this…She shook her head. “We’ll see.”

“Sir, that GPS lock that you had me tracking, it’s moving off course.”

Painter swung around. He had been coordinating with the Australian Counterterrorism and Special Recovery Team. They had arrived on-site at the island of Pusat fifteen minutes ago, proceeding to the coordinates Lisa had left. Early intel from the island remained confusing. The Mistress of the Seas was found burning, wrapped in a tangle of netting and steel cable. It listed almost forty-five degrees. A major firefight was under way aboard ship.

Kat sat on his other side, earphones in place, holding them with both hands. She had refused to go home. Not until she knew for sure. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she remained focused, surviving on a thin hope. Maybe, somehow, Monk was still alive.

“Sir,” the technician said, pointing to another screen. It showed a map of Cambodia’s central plateau. A large lake spread in the middle. A small blip crept in tiny pixilated jumps across the screen, tracking the Sea Dart.

While the seaplane had been circling near the shoreline a moment ago, it now headed away from the lake.

“Where are they going?” Painter asked. He watched a few seconds more, getting a trajectory. He extended it with a finger. Their air path led in a beeline straight toward Angkor.

What are they doing?

Motion at the door drew Painter’s eye. His aid, Brant, flew into the room, braking his wheelchair with a squeal of rubber on linoleum.

“Director Crowe, I tried to reach you,” he gasped out. “Couldn’t. Figured you were still conferencing with Australia.”

Painter nodded. He had been.

Brant grabbed a fax crumpled in his lap and held it out.

Painter took it and scanned it once quickly, then a second time more carefully. Oh God…

He headed to the door, bumping past Brant. He paused, turned. “Kat?”

“Go. I’ve got it covered.”

He glanced back to the screen map of Cambodia, to the tiny blip edging toward the ruins of Angkor.

Lisa, I hope you know what you’re doing.

He fled out of the room and ran for his office.

For the moment, she was on her own.

“Hang on!” Ryder warned — though it sounded more like a war cry.

Lisa clutched tight to the arms of her seat.

Ahead, the giant beehive-shaped black towers of Angkor Wat rose into the sky. But the spectacular temple, sprawled over a square mile, was not their goal.

Ryder dipped the Sea Dart toward the man-made stretch of green water off to one side. The moat of Angkor Wat. Unlike Angkor Thom, it still held water. Its entire length around the temple stretched four miles, leaving a mile of straight water on each side. The only problem—

“Bridge!” Lisa yelled.

“Is that what you call it?” Ryder commented sarcastically. He had a cigar clamped in his teeth. He blew a stream of smoke out the corner of his lips.

It was his only cigar, kept stashed for emergencies like this. As Ryder had said before he lit up, “even a condemned man is allowed one last smoke.”

The billionaire soared over the moat, shifting their flight path’s elevation up and down a bit, just enough to clear the bridge.

Lisa held her breath as they swept over. Tourists parted to either side.

Then they were over, and Ryder dropped the Sea Dart fast, skimming the moat and trailing a plume of water. Then they settled deeper, still going fast as the plane became a boat. Their momentum propelled them toward the far corner, too fast to make the turn.

The earthen embankment at the end swept toward them.

Ryder pulled a crank in the floor. “This is called a Hamilton Turn! Hold tight!”

With a puff of smoke, he yanked and twisted the wheel.

The Sea Dart spun, as if on ice, throwing its back end fully around. The twin engines roared as its rear jets braked them. The craft slowed.

Lisa cringed, still expecting to slam into the embankment.

Instead, Ryder turned the wheel and slipped the boat sideways. The Sea Dart plowed a wave right to the edge of the sloped embankment and bumped to a gentle stop.

Ryder sighed out a stream of smoke and cut the engines. “Lord, that was bloody fun.”

Lisa immediately unbuckled and went to Susan.

“Hurry,” Susan said, struggling.

Lisa helped the woman undo her belt. Ryder followed and cranked the hatch open.

“You know what you need to do?” Lisa asked him as they tumbled out into the shallow water and waded the few steps to the embankment.

Already shouts arose all around.

“You told me sixteen times,” Ryder said. “Find a phone, call your director, let him know what you’re doing, where you’re going.”

They clambered up the slope to a road that crossed alongside the moat. Susan remained wrapped in the blanket, holding it clutched shut, wearing sunglasses, attempting to keep as much of the sun’s power away from her.

People pointed and called out.

Ryder hailed a passing vehicle. It was nothing more than a motorcycle hauling a small roofed cart. Ryder held up a fistful of cash, the universal language for stop. The vehicle’s driver was fluent in that language. He jerked his motorcycle around and swerved straight to them.

Once it had stopped Ryder helped Lisa and Susan inside the rear cart and closed the tiny door. “The tuk-tuk will take you straight to that temple. Be careful.”

“Just reach Painter,” Lisa said.

He waved them off, like signaling the start of a race.

Obeying, the motorcycle sped away, dragging them behind it.

Lisa craned back. Already, uniformed police converged on Ryder, zipping up on their own motorcycles. Ryder waved his cigar, making a scene.

No one paid attention to their little tuk-tuk.

Lisa settled back.

Beside her, Susan remained cocooned in her blanket. A single word flowed out. “Hurry.”

On his knees, Gray stared over the rim and down the circular stone shaft. Forty feet below, a face stared back up at him. Another of the stone bodhisattvas. It rose from the floor’s surface, carved out of a single giant block of sandstone. The sunlight from the tower chimney shot a square shaft of light, sparkling with dust motes, down into the pit and bathed the dark stone face in warm sunlight.

The enigmatic smile welcomed.

To the side, a rolled-up caving ladder made of steel cable and aluminum rungs was dumped off the lip of the shattered altar. It unreeled with a rattle into the depths and struck the foundation floor. The upper end was bolted with carabiners to the stone roof of the sanctuary.

Nasser walked over to Gray. “You’ll go down first. Followed by one of my men. We’ll keep your friends up here for now.”

Gray wiped the powder from his hands and stood. He crossed to mount the ladder. Vigor stood against the wall, his face dour. Gray imagined the monsignor’s dark countenance was not solely from their situation. As an archaeologist, Vigor had to find the desecration here professionally abhorrent.

On Vigor’s other side, Kowalski and Seichan simply awaited their fate.

Gray nodded to the three of them and began the long climb down. Rather than dusty, the pit smelled dank. The first thirty feet was a narrow stone shaft about seven feet wide, lined by blocks, not unlike a large well. But in the last ten feet, the walls angled away, creating a barrel-shaped vault, forty feet across and perfectly circular.

“Stay in sight!” Nasser called down.

Gray glanced up at the ring of rifles pointed at him. One of the soldiers was already on the ladder heading down. Gray jumped to the floor, landing near the bodhisattva’s stone face.

He stared around. Four massive pillars studded the vault, equally spaced. Possibly load-bearing pylons for the tower above. Supporting this, the floor underfoot was not stone blocks. It was solid limestone. They’d hit bedrock. Here was definitely the structural foundation for the Bayon.

The clanking of the ladder drew his attention back up as the soldier approached. Gray considered jumping him and grabbing his rifle. But then what? His friends were still above; his parents were still under Nasser’s fist. So instead, he stepped over to the carved face. He circled it. It was carved sandstone like all the others. It rested flat on its back, staring up, sculpted out of a single waist-high block.

The face appeared no different from the others: same upturned corners of the lips, same wide nose and forehead, and those shadowed, brooding eyes.

The guard dropped to the floor, landing hard on his boots.

Gray straightened — then caught it out of the corner of his eye.

He turned back, noting something odd about the face, about those brooding eyes. Dark circles lay in the center of each, like pupils. Even the sunlight could not dispel them.

Gray had to lean atop the stone cheek to investigate. He reached a hand across and probed the dark pupil with a finger.

“What are you doing?” Nasser called down.

“There are holes! Drilled into the eyes, where pupils should be. I think they may pass clean through the face.”

Gray searched up. Sunlight flowed down the tower’s chimney, and with the altar removed, the beam struck the face hidden here.

But did the light travel even deeper?

He climbed higher onto the face, sprawling across it. He leaned his own eye to peer into the pupil of the stone god. Closing his other eye, he cupped around the sandstone eyeball. It took a moment for his vision to adjust.

Far below, lit by the sunlight passing through the other pupil, he could see a shimmer of water. A pool at the bottom of a cavern. Gray could almost imagine the vaulted space, domed like the shell of a turtle.

“What do you see?” Nasser called down.

Gray rolled away, onto his back, staring up from the bottom of the well.

“It’s here! The cavern! Under the stone face!”

Like the altar stone above, the bodhisattva guarded a hidden doorway.

Gray remembered Vigor’s explanation for the hundreds of stone faces. Some say they represent vigilance, faces staring out from a secret heart, guarding inner mysteries. But as Gray lay there, he also remembered another man’s words, much older and more forbidding, from Marco’s text, the very last line of his story.

The words chilled through him.

The gateway to Hell was opened in that city; but I know not if it was ever closed.

Gray stared up at the shattered altar and knew the truth.

It had been closed, Marco.

But now they were opening it again.

The tuk-tuk stopped at the end of a paved road.

Lisa climbed out.

The way ahead was a jumbled stone plaza, half uprooted by giant trees. Beyond the plaza, the Bayon rose, framed in jungle, a jagged cluster of sandstone towers, covered with crumbling faces, etched with lichen, riddled with cracks.

A few tourists gathered on the plaza, taking pictures. A pair of Japanese men approached their tuk-tuk, plainly wanting to commandeer their vehicle once Lisa and Susan had vacated it. One man bowed his head toward Lisa. He lifted an arm toward the temple and spoke in Japanese.

Lisa shook her head, not understanding.

He smiled shyly, bowed his head again, and struggled out one word of English. “Closed.”

Closed?

Lisa helped Susan out of the tuk-tuk, still wrapped head to toe in the blanket. Only a pair of sunglasses stared out. Lisa felt the tremble through the blanket as she supported Susan’s elbow.

The tourist motioned to the tuk-tuk, silently requesting if they might take it. Lisa nodded and hobbled away with Susan across the uneven plaza of stone blocks. Ahead, Lisa spotted men inside the temple: leaning on towers, standing above gateways, patrolling atop walls. They all wore khaki and black berets.

Was it the Cambodian army?

Susan dragged her forward, plodding purposefully toward the eastern gate. A pair of men in berets stood guard. They had rifles on their shoulders. Lisa saw no insignias. The man on the left, plainly Cambodian, bore a set of raked scars down one side of his face. The other, similarly attired, was Caucasian, leather-skinned with a scruffy growth of beard. Both men’s eyes were diamond hard.

These were not members of the Cambodian army.

Mercenaries.

“The Guild,” Lisa whispered, remembering the intelligence Painter had passed to her regarding Gray’s capture. They’re already here.

Lisa tugged Susan to a stop, but the woman struggled to pull away, to continue on.

“Susan, we can’t hand you back over to the Guild,” Lisa said.

Especially not after Monk gave his life to free you.

Susan’s voice was muffled through her blanket, but it sounded firm. “No choice…I must…without the cure, all will be lost…” Susan shook her head. “…one chance. The cure must be forged.”

Lisa understood. She remembered Devesh’s warning and Painter’s confirmation. The pandemic was already spreading. The world needed the cure before it was too late. Even if it landed in the hands of the Guild, it had to be brought forth. They’d deal with the consequences after that.

Still…

“Are you sure there’s no other way?” Lisa asked.

Susan’s words trembled with fear and grief. “I wish to God there was. We may already be too late.” She gently removed Lisa’s hand from her sleeve and stumbled forward, plainly intending to go alone.

Lisa followed. She also had no choice.

They approached the guarded gateway. Lisa did not know how they would talk themselves through the barricade.

But apparently Susan had a plan.

She shed her blanket, letting it drop away at her heels. In the brightness of the sun, she looked no different from anyone else, only perhaps more pale, her skin thin and wan. She clawed away the sunglasses and turned to stare into the full face of the sun.

Lisa watched Susan’s body quake, imagining the blinding brunt striking through the woman’s pupils, to the optic nerve, to her brain.

But apparently it still was not enough.

Susan ripped away her blouse, exposing more skin to the sunlight. She unbuttoned her pants, and as gaunt as she was from her weeks in stupor, they fell away. In only her bra and panties, Susan approached the gate.

The guards did not know what to make of the near-naked woman. Still, they stepped forward to block the way. The Cambodian soldier waved them off in sharp, piercing words. “D’tay! Bpel k’raowee!”

Susan ignored him and continued, intending to pass between them.

The other guard grabbed the woman’s shoulder, half turning her. His stoic expression clenched, agonized. He whipped his hand back. His palm was seared a beet red; his fingertips trailed blood as he fell back and collapsed against the wall.

The Cambodian hauled up his rifle, pointing it at the back of Susan’s head as she continued past.

“Don’t!” Lisa shouted.

The rifleman glanced back at her.

“Take us!” she said, struggling for the name Painter had used in relating Gray’s story. Then she remembered. “Take us to Amen Nasser!”

“Come see this!” Vigor called, unable to keep the amazement from his voice. He glanced back, searching for the others.

Gray stood a few yards away, examining one of the foundation pillars. The pylons were stacks of unmortared sandstone disks, a foot thick and a full three feet across. Gray fingered several deep cracks, stress fractures of an aging spine.

Off in the room’s center, Seichan and Kowalski stood by the stone face, watching Nasser’s demolition team prepare the carved block.

Again the sharp, grinding whine of a diamond drill bit rang out, echoing loudly in the barrel vault. Another inch-thin bore was cored a foot into the face. Already charges were being packed into the other holes and wired up, twice as many as they had used for the altar. Ropes hung down to ferry equipment and explosives up and down the well.

A shaft of bright sunlight illuminated their labors.

Unlike Seichan and Kowalski, Vigor had not been able to watch the mutilation. Even now he swung away and returned his attention to the wall he had been studying. Away from the central shaft, the vault here lay in deep shadow. Vigor had been allowed a flashlight so he could hunt for another entrance to the subterranean cavern. And while he hated to help Nasser, if he could find another way down, then he could perhaps limit the degree of defilement to these ancient ruins.

But Vigor hadn’t been granted much time.

Ten minutes.

With preparations under way, Nasser had climbed out of the vault. Vigor had noted him checking his cell phone, searching for a signal. Apparently unsuccessful, he had climbed out, ordering them to be ready by the time he returned.

Gray joined Vigor. “What is it? Did you find that doorway you were looking for?”

“No,” Vigor admitted. He had walked the entire circumference of the vault. There was no other door. It seemed the only way down was through the stone face of bodhisattva Lokesvara. “But I did find this.”

Vigor waited for one of the patrolling guards to pass, then shifted his flashlight flat against the wall, casting the beam up the surface. Lit by shadow and light, an expanse of wall etchings appeared, reminiscent of the bas-reliefs above. But it depicted no figures, just cascading tangles.

“What is it?” Gray said, reaching his fingers out to examine what the light revealed.

By now, Seichan and Kowalski had joined them.

Vigor shifted the light, widening the beam to illustrate. “At first, I thought it was just decorative scrollwork. It covers all the walls.” He waved an arm to encompass the breadth of the chamber. “Every surface.”

“Then what the hell is it?” Kowalski muttered.

“Not hell, Mr. Kowalski,” Vigor said. “This is angelic.”

Vigor took the light and cupped it over a small fraction of the carved tapestry. “Look closer.”

Gray leaned to the wall, tracing with his fingers. Understanding dawned in the commander’s face. “It’s made up of angelic symbols, all jumbled together.”

Seichan joined Gray, following his fingers, nose to nose. “This is impossible. Didn’t you say angelic script was devised by someone in the sixteen-hundreds?”

Vigor nodded. “Johannes Trithemius.”

“How could it be here?” Gray asked.

“I don’t know,” Vigor said. “Maybe at some point the Vatican did send someone all the way to Cambodia to follow Marco’s trail like we did. Maybe they returned with etchings of this script, and Trithemius somehow got ahold of it. Devised his script from it. And if he knew Marco’s story of glowing angelic beings, it might be why he claimed the script was angelic.”

Gray turned to Vigor. “But you don’t believe that, do you?”

Vigor watched Gray step back, retreat a few more steps, his gaze fixed to the wall.

He sees it, too.

Vigor took a deep shuddering breath, trying to restrain what he suspected. “Trithemius claimed he gained knowledge of the script after weeks of fasting and deep meditative study. I think that’s exactly what happened.”

Seichan scoffed. “He just happened to dream all this up, a match to the ancient script here.”

Vigor nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Remember what I told you before, about how angelic script bears a striking resemblance to Hebrew. Trithemius even claimed his script was the purest distillation of the Hebrew alphabet.”

Seichan shrugged.

“What do you know about Jewish Kabbalah?” Vigor asked.

“Just that it’s some Jewish mystical study.”

“Exactly. Practitioners of Kabbalah search for mystical insight into the divine nature of the universe by studying the Hebrew Bible. They believe that divine wisdom lies buried in the very shapes and curves of the Hebrew alphabet. And that by meditating upon them, one can gain great insight into the universe, into who we are at the most basic level.”

Seichan shook her head. “Are you saying that this Trithemius fellow meditated and came up with this purer form of Hebrew? Stumbled upon a language — this same language—” She patted the wall. “A language that links to some great inner wisdom?”

Gray cleared his throat. “And I think inner is the key word here.” He waved Seichan to step back, to join him. “What do you see? Look at the whole pattern. Does it look familiar to you?”

Seichan stared for a single breath, then snapped, “I don’t know. What am I looking for?”

Gray sighed and stepped to the wall. He ran a finger along one of the cascades. “Look at the way it swirls down in spirals of broken helixes. Picture this section all by itself.”

Seichan squinted. “It looks almost biological.”

Gray nodded. “Follow the strands. Don’t they look like double helixes of DNA? Like a genetic map?”

Seichan remained doubtful. “Written in an angelic language?”

Gray stepped away, his eyes still on the wall. “Maybe. In fact, there was a scientific study that compared patterns in DNA code with patterns found in human languages. According to a Zipf ’s law — a statistical tool — all human languages show a specific pattern of repetitive word usage. Such as the frequency of the word the or a. Or the rarity of other words, like aardvark or elliptical. When you plot a graph comparing the popularity of words against the frequency of their usage, you get a straight line. And it’s the same whether English, Russian, or Chinese. All human languages produce the same linear pattern.”

“And DNA code?” Vigor asked, intrigued.

“It produced exactly the same pattern. Even in our junk DNA, which most scientists consider to be biological garbage. The study has been repeated and verified. For some reason, there is a language buried in our genetic code. We don’t know what it says. But—” Gray pointed at the wall. “That may be the written form of the language.”

Vigor ran a hand along the carving, breathless with awe. “It makes you wonder. Could Trithemius have tapped into that language during his meditations?” He straightened as another thought struck him. “And consider ancient Hebrew, how its characters are similar to angelic script. Could early written languages have somehow been derived from this, arising out of some inherent genetic memory? In fact, it makes you wonder if this language isn’t the Word of God, mapping out something greater in all of us.”

Vigor shifted his light, sweeping it to cover the breadth of the vast chamber. “But either way, all of this. All this angelic language. What is it telling us?”

“I think it’s a genetic blueprint,” Gray said.

“But a blueprint to what?” Seichan said.

“Probably a turtle,” Kowalski mumbled.

Vigor snorted at the man’s joke, but both Seichan and Gray reacted with surprise, glancing to the man with matching expressions of incredulity.

“What?” Vigor asked, sensing something important.

Gray stepped closer, dropping his voice. “I think he may be right.”

“I am?” Kowalski asked.

Gray expanded upon his theory of the cavern below. “The turtle’s shell represents the cave. But what about the turtle itself? According to the story, it represents an incarnation of Vishnu, an angelic being.” Gray waved to the wall. “And here is evidence of some strange biological process, some secret knowledge. Beyond merely a viral disease. I think the coding on the walls is some diary of that process. Possibly still incomplete.”

Vigor studied the wall, the blueprint.

Before they could contemplate it further, a commotion arose from above.

They shifted in a group back to the center. It looked as if the demolition team were close to finishing. Their leader had coiled all his charge wires and cinched them into an electronic detonator so they could blow it all from above.

Overhead, Vigor spotted a woman climbing down the ladder. It was difficult to discern her features through the glare of the sunlit shaft.

Still, Gray recognized her, stepping forward. “Lisa…?”

Farther above, near the lip to the shaft, Nasser appeared, accompanied by a frantic, half-naked woman. She fought forward, as if to throw herself into the pit, but she was restrained by the barrels of four rifles, kept at bay.

Vigor gaped up at her.

Dear God…

She glowed.

Her skin shone out from the shadows.

Impossible.

“Cover the eyes!” she screamed below, pointing an arm down into the pit. “Cover the eyes!”

Vigor could not comprehend what she was talking about.

Gray did. The commander swept from Vigor’s side, dragged up a tarp used by the demolition team, and tossed it over the sculpture’s eyes like a blindfold, cutting the flow of sunlight to the cavern below.

Up top, the woman collapsed as if the strings suspending her had been cut. She dropped to a slab of the broken altar.

Nasser frowned back at her.

Lisa stepped from the ladder and joined them. Her gaze remained above, but her words were for them all. “I’m sorry.”

Ten minutes later, Gray watched the last of Nasser’s men mount the ladder and climb up. Above, a ring of rifles pointed down at their group. The last satchel of demolition equipment vanished over the lip, hauled up on one of the two ropes. The other rope still dangled, taunting.

“Why are they leaving us down here?” Lisa asked.

Gray eyed the rigged sandstone face. “I think we’ve just become obsolete,” he mumbled.

Lisa remained quiet, then mumbled an apology. “I had no choice.”

She’d already explained her sudden, unexpected appearance. A desperate act, born out of the necessity for a cure. The attempt had to be risked…even if it meant delivering the cure into the hands of the Guild.

“And Monk,” Lisa said with a choke. “He gave his life…for this.”

“No.” Gray put an arm around Lisa’s shoulders. He couldn’t even acknowledge that reality. Not yet. “No. Monk got you all here. And as long as we’re alive, there’s still hope.”

Nasser returned to the edge of the pit. “We’re just about finished here,” he announced, not so much gloating as simply stating a matter of fact. With all the cards in his hand, he kept his tone cold and civil. “Monsignor, you mentioned earlier how the scientific trail and historical trail merged at these ruins. It appears you were most astute. Here we have the two halves of Sigma joined.” He waved below — then turned to Susan, who still sat in a stupefied slump, head hanging to her chest. “And it seems the Guild’s efforts have also joined. The survivor from the scientific trail here…and the source of the Judas Strain below.”

Gray slipped his arm from Lisa and stepped forward. “You may still need our help!” he called up, knowing it was a wasted breath.

“I’m sure we’ll manage. The Guild has abundant resources to fit these last pieces together. We’ve managed to reach this point, starting with only a few words in an ancient text. A text, I understand, that came into our possession because of your actions, Commander.”

Gray’s fist tightened. He should have burned the Dragon Court’s library when he’d had the chance.

“Of course, it was the Guild’s efforts afterward — through the employment of marine archaeologists and satellite imagery — that uncovered one of Marco’s sunken ships off the coast of Sumatra.”

It took Gray a moment to realize what Nasser was implying. “You found one of Polo’s ships?”

“And we were lucky. One of the keel beams, encased in insulating clay, still contained biological activity. But we couldn’t understand its full capacity without an in vitro trial, a real-world scenario.”

Gray felt his blood go cold. If Nasser was telling the truth, the outbreak at Christmas Island hadn’t been a matter of chance exposure. “You…you purposely contaminated Christmas Island.”

He glanced to Seichan for confirmation.

She would not meet his eyes.

Nasser continued. “From the study of sea currents and tidal patterns, it required just planting the beam off the coast and observing what happened. In fact, we were monitoring and collecting samples when our patient here stumbled onto the scene. She and her party. The first human subjects. Of course, the currents eventually carried the tide to the island. As planned. A perfect localized and contained scenario.”

Lisa mumbled, “Then with the cruise ship, the Guild saw the opportunity to reap what they’d sown.”

Gray sank back.

Seichan mumbled behind him. “Now you know why I had to stop them.”

Gray glanced to her.

But she had failed…they’d all failed.

Susan drifted in a haze, as if in a waking dream.

Fire danced across her brain.

Since baring herself to the raw sunlight, she had passed beyond an edge. She felt it inside her skull. She was no longer fully herself — or maybe more herself than ever before.

She had become unmoored as a lifetime of memories rebuilt inside her. Her past swelled up out of recesses long thought lost and inaccessible. They knit together, one day to another, one hour to the next, blending into a seamless whole. Her past came alive again, not just bits and pieces, but the full spread and panorama of it all.

And she could remember it all as a single moment: from the crush of her skull as she was squeezed out of her mother’s womb…to the beat of her heart now. She sensed the traces of air over her naked skin, every current, scribed into memory, indelible, adding to the whole.

It was all held in a suspended, shimmering bubble.

And beyond that thin surface…more.

But she wasn’t ready to venture there.

She knew there were steps still to be taken.

Below.

With the fiery eyes closed, the panic inside her subsided to a dull glow.

Floating between past and present, adding moments with every breath, new words slowly dropped into the pool that was her life, overheard from a step away.

…it required just planting the beam off the coast and observing what happened…when our patient here stumbled onto the scene. She and her party. The first human subjects…

NO.

The single note rang through her.

With her life held in that endless moment between one breath and the next, she was again underwater, weightless. She saw the finger of age-blackened wood protruding from the sand. Her thoughts from then returned, as if she were still in those waters. At the time, she had supposed earthquakes had shaken the keel beam free, or perhaps the recent tsunami had stripped away the sand, exposing it.

Now she knew the truth.

The beam had been planted there.

Purposefully.

To kill.

She remembered how excited she had been to tell her husband, who loved diving wrecks. Just the memory of him filled her senses.

Gregg.

Now she knew the truth.

Why he had died.

And the truth was fire.

Lisa leaned against Gray, his arm over her shoulders. She stared up at the rifles. Nasser was saying something, but she didn’t hear, lost in her own guilt.

Gray suddenly flinched.

Though she hadn’t moved, she snapped back to the moment.

At the rim of the well, Susan’s head slowly lifted, her blond hair parting from a face lost in fury. The guards’ attentions remained focused on Nasser. Past Nasser’s shoulder, Lisa watched the soft glow of Susan’s skin flush fiercer.

Her eyes burned with an inner fire.

Nasser must have sensed something and had begun to turn.

Lisa did not see Susan move.

One moment the woman was seated on the crumbled bit of altar — the next she was latched around Nasser, hugging tight to him, cheek to cheek in an intimate embrace.

He screamed — a wail that tore from his throat.

Smoke curled between them.

One of the guards reacted, clubbing Susan from behind.

She dropped loose, head lolling.

Still screaming, Nasser shoved her away.

Over the edge of the pit.

“Susan!” Lisa called up.

She tumbled in a tangle with one of the loading ropes used by the demolition team. A hand snatched out, instinctively catching herself. But she had no strength. She slid down the rope, too fast. The caustic acid of her skin flared in the shaft’s direct sunlight, triggering some chemical reaction in the synthetic rope. It smoked and melted as she slid along it. Susan twirled as she plummeted, almost in free fall.

No one dared catch her.

Gray swung to the side and dragged the cloth tarp from the stone face. He whipped one end to Kowalski. His partner understood.

Overhead, the rope snapped, burned through where Susan had grabbed.

She dropped in a limp, boneless fall.

Unconscious.

Gray and his partner caught her, but her weight still ripped the tarp from their hands and she struck the floor hard. Using the tarp, Gray swung her out of direct sight, only her legs visible from above. He dropped beside her.

Nasser screamed down to them. On hands and knees. His cheek still smoked, flesh blackened. His bare arms looked like seared steak, weeping and bleeding. “I want that bitch!”

Gray stumbled back into view. “Neck’s broken! She’s dead!”

A war of emotions played across Nasser’s face. It settled on a near-mindless rage. “Then you’ll all burn!” He rolled back. “Blow it all up!”

Gray waved to everyone. “Back…out of sight.”

Lisa obeyed, stumbling from the light and into the shadows.

A few bullets sparked, chasing them.

Lisa stared toward the rigged explosives. The electronic detonator was beyond their reach, out in the open. They would be shot if they dared approach.

Gray dragged the tarp, hauling Susan’s limp form. “Behind the foundation pillars! They may offer some protection. Crouch low, find anything to cover your head and face!”

They scattered.

Four pillars, six of them.

Gray took Susan with him.

Lisa found herself huddled with the monsignor behind one of the sandstone pillars. He pulled her down, shielding her with his body.

Lisa placed her palm on the pillar. It was three feet across. She had no idea of the strength of the blast to come. She turned to Vigor.

“Father, will this protect us?”

Vigor stared down at her face and didn’t answer.

For once Lisa wished a priest would lie to her.

18 The Gateway to Hell

Gray cradled Susan, keeping her wrapped in the tarp.

She moaned and stirred. She had taken a good crack to the head when she struck the ground, but Gray had lied to Nasser about her neck being broken. The bastard, in his agony, had not questioned it, maybe had even hoped for it.

Gray had hoped to use the woman’s body as a bargaining chip.

But that was not going well.

Up above, Nasser shouted, maddened by the pain. From the look of his blackened skin, he had sustained third-degree burns across large swaths of his body. And now he wanted them to suffer in kind. An eye for an eye. But apparently the demolition team hadn’t been prepared for such a sudden order. They were scrambling, giving Gray’s party a minute or so of a reprieve.

Taking advantage of it, Gray shifted Susan’s weight, seeking to better protect her behind the pillar. If she was the potential cure, she had to be preserved. He tugged the tarp more thoroughly over her head. It parted briefly, revealing the soft glow of her naked skin beneath. Away from the bright sunlight, the sheen to her skin had begun to dim. He paused for a beat, amazed at the strangeness. As he drew the drape closed again, he noted the wall ahead of him.

The scrollwork of angelic script shone with an exceptional brilliance, fluorescing under the weak glow. The light emanating from the cyanobacteria in her skin must shed wavelengths in the ultraviolet range, igniting a fluorescent compound etched into the carvings.

It reminded Gray of the Egyptian obelisk, glowing with angelic script, a miniature and rudimentary version of this display. Had Johannes Trithemius had deeper revelations during his meditations? A vision of all this?

Gray opened the tarp wider, casting a broader beam of her glow. More of the script ignited, swirling off through the darkness in either direction, as if he had set flame to oil.

Gray sat higher. He noted a spot of darkness off to the far left, barely discernible, at the edge of the glow’s reach, a dark rock in the shining stream of glowing script. The angularity of it caught his eye.

Could that be…

He turned Susan in his arms, letting more of the tarp fall away, keeping enough between the woman’s skin and his own. The glow was still not strong enough to reach that far. He had to move Susan closer. He struggled with her weight, tangling the tarp, sensing the seconds ticking away.

He needed help.

“Kowalski! Where are you?”

A voice answered out from the pillar to his right. “I’m hiding! Like you said to!”

Gray hauled up. “I need you over here!”

“What about the bomb?”

“Forget about the bomb. Get your ass over here!”

Kowalski swore sharply, then headed over, grumbling under his breath. “Why is it always a goddamn bomb…”

The large man ran up to him, practically sliding behind the pillar, like he was stealing from third to home.

Gray motioned with his chin to the left. “Help me move Susan down that way.”

Kowalski sighed heavily. Using the tarp like a stretcher, they slung her form between them and rushed off along the wall. As they hurried, the curve of script ignited along with them, brightening as they neared, fading again after they passed.

Seichan had been hiding behind the next pillar. She crossed toward them, drawn by the brilliant display and their frantic actions. “What are you — oh my God!”

Gray lowered Susan to the floor, keeping her uncovered, basking her glow on the wall, setting fire to the script. All except for a recognizable patch of darkness.

“Vigor!” Gray called out.

“I’m coming!” he answered. Plainly the monsignor had seen the sight all the way across the chamber. Gray heard the double tramp of steps as Lisa trailed Vigor.

They all stood before the wall, gaping at the sight.

Not at what was glowing — but what wasn’t.

“Friar Agreer,” Vigor said. “He must have left this marker, by washing down the wall. Cleaned the patch here as a sign.”

“A sign of what?” Seichan asked.

“A clue to a hidden doorway,” Gray said. “There must be another way down to the cavern.”

“But what does the clue mean?” Vigor asked.

Gray shook his head, knowing they were running out of time. If they didn’t find the door, get Susan somewhere safe and away from the Guild, it wasn’t just their lives. According to Lisa, a pandemic was already spreading.

Nasser called down to them. “Say your last prayers!”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Kowalski blurted out, though it wasn’t meant as a prayer. He knocked Gray and Vigor aside, crossed to the wall, and shoved hard in the center of the cross.

The stone door swiveled on a central pivot, revealing a passage beyond.

Kowalski turned. “It’s not always rocket science, guys. Sometimes a door is just a door.”

They piled through the exit. Gray and Kowalski again slung Susan between them. Once through, Seichan and Lisa shouldered the door back closed behind them.

Ahead, a stairway led down, cut out of the limestone bedrock.

No one doubted where it led.

As they started down, a muffled explosion echoed to them, a single boom of thunder. Gray sent a silent prayer of thanks to Friar Agreer.

He had saved Marco in the past.

And now he had saved all their lives.

Though relieved, Gray could still not escape a horrible dread. While he might be free, his parents were not. When Nasser found his prisoners gone, Gray knew who would be made to suffer for it.

Seated on the warehouse rooftop, Harriet drowsed in her husband’s arms. It was a warm evening. Overhead, the moon moved imperceptibly across the night sky. Despite the terror, exhaustion had taken its toll. For the first hour, she had listened to the ebb and flow of shouts and barks. Then she stopped caring. Time stretched, long enough that Harriet was startled to find herself dozing when the first shout rose from the other side of the roof.

“They’re here,” Jack said, sounding almost relieved.

He shifted and motioned for Harriet to retreat inside the hollowed out HVAC unit behind them. There was barely room for two. Once Harriet was inside, she held out her hand toward her husband.

Instead, he collected the door grate from the tar paper.

“Jack?” she whispered out to him.

He lifted the grate between them, pushing it in place.

“No…” she moaned.

His lips were at the grate’s slats as he snugged it closed over her. “Please, Harriet, let me do this. I can lead them away. Buy you more time. Give me at least this.”

Their eyes met through the thin slats.

She understood. For too long, Jack had believed himself only half a man. He didn’t intend to die that way. But to Harriet, Jack had never been half a man.

Still, she could not take this from him.

It was her last gift to him.

She reached her fingers through the slats, tears streaming. His fingers touched hers, thanking her, loving her.

Shouts drew closer.

They had no more time.

Jack turned and half crawled over to the roof ’s raised wall, his pistol clutched in a fist. When he reached the wall, he used its support to hobble away to the left.

Harriet tried to follow where he went, but he was soon out of sight.

She covered her face.

A sharp cry of discovery rose in that direction. She heard the retort of a pistol blast, coming from closer to the left.

Jack.

Harriet counted his shots, knowing he only had the three rounds left in his gun.

Return fire strafed her husband’s position, pinging off metal. Jack must have found some cover. Another shot blasted from his spot.

One bullet left.

In the ringing lull of the brief firefight, Jack called out. “You’ll never find my wife. I hid her beyond your goddamn reach.”

A voice barked back, only steps behind Harriet’s hiding spot, startling her.

Annishen.

“If the dogs don’t find her,” the woman called back to Jack, “I’ll make sure your screams draw her out.”

Annishen’s legs stepped into view beyond the grate. The woman whispered into a radio, ordering her men to sweep wide and pin Jack down.

Then the woman stiffened, turning slightly.

Another noise intruded.

It sounded like the rush of a strong wind.

Across the roof, a black helicopter shot into view from below, angular, waspish in shape. Plainly military. A ripping chatter of automatic fire chewed across the roof. Men screamed. Feet pounded. One man ran past and had his legs cut out from under him, sprawling face-first.

Sirens erupted from the dark streets leading toward the warehouse.

A bellow of a megaphone from the helicopter ordered weapons to be dropped.

Annishen lowered into a crouch beside the HVAC grate, preparing for the short dash to the nearby roof exit. Harriet instinctively crouched away from her; her elbow bumped the unit’s side with a hollow thud.

Annishen flinched — then cocked her head, peering inside. “Ah, Mrs. Pierce.” She shifted, poking her pistol through the grate, in point-blank range. “Time to say good—”

The gunshot jolted through Harriet.

Annishen’s body crashed against the grate, then sank to the tar paper.

Harriet caught a glimpse of a blasted eye socket.

As the woman collapsed, Jack hopped into view. He tossed aside his smoking pistol.

His last shot.

Harriet shoved the grate open. She scrambled over Annishen’s legs, across the roof, and back into Jack’s arms, sobbing. The two of them sank in a grateful huddle on the tar paper.

“Don’t ever leave me again, Jack.”

He hugged her tight. “Never,” he promised.

Men in military uniforms dropped to the roof from the helicopter on snaking lines. Harriet and Jack were guarded as the roof was cleared. Sirens pulled up below. More gunshots and cries rose from the warehouse.

A figure stepped over to them, strapped in rappelling gear. He dropped to a knee.

Harriet glanced up, surprised to find the familiar face. “Director Crowe?”

“When will you start calling me Painter, Mrs. Pierce?” he asked.

“How did you find—?”

“It seems someone made quite a commotion on the street outside the butcher shop,” he explained with a tired smile. “Vigorous enough to be remembered.”

Harriet squeezed her husband’s hand, thanking him for his earlier acting.

Painter continued. “We’ve been canvassing the street since this morning, and then forty-five minutes ago, one of the patrolling officers discovered a nice gentleman with a shopping cart. He recognized your picture and had been suspicious enough — or maybe paranoid enough — that he wrote down the van’s license number, along with make and model. It didn’t take long to track the van’s GPS. I’m sorry we couldn’t get here sooner.”

Jack wiped at one eye, keeping his face turned away so no one could see his tears. “Your timing couldn’t be better. I owe you a big bottle of that fancy single-malt whiskey you like.”

Harriet hugged her husband. Jack might have trouble remembering people’s names, but he never forgot what they liked to drink.

Painter stood up. “I’ll take you up on that sometime, but right now I have an important call to make.” He turned away and mumbled under his breath, but Harriet heard him.

“That is, if I’m not already too late.”

Lisa stumbled down the dark stairs, following the monsignor. She had to stay ducked low, running a hand along the damp wall. The air smelled of mulch, like decaying leaves in a wet forest. It was not unpleasant, except for a slight burn to the nostrils.

Ahead, a weak light drew them onward, flowing up from below.

Their goal.

The stairs finally ended, dumping them out into a wide cavern. Their footsteps echoed. Overhead, the dome of the cavern arched up five stories, dripping with a few blunt stalactites. The space was ovoid in shape, seventy yards across at the widest point. Where they entered, the roof spread up into a natural flowstone archway. A matching arch could be discerned across the cavern.

“It does look like a turtle shell,” Vigor mumbled, his voice echoing hollowly. “Even the way it flares here and across the way. Like the front and back end of a turtle shell.”

Kowalski grumbled, hauling Susan inside with Gray’s help. “So which is it? Are we’re climbing down the turtle’s throat or up his ass?” But as he straightened, the large man whistled softly between his teeth.

Lisa understood his reaction.

Ahead, a circular lake of black water rested as still as a mirror, edged around by a stone rim. From the roof above, two straight beams of sunlight shot down and struck the center of the water, coming through the eyes of the stone idol above.

But where the sunlight struck the black water, a milky pool spilled outward, glowing, as if the sun had turned to liquid and poured down from above.

The milky glow shimmered and streamed, ebbing and flowing.

Looking alive.

Which it was.

“The sunlight is energizing the cyanobacteria in the water,” Lisa said.

A few trickles from the idol’s eyes struck the pool, hissing slightly. Where they splashed, the milky glow darkened.

“Acid,” Gray said, reminding everyone of the danger above. “From the bomb. It’s dripping through the eyes. I don’t know how long it will take to neutralize the vault, but at least the stone block is holding for now. Still, they’ll come down with sledges and jackhammers and finish breaking through here soon.”

“So what do we do?” Seichan asked.

Kowalski scoffed. “We get the hell out of here.”

Gray turned to Lisa. “Can you run ahead, check the far archway? See if there is another way out. Like Vigor said, a turtle shell has an opening for the head and one for a tail. It’s our only hope.”

Lisa balked. “Gray, I think I should stay with Susan. My medical background—”

A groan rose from the tarp. An arm lifted weakly.

Lisa stepped to Susan’s side, careful not to touch her. “She’s still the only hope for a cure.”

“I can go,” Seichan volunteered.

Lisa glanced up, noting a flash of suspicion on Gray’s face, as if he didn’t trust the woman.

Still, he nodded. “Find a way out.”

She set off without a word.

The group followed along the stone bank.

Gray studied the space. “This looks like an old sinkhole. Like in Florida, or the cenotes of Mexico. The sandstone block must be plugging the original hole that once stood open.”

Lisa bent near the wall and pinched up a bit of dried matter. It crumbled in her fingers. “Petrified bat guano,” she said, confirming Gray’s assessment. “This cavern must have been open to the air at one time.”

Lisa wiped her fingers and glanced to Susan, beginning to put together what she had already suspected.

Vigor waved an arm to encompass the lake. “The ancient Khmers must have come upon the sinkhole, noted how it glowed, imagined it was the home of some god, and attempted to incorporate it into the temple here.”

“But they didn’t know what they were doing,” Lisa added. “They trespassed where they shouldn’t have. Interfered with a fragile biosystem and released the virus. If mankind pushes, nature sometimes pushes back.”

They continued alongside the lake.

Ahead, a small spit of stone projected into the water, barely discernible in the darkness. Only the encroaching tide of milky water revealed the small peninsula.

Along with something more.

“Are those bones?” Kowalski asked, staring down into the water alongside their path.

The party stopped.

Lisa crossed to the pool’s edge. The soft light penetrated deep into the crystalline water. The stone bank fell away at a gentle angle through the water, then vanished over a steep lip ten yards out.

All across the shallow bottom of the lake, bones lay in mounds and piles: fragile bird skulls, tiny rib cages of monkeys, something with a pair of curled horns, and not far from shore, the massive skull of an elephant, resting like a white boulder below, one ivory tusk broken to a nub. But there was more: broken femurs, longer tibias, larger cages of ribs, and like a scattering of acorns, skull after skull.

All human.

The lake was a massive boneyard.

Stunned to silence, they continued onward.

As they hiked along the stone bank, the glow slowly grew in the lake. The burn to the nostrils that Lisa had noted before grew more intense. She remembered Christmas Island, the tidal dead pool on the windward side.

Biotoxins.

Kowalski wrinkled his whole face.

And like smelling salts, the sting also stirred Susan. Her eyes fluttered open, glowing in the dark, a match to the shine in the lake. She remained dazed, but she recognized Lisa.

Susan tried to sit up.

Gray and Kowalski lowered her to the floor, needing to rest anyway, stretching their shoulders and kneading their hands.

Lisa sank beside Susan, modestly draping the tarp over her shoulders as she helped the woman sit up.

Susan shied back as Kowalski stepped near.

“It’s all right,” Lisa assured her. “They’re all friends.”

Lisa introduced the others to help reassure Susan. Slowly the panicky daze cleared. She seemed to collect herself — until she stared past Lisa’s shoulders and spotted the glowing lake.

Susan surged away, hitting the wall with her back and propelling herself up into a teetering crouch.

“You must not be here,” she keened, voice rising.

“No fucking kidding,” Kowalski griped.

Susan ignored him, her eyes on the lake. Her voice lowered. “It will be like Christmas Island. Only a hundredfold worse…trapped inside the cavern. And you’ll all be exposed.”

Lisa did not doubt it. Already her skin itched.

“You must go.” Susan steadied enough to gain her feet, leaning a hand on the wall. “Only I can be here. I must be here.”

Lisa saw the fear shining in her eyes, but also the dead certainty.

“For the cure?” Lisa said.

Susan nodded. “I must be exposed one more time, by the source here. I can’t say how I know, but I do.” She lifted a palm to the side of her head. “It’s…it’s like I’m living one foot in the past, one foot here. It’s hard to stay here. Everything is filling me up, every thought, sensation. I can’t turn it off. And I…I feel it expanding.”

Again the fear shone brighter in her eyes.

Susan’s description reminded Lisa of autism, a neurological inability to shut off the flow of sensory input. But a few autistic patients were also idiot savants, geniuses in narrow fields, their brilliance born out of their rewiring. Lisa tried to imagine the pathophysiology that must be occurring inside Susan’s brain, awash in strange biotoxins, energized by the bacteria that produced the toxins. Humans only used a small fraction of their brain’s neural capacity. Lisa could almost picture Susan’s EEG of her brain, afire, energized.

Susan stumbled to the water’s edge. “We only have this one chance.”

“Why?” Gray asked, stepping alongside her.

“After the lake reaches critical mass and erupts with its full toxic load, it will exhaust itself. It will take three years before the lake will be ready again.”

“How do you know that?” Gray asked.

Susan glanced to Lisa for help.

“She just knows,” Lisa answered. “She’s somehow connected to this place. Susan, is that why you were so urgent about getting here?”

Susan nodded. “Once opened to sunlight, the lake will build to a blow. If I missed it…”

“Then the world would be defenseless for three years. No cure. The pandemic would spread around the world.” Lisa imagined the microcosm aboard the cruise ship expanded across the globe.

The horror was interrupted by Seichan’s return, pounding up to them, breathless, her face shining damply. “I found a door.”

“Then go,” Susan urged. “Now.”

Seichan shook her head. “Couldn’t open it.”

Kowalski pantomimed. “Did you try giving it a hard shove?”

Seichan rolled her eyes, but she did nod her head. “Yes, I tried shoving it.”

Kowalski threw his hands high, surrendering. “Well, that’s all I got.”

“But there was a cross carved above the stone archway,” Seichan continued. “And an inscription, but it’s too dark to read. The words might offer some clue.”

Gray turned to the monsignor.

“I still have my flashlight,” Vigor said. “I’ll go with her.”

“Hurry,” Gray urged.

Already the air was getting difficult to breathe. The glow in the lake had spread far, sliding along the length of the spar toward shore.

Susan pointed to it. “I must be out on the lake.”

They headed toward the peninsula of rock.

Gray paced Lisa. “You mentioned a trespassed biosystem earlier. Mind telling me what the hell you think is really going on here?” He waved to the glowing lake, to Susan.

“I don’t know everything, but I’m pretty sure I know who all the key players are.”

Gray nodded for her to continue.

Lisa pointed to the glow. “It all started here, the oldest organism in the story. Cyanobacteria. Precursors to modern plants. They’ve penetrated every environmental niche: rock, sand, water, even other organisms.” She nodded to Susan. “But that’s getting ahead of the story. Let’s start here.”

“This cavern.”

She nodded. “The cyanobacteria invaded this sinkhole, but remember they needed sunlight, and the cavern is mostly dark. The hole above was probably even smaller originally. To thrive here, they needed another source of energy, a food source. And cyanobacteria are innovative little adapters. They had a ready source of food above in the jungle…they just needed a way to get to it. And nature is anything if not ingenious at building strange interrelationships.”

Lisa related the story she had once told Dr. Devesh Patanjali, about the Lancet liver fluke, how its life cycle utilized three hosts: cattle, snail, and ant.

“At one point, the liver fluke even hijacks its ant host. It compels the ant to climb a blade of grass, lock its mandible, and wait to be eaten by a grazing cow. That’s how strange nature is. And what happened here is no less strange.”

As Lisa continued, she appreciated being able to talk through her theories. She took a moment to explain Henri Barnhardt’s assessment of the Judas Strain, how he classified the virus into a member of the Bunyavirus family. She remembered Henri’s diagram, describing a linear relationship from human to arthropod to human.

“But we were wrong,” Lisa said. “The virus took a page out of the fluke’s handbook. Three hosts come into play here.”

“If cyanobacteria are the first hosts,” Gray asked, “what’s the second host in this life cycle?”

Lisa stared toward the plugged opening in the roof and kicked some of the dried bat guano. “The cyanobacteria needed a way to fly the coop. And since they were already sharing this cavern with some bats, they took advantage of those wings.”

“Wait. How do you know they used the bats?”

“The Bunyavirus. It loves arthropods, which include insects and crustaceans. But strains of Bunyavirus can also be found in mice and bats.”

“So you think the Judas Strain is a mutated bat virus?”

“Yes. Mutated by the cyanobacteria’s neurotoxins.”

“But why?”

“To drive the bats crazy, to scatter them out into the world, carrying a virus that invades the local biosphere through its bacteria. Basically turning each bat into a little biological bomb. Laying waste wherever it lands. If Susan is correct, the pool would send out these bio-bombs every three years, allowing the environment to replenish itself in between.”

“But how does that serve the cyanobacteria if the disease kills birds and animals outside the cavern?”

“Ah, because it utilizes a third host, another accomplice. Arthropods. Remember, arthropods are already the preferred host for Bunyaviruses. Insects and crustaceans. They also happen to be nature’s best scavengers. Cleaning up the dead. Which is what the virus compelled them to do. By first making them ravenously hungry…”

Lisa’s words stumbled as she remembered the cannibalism aboard the ship. She fought to stay clinical, to be understood. “After stimulating this hunger, ensuring a thorough cleanup, the virus rewired the host to return here, to this cavern, to haul their catch and bring it to the pit, to feed the bacterial pool. They had no choice. Similar to the fluke and the ant. A neurological compulsion, a migratory urge.”

“Like Susan,” Gray said.

Lisa grew grim at the comparison. She pictured in her head the life cycle she had just described. Triangular rather than linear: cyanobacteria, bats, and arthropods. All joined together by the Judas Strain.

“Susan is different,” Lisa said. “Man was never supposed to be part of this life cycle. But being mammalian, like the bat, we’re susceptible to the toxins, to the virus. So when the Khmer discovered this cavern, we inadvertently became a part of that life cycle, taking the place of the bats. Spreading via our two legs instead of wings. Sickening the population every three years, triggering epidemics of varying severity.”

Gray stared toward Susan. “But what about her? Why did she survive?”

“Like I said, I don’t have all the answers.” She remembered her earlier discussions about Black Plague survivors, about viral code in human DNA. “Our neurological systems are a thousandfold more complex than any bat or crab. And like the cyanobacteria, humans also have a great capacity to adapt. Throw these toxins into our more advanced neurological system, and who knows what miracle might churn out?”

Lisa sighed as they reached the spit of land.

As she turned, she noted a strange sight above. Puffs of smoke streamed out of the pair of the idol’s eyeholes, brightly lit by the sun’s fire.

“The neutralizing powder,” Gray said, spotting the same and hurrying them along. “Nasser must be finalizing the upper vault’s decontamination. We have no more time.”

At the top of the stairs Vigor knelt beside the low stone door. Seichan held the flashlight behind him. An archway of limestone framed a slab of hewn sandstone, a mix of natural and man-made.

Above the door, set into the limestone’s arched lintel, was a bronze medallion, impressed into it was a perfect crucifix. Vigor had examined it, sensing Friar Agreer’s hand here.

And it was confirmed below.

Vigor ran his fingers over the stone door. The solid slab had been inscribed with writing. Not angelic. Italian. It was the last testament of Friar Agreer.

Vigor touched the carved signature at the bottom.

Friar Antonio Agreer.

Seichan spoke behind him. “So after Marco left, they exposed the friar to the disease, but rather than dying, he survived. Like the woman below.”

“Maybe the other glowing pagans who offered the cure to Marco’s party could tell Friar Agreer would survive. That is why they picked him. But the date, 1296. He lived here for three years. The same time span Susan described between eruptions.” Vigor glanced behind him. “She was right.”

Seichan waved to the door. “There’s more writing under the name.”

Vigor nodded. “A quote from the Bible, book of Matthew, chapter twenty-eight, concerning the resurrection of Jesus from his tomb.” Vigor read the quote aloud. “‘Behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from the sky, and came and rolled away the stone from the door, and sat on it.’”

“That’s a lot of help.”

It was.

Vigor stared up at the crucifix carved into a bronze medallion above the door. He said a silent prayer and made the sign of the cross.

Before he could finish, he felt the ground shake under his knees. A great crash of rock echoed behind him, sounding as if the cavern had collapsed.

Seichan retreated, taking the light, off to investigate. “Stay here!”

Darkness descended, chilling him. Though he could no longer read the words, they blazed in his mind.

Behold, there was a great earthquake…

Gray knelt over Lisa as the resounding shock rattled through the cavern. Kowalski sheltered her other side. One of the stalactites broke away from the roof and plunged into the pool’s depth. From where it had broken off, a scatter of deep cracks radiated outward, spanning the limestone roof.

Susan crouched halfway down the spar of rock as it thrust out into the glowing lake. All around the waters trembled with vibrations, sloshing back and forth. The stirring churned up more acidic wash, choking the air.

Rich with the Judas Strain.

Smaller concussions struck above, pounding like cannonballs against the roof of the cavern.

“What’s happening?” Lisa yelled.

“Nasser’s bomb,” he gasped out, ears ringing.

Earlier, Gray had examined the foundation pillars of the Bayon. He had found the columns riddled with fissures and cracks, pressure fractures from old age and from periodic shifts in the earth. Gray imagined that the concussion of the double-strength bomb had widened the fissures even more. And then the wash of acid — splashing outward and flowing into all those cracks — had dissolved the hearts out of the pylons.

“One of the foundation pillars must have collapsed,” he said. “Taking down a section of the temple with it.”

Gray stared up.

The tumbling of stone blocks had stopped — but for how long? He swung around to Susan. She stood up, slowly, warily. She glanced back, plainly wanting to return to shore. But instead, she turned and continued onward.

Past her shoulders the twin beams of sunlight glowed even brighter as the noon hour struck, the full face of the sun baking down atop the ruins.

“Will it hold long enough?” Lisa asked, staring out at Susan.

“It’ll have to.”

Gray had no doubt that if another foundation pillar collapsed, the temple’s weight would flatten this limestone bubble like a pancake. He pulled Lisa to her feet. They couldn’t stay. Even if the pillars held, the lake was near to erupting.

The entire pool now glowed, from shore to shore. Where the twin beams of sunlight struck, the waters had begun to bubble, gasping out more toxin into the air, more of the Judas Strain.

They had to leave.

Down the spur of rock, Susan reached its end and sat down, hugging one knee. She kept her back to them, perhaps fearful if she saw them she would lose her nerve and come running back. She looked so alone, so frightened.

A racking cough shook through Gray. His lungs burned. He could taste the caustic toxin on his tongue. They could wait no longer.

Lisa knew it, too. Her eyes were bloodshot, weeping heavily from both the sting of the air and from the fear for her friend.

Susan had no choice. Neither did they.

They headed toward the distant archway. A flickering light halfway ahead revealed Seichan running back. Alone. Where was Vigor?

Another crack of rock blasted above.

Gray cringed, fearing another avalanche.

The reality was worse.

The stone plug shattered out of the rooftop, raining down chunks of the block. Sunlight blazed down. A large slab bearing a corner of an upturned lip splashed leadenly into the water, swamping Susan. More pieces struck like depth charges.

Triumphant voices echoed from above.

Gray heard Nasser’s voice call out. “They have to be down there!”

But Nasser wasn’t the worst danger at the moment.

The full face of the sun blazed unfiltered upon the lake, combusting the pool. Already primed, close to critical mass, the bubbling became an instant boil, erupting in vast expulsions, coughing up gouts of gas and water.

The pool was blowing.

They’d never make it to the stairs.

Gray backpedaled, dragging Kowalski and Lisa with him a few steps. He yelled at Seichan. “Drop flat! Now!”

He obeyed his own advice, waving Lisa and Kowalski down. Gray grabbed the abandoned tarp they’d used to transport Susan. He dragged it over all three of them, trying to trap as much air as possible.

“Pin your edges close to the stone!” he ordered the others.

Beyond the tarp he heard the crackles of boiling water, furious, hissing angry — then a deep sonorous whoop, as if the entire lake had jumped a foot then dropped. Water washed his ankles, then swept away.

The air under the tarp turned to liquid fire.

The three of them huddled, gasping, coughing, choking.

“Susan,” Lisa finally croaked out.

Susan screamed.

She didn’t cry with mere lungs, or the flutter of vocal cords. She howled out of the core of her being.

She could not escape the agony. Her mind, still attuned by sunlight, continued its detailed recording of every sensation. Forbidden from oblivion, her being scribed every detail: the sear of her lungs, the fire in her eyes, the flaying of her skin. She burned from the inside out, propelling her cry to the heavens.

But was there anyone to hear?

As she expelled all of herself upward, she finally found her release.

She fell back to the stone.

Her heart clenched one last time, squeezing out the last of her.

Then nothing.

“What about Susan?” Lisa gasped.

Gray risked a peek from under a flap of tarp, craning back toward the rocky spar. The lake still boiled, burning under the fiery sun. The air above the lake shimmered with an oily miasma.

But the worst flow of gasses spiraled upward, through the opening, drafting up the flue of the Bayon’s central spire, turning tower into chimney.

Gray knew it was the only reason they lived.

If the cavern had still been sealed…

Out on the spar another of their party had not fared as well. Susan lay sprawled on her back, as still as a statue. Gray could not tell if she was breathing. In fact, it was hard to see her shape against the glare of the sunlight.

And that’s when he realized it.

The rocky spar did not extend fully into the stream of sunlight.

Susan still lay in shadow — but she no longer glowed. The brightness in her had blown out like a candle.

What did that mean?

Overhead, screams echoed down from the temple, now awash with the pool’s toxic expulsion. Gray also heard more stones striking the roof of the cavern. The caustic gas had further weakened the precarious balance of stone above their heads.

“We have to get out of the cavern,” Gray said.

“What about Susan?” Lisa asked.

“We’ll have to trust she had enough exposure. Whatever she needed to happen, hopefully happened.” Gray rolled to his knees, coughing hard. They all needed the cure now. He stared over to Kowalski. “Get Lisa to the stairs.”

Kowalski pushed up. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

Lisa clutched Gray’s wrist as he stood, keeping the tarp over their heads. “What are you going to do?”

“I have to get Susan.”

Lisa pinched around to see — then covered her mouth. The lake still roiled heavily, popping with gas. “Gray, you’ll never make it.”

“I’ll have to.”

“But I don’t see her moving. I think the sudden explosion was too much.”

Gray remembered Marco’s story, of his forced cannibalism, drinking the blood and eating the flesh of another man to live. “I don’t think it matters if she’s alive or dead. We just need her body.”

Lisa flinched at the callousness of his words, but she did not object.

“I’m going to need the tarp,” Gray said.

Kowalski nodded, clutching Lisa by the arm. “Fine by me. I’m taking the girl.”

Gray whisked away from them, cocooning himself in the tarp. He wrapped his head, leaving only a slit to peer out. He heard Kowalski and Lisa running down the strand.

Another boulder crashed onto the cavern roof from the temple above.

As good as a starter’s pistol.

Keeping his head low, Gray sprinted down the causeway.

Thirty yards.

That’s all.

There and back.

Steps from the shore, Gray bulled into the rising miasma of toxin. He held his breath. Still, it was like hitting a wall of fire. His eyes immediately burned, squeezing his vision to a pinpoint, while tears turned the rest of his sight into a watery blur. Barely able to see, he closed his lids, pulled the slit shut, and ran blind, counting his steps.

At thirty he risked a fast peek. An inferno greeted him.

But through the pain he spied an outflung arm. A step away. He took that step, bent down, and grabbed the arm. Luckily she no longer glowed, no longer burned. Still, he could not pick her up. He retreated, dragging her. The tarp tangled his feet, slowing him down. He finally tossed it aside, taking one breath before he did so.

It dropped him to a knee.

His chest clenched, his throat closed in protest.

Swallowing flames.

He pushed up, dragging blind, stumbling, hurrying.

His skin ran with fire, as if lashed with steel-studded whips.

Not going to make it.

Fire.

Flame.

Burn.

He tripped, went down to a knee.

No.

Then he was rising again — but not on his own.

“I’ve got you,” she said in his ear.

Seichan.

She had an arm under him, dragging him bodily. His toes scraped the stones as he struggled to gain his footing.

He croaked at her, coughing.

She understood.

“Kowalski’s got her.”

“Right here, boss,” the man said behind him. “That was some run. Made it to three steps shy of the goal line. Not a touchdown, but that’s why you have a goddamn team.”

As they fled around the lake, away from the central tempest, Gray’s vision cleared. He finally found his feet.

Seichan still supported half his weight.

“Thank you,” he whispered coarsely in her ear.

Her cheek was badly blistered, one eye swollen shut.

“Let’s just get the hell out of here,” Seichan said, sounding more irritated than relieved.

“Amen, sister,” Kowalski said.

Gray glanced back to the pool. He watched something drop through the hole in the roof, dangling from a line like a baited hook. It swung back and forth a bit.

A thick, heavy satchel.

“Bomb…” Gray whispered.

“What?” Kowalski asked, incredulous.

“Bomb,” he said louder.

Nasser was not done with them yet.

“Aw, hell, no…” Kowalski scrambled closer with Susan over one shoulder, plainly trying to outrun them. “Why do people keep trying to blow me up?”

Shouting erupted below, flowing up the stairs from the cavern.

Lisa wanted to go down. She had hated abandoning the others, but Vigor needed her help, too.

“Keep turning!” Vigor said, sweat pouring down the sides of his face. He glanced to the stairs — then back to Lisa. “From their shouting, I think we’d better hurry.”

Between their palms, they had been unscrewing a large bronze bolt. Its platter-size head bore a crucifix, presently twirling as they spun the screw. By now, the greased bore protruded a full two feet from the arched top of the door.

How much more did they have to go?

They turned faster.

Vigor quoted the bottom inscription on the door, huffing as he labored.

“‘An angel of the Lord descended from the sky, and came and rolled away the stone from the door.’ At first, I tried rolling the door itself, and gave that up pretty quickly. Then I remembered the last line. ‘Let only one strong in the spirit of the Lord dare open it.’ Plainly a nod toward the crucifix. I should’ve picked up on that from the outset.”

Feet pounded on the lower stairs, coming up.

Kowalski yelled to them. “Bomb…door…hurry!”

“A man of few words, our Mr. Kowalski.”

With a final twist, the bronze screw fell free of its socket. The weight caught them both by surprise, and the screw tumbled to the steps with a ringing clatter.

Kowalski came barreling up from below, carrying Susan. She hung limp. Kowalski’s face sank when he saw the door still closed. “What have you been doing?”

“Waiting for you,” Vigor said, and shoved the slab.

No longer screwed tight, the door toppled outward, crashing to the stone. Sunlight burst forth, reflecting off the stone all around. Lisa could barely see as she stumbled out with Vigor, making room for Kowalski and Susan.

Kowalski groused as he ducked through. “I thought Seichan said she tried pushing. Damn those scrawny arms of hers.”

Straightening, Lisa blinked away the glare, realizing that they were at the bottom of a deep stone well, ten feet wide. The sheer walls stretched two stories high. No way up.

Kowalski lowered Susan to one side of the door. “Doc, I don’t think she’s breathing.”

Reminded of her duty, Lisa rushed to his side. She’d had her fill of death for one day. She dropped beside Susan and checked for a pulse. She didn’t find one. Still, Lisa refused to give up.

“Someone help me,” she called.

Gray and Seichan fell through the door next, hobbling together. Gray noted her examination. “Lisa…she’s dead.”

“No. Not without a fight first.”

“I’ll help you,” Seichan mumbled.

As she hobbled over, Lisa noticed blood seeping through the woman’s blouse, through her pants, fresh and wet.

Seichan noted her attention. “I’m fine.”

Gray warned them to keep as quiet as possible — in case any of Nasser’s men were nearby. He also waved everyone away from the doorway. His face and arms were blistered and raw. The whites of his eyes were a solid blood red.

On the other side of the doorway, Lisa began cardiac compressions while Seichan performed mouth-to-mouth. Vigor stood nearby, crossing a blessing over Susan.

“Those better not be last rites,” Lisa whispered, keeping her elbows locked as she compressed.

Vigor shook his head. “Just a prayer for—”

The bomb blasted with a clap of thunder, shuddering the ground underfoot. A wash of foul air shot out from below, a poisonous exhalation still ripe with caustic fumes and a blast of heat.

Lisa leaned over Susan.

The worst of it all plumed up the shaft and away.

“That wasn’t too bad,” Kowalski said.

Gray continued staring high. “Everybody hold tight.”

Lisa glanced up as she pumped her arms on Susan’s chest.

To the left, the top half of the Bayon’s center spire could be seen. Stone faces gazed back down at them. All of them were shaking.

“It’s coming down!” Gray said.

Nasser fled with six of his men, racing across the second tier’s courtyard. Every step was agony. His entire body continued to burn, as if the hellish woman were still clutched to him. But he had a more immediate concern.

He glanced back as he ducked behind a gallery wall.

The Bayon tower trembled — then in an oddly slow fashion, it collapsed in on itself, imploding and dropping a quarter of its height with a rumble of stone. The death rattle of a hundred bodhisattvas. Stone dust flumed around the collapsed pile, shooting high. More rocks continued to bounce and roll, chattering down the mountainside.

His demolition expert had warned against the size of the charge, warned this might happen. But Nasser could not risk Commander Pierce escaping with the prize.

As he turned away he noted a second plume of smoky dust, rising off to the side. It twisted up like a gray smoke signal.

Nasser’s eyes narrowed.

Did it mark another exit to the cavern?

Gray choked on the dust, barely able to see anyone else in the confined space of the well. The tower had crashed, collapsing into its foundations and crushing the cavern below. An acidic wash of smoke and dust jetted outward, spiraling up the well’s throat.

Gray wiped his eyes and twisted around. He searched back through the doorway. Boulders filled the steep stairway, its ceiling collapsed.

Gray leaned his shoulder against the wall and stared up. The north wall of the well leaned precariously outward. They’d been lucky it hadn’t collapsed and crushed them all. A few of the blocks stuck out like buckteeth.

More coughing echoed around the well.

The dust cleared enough to reveal one of the sufferers.

Lisa helped Susan sit up. The woman covered her mouth with a fist and continued a racking jag.

Welcome back to the world.

Maybe their luck was turning.

A voice, calling down from above, dismissed that possibility.

“Who do we have here?” Nasser yelled down. “To use a quaint American colloquialism, I’d say we’ve found a bunch of fish in a barrel.”

Rifles circled the well on all sides, pointing down at them.

Gray slid along the wall, bumping into Kowalski.

“What now, boss?” he asked.

Before Gray could answer, a cell phone rang out sharply. It came from above, but the ring tone was familiar. Nasser reached to a pocket and removed Vigor’s phone. He had confiscated it from the monsignor after they had been captured at the hotel. They’d all been thoroughly searched before their sit-down at the Elephant Bar.

Nasser checked the caller ID. “Rachel Verona.” He held the phone over the pit, leaning out. “Your niece, Monsignor. Would you care to say good-bye?”

The phone rang a third time, then went silent.

“I guess not,” Nasser said. “A shame.”

Gray closed his eyes and held his breath.

Nasser continued. “Or maybe, Commander Pierce, you’d like to call my partner, Annishen. I did promise you’d hear your parents’ screams before you died.”

Gray ignored him. His hand slipped behind Kowalski’s back and under the man’s long duster jacket. The interrupted call from Vigor’s niece was a prearranged signal, from Painter, to let Gray know when his mother and father were safe.

Or dead.

Either way…beyond Nasser’s control.

Gray’s fingers wrapped around the butt of the pistol lodged at the base of Kowalski’s back. The large man had almost yanked the gun out earlier, startled by a monkey. Luckily Gray had stopped him.

Gray pulled the pistol free and lowered it to his side.

Nasser continued. “Or maybe I’ll just leave your parents’ fate a mystery…leave you forever wondering, something to take to your grave.”

“Why don’t you go first…” Gray stepped forward, snapped his weapon up, and fired twice.

He clipped the man in the shoulder and the chest. The impacts spun Nasser sideways. He fell into the well, arms flailing, spraying blood against the stone walls.

Gray twisted on a heel, strafing along the well’s rim. He struck three more men while the others fled back. Behind him, Nasser crashed to the stone floor, with a snap of bones and a cry.

Gray scanned above, his weapon ready. The 9mm Metal Storm pistol was an Australian design, the ultimate in power, firing off multiple rounds in fractions of a second. Propellant-driven, no moving parts, all electronic.

“Lisa, check Nasser for Vigor’s phone! Get Painter on the line!”

She shuffled behind him.

As he slowly turned, guarding the well, Gray noted Nasser out of the corner of an eye. He lay on his back, one arm twisted under him, broken at the shoulder. Blood bubbled from his lips. Shattered ribs. But he still lived. Eyes tracking Gray, full of dismay and confusion.

Die wondering, you bastard.

Nasser finally obeyed, sighing out his last breath, eyes going blank.

Seichan voiced Nasser’s question. “So where did you get the gun?”

“I arranged it with Painter. Back in Hormuz. I didn’t want him to mobilize any local teams here. But I did ask for one small concession. A single gun, smuggled into the Elephant Bar bathroom before we ever got there, taped behind a toilet. I knew Nasser might still be suspicious of me, even search me multiple times. But Kowalski…”

Gray shrugged.

“At the bar, I remember,” Seichan said. “Before we left. Kowalski said he had to ‘take a leak.’”

“I knew we’d be searched before the meeting at the bar. It was the easiest way to get a gun to us afterward. To keep it close until my parents were safe.”

Kowalski grunted. “Jackass should’ve watched the goddamn Godfather a few more times.”

Lisa called behind him. “I have Painter on the line.”

Gray’s fingers tightened on his pistol. “My parents? Are they—?”

“I already asked. They’re safe. And unharmed.”

Gray let out a long breath of relief.

Thank God.

He cleared his throat. “You’d better tell Painter to set up a quarantine perimeter, at least a ten mile radius around the ruins.”

Gray pictured the cloud of toxic gases, surely rich with the Judas Strain. The gateway had been open for only twelve minutes, slammed closed and bleached by Nasser’s bomb. A small blessing there. But how much of the Judas Strain had gotten loose?

Gray glanced at Susan. She huddled in the doorway. Kowalski guarded her. Had she succeeded? Gray was aware of everyone who shared the well with him. Each had contributed in no small measure to get them here. But had it all been in vain?

Lisa spoke up. “Quarantine’s under way.”

Gray searched the top of the well, weapon high. There was still a Guild army out there. “Then tell Painter we could use some help here, too.”

She relayed the message — then lowered the phone. “He says it’s already on the way. He said look up.”

Gray glanced skyward. The rich blue of the afternoon sky swirled with stiff-looking hawks, wings wide. Scores of them, converging from all directions. But these hawks carried assault rifles.

Reaching a hand back, Gray asked for the phone.

Lisa slapped it into his palm.

Gray put the receiver to his ear. “I thought we agreed not to mobilize a local response.”

“Commander, I don’t exactly classify forty thousand feet in the air as local. And besides, I’m your boss. Not the other way around.”

Gray continued to watch the skies.

The strike team plummeted toward the ruins, spreading out in an attack pattern. Each soldier had a fixed-wing glider harnessed to his back, like miniature wings of a jet fighter, allowing for high-altitude deployment.

They dove downward.

Spiraling and spiraling.

Then on one signal, each man pulled his ripcord, all shedding wings in unison. Glide chutes deployed, snapping wide for the last stretch of their descent. Like a choreographed dance, they swooped in from all directions.

Others noted the dramatic approach. Gray heard boots pounding on stone, most heading away. Gray imagined black berets were being stuffed into garbage cans as the Guild’s mercenaries hightailed it out of here.

But not all were so craven.

A few spats of rifle fire echoed. Slow at first, then furiously. A firefight raged for a full, tense minute. A glide chute swept overhead, the pilot firing on the fly. Then another, his legs lifted high as he prepared to alight on the ruins. Bodies thudded, landing all around the well, probably zeroed in on the phone in Gray’s hand.

A man suddenly lunged over the well’s low wall, a bit too quickly.

Gray came close to shooting him until he recognized the jumpsuit. U.S. Air Force.

“You blokes all okay?” he called down in an Aussie accent, unhooking his chute.

Lisa shoved past Vigor, her voice full of amazement. “Ryder?”

The man grinned down at her. “That man of yours…Painter…bonzer bloke! Let me come along for the ride. It’s not climbing over electrified nets with cannibals…but then what is?”

Someone called out.

Ryder lifted an arm, acknowledging, then glanced back down. “Hold fast! Ladders on their way!” He rolled away and vanished.

Gray continued to keep guard over those here, his weapon ready.

It was all he could do.

That, and one last thing.

He lifted the phone to his ear again. “Director?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for not listening to me, sir.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

19 Traitor

A week later Lisa stood at the window to her room in a private hospital outside of Bangkok. Tall walls surrounded the small two-story facility and its lush gardens of papaya trees, flowering lotus, sparkling fountains, along with a few quiet statues of Buddha wrapped in saffron robes, trailing thin spikes of smoke from morning prayer sticks.

She had said her own prayers at dawn this morning.

Alone.

For Monk.

The window stood open, the shutters thrown back for the first time in a week. Their quarantine was over. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of jasmine and orange blossoms. Beyond the wall she heard the slow bustle of village life: the lowing of oxen, the chatter of a pair of elderly women passing the gates, the heavy tread of an elephant dragging a log, and best of all, unseen, but as vibrant as sunshine, the laughter of children.

Life.

How close had they come to losing it all?

“Did you know,” a voice said behind her, “that standing in front of the window, the sun shines right through that hospital gown? Leaves very little to the imagination. Not that I’m complaining.”

She turned, swelling with joy.

Painter leaned against the door frame, holding a paper-wrapped bundle of yellow roses, her favorite. He was dressed in a suit, no tie, clean-shaven and scrubbed. He had a slight tan after a week in the tropics, out of Sigma’s subterranean lair, setting off the spark to his blue eyes and dark hair.

“I thought you weren’t going to be back here until late tonight,” she said, stepping away.

He entered the room. Unlike the sterility of most hospital accommodations, the private facility had rooms lavishly appointed in teak. It was also adorned with vases of flowers, even a pair of fishbowls, swimming with tiny, orange-and-crimson goldfish.

“The meeting with the Cambodian prime minister was postponed until next week. And is probably unnecessary. Even the quarantine there will be ending within the next few days.”

Lisa nodded. Crop dusters had spread a weak solution of disinfectant over the outlying areas. The ruins of Angkor Thom had been soaked thoroughly. The refugee quarantine camps had revealed some cases, but they were responding to treatment.

The cure had worked.

Susan was in another wing of the hospital, under the strictest guard, but even that was proving an unnecessary caution. She had indeed come forth with the cure, walking through fire to do it. Afterward, there remained no trace of the virus—cis or trans—inside her. It was all gone.

Except for the cure.

It proved not to be an antibody, or an enzyme, or even a white blood cell. It was bacteria. The same cyanobacteria that had made her glow.

The second toxic exposure had altered the bacteria yet again, churning the life cycle fully around. Like healthy lactobacillus in yogurt, the bacteria, when ingested or inoculated, produced beneficial compounds that destroyed any toxic bacteria generated by the Judas Strain and scavenged away all trace of the virus itself, digesting it.

The cure produced symptoms equivalent to a mild flu, then you were immune from further reinfection. The bacteria also appeared to act as a vaccine in healthy subjects, offering immunity against exposure, similar to the Salk’s vaccine against polio. But best of all, the bacteria also proved easy to culture. Samples had been passed to laboratories around the world. Vast quantities were already being generated, a global storehouse to stamp out the early pandemic and protect the world from any future recurrence.

Health organizations continued to remain vigilant against such an event.

“What about Christmas Island, where it all started?” Lisa asked, sitting at the edge of her bed.

Painter replaced some wilting flowers with his roses. “Looking good. By the way, I read some of the papers your friend Jessie stole from the cruise ship before it sank. Apparently, as the Guild departed Christmas Island, they had dumped a tanker load of bleach along the windward shoreline. Not out of any altruism, mind you. Just trying to wipe out the major bloom, to confound any competitors to their discovery.”

“Do you think that will keep the bloom from reappearing?”

Painter shrugged, stepped to the bed, and sat down. He took her hand — not in any purposeful way, just reflex, which was why she loved him so much.

“Hard to say,” he answered. “The typhoon swept over the island. International teams of marine scientists are monitoring the waters — led by Dr. Richard Graff. After his help with the crab situation…figured he deserved the assignment.”

Lisa squeezed Painter’s hand. The mention of Graff only reminded Lisa of Monk. She sighed, watching the twirl of goldfish in the bedside bowl.

Painter freed his hand, put his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her close. His other hand found hers again. He knew where her heart lay at the moment. His voice dropped to a soft rumble, setting aside some of his playfulness.

“You heard we were interviewing all the survivors of the Mistress of the Seas.”

She didn’t answer, just slid her arm around his waist. She knew the news to come was bad.

The island was still under quarantine, a joint venture between Australia and the United States. Australian commandos had been able to orchestrate a massive evacuation of the ship as it burned and sank. Most of the Guild’s work now rested a thousand feet underwater, a new addition to the deepwater home of the predatory squids. It made diving on the wreck extremely dangerous. The squids had been classified as a new species of Taningia, granted the name Taningia tunis in the memory of Susan’s husband.

Yesterday Lisa had spoken over the phone with Henri and Jessie at the refugee camp on Pusat. They had survived, managing to protect most of the patients and WHO staff, aided by the cannibals during the chaos. Everyone was now undergoing treatment, and so far, faring well. The only exceptions were those few who had passed into a full maddened rave. The brain damage appeared permanent. Most of the afflicted had died when the ship sank. Not a single member of the Guild team made it off the ship alive.

Except perhaps one.

Jessie had told Lisa a story of the evacuation. He had come upon a padlocked hold. He heard children crying inside. He had broken through in time to rescue the children, who told the story of a strange angel who came and gathered them all together, locking them up out of harm’s way. This angel had then led a group of the ravening patients away from the hold, using herself as bait.

The children had described their angel.

Flowing black hair, dressed in silk, silent as the grave.

Surina.

She had vanished away.

Painter continued. “We interviewed everyone in camp.”

“About Monk,” she whispered.

“One of the WHO doctors had been hiding out on the ship’s deck. He had binoculars. He watched your escape in the Sea Dart. Through binoculars, he saw Monk fall, witnessed the net dropping over him, dragging him down.” Painter paused to take a tired breath. “He never resurfaced.”

Lisa closed her eyes. She felt something burst inside, spreading a burning acid through her veins, weakening her. A part of her still had been hoping…some thin chance…It was why she had knelt outside before one of the Buddhas.

She had been praying he was still alive.

“He’s gone,” she murmured, fully admitting it to herself.

Oh, Monk…

Lisa hugged tight to Painter. Her tears soaked through his shirt. Fingers clenched to him as she assured herself with his physicality. “Have you told Kat yet?” she mumbled, resting her cheek against his chest.

Painter remained silent.

Lisa felt him tremble.

He had.

She pulled his hand from her shoulder and kissed his palm.

He spoke in a whisper, coarse and deep. “Don’t you ever leave me.”

Lisa remembered why she had gone on this mission. To evaluate her life outside of Painter’s shadow. To get some perspective as their lives merged together, professionally and personally.

She had learned her answer.

From cannibal attacks to the tortures of madmen.

She knew she was strong enough to stand alone.

But…

She leaned up, kissing his lips, whispering.

“This is where I belong.”

Gray crossed down the hospital’s garden path. He had changed into jeans, boots, and an untucked shirt with a tropical print. It was good to be in regular clothes, to shed the hospital gowns. It also felt good to be outside, under the sun, though his lungs still felt heavy and the bright light stung his sensitive eyes. He was still healing, but his restless energy after a week indoors had built to an edgy irritation.

His pace quickened, his stride lengthening. He had circled the entire garden, full around the building. He wanted no surprises.

He had been plotting this for the past three days, and now the timetable had been moved up. The gate to the hospital appeared ahead.

They were allowed to leave, but only as far as the surrounding village.

Rounding a corner of a tall hedgerow, Gray came upon a small alcove, a private altar with a fat Buddha draped in red silk. A few smudge sticks lay on the ground, but currently the smoke came from another source.

Kowalski leaned on the Buddha, a palm atop the stone head. He removed the cigar from his mouth, puffing a long thick cloud.

“Oh, yeah…” he moaned in grudging contentment.

“Where did you get a — oh, never mind.” Gray held out a hand. “Were you able to find what I asked for?”

Kowalski stubbed out his cigar on the Buddha’s shoulder.

Even Gray cringed a bit at the casual sacrilege.

“Yeah, but what do you want with all this?” he asked, and lifted a paper-wrapped bundle from behind his back. “I bribed my nurse while getting a sponge bath. Of course it was a guy. Took all the fun out of it. But he was able to buy what you wanted.”

Gray took the package and turned to head off.

Kowalski crossed his arms, his brows heavy with disappointment, even heaving out an irritated sigh.

Gray stepped back. “What’s the matter?”

Kowalski opened his mouth — then closed it.

“What?” Gray pressed.

Kowalski flipped his hands in the air. “First…well, all this time, I didn’t get to shoot a single goddamn gun. Not a rifle, not a pistol, not a popgun! I mean I might as well have been on guard duty back home. All I got for my troubles was a bunch of needles stuck in my ass.”

Gray stood a moment, staring. It was the longest speech Kowalski had ever given. He was plainly passionate on the subject.

“I’m just saying…” Kowalski blurted, suddenly mildly chagrined.

Gray sighed. “Come with me.” He stalked off and headed toward the gate. He did owe the guy.

Kowalski followed. “Where we going?”

Gray led him to the gate. The guards on duty nodded to them. Gray tucked the package under his arm and fished out his wallet. He stripped out a bill and passed it to Kowalski as they stepped through the gate.

“What am I supposed to do with ten dollars?” he asked.

Gray stepped farther out and pointed down the road to where a work crew labored. Thailand-style. Four men and their two work animals.

“Look…elephants,” Gray said.

Kowalski stared down the dirt track, down to the bill in his hands, then back out to the elephants. A giant grin split his face. He strode off, turned back, struggled to express his thanks, failed, then headed down the road again.

“Oh, yeah, I’m all over this elephant ride…” He lifted his arm. “Hey, you! Gunga Din!”

Gray turned around and headed back inside.

Poor elephant.

Vigor rested in his bed. He had a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. He had books piled on his nightstand, crowding his goldfish bowl. He had articles printed out and stacked on the other side of the hospital bed: on angelic script, on Marco Polo, on the history of the Khmers, on the ruins of Angkor.

He was presently rereading for the fourth time the scientific report Gray had sited, an article in Science magazine from 1994, relating the study of human language to DNA code.

Fascinating…

Motion at his open door drew his attention from the paper. He spotted Gray. “Commander Pierce!” he called out.

Gray paused at the door, checked his watch, then leaned in. “Yes, Monsignor.”

Vigor was surprised at the formality. Something had set Gray on edge. He waved the man inside. “Come in for a moment.”

“I have just that…a moment.” He stepped inside. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” Vigor waved away such matters. “I read this article. I didn’t realize that only three percent of our genome is active. That a full ninety-seven percent is junk and codes for nothing. Yet, when this junk is run through the cryptography program testing for language, even such random garbage also reveals a language. Amazing.” Vigor took off his glasses. “Gray, what if we could understand that language?”

Gray nodded. “Some things may be forever beyond us.”

Vigor scowled gently. “Now I certainly don’t believe that. God didn’t give us these big brains and not want us to use them. We were born to question, to search, to strive for a fuller understanding of the universe, both external and internal.”

Gray checked his watch again, subtly, a flick of his eyes down to his wrist, not wanting to appear rude.

Vigor decided to quit torturing the young man. He plainly was busy. “I’ll get to my point. Remember back in the barrel vault beneath the Bayon, I mentioned how the angelic script — the possible written form of this unknown genetic language — could be the Word of God mapping out something greater in us, maybe something buried in that ninety-seven percent of our genetic code that is considered junk. What if it’s not junk? Maybe we even caught a glimpse of that greater part of us.”

“How do you mean?”

“The woman Susan. Maybe her transformation was a peek into the true translation of the angelic script?”

Vigor read the disbelief in the commander’s face and held up a hand. “I talked to Lisa earlier this morning. She mentioned how she believed Susan’s brain was fully excited by the energies of the bacteria when exposed to sunlight, awakening those parts of the human brain that are otherwise dormant. I find it interesting that only a tiny fraction of our genetic code is active, and at the same time, we only utilize a small portion of our brain. Don’t you find that odd?”

Gray shrugged, noncommittal. “I suppose.”

Vigor continued. “What if all that angelic script maps out our full potential, that which still remains hidden in all of us, waiting to be awakened? According to the book of Genesis, God made us in his image. What if that image is yet to be fully realized, buried in dormant sections of our brain, hidden within the angelic language of our junk DNA? Maybe all that script written on the walls under the Bayon, glowing in the dark, maybe the ancient writer was attempting to understand that potential, too. You mentioned yourself how it was incomplete, sections missing.”

“That’s true,” Gray conceded. “And you raise some interesting conjectures worth exploring, but I don’t know if we’ll ever know the truth. Susan is back to normal, and I heard from Painter that an excavation team was able to breach the foundation vault beneath the Bayon. Some of the walls were found intact, but Nasser’s acid bomb had stripped the surfaces clean. Nothing remains of the script.”

Vigor felt his heart sink. “A shame. Still, I wonder about something that we never found down in the cavern.”

“What’s that?”

“Your turtle,” Vigor said. “You thought that the vault might contain a deeper mystery, something that represents the incarnation of Vishnu.”

“Maybe it was just the Judas Strain. The glowing pool. Even you mentioned how the ancient Khmer probably stumbled upon the glowing cavern and attributed it to some god’s home. Maybe Vishnu’s.”

Vigor stared at the commander. “Or maybe Susan was a glimpse of that greater mystery, a peek at the godlike or angelic potential hidden inside all of us.”

Gray finally shrugged, plainly ready to dismiss it. But as Vigor had hoped, he noted a slight pinch to the man’s brows. Curiosity. He wanted Gray to keep his mind open.

Still, Vigor also saw that something more urgently pressed upon the man’s mind and attention. He waved Gray out.

Vigor called to him as he stepped out the door. “Give my best to Seichan.”

Gray stumbled a step, frowned a bit, and headed away.

Vigor replaced his reading glasses.

Ah, sweet youth…

Gray handed the cup of coffee to the guard outside Seichan’s door. “Is she awake?”

He shrugged, a young sandy-haired ensign from Peoria. “Don’t know.”

Gray pushed through the door. It was a dull assignment for the ensign. The patient was almost continuously sedated after going through a second operation for her gunshot wound. Seichan had retorn her injury and had been bleeding internally.

All because she had saved Gray’s life.

He remembered Seichan’s arms carrying him, the pain in her blistered face, her swollen eye. But he hadn’t known that by coming back for him she had almost died.

Gray entered her room.

She lay handcuffed to her bed, arms spread to either side.

She wore a hospital gown and was covered with a clean sheet.

The room, built for mental patients, was sterile and cold. The only furniture was the bed and a rolling stand shoved against the wall. A high, narrow window had steel shutters over it.

Seichan stirred as he entered. She turned her head. Her face hardened with a slight downcast to her eyes, ashamed at her immobilization. Then anger flared up and burned all else away. She tugged at one of her handcuffed wrists.

Gray came and sat on the bed.

“Even though my parents are alive,” he started right in, “that doesn’t mean I forgive you. That I’ll ever forgive you. But I do owe you. I won’t let you die. Not this way.”

Gray pulled the handcuff keys from his pocket. He reached out and lifted her wrist. He felt her pulse quicken under his fingertips.

“They’re sending you to Guantánamo Bay in the morning,” he said.

“I know.”

And like Gray, she also knew it was a death sentence. If she wasn’t immediately executed, the Guild would assassinate her to silence her, or one of the other intelligence agencies would. The Israeli Mossad still had an open kill order on her.

He slipped in the key and turned the lock. Her cuff snapped open.

Seichan sat up, still wearing a glint of suspicion.

She held out her palm for the key, testing him.

He gave it to her. As she undid her second cuff, Gray placed the package Kowalski had obtained on the bed.

“I have three sets of clothes: a nurse’s uniform, local attire, and something in camouflage. There’s also local currency. I couldn’t do anything about ID, not on this short notice.”

Seichan’s other handcuff snapped free. Turning, she rubbed her wrists.

The soft sound of a body hitting the floor sounded past the door.

“Oh, and I drugged the guard.”

She glanced to the door, then back to him. Her eyes sparked. Before he could move, she lunged, grabbed his collar, and pulled him to her. She kissed him hard, her mouth parting, tasting sweetly medicinal.

Gray instinctively pulled back. He hadn’t come here to—

Oh, screw it…

He reached to the small of her back and cupped her tightly to him. Never releasing, she climbed into him, onto him, over him. Her feet lowered to the floor. He twisted, falling back.

He heard the snick of shackles.

She pushed off of him.

His right wrist had been handcuffed to the bed.

He glanced up in time to see her elbow swinging toward his face.

His head cracked back. He tasted blood on his lips.

She leaped on him, pinning him to the bed, sitting on his chest. She raised her fist. He lifted his free arm to block. She cocked her head. “This has to look convincing, or you’ll be the one sitting in Guantánamo for treason.”

She was right.

Gray lowered his arm.

She struck him hard, splitting his lip. His head rang with the blow. She shook the sting from her hand — then raised her fist again.

“And this is for not trusting me,” she said, and lashed out again.

Blood spurted from his nose. He felt himself drift away, then back again.

She leaned down, near his ear. “Do you remember that little promise I made to you at the very beginning?”

“What’s that?” He turned to the side and spat.

“That I’d reveal the mole to you after this was all over.”

“But there was no mole.”

“Are you certain of that?”

Her eyes hovered over his. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

She sat back and whipped out with her elbow, a glancing blow to his eye.

“Christ!”

“That’ll swell fine.” She rubbed her lips, studying him, like an artist over an oil painting in progress. Then said, “I’m the mole, Gray.”

“What—?”

“A mole planted inside the Guild.”

She slammed a fist into his other eye. His vision went black for a breath.

“I’m one of the good guys, Gray. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

Gray lay there dazed, from her words, from her blows.

“A double agent?” he coughed out, incredulous. “Two years ago, you shot me! Point-blank in the chest.”

She cocked her fist again. “I knew you had on liquid body armor. Didn’t you ever wonder why I was wearing the same? Catch a clue, Gray.”

Her fist hammered down, rocking his head back. She then pinched the bridge of his nose, plainly wondering if she should break it.

“And the anthrax bomb,” he said. “At Fort Detrick?”

“Already sterilized. A dud. I was planning on blaming the bomb’s designer.”

“But…the curator in Venice?” he sputtered out. “You killed him in cold blood.”

She slashed her fingernails down his left cheek, digging deep furrows of fire. “If I hadn’t, his whole family would have been slaughtered. Including wife and daughter.”

Wincing, Gray stared up. She had an answer for everything.

Seichan leaned back, cranking the heel of her hand up to her ear, eyeing his nose. “And I’m not stopping…not after five years, not when I’m this damn close to discovering who leads the Guild.”

She punched down, but he caught her wrist this time.

She leaned her weight, pressing down on him.

“Seichan…”

She stared down at him, muscles straining, eyes fiery, as if in pain. Their eyes met. She searched his face, looking for something. She didn’t seem to find it. For a flash, he saw disappointment in her eyes. Also regret…maybe loneliness. Then it was gone.

She slammed him with her other elbow, a blow to the ear, scattering stars across his vision. He released her. She fell back, scrambling off of him.

“That’ll do,” she mumbled, turning away.

She crossed to the clothes, shed her hospital gown, and quickly donned the nurse’s uniform, including a demure silk scarf to hide her healing face. She kept her back to him.

“Seichan?”

Once dressed, she didn’t say a word, only stepped to the door. She wouldn’t even turn, only asked one last thing of him, spoken softly, a lifeline thrown back toward him.

“Trust me, Gray. If only a little. I’ve earned that much.”

Before he could answer, she left. The door swung closed behind her.

Trust me…

Heaven help him, he did.

He shoved up in the bed, his face throbbing, his one eye swelling.

Fifteen minutes passed. Long enough to ensure that she escaped.

Finally Painter appeared at the door, pushing inside.

“Did you get all that?” Gray asked.

“The wire picked up everything.”

“Could she be telling the truth?”

Painter frowned, staring back at the door. “She is a consummate liar.”

“Maybe she had to be. To survive inside the Guild.”

Painter undid the handcuffs. “Either way, the passive tracer we planted in her belly during the operation will allow us to track her whereabouts.”

“And what if the Guild finds it?”

“It’s a plastic polymer, invisible to X-ray. They’ll never detect it.”

Unless they cut her open.

Gray stood up. “This is wrong. You know it.”

“It was the only way the government would allow us to free her.”

Gray remembered Seichan’s eyes, staring down at him.

He knew two truths.

She had not been lying.

And even now, she was certainly far from free.