Threshold

Not watching his step, Bowers tripped over some brush. He fell forward, striking his face hard on the loose soil, getting a mouthful of gritty dirt in the process. King took him by the shoulder, yanked him up, and shoved him forward.

“Move soldier!” King shouted. “I will not stop to pick you up again!”

Bowers charged up the hill. The mental spanking was exactly what he needed to keep his mind off the giant monsters trying to eat them alive. But King’s mind remained on both running and the mantises, because unlike Bowers, if he didn’t also figure out how to kill the monsters, they would both be dead.

SEVENTY-ONE

BEFORE KING EVER exited the sandy tomb, Knight and Bishop followed Rahim toward the river, walking at a quick pace. Knight had a pair of binoculars out and ready. When they cleared the base, Rahim pointed to a mound across the river. “Over there. Just above those ruins.”

Knight raised the binoculars to his eyes and looked. “He’s not there.” He scanned the area, eventually reaching the river. “Hold on. There’s a soldier in a patrol boat. Looks like he’s waiting for someone. But he’s calm.”

They headed closer, skirting the river.

As they walked, more than a few soldiers stopped to give them odd looks. None of them had ever been seen on base before. Two of them were of Arab descent, one in plainclothes and one of them was Korean. Knight did his best to offer reassuring smiles. He knew they looked like a mini Axis of Evil to the men posted here.

Knight’s honed senses suddenly picked up on a subtle pressure wave. He stopped and looked around. No one else had detected it, not even Bishop. Binoculars raised, he looked across the river again. A puff of sand rose up into the air above the mound. Then King appeared from within, unarmed and running. He could see him shouting at the man in the boat. Then something rose out of the sand behind King.

He could see two large creatures with spindly limbs, but as they climbed onto the sand, their brown color blended perfectly and hid them from view.

“What the…” He lowered the binoculars and spun around. They’d passed a security tower on their way to the river. The men inside would have a sniper rifle.

“Head for the river,” he said to Bishop, handing him the binoculars.

Bishop took a quick look through the binoculars, located King’s position, and took off running. Knight ran in the opposite direction, leaving a stunned Rahim standing alone in the middle of the road.

Knight reached the security tower and threw himself onto the ladder. He landed on the fourth rung up and then climbed it as deftly as a monkey. At the top, he launched himself over the sandbag wall and landed hard on the other side. The two soldiers sitting inside the small, windowed room atop the tower flinched and drew their weapons.

When Knight raised his hands, showing himself to be unarmed, one of the men said, “We could have killed you!”

The other, who was less concerned with Knight’s safety, said, “Who are you and what the hell are you doing up here?”

“I need your sniper rifle,” Knight said, looking at the weapon propped up in the corner next to the grumpy soldier. It was a standard-issue rifle with a day scope. It would be accurate, but its bolt action would slow him down as each round had to be chambered by hand.

The grumpy soldier scoffed. “No fucking way.”

“Do me a favor and take a look across the river,” Knight said. “Through the scope.”

Curiosity got the best of the grumpy soldier. He squinted at Knight as he picked up the weapon and pulled up the scope flaps. He set the weapon down on the railing and scanned the opposite shore. A moment later he stepped back quickly, standing tall. His skin, tanned from the Iraqi sun, went white.

“Right now your heart is pounding in your chest,” Knight said. “Your breathing is faster than a machine gun. You’re scared shitless, probably shaking, and couldn’t hit a target from ten feet. So you’re going to let me use this weapon and save those men.”

Rapid machine-gun fire broke out in the distance. Both men tensed. Knight moved. He reached in front of the stunned soldier and took his weapon. Neither man protested. Instead, they stood behind Knight and watched. In the distance, a security boat was backing across the river, a man on the machine gun firing at the far side.

Knight chambered a round and took aim. Through the powerful scope he watched the boat slam into the far shore. Then they were running up the hill toward the palace. But the giant creatures he’d seen before had disappeared.

Where did they go?

He got his answer a moment later as two massive insects—mantises—took to the sky, flew over the river, and landed behind King. He took aim and fired at the lead creature. The bullet crossed the half-mile distance and overshot the creature. He turned an annoyed glance on the grumpy soldier. “When was the last time this weapon was calibrated?”

The man offered a guilty shrug.

“Sonofabitch,” Knight grumbled as he chambered a second round and took aim again. The mantises were already charging up the hill, concealed by brush, trees, and perfect desert coloring. He could see them moving within, but didn’t want to waste rounds only to shoot something nonvital.

He scanned up the hill and saw King pause. “Don’t stop,” Knight said. “Don’t stop!”

The lead insect cleared the brush at the top of the hill and lunged into the air, its two forelimbs ready to strike. Knight held his breath as King turned around positioning his face right in front of the outstretching limbs.

* * *

AS KING AND Bowers reached the top of the hill, King stopped and told Bowers to head for the ruins. It was a straight shot, downhill. Bowers should have no trouble making it, King thought, unless he falls again.

He turned around to see how close the mantises were and found two dagger-lined limbs opening up to embrace him. With a violent, bloody death only a few inches and a fraction of a second away, King did the only thing he could: closed his eyes.

The sound didn’t register until after the event took place, but King heard a close, wet sucking sound followed by a distant thunderclap as a single round was fired.

King was struck hard and knocked to the ground, but his head was still intact and the attack did not continue. He scrambled up and found a headless mantis at his feet. King saw gore sprayed across the palace wall and traced an imaginary bullet trajectory back across the base to where a security tower stood.

King knew of only one man who could hit a moving target from that distance.

Knight.

A glint of light from the tower flashed a message in rapid-fire Morse code: run.

King obeyed as the brush near the top of the hill shook with the approach of the remaining mantis. His feet carried him swiftly down the hill. So swift, in fact, that he caught up to Bowers and maintained a healthy distance from the mantis. He could hear the distant sniper rifle shots being fired by Knight, but had no idea if he was hitting his target. So when they reached the bottom of the hill, which ended at a football field–sized stretch of desert sand, King gave Bowers a shove and urged him to move faster.

As they crossed the sand, King looked back and saw the mantis exit the protection of the hillside brush. A round immediately struck one side and burst out the other. The mantis staggered, but then took flight, following an erratic flight path that was impossible to predict.

As they approached the edge of the ruins, King said, “Head for the back. There are two people inside that can help. Just keep moving until you find them.”

Bowers looked at King, his eyes wide with fear. “Why are you telling me all of this? Tick on dick, remember?”

“Because we’re splitting up,” King shouted.

The ruins loomed before them. Though he could only see the arched entrance and the halls that led to the left and right behind it, King knew the ruins were a labyrinth of open halls, chambers, and atriums. “I’ll get you over that first wall,” he said to Bowers. “Then you’re on your own.”

Bowers gave a grateful nod.

Then they were at the dull brown wall. It stood eight feet tall. King clasped his hands together. Bowers stepped onto King’s hands and working together, they launched him up and over the wall. “Good luck, man,” Bowers said after landing.

But King had no time to reply. The flying mantis descended toward him. Adapting to its prey, this mantis was going to attack from the air! But it didn’t attack. Instead, as the hum of its clear wings grew intense, the insect rose up and over the eight-foot wall.

“No!” King shouted. “Bowers, run!”

But it was too late. As the giant predator descended on the other side of the wall, Bowers let out a scream. The shrill sound turned to a wet gargle. Silence followed, then the sound of something tearing, followed by more silence. King had seen the mantis in action and knew what happened. Bowers had been impaled, pinned to the ground, and then left. The mantis was still on the hunt.

King ran to the left, entering the maze. Before he reached the first turn, he heard the telltale clack of the mantis walking on stone, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

King tore around the corner, weaving his way through the chaotic ruins. An opening in the wall to his right opened up into a courtyard. Bowers lay in the center of the space, his eyes glossy, his body surrounded by a pool of dark red blood. King pushed forward and spilled from a hallway into what had once been a kitchen. He leaped over the three stone stairs that descended into the room and then over the three-foot foundation to exit on the other side.

As he ran past an open doorway, he caught sight of an aberration in the wall. Then he was struck in the side and sent sailing. He slammed into a wall, tearing ancient bricks away as he attempted to stop his descent. But the wall was old and weak. He toppled over, landing on his back.

Loud clicks filled the air as the agitated insect wiggle-walked into the hallway. King pushed away, sliding on his back. But there wasn’t far to go. The hall ended at a ten-foot-tall dead end just a few feet behind him. He got to his feet, hoping to dodge the mantis’s strike, and then? He had no idea.

A loud whistle caught his attention. Looking beyond the mantis, he saw Queen, XM25 aimed straight for the mantis’s back. But the high-caliber rounds would pierce the mantis and strike him as well. “Down!” she shouted.

King hit the deck hard.

The mantis struck.

The roar of automatic gunfire filled the air.

Pain lanced through King’s body, but being impaled by a score of daggers didn’t hurt as much as King thought it would. He looked up to find a bullet-ridden mantis standing above him. Its back was arched back in death. The spikes lining its forearm had merely grazed his leg, opening a shallow cut. King dodged to the side as the massive insect toppled over. He fell forward as he ducked the flailing limbs of the dead mantis. He landed hard and rolled onto his back. With the beast immobilized, he lay still, breathing hard. Anger coursed through him.

“You okay?” Queen asked, looking down at him.

“It killed Bowers,” he said. “He was a good man.”

A gloved hand reached down to help King up. “Good men die every day,” Alexander said.

King ignored his outstretched hand and took Queen’s instead. She pulled him fast. He turned to Alexander. “Not on my watch.”

Bishop arrived a moment later, KA-BAR knife drawn and ready to use. Seeing the dead insect, he sheathed the knife. “What is it?”

“A breadcrumb,” King replied. “They were here.” He pulled the ruined insulin pump from his pant pocket. “She was here.”

And with all the mantises now dead, he turned his attention to the problem still at hand. “Did I hear Knight correctly? The tower isn’t here?”

Bishop shook his head. “It’s not.”

“Shit,” King muttered, rolling his neck as it tensed. If they didn’t find Fiona and soon …

Bishop’s strong hand on his shoulder stopped his rising anger. “But I think we have someone who can point us in the right direction.”

SEVENTY-TWO

RAHIM RIFFLED THROUGH a stack of paper, looking for a map he keenly remembered but had no idea if it still existed. The four large, serious men and one woman standing behind him, arms crossed, faces grim, fueled his urgent search.

They had found him right where they left him, standing by the river. When he heard the gunfire begin he ducked down and hid at the side of the road. Not knowing what the conflict was about or who it was between, he wanted to look as innocent and nonthreatening as possible. So he waited.

But when they did find him, all of the politeness and patience was gone. They needed an answer to a single question and they wanted it now. There was no threat included with the question, but Rahim could feel the tension from the one they called King.

He searched a new box and opened a journal. Recognizing the handwriting of the man he’d assisted for three years gave him some relief. He was on the right track. “I think this is the right box,” he said.

King sat down next to him and spoke in Arabic. “I don’t understand. Most people believe the Tower of Babel is here in Babylon, that it might even be the reason for the city’s name. Why would someone think it was in Turkey?”

As he flipped through the stack of pages inside the box, Rahim said, “Photos. From NASA. They showed evidence of a large, ancient construction project. But where you’d expect to see exactly what was built, there was only a mountain. Furthermore, a reinterpretation of ancient texts also lends credibility to the theory. The Targum Yonathan, an Aramaic version of the biblical accounts, states that the tower was in the ‘land of Shinar,’ which is now the Pontus region of Turkey, near the Black Sea.”

King turned to Knight. Check in with Deep Blue. See if we can get satellite imagery for the Pontus region of Turkey.”

“Will do,” Knight said before exiting.

“Furthermore, many academics believe that this region is also the birthplace of most modern languages. Texts and verbal traditions can be traced back to Pontus.” Rahim saw a folded map marked in red pen. He recognized it and yanked it out of the box. He smiled wide as he unfolded it. “Here it is!”

He laid the map out. It was a modern map of Turkey, but had been written on in Arabic and a small location—a mountain—had been circled in red. Next to it was Arabic text: which translated as Tower of Babel.

“This is a mountain,” King said. “There are no sands to bury a ziggurat. Wouldn’t there be some evidence of it on the surface?”

Rahim pointed out the mountain’s rounded, flat top. “At some point in the distant past this mountain was a volcano. It’s possible the tower was buried, or destroyed, in an eruption.”

“Buried beneath a pyroclastic flow,” King said. “Like Pompeii.”

“Exactly,” Rahim said.

“Is it possible Ridley figured all this out?” King asked, looking at Alexander.

“When he determined that the Tower of Babel was not here, assuming this theory was published, he would pursue it,” Alexander replied.

“Has the theory been published?” King asked Rahim in Arabic.

“It’s not widely known,” the man said, “but I do believe it has been published several times since our search here ended.” He became nervous and fidgeted with his hands.

King noticed. “What is it?”

“You said a name,” the nervous Iraqi said. “Ridley.”

King, Queen, Bishop, and Alexander tensed. “Yes,” King said.

“The man who funded our search here. His name was Richard Ridley.”

King nearly fell over. Ridley had been searching for Babel before he was even on their radar, before the mess with Hydra. And after all his searching, he’d found what he was looking for. “How deeply was he involved?”

“He would visit once, maybe twice a year. One time he came with Saddam himself. But that ended in 2003, when”—he motioned at the mass of boxes around him, but seemed to imply the base as a whole—“all this happened.”

“And what about the Hanging Gardens?” King asked. “Did he know about them?”

Rahim shook his head. “The site was discovered just before the war. I don’t believe he ever knew what we believed was buried there.”

Which is why he looked for the tower there, too, King thought. But when he didn’t find it, he set up shop temporarily and then moved on.

“And he wouldn’t have been told about the site in Turkey?” King asked.

“It was just a theory some of the archaeologists held and had nothing to do with the dig here,” Rahim said.

King nodded. It all made sense.

Light filled the room as Knight returned. “We’ll have a satellite over the area in twenty minutes and we’re cleared for a drop in Turkey. The Crescent is en route. We can be on the ground inside of three hours.”

“Thank you, Rahim. We’ll send someone to pick you up,” King said as he took the map and headed for the door. The others left ahead of him as Knight held the door.

Knight stopped King at the door. “Something’s going on back home. Deep Blue didn’t sound like himself.”

“How’d he sound?” King asked.

“Distracted.”

King knew about the media blitzkrieg back home and wondered how Duncan would handle it. If his distraction was noticeable on the phone, then he must be close to a solution. The man could handle just about anything thrown at him. He’d come up with a solution. He just hoped the solution would be permanent. The team needed Deep Blue. He ran the show for a reason. He couldn’t help wondering how things would have worked out if Duncan had been on board as Deep Blue. Rook might not be M.I.A. The dead Delta operators might still be alive. And Fiona might already be back in his arms.

But there was no time to think about Duncan. He’d figure out the problem without his help. Fiona, on the other hand, needed King, and needed him now. He stepped past Knight and headed for the waiting Hummer.

SEVENTY-THREE

Location Unknown

THE BACK WALL of the cell was cold and filled Fiona with a chill that pocked her skin with goose bumps. Despite the cold, she did not move. She didn’t have the energy and the cool stone helped reduce her rising body temperature. The hyperglycemia, now unchecked, exaggerated the effects of the second threat to her life—dehydration.

Her throat stung to the point where every swallow was agony. As there was no saliva in her mouth to swallow, she tried her hardest to avoid the natural reflex. Her lips were swollen and cracking. Her dry skin felt like old fabric, and the itch was maddening. But most disturbing to Fiona were the changes going on inside her body.

Her heart occasionally palpitated. She pictured it struggling to pump sludge through her body. Her breath seemed to never fully appease her body’s need for oxygen. She figured her drying lungs couldn’t absorb as much. And her stomach … Despite being empty she felt a rising urge to vomit. She expected she would only dry heave, but dreaded the pain it would bring her contracting throat and cracked lips.

She closed her eyes, fought off a wave of nausea, and focused on what she’d learned in the hours since the woman had been shot. There were now four men in the space beyond her cell. Alpha, Adam, Cainan, and Mahaleel. Based on their conversations, it was Cainan who had brought her here. And it was Adam’s wet voice she’d heard earlier speaking in uncanny unison with Alpha.

They had discussions about genetics, of which she only understood bits and pieces. They spoke of ancient languages and the power they contained. The powers of creation. The future world remade.

She had listened to Alpha instruct the others on how to use the ancient tongue. She heard countless phrases, and tried to remember what she was hearing, but it wasn’t possible. So she focused on the one she thought would be most useful, the one spoken casually by all when the services of the conjured stone monsters were no longer needed.

But her body was failing and unless she could call forth a spring from the stone, she would soon die. But that was just as well. If she were dead they couldn’t experiment on her. They couldn’t control her. They couldn’t have her kill her father. Death was preferable, so she laid back, closed her eyes, and accepted it.

Darkness closed in around her vision. A faint ringing grew louder, then faded. She felt each beat of her heart, slowing. In the absolute darkness that followed, she heard a voice.

The voice of the devil.

Calling her back.

The words came as a whisper, pulling her from unconsciousness, from death. Her eyes opened. A large bald man knelt above her, his lips moving. She couldn’t read his lips, but knew he must be speaking the ancient language she’d heard before because her body was responding to it. She felt herself growing stronger. The pain eased. Her thoughts cleared.

And then a canteen of water was offered.

She took it and drank. At first the cool liquid stung her throat, but it was unnaturally absorbed into her body. With the canteen drained, Fiona stood to her feet feeling fully replenished. She had been on the brink of death, but Alpha had pulled her back.

He’d saved her.

“Praise be to Alpha,” she said, then knelt at his feet.

SEVENTY-FOUR

Washington, D.C.

FOR THE FIRST time in a very long time, Duncan felt at peace. Some people experienced this feeling after quitting a stressful job, or breaking up with an overbearing partner. In every case the emotion experienced is the same: freedom.

“I can’t believe we did this,” Boucher said, staring at the flat-screen TV. The pair had holed up in the situation room because they couldn’t be seen together. Not now. Not for a very long time. To the rest of the world they were political enemies.

After watching Marrs call the press conference, Boucher had snuck back to the White House to watch the fireworks start.

Duncan looked at his CIA chief. “We did what needed to be done. It will all work out for the best.”

There was no arguing that. Duncan had thought of everything. And the world would be better off for it.

The last part of the plan required no paperwork. No signatures. No trail.

Black ops were like that sometimes.

And the Chess Team would become the blackest of all black ops. Their operating budget would be lessened, but still substantial and one hundred percent under the table. They would lose their all-access pass to military support, but they could operate with total anonymity and freedom. No red tape. No political repercussions. They would retain a flight crew from the Nightstalkers, two stealth Blackhawks, the Crescent, and a handpicked staff of scientists, weapons experts, and intelligence operatives. The former Manifold Alpha facility hidden beneath a mountain in New Hampshire’s White Mountain region would become their base of operations.

And no one, not even the future president of the United States, would know they existed. Outside of the expanded Chess Team, just Boucher and Keasling would know the truth.

Only one task remained unfinished. Duncan needed to assume his role as Deep Blue, permanently, and step down from his position as commander in chief. And for that to happen, Marrs had to fulfill his end of the deal.

Boucher switched on the wall-mounted TV and sat down on one of the couches. The press conference was just getting under way. The crowds from the recent rallies were all there cheering. And at first they were as fervent as ever. Even more so when Marrs launched into his claims. But when he offered his proof in the form of authentic documents and the future testimony of Dominick Boucher, the crowd fell silent. The reality of Duncan failing so miserably set in hard and took the wind out of their sails. Even Marrs looked sad.

“He doesn’t deserve it,” Boucher said. “He’s a sham. You know that, right?”

Duncan nodded. “But he served a purpose, albeit unknowingly.”

“A pawn?”

Duncan smiled. “Exactly.”

SEVENTY-FIVE

Severodvinsk, Russia

THE DOCKS WERE quiet. For that, Rook was thankful. His host seemed far less excited. Burdened by the weight of his sister’s death, Maksim Dashkov was not in a cooperative mood. The old, red-nosed fisherman was built like the great Siberian brown bear, but he had a heart similar to his sister’s. He had openly wept for her in front of Rook, and had asked about the state of her cabin, how she survived the winters, and if she was happy. He expressed regret over having not seen her since the death of her husband, and told of hard winters and small hauls.

The pair stood on the old wooden fisherman’s dock. The sub yard sat about a mile away. Rook could see a docked Borei class submarine, probably rotating crews and getting resupplied. A patrol boat with a large mounted machine gun cruised back and forth, ever watchful.

Dashkov breathed into his hands. “Hard times have forced me to take on less than noble jobs in the past. And I assume that’s why Galya sent you to me.” He made a point of looking back at the security boat. Rook had been watching it a little too keenly.

“I’d like to avoid conflicts if possible, yes.”

“As would I,” Dashkov said. “Which is why I cannot do what you ask.”

Rook had explained, without going into detail, that he needed a quick and quiet trip out of Russia, destination Norway.

Rook frowned. “Why not?”

The large man sighed. “My ship has already been chartered.”

Rook knew he was asking a lot. It was clear that Dashkov and much of the city were hurting for money. He could promise to have money sent, but that’s all it was, a promise. Without money up front he was asking for a free ride.

Dashkov turned away and looked out at the gray ocean. “You seem like a good man, I’m sorry.”

“Put me to work, then,” Rook said. “Pass me off as a member of the crew.”

“I can’t afford a crew.”

“Does your charter know this?”

“No, but—”

Rook stood in front of Dashkov. “What are you afraid of?”

Dashkov took out a cigarette and lit it, sucking in the tobacco smoke and letting it out slowly. “These men, they are not like you. They are not good people.”

There was more to it than that. Rook waited.

“Sometimes I see things and look the other way. Understand?”

Rook did understand. The Chess Team had to do the same on occasion to serve the greater good. Deals with drug dealers, warlords, and gunrunners weren’t uncommon when fighting a greater enemy. “Then I will look the other way, too.”

After another long drag, Dashkov shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” He started to walk away.

Rook took his arm and spun him around. His patience was gone. If it took the blunt truth to make this man help him, so be it. “Hey,” he said, his voice full of mirth. Rook pulled up his shirt revealing a swath of bandages with red polka dots of blood staining them. He pulled up the bandages revealing a splash of bruised skin and several small holes sewed up with thread. “Your sister saved my life.”

Dashkov leaned in and looked at the wounds. “She used thread?”

“She did the best she could with what she had.”

“She always did.” Dashkov looked moved, but not convinced.

“I haven’t told you how she died.”

Dashkov lost his taste for tobacco and flicked the cigarette into the ocean. “I haven’t asked.”

“She died protecting me. Took the bullet meant for me and four more on top of it.” Rook made sure the man’s eyes were trained on his. “Her last wish in this life is that you would help me.”

After a deep sigh, the old fisherman asked, “Who shot her?”

It was Rook’s turn to glance at the patrol boat. Dashkov understood and gave a nod. “I will drop you off at the first port in Norway. It is not a place I would spend any time, but it is the best I can do. You will act as my first mate and will feign illness. Understood?”

“Don’t worry,” Rook said. “I can follow orders.”

Dashkov squinted at him. “I’m sure.”

An hour later Dashkov and Rook boarded his fishing boat, the Songbird. As he led Rook belowdecks, Dashkov whispered a reminder. “Remember. Do not react to what you see. Do not speak to these men. I am simply introducing you so that they are not caught off guard by your presence. If these men do not like the way you sneeze they are liable to throw us both overboard.”

Rook nodded, steeling himself for the worst—a shipment of weapons, drugs, or other contraband. But when they entered the cargo hold where the two passengers and their package spent most of their time, Rook was decidedly unprepared for what he saw. His eyes arced around the space, taking everything in. Then he turned his eyes to the floor, careful to not meet the harsh stares of the two men.

As Dashkov explained who Rook was and what he would be doing, Rook thought about the two men. They had the distinct look of old KGB agents—thick skin; cold, deep-set eyes; and battle scars to boot. They were killers for certain. But it was the third person in the room who had fully captured his attention. The woman, perhaps in her early thirties, sat bound and gagged in a metal chair. A gash over her eye dripped blood over her face. The wound was straight and thin, delivered by a razor blade.

As the two men grunted in acknowledgment of Dashkov’s explanation, Rook chanced a look up. The woman caught his eyes. She silently pleaded with him for help, but he glanced away quickly. In that moment when their eyes met, there was a flicker of recognition, but he couldn’t place it. Something about her was familiar, yet he knew he’d never seen her before in his life.

He followed Dashkov to the deck and then to the pilot house. He wanted to apologize to the man in advance, but stayed quiet. Speaking his mind would only upset him and Rook needed to maintain the status quo until they were far out to sea.

Once they were on the high seas, they were at the mercy of Mother Nature. Anything could happen.

Anything.

It was normally impossible to predict what that might be, but Rook knew exactly what was going to happen. Dashkov be damned, he could not look the other way.

Not this time.

SEVENTY-SIX

Pontus, Turkey

WITH NO TIME to prebreath for a HALO jump during the short flight from Iraq to Turkey, the team would attempt a new kind of drop. The Crescent, flying at thirty thousand feet, would descend rapidly. Its stealth technology made it practically invisible to radar and other detection methods, but to the naked eye, the black croissant-shaped plane was easy to spot. So its insertion into Turkey’s airspace needed to be done quickly. Upon reaching five thousand feet, the Crescent would pull up, beginning a strenuous downward arc before going vertical again and dumping the team from its backside three thousand feet from the surface.

King, Queen, Knight, Bishop, and Alexander sat at the rear of the jet’s cargo hold, waiting for the drop to begin. Each was dressed in black special ops gear with night vision goggles, XM-25 assault rifles, an assortment of grenades, and blocks of C4—enough to bring down the mountain, which King was prepared to do in order to stop Ridley and save Fiona.

Knight left his seat and squatted in front of the others. He held an eight-by-ten touch-screen tablet. “Latest satellite imagery confirms our target.”

The screen showed a bird’s-eye view of a mountain range.

“This was taken a month ago.” Knight placed a thumb and index finger over a portion of the screen and opened them. The image zoomed in on a slope. Rising up the slope was a pale zigzag pattern. “The lines you see cutting across the mountain are switchback trails. But what we’re interested in is over here.” Knight zoomed in on an area above the switchbacks. The featureless dark stone appeared insignificant.

“Here’s the most recent image, taken ten minutes ago.” Knight tapped an icon in the upper left corner of the screen. The image updated, revealing the same image with different lighting and a shadow of a cloud toward the bottom. But the change in the dark stone was what interested them. Evidence of serious digging could be seen in the light-colored debris spread out in a fan shape.

King followed the trail back to the mountain wall. There was no entrance, just a wall of stone. “They sealed the mountain closed behind them.”

“We’ll never get through that without announcing our presence,” Queen said.

“That’s what I thought, too,” Knight said. “So I had them take thermal shots. Take a look.” He switched the image again. This time, the topographical photo switched to shades of light blue.

“What are we looking for?” Bishop asked.

“Cool spots,” Knight said. “There are three of them.” He pointed to three purple spots on the image. “Here, here, and here.”

“Vents,” Alexander said.

“Why are they purple?” King asked. “The ambient temperature underground is fifty-five degrees. The temperature in the mountains of Turkey in the early summer are what?”

“Weather report said sixty-five,” Queen said.

“So the vents should have appeared as dark blue spots. Not purple.” King placed his fingers on the tablet and zoomed in on one of the purple vents. “So what is heating up the inside of this mountain?”

“Descent beginning in two minutes,” the pilot’s voice said over the intercom. “Better strap in and get ready for a ride.”

“At any rate,” Knight said, “those vents are our way in.” He shut down the tablet and placed it in a wall-mounted locker. He took his seat and strapped in as the pilot gave a one-minute warning.

Their seats had been relocated from the side of the cargo bay and bolted in its center facing the doors. When the Crescent reached its vertical position, the team would unbuckle one at a time and fall out into the open air.

“Here we go, folks,” the pilot said.

The Crescent dipped forward quickly. There was no moment of weightlessness that people experienced with airplane zero G simulations. Instead, intense pressure pushed against their chests as the Crescent quickly reached its top speed of Mach 2, and then surpassed it. With gravity helping the plane’s return to earth, it reached Mach 2.5 and covered the distance in ten seconds.

But the real g-force struck when the Crescent began its ascent. As the plane leveled out and continued pulling up, the seat belt straps pulled tight, crushing the air from their lungs.

As the pressure reached its apex, when each and every member of the team was seeing colors dancing in their vision, the row of seats tilted forward. King knew what it meant. The fresh bolts were coming loose. He tried to speak, but the pressure was still too great.

The Crescent continued its ascent, heading toward a vertical position. As it reached the seventy percent mark, the pressure lessened and King shouted an order into his throat mic. “Open the bay doors now!”

“We’re not yet at a vertical position sir, the draft could throw us off,” the pilot said.

The bolts gave again, tilting the group forward. If they tore free, the team would be flung against the back doors at incredible speed. King had no doubt only Bishop and Alexander would survive the impact.

“The chairs are about to break loose!” King shouted. “Open the doors now!”

The red light above the door immediately turned green and a loud grinding filled the cabin. The doors opened quickly. Wind pounded over them. If not for the goggles over their eyes, seeing would have been impossible.

King felt a slow tilting of the chair as the bolts slid from the floor. Gravity, wind, and g-forces were working against them. With the bay doors open halfway King could see the Turkish mountains shrinking away beneath them.

“Fifteen seconds,” the pilot said.

But they didn’t have fifteen seconds. The chairs were about to break loose, and with the doors now open sixty percent, there was barely enough room to fit. “Duck your head and pull in your legs,” King shouted to the team.

The bolts gave way all at once. As the team fell, they followed King’s orders, ducking their heads and bringing their knees up to their chests. Forty-five hundred feet above the earth, the Chess Team shot out from the back of the Crescent still strapped into a row of chairs like a bunch of teenagers at a carnival death drop.

SEVENTY-SEVEN

Babel

PUSHED AND PULLED by high winds, the row of seats spun madly as it carried the team toward the rocky mountain slope below. They had just seconds to separate and deploy their parachutes. King, who was sitting in the middle of the five man team, shouted his orders.

“Bishop, Alexander, go!”

Both men heard him clearly in their ears. They unbuckled from their seats and rolled away. Seconds later they pulled their chutes and the bench rocketed past them.

Only seconds remained.

“Queen, Knight, go!”

Both were ready, pushing from their seats and pulling their chutes once far enough away. They shot above the bench, and King. With only fifteen hundred feet left, King unbuckled from the bench and shoved off it with his feet. He yanked his cord. As his fall slowed with a sudden yank from his opening chute, he watched the bench finish its fall. It smashed on the mountainside. An explosion of small parts burst from the bench as it folded in over itself.

King cringed. He had no idea what kind of surveillance or security the site had, but they had undoubtedly just announced their skyward approach. He readied himself for an attack, but none came. In fact, the barren mountainside was as quiet and empty as it had been before. The only difference was that it was now rushing toward him.

King bent his knees as he struck, and rolled with the impact. But he was headed downslope and the cool air descending the mountain caught his parachute, dragging him down the steep grade. He spun himself around and planted his boots on the ground. He shot to his feet and dug in, grabbing the lines of his parachute and reeling them in. With the billowing fabric under control, he quickly bunched it up, found a crag in the rocks, and stuffed it in.

He turned back to find the others above him, hiding their chutes as well. With the vent a hundred yards above them, he started up the hill at a run. The others joined him and stopped when they reached the vent.

It was a three-foot hole in the earth, concealed by brush. It descended into darkness, but a tiny speck of light could be seen at the bottom.

“Depth?” King asked.

Knight aimed a laser range finder down the hole. “Two hundred feet.”

“Measure out one-ninety and throw it in,” King said to Bishop, who was uncoiling a large spool of titanium cable.

Bishop lowered the cable into the hole, watching as the spool’s digital readout scrolled toward two hundred feet. He stopped the cable at one hundred ninety and placed the spool on the ground. Using what looked like a miniature staple gun, he fired five titanium staples into the mountainside. Their long barbed tips could support three hundred pounds each. But Bishop didn’t want to risk their lives on what the staples were supposed to do. He fired five more and stepped back. “Good to go.”

King clipped a stop descender onto the line. Its squeeze trigger would allow him to slow his descent by loosening his grip. The counterintuitive function of the device was hard to get used to, but once mastered, it worked without flaw. Of course, that was when rappelling down a cliff face feetfirst. King was descending a vertical stone pipe—head first. He wrapped his feet around the line to keep himself from flipping over and slid into the tunnel. Hidden from the light of day, he reached up and pulled his night vision goggles over his eyes.

The tunnel shot straight down as far as he could see. With wiggle room on either side and a clear shot down, King squeezed his stop descender and plummeted down the hole. The others followed, one by one, spacing out their drops every twenty seconds.

The air grew warmer as King dropped down the pit. And the light ahead grew brighter; so much so that he had to reach up and remove his night vision goggles. Something was down there, he just hoped he wouldn’t find himself dangling above a pit of lava, or a firing squad.

As King approached the bottom of the hole he eased up on his grip and began slowing. The yellow tip of the line’s end was thirty feet below. If he didn’t stop by the time he reached it, he’d fall to the floor below.

Before he expected, King was out of the vent, dangling over a large orb-shaped room. He quickly scanned the space for danger; finding none, he zipped down the line to the stone floor. The others followed him quickly, leaving their descenders clipped to the dangling line. Should anyone find it, their presence would be detected. But they weren’t planning on remaining covert for much longer.

As King approached the room’s only exit and a tall hallway beyond, he saw the light source ahead and paused. A sphere of light, the size of a small plum, floated eight feet above the floor. There was no bulb that he could see and no line dropping down to the light.

Alexander joined him. “This is very bad.”

They entered the room slowly, unable to take their eyes off the light. King motioned to Bishop and Knight. “Take point.” As the pair moved to the far end of the hallway, King stopped beneath the light. He held his bare hand up to it. The heat was searing up close, but dissipated quickly. He shook his head in amazement. This small sphere was lighting and heating several large rooms beneath a mountain.

Queen crouched next to him and picked up a handful of sand from the hallway floor.

“What are you doing?” King whispered as she stood.

“When you got close to it, your hair stood on end,” she replied.

“A static charge?”

Queen answered by throwing the sand to the side of sphere. The sand farthest from the light fell away. The sand closest fell into the light, sucked in by an invisible force. And the sand in between floated as though in orbit around a star. “Not static. Gravity.”

For the small object to have gravity, it would have to be incredibly dense. “They’re miniature suns,” he said.

“Very bad,” Alexander repeated before heading past the sun. “Scientists at the National Ignition Facility are trying to achieve a sunlike fusion reaction using lasers that would supply infinite energy, but this … this goes beyond any science known to me.”

“And I don’t see any lasers,” Queen said.

They all knew the implications. Ridley had unlocked the secrets to not just immortality, animating stone, and imbuing clay with life, or a close approximation of it, but he’d also unlocked the secret to creating light—not in a Thomas Edison sense, but in a real creator of all existence sense. Something beyond their comprehension.

King looked at his high-tech XM-25. Its exploding rounds seemed crude compared to the tiny sun behind them. Could he really stop a man who had made himself a god? He looked at Alexander, who had manipulated history so that the world believed he, the mighty Hercules, was a half-human half-god myth. But now Ridley had, in fact, achieved such a thing.

Alexander met King’s eyes. “He’s still human.”

Realizing they’d been thinking the same thing, King asked, “How do we kill him?”

“We can’t kill him,” Alexander said. “But we can silence him.”

“How?”

“Take off his head. Burn the flesh.”

“Like the Hydra.”

A raised hand from the front of the hall silenced the hushed conversation. Knight pointed through the tunnel exit, then to his ear. They heard somebody. King met them at the end of the tunnel and stopped to listen. The deep baritone voice was impossible to mistake.

They’d found Richard Ridley.

A second voice, identical to the first, replied.

They’d found several Richard Ridleys.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

KING LED THE team toward the voice, moving slowly and silently. He stopped at a tunnel that branched away and turned back to the others. He pointed to Queen, Bishop, and Knight. “See where this goes. Keep your eyes open for Fiona.”

Queen hesitated, but then nodded. She didn’t want to miss taking out Ridley, but King was right. Their best chance of finding Fiona was splitting up. Each member of the team carried an insulin shot. It didn’t matter which one of them found her first. As long as someone found her.

Queen led Bishop and Knight down the side tunnel, their path lit by equally spaced mini-suns.

King and Alexander resumed their approach toward the hallway’s end, toward the voices. The exit was narrow and provided plenty of wall on either side for the two men to hide behind. They stood flat against the brown stone and peeked into the chamber beyond.

The space was vast and separated into two rings. The outer hall wrapped around the room. Its walls were covered in stone murals and blocks of cuneiform. The floor was nearly smooth, constructed from massive stone blocks fit tightly together. Several tall statues, arms raised high, separated the outer hall from an inner chamber. They appeared to be supporting the roof, but King suspected they were decorative.

He eyed the closest statue. Its style was clearly Sumerian—rigid posture, straight limbs, curved joints. All were masculine in build but wore what looked like shin-length skirts. Stiff-looking rolls of hair stretched down just below the shoulder line. King had no doubt that if he could see the face it would have the same oversized, oval, blue lapis lazuli eyes he’d seen beneath the sands of Babylon.

He motioned to Alexander and then to the two nearest statues. Alexander responded by taking a quick peek into the room and then dashing across the twenty-foot distance to one of the statues. He stopped behind it, throwing himself against its backside without making a sound.

King noticed how easy it was for Alexander to move with stealth. How many times had he snuck up on an enemy? How many wars had he taken part in? Better yet, King thought, how many wars has he started?

Alexander peeked around the statue briefly and then waved King in.

King covered the distance to a second statue quickly and stopped behind it. Its legs, hewn out of a solid chunk of marble, easily hid his crouching form. He leaned around the statue’s base and looked into the center of the chamber.

He didn’t notice the stepped ceiling or the faces of the eight other statues wrapping around the room. He paid no attention to the tables stationed over a dark brown stain on the stone floor, or the lab equipment and specimen cages they held. He only saw Richard Ridley.

Two of him.

They stood to either side of a third man, whose body and head were concealed by a hooded cloak. But he appeared disfigured somehow, like a hunchback. The three men were speaking with hushed voices, impossible to discern. In fact, King wasn’t certain what language they were speaking.

Then it hit him, they’re speaking the mother tongue!

But were they having a conversation or doing something more nefarious?

King’s question was answered by a puff of grit that fell from above. He saw it fall slowly past his face and land on his arm. He turned his head up, tracing the fallen dirt’s path back up.

Two football-sized blue eyes, twisted with rage, stared back at him. The statue’s head had turned around! Its puglike nose was pulled up to reveal a snarling mash of sharp teeth. Though clearly Sumerian, the statues were not designed to look human. Not fully human at least.

Before he could move or shout a warning to Alexander, the statue sprang to life, wrapping its large arms around his ribs in a crushing bear hug. He marveled at the speed and silence with which the golem moved. It seemed Ridley was perfecting the art. Then the pain struck as his body was pinned in a stone embrace. His weapon and gear pushed against his body, making struggling painful and escape impossible. He pummeled the golem a few times, but his efforts were fruitless. It couldn’t feel pain. Hell, King thought, it probably can’t feel anything.

He was lifted off the ground and turned around. Twenty feet away, Alexander was being treated similarly, though his arms were pinned to his sides while King’s remained free. But he continued to fight against his bonds. The injuries Alexander received were healing as quickly as he inflicted them on himself, but even he was unable to break free.

The two Richard Ridleys and the hooded man faced the pair.

Ridley’s voice filled the chamber, “Welcome, King,” but neither of the Ridleys had spoken.

The man in the middle is also Ridley, King thought. Ridley 1.0. But what’s wrong with his body?

“And our unknown adversary I presume?” Ridley said.

King saw the cloaked figure’s hood turn toward Alexander as he spoke, confirming his suspicion that he was also Ridley.

“We have much in common, you and I,” Ridley said. “Though you seem to lack my ambition.”

Alexander remained silent, his arms shaking as he tried to pull them free of the golem’s grasp.

“Or is it that you just lack the brains? After all, you were born into a world that was flat. You would have had no concept of the world as a whole. I respect what you’ve done, the lives you’ve lived. But you have been small-minded for thousands of years. Of course, you didn’t have the mother tongue. It was gone before your time. Even if you could speak the language, the lack of technology would have created logistical problems. How could you reach a planet full of people?

“Happily, that’s no longer a problem.” Ridley reached into his pocket and pulled out a flash drive. “Fifteen seconds of audio to change the world. When I’m done there will be one language again. One god. The human race will be united under me for all time.”

Ridley turned back to the table, opened a laptop, and plugged in the flash drive. King followed the cable leading out of the laptop. It hung down to the floor. From there, the cable stretched out between two of the statues and ended at a row of blinking servers. He hadn’t noticed them before, hidden in the darkness. Several more cables came out of the servers, many descending into the stone floor, and just as many rising up through the ceiling.

“You’re connected to the whole world?” King asked.

As the computer booted, Ridley turned around. “It’s a simple matter really, though not possible without the help of my Russian friends. How is Rook, by the way? Did he run into any trouble in Siberia?”

King remained stoic. Rook’s fate was something he couldn’t worry about right now.

Ridley smiled when King didn’t take the bait. “The Russians have given me access to land lines, cell towers, and satellites around the world. Their hackers have arranged for a thirty-second, all-access pass to the rest of the world’s communications. Of course, the Russians believe my goal is to hack into and collapse the U.S. financial market, but they won’t complain when they learn the truth. No one will ever complain again.”

Ridley tapped his head. “Because the real hack, that’s up here. In the human mind. Did you know that there was a time in human history when the human race was docile? Call it the subservient gene or naïveté gene. Whatever you like. We were loyal, loved unconditionally, and lacked cunning. Like biped cows. We had free will to choose whether or not we would, say, eat an apple or a grape, but knew nothing of good and evil. And then, something flipped the switch.” He snapped his finger. “And we changed. We became killers, consumed with greed, lust, and envy. The original speaker of the mother tongue made us this way. I’m going to fix things.”

“So you’re flipping the switch back?” King asked. “Is that it? You’re going to save the world?”

With a nod, Ridley said, “That’s exactly what I’m doing. The human race will know peace again. There will be no war. No hate. No fear. We will be innocent once again. I’m simply modifying the language, redirecting humanity’s adoration from the original speaker of the language—to me.” Ridley stretched his arms out. “‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’ You see? It’s all been prophesied.”

Ridley smiled. “But you’re still wondering how? Oh ye of little faith. Some things are beyond human comprehension, King. The origin of the universe. The emergence of life on our planet. The same science that developed the theory of evolution and the big bang theory tells us both are statistically impossible. Yet here we are. The universe exists. The human race has evolved. And it all came to be … because of a language. Whether it’s the language of God, an alien tongue, or the tones of the universe, I don’t know. I don’t yet understand its origin, but I do understand its power.”

“Like a child with a loaded weapon,” King said.

Ridley considered King’s statement for a moment, his expression darkening. “Do you understand how a nuclear sub works? Stealth technology? The Aegis combat system? Could you even tell me how to smelt the metal your weapons are made from?”

In fact, King could answer most of those questions, but the stone giant’s grip around his chest had begun to tighten. Were Ridley’s mood and the golem’s actions tied together? If Ridley grew angry enough would the golem respond by killing him? “Point taken,” King said, fighting to hide his pain.

A smile returned to Ridley’s face and the grip on King loosened. But then he said, “You should be glad you’re here, King. This is one of the few places on the planet that is protected from the change. But I’ll take care of you personally. You and your little girl.”

King’s insides ached with rage, but he didn’t fight his bonds. Buying time for the others to act was his primary goal. If he had to remain behind while they blew the place to kingdom come and made off with Fiona, he would do so willingly. The words of his father came back to him. There is no greater love than a father who is willing to lay down his life for his children. If it came to that, he would. And with that, King realized how truly attached he’d become to Fiona.

Damnit, he thought, I love the kid.

King saw the laptop was fully booted and some new software was loading up. Hoping to keep Ridley’s attention off the laptop, King asked, “What happened to you, Ridley?” King asked. “After you jumped out of the helicopter.”

The hooded Ridley turned toward King.

“I lost an arm,” Ridley replied. “Nearly my head.”

“And I was born.”

The second voice came from the cloaked Ridley, but sounded different. Had Ridley’s injuries wrecked his voice? Were his regenerative abilities not as refined as Alexander’s?

“The injection I gave myself just minutes before our brief meeting had not been perfected.” He chuckled. “When I jumped from the helicopter I had no idea if I would survive or not. But I did. I had received the regenerative gene of the Hydra, but there was one other gene that had yet to be culled. I discovered its effects when I looked in the rearview mirror of the car that carried me to freedom.”

King noticed that Alexander had stopped struggling and started listening.

“It was this side effect that spurred my continued research into the mother tongue. For years, long before we met, I searched the past for clues to long-forgotten powers—which, as you know, led me to the ancient remains of the Hydra. Ancient maps, runes, texts, hieroglyphs—I collected and studied the world’s history and came to a stunning conclusion: the Tower of Babel story is real. I don’t yet fully understand the mechanics of how mankind’s language fractured, only that it did. In the past two years I have pieced together several key phrases of the lost language that allow me to alter and reshape the physical world as well as the thoughts and emotions of the people in it. Not to mention I now have the key to ridding myself of this unfortunate disfigurement.”

“Be kind,” said the higher pitched, wet voice.

“Apologies, Adam. You will always be my first son.”

Adam. The name struck a chord with King. Ridley had been naming his golem clones after the bloodline from Adam to King David. Was this Adam the first of his lifelike golems?

“I hoped to separate myself from him—from Adam. Thankfully,” Ridley said, holding up a stone tablet, “the final piece of the puzzle arrived from Stonehenge.”

King could see a series of Egyptian-like runes covering one side of the bluestone tablet. He could probably spend his whole life on the task and never decipher what it said. Ridley, on the other hand, had apparently done so already. “One of Merlin’s greatest hits?”

Ridley grinned. “I’m afraid Merlin can’t take credit for the words recorded here. He simply recorded the words taught to him in Egypt. And it’s just one of the many ancient efforts to preserve the ancient language in stone—the only medium that can reliably last the test of time.”

“El Mirador,” King said, realizing that Ridley had been collecting bits and pieces of the spoken and written language.

“One of many sites that contained written samples of the mother tongue,” Ridley said. “Your primitive friends in Vietnam, though unable to read the words carved on the walls, added to my knowledge as well. And with the words gleaned from Merlin’s fragment, Adam and I can rejoin the world above as whole individuals.” Ridley affectionately rubbed a hand over the tablet before placing it down on the table behind him. “And you are just in time to witness our separation.” The cloaked Ridley stepped forward, raising his arms out to the side. “Show yourself, Adam.”

King gaped as a third arm reached up over Ridley’s head and took hold of the hood. The fingers, thin and bent, wrapped around the fabric and then pulled back quickly.

Ridley stood before them, bare-chested and pale, his bald head shining under the light of a halo of mini-suns. The third arm reached up and over his torso, gripping his chest tightly. A head followed it, rising up behind his shoulder. The face was Ridley’s, though slightly disfigured.

“Thank you, King,” Adam said. “Without you I would have never been born.”

SEVENTY-NINE

QUEEN WAITED BY the entrance to a small room, keeping watch while Bishop and Knight checked out what was inside. She was bothered by the lack of security. In the past, Ridley had surrounded himself with the high-tech security force known as Gen-Y. They had ultimately failed him, so it was understandable that they were no longer in his employ, but if he had reason to be paranoid about security before, he had twice as many reasons now.

Yet the hallways were empty.

Which meant Ridley had no need for security, had lost his marbles, or had plenty of security that they had yet to discover; she hoped it was the second, but suspected it was a combination of the first and last. Maybe all three.

Knight and Bishop exited the room. “Looks like it used to be an armory. Lots of old blades buried beneath a layer of fibrous dust. Probably ancient wood.”

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been in there recently,” Bishop said.

“Probably not since this place was built,” Knight added.

Queen moved on in silence, her thoughts on the mission, but also with Rook. He should be here now, she thought. But he was either dead and not returning, or alive and in trouble. Of course, she thought, he could be alive and choosing to stay away. But if that were true … She forced the thought from her mind and turned her full attention to the entryway ahead. She could hear a scratching sound. She detected a foul combination of odors next.

She paused and breathed through her nose.

Piss and shit.

With her XM25 pressed firmly against her shoulder, Queen entered the chamber and froze. Large cages filled the room, lining every wall and stacked three high. She quickly noted the stenciled labels on the front of each cage, written in Russian. And beneath the labels, a Manifold Genetics logo, also in Russian. “Look,” she said, pointing to one of the logos. “These cages were either here before we took Manifold down—”

“Or the company is still active,” Knight finished.

“In Russia,” Queen said. They had witnessed the destruction of Manifold Gamma and Beta. And they had captured the Manifold lab in New Hampshire known as Alpha. But with plenty more letters in the Greek alphabet remaining, who’s to say there weren’t as many Manifold facilities left?

Before Queen attempted to read the labels, she noticed the cages were not empty. The cages held a variety of twisted forms. Many on the lower level were indiscernible as any living creature on Earth, with limbs where heads should be, hoofed feet mixed with human hands and scaled faces. Many appeared dead, but their bodies rose and fell with each breath, despite not having any visible mouth or nose.

Those in the middle cages were hale, but fearful, shifting to the back of the cage. These were oversized lizards and predatory birds. They were covered in feces from the animals on the cages above—dirty and pitiful. Despite their size, they seemed to be as docile and fearful of humans as their smaller, wild, counterparts.

Perhaps these were wild animals before they were experimented on, Queen thought. Then she saw the top row.

Sitting still and watching her were several mammoth, stubby-tailed gray cats. Larger than Siberean tigers, the giant cats had black-tipped ears with long tufts of fur pointing up from them. Their yellow feline eyes seemed to never blink. Their sandy gray coats were covered in oblong spots, but the fur beneath their chins and bellies was white, though stained with blood.

Someone had been feeding them. She saw the remains of a human hand in one of the cages. Someone had been feeding them people.

What stood out most were the long saberlike teeth that protruded down over their lower jaw, and the two-inch-long retractable claws the cats flexed in and out.

“Are they saber-tooth tigers?” Queen asked.

“Lynx,” Bishop said. “They’re native to these mountains.”

“If these are lynx,” Knight said, “then someone’s had a genetic field day with them.”

“Richard Ridley’s calling card,” Queen said before moving through the wide path between the cages, keeping her eyes on the large cats that simply watched her move past. “Let’s get out of this fucked-up menagerie and find Fiona.”

The U-shaped room exited into another hallway. The three moved into the hall quickly, eager to leave the giant predators behind. As they approached the end, Ridley’s deep voice returned.

They crept forward and then heard a second voice, this one unmistakable.

King.

Queen motioned for Knight and Bishop to remain behind and crept up to the tunnel exit. She peered into the chamber beyond and saw five people. Two men who appeared to be Richard Ridley, or golem duplicates, and a cloaked man stood with their backs to her. King and Alexander were on the far side of the space, held several feet off the floor, clutched in the arms of two giant living statues. She quickly noted eight more statues around the chamber and slid back into the hallway.

Walking silently, she passed by a dark slit in the wall. Something about it made her pause. She leaned in close, trying to see through the darkness. Two hands shot out at her, reaching for her face. She jumped back and aimed her weapon.

But the hands meant no harm. They were outstretched. Desperate. And they belonged to a thirteen-year-old girl. Fiona!

Queen rushed up to the wall and took hold of her hands. She gave them a squeeze of reassurance. Neither spoke, knowing it might draw attention. After a moment, Queen stepped back. She took out a water bottle and insulin shot, handing them both to Fiona through the crack. She didn’t need to tell her what they were for. She would know. Queen held up an index finger and mouthed the words “Be right back.”

Fiona turned one of her thumbs up and pulled her hands, along with the water and shot, back inside the cell.

Queen returned to Bishop and Knight, who had seen what happened, but stayed by their post. “We need to get in there now.”

“How do we do that without attracting attention?” Knight asked.

“We give them something else to worry about,” Queen said, and then headed back toward the menagerie. “Just get through that wall and take her topside.”

“When should we blow it?” Knight asked.

Queen looked back over her shoulder. “When the screaming starts.”

EIGHTY

KING WAS SPEECHLESS. He felt a combination of revulsion and pity: revulsion at what Ridley had become—he was more devil than god—and pity for the sickly looking version of him clinging to him like a child refusing to wean from its mother.

“How did you escape Stonehenge?” one of the two golem Ridleys asked.

That one’s Mahaleel, King thought, but didn’t say a word. His eyes were still focused on Adam’s, like a predatory bird.

A hint of fear filled Adam’s eyes. The real Richard Ridley had faced King before and did so again now as fearless as any immortal being should be. But Adam … he was something different.

“You have defiled the past,” Alexander said.

King wasn’t sure if Alexander really wanted to make a point or if he had seen the subtle motion of King’s right arm. Either way, King was thankful for the distraction.

Ridley and Adam guffawed in unison. The conjoined duo walked toward him, leaving Cainan and Mahaleel behind. They stopped short and squinted at Alexander. “Shall we compare who has defiled what? Hmm? I’m sure King would love to hear. I know more about you than you think, Hercules.”

“You know nothing,” Alexander said. “I will be your undoing.”

“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

Alexander flexed against the stone arms that held him tight. And though he was not able to break free, he did succeed in pushing the golem’s arms away from him. The Herculean feat of strength was enough to fully captivate the attention of all four Ridleys and gave King the opportunity to strike.

As King unclipped the Sig Sauer handgun strapped to his thigh he considered his four targets. The two clay golems in the form of Ridley may fall to a bullet, but he wasn’t positive they could be killed. The original Ridley had as little to fear from firearms as Alexander or Bishop. Shooting him would just be a waste of time.

But Adam. The fear in his eyes had planted a seed in King’s mind. As it grew, he remembered the Hydra. Only its central head was truly immortal. Its body could be cleaved away and would die. As could its other heads. Could Adam be killed? With only two of Hydra’s genes in Ridley’s body, would his regenerative abilities extend to Adam?

There was only one way to find out.

As King pulled the weapon from its holster, Adam glanced in his direction. He immediately saw the handgun rising in his direction. His eyes spread wide. His mouth twisted in fear, revealing bent teeth. The abject terror expressed in Adam’s face answered all of King’s questions a second before he found his aim.

Then he pulled the trigger.

* * *

QUEEN ENTERED THE menagerie with her arm over her nose and her weapon lowered. She walked through, taking stock of the giant cats, whose heads followed her path through the room, rotating mechanically. She stopped at the center of the room, looking back and forth at the cats. Not one of them moved.

She turned to one of the lower cages that held a motionless, ghastly body. She took out her KA-BAR knife and stabbed it into the flesh. The body convulsed, but stopped moving again after she withdrew the blade. A fresh gush of blood followed the knife out of the body.

Three of the cats immediately stood and began pacing in their large cages.

Those are the ones, Queen thought, and then moved to the closest cage. The cage doors were held shut by simple sliding pin locks. She pulled the first pin, but didn’t open the door. Instead she moved to the next two cages and pulled their locking pins as well. Then she moved to the exit leading away from Bishop and Knight, back the way they’d come.

“Here kitty, kitty,” she said when none of them moved for the doors.

The largest of the three reached out and swatted at the door. It flinched back when it swung wide open. But it quickly recovered and slowly approached the open door. The other cats saw what happened and nudged their unlocked cage doors as well.

Queen said, “Come on kitty, don’t be a pussy.”

When the largest of the three looked at her, she ran, not waiting to see if the cats would take the bait. With the scent of blood in the air and a fast-moving prey running away, she knew their feline instincts would take over.

* * *

USING HIS SLENDER arm, Knight reached through the thin slot in the wall of Fiona’s cell and placed several small directional charges. The charges packed a punch despite their size, but would direct most of their energy into the hallway, rather than into the cell. Still, he did not envy Fiona’s proximity to the explosion. Her ears would most likely be injured and it was possible she might catch some shrapnel, too. But he could think of no other way to quickly open the wall.

He looked at Bishop, who was crouched by the tunnel exit, watching King and Alexander speak to Ridley. He had no idea what Bishop was seeing, but the man looked disturbed.

Knight finished squishing the last bit of C4 into a crag in the wall. He quickly placed four remote-triggered blasting caps into the claylike explosives and switched on the receivers. With the C4 now “hot,” a simple push of a button would blow the wall and give them access to Fiona.

Knight crawled to Bishop and tapped his foot.

Bishop looked back. Knight gave a thumbs-up and motioned back down the hall with his head. They met in front of Fiona’s cell. Her dirty face looked back at them through the space in the wall.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Go curl up in the back corner,” Knight said. “Close your eyes, cover your ears, and open your mouth. It will help.”

“Is this going to hurt?”

Knight hated saying it, but he wouldn’t lie to the girl. “A bit.”

“Then wait,” she whispered. “Let me try something first.”

“Fiona, there isn’t ti—”

But she had stepped back into the darkness. He could hear her soft voice saying something, but didn’t understand the words. Fiona’s using the mother tongue! Knight thought, wondering how it was possible.

The walls slowly parted, forming a door.

Both men wasted no time entering. Fiona fell back against the back wall looking weak. They rushed to her, bracing her with their hands.

“That was something else, kid,” Knight said.

“How did you learn the language?” Bishop asked.

“I’m a good spy,” she said, smiling wide.

Knight noticed how healthy Fiona looked. Other than being dirty, she looked as fit as she had at Bragg. Did Ridley take care of her? If so, what was the point? He looked around the cell, searching for evidence that Fiona had been well cared for—water bottles, food remnants, anything. But the only thing he saw was the water bottle and insulin shot Queen had given her. The water was gone, but the shot had not been used.

What the … Knight picked up the syringe and held it up for Bishop to see. Bishop turned to where Fiona had been standing. “Fiona, why didn’t you—”

But Fiona was gone.

Both men turned toward the exit and found the walls closing in. Fiona stood on the other side, smiling at them, holding Bishop’s KA-BAR knife. They dashed for the exit, but it was too late. They were sealed inside. Even the long slit that had been there closed over with six inches of solid stone.

A moment later, they heard a muffled gunshot.

EIGHTY-ONE

MOVING AT FIFTEEN hundred feet per second, the single round fired by King covered the distance between the handgun and Adam before the weapon’s report registered in anyone’s ears. The bullet whizzed beneath Ridley’s chin, grazing his flesh and opening a wound, before piercing Adam’s forehead and punching out the back of his skull. The sound of the single shot reached the group just as Adam’s brain exploded in a cloud of blood and flesh. Ridley spun with the impact, seeing the brain matter splatter on the floor at his feet.

Adam’s grip on Ridley’s chest loosened, and then let go. The one-armed, quarter of a body slid back and dangled limply from Ridley’s back.

“Adam!” Ridley shouted in shock. “Adam! No!”

Mahaleel and Cainan rushed forward to help. Mahaleel held Adam’s limp weight. Cainan helped Ridley lean back against the table.

“He’s not healing,” Mahaleel said. “He’s dead.”

What happened next was completely unexpected and derailed every plan King had come up with. Fiona walked into the room, hands behind her back. She looked healthy, strong, and totally unafraid.

Ridley turned toward her.

“Fiona, run!” King shouted.

But she didn’t. She walked halfway between King and Ridley and stopped.

“What are you doing?” King asked.

Fiona looked over her shoulder toward Ridley.

King’s stomach twisted. Something was very wrong.

Ridley’s smile looked like a wolf bearing its teeth. “You may have killed Adam, but I’ve still got my Eve. The first of her kind.”

“What are you—”

“Kill him, Eve.”

Fiona stepped toward King. She wore a slight smile. “Yes, Father,” she said and then pulled the seven-inch blade out from behind her back. Her little bare feet padded against the hard floor. Her black pajamas were dirty and full of holes. Her straight black hair hung loose around her shoulders. But her eyes were wrong. They were devoid of emotion and still, as though in shock.

He looked at the gun in his hand. He could shoot her and save himself, but it would destroy him. He’d rather die than kill her.

“Fiona, stop!” was all King could shout before she plunged the knife into his chest.

* * *

KNIGHT CRACKED A glow stick. It lit the small space in bright green light. They quickly scanned the space. To the right of the outside wall Knight saw some letters scratched into the stone. Had they not been near the back of the room, they would have missed it. He knelt down and held the light up to the wall and read the text.

SAVE ME

Arzu Turan. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash.

Vilad forsh.

“What do you make of this?” Knight asked.

“It must be some portion of the ancient language,” Bishop replied. “Something she thought could help.”

“Something that could return her to herself.”

Bishop tilted his head in agreement. The girl had certainly not been herself. “We need to get out of here.”

Knight opened his hand revealing the transmitter. “The charges are probably embedded in the wall, but they should still work.”

Bishop took out a small camera with a digital display and snapped a photo of the text. “Do it,” he said, taking a step back. But something made him pause. Something about the writing on the wall.

Knight stood waiting against the back wall. “What’s wrong?”

“Arzu Turan,” he said. “It’s a name. Turkish. Probably common for women in this area.” He looked at Knight. “I don’t think its part of the mother tongue.”

“So we leave it out?”

“Replace it,” Bishop said. “With Fiona Lane.”

Knight understood what Bishop was getting at. If Fiona had overheard the phrase directed at someone else, she might not have recognized the first part as a name. And if it was a name, Arzu Turan may have been the poor soul on the receiving end of whatever these words did. It seemed Fiona had been, too, or at least she believed she would be when she scratched the words into the wall.

Bishop took a step back. “Okay, now blow it.”

* * *

AS QUEEN RAN down the hallway, past the ancient armory, she glanced over her shoulder. The first of the big cats bounded into the hall behind her. The other two were close behind. Their muscles flexed with each leap forward. Their eyes focused on her, locked on target.

My God, they’re fast, Queen thought. Too damn fast!

As she rounded the first of two corners that would take her back to the hallway where they’d left King and Alexander the cats had cut the distance between them in half. Queen knew she could shoot and kill all three animals if she had to, but to achieve maximum chaos, she needed them alive. So instead of shooting the beasts, she willed her limbs to move faster and prayed for a miracle.

She rounded the final corner, running as fast as she could. She could hear the giant lynx behind her, the soft pads of their feet thumping against the hard stone floor. With a final burst of speed, she lunged through the door and into the open chamber beyond.

* * *

FIONA HAD AIMED for his heart, but King had shifted his body to the side. The knife had come to rest between two ribs to the right of his heart and lungs. It hurt like a bastard, but had missed anything vital.

“You son of a bitch!” King shouted.

Ridley began to reply, but his voice was cut short by an explosion behind him. A cloud of dust and stone burst from a hallway at the side of the chamber.

Disoriented by the explosion, but not down, Mahaleel and Cainan began speaking the mother tongue, their words barely audible to King across the room, but the effect of their words became quickly apparent as the remaining eight statues began moving.

But then a new voice filled the room, loud and booming. It was Bishop, and like Mahaleel and Cainan, he was speaking the ancient language as well. “Fiona Lane. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash. Vilad forsh.”

Ridley shook his head, recovering from the explosion. “Kill him!” he shouted at Fiona.

But the girl didn’t move. King looked down at her and noticed a change in her eyes. She was looking up at him, first at the knife buried in his chest, which she still gripped with one hand, and then to King’s eyes. Her lips quivered. She had returned. But with the return came a weakening. He saw her pale. Dark rings formed around her eyes.

“Kill him, now!”

Fiona looked back at the knife and whispered, “Sorry.”

He was about to tell her it was okay, it wasn’t her fault. But then he saw her hand grip the knife. She wasn’t apologizing for what she’d done. She was apologizing for what she was about to do. And King knew exactly what that would be. While they hadn’t let her fire a weapon at the range, they had shown her how to throw a knife. And she was good.

With the last of her energy, Fiona yanked the blade from King’s chest, whirled around and sent it flying.

The blade buried itself into Ridley’s thigh, sending him to the floor.

Fiona fell as well, her body curling up into a fetal position.

Using the distraction, King took aim to fire at Cainan, but a sudden pressure flexed his ribs where Fiona had stabbed him. The golem holding him tightened its grip. He shouted in pain, fighting against blacking out.

Alexander was being treated similarly, but as he fought the golem’s grasp with his formidable physical strength and invulnerability, he looked more angry than in pain.

A blur of movement shot between the two men and entered the center stage.

Queen.

She ran straight past Fiona and launched herself into the air, diving over Ridley. King wondered why she would do that and got his answer a second later as three giant cats pounced into the room and dove on the nearest moving objects—two at golems and one at Ridley himself.

* * *

AFTER SHOUTING THE strange sentence Fiona had scrawled on her cell wall, reading the words from the small display screen on his camera, Bishop waited until he saw Fiona freed from control. Then he turned and ran back to the cell. Knight struggled to his feet. The impact had pounded his body, but unlike Bishop, he needed time to recover.

Despite the pain, Knight’s mind was still on task. “Did it work?” he asked.

Bishop steadied Knight. “Whatever was done to her has been undone.”

“Good,” Knight said, standing on his own and lifting his weapon. “Let’s get into this fight.”

With his XM25 at the ready, Bishop moved toward the large chamber, now shaking with the sounds of battle, both human and feline. As he stepped into the space, followed by Knight, he was greeted by a giant stone golem with a lion’s face.

Knight turned to backtrack, but a second golem with the face of a jackal, hunched in the hallway, pounded toward them.

“Back in the cell!” Bishop shouted.

Knight saw Bishop drop a live grenade at the lion-headed golem’s feet and dove for the cell.

* * *

AS DARKNESS BEGAN to consume his vision King watched one of the big cats tackle a golem to the floor. A second cat was batted to the side, sliding across the floor and stopping at the far wall where it lay motionless. The third cat’s leap through the air caught Ridley’s attention. He looked up in horror.

But the cat never made it.

King fell to the floor, the pressure on his chest gone. He sucked in a deep breath and watched as the golem that had dropped him snagged the cat in midflight. The cat flailed and scratched with its large claws. Chunks of marble flew from the golem’s body, but it did little good.

As the golem with the cat turned away from Ridley, King had to duck beneath its flailing hind legs. The cat fought for freedom. The sudden motion filled his oxygen-deprived vision with spots, forcing him to catch his breath.

Ridley was on the floor, just twenty feet away. Fiona lay between them.

With his face twisted with anguish and rage, Ridley quickly pulled the knife from his leg and rattled off a string of foreign words.

As his vision and head cleared, King watched Adam’s body slide away and separate from Ridley’s. The body was half a man, his small chest full of disfigured ribs, his torso tapering off to a twist of flesh like a tied-off balloon. King doubted the half-formed Ridley duplicate could have survived the separation even without the bullet hole in his skull.

But Ridley didn’t see it that way.

“King!” Ridley’s voice was a bestial roar.

The two men locked eyes.

“Kill him!” Ridley shouted, now staring beyond King.

The impact came quick, knocking King across the room. Only the padding provided by the giant cat’s thick fur and his instinct to roll as he landed saved his life. He got back to his feet and immediately dove back down as the now-dead cat turned club sailed over him.

* * *

QUEEN ROLLED UPON landing and quickly gained her feet. The lab table next to her exploded into the air, smashed by a hawk-headed golem. As lab equipment rained down around her and the golem raised an arm to strike her, she took aim with the XM25, let the laser sight determine her target’s distance, and pulled the trigger. Explosive rounds burst from the weapon, striking and exploding against the golem’s marble head. Its blue eyes shattered. Its face disintegrated.

But still, it came for her, finishing the swing it began.

Queen ducked the arm that would have removed her head, but lost her weapon as it was struck and destroyed.

With a quick glance, she looked to the hallway where she hoped to see Bishop and Knight, but saw only another golem. Then the ground at its feet exploded, blowing off its leg and sending a cloud of shrapnel in her direction.

* * *

KNIGHT SHOOK HIS head, fighting against the ringing in his ears, and stood up. Dust fell from his head. He waved it away, coughing and turned to Bishop. “Good-bye perfect hearing, hello tinnitus.”

The hallway swirled with dust, reducing visibility to only a few feet. There was no way to know what was out there, but they had no choice. They entered the hall, which was now full of dust. The golem blocking their exit lay in pieces, motionless. The second golem, however, emerged from the dust like a specter, still seeking them out.

The pair ran for the large chamber, having no idea what to expect. What they found was their worst-case scenario made real.

King was pinned against the back wall of the room, a golem charging toward him using one of the large cats as a club. Two more cats lay dead on the floor. Alexander was still clutched tight in the arms of a golem, whose continually crushing arms were now wearing down the ancient man. Queen lay on the floor, not far away, blood covering her face where a large stone fragment tossed by Bishop’s grenade had struck her. She was down, but still conscious.

And the Ridleys, all three of them, stood at the center of the room, speaking the ancient language like conductors, orchestrating the actions of the nine remaining golems.

A new golem, whose face looked more like a demon than any living thing, turned toward Bishop.

Unless something drastic happened, there would be no escape for any of them. Knowing he couldn’t kill Ridley with the weapon in his hand, Bishop dropped it and ran into the chamber. With killing Ridley impossible he hoped to distract the man enough to dull his control on the golems, or at the very least, turn their attention to him alone, giving the others a chance to escape.

As he leaped past Queen, she saw his hand reach into his shirt and pull out the crystal hidden beneath—the crystal that kept him from becoming an unstoppable killing machine. “Bishop, don’t!” she shouted.

But it was too late. He’d already yanked the crystal loose and tossed it to her. A moment later, his raging wail turned all eyes on him.

Ridley’s eyes widened as he instantly recognized the mania in Bishop’s face as the curse he had created. Bishop, now a regen, charged straight for his maker.

EIGHTY-TWO

CAINAN, SEEING BISHOP running toward Ridley, but not fully comprehending the rage in his eyes, moved to defend his creator. Being a golem, he felt no pain. Being modeled after Ridley, his size was formidable. But against a regen Bishop, he didn’t stand a chance.

Bishop struck the clay-man like a vampire linebacker. His hands dug into Cainan’s shoulders while his jaws clamped down on the man’s throat, tearing out a chunk where the man’s jugular should have been. With a mouthful of flesh turning to clay in his mouth, Bishop reached down and swiped a hand across Cainan’s belly. It spilled open, dropping organs that turned to clay as they fell.

As Cainan’s body began to lose its form, Bishop swiped into it again, tearing it in half. It fell to the floor as two large clumps of wet clay.

Bishop’s eyes locked on the man’s duplicate, staring at him with wide eyes. He lunged.

The man ran.

Raking his hands down Mahaleel’s back, Bishop tore large chunks of flesh turned clay. The Ridley golem staggered forward and fell. Bishop took the man’s leg in his hands and bit into it. The flesh turned to clay in his mouth.

Spitting the clay out, Bishop roared and turned on the third, and last Ridley. Fueled with bloodlust and anger toward the form of Ridley, he charged. Arms outstretched. Fingers bent like hooks. Drooling jaws open wide. He would tear Ridley apart, eating his flesh until his stomach burst. Then he would heal and continue his meal until Ridley’s body had been consumed. But Ridley’s flesh would regenerate as quickly as Bishop ate it and the two would continue in the vicious cycle indefinitely.

Fear gripped Ridley as he realized this potential outcome, but it was replaced by confidence. He had the knowledge to stop it.

As Bishop dove for his throat, Ridley shouted a string of words similar to those he had used to purge Adam from his body. It felt strange to be shouting words of healing at an attacking enemy, but it would stop the attack. Not only would Bishop’s mind and moral compass return, but he’d no longer have his regenerative abilities. The man would be killable.

The effect was immediate.

Bishop’s legs failed him and he fell to the floor before reaching Ridley. He shook his head and pushed himself up. He held his clay-covered hands up before his eyes. The taste of the stuff filled his mouth. Bishop looked at Ridley. “You … you cured me?”

Ridley grinned. “Just in time, it would seem.”

A brute force struck Bishop from the side and sent him sprawling to the floor.

* * *

WITH RIDLEY’S LIFE in jeopardy, all the golems in the room had turned their attention to him. The first thing King saw was Knight, sneaking out of the side tunnel. He made a dash to the center of the room, moving fast, staying low, and drawing as little attention to himself as possible. He scooped up Fiona, saw her condition, and quickly produced the insulin shot he carried. He stabbed the needle into her leg and depressed the plunger. But there was no time to see if it would return the girl to them.

The two soldiers locked eyes.

“Get her out of here,” King said.

Knight gave a quick nod and ran back the way he’d come.

Seeing Fiona’s limp body in Knight’s arms, filled him with an anger he’d never experienced before. It gripped his body and trained his mind on the man responsible for his girl’s condition.

Ridley!

King acted quickly. He’d seen the way Bishop’s grenade had worked on the golem and left one of his own behind as he made his escape.

The booming explosion from his grenade threw him forward. He landed between Queen, who was just getting back to her feet, and Bishop’s weapon. He rolled to Bishop’s weapon, picked it up, and fired a barrage at the golem still holding Alexander. The golem stumbled back as several rounds struck its arms.

Just as many rounds struck Alexander. He shouted in pain as his body was torn apart.

“What are you doing?” Queen shouted.

But King didn’t answer. As the golem regained its balance Alexander had already healed from the wounds and pushed against the weakened arms. They shattered and exploded out.

Alexander—Hercules—was free.

And pissed.

He launched himself on the golem that had been holding him and tackled it to the ground, pummeling it with his fists, which were bloodied with each strike, but healed in time to strike again.

Queen’s headless golem arrived, raising its arms to strike her down. She ducked down as King raised the XM25 and fired into the stone giant’s midsection.

In the chaos, King saw the opportunity to create a clear path for the team to escape with Fiona.

There is no greater love than a father who is willing to lay down his life for his children.

He shouted to Queen over the barrage of bullets. “Get Bishop! Cover Knight and Fiona!”

Queen nodded and dove past the headless golem. As two more of the stone giants headed for her, she reached Bishop and yanked him up. He was conscious, but injured.

Injured.

“Snap out of it, big man,” Queen shouted at him. “It’s time to bug out!”

Bishop carried some of his weight, allowing Queen to help him toward the exit where Knight stood with Fiona over one shoulder and his XM25 in his hand. He raised the weapon, holding it with one arm, and fired.

The round zinged past Queen and struck the golem behind her. The impact slowed the golem, but came far from stopping it. And with Fiona over his shoulder, Knight could only fire one round at a time. Even a three-round burst might throw off his aim enough that he’d hit his teammates.

As Queen and Bishop reached him, they all rushed into the tunnel that led down at a steep grade. A golem filled the space behind them and squeezed itself into the tunnel. On its hands and knees, the fit was tight, but the golem paid the scraping of its marble body on the stone walls no heed. It pursued them relentlessly down the tunnel, toward the exit—

—an exit that Queen only now remembered had been sealed with a solid wall of stone.

* * *

THE HEADLESS GOLEM’S midsection gave in to the barrage of exploding rounds and cracked. The top-heavy torso fell away and smashed on the floor. King saw Queen, Bishop, Knight, and Fiona disappear into the exit tunnel, but one of the golems shoved itself in behind them and gave chase. He took aim at the second golem about to enter the tunnel and fired off a few rounds.

The golem turned toward him and stood.

“Duck!” came Alexander’s voice.

King listened and felt a breeze rush by his head. A marble arm swished past and struck the wall next to him. He turned to rejoin Alexander, but found the large-bodied man flying through the air toward him. In his moment of distraction—saving King’s life—the golem beneath Alexander had struck him hard.

The two warriors stood as the remaining six golems walled them in against the curved wall of the chamber. Behind them was a carving depicting five crude winged figures in the sky above a ziggurat that had to be Babel before it was buried beneath a pyroclastic flow.

Ridley stepped past the outer rings of golems. He looked at King and Alexander, knowing neither man posed a threat. His eyes trailed from the two men to the large carving behind them. Slowly, his countenance morphed from confidence to anger. He stepped back without a word and walked to the laptop that had somehow made it through the battle unscathed.

With a finger hovering over the keyboard’s Enter key, Ridley turned to King. “Not every prophesy comes true, King.”

What’s he talking about? King thought. Alexander’s hand on his shoulder turned him around. The big man pointed to the stone carving behind them. King looked at the image with a new perspective. It depicted a prophecy. Five angels descending over Babel. But were they angels or men? Were they wings … or parachutes? As King’s eyes widened, a click whirled him around.

Ridley pushed the button.

The golems closed in.

EIGHTY-THREE

AS THE BULK of the golem pursuing them blocked the light from below, Queen couldn’t determine the length of the tunnel. But she could see the hulking shape of the golem as he ground its way toward them.

With Bishop’s weight supported by one of her arms, she yanked her night vision goggles from her neck with her free hand and placed them against her eyes. Looking down past Knight, who descended the incline with Fiona over one shoulder, she saw the end of the road seventy-five feet ahead.

If the golem caught them there they would all be pounded into oblivion.

She ran through their options.

C4 would take too long to rig.

A grenade in the tight confines of the tunnel might shred them.

Her eyes locked on Knight’s weapon again. It might work, she thought, and said, “Knight, give me your XM.”

Knight paused and shrugged his weapon from his shoulder and handed it back to Queen.

She nodded to Bishop. “Can you handle both of them?”

“You know I can,” Knight said, and then took Bishop’s weight off of her with a grunt.

Free of Bishop’s bulk, Queen ran ahead, raised the XM25 to her shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The end of the tunnel lit up as it was struck by a ceaseless barrages of exploding rounds. A sound like thunder rolled down the tunnel. Queen ran forward, finger on the trigger, hoping to punch through the wall before she ran out of ammunition.

* * *

“I’LL GET THEIR attention,” King said to Alexander. “You try to get Rid—”

But Alexander had his own ideas. He popped the cap from a small vial of black liquid and raised it to his lips. King recognized it as the adrenaline-boosting drink Alexander had taken back in Rome.

“Give me some,” King said.

Alexander paused. “It could kill you.”

“They’re definitely going to kill me.”

Alexander poured the liquid under his tongue and then quickly handed the bottle to King. There were a few drops left. Wasting no time, King shook the remaining drops under his tongue.

At first he felt nothing.

Then his heart beat hard, like a punch to his chest.

Then again.

And again.

It was like a monster had been unleashed beneath his rib cage. He felt his blood flow through his body, pulsing with energy. As the pressure grew stronger, a hot stinging covered his skin. The tiny blood vessels in his body were bursting.

Then the effect struck his mind.

He’d taken LSD once as a teenager. The mind-altering drug had nothing on this stuff. King viewed the world as though in slow motion, but not because things were moving slowly, his mind simply processed and reacted more quickly to his sensory input. And the energy flowing through his body gave him the ability to respond just as quickly.

The pain from his many wounds, including the deep stab wound, faded away, allowing him to react without pause.

And it saved his life as the nearest golem dove for him. King leaped in the air, and took hold of the top of the carving, pulling himself out of harm’s way. Now above the golem he fired his weapon into its back, pulverizing a hole straight through. When the XM25 ran out of ammunition, King tossed it to the side.

Alexander barreled into the golem nearest him, striking it with a force King could never achieve. While he’d only had a few drops of Alexander’s adrenaline booster, Alexander had taken almost the whole vial. Combined with his ability to heal, he was nearly as strong as the golems, and he was twice as fast. As the golem stumbled backward into a second, Alexander jumped back and looked for a weapon. He found it in the shattered remains of the golem King had blasted apart. He picked up the broken marble arm, wielding it like a club, and smiled.

Seeing him with the club, King recalled a statue he’d seen in Florence, Italy, depicting Hercules battling Caccus the Centaur. The sculptor had captured his likeness so accurately that King now wondered if Alexander had commissioned the sculpture himself.

A lizard-headed golem launched toward King. He reacted without thinking, diving toward the golem.

He sailed over its shoulder, wrapping an arm around its head as he passed. Holding on to the golem’s head, he swung around, planting his feet on its back. With his hands gripping the lizard-headed golem beneath its chin, King used his whole body to yank the monster’s head back. It bent back and reached its arms up, trying to grab hold of him. But the movement combined with King on its back threw off its center of gravity.

As the golem fell back, King pushed off hard with his feet.

Too hard.

The elixir that had boosted his speed and strength had not made his body more durable. He had jumped farther than he could have ever done before, but at the sacrifice of one of his ankles, which shattered from the intense pressure.

Distracted by the sharp pain shooting up his leg, King slammed into the body of a devil-headed golem and fell at its feet. In his dazed state he barely registered the giant foot rising up above him, but it seemed that with his mind in hyperdrive, that small perception was all he needed to react. He rolled away just as the giant foot slammed into the stone floor.

* * *

QUEEN CONTINUED HER charge toward the sealed exit. She had no idea if anyone had fallen behind, or if the golem had caught them. She was focused solely on the task of punching through the wall. But with the shaft now full of dusty debris, she couldn’t see the wall, just the bright explosions from her XM25 rounds.

Then a light cut through the dust like a lighthouse beacon. She aimed at the small fissure and unloaded. The light grew larger with each exploding round until a large portion of the wall fell away, big enough for them to fit through.

Queen stopped by the hole and looked back. Knight was right behind her, still holding Fiona. Bishop followed him, walking on his own now, but looked beaten and tired. But the golem was there, too, still forcing its way up the tight passage. She waved Knight through, and then Bishop. She followed them into the bright light of day.

Knight kept moving, somehow knowing that the chase was far from over. Bishop fell to one knee, gripping his chest.

“Can’t breathe,” he said.

“Hang on,” Queen said. She wrapped her arms under Bishop’s armpits and dragged him down the mountainside. A few seconds later, the remainder of the tunnel’s stone seal exploded out. It rained down around them like hail.

When it cleared, a fifteen-foot marble giant stood above them. It looked even more fearsome in the light of day.

“Let me go,” Bishop said as Queen continued to drag his body, which was nearly twice the size of her own. “You can make it without me.”

Queen never got a chance to tell Bishop to shut the fuck up. The golem took two steps toward them, cutting the distance between them in half.

And then it stopped.

Slowly, it turned its head back toward the tunnel like it saw something within, or sensed something wrong. What’s happening in there? Queen thought, as she continued to run backward.

Knight shouted into his throat mic. “This is Knight. We have Pip-squeak. Requesting immediate evac!”

With a UH-100S Stealth Blackhawk transport helicopter flown by a pilot from the Nightstalkers circling nearby, Queen knew they would make it. But as she looked back at the black tunnel, she wondered about King. Would the team lose its leader? Would Fiona lose her father?

* * *

THE GOLEM BENT down for him, its stone fingers separating and reaching out. A blur of marble crashed down on the arm, shattering it. For a moment, King thought the golems were attacking each other, but then Alexander flashed into view, slamming his body into the golem. He was covered in his own blood, but as he turned to King and reached out his hand, he appeared unharmed.

As King stood on his one good foot, he felt a painful throb in his chest. He grit his teeth and pitched forward. Alexander was right, he thought. That stuff is killing me.

But then he saw Ridley retreating toward the back of the chamber. Seeing King and Alexander holding their own against the stone giants must have sapped his confidence. If they lost him he might escape into the very earth itself.

But there was something else he needed to do before hunting down Ridley. King drew a throwing knife and took aim at the laptop, which showed a spinning blue circle at its center. Hoping the computer was still in the process of transmitting the audio file that would change the human race into a giant Ridley cult, he took aim. He knew hitting the screen wouldn’t necessarily stop the computer from working. And piercing the base from this angle was impossible. So he aimed for the only critical weak spot he could think of and let the knife fly.

The blade flew through the air, spinning rapidly. It passed over its target, but as the blade spun up, its razor sharp edge hit home and easily sliced through the network cable. The line to the outside world was cut.

King turned away from the computer to find three golems closing in. Beyond them, Ridley was making his getaway. King turned to Alexander and shouted, “Throw me!”

King pointed to Ridley and Alexander immediately understood. He took King by the back of his bulletproof vest and his belt, spun quickly, and with a loud grunt, threw King into the air.

King soared above the golems, out of their reach as he arced over the center of the chamber. He passed over one of the glowing orbs, feeling its heat on his body. Looking down he saw a large, dark brown stain on the floor. He recognized it as the blood of some ancient man who had died here. And then he was falling, dropping like a cannon ball aimed at Ridley’s back. King drew the only weapon he had left, his seven-inch KA-BAR knife.

He heard Alexander’s voice in his mind.

Take off his head. Burn the flesh.

King pulled his arm back, ready to strike.

Pain gripped his chest again. He fought it, refusing to curl up, eyes focused on the back of Ridley’s neck.

Their bodies struck hard as King fell. A blur of motion. A tangle of limbs.

King hit the floor with a loud crack and rolled like a rag doll. He slid to a stop with his legs over Ridley’s motionless torso.

Alexander saw the collision and held his breath.

It seemed the golems did as well. Their attack stopped.

And then Alexander saw why. Richard Ridley’s head rolled into view, severed from his body by King’s blade. A pool of blood so dark it almost looked black spilled from the headless body.

Alexander rushed past the dumbstruck golems and ignored King’s body. He took Ridley’s head in his hands and looked at the face. His eyes twitched madly. His mouth opened and closed, trying to suck in air like a fish out of water. Though his mind was overwhelmed with the pain of suddenly missing its body, Ridley was alive. And as the first tendrils of skin expanded from the neck, Alexander knew he would regenerate if given enough time and liquid.

He stood and ran to one of the small orbs still lighting the room and held the head up to it. Flesh crackled and popped as the super hot light cooked Ridley’s exposed neck. As Alexander took the head down to inspect his handiwork, the air filled with the smell of broiled flesh and the sound of a whispering voice.

Alexander spun, looking for the source. King was still lying limp on the floor. Ridley had no lungs to force air past his voice box. The golems remained motionless. Then he saw him, lying on the floor with his back gouged out. One of the clay golems made in Ridley’s image spoke a final string of words and then grinned.

A violent shaking sent Alexander to the floor. The whole mountain churned violently. As he regained his footing, he looked up and saw the small orb above him shrinking. But it wasn’t dimming, it was growing brighter. The implications struck him quickly.

The tiny stars were growing dense, reducing in size as their gravity intensified. The energy inside them would magnify until each one went supernova.

EIGHTY-FOUR

QUEEN STUMBLED AND fell back. Bishop landed hard on top of her. The mountain shook beneath them. As she pulled herself free from Bishop’s body she felt less sure of their escape. With the Blackhawk still several minutes out, they were sitting ducks on a barren mountainside. Ridley had obviously set something large in motion, and that was never a good thing.

There was no time to wonder, though. The mountain above the tunnel entrance began to crumble, sending large boulders tumbling toward them. She hefted Bishop back up and continued pulling him down the mountain.

A large boulder bounced over the tunnel entrance and headed for the golem. It did nothing to avoid the impact and shattered into pieces when it struck. The boulder broke as well, sending a shower of grit down the mountainside.

Within the cloud of debris, Queen saw something that gave her equal parts hope and dread. Alexander ran out of the tunnel looking as strong as ever. But he held King’s limp body over one shoulder and a thick satchel over the other. They had made it out, but at what cost? King’s lifeless arms dangled.

As Alexander gained on her, he waved for her to move faster and shouted, “The whole mountain’s going to explode!” Then he had an arm under Bishop and hoisted the man up, continuing to run down the mountainside with both men over his shoulders.

Queen, despite being free to run at full speed found keeping up with Alexander a challenge. Even with five hundred pounds of Delta operators in his arms, he ran without slowing.

A deep, resonating rumble filled the air. The small stones on the mountainside bounced like manic jumping beans. As they reached the bottom slope, a wave of pressure knocked them off their feet. But the force had not pushed them from behind, it had been sucked past them—toward the mountain.

They all looked back as the mountain collapsed in on itself.

Alexander squinted. It was not the result he had expected.

“It imploded,” Knight said.

“Why?” Alexander wondered aloud.

A grinding movement deep within the ruined mountainside answered his question. It stood slowly, as though awakening from an ancient sleep. Standing more than one hundred feet tall, the golem, as featureless as it was immense, stepped out of the crater and turned its flat face toward them. It was a mix of old mountain, hardened pyroclastic flow, and the ruins of Babel.

When it took its first step, its stumplike foot dented the solid stone mountainside.

“It’s super dense,” Alexander said.

“What?” Queen said. “How?”

“The small stars. They were collapsing when I left. I thought they would go supernova, but instead their gravity drew the stone in, compressing it.”

“Ridley did this?” Knight asked.

“One of his duplicates.”

“Where is Ridley?” Queen asked.

“Headless,” Alexander said, then met Queen’s doubt-filled eyes. “He’s inside. Buried.” He turned to Knight. “Forever.”

The mountainside shook as the giant stepped toward them. With its gait covering twenty-five feet, it would only take the golem a moment to reach them.

Knight tried to stand, but the violently shaking earth stumbled him.

Escape was impossible.

Knight tightened his grip on Fiona and felt her move. Not now, he thought, don’t wake up now.

But a sharp crack launched her upright.

She looked up at the source of the sound through squinted eyes. The stealth Blackhawk was circling the giant, peppering it with a stream of bullets from its side-mounted minigun. The barrage glowed like an orange laser beam thanks to the bright tracer rounds. But the thousands of rounds striking the giant did nothing more than scratch its face. The golem swung its arm out, forcing the copter to bank away.

Fiona looked up at Knight and saw his worried eyes looking back at her. She looked to the side and saw Queen on the ground beside Bishop, whose face was twisted in pain. She saw Alexander next and then King, laying on the ground, his eyes closed.

She tried standing up, but Knight stood and held her tight. “I’m taking her. Going for the Blackhawk.”

But Fiona fought against him, thrashing and shouting, “No!” Her voice was raspy, but clear.

She broke free of his grasp and hobbled to King’s side. Her vision faded for a moment as she fell over his body. She pressed herself into him, head on his chest. With her eyes closed she ignored the voice of Knight pleading with her, the boom of the golem’s footsteps, and the chop of the Blackhawk.

And she heard the one thing she needed to hear—King’s heartbeat.

She stood on wobbly legs and turned toward the giant golem. Her dark hair billowed in the wind. The team watched in amazement as this thirteen-year-old girl stepped toward the golem.

The golem turned its head toward her, stomping forward. It would reach her in five more steps.

In a voice as loud as she could muster, Fiona shouted, “Tisioh fesh met!”

The golem reacted immediately.

Its knees buckled and fell apart.

Its arms fell away and crashed to the ground.

And its torso and head fell forward, crashing to the sloped mountainside and sliding to the bottom where their super dense weight buried them into the soft soil of the valley—just fifteen feet from where Fiona stood.

Fiona collapsed, falling on top of King’s chest. She clutched him as she lost consciousness, listening to the sound of his heartbeat and the chop of the approaching Blackhawk.

EIGHTY-FIVE

Barents Sea

COLD AIR WHIPPED against Rook’s face, frosting moisture onto his blond beard. But he remained at the bow of the ship, gloved hands on the rail. They had been at sea for three days and he had endured the presence of the Songbird’s two passengers—and the whimpered cries of their prisoner—long enough. With their voyage to Norway nearly at an end, it was time to act. On his way to the deck, he’d stared down one of the men and then laughed at him. Mocking him.

The man showed no reaction, other than watching Rook leave. But the insult wouldn’t go unanswered. Not by these two. Rook knew he could have simply shot the men. He still had his Desert Eagle. But he wanted the confrontation to look unprovoked. He wasn’t sure how Dashkov would react if Rook killed them outright. But if it was self-defense …

A moment later, Rook heard the cabin door open. Two sets of footsteps walked casually across the deck. The killers were confident. Relaxed.

Rook held up a pack of cigarettes he’d borrowed from Dashkov. “Smoke?”

“Not today,” one of the men said.

Their footsteps grew closer. Too close to shoot. These guys really are old school, Rook thought. He guessed the plan. Stab him in the back. Maybe whisper some parting words. And then shove him overboard. They’d probably done it before.

So when the nearest man paused to aim his strike, Rook spun. The thrust blade passed by his abdomen and beneath his arm. Rook took the attackers forearm, pulled him closer, wrapped his free hand around the man’s neck, and hurled him overboard.

The second man roared with anger and charged. Though he was probably a good fighter in his day, the man was slow and couldn’t match Rook’s reach. Rook’s fist slammed head on into the man’s nose. The man stumbled back, ignoring the gouts of blood pouring from his ruined face, and drew a pistol.

But once again, Rook was too quick. He kicked the weapon from the man’s hand and elbowed him in the chest. The man stumbled back and landed against the rail. Wasting no time, Rook took the man by his feet and flipped him, ass over teakettle, into the freezing arctic waters.

A third set of footsteps approached from behind. Rook turned.

Dashkov flicked his lighter and held it out to Rook.

“I don’t smoke,” Rook said, handing the pack of cigarettes to the man.

Rook could read the man’s questioning glance and pointed to the pack. Dashkov looked at the cigarettes and found a small mirror fragment taped to it. When Rook held the pack up, he’d got a peek at both men.

Dashkov shook his head with a laugh. “What took you so long?”

“You don’t mind?”

“I’m not a bad man, Stanislav.” He smiled. “And they paid up front.”

“And if someone comes looking for them?”

“I’ll tell the truth, that I dropped them off and haven’t seen them since.”

Both men laughed at this.

“I think their plan was to disappear anyway,” Dashkov said. “Along with the girl.”

“How long until we reach our stop?”

“Two hours.”

Rook smiled and headed for the cabin door. “I’ll go cut her loose and give her the good news.”

* * *

ROOK STOOD AT the rail once again, the newly freed woman by his side. She had wavy black hair cut to her shoulders. Her body was feminine and in great shape. Her dark brown eyes shown with intelligence and despite the wounds inflicted to her face, she was still quite striking, not to mention familiar. But he couldn’t place what was familiar about her and didn’t dwell on it.

She had offered a quiet “Thank you” after being freed, but hadn’t said a word since. When she saw land ahead, she turned to Rook and again said, “Thank you.”

“Do you need any help once we land?” Rook asked.

For a moment he thought she wouldn’t reply, but then she spoke. “I’ll be fine.”

She spoke with a confidence that convinced Rook she would be. “Sorry,” he said.

She turned to him, confused. “For what?”

“Not freeing you sooner.”

She shrugged. “These things happen.”

There it was again. The familiarity. Something in the casual shrug. Or was it the indifference to being bound and tortured?

She noted his attention. “What?”

“I feel like we’ve met before,” he said.

After looking him up and down, she said, “No.”

He wasn’t convinced. “What’s your name?”

“Asya,” she said. “Asya Machtcenko.”

Nope. Didn’t ring a bell.

He turned back to the rail, looking at a small Norwegian village in the distance. The collection of small buildings looked like they couldn’t support a population of more than a thousand. There was a single line of electrical wires leading into the town and only two roads. A long pier stretching out into the ocean held ten fishing boats.

Dashkov rested his elbows on the rail to Rook’s right. “You don’t want to go there. Let me take you a bit further. To civilization.”

“Why?” Rook asked as he glanced down at the flask in Dashkov’s hand. “Is it a dry town?”

The man didn’t laugh. “It is a cursed place.”

Rook turned to him. “Cursed by what?”

“Wolves,” he said. “Even out here you will hear them howl at night.”

“Wolves aren’t so bad,” Rook said. As a native of New Hampshire, he had a long love affair with the outdoors, and the idea of living among wolves, no matter how afraid people were of them, appealed to him.

“You wouldn’t say that if you heard them,” Dashkov said. “I have never felt such fear.”

“Superstitions,” Asya said with a shake of her head. She wasn’t buying it either.

“If it’s so bad, why does anyone live there at all?” Rook asked.

Dashkov shrugged. “I have not stopped to ask. No one does.”

“Then it’s safe to say not many people visit?”

The fisherman frowned and nodded begrudgingly. He could see Rook making up his mind. He placed a hand on Rook’s shoulder. “Please, Stanislav. I will not come back for you here.”

Rook looked at the shoreline, frigid and barren. The town appeared empty, though a few lights glowed in windows. The place was quiet, and despite Dashkov’s tales of frightful wolves, peaceful.

“No one will come for you,” Dashkov added.

Rook looked back at his new friend. “That’s the idea.”

Dashkov looked beyond Rook and met the eyes of Asya. She nodded. The village was the perfect starting point for both of them. He pocketed his flask and headed back to the pilothouse. “I would look the other way one last time, Stanislav. For you. For Galya.”

Rook tilted his head in thanks. “That’s all I ask.”

EIGHTY-SIX

Washington, D.C.

THE FIFTH-FLOOR WINDOW provided a view of the oval courtyard in front of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Queen stared out the window, arms crossed over her chest. Dressed in jeans and an army green T-shirt, she looked like any other concerned family member of someone in the armed services, with one blazing exception. The red star-and-skull brand on her forehead glowed in the late-day sun.

Knight sat in a chair next to her, feet up on the hospital bed next to him. He, too, was dressed casually, as casual as he dressed, in a black button-down shirt and black slacks. He looked down to his chest where Fiona’s head rested. It had been five days since the events in Turkey, and Fiona had been cleared to leave her room that morning. After four days on an IV, eating nonstop and receiving her glucose-balancing insulin, she had made a full recovery. She’d spent the day with Knight and Queen keeping vigil over Bishop and King, who were not recovering as quickly. In desperation, she had tried to remember the healing words Ridley had used, but could not remember the phrase. In fact, all traces of the language had been destroyed. The speakers of all the languages on earth that contained fragments of the mother tongue were dead, except for Fiona. All of the physical evidence Ridley collected had been condensed and destroyed within the super-dense golem’s body. Even Bishop’s camera, which held an image of the phrase Fiona scrawled on the wall had been destroyed in the battle. Nothing remained. The mother tongue had been buried deeper than ever before.

Losing hope, Fiona had spent the majority of the morning crying over King before falling asleep on Knight.

Bishop had several broken ribs, one of which had punctured a lung, a fractured collarbone, and more than a few bruised organs. After a round of surgeries he’d been wrapped up tight and placed in a bed. But he was expected to leave within the week.

King, on the other hand, would not be recovering soon. If ever. The prognosis was grim. No one knew exactly what had happened to him—Alexander had disappeared shortly after their hurried departure from Turkey and returned to Iraq—but his symptoms were varied and extreme. His heart appeared scarred. Many of his veins had burst, leading to intense internal bleeding throughout his body, and in his brain. The resulting coma, according to the doctors, might be permanent, especially with the physical damage to his body being irreparable. On top of that, he had a shattered ankle, which was now bound in a liquid cast, and a four-inch-deep stab wound.

Fiona wished she had no memory of what she’d done while under Ridley’s control, but she remembered it all. Trapping Knight and Bishop. Stabbing King. But the worst memory was that of adoring Ridley. She remembered the joy of hearing his voice, of following his orders. Stabbing King at that moment was the happiest moment of her life. Until Bishop undid the spell. As her mind returned to her, all the bliss faded away, replaced by seething hate. She was dealing with the emotion now, seeking guidance from Queen and Knight, but also seeing a therapist.

Given the clandestine nature of their mission, family and friends hadn’t been notified of their return until that morning. Rook’s family was hit hard as they learned he was officially missing in action. As were George Pierce and Sara Fogg when they learned of King’s condition. Sara was still stuck in Africa, but would be returning in a few days. Pierce had hopped on the first available flight and would be arriving shortly. But the people everyone thought would be most eager to hear word of King, his parents, had not yet been reached. They’d been tried at their hotel room and at their home with no luck.

Queen, Bishop, and Knight had waited in silence for the next shoe to drop. Only they and a few other people in the administration knew it was coming, but they understood why it had to be done. With new strange and violent enemies cropping up around the world, Deep Blue and the Chess Team needed to respond without encumbrance, without public attention. And there was only one way to achieve that goal. It would be the greatest sacrifice of Duncan’s life, but to truly protect the people who had elected him to office, it was the best course of action.

Bishop picked up the remote from his bed and unmuted the TV mounted on the corner of the room. The voice of the reporter speaking on screen was excited. “We’re just moments away from President Duncan’s impromptu address to the nation. There has been a lot of speculation about what he’ll say. Since Senator Marrs revealed evidence that the president knew about the impending attacks on the Siletz Reservation and Fort Bragg and not only failed to act, but refused to act, he has remained silent behind the walls of the White House, giving no indication about his intentions. As the investigation proceeds, streamlined by CIA director Dominick Boucher’s full disclosure, the president’s options may be limited and out of his hands. Many expect him to fight the charges, but Boucher himself has asked for the president to step down.”

“This is bullshit,” Queen said.

“He’s doing the right thing,” Knight said.

“This is how it has to be,” Bishop said. “He understands that.”

Queen crossed her arms over her chest. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

The reporter held his hand to his ear. “Okay, the president is taking the stage. We now go live to the White House.”

The image cut to an empty podium. Duncan took the stage looking very serious, but well. His posture was straight. This wasn’t a defeat for him, it was a transition. To something new. Possibly something better. He paused before the microphone, looked over the gathered sea of reporters, and spoke in a clear voice. “As the president of the United States, I swore to protect this nation from all enemies. In this endeavor, I have failed. I have made mistakes that are unforgivable.” He paused and faced the camera. “Some have said the president of this country is the leader of the free world. I would disagree with that. I represent the people of this country and as such it is you who are the leaders of the free world. And you need someone who represents you … better than I have.”

He paused again. “As of nine o’clock this morning I have resigned as the President of the United States—” A loud murmur became a torrent of shouted questions as the press corps could no longer contain themselves. Duncan raised his voice over the din. “Vice President Chambers is now the president and he will answer your questions.”

With that, Duncan stepped down. The white-haired former vice president shook his hand and then took the stage.

Bishop shut the TV off.

In the silence that followed, Bishop, Queen, and Knight immediately became aware of a presence in the room. They turned to find George Pierce standing over King’s unconscious form—holding an empty syringe.

Queen stormed toward him. “What the hell are you doing!”

Pierce held his hands up defensively, still holding the syringe. “Trying to help.”

Queen snatched the syringe from his hand. “What was in this?”

“You won’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“An … an apple seed. Crushed. Liquefied.”

She whipped the syringe into a nearby trash can. It shattered inside. “You injected King with an apple seed?”

“From the Garden of the Hesperides. But I’m not really even sure they are apple seeds.”

The name of the garden sounded familiar to Queen, but she continued her death stare at Pierce. She knew the man would never intentionally hurt King. They were like brothers. But desperate people sometimes make deadly mistakes.

“I got them from Alexander.”

Queen’s temper flared. “Alexander!”

Pierce took a step back and found Queen more intimidating than a golem. “I stole it. In Rome. From Alexander’s gallery.”

Queen knew the story, how they found Alexander beneath the ruins of the Roman Forum. She took a deep breath and eased back. “Did you test it?”

“I only had enough to—”

“Can you two be quiet, please?” Fiona stood behind Queen rubbing her eyes. Knight stood behind her, urging Queen to calm down with his hands.

Queen shook her head and stepped back. “Sorry, kid.”

Fiona stepped to King’s bed and climbed up into it. Laying next to King, her wiry body dressed in pink sweatpants and a Powerpuff Girls T-shirt, Fiona looked more fragile than ever. But they all knew she was strong. She had proven that when she had faced down a one-hundred-foot-tall golem and saved all their lives.

“Remember, he can hear what we’re saying,” Fiona said. She turned to King’s face and said, “I love you, Dad.” She snuggled into him and felt a hand on her back, squeezing her tight.

She opened her eyes slowly as the realization of whose hand was holding her set in. George Pierce stood on the other side of the bed, his face smiling, his eyes wet. Then King’s other arm reached up and wrapped around her. She buried her face into his chest with a sob.

King was alive.

Her father was alive.

King opened his eyes. He saw Pierce first and grinned. “I heard what you said. Alexander won’t be happy if he finds out.”

Pierce shrugged. “What’s he gonna do?”

King surveyed the room, seeing Knight and Queen. Then he looked over at Bishop and eyed his mass of bandages. “No more regeneration?”

“No more regen,” Bishop said with a smile. “It’s gone.”

“And Rook?” King asked, looking at Queen.

“No word,” she said with a frown.

As he ran his fingers through Fiona’s hair, he asked her, “You’re okay?”

She just squeezed him in response.

“The docs gave her a clean bill of health this morning,” Knight said.

King’s eyes drifted around the room again, looking beyond the group. “Where are my parents? Do they know?”

“We haven’t been able to reach them,” Knight said.

As egocentric as it was, King knew his parents would be waiting by the phone for news. His mother always did when she knew he was deployed. And with them knowing exactly what he was up against and who he was fighting for, she would have—

A burst of panic made King feel queasy. He sat up straight. “Do I have any clothes?”

Fiona grinned. “I made them bring some. Just in case.” She pointed to the dresser across from the bed. On top sat his signature jeans and black Elvis T-shirt. He began to get out of bed.

“What are you doing?” Queen asked. “You just came out of a coma.”

King stood, steady, tall, and healthy. “Whatever he gave me has me back to normal. A little better than normal, actually, and I need to leave.”

King lifted his leg and unbuckled the liquid cast. After it fell to the floor, he wiggled his ankle. The apple seed was like a single dose of regeneration. He stood and bounced his weight on his legs. Never better.

“Where are you going?” Pierce asked.

“It’s likely there are other Ridley golems out there. If they know about my parents—”

He didn’t have to finish. Queen stepped out of his way. “I’m coming.”

“Me, too,” Knight said.

King turned to Pierce as he took his clothes to the bathroom. He motioned to Fiona and then to Bishop. “Keep an eye on them.”

Thirty seconds later, King was dressed, leaving the hospital and a string of stunned doctors and nurses behind him.

Twenty minutes later, Knight pulled his car into the parking lot of the hotel in which King’s parents had been hidden away. He pulled into a space and turned off the car. “They’re in two-twenty.”

Knight and Queen took out their sidearms and chambered rounds. “Have an extra?” King asked.

“Glove compartment.”

King opened it and found a Sig Sauer.

They exited the car and vaulted up the stairs to the second floor. King quickly led the way to room two-twenty. He paused outside the door, letting Knight and Queen take positions on the other side, just in case.

King knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again. Harder. Followed by, “Mom. Dad. It’s Jack.”

He tried the doorknob and found it locked.

“I’ll do it,” Queen whispered. She stood across from the door and slammed it with her foot. Wood shattered from the powerful blow and the door swung inward.

King moved in. Weapon raised. Prepared for anything.

Except what he found.

There were two queen-sized beds in the room. On each lay a blood-soaked human body.

King launched forward and flipped over the nearest body, dead for days. But the man was not one of his parents. Nor was the other body. Both men held weapons. And both had been shot through the head. King remembered the story his mother had told him, about shooting the man who had come for them. It now seemed all the more believable.

But the fact that these men were dead didn’t supply any hope. There was no way to know how many assailants there had been. And his parents were gone, perhaps dead, dying, or on the run.

King and Queen checked the bodies for identification, Knight searched the bathroom.

As Queen rifled through the dead man’s pockets, she spotted a necklace poking out from under one of the beds. She picked it up and looked if over—a silver chain and cross. The cross design was simple and held a small black stone in the middle.

King saw it dangling. His eyes widened as he reached out for the necklace.

She handed it to him. “Recognize it?”

“Yeah,” King said. “It was Julie’s.”

As he looked the necklace over, memories of it around his sister’s neck came back to him. It had been a gift from their father. After she died in the plane crash, his mother wore it. Every day. He’d never seen her take it off. But here it was, on the floor.

King unclipped the chain, wrapped it around his neck, and refastened it. With the necklace hidden beneath his shirt, he turned to Queen. “Call it in.”

Queen nodded, switched on her cell, and left the room.

“King,” Knight called from the bathroom. “Check this out.”

The bathroom looked normal until Knight stepped to the side, revealing the sink. A board had been placed atop the basin, serving as a workspace. The makeshift countertop held several small electronic components, spools of impossibly thin wires, miniature microchips, a magnifying glass, soldering tools, and pill-sized capsules. Knight picked up one of the completed devices and handed it to King.

A mixture of confusion, anger, and sadness filled King as he looked at the tiny device that perfectly matched the tracking device he’d found hidden in his pocket. His chest ached as the memory of his last good-bye with his parents returned. His mother’s firm embrace. The slow slide of her hand against his side as they separated.

His mother had bugged him.

Betrayed him.

“What do you think?” Knight asked.

It pained him to say it, but he couldn’t deny the evidence. “My parents are still Russian spies, and they almost got us killed.”

As his mind raced to put together any missing pieces, anything he’d missed, something else nagged at him. Some other unanswered question. Then he remembered. Turning to Knight, he asked, “What happened to Ridley?”

EPILOGUE

Somewhere

THE TEN-FOOT-SQUARE CELL was empty, save for a single chair and its occupant, a prisoner, and his interrogator. The man in the chair was gagged—jaw spread wide holding a red ball gag. He was strapped to the chair around the chest and waist. There was no need to bind his arms and legs because he had neither.

His interrogator walked around him in lazy circles. “This can end whenever you want it to.”

The man’s shouted reply was muffled and distorted, but the tone was defiant.

The interrogator chuckled and jabbed a finger into the open wound where the man’s shoulder should have been.

The man wailed in horrible pain as the interrogator twisted his finger deeper into the flesh until it struck the man’s rib cage.

“Whenever you want it to end…”

A sucking pop filled the air as the finger was quickly extracted from the meat.

The man screamed again.

“You’re probably wondering how this is possible?”

The man made no reply other than his heavy breathing.

“The Hydra can’t regenerate without a sufficient supply of water, which it can leach from the air itself on a humid day. You were given enough water for your torso to regenerate, but without more, you will remain a quadruple amputee. The pain you’re feeling is your dry cells screaming out for fluid. You can’t even bleed. As you’ve probably noticed, the air in this cell is not only hot, but also very dry. Your wounds will remain open indefinitely. Your bones will not heal. Your mind will not rest. The pain will never dull.”

The interrogator crouched before the legless torso, looking at the fragment of femur protruding from the man’s partially formed thigh. He grasped the bone with two fingers and wiggled it.

The prisoner’s breathing sped up.

“You will tell me everything about the language of God.”

The interrogator quickly slid his finger inside the bone, pushing hard, compressing the marrow.

A fit of spasms shook the prisoner. His voice became a high-pitched shriek. But when the finger was removed, his face twisted with rage. He shouted a string of muffled curses.

The interrogator simply smiled and stood. He leaned forward, placing his hands on the arms of the chair. He looked the prisoner in the eyes. “Perhaps you haven’t fully grasped the situation, Mr. Ridley. I am not who you believe me to be. I am not who your enemies believe me to be. And I can do this until the end of time, can you?”

ALSO BY JEREMY ROBINSON

The Didymus Contingency

Raising the Past

Beneath

Antarktos Rising

Kronos

Pulse

Instinct