Nobody spoke.
King sneaked a look in Knight’s direction and saw him looking exactly as he had before, stone-faced and inscrutable.
“All right, then. Get prepped. Wheels up in two hours.”
20
Manteo, North Carolina
“Curse.” Sara did her best to maintain a neutral affect and tone. It was not unusual to hear talk of curses and God’s wrath when investigating an outbreak in a remote community on a far-flung continent, but she would not have expected it from a university professor in the United States.
Ellen showed no embarrassment whatsoever. “There was a curse on the colony. I didn’t want to believe it, but now? It’s just like the Dare Stone says.”
“The Dare Stone? Tell me about that.” Sara’s request was not merely an act of patronization. Whether it was in a river village in central Africa, or the hollows of rural Appalachia, there was often relevant information to be found just under the surface of traditional wisdom and folklore.
“My ancestor, Eleanor Dare, left a record of what happened.” The woman abruptly reached out for a folder on the chair beside the bed. She opened it and removed a black and white photograph of a rock covered in cryptic writing. She pointed to what looked like a random spot and began reading. “‘About half are dead for two years or more from sickness, we are four and twenty. Savage with a message of a ship was brought to us. In a small space of time they became afraid of revenge and all ran away.’”
“What does that mean?”
“The ‘savages,’ the Native American people that lived here before, knew that the English would blame them for the sickness, so they abandoned the remaining colonists when they heard there was a ship in the area.”
Sara parsed this and immediately grasped the significance. “The sickness that killed the colonists, that was the ‘curse?’”
Ellen nodded. “It’s right here: ‘Soon after the savages, fearing angry spirits, suddenly murdered all, save seven.’ Angry spirits. The natives believed the colonists had offended their spirit gods. We know that earlier expeditions encountered hostile tribes, but those were isolated events. The tribes were often at war with each other, so fighting with one tribe wouldn’t anger them all. In fact, it often presented an opportunity for an alliance. Like the old saying, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”
Sara was not as interested in the reason for the curse as she was in determining how it functioned. “Are we talking a toxin of some kind? An herbal concoction? A viral agent to which the settlers might not have an immunity?” The latter was a long shot. Although even primitive cultures had a grasp of how to use infectious pathogens in a crude form of bio-warfare, she doubted very much that the Native Americans of the period would have grasped immunology.
“A curse,” Ellen repeated, as if that answered everything. “The colonists had committed a sin so grave that they were universally reviled.” She sounded miserable, defeated. “I grew up with the stories, but I didn’t want to believe it. I have their blood in me.”
“I’m sure that had nothing to do with it,” Sara said, trying to steer the woman out of the downward spiral of survivor’s guilt. “After all, you’re still healthy.”
The other woman brightened at this. “Of course. They let Eleanor Dare live. She was innocent. She probably didn’t even know what was going on.”
“Ellen, I need you to focus on the curse itself. Tell me what you know about it. How did it make the colonists sick?”
Ellen shook her head. “Aside from the Dare Stone, all I really know is what’s been handed down in oral histories.”
“Okay, tell me about those. Do they describe symptoms like what happened today?”
The woman looked up suddenly, her eyes haunted by some terrible revelation, and then she nodded slowly. “Among the native peoples that inhabited this region, and all across North America really, there are legends of creatures called ‘wendigos.’ Hideously deformed humans, with gray rotting skin stretched over their bones, eyes sunken into the skull, and a ravenous appetite for human flesh.”
Sara had almost stopped listening at the word ‘creature,’ but Ellen’s description of the wendigo was too similar to the physical deformities that Jason Harris was exhibiting to be dismissed. She didn’t believe in evil spirits or curses, but if the ancient natives had witnessed someone undergoing the same transformation, they would naturally have ascribed a supernatural explanation to it.
It has to be something environmental, she decided, something they uncovered at the dig. Fungal spores, perhaps. But why had it affected the paramedic, yet spared Ellen Dare, who had been in direct contact with the other victims? I’ve missed something.
“This Eleanor Dare, your ancestor... She was immune? I mean, the curse didn’t affect her, right?” There had to be a genetic component to it, something passed down through the generations.
“She was spared,” Ellen said. “She was not a sharer in their sins.”
“Spared? Are you saying that the natives were able to selectively target their victims?”
Ellen’s face twisted with uncertainty and for the first time, Sara sensed the woman’s inner conflict. She was an intellectual, an erudite scholar, who like Sara, believed there was a rational explanation for everything, and yet she was also the child of a culture with deep-seated traditional beliefs that included things like spirits and people who transformed into monsters, and right now, what she was experiencing seemed to more closely resemble the latter.
“No,” she said, in a small voice. “They didn’t need to. The curse would only affect those who had…” She faltered. “Only the guilty.”
Sara shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“The curse of the wendigo comes upon those who have eaten human flesh. Before they disappeared, the Lost Colony had become cannibals.”
21
New Hampshire
Crescent II was waiting for them in a clearing on the edge of the White Mountains National Forest. It was a twenty minute ride, along a rutted dirt road that was actually in much better shape than it appeared at first glance. Anna Beck drove them, as she often did, taking full advantage of her position within Endgame to see her boyfriend off.
As he watched them talking, then embracing and kissing, at the foot of the loading ramp, King had to fight the urge to tell Knight to sit this one out. Knight was too much of a professional to ever voluntarily step back, but if anyone had earned some time off, it was he. But the truth of the matter was that Knight, as their designated marksman, was arguably the most important member of the team. Like the chess piece for which he had been named, he was not limited by the physical shape of the battlefield. He was their eyes—which was bitterly ironic—and their protector, ready to strike down threats that they couldn’t even see. He was not irreplaceable by any means; in a pinch, any one of the team could have taken his place, but King was glad that such a last minute shuffle had been unnecessary. It didn’t ease his conscience any, but it certainly made him feel better about the mission.
Before boarding the plane, King took out his personal cell phone and tried calling Sara again. He had said his good-byes to Fiona and George in person, though he fully expected to be back at Endgame about the time they were waking up. Sara hadn’t answered his earlier attempt, just before he left Endgame, and while that probably meant nothing, he was nonetheless worried. He always was, when she was called out to a hot zone. This time, she answered on the first ring. “Hey, how’s the party?”
She sounded distracted, but then that was typical Sara. “It kind of fizzled,” he said, wondering how to let her know that the team was being deployed again.
“Sorry to hear it. Listen, Jack. This thing is turning out to be a little worse than I originally thought.”
King felt a chill pass through him. “Are you all right?”
“Of course,” she said, just a little too quickly.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just a really weird case.
What I’m trying to say is that…” She drew in a breath. “This might run a little longer than… We might need to postpone the wedding. Just a few days.”
King felt some of the panic ebb away. “Postpone the wedding? That’s all?” He had to stifle a chuckle.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. This is who we are. We both know that. And everyone will understand. Trust me.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Of course not. To tell you the truth, I—”
“I gotta run, Jack. I’ll call when I can, but don’t wait by the phone. Give Fi a hug for me. Love you.”
Before he could reply in kind, an electronic tone signaled that the call had ended. The abrupt end to the conversation brought back his nagging concerns about the nature of the crisis with which Sara was dealing. He handed the phone over to Anna for safe-keeping, and then lowered his glasses into place.
“Blue, are you live?”
Deep Blue’s voice filled his head. “I’m here, King.”
“I need a favor. Can you access the list of current CDC operations?” He searched his memory. “Anything in North Carolina?”
After a short pause, Deep Blue said, “It looks like there was a request sent by the Dare County Hospital in Manteo. That’s in the Outer Banks, not too far from Kitty Hawk, where the Wright Brothers flew their airplane.”
“I know where it is,” King said, more impatiently than he intended. “What’s the crisis? What kind of disease?”
“It says non-specific, agnogenic illness with morphological and behavioral abnormalities.”
King felt his heart pounding faster. Could it be? No. It’s impossible. “Agnogenic? What does that mean?”
“It’s a fancy word that means they don’t know the cause.”
“I need…” He stopped himself. He couldn’t back out of the mission, not now, not for what might amount to nothing more than a case of the jitters. “Can you send someone down there to back Sara up?”
Deep Blue answered without hesitation. “Absolutely. I’ll send Anna.” There was a pause, and then he asked the question King was dreading. “Why? Do you know something about this?”
King knew what Deep Blue meant. “I know a lot of things. It’s probably nothing. But just in case.”
“I understand. I’ll send Anna as soon as you’re in the air. Whatever it is, she can hold the fort until you’re done in Mexico. We’ll drop you off on the way back.”
King breathed a little easier. “Thanks, Blue. I owe you one.”
“No you don’t, but I’ll remember you said that.”
22
Mexico
The black Range Rover was waiting for Parrish in the hangar where the chartered Gulfstream IV parked, after it taxied off the runway at Benito Juarez International Airport. The surly muscular men who got out of the SUV moved with a melodramatic swagger that would have been almost comical, but for the small fact that it was no act. Although Islamic terror groups like Al Qaeda and ISIL dominated the headlines, they did not hold a candle to the cruelty of the Mexican drug cartels. Parrish took a deep breath, steeling himself for what would happen next, and descended the stairs from the jet.
He did not expect to be greeted hospitably, and was only a little relieved at the complete indifference of the group. One of the men made a beckoning gesture.
“I have some luggage,” Parrish said, in English. He was fluent in Spanish, but thought it best not to reveal that detail to the men. They might speak more freely among themselves if they believed that he wouldn’t understand them, and that was the kind of advantage he would need to survive what was probably coming. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the open hatch. “It’s in there.”
The cartel men exchanged a glance, then one of them—a young man with a permanent sneer and a chest that was pushed so far out, he appeared to have a spinal disorder—said something to the others, presumably translating, though whatever he said was not in Spanish or any other language with which Parrish was familiar.
So much for my advantage.
Another of the men answered in kind, and then two of them started forward, brushing past Parrish to enter the plane. They emerged a moment later, carrying between them a large olive-drab container that looked almost like a coffin. The man in the lead shouted something in the strange language, and even though he couldn’t understand, Parrish had a pretty good idea what had been said.
‘Get the other one.’
It took about ten minutes for the men to secure the two containers to the roof of the Range Rover, after which the sneering man brusquely pushed a heavy cloth bag into Parrish’s hands. “Put it on.”
Parrish slipped the bag over his head, all too painfully aware of the fact that he was now totally at their mercy. Still, the men had to know that without him, the contents of the two containers would have little value, and their boss would not get his revenge.
The men said very little, or at least, very little that he could hear over the painfully loud music that blasted from the sound system. Parrish, whose tastes ran to New Orleans jazz, could not identify the style, but there were a lot of horns and guitars. The beat of the songs let him tick off the minutes, which helped him estimate that the ride had lasted about an hour. For the last twenty minutes, the going was slow, the Range Rover bouncing along a deeply rutted, probably unpaved surface. Finally, it came to a stop, and the music went silent. Parrish was hustled from the car, and one of the men yanked the bag off his head.
Although the only source of light was a row of what looked like tiki torches, Parrish nevertheless winced and shaded his eyes against the sudden brightness. There was bare dirt underfoot and a featureless black sky overhead, which meant they were outside, but other than that, he could discern nothing about where he was. He elicited a roar of laughter, at least a dozen different men taking pleasure in his discomfort. He blinked tears away and tried to bring his eyes into focus.
His initial estimate wasn’t even close. There were more than twenty men, most wearing woodland camouflage fatigues, all holding assaults rifles—AR-15s along with a few well-used Kalashnikovs. They stood in a circle around him, with more men right behind him.
This just keeps getting better.
He drew in a breath and then in the loudest voice he could muster, he said, “They’re already on their way, so if you really want to do this, I suggest you stop screwing around.”
There was an ominous silence, then from the midst of the gathering, someone started laughing. The crowd parted and Hector Beltran stepped into view.
Parrish knew the man’s face well from their earlier Skype conversations, but even without prior knowledge, he would have had no trouble identifying the man as the leader of the group by virtue of his attire—or more precisely, by his lack thereof. Beltran was almost completely naked, adorned in a cape of brightly colored feathers and a strange headdress. His bare chest and arms were marked with an elaborate intaglio of tattoos that resembled scales or feathers of green and red, so that it was hard to tell where the cape ended and the man began.
Beltran was only a few inches taller than Parrish, but the headdress made him look much bigger. He was broader and bulkier than Parrish, too, with swollen biceps and pectoral muscles, as well as puffy cheeks—all classic signs of steroid abuse.
Come to think of it, a lot of these guys look like juicers.
Beltran came forward and clapped him on the arm. “El Buldog!” He turned to look at his men. “You heard him. Quit screwing around.”
Parrish endured the attention stoically. “I wasn’t kidding. The people that hit your facility are already on their way here. If they have a supersonic stealth aircraft, they’ve probably been cruising around looking for you for the last couple of hours.”
“Good. I want them to find me.”
“No,” Parrish countered, shaking his head. “You want them to find you on your own terms. These people are the best of the best. If they find you before we’re ready, you c
an kiss your ass good-bye.”
Beltran laughed again and thumped his tattooed chest with a fist. “Maybe we should find out, eh?” He shouted something in the unfamiliar language, and the assembled men thrust their rifles skyward and shouted in unison.
Beltran caught Parrish’s look of confusion. “We speak the language of our ancestors, the Nahua people. You would call us Aztecs.”
Parrish shrugged. “You can speak in pig-Latin for all I care. I’m just here to do a job.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Beltran’s eyes flashed with anger and he took a step forward. “Be very careful, Buldog,” he said, speaking in a soft tone that was even more threatening than his chest-thumping aggression. The roar of crowd noise fell silent, as even those among the group who did not understand English realized that something was happening between their leader and the gringo visitor.
Parrish was faced with a dilemma. If he backed down, appeared contrite, he might smooth the ruffled feathers, but any hope of getting control of the situation would be gone. But if he stood his ground, asserted that he was, at the very least, Beltran’s equal, he could very well end up dead.
No guts, no glory.
“I don’t need this shit.” He turned back toward the Range Rover, fully aware of how futile the display of bravado was.
In the total silence, he had no trouble hearing Beltran’s laughter. “I like you, Buldog. You got some big brass balls on you.”
Parrish stopped, turned slowly. “I meant what I said. I just flew two thousand miles to set this up. We’ve got a very small window of opportunity, after which our chances of success—of survival—begin to fall off dramatically. So let’s stop dicking around and get ready.”
Beltran advanced again. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes, and Parrish knew that despite what the man had said, Beltran had not forgiven the perceived insult to his heritage. “Yes,” he said in the same low voice. “We must get ready. Come with me.” He shouted another command to his men, and a moment later, the gathering began to move.
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