The Judas Strain sf-4

by James Rollins

  Nasser scowled. “But what can be so important about the cavern?”

  “It could be the source of the Judas Strain,” Vigor said. “Maybe when they were excavating the temple, they broke into that cavern, released something that lay buried down there.”

  Gray sighed, tired. “Many disease vectors have appeared in the world as mankind spread into regions normally unpopulated. Yellow fever, malaria, sleeping sickness. Even AIDS appeared when a road was being built through a remote region of Africa, exposing the world to a virus found only in a few monkeys. So perhaps when the Khmer cultivated and populated this region, something was released.”

  Gray rubbed his neck. His eyes held a steady stare at Nasser.

  Too steady.

  Seichan sensed Gray was still holding something back. She studied again his stylized pictogram. The mountain and shell represented the tower and cave. So what else was here? Then she realized.

  The turtle itself.

  Of course…

  Her eyes rose to Gray’s.

  He must have felt her attention. He turned to her, casually, but the weight of his gaze was heavy. He knew she had realized what he’d left unspoken. He willed her to be quiet.

  She stepped back, folded her arms.

  He stared another breath — then away again.

  Seichan felt a measure of satisfaction. More than she had been expecting.

  Nasser breathed deeply through his nose, nodding. “We must find a way down there.”

  Gray frowned. “I had hoped there would be some evidence of a secret passage.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Nasser said. “We’ll blow the entrance.”

  “I’m not sure that’s wise,” Vigor said, aghast. “If this is the source of the Judas Strain, it may be horribly toxic down there.”

  Nasser remained unperturbed. “That’s why I’ll be sending you all down first.”

  To be canaries in a coal mine.

  Seichan again matched gazes with Gray. He raised no objections. Like Seichan, he knew that there was something larger than just the source of the Judas Strain down there.

  The turtle’s shell might represent the cavern—but the turtle itself represented the god Vishnu—suggesting more than just a cavern rested beneath the Bayon temple. Possibly something else waited for them down there, too.

  Gray stepped toward Nasser. “Does that demonstrate enough cooperation to spare my mother for this hour?” he asked, his voice tight.

  Nasser shrugged, agreeing. He moved to the shaft of light, seeking better reception for his cell phone.

  “I should perhaps hurry, then,” Nasser said, flipping open his phone. “It’s already after the hour. Annishen has little patience. No telling what she might do.”

  9:20 P.M.

  Washington, D.C.

  Harriet remained frozen on the landing.

  The slathering dog leaped at Jack’s sprawled form on the stairs. It was impossible to tell the breed in the dark stairwell, only that it was large and muscled. Pit bull. Rottweiler. Jack rolled to his back and kicked out — but the dog was faster, attack-trained. With a growling snarl, it bit deep into his ankle.

  Jack tugged at his knee and kicked out with his other leg, square in the dog’s chest.

  The dog went flying down the stairs, bouncing hard, still latched on to her husband’s prosthetic leg. Jack had unstrapped the limb, freeing himself.

  Harriet helped Jack up to the landing.

  Below, the dog struck the wall and scrambled back to its paws. It refused to let go of the prosthetic leg, ripe with her husband’s scent. Angry, confused, it thrashed its head back and forth, tossing drool, shaking the captured limb.

  Harriet drew Jack up the next set of stairs, passing the closed landing door. She glanced through its small window. Flashlights continued to search the top floor. That left Harriet and Jack only one way to go.

  The roof.

  Down the stairs, the dog continued savaging the captured limb, triumphant with its prize.

  Jack leaned on her shoulder. He hopped and hauled his way to the roof door. They had already searched the exit and found it chained, but only loosely. At some point, someone had used a crowbar to bend back the lower corner of the steel door. There was just enough room to squirm under the loose chain and through the bend in the door.

  Once out into the night, Jack used an abandoned length of pipe to prop the door closed. It wouldn’t hold long. But it didn’t much matter. There were a half-dozen other roof access points. They couldn’t block them all.

  “This way,” Jack said, and pointed. He had scouted the roof and discovered an old heating-and-air-conditioning unit, half gutted of equipment. There was enough room inside to hide two people.

  But neither held out much hope.

  The dogs would scent them out before too long.

  They crossed the roof to the unit, circled it to put its bulk between them and the door. Both sank to the tar paper roof, remaining outside the HVAC unit for the moment. The stars shone above, along with a sliver of a moon. A plane passed by far overhead, winking lights.

  Jack put his arm around Harriet and drew her close to him.

  “I love you,” he said.

  It was a rare admission, seldom spoken aloud. Not that Harriet ever doubted it. Even now, he said the words matter-of-factly. Like saying the earth was round. So simple a truth.

  She leaned into him. “I love you, too, Jack.”

  Harriet clung to him. She didn’t know how much time they had left. Eventually the search below would end. Annishen would turn her attention to the roof.

  They waited together in silence, having spent a lifetime together, sharing joy and heartbreak, tragedies and victories. Though not a word was spoken, they both knew what they were doing, fingers entwined. They were saying good-bye to each other.

  17

  Where Angels Fear to Tread

  JULY 7, 9:55 A.M.

  Angkor Thom, Cambodia

  Gray leaned against the brick wall of the cavelike cell.

  Beyond the narrow opening, a half-dozen men stood guard. The closest had their weapons in plain sight. Nasser had ordered them in here while he set about arranging for munitions to blow the altar stone. Gray checked the illuminated dial of his dive watch.

  They’d been here almost an hour.

  He prayed Nasser was busy enough with his plans to skip his hourly threat against his parents. Something had certainly upset Nasser — beyond the delay in obtaining armaments. After sending them here, he had stormed off, phone to his ear. Gray had overheard the mention of a cruise ship. It had to concern the scientific leg of the Guild’s operation. Painter had related the story of the hijacked ship and the unknown whereabouts of Monk and Lisa.

  Something had plainly gone wrong.

  But was that good news or bad regarding the fate of his friends?

  Gray shoved off the wall and paced the length of the cell. Seichan sat on a stone bench next to Vigor.

  Kowalski leaned near the opening. One of the guards had a rifle pointed at his stomach, but he ignored it. He spoke as Gray neared. “I just saw some guy climb past with a jackhammer.”

  “They must be about ready,” Vigor said, and stood up.

  “What’s taking so long?” Gray asked.

  Seichan answered, still seated. “Bribes take time.”

  Gray glanced back to her.

  She explained, “I heard some shouting in Khmer. Nasser’s men are clearing the ruins of tourists, chasing them off. It seems the Guild has rented the Bayon for the remainder of this private party. It’s a poor region. It wouldn’t take much to get the local officials to look the other way.”

  Gray had already guessed as much. The guards were no longer making any effort to hide their weapons.

  Vigor leaned a palm on a column near the door. “Nasser must have convinced the Guild of the value in investigating the historical trail a bit longer.”

  Gray suspected it was something more than that. He remembered the agitation con
cerning the cruise ship. If something had befallen the scientific trail, the value of the historical trail would be that much more important.

  He had confirmation a moment later.

  Nasser shoved through the guards. The earlier fury of his manner had died back down to his usual cold cunning. “We’re ready to proceed. But before we continue, it seems we’ve crossed another hour mark.”

  Gray’s stomach muscles tightened.

  Vigor came to his defense. “You’ve locked us up all this time. Surely you can’t expect us to have any further insight.”

  Nasser cocked an eyebrow. “That’s not my concern. And Annishen grows impatient. She certainly needs something to entertain her.”

  “Please,” Gray said. The word slipped out before he could stop it.

  Nasser’s eyes sparked with amusement, allowing Gray to stew.

  “Don’t be an ass, Amen,” Seichan said behind them. “If you’re going to do it, then do it.”

  Gray’s fist squeezed. He had to resist swinging on her, to shut her up. He didn’t need Nasser antagonized. Not now.

  The cool lines of Nasser’s brow had knotted up in anger. He raised his fingers and smoothed them out, refusing to rise to her bait. He turned away and headed back through his guards. He didn’t say a word.

  “Nasser!” Gray called back to him, his voice cracking.

  “If we skip this hour,” Nasser answered without turning, “I’ll expect even greater results once we penetrate the altar. Anything less, I’ll take more than a finger from your mother. It’s time we lit a larger fire under you, Commander Pierce.”

  Nasser raised an arm, and the guards brought them out of the cell.

  Seichan crossed past Gray, bumping his shoulder. Her words were low, barely discernible. “I was testing him.”

  She continued past.

  Gray, caught in her wake, followed — then edged next to her.

  She spoke under her breath without looking at him. “He was bluffing…I could tell.”

  Gray bit back an angry retort. She was risking his parents’ lives.

  She glanced aside at him, perhaps sensing his anger. Even her words responded in kind, going harder. “What you must ask yourself, Gray, is why? Why is he bluffing?”

  Gray relaxed his jaw. It was a good question. The back of her hand brushed his. He reached a finger toward her wrist, to acknowledge the merit. But she had already stepped beyond his reach.

  Nasser led them back to the central sanctuary. The demolition team had been hard at work. Holes had been drilled into the massive, double slab of sandstone. Wires trailed out, winding together into a single braid. At the four exits, men stood with red fire extinguishers strapped to their backs.

  Gray frowned. What did they expect to burn? It was all stone.

  Nasser spoke to a dwarfish man wearing a vest full of tools and a coil of wire over one shoulder, plainly the demolition expert. Nasser got a nod from the man.

  “We’re ready,” Nasser announced.

  They were marched down the western exit and around the corner.

  Vigor somewhat resisted. “An explosion could bring all this down on top of us.”

  “We know that, Monsignor,” Nasser said, and lifted a radio to his lips. He gave the go order.

  A moment later a sonorous thud as loud as a thunderclap thumped chest and ears. Once. Along with a fiery flash. Then a sharp acrid scent rolled over them, burning both nose and throat.

  Vigor coughed. Gray waved a hand in front of his face.

  “What the hell was that?” Kowalski asked, spitting into a corner to rid himself of the taste.

  Nasser ignored him and led them forward.

  He followed one of the men with the fire extinguishers. The man pulled down a face mask and triggered his hose. A foggy stream jetted out, spraying floors, walls, and ceilings. The narrow passageway filled with a cloud of fine powder, coating every surface.

  Nasser led them back to the sanctuary.

  Through the fog Gray noted other men with extinguishers converging on the chamber ahead. Under their combined spray, the view into the sanctuary momentarily clouded over. Gray could barely discern the four men spraying.

  Nasser held them up.

  After another half minute the spraying stopped, and the dust literally settled. The room, still foggy, reappeared. Sunlight streamed from the tower’s chimney.

  Nasser took them forward. “Neutralizing base,” he explained, waving the residual dust from his face.

  “Neutralizing what?” Gray asked.

  “Acid. The demolition holds an incendiary charge paired with a corrosive acid. Engineered by the Chinese during the building of the Three Gorges Dam. Minimum concussion, maximum damage.”

  Gray entered the chamber behind Nasser and gaped at the sight.

  The walls were covered in white powder, but the change was dramatic. The four bodhisattva faces looked like someone had melted their features away. What once had been beatific visages were now ruins of slag. The floors were equally scoured, as if someone had taken a sandblaster to them.

  The altar in the center, lit from above, was a cracked ruin. One corner section had fallen through into a lower chamber.

  Some space was definitely under there.

  Most of the slab still held.

  Another demolition-team member stepped into the chamber, bearing aloft a sledge. Nasser signaled him forward. Another man followed, dragging a jackhammer.

  Just in case.

  The first man swung his sledge, smashing square in the center. Fiery sparks blasted out from around the hammer’s head, and the great mass of sandstone gave way.

  The altar tumbled into the pit.

  10:20 A.M.

  Susan screamed, arching up out of the backseat.

  Lisa, strapped in the copilot’s seat, jarred around. She had been staring down at the expanse of the great inland lake as the Sea Dart circled, readying to land. Below, a floating village drifted from the shoreline, a tangled accumulation of Vietnamese junks and houseboats.

  It was where Painter had told her to go into hiding. The fishing village lay twenty miles from Angkor. Out of harm’s way.

  Lisa fumbled with her seat harness as Susan wailed. Freeing herself, she stumbled to the back of the plane.

  Susan thrashed out of the fire blanket, gasping. “Too late! We’re too late!”

  Lisa gathered the blanket and urged her to lie down. She had been sleeping quietly for the whole ride here. What had happened?

  Susan clawed out a hand and grabbed Lisa’s forearm. The grip seared her skin, burning away the fine hairs.

  Lisa yanked her arm away. “Susan, what’s wrong?”

  Susan pulled herself up in the seat. The wildness in her eyes ebbed slightly, but she continued to quake all over. She swallowed hard.

  “We must get there.” She mumbled her usual mantra.

  “We’re landing now,” Lisa said, trying to calm her. She even felt the Sea Dart bank downward.

  “No!” Susan reached again for her, but then withdrew her hand, noting Lisa shying away. Her fingers curled and slipped back under the fire blanket. She took a shuddering breath. Her eyes rose to Lisa’s. “We’re too far. Lisa, I know how this sounds. But we have only minutes left. Ten or fifteen at most.”

  “Left for what?”

  Lisa remembered her earlier conversation with Painter, about the Christmas Island crabs, about chemically induced neurological changes, triggering manic migratory urges. But in the sophisticated mind of a human, what did those same chemicals do? What other changes were wrought? Could Susan’s urges be trusted?

  “If I don’t get there…” Susan said, shaking her head as if trying to jar a memory loose. “They’ve opened something. I can feel the sunlight. Like fiery eyes burning into me. All I know…and I know it in my bones…if I’m not there in time, there will be no cure.”

  Lisa hesitated, glancing back to Ryder.

  The lake rose up as the Sea Dart swept downward.

  Susan
moaned. “I didn’t ask for this.”

  Lisa heard the grief in her words, sensing that the pain encompassed more than the biological burden. Susan had lost her husband, her world.

  She turned back to the woman.

  Susan’s face shone with a blur of emotions: fear, grief, desperation, and a deep loneliness.

  Susan placed her palms together. “I’m not a crab. Can’t you see that?”

  Lisa did.

  She swung around and called to Ryder. “Pull up!”

  “What?” Ryder glanced back.

  Lisa motioned her thumb in the air. “Don’t land! We have to get closer to the ruins.” She clambered up and used the seat backs to pull herself up to the copilot seat. “There’s a river that runs through the town of Siem Reap.”

  She sank into the seat. She had studied the navigational maps of the region. The town still lay six miles or so away. She remembered Susan’s warning.

  Ten or fifteen minutes at most.

  Would that be close enough? Her own blood was now ignited by the urgency. It took her another breath to realize why. Susan’s last words.

  I’m not a crab.

  Susan didn’t know anything about the Christmas Island land crabs. Lisa hadn’t spoken aloud about Painter’s conversation, not even with Ryder. Maybe in her stupor, Susan had overheard her end of the discussion. But Lisa couldn’t recall if she’d used the word crab.

  Either way, she flipped open the nav-chart and searched.

  They needed somewhere closer to land.

  Another lake or river…

  “Or here,” she said aloud, pulling the chart closer.

  “What’s that, lass?” Ryder asked. He dragged up the Sea Dart’s nose and sent them sailing high over the lake.

  Lisa flipped the chart toward him and tapped at it. “Can you land here?”

  Ryder’s eyes widened. “Are you bloody crazy?”

  She didn’t answer. Mostly because she didn’t know the answer.

  Ryder’s face split into the wide grin. “What the hell! Let’s give it a try!” Ever up for a thrill, he reached and patted her thigh. “I like the way you think. How firm is that relationship of yours back home?”

  Lisa leaned back into the seat. After Painter heard about this…She shook her head. “We’ll see.”