11:22 P.M.
Washington, D.C.
“Sir, that GPS lock that you had me tracking, it’s moving off course.”
Painter swung around. He had been coordinating with the Australian Counterterrorism and Special Recovery Team. They had arrived on-site at the island of Pusat fifteen minutes ago, proceeding to the coordinates Lisa had left. Early intel from the island remained confusing. The Mistress of the Seas was found burning, wrapped in a tangle of netting and steel cable. It listed almost forty-five degrees. A major firefight was under way aboard ship.
Kat sat on his other side, earphones in place, holding them with both hands. She had refused to go home. Not until she knew for sure. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she remained focused, surviving on a thin hope. Maybe, somehow, Monk was still alive.
“Sir,” the technician said, pointing to another screen. It showed a map of Cambodia’s central plateau. A large lake spread in the middle. A small blip crept in tiny pixilated jumps across the screen, tracking the Sea Dart.
While the seaplane had been circling near the shoreline a moment ago, it now headed away from the lake.
“Where are they going?” Painter asked. He watched a few seconds more, getting a trajectory. He extended it with a finger. Their air path led in a beeline straight toward Angkor.
What are they doing?
Motion at the door drew Painter’s eye. His aid, Brant, flew into the room, braking his wheelchair with a squeal of rubber on linoleum.
“Director Crowe, I tried to reach you,” he gasped out. “Couldn’t. Figured you were still conferencing with Australia.”
Painter nodded. He had been.
Brant grabbed a fax crumpled in his lap and held it out.
Painter took it and scanned it once quickly, then a second time more carefully. Oh God…
He headed to the door, bumping past Brant. He paused, turned. “Kat?”
“Go. I’ve got it covered.”
He glanced back to the screen map of Cambodia, to the tiny blip edging toward the ruins of Angkor.
Lisa, I hope you know what you’re doing.
He fled out of the room and ran for his office.
For the moment, she was on her own.
10:25 A.M.
Angkor
“Hang on!” Ryder warned — though it sounded more like a war cry.
Lisa clutched tight to the arms of her seat.
Ahead, the giant beehive-shaped black towers of Angkor Wat rose into the sky. But the spectacular temple, sprawled over a square mile, was not their goal.
Ryder dipped the Sea Dart toward the man-made stretch of green water off to one side. The moat of Angkor Wat. Unlike Angkor Thom, it still held water. Its entire length around the temple stretched four miles, leaving a mile of straight water on each side. The only problem—
“Bridge!” Lisa yelled.
“Is that what you call it?” Ryder commented sarcastically. He had a cigar clamped in his teeth. He blew a stream of smoke out the corner of his lips.
It was his only cigar, kept stashed for emergencies like this. As Ryder had said before he lit up, “even a condemned man is allowed one last smoke.”
The billionaire soared over the moat, shifting their flight path’s elevation up and down a bit, just enough to clear the bridge.
Lisa held her breath as they swept over. Tourists parted to either side.
Then they were over, and Ryder dropped the Sea Dart fast, skimming the moat and trailing a plume of water. Then they settled deeper, still going fast as the plane became a boat. Their momentum propelled them toward the far corner, too fast to make the turn.
The earthen embankment at the end swept toward them.
Ryder pulled a crank in the floor. “This is called a Hamilton Turn! Hold tight!”
With a puff of smoke, he yanked and twisted the wheel.
The Sea Dart spun, as if on ice, throwing its back end fully around. The twin engines roared as its rear jets braked them. The craft slowed.
Lisa cringed, still expecting to slam into the embankment.
Instead, Ryder turned the wheel and slipped the boat sideways. The Sea Dart plowed a wave right to the edge of the sloped embankment and bumped to a gentle stop.
Ryder sighed out a stream of smoke and cut the engines. “Lord, that was bloody fun.”
Lisa immediately unbuckled and went to Susan.
“Hurry,” Susan said, struggling.
Lisa helped the woman undo her belt. Ryder followed and cranked the hatch open.
“You know what you need to do?” Lisa asked him as they tumbled out into the shallow water and waded the few steps to the embankment.
Already shouts arose all around.
“You told me sixteen times,” Ryder said. “Find a phone, call your director, let him know what you’re doing, where you’re going.”
They clambered up the slope to a road that crossed alongside the moat. Susan remained wrapped in the blanket, holding it clutched shut, wearing sunglasses, attempting to keep as much of the sun’s power away from her.
People pointed and called out.
Ryder hailed a passing vehicle. It was nothing more than a motorcycle hauling a small roofed cart. Ryder held up a fistful of cash, the universal language for stop. The vehicle’s driver was fluent in that language. He jerked his motorcycle around and swerved straight to them.
Once it had stopped Ryder helped Lisa and Susan inside the rear cart and closed the tiny door. “The tuk-tuk will take you straight to that temple. Be careful.”
“Just reach Painter,” Lisa said.
He waved them off, like signaling the start of a race.
Obeying, the motorcycle sped away, dragging them behind it.
Lisa craned back. Already, uniformed police converged on Ryder, zipping up on their own motorcycles. Ryder waved his cigar, making a scene.
No one paid attention to their little tuk-tuk.
Lisa settled back.
Beside her, Susan remained cocooned in her blanket. A single word flowed out. “Hurry.”
10:35 A.M.
On his knees, Gray stared over the rim and down the circular stone shaft. Forty feet below, a face stared back up at him. Another of the stone bodhisattvas. It rose from the floor’s surface, carved out of a single giant block of sandstone. The sunlight from the tower chimney shot a square shaft of light, sparkling with dust motes, down into the pit and bathed the dark stone face in warm sunlight.
The enigmatic smile welcomed.
To the side, a rolled-up caving ladder made of steel cable and aluminum rungs was dumped off the lip of the shattered altar. It unreeled with a rattle into the depths and struck the foundation floor. The upper end was bolted with carabiners to the stone roof of the sanctuary.
Nasser walked over to Gray. “You’ll go down first. Followed by one of my men. We’ll keep your friends up here for now.”
Gray wiped the powder from his hands and stood. He crossed to mount the ladder. Vigor stood against the wall, his face dour. Gray imagined the monsignor’s dark countenance was not solely from their situation. As an archaeologist, Vigor had to find the desecration here professionally abhorrent.
On Vigor’s other side, Kowalski and Seichan simply awaited their fate.
Gray nodded to the three of them and began the long climb down. Rather than dusty, the pit smelled dank. The first thirty feet was a narrow stone shaft about seven feet wide, lined by blocks, not unlike a large well. But in the last ten feet, the walls angled away, creating a barrel-shaped vault, forty feet across and perfectly circular.
“Stay in sight!” Nasser called down.
Gray glanced up at the ring of rifles pointed at him. One of the soldiers was already on the ladder heading down. Gray jumped to the floor, landing near the bodhisattva’s stone face.
He stared around. Four massive pillars studded the vault, equally spaced. Possibly load-bearing pylons for the tower above. Supporting this, the floor underfoot was not stone blocks. It was solid limeston
e. They’d hit bedrock. Here was definitely the structural foundation for the Bayon.
The clanking of the ladder drew his attention back up as the soldier approached. Gray considered jumping him and grabbing his rifle. But then what? His friends were still above; his parents were still under Nasser’s fist. So instead, he stepped over to the carved face. He circled it. It was carved sandstone like all the others. It rested flat on its back, staring up, sculpted out of a single waist-high block.
The face appeared no different from the others: same upturned corners of the lips, same wide nose and forehead, and those shadowed, brooding eyes.
The guard dropped to the floor, landing hard on his boots.
Gray straightened — then caught it out of the corner of his eye.
He turned back, noting something odd about the face, about those brooding eyes. Dark circles lay in the center of each, like pupils. Even the sunlight could not dispel them.
Gray had to lean atop the stone cheek to investigate. He reached a hand across and probed the dark pupil with a finger.
“What are you doing?” Nasser called down.
“There are holes! Drilled into the eyes, where pupils should be. I think they may pass clean through the face.”
Gray searched up. Sunlight flowed down the tower’s chimney, and with the altar removed, the beam struck the face hidden here.
But did the light travel even deeper?
He climbed higher onto the face, sprawling across it. He leaned his own eye to peer into the pupil of the stone god. Closing his other eye, he cupped around the sandstone eyeball. It took a moment for his vision to adjust.
Far below, lit by the sunlight passing through the other pupil, he could see a shimmer of water. A pool at the bottom of a cavern. Gray could almost imagine the vaulted space, domed like the shell of a turtle.
“What do you see?” Nasser called down.
Gray rolled away, onto his back, staring up from the bottom of the well.
“It’s here! The cavern! Under the stone face!”
Like the altar stone above, the bodhisattva guarded a hidden doorway.
Gray remembered Vigor’s explanation for the hundreds of stone faces. Some say they represent vigilance, faces staring out from a secret heart, guarding inner mysteries. But as Gray lay there, he also remembered another man’s words, much older and more forbidding, from Marco’s text, the very last line of his story.
The words chilled through him.
The gateway to Hell was opened in that city; but I know not if it was ever closed.
Gray stared up at the shattered altar and knew the truth.
It had been closed, Marco.
But now they were opening it again.
10:36 A.M.
The tuk-tuk stopped at the end of a paved road.
Lisa climbed out.
The way ahead was a jumbled stone plaza, half uprooted by giant trees. Beyond the plaza, the Bayon rose, framed in jungle, a jagged cluster of sandstone towers, covered with crumbling faces, etched with lichen, riddled with cracks.
A few tourists gathered on the plaza, taking pictures. A pair of Japanese men approached their tuk-tuk, plainly wanting to commandeer their vehicle once Lisa and Susan had vacated it. One man bowed his head toward Lisa. He lifted an arm toward the temple and spoke in Japanese.
Lisa shook her head, not understanding.
He smiled shyly, bowed his head again, and struggled out one word of English. “Closed.”
Closed?
Lisa helped Susan out of the tuk-tuk, still wrapped head to toe in the blanket. Only a pair of sunglasses stared out. Lisa felt the tremble through the blanket as she supported Susan’s elbow.
The tourist motioned to the tuk-tuk, silently requesting if they might take it. Lisa nodded and hobbled away with Susan across the uneven plaza of stone blocks. Ahead, Lisa spotted men inside the temple: leaning on towers, standing above gateways, patrolling atop walls. They all wore khaki and black berets.
Was it the Cambodian army?
Susan dragged her forward, plodding purposefully toward the eastern gate. A pair of men in berets stood guard. They had rifles on their shoulders. Lisa saw no insignias. The man on the left, plainly Cambodian, bore a set of raked scars down one side of his face. The other, similarly attired, was Caucasian, leather-skinned with a scruffy growth of beard. Both men’s eyes were diamond hard.
These were not members of the Cambodian army.
Mercenaries.
“The Guild,” Lisa whispered, remembering the intelligence Painter had passed to her regarding Gray’s capture. They’re already here.
Lisa tugged Susan to a stop, but the woman struggled to pull away, to continue on.
“Susan, we can’t hand you back over to the Guild,” Lisa said.
Especially not after Monk gave his life to free you.
Susan’s voice was muffled through her blanket, but it sounded firm. “No choice…I must…without the cure, all will be lost…” Susan shook her head. “…one chance. The cure must be forged.”
Lisa understood. She remembered Devesh’s warning and Painter’s confirmation. The pandemic was already spreading. The world needed the cure before it was too late. Even if it landed in the hands of the Guild, it had to be brought forth. They’d deal with the consequences after that.
Still…
“Are you sure there’s no other way?” Lisa asked.
Susan’s words trembled with fear and grief. “I wish to God there was. We may already be too late.” She gently removed Lisa’s hand from her sleeve and stumbled forward, plainly intending to go alone.
Lisa followed. She also had no choice.
They approached the guarded gateway. Lisa did not know how they would talk themselves through the barricade.
But apparently Susan had a plan.
She shed her blanket, letting it drop away at her heels. In the brightness of the sun, she looked no different from anyone else, only perhaps more pale, her skin thin and wan. She clawed away the sunglasses and turned to stare into the full face of the sun.
Lisa watched Susan’s body quake, imagining the blinding brunt striking through the woman’s pupils, to the optic nerve, to her brain.
But apparently it still was not enough.
Susan ripped away her blouse, exposing more skin to the sunlight. She unbuttoned her pants, and as gaunt as she was from her weeks in stupor, they fell away. In only her bra and panties, Susan approached the gate.
The guards did not know what to make of the near-naked woman. Still, they stepped forward to block the way. The Cambodian soldier waved them off in sharp, piercing words. “D’tay! Bpel k’raowee!”
Susan ignored him and continued, intending to pass between them.
The other guard grabbed the woman’s shoulder, half turning her. His stoic expression clenched, agonized. He whipped his hand back. His palm was seared a beet red; his fingertips trailed blood as he fell back and collapsed against the wall.
The Cambodian hauled up his rifle, pointing it at the back of Susan’s head as she continued past.
“Don’t!” Lisa shouted.
The rifleman glanced back at her.
“Take us!” she said, struggling for the name Painter had used in relating Gray’s story. Then she remembered. “Take us to Amen Nasser!”
10:48 A.M.
“Come see this!” Vigor called, unable to keep the amazement from his voice. He glanced back, searching for the others.
Gray stood a few yards away, examining one of the foundation pillars. The pylons were stacks of unmortared sandstone disks, a foot thick and a full three feet across. Gray fingered several deep cracks, stress fractures of an aging spine.
Off in the room’s center, Seichan and Kowalski stood by the stone face, watching Nasser’s demolition team prepare the carved block.
Again the sharp, grinding whine of a diamond drill bit rang out, echoing loudly in the barrel vault. Another inch-thin bore was cored a foot into the face. Already charges were being packe
d into the other holes and wired up, twice as many as they had used for the altar. Ropes hung down to ferry equipment and explosives up and down the well.
A shaft of bright sunlight illuminated their labors.
Unlike Seichan and Kowalski, Vigor had not been able to watch the mutilation. Even now he swung away and returned his attention to the wall he had been studying. Away from the central shaft, the vault here lay in deep shadow. Vigor had been allowed a flashlight so he could hunt for another entrance to the subterranean cavern. And while he hated to help Nasser, if he could find another way down, then he could perhaps limit the degree of defilement to these ancient ruins.
But Vigor hadn’t been granted much time.
Ten minutes.
With preparations under way, Nasser had climbed out of the vault. Vigor had noted him checking his cell phone, searching for a signal. Apparently unsuccessful, he had climbed out, ordering them to be ready by the time he returned.
Gray joined Vigor. “What is it? Did you find that doorway you were looking for?”
“No,” Vigor admitted. He had walked the entire circumference of the vault. There was no other door. It seemed the only way down was through the stone face of bodhisattva Lokesvara. “But I did find this.”
Vigor waited for one of the patrolling guards to pass, then shifted his flashlight flat against the wall, casting the beam up the surface. Lit by shadow and light, an expanse of wall etchings appeared, reminiscent of the bas-reliefs above. But it depicted no figures, just cascading tangles.
“What is it?” Gray said, reaching his fingers out to examine what the light revealed.
By now, Seichan and Kowalski had joined them.
Vigor shifted the light, widening the beam to illustrate. “At first, I thought it was just decorative scrollwork. It covers all the walls.” He waved an arm to encompass the breadth of the chamber. “Every surface.”
“Then what the hell is it?” Kowalski muttered.
“Not hell, Mr. Kowalski,” Vigor said. “This is angelic.”
Vigor took the light and cupped it over a small fraction of the carved tapestry. “Look closer.”
Gray leaned to the wall, tracing with his fingers. Understanding dawned in the commander’s face. “It’s made up of angelic symbols, all jumbled together.”
The Judas Strain sf-4 Page 42