Herculean (Cerberus Group Book 1)

by Jeremy Robinson

  “I have an idea,” she said finally. “But I’m going to need some help from Fiona.”

  25

  Monrovia, Liberia

  The blue alcohol flame looked deceptively cool as Carter carefully set the old-fashioned Bunsen burner under the vent hood. A six-inch long sample of the vine, which had wiped out the forest village and nearly killed her and everyone else in her team, sat beside it.

  She had gathered the specimen before leaving the forest, sealing it in a plastic bio-hazard bag. Even though she had taken great pains to ensure that there was no risk from the plant, she was not about to take any chances. Using two sets of forceps, she peeled back the plastic, exposing the vine to open air.

  Instantly, three white tendrils, which had been coiled up beneath the slightly-wilted leaves, shot out like party streamers, all reaching for the burner. One of the shoots got close enough to touch the fuel reservoir under the burning wick. It stuck there, as if coated with an adhesive, the tip curling upward, reaching for the flame.

  Then, something very strange happened. Without releasing its hold, the tendril began to recoil, pulling the plant closer to the burner.

  Thermotaxis. Movement toward heat. That explained why the plant had seemed almost dormant during the hot day. After nightfall, it aggressively sought out new heat sources, including body heat.

  Over the course of the next few minutes, the other tendrils latched on to the Bunsen burner, pulling the main stem closer still, until it was in contact with the glass fuel bottle. Meanwhile, the tips of the shoots reached so close to the flame that they were starting to blacken.

  “So, you like the heat,” she muttered. “Even if it kills you.”

  “Is that a good thing?” Pierce asked from the doorway.

  Carter nodded as he stepped into the lab, and then she smiled to Lazarus, who filed in behind Pierce.

  The big man returned the smile. Carter felt a lightness in her heart whenever she saw him smile. It didn’t happen often.

  “It is,” she told Pierce. “It means we’ll be able to eradicate the infestation with fire. No risk of spreading the vines any further. In fact, the vines will be drawn to the heat, hastening the process. I’ll still need to do some more research, once that equipment you’re sending gets here. I’d like to unpack the plant’s DNA, maybe figure out what the parent organisms were.”

  “That may not be necessary,” Pierce replied holding up his phone. “I thought you might want to hear this.” He placed the phone on the table. “Go ahead, Cintia.”

  “Yes. As I was saying, I located Nils Van Der Hausen’s lab in Stockholm. The police are raiding it as we speak.”

  “What about Van Der Hausen himself?” Carter asked.

  “He flew to Monrovia last week. There’s no record of his return.”

  “I think that passport you found may be all that’s left of him,” Pierce added. “It looks like he got a taste of his own medicine.”

  “Good,” Carter said. “Though it’s too bad that we’ll never know why he did it.”

  “Well...” Dourado said. “Van Der Hausen was definitely being bankrolled by Cerberus, and they left a trail.”

  Carter threw a questioning glance at Pierce. “You mentioned Cerberus earlier. I take it they’re some kind of criminal organization?”

  Dourado answered first. “More like semi-criminal. A lot of the stuff they’re involved in isn’t illegal, but it would be if anyone knew they were doing it. They’re extremely secretive. The first rule of the Cerberus Group is: You do not talk about Cerberus Group. The second rule—”

  “We get it Cintia,” Pierce said.

  There was a faint grumble from the phone, then Dourado resumed speaking. “It was a tough nut to crack. Took almost two hours.”

  Carter wondered if that was Dourado’s idea of a joke, but the woman sounded serious. “So the same people you’re after are responsible for the plant infestation. That’s convenient.”

  “Cerberus may have been the watchdog of the Underworld in Greek mythology,” Dourado said. “But the Cerberus Group is more like the bird dog of the criminal underworld. They’re everywhere, and whatever you want or need, they can get it for you. I am not talking about lightweight stuff—guns, drugs and so forth. Cerberus specializes in getting things that no one else can, like rare biological samples and priceless art treasures.”

  “We were already investigating Cerberus,” Pierce explained. “We know they’re moving into research and development, specifically genetic engineering. Van Der Hausen was on their payroll, though from the looks of it, his research didn’t pan out.”

  Carter was not entirely sure she agreed with that assessment. The plant infestation had wiped out an entire village, which made it a useful, if somewhat unconventional, biological weapon. It could be used against targets in undeveloped nations and would be much easier to control than microbial bio-weapons.

  “We know they’re working to procure a substance that can facilitate the creation of genetic chimeras,” Pierce continued. “That’s actually why I came to find you. I was hoping to bring you on as a consultant.”

  Carter shook her head. “I already told you—”

  “I’m going with them,” Lazarus said in his customary low rumble.

  She gaped at him. The uncharacteristic interruption was almost as astonishing as the declaration itself. “You…ah…” She blinked, surprised to find moisture beading along the edges of her eyelids. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “They have Fiona,” he said. His tone was quiet, as it always was, and yet she could hear a hint of the old anger bubbling up. “She’s just a kid.”

  In all their months together, he had never once expressed even a hint of a desire to leave her side. She had always known that he might someday feel the urge to return to his former life, and on an intellectual level she had thought she had come to terms with that, but now that she was actually confronted with it, she felt blindsided.

  He’s choosing them over me.

  As the thought screamed through her head, it left a trail of guilt.

  In all their months together, he had never once thought of anything but her happiness. He had stayed with her, supported her, traveled from one end of the continent to the other because it was what she wanted, and he never once complained. Never once had he demanded anything for himself.

  Until now.

  Yet, even that wasn’t quite the truth. He was not abandoning her to pursue some personal desire. Someone needed his help.

  His motives were no more selfish than her own.

  There was a faint hiss from the vent hood as the blackened tips of the vine shoots, dried out after several minutes of close proximity to the burner’s flame, finally ignited. She watched them burn for a moment before turning back to Pierce. “Why did Van Der Hausen turn this thing loose here? Was that Cerberus’s idea?”

  “This is just a guess, but I’d say it was meant as a test. Proof of concept.”

  “And if a few villagers die in the bush? It’s Africa. Who cares?” She took a breath, trying to forge her anger into something useful. “Somebody needs to answer for this.” She turned to Lazarus. “All right. Count me in.”

  26

  Cerberus Headquarters

  Fiona sat on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. It was the only thing she could do to keep herself from pacing like a caged animal.

  That was exactly what she felt like.

  She knew pacing was a bad idea. She hadn’t eaten anything in at least twelve hours, and her blood sugar was dangerously low. Any physical activity at this point would only make things worse. She wished there was a way to shut her brain off as well, and not just because being trapped in the little room was driving her crazy. The human central nervous system used twice as much glucose as the rest of the body. She was already running on fumes, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Fiona? Are you there?”

  She looked up to find Gallo looking down at her from the te
levision screen. “Aunt Gus! Are you okay?”

  “For now. How are you doing?”

  “Not so good.”

  Gallo stared at her for a moment then turned to someone standing out of view. “Has she had anything to eat? You can’t starve her. She’s a diabetic.”

  “I’ll make sure she gets some food straightaway,” came the answer.

  Fiona instantly recognized the voice: Kenner. “Aunt Gus, don’t tell me you’re helping that piece of—”

  Gallo cut her off. “I’ll do whatever I have to do, to keep you safe. That’s what your uncle would want.”

  Fiona knew she was right. In fact, given the way she felt right now, she was not inclined to put up much of a fight. She hugged her knees tighter. Before either she or Gallo could say anything more, the door to her room swung open and an unseen hand slid a tray inside. She jumped off the bed and made a dash for the door, but it closed before she could reach it. Her failure was mitigated somewhat by the delivery she had just received. The tray contained a plastic cup of orange juice, along with a bowl of breakfast cereal and a glass of milk.

  Better than nothing, she thought, snatching up the orange juice and downing it in a single gulp. It occurred to her, too late to do anything about it, that the drink might be drugged or poisoned, but then if her captors had wanted to hurt her, there would be no need for trickery.

  “Fiona, I need your help with a translation,” Gallo said. “You were right about Queen Hippolyte’s belt. There was something on it. A map. And something that looks to me like Phaistos glyphs. Do you think you could translate them for me?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how to read Phaistos script. But even if I could read it, I wouldn’t. Not for him.”

  “Fiona!” Gallo’s voice was so sharp, the speaker on the television monitor crackled for a second. “Your uncle put you in my care, and you need to trust me. You will do what I tell you. Do you understand?”

  Fiona glowered at the screen. Yet, there was something very odd about Gallo’s behavior. She was not the type to simply roll over and surrender at the first sign of trouble.

  “Show her the belt,” Gallo told Kenner.

  The image on the screen changed to show the object she had only glimpsed in the Labyrinth: Queen Hippolyte’s battle girdle. Despite herself, she found her gaze drawn to the intricately tooled leather. Her eyes went wide when she realized what she was seeing. “The Amazons knew about the Americas? That’s amazing.”

  She studied it, trying to find some flaw, but the map was astonishingly accurate. Finally, she turned her attention to the Phaistos characters that bordered the image. That was when she saw the familiar but equally incomprehensible script of the Mother Tongue.

  “I just need you to help with the Phaistos script,” Gallo was saying. “That’s all. You have to trust me, Fiona.”

  Fiona now understood what the woman was trying to tell her. Just the Phaistos script. Don’t let them know about the Mother Tongue.

  She could do that.

  Still, if she capitulated too quickly, Kenner might suspect that they were not being truthful. She squared her shoulders. “Will you let us go if we help you?”

  The image shifted again, this time revealing Kenner’s earnest face. “My dear, if it was up to me, I’d let you walk out the door now. But I can promise you that your cooperation will be rewarded.”

  “You tried to kill us in Crete,” Fiona said, holding back none of the anger that memory evoked. “Why should I believe anything you say?”

  Kenner ducked his head guiltily. “I didn’t want that to happen. I’m so sorry. And I’m very pleased that you made it out of there.”

  Fiona considered a very un-ladylike reply, but decided she had already pushed back hard enough.

  “I have convinced Mr. Tyndareus that you are much more useful as an ally than as an enemy,” Kenner finished.

  Fiona did not miss the implicit threat. “Fine. Show it to me again.”

  The picture of the belt returned to the screen, and this time Fiona stared at it more closely, memorizing every detail. She was feeling better now, thinking more clearly, and not just because the juice had given her a dose of fructose. She was doing something now, and even though she was a long way from any kind of escape plan, it was a step in the right direction. She recalled what Pierce had told her in the Labyrinth. Where there’s life, there’s hope.

  “Okay, what is it you want to know?”

  Gallo’s voice came over the speaker. “We are trying to determine where Queen Hippolyte’s city was. We have a rough idea, but we need to narrow down the search area. We’re hoping there’s a clue in the Phaistos writing on the border.”

  Fiona nodded to herself. She had figured out the significance of the characters almost right away. “It’s a grid system.”

  “Grid system?” Kenner asked.

  “The Phaistos letters give you coordinates on the X and Y axes. Any location on the map can be expressed with a unique address. You know, like ‘B-6…Hit! You sank my battleship!’”

  “Of course,” Gallo murmured. “But why put reference characters on all four sides?”

  “Dunno. Maybe that allows you to draw intercept points that aren’t at perpendicular angles. Let’s say you gave someone the address A-M-1-9. You would draw a line between A and M, and then another line between one and nine, and where those two lines cross, you have your waypoint.”

  “That’s all very interesting,” Kenner said. “But it doesn’t tell us where to look for the Amazon city.”

  Fiona shrugged. “Without a set of coordinates, there’s not much I can do.”

  “Could there be a clue in the Phaistos symbols?” Gallo asked. “Perhaps the coordinate address also forms a word or a name?”

  “Another literacy test? Like in the Labyrinth.” Fiona considered this for a moment. There was an undeniable logic to that idea. “You said that you have an idea of where the Amazon city is?”

  “South America,” Gallo said. “Somewhere in the Amazon Basin… Don’t say it. I know how crazy it sounds.”

  Fiona tried unsuccessfully to stifle a grin.

  She stepped closer to the screen, paying careful attention to the Phaistos characters on the left-hand vertical edge, closest to the part of the map that corresponded to equatorial South America. From there, she drew random mental lines across the map to the opposite side, looking for pairings like those she had found in the Labyrinth. She saw three possible combinations. She repeated the process top-to-bottom, coming up with two more likely pairs. One of those couplets combined perfectly with one of the three possibilities, forming a sequence that she recognized from the Phaistos disc. The lines resulting from that unique ‘address’ fell at a point north of a spot where the Amazon met with one of its many tributaries.

  “Okay, I think I know where it is.”

  “Tell me,” urged Kenner’s disembodied voice.

  She did her best to explain her conclusions and how she had reached them.

  “Mount Roraima in Brazil,” Gallo said, when Fiona was finished. “Well that explains a lot.”

  “I can show it to you on a map,” Fiona said, hoping to find a way out of the room.

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Kenner said, and then as if in an aside, he added, “I wish you would have let me bring her. It would have made this much easier.”

  “No way was I going to let you drag her along into the jungle,” Gallo replied.

  “Bring me along?” Fiona said. “Aunt Gus, where are you?”

  “Honestly, darling, I haven’t the foggiest. But now I know where I’m going.”

  27

  Gibraltar

  Lazarus jumped out of the launch and started dragging the bow of the craft up onto the rocky beach, until there was no risk of it being washed back out to sea. At the stern of the rigid-hulled inflatable boat, Pierce tilted the outboard up out of the water, and then jumped out to help. When the boat was high and dry, both men helped Carter offload seve
ral water-tight containers, which held everything she needed to set up a small-scale gene sequencing operation.

  With the threat from the vines more or less under control, there was no immediate need for further genetic testing in Liberia, so Pierce had brought the equipment with them. To reduce the possibility of Cerberus tracking another chartered boat ride to the cave entrance, he had procured the Zodiac semi-rigid inflatable boat—a craft Lazarus had used extensively in his prior life—but he worried that this precaution had come too late. Cerberus might already know about the citadel. While he was confident that the Forgotten were more than a match for any incursion in the near term, the Gorham’s Cave refuge would have to be abandoned. For the present however, it would continue to serve as Herculean HQ.

  Carter appraised the opening in the cliff face. She shook her head and muttered, “Caves. I can’t seem to get away from them.”

  “I know what you mean,” Pierce said. “For what it’s worth, this one is nicer than most. Although…” He dipped a hand into his pocket and took out a pair of bronze medallions adorned with the emblem of the Herculean Society. He passed one each to Carter and Lazarus. “You’ll need to wear these. Keep them visible at all times.”

  Lazarus stared at his medallion for several seconds. Pierce braced himself for a deluge of questions, but if the big man had any, he did not voice them. Instead, he looped the pendant chain around his neck, and then lifted the heaviest of the cargo boxes into his arms.

  Pierce led the way into the ancient Neanderthal dwelling and up to the concealed entrance to the citadel. While Lazarus shuttled containers into the hidden cavern, Carter began inspecting the Nemean Lion’s impervious skin. Pierce checked in with Dourado, as he had done every half-hour since learning about Fiona’s and Gallo’s disappearances more than twelve hours earlier.

  The answer was the same this time as it was in each of the previous instances. “Nothing yet. I’ll call as soon as I know something.”

  Pierce sagged back in his chair, frustrated. While he had been on the move, traveling back from Liberia, he had at least been able to console himself with the illusion of progress. Now that he had reached his destination, he was confronted with the realization that there was nowhere to go next. Worse, the citadel was a reminder of his own failure to protect the people he loved. If he had taken Gallo and Fiona with him to Liberia, or insisted they remain in the cave…