The Judas Strain (55 page)
Authors: James Rollins
Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller, #Suspense, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Adult, #Historical
“How do you mean?”
“The woman Susan. Maybe her transformation was a peek into the true translation of the angelic script?”
Vigor read the disbelief in the commander’s face and held up a hand. “I talked to Lisa earlier this morning. She mentioned how she believed Susan’s brain was fully excited by the energies of the bacteria when exposed to sunlight, awakening those parts of the human brain that are otherwise dormant. I find it interesting that only a tiny fraction of our genetic code is active, and at the same time, we only utilize a small portion of our brain. Don’t you find that odd?”
Gray shrugged, noncommittal. “I suppose.”
Vigor continued. “What if all that angelic script maps out our
full
potential, that which still remains hidden in all of us, waiting to be awakened? According to the book of Genesis, God made us in his image. What if that image is yet to be fully realized, buried in dormant sections of our brain, hidden within the angelic language of our junk DNA? Maybe all that script written on the walls under the Bayon, glowing in the dark, maybe the ancient writer was attempting to understand that potential, too. You mentioned yourself how it was incomplete, sections missing.”
“That’s true,” Gray conceded. “And you raise some interesting conjectures worth exploring, but I don’t know if we’ll ever know the truth. Susan is back to normal, and I heard from Painter that an excavation team was able to breach the foundation vault beneath the Bayon. Some of the walls were found intact, but Nasser’s acid bomb had stripped the surfaces clean. Nothing remains of the script.”
Vigor felt his heart sink. “A shame. Still, I wonder about something that we never found down in the cavern.”
“What’s that?”
“Your turtle,” Vigor said. “You thought that the vault might contain a deeper mystery, something that represents the incarnation of Vishnu.”
“Maybe it was just the Judas Strain. The glowing pool. Even you mentioned how the ancient Khmer probably stumbled upon the glowing cavern and attributed it to some god’s home. Maybe Vishnu’s.”
Vigor stared at the commander. “Or maybe Susan was a glimpse of that greater mystery, a peek at the godlike or angelic potential hidden inside all of us.”
Gray finally shrugged, plainly ready to dismiss it. But as Vigor had hoped, he noted a slight pinch to the man’s brows. Curiosity. He wanted Gray to keep his mind open.
Still, Vigor also saw that something more urgently pressed upon the man’s mind and attention. He waved Gray out.
Vigor called to him as he stepped out the door. “Give my best to Seichan.”
Gray stumbled a step, frowned a bit, and headed away.
Vigor replaced his reading glasses.
Ah, sweet youth…
12:20
P.M.
G
RAY HANDED THE
cup of coffee to the guard outside Seichan’s door. “Is she awake?”
He shrugged, a young sandy-haired ensign from Peoria. “Don’t know.”
Gray pushed through the door. It was a dull assignment for the ensign. The patient was almost continuously sedated after going through a second operation for her gunshot wound. Seichan had retorn her injury and had been bleeding internally.
All because she had saved Gray’s life.
He remembered Seichan’s arms carrying him, the pain in her blistered face, her swollen eye. But he hadn’t known that by coming back for him she had almost died.
Gray entered her room.
She lay handcuffed to her bed, arms spread to either side.
She wore a hospital gown and was covered with a clean sheet.
The room, built for mental patients, was sterile and cold. The only furniture was the bed and a rolling stand shoved against the wall. A high, narrow window had steel shutters over it.
Seichan stirred as he entered. She turned her head. Her face hardened with a slight downcast to her eyes, ashamed at her immobilization. Then anger flared up and burned all else away. She tugged at one of her handcuffed wrists.
Gray came and sat on the bed.
“Even though my parents are alive,” he started right in, “that doesn’t mean I forgive you. That I’ll ever forgive you. But I do owe you. I won’t let you die. Not this way.”
Gray pulled the handcuff keys from his pocket. He reached out and lifted her wrist. He felt her pulse quicken under his fingertips.
“They’re sending you to Guantánamo Bay in the morning,” he said.
“I know.”
And like Gray, she also knew it was a death sentence. If she wasn’t immediately executed, the Guild would assassinate her to silence her, or one of the other intelligence agencies would. The Israeli Mossad still had an open kill order on her.
He slipped in the key and turned the lock. Her cuff snapped open.
Seichan sat up, still wearing a glint of suspicion.
She held out her palm for the key, testing him.
He gave it to her. As she undid her second cuff, Gray placed the package Kowalski had obtained on the bed.
“I have three sets of clothes: a nurse’s uniform, local attire, and something in camouflage. There’s also local currency. I couldn’t do anything about ID, not on this short notice.”
Seichan’s other handcuff snapped free. Turning, she rubbed her wrists.
The soft sound of a body hitting the floor sounded past the door.
“Oh, and I drugged the guard.”
She glanced to the door, then back to him. Her eyes sparked. Before he could move, she lunged, grabbed his collar, and pulled him to her. She kissed him hard, her mouth parting, tasting sweetly medicinal.
Gray instinctively pulled back. He hadn’t come here to—
Oh, screw it…
He reached to the small of her back and cupped her tightly to him. Never releasing, she climbed into him, onto him, over him. Her feet lowered to the floor. He twisted, falling back.
He heard the
snick
of shackles.
She pushed off of him.
His right wrist had been handcuffed to the bed.
He glanced up in time to see her elbow swinging toward his face.
His head cracked back. He tasted blood on his lips.
She leaped on him, pinning him to the bed, sitting on his chest. She raised her fist. He lifted his free arm to block. She cocked her head. “This has to look convincing, or you’ll be the one sitting in Guantánamo for treason.”
She was right.
Gray lowered his arm.
She struck him hard, splitting his lip. His head rang with the blow. She shook the sting from her hand—then raised her fist again.
“And this is for not trusting me,” she said, and lashed out again.
Blood spurted from his nose. He felt himself drift away, then back again.
She leaned down, near his ear. “Do you remember that little promise I made to you at the very beginning?”
“What’s that?” He turned to the side and spat.
“That I’d reveal the mole to you after this was all over.”
“But there was no mole.”
“Are you certain of that?”
Her eyes hovered over his. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure.
She sat back and whipped out with her elbow, a glancing blow to his eye.
“Christ!”
“That’ll swell fine.” She rubbed her lips, studying him, like an artist over an oil painting in progress. Then said, “I’m the mole, Gray.”
“What—?”
“A mole planted inside the Guild.”
She slammed a fist into his other eye. His vision went black for a breath.
“I’m one of the good guys, Gray. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Gray lay there dazed, from her words, from her blows.
“A double agent?” he coughed out, incredulous. “Two years ago, you shot me! Point-blank in the chest.”
She cocked her fist again. “I knew you had on liquid body armor. Didn’t you ever wonder why I was wearing the same? Catch a clue, Gray.”
Her fist hammered down, rocking his head back. She then pinched the bridge of his nose, plainly wondering if she should break it.
“And the anthrax bomb,” he said. “At Fort Detrick?”
“Already sterilized. A dud. I was planning on blaming the bomb’s designer.”
“But…the curator in Venice?” he sputtered out. “You killed him in cold blood.”
She slashed her fingernails down his left cheek, digging deep furrows of fire. “If I hadn’t, his whole family would have been slaughtered. Including wife and daughter.”
Wincing, Gray stared up. She had an answer for everything.
Seichan leaned back, cranking the heel of her hand up to her ear, eyeing his nose. “And I’m not stopping…not after five years, not when I’m this damn close to discovering who leads the Guild.”
She punched down, but he caught her wrist this time.
She leaned her weight, pressing down on him.
“Seichan…”
She stared down at him, muscles straining, eyes fiery, as if in pain. Their eyes met. She searched his face, looking for something. She didn’t seem to find it. For a flash, he saw disappointment in her eyes. Also regret…maybe loneliness. Then it was gone.
She slammed him with her other elbow, a blow to the ear, scattering stars across his vision. He released her. She fell back, scrambling off of him.
“That’ll do,” she mumbled, turning away.
She crossed to the clothes, shed her hospital gown, and quickly donned the nurse’s uniform, including a demure silk scarf to hide her healing face. She kept her back to him.
“Seichan?”
Once dressed, she didn’t say a word, only stepped to the door. She wouldn’t even turn, only asked one last thing of him, spoken softly, a lifeline thrown back toward him.
“Trust me, Gray. If only a little. I’ve earned that much.”
Before he could answer, she left. The door swung closed behind her.
Trust me…
Heaven help him, he did.
He shoved up in the bed, his face throbbing, his one eye swelling.
Fifteen minutes passed. Long enough to ensure that she escaped.
Finally Painter appeared at the door, pushing inside.
“Did you get all that?” Gray asked.
“The wire picked up everything.”
“Could she be telling the truth?”
Painter frowned, staring back at the door. “She is a consummate liar.”
“Maybe she had to be. To survive inside the Guild.”
Painter undid the handcuffs. “Either way, the passive tracer we planted in her belly during the operation will allow us to track her whereabouts.”
“And what if the Guild finds it?”
“It’s a plastic polymer, invisible to X-ray. They’ll never detect it.”
Unless they cut her open
.
Gray stood up. “This is wrong. You know it.”
“It was the only way the government would allow us to free her.”
Gray remembered Seichan’s eyes, staring down at him.
He knew two truths.
She had not been lying.
And even now, she was certainly far from free.
A
UGUST
11, 8:32
A.M.
Takoma Park, Maryland
“T
HE RESTORATION JOB
looks great,” Gray said.
His father slid a cloth moist with Turtle Wax over the hood of the Thunderbird. They had rescued the convertible out of impound, towing it away on a flatbed. Painter had arranged to have the T-bird repaired at the best classic restoration shop in the D.C. area. His father had gotten it back last week, but this was the first time Gray had seen it.
His father stepped back, hands on his hips. He wore an oil-stained undershirt and long shorts, showing off his new leg, another courtesy of Sigma, DARPA-designed, exceptionally realistic. But it wasn’t the leg that concerned his father at the moment.
“Gray, what do you think of these new rims? Not as nice as my old Kelsey wire wheels.”
Gray came around to stand next to his dad. They looked the same to him. “You’re right,” he said anyway. “These suck.”
“Hmm,” his father said noncommittally. “But they were free. That Painter fellow was pretty generous.”
Gray could get a sense of where this was leading. “Dad…”
“Your mother and I talked it over,” he said, still staring at the wheels. “We think you should stay with Sigma.”
Gray scratched his head. He already had his letter of resignation in his pocket. When he had returned from Cambodia, he had found his father in the hospital, his chest burned from Taser strikes. His mother’s arm was in a sling from a minor fracture to her wrist. The worst was his mother’s black eye.
All because of him.
He had almost lost it in the hospital.
What security could he offer his parents if he continued? The Guild certainly knew who he was, where to find his folks. The only way to keep them safe was to resign. Painter tried to assure him that the Guild would back off. That retribution and retaliation were not their methods. In future missions, Painter had assured Gray his parents would be secured before he left.
But some missions came crashing up your driveway in a motorcycle.
There was no way to plan against that.
“Gray,” his father pressed, “what you do is important. You can’t let worries about us stop you.”
“Dad…”
He lifted his hand. “I’ve said my piece. You make your own decision. I have to figure out if I like these rims or not.”
Gray started to turn away.
His father reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and pulled him into a one-armed hug. He gave him one squeeze—then pushed him away a bit. “Go see what your mother is burning for breakfast.”
Gray crossed to the back door and met his mother coming out.
“Oh, Gray, I just got off the phone with Kat. She said you were heading over there this morning.”
“Before I go to the office. I have some of Monk’s stuff on the front porch. Dad’s letting me borrow the T-bird so I can run some errands for Kat this afternoon, too.”
“I know the funeral isn’t for another two days, but I have some pies. Could you take those over, too?”
“Pies?” Gray asked doubtfully.
“Don’t worry. I bought them from the bakery down the street. Oh, and I have some toys for Penelope. I found this cute jumper with elephants and…”
He just kept nodding, knowing eventually his mother would stop.
“How is Kat holding up?” she finally finished.
Gray shook his head. “Good days and bad.”
Mostly bad
.
His mother sighed. “Let me get those pies. Last time I saw Kat she was thin as a rail, that poor girl.”
Gray soon had a paper grocery bag stacked with boxed pies. He headed through the house to the front porch. He pushed outside and crossed to the stack of boxes. They contained everything from Monk’s locker and a few things kept at Gray’s apartment.
Gray also had a box to take to the funeral home. Ryder Blunt, the billionaire, had returned Monk’s prosthetic hand, having to cut through the wing strut of his seaplane to free it. Kat had refused to even look at it. And Gray didn’t blame her. But she did ask that the hand be added to the empty casket that would be lowered into Arlington National Cemetery. They were each supposed to also bring tokens of remembrances to include in the casket.
Gray had found a copy of Monk’s favorite movie. The man had left it at Gray’s apartment after a pizza-and-popcorn night.
Sound of Music
. Monk knew all the words, singing along as he bounced Penelope on his knee. Monk had the biggest heart of any man he knew.
He would’ve made a great father.
Gray crossed to the porch swing. He pulled out his letter of resignation folded into threes, crumpled a bit. He straightened the crinkles between his thumb and forefinger. He wished he could talk to Monk about this.
As he sat, he heard something scratching among the boxes.
The neighborhood squirrels were fearless.
Oh, damn, the pies…
Gray got up and crossed to the stack. But the noise wasn’t coming from the bag of pies. He frowned. He shifted around until he found the right box.
What the hell?
Gray removed the top.
Painter hadn’t only commissioned the repair to his father’s leg and trashed T-bird. He had not wanted to send Monk’s hand into the ground all charred. So he had the prosthesis meticulously restored. It rested in a foam mold.
Only now one of the fingers was digging at the foam.
Gray lifted the hand. The index finger wiggled in the air. Gray felt a shudder pass through him. What if Kat had seen this?
Must be a short in the wiring.
He set the hand down on the porch chair. The finger continued to move, tapping at the wooden seat. Gray turned away in disgust. He tugged out his cell phone, ready to blast whoever messed up at Sigma.
But as he dialed, his ear stayed morbidly attuned to the tapping. As he listened, Gray realized it drummed out a pattern.
In Morse code.
A familiar distress call.
S.O.S.
Gray swung around, staring down at the hand.
It couldn’t be.
“Monk…?”
2:45
P.M.
Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia
S
USAN
T
UNIS CLIMBED
the steep ravine of the jungle-shrouded mountains, following the brilliant cascade of a waterfall. A fine mist hung in the air, scintillating in the dappled sunlight. A pileated gibbon chattered in protest at her passage, hanging from a vine by one arm, its black face framed by gray fur.
She continued onward, moving purposefully through the rain forest. The Cardamom Mountains formed the border between Cambodia and Thailand, an inhospitable land of dense forests and inaccessible hills. On her fourth day into the mountains, sleeping in a hammock under mosquito netting, she had spotted an endangered Indochinese tiger, with its stocky body and tightly drawn stripes. It slipped through the forest, uttering a low growl.
Otherwise, she hadn’t seen anything larger than the howling gibbon.
Certainly no people.
Due to the isolation and difficult terrain, the mountains had once been the last refuge of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, who retreated here because of the harsh terrain. Land mines were still a great risk.
But Susan suspected she was days past where even the guerrillas dared to tread. She reached the crest of a ridge and followed the stream across a forested plateau. Ahead, a few small shapes slipped into the water, from perches on logs.
Batagur baska
.
Asian river terrapin. One of the most endangered species on the planet.
Also known as the Royal Turtle, revered as guardians of the gods.
Here they made their home.
Just past their mud nests and hibernating burrows, Susan came upon a collection of jars by the river, cylindrical clay pots standing three feet tall, scribed with lichen, carved with intricate designs. Ancient burial jars. They contained the bones of kings and queens. There were such sites scattered throughout the mountains, considered very sacred.
But no one visited this particular site, the most ancient of them all.
Susan left the river and passed through the cemetery. The burial jars eventually thinned as the forest abutted against a cracked cliff face.
She knew where she had to go, knew from the moment she had been revived by Dr. Cummings. She had gained more than just the cure for the world—but she had told no one.
It was not the time.
Susan reached the cliff and crossed to a lightning-bolt-shaped crack, gaping two feet wide at the base. She wiggled out of her pack and turned sideways to push into the fissure. She took tiny steps, sliding deeper and deeper. Behind her, the sunlight faded, growing thinner and thinner.
Soon she was in total darkness.
Susan stretched out a hand, reaching her arm forward. A glowing fire, willed from within, ignited at her fingertips and spread down to her shoulder. She raised her arm like a lamp.
Here was another secret she had kept.
But not her greatest.
Lighting her own path, she headed deeper.
She didn’t know how far she traveled, losing the firm passage of time. But it was certainly well into the night.
Eventually a glow appeared, flowing back to her.
Welcoming her.
A match to her own.
She continued at her same pace, sensing no need to hurry.
At last, she entered a great vaulted space. The source of the light became clear. Spreading far into the distance, small fires shone like a scatter of stars across the bowled floor. Hundreds and hundreds. She walked out into the cavern, passing the fires.
Each was a figure, spread-eagled on the floor, ablaze with an inner fire, burning flesh to a crystalline translucency. She stared down into one. All that remained visible was the nervous system: brain, spinal cord, and the vast tangle of peripheral nerves. The open arms, flowing with filamentous fibers, looked like unfurled wings, feathered with tufts of fine nerve bundles.
Angels in the dark.
Slumbering. Waiting.
Susan marched onward. She reached a figure who wasn’t as consumed, who still showed the beat of a heart and the flow of blood, where bones still hinted at form and function.
Susan found an open spot at his side and lay down. She stretched her arms. Her fingertips brushed her neighbor.
The words reached her in an old Italian dialect, but she understood.
Is it done
?
She sighed.
Yes. I am the last. The source has been destroyed.
Then rest, child.
For how long? When will the world be ready?
He answered her. It would be a very long sleep.
What am I to do
?
Go home, my child…for now, go home.
Susan closed her eyes and let that which needed to sleep drop away. All else, she slipped into the bubble that composed the entirety of her life and stepped through it to what lay beyond.
Light blinded as if she stared into the full face of the sun. She lowered her gaze, blinking away the glare. The world filled back in around her. The gentle rock of the boat under her bare feet. The cry of a lone gull, the hush of waves against the hull, and the sweep of wind over her skin.
Was this a dream, a memory…or something more?
She inhaled the salt air. A beautiful day.
She crossed to the ship’s rail and stared out at the blue expanse. Green islands dotted the distance. A few clouds drifted. She heard the tread of feet on the stairs leading up from the cabin.
As she turned, he climbed into view, pulling up with his arms, dressed in shorts and an Ocean Pacific T-shirt. He spotted her, with a startled expression.
Then he smiled. “Oh, there you are.”
Susan rushed to Gregg, wrapping her arms around her husband.
Downstairs, Oscar barked. A grumpy voice yelled back at the old dog.
Susan snugged against her husband, listening to the beat of his heart.
He hugged her back. “What is it, Susan?”
She stared up into Gregg’s face, raised a finger to the three-day stubble on his chin. Then tipped up on her toes to reach his lips.
He bent down to meet her.
And she knew she was home.
