Herculean (Cerberus Group Book 1) (18 page)

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 several 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…

If, if, if
.

Carter’s voice pulled him out of his self-pitying reflection. “You weren’t kidding about how tough this thing is.”

He glanced over and saw her struggling with the Lion skin. “The Lion’s own claws were the only thing Hercules found that could cut through it.”

“Hercules didn’t have a diamond-tipped scalpel,” she replied, holding up the tool she had used to remove a tiny slice of the preserved hide. “There’s no magic at work here, Dr. Pierce. Just things that we don’t understand yet.”

“Will you be able to extract any viable DNA from it?”

“I think so. I’m curious about one thing, though. How exactly will this help you find your friends?”

The question stung. “Honestly, I don’t know if it will. Kenner believes these chimeras originate from a specific source. I was hoping that you might be able to isolate whatever factor is responsible. A genetic footprint, if you will. A chemical agent or something like that. But that was before. Now…?” He shrugged.

“Well, you might be on to something. I don’t know about chemical agents, but identifying the genetic contributors may give us a geographical ballpark.”

“How so?”

She gestured to the skin. “For starters, this isn’t a lion.”

“I know. It’s a chimera. A lion and something else.”

She shook her head. “Actually, I don’t think it’s a chimera either. Not in the genetic sense at least. I think it’s actually a transgenic hybrid.”

“What’s the difference?”

“In biology, a chimera is an organism that has two or more distinctive cellular populations. A bone marrow transplant or tree grafting creates a chimera because the recipient now has two distinctive cell populations. Two different sets of DNA, coexisting in the same body. If you graft a lemon branch onto a lime tree, it doesn’t become a new organism. Just a lime tree that also gives you lemons. A hybrid is a combination of genetic material from two different sources, but it has only one cellular population—one set of DNA.”

“Like a mule.”

“Right. A mule doesn’t have horse DNA in some of its cells and donkey DNA in others. It only has mule DNA. With gene splicing, we can combine nucleotides from vastly different species to create transgenic hybrids. And I think that’s what this is.”

Pierce was not sure the semantic distinction mattered, but Carter’s expertise
was
the reason he had recruited her. “Okay. So it’s a hybrid of a lion and something else. Something that gives it nearly indestructible skin and fur. Is there anything like that in the natural world?”

She shrugged. “You’ve probably heard about how spider silk is stronger than steel wire, ounce for ounce. Nature has produced a lot of amazing things.”

“Why did you say it’s not a lion?”

“I’ve seen a lot of lions over the past couple of years, and this isn’t one. Not an African lion, at least.”

“There’s another kind?” Pierce examined the animal skin more closely. He knew that some large cats were mistakenly identified as ‘lions’—cougars, for example were often called ‘mountain lions’—but there were visible differences between the two species. The Nemean Lion, at least to Pierce’s untrained eye, appeared to be a member of the true lion family, albeit a monstrously large example of it.

“There are actually several different lion species that all fall under the umbrella term African lion,” Carter explained. “Some, like the Barbary lion, were only recently hunted to extinction—in the last two hundred years or so. But in ancient times, lion species could be found all over the world—the Middle East, Europe. I suspect this specimen may belong to one of those species.”

“Europe? Well, I guess that would explain the presence of a lion in Greece.”

She placed the tissue sample into a test-tube and carefully measured out drops of a reagent solution. “Lions were once fairly common all over Asia. I think they even show up in a couple Bible stories.”

“Right. David killed a lion with his sling, and Samson killed one with his bare hands.” The recollection triggered a painful memory of Fiona paraphrasing Ecclesiastes in the Labyrinth.
Live dogs and dead lions
. He grimaced.

“Those were probably
Panthera leo persica
, the Asiatic lion. The only place you’ll find them in the wild today is India. They once ranged as far west as Turkey. But I don’t think that’s what we’ve got here either. The Asiatic lion is even smaller than the African species, with a less developed mane. This specimen is considerably larger than an African lion. That could be the result of the contribution from the other species, but I don’t think so. Also, the fur is thicker, suggesting that this animal was adapted to colder climates. It might be a late extant European cave lion.
Panthera leo spelaea
.”

“One that survived to the first millennium BC?”

“Possibly. There are still a few pristine ecosystems where species long believed extinct are still alive and well.” She cast a knowing nod in Lazarus’s direction. “Or if your hypothesis about some kind of chemical agent is correct, it might have been a primitive cloning experiment involving DNA recovered from a fossilized specimen.

“The question of how may not be as important as where. If it is a
P. spelaea
, then there’s a good chance your source is somewhere in Europe. Hopefully, there’s still enough of the lion left in this hybrid for a match in the ADW genetic database.” She placed the test tube into one of the devices Pierce had provided for her in Liberia—a Pacific BioSciences SMRT—single molecule real-time—sequencer. As the machine hummed to life, Carter crossed her arms. “You know, if I’m going to work for you, I’m going to need better facilities. Preferably, somewhere not in a cave.”

“
Are
you going to work for me?”

“We’ll see.” Carter looked away from him, meeting Lazarus’s patient gaze. The big man gave her a reassuring nod.

Before Pierce could express his gratitude, a trilling sound from his computer signaled an incoming teleconference request from Dourado. Bracing himself against the possibility of yet another disappointment, he tapped the button to receive the call. “Please have good news, Cintia.”

Beneath a mane of cobalt blue curls, Dourado was grinning. “I
do
have good news, Dr. Pierce.” Excitement caused her words to blur together, exaggerating her distinctive Brazilian accent. “Cerberus has a jet. I compared airport data from the week of Van Der Hausen’s arrival in Monrovia against all the data from the last three days in Crete and Athens.”

“What data?”

“Everything. Customs. Passport control. Car rental agencies. Flight plans. There were no names in common, but that is not surprising. They must be using aliases. But I did discover a private aircraft—a Learjet 60—that arrived in Monrovia the day before Van Der Hausen flew in from Stockholm. It left three days later. That same plane was in Heraklion when you were there, and it was in Athens late last night. It arrived shortly before…ah…Dr. Gallo’s disappearance.”

Pierce was suddenly giddy with the possibility of tracking Cerberus to its lair, finding Gallo and Fiona. “Who owns it?”

“It belongs to one of the Cerberus shell companies, based in Grand Cayman Island.”

“Where’s the plane now? Is it still in Greece?”

“No. It took off again early this morning. It flew to Barcelona, then Rome. It was there for a few hours but it left again. They refueled in the Azores, but then took off again. It is in the air as we speak.”

“They have to file flight plans, right? Do you know where it’s headed now?”

Dourado’s excitement nearly matched Pierce’s for feverish intensity. “Yes. It is coming here.”

“To Brazil?”

“To Belem! They’ll be arriving in less than three hours.”

“Is that a stopover or a final destination?”

“No additional flight plans have been filed.”

Pierce processed the information for a moment. Belem, situated at the mouth of the Amazon, seemed an unlikely destination. Given Cerberus’s far-flung operations, there was no guarantee that the jet’s current destination had anything to do with what Kenner was after. If the incident in Liberia had indeed been a weapons test, then maybe the Amazon rainforest was intended to be the next phase of a different plan, unrelated to what Kenner was looking for. Perhaps Cerberus intended to employ the carnivorous vine against some of the native tribes who opposed development of their ancestral homeland. Or it might be something else entirely. His gut told him that where the plane had been was probably more important than where it was going.

But what if I’m wrong? What if Augustina and Fiona are aboard that plane?

“Cintia, we need to get eyes on that plane. Contact Aegis. See if they have any operatives in the region.”

“The nearest Aegis office is in Rio,” Dourado replied. “They will not be able to get someone here in time.”

Pierce frowned, wracking his brain to come up with an alternative. “Give them a call anyway. Maybe they can recommend someone local. A private eye or—”

“
I
will do it,” Dourado said. All of her earlier enthusiasm was gone. Her voice was now so small it was barely audible.

“Cintia—”

“There is no one else. Not that can be here in time.”

Pierce felt a pang of guilt for even considering the suggestion. Dourado was a computer jockey, not a field operative. Given the circumstances, the narrow window of opportunity and the lack of alternatives, he could not argue with her. But the idea of putting her in danger, even if the actual risk was minimal, made him sick to his stomach.

Being in charge really sucks
.

“Just get eyes on. Don’t approach them. In fact, if Augustina and Fiona are there, don’t let them see you. Wear a…” He was about to say ‘hat’ then thought better of it. “A disguise of some kind. I don’t want you to put yourself in any danger.”

“I’m on it,” she said.

“Thank you, Cintia. We’ll be there as soon as we can.” He looked over at Carter. “How much longer?”

“Anywhere from twenty minutes to four hours.”

Four hours. Kenner might be on the ground in Belem before they could even leave Gorham’s Cave. Leaving Lazarus and Carter behind was not an option. He would need the big man’s help to rescue Gallo and Fiona, and he was not about to ask Carter to stay by herself.