Herculean (Cerberus Group Book 1) (22 page)

34

Cerberus Headquarters

At the first touch of the aerosol mist, Fiona leapt off the examination table and dove under it. The abruptness of her reaction sent two of the mice scurrying away, but for several seconds, that was the most dramatic thing that happened.

“Excellent,” Tyndareus crooned. “Tell me, are you feeling anything yet?”

Fiona ignored the question, but the mere suggestion was enough to make her skin crawl. What was in the mist? Tyndareus had called it a plant-based organic bio-weapon, but what did that even mean? Some kind of nerve agent?

She felt a tingling sensation on the exposed skin of her face and arms.

I’m imagining it
, she told herself, but if she was, then her imagination was running wild. She wiped a hand across her face, then began rubbing her arms vigorously. Her skin felt slightly wet, and after a few seconds, the tingling became a warm glow, like the heat of menthol or jalapeno peppers.

Okay, definitely not my imagination
.

An urgent chirping noise distracted her. The mice, all of them, were now running back and forth across the room as if their tails were on fire.

They’re dying
, she thought. She felt a stinging in her eyes, and blinked away tears.
I probably am, too. Or will be soon.

Then she noticed something else. There were faint green lines on the skin of her arms, long streaks marking the places she had rubbed. The floor was also marked with splotches of green, and as she watched, they started moving.

No. Not moving. Growing.

Tiny shoots, no thicker than single strands of hair, were rising from the green spots, both those on the floor and those on her arms. She wiped her fingers across her arms, obliterating them completely, but the tendrils on the floor grew thicker, like vines, throwing out branching extensions and vestigial leaves.

Plant-based bio weapon. That’s what he meant. This isn’t some kind of organic poison or nerve agent. It’s a plant that…does what exactly?

The growth rate was extraordinary, and judging by the stinging sensation, the plant secreted some kind of toxic enzyme. The chirping of the mice had grown into a frantic cacophony. They had stopped running around. She found one nearby, caught in a tangle of green threads, squirming but unable to break loose.

Tyndareus’s wheeze sounded again. “You see? It works well in a controlled environment. But we could not replicate these results in the field.”

Fiona paid him no heed. She was aware now of green tendrils sprouting from her skin, probably her hair and clothes, too, but the threads on the floor scared her the most. While it was hard to imagine those tiny little fibers holding her down, she knew that enough of them might be able to do just that, immobilizing and enveloping her like some kind of invasive weed.

She scrambled out from under the table, intending to climb back on top, but found it already covered with fibrous green stalks. The sight stopped her cold. There was nowhere to escape to. Every corner of this room was infested with green.

She was going to die. Maybe not in the next few minutes, or even the next few hours, but eventually the plants would overwhelm her.

She whirled to face the glass, wondering how much force it would take to smash through.
Maybe if I used the table like a battering ram…

Tyndareus’s weird mismatched blue eyes continued to regard her with an eagerness that approached hunger.
He’s enjoying this. He’s getting off on watching me die, like some kind of psycho James Bond movie villain
.

The thought triggered a lightning bolt of inspiration.
I just hope he doesn’t watch the same movies I do
. She met his stare and shouted, “Is this supposed to scare me into helping you?”

Uncertainty flickered across his strange eyes. She could see him parsing her words, trying to discern what she meant. His mouth opened, but then closed again.

Damn it.

She started to turn back to the exam table, intending to scrape away the thin layer of green that had started sprouting there and buy herself a few more seconds, but the tendrils had already begun wrapping around her feet, digging into the fabric of her shoes.

I’m running out of time
.

She tore free and hopped up onto the table. Her feet started to burn, so she pulled her shoes off, revealing inflamed skin. She looked at Tyndareus again. “South America is a dead end. Kenner isn’t going to find anything there.”

His gaze narrowed, but he said nothing.

“He doesn’t know how to read the map, you know,” she pressed. “That’s why he had to ask me for help. But he still doesn’t know how to translate it. I’m the only one who can do that.” She was not desperate enough to tell him about the Mother Tongue, not yet at least.

The old man’s silence continued.

“Don’t believe me? Ask him what he’s found. Go on. I’ll wait. Only…” She looked from side to side. “I’m not sure exactly how long I’ve got.”

Finally, Tyndareus stirred. He raised a bony finger and stabbed at the screen of his tablet. For a few seconds, Fiona dared to believe that her ploy had worked, and that he would activate some kind of counter-agent to neutralize the strange growth. But a full minute passed with no appreciable change in the room, save for the fact that the mice had stopped chirping and the room seemed to be getting increasingly warmer. Uncomfortably so. Fiona’s skin began to burn anew as her sweat reacted with the acidic plants on her skin.

Instead of sparing her, Tyndareus had just turned up the heat, literally. The room was nearly sauna hot. The lights seemed brighter, too, so brilliant, in fact, that she had to shade her eyes and squint.

“Interesting,” the old man said after a few more minutes. “When the temperature increases to above ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit, the organism stops seeking out new victims and simply begins growing like an ordinary plant. That explains the failure of the field test. Not a failure at all, really. Simply a different outcome than expected.”

He tapped the screen again, and the lights dimmed perceptibly. “I would hear more about the map, child.”

Despite the heat, Fiona felt a chill shoot down her back. She did not know if Tyndareus had chosen to curtail his experiment because of what she had said, or if he was merely playing some kind of sick game with her—like an evil child torturing ants with a magnifying glass. She regretted now having revealed the truth about the map, even if she had kept the part about the Mother Tongue to herself. Her death would have all but ensured that Kenner would never unlock the real secret of the map. Now, Tyndareus would not stop until she had revealed everything.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but think about what Pierce had said in the Labyrinth.

Where there’s life, there’s hope
.

She was still alive, and that was good, because it meant there was still hope. The funny thing was that she no longer hoped for rescue or a chance to escape.

She wanted payback.

35

Roraima, Brazil

The noise of the shot startled Gallo, causing her hand to slip off the ropes. She clutched at them, trying to stop her downward plunge, but it was already too late. There was a flare of pain as the ropes burned through the skin of her palm, but that would be nothing compared to what would come when she reached the line’s end.

Her descent stopped as abruptly as it had begun, with a hand reaching out to seize hold of her belay line, jerking her to a sudden, and thankfully premature, stop. She swung forward, colliding with the rock face. The impact stunned her but not enough to override her instinct for self-preservation. She grabbed hold of the ropes again, clinging to them for dear life.

“Remember what I showed you,” rumbled a low voice from beside her. “Reach back and hold the ropes with your brake hand.”

Gallo glanced toward the stern, unsympathetic visage of her savior, Vigor Rohn, and then she did as instructed. When she had the lines gripped in her right fist, locked in place against the small of her back, Rohn simply let go and resumed his own descent.

She felt no gratitude toward him, nor did she sense that he expected any. She was still a prisoner, still a hostage who, for the moment at least, was more useful alive.

After her recapture, and a brief interval to allow for Kenner’s recovery, Rohn had given her and Dourado a quick course in rappelling techniques. She had no choice but to go along with them now. Dourado’s noble attempt to liberate her had given Rohn and Kenner the leverage to compel her cooperation. Rohn did not even need to make the threat explicit; if she resisted, Dourado would suffer. Yet, despite the dire situation, Gallo felt a glimmer of optimism.

Although she had not been allowed to speak to Dourado, Gallo assumed that the young woman had snuck aboard the helicopter during the transfer at Belem—Dourado’s hometown. Clearly, stowing away had been an impulsive decision, but the fact that Dourado had been able to track the movements of the Cerberus group to her own hometown meant that Pierce was looking for her, and might already know where she was.

It was a slim hope, but reason enough to hang on, both figuratively and literally.

Below her, Rohn had finished his descent. She could hear him growling at his men. “What were you shooting at?”

She took a breath to gather her wits. Then she relaxed her brake hand and resumed her cautious rappel down the wall. When she finally reached the bottom, she sagged against the wall in exhaustion.

The sheer cliff wall disappeared into a mound of rubble. Chunks of limestone, some larger than passenger cars, had crumbled from the top of the sinkhole and accumulated into a gentle slope, or more accurately, a beach that disappeared into a vast body of water. Gallo could see trees in the distance, suggesting a shallow wetland rather than a lake.

The Cerberus men had gathered near the water’s edge, sweeping their lights through the darkness in every direction, aiming with their pistols. Rohn stood next to one of them, gazing down at a large glistening gray-green shape.

“You shot a frog?” There was a hint of disgust in Rohn’s voice.

“It was attacking,” the man protested. “Look at it.”

“Attacking? It’s a frog.”

Gallo craned her head around for a better look at the fallen creature. From a distance, she could not make out any details, but even a glimpse was enough to reveal why the Cerberus goon had reacted so violently. The frog, or whatever it was, was huge. If not for the slick skin, she would have assumed that it was a small alligator.

The corpse suddenly came alive in a flurry of movement. Rohn leapt back, narrowly avoiding the swipe of a long black tentacle.

It’s a tail
, Gallo thought.

The other man was not quite fast enough. The creature’s tail knocked his feet out from under him, and he crashed onto the shore in a heap. There was a sharp hissing noise, like a forceful exhalation, and then the beast splashed back into the water and vanished.

Rohn spat a disgusted oath at the unlucky man. “You can’t even kill a frog? Let’s hope we don’t face anything more dangerous than that.”

The fallen man raised a hand, as if reaching out for assistance, then his fingers curled into a claw. He collapsed back in the throes of a seizure. Rohn’s eyes widened in alarm, and he retreated several steps.

Kenner hastened forward but stopped at Rohn’s side. “Good god. What was that?”

The stricken man’s back arched, his limbs going rigid, and then his struggles ceased. He let out a tortured rasping breath, but did not draw another. Gallo pressed tighter against the rock face. She looked over at Dourado, who was similarly paralyzed by the horror they had just witnessed.

“Poison,” Rohn muttered, then turned away as if he had lost interest. He addressed the rest of the group. “Prepare the rafts.”

Kenner continued to stare at the dead man. “Some species of toad secrete deadly neurotoxins. But that was something else. A giant salamander, perhaps.”

He rounded on Gallo. “Salamanders can regrow lost limbs. An amphibious creature with extraordinary regenerative abilities and poisonous breath. Does that sound familiar to you, Augustina?”

Unfortunately, it did. Kenner had just described the Lernean Hydra. “A man just died, Liam.”

“That creature tells me the source of the mutagen is here. The Amazons must have been protecting it.” Kenner balled his fists. “We’re close. I can feel it.”

Gallo felt it, too. The Cerberus group, it seemed, was now the least of her worries.

36

Pierce stared toward the distant glow for nearly a full minute. No more shots were fired, but he was now acutely aware that the strange world at the bottom of the sinkhole was anything but silent. The air was filled with the noise of insects and a creaking sound that he hoped was just tree boughs rubbing together.

Lazarus finally broke the spell. He unzipped his thermal coveralls, revealing the tactical body-armor vest underneath, which was festooned with pouches for extra ammunition magazines, grenades and a variety of combat equipment. He discarded the jumpsuit into the water.

Carter gave Pierce what he took to be an encouraging nod. “It could mean anything,” she said. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

Pierce was not reassured, but staying where he was would not ease his concerns—or confirm his worst fears. He peeled off his wet jumpsuit and turned to Lazarus. “Oversized ex-Special Ops first. Lead the way, big guy.” Lazarus stepped into the swamp, followed by Carter and Pierce.

Pierce tried to picture the area as he had seen it during the last few seconds of the descent. He had noticed dozens of isolated stands of trees scattered across the submerged floor of the sinkhole. Getting around them would mean taking a circuitous, time consuming path, but less so than trying to blaze a trail through the densely clustered boughs. Lazarus kept close to the trees, venturing out across open water only when it was necessary to hopscotch to the next wooded patch.

As they progressed, Pierce realized that the sky was growing lighter. Dawn was approaching. Although the depths of the sinkhole would remain in shadow for most of the day, Lazarus called for a break and told them to remove their night vision goggles, not because it was bright enough to see, but because even that small amount of ambient light would overwhelm the extremely sensitive receptors in the PVS7s.

Pierce was stunned by the abrupt transition to near total darkness. “All I can see is a big red blob. Is that normal?”

“You’ve been staring into a green light for the last few hours,” Lazarus said. “Just give it a few minutes.”

Pierce stood motionless, eyes closed, trying to remember how the world had looked just before the lights went out. All he could see in his mind’s eye were trees and water. As Lazarus had promised, Pierce’s vision cleared by degrees, and soon he was able to make out the treetops and a few other details.

“Those trees look like bald cypress,” he said. “We had them in swamps near where I grew up. I wonder how they got here.”

“How does anything get anywhere,” Carter answered in an even voice. “Seeds get scattered. The wind can do some pretty crazy things. Animals transport seeds over long distances. I seem to recall that cypresses are one of the oldest extant tree families, dating back to the time of the Pangaea super-continent. There could have been cypress trees on the Roraima plateau long before it collapsed into its present state. It’s also possible that this ecosystem may not be as closed as we thought.”

“What do you mean?” Lazarus asked.

“For these trees to grow like they have,” Carter said, “the water level would have to remain fairly constant. The only way that could happen is if we’re below the water table and there’s a way for water to flow in and out.”

“Like an underground river,” Pierce said.

“Could someone have planted them?” Lazarus asked after a moment.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Pierce said, “though I can’t imagine anyone going to the trouble to plant them here.”

Lazarus made a low humming sound as if considering Pierce’s answer, then said, “Maybe it was the same people who built that.”

He stretched his arm out, pointing toward a dark shape that lay more or less in the same direction they were traveling. In the gloom, it looked no different than any of the other wooded clumps they had encountered, but as Pierce continued to stare at it, he realized that it was very different.

“What the...” Pierce started forward, slowly realizing that the land in front of him wasn’t a stand of cypress trees sprouting from the marsh, but solid ground, rising more than six feet above the water, stretching away in either direction like a jetty. Protruding above it were large blocky shapes with vertical lines too perfect to be anything but the work of human hands.

Buildings.

Lazarus laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Oversized ex-Special Ops go first, remember? We don’t know what we’ll find in there. Or who.”

“You don’t actually think anyone still lives there,” Carter said.

Pierce was tempted to don his night vision goggles once more. A quick glance at the city might answer a lot of questions, but he decided to hold off a little longer. He turned to Lazarus. “This is what Kenner is looking for. I’m sure of it. We need to get there first, and set a trap.”

The big man nodded slowly. “Stay close.” He glanced back at Carter. “You, too.”

As they got closer, Pierce saw that it was not a solid land mass at all, but a jumble of irregular stones of varying sizes, heaped up to form an artificial island. “This was debris from the collapse,” he whispered. “They must have piled it up to form the city’s foundation.”

“But who are
they
?” Carter asked.

“We’ll find out when we get there,” Pierce said. He had a theory about what they’d find, but he wasn’t ready to share it.

When they reached the base of the elevated mound, Lazarus signaled them to halt with an upraised hand. He pulled himself up onto the rocks, staying low in a prone firing position. He surveyed the city for nearly a full minute, and then waved them ahead. Pierce scrambled up the rocks despite the cumbersome combat gear he wore. Crouching beside Lazarus, he looked out over the ruins.

That it was deserted and forgotten was obvious from the crumbling walls and the growth of vegetation. The stone surfaces were covered in moss, and trees rose up from some of the buildings. No one had lived here in a long time, and yet the architecture was too sophisticated to be the work of the hunter-gatherer cultures that had made the Amazon Basin their home. It was much more reminiscent of the structures he had seen in the excavation in Heraklion, a fact which reinforced his suspicions about the city’s original builders.

“I think we beat them here,” Pierce said, keeping his voice low.

“I didn’t see any lights through the NODs,” Lazarus said. “But it’s an unsecured environment. Stay on your toes.”

Pierce nodded. “Right behind you.”

Lazarus rose slowly, first to his knees, then to his full height.

There was a flurry of movement from atop one of the buildings, and then something shot toward them like a guided missile. Lazarus barely had time to raise his gun toward the source of the strange projectile before it struck him squarely in the chest with a sickening crunch. The object was about the size of a football but amorphous, like a cloth sack filled with stones. It rebounded away and landed on the rocky ground with a wet splat. The force of the impact knocked Lazarus back a step, and then he toppled backward, off the island’s edge.

Carter cried out, more in surprise than terror, but Pierce couldn’t tell if she was reacting to the attack on Lazarus, or warning him. Two more shapes, barely visible in the twilight, rose up from the nearest rooftop, and then swooped toward Carter and Pierce.

He had been wrong about the place being uninhabited. Although it had been abandoned by its original builders long ago, something still lived in the city. Something deadly.