Текст книги "The Judas Strain"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

Seichan scoffed. “He just happened to dream all this up, a match to the ancient script here.”

Vigor nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Remember what I told you before, about how angelic script bears a striking resemblance to Hebrew. Trithemius even claimed his script was the purest distillation of the Hebrew alphabet.”

Seichan shrugged.

“What do you know about Jewish Kabbalah?” Vigor asked.

“Just that it’s some Jewish mystical study.”

“Exactly. Practitioners of Kabbalah search for mystical insight into the divine nature of the universe by studying the Hebrew Bible. They believe that divine wisdom lies buried in the very shapes and curves of the Hebrew alphabet. And that by meditating upon them, one can gain great insight into the universe, into who we are at the most basic level.”

Seichan shook her head. “Are you saying that this Trithemius fellow meditated and came up with this purer form of Hebrew? Stumbled upon a language – this same language—” She patted the wall. “A language that links to some great inner wisdom?”

Gray cleared his throat. “And I think inneris the key word here.” He waved Seichan to step back, to join him. “What do you see? Look at the whole pattern. Does it look familiar to you?”

Seichan stared for a single breath, then snapped, “I don’t know. What am I looking for?”

Gray sighed and stepped to the wall. He ran a finger along one of the cascades. “Look at the way it swirls down in spirals of broken helixes. Picture this section all by itself.”

Seichan squinted. “It looks almost biological.”

Gray nodded. “Follow the strands. Don’t they look like double helixes of DNA? Like a genetic map?”

Seichan remained doubtful. “Written in an angelic language?”

Gray stepped away, his eyes still on the wall. “Maybe. In fact, there was a scientific study that compared patterns in DNA code with patterns found in human languages. According to a Zipf ’s law – a statistical tool – all human languages show a specific pattern of repetitive word usage. Such as the frequency of the word theor a. Or the rarity of other words, like aardvarkor elliptical. When you plot a graph comparing the popularity of words against the frequency of their usage, you get a straight line. And it’s the same whether English, Russian, or Chinese. All human languages produce the same linear pattern.”

“And DNA code?” Vigor asked, intrigued.

“It produced exactlythe same pattern. Even in our junk DNA, which most scientists consider to be biological garbage. The study has been repeated and verified. For some reason, there is a language buried in our genetic code. We don’t know what it says. But—” Gray pointed at the wall. “That may be the written form of the language.”

Vigor ran a hand along the carving, breathless with awe. “It makes you wonder. Could Trithemius have tapped into that language during his meditations?” He straightened as another thought struck him. “And consider ancient Hebrew, how its characters are similar to angelic script. Could early written languages have somehow been derived from this, arising out of some inherent genetic memory? In fact, it makes you wonder if this language isn’t the Word of God, mapping out something greater in all of us.”

Vigor shifted his light, sweeping it to cover the breadth of the vast chamber. “But either way, all of this. All this angelic language. What is it telling us?”

“I think it’s a genetic blueprint,” Gray said.

“But a blueprint to what?” Seichan said.

“Probably a turtle,” Kowalski mumbled.

Vigor snorted at the man’s joke, but both Seichan and Gray reacted with surprise, glancing to the man with matching expressions of incredulity.

“What?” Vigor asked, sensing something important.

Gray stepped closer, dropping his voice. “I think he may be right.”

“I am?” Kowalski asked.

Gray expanded upon his theory of the cavern below. “The turtle’s shell represents the cave. But what about the turtle itself? According to the story, it represents an incarnation of Vishnu, an angelic being.” Gray waved to the wall. “And here is evidence of some strange biological process, some secret knowledge. Beyond merely a viral disease. I think the coding on the walls is some diary of that process. Possibly still incomplete.”

Vigor studied the wall, the blueprint.

Before they could contemplate it further, a commotion arose from above.

They shifted in a group back to the center. It looked as if the demolition team were close to finishing. Their leader had coiled all his charge wires and cinched them into an electronic detonator so they could blow it all from above.

Overhead, Vigor spotted a woman climbing down the ladder. It was difficult to discern her features through the glare of the sunlit shaft.

Still, Gray recognized her, stepping forward. “Lisa…?”

Farther above, near the lip to the shaft, Nasser appeared, accompanied by a frantic, half-naked woman. She fought forward, as if to throw herself into the pit, but she was restrained by the barrels of four rifles, kept at bay.

Vigor gaped up at her.

Dear God…

She glowed.

Her skin shone out from the shadows.

Impossible.

“Cover the eyes!” she screamed below, pointing an arm down into the pit. “Cover the eyes!”

Vigor could not comprehend what she was talking about.

Gray did. The commander swept from Vigor’s side, dragged up a tarp used by the demolition team, and tossed it over the sculpture’s eyes like a blindfold, cutting the flow of sunlight to the cavern below.

Up top, the woman collapsed as if the strings suspending her had been cut. She dropped to a slab of the broken altar.

Nasser frowned back at her.

Lisa stepped from the ladder and joined them. Her gaze remained above, but her words were for them all. “I’m sorry.”

11:05 A.M.

Ten minutes later, Gray watched the last of Nasser’s men mount the ladder and climb up. Above, a ring of rifles pointed down at their group. The last satchel of demolition equipment vanished over the lip, hauled up on one of the two ropes. The other rope still dangled, taunting.

“Why are they leaving us down here?” Lisa asked.

Gray eyed the rigged sandstone face. “I think we’ve just become obsolete,” he mumbled.

Lisa remained quiet, then mumbled an apology. “I had no choice.”

She’d already explained her sudden, unexpected appearance. A desperate act, born out of the necessity for a cure. The attempt had to be risked…even if it meant delivering the cure into the hands of the Guild.

“And Monk,” Lisa said with a choke. “He gave his life…for this.”

“No.” Gray put an arm around Lisa’s shoulders. He couldn’t even acknowledge that reality. Not yet. “No. Monk got you all here. And as long as we’re alive, there’s still hope.”

Nasser returned to the edge of the pit. “We’re just about finished here,” he announced, not so much gloating as simply stating a matter of fact. With all the cards in his hand, he kept his tone cold and civil. “Monsignor, you mentioned earlier how the scientific trail and historical trail merged at these ruins. It appears you were most astute. Here we have the two halves of Sigma joined.” He waved below – then turned to Susan, who still sat in a stupefied slump, head hanging to her chest. “And it seems the Guild’s efforts have also joined. The survivor from the scientific trail here…and the source of the Judas Strain below.”

Gray slipped his arm from Lisa and stepped forward. “You may still need our help!” he called up, knowing it was a wasted breath.

“I’m sure we’ll manage. The Guild has abundant resources to fit these last pieces together. We’ve managed to reach this point, starting with only a few words in an ancient text. A text, I understand, that came into our possession because of your actions, Commander.”

Gray’s fist tightened. He should have burned the Dragon Court’s library when he’d had the chance.

“Of course, it was the Guild’s efforts afterward – through the employment of marine archaeologists and satellite imagery – that uncovered one of Marco’s sunken ships off the coast of Sumatra.”

It took Gray a moment to realize what Nasser was implying. “You found one of Polo’s ships?”

“And we were lucky. One of the keel beams, encased in insulating clay, still contained biological activity. But we couldn’t understand its full capacity without an in vitro trial, a real-world scenario.”

Gray felt his blood go cold. If Nasser was telling the truth, the outbreak at Christmas Island hadn’t been a matter of chance exposure. “You…you purposely contaminated Christmas Island.”

He glanced to Seichan for confirmation.

She would not meet his eyes.

Nasser continued. “From the study of sea currents and tidal patterns, it required just planting the beam off the coast and observing what happened. In fact, we were monitoring and collecting samples when our patient here stumbled onto the scene. She and her party. The first human subjects. Of course, the currents eventually carried the tide to the island. As planned. A perfect localized and contained scenario.”

Lisa mumbled, “Then with the cruise ship, the Guild saw the opportunity to reap what they’d sown.”

Gray sank back.

Seichan mumbled behind him. “Now you know why I had to stop them.”

Gray glanced to her.

But she had failed…they’d all failed.

11:11 A.M.

Susan drifted in a haze, as if in a waking dream.

Fire danced across her brain.

Since baring herself to the raw sunlight, she had passed beyond an edge. She felt it inside her skull. She was no longer fully herself – or maybe more herself than ever before.

She had become unmoored as a lifetime of memories rebuilt inside her. Her past swelled up out of recesses long thought lost and inaccessible. They knit together, one day to another, one hour to the next, blending into a seamless whole. Her past came alive again, not just bits and pieces, but the full spread and panorama of it all.

And she could remember it all as a single moment: from the crush of her skull as she was squeezed out of her mother’s womb…to the beat of her heart now. She sensed the traces of air over her naked skin, every current, scribed into memory, indelible, adding to the whole.

It was all held in a suspended, shimmering bubble.

And beyond that thin surface…more.

But she wasn’t ready to venture there.

She knew there were steps still to be taken.

Below.

With the fiery eyes closed, the panic inside her subsided to a dull glow.

Floating between past and present, adding moments with every breath, new words slowly dropped into the pool that was her life, overheard from a step away.

…it required just planting the beam off the coast and observing what happened…when our patient here stumbled onto the scene. She and her party. The first human subjects…

NO.

The single note rang through her.

With her life held in that endless moment between one breath and the next, she was again underwater, weightless. She saw the finger of age-blackened wood protruding from the sand. Her thoughts from then returned, as if she were still in those waters. At the time, she had supposed earthquakes had shaken the keel beam free, or perhaps the recent tsunami had stripped away the sand, exposing it.

Now she knew the truth.

The beam had been planted there.

Purposefully.

To kill.

She remembered how excited she had been to tell her husband, who loved diving wrecks. Just the memory of him filled her senses.

Gregg.

Now she knew the truth.

Why he had died.

And the truth was fire.

11:12 A.M.

Lisa leaned against Gray, his arm over her shoulders. She stared up at the rifles. Nasser was saying something, but she didn’t hear, lost in her own guilt.

Gray suddenly flinched.

Though she hadn’t moved, she snapped back to the moment.

At the rim of the well, Susan’s head slowly lifted, her blond hair parting from a face lost in fury. The guards’ attentions remained focused on Nasser. Past Nasser’s shoulder, Lisa watched the soft glow of Susan’s skin flush fiercer.

Her eyes burned with an inner fire.

Nasser must have sensed something and had begun to turn.

Lisa did not see Susan move.

One moment the woman was seated on the crumbled bit of altar – the next she was latched around Nasser, hugging tight to him, cheek to cheek in an intimate embrace.

He screamed – a wail that tore from his throat.

Smoke curled between them.

One of the guards reacted, clubbing Susan from behind.

She dropped loose, head lolling.

Still screaming, Nasser shoved her away.

Over the edge of the pit.

“Susan!” Lisa called up.

She tumbled in a tangle with one of the loading ropes used by the demolition team. A hand snatched out, instinctively catching herself. But she had no strength. She slid down the rope, too fast. The caustic acid of her skin flared in the shaft’s direct sunlight, triggering some chemical reaction in the synthetic rope. It smoked and melted as she slid along it. Susan twirled as she plummeted, almost in free fall.

No one dared catch her.

Gray swung to the side and dragged the cloth tarp from the stone face. He whipped one end to Kowalski. His partner understood.

Overhead, the rope snapped, burned through where Susan had grabbed.

She dropped in a limp, boneless fall.

Unconscious.

Gray and his partner caught her, but her weight still ripped the tarp from their hands and she struck the floor hard. Using the tarp, Gray swung her out of direct sight, only her legs visible from above. He dropped beside her.

Nasser screamed down to them. On hands and knees. His cheek still smoked, flesh blackened. His bare arms looked like seared steak, weeping and bleeding. “I want that bitch!”

Gray stumbled back into view. “Neck’s broken! She’s dead!”

A war of emotions played across Nasser’s face. It settled on a near-mindless rage. “Then you’ll all burn!” He rolled back. “Blow it all up!”

Gray waved to everyone. “Back…out of sight.”

Lisa obeyed, stumbling from the light and into the shadows.

A few bullets sparked, chasing them.

Lisa stared toward the rigged explosives. The electronic detonator was beyond their reach, out in the open. They would be shot if they dared approach.

Gray dragged the tarp, hauling Susan’s limp form. “Behind the foundation pillars! They may offer some protection. Crouch low, find anything to cover your head and face!”

They scattered.

Four pillars, six of them.

Gray took Susan with him.

Lisa found herself huddled with the monsignor behind one of the sandstone pillars. He pulled her down, shielding her with his body.

Lisa placed her palm on the pillar. It was three feet across. She had no idea of the strength of the blast to come. She turned to Vigor.

“Father, will this protect us?”

Vigor stared down at her face and didn’t answer.

For once Lisa wished a priest would lie to her.

18
The Gateway to Hell

JULY 7, 11:17 A.M.

Angkor Thom, Cambodia

Gray cradled Susan, keeping her wrapped in the tarp.

She moaned and stirred. She had taken a good crack to the head when she struck the ground, but Gray had lied to Nasser about her neck being broken. The bastard, in his agony, had not questioned it, maybe had even hoped for it.

Gray had hoped to use the woman’s body as a bargaining chip.

But that was not going well.

Up above, Nasser shouted, maddened by the pain. From the look of his blackened skin, he had sustained third-degree burns across large swaths of his body. And now he wanted them to suffer in kind. An eye for an eye. But apparently the demolition team hadn’t been prepared for such a sudden order. They were scrambling, giving Gray’s party a minute or so of a reprieve.

Taking advantage of it, Gray shifted Susan’s weight, seeking to better protect her behind the pillar. If she was the potential cure, she had to be preserved. He tugged the tarp more thoroughly over her head. It parted briefly, revealing the soft glow of her naked skin beneath. Away from the bright sunlight, the sheen to her skin had begun to dim. He paused for a beat, amazed at the strangeness. As he drew the drape closed again, he noted the wall ahead of him.

The scrollwork of angelic script shone with an exceptional brilliance, fluorescing under the weak glow. The light emanating from the cyanobacteria in her skin must shed wavelengths in the ultraviolet range, igniting a fluorescent compound etched into the carvings.

It reminded Gray of the Egyptian obelisk, glowing with angelic script, a miniature and rudimentary version of this display. Had Johannes Trithemius had deeper revelations during his meditations? A vision of all this?

Gray opened the tarp wider, casting a broader beam of her glow. More of the script ignited, swirling off through the darkness in either direction, as if he had set flame to oil.

Gray sat higher. He noted a spot of darkness off to the far left, barely discernible, at the edge of the glow’s reach, a dark rock in the shining stream of glowing script. The angularity of it caught his eye.

Could that be…

He turned Susan in his arms, letting more of the tarp fall away, keeping enough between the woman’s skin and his own. The glow was still not strong enough to reach that far. He had to move Susan closer. He struggled with her weight, tangling the tarp, sensing the seconds ticking away.

He needed help.

“Kowalski! Where are you?”

A voice answered out from the pillar to his right. “I’m hiding! Like you said to!”

Gray hauled up. “I need you over here!”

“What about the bomb?”

“Forget about the bomb. Get your ass over here!”

Kowalski swore sharply, then headed over, grumbling under his breath. “Why is it always a goddamn bomb…”

The large man ran up to him, practically sliding behind the pillar, like he was stealing from third to home.

Gray motioned with his chin to the left. “Help me move Susan down that way.”

Kowalski sighed heavily. Using the tarp like a stretcher, they slung her form between them and rushed off along the wall. As they hurried, the curve of script ignited along with them, brightening as they neared, fading again after they passed.

Seichan had been hiding behind the next pillar. She crossed toward them, drawn by the brilliant display and their frantic actions. “What are you – oh my God!”

Gray lowered Susan to the floor, keeping her uncovered, basking her glow on the wall, setting fire to the script. All except for a recognizable patch of darkness.

“Vigor!” Gray called out.

“I’m coming!” he answered. Plainly the monsignor had seen the sight all the way across the chamber. Gray heard the double tramp of steps as Lisa trailed Vigor.

They all stood before the wall, gaping at the sight.

Not at what was glowing – but what wasn’t.

“Friar Agreer,” Vigor said. “He must have left this marker, by washing down the wall. Cleaned the patch here as a sign.”

“A sign of what?” Seichan asked.

“A clue to a hidden doorway,” Gray said. “There must be another way down to the cavern.”

“But what does the clue mean?” Vigor asked.

Gray shook his head, knowing they were running out of time. If they didn’t find the door, get Susan somewhere safe and away from the Guild, it wasn’t just their lives. According to Lisa, a pandemic was already spreading.

Nasser called down to them. “Say your last prayers!”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Kowalski blurted out, though it wasn’t meant as a prayer. He knocked Gray and Vigor aside, crossed to the wall, and shoved hard in the center of the cross.

The stone door swiveled on a central pivot, revealing a passage beyond.

Kowalski turned. “It’s not always rocket science, guys. Sometimes a door is just a door.”

They piled through the exit. Gray and Kowalski again slung Susan between them. Once through, Seichan and Lisa shouldered the door back closed behind them.

Ahead, a stairway led down, cut out of the limestone bedrock.

No one doubted where it led.

As they started down, a muffled explosion echoed to them, a single boom of thunder. Gray sent a silent prayer of thanks to Friar Agreer.

He had saved Marco in the past.

And now he had saved all their lives.

Though relieved, Gray could still not escape a horrible dread. While he might be free, his parents were not. When Nasser found his prisoners gone, Gray knew who would be made to suffer for it.

12:18 A.M.

Seated on the warehouse rooftop, Harriet drowsed in her husband’s arms. It was a warm evening. Overhead, the moon moved imperceptibly across the night sky. Despite the terror, exhaustion had taken its toll. For the first hour, she had listened to the ebb and flow of shouts and barks. Then she stopped caring. Time stretched, long enough that Harriet was startled to find herself dozing when the first shout rose from the other side of the roof.

“They’re here,” Jack said, sounding almost relieved.

He shifted and motioned for Harriet to retreat inside the hollowed out HVAC unit behind them. There was barely room for two. Once Harriet was inside, she held out her hand toward her husband.

Instead, he collected the door grate from the tar paper.

“Jack?” she whispered out to him.

He lifted the grate between them, pushing it in place.

“No…” she moaned.

His lips were at the grate’s slats as he snugged it closed over her. “Please, Harriet, let me do this. I can lead them away. Buy you more time. Give me at least this.”

Their eyes met through the thin slats.

She understood. For too long, Jack had believed himself only half a man. He didn’t intend to die that way. But to Harriet, Jack had never been half a man.

Still, she could not take this from him.

It was her last gift to him.

She reached her fingers through the slats, tears streaming. His fingers touched hers, thanking her, loving her.

Shouts drew closer.

They had no more time.

Jack turned and half crawled over to the roof ’s raised wall, his pistol clutched in a fist. When he reached the wall, he used its support to hobble away to the left.

Harriet tried to follow where he went, but he was soon out of sight.

She covered her face.

A sharp cry of discovery rose in that direction. She heard the retort of a pistol blast, coming from closer to the left.

Jack.

Harriet counted his shots, knowing he only had the three rounds left in his gun.

Return fire strafed her husband’s position, pinging off metal. Jack must have found some cover. Another shot blasted from his spot.

One bullet left.

In the ringing lull of the brief firefight, Jack called out. “You’ll never find my wife. I hid her beyond your goddamn reach.”

A voice barked back, only steps behind Harriet’s hiding spot, startling her.

Annishen.

“If the dogs don’t find her,” the woman called back to Jack, “I’ll make sure your screams draw her out.”

Annishen’s legs stepped into view beyond the grate. The woman whispered into a radio, ordering her men to sweep wide and pin Jack down.

Then the woman stiffened, turning slightly.

Another noise intruded.

It sounded like the rush of a strong wind.

Across the roof, a black helicopter shot into view from below, angular, waspish in shape. Plainly military. A ripping chatter of automatic fire chewed across the roof. Men screamed. Feet pounded. One man ran past and had his legs cut out from under him, sprawling face-first.

Sirens erupted from the dark streets leading toward the warehouse.

A bellow of a megaphone from the helicopter ordered weapons to be dropped.

Annishen lowered into a crouch beside the HVAC grate, preparing for the short dash to the nearby roof exit. Harriet instinctively crouched away from her; her elbow bumped the unit’s side with a hollow thud.

Annishen flinched – then cocked her head, peering inside. “Ah, Mrs. Pierce.” She shifted, poking her pistol through the grate, in point-blank range. “Time to say good—”

The gunshot jolted through Harriet.

Annishen’s body crashed against the grate, then sank to the tar paper.

Harriet caught a glimpse of a blasted eye socket.

As the woman collapsed, Jack hopped into view. He tossed aside his smoking pistol.

His last shot.

Harriet shoved the grate open. She scrambled over Annishen’s legs, across the roof, and back into Jack’s arms, sobbing. The two of them sank in a grateful huddle on the tar paper.

“Don’t ever leave me again, Jack.”

He hugged her tight. “Never,” he promised.

Men in military uniforms dropped to the roof from the helicopter on snaking lines. Harriet and Jack were guarded as the roof was cleared. Sirens pulled up below. More gunshots and cries rose from the warehouse.

A figure stepped over to them, strapped in rappelling gear. He dropped to a knee.

Harriet glanced up, surprised to find the familiar face. “Director Crowe?”

“When will you start calling me Painter, Mrs. Pierce?” he asked.

“How did you find—?”

“It seems someone made quite a commotion on the street outside the butcher shop,” he explained with a tired smile. “Vigorous enough to be remembered.”

Harriet squeezed her husband’s hand, thanking him for his earlier acting.

Painter continued. “We’ve been canvassing the street since this morning, and then forty-five minutes ago, one of the patrolling officers discovered a nice gentleman with a shopping cart. He recognized your picture and had been suspicious enough – or maybe paranoid enough – that he wrote down the van’s license number, along with make and model. It didn’t take long to track the van’s GPS. I’m sorry we couldn’t get here sooner.”

Jack wiped at one eye, keeping his face turned away so no one could see his tears. “Your timing couldn’t be better. I owe you a big bottle of that fancy single-malt whiskey you like.”

Harriet hugged her husband. Jack might have trouble remembering people’s names, but he never forgot what they liked to drink.

Painter stood up. “I’ll take you up on that sometime, but right now I have an important call to make.” He turned away and mumbled under his breath, but Harriet heard him.

“That is, if I’m not already too late.”

11:22 A.M.

Lisa stumbled down the dark stairs, following the monsignor. She had to stay ducked low, running a hand along the damp wall. The air smelled of mulch, like decaying leaves in a wet forest. It was not unpleasant, except for a slight burn to the nostrils.

Ahead, a weak light drew them onward, flowing up from below.

Their goal.

The stairs finally ended, dumping them out into a wide cavern. Their footsteps echoed. Overhead, the dome of the cavern arched up five stories, dripping with a few blunt stalactites. The space was ovoid in shape, seventy yards across at the widest point. Where they entered, the roof spread up into a natural flowstone archway. A matching arch could be discerned across the cavern.

“It does look like a turtle shell,” Vigor mumbled, his voice echoing hollowly. “Even the way it flares here and across the way. Like the front and back end of a turtle shell.”

Kowalski grumbled, hauling Susan inside with Gray’s help. “So which is it? Are we’re climbing down the turtle’s throat or up his ass?” But as he straightened, the large man whistled softly between his teeth.

Lisa understood his reaction.

Ahead, a circular lake of black water rested as still as a mirror, edged around by a stone rim. From the roof above, two straight beams of sunlight shot down and struck the center of the water, coming through the eyes of the stone idol above.

But where the sunlight struck the black water, a milky pool spilled outward, glowing, as if the sun had turned to liquid and poured down from above.

The milky glow shimmered and streamed, ebbing and flowing.

Looking alive.

Which it was.

“The sunlight is energizing the cyanobacteria in the water,” Lisa said.

A few trickles from the idol’s eyes struck the pool, hissing slightly. Where they splashed, the milky glow darkened.

“Acid,” Gray said, reminding everyone of the danger above. “From the bomb. It’s dripping through the eyes. I don’t know how long it will take to neutralize the vault, but at least the stone block is holding for now. Still, they’ll come down with sledges and jackhammers and finish breaking through here soon.”

“So what do we do?” Seichan asked.

Kowalski scoffed. “We get the hell out of here.”

Gray turned to Lisa. “Can you run ahead, check the far archway? See if there is another way out. Like Vigor said, a turtle shell has an opening for the head and one for a tail. It’s our only hope.”

Lisa balked. “Gray, I think I should stay with Susan. My medical background—”

A groan rose from the tarp. An arm lifted weakly.

Lisa stepped to Susan’s side, careful not to touch her. “She’s still the only hope for a cure.”

“I can go,” Seichan volunteered.

Lisa glanced up, noting a flash of suspicion on Gray’s face, as if he didn’t trust the woman.

Still, he nodded. “Find a way out.”

She set off without a word.

The group followed along the stone bank.

Gray studied the space. “This looks like an old sinkhole. Like in Florida, or the cenotes of Mexico. The sandstone block must be plugging the original hole that once stood open.”

Lisa bent near the wall and pinched up a bit of dried matter. It crumbled in her fingers. “Petrified bat guano,” she said, confirming Gray’s assessment. “This cavern must have been open to the air at one time.”

Lisa wiped her fingers and glanced to Susan, beginning to put together what she had already suspected.

Vigor waved an arm to encompass the lake. “The ancient Khmers must have come upon the sinkhole, noted how it glowed, imagined it was the home of some god, and attempted to incorporate it into the temple here.”

“But they didn’t know what they were doing,” Lisa added. “They trespassed where they shouldn’t have. Interfered with a fragile biosystem and released the virus. If mankind pushes, nature sometimes pushes back.”

They continued alongside the lake.

Ahead, a small spit of stone projected into the water, barely discernible in the darkness. Only the encroaching tide of milky water revealed the small peninsula.

Along with something more.

“Are those bones?” Kowalski asked, staring down into the water alongside their path.

The party stopped.

Lisa crossed to the pool’s edge. The soft light penetrated deep into the crystalline water. The stone bank fell away at a gentle angle through the water, then vanished over a steep lip ten yards out.

All across the shallow bottom of the lake, bones lay in mounds and piles: fragile bird skulls, tiny rib cages of monkeys, something with a pair of curled horns, and not far from shore, the massive skull of an elephant, resting like a white boulder below, one ivory tusk broken to a nub. But there was more: broken femurs, longer tibias, larger cages of ribs, and like a scattering of acorns, skull after skull.