Flashpoint

  At last they reached Rith Map, which translated to “strong and fat,” apparently desirable qualities in a crocodile. The tourists certainly seemed to think so — the place was packed, and Hamilton and Jonah had to stand in line for nearly an hour outside the ramshackle hut that served as Rith Map’s box office.

  “Keep a low profile,” Hamilton muttered to his cousin, who was hidden behind sunglasses beneath the brim of his Dodgers cap. “This place is full of Western tourists. If you get recognized, they’ll tear you to pieces faster than the crocodiles ever could.”

  “Word,” Jonah acknowledged, pulling the hat down lower over his famous features.

  Finally, they bought their tickets and made it onto the property. The “farm” was a series of muddy pits and swampy ponds, filled with crocodiles of all sizes, ranging from animals a few feet long to several monsters that might have measured almost twenty, including their massive muscular tails.

  “Hard to believe I sicced one of these monsters on Amy and Dan in Egypt,” Jonah commented, surveying the expanse of powerful jaws and sharp teeth. “You know, back when we were all at each other’s throats, looking for the clues. What a difference a couple of years makes.”

  “The Tomas used to offer alligator wrestling at summer camp,” Hamilton told him. “I never signed up, though. Dodgeball was my game. Three-time champion.”

  A crowded terrace overlooked the property, but the more intrepid visitors were able to go down a rickety staircase to a path that wound among the habitats via a series of footbridges. As Jonah and Hamilton started down, attendants in khakis appeared on the bridges. An announcement was made in Khmer, followed by the English translation:

  “Feeding time!”

  The attendants began to toss fish and raw meat into the pens. The response from the crocs was colossal. Normally slow and ponderous, they darted after the food, churning the water into a spray and fighting one another for every morsel. The cacophony of snapping jaws, colliding bodies, and splashing water was like a kindergarten rhythm band, blood-sport edition. Three feet in front of Hamilton and Jonah, a ham hock, bone in, disappeared down a massive gullet like it was a bonbon.

  It ended as suddenly as it had begun. With almost a single mind, the crocs seemed to decide that there was no more lunch coming, so why bother expending energy trying to kill each other to get to it? They settled back into their languid poses in and around the water, and it was as if the frenzy had never taken place. Of all the hundreds of pounds of food that had been thrown into the enclosures, not a scrap remained.

  With effort, Jonah tore his attention from the spectacle they had just witnessed to the purpose of their visit to Rith Map. “That was some tight smorgasbord,” he said with respect. “But I got to say I saw a lot of chow go down the hatch — fish, meat, small animals, and birds. The one thing I didn’t see —”

  “Snakes,” Hamilton finished in a somber tone. “And they’re supposed to be the number one croc food.” He approached the nearest attendant. “Nice show, buddy. Hamilton Holt from the United States. Do you speak English?”

  The man nodded. “Also French, German, Japanese, little Italian. People come to Angkor from everywhere.”

  “Word,” Jonah acknowledged. “Slamming snappers, yo.”

  The attendant looked blank. “That language I not know.”

  “I heard that the best food for these guys is the Tonle Sap water snake,” Hamilton went on. “How come you didn’t feed them any of that?”

  “Not enough snakes anymore,” the man replied seriously. “Crocs need much food. You see this.”

  “Come on, the snakes can’t be that rare,” Hamilton coaxed. “We’re ready to pay good money for one. US dollars. Name your price.”

  The man was outraged. “Not allowed. Snake protected by government!”

  Jonah’s sharp eyes had been watching the smaller satellite pond to their left. Something was swimming down there, its long, thin body moving in an undulating wave as it kept its distance from the crocodiles. “Yo, there’s a snake. Isn’t that the right kind?”

  “You may not touch! Threatened species!”

  “We’re not going to whack him,” Jonah wheedled. “We just need some venom! We’ll let him go!”

  “You must ask permission!” insisted the attendant.

  “No time!” roared Hamilton. In an instant, he vaulted over the rail and landed with a titanic splash in the satellite pond.

  The sight of him in the aquatic habitat of carnivorous reptiles was enough to shatter even Jonah’s legendary cool. “Yo!” he shouted. “What’s up with you, man?”

  But Hamilton was already stroking across the muddy water in a textbook freestyle. Oblivious to his pursuit, the little snake continued to flutter around. There was only a handful of crocodiles in the satellite pond, and they barely reacted at all. They watched with lifeless, almost bored expressions, as if the presence of a big linebacker kicking up a spray like a cabin cruiser was an everyday occurrence.

  Hamilton’s arms worked like the blades of a windmill, drawing him ever closer to the source of the final ingredient. Then, with his reaching hand just a few inches shy of its quarry, a large mouth broke the surface, yawned open around the snake, and snapped shut.

  Fearless, Hamilton grasped the long, dangerous snout and tried to pry it open. “Don’t even think about swallowing, you walking suitcase!”

  The struggle was on. Hamilton pulled with all the strength of his ancestors, but he could not budge those massive jaws. “Come on, cough it up!”

  He paid no attention to the screams coming from the spectators, the loudest of these from his own cousin: “Get out of there, you dumb Tomas, before you get your buzz cut bitten off!”

  Hamilton did not see what Jonah and the other visitors did — that three more crocs were converging on the site of the disturbance, skimming silently across the water.

  Without another thought — because if he’d had a thought, he never would have done it — Jonah leaped over the side and into the habitat. As he broke the surface, his glasses fell off and his hat went sailing through the air, only to be snapped up by an enormous set of jaws.

  The shrieks grew even louder.

  “It’s Jonah Wizard!”

  “He’s trying to rescue that big guy!”

  “Save Jonah Wizard!”

  At that moment, the trained staff of the farm stampeded into the pond, wielding long wooden sticks to keep the crocodiles at bay.

  “Out of water!” commanded the English-speaking attendant.

  “Not without my snake!” Hamilton replied in a strained voice.

  “It’s not your snake!” Jonah indicated the struggling croc in Hamilton’s grip. “It’s his snake now! Give it up, and let’s bounce!”

  “Fine,” Hamilton agreed sulkily. “So how do you let go?”

  “How should I know?” Jonah was close to hysterical. “You’re the one who went to Tomas camp!”

  “I told you — I took dodgeball!”

  Another attendant came over and cinched a cord around the crocodile’s long snout.

  “Out of water,” repeated the English-speaking man. “Leave Rith Map. Never return.”

  Jonah was mobbed by fans as the two climbed onto the footbridge. Cameras and phones flashed.

  “Thanks,” Jonah greeted his public. “ ’Preciate the love.” He gave a slight wave, swayed once, and passed out cold into Hamilton’s arms.

  Chapter 9

  “The interior is decorated by more than one thousand, eight hundred apsaras — celestial nymphs,” announced the tour guide. “According to myth, they were born from the Churning of the Ocean of Milk.”

  Most Londoners believed their city was the greatest cultural capital of the world. But even Ian had to admit there was nothing in London the size and scale of Angkor Wat. Who built a room large enough for eighteen hundred bas-relief
statues? True, the original works by Rodin in the sculpture garden of the Kabra mansion were nearly as fine — if not as numerous. That, of course, was Rodin’s failing, not Vikram Kabra’s. If Rodin had created eighteen hundred statues, Ian was sure his father would have spared no expense collecting them all.

  The thought of Vikram Kabra brought out a stab of longing. Father, living in estrangement somewhere in South America; Mother and Natalie gone. When Ian had first met Amy and Dan, he’d called them pathetic orphans. The memory of the cruel jab made his face hot with shame.

  He returned his attention to the magnificence around him. King Suryavarman II, who built this place in the early twelfth century, must have been a bigger-is-better kind of fellow. And if his goal had been to impress people, he’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Too well, Ian thought in annoyance. It was almost impossible to get a steady Wi-Fi signal in this massive stone complex. Their guide already hated Ian for keeping one eye on Pony’s laptop. He had even said, “Your full attention, if you please!” a couple of times.

  Like I’m playing video games, not trying to save the world, Ian thought resentfully.

  And now that the Internet kept dropping out every few minutes, he had to devote even more of his concentration to the computer. The guide was forgetting his speech, and the other tourists were blaming Ian.

  An ugly scene in Angkor Wat certainly wouldn’t help the Cahills’ efforts to keep a low profile.

  But how could he ignore what he was seeing on the screen? According to Pony’s tracking program, the pulsing red dot was very close. On top of him, practically — inside Angkor Wat’s moat!

  I have to get higher up, he decided. And outside.

  To the guide’s immense relief, Ian slipped away from the group in search of a staircase. In ancient times, only the king and the high priest were allowed on the top level, but Wi-Fi hadn’t been a concern in those days. This was a necessity.

  The climb wasn’t easy — forty steps pitched at a steep angle. At the apex, he found himself breathless, and a little bit dizzy. The five immense lotus towers loomed over the entire structure from this level, blocking out the sun. But reception was perfect. The beacon pulsed clear and true, directly below him.

  He rushed to the outer gallery and peered over the side. The view was spectacular — the western causeway crossing the moat, the surrounding landscape, dotted with glistening reservoirs and smaller temples. Ian barely saw any of it. For at the base of the structure far below sat a blond girl, her fingers dancing on the keyboard of a laptop that sat on a stone parapet in front of her. She glanced up for a moment, and even at this distance, Ian was struck by the notion that he should recognize her. . . .

  In the airy tranquility of Angkor Wat’s highest level, the harsh beep from Pony’s computer might as well have been a bomb blast. Startled, Ian looked at the screen. An angry pop-up declared: OUTSIDE ACCESS DENIED. Another beep: OUTSIDE ACCESS DENIED. What was going on? Ian traced his finger on the track pad, but the computer had locked up, stuck in an endless loop of warning sounds and messages. This went on until the machine emitted a softer, more welcoming tone, and a new message appeared: ACCESS GRANTED.

  The frozen monitor came back to life. Ian watched in horror as columns of documents began to disappear. Someone was wiping Pony’s hard drive!

  The greatest hacker in the world had been hacked!

  The familiar blond girl pounding her keyboard. It couldn’t be a coincidence — she was doing this!

  According to Pony, there was only one person whose skills rivaled his own — Pierce’s hacker, April May.

  Ian peered down at her. Could this be the ruthless and mysterious April May? A teenage girl? A hacker could be anybody, anywhere — a ninety-year-old great-grandmother in Vladivostock, a disgruntled troublemaker on an oil rig in the North Sea, even an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.

  Yet the more Ian mulled it over, the more it made perfect sense for April May to be a kid. Pony himself hadn’t been much older than this girl. After all, hacking was a young person’s game. Most older adults had too much trouble with the technology.

  He recalled the computer’s initial alert that the tracking program had picked up a signal: Code A. It had to be! Pony had been tracking his greatest rival, who was working for Pierce! And it also explained why April May had abandoned her secure remote location to travel to Cambodia. She had discovered that her defenses had been penetrated and had gone off in search of the computer that had done the job.

  None of this helps save Pony’s computer, Ian thought in a panic, watching the precious files wink out of existence like glowing embers in the wind.

  He threw the laptop under his arm and ran for the stairs, sidestepping down the steep flight to avoid overbalancing himself and taking a swan dive into the stone floor below. At the second level, he became entangled in his former tour group, and had to shove his way through to the next set of steps.

  “You Americans and your electronic toys!” the guide muttered under his breath.

  Such was Ian’s haste to reach the ultimate hacker that he dared not take the few extra seconds required to point out that he was, in fact, British. He blasted down the longer staircase to ground level, fully expecting her to be gone. But there she was, still at her keyboard, looking relaxed and comfortable, as if she hadn’t just made mincemeat of the only hacker who had ever been able to stand up to her.

  Ian stopped short, amazed. No wonder she had seemed familiar. He knew her. They had met just weeks ago in Ireland. She’d been a redhead then, but there was no mistaking her heart-shaped face and luminous eyes. She had tricked him that time — totally bamboozled would have been a better way to describe it. He set his jaw. It would not happen again.

  “April May!” he snapped accusingly.

  “Ian Kabra,” she acknowledged. There was no sign of her Irish brogue. The accent was American. “We meet again. You’re kind of cute when you’re mad.”

  “Then I must be one of those kittens on YouTube you Americans are so fond of turning into viral video stars! What are you doing to my computer? And why?”

  “I don’t like people tracking me.”

  “If you’re April May, you know perfectly well it wasn’t me. It was Pony. And he won’t track you anymore because he’s dead. Dropped out of a helicopter. By the people you work for. You must be proud.”

  Ian expected her to laugh in his face. Or at least roll her eyes. So he was surprised when she flinched and looked away. “I don’t work for them. I am them.”

  “If you think you can fool me again —”

  She looked genuinely incredulous. “You don’t recognize me?”

  His initial reaction — as any Lucian’s would be — was suspicion. But a closer inspection of the girl brought about an astonishing revelation. The blond hair, the fair features, the palpable vitality. She was a Pierce!

  How could he have missed it? J. Rutherford Pierce was more famous than Jonah Wizard these days. “Cara Pierce?” he blurted.

  She nodded.

  Ian’s head was spinning. “But why the secret identity? We all know April May works for Pierce. Why keep it a mystery that you’re his daughter?”

  “You don’t get it.” She shook her head. “I’m not hiding the truth from you; I’m hiding it from him. He has no idea that I’m April May!”

  Ian was flabbergasted. “Why would you keep that from your own father?”

  She stared at him for a long moment. When she spoke at last, there was an edge in her voice. “You have no idea what it’s like when you can’t trust your own parent.”

  He was so startled that he retreated a half step. The truth was that Ian knew exactly what it was like. He almost told her so, but this wasn’t the time and place. Those were memories he’d forced into the deepest recesses of his mind but that still kept him awake at night. Ian’s father had literally dropped off the g
rid in an attempt to escape the disgrace of his wife’s legacy. Ian’s sister, Natalie, hadn’t been so lucky. She had died trying to stop their mother.

  “Still,” Ian said aloud, “there’s a big difference between not trusting your father and actively deceiving him.” Growing up as the first son of the Lucian leadership, Ian had been taught that deceit was pointless in the absence of an underlying strategy. “What’s your angle?”

  “Well, first off, the money’s good,” she replied. “A high-end cowboy doesn’t come cheap.”

  “Cowboy,” Ian echoed wanly. Pony used to refer to himself that way.

  “But to be totally honest” — she looked around furtively — “I’m afraid of him. He has plans — terrible plans —”

  “What plans?”

  She blinked, her eyes closing an instant longer than necessary. “All I can say is that the presidency is just the beginning. As his daughter, I’d never be able to stop him. As his hacker, on the other hand —”

  “That still wouldn’t give you the power to shut him down,” Ian insisted.

  “No,” she agreed sadly. “But at least now I can keep an eye on his activities.”

  Ian was skeptical. “And you expect me to believe all that.”

  “I can help you find the antidote,” she ventured suddenly.

  “Why would you want to help us?”

  “Because even though I hate what my father’s trying to do, I still love him. The serum is killing him. It’s probably killing me, too. My dad tries to hide his tremors, but we all know they’re getting worse.”

  Ian knew the debilitating effects of the serum as well as anybody. He had to look no farther than his own mother’s horrible death and Amy’s worsening condition to see Gideon’s creation in action. Still, he offered no reaction that might reveal to Cara that she was beginning to make sense to him. That wasn’t the Lucian way.

  Apparently, she interpreted his silence as skepticism. “You think it’s easy to reach out to people my father considers the enemy? I don’t mean to stab him in the back, but I’m desperate!”