“You are stabbing him in the back,” Ian pointed out. “At least, he’ll see it that way.”
“I don’t care,” she returned stoutly. “Not if it’s the only way to save his life — and maybe a lot of other lives, too. I need you guys! We can stop this, but we have to work together.”
Ian’s mind was awhirl, weighing the pros and cons. Attractive as she was, this girl was a Pierce, and therefore not to be believed. She was a notorious hacker who had already duped him in Ireland and — not five minutes ago — had attacked his computer.
On the other hand, Dan was absolutely convinced that Cara had helped him escape from Pierce’s plane on Midway Atoll. That seemed to reinforce an observation Pony had made — that April May’s actions hadn’t always been 100 percent in support of her boss’s goals.
Then again, those things might have been a ruse to make us trust her. . . .
It was a big risk. If they teamed up with Cara, they’d be revealing all the progress they’d made toward the antidote. Yet, now that the enemy had Olivia’s book, most of their head start was gone anyway.
With Pierce’s advantage in manpower and resources, the Cahills didn’t stand a chance. Unless they had a secret weapon — like a double agent inside Pierce’s innermost circle.
Now here was Cara, volunteering to be that secret weapon.
As if sensing that he was coming around to her way of thinking, she sweetened the pot. “Here —” She began to work the keyboard of her own computer. “I’ll restore Pony’s laptop. That was amazing the way he hacked past my defenses. He must have had A-list skills.”
“Must have had,” Ian repeated numbly, noting the past tense. He opened the machine to see the vanished files reappearing at light speed, sorting themselves into long columns on the screen. Cara also had “A-list skills.” And she was offering them to the Cahill cause. . . .
Maybe . . .
Ian wanted so much to believe her. The look in her eyes was achingly familiar.
She’s changing sides. Not next week or someday, but right now, standing in front of me.
Ian well remembered the time he’d been forced to make the same agonizing choice — when he’d realized his mother was irredeemably evil, and he had no option but to throw his lot in with Amy and Dan. He could see that shattered loyalty in Cara, feel her guilt and pain. In that way, the daughter of J. Rutherford Pierce was practically his soul mate.
Still, this call was not Ian’s to make. Lucians no longer had great influence in the Cahill family, and to his surprise, he wasn’t sure that was a bad thing. No, the decision had to come from Amy and Dan. They were in charge.
He turned back to Cara. “We’ll let you know.”
She nodded. “I’ll text you my secure contact info. I have your number.”
That was something Ian knew well. Back in Ireland, she’d put a tracker on his phone. It had almost gotten them all killed.
He smiled.
It took a special girl to make Ian Kabra fear for his life.
Chapter 10
In the stern of the Kaoh Kong, Dan and Atticus had their shirts off and were splashing themselves with river water. It brought no relief from the searing Cambodian heat.
“This is definitely worse than Guatemala,” Dan griped. “I mean, the humidity! It’s like you’re carrying a ton of wet laundry on your shoulders.”
“In actuality —” Atticus began.
Dan cut him off. “Yeah, I get it. It’s impossible to carry a ton of laundry.”
“I was just going to say that even my dreadlocks are sweating,” Atticus explained. “They’re great for Boston winters. Here — not so much.”
“Stop complaining and check the nets again,” ordered Jake from behind the wheel.
“We checked three minutes ago,” his brother whined.
“In those three minutes, we might have caught a snake.”
“Fat chance of that,” Dan mourned. “In the old days, you’d stick your foot in the river, and there’d be a Tonle Sap water snake hanging off of each toe. Now they’re all gone. Just our luck!”
“It wasn’t very lucky for the snakes, either,” Atticus noted.
Amy was stretched across a row of life preservers in the bow. She was having trouble distinguishing between the heat shimmer in the air and her personal hallucinatory light show. She saw monkeys in every tree, which was confusing, because she knew for a fact that there were some monkeys in some trees. But she also knew there was no monkey on Jake’s shoulder. Yet there it was, leering at her.
There were voices, too — voices from the past that she understood could not possibly be real — her parents, Grace, Uncle Alistair. There was even an old man she somehow knew to be Gideon Cahill: “Why would you take that potion, child?”
She looked astern, only to see Pony seated between Dan and Atticus, being drenched by their water fight. And beyond them, a shiny speedboat coming up fast in the river traffic.
Amy squinted in the relentless sun. Galt Pierce was standing in the bow. Why can’t he be a hallucination?
But Galt was all too real, and so were the five muscle-heads with him.
She pointed. “Dan —”
Dan saw them, too. “Goons!” he rasped. “And they’re gaining on us!”
Jake pushed forward on the throttle.
“We’re going to have to face them sooner or later!” Amy growled. “Now’s as good a time as any!”
“That’s the serum talking,” Jake reasoned as the Kaoh Kong sped up and began to pass slower craft.
“Maybe the serum’s right this time,” Amy argued. “Let me bust some heads with it before it kills me!”
“Those guys may not be as juiced as you, but there are six of them!” Dan pointed out. “And the rest of us aren’t juiced at all!”
Amy’s faith in her physical abilities trumped all logic. “Turn the boat around! We’ll ram them!”
“Nobody’s ramming anybody!” Jake shouted.
“In actuality,” Atticus said in a high-pitched tone, “I think we’re the ones about to get rammed!”
The speedboat was fairly flying now, weaving around the slow-moving mail packets and tourist craft.
“Not if I have anything to say about it!” Jake put his full weight into the throttle, and the Kaoh Kong surged ahead.
The rental craft was moving faster than Amy could have imagined, but it was also shaking badly, its old timbers threatening to come apart. Jake steered around an ancient rowboat in an attempt to use the wallowing dory to block their enemies’ progress. To the Cahills’ shock, the speedboat plowed right through it, cutting it in half and sending two Khmer fishermen diving for their lives.
That put the Pierce team directly behind them, closing fast. Galt stood on the bow like a hood ornament, brandishing a spear gun.
“He’s going to shoot us!” Atticus wailed.
Galt pulled the trigger, and the projectile was hurtling toward the Kaoh Kong. Everybody ducked, even Jake, who left the controls unmanned for a second. But instead of a spear ripping into their hull, a grappling hook sailed over the stern, bit into the wood of the gunwale, and stuck there. Galt’s driver cut power, and the line went taut. The two boats were tethered together.
Dan dove for the hook and tried to dislodge it. It wouldn’t budge.
“It’s no use!” exclaimed Jake, back on the wheel. “We’ll never lose them now!”
When the plan occurred to Amy, she saw it perfectly, almost as if an engineer’s blueprint had appeared in her brain. She shoved Jake aside, took the wheel, and pushed the boat ahead, full throttle.
“That’s what they want us to do!” Jake gasped. “Tow them around until we run out of gas, or fry our engine!”
Her serum-enhanced brain processing data like a computer, Amy built up a head of steam, hauling the speedboat behind them. Then, with sudden vi
olence, she wrenched the helm with all her strength. The wheel snapped from its column and came off in her powerful hands. The Kaoh Kong turned suddenly toward the riverbank. This sent the other craft whipping around at incredible velocity. It torqued past the Cahills, swung about, and slammed into a wooden dock. The impact shattered the dock and the boat, sending goons flying in all directions.
The Kaoh Kong plowed into the shore, driving halfway up the muddy bank. Amy threw the engine into reverse, but the hull was mired in the wet ground.
Galt’s head broke the surface of the water. He was dazed, but alert enough to begin rescuing his companions.
Dan vaulted over the gunwale, sinking ankle-deep. “Let’s get out of here!”
“What about the King Kong?” quavered Atticus.
“That’s Hamilton’s problem! It’s on his credit card!”
The four vaulted up the bank and into the cover of the jungle. Amy led the way, crushing a path through the underbrush with sheer brute strength. Her hallucinations were worse than ever — creatures, grotesque faces lunging out at her from the shadows. Yet the need for escape enabled her to push them aside like the vines she bulldozed through.
Jake, Dan, and Atticus followed without question. It didn’t matter where they were going so long as it was away from their pursuers. Crashing sounds and curses behind them indicated that Galt and company were right on their tail.
All at once, from the shaded greenery of the jungle rose a large stone temple. It was nowhere near the size of Angkor Wat. But it was so unexpected that it looked like it had rocketed up from the underworld during some catastrophic seismic event. The group pulled up short, taking in the seven-story spectacle.
“What’s that?” panted Dan.
As usual, Atticus was ready with the answer. “Ta Keo,” he breathed.
“It looks like a mini Angkor Wat,” Dan observed.
“It’s built in the same style,” Atticus confirmed. “But it’s two hundred years older. It doesn’t copy Angkor Wat; Angkor Wat copies Ta Keo.”
Galt’s voice sounded, dangerously close. “Come on! Faster!”
Dan grabbed his friend’s arm. “You know your way around this pile of rocks?”
“Not specifically,” Atticus admitted. “But Ta Keo is a classic ‘temple mountain,’ surrounded by two outer walls —”
“Not now, Att!” Jake insisted, pushing his brother from behind. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re not lecturing Dad’s grad students here!”
As they crashed through the jungle, they reached the west gate of the temple’s outer wall.
The serum surged through Amy, heightening her senses. Now it was the Lucian talent for strategy that came to the fore. “If we enter here, we could be cornering ourselves inside Ta Keo. We stand a better chance in the jungle.”
“But we have an ace in the hole,” Dan countered. “Atticus knows these temples; Galt doesn’t.”
“You don’t understand,” she insisted. “I’m the one with enhanced —” Before she could finish, a fresh barrage of hallucinations knocked the breath out of her, dropping her where she stood. Scores of angry monkeys came screaming toward her, some swinging on branches and vines, others flying directly through the air.
When it was finally over, Dan was staring down at her in alarm. “All right,” she told him. “Let’s try it your way.”
They rushed up the stairs and entered the grounds via the south portal, passing through the even larger gate there. The majestic temple mountain stood before them, neglected, overgrown, dark, and brooding.
“Note the absence of any decorative carvings,” Atticus droned on. “Ta Keo is the only temple in Angkor that was never finished.”
The staircase was so steep that it was more like climbing a sandstone ladder.
“Look!” Dan rasped. Galt’s blond head and thundercloud brow appeared in the portal of the innermost wall.
“This way! Quick!” Amy ordered. One by one, she pulled them off the steps and shoved them along the narrow terrace in Ta Keo’s lowest gallery.
“Did he see us?” Atticus whispered, terrified.
Amy could only shake her head. “Keep moving.”
They made their way along the gallery, staying low to take advantage of the cover of the crumbling parapet. Amy risked a glance through an opening in the stone. Galt and his henchmen were crossing the courtyard to the central structure. They were good trackers. She had to give them that. Whatever edge the serum was providing Amy, it was also giving Galt and his goons, although not nearly to the same extent.
Another key difference: I’m the one who’s dying.
Pierce’s people had been beefing up on “protein shakes,” but only she had taken the real thing.
Amy plodded along behind the others, listening to the squelching of their wet shoes on the rock floor and hoping it wasn’t as loud as she thought it probably was. Her own sneakers were coated with slimy mud from the riverbank. With each footfall, dark brown sludge was being deposited on the ancient floor, leaving a trail for their pursuers.
She looked down, and watched as a wet blob of slime rolled off her tread and disappeared through a crack in the stone floor.
She froze. A full two seconds later, she distinctly heard the tiny splash of a droplet falling on stone somewhere below her.
Below her?
She was on solid rock, an Angkorian temple mountain! When a drop of moisture oozed into a crack, it stayed there. But Amy knew she’d heard what she’d heard. Her perception had been crazy good since she’d taken the serum. And a two-second delay before the drip hits bottom means . . .
“There’s a room down there,” she said out loud.
A room that just might be their salvation.
Chapter 11
Atticus turned to stare at her. “Down where?”
Amy pointed. “Right below us.”
“Amy,” Jake said urgently, “our dad did his dissertation on Angkor. Att and I have seen fifty different layouts of these temple mountains, including Ta Keo. There’s nothing down there but rock.”
“In actuality, most of it’s feldspathic wacke,” Atticus specified. “You know, that greenish sandstone.”
Amy almost smiled. “I don’t care if it’s Grey Poupon. I know I’ve been having hallucinations. But this isn’t one of them. There’s open space down there. Now, who’s going to help me move these blocks?”
It was a testament to all they’d been through that Dan didn’t hesitate. “You’d better be right,” he said, kneeling beside her, “because you are betting your life — and our lives, too.”
The brothers joined them on the ground, and all four set diligently to work cleaning the cracks between the slabs that made up the gallery floor.
Amy dug until her fingers bled. Atticus tapped at the blocks with a pen, searching for a hollow sound. All they heard were footsteps and gruff voices growing closer. Galt and the goons were already on the stairs.
“Here!” Atticus whispered. “This one!” He jammed the pen into the gap and tried to use it as a lever. But the plastic snapped in two. Jake and Dan, working with their fingers, had more success, but they could not lift the heavy slab more than an inch or two. That much clearance was all Amy needed. She got her hands under the flat stone and heaved it out of the way.
“What was that?” Galt’s voice, too close for comfort.
The Cahills peered down into the dark hole they had opened. Steps, carved in the rock, disappeared into total darkness. It was not a very appealing option — just more appealing than waiting for Galt. Down they went, Amy bringing up the rear.
It was narrow and claustrophobic, and they had to hunch their shoulders in order to fit through the shaft. As they descended, Amy reached up and did her best to pull the slab back over the hole. Once it was in place, the blackness was suffocating, and the temperature seemed to drop twenty d
egrees. When Atticus’s metal belt buckle scraped against the sandstone wall, the resulting sparks briefly illuminated their strained faces in the rough-hewn passage. It felt like being trapped in the belly of the earth.
Jake used the flashlight app on his phone to light their way. There was not much to see. The stairs continued down through the rock. Temple mountain was an apt name for Ta Keo. They truly had the feeling that they were walking through the heart of a mountain.
“Wait till we tell Dad about this!” Atticus whispered. “We’re probably the first people to walk these steps since Angkorian times!”
The stairs ended in a subterranean chamber with a hard-packed dirt floor. The flashlight app played around the small room, casting its glow over stacks of thick-cut bamboo.
Amy’s enhanced sense of smell quickly detected something new. “Gunpowder,” she said aloud.
“What? Here?” asked Dan. “Why?”
Atticus’s nimble mind made the connection. “Fireworks!” he exclaimed excitedly. “The ancient Khmer used them in rituals and celebrations. They learned the technique from Chinese travelers. Look!”
He tipped over one of the bamboo stalks and examined it in cross-section. It had been hollowed out, and its center was packed with powder, now hardened.
Dan was amazed. “You mean, those things are, like, ancient skyrockets?”
Suddenly, flashlight beams crisscrossed the chamber. Before they could react, Galt Pierce stepped down onto the dirt floor. His five thugs halted on the stairs, cutting off any possibility of escape.
With a sinking heart, Amy pictured their muddy sneaker prints on the floor of the gallery above them — leading straight to the passage here!
Galt clucked in mock disappointment. “This is a job for the hired muscle, not the son of the next president. My father overestimated you.”
“Your father is out of his mind!” Dan snapped.
“My father is what America needs to get back on top, and you wimps have been sabotaging him since the beginning!” The red flush of rage faded from his fair features, to be replaced by a cruel smile. “Anyway, it all ends here. This is almost too easy.”