“Who are you?”
“My name is Matthew James. I work for Aegis International Services. Dr. Pierce hired me in Gibraltar to look after you.”
Fiona gaped at Gallo, wide-eyed. She was familiar with Aegis, a security consulting firm that provided protection and logistical support for international businessmen and even a few small governments. It was one of the many subsidiary agencies discreetly owned by the Herculean Society, and like the rest, it was an asset that could be readily employed in the pursuit of the Society’s agenda, if the need arose.
The man chasing after them was not an enemy, but a bodyguard.
Gallo’s face transformed in an instant. “Son of a bitch,” she said in a low but angry tone.
“It was not my intention to frighten you,” James went on. “I was only supposed to watch from a distance, but… Please, slow down.”
Gallo looked over at Fiona. “He knew. He knew we wouldn’t stay in the cave, so he hired a babysitter.”
Fiona shrugged, and then nodded to the highway ahead. “Could be worse, right?”
Gallo raised her voice. “How do I know you are who you say you are?”
“Dr. Pierce gave me your number. You can call him and verify, if you like.”
Fiona thought that sounded like a good idea. “Should I?”
Gallo gave a nod.
Fiona ended the call without comment and scrolled through Gallo’s contacts to find the number for Pierce’s satellite phone. As the call went out, she noted that Gallo had slowed the Fox to a reasonably safe highway speed, and the trailing vehicle had backed off. Both were encouraging developments.
The call went to voicemail.
Fiona looked at Gallo again. “Now what?”
Gallo nodded her head toward their bodyguard. “Call him back.”
James picked up on the first ring. “Do you believe me now?”
Gallo ignored the question. “If you’re going to tag along, we’re going to have to set some ground rules.”
“Certainly,” James replied. “Keeping you safe is my first priority, but your—”
James’s voice went to static as an artificial sun rose behind them.
What?
Fiona whipped her head around and caught a glimpse of the expanding ball of flame in the middle of the highway. She could feel heat radiating through the windows. Then the sound of the explosion reverberated through the car, simultaneous with a shock wave that swatted the Fox like an invisible hand, sending it into a spin.
Gallo swore as she fought to regain control. Beside her, Fiona could do nothing more than hang on.
An explosion. James’s car just blew up. James is dead.
Just as Gallo got the Fox back under control, there was another bloom of fire, this one directly in their path and much closer.
The blast tore into the little Volkswagen. The windshield didn’t shatter, but the hood peeled up, momentarily eclipsing Fiona’s view of this new explosion. Then, the bottom dropped out of the world as the explosion lifted the Fox off the road like a balsa wood glider, flipping it end over end. It landed upside down, with a crunch that crumpled the roof and blew out all the windows.
Hanging upside down, Fiona was in full panic mode, desperate to grab onto anything that could restore order to the world. The interior of the car had gone dark. The air was thick with the smell of scorched metal and plastic, gasoline fumes and something else…a strange ammonia smell.
There was a crunching sound — glass being pulverized, metal and fiberglass crushed like an old soda can — as the overturned vehicle tilted forward, borne down by the weight of the engine. Fiona’s center of gravity shifted again.
She heard a low moan from out of the darkness.
“Aunt Gus?” Her own voice was barely audible. She couldn’t seem to draw a breath. The seat belt, which had saved her life, now felt like a saw blade, cutting across her torso. She groped blindly, trying to find the buckle.
A different noise filled her ears now, the loud scream of an engine, with an underlying rhythm, a deep, resonant thumping.
Helicopter.
In a matter of seconds, the noise reached a feverish crescendo. A tempest swirled through the crushed vehicle, blasting Fiona with debris particles. The storm’s intensity abated after a moment, but the helicopter’s noise had grown to deafening proportions. It had landed, somewhere close by.
A light filled the misshapen space where the window had once been, growing brighter as its source moved closer. The silhouette of a hand appeared in front of her face, fingers curling around the door frame. Then with another squeal of tortured metal, the entire door was ripped off its hinges. The whole car shuddered, and Fiona felt a fresh wave of pain as the seatbelt dug into her body.
A face materialized before her. Shrouded in the shadows cast by the flashlight, she could not make out any details, but she immediately recognized the hulking outline.
Vigor Rohn.
“No!” She scrabbled for the seatbelt release again, desperate to get free, knowing that even if she did, there was nowhere to go.
Hard, strong hands closed around her shoulders, immobilizing her. She felt a sharp twinge of pain at the base of her neck, followed by a cold sensation that spread quickly to her extremities. As she descended into a narcotic fog, Rohn laughed.
19
Pierce snapped back to consciousness with painful abruptness. Something hard was grinding into his abdomen, pounding his guts like repeated punches, while the rest of his body seemed to be floating in mid-air. He threw out his hands, trying to grab onto something, and in that moment, the acid bath’s all-consuming pain returned with a vengeance and threatened to drag him down again. He clenched his teeth and fought to make sense of what was happening.
In the dim light, he could see the outline of trees moving past, seeming to jump up and down in time with the rhythmic pummeling.
I’m moving. Someone is carrying me.
He turned his head and tried to locate his rescuer, but all he could see was a broad back, clad in a tattered Tyvek bio-safety suit. The sharp object pressing into his innards was the shoulder of his savior. He had been scooped up like a sack of potatoes. He glimpsed something moving at the same level as his head. Another figure, wrapped in an environment suit, was slung over the opposite shoulder.
It was Carter. Which meant that the person carrying them had to be one of the WHO aid workers that had come with her.
A glimmer of hope shone through the pain-induced fog, but it was just as quickly replaced by despair. Cooper was still back there, still caught in the green trap. He wanted to tell his rescuer to stop, to put him down and let him go back, but he knew how futile the gesture would be. His own survival was still at risk.
And yet, the person carrying both him and Carter seemed impervious to the carnivorous plants. Pierce could see the man’s feet moving in and out of view with each step. The vines snaked around his ankles, trying to ensnare him and drag him down, but the man tore through the green tendrils like they were party streamers. Perhaps the suit protected him from the assault, but Pierce recalled how those tiny fibrous threads had so quickly overwhelmed him and Carter. Their rescuer was as strong and relentless as a bull.
The faintest hint of a breeze brought momentary relief from the stinging miasma. Fresh air. He blinked away the tears blurring his vision. He saw trees and dark earth, untouched by the vines.
They were clear of the infested zone.
The man ran on another fifty feet before stopping and easing his burdens to the ground. Pierce rolled away, and began tearing at his clothes. He could still feel the vines on him, clinging to his skin, burning him with acidic secretions, still very much alive and intent on consuming him.