Truly. It's not how I envisioned things turning out. But you should know that both of your friends are alive and well. The crew was freed, as promised, two hours after you departed. They dug Jack out from under the stone. No one was seriously hurt."
Pierce couldn't shake the feeling that there was more. He remembered a wave of apprehension before passing out. Something the kidnappers had said. But it escaped him. "Why did you take me?"
"It never hurts to have an expert on the subject in question," Ridley said.
"And we like to give credit where credit is due," the other man said. "When we announce our findings, you will receive credit for your part in the discovery."
"And you are?"
"Todd Maddox," he said. "I'm the lead geneticist here. I developed the regeneration serum that… saved your friend. It should never have happened in the first place."
Pierce detected guilt in the man's voice. He seemed earnestly displeased with the situation. "Am I a prisoner?"
"Not at all," Ridley said. "In fact, I was hoping you'd join the team."
Pierce squinted at the man, making no effort to hide his skepticism.
"You'll be given full access to the artifact and may study it any way you want," Maddox said. "All we require in return is that you help us unlock its secrets."
This all seemed too convenient, too well packaged to be real. But what choice did he have? He doubted these men would let him walk free. Even if King, McCabe, and the rest of the crew had been unscathed, they were still criminals. High-tech looters. He also had no doubt that King would come for him. That meant keeping the status quo for as long as he could. "Take me to it."
Ridley laughed and looked at Maddox. "He's as ambitious as you." He turned back to Pierce. "I'm afraid that's not possible right now."
"Why not?"
Ridley pointed to the side wall. "You have a window. Look for yourself."
Pierce stood and balanced himself against the wall. The floor had shifted beneath him. He looked through the small oval window and held his breath. The ocean sparkled far below. They were in an airplane.
Ridley clapped him hard on the shoulder like they were old chums. "We have more than a thousand miles and thirty thousand vertical feet between us and Manifold Beta. Care for some tea in the meantime?"
"What is Manifold Beta?"
Ridley grinned wide. "Wonderland."
SIXTEEN
Not more than twenty minutes later, after dodging and plowing right over hundreds of small corpses, King came to a dock. He'd been so close. The single boat tied to the dock had been burned to a char, just like the SUV. They were covering their tracks. But burning a single boat could not produce the amount of smoke he'd seen. King stopped the boat's engine and coasted to the dock. He tied off, slipped on his backpack, and slid into the jungle, his M1 Garand leading the way.
Following a well-groomed path, King found the jungle floor clear of all but the tallest and thickest trees. King looked up at the thick canopy. Clearing the jungle to build, but keeping the natural camouflage, King thought. Smart.
The terrain dropped and a valley opened up. Inside the valley lay a smoldering ruin of what was once a very large, modern facility. King took little comfort from the lack of movement. Something awful had taken place here. It wasn't the smoke still sifting free from the ashes or the coppery taste of blood in the air. It was a gut feeling. The hair on his arms raised. His spine tingled.
A wailing shriek, the same as the previous night, ripped through the jungle. It was louder, closer than he'd heard before. He knelt, raised the Ml to his shoulder, and waited for some sign of movement. Something was out there. Something that had somehow survived the slaughter of the previous night. King's breath caught in his throat when he realized the only thing that could have survived the mass killing was the killer.
King moved slowly down the hill, taking aim at any hint of movement or ideal hiding spot. The sound did not repeat and he detected no signs of life. He had yet to be discovered. His need for clues outweighed his primal instinct to run as he stood inside the ruins, picking out details. A few squares of linoleum flooring survived the blaze. The partial remains of a three-pronged, type-B outlet — American.
After a half hour of slow, methodical searching he found little else. He'd heard a few more shrieks, but they sounded more distant. Still, he kept his guard up. He ended his search at the remains of a helipad. Had Pierce been taken out of here by air? Had he just missed him again? Or was his body among the ashes? King forced the thoughts from his mind and looked down at the charred complex. It was vast, taking up several acres, and given the amount of ash and rubble, had stood more than a couple stories tall. Probably reached right up to the canopy, he thought.
A loud slap on the helipad pavement spun him around, rifle at the ready. A body lay writhing at his feet. A thirteen-foot boa constrictor perfectly camouflaged for jungle living twisted on itself as blood oozed from several two-inch-long punctures. King looked up and was surprised to see trees over the helipad. Looking to the right he saw the trees clear at an angle, reaching out to the sky. His eyebrows rose. The helicopters would have come in at an angle through the trees, allowing the helipad to remain covered by the canopy. Gutsy and a bit extreme. Whoever ran this place did not want to be found. He realized they'd probably detected his approach on the river the day before and bugged out.
The snake twitched madly, then died.
King knelt by its body and inspected the wounds. Just like the jaguar. Where junks of flesh hadn't been bitten away, dozens of pairs of deep, straight wounds covered the body. A wet shriek from above, followed by a second fleshy whack made King jump. A large lump of short reddish-brown fur smacked the helipad next to the snake. King couldn't see what kind of animal it was, but the thing was clearly dead. Upon impact its body had burst, spilling guts and gore out over the cement.
He aimed the Garand up, looking for some kind of predator lurking in the trees. Whatever it was, it had returned and no doubt knew of his presence. Worse, he stood near two of its kills…its food. It would want them back. He felt sure.
As King stepped back, his boot squished through the spilled gore. He looked at it and realized the guts didn't look right. There were no intestines or other internal organs, just chunks of flesh. As he stepped closer King realized that only the creature's stomach had burst. The mass of flesh spilled from its barrel-shaped body, some scaled, some hairy, some unrecognizable, came from whatever it had eaten. A sickening feeling took hold of his stomach. Using the rifle as a prod, King nudged the dog-sized creature, rolling it over. He recognized it. A capybara. The largest rodent on earth, it sported two sets of massive incisors, above and below. The source of the odd wounds and the overnight slaughter. This was the predator!
Before he could think about how a vegetarian rodent could accomplish such a thing, the capybara twitched. After falling nearly seventy-five feet onto concrete and bursting open, the thing was still alive. Wondering if it was his imagination, King leaned in with the Garand and poked its head. The reaction was instantaneous. With a shriek, the capybara snapped its jaws and bit the barrel of the rifle, severely chipping one of its teeth. The scream, the same that had been unnerving him since the previous night, coupled with the sudden savagery caused him to stumble back. The rodent yanked its head to the side and tore the rifle from his hands.
As the capybara began lifting its body from the ground, King did the only thing he could think of. He ran. To his amazement and horror, the capybara shrieked and charged after him, guts and the partially eaten remains of its victims dragging from its still open belly.