Alex clambered aboard, shouting, “Go!” even before the door was closed.
The helicopter lurched a few feet into the air, then began moving forward, racing away from the helipad without gaining much in the way of altitude. Distance, in any direction, was the only thing that could save them now, and fighting gravity was a lot harder than simply cruising at low altitude above the dark waters of the Caribbean Sea.
Alex craned his head around, holding his breath as the lights of the floating mobile research laboratory — a converted derelict oil-drilling platform he’d picked up for a song — receded behind them.
And then, the tiny star-like pinpoints of light were consumed in a supernova of brilliance.
“Hang on!” shouted the pilot.
The overpressure wave hit a few seconds later, buffeting the helicopter like a stiff wind, but they had already put enough distance between themselves and the facility to escape certain destruction.
Alex sagged in his chair, but his relief was tempered by the enormity of the setback. Simpson, the idealistic worm, had just erased what little progress they had made toward isolating the pathogen.
Thank goodness I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket, Alex thought, unconsciously flexing his fingers, working out the stiffness in his bruised knuckles. He turned to the pilot. “Take me to Palacios. I have to join Carina. Everything depends on her, now.”
CHAPTER 22
Kasey returned the next morning, right on schedule, setting the ersatz Red Cross helicopter down in the clearing Maddock and Bones had hacked out shortly after arriving. Maddock was expecting another hurried take-off, so was a little surprised when Kasey cut power and hopped out before the rotors could wind down.
She held out a satellite phone. “It’s for you.”
Maddock took the phone and held it to his ear. “Maddock, here.”
After a second or two — the time it took for the signal to bounce through the satellite network to its destination and back again — Tam Broderick’s familiar voice sounded in his ear, though her tone was lacking its usual wry humor. “Did Dr. Bell find what he was looking for?”
Bones probably would have countered by chiding Tam for rushing past a polite greeting and an inquiry about their good health, but Maddock sensed that Tam was in no mood for jokes, much less rebukes. “More or less,” he said. “We found the City of Shadow and just maybe solved the mystery of what happened to the Maya civilization.”
“Tell me exactly what you found.”
“Evidence of a plague outbreak of some kind. Bell calls it ‘the Shadow.’” He gave a quick summary of the previous day’s exploration of the pyramid temple to the Lords of Xibalba. “So,” he finished. “Are you ready to tell me what’s really going on? What’s your interest in all this? Is the Dominion trying to get their hands on a bioweapon?”
Tam’s task force — the Myrmidons — had been created for the express purpose of rooting out and destroying the international quasi-religious far-right criminal organization known collectively as the Dominion. A few years earlier, Maddock and his crew of ex-military treasure hunters had joined the Myrmidons to stop a Dominion plot to launch a cataclysmic attack against the United States using a mysterious technology discovered in the ruins of ancient Atlantis.
There was another long silence, too long to be simply attributed to satellite lag, Tam spoke again. “Not the Dominion,” she said with a sigh. “Another old friend. ScanoGen.”
The name brought back a rush of bad memories.
Maddock’s first meeting with Tam Broderick had been in the Amazon jungle, on the trail of missing explorer Percy Fawcett and the mythic lost city of “Z.” Tam, at the time an FBI special agent, had been working undercover at a biotech company run by the brutish Salvatore Scano. Scano, who had partnered with Dominion operatives, was chasing rumors of a chemical compound that could turn men into mindless, and nearly unstoppable, killing machines, a search which had put him on a collision course with Maddock.
“I thought ScanoGen was kaput,” Maddock replied after overcoming his initial shock. “Isn’t Salvatore Scano in prison?”
“He is. His psychopathic spawn, Alex, is now running the show.”
“Ah. So the apple didn’t fall far from the rotten tree.”
“Pretty much. Other than being a spoiled pharma-bro, Alex is the spitting image of his dad. He even has the same delusions of grandeur.”
Maddock recalled that Tam’s cover at ScanoGen had placed her very close to both Salvatore Scano and his son. If anyone was qualified to make that judgment, it was she.
“Under Alex’s leadership,” she went on, “ScanoGen has continued to pursue research into exotic organic compounds, with a particular interest in ethnopharmacology — herbal medicines and other traditional knowledge from isolated or extinct societies. That’s how I learned about Dr. Bell’s search for Xibalba. ScanoGen is one of his primary financial backers.”
Maddock glanced over at Bell and Miranda, both of whom were standing close enough to overhear his side of the conversation. He chose his words carefully. “I wasn’t aware of that connection.”
“I doubt Dr. Bell realizes what Alex Scano has planned for his research. To be honest, I wasn’t completely sure that Scano was up to no good, which is why I kept this on the down-low. That and the fact that, technically speaking, this is outside my jurisdiction.”
Now Maddock understood. Tam’s history with ScanoGen and her feelings about Alex Scano were a matter of record, and absent any demonstrable connection to the Dominion, an investigation into Scano’s activities might easily be construed as a witch-hunt.
“Well, I’m afraid I haven’t seen anything to confirm your worst suspicions,” Maddock said.
He expected either relief or disappointment, but instead, Tam’s tone remained grave. “I’m afraid I have. While you’ve been playing Tarzan of the Jungle, I’ve been keeping an eye on ScanoGen, and they’re definitely up to something. Under the guise of offering emergency medical support, they put a research team in Honduras ostensibly to help stop an outbreak of a disease that sounds suspiciously like Dr. Bell’s Shadow.”
“You do know that Tarzan was set in… I’m sorry, did you say Honduras?”
“I did,” Tam said. “Your little jaunt to Copán put you practically on the edge of the hot zone, which is why I don’t think any of this is a coincidence. I think Scano is looking for the Shadow, probably so he can turn it into a bio-weapon. Or maybe he already has it, and Honduras was just a test. Either way, we cannot let him get his hands on the source.”
Maddock considered this for a moment. “If what you say about Honduras is true, then he’s already got it.”
“Maybe not. Last night, his offshore research facility went up in smoke. And that Honduran village at the center of the outbreak is gone too. Scorched earth. Unless I miss my guess, Scano is back at square one, which means the next stop on his itinerary is the City of Shadow.”
“I told you. We destroyed what we think was the only supply of that fungus.”
“Are you absolutely certain of that?”
Maddock frowned, recalling Bell’s assertion that the true source of the Shadow fungus lay in some hidden cave system — the Underworld, realm of the demonic Lords of Xibalba. “Owing you a favor is one thing, but I draw the line at crawling around the jungle in search of the fungus of bloody pus and jaundiced death. If certain is what you want, I say nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”