Threshold

“It’s gone. I finished it.”

“Don’t worry, Jack. I’m sure she’ll have made some more by the time we get there.”

SEVEN

Annamite Mountains, Vietnam

THE SMELL OF the jungle—moist earth and organic rot—hit Rook like a childhood nightmare, bringing back memories of fear, suffering, and the stuff of monsters made real. When the Chess Team last set foot in the mountainous region of Vietnam known as the Annamite Convergence Zone, where Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia’s borders merged, they had not only come face-to-face with the last remnants of mankind’s Neanderthal ancestors, but also their modern-day hybrid brood. Not to mention Vietnam’s now disbanded special forces unit known as the Death Volunteers.

Rook looked at Queen, whose black face paint covered the star-and-skull brand she’d received at the hands of the Death Volunteers. To her credit, she seemed unfazed by their return to the site of her torture. Of course, she was Queen. He expected nothing less.

They stood in darkness at the edge of the jungle, looking at the concave remains of Mount Meru cast in shades of green through their night vision goggles. Hidden inside the mountain had been the last city of the Neanderthal people; a masterpiece of ancient construction lit by the refracting light of giant crystals, it was the inspiration for the design of Ankgor Wat in Cambodia. But now the place was a ruin.

Every entrance had been crushed. Brush and saplings had already begun to reclaim the clearing that housed the hybrid workforce, where Rook and Queen had made a half-naked dash through the rain before facing off against a hybrid and two tigers. All that remained were shards of stone spear tips flattened into the earth.

The place was dead.

“No one has walked here, let alone lived here, since we left,” Queen said.

Rook knelt and pried a stone ax head from the earth. He felt its still sharp blade with his thumb. “Don’t forget that these guys almost inherited the earth,” he said. “Wouldn’t have hesitated to kill either of us.”

“I remember…”

“Then you might also remember that they didn’t always walk on the ground.” Rook motioned up with his head.

She looked up, following the trunk of the closest large tree, toward the night sky. The thick branches toward the top were marred with light-colored scratches. “They’re still here.”

“Not here,” Rook said, lifting the night vision goggles from his eyes and looking at Queen in the moonlight. She was dressed, head to toe, in black with her blond hair tucked up inside a black skullcap. She carried an UMP submachine gun. The woman was as deadly as she was beautiful, something Rook had to remind himself about every time his eyes trailed over the curves of her face, or body. “We’re looking in the wrong place. The hybrids lived here, with Weston, when he was the Father. And none of them actually lived inside Meru, not at the core at least. But now Weston is dead, and—”

“And you, being made the new Father, became a deadbeat dad and left them.” Queen flashed a grin.

“They never did ask for child support,” Rook said. “But the old mothers didn’t live here.”

She closed her eyes and nodded, remembering the stories told by Rook, Knight, and Bishop, who had seen more of the Neanderthal’s underground world than she or King. “The Necropolis.”

“That’s the place.”

“Which way?”

“South, past the river.”

Queen stepped past him. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Rook watched Queen move past him and head south. They hadn’t been on a mission since leaving the jungles of Vietnam a year earlier, and though they had trained continuously since then, something felt different. Queen had always been detail-oriented and focused. Driven. But now her guard was down. Not quite laid back, but indifferent to life and death.

Over the past year, she had not once mentioned the scar on her forehead, at least not to anyone on the team, and he seriously doubted she’d been to see a professional. The brand, a skull inside a star, had been burned into her forehead by Major-General Trung, commander of the Death Volunteers. It was a torture few people could endure without lasting side effects. And while Queen wasn’t most people, the brutal act had changed her. Being trained to hide her feelings from the enemy, she would have no trouble hiding them from the team. But Rook could see it.

He realized he might be seeing something because he was looking too hard. His concern for her had grown over the past year, but he kept his thoughts to himself, afraid talking would reveal his true feelings. Was his worry for her well-being corrupting his assessment of her abilities? That seemed more likely than Queen going soft. Rook frowned. He was going soft. And being back in this jungle with her, where they had shared a brief kiss … He shook his head, trying to stay focused on the mission before his own distractions put them both in danger.

EIGHT

30,000 Feet Above Uluru, Australia

AFTER SWINGING OVER Vietnam to drop off Rook and Queen, the Crescent turned south and, flying at Mach 2 (1,522 mph), covered the three-thousand- two-hundred-mile distance in two hours. Bishop and Knight spent the last hour prebreathing for their impending HALO jump. They felt the stealth transport shift as its speed slowed, signaling their final approach to Ayers Rock, known as Uluru to the aboriginal Australians.

Uluru, a one-thousand-one-hundred-forty-two-foot-tall sandstone formation with a six-mile circumference stood out on the flat desert of central Australia like a crater in reverse. It had amazing views, three hundred sixty degrees of crags and fissures perfect for climbing, historical value as an ancient watering hole for desert travelers, and an ancient spiritual site of great importance since one of the sacred “Dreamtime” tracks—the paths taken by the Creator Beings as they walked the young earth—cut directly through the giant stone.

Knight and Bishop stood and walked to the hatch. Both had slept for the majority of the six-hour flight from Fort Bragg to Vietnam and had spent most of the time since then in silence—Bishop in meditation, Knight in study.

The pilot’s voice filled the cabin. “Two minutes. Prep for jump.”

“Copy that,” Knight said, closing his binder and standing up.

With their prebreathing complete and the LZ approaching, Knight and Bishop got down to the business of prejump preparation, which for the Chess Team meant a quick refortification of their close bond.

Bishop, standing nearly a foot taller than Knight, looked down at him. “How’s Grandma Dae-jung doing?”

“Could use some of that hoodoo juice from Manifold. Well, not the stuff you got. Grandma regen would not be a pretty picture.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Let’s just say I don’t think King’s mom’s funeral will be the last one I go to this year.”

“We go to.”

Knight smiled. “Thanks.”

“You ready to bag and tag some aboriginals?”

Knight’s smile widened as he laughed. “Bag and tag some aboriginals? You’ve been spending too much time around Rook.”

Bishop took the crystal hanging around his neck, gave it a kiss, and tucked it beneath his black jumpsuit. “Just finding my sense of humor again.”