arms flailing, spraying blood against the stone walls.
Gray twisted on a heel, strafing along the well’s rim. He struck three more men while the others fled back. Behind him, Nasser crashed to the stone floor, with a snap of bones and a cry.
Gray scanned above, his weapon ready. The 9mm Metal Storm pistol was an Australian design, the ultimate in power, firing off multiple rounds in fractions of a second. Propellant-driven, no moving parts, all electronic.
“Lisa, check Nasser for Vigor’s phone! Get Painter on the line!”
She shuffled behind him.
As he slowly turned, guarding the well, Gray noted Nasser out of the corner of an eye. He lay on his back, one arm twisted under him, broken at the shoulder. Blood bubbled from his lips. Shattered ribs. But he still lived. Eyes tracking Gray, full of dismay and confusion.
Nasser finally obeyed, sighing out his last breath, eyes going blank.
Seichan voiced Nasser’s question. “So where did you get the gun?”
“I arranged it with Painter. Back in Hormuz. I didn’t want him to mobilize any local teams here. But I did ask for one small concession. A single gun, smuggled into the Elephant Bar bathroom before we ever got there, taped behind a toilet. I knew Nasser might still be suspicious of me, even search me multiple times. But Kowalski…”
Gray shrugged.
“At the bar, I remember,” Seichan said. “Before we left. Kowalski said he had to ‘take a leak.’”
“I knew we’d be searched before the meeting at the bar. It was the easiest way to get a gun to us afterward. To keep it close until my parents were safe.”
Kowalski grunted. “Jackass should’ve watched the goddamn
Lisa called behind him. “I have Painter on the line.”
Gray’s fingers tightened on his pistol. “My parents? Are they—?”
“I already asked. They’re safe. And unharmed.”
Gray let out a long breath of relief.
He cleared his throat. “You’d better tell Painter to set up a quarantine perimeter, at least a ten mile radius around the ruins.”
Gray pictured the cloud of toxic gases, surely rich with the Judas Strain. The gateway had been open for only twelve minutes, slammed closed and bleached by Nasser’s bomb. A small blessing there. But how much of the Judas Strain had gotten loose?
Gray glanced at Susan. She huddled in the doorway. Kowalski guarded her. Had she succeeded? Gray was aware of everyone who shared the well with him. Each had contributed in no small measure to get them here. But had it all been in vain?
Lisa spoke up. “Quarantine’s under way.”
Gray searched the top of the well, weapon high. There was still a Guild army out there. “Then tell Painter we could use some help here, too.”
She relayed the message — then lowered the phone. “He says it’s already on the way. He said
Gray glanced skyward. The rich blue of the afternoon sky swirled with stiff-looking hawks, wings wide. Scores of them, converging from all directions. But these hawks carried assault rifles.
Reaching a hand back, Gray asked for the phone.
Lisa slapped it into his palm.
Gray put the receiver to his ear. “I thought we agreed
“Commander, I don’t exactly classify forty thousand feet in the air as
Gray continued to watch the skies.
The strike team plummeted toward the ruins, spreading out in an attack pattern. Each soldier had a fixed- wing glider harnessed to his back, like miniature wings of a jet fighter, allowing for high-altitude deployment.
They dove downward.
Spiraling and spiraling.
Then on one signal, each man pulled his ripcord, all shedding wings in unison. Glide chutes deployed, snapping wide for the last stretch of their descent. Like a choreographed dance, they swooped in from all directions.
Others noted the dramatic approach. Gray heard boots pounding on stone, most heading away. Gray imagined black berets were being stuffed into garbage cans as the Guild’s mercenaries hightailed it out of here.
But not all were so craven.
A few spats of rifle fire echoed. Slow at first, then furiously. A firefight raged for a full, tense minute. A glide chute swept overhead, the pilot firing on the fly. Then another, his legs lifted high as he prepared to alight on the ruins. Bodies thudded, landing all around the well, probably zeroed in on the phone in Gray’s hand.
A man suddenly lunged over the well’s low wall, a bit too quickly.
Gray came close to shooting him until he recognized the jumpsuit. U.S. Air Force.
“You blokes all okay?” he called down in an Aussie accent, unhooking his chute.
Lisa shoved past Vigor, her voice full of amazement. “Ryder?”
The man grinned down at her. “That man of yours…Painter…bonzer bloke! Let me come along for the ride. It’s not climbing over electrified nets with cannibals…but then what is?”
Someone called out.
Ryder lifted an arm, acknowledging, then glanced back down. “Hold fast! Ladders on their way!” He rolled away and vanished.
Gray continued to keep guard over those here, his weapon ready.
It was all he could do.
That, and one last thing.
He lifted the phone to his ear again. “Director?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for not listening to me, sir.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
19
Traitor
A week later Lisa stood at the window to her room in a private hospital outside of Bangkok. Tall walls surrounded the small two-story facility and its lush gardens of papaya trees, flowering lotus, sparkling fountains, along with a few quiet statues of Buddha wrapped in saffron robes, trailing thin spikes of smoke from morning prayer sticks.
She had said her own prayers at dawn this morning.
Alone.
For Monk.
The window stood open, the shutters thrown back for the first time in a week. Their quarantine was over. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of jasmine and orange blossoms. Beyond the wall she heard the slow bustle of village life: the lowing of oxen, the chatter of a pair of elderly women passing the gates, the heavy tread of an elephant dragging a log, and best of all, unseen, but as vibrant as sunshine, the laughter of children.
Life.
