The Judas Strain

confirmation. With that, I will tell you the locker number and location of the key. You can verify my claim. Is that satisfactory?”

“It depends on what I hear.”

Gray merely stared, not blinking.

Vigor knew it was all a stalling tactic, stretching out the reveal for as long as possible. The scroll had indeed been secured in an airport locker in Bangkok, but it was a wild-goose chase. There was no second half of the cure.

Gray sighed, as if relenting. “Here then is the story found within the third scroll. According to Marco…”

As Gray related what the embroidered scroll revealed, Vigor studied the documents on the table, only half listening. The commander kept to the truth, knowing that more time would be bought with the facts than lies. After Gray was finished, Nasser would make the necessary calls, arrange to have the scroll recovered from the locker, then translated. All of it would take time. The discovered scroll would verify Gray’s story and make it more likely Nasser would buy any fabrication to follow. And even if Gray’s lies failed to convince, at least one of his parents would be saved by then.

That was the plan.

Gray finally finished his narration, laying out the science. “So clearly the cannibalism served some means of vaccinating against the disease. But exactly how that was achieved will wait until I know one of my parents is safe.”

Gray folded his hands in his lap.

Nasser sat silent for a moment, then spoke slowly. “So we really just need someone who is cured of the Judas Strain, someone who survived. Then we can construct the vaccine from their white blood cells and antibodies.”

Gray remained silent, offering only a slight shrug of his shoulders, quietly stating that any further answers would wait until one of his parents was free.

Nasser sighed, reached to a pocket, flipped open the phone, and pressed a button. “Annishen,” he said. “Pick one of the hostages. Your choice.”

Nasser listened.

“Yes, that’s fine…go ahead and kill them.”

5:45 P.M.

Gray lunged across the table.

He had no plan, reacting on pure instinct.

But Nasser must have signaled one of the men. Gray’s head exploded with pain, clubbed from behind, his vision blew away into brightness, then collapsed into momentary darkness. His body struck the cocktail table and rolled with a thump to the floor, jarring back his sight.

Five guns now pointed at Gray.

More at Seichan and Kowalski.

Vigor stood with his arms crossed.

Nasser had not moved, his phone still lifted to his ear. “Hold, Annishen. For the moment.” He lowered the phone, half covering the receiver with a hand. “It seems this is the end, Commander Pierce. Of many trails. Polo’s last scroll only confirms what I’ve heard from the Guild contingent in Indonesia. The scientific team has come to the same conclusion. A potential cure does reside within the body of a survivor. One who happens to glow, like revealed in Polo’s story.”

Gray shook his head. Not in denial, he just had difficulty comprehending what Nasser was saying. Blood pounded in his ears, deafening him. His plan had failed.

Nasser lifted his phone again. “So it seems our historical trail has run full circle back to the scientific trail. This is the end of the proverbial road. For you. For your mother and father.”

Gray sensed the world closing in on him. Even his vision narrowed, voices sounded more hollow. Until Vigor stepped closer.

“Enough,” the monsignor snapped out with the command of a professor in an auditorium.

All eyes turned to him. Even Nasser paused.

Vigor stared at their captor. “You make many assumptions, young man. Assumptions that will not serve you, or your associates.”

“How so, Monsignor?” Nasser kept his tone civil.

“This cure. Have your scientists tested it yet?” Vigor stared at Nasser, then a small snort escaped him. “I wager not. All you’ve come up with are theoretical conjectures, supported perhaps by Marco’s story. But that is a far cry from certainty. And I’m sorry to discount your statement that the historical trail has ended. It may indeed have run into the scientific trail, but rather than ending, I believe the more accurate description is that the two trails have merged here. Do not be too quick to ignore history. Not yet, young man. The historical trail continues.”

Gray’s mind sought to work through what the monsignor was saying. Was he lying, bluffing, or telling the truth?

Nasser sighed, apparently weighing the same. “I appreciate your attempt, Monsignor. But I see nothing here to warrant further investigation. The scientists can handle it from here.”

Now Seichan snorted. “That is why you will never rise higher in the Guild hierarchy, Amen. Pawning off your responsibility to others. I suggest you listen to the monsignor.”

Nasser glared, but he did glance back to Vigor. “Marco’s map points here to the ruins. It ends here.”

Vigor bent down and lifted the map of Angkor’s extensive complex of ruins. “This covers over one hundred square miles. That’s a lot of territory. Does this strike you as an end?”

Nasser’s eyes narrowed. “Do you propose we search all one hundred square miles? To what end? We have the cure.”

Vigor shook his head. “There is no need to search the entire complex. Marco pinpointed the most significant site for us.”

Nasser turned to Gray, ready to threaten, his eyes dark on him.

Vigor stepped between them. “Commander Pierce has not held anything back. He does not have this answer. This I swear on my soul.”

Nasser frowned. “Yet, you do.”

Vigor bowed his head. “I do. And I will tell you. But only upon your sworn word that you’ll allow Commander Pierce’s parents to live.”

Nasser’s features hardened, suspicious.

Vigor lifted a hand. “I’m not asking for you to release them. Only to hear me out, and I think you’ll understand the need to follow the trail to its end.”

Gray noted the wavering uncertainty in Nasser’s countenance.

Oh, please, God, let Vigor convince him.

Vigor continued. “Once you follow the trail to the end, then make your decision. About them, about us. It would be foolish to destroy hostages or resources until you discover what lies at the true end of that trail.”

Nasser sank to his seat. “So then show me where it ends. Convince me, Monsignor.”

“And if I do so, as a man of honor, will you keep Gray’s parents alive?”

Nasser waved a hand. “Fine. For now. But if you are lying, Monsignor…”

“I’m not.” Vigor lowered to one knee before the table.

Gray joined him.

Vigor shifted forward three sheets of paper: the map of Angkor, the obelisk’s angelic code, and the line of three symbols from the keys. The monsignor lifted the sheet of angelic code.

“As Commander Pierce has already related, all the blacked-out diacritical marks — the circles that accent the script — actually represent temple sites that make up Angkor.”

Nasser nodded.

“And here again are the three symbols from the keys.