Herculean (Cerberus Group Book 1) (12 page)

14

Gibraltar

It did not take long for cabin fever to set in. Only an hour after Pierce’s departure, Fiona felt like climbing the walls and hanging out with the Forgotten up on the ceiling. She had to do something, anything, to alleviate the tedium of being stuck in the cave.

She had been eager to join in the hunt for Cerberus. She imagined it was a secret fraternity—a sort of anti-Herculean Society—or a vast global criminal enterprise, like something from a James Bond movie. But despite Pierce’s directive, Dourado had warned her and Gallo off.

“This is a job for a hacker, not a historian,” the Brazilian woman had told Gallo. “I know what to look for and what to avoid. If you go poking around on the web, you will only draw attention to yourself.”

With that potential diversion removed, there was little else for Fiona to do but get caught up on her schoolwork and visit with Gallo, something that never rated high on her list of preferred activities. It wasn’t that she disliked Pierce’s girlfriend, but extended conversation with the woman only accentuated the stark differences between them. Fiona was a tomboy, raised by soldiers—mostly men—and still a teenager. Gallo was beautiful, sophisticated and refined…boring.

A real stick in the mud
, Fiona thought.

They got along best when they didn’t try to get along.

Still, since they were stuck with each other, maybe this was a chance to break down some barriers. “Are you hungry?” Fiona asked, rising from the table.

Gallo glanced at her wristwatch. “What’s on the menu?”

“Uncle George brought some MREs from the plane.” She went over to a stack of boxes near the entrance—cases of military-style rations and flats of bottled water.

Gallo raised a disdainful eyebrow. “As appealing as that sounds…”

“I know what you mean. I used to think they were really cool, but after a while, I realized they’re actually pretty gross.” She started rooting through an open box, checking the variety of choices available. “Now, I eat them only because I have to. If I don’t, my blood sugar goes all wonky.”

“Well, wonky blood sugar won’t do.” Gallo tilted her head sideways. “But don’t you want something more...appetizing?”

Fiona shrugged and gestured to the MREs. “I can deal. It’s not like we’ve got much of a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, my dear.” Gallo took out her phone and began scrolling through the contact list. “If you can hold out a bit longer, I’ll see if we can’t arrange for something with a little more flavor.”

“I think we may be outside the delivery area.”

“Who said anything about delivery?” Gallo’s tone was almost playful, but there was a hard edge to her smile. Refined and proper maybe, but Augustina Gallo was very much her own woman.

An hour later,
as they dined on Indian cuisine at a little hole-in-the-wall overlooking a marina on the west side of the Rock, Fiona decided that maybe Aunt Gus wasn’t so boring after all.

Gallo swirled the contents of her wine glass. “So, what’s next on our agenda?”

“Back to the citadel?”

“Well, that sounds dreadful.”

Fiona didn’t know what to say. She knew what Pierce would want. And while she didn’t relish the idea of returning to the cave, she hadn’t forgotten the narrow escape from the Labyrinth. Kenner and Rohn were dangerous and meant business.

All the more reason to stop them
, she thought. “Uncle George did tell us to learn all we could about Cerberus,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “That would include figuring out what they want.”

“My thoughts exactly. We may not have Cintia’s prowess on the digital battlefield, but we are not without skills of our own.” She took a sip of her wine. “Walk me through it again. Everything Kenner said and did. Let’s see if we can figure out what he’ll do next.”

Fiona searched the corners of her memory, trying to recall her encounters with Kenner, first after escaping the museum and then later in the Labyrinth. Gallo interrupted only a few times to ask specific questions.

“You mentioned that there was something on Queen Hippolyte’s belt earlier. Did you see what it was?”

Fiona shook her head. “A picture, but it was too dark. And as soon as Kenner saw it, that was it. He was out of there.”

Gallo pondered this. “So Kenner now has the most complete ancient record of Herakles’s deeds, and an object from his Ninth Labor.”

“He kept talking about finding the mutations that caused the monsters. Maybe he’s looking for the actual monsters themselves. Their remains, I mean.”

“That might explain why he took the
Heracleia
. Perhaps he thinks he can follow in the footsteps of Herakles.” She shook her head. “But the Lion skin was right there in front of him. I think we’re missing something. Something about that belt.”

Fiona squeezed her eyes shut and replayed the scene in her head once again. “He mentioned a ‘source.’ Is there something like that in the legend?”

Gallo thought for a moment before nodding. “There is. The monsters of Greek mythology are, almost without exception, described as ‘chthonic.’”

Fiona knew the word. “Subterranean. From the Underworld.”

“Yes, but in this instance, the term is not limited to their place of origin. The chthonic monsters were the literal offspring of Earth spirits. Nearly all of them, including all the monsters Herakles fought, were the children of Typhon and Echidna. They were themselves the children of Tartarus—the embodiment of the deepest parts of the Underworld—and the Earth goddess, Gaia. In mythology, Echidna is often called ‘the mother’ of
all
monsters.”

“That could be what Kenner is looking for. The original monster mom.”

“Possibly,” Gallo replied, chuckling at the nickname. “Echidna was said to live in a place called Arima, the Couch of Typhoeus, located somewhere in the Underworld. The ancients believed there was a literal entrance to the Underworld, but disagreed about where it actually is. Herakles’s final Labor was to capture Cerberus, the guardian of the Underworld, which would suggest that he found the entrance, if the story is to be taken at face value.”

“Did Herakles ever fight Echidna?”

A wry smile touched Gallo’s lips. “Not exactly. In some of the stories, Echidna and Herakles have children of their own, Scythes, Agathyrsus and Gelonus, the progenitors of the Scythian people.”

“Alexander and the monster mom got it on?” Fiona shuddered. “Eeew.”

“We have to be careful not to interpret the mythology too literally,” Gallo said. “These stories grew with the telling over a period of several hundred years, and often contradict each other. And don’t forget that Alexander was busy altering the historical record.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet that was one part of the story he definitely wanted to keep out of the papers. Do you think the
Heracleia
tells where to find an entrance to the Underworld?”

“It may. Unfortunately, Kenner has it, and we don’t.”

Fiona pondered that for a moment. “We could still look for it,” she said in a low, conspiratorial voice.

Gallo gazed at her across the top of her glass. “And how would we go about doing that?”

As Fiona explained what she had in mind, Gallo’s dark brown eyes began to gleam with anticipation. “Why, Fiona, darling, I do believe that’s the best idea you’ve had all day. Excepting dinner, of course.”

Twenty minutes later,
after polishing off the last few bites of Tandoori chicken, Fiona and Gallo left their table and headed for the exit. Neither of them gave more than a cursory glance to the other patrons, all of whom appeared to be thoroughly immersed in their meals.

But their departure did not go unnoticed.

As the door swung shut behind them, one of the diners—a tall man whose dark complexion bespoke Moorish ancestry, a common trait among residents of ‘the Rock’—hastily rose from his table, dropped a 20 Gibraltar pound note next to his uneaten meal and headed for the door. He reached the street just as the pair climbed into a taxi.

Undaunted, the man hurried down the sidewalk to a parked sedan, got in and took off in pursuit. He wasn’t worried about losing sight of his quarry. He knew exactly where they were going.

15

Monrovia, Liberia

Pierce spent the flight making all the necessary arrangements so that his sojourn to West Africa would be brief and goal-focused. A veteran world traveler, he knew what kind of things could go wrong, and took the appropriate proactive countermeasures. He had kept his UN passport and credentials current—many years ago, he had done a stint at the UNESCO World Heritage Commission, and was still on the rolls as a consultant—which streamlined the otherwise ponderous process of getting a visa. He made sure he was current on all his shots and even took a dose of malaria prophylaxis. He had arranged for a local expediter, a man with the unlikely name of Daniel Cooper, who came highly recommended by the UN personnel on the ground in Monrovia. Pierce had even taken the added step of GPS-plotting the route from the airport to the World Health Organization office located on Avenue Mamba, in the capital city. His ducks were all in a row. He was ready.

The only thing he had forgotten was best summed up by the old military adage: The first casualty of war is always the battle plan.

He stepped down onto the tarmac at Spriggs Payne Airport expecting to be greeted by Cooper, but there was no sign of anyone waiting to meet him. He called the phone number—the same number he had used to contact the man just four hours earlier—but the call would not go through. He waited a half hour, repeatedly trying the number. He then called the WHO office and discovered that the problem was with the local phone service. He finally abandoned the effort and hired a taxi to drive him into the city.

Instead of the stereotypical brash and aggressive cabbie, Pierce’s driver was oddly quiet. When Pierce told the young man where he wanted to go, the only response was an ambiguous nod. When the man did speak, his soft tone and odd dialect was almost incomprehensible. The nation of Liberia had gotten its start in 1820 as an American colony, intended as a home for freed slaves. Even though English remained the primary language, the passage of time had evolved Liberian English into a distinct species that, while recognizable on its face, was peppered with unique phrases, many borrowed from native languages in the region. Pierce assumed the driver understood him, but given the man’s unassuming personality, it was difficult to say.

The drive, only a few miles according to the GPS, took more than half an hour, bogged down by both vehicle and foot traffic. The glacial pace ensured full exposure to the sights and smells of the trash-strewn, underdeveloped Monrovian hinterland—sheet metal shacks and cinder block homes with no doors or windows, the smell of cooking oil and wood fires, automobile exhaust and raw sewage. Pierce had seen worse in his travels, and he felt nothing but sympathy toward the locals, for whom such crushing poverty was a daily fact of life. Nevertheless, the grim crawl along the choked streets left his already damp spirits thoroughly soaked. The tropical humidity did the same for his clothes.

He thought the situation would improve once he reached his destination, but it was not to be. The WHO offices were shuttered. To add insult to injury, as he was futilely banging on the door, a man got out from behind the wheel of a beat up old Ford Ranger pick-up parked in front of the building, and came over.

“They all gone, bossman.”

“I can see that,” Pierce growled. “Do you know when they’ll be back?”

The man shrugged. “Sometime. They gone into the bush. Left a couple hours ago. You Pierce?”

It took a moment for the question to sink in. He rounded on the man. “Who are you?”

The man flashed a broad grin. “Your good friend, Mister Daniel Cooper. I come to see you.”

“Of course you are,” Pierce said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose trying to banish an emerging headache. “You were supposed to meet me at the airport.”

“You took a taxi,” Cooper pointed out.

“Why on Earth would I want to meet you here if…” Pierce cut himself off. There was nothing to be gained by demanding that Cooper recognize his mistake, so he turned his attention to the more immediate problem. “Do you know where the doctors went?”

“They gone into the bush,” Cooper repeated. “Bad news. Maybe typhoid. Maybe something worse.”

Pierce knew what ‘something worse’ meant.

Liberia had been hit hard by the Ebola outbreak of 2014. More than nine thousand had been infected with the hemorrhagic fever virus, many of them health care workers who had been ill-equipped to deal with such a deadly disease. Almost half of the cases proved fatal—a staggering death rate—but the loss of life told only part of the story. The already beleaguered nation had been virtually paralyzed by fear. People in villages hid the infected rather than helping them seek treatment. Doctors and nurses were blamed for spreading the disease. Mobs had attacked and looted clinics. Superstition and conspiracy theories had spread like wildfire. It was considered bad luck to even utter the name of the disease. Ultimately, the outbreak had been brought under control, with no new cases reported in months, but the Monrovians could be forgiven for being a little on edge.

“Do you know where they went?”

A slight shrug.

“Can you take me there?”

He nodded to indicate the general direction of Pierce’s destination. “Twenty mile. Maybe thirty. I can show you where they go.”

Pierce weighed his options. The smart thing to do was to simply wait for the WHO personnel to return, but how long that might be was anyone’s guess. Cooper certainly didn’t know. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Cooper motioned to his truck. “We go quick-quick. Don’t want to stop after dark.”

“No, we don’t want that,” Pierce said to himself. He checked his watch. Just after three-thirty local time. At this latitude, sunset was almost always at the same time every day, about six p.m. But thirty miles didn’t sound too far. They ought to be able to make it there, recruit Felice Carter into the Herculean Society and be on the plane before nightfall.

Cooper’s truck was about what Pierce expected—battered but functional—and the Liberian was considerably more assertive behind the wheel than Pierce’s taxi driver. In no time at all, they were racing north along a paved highway through endless miles of ramshackle shantytowns—the West African equivalent of urban sprawl. The pavement soon gave way to a dirt road, which did not slow Cooper down in any appreciable way. As they veered northeast into the interior, the neighborhoods became less dense and gave way to sparsely populated woodland.

Pierce turned his thoughts to the reason for his hasty trip: Dr. Felice Carter. While he had never met her personally, he already knew a great deal about her. Carter, a native of Washington State, with degrees in microbiology and genetic engineering, had twice crossed paths with Pierce’s good friend and Fiona’s father, Jack Sigler, and while she bore no responsibility for the crises that had unfolded from those encounters, she would carry the scars for the rest of her life.

As Sigler had explained it, during the excavation of a primitive Paleolithic archaeological site in Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley, Carter had been exposed to a bizarre retrovirus that had rewired her DNA at the subatomic level and turned her into a living ‘kill switch’ for humanity. In certain extreme situations, such as when facing a life-or-death threat, Felice Carter had a…the only words to describe it was ‘psychic ability’ to shut off the part of another person’s brain that governed sentient thought. Anyone nearby, whether the source of the threat or simply an innocent bystander, would become a mindless drone with no desire other than to protect her. The effect was permanent, and there was a very real possibility that, under truly dire circumstances—such as Carter’s own death—the range of influence might encompass the entire human race.

The explanation for this phenomenon required an understanding of quantum physics that Pierce didn’t have, but the upshot was that Felice Carter had become one of the most dangerous people on the planet. And yet, despite being a living doomsday weapon, she had chosen to spend her life in places where she would be at the greatest risk.

Whether it was because of her African-American heritage, or some deeper connection imbued by the Ethiopian retro-virus, Carter had made it her life’s work to improve conditions for the people of Africa. Given the sheer size of the continent and the scope of the problems facing its inhabitants, it seemed a fool’s errand, but she had put her scientific knowledge to good use. She had worked to stop the spread of AIDS in Central Africa, conducted ground-breaking research into the field of microbe-produced biofuels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and most recently, she had responded to the Ebola outbreak in Liberia.

While there was no arguing that she had done important work and had made a meaningful contribution to human society, Pierce was troubled by the scientist’s seemingly irresponsible attitude toward the threat
she
posed. In her place, Pierce would have chosen to hide out in a cabin in the wilderness or exile himself to a monastery—anything to stay away from potentially threatening situations. Then again, maybe Carter’s altruism was a way of preserving her link to humanity.

Probably best to avoid that topic altogether
, he thought.

After about forty minutes of driving, they came upon a pair of old Land Rovers parked along the roadside. Beneath a layer of mud splatter, Pierce could make out the blue United Nations logo on the doors, but there was no sign of the occupants. Cooper pulled his pick-up off to the side of the road, just ahead of the other vehicles.

“Where are they?” Pierce asked.

“In the bush, bossman,” Cooper said, as if that explained everything.

As they got out of the truck, Cooper reached behind the seat and took out a rust-spotted machete, which he handed to Pierce.

Pierce hefted the blade, recalling his promise of the night before to start carrying a knife.
Not exactly what I had in mind
. He took an experimental swing at the tall grass on the roadside. “Are we going to have to do a little trail-blazing?”

“Maybe so,” Cooper said, still rooting behind the seat. Pierce expected him to produce a second long knife, but instead Cooper took out a pump-action shotgun. “Maybe other things.”

Without further explanation, Cooper headed out across the grass and soon located a well-traveled path that headed south into the forest. The temperature in the interior was hotter, and the air was more humid than in Monrovia. Cooper handed Pierce a one-liter bottle that looked as if it had been used in a soccer game—as the ball—but the seal on the lid appeared to be intact.

How do I want to die,
Pierce thought
, from dehydration or dysentery?

He thanked Cooper and jammed the bottle into his pocket. He knew he would eventually be desperate enough to take a chance, but he wasn’t quite there yet.

The trail took them through dense woods, where the shade offered no relief from the heat. The pace was urgent but the path was well-trodden. Pierce didn’t have to swing his machete even once.

After an hour of relentless trekking, Cooper signaled him to stop with a raised hand. Pierce raised his blade, ready to swing it at whatever had aroused his guide’s concern, but the forest was quiet.

Unnaturally quiet.

No birds chirping, no insects buzzing.

They waited there for several minutes, but the pervasive silence did not lift. Finally, Cooper indicated they should resume, but when he started walking again, his steps were softer and more deliberate. He offered no explanation for the eerie phenomenon, but his anxiety was palpable. And contagious.

Ten minutes later he stopped again.

“What is it?” Pierce asked, unable to suppress his curiosity any longer.

Cooper turned a slow circle, then pointed at the ground. “This plant. I do not know what it is.”

Because he was not familiar with the native flora, it had not occurred to Pierce that anything was out of the ordinary, but it was easy to see why the plant in question had caught Cooper’s attention. It was everywhere, blanketing the ground and partially obscuring the trail, climbing up tree trunks and smothering all other plant life. The dark green three-lobed leaves and coiling vines reminded Pierce of creeping kudzu, which had infested parts of the American South.

“I have never seen this before,” Cooper reiterated. “It should not be here.”

Pierce was not sure how to react. Of all the potential hazards he had been worrying about—cutthroat bandits and revolutionaries, predatory wildlife, infectious disease—the one thing that had not even appeared on his radar was an infestation by an invasive plant species. In hindsight, he should have added dangerous plants to the list, but risk of getting skewered by a thorn or developing a nasty rash did not quite rank alongside getting mauled by a lion or contracting hemorrhagic fever. But Cooper seemed genuinely alarmed by the situation.

“We should keep going,” Pierce said. “Find the WHO scientists. They might know what this is.”

The last statement snapped the guide out of his paralysis, and he started forward again with more urgency. As Pierce moved after Cooper, he felt something tugging at his feet. He looked down and discovered that his boot had become entangled in thread-like tendrils that sprouted from the stems of the strange plant. The vines broke apart when he lifted his foot, releasing a faint noxious odor that made Pierce’s eyes water.