She nodded. “BioRem already has the pathogen, so it must be the cure they’re after. You said the CDC has no known remedy for the plague. There is a cure. It’s called the Apium of Faras. It saved Meritaten, and it saved the Habiru slaves.”
“So it could save those infected today,” Pitt said.
“It was derived from a plant called silphium,” Dirk said. “We think some of it’s buried with Meritaten. That must be why they want to find her—or stop us from finding her.”
“Rare plant?” Giordino asked.
“Not rare, extinct,” Dirk said. “It died out during Roman times. The only hope is that some is buried with Meritaten.”
“Sounds like a long shot,” Pitt said.
“Maybe,” Summer said, “but the mural at Amarna shows her carrying it.”
“Are you any closer to knowing where’s she’s buried?” Giordino asked.
“I think so. We found a stone marker indicating she’s at a place called Falcon Rock. Dr. Brophy thinks it represents an island off the Kerry coast.”
“Skellig Michael,” the Irishman said with a nod.
“You can take us there?” Pitt asked.
Brophy glanced at Summer’s bandaged shoulder and nodded. “Aye. Perhaps we best get there before the competition does.”
61
Riki waited with Ainsley and Gavin in a small threadbare room that constituted the terminal at Abbeyfeale Airfield. The place didn’t qualify as an airport, she had quickly determined, once they had located the private facility tucked off a narrow country lane. A single paved runway with a line painted down the middle crossed an empty pasture, supplemented by a pair of hangars and a small administrative-office-cum-terminal. The lone proprietor had already vacated the air traffic control radio set and was opening one of the hangars for McKee’s arrival.
Riki had opened her laptop computer and had begun tapping the keys out of boredom when Gavin pointed out the picture window.
“Here they come.”
The landing lights of a small plane twinkled in the distance, and Riki watched as her mother’s Learjet touched down and taxied across the tarmac. The jet halted temporarily, opening its side door to release Evanna McKee and Rachel, before continuing its journey into one of the open hangars.
When the two women entered the building, Riki could instantly see something was amiss. Dressed in a wrinkled outfit, her mother moved with an uncharacteristic slump. Her face showed both fatigue and grief as she dropped into an empty chair beside Riki.
“Mother, you don’t look well. Can I get you some tea?”
“Audrey is dead,” McKee said in a monotone. Her trauma at losing her younger daughter had either already passed or been muted by drugs. “The lab is damaged and possibly exposed.”
“Audrey . . . dead?”
Riki grappled with the news. She’d never been close to her younger half sister, and as an adult had been dominated by her. To Audrey’s lasting jealousy, Frasier McKee had always treated Riki as his own daughter, perhaps out of sympathy for her own father’s early death in the Iraq War. It created resentment that Audrey never let go of.
At the same time, their mother had always shown favoritism toward Audrey. Riki knew it was because the two were more alike—deceitful, insensitive, and ruthlessly self-serving. Riki tried to emulate them, but it never came naturally.
“How did it happen?”
“The American, Pitt. He infiltrated the lab. By now he should be dead and lying at the bottom of the loch. I thought it best that we stay out of Scotland until things blow over.” She gazed around the spartan room and crinkled her nose. “We took a circuitous route to get here. The pilot said our arrival at this field would not be reported to the authorities. For a price. We can fly to Italy, perhaps, for a short while.”
McKee glanced at Riki’s open computer. The screen showed a map of the lower side of Dingle Bay. A pair of red lights flashed on either side of a town marked CAHERSIVEEN. “What is that?” she asked.
“The younger Pitt’s car and phone,” Riki said. She glanced at the computer and frowned. “You said they went off the bridge east of town,” she said, addressing Gavin and Ainsley. “This shows his phone on the west side of Cahersiveen.”
Gavin and Ainsley looked at each other.
Riki turned to her mother with a sullen voice. “They disposed of the younger Pitts in an auto accident this morning.”
“His phone says otherwise,” McKee said.