The Judas Strain (Sigma Force 4)

The altar tumbled into the pit.

10:20 a.m.

Susan screamed, arching up out of the backseat.

Lisa, strapped in the copilot's seat, jarred around. She had been staring down at the expanse of the great inland lake as the Seat Dart circled, readying to land. Below, a floating village drifted from the shoreline, a tangled accumulation of Vietnamese junks and houseboats.

It was where Painter had told her to go into hiding. The fishing village lay twenty miles from Angkor. Out of harm's way.

Lisa fumbled with her seat harness as Susan wailed. Freeing herself, she stumbled to the back of the plane.

Susan thrashed out of the fire blanket, gasping. "Too late! We're too late!"

Lisa gathered the blanket and urged her to lie down. She had been sleeping quietly for the whole ride here. What had happened?

Susan clawed out a hand and grabbed Lisa's forearm. The grip seared her skin, burning away the fine hairs.

Lisa yanked her arm away. "Susan, what's wrong?"

Susan pulled herself up in the seat. The wildness in her eyes ebbed slightly, but she continued to quake all over. She swallowed hard.

"We must get there." She mumbled her usual mantra.

"We're landing now," Lisa said, trying to calm her. She even felt the Sea Dart bank downward.

"No!" Susan reached again for her, but then withdrew her hand, noting Lisa shying away. Her fingers curled and slipped back under the fire blanket. She took a shuddering breath. Her eyes rose to Lisa's. "We're too far. Lisa, I know how this sounds. But we have only minutes left. Ten or fifteen at most."

"Left for what?"

Lisa remembered her earlier conversation with Painter, about the Christmas Island crabs, about chemically induced neurological changes, triggering manic migratory urges. But in the sophisticated mind of a human, what did those same chemicals do? What other changes were wrought? Could Susan's urges be trusted?

"If I don't get there . . ." Susan said, shaking her head as if trying to jar a memory loose. "They've opened something. I can feel the sunlight. Like fiery eyes burning into me. All I know . . . and I know it in my bones. . . if I'm not there in time, there will be no cure."

Lisa hesitated, glancing back to Ryder.

The lake rose up as the Sea Dart swept downward.

Susan moaned. "I didn't ask for this."

Lisa heard the grief in her words, sensing that the pain encompassed more than the biological burden. Susan had lost her husband, her world.

She turned back to the woman.

Susan's face shone with a blur of emotions: fear, grief, desperation, and a deep loneliness.

Susan placed her palms together. "I'm not a crab. Can't you see that?"

Lisa did.

She swung around and called to Ryder. "Pull up!"

"What?" Ryder glanced back.

Lisa motioned her thumb in the air. "Don't land! We have to get closer to the ruins." She clambered up and used the seat backs to pull herself up to the copilot seat. "There's a river that runs through the town of Siem Reap."

She sank into the seat. She had studied the navigational maps of the region. The town still lay six miles or so away. She remembered Susan's warning.

Ten or fifteen minutes at most.

Would that be close enough? Her own blood was now ignited by the urgency. It took her another breath to realize why. Susan's last words.

I'm not a crab.

Susan didn't know anything about the Christmas Island land crabs. Lisa hadn't spoken aloud about Painter's conversation, not even with Ryder. Maybe in her stupor, Susan had overheard her end of the discussion. But Lisa couldn't recall if she'd used the word crab.

Either way, she flipped open the nav-chart and searched.

They needed somewhere closer to land.

Another lake or river . ..

"Or here," she said aloud, pulling the chart closer.

"What's that, lass?" Ryder asked. He dragged up the Sea Dart's nose and sent them sailing high over the lake.

Lisa flipped the chart toward him and tapped at it. "Can you land here?"

Ryder's eyes widened. "Are you bloody crazy?"

She didn't answer. Mostly because she didn't know the answer.

Ryder's face split into the wide grin. "What the hell! Let's give it a try!" Ever up for a thrill, he reached and patted her thigh. "I like the way you think. How firm is that relationship of yours back home?"

Lisa leaned back into the seat. After Painter heard about this. . . She shook her head. "We'll see."

11:22 P.M. Washington, D.C.

"Sir, that GPS lock that you had me tracking, it's moving off course."

Painter swung around. He had been coordinating with the Australian Counterterrorism and Special Recovery Team. They had arrived on-site at the island of Pusat fifteen minutes ago, proceeding to the coordinates Lisa had left. Early intel from the island remained confusing. The Mistress of the Seas was found burning, wrapped in a tangle of netting and steel cable. It listed almost forty-five degrees. A major firefight was under way aboard ship.

Kat sat on his other side, earphones in place, holding them with both hands. She had refused to go home. Not until she knew for sure. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she remained focused, surviving on a thin hope. Maybe, somehow, Monk was still alive.

"Sir," the technician said, pointing to another screen. It showed a map of Cambodia's central plateau. A large lake spread in the middle. A small blip crept in tiny pixilated jumps across the screen, tracking the Sea Dart.

While the seaplane had been circling near the shoreline a moment ago, it now headed away from the lake.

"Where are they going?" Painter asked. He watched a few seconds more, getting a trajectory. He extended it with a finger. Their air path led in a beeline straight toward Angkor.

What are they doing!

Motion at the door drew Painter's eye. His aid, Brant, flew into the room, braking his wheelchair with a squeal of rubber on linoleum.

"Director Crowe, I tried to reach you," he gasped out. "Couldn't. Figured you were still conferencing with Australia."

Painter nodded. He had been.

Brant grabbed a fax crumpled in his lap and held it out.

Painter took it and scanned it once quickly, then a second time more carefully. Oh God. . .

He headed to the door, bumping past Brant. He paused, turned. "Kat?" "Go. I've got it covered."

He glanced back to the screen map of Cambodia, to the tiny blip edging toward the ruins of Angkor.

Lisa, I hope you know what you're doing.

He fled out of the room and ran for his office.

For the moment, she was on her own.

10:25 A M Angkor