“Are you okay?” David asked.
“I… can’t see.”
David rushed forward and helped Kamau out of the tunnel and to a chair at the long table where Kate sat. She thought the African looked disoriented, weakened somehow.
“What happened?” David asked.
“Janus. He blinded me with a light weapon. It disabled me for a while.”
David focused on Kate. “He could have manipulated the data.”
Kate opened her mouth, but stopped when the sat phone began vibrating on the table. She snatched it up and answered quickly.
One result—no—I think you have to—I agree, Paul—Call me back when you know.
She ended the call. The one therapy was their only shot. But…
“They found one therapy,” she said. “They’re going forward with it. They don’t have any alternatives.” She stared at David. “We need to talk to Janus.”
David walked closer to Kamau. “How bad is your sight?”
“Getting better. Still blurry.”
He’s putting up a front for his commanding officer, Kate thought.
David handed him an assault rifle from the table. “I want you to shoot anything that comes out of that tunnel.”
He turned to Kate. “Chang is dead, I’d bet on it. It’s just Shaw and Janus down there. We know where Janus is going. I’ll bring him back.” To Kamau, he said, “When I’m at the tunnel entrance, I’ll call ‘Achilles coming out’ before I exit.”
Kamau nodded.
Then David was gone, into the darkness of the tunnel.
Kate walked to the table and picked up a handgun. She ran her finger over the words engraved into the side. SIG SAUER.
“Do you know how to use that?” Kamau’s deep voice echoed in the cavernous space.
“I’m a real quick learner.”
Adam Shaw placed another pack of explosives into the stone cutout in the tunnel. Where to go next? He should have made a map back to the museum lobby; the tunnels were never-ending. Somewhere in the distance, he heard footsteps. He clicked his lantern off.
He receded deeper into the burial chamber that lay just off the tunnel. The rubber grip of the knife made a slight sound against his fingers as he drew it from the sheath.
The approaching figure was carrying a lantern. The light grew brighter with each passing second.
Shaw crouched and waited. The burial chamber was small, a roughly six-foot by ten-foot narrow chamber, one of many hollowed out appendages off the main tunnel. He would only have a second to see and take his prey.
He tried to pace the footsteps in his mind, knowing he would have only a split second to time his lunge.
Closer.
Closer.
The figure came into view.
Janus.
Shaw let him pass. He exhaled. But there were more footsteps—behind Janus. Kamau?
They had been together.
Shaw froze.
David.
Chasing Janus.
Then he was gone. And Shaw was glad. In the recesses of his mind, he could admit, barely, that Vale could take him hand-to-hand, even if Adam had the element of surprise. He had read David’s file, his Clocktower personnel report, before he had begun this mission. He had been searching for a way to kill him since the second he first saw him, since David had risen out of the waters of the Mediterranean and slammed him against the floating wreckage of the plague barge—impressing upon Shaw, literally, how capable he was at hand-to-hand combat.
But Adam didn’t have to worry about David now—he was zooming deeper into the tunnel, away from Kate, the thing David valued most, leaving Shaw open to capture her, complete his mission, and get his revenge upon David.
Adam stepped from the burial chamber and turned left, following the path David had revealed, to Kate.
Janus ran as quickly as he could. Up ahead, the soft glow of lanterns illuminated the stone room.
It would be guarded—if history was any indication.
Janus took the quantum cube from his pocket and slowed his pace. He could see it now, the Ark, lying at the end of the chamber. Amazing. It was just as it had been.
Two guards pivoted from behind the stone walls, blocking his path.
Janus activated the cube, flooding the area with blinding light. He adjusted it, turning it higher.
The men collapsed, and he heard more bodies hit the stone floor inside the room.
He stepped across the threshold and surveyed the scene. Perhaps six heavily armed European soldiers and someone else—an adolescent Asian wearing a ceremonial robe.
Janus stepped to the Ark and peered down.
There he was. The first. They had kept him. Told his story. After all these years. They were a remarkable species. They had exceeded all his expectations. It still didn’t change what had to be done. He told himself that he had no choice.
He took hold of the alpha’s femur bone, lifted it, and swung it violently against the wall of the stone box.
A small metallic chip fell out, then disappeared under the rain of gray dust that covered it.
Janus brushed it aside, then reached in, searching for the chip.
It had taken months to find it. It was the last piece. When it was gone…
He held it up to the light, glancing at the technology he and his partner had embedded almost seventy thousand years ago. The small radiation beacon had enabled them to make changes to the human genome for tens of thousands of years. Each time they programmed a new radiation regimen, it altered the genome of humans within the beacon’s range, adjusting the course of humanity. The device was old now, and its power source was almost spent, reducing its range considerably. Janus had wondered if he could find it. But in the face of the current plague, it had performed as planned, running its emergency program, activating the Atlantis Gene, saving those who flocked to be near it. It was a shame so many had to die for Janus to find it. But without the device, nothing stood in the way of the final genetic transformation he had already unleashed. He tossed the chip into the box and crushed it.
Behind him, he heard footsteps stop abruptly. Janus turned to find David Vale standing in the opening of the chamber, holding one of the primitive weapons that shot hardened elemental projectiles.
Janus reached for the quantum cube.
“Don’t, Janus. I swear to God, I will shoot you.”
“Now, Mr. Vale. That’s no way to treat someone who saved your life.”
CHAPTER 88
CDC
Atlanta, Georgia
Paul Brenner walked to the Symphony control room. The feeling around the room was jubilation. Two flashing words on the center screen read:
ONE RESULT
They had a new gene therapy for the Atlantis Plague. A new hope.