But Konstantin was right. They had to keep moving for now. It was not safe to remain on solid ground with two tigers stalking these highland forests. The swamp would at least offer some shelter.
Monk picked a path down the steep ridge. He helped Pyotr, while Konstantin held his sister’s hand. The two youngest children were fading fast. As a group, they sank out of the warmer sunlight and into the chillier shadows.
Trees grew heavier here, mostly pines and birches. But along the maze of creeks that flowed into the bog, willows draped with sullen shoulders, the tips of their branches sweeping the waters.
Monk headed out, forcing a path. The underbrush was a tangled mix of juniper bushes and berries. But the way grew clearer as the ground grew muddier. Soon they were stepping from moss clump to moss clump, which was not difficult, considering how well the mosses flourished here. The fuzzy green carpet covered rocky outcroppings and climbed up the white trunks of birches, as if trying to drag them beneath the earth.
Their pace began to slow, literally bogged down as the patches of stagnant water rose around them.
A piercing call drew Monk’s eyes up. An eagle swept past with wings as wide as Monk’s outstretched arms.
Hunting.
It reminded Monk of the dangers behind them.
He increased their pace. For once, the small children seemed better suited for the terrain. Their lighter bodies floated over the sucking mud, whereas Monk had to watch each step or lose a boot.
For the next hour, they moved sluggishly, traversing less than a mile by Monk’s calculation. He spotted snakes that slithered from their path and caught a flashing glimpse of a fox as it hopped from hillock to hillock and vanished. Monk’s ears strained for every noise. He heard things lumbering through the swamps. A heavy set of antlers marked the passage of a massive elk.
Before they knew it, they were ankle-deep in water, moving in a zigzagging pattern from island to island. The cold air smelled dank with algae and mold. Insects buzzed with a continual white noise. The passage grew darker as the sun continued to fall behind the mountains.
Monk’s steps slipped to a plodding pace.
Konstantin moved alongside Monk’s flank. He still held Kiska’s hand. The girl was nearly asleep on her feet.
Pyotr stuck close to Monk’s hip. Monk had to hike the boy onto his shoulders whenever they crossed through deeper water.
Pyotr suddenly grabbed Monk’s hand, clamping hard.
Something crashed through the trees, coming right at them.
Oh, no…
Monk yelled, knowing what was coming. “Go! Run!”
Monk snatched up the boy, who struggled and cried out. Konstantin splashed away, his knees high, dragging his sister behind him. Monk’s left foot sank to his calf. He tugged, but he could not free his limb. It was as if it had sunk into cement.
The rip and snap of branches aimed for them.
Monk tossed Pyotr ahead of him and twisted around to face the charge. He heard the boy splash into the water. But instead of running away, Pyotr scrabbled back to Monk.
“No! Pyotr, go!”
The boy continued past him as a large shadow leaped out of the trees and landed heavily into the water with a splash. Boy and shadow fell upon each other in a warm greeting.
Marta.
Monk fought the hammering in his heart. “Pyotr, next time…some warning.” He wormed his foot slowly out of the muck.
The chimpanzee hugged the boy and lifted him bodily out of the shallow water. Konstantin and Kiska splashed back to them. Marta let Pyotr go and gave each child a tight squeeze. She came next to Monk, arms up and wide. He bent down and accepted a hug from her, too. Her body was hot, her breath huffing in his ear. He felt the tremble of exhaustion in her old body. He returned the hug, knowing how hard she must have fought to rejoin them.
As Monk straightened, he wondered how Marta had found them. He did understand how she had overtaken them. While they had slogged through mud and water, she had swept through the bog’s trees, closing the distance. But still, how had she tracked them?
Monk stared back into the dark fen.
If she could follow them…
“Let’s keep moving,” he said and waved toward the heart of the swamps.
Together again, they traversed the swamplands. The reappearance of Marta invigorated the children, but the weight of the bog soon had them all heaving and struggling again. Konstantin drifted farther ahead. Pyotr hovered next to Monk, while Marta kept mostly to the trees, swinging low, her toes skimming the waters.
Slowly, the sun vanished behind the mountains, leaving them in dark twilight. Monk could barely make out Konstantin. Off to the left, an owl hooted in a long hollow note as full night threatened.
Konstantin called softly back to them out of a denser copse of willows, sounding urgent. “An izba!”
Monk didn’t know what he meant, but it didn’t sound good. Hauling after the boy, Monk found the water growing less deep.
He pushed through a drape of willow branches and saw that one of the ubiquitous tiny islands rose ahead. But it wasn’t empty. Atop the low hillock squatted a tiny cabin on short pylons. It was constructed of rough-hewn logs and topped by a moss-covered roof. The single window was dark. There was no sign of life. No smoke from the chimney.
Konstantin waited at the edge of the island among some tall reeds.
Monk joined him.
The tall boy pointed. “A hunter’s berth. Cabins like this are all over the mountains.”
“I’ll check it out,” Monk said. “Stay here.”
He climbed up onto the island and circled the cabin. It was small, with a chimney of stacked stone. Grasses grew as high as his waist. It didn’t look as if anyone had been here in ages. There was a single window, shuttered closed from the inside. Monk spotted a short pier, empty of any boats. But a flat-bottomed punt—a raft with a pointed prow—had been pulled into some neighboring reeds. Moss covered half the raft, but hopefully it was still serviceable.
Monk returned to the front of the cabin. He tried the door. It was unlocked, but the boards had warped, and it took some effort to tug it open with a creaking pop from its rusted hinges. The interior was dark and smelled musty. But at least it was dry. The log cabin had only one room. The floor was pine with a scatter of hay over most of it. The only furniture was a small table with four chairs. Crude cabinets lined one whole wall, but there was no kitchen. It appeared that all the cooking was done at the fireplace, where some cast-iron pans and pots were stacked. Monk noted a stack of dry wood.
Good enough.
Monk stepped to the door and waved for the kids to come inside.
He hated to stop, but they all needed to rest for a bit. With the window shuttered, Monk could risk a small fire. It would be good to dry out their clothes and boots, have a warm place for the coldest part of the night. Once rested and dry, they could set out before dawn, hopefully using that raft.
Konstantin helped him get a fire started while the two children sat on the floor, leaning on Marta. The older boy found matches in a waxen box, and the old dry wood took to flame with just a touch of kindling. A fire stoked quickly, snapping and popping. Smoke vanished up the chimney’s flue.
As Monk added another log, Konstantin searched the cabinets. He discovered fishing tackle, a rusted lantern with a little sloshing kerosene, a single heavy bowie-style knife, and a half-empty box of shotgun shells. But no gun. In a closet, he found a few curled, yellow magazines sporting naked women, which Monk confiscated and found a good use for as kindling. But on the top shelf, four heavy faded quilts had been folded and stacked.
As Konstantin handed out the quilts, he pointed to Monk’s discarded pack. Monk glanced over. The boy indicated his radiation monitor. No longer white, it now had a pink hue to it.
“Radiation,” Monk mumbled.
Konstantin nodded. “The processing plant that poisoned Lake Karachay.” He waved toward the northeast. “It also slowly leaked down into the gr
ound.”
Contaminating the groundwater, Monk realized. And where did all the runoff from the local mountains end up? Monk stared toward the shuttered window, picturing the bog outside.
He shook his head.
And he thought all he had to worry about was man-eating tigers.
7:04 P.M.
Pyotr sat naked, huddled in a thick quilt before the fire. Their shoes were lined up on the hearth, and their clothes hung out to dry on fishing line. The line was so thin it was as if his pants and shirt were floating in the air.
He enjoyed the flickering flames as they danced and crackled, but he didn’t like the smoke. It swirled up into the chimney as if it were something alive, born out of the fire.
He shivered and shifted on his backside closer to the bright flames.
The matron at the school used to tell them stories of the witch Baba Yaga, how she lived in a dark forest in a log cabin that moved around on chicken legs and would hunt down children to eat. Pyotr pictured the stilts he’d seen outside that held up their cabin. What if this was the witch’s cabin, hiding its claws deep beneath the ground?
He eyed the smoke more suspiciously.
And didn’t the witch have invisible servants to help her?
He searched around for them. He didn’t see anything move on its own. But then again, the flames danced shadows everywhere, so it was hard to tell.
He moved closer again to the warmth of the flames. Still, he kept his eyes on the swirling curls of smoke.
He rocked slightly in place to reassure himself. Marta came up and slid next to him, curling around him. He leaned into her. A strong arm pulled him even closer.
Do not fear.
But he did fear. He felt it itching over the inside of his skull like a thousand spiders. He watched the smoke, knowing that was where the danger truly lay as it swept up the chimney, possibly warning Baba Yaga that there were children in her house.
Pyotr’s heart thudded faster.
The witch was coming.
He knew it.
His eyes widened upon the smoke. He searched for the danger.
Marta hoo-hoo-ed in his ear, reassuring him, but it did no good. The witch was coming to eat them. They were in danger. Children in danger. The fire popped, scaring him into a small jump. Then he knew.
Not children.
But child.
And not them.
But another.
Pyotr stared hard at the smoke, pushing through the darkness to the truth. As the smoke curled to the sky, he saw who was in danger.
It was his sister.
Sasha.
11:07 A.M.
Washington, D.C.
“D.I.C.,” Lisa explained at the bedside of the girl.
Kat struggled to understand. She stood with her arms tight to her belly as she stared down at the tiny slip of a girl, so thin-limbed in her hospital gown, lost amid the sheets and pillows of the railed bed. Wires trailed from under her sheets to a bank of equipment against one wall, monitoring blood pressure and heart rate. An intravenous line dripped a slurry of saline and medicines. Still, over the past hours, her pale skin had grown more ashen, her lips a hint of blue.
“Disseminated intravascular coagulation,” Lisa translated, though she might as well have been speaking Latin.
Monk, with his medical training, would have known what she was talking about. Kat shook this last thought out of her head, still rebounding from seeing the child’s picture. She had plainly drawn it for Kat. They had formed a bond. Kat had seen it in the child’s eyes when she read to her. Mostly the girl’s manner was flat and affected, but occasionally she would turn those small eyes up at Kat. Something shone there, a mix of trust and almost recognition. It had melted Kat’s heart. With a new baby herself, she knew her maternal instincts and hormones were running strong, her emotions raw with the recent loss of her husband.
“What does that mean?” Painter asked Lisa.
He stood on the opposite side of the bed beside Lisa. He had just returned after taking a call from Gray in India. His team had been attacked and was now headed to the northern regions. Painter was already investigating who had orchestrated the ambush—the assassination attempt on the professor could not have been coincidence, someone knew Gray had been flying out there. Despite needing to follow up on the mystery, the director had taken time to come down here to listen to Lisa’s report.
Dr. Cummings had finished a slew of blood tests.
Before Painter’s question could be answered, Dr. Sean McKnight entered the room. He had taken off his suit coat and tie. He had his sleeves rolled to the elbow. He had gone to make some calls following Gray’s debriefing. Painter turned to him, an eyebrow raised in question, but Sean just waved for Lisa to continue. He sank into a bedside chair. He had kept a vigil there for the past hour. Even now he rested a hand on the bedsheet. Kat and Sean had talked for a long while. He had two grandchildren.
Lisa cleared her throat. “D.I.C. is a pathological process where the body’s blood begins to form tiny clots throughout all systems. It depletes the body’s clotting factors and leads contrarily to internal bleeding. The causes are varied, but the condition arises usually secondary to a primary illness. Snake bites, cancers, major burns, shock. But one of the most common reasons is meningitis. Usually a septic inflammation of the brain. Which considering the fever and…”
Lisa waved to the device attached to the side of the child’s skull. Her lips thinned with worry. “All tests confirm the diagnosis. Decreased platelets, elevated FDPs, prolonged bleeding times. I’m certain of the diagnosis. I have her on platelets, and I’m transfusing her with antithrombin and drotrecogin alfa. It should help stabilize her for the moment, but the ultimate cure is to treat the primary disease that triggered the D.I.C. And that remains unknown. She’s not septic. Her blood and CSF cultures are all negative. Might be viral, but I’m thinking something else is going on, something we’re in the dark about, something tied to the implant.”
Kat took a deep, shuddering breath. “And without knowing that…”
Lisa crossed her own arms to match Kat’s pose. “She’s failing. I’ve slowed her decline, but we must know more. The initials—D.I.C.—have another connotation among medical professionals. They stand for Death Is Coming.”
Kat turned to Painter. “We must do something.”
He nodded and glanced to Sean. “We have no choice. We need answers. Maybe with time we could discern the pathology here, but there are certain individuals who know more, who are current with this biotechnology and know specifically what was done to this girl.”
Sean sighed. “We’ll have to tread carefully.”
Kat sensed a discussion had already occurred between Sean and Painter. “What are you planning?”
“If we’re going to save this child”—Painter stared at the fragile girl—“we’re going to have to get in bed with the enemy.”
11:38 P.M.
Trent McBride strode down the long deserted hallway. This section of Walter Reed was due for renovation. Hospital rooms to either side were in shambles, walls moldy, plaster cracked, but his goal was the mental ward lockdown in back. Here the walls were cement block, the windows barred, the doors steel with tiny grated cutouts.
Trent crossed to the last cell. A guard stood outside the door. They weren’t taking any chances. The guard stepped to the side and offered a jangling set of keys to Trent.
He took them and checked through the small window in the door. Yuri lay sprawled fully dressed in the bed. Trent unlocked the door, and Yuri sat up. For an old man, he was wiry and spry, plainly he had been juicing up on a strong cocktail of androgens and other anti-aging hormones. How those Russians loved their performance-enhancing drugs.
He swung the door wide. “Time to go to work, Yuri.”
The man stood up, his eyes flashing. “Sasha?”
“We shall see.”
Yuri crossed to the door. Trent didn’t like the resolute cast to the man’s expression and g
rew suddenly suspicious. Rather than beaten, Yuri had an edge of steel to him, like a sword’s blade pounded and folded to a finer edge. Maybe all the old man’s strength didn’t just come from injections into his ass cheeks.
But resolute or not, Yuri was under his thumb.
Still, Trent waved for the guard to follow with his sidearm. Trent had planned to walk Yuri back himself. Well over six feet and twice the man’s weight, Trent hadn’t been worried about needing an escort. But he did not trust the cast to Yuri’s eye.
They headed out.
“Where are we going?” Yuri asked.
To put a final nail in Archibald Polk’s coffin, he answered silently. Trent had orchestrated the death of his old friend, but now he was planning on putting an end to one of Archibald’s shining successes, his brainchild, a secret organization that the man had dreamed up while serving the Jasons.
A team of killer scientists.
Basically Jasons with guns.
But after murdering the professor, Trent must now destroy the man’s brainchild. For his own work to continue, Sigma must die.
Chapter 12
September 6, 7:36 P.M.
Punjab, India
As the sun sank into the horizon, Gray admitted that Rosauro’s choice of vehicle proved to be a wise decision. In the passenger seat, he kept a palm pressed to the roof to keep him in his seat as their SUV bumped along a deeply rutted muddy road. They’d left the last significant town an hour ago and trekked through the rural back hills.
Dairy farms, sugarcane fields, and mango orchards divided the rolling landscape into a patchwork. Masterson had explained that Punjab was India’s abundant breadbasket, the Granary of India, as he described it, producing a majority of its wheat, millet, and rice.
“And someone has to work all these fields,” Masterson had said as he gave them directions from the backseat.
Kowalski and Elizabeth shared the row with him. Behind them, Luca sat in the rear, polishing his daggers.
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