“I believe you. But it’s not enough. The Amazon Basin is almost three million square miles.”
Gallo rolled her eyes. “You asked me to translate it for you.” She added emphasis to the word so there would be no mistaking the sarcasm. “To identify the location of the Amazon city, so that you would have a starting point. I’ve done that. You don’t need to know exactly where it is to figure out where he went next.”
Kenner glanced at the large television screen on the wall. Gallo wasn’t sure if he was looking to see if Tyndareus had further instructions, or if the look was meant to remind her that Kenner was not the final arbiter of her fate. “Without certain proof, we would be shooting in the dark.”
Gallo frowned and searched her memory for something that would convince him. “Carvajal described finding carvings of an elaborate walled city in several villages along the river, prior to that battle. The natives told him that the carvings were a symbol of their ruler, like a sort of national flag, and identified that ruler as ‘the mistress of the Amazons.’ The city was real.”
“If there is an Amazon city in the jungles of Brazil, why has no one ever found it?”
“It’s the jungle. You could walk within ten feet of a ruin and not see it. In the century following contact with the Spaniards, ninety percent of Brazil’s native population was dead from small pox and other diseases. The Amazons might have suffered the same fate. In fact, if they were concentrated in an urban center, they would have been even more vulnerable than smaller tribes in isolated villages.”
Kenner looked as if he wanted to believe, but he could not overcome his skepticism. “It’s not enough. We have to find that city. You have to find it.” He stood up. “We’re going to Brazil. I hope you can narrow it down a little before we head upriver.”
Gallo didn’t know where to begin. There was nothing in the Heracleia that even remotely approached the level of detail necessary for her to deduce an exact location for the ancient city, and she couldn’t even read the…
She turned back to the displayed image of the Amazon Queen’s belt, weighing the possible consequences of the choice before her. If she did this, she would be complicit in helping Kenner and Cerberus find a secret that Diotrephes had kept hidden for more than three millennia. But if she didn’t, both she and Fiona would suffer. She had no illusions about Tyndareus letting them go, but while they were alive, there was always a chance that they might be able to turn the tables on Cerberus. And she knew Pierce would never stop looking for them.
I have to buy more time, she decided.
“I have an idea,” she said finally. “But I’m going to need some help from Fiona.”
25
The blue alcohol flame looked deceptively cool as Carter carefully set the old-fashioned Bunsen burner under the vent hood. A six-inch long sample of the vine, which had wiped out the forest village and nearly killed her and everyone else in her team, sat beside it.
She had gathered the specimen before leaving the forest, sealing it in a plastic bio-hazard bag. Even though she had taken great pains to ensure that there was no risk from the plant, she was not about to take any chances. Using two sets of forceps, she peeled back the plastic, exposing the vine to open air.
Instantly, three white tendrils, which had been coiled up beneath the slightly-wilted leaves, shot out like party streamers, all reaching for the burner. One of the shoots got close enough to touch the fuel reservoir under the burning wick. It stuck there, as if coated with an adhesive, the tip curling upward, reaching for the flame.
Then, something very strange happened. Without releasing its hold, the tendril began to recoil, pulling the plant closer to the burner.
Thermotaxis. Movement toward heat. That explained why the plant had seemed almost dormant during the hot day. After nightfall, it aggressively sought out new heat sources, including body heat.
Over the course of the next few minutes, the other tendrils latched on to the Bunsen burner, pulling the main stem closer still, until it was in contact with the glass fuel bottle. Meanwhile, the tips of the shoots reached so close to the flame that they were starting to blacken.
“So, you like the heat,” she muttered. “Even if it kills you.”
“Is that a good thing?” Pierce asked from the doorway.
Carter nodded as he stepped into the lab, and then she smiled to Lazarus, who filed in behind Pierce.
The big man returned the smile. Carter felt a lightness in her heart whenever she saw him smile. It didn’t happen often.
“It is,” she told Pierce. “It means we’ll be able to eradicate the infestation with fire. No risk of spreading the vines any further. In fact, the vines will be drawn to the heat, hastening the process. I’ll still need to do some more research, once that equipment you’re sending gets here. I’d like to unpack the plant’s DNA, maybe figure out what the parent organisms were.”
“That may not be necessary,” Pierce replied holding up his phone. “I thought you might want to hear this.” He placed the phone on the table. “Go ahead, Cintia.”
“Yes. As I was saying, I located Nils Van Der Hausen’s lab in Stockholm. The police are raiding it as we speak.”
“What about Van Der Hausen himself?” Carter asked.
“He flew to Monrovia last week. There’s no record of his return.”
“I think that passport you found may be all that’s left of him,” Pierce added. “It looks like he got a taste of his own medicine.”
“Good,” Carter said. “Though it’s too bad that we’ll never know why he did it.”
“Well…” Dourado said. “Van Der Hausen was definitely being bankrolled by Cerberus, and they left a trail.”
Carter threw a questioning glance at Pierce. “You mentioned Cerberus earlier. I take it they’re some kind of criminal organization?”
Dourado answered first. “More like semi-criminal. A lot of the stuff they’re involved in isn’t illegal, but it would be if anyone knew they were doing it. They’re extremely secretive. The first rule of the Cerberus Group is: You do not talk about Cerberus Group. The second rule—”
“We get it Cintia,” Pierce said.
There was a faint grumble from the phone, then Dourado resumed speaking. “It was a tough nut to crack. Took almost two hours.”
Carter wondered if that was Dourado’s idea of a joke, but the woman sounded serious. “So the same people you’re after are responsible for the plant infestation. That’s convenient.”
“Cerberus may have been the watchdog of the Underworld in Greek mythology,” Dourado said. “But the Cerberus Group is more like the bird dog of the criminal underworld. They’re everywhere, and whatever you want or need, they can get it for you. I am not talking about lightweight stuff — guns, drugs and so forth. Cerberus specializes in getting things that no one else can, like rare biological samples and priceless art treasures.”
“We were already investigating Cerberus,” Pierce explained. “We know they’re moving into research and development, specifically genetic engineering. Van Der Hausen was on their payroll, though from the looks of it, his research didn’t pan out.”
Carter was not entirely sure she agreed with that assessment. The plant infestation had wiped out an entire village, which made it a useful, if somewhat unconventional, biological weapon. It could be used against targets in undeveloped nations and would be much easier to control than microbial bio-weapons.
“We know they’re working to procure a substance that can facilitate the creation of genetic chimeras,” Pierce continued. “That’s actually why I came to find you. I was hoping to bring you on as a consultant.”