But his attack was not in vain. He broke free of the vines and charged over to where Carter was struggling to rise from beneath what looked like a blanket of vine tendrils. Careful to avoid striking her, he stabbed the machete into the ground and began sawing through the stems, cutting an outline around her.
The prickling on his skin grew quickly from a warm glow to an uncomfortable heat, and then to an intensity that made him want to drop the machete and tear his skin off with his bare hands. He gritted his teeth against the pain and kept cutting. With a heave, Carter got her feet under her and pulled free of the vines. Screaming, she fell into his arms. In the dim light, he could see something moving beneath the fabric of her bio-safety suit; the vines had found a way inside.
He tried to reach Cooper, but a new wave of shoots erupted from the ground, snagging his feet. He sliced at the vines but when he tried to draw back for another blow, he discovered that his arm had also been caught, and where the vines touched him, his skin felt like it was on fire. He tried to pull free, but more tendrils snaked out, enveloping him and Carter. The pain soared to a climax, and then Pierce’s overloaded nervous system simply shut down, and he felt only numbness.
In some distant corner of his mind, Pierce wondered how much agony and fear it would take to trigger Carter’s kill-switch response, and if he would still be alive when that threshold was finally crossed.
18
Greece
Fiona tapped the phone’s screen to accept the incoming call and thumbed another button to put it in speaker mode. “Hello?”
“Hello? Dr. Gallo, is it you?” came the reply, an unfamiliar voice. English but the accent was strange. Definitely not Kenner.
“Speaking,” Gallo said in a tight, cautious tone.
“Thank heavens. Dr. Gallo, I am in the car behind you. Please don’t be alarmed. I mean you no harm.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Matthew James. I work for Aegis International Services. Dr. Pierce hired me in Gibraltar to look after you.”
Fiona gaped at Gallo, wide-eyed. She was familiar with Aegis, a security consulting firm that provided protection and logistical support for international businessmen and even a few small governments. It was one of the many subsidiary agencies discreetly owned by the Herculean Society, and like the rest, it was an asset that could be readily employed in the pursuit of the Society’s agenda, if the need arose.
The man chasing after them was not an enemy, but a bodyguard.
Gallo’s face transformed in an instant. “Son of a bitch,” she said in a low but angry tone.
“It was not my intention to frighten you,” James went on. “I was only supposed to watch from a distance, but... Please, slow down.”
Gallo looked over at Fiona. “He knew. He knew we wouldn’t stay in the cave, so he hired a babysitter.”
Fiona shrugged, and then nodded to the highway ahead. “Could be worse, right?”
Gallo raised her voice. “How do I know you are who you say you are?”
“Dr. Pierce gave me your number. You can call him and verify, if you like.”
Fiona thought that sounded like a good idea. “Should I?”
Gallo gave a nod.
Fiona ended the call without comment and scrolled through Gallo’s contacts to find the number for Pierce’s satellite phone. As the call went out, she noted that Gallo had slowed the Fox to a reasonably safe highway speed, and the trailing vehicle had backed off. Both were encouraging developments.
The call went to voicemail.
Fiona looked at Gallo again. “Now what?”
Gallo nodded her head toward their bodyguard. “Call him back.”
James picked up on the first ring. “Do you believe me now?”
Gallo ignored the question. “If you’re going to tag along, we’re going to have to set some ground rules.”
“Certainly,” James replied. “Keeping you safe is my first priority, but your—”
James’s voice went to static as an artificial sun rose behind them.
What?
Fiona whipped her head around and caught a glimpse of the expanding ball of flame in the middle of the highway. She could feel heat radiating through the windows. Then the sound of the explosion reverberated through the car, simultaneous with a shock wave that swatted the Fox like an invisible hand, sending it into a spin.
Gallo swore as she fought to regain control. Beside her, Fiona could do nothing more than hang on.
An explosion. James’s car just blew up. James is dead.
Just as Gallo got the Fox back under control, there was another bloom of fire, this one directly in their path and much closer.
The blast tore into the little Volkswagen. The windshield didn’t shatter, but the hood peeled up, momentarily eclipsing Fiona’s view of this new explosion. Then, the bottom dropped out of the world as the explosion lifted the Fox off the road like a balsa wood glider, flipping it end over end. It landed upside down, with a crunch that crumpled the roof and blew out all the windows.