“What do you mean?” Gray asked.
Bailey shrugged. “No one heard anything more about Prester John. By the late sixteenth century, explorers searching Ethiopia found a Black king, but the African lord claimed no connection to Prester John. And as geographical knowledge grew, the legend of a Christian king of Africa faded. By the seventeenth century, most dismissed his story as mere myth.”
Tucker glanced at the spread of photos. “Clearly, somebody believed otherwise.”
“Or at least conflated the two stories,” Lisa said. “The legend of a nearly immortal priest-king and the rumors of a cursed empire hidden in the jungle.”
Monk frowned down at the map. “But I don’t understand how those stories could be connected. The lands of Ethiopia are on the other side of the Congo, far to the east.”
Bailey offered an explanation. “You have to understand that borders were fluid over the centuries as explorers mapped and remapped the continent. While I was doing research, I found this map of Africa from 1710, by an English mapmaker.”
The priest opened another window that showed that map.
“As you can see,” Bailey said, “this depicts Ethiopia as encompassing the full breadth of the Congo. So, if Prester John and his kingdom existed, it could very well be in central Africa.”
Gray held up the last black-and-white photo and tapped at the pillars shown in it. “Regardless, something is out there. Maybe something that could offer insight into what’s happening now.”
No one argued otherwise.
From the digital pad, Painter cleared his throat and lifted a hand. A few moments ago, he had been consulting with someone off-screen. He now faced forward.
“Kat just reported in,” he said. “According to her intelligence sources, the Congolese army finished their canvass of the U.N. camp. Little remains there, mostly smoldering ruins and ransacked tents. A few bodies were found, wearing tattered uniforms and carrying old weapons. The consensus seems to be that the site was attacked by a militia group. Maybe the Mai-Mai, who are active in the region. Or the ADF. They’re even speculating it might be Boko Haram, who have been spreading into the Congo.”
Ndaye expressed his own opinion with a snort of derision. “It was not any militia. The attackers were too well armed and organized.”
Tucker trusted the eco-guard’s assessment. To better understand what had happened, Tucker wanted to get his own eyes—and Kane’s nose—over there to investigate, which he planned to do when he escorted Benjie back to the camp. He felt a certain responsibility. Not only for the three whom he had plucked from the river, but also for the others who had been taken.
If only I’d gotten there quicker . . .
Gray also looked anxious to be underway, but he offered a few words of caution. “I agree with Ndaye, but for now, we should let this ruse stand. Let the enemy believe their trick worked. We limit what we know to this group. We shouldn’t even share our suspicions with FARDC or the Congolese government.”
Ndaye nodded. “That is wise. I am proud of my country and its people, but there remains too much corruption in our government. Even FARDC soldiers have been supplementing their income of late by working with traffickers and poachers, sometimes with militias, often wearing their uniforms while doing so.”
Tucker stared around their group. “Then we trust only ourselves.”
Kowalski balled up his sandwich’s greasy wrapper and lobbed it into a wastebasket. “So what else is new?”
11
April 24, 11:34 A.M. CAT
Kisangani, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Frank’s stomach growled, reminding him it was nearly lunchtime. Still, he sat on the stool before his array of equipment. He surveyed the results being uploaded from the university’s electron-microscopy lab to his laptop. As each image appeared, his heart pounded harder.
“Let this just be an artifact,” he prayed aloud.
While most of the others had left for the U.N. camp, he had spent the morning prepping samples taken from the Dorylus queen and her soldier. He had taken fine needle aspirates, refined the collection with polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, then plunge-froze the lot to ready them for cryo-EM. It was a delicate process.
But first things first . . .
He squinted as a final set of scans loaded onto his laptop. He spent an extra few minutes confirming what he suspected. He compared the imaging from both the queen and the soldier’s sample—then sighed loudly.
“You’d better come see this,” he called to Monk and Lisa.
The two DARPA scientists crossed from where they had been helping him prepare his PCR amplification of the samples, readying the search for any unique genomes that might herald an emerging new pathogen. A pair of thermocyclers ran in the background as they headed over.
“What’s up?” Monk asked.
“Check out these EM scans,” he said. “If what I fear is true, we may have a big problem. Or maybe I’d better say, a giant one.”
“Show us,” Lisa said.
The two flanked behind him. He sifted through the scans until he found the best image. He leaned back, revealing a cluster of viral particles.
“I initially thought these were bacterial or somatic cells,” he said. “Because of their large sizes. A typical virion particle ranges from fifty to a hundred nanometers in diameter.”
Monk squinted at the image. “How big are these?”
Frank glanced over his shoulder at them. “Seven hundred. And that’s just the thickness of the capsid shell. Not the entire virus.”
He brought up another image, a more detailed scan of the viroid.
“Those fine striations radiating out from the capsid are protein filaments. If you take those into account, the virus is well over a thousand nanometers across.”
“It’s a giant virus,” Lisa said.
“I’d say,” Monk added. “I see why you called it a big problem.”
Lisa glanced to her colleague. “No, I meant it’s a giant virus. Sometimes called a girus. Such organisms were only identified a couple decades ago. They blur the line between viruses and bacteria.”
“Dr. Cummings is right,” Frank said. “The first of these jumbo viruses was isolated from inside an amoeba in 1992. Due to its size, it was initially mistaken for a bacterium. It wasn’t until 2003, when it was further studied, that it was reclassified as a virus. Since then, many others have been discovered all over the place. Pithoviruses, Pandoraviruses, Mamavirus, Mollivirus.”
“What about this one?” Monk asked. “Do you recognize it?”
Frank shook his head. “It bears characteristics with Mimivirus, with its icosahedral structure, like a twenty-sided die made up of triangles. But this one is far larger, nearly twice as big, putting it closer to a Pandoravirus in size—which is worrisome.”
“Why is that?”
“Most viruses only carry a handful of genes. Rabies has five genes. HIV nine. Ebola seven. Even the flu only has eight genes. Pandoravirus has over two thousand. Even worse, ninety percent of those genes don’t resemble anything else found on Earth.” Frank frowned at the culprit on the screen. “We still know very little about them. If this virus is pathogenic, it could be like nothing we’ve seen before.”
“But is it pathogenic?” Lisa said, crossing her arms. “As I understand it, giant viruses mostly prey on bacteria or amoebae. Few cause diseases in humans.”
“True, but most of them—and I have to assume this one, too—are NCLDVs.” Frank noted Monk’s frown and explained. “Nucleo-cytoplasmic large DNA viruses. Many viruses in this same group are wildly pathogenic, including smallpox. Other examples cause diseases in both vertebrates—and invertebrates.”
Lisa unfolded her arms and glanced over to the safety hood. “Like ants.”
“It’s speculated that these giant viruses acquired so many genes by scavenging code from their hosts and other organisms.”