“Get to the others,” he pressed. “I’ll do what I can here.”
She visibly gulped, her eyes narrowing with pain. With a wince of guilt, she backed low toward the door. As she reached it, Kane growled in Monk’s earpiece.
“Wait,” he warned.
Through Kane’s microphone, Monk heard a pounding of boots on boards—then a moment later, a burst of automatic fire. Rounds pinged against the outside of the hut. A few breeched the door, forcing Charlotte to her belly.
In his earpiece, a sharp canine yelp reached him.
Monk winced.
Still sprawled on the floor, Charlotte stared back at him. They both knew the truth.
We’re trapped.
8:48 A.M.
Over the span of his career, Nolan De Coster learned to appreciate his victories, those both large and small. He came to savor each triumph with a grateful heart.
Like now.
Captain Draper had radioed a moment ago from the porch, reporting on the recapture of Dr. Whitaker and another interloper, likely the one who had freed the prisoners earlier. Then Lieutenant Ekon had called in, summoning support to ensnare two more who were pinned down in the medical ward. The audacity of that group to return here, especially after miraculously surviving events at the Katwa Mine.
Still, Nolan had to respect such an effort—not that he wouldn’t dispatch them all once he had squeezed all he could out of them. But that would have to wait.
Standing behind his desk, he stared around his office. All his treasures had been carefully boxed and loaded into the gunship’s hold. All that remained was the Abyssinian gold crown. It had been removed from its glass case and now nestled in a bed of straw within a wooden crate. He crossed and let his palm rest possessively atop it.
As much as he appreciated the good fortune of the last few minutes, a worry nagged at him. The recapture of the escapees allowed him to extrapolate a future course with less ambiguity, eliminating variables from the equation. Still, he sensed he was missing something critical. It kept him edgy, even irritable.
His computer chimed with an incoming video call. He crossed over to it, expecting it was Ekon, sharing the conclusion of the matters at the medical ward. Instead, another face appeared on the screen.
A young Belgian military engineer wore headphones with a microphone pulled aside. The tech manned the outpost’s communication station, part of an extensive network throughout the Congo. The engineer had reported in periodically throughout the night following the bomb blast. He had been monitoring chatter across the region and shared any concerns that required Nolan’s intervention.
Nolan leaned on his palms before the monitor. “What is it now, Corporal Willem?”
The man grimaced. “I don’t know if this is worth bothering you about at this critical juncture. But you said to bring any anomalies to your attention.”
“Go on. If it’s concerning you, it’s well worth bringing to my attention. I trust your judgment.”
“Thank you, sir. The tracking program has been monitoring and evaluating all transmissions in the local region. It collates a list of anomalous broadcasts or communications. I found one result puzzling, strange enough that I thought you should know about it.”
“Strange how?”
“The program detected a series of GPS pings in a remote corner of the Congo, working slowly eastward. Initially, I thought it might be rebel forces or guerrillas, but the intermittent regularity of it struck me as atypical for such forces.”
“Understood.”
“I looked closer at the program’s logs. Three hours ago, a short satellite burst registered along that trail. I almost missed it. It lasted only six minutes, carrying a scrambled and encrypted call. One far too sophisticated for any militia forces.”
Nolan didn’t like this. He recalled his earlier concern about Dr. Whitaker’s assistant, the man with an advanced—likely militarized—prosthetic.
And now this . . .
“You were right to bring this to my attention, Willem. Were you able to pinpoint the location of that transmission?”
“Yes, sir, it came from a dense, inhospitable region, a couple hundred miles southwest of the Kilo-Moto mine.”
Nolan frowned, holding back a growl of aggravation. He didn’t own that mine near the border, but he had invested heavily in it, financing an independent enterprise near there—until a mishap with a fracking unit had resulted in thousands of deaths at an isolated lake. He had spent a small fortune shifting the blame, attributing the tragedy to an unfortunate earthquake.
“Were you able to decrypt any of that transmission?” Nolan asked.
“No, it’s quite confounding. I’ve never seen anything like it. But if you’d like, I can keep working on it. I know some Chinese hackers who could help.”
Nolan hated to enlist the Chinese. They were his main competitors in the region, but he knew better than to let his personal pride stand in the way of learning the truth.
“Do it. And keep monitoring for any repeat of that signal. Let me know immediately if you spot it again.”
“Yes, sir.”
After the call ended, Nolan remained standing behind his desk. That nagging grew inside him again. He recalled his earlier sense that he had been missing a variable in the equation, something just out of sight.
A certainty grew in him.
Whoever sent that call—they’re the true threat.
He felt better simply knowing that. He tapped his knuckles on his desk. It was the unknown variables that were always problematic. Once they were known, they could be dealt with.
As he calculated in his head, he grew more confident, more assured. He knew what he needed to do and set about arranging it.
To solve this equation—
The last variable must be eliminated.
25
April 25, 8:49 A.M. CAT
Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Gray crossed down the cobbled path toward the dense wall of jungle. Ahead, massive trunks of mahogany and cedar trees crowded against one another. Their branches were knitted together, drawing their canopies lower, creating a leafy green shield. Even their roots—kneeing high out of the loam—tangled into a tall blockade.
The stone road passed through that barrier. A bright glow flowed back at them, coming from the far side. As they approached the tunnel, Gray flicked off his flashlight and packed it away. It was no longer needed.
He ducked his head low to pass under the leafy, vine-strewn arbor. Tyende accompanied him, thumping with his staff. The old man came by himself. Molimbo and his hunters remained outside.
Behind them, Benjie kept at their heels, with Kowalski trailing alongside Faraji.
As they continued deeper, the tunnel stirred around them. Wide splays of wet leaves curled away from their passage, forming green fists, as if angered by their presence. Thorn-encrusted vines snaked and writhed, their barbs scraping like claws through the foliage. The thorns wept and leaked a crimson sap.
A drop fell on Gray’s cheek. It burned like a bee sting. He used his shirt cuff to wipe it away, fearing it might be poison.
Tyende noted his concern. “Keep your faces down. Don’t let any get in your mouths, and you’ll be fine.”
“Trust me,” Kowalski grumbled, ducking lower. “I wasn’t planning on licking those thorns.”
Benjie rubbed as his wrist, wincing, likely struck, too. “Feels like the burn from a stinging nettle,” he said, sounding more amazed than concerned. “Their venom is a witch’s brew of histamines and various acids. Formic, tartaric, and oxalic.”
Gray wondered again if the virus loosed upon the world had altered the flora in this valley, tweaking its genetics after so many millennia of exposure.
Benjie tugged on the back of Gray’s shirt. “Look . . .”
Gray glanced around. Benjie pointed behind them. The tunnel slowly squeezed closed. Branches tilted lower, fanning leaves wide. Those spiky vines wove into a tangled net, sealing them in.