The Judas Strain - James Rollins [143]
Vigor stared down at the spread of maps and angelic scripts.
For example, how had Gray missed seeing this earlier?
“The cure,” Nasser persisted, pulling Vigor’s attention up. “Tell me what you know.”
Across the table, Gray remained cool and calm, not a bead of sweat on his brow. “I will give you an airport locker number. Back in Bangkok. Tell you where to find the key to confirm what I’m about to say. We stashed the third and final scroll in that locker. In that last document, Marco describes the cure. It is in two parts. I will tell you the first part, free of charge.”
Nasser shifted, one eye narrowing.
“Once I’m done, as a mark of good faith, you’ll release one of my parents. And I will expect satisfactory confirmation. With that, I will tell you the locker number and location of the key. You can verify my claim. Is that satisfactory?”
“It depends on what I hear.”
Gray merely stared, not blinking.
Vigor knew it was all a stalling tactic, stretching out the reveal for as long as possible. The scroll had indeed been secured in an airport locker in Bangkok, but it was a wild-goose chase. There was no second half of the cure.
Gray sighed, as if relenting. “Here then is the story found within the third scroll. According to Marco…”
As Gray related what the embroidered scroll revealed, Vigor studied the documents on the table, only half listening. The commander kept to the truth, knowing that more time would be bought with the facts than lies. After Gray was finished, Nasser would make the necessary calls, arrange to have the scroll recovered from the locker, then translated. All of it would take time. The discovered scroll would verify Gray’s story and make it more likely Nasser would buy any fabrication to follow. And even if Gray’s lies failed to convince, at least one of his parents would be saved by then.
That was the plan.
Gray finally finished his narration, laying out the science. “So clearly the cannibalism served some means of vaccinating against the disease. But exactly how that was achieved will wait until I know one of my parents is safe.”
Gray folded his hands in his lap.
Nasser sat silent for a moment, then spoke slowly. “So we really just need someone who is cured of the Judas Strain, someone who survived. Then we can construct the vaccine from their white blood cells and antibodies.”
Gray remained silent, offering only a slight shrug of his shoulders, quietly stating that any further answers would wait until one of his parents was free.
Nasser sighed, reached to a pocket, flipped open the phone, and pressed a button. “Annishen,” he said. “Pick one of the hostages. Your choice.”
Nasser listened.
“Yes, that’s fine…go ahead and kill them.”
5:45 P.M.
GRAY LUNGED ACROSS the table.
He had no plan, reacting on pure instinct.
But Nasser must have signaled one of the men. Gray’s head exploded with pain, clubbed from behind, his vision blew away into brightness, then collapsed into momentary darkness. His body struck the cocktail table and rolled with a thump to the floor, jarring back his sight.
Five guns now pointed at Gray.
More at Seichan and Kowalski.
Vigor stood with his arms crossed.
Nasser had not moved, his phone still lifted to his ear. “Hold, Annishen. For the moment.” He lowered the phone, half covering the receiver with a hand. “It seems this is the end, Commander Pierce. Of many trails. Polo’s last scroll only confirms what I’ve heard from the Guild contingent in Indonesia. The scientific team has come to the same conclusion. A potential cure does reside within the body of a survivor. One who happens to glow, like revealed in Polo’s story.”
Gray shook his head. Not in denial, he just had difficulty comprehending what Nasser was saying. Blood pounded in his ears, deafening him. His plan had failed.
Nasser lifted his phone again. “So it seems our historical trail has run full circle back to the scientific trail. This is the end of the proverbial road.