The Judas Strain - James Rollins [168]
Lisa lowered Susan out of the sunlight.
Susan’s voice momentarily steadied. One hand clutched Lisa’s wrist. Out of direct sunlight, the touch burned, but it was not blistering hot. “I’m…I’m not the cure,” Susan said. “I know what you’re all thinking. But I’m not…not yet.”
Lisa frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I must get there. I can feel it, a pull at my bones. A certainty. Like a memory of something buried just beyond my ability to recall. I know I’m right. I just can’t explain why.”
Lisa recalled her discussion back aboard the ship. About junk DNA, about old viral sequences in our genes, collective genetic history in our code. Were the bacteria awakening something in Susan?
Lisa watched the woman withdraw her other hand from the square of sunlight and pull a corner of the blanket over her face. Did she know it, too?
As Susan burrowed into her blanket away from the sunlight, her voice grew fainter. “Not ready…”
Still one hand remained clamped to Lisa’s wrist.
“Get me there…somehow.” Susan sagged, slipping away again. “Or the world will be lost.”
A loud knock startled Lisa.
Ryder’s scruffy face appeared in the hatch window. Lisa leaned forward and unbolted the lock. Ryder climbed in, sopping wet, but wearing a huge smile.
“I found a sat-phone! It’s only a quarter charged, and the bloody thing cost me the equivalent of a small beach house in Sydney Harbor.”
Lisa accepted the large device. As Ryder returned to the pilot seat, Lisa joined him in front. Even soaked to the skin, he looked like he had just returned from a grand lark, eyes bright with the excitement of it all. But Lisa also noted a serious edge to the man, a hardness around the corner of his lips. Ryder might enjoy his wild adventures, but one didn’t achieve his level of success without a steely core of practicality.
“Satellite signal will be stronger away from the cliffs,” he said, and engaged the jet pumps. With a burbling of the engines, he idled them clear of the rocky heights.
As he did so, Lisa related what Susan had said.
I am not the cure…not yet.
The two came to a consensus together.
Ryder pulled the navigational chart and propped it open on the wheel of the craft. “Angkor lies four hundred and fifty miles due north. I can fly this little blowie there in about an hour and a half.”
Lisa lifted the sat-phone and pinpointed a strong signal.
She had one last person to convince.
8:44 P.M.
Washington, D.C.
“LISA?” PAINTER SHOUTED into his headpiece’s receiver. The signal was faint, but most of his boisterousness had nothing to do with a weak connection. It was pure elation and heady relief. He stood behind his desk, back straight. “Are you okay?”
“Yes…for now. I don’t have much time, Painter. Not much charge left on the phone.”
He heard the anxiousness in her voice. He kept his voice firm, pulling back from his elation. “Go ahead.”
Lisa quickly related all that had happened, speaking tersely, as if reporting a terminal diagnosis to a patient, sticking to the facts. Still, Painter recognized a tremble behind her voice. He wanted to reach through the phone and hold her, to squeeze her fear away, to clutch her to him.
Still, as she related an account of disease, madness, and cannibalism, he sank into his seat. His back bowed. He asked questions, filled in some blanks. She gave coordinates to an island. Pusat. He slid the notes to his aide, to fax to his superior, Sean McKnight. A team of Aussie commandos from the Counterterrorism and Special Recovery Team were already awaiting a target, stationed in Darwin, ready to coordinate a rescue operation. Before Painter finished this conversation, jets would be in the air.
But the danger was larger than a single hijacked cruise ship.
“The Judas Strain?” Lisa asked. “Has the disease spread?”
Painter only had bad news there. Early word had cases already being reported in Perth, in London, in Bombay. More would surely come in.
“We need that woman,” Painter finished. “Jennings in