The Judas Strain - James Rollins [184]
Overhead, the rope snapped, burned through where Susan had grabbed.
She dropped in a limp, boneless fall.
Unconscious.
Gray and his partner caught her, but her weight still ripped the tarp from their hands and she struck the floor hard. Using the tarp, Gray swung her out of direct sight, only her legs visible from above. He dropped beside her.
Nasser screamed down to them. On hands and knees. His cheek still smoked, flesh blackened. His bare arms looked like seared steak, weeping and bleeding. “I want that bitch!”
Gray stumbled back into view. “Neck’s broken! She’s dead!”
A war of emotions played across Nasser’s face. It settled on a near-mindless rage. “Then you’ll all burn!” He rolled back. “Blow it all up!”
Gray waved to everyone. “Back…out of sight.”
Lisa obeyed, stumbling from the light and into the shadows.
A few bullets sparked, chasing them.
Lisa stared toward the rigged explosives. The electronic detonator was beyond their reach, out in the open. They would be shot if they dared approach.
Gray dragged the tarp, hauling Susan’s limp form. “Behind the foundation pillars! They may offer some protection. Crouch low, find anything to cover your head and face!”
They scattered.
Four pillars, six of them.
Gray took Susan with him.
Lisa found herself huddled with the monsignor behind one of the sandstone pillars. He pulled her down, shielding her with his body.
Lisa placed her palm on the pillar. It was three feet across. She had no idea of the strength of the blast to come. She turned to Vigor.
“Father, will this protect us?”
Vigor stared down at her face and didn’t answer.
For once Lisa wished a priest would lie to her.
18
The Gateway to Hell
JULY 7, 11:17 A.M.
Angkor Thom, Cambodia
GRAY CRADLED SUSAN, keeping her wrapped in the tarp.
She moaned and stirred. She had taken a good crack to the head when she struck the ground, but Gray had lied to Nasser about her neck being broken. The bastard, in his agony, had not questioned it, maybe had even hoped for it.
Gray had hoped to use the woman’s body as a bargaining chip.
But that was not going well.
Up above, Nasser shouted, maddened by the pain. From the look of his blackened skin, he had sustained third-degree burns across large swaths of his body. And now he wanted them to suffer in kind. An eye for an eye. But apparently the demolition team hadn’t been prepared for such a sudden order. They were scrambling, giving Gray’s party a minute or so of a reprieve.
Taking advantage of it, Gray shifted Susan’s weight, seeking to better protect her behind the pillar. If she was the potential cure, she had to be preserved. He tugged the tarp more thoroughly over her head. It parted briefly, revealing the soft glow of her naked skin beneath. Away from the bright sunlight, the sheen to her skin had begun to dim. He paused for a beat, amazed at the strangeness. As he drew the drape closed again, he noted the wall ahead of him.
The scrollwork of angelic script shone with an exceptional brilliance, fluorescing under the weak glow. The light emanating from the cyanobacteria in her skin must shed wavelengths in the ultraviolet range, igniting a fluorescent compound etched into the carvings.
It reminded Gray of the Egyptian obelisk, glowing with angelic script, a miniature and rudimentary version of this display. Had Johannes Trithemius had deeper revelations during his meditations? A vision of all this?
Gray opened the tarp wider, casting a broader beam of her glow. More of the script ignited, swirling off through the darkness in either direction, as if he had set flame to oil.
Gray sat higher. He noted a spot of darkness off to the far left, barely discernible, at the edge of the glow’s reach, a dark rock in the shining stream of glowing script. The angularity of it caught his eye.
Could that be…
He turned Susan in his arms, letting more of the tarp fall away, keeping enough between the woman’s skin and his own. The glow was still not strong enough to reach that far. He had to move Susan closer. He struggled with her weight, tangling the tarp,