The Judas Strain - James Rollins [187]
Harriet hugged her husband. Jack might have trouble remembering people’s names, but he never forgot what they liked to drink.
Painter stood up. “I’ll take you up on that sometime, but right now I have an important call to make.” He turned away and mumbled under his breath, but Harriet heard him.
“That is, if I’m not already too late.”
11:22 A.M.
LISA STUMBLED DOWN the dark stairs, following the monsignor. She had to stay ducked low, running a hand along the damp wall. The air smelled of mulch, like decaying leaves in a wet forest. It was not unpleasant, except for a slight burn to the nostrils.
Ahead, a weak light drew them onward, flowing up from below.
Their goal.
The stairs finally ended, dumping them out into a wide cavern. Their footsteps echoed. Overhead, the dome of the cavern arched up five stories, dripping with a few blunt stalactites. The space was ovoid in shape, seventy yards across at the widest point. Where they entered, the roof spread up into a natural flowstone archway. A matching arch could be discerned across the cavern.
“It does look like a turtle shell,” Vigor mumbled, his voice echoing hollowly. “Even the way it flares here and across the way. Like the front and back end of a turtle shell.”
Kowalski grumbled, hauling Susan inside with Gray’s help. “So which is it? Are we’re climbing down the turtle’s throat or up his ass?” But as he straightened, the large man whistled softly between his teeth.
Lisa understood his reaction.
Ahead, a circular lake of black water rested as still as a mirror, edged around by a stone rim. From the roof above, two straight beams of sunlight shot down and struck the center of the water, coming through the eyes of the stone idol above.
But where the sunlight struck the black water, a milky pool spilled outward, glowing, as if the sun had turned to liquid and poured down from above.
The milky glow shimmered and streamed, ebbing and flowing.
Looking alive.
Which it was.
“The sunlight is energizing the cyanobacteria in the water,” Lisa said.
A few trickles from the idol’s eyes struck the pool, hissing slightly. Where they splashed, the milky glow darkened.
“Acid,” Gray said, reminding everyone of the danger above. “From the bomb. It’s dripping through the eyes. I don’t know how long it will take to neutralize the vault, but at least the stone block is holding for now. Still, they’ll come down with sledges and jackhammers and finish breaking through here soon.”
“So what do we do?” Seichan asked.
Kowalski scoffed. “We get the hell out of here.”
Gray turned to Lisa. “Can you run ahead, check the far archway? See if there is another way out. Like Vigor said, a turtle shell has an opening for the head and one for a tail. It’s our only hope.”
Lisa balked. “Gray, I think I should stay with Susan. My medical background—”
A groan rose from the tarp. An arm lifted weakly.
Lisa stepped to Susan’s side, careful not to touch her. “She’s still the only hope for a cure.”
“I can go,” Seichan volunteered.
Lisa glanced up, noting a flash of suspicion on Gray’s face, as if he didn’t trust the woman.
Still, he nodded. “Find a way out.”
She set off without a word.
The group followed along the stone bank.
Gray studied the space. “This looks like an old sinkhole. Like in Florida, or the cenotes of Mexico. The sandstone block must be plugging the original hole that once stood open.”
Lisa bent near the wall and pinched up a bit of dried matter. It crumbled in her fingers. “Petrified bat guano,” she said, confirming Gray’s assessment. “This cavern must have been open to the air at one time.”
Lisa wiped her fingers and glanced to Susan, beginning to put together what she had already suspected.
Vigor waved an arm to encompass the lake. “The ancient Khmers must have come upon the sinkhole, noted how it glowed, imagined it was the home of some god, and attempted to incorporate it into the temple here.”
“But they didn’t know what they were doing,” Lisa added. “They trespassed where they shouldn