The Judas Strain - James Rollins [190]
“But how does that serve the cyanobacteria if the disease kills birds and animals outside the cavern?”
“Ah, because it utilizes a third host, another accomplice. Arthropods. Remember, arthropods are already the preferred host for Bunyaviruses. Insects and crustaceans. They also happen to be nature’s best scavengers. Cleaning up the dead. Which is what the virus compelled them to do. By first making them ravenously hungry…”
Lisa’s words stumbled as she remembered the cannibalism aboard the ship. She fought to stay clinical, to be understood. “After stimulating this hunger, ensuring a thorough cleanup, the virus rewired the host to return here, to this cavern, to haul their catch and bring it to the pit, to feed the bacterial pool. They had no choice. Similar to the fluke and the ant. A neurological compulsion, a migratory urge.”
“Like Susan,” Gray said.
Lisa grew grim at the comparison. She pictured in her head the life cycle she had just described. Triangular rather than linear: cyanobacteria, bats, and arthropods. All joined together by the Judas Strain.
“Susan is different,” Lisa said. “Man was never supposed to be part of this life cycle. But being mammalian, like the bat, we’re susceptible to the toxins, to the virus. So when the Khmer discovered this cavern, we inadvertently became a part of that life cycle, taking the place of the bats. Spreading via our two legs instead of wings. Sickening the population every three years, triggering epidemics of varying severity.”
Gray stared toward Susan. “But what about her? Why did she survive?”
“Like I said, I don’t have all the answers.” She remembered her earlier discussions about Black Plague survivors, about viral code in human DNA. “Our neurological systems are a thousandfold more complex than any bat or crab. And like the cyanobacteria, humans also have a great capacity to adapt. Throw these toxins into our more advanced neurological system, and who knows what miracle might churn out?”
Lisa sighed as they reached the spit of land.
As she turned, she noted a strange sight above. Puffs of smoke streamed out of the pair of the idol’s eyeholes, brightly lit by the sun’s fire.
“The neutralizing powder,” Gray said, spotting the same and hurrying them along. “Nasser must be finalizing the upper vault’s decontamination. We have no more time.”
11:39 A.M.
AT THE TOP of the stairs Vigor knelt beside the low stone door. Seichan held the flashlight behind him. An archway of limestone framed a slab of hewn sandstone, a mix of natural and man-made.
Above the door, set into the limestone’s arched lintel, was a bronze medallion, impressed into it was a perfect crucifix. Vigor had examined it, sensing Friar Agreer’s hand here.
And it was confirmed below.
Vigor ran his fingers over the stone door. The solid slab had been inscribed with writing. Not angelic. Italian. It was the last testament of Friar Agreer.
In the year of the incarnation of the Son of God 1296, I set to stone this final prayer. The curse was set upon me when I first arrived and caused me great suffering, but I arose like Lazarus from a deadly slumber. I do not understand what bedevilment has befallen me, but I was preserved, marked in some strange manner, feverish bright of skin. For such succor, I ministered to those few who survived the great pestilence. But now a strange compunction has come over me. The waters below already begin to boil with the fires from Hell. I know it is to my death that I am driven. With great effort I did convince and oversee the construction of this seal. And I go with only one prayer on my lips. More than my own soul’s salvation, I pray this door to be forever sealed with the Lord’s Cross. Let only one strong in the spirit of the Lord dare open it.
Vigor touched the carved signature at the bottom.
Friar Antonio Agreer.
Seichan spoke behind him. “So after Marco left, they exposed the friar to the disease, but rather than dying, he survived. Like the woman below.”
“Maybe the other