The Judas Strain sf-4 Read online

  Maybe the sensitive creatures were responding to microquakes.

  She frowned and joined her husband. She would radio over to Christmas Island to see if they’d picked up any unusual seismic activity. Until then, she had news that would definitely get her husband in the water in the morning.

  “I did find what looked like the remnants of an old wreck.”

  “No bloody way.” He sat up straighter. Back at Darwin Harbor, Gregg offered tours of sunken WWII warships that littered the seas around the northern coast of Australia. He had an avid interest in such discoveries. “Where?”

  She pointed absently behind her, beyond the yacht’s far side. “About a hundred meters starboard of us. A few beams, black and sticking straight out of the sand. Probably shaken free during that last big quake or perhaps even exposed when the silt had been sucked off of it by the passing tsunami. I didn’t have much time to explore. Thought I’d leave it to an expert.” She pinched him in the ribs, then leaned back into his chest.

  As a group, they watched the sun vanish with a last coy wink into the sea. It was their ritual. Barring a storm, they never missed a sunset while at sea. The ship rocked gently. In the far distance, a passing tanker winked a few lights. But they were otherwise alone.

  A sharp bark startled Susan, causing her to jump. She had not known she was still a bit tense. Apparently the strange, wary behavior of the reef life below had infected her.

  “Oy! Oscar!” the professor called.

  Only now did Susan notice the lack of their fourth crewmate on the yacht. The dog barked again. The pudgy Queensland heeler belonged to the professor. Getting on in age and a tad arthritic, the dog was usually found sprawled in any patch of sunlight it could find.

  “I’ll see to him,” Applegate said. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds all cozied up. Besides, I could use a trip to the head. Make a bit more room for another Foster’s before I find my bed.”

  The professor gained his feet with a groan and headed toward the bow, intending to circle to the far side — but he stopped, staring off toward the east, toward the darker skies.

  Oscar barked again.

  Applegate did not scold him this time. Instead, he called over to Susan and Gregg, his voice low and serious. “You should come see this.”

  Susan scooted up and onto her feet. Gregg followed. They joined the professor.

  “Bloody hell…” her husband mumbled.

  “I think you may have found what drove those dolphins out of the seas,” Applegate said.

  To the east, a wide swath of the ocean glowed with a ghostly luminescence, rising and falling with the waves. The silvery sheen rolled and eddied. The old dog stood at the starboard rail and barked, trailing into a low growl at the sight.

  “What the hell is that?” Gregg asked.

  Susan answered as she crossed closer. “I’ve heard of such manifestations. They’re called milky seas. Ships have reported glows like this in the Indian Ocean, going all the way back to Jules Verne. In 1995, a satellite even picked up one of the blooms, covering hundreds of square miles. This is a small one.”

  “Small, my ass,” her husband grunted. “But what exactly is it? Some type of red tide?”

  She shook her head. “Not exactly. Red tides are algal blooms. These glows are caused by bioluminescent bacteria, probably feeding off algae or some other substrate. There’s no danger. But I’d like to—”

  A sudden knock sounded beneath the boat, as if something large had struck it from below. Oscar’s barking became more heated. The dog danced back and forth along the rails, trying to poke his head through the posts.

  All three of them joined the dog and looked below.

  The glowing edge of the milky sea lapped at the yacht’s keel. From the depths below, a large shape rolled into view, belly up, but still squirming, teeth gnashing. It was a massive tiger shark, over six meters. The glowing waters frothed over its form, bubbling and turning the milky water into red wine.

  Susan realized it wasn’t water that was bubbling over the shark’s belly, but its own flesh, boiling off in wide patches. The horrible sight sank away. But across the milky seas, other shapes rolled to the surface, thrashing or already dead: porpoises, sea turtles, fish by the hundreds.

  Applegate took a step away from the rail. “It seems these bacteria have found more than just algae to feed on.”

  Gregg turned to stare at her. “Susan…”

  She could not look away from the deadly vista. Despite the horror, she could not deny a twinge of scientific curiosity.

  “Susan…”

  She finally turned to him, slightly irritated.

  “You were diving,” he explained, and pointed. “In that water. All day.”

  “So? We were all in the water at least some time. Even Oscar did some dog-paddling.”

  Her husband would not meet her gaze. He remained focused on where she was scratching her forearm. The wet suit sometimes chafed her limbs. But the worry in his tight face drew her attention to her forearm. Her skin was pebbled in a severe rash, made worse by her scratching.

  As she stared, bruising red welts bloomed on her skin.

  “Susan…”

  She gaped in disbelief. “Dear God…”

  But she also knew the horrible truth.

  “It’s…it’s in me.”

  EXPOSURE

  1

  Dark Madonna

  JULY 1, 10:34 A.M.

  Venice, Italy

  He was being hunted.

  Stefano Gallo hurried across the open plaza square. The morning sun already baked the stones of the piazza, and the usual throng of tourists sought shady spots or crowded the gelato shop that lay within the shadow of St. Mark’s Basilica. But this most lofty of all of Venice’s landmarks, with its towering Byzantine facade, massive bronze horses, and domed cupolas, was not his goal.

  Not even such a blessed sanctuary could offer him protection.

  There was only one hope.

  His steps became more rushed as he passed by the basilica. The piazza’s pigeons scattered from his path as he stumbled through them, heedless of their flapping flight. He was beyond stealth. He had already been discovered. He had spotted the young Egyptian with the black eyes and trimmed beard as he’d entered the far side of the square. Their gazes had locked. The man was now dressed in a dark suit that flowed like oil from his wide, sharp shoulders. The first time the man had approached Stefano he had claimed to be an archaeology student out of Budapest, representing an old friend and colleague from the University of Athens.

  The Egyptian had come to the Museo Archeologico searching for a specific bit of antiquity. A minor treasure. An obelisk from his country. The Egyptian, financed by his government, wished it returned to his homeland. He had come with a sizable payment, bonded cashier notes. Stefano, one of the museum’s curators, was not above accepting such a bribe; his wife’s escalating medical bills threatened to evict them from their small apartment. To collect such secret payment was not untoward; for the past two decades the Egyptian government had been buying back national treasures out of private collections and pressuring museums to return what rightfully belonged in Egypt.

  So Stefano had agreed, promising at first to deliver it up. What was one small nondescript stone obelisk? The object had remained crated for almost a full century according to the manifest. And its terse description probably explained why: Unmarked marble obelisk, excavated in Tanis, dated to the late dynastic period (26th Dynasty, 615 B.C.). There was nothing unusual or particularly intriguing, unless one looked closer, followed its trail of provenance. It had come out of a collection that graced one of the Musei Vaticani in Rome: the Gregorian Egyptian Museum.

  How it ended up in the vaults here in Venice was unknown.

  Then yesterday morning, Stefano had received a newspaper clipping, sent by private courier in an envelope with a single symbol stamped into a wax seal.

  The Greek letter sigma.

  He still did not understand the signif
icance of the seal, but he did understand the import of the enclosed clipping. A single article, dated three days prior, reported news of a man’s body found on an Aegean beach, his throat slashed, his body bloated and nested with feasting eels. An especially fierce storm surge had returned the body from its watery grave. Dental records identified the body as that of his university colleague, the one who had reportedly sent the Egyptian.

  The man had been dead for weeks.

  Shock had caused Stefano to act rashly. He clutched the heavy object to his bosom, wrapped in sackcloth and still prickling with packing hay.

  Stefano had stolen the obelisk from the vault, knowing the act would put him, his wife, his whole family, at risk.

  He’d had no choice. Along with the dire article, the sealed envelope had contained a single message, unsigned, but plainly scrawled in a hurry, in a woman’s hand, a warning. What the note contended seemed impossible, incredible, but he had tested the claim himself. It had proved true.

  Tears threatened as he ran, a sob choked his throat.

  No choice.

  The obelisk must not fall into the hands of the Egyptian. Still, it was a burden he refused to shoulder any longer than necessary. His wife, his daughter…he pictured the bloated body of his colleague. Would the same befall his family?

  Oh, Maria, what have I done?

  There was only one who could take this burden from him. The one who had sent the envelope, a warning sealed with a Greek letter. At the end of her note, a place had been named, along with a time.

  He was already late.

  Somehow the Egyptian had discovered his theft, must have sensed Stefano was going to betray him. So he had come for it at dawn. Stefano had barely escaped his offices. He had fled on foot.

  But not fast enough.

  He checked over his shoulder. The Egyptian had vanished into the milling crowd of tourists.

  Turning back around, Stefano stumbled through the shadow of the square’s bell tower, the Campanile di San Marco. Once the brick tower had served as the city’s watchtower, overlooking the nearby docks and guarding the port. Would that it could protect him now.

  His goal lay across a small piazzetta. Ahead rose the Palazzo Ducal, the fourteenth-century palace of Venice’s former dukes. Its two levels of Gothic arches beckoned, offering salvation in Istrian stone and rosy Veronese marble.

  Clutching his prize, he stumbled across the street.

  Was she still there? Would she take the burden?

  He rushed toward the sheltering shadows, escaping the blaze of the sun and the glare off the neighboring sea. He needed to be lost in the maze of the palace. Besides housing the duke’s personal residence, the Palazzo Ducal also served as a governmental office building, a courthouse, a council chamber, even an old prison. A newer prison rose across the canal behind the palace, connected by an arched bridge, the infamous Bridge of Sighs, over which Casanova had once made his escape, the only prisoner ever to break out of the palace’s cells.

  As Stefano ducked under the overhanging stretch of loggia, he prayed to the ghost of Casanova to protect his own flight. He even allowed himself a small breath of relief as he sank into the shadows. He knew the palace well. It was easy to get lost in its maze of corridors, a ready place for a clandestine rendezvous.

  Or so he placed his faith.

  He entered the palace through the western archway, flowing in with a few tourists. Ahead opened the palace’s courtyard with its two ancient wells and the magnificent marble staircase, the Scala dei Giganti, the Giant’s Stairs. Stefano skirted the courtyard, avoiding the sun now that he had escaped it. He pushed through a small, private door and followed a series of administrative rooms. They ended at the old inquisitor’s office, where many poor souls had suffered interrogations of the most pained and brutal sort. Not stopping, Stefano continued into the neighboring stone torture chamber.

  A door slammed somewhere behind him, causing him to jump.

  He clutched his prize even tighter.

  The instructions had been specific.

  Taking a narrow back stairway, he wended down into the palace’s deepest dungeons, the Pozzi, or Wells. It was here the most notorious prisoners had been held.

  It was also where he was to make his rendezvous.

  Stefano pictured the Greek sigil.

  What did it mean?

  He entered the dank hall, broken by black stone cells, too low for a prisoner to stand erect. Here the imprisoned froze during winter or died of thirst during the long Venetian summers, many forgotten by all except the rats.

  Stefano clicked on a small penlight.

  This lowest level of the Pozzi appeared deserted. As he continued deeper, Stefano’s steps echoed off the stone walls, sounding like someone following him. His chest squeezed with the fear. He slowed. Was he too late? He found himself holding his breath, suddenly wishing for the sunlight he had fled.

  He stopped, a tremble quaking through him.

  As if sensing his hesitation, a light flared, coming from the last cell.

  “Who?” he asked. “Chi è là?”

  A scrape of heel on stone, followed by a soft voice, in Italian, accented subtly.

  “I sent you the note, Signore Gallo.”

  A lithe figure stepped out into the corridor, a small flashlight in her hand. The glare made it hard to discern her features, even when she lowered her flashlight. She was dressed all in black leather, hugging tight to hips and breast. Her features were further obscured by a head scarf, wrapped in a bedouin style, obscuring her features fully, except her eyes that reflected a glint of her light. She moved with an unhurried grace that helped calm the thudding of his heart.

  She appeared out of the shadows like some dark Madonna.

  “You have the artifact?” she asked.

  “I…I do,” he stammered, and took a step toward her. He held out the obelisk, letting the sackcloth fall away. “I want nothing more to do with it. You said you could take it somewhere safe.”

  “I can.” She motioned for him to set it down on the floor.

  He crouched and rested the Egyptian stone spire on the floor, glad to be rid of it. The obelisk, carved of black marble, rose from a square base, ten centimeters per side, and tapered to a pyramidal point forty centimeters tall.

  The woman crouched across from him, balancing on the toes of her black boots. She ran her light over its drab surface. The marble was badly chipped, poorly preserved. A long crack jagged through it. It was plain why it had been forgotten.

  Still, blood had been spilled for it.

  And he knew why.

  She reached across to Stefano and pushed his penlight down. With a flick of her thumb, she switched on her flashlight. The white light dimmed to a rich purple. Every bit of dust on his slacks lit up. The white stripes of his shirt blazed.

  Ultraviolet.

  The glow bathed the obelisk.

  Stefano had done the same earlier, testing the woman’s claim and witnessing the miracle for himself. He leaned closer with her now, examining the four sides of the obelisk.

  The surfaces were no longer blank. Lines of script glowed in blue-white sigils down all four sides.

  It was not hieroglyphics. It was a language that predated the ancient Egyptians.

  Stefano could not keep the awe from his voice. “Could it truly be the writing of the—”

  Behind him, whispered words echoed down from the floor above. A skitter of loose rock trickled down the back stairs.

  He swung around, fearful, his blood icing.

  He recognized the calm, clipped cadence of the whisper in the dark.

  The Egyptian.

  They’d been discovered.

  Perhaps sensing the same, the woman clicked off her lamp, dousing the violet light. Darkness collapsed around them.

  Stefano lifted his penlight, seeking some hope in the face of this dark Madonna. Instead, he discovered a black pistol, elongated with a silencer, aimed at his face, held in the woman’s other hand. He under
stood and despaired. Fooled yet again.

  “Grazie, Stefano.”

  Between the sharp cough and the spat of muzzle flash, only one thought squeezed through the fatal gap.

  Maria, forgive me.

  JULY 3, 1:16 P.M.

  Vatican City

  Monsignor Vigor Verona climbed the stairs with great reluctance, haunted by memories of flame and smoke. His heart was too heavy for such a long climb. He felt a decade older than his sixty years. Stopping at a landing, he craned upward, one hand supporting his lower back.

  Above, the circular stairwell was a choked maze of scaffolding, crisscrossed with platforms. Knowing it was bad luck, Vigor ducked under a painter’s ladder and continued higher up the dark stairs that climbed the Torre dei Venti, the Tower of Winds.

  Fumes of fresh paint threatened to burn tears from his eyes. But other smells also intruded, phantoms from a past he preferred to forget.

  Charred flesh, acrid smoke, burning ash.

  Two years ago an explosion and fire had ignited the tower into a blazing torch within the heart of the Vatican. But after much work, the tower was returning to its former glory. Vigor had looked forward to next month, when the tower would be reopened, the ribbon cut by His Eminence himself.

  But mostly he looked forward to finally putting the past to rest.

  Even the famous Meridian Room at the very top of the tower, where Galileo had sought to prove that the earth revolved around the sun, was almost fully restored. It had taken eighteen months, under the care and expertise of a score of artisans and art historians, to painstakingly reclaim the room’s frescoes from soot and ash.

  Would that all could be so recovered with brush and paint.

  As the new prefect of the Archivio Segretto Vaticano, Vigor knew how much of the Vatican’s Secret Archives had been lost forever to flame, smoke, and water. Thousands of ancient books, illuminated texts, and archival regestra—leather-bound packets of parchments and papers. Over the past century, the rooms of the tower had served as overflow from the carbonile, the main bunker of the archives far below.