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  “Go on.”

  “The way I see it, there are two options. One is you seek medical treatment here from people who aren’t familiar with whatever is contaminating those beetles—and quite possibly end up in the same condition as the others who’ve been infected. Or…” She hesitated. “Or I contact the Skaladeskas and tell them you need to be treated.”

  She had to give him credit; the guy hardly seemed surprised. He did lift his chin, giving her a skeptical look.

  “So you know how to contact them? And you think this terrorist group is going to jump to help me?” He flexed his fingers as if to ensure they were still working properly.

  “They will if I tell them we’re both infected.” Marina glanced at her laptop. Skype was open, and it would only be a matter of time before Lev—or Varden—tried to connect with her. “But before you agree, I’d better tell you a little more.”

  “Good plan.”

  She spoke rapidly, giving him the barest details about her relationship to the Skaladeskas and the sketchiest of information about why she was connected to the investigation. “My grandfather wants me to come to him,” she finished. “So far I’ve refused, but of course we have to get you treated. They must have an antidote or antibiotic that can combat the bacteria. And if my grandfather believes I’ve been infected, he’ll move heaven and earth to make sure I’m saved. And you by default.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this? Sounds dangerous. And what happens when they find out you aren’t infected? I’m confident I’ll get excellent medical treatment here in the States, especially now that we know what to look for; you don’t have to negotiate with these terrorists for my sake alone.”

  “If he believes I believe I’m infected, Lev isn’t going to deny me even if it turns out I’m not. He won’t take the risk. And if you want to take your chances here in the US, then I don’t blame you. If we follow through on this, I have a feeling we’re going to end up in the Amazon jungle.” Marina hadn’t forgotten Varden’s slip yesterday when he cut himself off from telling her she would be taken to the Amazon by Roman’s thugs. That’s where Lev was, and going there might be the only way to save Eli. But it would also be an opportunity for her to find out where the Skalas were hiding, what they had planned, and, hopefully, put an end to their ecoterrorism.

  “You’re saying we could end up where the beetle is?” Now Eli looked excited. “I’m in. I’ll take my chances on that. If I don’t, I’m probably going to die. If I do, I might die anyway—but then again, I might make the discovery of my career and not die.”

  Marina nodded. “I thought you might say that. But you should know, Dr. Sanchez—they might not let us leave. There’s a chance we’ll be their hostages—or worse. But Agent MacNeil and Special Agent Darrow—they’ll do whatever they can to get us out. And I’ll do whatever I can to keep you out of danger. I do have quite a bit of leverage.”

  She’d bargain with Lev, do whatever it took to make sure Eli wasn’t imprisoned as Gabe had been. Now that she knew how badly they wanted her, she knew she had the upper hand. “Whatever we decide, we have to act quickly. The others died from sudden cardiac arrest less than seventy-two hours after exposure.”

  The sound of a telephone rang from her laptop. Marina turned to see Dr. Herb Grace trying to make a connection. With a finger to her lips to keep Eli from speaking, she accepted the call without video.

  “Dr. Alexander.” Varden’s tone was smooth and businesslike. “I can only assume this is the Skype equivalent of a butt dial.”

  “Is there a cure if someone is exposed to the beetles?”

  A beat of silence. Then, “Yes.”

  “I need it. Immediately.”

  Another pause. “I regret to say…it’s impossible at the moment.”

  “I know you’d celebrate my demise, Dr. Varden, but if my grandfather learned you were the cause, how long do you believe you’d remain in his good graces? Aside from that, what happened to ‘first do no harm’?”

  “You expect me to believe you’ve been infected.”

  “I opened the trunk of a blue Taurus parked in the lot at my hotel. It was a rental car, with Kentucky plates—sound familiar?—and inside was a black silk web that had beetles in it. The black fungus is all over my hands. Surely you have the antidote.”

  Silence, followed by a muttered curse. “I don’t have access to any at the moment. It would take me—” He swore again. “Bloody damned hell, Marina, do you have any idea what this means?”

  “Unfortunately, I do.”

  Varden said something else, but the sound of a keycard in the door had Marina spinning from the laptop. She fairly leapt across the room, but both she and Eli were too late—the door was opening.

  It wasn’t Gabe. She already knew that, for he would have knocked.

  However, she recognized one of the three men standing there as Roman’s right-hand man, Dannen Fridkov. The one who’d tried to break into her home in Ann Arbor five years ago, and then went on to attempt to blow up half of Detroit. He was holding a gun, and though it wasn’t pointing at her, it was nevertheless a not-so-subtle threat.

  “Fridkov. And one of your companions is Bellhane, I presume,” she said, pitching her voice loud enough so, hopefully, Varden would hear. “You can put your weapons away. I need you to take me—both of us, in fact—to my grandfather. Don’t look so surprised. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  * * *

  “You’d better be one hundred percent sure about this, Helen.” Gabe rubbed his eyes vigorously as he spoke into his phone.

  “Do you think I’d be telling you if I wasn’t?” She sounded almost gentle, rather than peeved that he was questioning her. “I know what this means. What it could mean. But there are photos. Colin Bergstrom and Roman Aleksandrov—none other than Marina Alexander’s uncle—attended Oxford University at the same time.”

  “Yes, I knew that much. Bergstrom told me that when he first put me on the Skaladeskas five years ago.”

  “All right, but there’s more. Are you sitting down?”

  “No, I’m in the damned elevator at the Marriott. I’ve been trying to reach Marina for two hours, and I—well, she’s probably lost in her work or at the fitness center, but since I was out I thought—anyway, go on. What else do you have?”

  “After she graduated, Bergstrom’s wife, Stegnora, née Silkovsy, was in the physics program with Aleksandrov. He was a few years older than her. They worked together. And…”

  The elevator swooshed to a halt, but that wasn’t the only reason Gabe’s insides dropped. “Don’t tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.” Dammit. Dammit to hell.

  “Do you want to know?”

  He stalked out into the corridor, then stopped for a minute to remind himself of Marina’s room number and then which direction to turn. Sonofabitch. “I can guess. Mrs. Bergstrom hasn’t been around for a long time—longer than I’ve known him, much longer than a decade. He doesn’t talk about what happened to her. I didn’t know whether she was dead or they divorced or what. I never asked.”

  “They had an affair at Oxford—Nora and Roman Aleksandrov. Interestingly enough, Viktor was in England too, at the same time, but not enrolled at Oxford that I can find. In about 1974, Nora and Bergstrom came back to the US, and everything seemed fine. They had a son together, the Bergstroms—in ’75. You’ve probably seen the picture on Colin’s desk. Then, about thirty years ago, Nora seems to have disappeared.”

  Nora. Dammit, there’d been a Nora in Siberia, a Nora who was mentioned often and with respect. A Nora who’d been in the inner circle, a trusted confidante of that bastard Roman Aleksandrov.

  “No wonder Bergstrom wants blood from the Skaladeskas,” Gabe muttered as he knocked on Marina’s door. “Anything else you want to add to the pot, Helen?”

  “Isn’t that enough. Is Marina all right?”

  She wasn’t answering the door. Maybe she was on a call. Or working out. “I’ll get back to you.” Gabe shoved the phone in
his pocket and knocked again as he fished out his copy of her room key.

  Just before he opened the door, his instincts prickled and he reached for the handgun beneath his jacket. Firearm in a firm grip, he slid the key card in and opened the door, all senses on high alert.

  “Marina?”

  Silence. Stillness. Yet something was off. He sensed something or someone. Adrenaline surged through him and, raising the weapon, he scanned the room with it, steady and wide. No sign of Marina, of anything out of place…

  Gabe didn’t see him until he stepped inside and allowed the door to close with its dull hotel-room clunk. Positioned in the corner, sitting in a chair, was the man who’d put a bullet in his arm in the mountains of Siberia.

  “Dr. Varden.” He kept the weapon trained on the man, who appeared to have no desire to save himself from owning his own bullet-in-a-limb.

  “Agent MacNeil. It’s been some time since our paths have crossed. I wish it were under better circumstances.” Rue Varden spoke clearly and precisely, as if he’d spent a lot of time in England. He was a solid, well-built man near forty with startling green eyes, dirty blond hair, and high, Slavic cheekbones. Even in this unfavorable situation, he still acted as if his shit didn’t stink.

  Gabe gave him a humorless smile. “Considering the fact that I still bear a scar from our last encounter, and I’m the one holding a grudge as well as the gun this time, I can’t help but agree with you. Your circumstances could be far better.”

  Varden inclined his head. “Yet you don’t appear to have any lingering effects from our encounter. They still allow you to carry a weapon. I can only chalk that up to my excellent aim. Right through the fleshy part of the bicep, wasn’t it? Painful, debilitating, but no permanent damage.”

  Arrogant bastard. “Where’s Marina? Or were you expecting her to come through the door?”

  “I regret that Dr. Alexander is on her way to the Amazon jungle, in the company of two men by the name of Bellhane and Guthrie…as well as, apparently, a colleague of hers by the name of Dr. Sanchez.”

  Gabe stopped breathing. “And how did you arrange that?”

  Varden rose, apparently not bothered by the gun pointed at him. He shook his head. “I didn’t. In fact, I arrived here as quickly as I could in hopes of stopping it. As it happened, Dr. Alexander and I were on a call when this occurred. And since I arrived here too late, I decided the next best course of action was to tell you what I know. Otherwise you could be blundering around for weeks trying to follow the trail.”

  Gabe’s finger tightened on the trigger. Varden and Marina were on a phone call? “Excellent idea. And as a terror suspect in custody, you might be able to get some lenience if you come clean—”

  Varden’s green eyes hardened. “You will not be putting me into custody. And if you want my cooperation, and the invaluable information I’m about to share with you in a timely manner, you’ll put that piece away and we’ll have a civil conversation.”

  “Not an option. You walked away in Ann Arbor four days ago. I’m not about to let you do it again.”

  Varden shrugged. Arrogance rolled off him, and Gabe gritted his teeth. “Your choice,” said the man in his formal accent. “You can attempt to take me into custody. And you can attempt to interrogate me. But since Dr. Alexander and Dr. Sanchez have both been infected by the extremely volatile cuprobeus bacteria, you’re not going to want to waste time playing games. As I’m certain you’re aware, the bacteria works very rapidly…and no one in the States has even heard of it, let alone knows how to treat it—or has the antibiotic to do so.”

  “Except for you.”

  “Precisely.” Now it was Varden’s turn to give a cold smile. “But be assured, Agent MacNeil. There is one thing in which your goals and mine are exactly aligned: neither of us want Dr. Alexander in the custody of Roman Aleksandrov and the Skaladeskas.”

  Gabe held the other man’s gaze long enough to express his disgust and fury, along with a silent promise of revenge, then lowered his gun. “What do you know? And, more importantly, why the hell are you willing to tell me?”

  “Your weapon and your mobile phone—put them on the desk there. I don’t want you attempting to use either of them.” When Gabe hesitated, Varden added, “If I had my own weapon, wouldn’t I have had it in hand when you arrived? I had the advantage.”

  That wasn’t the way Gabe would have played it had he been in Varden’s shoes, but there was no point in belaboring the point. Varden was right: time was of the essence. He did as requested, then positioned himself close enough to the desk that he could snatch either firearm or phone in an instant. “Now. Talk.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Somewhere in South America

  Although she’d traveled down a section of the Amazon in the past, Marina had never been in this part of the rainforest in South America. She wasn’t certain of their exact location—for their would-be abductor, Bellhane, had confiscated both hers and Eli's cell phones, and in the interest of her companion’s well-being, she’d agreed to leave them in her hotel room—but as far as she could tell, they were somewhere in the northwest quadrant of the continent. In the vicinity of the Ecuador and Peru border.

  Dannen Fridkov had stayed behind in Chicago, which left Marina wondering what he was up to. She’d heard the phrases “New York” and “the first” in his conversation with Bellhane and Guthrie, the third Skaladeska, but that could mean anything.

  What was of even more concern to Marina was how smoothly Bellhane and Guthrie had taken her and Sanchez and traveled from Chicago to a tiny town outside Quito, Ecuador, using a custom-built plane. The trip had taken fewer than fifteen hours.

  The aircraft was an anomaly itself. The fiberglass Van’s RV-5 had extended gas tanks—also made of fiberglass—which left the plane unable to be detected by radar. This meant they could fly untracked and unnoticed, and Marina found it more than a little terrifying to realize the extent of the Skaladeskas’ resources and the ease with which they crossed borders in this post-9/11 age.

  Yet she was relieved their travels had been so uneventful, for fifteen hours ago, Eli had grabbed the black silk webbing of the copper beetles. He was just beginning to show signs of the skin irritation they suspected would evolve into the deadly infection. She didn’t know how much longer it would be until he began to experience other symptoms.

  “How much further?” she demanded of Bellhane. What little sunlight filtered through the heavy canopy of trees seemed to be waning, giving Marina the impression it was near sundown.

  Their last leg of the journey, after refueling the aircraft, had taken them over low mountains Marina doubted they would actually clear in this humid air—and she wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or disappointed she hadn’t been asked to pilot the craft. Perhaps the Skaladeskas had learned their lesson the last time they forced her to fly a plane for them.

  A half-hour ago, they’d landed in a small clearing in the middle of nowhere. Since then, the party of four had been hiking through the jungle on a somewhat recognizable path.

  Bellhane didn’t deign to reply to her question, and Marina didn’t press. Knowing her father and grandfather were eager to see her again, and that neither of their guides would dare hurt or otherwise upset the situation, she had taken the attitude of being on equal footing with Bellhane and Guthrie during their journey, rather than a captive. Clearly, neither of them cared for this turn of events, for they’d hardly communicated with her since leaving Chicago.

  After traveling on foot for nearly thirty minutes—during which time Marina kept watch for any landmarks she might need in the future, as well as the position of the sun insofar as she could see it above the thick canopy of trees—a gate suddenly appeared. Festooned with ropey vines and buried in thick clumps of trees, bushes, and tall grasses, the metal nevertheless gleamed darkly through the greenery.

  The gate was attached to a stone wall that disappeared into the thick jungle both to the right and left. The barrier was twelve feet
tall and spiked with dark metal points, also decorated with greenery. Marina considered it curiously as Guthrie approached the gate, wondering how effective a wall it was with so many trees and vines growing close to it.

  She exchanged glances with Eli, whose face was shiny with perspiration. His eyes had glazed a little, and though he’d donned gloves in an effort to keep from spreading the bacteria, she saw the angry, welt-like patches that had begun to form on his arms just above the wrists. “Anything I can do for you?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I sure as hell hope you’re right about this.”

  “They’ll help us. I have no doubt.”

  “I meant about the beetles.” He gave an unsteady grin.

  The gates swung open, and Guthrie stepped away from a small box on the left side of the entrance.

  Marina didn’t wait for an invitation; after all, this was her family’s home, and time was of the essence for Eli. She took his shirt-sleeved arm and led him through the gate, leaving Bellhane and Guthrie to follow.

  As the metal doors clanged shut behind them, Marina examined what could only be the Skaladeskas’ new compound. At first glance, the hideaway resembled an abandoned ruin. It couldn’t have been more different than the one they’d left in Siberia—which had been built into a mountain and camouflaged by solar panels, and was all sleek glass, silver, and white.

  It was a low, sprawling structure, cloaked by the thick jungle. Made from cream-colored brick dingy with age, with few windows and a metal roof, the building was only one story tall. The low-pitched roof made deep overhangs to protect from heavy rain, and the place was simply buried among trees and grass and vines. Marina couldn’t see the extent of the architecture, for, like its enclosing wall, it disappeared into the shadowy foliage, which rose up behind it like an impenetrable screen of every shade of green. Within the stone wall, most of the area had been cleared of trees and brush, leaving a yard of grass that ranged from ankle height to waist high.