Let’s hope Jason is just as resourceful.
6:26 P.M.
Up in the substation, the wail of the LRAD rattled the glass in the frames and vibrated the floor underfoot. Stella and Jason stood at the window, staring across the Coliseum toward the pool of light near the back wall.
Had Gray failed to stop Wright?
Someone had plainly reactivated the large dish.
“Look down there,” Stella said. “There’s a CAAT stopped on the far side of the river.”
Jason had already noted the twin spears of light glowing along the floor.
But are they friend or foe?
The answer wasn’t as important as stopping that blaring train whistle that was driving all life down here toward the surface—or better yet, sealing that far exit permanently.
Jason returned to the control console. His last entry—Stella’s birthday—was still entered with the red error message overwriting it. He hadn’t tried anything else, stuck with a vague certainty that he was right about the password being Stella’s birthday.
What am I missing?
Working swiftly, he tried other variations, abbreviating JANUARY to JAN. He changed 17 to 17TH. He tried writing the Latin and Greek equivalents, the ancient languages her father preferred.
Nothing, nothing, and more nothing.
Jason pounded his fist on the console. “Is there something else we’re missing about your birthday?”
Stella shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
Jason fought to concentrate, which was made especially hard by the muffled screaming of the LRAD.
“From your description,” he said, “your father was a stickler for details, not prone to flights of fancy.”
“Right,” she said. “Maybe with the exception of this place. Antarctica. To him, the bottom of the world was always a magical place.”
As magical as his daughter . . .
Then the answer dawned on him.
Of course.
People often employed a simple trick to make obvious codes seem more complicated, yet still maintain their simplicity or significance. That solution would have been especially amusing to someone whose only fancy was Antarctica, the land at the bottom of the world.
Jason typed in the new password and hit enter.
A green acceptance window opened.
“You did it!” Stella said.
Jason stared down at the accepted code.
3991 ,YRAUNAJ 71
It was Stella’s birthday, simply written backward, a flipped-around version, like how one would have to reverse the globe in order to view this continent properly.
Jason clicked on the acceptance window to reach the detonation controls. A new screen opened with simple instructions. Jason followed them to the letter until at last a red warning blinked with a button that read Detonate.
Jason shoved back and motioned Stella to take his place.
“You should do this.”
She nodded, reached forward, and touched that button.
6:28 P.M.
Gray stood atop the CAAT when the world jolted underfoot, bouncing the vehicle on its treads. A thunderous boom accompanied it. He glanced back toward the distant station—then up to the Back Door.
Good job, kid.
But in case those bunker busters failed to fully collapse the mouth of the cavern system, Gray lifted his own improvised noise suppressor and rested it atop his shoulder. Considering it had been Dylan Wright’s weapon of choice up top, it was no surprise Gray had discovered it below in the man’s CAAT.
He aimed the long tube of the rocket launcher and fixed its sights on the distant glow of the LRAD workstation—then pulled the trigger.
The rocket-propelled grenade blasted out of the tube and tore across the near-empty Coliseum. It exploded with a flash of fire at the back wall, striking true. The blast quickly echoed away.
He closed his eyes, enjoying this moment.
At long last, silence had returned to Hell.
33
April 30, 2:29 P.M. AMT
Roraima, Brazil
Jenna stood at the base of a Brazilian mahogany tree, her arms crossed. It had taken too long to retrace her path, the one she and Jori had followed through the canopy. Instead, it was the familiar buzz of the hornet’s nest—the same hive that had killed that poor sparrow—that finally helped her find her way back to this spot.
Cutter touched her shoulder and drew her aside. “Stand clear.”
From the canopy overhead, a pair of natives dropped to the forest floor. One carried a machete; the other bore a blanket-wrapped object under one arm.
“Hurry,” she said.
The blanket was placed on the ground and folded back. Inside was the sloth cub, still painfully tangled in the barbed vine.
Was it still alive?
Jenna reached to pull the vine away, but Cutter pushed her arm back.
“Watch,” he said.
He took a cattle prod and shocked the severed end of the vine, sending a charge down its length. It contracted once, then relaxed, withdrawing the hooked barbs back into its green flesh. Cutter used the tip of the prod to tease the loops off the cub.
Once it was free, Jenna bent down next to it, placing a palm on its chest. She felt a heartbeat. The ribs swelled and contracted with shallow breaths. Multiple small punctures covered its body, seeping blood.
“Jori . . . said poison,” she struggled out through the haze and thick tongue.
“Megatherium are tough. I engineered them that way. It’s why I made them omnivores, instead of herbivores. Gives them a wider range of nutritional options.” He nodded to the cub. “They’re also more resistant to this vine’s toxin. Slowly adapting to it due to the vine’s presence in their immediate environment.”
She leaned down and scooped the cub into her arms. He was heavier than she suspected from his compact size, at least forty-five pounds. She carried him over one shoulder. She heard that soft mewling again, and his snout moved closer to her neck, leaning against her with a sigh.
“Caves,” she said.
“Over this way,” Cutter set off with his remaining four men.
Jenna kept among them, letting them lead, placing her boots where they did, wary of this dangerous forest. She held the cub close, shifting it from one shoulder to the other.
“Do you want me to carry it?” Cutter asked.
“No.”
She couldn’t explain why, but she knew she had to be the one carrying this burden. The creatures they sought were not dumb animals. Back at the electrified pens, they had waited until Jori climbed the cages before attacking. And now they had kidnapped the boy, possibly hoping the unspoken threat would drive these trespassers off their lands. For Jori to have any chance, she had to respect their intelligence.