T A R G E T   F O U R T E E N

(THE SPY GAME—BOOK 14)

J A C K   M A R S

Jack Mars

Jack Mars is the USA Today bestselling author of the LUKE STONE thriller series, which includes seven books. He is also the author of the new FORGING OF LUKE STONE prequel series, comprising six books; of the AGENT ZERO spy thriller series, comprising twelve books; of the TROY STARK thriller series, comprising eight books; of the SPY GAME thriller series, comprising ten books; of the JAKE MERCER thriller series, comprising twenty books (and counting); of the TYLER WOLF thriller series, comprising seven books (and counting); of the LARA KING thriller series, comprising ten books (and counting); and of the new GRANT VALOR thriller series, comprising twelve books (and counting).

Jack loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.Jackmarsauthor.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!

Copyright © 2025 by Jack Mars. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Alex Stemmer, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY JACK MARS

GRANT VALOR THRILLER SERIES

MAXIMUM DAMAGE (Book #1)

MAXIMUM FORCE (Book #2)

MAXIMUM FURY (Book #3)

MAXIMUM THREAT (Book #4)

MAXIMUM PERIL (Book #5)

MAXIMUM POWER (Book #6)

MAXIMUM IMPACT (Book #7)

MAXIMUM CARNAGE (Book #8)

MAXIMUM CHAOS (Book #9)

MAXIMUM PRESSURE (Book #10)

MAXIMUM HAVOC (Book #11)

MAXIMUM VENGEANCE (Book #12)

LARA KING THRILLER SERIES

ASSET ONE (Book #1)

ASSET TWO (Book #2)

ASSET THREE (Book #3)

ASSET FOUR (Book #4)

ASSET FIVE (Book #5)

ASSET SIX (Book #6)

ASSET SEVEN (Book #7)

ASSET EIGHT (Book #8)

ASSET NINE (Book #9)

ASSET TEN (Book #10)

TYLER WOLF THRILLER SERIES

DOUBLE AGENT (Book #1)

DOUBLE CROSS (Book #2)

DOUBLE ASSET (Book #3)

DOUBLE DOCTRINE (Book #4)

DOUBLE JEOPARDY (Book #5)

DOUBLE THREAT (Book #6)

DOUBLE TARGET (Book #7)

JAKE MERCER THRILLER SERIES

ABSOLUTE THREAT (Book #1)

ABSOLUTE DAMAGE (Book #2)

ABSOLUTE FORCE (Book #3)

ABSOLUTE PERIL (Book #4)

ABSOLUTE TREASON (Book #5)

ABSOLUTE VENGEANCE (Book #6)

ABSOLUTE TARGET (Book #7)

ABSOLUTE FURY (Book #8)

ABSOLUTE POWER (Book #9)

ABSOLUTE SHOCK (Book #10)

ABSOLUTE SIEGE (Book #11)

ABSOLUTE WAR (Book #12)

ABSOLUTE PREJUDICE (Book #13)

ABSOLUTE COMMAND (Book #14)

ABSOLUTE DECEPTION (Book #15)

ABSOLUTE TERROR (Book #16)

ABSOLUTE HAVOC (Book #17)

ABSOLUTE DANGER (Book #18)

ABSOLUTE GAMBIT (Book #19)

ABSOLUTE CARNAGE (Book #20)

THE SPY GAME

TARGET ONE (Book #1)

TARGET TWO (Book #2)

TARGET THREE (Book #3)

TARGET FOUR (Book #4)

TARGET FIVE (Book #5)

TARGET SIX (Book #6)

TARGET SEVEN (Book #7)

TARGET EIGHT (Book #8)

TARGET NINE (Book #9)

TARGET TEN (Book #10)

TROY STARK THRILLER SERIES

ROGUE FORCE (Book #1)

ROGUE COMMAND (Book #2)

ROGUE TARGET (Book #3)

ROGUE MISSION (Book #4)

ROGUE SHOT (Book #5)

ROGUE STRIKE (Book #6)

ROGUE ORDER (Book #7)

ROGUE ATTACK (Book #8)

LUKE STONE THRILLER SERIES

ANY MEANS NECESSARY (Book #1)

OATH OF OFFICE (Book #2)

SITUATION ROOM (Book #3)

OPPOSE ANY FOE (Book #4)

PRESIDENT ELECT (Book #5)

OUR SACRED HONOR (Book #6)

HOUSE DIVIDED (Book #7)

FORGING OF LUKE STONE PREQUEL SERIES

PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1)

PRIMARY COMMAND (Book #2)

PRIMARY THREAT (Book #3)

PRIMARY GLORY (Book #4)

PRIMARY VALOR (Book #5)

PRIMARY DUTY (Book #6)

AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER SERIES

AGENT ZERO (Book #1)

TARGET ZERO (Book #2)

HUNTING ZERO (Book #3)

TRAPPING ZERO (Book #4)

FILE ZERO (Book #5)

RECALL ZERO (Book #6)

ASSASSIN ZERO (Book #7)

DECOY ZERO (Book #8)

CHASING ZERO (Book #9)

VENGEANCE ZERO (Book #10)

ZERO ZERO (Book #11)

ABSOLUTE ZERO (Book #12)

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Dr. Nikolas Papadopoulos wiped the sweat from his brow and gratefully accepted the water bottle one of his interns handed him. The older he got, the harder it was to keep up with the fifteen-hour workdays at these dig sites. One day, he would follow his wife's advice and retire to a teaching position at the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, but he wasn’t ready to give up the excitement yet.

And this particular dig was incredibly exciting. Preliminary dating placed its age at the thirteenth century BCE, while preliminary examinations of the artifacts found identified this site as Ionian. That would make this site approximately a century older than the earliest known Ionian sites discovered previously and support his hypothesis that the Ionian migration to Turkey took place gradually over centuries rather than swiftly over the course of a few years.

The site itself was modest as far as such locations went. Pachia was a small island, and Dr. Papadopoulos doubted it could support an established population. Indeed, that seemed borne out by what they'd unearthed so far. There were numerous amphorae and chests—most broken, a few still sealed—and evidence of other items stored here in bulk. Some frayed and badly decomposed cordage had been discovered the night before in a recently opened room.

That led him to guess that this was a supply depot for a fleet of ships. That raised a lot of interesting questions. The Ionians—like many Greek civilizations—had a robust seafaring component, but if this place existed entirely as a supply cache for vessels, it would suggest that the Ionians might have been predominantly a seagoing civilization, perhaps even one that spent most of its time afloat.

There was precedent for this, of course. The Phoenicians, who many believed inspired a great deal of later Greek culture, were known for their long voyages and their control of many of the Western World’s largest ports during their peak. The later Nordic cultures would become renowned for their globe-spanning expeditions and their reverence of the seafaring Viking warriors. And in the Pacific, there were numerous examples of cultures who built their survival around the ability to undertake years-long voyages and establish themselves on small island chains and archipelagos.

But it had never before been seen with the Ionians. If the initial conclusions held, Nikolas would be the leading authority on early Ionian culture. His legacy would be established. His name would mean something.

“Dr.?”

Nikolas turned toward the voice and smiled. “Yes, Damian?”

The handsome, bronzed Damian lifted an amphora out of a pit. “I think you should take a look at this.”

Nikolas raised an eyebrow. In addition to being handsome enough that some of the others had trouble remaining focused when they were around him, Damian was also the brightest of the interns on the island. Nikolas had high hopes for the young Cretan. If he said this was important enough to warrant Nikolas’s immediate attention, then it was important enough to warrant his immediate attention.

Nikolas got to his feet with a groan and made his way down the steps the dig team had carved into the limestone. Damian handed him the amphora, and Nikolas almost immediately collapsed under its weight. Damian quickly caught it and sheepishly set it on the ground. “Sorry, doctor.”

“No worries,” Nikolas said wryly, rubbing the small of his back. “When one has the strength of Hercules, I imagine one often forgets that the rest of us are merely mortal.”

Damian chuckled and grinned bashfully. That shyness was another reason he was so popular with the female staff. Handsome and lacking arrogance? That was a rare combination. If only Nikolas’s own son…

But that was a dangerous direction to take his thoughts. Nikolas turned toward the amphorae and voided his mind of everything but clinical analysis.

“There are dozens of these,” Damian said. “All stored in a room below the other rooms.”

The amphora was painted a pale blue with illustrations made from what looked to Damian like pure gold. That couldn’t be true, though. Gold corroded over time, and the gold here seemed almost completely untouched.

It wasn't the composition of the jar that captured Nikolas's attention, though, but the nature of the design. It depicted a female humanoid creature with spread wings, a hideous, tusked face, and live snakes in place of hair. The creature's hands were outstretched. In one hand, she held a basket, and in the other, a sickle.

“This is a gorgon,” Nikolas said. “Very interesting.”

“Did gorgons exist as a myth in the twelfth century?” Damian asked.

“They did. There are other artifacts from this time period believed to depict gorgons. But this one is the earliest fully realized monster to resemble later myths such as that of Perseus and Medusa. At least, if the dating is confirmed, it will be.”

“What is the meaning of the basket and sickle?” Damian asked.

"She is reaping a harvest, obviously," Nikolas replied. "Though what that harvest might be, I'm not sure. Souls, perhaps? I will have to consult with my colleagues who are more familiar with Ancient Mycenean myths.”

“So this is Mycenean?”

Nikolas shook his head. “No, the art is clearly Ionian in design. Legend tells that Perseus founded the kingdom of Mycenae, but this is an Ionian piece.”

“That would be contemporary with the Kingdom of Mycenae, wouldn’t it?”

Nikolas smiled at Damian’s enthusiasm. “A century or two after. Still, it could suggest that Mycenean myths were carried over to the Ionian culture in purer form than previously believed. Let’s take this to the big tent. We’ll polish it up and see—”

A gunshot rang out, and the amphora shattered. Nikolas jumped and stared in shock at the greenish-gray cloud that erupted from the jar. The wind caught the cloud and spread it throughout the camp. Nikolas felt a surge of fear, not at the gunshot but at the cloud. What kind of spore or bacteria had he just breathed in?

Then he thought about the gunshot. He turned quickly around, looking for signs of trouble. "What was that?" he shouted to his panicked team. "Who fired that?"

Without warning, his muscles began to seize. He stared in shock as the fingers in his hand curled, then his arms folded against his chest. His chest stiffened, and his heart thumped lethargically before it stopped beating entirely.

He lifted his head to see the rest of his team afflicted similarly. He had just enough time to see figures in hazmat suits emerge from boats on the shore before his vision faded to black.

CHAPTER ONE

Jacob Snow grinned at Aaron Peters as the latter proudly showed off the bluefin he’d caught.

"You have a signal out there?" Jana asked.

Aaron rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm using my CIA-issued satellite phone. I kept some of my gadgets when I retired. Can we please talk about the enormous tuna I caught and not the technology I used to show it off?"

“It’s a pretty fish,” Jacob agreed.

“One thousand and fifty pounds!” Aaron announced proudly. “Largest one I’ve ever caught.”

“One thousand?” Jacob exclaimed. “Holy shit!”

"Fought like a bastard, too," Aaron told them. "Took me ten hours to catch it. Bluefin are strong as hell."

“Damn,” Jacob replied, shaking his head. “That’s incredible.”

Aaron’s chest swelled. “Got to keep myself active in my old age, you know?”

“We’re very proud of you, Dad,” Jana Peters, Jacob’s girlfriend and Aaron’s daughter, added. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Well, I’ll use some of the belly for sashimi after I clean it. Everything I don’t eat fresh I’ll vacuum pack and freeze. A fish this size, I’ll get enough fillets and steaks to last for a long time. I’ll send you guys some.”

“Sounds yummy.”

“You have no idea. I wish you two could be with me to eat the sashimi. There’s nothing on Earth like fresh toro.”

“We’ll have to come help you one of these days.”

Aaron nodded and smiled down at his prize catch. “I won’t lie. It was fulfilling as hell to bring this on board. I might not be the world’s most badass superspy anymore, but I can still kick ass.”

He picked up his phone and carried it with him to a beach chair on the deck. He set it on a table next to the chair, then pulled a beer from the cooler on the other side.

“Not cool, Dad,” Jana said. “Don’t operate the boat drunk.”

“Relax, Mom,” Aaron teased. “This is my only beer of the day. I’m celebrating a successful adventure, then I’ll head back ashore. I’ll be moored in my own private hangar. Then I’ll get drunk. Something that only happens a few times a year, I’d like to point out.”

“Must be nice,” Jana said drily.

“It is. You should try it.”

Jana laughed. “It’d be just my luck that would be the moment the CIA discovers that someone’s found the Spear of Longinus and is using it to destroy the world.”

All three smiles faded at that. The three of them had spent years with the CIA working on cases just like that. They hadn’t come across the spear alleged to have pierced Christ’s side yet, but they’d encountered quite a few ancient artifacts with potential that rivaled or exceeded the most destructive of Earth’s weapons.

And they'd all suffered for that work. Aaron, in particular, had endured more than anyone should, nearly succumbing to months of coordinated physical and mental torture while imprisoned by the Order, an evil secret society bent on utilizing the ancient technology of a hundred-millennium-old civilization that, while still unknown to the general public, may have been the greatest human civilization to ever exist. Scraps of their civilization remained, and some groups—like the Order—wanted to use those scraps to establish themselves as the world's overlords.

But that was all in the past. The Order had been defeated. Its most dangerous member, Dr. Colin Harlow, languished in a secure prison. Aaron was retired and spent his days bullying poor fish and enjoying maybe a little more alcohol than he should.

As for Jacob and Jana…

"So, have you heard from anyone about the mine you guys found in Israel?" Aaron asked.

That was as close to the actual question as Aaron could get. Jacob and Jana hadn't actually discovered a mine but a storeroom containing billions of dollars worth of rare Earth elements that could have given whoever owned them control over multiple industries.

This was an unsecure line, though, and there was no telling who was listening, so Aaron had to be careful how he asked, and Jacob and Jana had to be careful how they answered.

“Nothing concrete,” Jana asked. “But the general consensus is that there’s very little there that’s useful.”

Aaron sighed with relief. “Well, that’s all right. Don’t need things changing too drastically. So do you guys have any idea what you’re going to do next?”

“I very strongly hope that we’re going to stay right here and enjoy a nice, quiet holiday,” Jacob said. “A very, very long one.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Aaron said. “Heavily, until I pass out on my boat and wash out to sea.”

“Dad!” Jana protested. “That’s not funny!”

“I laughed,” he countered. “Anyway, it is starting to get dark, so I'll let you guys go and focus on getting back to shore. I don't mind sailing at night from time to time, but I'm an early-to-bed guy these days, and I did just spend all day wrestling a half-ton fish. Love you both. Don't get into too much trouble, okay?"

“Love you too, Dad,” Jana replied.

“No promises on the trouble,” Jacob said, “but I’ll do my best.”

Aaron hung up, and Jana sighed and bit her lip softly. That meant that she was upset about something. Jacob had a feeling he knew what it was.

“Has the Division tried to contact you since we last spoke to them?” Jacob asked.

The U.S. Antiquities Division was another organization obsessed with finding the scraps of the pre-Ice Age civilization. They claimed to be doing so in order to preserve the current human civilization, but according to their Division contact, Robert Bledshaw, their true goals were closer to the Order’s stated mission of conquering the world and establishing a new world government. To Jacob’s knowledge, they hadn’t yet done anything violent or terroristic, but Jacob had a feeling it was only a matter of time.

"Not since the Curator visited us, no," Jana assured him. "But… I mean, we've chosen the Division over greater evils before. Clearly, we were wrong to believe that the greater evils are gone from the world. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a better friendship with the Division."

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. “The Division doesn’t have friends, Jana. They have employees. They don’t have associates, they have slaves.”

“Maybe, but they’ve also saved our lives more than once.”

“Because we’re useful to them. Did you forget what Robert told us?”

“No, I didn’t forget. But… maybe he was wrong. I mean, with everything the Division already controls, they could already take over the world if they wanted. And they haven’t. I’m not saying they’re saints, but maybe they’re… well, like I said, the lesser of many evils.”

Jacob pressed his lips together and looked away. Jana had a point. Jacob had often wondered why the Division didn’t just make a move and take the planet from everyone. He doubted very strongly that anyone could stop them if they were really serious about that fight.

But they had been the good guys unambiguously for a very long time. Jacob didn’t like the thought of sacrificing their morals for the “lesser of many evils.” How far could they travel down that road before they became the greatest of many evils?

This wasn’t the time to argue about that, though. “Look, let’s not talk about this right now. It’s only been a week. Let’s have some dinner and at least pretend for a little bit that we’re retired and enjoying life.”

She smiled. “You really can’t wait to hang it up, can you?”

“Can you? I thought you told me that you were ready to be done with the crazy life.”

"I was. I am. I just…" she bit her lip again. "There are still things out there. People, too."

“Things and people are pretty ubiquitous,” Jacob deadpanned.

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. I want to walk away, but what if by walking away, we’re letting someone like Dr. Harlow get the upper hand?”

"Dr. Harlow's in prison," Jacob retorted. "And there will always be people like him. But there will always be people like us, too. Look at Aaron. He was the best agent in the CIA's history, probably even better than us. He's retired. He didn't lift a finger when Blackstone tried to steal Solomon's treasure."

“Because he didn’t know about it,” Jana countered. “We do. And I don’t think I can pretend not to know it.”

They fell silent again, each dealing with a different set of uncomfortable thoughts. Jana broke the silence by smiling apologetically and saying, “I’m sorry. We agreed not to talk about this. Let’s just have dinner. I’ll keep the conversation away from work. I promise.”

Jacbo’s smile returned. “Milady, your wish is my command.”

***

Two hours later, the two of them were polishing off the last of the roast of lamb with mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli that Jacob had made. Both were working their way through their third glass of wine, and Jacob, at least, was feeling a warm buzz that almost managed to drive away the anxiety of the previous conversation.

“This is good wine,” Jana said. “Where did you get it?”

Jacob smiled. “Target.”

“Seriously? How much was it?”

He shrugged. “Like twenty bucks.”

Jana stared at it for a moment. “Wow. Do I just have no class when it comes to wine?”

“None at all. And that’s okay. Neither do I. It’s a lot cheaper to have no class.”

“I guess so,” Jana said.

She finished her glass, and when Jacob offered more, she laughed and shook her head. “If it was your intention to get me drunk, sir, you have succeeded. There is no need for more help on that front.”

He gave her a sly grin. “Does that mean your inhibitions are lowered?”

She gave him a coy look. “Maybe. We’ll see. What do you have planned for dessert?”

“Ice cream sandwiches.” She stared at him, and he added, “I was going to make tiramisu, but it turns out that’s actually really hard to do. So I bought some ice cream sandwiches from Target too. They’re the good ones with the three flavors. Strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate.”

“Neapolitan?” she asked.

“Sure. Sounds good.”

She giggled and squeezed his hand. “I think that sounds delicious.”

He leaned forward and tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away. “Uh uh. My dessert first, sir.”

He groaned and got reluctantly to his feet. “You’re a taskmaster, you know that?”

“It’s your fault for falling in love with me. You could have found a nice, sweet girl who did whatever you wanted and never gave you any trouble ever.”

“Anyone you can introduce me to?” he asked, grabbing two ice cream sandwiches and tossing her one.

“Nope. All of my friends are annoying and loud.”

“Ah well. Worth a shot.”

The two of them took the party to the living room of their house, a spacious, two-story cabin in the forest of Virginia about forty minutes from Washington, D.C. The cabin was the latest in a long line of temporary safehouses the two of them had been holed up in while working for the CIA. Jacob really hoped this would be their last one.

Maybe they could finally move forward with their own lives.

He smiled at his lover. “You know, if you and I are retired, then maybe you and I could officially become you and I.”

She laughed. “Was that your way of asking me to marry you?”

“Well, I plan to do a more formal proposal as soon as I can source the doves.”

“Doves?”

“Yes. We need some to hold the banner over our heads and others to drop confetti over us, but it’s really hard to find good doves these days. The few websites I’ve checked are booked three months out, and—”

“Okay, okay,” Jana said, waving her hands for him to stop. “Before you get too convoluted with all of this, yes, I would like to marry you.”

She bit her lip, and her eyes shifted to the left when she said that, though. She recovered quickly, but not quickly enough for Jacob to miss it. “But?”

She sighed. “But…” She bit her lip again. “Do you think it’s safe?”

“To get married? Unless you’re secretly my cousin, I think we’ll be all right.”

“Eww. You know what I meant.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I know. And… well, I don’t know. Probably not. But I’m tired of waiting. I mean, maybe we should wait a little longer before we have kids, but if we’re really out, then there’s no reason we can’t exchange rings, right? Maybe we’ll go for a priest or a judge instead of trained doves, but the rest of it sounds good to me.”

“It does,” she agreed. “It really does. I want to marry you. I will marry you. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page about having kids.”

“Totally the same.”

This time, he was the one whose eyes flicked to the left. Now that he thought about it, he realized that they weren’t on the same page. The conversation with Aaron earlier showed him how awesome it was to be a dad. Sure, Aaron hadn’t had the easiest road of it, and neither had Jana, but seeing the love they held for each other brought home how much he wanted a chance at that relationship.

Jana's fingers slipped into his, and he lifted his eyes to see her smiling tenderly at him. "I'll tell you what. Why don't you buy a ring and plan a nice date? Not with doves and confetti, but a normal, mundane dinner date just like ordinary people do. I'll act surprised and scream 'Yes!' at the top of my lungs, then we can giggle and hold hands and pretend that we're not badass CIA agents for a while."

Jacob smiled, but before he could reply, the door to their home burst open. Both of them were immediately on their feet, weapons in their hands.

The Curator of the Antiquities Division stood in their living room, his eyes wide with concern. “We need to talk.”

CHAPTER TWO

A chill ran down Jana’s spine. She had seen many different versions of the Curator since learning of the Antiquities Division’s existence. He’d been an irritable bastard, an impatient taskmaster, a smugly superior jerk… actually just a lot of different flavors of asshole.

What he’d never been in Jana’s presence was terrified. He looked terrified now.

She looked at Jacob and saw that he was just as affected by the Curator’s fear as she was. That was probably why he didn’t immediately throw the Curator out of the house and shout at him to never break in again.

That and the three Division agents who quickly entered the house and began closing and locking all of the doors and windows. One of them pulled black electrical tape from his pocket and began covering each security camera they had installed in their house.

Jana finally snapped out of her silence. “Excuse me, what the hell is going on?”

“I’ll tell you in a moment,” the Curator said, eyes flicking around the house to observe the agents’ progress.

“No, you’ll tell us now,” Jacob said. “What the hell are you doing in our house? We made it clear that we’re not interested in working for you.”

“You’ll change your mind after you see what I have to show you,” the Curator replied.

“No,” Jacob insisted. “We’re done. Get your men out of here, or I’ll get them out of here.”

“Will you just calm down?” the Curator snapped. “Maybe wait for ten goddamned seconds before flying off the handle? Look at me. Do you think I look like this for no reason?”

Jacob shared another sober look with Jana.

“Exactly,” the Curator replied. “So chill out for a minute.”

In another circumstance, hearing the pompous Curator use a phrase like “chill out” would be funny. Considering the evidently dire circumstances they found themselves in, it was just another sign of… well, of how dire the circumstances were.

The agents left the house without so much as a glance Jacob’s and Jana’s way. The Curator waited for the door to close behind the last one, then unshouldered his messenger bag and pulled out a laptop. “Okay. We have a problem.”

“Send your own agents,” Jacob said. “We don’t work for you.”

The Curator ignored him and opened the laptop, setting it on their coffee table. Despite Jacob’s strong words, he didn’t hesitate to lean close to the screen along with Jana when the video started playing.

The video was of an archaeological dig. It was difficult to tell from exactly where the camera was placed, but it looked to Jana like an early Ionian site, perhaps tenth millennium BCE or older.

“We recovered this footage from the Pachia Island dig site in Greece,” the Curator explained. “Or what was the Pachia Island dig site. The entire island has been quarantined.”

“Quarantined?” Jacob asked.

“Watch.”

The camera revealed a fairly typical dig, like so many Jana had been to in the past. There were several different excavations of varying size. Intertwined with these excavations were tents—also of varying size—that served all of the functions buildings would serve in a permanent research complex: bunkhouse, medical center, headquarters office, laboratory, records office, and so on.

The people were as diverse as the tents. There were young, eager, and slightly confused interns who needed almost constant direction but would very enthusiastically complete whatever task they were given. There were junior researchers who were still unsure of their expertise and needed advice from the senior researchers before airing anything that might be construed as an opinion. There were senior researchers who basked in their own superiority and were more than happy to offer advice and instruction as requested.

At the top of the pyramid was the team leader, a middle-aged Greek man with a potbelly and more gray in his mop of disheveled curly hair than brown. At the beginning of the video, he was sitting on the edge of the steps cut into the largest excavation, wiping sweat from his brow. As Jana watched, a young intern offered him a water bottle, which he emptied in one huge gulp.

“Dr. Nikolas Papadopoulos,” the Curator said. “Fellow of the Hellenic Historical Society and a leading authority of pre-Dark Age Greek history.”

“The Greeks had a dark age?” Jacob asked.

“Not really,” Jana said. “For a long time, there was limited data on Greek culture between about eleven hundred and eight hundred BCE, but recent discoveries have shed a lot of light on those time periods, so it’s no longer accurate to call them the Dark Ages, and the term is being abandoned. Sometimes it’s still used for convenience.”

“So I’m guessing that he found some crazy ancient artifact and some evil people took it,” Jacob said curtly. “Am I right?”

“Watch,” the Curator replied.

Dr. Papadopoulos stood and looked intently toward the right edge of the camera. Jana followed his eyes but couldn’t see anything. A moment later, the doctor walked off the camera.

The video feed changed to reveal another large excavation. To the left of the excavation, a tall, well-built young man held an amphora over his head. A moment later, Dr. Papadopoulos reappeared, descending the steps of the excavation and heading toward the younger man.

“An intern,” the Curator explained. “His name was Damian Baros.”

“Sounds like a metal singer,” Jacob said.

Jana glared at him, and he lifted his hands apologetically.

Damian handed Dr. Papadopoulos the jar, and the doctor nearly fell over. Damian quickly grabbed it and set it gently on the ground.

“So it wasn’t empty,” Jacob deduced.

The Curator gave him a dry look. “Astute observation, Agent Snow.”

“Bite me,” Jacob snapped. “You just invaded my house. You don’t get to act all smug.”

“Jacob,” Jana interrupted.

“No, really, I’m sick of this. Look, I appreciate that you guys saved our life in Israel, but I’m tired of you treating us like we’re pets or work animals, or… or…”

“Jacob!” Jana snapped. “Look!”

Jacob turned his attention to the screen, and his eyes widened. Dr. Papadopoulos was examining the jar and talking to Damian. Attracted by their boss’s interest, the rest of the dig team was gathering around and listening.

Off to the right, ten boats were approaching. Each boat contained a driver and four men in hazmat suits. One of the men was armed with a scoped hunting rifle. He stood and took careful aim, unseen by the distracted scientists.

A burst of flame shot out of his gun and shattered the amphora. The jar released a cloud of noxious green gas that rapidly expanded to cover the entire dig team. It hung in the air thickly even as it expanded, and within seconds, the entire field of the camera, even the boats, was covered with smoke.

“Was it heavy because the gas was concentrated?” Jacob asked.

“No,” the Curator replied. “For gas to be that heavy, you’d have to compress so much of it, it would be a solid. It was heavy because it was extraordinarily thick. The interior volume of the amphora was only thirteen percent of its total volume.”

“They were trying to keep that gas from being accidentally released,” Jana deduced.

"For good reason, too," the Curator said. "Watch."

As Jana watched, her eyes widened in horror. Dr. Papadopoulos's fingers curled as though he had been struck with a sudden case of palsy. His arms followed, folding against his chest. Then his back arched, and his legs gave out. He fell to the ground but didn't seem aware of the fact that he'd fallen.

The others followed suit, their bodies twisting as their muscles contracted powerfully. Within a minute, all of them were frozen stiff.

“Jesus,” Jacob whispered.

“Thirty-five people dead,” the Curator replied. “Unconscious within three minutes, dead within seven.”

“From the gas?”

The Curator rolled his eyes. “What else do you think might have killed them?”

Before Jacob could snap at him, Jana said, “Do you know who the attackers were?”

“No. That’s why we’re enlisting your help.”

The people in hazmat suits stepped off of the boat and walked toward the excavation where Damian had found the jar, ignoring the bodies of the people they’d killed. Jana’s eyes widened in horror as one by one, they returned to their boats, each carrying a similar-looking amphora to the first.

“Shit,” Jacob said softly. “They’re stealing a bioweapon.”

“Exactly,” the Curator replied.

“When did this happen?” Jana asked.

“Twelve hours ago.”

“How did you find out about it?” Jacob asked.

“One of the dig team didn’t answer repeated phone calls from his wife. Our response team was alerted and sent a drone to examine the scene. When we saw the bodies, we acted quickly, retrieving the camera and taking initial observations. When we saw this footage, we came straight to you.”

“Wait,” Jana said, “You had people watching this team?”

“We have an office in Athens.”

“But you didn’t see the attackers approaching?” Jacob challenged.

“Contrary to what you might believe,” the Curator replied, “Our resources are not limitless. We have an office in Athens, but we have to prioritize where we send our assets. This dig was considered low priority because every aspect of its discovery suggested mundanity. It’s a unique find in the ordinary archaeological world, but not in the world in which we live. We had alerts set up in case of just such an event as this, but we didn’t have eyes in the sky like we do over some other digs.”

Jana’s jaw tightened. Two months ago, she had been captured from a dig in the Negev Desert in Israel by a terrorist group hoping to find Solomon’s hidden treasure to use to commandeer many crucial technology industries. All but one of the members of that team had been slaughtered, and Jana’s close friend, Dr. Cynthia Crane, had been left in a coma from which she had only recently awoken. It would still be months before she could walk again and longer still before she could work. “Did you have ‘eyes in the sky’ over the Negev dig?”

The Curator’s lips thinned, but he didn’t answer. “Clearly, we were wrong about this site. That means that there’s someone out there who knows more than we do.”

“Not to mention they have a bioweapon or chemical agent of some sort that can kill people in less than ten minutes,” Jacob reminded him.

“That too,” the Curator replied. “We need your help. There isn’t time to argue. We’ve already talked to your superiors at the CIA, and they’ve agreed to loan you to us for the time being.”

Jana and Jacob both started at that. “What? When?”

“An hour ago.”

“Bullshit,” Jacob swore. “Tyler would have called me.”

“Director Wallace can’t call you,” the Curator replied. “Your cell phone signals are being jammed.”

Jana’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We don’t want people to spy on you.”

“Except for you,” Jacob retorted.

“Feel free to despise me if it makes you feel better,” the Curator replied, “but the fate of the world is at stake. Your personal freedom is secondary to that consideration.”

“Famous words of every dictator on Earth,” Jacob challenged.

The Curator met his eyes. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you’re refusing this assignment.”

“You’re not giving me a choice to refuse.”

“Would you? If you had a choice?”

Jacob’s lips thinned so much they nearly disappeared. “No,” he growled.

“All right, then. Come with me. No need to pack a bag. We have everything you’ll need at our destination.”

The Curator packed his laptop and headed for the door. Jana shared a look with Jacob, then the two agents followed the Curator outside.

CHAPTER THREE

Jacob felt a whirlwind of emotions as he and Jana stepped into the SUV parked outside. Despite multiple refusals, they were working with the Antiquities Division again.

On the other hand, if the video the Curator showed them was real, then this threat was exceptionally serious, more serious even than the cache of rare Earth metals in the Negev desert. A terrorist organization in control of chemical or biological weapons could cause untold devastation. That was why the two of them joined the Curator in spite of their objections.

Then again, the video could be fake. If it was, then it was a very good fake, but it was a possibility Jacob had to consider.

They sat in the middle of the three-row SUV. Behind them sat two stone-faced agents. The third agent held the Curator’s passenger door open while he stepped inside, then walked around to the driver’s seat. There was a bulkhead separating the passenger compartment from the forward cabin of the vehicle. As soon as the engine started, a panel closed over the small window that allowed vision into the front of the vehicle. Similar panels covered the rear window and each passenger window, hiding the outside world from their view.

“Guess it’s better than having hoods thrown over our heads,” he said.

“Who do you think stole the amphorae?” Jana asked.

“I don’t know. I think it’s possible that the video was doctored.”

She looked quizzically at him. “How could it have been doctored?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t doctored. Maybe it’s another splinter group of the Division.”

“Or maybe the old splinter group reorganized,” Jana suggested.

“The Order wasn’t a splinter group,” Jacob countered. “Dr. Harlow split off from the Division, but the Order was its own entity.”

Jana sighed. “Well, whoever it was, I hope the Division will be willing to share more with us.”

“Do you really think they’ll tell us the truth?”

“Why wouldn’t they? They need our help. What advantage do they get from lying to us?”

“They’ve lied to us before.”

“And they’ve paid for it,” she countered. “I think they’ve learned their lesson. Look at the Curator. Have you seen him like this before?”

“No,” Jacob admitted, “but that doesn’t mean he’s telling us the truth.”

“Why would he lie?”

His lips thinned. “I don’t know. I’m just saying we shouldn’t take everything they say at face value.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

He frowned a little. It probably wasn’t fair for him to think this, but he got the impression that Jana had already decided to trust the Division. Had she forgotten what Robert had told them about the Curator and the Division?

And he didn’t like the excitement he saw in her eyes. For God’s sake, didn’t you just tell me that you wanted to leave this life behind? What changed?

The answer to that question was obvious. Nothing had changed. Jana was always and was still devoted to uncovering and understanding the deepest secrets of history. There was no question that the Antiquities Division had access to those secrets and had the resources to discover more of them. It was Jana’s dream job, at least on the surface.

It was what lingered under the surface that worried Jacob.

They drove for about forty-five minutes before the SUV came to a stop. That was a fairly small radius of potential locations, the most notable one being Washington D.C. That would make sense, considering that the Antiquities Division was a federal agency.

Jacob tried to get a glimpse of the outside world when the door opened, but they had parked in an underground garage, and all he saw were rows of other vehicles: cars, SUVs, trucks and even a few armored vehicles that looked like blacked-out MRAPs.

They were led into an elevator with no control panel. Instead of pushing a button, the Curator slid his ID card over a panel, and the elevator began to descend. That descent took well over a minute. He wondered how far underground they were going.

The door opened to reveal a long, dimly lit hallway with operating theaters on either side. Jacob counted six of them to the left and six to the right. Within each operating theater, a team of surgeons wearing masks and gowns were performing autopsies on… something. The creatures had thick, leathery skin separated by thick armored plates. Their joints and spines were twisted, and their features stretched and grotesque. Jacob didn't want to use the word aliens, but he had seen enough crazy things that he wouldn't have been surprised.

The Curator led them to the farthest room, ushering them inside and closing the door. This room had a two-way mirror through which could be seen a better angle of the autopsy taking place in the nearest theater.

The doctors were working on more of the aliens. Jacob noted a pile of clothing in the corner, a tan shirt and khaki shorts above a pair of brown work boots. The same outfit Dr. Papadopoulos wore in the video.

His eyes widened. He turned to the operating theater and realized with horror that the scaly grotesque creatures on the tables weren’t alien after all. What Jacob was looking at was the final effect of the gas that had killed the dig team. His stomach turned, and he looked away.

At least now I know it’s real.

“Not very pretty, is it?” the Curator said.

“What the hell happened to them?” Jacob asked. “This wasn’t on the video.”

“No. The substance appears to have affected the victims for an average of three hours before finally wearing off. Death occurred within minutes, but as you can see here, the symptoms progressed long after death.”

“Harlequin-type ichthyosis,” Jana said.

“Harla-what?” Jacob asked.

“Harlequin-type ichthyosis," she repeated. "It's a disease where the skin forms as very thick and hard keratinous plates separated by large, deep fissures. It's a congenital birth defect that, for obvious reasons, results in a very short lifespan. Or, well, it's only been known as a birth defect so far."

"Severe hyperkeratosis is indeed a symptom," the Curator agreed. "As is severe hypertonia and airway constriction. In the long term, calcium leached from the bones and distributed throughout the body, causing the soft tissues to stiffen and harden. As nearly as we can tell from the bodies we've examined so far, the cause of death appears to be heart failure when the heart muscle contracts and then refuses to relax."

“If there’s no blood pumping, then how is the calcium distributed throughout the body?” Jacob asked.

“We don’t know.”

“What kind of substance was it?”

“We don’t know.”

“Virus, bacteria, chemical, magic?”

The Curator sighed and rubbed his temples. “Agent Snow, please believe me, if we had an answer for you, we’d give it. We just don’t know. This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.”

“So there’s nothing out of the ordinary?”

“There’s everything out of the ordinary. Within three hours, the body produces enough keratin to turn the skin into stiff plates. The muscles contract to the point where several individuals saw their muscles torn from the bones. The bones develop severe osteoporosis as calcium is leached from them, and that calcium causes the walls of the lungs, digestive and endocrine organs to harden and stiffen as well. Even the nerve endings in the brain and spinal cord become coated with plaque.”

“But you can’t figure out what’s doing this.”

The Curator turned to Jacob and asked irritably, “Are you going to ask stupid questions the entire time?”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. He took a step toward the Curator, but before he could retort, Jana asked, “Have their families been notified of what happened to them?”

“You’re kidding, right? What do we tell them? ‘Hey everyone, your loved one just turned to stone?’”

The Curator’s brows were furrowed into an irritable scowl, but his eyes were wide underneath them. His face was ashen, and Jacob detected a slight tremor in his hands. Jana was right. He was afraid.

Jacob tried a softer approach. “I understand that you’re upset, sir. I understand that you’re scared. Believe me, we’re just as freaked out by this as you are. But snapping at us and insulting us when we’re trying to get a handle on the situation isn’t going to help.”

The Curator glared at Jacob. He probably considered Jacob’s tone condescending. He also was probably not used to being this afraid of something.

That made Jacob wonder what the Curator was hiding. It wasn’t like the Antiquities Division had never encountered something frightening and difficult to understand before. Hell, Jacob and Jana had worked with the Division to stop literal ancient nuclear weapons from being unleashed on humanity.

So why was this one so different?

“I apologize,” the Curator said grudgingly. “I forget that you two don’t know what we know. You’re asking questions we already have the answers to. We need you to find the answers to different questions. I’ll tell you what we know so far.”

He took a deep breath. “No, the families aren’t aware of…” he gestured at the operating theater. “This. The families were told that their loved ones were killed in a natural gas explosion when the dig team accidentally unearthed a pocket of gas that ignited, likely from a spark or a lit cigarette or match. They’ve been told that there was nothing left of their bodies.”

“So they’ll never even get to say goodbye?” Jana asked.

“Do you think they’d prefer to see their loved ones like that?” the Curator asked, gesturing once more to the operating theater.

Jana lowered her eyes and said nothing.

“And you have no idea who might have done this?” Jacob asked. “None at all?”

“Our first assumption was a remnant of the Order,” the Curator replied. “But the CIA has been sharing its data on the Order members it’s been tracking. Unless you’re going to tell me they were lying to us, we’ve not noticed any of those individuals within one hundred miles of Greek territory.”

Jacob frowned. “I didn’t know that the CIA was talking to you.”

“Ah. Well, they are. And we’re reasonably sure it isn’t the Order.”

“What about the substance?” Jana asked. “Can you tell us anything about it? You must have something.”

“I can tell you it’s not contagious,” the Curator said. “At least not after two hours have passed. A member of the retrieval team noticed a tear in his hazmat suit as he loaded the bodies onto the boat. The tear appeared to have come from a hook in the uniform storage compartment, meaning it was there the entire time he was working. He’s developed no symptoms in the intervening time. He even volunteered to spend twenty minutes unprotected in close proximity to one of the bodies and suffered no ill effects.”

Jacob shivered. "Well, that's good. That means any attacks will be limited in scope and will be self-containing."

“Yes. Our concern is that whoever captured these amphorae may discover a way to replicate the substance inside them. If they can produce more of whatever this is, the death toll could easily be in the millions.”

Jacob looked at Jana. Her face was white as a sheet. He was pretty sure he was too. This wasn't really the most dangerous weapon either of them had faced, but there was something about a chemical agent that affected people so visibly that just disturbed Jacob. It was a horrible way to go, and the thought that some terrorists could now use that weapon on unsuspecting civilians?

Maybe that was why the Curator was so desperate.

“All right,” he said. “What do you need us to do?”

CHAPTER FOUR

Remy Bouchard had to admit to a certain amount of fear as he engaged the seal between his gloves and his hazmat suit. The others in the decontamination chamber did the same, then one by one assisted their companions with the seal in their full helmets. Remy heard the soft hiss of the seal engaging, and a moment later, the oddly stale, alcohol-like taste of the O2 mixture delivered by the twin tanks on his back filled his airways.

He turned to the others and gave a thumbs-up. One by one, his companions returned the gesture. When everyone confirmed that their suits were working correctly, Remy pressed the button on the decontamination chamber.

Blacklights lit, and the muffled whine of the filtration system filled his ears. The team of scientists waited patiently for the blacklights to vaporize any microorganisms they carried while the air filters soaked up any microparticles and trace amounts of reactive or toxic gases that might be in the room's atmosphere.

Remy kept himself calm, but excitement and fear dominated his thoughts as they prepared for their first round of tests. The gas they had retrieved from the dig site was extraordinarily potent, but it was also volatile, fragile, and not easily transportable. There was a better than even chance that had they not intervened when they did, the archaeologists would have accidentally opened one or more jars and killed themselves anyway.

Of course, Remy and the other members of Gaia’s Vengeance intended to kill. That was the whole point: kill a percentage of the human population to allow the planet as a whole to recover from the wrongs humanity had done to it. Sacrifice the few to save the many. Allow one generation to suffer that many future generations could thrive.

But as potent as this gas was, it still wasn't enough to accomplish their objectives. Not in its natural form. What Remy hoped to do was distill the substance into a concentrated liquid form that could be replicated, mass-produced, and carried in sufficient quantities by sleeper agents all around the world.

A chime sounded, a green light flashed, and the airlock opened. A stillness came over the team as they looked at the amphora ahead. Contained within the image of the Gorgon ahead was another sample of this gas. Each man and woman there understood that if anything went even slightly wrong, they would end up like the dig team, twisted, stiffened, and forever frozen.

The team entered the room, moving slowly and carefully to the various machines within the chamber. Remy took his place in front of the inner chamber where the jar was held. His eyes were level with the hideous visage of the Gorgon herself.

Medusa.

Remy Bouchard met her eyes without fear. She held no danger to a servant of Gaia. She came to deliver vengeance to a planet abused by its inhabitants. Remy had come for the same reason. They were allies, not enemies.

Still, one did not toy with the affections of a goddess. Remy waited patiently while a second round of safety checks confirmed that the chamber housing the jar was completely sealed from the outer chamber.

He lifted his hand and curled one finger, giving the signal to open the jar. A bolt gun within the chamber eased against the jar. He curled a second finger, and the weapon fired, shattering the jar. The highly pressurized gas expanded instantly, filling the inner chamber with thick green smoke.

Remy lowered his eyes to the monitor in front of him and watched data flicker across the screen. One by one, the team performed their tests. The mist was sprayed over the gas to test its reactivity with water. An electric current was sent through the chamber's atmosphere to determine its conductivity. The chamber was heated to one thousand degrees Celsius and then cooled to two hundred degrees below.

The gas reacted the way any substance would to the change in temperature. The molecules moved more rapidly as the temperature increased and slowed and condensed as the temperature decreased. It didn’t form a liquid, though. Remy signaled Harriet to decrease the temperature further, cooling the chamber to a negligible fraction of a single degree Kelvin—as close to absolute zero as it was possible with their instruments.

In this state, the gas was thick, almost colloidal. It moved slowly, seeming to flow like syrup rather than billow like gas.

But it didn’t condense to liquid. Remy pursed his lips. That was frustrating. The gas was tame enough at absolute zero, and it maintained its integrity as Harriet increased the temperature rapidly back to room temperature. It could work that way.

But it was extremely difficult to maintain the internal temperature of a shipping container at near-absolute zero. Containers capable of the job were, by necessity, incredibly thick and required an incredible amount of power to run. It wasn't practical to transport, and it was nearly impossible to keep hidden.

The gas thinned and dissipated, eventually leaving behind an inert gray haze and a thin green dusting of particles on the chamber. At this point, it was perfectly safe for the team to remove their helmets, but for the sake of caution, they remained suited. Remy nodded at the others, and they busied themselves taking samples of the inert byproducts for analysis.

He sighed and tried to keep a positive attitude. This was only the first of many batteries of tests. It wasn’t realistic to expect that they’d find an answer on their very first day. Their victory would come in time. The world would gaze into the eyes of Medusa and they would learn what came of those who defied the gods.

CHAPTER FIVE

Jana scanned the article and sipped her coffee, her brow furrowed with anxiety. She’d seen plenty of horrific things within her lifetime: men and women slaughtered by gunfire, wracked by disease, even vaporized.

Nothing compared to what she saw in the operating theaters the night before. The bodies within those rooms didn’t look human anymore. They looked like some macabre nightmare cooked up by H.R. Giger or David Cronenberg. The only comfort she took was the knowledge that they hadn't suffered. Most of the more grotesque effects took place after death, and the victims were all unconscious within a few minutes.

Still… what a horrible way to go. She had been upset with the Division for lying to the families at first, but thinking of her father looking like that or Jacob… She shivered. Probably good that the loved ones of those poor scientists were kept in the dark about their true fate.

She closed this article and opened the next one: “The Gorgon: A Modern Analysis of a Perpetual Problem, or, How Ancient Greeks Used Parables to Encourage Curiosity.”

At first glance, the article appeared to be as clumsily constructed as the title. Oh joy.

Jacob’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “I realize that, sir, but doesn’t it concern you a little that the Division can just take over in circumstances like this?” After a brief pause, he said, “ “Look, can you at least tell me what the thought process is behind all of this? I’ve worked for the CIA for years, and it’s only very recently that the Antiquities Division is exerting this kind of influence. What changed?”

There was a longer pause this time. Then Jacob’s shoulders slumped. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “All right. Yeah, no, I get it. Sure. I’ll keep you posted.”

He closed his cell phone and tossed it on the bed, then offered the very eloquent opinion, “Well that’s fucking bullshit.”

“What is?” Jana asked.

“We’re supposed to just do whatever the Division tells us to do,” Jacob replied. “We’re basically they’re employees for now.”

“So the Curator wasn’t lying.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. “Not about that, no.”

Jana swiveled her chair around and looked at her partner. “What’s wrong, Jacob?”

He scoffed. “You’re joking, right?”

"No, I'm not. I mean, what's wrong with you? I get that you don't trust the Division, but—"

“And let me guess: you do?”

She frowned. “Not entirely, no, but I trust that they don’t want chemical weapons in the hands of terrorists.”

“Better for it to be in their hands, right?”

“Yes. So far, yes. Name one time the Division has used ancient technology to actively attack innocent people.”

“They’re trying to take over the damned world!” Jacob exclaimed.

“I’m not saying they have the best desires for humanity’s future, but terrorists now have control of a weapon that can probably kill millions of people within minutes if deployed to maximum effectiveness. We don’t have the resources on our own to handle this problem. The Division does. So we need to work with them, and unfortunately, that means trusting them, at least far enough to not intentionally get us killed or that… whatever it is… unleashed on the world.”

"Yes, we do," Jacob countered. "Yes, we absolutely do have the resources to handle this ourselves. The CIA is damned good at hunting terrorists. We've been doing it just fine for decades. We need to handle this, not the Division.”

“What’s more important right now?” Jana challenged. “The fact that the Division has more influence than they should, or the fact that people just slaughtered an entire dig team and stole weapons that can wipe out New York during the length of a primetime commercial break?”

“See, that’s the part that worries me,” Jacob said, pacing around the room. “You’re a history buff. Look at history. Tell me how many dictators and oppressive governments have risen to power by exploiting that dichotomy. ‘Do you want to keep your freedom, or do you all want to die of this disease or that disease? Do you want peace, or do you want to stop these guys from conquering innocent nations and building an empire?’ Then the disease is eradicated and the empires are defeated, but do those people ever give up their power?”

He turned to Jana. “Maybe this is how they do it. Maybe this is how they take over the world. They don’t fight people. They don’t threaten to hurt people or cause natural disasters with ancient technology. They just use fear to gain more and more influence and then maintain that influence.”

Jana understood why he felt the way he did. She didn’t even think he was wrong. He was just looking at the wrong side of the coin right now.

“Robert still works for the Division,” she reminded him. “He doesn’t trust them any more than you do. But he still works for them, and he knows them better than you do. He must have a reason for continuing to work for them even though he doesn’t trust them. I know you don’t like the argument about choosing the lesser of two evils, but there are times when we have to do that. Right now, the Division is the lesser of two evils. You agree?”

Jacob sighed and nodded. “Yeah. I agree.”

She smiled and reached out to squeeze his thigh. “Cheer up. We always find a way out of the worst situations. We’ll find our way out of this one.”

Jacob smiled slightly. “Sure. All right.”

He stood and walked to the small kitchenette of the quarters the Division had given them for the time being. “I’m going to see if they have anything I can make for dinner. You hungry?”

“Sure. Thank you.”

“Yep. Might as well eat the Soylent if we’re going to drink the Kool-Aid, right?”

Jana rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer screen.

She finished that article and was nearly finished with another when Jacob announced that dinner was ready. Dinner was angel hair pasta with marinara sauce and grated parmesan. Plain but satisfying and, most importantly, filling.

When they finished, Jacob asked, "So, have you learned anything that can help us yet?"

“Possibly,” Jana replied. “The amphorae all have images of Gorgons on them.”

“I’ve heard that word a couple of times now. What’s it mean?”

“Have you heard of the legend of Medusa?” she asked.

“Isn’t she the woman who turns people to stone?” Jacob asked.

“Yes, but it’s a little more involved than that. Medusa was one of three Gorgons, the offspring of Phorcys and Ceto, who were themselves the offspring of Pontus and Gaia, the sea and the Earth. In the mythos, the Gorgons were said to possess an instinctive and overwhelming hatred for humanity.”

“That tracks,” Jacob said. “After all, that wasn’t exactly laughing gas coming out of that jar.”

“True, but I’m trying to think of why Medusa for these amphorae.”

“Because it turns people to stone? I mean, not exactly, but sort of.”

“Yes, but I wonder if it’s more than that.”

“What else could it be?”

She bit her lip softly and shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. I’m just trying to make connections.”

“Wasn’t Medusa supposed to be beautiful, though?” Jacob asked.

“Huh?”

“She was pretty, right? That was the story, I thought. Men would want to look upon her because she was beautiful, but then when they saw her, her beauty would turn out to be a lie, and they’d turn to stone.”

“Later versions of the story described her as beautiful, but earlier myths described her as hideous. She wasn’t really even humanoid in the earliest myths. She just had a vaguely womanlike body with a grotesque face, wings and snakes for hair. It wasn’t until later that they turned her into a beautiful enchantress.”

“Hmm. So basically, we’re dealing with an ugly-ass goddess who hates humans with a vengeance and can turn people into stone.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Wonderful. So how do we beat something like this?”

She shook her head. “The only legend I know of so far is the legend of Perseus. He beat Medusa by putting a mirror on the front of his shield. That way, when Medusa looked at him, she turned herself to stone. Then he chopped her head off and presented it to the goddess Athena.”

“Jesus. Were all the Greek fairy tales that brutal?”

“Most fairy tales throughout history are brutal. Disney turned them funny and happy, but they weren’t that way originally.”

“Got it. So the world’s dark and scary, but they painted smiles over their faces and told everyone not to worry.”

She smiled slightly. “Isn’t that what we do?”

He didn’t answer. Jana turned back to her computer and scrolled for another article to read. She was hoping for some sort of record of Ancient Greeks using gas as a weapon. She didn’t find anything like that, but after a few more minutes of searching, she found one article that looked promising. It was titled, “The Perseid Solution: Creative Responses to Challenges through the Lens of Ancient Greece.”

The article wasn’t a historical paper so much as a somewhat clever self-help essay. Still, it referenced other primary sources that suggested Perseus might not have been the only one to resist Medusa’s stare.

The problem was that when Jana tried to find these primary sources, they didn't show up anywhere. So either the author of the essay was lying, or someone was preventing access to these myths.

Still, it was encouraging. If this gas represented Medusa, then maybe these sources referred to an antidote.

Even at her most hopeful, Jana had to admit that was a pretty thin connection. But it was better than nothing.

She told Jacob, who very helpfully reminded her, “That connection is thin as hell.”

“Yes, but it’s something,” she said.

“So where does it lead us to next?” he asked.

She sighed and admitted, “I don’t know. Maybe nowhere. I think we should visit the dig site next. Maybe there’ll be something there that can tell us more about this gas and a countermeasure. They had to have had something. They didn’t have hazmat suits in Ancient Greece, but they were still somehow able to manufacture this gas, bottle it, transport it, store it, and presumably use it as a weapon on the battlefield. They must have had a way to protect themselves from it or even reverse its effects.”

“It’s worth a look,” Jacob said. “I’ll call Tyler and see if he can get us over there.”

Jana looked back at the image of the amphora on the desk. Medusa met her gaze, her mouth open, tongue extended, eyes wide and wild with anger and insanity.

She was indeed hideous, but she had been beaten before. She could be beaten again. Jana just had to find out how.

CHAPTER SIX

“Jacob, I’m not going to repeat myself. You two are on loan to the Antiquities Division. They are to be your primary point of contact.”

Jacob wanted to argue more, but he’d spent the past twenty minutes arguing with Tyler and gotten nowhere. “I understand, sir. I’ll talk to the Curator.”

“I understand where you’re coming from,” Tyler said, “but think of this as an opportunity to infiltrate the Division and learn more about them. See if you can build rapport with the Curator. Maybe form a friendship or two with some of the other agents. Get to know them. Get them to trust you. If we learn that they’re really hiding nefarious plots, we might be able to turn the tables on them and get ahead of their plans.”

Jacob sighed. “All right. I can get behind that.”

“Good. And when you do find out who’s behind the murder of that dig team, let me know. The CIA isn’t planning to sit quietly with our hands folded, Jacob, no matter what it might look like to you.”

“Okay, sir. You got it.”

Somewhat encouraged, Jacob hung up and turned to Jana. “Okay. CIA wants us to be the Division’s problem entirely. So we need to get a ride to Pachia.”

“I’ll call the Curator and let him know,” Jana said.

He busied himself packing their bags while Jana talked to the Curator. The most irritating part of all of this was that he really did think it was a good idea for the CIA to have plants within the Division. He just didn’t like that Tyler wanted to be hands off. It felt like the Division was trying to separate the two of them from the Agency. He feared that the Curator was working toward cutting them off completely and making them dependent on the Division somehow. He wasn’t sure exactly how that would work, but the worry wouldn’t disappear no matter how much he tried to explain it away.

“Okay,” Jana said. “The Curator’s sending an agent to meet us. They’ll accompany us on the investigation.”

“Wonderful. A babysitter.”

“Can you lighten up, please? We’re on this assignment. We’re not getting out if it. We might as well accept it and try to enjoy ourselves.”

“Enjoy ourselves?”

“Yes. Like we used to when we worked assignments together.” She crossed to him and laid a hand on his arm. “Come on. Let’s be Jacob and Jana, spies and adventurers again. As long as we don’t have a choice, we might as well have some fun.”

He met her bright blue eyes and managed a smile. “Okay.”

She grinned and kissed him lightly. “You’ll see. This will be exciting.”

“It’ll be something.”

There was a knock on their door. Jacob opened it, and he felt a rush of relief when he saw the agent assigned to accompany the two of them. "Hey there. Long time no see."

Dr. Robert Bledshaw smiled at the two agents. “Not that long, really. I seem to recall pulling the two of you from a pile of rubble in the Negev.”

“Was that you? I forget.”

Robert laughed and offered Jacob his hand. Jacob took it and pulled him into an embrace. He trusted the Division about as far as he could throw a fat elephant, but he trusted Robert Bledshaw with his life. If he was going to be their Division partner, then maybe he could enjoy himself a little bit.

After all, how many people got to save the world for a living?

***

The three of them stepped off of the helicopter onto the small island of Pachia. The island was about a mile long and half that wide and consisted of forested hills that rose steeply from the ocean to form a ridge. A small portion of that ridge had been excavated to form the helipad that served the island.

The weather was warm and sunny, typical Mediterranean summer weather. It reminded Jacob a little bit of his old safehouse on the Greek mainland. His only regret was that the gas mask he wore prevented him from tasting the salt in the air. The Atlantic Ocean was nice enough, but it just didn’t have the same aura as the Mediterranean Sea.

“The dig site is one hundred yards that way,” Jana said via her in-mask radio. She pointed toward a staircase that descended steeply toward the only low-lying spot on the island, an eight-acre rock shelf that was dominated by the now-abandoned dig site.

“Proceed with caution,” Robert warned. “There’s a chance the terrorists might have left some of the gas behind. It causes mild skin irritation when not inhaled, and… while we know what it does when inhaled.”

“Interesting,” Jacob said. “So it doesn’t kill you when you touch it?”

“No, it seems inhalation is necessary.”

“Why is that?”

“We still don’t know. We only know about the mild skin irritation because that’s how our agent discovered the tear in his suit.”

The three of them proceeded down the staircase toward the dig. The closer they got, the more surreal it seemed to Jacob. Tent flaps billowed in the wind, revealing sleeping bags, books, water bottles and even handheld video game systems. Tools lay scattered around the sites, a few leaning against walls as though their owners had only set them down for a moment. A water bottle lay on its side in the middle of a shallow pit, inside of which were fragments of pottery.

It looked as though everyone in the camp had just been abducted by aliens in the middle of the workday. Which wasn’t entirely far off, really. The only thing that suggested it had been unoccupied was a thin coating of greenish dust that covered everything.

“What are we looking for?” Jacob asked.

“Anything that might tell us anything about those jars,” Jana replied.

“How will we know?”

“No idea.”

Jacob and Robert shared a look.

The three of them split up, each looking at a different portion of the site. Jana took the central dig, a two-acre pit with separate smaller pits inside of it that seemed to contain the most interesting artifacts. Rober took the second large dig, the one where Damian had found the amphora.

That left Jacob to look through the many smaller digs that dotted the site. They ranged in size from a large living room to an airliner lavatory. Most of them looked like nothing more than crumbling rock to him. A few contained shards of pottery with decorative motifs, but nothing that looked like it might be important. Not that he would know if it was. That was why he was taking the least important excavations.

He was beginning to feel like a third wheel. For most of his career with Jana, he was the more “senior” partner of the two. He was the experienced CIA agent, and she was the rookie. He acted not only as a partner but also as a mentor to Jana.

Slowly but surely, that had changed, though. As more and more cases popped up involving ancient artifacts and mysteries, Jana had gradually become the more valuable of the two of them. Her expertise in archaeology and ancient history made her the more desirable agent. Jacob was valued for his fighting prowess and his extensive skillset too, but the more he took cases like this, the more it felt like he was a glorified bodyguard for Jana.

It wasn’t that he thought it was wrong of them. He understood the reason for this, and he agreed with the CIA’s trust in her. He respected Jana a lot, even without taking into consideration the fact that he loved her. She was strong and capable and beyond brilliant. If he was in Tyler’s position or the Curator’s position, he would put a high value on Jana’s expertise too.

It just made him feel a little left out sometimes.

He grimaced. Left out? This isn’t kickball, Jacob. Grow the hell up.

He stepped down into a deep, narrow bowl cut into the rock about twenty-five yards from the largest dig. There was no pottery that Jacob could see here, but when he shined his light on the wall, he saw that it was covered with lettering. He didn’t recognize the script. It looked sort of like a cross between hieroglyphs, Hebrew and Chinese.

But this could be important. “Hey!” he called. “I have something!”

Footsteps echoed across the dig as the other two rushed over. Jana cried out joyfully when she saw the script. “Yes! You found some too!”

“Too?” Jacob asked.

“Yes. There are rooms all over the central dig site with these inscriptions on the walls.”

“Linear A?” Robert asked.

“Yes,” Jana confirmed. “More of it here than I think anywhere else in the world.”

Jacob’s brow furrowed. “What’s Linear A?”

“The ancient writing system of the Minoans,” Jana replied. “They were a Bronze Age culture centered on the island of Crete that predated Greek civilization by about seventeen hundred years.”

Jacob’s eyes widened. “Seventeen hundred years? So how old does that make this place?”

“I don’t know,” Jana admitted. “Everything else here is Ionian Greek: the buildings, the pottery, the other artifacts. Dr. Papadopoulos wasn’t wrong about that.”

“How could he have missed the Linear A script, though?” Robert asked. “This is rather significant evidence that this site was in existence long before the Ionians arrived.”

Jacob couldn’t see Jana behind her gas mask, but he was pretty sure she was biting her lip. “I’m not sure. But we should find out. Help me take pictures of the inscriptions, guys. If I can translate this, we might be able to learn exactly what those jars were.”

The three of them meticulously photographed the inscriptions, then returned to their helicopter. According to Robert, the Division had a safehouse for them on the nearby resort island of Santorini. The room came with a computer that Robert assured them was hardened against all forms of electronic espionage or countermeasures, “even the kinds you two don’t know about.” Jana would start on her translation there.

As the helicopter lifted off from the island, Jacob wondered what the archaeologists must have felt as they unearthed the site. Did they feel excitement? Joy? Wonder? Did some of them maybe also feel fear?

And as their last moments arrived in agony, did any of them regret their choice to meddle with something that was better left buried?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Penelope lifted the cup to her lips and drank deeply of the cool, clear water. The limestone surfaces of the natural well on her property filtered the water and leeched just enough minerals to give it a beautiful taste.

She loved it here. Her sisters had all moved away as soon as they were able, leaving Astypalaia for the mainland. Persephone had gone as far as America to pursue a foolish dream of acting that Penelope knew would never come to fruition. And it hadn’t. They didn’t talk frequently anymore, but the last time Penelope had heard from her youngest sister, she was the manager of a convenience store and married to a used car salesman.

Well, that was her mistake. Penelope had stayed, and now she had inherited their parents’ lovely villa on a hill overlooking the ocean. From her front porch, Penelope could see the rising sun, the pleasure boats on the water and the town itself bustling about with the glorious work of life.

So what if she was a peasant? She had better water than the French stuff mixed with baking soda that people loved so much. She had a flock of well-fed sheep that gave her cheese and milk and meat. She had a flock of chickens that provided her with eggs and more meat. She had a home that was not so modest as many others on the island. It had a stone fireplace and running water and even a television, not that Penelope spent much time watching television.

The only thing it didn’t have was a husband or children. Penelope was a difficult person to love. She admitted that. She liked things just so, and when you liked things just so, it was difficult to coexist with others. Sometimes she felt lonely, but when she did, she could always go to the market and talk to the other women or to the bar to talk with the men. From time to time, she might even spend the night with one of them, although those nights were more and more rare as she got older.

All in all, it was a good life, and judging by how much her sisters complained, better than any life she could have had away from the island. She was happy.

She finished her water, then returned to the house. Today, she would finish the mutton she had slaughtered the week before. She had turnips and carrots she would peel and roast with it as a garnish, and if she wasn’t mistaken, there was one last bottle of the Agiorgitiko Lydia had given her on her fiftieth birthday.

She turned the television on as she prepared her meal. When she did watch television, it was to hear the local news reports. One couldn’t be too ignorant, after all.

The news today was dominated by stories of that archaeology team that had died in the explosion on Pachia. Penelope shivered. A gruesome business. They had been digging for ancient secrets when they found a natural gas pocket that killed all of them. Authorities were still enforcing a quarantine zone of ten miles in case a larger gas pocket caused the entire island to explode.

Penelope sighed and shook her head. Her mother had taught her that it was better to leave what was buried where it lay. There was a reason, she said, that God kept those things secret. It was tempting the devil to search for such mysteries. Live for God, stay devout, honor Him, so forth, so on.

Penelope wasn’t sure about the idea of God or a devil, but she was pretty sure her mother was right about leaving buried things buried. What could the past tell you that you couldn’t learn from the present? And if the ancients really knew so much, then where were they now?

No, better to focus on what was right in front of you. Not what was thousands of years dead and not what might be waiting for you thousands of miles away. Whether it was God or the universe or simple coincidence, people were most often placed exactly where they belonged.

She placed the roast into the oven and headed to her living room with a glass of wine. She was just about to settle into her easy chair when she heard shouting outside. She frowned and set her glass down. Sometimes the neighbors would argue, but this didn’t sound like argument.

She looked through the window and gasped. Her next-door neighbor Dimitriou was stumbling through the street, his arms curled like chicken wings against his chest, his back arched, and his face contorted into a rictus of pain. She watched in horror as his legs stiffened, forcing him onto his tiptoes. He fell forward, and his head smashed onto the stone in front of him with a crunch and a spray of blood.

She shrieked and jumped backward. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. It’s only a nightmare. I’ll wake soon, and…

She thought of the news and wondered if it might tell her what was happening outside. She turned to the television, but her body moved sluggishly, stiffly, as though she’d just woken from an awkward sleep.

She reached for the remote, but instead stared in horror as her fingers curled and her arm folded inward. She opened her mouth to scream, and a massive fist seized her chest and gripped hard.

What came out was a wheeze that reminded Penelope of her father’s last breaths ten years ago when a lifetime of pipe-smoking finally caught up to him.

She fell to the floor and heard the wet crunch of her hip breaking. It sent a lightning bolt of pain through her body, but the pain didn’t last for long. Her heart had stopped beating, and within seconds, her vision had faded to black.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I don’t know how they missed this,” Jana said, looking at the script and trying to identify patterns. “This is the most complete example of Minoan Linear A script I’ve ever seen.”

“Perhaps they were aware of it and just didn’t have time to publish their findings,” Robert suggested.

Jana leaned back in her chair. “Maybe. But the dig had been operating for fourteen weeks. That’s not long, but it’s not exactly brand new either. The Ionian pottery was exciting and important, but not nearly as important as this writing. An Ionian site with Linear A script? This writing system died out hundreds of years before the Ionian civilization was established.”

“Is it possible he didn’t know what it was?” Jacob asked.

“I can’t imagine that someone of Dr. Papadopoulos’s experience wouldn’t know Linear A when he saw it,” Jana replied. “Even if that’s the case, every first-year archaeology student knows that ancient writing is important. He would have taken pictures of this and sent it to the University, and someone there would have known what it was.”

“That leaves the somewhat uncomfortable option that he didn’t see any of this,” Robert said, “and it was discovered after he was killed.”

“Does that mean the terrorists came back?” Jacob asked.

Jana sighed. “Possibly.” She looked at Robert. “Or perhaps the Division did.”

 “It’s possible,” he replied. “Though what he would gain from withholding that information, I don’t know. It seems to me it would be better to keep you two completely in the loop.”

“Since when has the Curator ever kept us in the loop?” Jacob replied. “This is why I don’t like working for him. He never gives us the whole truth.”

“And the CIA does?” Robert countered.

That earned a glare from Jacob. Before this could descend into an argument, Jana said, “The problem we’re facing is that the Linear A script has never been translated. We know it’s a Minoan script, but we’ve only been able to decode a few words here and there, and even those translations are dubious.”

“So you can’t tell what any of this says,” Jacob said.

“Not at a glance.”

“How long would it take?” Jacob asked.

“Best guess? A lifetime. If I had the resources of a full research grant and expert help from a major archaeological university like Cambridge.”

Jacob sighed. “Okay. So hot take. We stop wasting our time on it and look for something that won’t take a lifetime to understand.”

“But that script could contain the answer to this entire mystery!” Robert protested. “Let me send these pictures to my colleagues at the Division. We have ling—”

“No,” Jacob interrupted. “Absolutely not. I want the Division to know as little about all of this as possible. No offense to you, Robert, but you’re the one who warned us about the Curator’s goals.”

Robert’s brow furrowed. “The Division has linguistics experts that could translate this script far faster than we can. I understand your concerns with the Division and the Curator. I don’t trust them any farther than I can throw them, but they’re not looking to conquer the world this instant. These terrorists have already murdered people. We have to take advantage of every resource we have.”.”

Jacob sighed and nodded. “You’re right. Send them the pictures.”

Jana’s phone rang, interrupting Jacob. She checked the caller ID. “It’s the Curator.”

When she answered, the Curator asked, “Are Agent Snow and Dr. Bledshaw there as well?”

“We’re all here, sir,” Robert replied. “What is it?”

“We have a claimant to the terror attacks.”

Jana sat up straight in her chair. Robert pulled his own chair closer, and Jacob unfolded his arms and leaned over the desk. “Who?” he asked.

“They call themselves Gaia’s Vengeance,” the Curator replied. “They appear to be a radical environmentalist group. They’ve released a video claiming responsibility for the attack on the dig site in Pachia and threatening more drastic action if their demands aren’t met.”

“What are their demands?” Jana asked.

“Utterly unreasonable,” the Curator replied. “The abolition of fossil fuels. The elimination of all plastics. Requiring all paper products to be one hundred percent recycled. The immediate ‘amnesty’ of all animals ‘enslaved’ by humans as pets and working animals. Euthanizing everyone above the age of seventy to reduce strain on the world’s resources.”

“Good God,” Jacob cursed.

“Do you have the video, sir?” Robert asked.

“Everyone has it. They released it to the news media.”

Jana quickly opened the internet browser on her laptop and searched for the video. It popped up almost immediately.

The introduction was a one-minute blurb by the channel's host, wondering whether there was any merit to the claim or if it was some sort of sick joke.

If only it were that easy, Jana thought.

The screen went black for a second before it was replaced by an image of a winged female humanoid with a hideous, tusked face and live snakes for hair. The three of them gasped as the image of Medusa glared at them with insane rage.

A voice spoke, disguised so it was impossible to tell if it was male or female.

“Hello, citizens of Gaia. We do not come to you with a request. Gaia has made requests before. They have been denied. We do not come to you with a plea. Gaia’s pleas have been ignored. We do not come to you with a demand. A demand can be refused.

"We come to you with a warning. Thirty-six hours ago, we annihilated a team of archaeologists who uncovered a secret that was not theirs to discover. We took what was rightfully Gaia's and left their bodies to rot. Some others have claimed those bodies. No doubt, they have stated that those bodies were lost in an accident. They were not. They were taken by those who oppose the will of Gaia."

The three agents shared a grim look with each other when they heard that. They hadn’t mentioned the Division explicitly. Maybe they didn’t know for sure who had taken the bodies. But they knew they were being hunted, and that could cause them to move up whatever plans they had.

“You have used Gaia as though she were your slave and not your goddess. You have squandered her gifts and held your hand out for more. You have demanded that she who is your ruler, your mother, serve you.

"You are fools. Now, you will reap the consequences of your foolishness. You will cease your poisoning of Gaia's air with your coal, your petroleum, your nuclear waste. You will cease your enslavement of Gaia's creatures for your wanton amusement and convenience. You will cease filling Gaia's land with the castoff byproducts of your plastic factories. You will cease stripping Gaia of her forests that you may use once the gift of paper then discard it to keep company with the plastic poison you deposit in her soil. You will remove from your population those who linger, believing that Gaia should support their useless frames that have aged too much to render service to their mother.

“A full list of our instructions will be released in PDF form along with this video, but to summarize, you will act as stewards of Gaia, guests of Gaia, servants of Gaia. You will no longer act in your arrogance as lords of Gaia, conquerors of Gaia, users of Gaia.

“You will do these things, or Gaia will take her vengeance. We will offer a small demonstration of our power so that you will understand that we intend to carry out Gaia’s vengeance upon everyone who takes this warning lightly. If you do not heed this warning or this demonstration, we will unleash a weapon borne of Gaia herself into your water supply. This weapon will kill billions of you.

“God in Heaven,” Robert muttered.

"We are the Gorgon. We are Medusa. We are Gaia's Vengeance. Heed this warning. You will not receive another."

The video cut back to the channel host, who began to launch into a sarcasm-filled debunking of the warning. Jana turned it off, and the three of them sat in silence for a long moment.

Jacob broke the silence with a softly uttered, “Damn.”

"Curator, they're planning another attack," Jana said. "We need to know where. Do you have any idea where they might strike next? Did they reveal anything else besides this video and their list of demands?"

The Curator didn’t respond for a moment. Jana frowned. “Sir, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

The Curator sounded weary. Not just tired but weary, drained mentally, physically, and emotionally. Jana recognized the emotion well. She'd heard it in her father's voice many times when the toll of holding the door closed against the darkness so the rest of the world could walk in the light became nearly more than he could bear.

She understood now why Robert’s stance on the Division had softened. He still said that he believed the Curator intended to conquer the world, but his body language and tone of voice suggested that he had doubts.

Jana had doubts too, now. They were fighting hard to protect the planet. It was possible they were trying to keep the planet safe so they could conquer it for themselves later, but she wasn’t sure anymore.

The Curator’s next statement reminded her that there were more important things going on now. “They’re planning to attack Astypalaia. It’s a small island to the east of Santorini with a population of about thirteen hundred. Or it was, anyway.”

Jana’s eyes widened. “It was?”

“Yes. It was attacked forty-five minutes ago. Someone on a yacht looked ashore and saw people exhibiting the symptoms the archaeologists showed when they died.”

Jana’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God. Are they all…”

“Yes. All of them. I just got a call from one of our assets in the region while you three were watching the video. The authorities are quarantining the island. The uh… more colorful symptoms are beginning to manifest. It appears this threat is very serious.”

The four of them fell silent for a long moment. Once more, it was Jacob who broke the silence. “Mr. Curator, we’re going to send you some writing we found at the archaeological dig. We’d appreciate it if your experts could take a look and try to decipher it for us.”

The unspoken sentiment of Jacob’s words were clear. It didn’t matter whether he trusted the Division or not. Gaia’s Vengeance was the bigger threat. He would put aside his misgivings until that threat was eliminated.

“We’ll sure do our best,” the Curator replied. “In the meantime, I want the three of you on Astypalaia ASAP. The locals are still scared to set foot on the island. I want to take full advantage of their hesitation and learn whatever we can before this becomes a clusterfuck of truly epic proportions.”

“Understood, sir,” Robert replied. “We’re on our way.”

“Perfect. Good luck.”

The Curator hung up, and the three agents exchanged sober looks. Jana knew that all three of them would do whatever it took to address this threat.

But how were they going to defeat a goddess?

CHAPTER NINE

The three of them didn’t bother with the gas masks when they landed on the island. The air was just as clear and sweet here as it was on Santorini.

Which made the macabre seen they arrived to see all the more sobering.

Some of the islanders were still alive. Jacob realized that when they passed the stiff body of an old fisherman, and the chest rose and fell. Robert had immediately dropped to his knees and provided first aid, but the old man had died within seconds.

So far, they had encountered fourteen others who were still alive and a dozen more who were long dead. And that was just on the docks. Jacob wondered how many others suffered horribly, their deaths lingering far longer than they should.

“Damn it!” Robert exclaimed.

Jacob turned to see Robert bury his head in his hands, his medical kit by his side. Jana stood with her arms folded protectively across her chest, staring soberly at the body of the young woman in front of them, the latest victim that Robert couldn’t save.

A yard beyond Jacob lay someone already so mangled by the virus that they weren’t recognizable as human. It was bad enough seeing the shiny, platelike skin, taut, twisted limbs and filmy eyes behind glass. It was far worse seeing it on the street.

“We can’t save them,” Jacob said. “It’s best not to waste our time.”

“Do you bloody think that’s what I need to hear right now?” Robert snapped.

Jacob looked away, and Robert sighed. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I know you’re right. I just… damn it, why is it taking so long this time? The archaeologists were dead within minutes. Why are these people suffering for hours?”

Jana glanced at the twisted body of the long-dead victim and shivered. “It doesn’t look like everyone’s suffering the same progression. This one looks like they died quickly, and they’re exhibiting the more advanced post-mortem symptoms. Meanwhile, this young woman lingered for nearly two hours before her heart finally gave out.”

She shivered again. “I hate to ask this, Robert, but can you take samples of each victim? Blood samples would be best, but if the second victim can’t provide blood, then maybe skin? We should send this to the lab to analyze the difference in symptoms and see if there’s information we can use. Maybe different people are more resistant to the gas.”

“I don’t think it was gas this time,” Jacob said.

The other two looked at him. “What makes you say that?” Jana asked.

“The dig site had a coating of green dust over everything,” Jacob said. “I’m pretty sure it was a byproduct of the gas. I didn’t think of it at the time, but we should probably have taken a sample of that.”

“Too late to go back,” Robert said grimly, “but you believe the poison was administered another way?”

Jacob sighed. "I'm not sure. Clearly, it affected everyone on the island, so if it wasn't a gas, hell, if I know what it was, but… we should figure it out.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “Duh.”

“Let’s keep looking,” Jana said. “Maybe we’ll find an answer.”

The three of them worked their way through the town. Everywhere they looked, the situation was the same. Some of the victims had already progressed to the late stages of the Medusa affliction, while others appeared to have died relatively recently.

They found no one else alive.

It was agonizing work, not due to the tedium, although it was incredibly tedious. What made it agonizing was the sight of so many innocents. Jacob had seen innocents die before. He’d seen families brutally slaughtered before. Prior to working for the CIA, he’d served in the Army and seen entire villages massacred by people who had forgotten that their purpose was to defend the innocent, not take their lives.

He'd even seen the aftermath of events that had killed more people. In his first assignment with Robert, Jacob had seen entire cities wiped out by flooding when the Order destroyed numerous major dams as it attempted to seize technology hidden by the Division within them. Compared to those catastrophes, the tragedy here paled.

But the visual shock of the mangled, twisted, no-longer-human bodies lying among the barely dead who looked alive enough that Jacob could see their fear overwhelmed him in a way nothing else ever had. These terrorists might very well be the most dangerous terrorists Jacob had ever encountered in his life.

The day dragged on. By the time they had finished with the town proper and made their way to the more spacious lots atop a hill overlooking the town, night had nearly fallen.

They reached a one-acre villa at the summit of the hill. In front of the villa, a heavily symptomatic body lay, one arm broken and pointed at the villa as though telling the three of them that the answers they sought would be inside.

Jacob didn’t believe in signs, but he didn’t have anything else going for him right now.

“Let’s check inside here,” he said. “This is one of the most far-gone corpses we’ve seen. Maybe the concentration of poison is stronger here.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Jana said.

She sounded numb. Jacob looked at her and saw her face white and her eyes as big as saucers. He stepped close and put his arms around her. She accepted the embrace but didn’t return it.

“We’ll be all right,” he promised. “We’ll figure this out.”

"I believe the first one," she said. "I believe the second one, too. But…" she shivered. "I don't want to see anything else like this ever again."

“Yeah,” Jacob agreed. “Me too.”

She chuckled. Then she laughed. Robert glanced nervously at her, then at Jacob. Jacob felt a bit of anxiety himself. He’d never seen Jana this close to a mental breakdown.

This was affecting all of them strangely. The Curator’s pompous shell was gone, Jacob was irritable and anxious, and now Jana was barely holding on to sanity. Robert seemed the only one left who had a handle on his emotions.

Then again, he had nearly lost control when he failed to save that islander, so even he was fraying.

Jana got herself under control and said, "Sorry. I was just thinking that a little while ago, I told you to just have a little fun. What the hell was I thinking?"

“Probably not that we were going to encounter an ancient chemical agent that turned people to stone,” Jacob replied.

“No,” Jana said. “Definitely not.”

“It’s funny,” Robert chimed in. “We’ve all three of us encountered many things that defy our understanding of reality. I more than either of you. Yet the mind still insists on rejecting anything that challenges the world as we believe it is. I’ve seen terrible things, but I still look at the effects of this Medusa and find myself unable to make sense of it.”

“What really scares me,” Jacob said, “is that Gaia’s Vengeance does make sense of it. They find this perfectly acceptable, even normal.”

“We don’t know that,” Jana said. “We know they think they’re in the right, but we don’t know that this is normal to them. They could very much be playing with forces beyond their understanding.”

“That only makes things worse,” Jacob replied.

They fell silent for a moment, each ruminating on the unique fears this circumstance brought to each of them. Eventually, Robert said, “Come on. Let’s go see what the inside of this home has to show us.”

The home itself had a fairly modest interior. The furniture was of high quality but appeared to be handmade. Other than the tv and the stainless-steel refrigerator, everything appeared old-fashioned. The stove was wood-burning, and there was no microwave, food processor, or any other kind of appliance in evidence.

What was in evidence was the most deteriorated corpse they had seen yet. The body had passed beyond the keratinous plated skin and frozen musculature and become an almost uniformly gray and—Jacob hated the analogy—stony mass. The muscles revealed by the fissures in the skin were the color of granite—Hey, I hate that too—and when Jacob used the tip of a pen to touch them, they were rock hard.

Boy, I just hate all of this, Jacob thought. Tons of absolute hatred for this situation.

Jana squeezed his arm, and he gave her a smile he didn't even come close to feeling. She returned the smile and then looked at the body in front of them.

“This is highly advanced,” she said. “The soft tissues all look ossified.”

“Is that possible? Is there enough bone in a human body to do that?”

“No,” she said. “This is unusual. Every other victim before now suffered symptoms that could be identified and explained by components that already exist in a human body. None of those symptoms should have occurred the way they did as fast as they did, but there was at least a tenuous connection to science. This… this is odd.”

Jacob chuckled. “What an excellent choice of words.”

He could feel laughter bubbling up and understood now how Jana felt earlier. Damn it, he needed to keep himself together.

“We’ll take a sample,” Jana said, kneeling down and pulling her knife from her pocket. “This might help us understand the mechanism of action better so we can think of something to counteract it.”

Jacob looked away, unable to watch Jana cut into the body. Before Jana could begin, though, Robert called them. “Jacob! Jana! You two need to come see this!”

Jana got to her feet immediately. “Where are you?”

“In the backyard. I figured out how they spread the Medusa poison.”

The two of them headed outside. Robert stood in front of a well and held a glass of water in his hand. He pointed at a snail slowly making its way up the side of the well. “Watch.”

He carefully poured a drop of the water onto the snail. Within seconds, the snail shriveled and folded in half. Its skin desiccated and hardened, and the shell cracked, revealing an interior that rapidly ossified while they watched.

Jacob recalled Gaia’s threat on the video then. We will unleash a weapon borne of Gaia herself into your water supply.

The three of them stared at the body of the snail, too overwhelmed to say anything. In the end, Robert voiced the thought that was on all of their minds.

“God help us all.”

CHAPTER TEN

The three of them ate dinner in silence and watched the news broadcast on their hotel room television. Jana was somewhat surprised when the bottled water from the hotel’s mini fridge didn’t kill them. Ditto the coffee or the gyros they ordered from room service.

Jana was just as weary as the Curator sounded earlier, just as weary as her father sounded when he returned home from one of his more challenging assignments. But she couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep at all during this entire mission.

That poor person. All of those poor people. What a horrible way to kill them. Not only was Gaia’s Vengeance taking their lives, but they were also leaving behind these warped, twisted, unidentifiable wrecks in place of human bodies. When the authorities finally did work up the courage to step onto the island, they would find only grotesque statues. They wouldn’t be able to identify who was who. Maybe they could make some educated guesses based on where the bodies were found, but that wasn’t the same as an actual positive ID.

Maybe they could get DNA from the bodies. Jana wasn’t sure exactly how deep the transformation went. She hoped so. She thought it would be better for the families to at least know for sure what happened to their loved ones.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Jacob asked.

Jana chuckled. “I’m not sure they’re worth that much.”

“I’ll take them anyway,” he said.

She sighed. “I was just thinking that it’s horrible that this Medusa poison leaves the bodies so… transformed. Loved ones won’t even get proper closure this way.”

“Because they won’t recognize their dead relatives?” Jacob asked.

“Yes. I remember my grandmother’s funeral. I thought it was nice how they made her all pretty and put her in her favorite dress. I got to say goodbye to her, and it looked like her. It made me think… I don’t know, it made me think that maybe Heaven was real after all, and maybe she got to die peacefully. It was better than wondering if she was scared or frightened or sad or in pain. I’m not saying I believe all of that now, but it was nice when I was young.”

Jacob shrugged. “I guess I’ve never thought of it that way.”

“You’ve never lost a loved one and wanted to say goodbye to them?”

“I’d much rather say goodbye to them alive. I don’t want to see them dead. Even if they look pretty.”

“So you wouldn’t want to say goodbye to me if I died? You wouldn’t want to see me and maybe tell me you love me one last time?”

“I would like to not think about that anymore,” Jacob said stiffly.

Jana sighed. “Yeah. Sounds good. Me either. I just… I don’t know. I don’t know why this one has me rattled so much.”

“It’s not just you,” Robert said from his seat on the easy chair to their left. “Everyone’s rattled. Listen to this broadcast.”

The two of them fell silent and listened to the news for a while. As Robert had said, the nations of the world were panicked. Larger economies like China, Japan, and the United States called for worldwide cooperation in rooting out the terrorists and holding them to account. Several mouthpieces were already batting around words like “nuclear” and “chemical retaliation.”

Middle powers like Russia, Italy, and Brazil were urging compliance with the more accessible of the demands. Several governments had already come up with blueprints of how to transition immediately from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy with minimal economic impact. Third-world responses were mostly accusatory, suggesting that the superpowers—China and the United States—were to blame for the state of the environment and should be the ones to suffer for their sins, not the poorer nations of the world who had no choice but to comply with the directions of the more powerful nations or face a loss of sovereignty.

As news coverage continued, several spokespeople from different governments and think tanks reluctantly acknowledged that certain demands were just impossible to meet. They could not, for example, just kill everyone over the age of seventy. Aside from the fact that it would amount to wholesale murder on an unprecedented scale, many world leaders were in that advanced age group and the resulting societal collapse would lead to unmanageable chaos.

“A lot of superlatives being thrown around,” Jacob observed. “Unprecedented, unmanageable, unbelievable, impossible… no one knows what to do.”

“People are panicked,” Robert offered. “They’ve never seen anything like this. But they have seen plenty of violence on a grand scale recently. The dam attacks alone killed tens of thousands of people. It’s been made very clear that the world’s governments are not prepared for the new threats that plague the world today.”

“And that includes our government,” Jacob said.

"Yes," Robert admitted. "Unfortunately, yes."

“Have we heard anything back from the Division?” Jana asked. “About the tissue samples or the Linear A writing we found at the dig site?”

“Not yet,” Robert said. “But the Curator assured me that the samples would be examined by our medical team immediately. If there’s an answer to be found, we’ll find it.”

Left unspoken was the question: what if there isn’t an answer to be found?

“We need to think about our next steps,” Jacob said. “We can’t just sit around hoping someone will do all the work for us.”

“Where do we go, though?” Robert asked.

“I think we need to start looking deeper into Gaia’s Vengeance. We have footage of them. We have the video they released and the list of demands. I think we start checking their behavior against known radical environmentalist groups and see if anything looks suspicious.”

“That’s a good idea,” Jana said. “Have the CIA handle that part. They’ll have an easier time doing that than the Division will.”

“On it,” Jacob replied, pulling his phone out and heading to the kitchenette to call Tyler.

While Jacob called Tyler, Jana turned to Robert. “I think it might be worthwhile to visit some older Minoan sites and see if there’s anything there that matches what we found on Pachia. Some other Ionian sites too.”

“That’s a lot of traveling,” Robert pointed out. “A lot of time we don’t have.”

"True, but like Jacob said, we're just sitting around right now. We can't afford to do that. I'm more familiar with Minoan civilization than I am with Ionian civilization, so I'll take Jacob, and we'll look at the Minoan sites. You can call a Division partner to look into the Ionian sites."

Robert hesitated, and his eyes shifted to the left. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to separate. We’ll work better if we can brainstorm as a team. I’ll contact assets in Greece who can visit come Ionian archaeological remains while the three of us travel to Minoan sites.”

Jana frowned. “What’s going on, Robert?”

“Going on?” He chuckled nervously. “You mean besides the potential collapse of civilization?”

“You got an odd look when I suggested we split up. Why?”

“Because I disagree,” he replied testily. “Why do you and Jacob always assume the worst when people don’t see things the way you do?”

Jana’s eyes narrowed. She stared hard at Robert. “Robert, I consider you a friend, and I know Jacob does too. I also understand that you have a job to do, and that there will be times when your job requires you to act in a way that you wouldn’t ordinarily act toward a friend. But you can’t hide that from me. If we’re going to work together, we need to trust each other. Tell me what’s going on.”

Robert’s jaw shifted from left to right for a moment. Finally, he sighed. “Look, I don’t agree with this decision, but…”

“But what?”

He slumped. “I was assigned to work with you two because the Curator knows that you trust me, and he was concerned that if he assigned someone else to you that you would act contrary to the interests of the Division.”

“So you’re here to babysit us.”

“Officially, I’m here to ensure that you continue to act in the interests of the Division.”

“And you agreed to this?”

“I believed—and still do—that you two are the best chance we have to defeat these terrorists and prevent any more deaths. I believed—and still do—that you two will trust me enough to work with me to stop them. I can’t be sure that you’d work as well with other people in the Division.”

Jana looked away for a moment. What Robert was saying was logical, but it hurt her to know that someone she considered a friend would keep that kind of secret from her. It made her wonder just how much Robert was keeping from them.

“I’m sorry,” Robert said. “I should have told you. I just didn’t want to drive a wedge between us. I agreed to watch you because I needed the Curator to meddle as little as possible in this investigation.”

“So you’re trying to play both sides?”

“Yes. It’s risky, I know, but it’s the best plan I could come up with under the circumstances.”

“All right,” Jacob said, returning to the living room. “The CIA’s going to work with the FBI to get some possibilities for us. In the meantime, I overheard something about looking into the other civilizations. I think that’s a great—”

Jana’s cell phone rang, interrupting Jacob. The Curator.

When she answered, the Curator replied. “All right. We have some information from the script you sent us.”

Jana’s eyes widened. “You translated it?”

“Partially, and my linguistics experts caution me that they’ve only confirmed very broad context. The specifics are largely assumed based on that context, so take what you’re about to hear with a grain of salt. But, from where I'm standing, what you're about to hear is the most helpful bit of information you're going to get any time soon."

“Just tell us what it is,” Jacob said. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“So the inscriptions refer to the Minoan snake goddesses,” the Curator said. “Are you familiar?”

“Yes,” Jana said. The other two gave her curious looks, and she added, “I’ll explain to you two later.”

“So the inscription refers to the elder snake goddess as the goddess of wisdom and protection and the younger snake goddess as the goddess of wrath and vengeance. It’s a fairly loose connection to Athena and Medusa, but it’s a connection. Of more particular interest is the fact that the elder snake goddess is frequently claimed to heal and defend while the younger snake goddess afflicts and destroys.”

“Could that be hinting at an antidote?” Jacob asked.

“We’re not sure,” the Curator replied. “The association with wisdom might mean that it’s some sort of moral lesson that if you’re smart you won’t do anything to incur Medusa’s wrath.”

“Is there anything that suggests that the two goddesses are in conflict with each other?” Jana asked.

“We don’t know that either. All we know for sure is that it talks about two goddesses. I’m pretty sure it’s referring to Medusa and Athena. For that reason, I’m going to put you three in touch with an asset of ours in Athens who’s going to take you to some highly classified archaeological sites that you two don’t know about and won’t remember.”

Robert’s eyes widened. Evidently he knew about and did remember these locations.

“You two have full run of every site you look at, and I’ll make sure our asset knows that. We want Gaia’s Vengeance stopped as soon as possible.”

“Understood, sir,” Jana replied. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Just between us, I’m beginning to think Agent Snow has a point about being more open with each other. In any case, this is your chance to rectify my wrong. Go learn what you can and do what you have to. Keep me apprised of the situation, but as of this moment, you three can consider yourselves at liberty to do whatever you think is right.”

The call ended, and the three of them shared sober looks.

“Is it a good thing that the Curator’s finally seeing the light,” Jacob asked, “or a sign that the wheels are finally coming off?”

“Probably a little bit of both,” Robert said.

“Do you know the sites he’s talking about?” Jana asked Robert.

“I do,” the Division agent replied. “And if this is what I think it is, then we might actually have a chance to stop this.”

Jana lifted an eyebrow, and Robert grinned. It was the first real smile she’d seen on his face since the start of this assignment.

It might only be the tiniest spark of hope, but coming on the heels of the despair she’d felt earlier, it was like the sun bursting through the clouds.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“So it’s a controversial take,” Jana explained, “but there are some scholars who believe that the Minoan snake goddesses were early precursors to Athena. I haven’t heard of the connection between the younger snake goddess and Medusa before. The younger figure is usually considered to be a priestess of the older goddess rather than a goddess herself. It’s believed that these figurines were Minoan interpretations of Syrian goddesses who were themselves descended from the Egyptian snake goddess Wadjet.”

“Does any of that help us?” Jacob asked. “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like a dick. I’m sincerely asking.”

The three of them were in the helicopter again on their way to Athens. Robert was flying while Jacob and Jana sat in the passenger compartment. Evidently, Robert had learned how to fly himself after a disagreement with the Curator during their first assignment together had led to Robert being shadowed by his pilot at the time.

“It actually could,” Jana said. “Athena was the Greek Goddess of wisdom and protection. Wadjet was the Egyptian goddess of protection. Wadjet is also associated with the eye of Horus, a symbol of healing in Ancient Egyptian religion.”

“So the inscription might have pointed the way to an antidote or a cure,” Jacob surmised.

“The Curator seems to think so,” Jana replied, “and so does Robert.”

Jacob brightened. “Well, that’s good. If Robert thinks so, then I trust him.”

A pall fell over Jana’s excitement. “Yes. That’s good.”

“Do you think the Curator’s telling the truth?” Jacob asked, “about coming around to believing he needs to be honest with us?”

Jana nodded. “I think so. The evidence is stacked pretty high against being dishonest. And he’s clearly a lot more shaken by what’s going on now than he has been in the past.”

“Yeah, why is that?” Jacob asked. “I mean, I get that it’s disturbing. When we were on Astypalaia, you and I both were hovering on the edge of insanity for a moment. But the Curator’s been that way since the beginning.”

“Well, he probably saw the more horrific bodies before he even came to us,” Jana reminded him.

“That might be it,” Jacob conceded, “but this is odd. It’s a complete shift from his earlier behavior.”

“Maybe he really is coming around to trust us. You and I always thought that his arrogance was just a shell. Maybe he trusts us enough to let that shell open a little bit.”

“Maybe. I’m not convinced, though.”

“If it’s not that, then what is it?” Jana asked.

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. Call it a hunch, but I think this Medusa thing isn’t the only thing going on right now.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “You think there’s another threat?”

“There’s another something,” he demurred. “I don’t know what it is. And frankly, it probably doesn’t matter right now considering what Gaia’s Vengeance is threatening to do to everyone. But there’s something.”

Jana pursed her lips. “Well, let’s get through one thing at a time. Medusa first. Then we’ll go from there.”

“Works for me,” Jacob agreed.

The helicopter touched down ten minutes later, and the three of them stepped outside to meet a muscular man a few years younger than Tyler with a crew cut and a bearing that suggested very recent service in the military.

The young man stuck his hand out as crisply as a salute. "Agent Stockton. A pleasure to meet you."

He shook all three of their hands in turn, then nodded to Robert. “Dr. Bledshaw. Good to see you again.”

“Good to see you, Greg,” Robert replied. “Are we traveling to Site Twenty?”

Stockton nodded curtly. “That’s our first stop. Depending on what we learn there, our last. Between us, I hope it’s our last.”

“Me as well,” Robert replied, “though I suppose we should reserve further conversation for when we’re not in the open.”

“That would be wise, sir.”

The agent led the three of them toward a waiting SUV, an older model Land Rover with huge off-road tires and armored rocker panels.

“We going on an adventure?” Jacob asked as he stepped inside.

“There are no roads leading to this site,” Stockton informed them. “It’s accessible, but we’ll be crossing rough terrain. I’m going to be passing out hard hats. I very strongly recommend that you all wear them.”

***

The ride was rough, but Jana had been through worse. They drove for around two hours, covering ten miles of rocky terrain before stopping in front of a nondescript cave. It sat behind a pile of rocks left by a landslide that could have occurred last week or several centuries ago. Jana hoped it was the latter. She’d already survived one cave-in in her life. She’d rather not endure another.

Stockton led the three agents into the low opening. Robert and Jacob, both over six feet tall, had to stoop to enter, but Jana was able to walk inside without fuss.

Stockton lit a flashlight, and Jana saw with some disappointment that the interior of the cave was just as nondescript as the exterior. The rock was uniformly gray and unexciting, and the cave itself was only about twenty feet deep with no discernible tunnels or openings.

To her surprise, it was Robert and not Stockton who stepped confidently to the rear of the chamber. He pressed his hand against the wall, and the wall slid aside with barely a whisper.

“Is that new technology or ancient technology?” Jacob asked.

“Yes,” Robert replied.

Jacob cast a glance at Jana before the two of them followed the two Division Agents into the elevator that had just opened for them. There was no sensation of movement and no chime to let Jana know that the conveyance was working properly, but a few seconds later, the elevator opened, and Jana found herself inside the temple of Athena.

Her eyes widened when she saw the temple. First of all, it was massive. The ceiling was a hundred feet above her head and stretched at least four times that distance in front of her. The temple was about eighty feet wide and bordered on either side by massive Doric pillars constructed of polished marble. In fact, the entire place looked spotless, probably because the Division didn’t have to deal with tourists here.

Statues stood in between each pair of pillars. Jana recognized some of the statues as heroes from Greek legends: Heracles, Odysseus, Jason, and, of course, Perseus, his shield still unadorned by Medusa's head. Perhaps this temple was constructed prior to that particular legend.

Other statues represented other gods and goddesses. Hephaestus stood with hammer upraised, his visage terrible and brooding. Poseidon rose from the waves while Hades sat on the throne of the underworld. Aphrodite stood in an innocent pose belied by the robe that fell loosely over one shoulder, brazenly revealing her body. Artemis carried her bow and rode on a stag. Hera, queen of the gods, stood unadorned save for a simple robe and a modest crown, but even so, her eyes and carriage conveyed her status as the greatest of the goddesses.

Save for the goddess sitting on the throne at the back of the temple. This goddess was depicted as much larger than the rest and wore a crown that dwarfed Hera’s. Snakes curled up her arms, and in her left hand, she held a scroll on which was written a script in Linear B, the ancient Mycenean language adapted from the earlier Minoan Linear A.

In front of the goddess who was unmistakably Athena stood three smaller goddesses. All three were roughly humanoid, but the two who flanked the center goddess had eagles’ feet with long, curved talons along with twisting, serpentine tails. Their faces, too, were elongated to resemble crocodiles or maybe dragons. Their hair was composed of writhing snakes, fangs bared and forked tongues extended.

The center goddess shared the snakelike hair and held two other live snakes in each outstretched hand. Her wings were spread behind the other two, covering Athena’s feet, but the rest of her body was human, even comely.

Her face, however, was grotesque. Roughly human in shape, but with a distended mouth, thick lips pulled back from four protruding tusks. Her eyes were huge and bulging, and they seemed to stare balefully at Jana, as though hating her for daring to intrude on her mistress’s presence.

“The statues lining the walls are believed to be later additions,” Robert explained. “Hence the classical appearance. These statues are thought to date from the fifteenth century BCE and represent some of the earliest known Mycenean depictions of their pantheon. As you can see, it’s clearly adapted from the Minoan snake goddesses.”

“It’s a dead ringer for them,” Jana agreed. “Especially the statue of Medusa.”

“Jeez, no wonder she turned people to stone,” Jacob said. “She’s ugly as hell.”

Jana smiled slightly. “Actually, that’s why she turned people to stone in the original myth. It wasn’t a godlike power or anything like that. She was literally just so ugly that men turned to stone when they saw her.”

Jacob chuckled. “That’s funny.”

“The Curator didn’t tell me exactly what you two were looking for,” Stockton said. “But the entire temple is at your disposal.”

“There’s more?” Jacob asked.

“There is,” Stockton confirmed. “Nothing so grand as the central chapel, but there are smaller chambers behind and underneath the main temple.”

They fell silent and turned to Jana. She realized after a moment that they were looking to her for answers. She turned to Robert. “I thought you knew what we were looking for. You seemed encouraged when you found out we were coming here.”

“Yes. It supports your hypothesis that there’s a cure. I don’t know exactly how to find it, though. It might be referenced on the scroll in front of you. How’s your Linear B? Up to date?”

“Which date?”

She and Robert laughed. Jacob smiled slightly at the two of them. “Nerds.”

Jana smiled sweetly and flipped him off, then started to read the scroll. Jokes aside, it had been a while since she’d studied Linear B, but after a few minutes of picking through what she did understand, the rest of it came to her.

BEHOLD THE GORGON, THE BRINGER OF JUDGMENT, THE CASTER OF MEN’S SOULS TO HELL. THOSE WHO DISPLEASE HER MISTRESS, THE GREAT GODDESS ATHENA, ARE FOREVER FROZEN IN TORMENT.

THOSE WHO REPENT MUST BEG ATHENA’S FORGIVENESS AT THE FOOT OF HER PALACE, THE SEAT OF THE HEAVENS. ONLY TO THEM WILL SHE GRANT THE ROOT OF LIFE.

She read the inscription aloud. When she finished, Robert opined, “Hmm. Interesting.”

“Well, it looks like there is a cure,” Jacob said. “This Root of Life whatever it is.”

“Do we think that is to be taken literally, though?” Robert asked. “There’s clearly a great deal of symbolism here.”

“And oddly placed symbolism,” Jana added. “I mean, it’s an odd mixture of Mycenean religion and later Greek religion. Unless you’re telling me, Robert, that the Division has discovered that the Greek religion has firmer roots in the past than known to the general public.”

“And why keep this place hidden?” Jacob asked. “What’s here that the public can’t know about?”

Robert answered Jana. “There is some evidence that the pantheon of the later Greek city-states was more directly adapted from the Mycenean religion than is known to the general public. This is one of the more explicit connections.”

Jana noticed that he didn’t answer Jacob’s question. She felt a touch of disquiet at that. The more that she thought about it, the more it became clear that the Division was hiding quite a lot from them still. Most concerning to her was the fact that Robert seemed more inclined to keep those secrets than he had in their past collaborations.

“So what do we do?” Jacob asked. “Or do you know yet?”

“It would predate the currently understood origin of the Olympian mythology by a few centuries,” Jana said, “but the reference to the foot of Athena’s palace at the seat of the heavens suggests to me that this root of life was to be found on Mount Olympus.”

“Is that to be taken literally, though?” Jacob asked, repeating Robert’s question. “What if it referenced a pilgrimage people were supposed to take?”

“It could mean nothing,” Jana admitted, “but we’re under the gun here. Unless Robert or Agent Stockton knows of a secret somewhere else in this temple that might help us, this is the best lead we have.”

She looked hard at Robert when she said that. A touch of color came to his cheeks, but he held her gaze when he replied, “This is the only inscription in this temple that references the Gorgons.”

Jana stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded. “All right then. To Olympus we go.”

The four of them filed from the room. Jana tried to push her misgivings to the side and focus on the more pressing task of finding an antidote, but she couldn’t take her mind entirely off of the secrecy Robert was displaying. When this was over, she would have to have a serious talk with him about honesty between partners and friends.

Jana cast a glance at the image of the goddesses behind her. Medusa continued to stare balefully at her, teeth bared, eyes bulging with hate.

She shivered and quickened her pace as the four of them left the temple.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Remy wasn’t really surprised that the world refused to comply with their demands. It required a collection of virtues sadly absent from the majority of human society. One must have the intelligence to recognize the necessity of complying with these demands, the patience to forgive Gaia’s Vengeance for their harsh delivery of such demands, and the strength to enforce compliance regardless of the high cost.

Of course, if the world possessed these qualities, there would have been no need for Gaia’s Vengeance in the first place. She would have remained a benevolent mother, giving life to her grateful and obedient children.

Alas, that wasn’t the way things went. So now her children would endure her punishment.

Remy folded his arms across his chest and watched as his team loaded the canisters onto the truck. He’d struck gold with the liquid formula when he realized that the inert component of the gas could be replaced with a neutral polymer that would bind to the active component while remaining soluble in water. The result, unfortunately, was a less reliable concentration of the active component of the poison, meaning that some died instantly while others took hours.

Still, they all died eventually. Even at microscopic doses, the poison was fatal. It wasn’t as clean as Remy hoped, but it worked.

Synthesizing the active component, unfortunately, remained a challenge. It was possible, but it was incredibly difficult and tedious. Producing a quantity sufficient enough to achieve their goals was likely to take years at the current pace. He had to hope that they could either increase their rate of production somehow or that the message they planned to send next would be strong enough to cow the world into submission.

The target Remy had chosen was personal. That was a risk, he supposed, but an acceptable one. No one knew who he was or who any of the members of Gaia's Vengeance were.

But Remy was beginning to fear that they might not produce the poison fast enough to affect the changes they wanted. If that was the case, he at least wanted to punish those responsible for his loss. A bitter victory but less bitter than failing utterly.

Still, he hadn't lost hope. They could make more of the poison, and days ago, they didn't even know what it was. Perhaps Gaia would continue to favor them as she had so far.

A hand touched his elbow. He turned to Myra, the leader of Gaia’s security force. “There is a problem,” she told him, speaking in French so the others wouldn’t overhear. “We’ve discovered a substance that can counter the effect of the poison. And there are enemies close to discovering that substance as well.”

“So deal with it,” he replied.

She nodded once, then disappeared, nineteen other security officers following. That left only four to escort the poison, but that was enough. Stealth was more crucial during transport than force.

Remy took a deep breath and released it slowly. The next strike would show the world that they were serious. They would no longer be ignored.

Gaia would have her vengeance.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jacob wasn’t particularly happy that Robert had ignored his question about the secrets present in the temple, but he didn’t waste too much time thinking about it. They might finally have a lead to a cure for the Medusa poisoning. Besides, it wasn’t like Jacob was free and open with all of the CIA’s secrets. He still didn’t trust the Division, but he trusted Robert, and in any case, the Division was very clearly on the same side as them at the moment.

Of more urgent interest to him was figuring out what this so-called Root of Life could be. He was in favor of heading to Olympus because Jana had recommended it, and her hunches about ancient texts were usually right, but he would have loved to have something more concrete to hold onto about this root that would allegedly “forgive” those afflicted by Medusa’s curse.

Once more, they were trying to climb a thread and hoping that it didn’t snap when they were halfway up the cliff.

Robert called the Curator when they reached the vehicle to update him on their progress. He put the phone on speaker so Jacob and Jana could listen in.

“Interesting,” the Curator said. “That is in line with what we’ve discovered about the poison.”

“What have you discovered?” Jacob asked.

“The poison is an intensely powerful alkaloid.”

“An alkaloid?” Jacob asked. “Like strychnine?”

“Almost exactly like strychnine, actually,” the Curator replied, “at least in its early stages. What makes this particular alkaloid unique is that it can very stably transition between multiple forms without losing its basic structure or toxicity. As it travels throughout the victims’ bodies, it borrows particles from different tissues and lends different particles in return. These secondary particles then trade with each other to form tertiary particles and so on until the electrons have been evenly distributed.”

“How does that result in the symptoms we’re seeing?”

"Well, the immediate effect is an immediate spike in neurotransmitters like epinephrine. Essentially, the release of amine hormones causes muscle spasms and contractions, which are the very first symptoms. The second effect is the catastrophic denaturing of protein structures throughout the body's various systems. This is what actually causes death because the medulla oblongata in the brainstem appears to be the first major nervous system affected. That's the part of the brain that controls the heart, which is why our victims die of heart failure early on in this second wave of symptoms. A mercy, I suppose, considering what happens to them afterward.

"The third symptom is the most interesting. When a protein is denatured, the denatured remnants often aggregate, forming what, for the sake of this conversation, we can call clumps of mass."

“Like the skin plates and ossified internal structures in our victims,” Jacob deduced.

“There are a couple of secondary effects that lead to the ossification,” the Curator explained. “Specifically related to the ability of certain protein structures to bind with the minerals released when the bones denature. However, denaturation shouldn’t result in the structures we’re seeing. Forgive me for being crass, but denaturation should lead to clumps and puddles where people used to be.”

Jacob grimaced. “Lovely.”

“Yes. It’s terrifying to think, but this poison could actually have been worse. As I was saying, though, what actually happens is that entirely new protein structures form. Collagen and elastin in skin tissue becomes keratin while the keratin—oddly enough—appears to be immune to the denaturing effects. That results in the plated skin with cracks and fissures we see in the advanced stages. In the internal soft tissues and connective tissues, collagen reforms into osteocalcin, osteonectin, and bone sialoprotein. Those are the primary mineral-binding proteins in bones. Hence why, the final symptoms involve ossification of the muscles and connective tissues."

“How does the calcium move through the body after the heart stops?” Jana asked. “And the blood denatures too, right? So how does the ossification take place throughout the body?”

“We don’t know. That’s the big mystery right now. We know what the poison does. We still don’t know how it accomplishes so much of this after death.”

Jacob’s brow furrowed. “How did you figure all of this out? Was the poison lingering within the victims?”

“No. By the time the process is complete, the poison has altered itself so much that it is no longer distinguishable.”

“So how? How do you know all of this?”

The Curator didn’t reply right away. Robert shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Jacob saw Jana shoot him a glance and narrow her eyes.

Jacob’s lips thinned. “You have some of the poison, don’t you? The thieves didn’t get all of it.”

The Curator didn't reply right away. When he did, he didn't address Jacob's accusation. "Alkaloids can be countered by acids, and some alkaloids can counter the effects of other alkaloids. This particular alkaloid is a very strong stimulant, so if this plant you're looking for has alkaloids that are relaxants, then it can counter some of the initial symptoms. In addition, they have lone pairs of electrons. You don't need to worry about what that means if you don't know, but the practical effect is that acids can form covalent bonds with those lone pairs and neutralize the alkaloid in this poison. If this plant happens to have an acid that's concentrated enough, then it can completely negate this alkaloid."

“Thank you, sir,” Robert said. “We’re on our way to Mount Olympus now.”

“Actually, you aren’t. Not yet. You’re making a detour to a hotel. I’ve sent Agent Kelson to join you.”

Robert’s eyes narrowed. “Is that necessary, sir?” he asked stiffly. “Agent Stockton is here with me. Would it not be better to keep our number small so we can operate stealthily?”

“Five isn’t much bigger than four, Dr. Bledshaw. And to answer your question, yes, it’s necessary. You’ll pick him up, then you’ll head to Olympus.”

“Of course, sir,” Robert said, still stiff.

“Good luck,” the Curator said.

Robert sighed and rubbed his temples. “You know Agent Kelson as Mark. I’m afraid he and I are still not on the best of terms.”

Mark Kelson was the helicopter pilot from the first mission the three of them had undertaken together. During that mission, Robert had violated instructions from the Division. Apparently, Mark had told on him, and Robert was still in the hot seat as a result.

“Are you in trouble?” Jana asked. Robert smiled sourly. “It could be worse.”

“How much trouble?” Jacob asked. “Should we be worried about you?”

“No. I’m not in that much trouble. The Curator just wants to make sure I don’t get into any more trouble. Once I show him I’m not planning to become another Colin Harlow, he’ll calm down.”

“So wait,” Jana interjected. “You’re babysitting us, and now Mark is babysitting you? I don’t get it.”

“Honestly, I don’t either. When I got this assignment, I thought the Curator had finally taken me off of probation. It seems I was wrong.”

“Did we do something?” Jacob asked. “I feel like we’ve been playing ball. I mean, I was going to keep the Division out of the loop, but you guys talked me out of it.”

“If I had to guess,” Robert replied, “I think that the Curator wants to ensure that the Division receives samples of this Root of Life and doesn’t trust us to bring it to him.”

“So he has samples of the poison, and now he wants to monopolize the cure,” Jacob summarized. “Figures.”

“Jacob,” Jana interrupted, glancing at Stockton.

“He can hear it too,” Jacob insisted. “That’s bullshit. How much of that stuff does the Division have?”

“At least six jars,” Robert said. “Possibly more. Not nearly as much as the terrorists have.”

“Wait, what? You knew this?”

“It’s not a bad thing for the Division to have samples of the poison,” Jana said. “They need it to make a cure.”

“Yes, but…” Jacob sighed. This was just another one of those things Robert couldn’t tell him. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry, Jacob. I would have told you if I could. The Curator was concerned that you’d react poorly.”

“I won’t act like I’m overjoyed, but I get it,” Jacob replied.

 “I understand that I’ve become notorious for my disagreements with the Division’s leadership,” Robert added, “but I have come to the conclusion that the world is better off with us than without us.”

“So you don’t think the Curators trying to conquer the world anymore?”

Jana coughed and looked at Stockton, but the agent showed no reaction to Jacob’s question.

"No," Robert replied. "I misunderstood quite a lot about the Curator's rivalry with Dr. Harlow. I have since learned more, which convinces me that while the division isn't always right, they do mean well. We mean well.

That being said, I am sorry that I can’t be entirely open about things. Please understand that I’m in a difficult position. The Curator is sending Mark with us because he still doesn’t trust me. If I strain his trust much further, I will likely be expelled from the Division. If that happens, then…”

They didn’t get to hear what would happen if he was expelled because he glanced at Stockton and apparently decided that was enough sharing for the moment. He took a deep breath and continued. “I am trying to help you. I am also trying to keep my job. I am trying to balance both obligations because the fate of the world rests on our shoulders, and one slip to either side could lead to catastrophe. So please accept that sometimes, that will mean not sharing things that you would rather hear. Know that when it is necessary for the success of our assignment, I will share that information.”

He took another deep breath. “And please remember that the Division didn’t cause this crisis. We are, in the best way we know how trying to solve it. We realize that we don't have all of the tools necessary to do so. That's why we've reached out to the two of you."

Jacob sighed. “All right. I get it. But if things keep coming out of the woodwork like this, I’m going to need more of an explanation. I know you can’t share everything, but the Curator will have to start being more open if we’re going to keep working with him.”

Robert’s lips thinned. “Be careful. Both of you.”

Before Jacob could ask what he meant by that, Stockton said, “We’re here,” and pulled the truck into the parking lot of an upscale business hotel.

“I’ll ride with Mark,” Robert said. “No doubt that was the Curator’s intent.”

He left the vehicle without another word to Jacob or Jana. Jacob should have been hopeful, but his thoughts remained dark as the vehicles pulled smoothly back into traffic a moment later on their way to Mount Olympus and, hopefully, the antidote that would let them solve this problem.

And fall straight into another.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The five of them were quiet as they began their ascent up Greece's highest mountain. The Seat of the Gods was a rather modest mountain compared to the towering ranges found elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, the mountain's nine-thousand-foot-plus peaks posed a formidable enough challenge to the agents, who possessed only what climbing gear they'd been able to stuff into the rear of the Land Rover. Their other vehicle was a cargo van, and they were reserving the space in there for the cure, assuming they could find it.

Fortunately, most of Olympus wasn’t particularly difficult to climb. In ideal conditions, at least. The problem was that a storm had chosen that particular moment to arrive, so the slopes were slick and muddy, and travel was agonizingly slow. They had enough food if they were forced to spend the night on the mountain, but the longer Gaia’s Vengeance was quiet, the more Jana’s anxiety grew.

The four men all wore dark frowns as they moved up the mountain. Stockton and Mark were clearly trying to maintain distance from the crises of conscience plaguing the other three. Mark didn’t seem particularly happy about being assigned to babysit Robert, but he was loyal to the Division, and Jana knew he would complete his assignment without hesitation.

Robert looked tense and a little unsure. Jana could understand that. From his point of view, he was trying to make the best out of a terrible situation and failing utterly. His boss didn’t trust him, and his friends weren’t sure if they could trust him either.

She could understand Jacob’s point of view too. For all that Robert wanted to defend them, the Division was withholding critical information from them. If they had known that the Division was testing the poison…

She frowned. Actually, that wouldn’t have changed anything. In fact, the Division was acting correctly by testing the poison. The only thing that irritated the two of them was that they weren’t kept in the loop.

Robert was right. She was used to being told everything she needed to know. Maybe some of their frustration could be boiled down to the fact that they were once senior agents who were now junior agents upset at being kept out of the loop.

She slipped on some loose scree displaced by the rain. Jacob caught her before she could fall to her knees and possibly injure herself.

“Thank you,” she said as he helped her to her feet.

“Don’t mention it.”

She grinned. “Too late.”

He chuckled, but his mirth faded quickly.

“You know what I was thinking just now?” she asked.

“How utterly gorgeous I am and how lucky you are that you get to have sex with me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yep. Hit the nail on the head.”

He laughed again. “On a serious note, I’m going to say you were trying to reconcile yourself with the fact that we’re rookies again.”

“Yep. This time, you did hit the nail on the head.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. I won’t lie, it sucks not to be able to call Tyler and tell him what’s gonna happen, and what I need to make it happen. And it really sucks that we have two levels of babysitter watching us right now. We have Robert deciding what we get to know and Mark deciding what Robert gets to decide we get to know.”

“I don’t think that’s entirely accurate,” she replied, “but I get what you mean.” She nudged him with her elbow. “Don’t take it out on Robert, though. He’s in a shitty position right now.”

“I know. I don’t blame him. He’s just here, so he gets to be the one to hear about how frustrated I am. If anything, you should be grateful that you’re not the only one who has to deal with me complaining.”

She kissed his cheek. “I like hearing you complain. You’re like a grumpy old dog. Just don’t be grouchy all the time. And not to Robert. He’s doing his best.”

“Fair enough. I won’t be an asshole to him.” His smile faded. “But we can’t forget that he was the one who told us that the Curator wanted to take over the world. He’s the one who said that the Division saw the Order as competitors and not as a threat.”

Jana pursed her lips and looked ahead. “Yeah. I’m worried about that too. But… I mean, he could have been wrong the first time. The Division has helped us stop evil terrorists before.”

“I know,” Jacob agreed. “I just think it’s a mistake to trust that blindly.”

“We should talk to him about that later,” Jana said. “When this is over. He said he misunderstood a lot of things, but he didn’t want to talk too openly in front of Stockton. Maybe when we’re done here, we can ask him what changed his mind.”

“Agreed.”

They walked in silence for a few more minutes. Then Jacob cocked his head. “How do you think Ancient Greece managed to create an alkaloid poison that’s so much stronger than anything we’ve ever seen.”

“It’s not really stronger,” Jana said. “Atropine and Strychnine in the appropriate dose can kill just as fast. The secondary effects are what makes this unique and the fact that it can keep working when the heart and brain are dead.”

“Well, that’s even more… I hate to use the word impressive, but… Impressive?”

“I hate to use that word too,” she said. “But yeah, it’s pretty crazy that they could synthesize a gaseous alkaloid that could remain stable within its victim but somehow dissipate quickly enough that an attacking force using the weapon could show up fifteen minutes later and be in no danger.”

“Do you think this could be an example of something they adapted from the pre-Ice Age civilization?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t know,” Jacob replied, “but do you have a hunch?”

She looked ahead at the rising slopes in front of them. “My hunch is that… yes. There’s probably evidence that the Greeks created this weapon using knowledge gleaned from the pre-Ice Age civilization.”

“That’s my hunch too,” Jacob agreed, “and I’ll bet you anything that one of things Robert can’t tell us is the proof of that connection.”

“It would explain a lot,” she admitted. “The Greeks had incredibly advanced sciences and a very thorough understanding of subjects like medicine, physics, mathematics and astronomy. The common consensus is that they learned all of this from the Egyptians, but as you and I know, a lot of what the Egyptians knew came from the pre-Ice Age civilization.”

“The Egyptians didn’t have poisons like this, though. Not that nuclear weapons are better, but this is something unique.”

“It is.”

“So which came first? The chicken or the egg?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

"Did the myth of Medusa come from the effects of this poison, or did this poison come before the myth?"

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe both. The snake goddesses of Crete are likely descended from the Egyptian goddess Wadjet, so it’s possible that Medusa was adapted from her but then attached to the effects of this poison.”

“So where does the poison come from? Could a plant grow something that can do what this poison does?”

“It’s possible. Many alkaloids are naturally occurring. It would have to be processed considerably, and it would exist in a naturally liquid or solid form, not a gas, so it was definitely something the Greeks refined, but it could be plant-based.”

“So this Root of Life could be real? There could really be a cure out here?”

She looked up at the approaching summit of Stefani—Zeus’s Throne—and said, “I really hope so.”

They fell silent for a while longer. Rain poured in sheets around them, and as they climbed higher, freezing wind gusts cut through the poncho and coat that Jana wore, causing her teeth to chatter. She hoped the temperature wouldn’t drop much lower. Hypothermia was deadly, and they were hours from their vehicles.

Which raised another question: how were they going to transport enough of the cure to the van to counter the poison Gaia’s Vengeance had?

She realized with another wave of irritation that they couldn’t, and the Curator knew they couldn’t. He really did just make up a reason to have Mark babysit them. She didn’t have a problem with Mark, but if they were put in a corner where they needed to choose between the Division and the right thing to do, she was confident that Robert would make the right choice. She was equally confident that Mark would choose the Division. And so, probably, would Stockton.

Well, they could get a sample of the plant, and if they could determine which compounds counteracted the poison, they could synthesize them.

Which meant that if Gaia’s Vengeance could determine which alkaloid composed the active ingredient of the poison, they could synthesize that too.

She sighed and shivered again. So often it seemed like the world was balanced on a knife edge waiting for only a puff of wind to blow it over the cliff to break itself on the rocks below. And here they were, trying to pull it the other way while standing on slippery ground in the middle of a rainstorm. Literally.

“Where exactly are we headed, Jana?” Robert asked. “Do you have an idea?”

"More of a guess than an idea," she called back, shouting to be heard over the howling wind. "That peak up ahead is Stefani—Zeus's Throne. The Plateau in front of it is called the Muses' Plateau. The temple clearly considered Athena to be the chief of the pantheon, but if we're right that Olympus is the location of the cure, then I think Zeus's Throne refers to Athena's Palace, and the Muses' Plateau in front of the Throne refers to the Foot of Her Palace. I think we'll find our Root of Life there."

“And if we don’t?”

She cast him a withering glance. “Then I was wrong. Was that a helpful question to ask?”

He frowned. “If you’re wrong, what will our next steps be?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s hope you’re not wrong.”

She rolled her eyes. “Also not helpful.”

“I’m just making conversation,” he protested. “Greg is not a great conversationalist, and… well, Mark and I aren’t on speaking terms.”

She frowned at him. “Things have gotten that bad between you?”

He smiled thinly. “He doesn’t trust me. I’m not sure I blame him. You two don’t seem to trust me either.”

“It’s not you we don’t trust. It’s… I think you’re right, actually. I think we’re just not used to being kept out of the loop. We know just about everything the CIA knows. When we’re assigned to something, we get told everything. We’re not used to getting drip fed the minimum amount of information we need to accomplish our objectives. We’re used to getting the big picture and getting to decide our own objectives and how to accomplish them.”

“If you two chose to join us, you could eventually reach that point,” Robert pointed out.

She shook her head. “I don’t know if that’s true. The Division keeps secrets even more guardedly than the CIA. And anyway, I think it’s better if Jacob and I stay at arms’ length. Just between you and me, Robert, the reason it bothers me that we’re not getting the big picture is because I’m afraid of what we’d learn if we did have the big picture. You’ve told us several times that the Curator is a lot like Dr. Harlow. They both want the same things; they just want to get there a different way. Well, the place Dr. Harlow wanted to get is a place I didn’t want the world to follow. If the Curator wants to take us there too, then I’m not going to be encouraged because he wants to get there on a paved highway instead of a dirt road.”

Robert didn’t have an answer to that. In any case, they had reached their destination. It was time to turn their focus once more to the enemy both they and the Division shared.

“We’re here,” she told them. “Let’s start looking for the Root.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jacob looked to the West and frowned. The sun was setting fast. They had maybe an hour of daylight left. The storm had calmed down, and they had lights, but he very much didn’t want to be stuck on the mountain overnight.

Little too late for that, buddy. It’s at least a six-hour descent to the vehicles.

He sighed and carefully dug out the shrub in front of him. Among the equipment Mark had brought was a portable kit that looked a bit like one of those kids’ chemistry sets sold at museum gift shops. Robert had the kit set up on a rock and was examining each plant the others brought them to determine its alkaloid and acid content and offer an opinion as to whether the plant could potentially be their Root of Life. So far, he had rejected two different types of grass, two weeds and six different species of small shrub.

Jacob was beginning to feel like they were wasting time. Robert evidently had enough basic understanding of chemistry that he could tell based on the Curator’s description of the poison whether or not the plants he was looking at could counteract it, but there were dozens of different plants on top of this mountain. Maybe more. None of them were plant experts, and if Jacob’s life depended on telling apart the two species of grass Mark had found, he would be a dead man.

Also, not many of these plants seemed to have roots to speak of. Obviously, they had roots, but there weren't any impressive roots of any kind. No thick taproots like a potato or carrot and nothing that was an unusual color or texture or size or shape. Just woody, hairy branches that spread out across the soil.

The plant he held in his hand possessed roots that were more of the same. The upper part of the plant wasn’t any cooler looking, really. It had green leaves and dull white flowers that reminded Jacob of the least exciting ground cover plants you could find in front of a public library or civic center in every city in the United States unimportant enough that the library and/or civic center was the most exciting place to visit.

But maybe they'd get lucky. God, he hated that so much of their success depended on luck.

He handed the plant to Robert and said, “Third time’s the charm, maybe?”

“You’ve said that eight times now.”

“Okay. This time’s the charm.”

“Let’s see.”

He took the plant and carefully snipped a small portion of the root cluster. He placed it into a small vial with a clear chemical solution and shook it vigorously. As he inserted a dropper and squeezed a few drops of the solution onto a test strip, he said, “You don’t need to hover while this works. It’ll take fifteen minutes or so.”

Jacob sighed. “I want to apologize. I’ve been concerned with the Division’s secrecy with us, but I shouldn’t take that out on you. I’m just worried. I don’t like not seeing the whole picture. The Curator might have good intentions, but he’s as arrogant as Harlow, and I’m not entirely convinced that he’s not just as dangerous. I’m worried that we might be accidentally helping him do something even worse than what Gaia’s Vengeance is doing.”

“I understand,” Robert said. “I suppose it doesn’t help if I tell you that as dangerous as the Curator is, I have no reason to believe that he’s as dangerous as Harlow or Gaia’s Vengeance.”

“Well, not really, because you once told us that the Curator is just as dangerous as Dr. Harlow and the Division is just as dangerous as the Order.”

Instead of replying to Jacob, Robert's eyes flew open wide. He looked at the array of test strips he had laid out on a plate to his left and compared them to a chart resting on his lap. "This is it. We've found it! This plant has an extraordinarily potent acid that, when bound with a strong alkaloid, will actually form an inert chemical that can pass harmlessly through the body. I can't believe it. The Root of Life is real."

Jacob’s own eyes popped open. “Really? This plant will counteract the poison?”

“We’ll have to run some tests to be sure,” Robert said, “but unless my calculations are completely inaccurate, I think we may have found our cure.”

Jacob pumped his fist in the air. All of his worries and fears were forgotten in the joy of finally discovering something that could help them put an end to the threat of Medusa. “Jana! We found it!”

A few dozen yards away, Jana’s head popped up from behind a cluster of bushes. She rushed to them, grinning hugely. “You found it?”

“Yep,” Jacob said, wearing his own grin. “It’s a plant with a strong acid that can bond to the alkaloid and turn it into something harmless.”

She leaped for joy and threw her arms around him. “Yes! We did it!” She pulled back and asked, “Where did you find it? What plant is it?”

He led her and Robert to the carpet of shrubs he’d found. Mark had overheard the commotion and jogged over to them. He peered closely at one of the plants and said, “Looks like a goosefoot species. Not one I recognize, though.”

Robert raised an eyebrow. “You know plants, Mark?”

Mark nodded as he got to his feet. “Believe it or not, I minored in botany. Thought I was going to be a—”

They never learned what Mark thought he was going to be because most of the organ responsible for Mark’s thoughts exited through the left side of his head when a rifle bullet shattered his skull.

The other three quickly dropped to the ground, drawing their handguns and looking around for the threat. The sky was darkening rapidly, but they still had enough light to make out at least twenty silhouettes moving their way from lower down the slope.

“Shit,” Jacob swore. “We have bogeys. Looks like about twenty. And they’re all carrying rifles.”

One of the bogeys stood, shouldering his rifle. Before he could fire, another shot rang out, and the attacker stiffened, then fell, rolling limply down the mountain.

Two more shots rang out, and another terrorist fell. A moment later, Agent Stockton dropped to his knees next to the others. “There’s cover fifteen yards to the left behind a rock. Move one at a time. The rest of you provide cover.”

Jacob was grateful for someone else with a military background in their group. He got to his feet and sprinted toward the outcrop Stockton pointed out. Gunfire zipped past him, but he reached the rock unharmed.

He aimed at the terrorists and saw a woman around Jana’s size with close-cropped red hair signaling to the other attackers. He fired, catching her in the shoulder. The terrorist cried out and fell just in time for another terrorist to fall dead on top of her.

Jana joined him a moment later. “We need to keep them from getting entrenched. They have automatic rifles. They’ll overwhelm us if they find cover.”

“Agreed,” Jacob said.

The two of them lifted their handguns and emptied their clips. They only managed to get two more terrorists that way, but the barrage had the effect of sending the rest of the terrorists diving for cover.

Robert and then Stockton joined them, and they unloaded another clip. The concentrated fire from four of them put down four more terrorists, leaving the survivors at an even dozen by Jacob’s count.

But they were running out of luck. The leader Jacob had shot had regained her feet and was now shouting commands to her subordinates from behind the cover of another large rock. The terrorists quickly found cover themselves, losing one more of their number to a well-placed shot from Robert.

And then the terrorists returned concentrated fire. The four of them huddled behind the rock as chips, splinters and dirt showered over them. Jacob and Jana shared a grim look as they endured the barrage. This sustained fire would give the terrorists a chance to advance. At any moment, one or more of their number could come bursting around the corner and kill all of them with a single burst.

Instead, the terrorists came from the top of the rock. Jacob caught a blur of movement and threw himself backward instinctively. Jana and Stockton did the same, but Robert—the least combat experienced among them—was a second too late. The bullet missed his head, but found a home in his right thigh.

He cried out and fell, saved from death only by the others’ quick reactions. Stockton dispatched the terrorist who shot Robert while Jana and Jacob helped him to his feet and pulled him away. More terrorists swarmed their position, and both Stockton and Jacob took grazing shots to their shoulders before the four of them were able to find cover in a shallow depression at the end of the Plateau just before the path that led to Zeus’s throne.

Jacob dropped another terrorist and effective fire from Jana and Stockton slowed the terrorists' advance, but now they had another problem. They were running out of ammunition. Jacob had one clip left, and when he called to the others, they reported a similar dearth. Stockton was also down to his last clip, while Jana had only three rounds left. Robert had two clips and gave Jana one of his, but that still left them in dire straits with ten terrorists pressing their attack with assault rifles.

Jacob looked behind them. The path was open on all sides. This was the last cover they would have. If Robert hadn’t been injured, they might have been able to make a steep descent down the slope and get to a lower path that would take them back to their vehicle, but then that would mean leaving the terrorists up here where they could sabotage the goosefoot plants.

Which was exactly what they planned to do. Jana cried out, and Jacob saw that four of the terrorists were approaching the cluster of goosefoot shrubs with flamethrowers.

And that gave Jacob an idea. “Robert, how many of those plants do you need to effectively synthesize the cure?”

Robert blinked. “Well… I would need at least two in case the first sample wasn’t viable, but four would be better.”

"Okay. This is what I want to do. I want you and Jana to stay here undercover. Stockton and I are going to leave cover and get those plants. I'll grab four of them while Stockton covers me. As soon as I call now, shoot the flamethrower canisters."

“What?” Jana called. “You’re insane! There’s no way that’ll work.”

“I really hope you’re wrong,” Jacob said. “Because it’s our only chance right now.” He turned to Robert. “Just in case, send an SOS to the Curator so he knows the situation.”

Jana grabbed his wrist. “Jacob, don’t. It’s too risky.”

“This is a risk we have to take. If they destroy that plant, we might never find a cure.”

Her lower lip trembled once, but then her face hardened. She understood this life. They both knew that they might one day face a threat they wouldn’t survive. She nodded and released him.

He turned to Stockton and saw the same resolution on his face. “All right then. Let’s get this done.”

He took a deep breath, said a silent prayer for luck, then rushed up the hill.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The first terrorist had already begun to fire his flamethrower when Jacob’s bullet took him out. He fell to the ground, and his flamethrower cut out. The rain quickly put out the small fire he had started, but now Jacob and Stockton had to contend with more dangerous fire.

The hair on the back of Jacob’s neck prickled. He threw himself to the ground just before a burst of rifle fire split the air where he was standing. Stockton fired twice, and he heard a cry as one of the terrorists fell. He got to his feet and sprinted forward, not bothering to zigzag. Speed was probably more important, anyway.

One of the other terrorists carrying flamethrowers turned ponderously, just in time for Jacob to shoot him through the head. Jacob dove to the ground again, and friendly fire took out a third flamethrower. The final one shouted at his companions in a language Jacob didn't recognize. Probably some variation of Don’t fucking shoot me, you idiots!

He yanked one goosefoot out by its roots, then another. Then, a bullet seared his left leg, and he threw himself to the ground. He couldn't tell if the bullet had gone through or if it was still lodged there, but he could still move, so he rolled over and pulled up a third plant.

Stockton had pulled the body of one of the flamethrower terrorists over him with the canister facing away from the gunfire. Jacob watched the dead terrorist flinch as bullets impacted his torso and legs. Dangerous to Stockton but less dangerous than having no cover.

Jacob pulled the fourth plant when he heard Jana call his name. He looked up and saw the last flamethrower-wielding terrorist squared in front of him, a snarl on his face, the nozzle of his weapon pointed at Jacob.

Oh shit.

He shouted something in the language Jacob had heard him use earlier, then pulled back the handle on his nozzle. Jacob threw himself to the side just before a red-yellow gout of flame incinerated four hundred cubic feet of air where he was standing a moment ago.

That’s a hell of a flamethrower.

The man turned, moving slowly and bracing his feet. It was heavy. That would work to Jacob’s advantage. He veered the other way, crossing the nozzle just before another beam of flame shot out.

Jacob did a quick calculation and didn’t like the results. They’d have to be at least fifteen yards from the canister before it exploded, but it would be better for them to be twice that distance away.

And Stockton was still pinned down.

Damn it.

He drew his gun and fired at the gunmen. He only caught one terrorist before the others turned toward him, but that was all he needed.

“Get back to cover!” he shouted to Stockton.

Stockton didn’t hesitate. Like a good soldier, he obeyed his order immediately, rolling the dead terrorist off of him and running back to Robert and Jana.

Another gunshot creased Jacob, this time in his right shoulder. He nearly dropped his gun, and when he reached for it, he saw flame blossom to his left.

He continued to roll forward, and as he did, he shouted, “Now!”

The terrorist with the flamethrower either didn’t hear him or didn’t understand. He swung the fire in a wide loop, trying to catch the sprinting Jacob before he ran out of fuel.

The leader of the terrorists understood, though. When she saw Jana take aim at the dead terrorist Stockton had used for cover, her eyes widened in horror. She turned to her soldiers and shouted for them to flee.

Jana fired. Jacob heard a loud boom and threw himself into the depression just before a wave of heat baked the air above him. Another explosion sounded, and the night sky lit up as bright as day. Jacob heard a scream as the remaining flamethrower soldier was enveloped by the blast. That scream was cut off when a third explosion sounded, quickly followed by a fourth.

Jacob crawled to the other three and kept low while flame billowed above them, rising ninety feet into the sky and sending a cloud of smoke thousands of feet into the atmosphere.

They weren’t out of the woods yet. The napalm used in the flamethrowers would burn for a while longer, and the pouring rain—rather than putting the fire out—pushed the flaming gel over the edge of the shallow hill toward the four of them.

“Shit,” Jacob swore, jumping to his feet and helping Robert stand. “Come on, we need to go.”

They moved down the path as quickly as Robert could move on his injured leg. Fire lapped at their ankles, and for a tense moment, it caught onto Robert's leg. He grimaced as the napalm seared his ankles, but the small amount of accelerant that had touched him quickly burned out, and the rain put out the fire.

They were finally saved when the path turned upward. They climbed for a few yards, then collapsed to the ground, watching as the napalm—finally thinned out enough that it couldn’t stand up to the rain—flickered and went out. Globs of the gel rolled over the side of the path, tumbling down the mountain for a few dozen feet before dissipating.

And then it was over. Small pockets of fire continued to burn, but they were rapidly put out by the torrential rain.

The four of them stared soberly at the destruction. The Muses' Plateau was completely denuded, and all of the plants—including the goosefoot—burnt to dust by the napalm. A few hunks of twisted metal and mounds of charred flesh were all that remained of the attacking terrorists.

Jacob had witnessed the effects of so many horrific ancient weapons that sometimes he forgot how brutal modern weapons could be. The pre-Ice Age civilization was believed to have destroyed itself. It wasn’t too hard to imagine that their current civilization might do the same.

“Did you save the plants?” Jana asked.

Jacob pulled the plants from under his arm and showed them to the others. No one cheered. Somehow, this didn't feel like the time.

Still, they were able to acknowledge their victory. “Good,” Robert said. “Perhaps Mark’s death won’t be in vain.”

Jana laid a hand on Robert’s shoulder. He had once been Mark’s friend. It must be killing him that they had ended as enemies.

“Come on,” Jacob said. “We need to get back to the vehicles and get to work on this as fast as we can.”

The four of them walked through the firepit, trying not to look at the corpses around them. Jacob hoped mightily that this had been worth it. The dead were past the point of suffering, but the living would carry the scars long after the memory of this battle faded from history.

***

Jacob called Tyler Wallace’s secure line from the kitchenette of the hotel room, speaking in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear. Tyler answered on the first ring. “Jacob, how’s it going?”

That’s a loaded question. “Well enough. We’ve found a plant that we think will allow the Division to synthesize a cure for the poison.”

“That’s good. Any idea when that cure might be ready for distribution?”

“No. We just got down from Mount Olympus an hour ago. One of our Division contacts is badly injured. He’ll live, but his left leg is unusable. Jana’s treating him right now, then we’re going to head back to the Division lab to see about synthesizing this antidote.”

“I see. Keep me posted, Agent.”

He hung up and walked back to the living room just in time to hear Stockton say, “All right, sir. I’ll tell them.”

Jana met Jacob’s eyes and frowned. She mouthed, what’s wrong, and Jacob shook his head.

“I just got off the phone with the Curator,” Agent Stockton said. “Due to Dr. Bledshaw’s injury, the Curator wants him to go to the Division’s Athens laboratory rather than remain in the field. He and Dr. Peters will assist the Division team in extracting the antidote and synthesizing more.”

“Hold on,” Jacob said. “He’s splitting Jana and I up?”

“Yes. Gaia’s Vengeance has been silent for a while. Their attempt to destroy the antidote suggests to the Curator that they intend another attack. We believe this attack is imminent, so we’re not waiting around for them to figure out an antidote. If they can get one in time, great, but you and I are going to try to track their movements and stop them before another attack takes place.”

Jacob crossed his arms and ground his teeth softly. That was a good plan. In fact, it was almost the exact plan he would have come up with, except in his version, he and Jana would be looking into Gaia’s Vengeance while the Division agents worked on the cure.

But maybe it was better to have one of them watching the Division on both fronts. Considering what he’d heard from Tyler, Jacob assumed the Division was splitting them up on purpose, but that could work both ways.

He felt a little bit like he was shaking hands with a snake to join forces against a scorpion. But Gaia’s Vengeance had already bared their fangs.

Reluctantly, Jacob said, “All right. Let’s do it.”

“I’ll pack our bags,” Stockton volunteered.

When he was gone, Jana asked, “What’s wrong, Jacob? What did Tyler say?”

Jacob considered a moment. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell her in front of Robert. Finally, he only said, “He said to watch our backs and do what we have to do.”

Jana's expression suggested that she understood what Jacob meant by watch their backs. Robert must have picked up on it, too, because he said, "The Curator knows that you two are our top assets right now. He won't do anything to risk that."

Jacob wasn’t exactly reassured, but he didn’t have much of a choice either. “I hope you’re right.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jana stared at the single vial of colorless liquid and tried to allow it to get her hopes up. She was only partially successful.

It had taken them thirty-six hours to synthesize an antidote. All four of the plants had only succeeded in giving them one hundred fifty milligrams of the acid that would supposedly counteract the Medusa poison. The problem was that the acid was so toxic it would literally melt human flesh if it touched it. They had spent most of their time in the lab working on a carrier fluid that would transport the acid so that it remained effective without killing the infected person taking it.

Besides Jana and Robert, there were three Division chemists. The chemists were all glasses-wearing, nerdy Ivy League graduates who had very quickly become Jana's three favorite people at the Division besides Robert due to their openness and generally non-sinister nature.

And now, all five of them stared at the fruits of their labor with a sober expression. This was it. If this didn't work, then they would be back to square one. Square zero, really, since they didn't have any more leads on a cure.

Jana’s phone buzzed. Jacob. “Hold on, I have to take this.”

“Go ahead,” Fiona, the lead chemist, replied. “We’ll brainstorm a test we can do to ensure this antidote works.”

Jana stepped into the hallway and kept her voice low so no one passing by could hear her. “Hey. How’s it going?”

“Well, we finally have a lead,” Jacob replied. “We found some anonymous essays in some eco-activist magazines that call for an aggressive response to ‘human society’s rape of the Earth.’”

“What an excellent choice of words,” Jana said drily.

“Never let it be said that terrorists can’t be eloquent. Anyway, these essays are from between eight and five years ago. The author’s name is given as Stheno.”

“One of Medusa’s sisters,” Jana said. “Interesting.”

“Yes. It’s a tenuous connection, but we found another essay—this one a blog post—on a radical environmentalist website. This one is attributed to Euryale, the other sister, and says that it is the duty of responsible citizens of Gaia to protect her from her wayward children by culling them from the herd. That essay was from two years ago. Fast forward to sixteen months ago, and we have a manifesto mailed to the offices of the European Union’s Directorate-General for the Environment. This one is signed by all three of the Gorgons and warns that ‘the Goddess will take Her vengeance.’”

“So they worked their way up to Gaia’s Vengeance.”

“Looks that way. Stockton’s following the trail of publication to see if he can find an author’s name.”

“Has anyone heard anything from the terrorists?”

“No. Still nothing.”

“Maybe they changed their mind,” Jana said. “Maybe they decided to call it off. Or maybe they ran out of poison.”

“Yeah,” Jacob said without hope. “Maybe.”

She took a breath. “Well, I have some actual good news.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. We were able to synthesize an antidote. We just have to test it to make sure it works. Then we can put it into production.”

“Are you kidding? That’s great news! Why didn’t you open with that?”

“Because if it doesn’t work—”

“No,” he interrupted. “Enough of that. We’re dealing with enough shit without getting pessimistic and dismissive of our successes. You guys figured out something that will make the Medusa poison stop working. I’m sure there are ifs and buts and maybes, but you’ll figure those out. The point is, there is a Chemical B that will neutralize Chemical A. That’s huge, and damn it, I’m going to be excited about it.”

Jana smiled. “All right. Sounds good.”

“I’ll let you get back to it, then,” Jacob said. “Great job, Jana. We’ll stop these bastards. Just like we always do.”

“Right,” she agreed, “just like we always do.”

She was in better spirits when she hung up and walked back into the room. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like the others were.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Bad news?”

The three chemists shared pensive looks with each other. Shane, the youngest of the chemists and barely out of grad school, swallowed and said, “We released a small sample of the poison into the room, then sprayed the antidote onto it. It seems to work well at neutralizing the poison, but we don’t know if it will work on people.”

Jana made the leap. “So you need a volunteer to test it.”

“Yes,” Shane said, “And…” he looked down, his face reddening.

The other two chemists wore similar looks of shame. Jana sympathized with them. They felt guilty for being unwilling to risk their lives, but Jana didn’t hold that against them. It took a very specific mindset to be willing to sacrifice one’s life to save others. Very few people could do it, which was why a very small percentage of the population could be effective as soldiers, law enforcement officers, intelligence agents and other jobs that required putting one’s life on the line for innocents on a daily basis.

But Jana could put her life on the line. Her father was Aaron Peters, the greatest CIA agent to ever work for the Agency. He had put his life on the line many times, and he had raised Jana to share his bravery. Since joining forces with Jacob, both of them had routinely put their lives in danger to keep the world safe.

So she took their reason for shame away. “I’ll do it. Prepare a sample of the poison.”

“No,” Robert interrupted. “I’ll do it. You’re a more important field asset than I am. We need you able to join Jacob in fighting Gaia’s Vengeance once you find them.”

“Actually,” Anna—the third chemist—interjected, “We need both of you to do it.”

Jana raised an eyebrow, and Fiona explained. “One male and one female. Just in case there are differences in how it’s metabolized.”

Robert frowned. “Are you sure we can’t find a different volunteer? Dr. Peters really is valuable in the field.”

“We don’t have time, Robert,” Jana replied. “Let’s get this done now. We’ve already spent too much time trying to synthesize this. If it doesn’t work, better we learn that now so we can try something else.”

Robert sighed, then nodded.

“Okay,” Fiona said, offering a nervous smile. “Fingers crossed, ladies and gents.”

She fitted the two of them with sensors to monitor their heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and body temperature, then led them into the test chamber. Jana was willing to lay down her life if that was what was required of her, but she wasn’t immune to anxiety as she took a seat opposite Robert and waited while the chemists prepared the test.

“You’ll want to inject yourself with this needle once you inhale the gas,” Fiona explained, setting a syringe in front of each of them. “Then… well, we’ll know.”

“We’re ready,” Jana said.

Fiona looked at Robert, who returned a nod of his own. “You’ve done great work, Doctor. Whether we succeed or we fail, you should hold your head high. If nothing else, we can say that we didn’t go gentle into that good night.”

She smiled a little sadly. "Dylan Thomas. One of my favorites."

“Mine too.”

Fiona’s lower lip trembled a bit. Then she took a deep breath and rushed from the room. Jana imagined that the longer she delayed, the harder it would be for her to go through with the test.

“Okay,” she told them. “It’ll take a minute to fetch more gas, then about two minutes to load it into the cylinder and spray it into the room. Please, please, please remember to inject yourself immediately once you inhale the gas. If you forget, we won’t be able to help you.”

“We understand,” Jana said.

Shane placed a call from the room's landline and gave Fiona a thumbs-up. The gas was on its way.

Jana turned to Robert, who sat stiffly in his own chair, his expression blank. He managed another tight smile, then said, “We’ll have a good story to tell if we get out of this, won’t we?”

“We’ll be all right,” Jana said. “I have faith in our work.”

“And if I believe that, you have a bridge to sell me, right?”

She laughed. “One thing I’ve learned from working with Jacob is that you have to convince yourself you’re winning even if you’re losing. You have to be certain that everything you do is going to work out perfectly, every plan you make is going to take place exactly as you think it will, and you’re going to make it out alive and uninjured, no matter what.”

“And he follows this advice, does he?”

“I don’t think he always thinks that way so deliberately,” she replied. “But he always manages to brush off setbacks and hold onto victories.”

“I suppose when the cost of failure is the destruction of human civilization as we know it and the deaths of millions, one has to avoid dwelling on it,” Robert replied.

“Exactly,” Jana said. “So, I have faith that this will work. Our antidote will counteract this poison. We’ll figure out a way to make enough of it, and we’ll neutralize Gaia’s Vengeance, just like we have every other evil terrorist group that’s threatened humanity before them.”

“Yes, we do have a rather excellent track record,” he agreed. “I suppose if anyone could find a way to succeed against all odds, it would be us.”

Fiona’s voice crackled over the radio. “All right. The gas is loaded. We’ll be spraying it in ten seconds. Nine… Eight… Seven…”

Jana took a deep breath and held Jacob’s face in her mind. It hit her all at once that she might never see her again, and a powerful jolt of fear sliced through her.

You can do this. Just hold on.

“Three… Two… One… Release.”

A soft hissing filled Jana’s ears, and a green haze filled the room.

Jana said a brief prayer, then inhaled deeply.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jacob looked out of the window of Stockton's second-story office and watched the sunset on another long day. The building belonged to Athens Technical Solutions, a Division front company that served as their Balkan headquarters. It was a little disturbing to know that they had need for a nine-story office building in the Balkans and more disturbing to know they had the personnel to staff it and the thirty-two-hundred-square-foot underground lab where Jana and Robert were working on the antidote.

Jacob and Stockton were both digging through publishing and Internet Service Provider records to try to get some idea of who had authored these essays that were their only tenuous connection to Gaia’s Vengeance. The Division computers were not only hardened against EM attack but were evidently capable of hacking into the government records of multiple nations at will. The articles had been authored in French, Russian, Greek and Bulgarian, and they’d had no issues invading the privacy of each of those nations.

That wasn’t really a moral issue for Jacob. After all, his job with the CIA for many years was to literally invade the privacy of other nations. From there, he had transitioned to counterterrorism and eventually to the status of unofficial CIA specialist on terrorist threats due to ancient technology. And now he had been all but pressed into service by the Division.

He shook his head and sipped the coffee Stockton had brewed for them. It was rich and strong, just like the Greek coffee Jacob remembered fondly from his years based here. He needed to focus on the task at hand.

The Russian and Greek records had yielded nothing for them, so Stockton was now researching the French records while Jacob looked into the Bulgarian ones. He didn’t speak Bulgarian, but the Division had a translation software that displayed the Bulgarian pages in English.

He heard footsteps and turned to see Stockton walking in with fresh coffee. He smiled at Jacob and refilled his mug. “Gotta love sitting on your ass doing absolutely nothing, right?”

Jacob chuckled. “Well, it beats hanging upside down in a Syrian POW camp with a grinning terrorist threatening to cut your balls off if you don’t procure IDs for him and his terrorist cell from the American Embassy.”

“It’s the grin that pissed you off, right?” Stockton quipped. “It’s like, at least have some respect for what I’m about to lose, you know? Maybe take this seriously?”

Jacob laughed again. “I think he was just trying to be pleasant. Customer service, right? ‘Hello, sir, I hope you’re enjoying your stay at the Sword of the Righteous Resort and Casino. Just so you know, if you don’t tell us what you know, we’ll be more than happy to procure a separate room for your testicles.’”

Stockton shook his head with another chuckle. "All right, we're well off the rails now. Drink your coffee, and let's change the subject before this gets any worse."

“Good idea. No need to tell Jana about that joke either. She already thinks my sense of humor is horrible.”

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, buddy, but she’s right.”

“You’re a pal, Greg.”

And damn it, he was. Jacob didn’t have a great first impression of Stockton when he first met the agent, but when Stockton wasn’t around his superiors—and Robert was technically his superior—he was just a regular guy. Jacob had worked with dozens of people like him in the military and then in the CIA. If they weren’t in the middle of trying to stop terrorists from literally turning people into stone, then Jacob could see himself actually enjoying the past two days.

It sucked that Stockton worked for an organization that more and more seemed to be out for its own interests rather than the world’s interests. They were allies right now, but Jacob feared that the day would come sooner or later when they would be enemies. Same with Robert.

He sighed and sipped his coffee. “Anything on your end?”

“Nothing so far. It looks like most of the websites and magazines that publish this stuff end up getting backlash and purging their records. The best I’ve been able to find is a few apologies from magazines for foisting that stuff on their readers.”

“Yeah, I’ve run into some of that too. But there should be something in the internet server records that we can use. Some little needle buried in some haystack somewhere that can tell us what we need to know.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The internet is far from free outside of the U.S. Even in first-world countries like France and Greece, corruption is rampant and government censorship is common.”

Jacob sighed. “Yeah, I know. I just kind of wish it wasn’t a problem now.” He looked outside the window. “We’re already what, two days into this?”

“Getting there.”

“And meanwhile, who knows what Gaia’s Vengeance has been doing.” He shook his head. “It was a mistake to torch that plateau. We could have gotten something off of the bodies of those terrorists that could have told us where to find the rest of them.”

“We didn’t have a choice. We were running out of options. We would have been cut down if we hadn’t taken the nuclear option.” He grimaced. “Damn. I very much regret that analogy.”

“Don’t feel bad. We’re not the ones using weapons of mass destruction.”

Stockton pursed his lips and looked at his coffee cup. “Yeah. I guess not.”

Jacob’s computer chimed. He’d set an alarm to alert him if the search algorithm found anything associated with Gaia’s Vengeance or the essays and blog posts they’d found. That alarm had just gone off.

Stockton and Jacob both leaned over the screen, their faces focused and intent. After a moment, Jacob pumped his fist. “Yes! We have a name.”

Stockton took the seat next to him and quickly opened his own search engine. “Go ahead.”

“Remy Bouchard, forty-four. Worked as a chemist for Chimie Versailles for two years after completing his doctorate. Quit abruptly eight years ago. According to the very long and very tedious research I’ve done, he was the author of the essay attributed to Stheno.”

Stockton’s brow furrowed. “So he’s French and he worked and lived in France? Why’s he showing up in Bulgaria? Did he move?”

“Not according to the records here. It looks like he’s actually never lived in Bulgaria?”

“Hmm…” Stockton tapped a few keys, then said, “Got it. Yeah, he’s a French National. He has an apartment in Avignon. I’m not sure—”

“Got it,” Jacob interrupted. “His father was Jacques Bouchard, a French land developer who died from cancer due to asbestos poisoning when Remy was twelve. His mother was Lilyana, nee Yaneva, a Bulgarian national who married Jacques and moved to Paris with him before Remy was born.”

“Got it. Okay, so we have our guy. What else does it say about him?”

“From my end, not much. It tells me that his mother died…” Jacob’s eyes widened. “She died just over eight years ago when a gas line exploded under her sister’s home in Sofia. The gas leak was attributed to poor maintenance of the lines along with a few underhanded deals that allowed Sofia to avoid upgrading to more environmentally sustainable systems. Looks like they got their act together after that accident, but it was too late for Remy’s mother and aunt.”

“Damn. That’s terrible.”

“It is. And the timing fits. According to what I’m seeing here, he left Chimie Versailles three weeks after his mother’s funeral.” Jacob tapped his finger on the desk. Do a search for him in French records. See if he has any kind of criminal history.”

Stockton’s fingers flew over the keys. Jacob’s excitement grew as he reviewed the information in front of him. It could all be coincidental, but Jacob didn’t believe in coincidences, certainly not so many all at once.

No, Remy Bouchard was their man. He was sure of it.

His feelings were validated a moment later when Stockton said, “Oh yeah. This guy’s got a rap sheet.”

Jacob pushed his chair closer to Stockton’s. “Yeah? Do tell.”

“Vandalism, public intoxication, disturbing the peace, a few cases of assault. It looks like our boy went to some government buildings in Sofia and Paris and threw paint on people and signs. According to him, it was a protest against the pigheaded and naïve environmental policies that did nothing to protect the environment or the people who lived on Earth. In Sofia, he added the point that the city wasn’t even following the policies it had. He got slaps on the wrist each time. Environmental protests are pretty common in Europe, and governments tend to look the other way unless it's a large-scale demonstration. Even then, it's a lot of bark and very little bite."

Jacob frowned. “Until one of the protestors goes completely off of the deep end. Anything else noteworthy from Bouchard’s end?”

“Well, it looks like he ended up finding friends.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. A woman named Myra Georgiou, an ex-Greek Army Special Forces operator, and a man named Yorel Preston. I’d be willing to bet… yep. Take a look.”

He turned his monitor to Jacob. Myra Georgiou, apparently, was the woman who had led the attack on Mount Olympus.

“And Preston… is the son of the former CEO of Preston Pharmaceuticals. He was disowned by his father for whistleblowing on Preston’s poor waste management practices. In an interview with the Athens Herald, he said that people like his father were stains on the Earth and deserved to be wiped out. He suggested that activists should take on the role of white blood cells and purge Earth of this disease.”

“Sounds like a well-adjusted guy.”

"Right? Get this, too. His father's company was bought by Pfizer's International Division, but Yorel bought the production facility here in Athens. Pfizer decided it wasn’t worth the cost to modernize it, so they put it on the market and Yorel snapped it up.”

“So in other words, Gaia might have a place to synthesize the poison.”

“Assuming the building and its equipment is still serviceable, yes.”

“Good. We know our next moves then. Do you have assets in France who can check on Remy’s apartment?”

“Yep. I’ll make a call.”

“Do that. Then put a team together. I want to raid this Preston Pharmaceuticals building and see if we can learn anything there. Better put the team in hazmat suits just in case.”

“I’ll get it done.” Stockton grinned at Jake. “Hell yeah. We finally have a real lead.”

Jacob was in high spirits as he suited up for the upcoming raid. Up until now, Gaia’s Vengeance had seemed almost unstoppable. Now that he knew who its members were, it seemed just like any other terrorist organization: a collection of angry and insane people who thought they could solve their problems by killing people.

Jacob was very, very good at stopping terrorists.

“All right,” Stockton said when the strike team was assembled. “We’re ready to go kick some ass.”

“Outstanding,” Jacob replied. “Let’s go chop this Gorgon’s head off.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Remy wore a scowl as he paced the small office in downtown Sofia. He hadn’t heard from Myra in two days. She should have reported by now. He hadn’t heard anything that suggested she and her team had been arrested or killed, but it made him nervous. If something had happened to the assault team, then Gaia’s Vengeance would be seriously disadvantaged in case of a run-in with police. Yorel had security assets here in Sofia, but Myra’s team represented half of their total fighting force. If they were gone…

“Will you quit your pacing?” Yorel griped. “You’re making me nervous.”

“You should be nervous,” Remy said. “We’re in a lot of trouble if Myra’s been compromised.”

“No, we aren’t. Myra is loyal. She’s been trained to resist torture as well.”

“Yes, but that’s half of our security force gone.”

“They’ve been trained to resist torture too. They won’t tell anyone.”

Remy turned his scowl to his companion. “I also don’t want them to die.”

“We accepted that some of us might die. We accepted that we might die. That happens sometimes when you fight for what is right.”

Remy looked away, staring out the window at the lights of the city. Outside, one and a quarter million people were busily preparing for their evening. Workers were returning home to greet their families, children were eagerly sharing stories about their day, and lovers were coming together in their love and desire.

Over a million people, and within twenty-four hours, they would all be gone. Just like his mother.

“Perhaps we should wait,” he said, “or pick a smaller target. Something not so…” He couldn’t find the word, so once more he let his voice trail off.

He heard the soft purr of Yorel’s office chair wheels as the Israeli American businessman got to his feet. A moment later, he felt Yorel’s hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Remy. Our cause is just. I know you don't believe in fate as I do, but we've suffered no setbacks in our mission. We'll succeed tomorrow. The world will know that we are a threat that should not be taken lightly. They'll have to acquiesce to our demands. Perhaps not all of them. But the ones that matter most.”

“They won’t kill their elderly. I told you at the beginning they would not do that.”

“So they don’t kill their elderly. They’ll pay the balance when we wipe another city off of the map, then another, then another.”

Remy’s scowl deepened. “This gas kills animals too, Yorel. How far can we take this before we do more damage than we remedy?”

Yorel removed his hand. "You're emotional right now. That's understandable. We've probably lost Myra. We stand on the cusp of our greatest action yet. And, of course, you lost your mother here. I don't blame you for feeling as you do. But you must know that it's foolish to think anything we do can harm the planet more than those we punish. You'll see, Remy. When the governments of the world finally bend to our will, and Gaia begins to heal herself, you'll see. We're doing the right thing."

Remy took a deep breath and released it slowly. He turned to his friend and managed a smile. “Yes. Of course we are. I’m only anxious because we’re so close to the day.”

Yorel smiled and clapped Remy on the shoulder again. “One more night, my friend. Then we deliver our justice.”

Remy nodded. “You have the clearances necessary?”

“Vasil has the IDs for us. The uniforms I have in a storage closet downstairs. As for the agent, the sealed canisters we have will suffice. We’ll connect it to a pressure washer and say that we’re a cleaning crew. The pressure washer will allow us to inject the agent into the water supply without risking evaporation.”

Despite Herculean efforts, Remy had been unable to find a way to liquefy the agent without dropping the temperature to near-absolute zero. He had, however, been able to alter the inert components so that it retained its liquid state in water regardless of temperature. There were questions about the efficacy of the resultant solution, but even the most conservative estimates put the fatality rate at well over fifty percent. As Yorel had said, this would work.

But did Remy want it to?

The question was so shocking that Remy spent the journey to his hotel in a fugue. He went through the motions of making and eating dinner, showering, brushing his teeth and preparing for bed, but when he lay in his bed, his eyes remained open.

He stared at the ceiling and reminded himself of why he was doing this. His father, reduced to a frail, paper-thin shell and forced to take his final breaths through a plastic tube, his body consumed by the cancer that could have been avoided had he chosen nearly anything but asbestos to use for his ceilings. His mother and aunt, blown to pieces then incinerated because the city council would rather purchase new luxury sedans then ensure that the pipes they used for their gas utility were able to protect against fumes and leaks.

Thousands dead every year due to poor environmental policies that prioritized money over effectiveness. Destruction of the rainforests that gave oxygen to the atmosphere. Species wiped out wholesale by developers seeking tourists rather than harmony with nature.

Their cause was just. Their cause was right.

But as Remy lay awake, his head was filled not with images of a beautiful green Earth but by images of the screaming dead. Perhaps he should take it as a comfort that their screams would be quickly cut off by the effects of the Medusa agent.

Instead, a pit grew in his stomach, as hard as though Medusa herself saw into his heart and found it wanting.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Dose yourself with the antidote! Now!”

Jana didn’t need Fiona’s reminder to quickly take the syringe and inject the antidote into her arm. She felt a sting as the needle entered her arm, then another as she pulled it free. A drop of blood welled at the injection site. Jana stared at it, struck by the deep red color.

It was strange. She’d risked her life so many times before. Maybe it was knowing that this risk was at her own hands that made it seem so much more visceral. She fixated on the blood and wondered that a gallon of the deep red liquid flowed through her, carrying nutrients and toxins alike to the most far-flung extremities of her body.

She flexed her hand and released it slowly. Her muscles seemed sluggish and stiff. Was that the toxin, or was it her mind playing tricks on her?

Robert coughed and grunted, “There it is.”

Jana turned to him and saw his knuckles white on the arms of his chair. His neck strained, and his eyes bulged slightly. A blade of fear sliced through Jana, intensified when she tried to swallow and found her throat constricted.

Oh God. It didn’t work.

She swallowed again, and the spittle remained stuck at the top of her throat. Her heart struggled to pump, and her lungs ached with the effort of breathing.

She thought of Jacob, and panic filled her, turning her stomach and widening her eyes.

She’d never get to start a family with him. She’d never get to build a home with him. Not a real home, anyway. She’d never grow old with him, never see his smile again, never feel his arms wrap around her, never taste his kiss on her lips.

This was the life she had chosen. This was the oath she had taken. This was the sacrifice she knew she might one day have to make.

But in that moment, she wished desperately that she hadn’t made it. She wished with her whole being that she had ignored the allure of danger and excitement and stayed home where they could blind themselves to the dangers that lurked in the shadows and leave others to fight the monsters prowling through the darkness.

But even as she thought that, she knew that she would never have been happy with that choice. Guilt would have spread through her more insidiously than the Medusa agent spread through her now until it consumed her.

She had made her choice, and as terrible as it was, it was the only choice she could have made. Her only real regret was that she had been too afraid to call Jacob before this. Looking back, she realized that she was afraid that he would have talked her out of it.

It would be up to him now. There was no antidote. He had to stop the terrorists and capture the rest of the Medusa agent before they could kill anyone else.

She tried to swallow again, but her throat wouldn’t move. Her heart thumped one last time, then stilled.

I’m sorry, Jacob. I love you.

She used the last of her strength to close her eyes so her last memory could be of his smile rather than the horrified looks on the faces of the Division chemists.

Then her heart beat. Once. Twice. Then a third and fourth time. She gasped, drawing in a lungful of beautiful, clean air. Her fingers slowly uncurled, and when she swallowed, her throat relaxed.

She opened her eyes and turned to Robert. His throat was no longer so stiff, his knuckles no longer white. He blinked and drew a ragged breath, then turned to Jana. He smiled at her, then said hoarsely, “Looks like we’ve done it.”

She grinned, and joy filled her, stronger by far than the fear and grief it replaced. "Hell yeah."

“Woohoo!” Fiona cheered.

Jana turned toward her to see the chemist’s hands upraised in victory. The other two clapped and cheered along with her. Jana chuckled and lifted her own hand in a thumbs up.

She’d get to see Jacob again.

“Okay,” Fiona said. “Let’s get you two out of there. Shane, get them some water.”

Shane popped to his feet and rushed from the room, elation lending a bounce to his step. Jana got up slowly, grimacing as her muscles gradually released the tension the Medusa agent had given them.

Robert pulled her into an embrace and gave her a brotherly kiss on the top of her head. “Damned good job, Dr. Peters.”

“You too, Dr. Bledshaw.”

Fiona opened the test chamber door and helped the two of them back into the room. Anna removed their monitors, and Shane handed them fresh glasses of ice-cold water.

Jana sipped deeply, sighing with relief as the cool water abated the heat coursing through her body. She hadn’t realized that her temperature was elevated until gratitude at having that temperature reduced filled her.

“God,” she whispered. “That was terrible.”

“It sure didn’t look fun,” Fiona agreed.

“Would it be bad to say that I’ve felt worse?” Robert asked.

“I mean, I’ve felt worse too,” Jana commiserated, “But I don’t think I’d like to repeat that experience.”

The chemists looked a little green, hearing the two field agents talk about suffering worse than the Medusa agent. Shane swore softly under his breath and shared a look with Anna.

Fiona cleared her throat and said, “All right. We’ve got some preliminary results here. It looks like the antidote acts about as fast as the Medusa agent.”

“That’s good.”

“It is,” Fiona agreed, “but it also means that for the antidote to work, it’ll have to be administered right away.”

“That would be true regardless, wouldn’t it?” Robert asked. “The Medusa agent acts quickly, so the antidote would have to be given right away regardless of how fast it metabolizes.”

“True,” Fiona allowed. “What we don’t know is when the cutoff is. You two took the antidote within ten seconds of inhaling the agent, but you two still nearly died. The Medusa agent doesn’t always act so quickly in liquid form, but sometimes it does.”

“Do we know how the antidote behaves in water?”

“It behaves the same. The acid will bond to the alkaline of the Medusa poison whenever it interacts with it. Assuming we can put an equivalent dose of the antidote into whatever solution Gaia’s Vengeance is using for Medusa, it should be completely neutralized, even if it’s not in a human body.”

“If I hear you correctly,” Jana said. “That means we need to try to get ahead of them and get the antidote established before they can hit people with the poison.”

Fiona nodded slowly. “Yes. That would be best.”

Jana took a breath. Her body felt normal now. It would be a moment or two before her mind caught up, but she no longer felt any of the poison’s effects. “All right. How fast can we make more of this?”

“Well…” Fiona bit her lip. “That’s the kicker.”

Jana frowned. “What’s the kicker?”

“Based on our preliminary estimates, it would take us twelve hours to make a gallon of antidote.”

Robert cursed softly. “That’s not nearly fast enough.”

“What’s the bottleneck in the process?” Jana asked.

“Well, the acid from those goosefoot plants is ridiculously strong. It’s at least twenty-five times stronger than any plant-based acid we’ve ever discovered. Honestly, if you two didn’t have the Medusa agent in you, then the antidote would have melted you two from the inside.”

Robert frowned. “So we’re poisoning people to save them from poison.”

“Yes. That’s the bottleneck. We can’t just inject people with acid like we did with you. The dose we gave you two was specifically calculated to match the dose of poison you two inhaled. In order to deploy the antidote on a large scale, we need to mix it with a carrier agent that will allow it to bind to the Medusa poison but prevent it from corroding benign tissues.”

“Have you identified a carrier agent?”

“Yes. It’s a soluble wax we’ve engineered that we’ve named Gummy Bear.”

Jana lifted her eyebrow. “Gummy Bear?”

“Shane picked the name.”

Shane pumped his fist, and Anna rolled her eyes.

“So you can synthesize the antidote quickly,” Jana surmised, “but synthesizing Gummy Bear takes a while.”

“Yes. We start with paraffin, then refine it using multiple steps, some of which involve chemicals that we’re not supposed to talk about.”

Jana’s lips thinned for a moment, but now wasn’t the time to start obsessing over the Division’s secrets again. “Okay. Well, two gallons a day isn’t going to be enough to catch up to the amount of Medusa Gaia’s Vengeance has. We need to call the Curator and get him to devote every ounce of Division resources to producing this antidote. We’ve already taken far too long developing our countermeasures. Gaia’s Vengeance could strike at any moment.”

“I’ll make the call,” Robert said.

While Robert dialed, Jana sent Jacob a text. I love you, Jacob. I love you so much.

She hesitated before pressing send, but there wasn’t anything more to say, really. That conveyed all of her feelings for him perfectly. She could explain what prompted the text later. That would probably be a longer conversation anyway. She doubted he’d be happy to learn that she’d decided to nominate herself as the sacrificial lamb for their antidote test.

She smiled softly, already anticipating her own response. You would have done the same thing.

Then he would frown, grit his teeth and finally roll his eyes and grudgingly admit, Yes, but it’s different.

Then she’d press him to explain exactly how it was different, and he’d get more and more upset until she kissed him. Then they’d… well, they’d celebrate the fact that both of them were alive.

“All right,” Robert said. “Fiona, you have all of the chemical labs of the Division at your disposal. The Curator will send a meeting link to your personal computer so you can issue instructions to the other chemists. Obviously, we need to get started right away.”

Fiona’s eyes widened, awed by the power and the responsibility suddenly granted her. “Of… of course. Um…” she blinked, squared her shoulders, then finished with impressive authority. “Shane, Anna, prepare to synthesize the antidote solution. Call the commissary first and tell them to send us two days’ worth of food, water and caffeine. If they don’t hear from us before the end of those two days, they’re to send two more days. I’ll repeat these instructions for every chemical lab.” She smiled at Jana and Robert. “You two are welcome to stay if you’d like. On the other hand, if work pulls you away, may I say it’s been the highlight of my career to work with the two of you.”

“We’ll stay for now,” Jana said. “When we have enough antidote to ship, we’ll get it where it needs to go.”

Fiona nodded, then sat at her desk and put her headset on.

Robert lifted his glass of water. “To a successful end.”

She touched her glass and said, "To stop those bastards."

The two of them drank. Robert set his glass down and said, “So what happens when we put a stop to the Medusa agent?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

He shifted his feet, a little uncomfortable. “Well… I feel that there’s a considerable tension between us now.”

“Are you asking if we’ll still be friends after this?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. I suppose I am.”

Jana laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’re still friends now, Robert. No one’s comfortable with the situation. Jacob and I are used to being the top dogs. We’re not the top dogs anymore, and that grates a little, I won’t lie.”

She lowered her voice just in case anyone was listening in. “And you know, the whole thing with the Division being good or evil or neutral… it bothers us too. You said that you have reason to trust them now. Can you share that reason with me?”

Robert sighed. “Suffice it to say that I now believe that while the Curator might be more concerned with his legacy than with the world’s safety, the Division’s mission is a good one. And I don’t think they’re competing over who gets to take over the world with other organizations. I thought that because the Curator had a rivalry with Harlow, but I don’t think the Curator saw it as a rivalry between potential kings. I think he wants credit for all of the times we’ve protected the world.”

He met her eyes. “But we are protecting the world. I believe that now. The world isn’t ready to have access to all of the secrets of the Ancients. This episode with the Medusa Agent is only the latest in a long history of events that demonstrate that point.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Really okay, or you just want the conversation to end okay?”

She smiled ruefully. “Okay, I trust you. I still don’t trust the Division, but I trust you. If you say that the Division is the brighter side of the coin, then for the time being, we’re on their side. But we’re always on your side. No matter what.”

He returned her smile. “That’s good enough for me.”

The two of them sat in the two empty chairs. Jana sent Jacob another text. Antidote works. Working on making more now. Call as soon as destination is determined. She added another I love you, then sent the text. Then she settled in to watch the chemists busy themselves stockpiling the antidote that would counter Medusa and stop Gaia’s Vengeance.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Jacob held his hand up with three fingers extended. He lowered them one at a time, then pumped his fist.

There was a muffled thump, and then the door to the Preston Pharmaceuticals facility tilted backward, its hinges blown off by the shaped charges the Division team had set. Two agents caught the door and quietly moved it to the side while the rest of the team entered the building.

The building was dark, so the team lit their flashlights and swung them around the building. They were on a massive factory floor with equipment that Jacob didn't recognize, spanning the distance in length and breadth. There were huge drums arranged in a circle, massive brick-shaped machines that could have been ovens, and giant centrifuges and microscopes. Giant vats and beakers were scattered in between the various instruments. It looked like they had walked onto some enormous chemistry set.

Which was pretty much exactly what they had done.

The team moved cautiously through the floor, looking for any sign of life. There was none. The factory was clean, and there was a negligible amount of dust on the equipment, so it had been clearly used recently.

But it was empty now. Gaia’s Vengeance had been here, but they had left. They were too late.

When they cleared the last portion of the facility, Jacob lowered his rifle and swore. “They’re gone. They’ve already left.”

“Look around the facility,” Stockton instructed the team. “We need anything that might tell us where they went.”

The team immediately split up in pairs to look for clues. It was nice to see them so professional, but it would have been a lot nicer to see shocked terrorists begging for mercy while Jacob and Stockton’s team confiscated the Medusa agent.

“They left recently,” Stockton told him. “The factory’s clean, and the machines look to be in good running order.”

“Recently doesn’t mean crap,” Jacob groused. “You can get anywhere on the planet in twenty-four hours.”

Stockton frowned. “Yeah, I know. I was trying to keep the mood light.”

“The mood won’t be light until I know where the hell the terrorists are.”

“So let’s look for them,” Stockton replied. “They must have left some clue as to their destination.”

Jacob joined Stockton, but he didn’t share the man’s optimism. The fact was that Gaia’s Vengeance didn’t have to have left any clues. They could have left absolutely nothing behind. If Jacob was leading them, he would have made sure they left nothing behind. He supposed they could get forensics experts to look for tire tracks or something, but that wouldn’t do much more than tell them which way they turned when they pulled onto the road.

Keep it together, Jacob, he told himself. It’s not over ‘til it’s over.

He chuckled softly at that. His high school's football coach used to say that when the team was heading into the second half, down by three touchdowns. It worked for some of the players, but Jacob was too aware of the odds to be cheered by that pithy statement.

Of course, Jacob had also led the team from behind by just such a score to win the state championship, so maybe it had worked better than he remembered.

His phone buzzed. Jana.

I love you, Jacob. I love you so much.

One of the best things about Jana was that she could somehow lift him from the darkest depths of despair to the highest peaks of joy with nothing more than a smile, a touch, or a statement just like this one. He felt his spirits lift as he read her text and smiled softly.

He started to text her back when Stockton said, “I’ve got something.”

Jacob looked up to see Stockton sitting in front of a computer terminal in front of a seven-foot-by-seven-foot-by-seven-foot Plexiglas cube. A Word document was opened on the computer with French text under bold-faced headings organized by date.

Jacob put his phone away and approached him. “What do you have?”

“It looks like Remy Bouchard’s diary.”

Hope flared in Jacob’s heart. “Wonderful. Anything helpful?”

"So far, no. He has a very flowery style of prose. Most of this is a poetic celebration of the victory that Gaia's Vengeance will soon enjoy. A few scattered references to Greek myths. Nothing that tells me where they might be planning to unleash Medusa."

"Start from the most recent entries and work backward," Jacob said. "Maybe we'll find something that way."

Stockton clicked a few times and reached the end of the diary. Jacob—who was fluent in French—read over his shoulder. Both men widened their eyes when they read the final entry.

"Tomorrow, I will finally get my Vengeance. I will finally repay those who stole my family from me. I'll watch them, with hate and glee in my eyes, as they writhe and twist and beg on the ground. I'll watch them shrivel and die and vanish, and the blood debt will be repaid."

My Vengeance. Not Gaia's Vengeance, my Vengeance. Remy Bouchard's Vengeance.

That could mean Paris, where his father died, but Remy had lived a fairly normal life after his father’s death. It wasn’t until his mother died that he lost control and fell off the deep end.

“Sofia,” Jacob whispered.

“He’s paying them back for killing his mother,” Stockton agreed.

The two men shared a look. “We have our destination,” Jacob said.

“And no time to waste,” Stockton said. “This entry was written early this morning. Tomorrow will be in…” he checked his watch. “About five hours.”

“How soon can we get to Sofia?” Jacob asked.

"If we travel by helicopter, then about three hours, including the time it will take to get the bird over here."

That would leave them only two hours to find Gaia’s Vengeance. Not much of a margin of error.

“Call the bird and get the team together,” Jacob instructed. “We know they’re targeting the water supply. We’ll identify targets on the way there.”

“On it.”

Jacob’s phone buzzed. Another text from Jana. Antidote works. Working on making more now. Call as soon as destination is determined. I love you.

Now, that was a silver lining.

He dialed her phone, and a moment later, her cheerful voice replied, “Hi, baby! How are you?”

He smiled. “Well, hearing your voice is pretty damned amazing. However, we’re also under a bit of a time crunch.”

When Jana replied, much of her cheer had gone. “How much of a time crunch?”

“About five hours.”

She hesitated a moment, then swore. “Any chance that can become twenty-five hours?”

He chuckled anxiously. “No, not really. We figured out what Gaia’s Vengeance is planning.”

“You have? What?”

“Well, the condensed version is that Gaia’s Vengeance is led by the leader of the terrorists we killed on Mount Olympus, the disowned son of an American expat who owns a pharmaceutical warehouse in Athens, and an insane former chemist. The chemist’s mother was blown up in a gas leak in Sofia eight years ago because the city council at the time didn’t comply with environmental regulations and didn’t upgrade their inadequate gas system.”

Jana made the leap. “And they’re going to Sofia?”

“They’re probably already there. And they’re planning to hit Sofia’s water supply tomorrow.”

“Crap. Okay. Um… shit.”

“Not very encouraging, Jana.”

“I know, I know. Crap. Okay, well, we’re working on an antidote, but I don’t know if we can get enough of it to get it to Sofia by tomorrow. We’ll do our best, but you need to get over there and stop them as fast as you can.”

Jacob could hear the distant chop of helicopter rotors. “We’re working on it,” he said. “Stockton says three hours, but I think we can make it in two. We’ll look for targets and get moving.”

“Okay. Keep me posted. I love you.”

“I love you too.” He softened his voice. “Hey, are you all right? Not that I’m complaining about all the love, but is everything okay?”

She hesitated a second, then said, “Everything’s okay. I’ll tell you all about it later. Let’s just make sure there is a later.”

Stockton signaled Jacob that the helicopter was landing. “Right there with you, Jana.”

He hung up and followed the team outside. The next few hours would determine the fate of the world.

In other words, it was just another day at work.

***

“We have a problem,” Stockton said.

Jacob looked out the window of the helicopter and swore. Police vehicles surrounded the helipad, including SWAT vehicles. Jacob guessed there were probably close to fifty officers there.

“I thought you said the police were given a cover story for our arrival,” Jacob said.

“I guess they didn’t buy it,” Stockton growled.

“Well, we need to get them to let us through ASAP,” Jacob replied. “It’s going to take us at least a half hour to get to the water treatment facility.”

On the helicopter, the team had determined that Sofia’s central water treatment facility was the most likely to be targeted because all of the city’s potable water ran through there, including tap water for faucets, toilets, showers and swimming pools. Anyone who washed their hands or took a shower after the Medusa agent was administered would be infected with it.

“Okay,” Stockton said. “We’re going to do something very risky.”

Jacob frowned. “You’re not thinking of fighting your way through them, are you?”

“No. I’m thinking of throwing a bunch of smoke grenades and letting you sneak through while we remain behind. When the smoke clears, I’ll make sure we’re entrenched, and then we’ll start talking to them. I have credentials that can prove I’m U.S. government, and we have the evidence that Gaia’s Vengeance is here to contaminate their water supply. Even if they don’t believe us, the risk is so great that they’ll have to at least take precautions.”

“We hope,” Jacob said. “They don’t seem to have the best track record at precautions.”

“Which is why you’re going to get to that water treatment facility ASAP. If Gaia’s Vengeance is there, do whatever you can to stop them.”

Jacob sighed. “Once more, we’re hoping for a miracle.”

“Sometimes that’s all we have.”

The helicopter touched down. A police officer shouted instructions through a megaphone. Jacob didn’t speak Bulgarian, but he imagined it was some version of “Come out with your hands up!”

Jacob issued instructions to the team, then said, “All right. On my mark.”

The side door of the helicopter opened. Police approached in riot gear, weapons drawn. They shouted at the team, and Stockton said to Jacob, “Go through the rear.” Then he called, “Now!”

The team through their smoke grenades. Within seconds, the helipad was completely obscured. Bullets pinged into the helicopter as the police panicked.

The rear door of the helicopter opened, and Jacob sprinted for the exit. He jumped outside and kept low. Bullets whizzed over him, and the smoke made it impossible to see how close he was to the police cordon.

He ended up nearly running into a SWAT officer. The cop cursed and swung his weapon toward Jacob, but Jacob moved faster, drawing his own gun and clubbing the officer on the back of the head with it.

Jacob didn’t wait for anyone else to notice him. He kept running, and when he left the cloud of smoke behind, he found himself at the fence bordering the airport. He quickly scaled it and dropped to the other side, narrowly avoiding the razor wire that topped the chain link.

Then he was on his feet again. He would need to find a vehicle somehow and then get to the treatment facility as fast as he could.

His phone buzzed as he moved away from the airport. A text from Jana. We’ve got one hundred twenty gallons of antidote, but it’s going to take a while to get it to Sofia. Trying to gather as much as we can to bring a portion of it to you ASAP.

He sighed and replied rather lamely, Do your best.

That would have to be enough. If not, then Jacob would have a front-row seat to the annihilation of a city of over one million people.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Jacob ran along the outside of the airport, looking for a maintenance or rental parking lot somewhere nearby. A lot of times, rental fleets left their keys in their vehicles, trusting in the lot’s security to protect them. The practice wasn’t common in the United States anymore, but Jacob would have to hope that things were a little more old-fashioned in Sofia.

He found a lot with multiple vehicles of different makes parked. A lone security officer stood guard, distracted by the commotion taking place on the helipad. Jacob moved swiftly, catching the officer from behind and putting him in a sleeper hold.

When the man lost consciousness, Jacob set him down and ran to the nearest vehicle. It was a Peugeot sedan that Jacob recognized as a common economy model. That was just fine with him. It would be relatively anonymous.

He hopped into the driver’s seat and breathed a sigh of relief when he found the key in the cupholder. He started the vehicle and pulled onto the road.

The sky to the east was beginning to lighten. He didn’t have long. He wanted to gun the little motor for all it was worth, but while the Peugeot wasn’t the fastest car on the planet, exceeding the speed limit would attract attention Jacob didn’t want and slow him down even more.

So, with the fate of the world resting in his hands, Jacob drove sedately through traffic, stopping at every stop sign and putting his blinker on before turning down the next street. Apparently, the Bulgarians preferred to drive slower than they walked because every damned speed limit was fifty kilometers per hour or slower.

How the hell is this the fastest route? Jacob thought, staring incredulously at his GPS.

Maybe tomorrow didn’t mean first thing tomorrow. Maybe Gaia’s Vengeance would wait until later in the day to contaminate the water supply. After all, most people showered at night, right? They’d want to wait until their attack could affect the most people.

Jacob was far from comforted by that desperate rationalization.

"Screw this," he muttered as he turned onto a main highway. The speed limit here, thankfully, was eighty kilometers per hour. Still damned slow compared to the speed limits in the U.S. but enough that there was at least some sensation of movement instead of sitting down and picking his teeth while the world hurtled to oblivion.

Come on, come on, come on.

He glanced at the GPS, then cursed at the incremental change in ETA. God, this sucks.

His anxiety only grew during the drive, and when he finally parked just outside of the water treatment plant, he broke his personal record for the forty-yard dash getting into the building.

The door opened easily, and no alarms went off. That was a good sign.

The receptionist and security guard were dead on the floor in the foyer. That was not a good sign. The terrorists were here.

He typed a text to Jana. Terrorists at water treatment facility. He added the GPS coordinates of his location and hit send.

An error message popped up. MESSAGE NOT SENT. He tried again and got the same message, then checked his network connection. No bars. Either there was no signal up here, or there was, and the terrorists were jamming it.

Well, Stockton knew where the plant was. He could tell Jana.

Jacob shouldered his rifle and continued on. There was a large map of the facility just around the corner with emergency exits highlighted. He studied it for a moment and decided the terrorists were most likely heading for the central tank. All of the water came into and out of that tank.

He moved down the hallway, his footsteps echoing through the walls. He called upon his Army Ranger training to soften his footsteps, but since speed was critical, he couldn’t completely mute his progress.

Well, if the terrorists were trying to kill him, they wouldn’t be trying to poison the water supply, so that might work out.

The facility was far larger than it appeared from the outside. Or maybe it only felt that way because Jacob was desperate to find Gaia’s Vengeance and stop them before it was too late. Either way, it felt like an eternity before he reached the door to the room where the central tank was housed.

This door was unlocked as well. The terrorists must not have anticipated pursuit because they didn’t lock the doors behind them.

He pushed it open and saw the terrorists.

There were maybe thirty of them, six people in gray coveralls and two dozen in black body armor like the outfits worn by the terrorist fighters on Mount Olympus. They stood in a loose clump on a platform in front of the massive steel cylinder that dominated the central of the enormous room. They really hadn’t expected pursuit.

The problem was that Jacob was one person, and there were thirty of them. If they all stood still with their hands behind their backs, he would have to empty all three of his rifle clips to have a good chance of killing all of them.

He should have brought some of the team with him. He should have told Stockton to keep half the Division team and taken five agents with him.

But then his progress would have been slowed considerably. Maybe he wouldn’t have made it in time.

Had he made it in time? He snapped himself out of his funk and looked at the men in gray maintenance coveralls. They manipulated a huge cart on which stood six massive cylinders. The cylinders appeared to be about thirty gallons each, but it was hard to tell. They could be very thick-walled and maybe half that size, or they could be thin-walled and contain twice that much.

Tubes ran from nozzles on the tops of each container, converging in a thick hose that looked more like an overgrown garden hose than a fire hose. Why Jacob made that connection, he couldn't say. He followed that hose, and his heart stopped when he saw two of the terrorists carefully fit it to a valve on the water tank.

He was out of time. It was now or never.

He raised his rifle and aimed at the cylinders, then fired.

The cylinders, it turned out, were very thick-walled. At least a dozen rounds ricocheted off of the sturdy metal, dropping four of the black-clad shoulders and one of the men in coveralls. The others turned to Jacob in shock, and he hissed, “Come on,” holding his position as the enemy raised their weapons.

Finally, just as his clip emptied, a sharp pop sounded, and green gas started leaking into the air from the crack Jacob had opened into one of the cylinders. He threw himself to the floor just before a volley of fire turned the wall behind him into Swiss cheese.

The terrorists cried out, and one by one, they forgot about shooting at him and fled from the gas. Jacob popped a new clip into his rifle and fired at the ones that approached him, but his own heart pounded in fear as well. They had brought hazmat suits with them, but Jacob’s suit was still on the helicopter.

Of course I wouldn’t think to suit up before flying out here. Damn it, Jacob.

The leak was tiny, barely a pinprick, but the gas spread fast, just as it had on Pachia when a single jar killed the dig team. Within seconds, it would reach him.

Already, it was affecting the terrorists. The survivors in coveralls appeared fine, but the soldiers were stiffening and collapsing to the floor, coughing and gasping as Medusa turned their insides to stone.

Jacob watched as two of the gray-clad terrorists looked uncertainly at two terrorists who stood a few feet apart from the others. One of them, a tall, barrel-chested man, gestured angrily. Reluctantly, they finished attaching the hose.

Jacob lifted his rifle and fired. The terrorist jumped as a bullet pierced his neck, but before he fell, he cried out and grabbed the lever on top of the hose. As he fell, he pulled it backward. Jacob watched in horror as the leak reduced considerably, the pressure released by the hose as the contents of the cylinders began to invade Sofia’s water supply.

He cried out, enraged by his fear, and cut down the remaining black-clad terrorists. A few managed to fire at him before they succumbed to his bullets and the Medusa that now covered half of the room, but the shots went wide, their aim compromised by the stiffness of their muscles.

Jacob turned his aim to the gray clad individuals. Three of them died before they could reach cover, but the two leaders dove behind the canisters of Medusa. Jacob emptied the rest of his clip into the canisters and started more leaks, but it wasn’t enough.

He replaced the clip and aimed at the hose instead. The smoke was only ten yards from him now and approaching steadily. He fired at the hose, and a jet of green liquid shot out, evaporating into gas as it escaped, creating an effect that reminded Jacob disturbingly of the flamethrowers on Mount Olympus.

One of the leaders popped his head up and stared in horror at the compromised hose. Jacob fired quickly, but the man pulled himself to safety just in time, and the bullet crashed harmlessly into the far wall.

The jets of green from the hose were weakening, but Jacob had no way of knowing how much Medusa had made it into the system and how much was still being injected. He needed to remove that hose.

Here goes nothing. He took a deep breath and ran toward the canisters. When he entered the cloud of Medusa, his skin began to tingle. He had no idea how much of that was due to the poison and how much was a psychological reaction. What he knew was that he had to kill those terrorists and stop that hose as soon as he could. Then he would have to hope that Stocker could convince Sofia Police to shut off water to the city and that Jana could get enough antidote here fast enough that she could counter the effect of the poison.

In the meantime, he had to hope he could survive long enough to do all of this. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that holding his breath would completely block the poison from entering his body, but if it could keep him alive long enough to save the city, that would be enough.

Time seemed to slow as he crossed the distance to the valve. His life flashed before his eyes, and he noted with a strange detachment that it wasn’t the clear, video-like progression he expected. It was more like brief images that moved like a slideshow across his vision.

He held the state championship trophy above his head while the linemen lifted him onto their shoulders. He swore his oath as he enlisted in the Army. He dropped into combat for the first time.

He saw Aaron approaching, hands uplifted while Jacob snarled and threatened him in the mountains of Afghanistan. He came back home, unsure how he would ever rebuild his life again.

He met Jana for the first time, an arrogant, angry young woman who would never forgive him for stealing the love she hadn’t felt from Aaron. He met her the second time, older, wiser and still arrogant as she insisted on helping him defeat the Sword of the Righteous.

He kissed her, her soft, cool lips pressing against his. He held her in his arms as the two of them made love. He laughed with her while they sat in front of the fireplace in their Virginia safehouse.

He would never see her again.

His lip trembled, but he steeled himself. This was the sacrifice he had always known he might one day have to make. He would go to that end the way Jana would want him to, proud and strong.

Fire lashed through his abdomen. His vision snapped back to the present, and he stared in shock at the terrorist standing in front of him, smoke rising from the barrel of his handgun.

The world canted sideways, and when Jacob hit the ground, he finally gasped. Medusa slithered into his lungs, and Jacob watched in horror as the man who had shot him kicked his rifle away, then fitted a spare hose to the canisters of poison.

You idiot, he thought. You stupid idiot. You lost your focus, and now you’re going to spend your last moments watching them win. You complete and utter fool.

The two men approached the tank with the new hose, and Jacob’s hope died within him.

He wouldn't go to his end, making Jana proud. He would go, leaving her with the mess that he had failed to clean up.

I’m sorry, Jana. I’m so sorry.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Jana read Jacob’s clipped text and tried to determine the meaning for it. Do your best was pretty self-explanatory, but why so curt? Was he in trouble? Was he already engaging Gaia’s Vengeance? Had he lost hope, and the brief, three-word encouragement was all he could come up with?

Robert swore and slammed the room’s phone onto the hook. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed heavily, slumping forward in his chair.

The chemists looked at him with ashen faces. Clearly, he hadn’t received good news.

“What is it, Robert?” Jana asked, her terse voice betraying her anxiety.

Robert dragged his fingers over his face, then said tonelessly. “It’ll be twenty-four hours before the antidote can get here in full.”

“We don’t have twenty-four hours,” Jana replied.

“Really?” Robert snapped. “You don’t say? And here I thought I was giving you good news.”

Jana narrowed her eyes, and Robert sighed. “I’m sorry. I just…”

“We’re all under pressure,” Jana said, calming herself. “But we all have to fight through it. Fiona, how much antidote can we get in the next hour?”

“Um… let me make some calls. We have labs in a few nearby countries that might be able to get to us quickly.”

While she made the calls, Jana tried calling Jacob. No answer. He must have lost signal. “Robert, can you call Agent Stockton? I want a status update on their team in Sofia.”

Robert dialed the number but got no answer. “That could be bad news,” he admitted, “but it could also be good news. They could be in the middle of a firefight with Gaia’s Vengeance. We could be winning.”

Yes, but we could also be losing. She didn’t say that out loud. Instead, she said, “Text him. Tell him to call you as soon as he can and update you on their progress. Shane.”

The chemist jumped. “Y… yes, ma’am?”

“Get a jet ready to take us to Sofia. I assume the Division has one?”

“Um… I think so?”

"If they don't have one, then they need to get one. I don't care how. We need to be on that plane in one hour and on our way to Bulgaria."

Shane nodded. “I’ll make the call.”

“Thank you. Anna, get a team put together. Agents with combat training. We need to assume that the terrorists will be ready for us.”

“Okay,” the terrified young scientist replied before pulling her cell phone from her pocket.”

Fiona hung up her phone and turned to Jana. “We can get twelve gallons here within an hour.”

Not enough. Not nearly enough.

Jana once more controlled her reaction and said, “Send them to the airport. We’ll meet them there. Anna, have the team meet us at the airport. Shane, I’m going to give you my number. Text me where to meet our flight as soon as you have that information.”

Shane, still on the phone, gave her a thumbs up.

"Fiona," Jana said, "I'm leaving you in charge. Continue to coordinate the production of more antidotes. Send it to Bulgaria as quickly as possible. Until we hear otherwise, we're assuming that there's still a chance to save the city."

“Understood.” She offered Jana a smile. “We’ll get there in time. I have faith.”

God, I wish I had faith. “Robert, you’re with me. Let’s go. I want the plane taxiing the instant the team and the antidote are loaded.”

The two of them rushed through the facility toward the elevator. Around them, orderlies, agents and scientists moved in a flurry, each trying to play their part in producing their quota of antidote. A few of them glanced Jana’s way, their eyes wide and staring like a bull’s during a bullfight.

The elevator took them to the parking garage above the underground facility. The two of them jumped into the first car they saw and rushed from the garage.

“How long until we get to the airport?” Jana asked.

“Eight minutes,” Robert replied.

Jana took a deep breath and released it slowly. Eight minutes to the airport. Another fifty or so before their team and their antidote was ready. An hour, give or take, to Sofia. Then who knew how long to get to the water treatment plant that Jacob said was the most likely target of Gaia's Vengeance's attack?

Too long. Much too long. Dawn would arrive by the time they landed in the city.

But there was no way to move faster. This case had taken a Herculean effort to solve, and they had done their best. All they could do now was hope that it was good enough.

They reached the airport in precisely eight minutes, as Robert had said. Shane texted her just as they parked. Cessna Citation CJ3. Gray with blue livery. It’ll meet you on taxiway 17R.

She texted him a thank you, then looked for her aircraft. She found the business jet a half-mile away on the flight line, its engines spooling up. She and Robert jogged there, arriving a few minutes before more vehicles parked behind them. She felt her spirits leap, but they fell almost immediately when she saw it was their team and not the antidote.

The next thirty minutes were the longest of Jana’s life. She paced back and forth in front of the aircraft, trying breathing exercises to stay calm and eventually giving up and just pacing.

Come on. Get here.

The one silver lining was that no airport police showed up to ask what they were doing here. The Division’s connections were impressive. She doubted that even the CIA would have been able to get a foreign airport to look the other way while a dozen armed paramilitary agents waited to board a business jet.

Finally, the vehicles carrying their antidote arrived. Jana quickly grabbed the cure from the various different doctors and agents who transported it and rushed her team onto the plane.

The jet took off immediately, and Jana said a silent prayer that they would make it in time.

***

The jet shuddered as it touched down on the runway of Sofia International Airport. Jana’s knuckles were white as she gripped the arm of her chair, but it wasn’t poison that prompted her stiffness.

They had reached Sophia just under an hour after takeoff, but she had no idea if that was fast enough. She had no idea if they would arrive in time to counter the threat or in time to watch the people of Bulgaria’s capital city felled by the most horrific poison known to man.

She checked her phone again. Nothing from Jacob since her last text. She cursed softly and turned to Robert. “Anything from Stockton?”

“No,” he replied tersely. “But I’m afraid that the police activity ahead might be related to them.”

She looked out of the window, and her heart dropped when she saw a helicopter surrounded by at least a dozen police vehicles. Officers milled around the helicopter, and a light haze surrounded the aircraft. That could be the smoke residue of a firefight, one that Stockton and Jacob would clearly have lost, considering the lack of alarm among the officers.

“Take us there,” she told the pilot. “Get us as close as you can.”

Robert frowned. “Shouldn’t we try to sneak past them and get to the water treatment plant?”

“We’ll need vehicles to get to the plant,” she said, “and if the police didn’t believe Jacob and Stockton, maybe they’ll believe us.”

She didn’t add that if the police didn’t believe Jacob and Stockton, then their bodies—along with those of their team—were most likely underneath sheets or wrapped in body bags on the flightline. Her lower lip trembled, but she forced her fear below the surface. If the police here had killed Jacob, then she would make sure they were held responsible, but she had to get this antidote into the water, first.

The jet pulled to a stop, and Jana, Robert, and their team quickly disembarked. A Bulgarian officer approached them, his face ashen.

Robert released a sigh of relief. “I see Greg. He’s all right.”

Jana followed his eyes to see Agent Stockton loading his team onto a police van. She waved at him, and he returned the gesture, then said something to the driver and hopped out of the truck.

The Bulgarian officer said in thickly accented English, “Sorry for confusion. We didn’t know—”

“Save it,” Jana snapped. She looked around, but she couldn’t see Jacob. Her shoulders stiffened, but she pushed her fear down once more and called to Stockton, who was trotting over to them. “What’s the situation?”

“Jacob’s on his way to the water treatment plant,” he said. “The police are working with the city to shut off the water supply. We don’t know yet if the terrorists got any of the poison into the system.”

“Jacob went alone?”

Stockton looked sick. “The police were waiting for us when we landed. It looks like their military picked us up on radar when we crossed the border. We didn’t have a flight plan, so they thought we were Gaia’s Vengeance.”

Jana turned to the police officer who had spoken to her first. His face was ashen, and he avoided her eyes.

She curled her hands into fists, then uncurled them. “We have twelve gallons of antidote. I have no idea if that will be enough, but it will be a start. We’ll have the balance of what we’ve produced in twenty-four hours, but we obviously can’t wait that long. We need to get to the water treatment plant ASAP.”

“I speak Bulgarian,” Robert said. “I’ll stay behind and coordinate the water shutoff. If you don’t mind, I’d like to keep a gallon of the antidote here in case anyone’s already been affected.”

“If anyone’s already been affected, then it’s already too late for them,” Jana replied.

“Not necessarily,” Robert said. “Remember, some of the residents on Astypalaia survived for hours after exposure.”

She was about to refuse again, but the pleading in Robert’s eyes swayed her. She sighed and nodded. “Okay. One gallon. Let’s move people. We have a city to save.”

A bright glare hit her eyes. The sun had risen. It warmed her skin and froze her heart.

“God damn it, move!” she cried out.

Robert shouted instructions in Bulgarian, and the police jumped into action. Another van emptied, and the driver tossed the keys to Jana. She caught them in one hand and hopped into the driver’s seat while her team loaded the antidote and jumped inside. Ahead of them, Stockton jumped into his own van, and a moment later, the two teams accelerated out of the airport toward the water treatment facility.

Stockton switched on the lights and sirens, and Jana followed suit. Behind her, the Division agents tasked with helping her distribute the antidote stared ahead. They maintained stoic expressions, but Jana could see the fear in their eyes. She felt it herself.

She said a silent prayer that they would make it in time, then said another that she would find Jacob alive.

Her earlier optimism had vanished. Now she felt only terror, squeezing her heart with as much force as the poison had hours earlier.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Remy looked at the fallen American, then out at his comrades. It was hard to tell underneath their full-body armor, but bulges and creases in the cloth portion of their outfits told him that they were already changing from the effects of the agent coursing through their bodies.

He wasn’t part of the group that retrieved the virus from the dig on Pachia. He hadn’t watched the news stories about Astypalaia. This was the first time he’d seen Medusa’s effects up close.

“Remy,” Yorel called. “Help me with this.”

Remy stared at the American, watching his fingers begin to curl as Medusa affected him as well. No body armor protected him. Remy would see every symptom of Medusa played out on this man’s form.

“Remy!”

Remy flinched and turned to Yorel. His partner was struggling to attach the spare hose to the water tank. Remy looked back at the canisters. Gas still emanated from the leaks where the liquid contained within contacted the air, but the pressure had reduced considerably. They’d brought one hundred eighty gallons of poison with them, but he believed well over half of that had escaped into the room. He wasn’t sure if it was even worth trying to take the remaining poison from the canisters.

“Remy! So help me God, if you don’t pay attention—”

“Yes, Yorel,” he said, his voice tinny and distant over the radio in his mask. “One moment.”

He helped Yorel attach the hose and pulled the lever once it was attached to the valve. A soft hiss told him that Medusa was flowing again.

Yorel stepped away with a satisfied sigh and looked at Remy. His mouth was obscured by the gas mask, but Remy could see the grin in his eyes.

“We’ve done it, Remy,” Yorel said triumphantly. “We’ve gotten your revenge.”

Remy blinked. Revenge. That’s right. That’s what this was about. That was why they’d chosen Sofia. He was avenging his mother and his aunt.

He looked down at the American, gasping and wheezing as he struggled for his final breaths. Within hours, one million people and more would be struggling for their own final breaths, including the people responsible for his mother’s death.

Including millions of innocents.

As though he could read Remy’s mind, Yorel laid a hand on his companion. "They are not innocent, Remy. None of them are. They've raped this world. They've abused Gaia, stripped her, beaten her, murdered her children, and poisoned her air. They're suffering the fate they deserve. You know this."

Did he know this? He thought he was right to do this at first. When Yorel first approached him, he thought Yorel was right about everything. They would get Vengeance not just for Remy's family but for all the innocents who had suffered from mankind's abuse of this world.

But were they saving anyone? Their friends were all dead. It was only the two of them left. If their pursuers had found them here, then they must have raided the factory in Athens and found some clue that led them here. Half of their poison was a thick haze that filled this room. The rest was in Sofia's water supply, but what would happen once Sofia was vanquished? They were a tigers without teeth now. The world might acquiesce to some reforms, but when it became clear that Gaia's Vengeance was gone, would they not just return to their old ways? Would the lesson be that they should care for Earth, or would the lesson be that they should take a firmer hand against terrorists?

They were going to kill over a million people. And nothing would change.

“They’re not innocent,” Yorel repeated more forcefully. He kicked the American, and the soldier winced and curled further on himself from the pain. “This man fights to protect the right of his superiors to commit genocide. Generations will survive because of us.”

“Generations of what?” Remy said softly. “Of animals? Of plants?”

Yorel’s eyes narrowed. “Of living creatures that have as much right to survive as we do. Besides, it is done already. There is no point in having second thoughts.” He laid a hand on Remy’s shoulder again. “You did well, Remy. You have saved the world. I know this is tough to see, but you are a hero. We are both heroes. We should be proud.”

Remy looked down at the American to see him pulling his hand away from his wound. The bullet Remy had fired had struck him low on his left side. The wound bled but not copiously. A flesh wound, then. Medusa would kill him, not his bullet wound.

However, his symptoms seemed to be progressing slowly. Only one hand had stiffened, and though his breathing was labored, he could still draw in air. And more poison. Did inhaling more poison increase the effects? Did the slight differences in composition from the Greek original alter its potency in all forms or only in liquid form?

The American spoke in French, his voice a harsh wheeze. “Hey.”

Remy stiffened and looked at Yorel. His partner had stepped away, talking quietly on his cell phone. Remy wondered why he had moved out of earshot to talk to whoever was on the other end. He assumed Yorel was arranging their extraction. Why would he need to keep those details secret from Remy?

“Hey,” the American said again. “Remy Bouchard.”

Remy flinched again and turned to the dying man. “You… you know my name?”

The American nodded. “I do. And I know why you did this. But please. You need to stop it.”

“It’s too late to stop it. The poison is already in the water.”

“There’s… a cure…” the man wheezed. “An antidote.”

Remy recalled Myra’s warning of a substance that could counter the effect of the poison. Remy knew for sure now that Myra had failed in her mission to stop the world’s governments from learning of that substance.

It didn’t matter, though.

Remy shook his head. “It’s too late. This water tank supplies all of the water to Sofia.”

“Listen!” the man hissed. He gasped, and Remy saw his other hand curl inward. His throat tightened, and when he spoke again, his voice was thready and weak. "My friend… is bringing… the antidote. Can you… stop… jamming the signal?"

A rush of hope-filled Remy. The jammer was integrated into the pump. He could turn it off, and this man could call his friend and counteract the poison.

His hope almost immediately vanished underneath a wave of guilt. Why was he hoping to undo what he and the others had fought so hard for? Myra had given her life for their cause. So had the others around him. His friends. His companions.

His face hardened. He shook his head. “No. This cause is just. Humanity needs to be punished for what it’s done to the planet.”

The American's face was flushed with the strain of continuing to breathe in spite of the poison slowing down his system. "Do… you think… it's worth it?"

Remy’s lower lip trembled. He thought of the hundreds of thousands who would die looking just like this American. Children who were too young to understand what was happening to them, parents who could only stare in horror as their children shriveled into husks before their very eyes.

And for what? Would the world change its behavior? Would they look at Remy’s actions and consider them the actions of a caring person with a valuable message? Or would they consider him an unhinged terrorist whose memory should be wiped from the Earth?

In a moment of clarity, he realized the futility of everything he’d done. The world wouldn’t be chastised into responsibility. They’d only be galvanized to act against Gaia’s Vengeance and everything it stood for. Those who saw people die—children die—the way he was watching this American die, would see only a threat. They would hunt Remy and Yorel to the ends of the Earth. They would develop countermeasures that would prevent anything like Gaia's Vengeance from rising again. Hell, they already had a cure for Medusa, so even if, by some miracle, Yorel and Remy could get more followers, the world would be prepared to stop them.

He'd wasted his time and killed millions, all for nothing.

Hot tears came to his eyes. He’d wanted to do the right thing. He’d wanted to help the innocent so that they could live in a planet safe from the ravages of evil men.

Did you really, though? Or did you just want to make others suffer because you suffered?

He took a deep shuddering breath, his own gasp mirroring the pained wheezes of the dying American. His mask meant that he couldn’t even wipe the tears from his eyes.

“Please,” the American whispered. “Not… much… time. Fix this.”

He shuddered, and his back arched as Medusa took more of his strength from him. Remy swallowed and looked back at Yorel. He was still on the phone some yards distant.

After a last moment of hesitation, Remy strode toward the control panel. The screen told him that the tanks were empty. It was probably too late for him to save anyone in Sofia. But maybe justice would come for him and Yorel. Maybe Gaia could take her Vengeance out on them and punish them for killing so many of her children.

Maybe he was only deluding himself once more.

Still, he opened the menu and disabled the jammer. The soft whine of the signal died out, and a warning informed him that signals were no longer being intercepted. He turned to the American and nodded.

The American was stiff as a board. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Remy stepped closer, and the American strained to speak.

“Phone… pocket.”

Remy understood. He reached into the American's pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He looked into the American's eyes and saw the pleading there.

He opened the phone and frowned. “It’s locked. I can’t open it.”

The American breathed. “Three… four… three… one… one.”

Remy typed those digits in, and the phone unlocked. He opened the messaging app. The messages were written in English. Remy didn’t speak English. He looked at the American and asked, “Who should I text?”

The American’s eyes moved, but his lips were still. He could no longer speak. Remy took a deep breath, then looked through the contacts. The top one was the name Jana. It could be a colleague, or it could be a lover.

He looked up. Yorel had finished his phone call and was putting his phone in his pocket. He turned toward Remy, a smile on his face.

He was out of time. He texted Jana. I am Remy Bouchard. I am at the Central Water Tank of the Sofia Water Treatment Plant. Be careful. The room is filled with Medusa gas. I have committed a great sin, but if you hurry, you can protect the innocent from my mistake. I am sorry.

“Remy? What are you doing?”

Remy hit send and lifted his gaze to meet the shocked eyes of his once friend. “I am atoning for my sins, Yorel.”

Yorel growled and tore the phone from Remy’s gasp. He looked at the messages, then back at Remy. “You traitor! You coward!”

Remy made no move to flee as Yorel reached for his gun. He made no protest as his enraged partner aimed the weapon at his chest and fired. When he felt the bullet pierce his heart, he smiled. His last vision as he fell to the floor was his mother smiling at him and welcoming him home.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Jana’s phone buzzed just as they parked in front of the Sofia Water Treatment Plant. Her blood froze when she read the text.

I am Remy Bouchard. I am at the Central Water Tank of the Sofia Water Treatment Plant. Be careful. The room is filled with Medusa gas. I have committed a great sin, but if you hurry, you can protect the innocent from my mistake. I am sorry.

Oh God, she thought. Jacob.

The teams jumped out of the vehicle. Stockton issued instructions to them. “Be cautious when you enter. We don’t know how many—”

“Fuck caution,” Jana interrupted. “We dose ourselves with the antidote, then we go in.”

The strength of her curse silenced the Division agent. He stared at Jana wide-eyed, and Jana said, "They're at the central tank. Remy Bouchard just texted me from Jacob's phone."

Stockton swore. “Shit. Okay, everyone, you heard the woman. Dose yourselves, then get moving.”

The teams quickly downed a shot of antidote each. The seconds ticked by like hours, and Jana’s anxiety neared a breaking point.

Finally, they moved into the plant. Jana saw the bodies of the security guard and receptionist, and a soft whine escaped her throat. The fear she'd felt earlier in the testing room of the Medusa virus came back to her. She might never see Jacob again.

Please let him be okay, she prayed. Please, God, if you exist, if you're real, please let Jacob be okay.

“I found a map!” Stockton called. “The central tank is… this way. Follow me.”

The team followed him, weapons at the ready. Jana ran at the head of the group just behind Stockton. A lump formed in her throat that had nothing to do with any Medusa that might be in the air.

The plant had looked enormous from the outside. From the inside, it was eternal. They ran for what seemed like a half mile down the hallway before turning right and running down another endless corridor.

Jana focused on her breathing—in through her nose, out through her mouth—to try to keep herself calm. Still, she could hear another soft whine escape her throat as they turned right at the end of this hallway to find another damned hallway.

Finally, Stockton brought them to a stop in front of a door. He held up his fist with three fingers extended. Jana had never hated anyone more for a delay than she hated him in that moment.

He’s just doing his job. He’s making sure we do this right so we don’t get ambushed and lose everything.

She took a final deep breath and readied her weapon.

“Now!” Stockton called.

He kicked open the door, and the team burst into the room. Jana’s eyes widened when she entered the haze.

Bodies lay strewn around the central walkway that ringed the massive water tank. Two dozen people—or what used to be people—in black body armor frozen stiff in death. Five more in gray coveralls with bullet wounds peppering their bodies.

One more man in a gray coverall with a full face mask was struggling to move a cart filled with six steel canisters through a door at the far end of the hall. The canisters were dented in several places, and one of them had a bent valve with a hole in the neck. A hose was wrapped around them, connected by tubes to the valves on each canister.

The man looked up, and when he saw the team approaching, he abandoned the canisters and fled.

“I’ll go after him with my team!” Stockton said. “Get that antidote into the water!”

Jana nodded in agreement, then froze. A body lay on the floor near one of the men in coveralls. It was twisted and flushed, and the eyes were beginning to bulge from the sockets.

It was Jacob.

No.

“No!” she cried out, sprinting toward him. She dropped to the ground and cradled his head in her lap. God, he was so stiff. “Jacob!”

The figure's eyes spasmed. They moved toward her, then shuddered and froze. He was still alive.

“I need the antidote!” she shouted. “Now!”

One of the agents handed her the half-empty gallon jug they had taken from to immunize themselves. Other agents were stacking their antidote while four jogged to the cart with the canisters to retrieve the hose.

Jana lifted Jacob's head and poured some of the antidote into his open mouth. It dribbled out and ran down his face. She wasn't sure if any of it actually made it into his throat or if it would help him at all with his body already paralyzed.

She felt for a heartbeat and sobbed when she found none. She poured a little more of the antidote, weeping and whispering, "Come on, Jacob. Please, God, come on. Don't die like this, please. Don't die on me."

She was vaguely aware of the agents’ movements around her as they attached the hose’s feeder tubes to the jugs of antidote. In the back of her mind, she knew it wasn’t enough. Each of those canisters held thirty gallons of poison at least. Even assuming generously that they had lost half of that gas when Jacob shot holes into the canisters, it was far more than the antidote they had brought. When the rest of it arrived tomorrow, they would have enough to cleanse the water supply, but by then it would be too late. Sofia would have to hope that Robert and the police had gotten the message out swiftly enough to stop people from using the contaminated water.

She didn't care about any of that right now. She only cared about Jacob. She wanted him to live, and if it meant everyone else died, she didn't care. Maybe she was wrong to feel that way, but so what? She couldn't lose him. Not now. Not like this.

She sobbed and held his stiff, frozen body in her hands. “Please, Jacob, please. Please come back to me.”

A soft whooshing sound told her that the agents had attached the hose to the valve on the water tank and were now pumping antidote into the water.

She looked at Jacob, and her shoulders slumped in despair. His eyes were unfocused now. His body was stiff as a board. His eyelids were half-shut, the most they could do over his swollen eyes.

She cried out in grief and pain and held her lover close, wishing she could trade places with him, wishing she could die a thousand deaths rather than watch her partner die like this. She wished she could resurrect every member of Gaia's Vengeance and kill them over and over. She could spend the rest of her life getting Vengeance, and it still wouldn't be enough.

That was the thing about Vengeance. It was empty. It left the taker of Vengeance hollow and accomplished nothing.

Just like Gaia’s Vengeance had accomplished nothing. Nothing but a few thousand deaths and the abiding hatred of humanity for their cause.

And Jacob. They’d taken Jacob from her.

She pressed her lips to Jacob’s forehead and whispered. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I’ll miss you so much.”

She buried her head in his shoulder and let herself mourn.

Jacob gasped.

Jana flinched and pulled back, startled and not quite daring to hope.

Jacob’s lips closed slowly, and he swallowed just as slowly. He gasped again, and his eyes opened. The flush in his cheeks subsided slowly, and Jana cried out with excitement and hope as he turned toward her. He choked out a hoars, “Hey,” and Jana burst into tears again, this time of relief.

Watching Jacob die was the worst experience of her life. Feeling him return to her little by little as she held him close was the greatest healing she’d ever felt. When he finally wrapped his arms around her and returned her embrace, her weeping stopped. She took a shuddering breath, then sighed and rested in his arms for a long while.

***

Yorel seethed as he fled from his pursuers. That coward Remy Bouchard. Yorel had seen his failure from a thousand miles away, but he didn’t think it would come like this. He expected Remy to falter when the news reports came out the next day about the million dead. By that time, Yorel’s contacts would have already killed Remy, and he would be laying low until his next operation.

Instead, that damned fool had texted the Americans and now they were here to undo everything he’d done. He’d have to flee even farther, go underground. As for acting again, he wasn’t sure if he could do that. If they knew his name…

Oh, God damn it. Had Remy given them his name?

Shouting interrupted his thoughts. He looked behind to see the soldiers chasing him. One of them lifted a rifle, and Yorel threw himself to the ground just before he fired. The bullets sailed over his head, and he released a cry.

He got to his feet and continued running. Sweat stung his eyes, the damned mask overheating him as he tried to escape his pursuers.

That fool, Remy. If only he could have waited a few hours.

A bullet grazed his thigh, and he cried out. Calling upon every ounce of his strength, he picked up the pace, running with all of his might as he veered left and right through the corridors of the building toward the exit. If he could just reach his vehicle…

Yes! He burst outside into the fresh air and tore his helmet and mask off, breathing deeply and crying out for joy. He looked behind to see that he had outrun his pursuers.

He was going to make it. Remy's cowardice wouldn't hinder Gaia's Vengeance. He would get away, find his benefactor, and they would rebuild. Their next act would be the greatest yet, putting the Medusa poison to shame.

He jumped in his car, started the engine, and prepared to put it in gear when a calm, smooth voice said in slightly accented English, "Hello, Yorel.”

Yorel cried out and spun to face the man in the back seat. Bright blue eyes met his gaze, and Yorel released a sigh of relief. “God, Eitan. You scared me.” His brow furrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“Tying up loose ends,” Eitan Katz replied.

Yorel stared at him for a moment. “What do you…” Then he realized. His eyes widened. He turned around and reached for his door handle.

Eitan moved like a blur. A cord wrapped tightly around Yorel’s neck, then constricted, cutting off his airway. He screamed, but the cord had already cinched his throat shut and no sound came out. He reached for the cord, but the wire bit deeply into his neck, and slick blood was all that greeted his fingers.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, his face purple, his neck bleeding, his eyes bulging. The muscles in his throat resisted for a moment. Then he felt a sharp sting as the cord sliced completely through. The world spun around him, but Yorel didn’t comprehend what he saw or even realize that he saw anything. A buzzing noise filled his ears, then faded.

Then he was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Jacob sat with his arm around Jana as the two of them watched the news broadcast from the tv in their hotel room in Athens. Their flight home would leave in three hours. Robert was on the phone with the Curator arranging their car. Stockton and a few other agents were going through the room with a fine-toothed comb, making sure that there was no sign that any of them were ever there in the first place.

The reporter on the news was a woman in her late thirties with the typical stilted delivery of a news anchor and the typical plastic face of a person who had sacrificed their individuality for success. Jacob chuckled at himself for noticing that. Here they were, watching the world heal from yet another near catastrophe, and Jacob was getting philosophical about news fashion.

“What’s so funny?” Jana asked, lifting her head from his chest.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just laughing at myself.”

“You are pretty laughable,” she observed.

“That’s what my mom always said.”

Jana giggled softly and nestled against him once more. Jacob looked at her delicate but strong features and thought for the millionth time that he had to be the luckiest man on Earth.

The anchor mentioned Remy Bouchard’s name, and Jacob turned his attention to the broadcast.

“One of the bodies was that of Remy Bouchard, a former chemist and known terrorist who is now believed to have been the mastermind behind the attack on the village of Astypalaia that left over one thousand dead. Investigators found traces of the same fungus on his body that was found to have contaminated the central water treatment facility in Sofia where Bouchard and over two dozen other terrorists were found.”

Jacob frowned. “Fungus?”

“That’s the official cover story,” Robert said, closing his phone and taking a seat in the easy chair to their left. He still limped on his right leg, but he didn’t grimace with pain when he sat, which was a good sign that he would recover fully.

“A species of extremely toxic fungus similar to ergot whose alkaloids cause convulsions and gangrene. We’ve managed to conceal the more grotesque symptoms from public knowledge, and since the Medusa agent conveniently deconstructs after a few minutes of exposure to air, cleanup was quite simple.”

“What about the antidote?” Jana asked. “Did the rest of it arrive?”

“It did, this morning. We’ve added it to the water, but as a precaution, the city has been instructed to flush the entire system and refill it with fresh water. They’ll be without running water for two weeks, but it’s my understanding that the other Balkan nations are shipping several metric tons of fresh bottled water to the people of Sofia to tide them over.”

“So we’re just going to pretend that none of this is real,” Jacob protested. “None of it ever happened. It’s just a crazy man who liked mushrooms.”

“A virulent fungus is hardly less fantastic than a concentrated alkaloid of unknown origin,” Robert replied, “but it raises fewer questions, and we can’t afford to answer any questions that are raised.” He met Jacob’s eyes. “Besides, would you really like to inspire another terrorist to hunt for ancient poisons?”

Jacob sighed. “No. I guess not.”

“Speaking of that,” Jana said. “Stockton. Did you catch the other terrorist? Yorel Preston?”

A look crossed Stockton’s face when Jana asked that. He concealed it quickly, but not quickly enough to evade Jacob’s gaze. “We caught up to him, but he elected to take his own life rather than face justice.”

Jana scoffed. “Coward.”

“Most of them are,” Stockton replied.

Robert’s phone rang. He answered it, and a few moments later, he hung up and stood. “All right. Our ride’s here. We have a Bombardier Global 8000 waiting for us. I’ve taken the liberty of stocking it with champagne, scotch, and a selection of fine snacks. I’ve also staffed a sushi chef.”

Jacob raised his eyebrows appreciatively. “Damn. Living fancy today.”

“We’ve damned well earned it," Robert said. "We've all four of us nearly died in service to the world. I think a bit of spoiling is in Order."

“I’m one hundred percent in favor of that,” Jana said. “Although Stockton hasn’t poisoned himself with Medusa yet.”

“I don’t think we need to go that far,” Stockton replied. “Anyway, there’s no more Medusa left.”

“What about the stockpile the Division has?” Jana challenged.

“We destroyed that as soon as we confirmed the efficacy of the antidote,” Robert said. “You don’t think we’re that foolish, do you?”

Jacob believed that Robert was telling the truth when he said that. He also believed that Robert had been lied to. In his experience, the Division didn’t get rid of weapons, they hoarded them.

Robert’s lips pursed, and he looked away for a moment. “I want to apologize to you two for the secrets I’ve had to keep on this mission. I strive to be as open with you as possible, but the uniqueness of this particular assignment made it impossible for me to be as open as I wished.”

Jacob glanced at Stockton. The agent acted as though he didn’t hear what was being said, but Jacob had caught that look when he asked about Yorel. Jacob liked Stockton, but Stockton's first loyalty was to an organization whose goals Jacob still didn't trust.

“No need to apologize,” Jacob replied. “We saved the world. That’s what counts.”

Robert smiled, but there was sadness behind his eyes. “Yes. That’s what counts. Nevertheless, I sincerely hope the time will come when there need be no secrets between us.”

Jacob debated waiting to ask this question, but he didn’t know when he’d have another chance. And if there was a reason to trust the Division, he wanted to hear it.

“You said you changed your mind about the Division,” Jacob said. “May I ask why?”

Robert took a deep breath. “The Curator can be a pompous ass sometimes, but the Division itself has consistently acted for the benefit of the world. At times, it seemed as though they weren’t. The more I’ve learned, though, the more I realize that even when it appears that they’re doing something wrong, they’re acting with the world’s best interests in mind. Much like the CIA, the nature of their mission sometimes requires them to take actions that seem reprehensible, but the goal is the same. The bad guys lose, the good guys win, the innocent live in peace.” He smiled at Jacob. “And that’s as detailed as I can be right now.”

Jacob glanced at Jana. She wore an odd expression. Not odd because it was unreadable but odd because it mirrored his own emotions exactly.

She trusted Robert but not the Division. She, like Jacob, knew now more than ever that they needed to keep at arms’ length from the Curator and his ambitions.

Not so deep down, Jacob feared the day would come when the two of them needed to face the Division as enemies and save the world from the insanity of the Curator. He hoped that Robert be on their side when the time came.

But if he didn’t, then Jacob’s and Jana’s duty would remain the same as it was before they met him.

Robert sighed, then offered them a more genuine smile. “Well, no need to dwell on unpleasantness. I intend to get wonderfully drunk and eat for more raw fish than my doctor would recommend.”

The other three laughed and followed him from the room. Stockton and Jacob carried the bags while Jana offered her arm to the limping Robert. The four of them met their waiting SUV and within an hour, they were enjoying the first of several drinks as their fast and luxurious private jet whisked them across the Atlantic toward home.

***

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Jacob,” Tyler Wallace said patiently, “And I even agree with you. But this is stuff we’ve known for a while. It doesn’t change the primary focus of this Agency or of yours and Jana’s commission.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. “As long as we’re being pedantic, sir, we don’t have a commission anymore.”

Tyler sighed. “Yes. I understand that. Yours and Jana’s duty, then.”

"Our duty is to the United States of America first and the world second," Jacob said. "The Antiquities Division is a threat to both."

“Without the Antiquities Division and its resources, we never would have learned who the principles of Gaia’s Vengeance were, what their poison was, how to counteract it, or where to go to stop them. We never would have synthesized an antidote, and one and a quarter million Bulgarians would have died horribly.”

Jacob frowned and looked away. Tyler was right, but Jacob was also right. Why couldn’t he get his boss to see that? “It’s also not a bad thing that knowledge of Gaia’s Vengeance has been carefully controlled to ensure that certain secrets remain secret,” Tyler pointed out. “Unless you can think of a good reason why people should know that the Greeks created synthetic chemical weapons instead of believing that an obscure fungus poisoned a well and an explosion destroyed an archaeological dig.”

Jacob took a deep breath. “No good reason, sir. But we should be aware that the Division is a threat and not to be trusted, and we should start making contingency plans for what to do when they finally go off the deep end.”

Tyler glanced at the clock above the door. Jacob turned around. “It’s five-twenty-five. Why?”

Tyler shook his head. “No reason. Listen, we have contingency plans for the Antiquities Division.”

Jacob blinked. “We do? What are they?”

“They’re classified.”

Jacob stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I am not.”

“Tyler, I’m the number one agent you have investigating these kinds of cases. Jana’s the world expert on things like this.”

“Jana is the CIA’s expert, and you both are our liaisons to the Division. You need to be focused on learning as much information as you can about them, not destroying them. If I were you, I would very seriously reconsider the Curator’s offer.”

“Bullshit,” Jacob snapped. “There’s no way I just heard you tell me that we should join the Antiquities Division.”

“You’ve joined the Sword of the Righteous before. In fact, your undercover work with that organization is largely what led to their eventual downfall. Although I must remind you that it is not yet in the CIA’s interests that the Division fall. At the moment, your assignment is to aid the Division in its quest to limit access to the world’s most dangerous secrets while simultaneously determining what the organization’s aims are and whether there is dissent within their ranks and if so, how high up and how significant.”

“You’re assigning us to join the Division?”

“I’m strongly suggesting that you consider the Curator’s offer.” Tyler glanced at the clock again, then lowered his voice. “The Antiquities Division aided us greatly in solving the Gaia’s Vengeance mystery. They also took advantage of the panic to increase their influence in all areas of government by a significant amount. We don’t believe they’re as deeply entrenched or as powerful as the CIA yet, but they’re heading very rapidly in that direction. We want you two to be our eyes and ears. Find out how much we need to worry. Help us make a better contingency plan. And, if the worst does happen, you’ll be the ones to take them out from the inside.”

Jacob took a moment to process everything he’d just heard. The strongest emotion he felt wasn’t anger or even frustration but grief. He just wanted to leave it all behind. He just wanted to lead a simple life with Jana where the biggest thing they needed to worry about was what to watch on TV. Yet with each assignment, that dream seemed further and further away.

He wondered if this was how Aaron felt when he kept promising to be there for Jana only to have to break that promise over and over again when some new threat arose, and he was the only one the CIA had who could address it.

But Aaron had no choice, and neither did Jacob.

“All right,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll talk to Jana. That’s all I’m promising right now.”

“That’s all we need,” Tyler replied. “Even if you decide not to formally join the Division, your relationships within the organization will help you glean invaluable information.”

He stood, extending his hand toward Jacob. That meant the meeting was over whether Jacob liked it or not.

Jacob stood and reluctantly accepted Tyler’s hand. “I’ll see you later, sir.”

“Of course. Safe drive home.”

Jacob left the office, a sober frown etched on his face.

The world was full of hidden corners, and when one shadow was swept away from those corners, another fell. Maybe Jacob would never be free. Maybe he and Jana were fated to spend their lives facing those shadows until they grew old like Aaron, and the CIA was forced to find someone else to do that job.

And maybe the real danger was that they would reach that day, and the CIA would have no one else. Maybe then the shadows would spread until the world was bathed in darkness.

***

Jana looked through the window at the trees outside of the restaurant. After everything they’d just been through, they both felt that it was time for a little normalcy, and it had been a while since they’d had a real date.

But how long would this normalcy last? Tonight would be nice, and the next few weeks or months or days or whatever they were allowed to have would be nice. But what happened when the Division decided it was time to make their move to conquer the world? Or if they really were the good guys like Robert now thought, what would happen when the next world-ending threat showed up, and they had to save the world again? And again? And again?

It wasn’t fair. Jana felt like a brat for thinking that, but it was true. The rest of the world got to be normal. Dozens of people sat around her who never had to worry about whether or not someone was going to try to annihilate the world.

She sighed. That wasn't true. Everyone was worried about Gaia's Vengeance. Unlike Jana, most people couldn't do anything about it. Jana didn't have to sit at home huddled on the couch with her loved ones, wondering if it was safe for them to shower that night. She could find the people responsible for that nightmare and stop them.

What she wanted wasn’t a normal life so much as a normal world. But did such a thing exist? Or was the right way to think about it to acknowledge that threats like Gaia’s Vengeance were normal?

“Your Dad called, by the way,” Jacob said.

Jana turned to him. “Hmm?”

“Yeah, he said congratulations on another successful assignment. He’s going to send us more tuna steaks. He was very excited to share that.”

Jana smiled. That story lifted the clouds in her mind. Her dad had suffered greatly—more than Jana had—but he was doing okay. He was living his best life watching the ocean through his cabin and fishing for tuna. He knew that the world was still dangerous, but he’d found a way to accept it. Even better, he’d done his part and found a way to accept that it was time for him to step aside and let others do the work. Maybe one day, the two of them could do the same.

“I’ll call him tomorrow and thank him.”

“He sent some recipes too. The old man really likes fishing.”

“That’s good. I’m glad he has something to occupy him.”

Jacob nodded. "Yeah, me too. I worried that he was just going to drink himself to death, haunted by his memories. Instead, he's become the world's greatest angler in lieu of the world's greatest agent. Oh yeah, I forgot. He told me to tell you that he only had one drink today."

Jana laughed. “I’ll let him know that I appreciate the reminder too.” Her laughter faded. “Do you think we’ll ever have that life?”

He smiled at her. “On a bit of an emotional rollercoaster?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I would say yes, but that smile makes me think you’re prepared to tease me about it instead of saying something helpful.”

“Au contraire, mademoiselle, I am about to tell you that I understand your concern. I also feel at times like we’re fated to spend our entire lives at war. But then Aaron called me pretty much just to brag about the fish he caught again, and I thought to myself, ‘If he can do it, so can we.’ Not the most profound encouragement I suppose, but the point is, yes. We will have that life. We will retire one day. We will raise our children in a safe world where they don’t have to fear the destruction of everything they know and love.”

She chuckled ruefully. “So we have to wait until there are no more evil people alive?”

“Or until someone else comes along who can handle the job. I have faith. We’ll reach our pot of gold.”

She smiled and reached across the table to take his hand. “Okay. Then I have faith too.”

Jacob returned her smile, and there was so much love in his eyes that Jana decided that even if they never did reach their pot of gold, she would be all right following the rainbow as long as he was with her.

“I got something for you, by the way,” he said, pulling his hand away.

“Aww, for me? You shouldn’t have.”

“I disagree,” he replied. “This is something I should have done a long time ago.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black felt box. Jana’s eyes widened. “Jacob?”

He opened the box, and Jana’s heart skipped a beat when she saw the ring. That was crazy. Wasn’t that crazy? She always knew the two of them were going to get married, so she thought when the time came, she would have a steadier reaction. Obviously, she would be excited, but not super excited.

Nope. She was super excited. Her hands felt cold, her heart pounded in her chest, her throat went dry, and the blood rushed from her face. It was almost the same physiological reaction as terror, but this wasn’t fear. This was every single one of her dreams coming true, and it didn’t matter that she had always known they would come true. This was the moment, and she could barely breathe for happiness.

His face grew serious. “I don’t want to wait. I know that we have to wait to make everything official. I know we can’t have kids, and I’m not even saying that we have to get officially married yet. But I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. It would mean a lot to me if you would wear my ring, even if it’s only an engagement—”

He couldn’t finish whatever he was going to say because Jana’s body finally obeyed her commands and leaped across the table to kiss him. He pulled her into his arms, and Jana no longer cared about the Division or the pre-Ice Age culture or the CIA or who was going to win Dancing with the Stars or anything at all.

She had everything she needed right here.

EPILOGUE

Eitan Katz stood with his hands clasped behind his back and feet shoulder width apart in the position the United States military called parade rest. Ahead of him, the Curator watched through the two-way mirror at a glowing cylinder that was now lending an infinitesimal fraction of its energy to power the Antiquities Division’s most secretive facility.

As usual, the Curator waited a while before speaking. For reasons Eitan couldn’t quite understand, people in power believed that making people wait illustrated their superiority. To Eitan, it only made them look insecure and lazy.

Not that he would ever tell the Curator that. Eitan thought very little of the man as a person, but he respected the Curator’s vision. He respected most that the Curator was willing to make the tough decisions, the ones that everyone else balked at.

When the Curator assigned Eitan to steal the Lesser Key of Solomon and spark a series of events that would lead to Jacob and Jana joining the Division, Eitan had feared that the risk was too great, but once more, the Curator’s plans had worked. Jacob and Jana weren’t Division employees yet, but they were close. Once the two of them were completely in the fold, there would be nothing standing in their way.

They would lead humanity out of the dark ages into a prosperous future. It remained to be seen whether Eitan would lead them into that future as Joshua did or merely see a glimpse of it before he died the way Moses did, but either result was fine with Eitan.

Finally, the Curator spoke. “You’re sure there were no survivors.”

“I’m sure, sir,” Eitan replied. “Yorel was the only one to escape the facility, and he took his own life immediately after.”

"Did he really, or is that only the story you decided to tell?"

“I feel it’s an easy story for everyone to accept,” Eitan replied.

The Curator nodded. “I don’t like messes, Eitan.”

“There’s no mess, sir. Agent Stockton interpreted the death as we wanted him to.”

“So you did kill Yorel.”

“We agreed that was the best solution.”

The Curator sighed and repeated, “I don’t like messes.”

Eitan resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “There are no messes, sir. All of your objectives were accomplished.”

“Not all of them.”

Eitan knew what his boss was talking about. “The CIA agents still refuse to join you.”

The Curator scoffed. “They’re a long way off from joining me, Eitan. Still, I would like them in the fold so I can keep an eye on them.”

“I can keep an eye on them whether they’re in the fold or not,” Eitan offered.

“You underestimate Agent Snow.”

Eitan frowned. “I thought Dr. Peters was the more dangerous of the two.”

“Dr. Peters is the more brilliant of the two,” the Curator corrected, “and the one whose insight is most likely to help us achieve our aims for the future. But Agent Snow is the more cunning. He’s lived most of his life in the gutters of the world. He knows how rats think. He’s chased them for so long, he thinks like one himself sometimes. He would smell you.”

What a wonderful way to make that point, Eitan thought wryly. “Are they that opposed to the Division still? After everything?”

“Snow is. I believe Dr. Peters could be convinced, but Agent Snow is not so trusting.”

“What about Dr. Bledshaw? Could you use him to sway them?”

“I’ve tried already, but Robert barely trusts me himself. He nearly convinced them that we were just as evil as the Order. I’ve considered eliminating him, but doing that would ensure that Agent Snow and Dr. Peters become my firm enemies.”

Eitan frowned again. “With all due respect, sir, eliminating Dr. Bledshaw would be foolish.”

“Yes, I know,” the Curator said irritably. “That’s what I just said.”

Eitan stayed silent. Even for him, it wasn’t wise to irritate the Curator too much.

A pair of technicians entered the chamber with the power source. One held an instrument up to the cylinder while another took notes dictated by the observer. Eitan wasn’t sure why they went through these motions. Maybe just to give people something to do.

The Curator broke the silence again. “We’ve saved one amphora just in case we’re unable to replicate the poison. I wonder if it would have been better to save Remy Bouchard alive. His knowledge could have been valuable.”

“Yorel killed Bouchard,” Eitan reminded him. “His rashness was one of the reasons I felt he had outlived his usefulness.”

“Right.” The Curator sighed. “Well, we’ve wrapped this one up. Maybe not in a neat little bow, but we’ve gotten what we needed from it. Let’s hope the next one can be done without all of the mess.”

“I wholeheartedly agree with that, sir.”

The Curator turned to Eitan and looked him up and down. Eitan’s skin crawled, and it was only his training that kept him from shivering in disgust and fear. One of these days, he needed to figure out why the Curator had that effect on him when no other living person did.

“You’re a good man, Eitan,” the Curator said. “You might be the best man we have. I once thought that Robert was, but…” He turned away, to Eitan’s immense relief. “But Robert has become emotional. And as skilled as he is in his own way, I think it’s your skillset the Division needs most.

“There’s no need to spy on Agent Snow or Dr. Peters. They will come to us. When they do, we’ll learn for sure if they will be useful or if we need to eliminate them.”

He fell silent again. Eitan waited until he was sure the Curator was finished with him, then turned and left the room. Behind him, the cyldiner pulsed softly, its power enough to dwarf everything they’d ever discovered combined. One day, they would learn how to harness its full potential.

Then humanity would be born anew.

NOW AVAILABLE!

TARGET FIFTEEN

(The Spy Game—Book #15)

“Thriller writing at its best... A gripping story that's hard to put down.”

--Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan (re Any Means Necessary)

From #1 bestselling and USA Today bestselling author Jack Mars, author of the critically acclaimed Luke Stone and Agent Zero series (with over 5,000 five-star reviews), comes an explosive new action-packed espionage series that takes readers on a wild ride across Europe, America, and the world—perfect for fans of Dan Brown, Daniel Silva and Jack Carr.

In the heart of the jungle, an ancient Mayan doomsday device lies hidden, and only CIA Agent Jacob Snow and daring archeologist Jana Peters can prevent a deluded billionaire from unleashing its catastrophic power. As they face a labyrinth of deadly traps and treacherous mercenaries, time is ticking to save the world from a climate apocalypse.

An unputdownable action thriller with heart-pounding suspense and unforeseen twists, TARGET FIFTEEN is the fifteenth novel in an exhilarating new series by a #1 bestselling author that will make you fall in love with a brand-new action hero—and keep you turning pages late into the night.

Future books in the series are now available!

“One of the best thrillers I have read this year. The plot is intelligent and will keep you hooked from the beginning. The author did a superb job creating a set of characters who are fully developed and very much enjoyable. I can hardly wait for the sequel.”

--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Any Means Necessary)

TARGET FIFTEEN

(The Spy Game—Book #15)

Jack Mars

Jack Mars is the USA Today bestselling author of the LUKE STONE thriller series, which includes seven books. He is also the author of the new FORGING OF LUKE STONE prequel series, comprising six books; of the AGENT ZERO spy thriller series, comprising twelve books; of the TROY STARK thriller series, comprising eight books; of the SPY GAME thriller series, comprising ten books; of the JAKE MERCER thriller series, comprising twenty books (and counting); of the TYLER WOLF thriller series, comprising seven books (and counting); of the LARA KING thriller series, comprising ten books (and counting); and of the new GRANT VALOR thriller series, comprising twelve books (and counting).

Jack loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.Jackmarsauthor.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!

BOOKS BY JACK MARS

GRANT VALOR THRILLER SERIES

MAXIMUM DAMAGE (Book #1)

MAXIMUM FORCE (Book #2)

MAXIMUM FURY (Book #3)

MAXIMUM THREAT (Book #4)

MAXIMUM PERIL (Book #5)

MAXIMUM POWER (Book #6)

MAXIMUM IMPACT (Book #7)

MAXIMUM CARNAGE (Book #8)

MAXIMUM CHAOS (Book #9)

MAXIMUM PRESSURE (Book #10)

MAXIMUM HAVOC (Book #11)

MAXIMUM VENGEANCE (Book #12)

LARA KING THRILLER SERIES

ASSET ONE (Book #1)

ASSET TWO (Book #2)

ASSET THREE (Book #3)

ASSET FOUR (Book #4)

ASSET FIVE (Book #5)

ASSET SIX (Book #6)

ASSET SEVEN (Book #7)

ASSET EIGHT (Book #8)

ASSET NINE (Book #9)

ASSET TEN (Book #10)

TYLER WOLF THRILLER SERIES

DOUBLE AGENT (Book #1)

DOUBLE CROSS (Book #2)

DOUBLE ASSET (Book #3)

DOUBLE DOCTRINE (Book #4)

DOUBLE JEOPARDY (Book #5)

DOUBLE THREAT (Book #6)

DOUBLE TARGET (Book #7)

JAKE MERCER THRILLER SERIES

ABSOLUTE THREAT (Book #1)

ABSOLUTE DAMAGE (Book #2)

ABSOLUTE FORCE (Book #3)

ABSOLUTE PERIL (Book #4)

ABSOLUTE TREASON (Book #5)

ABSOLUTE VENGEANCE (Book #6)

ABSOLUTE TARGET (Book #7)

ABSOLUTE FURY (Book #8)

ABSOLUTE POWER (Book #9)

ABSOLUTE SHOCK (Book #10)

ABSOLUTE SIEGE (Book #11)

ABSOLUTE WAR (Book #12)

ABSOLUTE PREJUDICE (Book #13)

ABSOLUTE COMMAND (Book #14)

ABSOLUTE DECEPTION (Book #15)

ABSOLUTE TERROR (Book #16)

ABSOLUTE HAVOC (Book #17)

ABSOLUTE DANGER (Book #18)

ABSOLUTE GAMBIT (Book #19)

ABSOLUTE CARNAGE (Book #20)

THE SPY GAME

TARGET ONE (Book #1)

TARGET TWO (Book #2)

TARGET THREE (Book #3)

TARGET FOUR (Book #4)

TARGET FIVE (Book #5)

TARGET SIX (Book #6)

TARGET SEVEN (Book #7)

TARGET EIGHT (Book #8)

TARGET NINE (Book #9)

TARGET TEN (Book #10)

TROY STARK THRILLER SERIES

ROGUE FORCE (Book #1)

ROGUE COMMAND (Book #2)

ROGUE TARGET (Book #3)

ROGUE MISSION (Book #4)

ROGUE SHOT (Book #5)

ROGUE STRIKE (Book #6)

ROGUE ORDER (Book #7)

ROGUE ATTACK (Book #8)

LUKE STONE THRILLER SERIES

ANY MEANS NECESSARY (Book #1)

OATH OF OFFICE (Book #2)

SITUATION ROOM (Book #3)

OPPOSE ANY FOE (Book #4)

PRESIDENT ELECT (Book #5)

OUR SACRED HONOR (Book #6)

HOUSE DIVIDED (Book #7)

FORGING OF LUKE STONE PREQUEL SERIES

PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1)

PRIMARY COMMAND (Book #2)

PRIMARY THREAT (Book #3)

PRIMARY GLORY (Book #4)

PRIMARY VALOR (Book #5)

PRIMARY DUTY (Book #6)

AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER SERIES

AGENT ZERO (Book #1)

TARGET ZERO (Book #2)

HUNTING ZERO (Book #3)

TRAPPING ZERO (Book #4)

FILE ZERO (Book #5)

RECALL ZERO (Book #6)

ASSASSIN ZERO (Book #7)

DECOY ZERO (Book #8)

CHASING ZERO (Book #9)

VENGEANCE ZERO (Book #10)

ZERO ZERO (Book #11)

ABSOLUTE ZERO (Book #12)