This book is dedicated to the new adventurers, those who believe in preserving our planet, our greatest inheritance.

  Wilbur Smith

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  It was well past curfew in Pretoria, and Lindiwe Matuza hurried through the deserted streets, holding the strap of her backpack tight against her shoulder. ‘You don’t have to run,’ she told herself. ‘You have permission to be outside. And this is important. Mr Khumalo needs the information on that laptop. He wouldn’t have asked otherwise.’ But she knew it wasn’t running into patrolling police officers that scared her.

  It was the risk of infection. Of catching the virus.

  The fear lay deep in her bones as Lindiwe pushed herself on, occasionally pausing for breath in the orange haze of a street light. It was her pride in her work for Mr Khumalo’s election campaign that motivated her to make the journey from the Green Freedom Party headquarters to Mr Khumalo’s home. As party leader, Max Khumalo talked about wanting to build a society that looked after everyone, not just President Mbato’s rich associates and powerful lobby groups, and Lindiwe and other young people she knew were inspired by the hope he represented.

  But her passion for change didn’t stop her thinking about safety precautions. Her mask made her nose and chin sweat. It had a protective filter sewn into its layers of cloth, but she knew that wasn’t a guaranteed defence against virus‑laden aerosols. There’s no one around, she thought. You can take it off.

  But the footage of suffering victims, playing 24/7 on the news channels, forced her to keep the mask on. The nightmare virus had engulfed first her home city of Pretoria, then South Africa – then the whole world. Tens of thousands of people were dead, and no country had been left untouched by the virus. It started with a fever and aching joints and went on to coughing up blood and – far too often – a swift death. It had spread around the world faster than governments could act. Younger victims had a better survival rate, but Lindiwe didn’t know anyone who was brave enough to take careless risks.

  As she turned into the wide, leafy avenue, Lindiwe thought it was eerie for the neighbourhood to be so deserted. The grand houses were masked by imposing gates and high fences. I can’t fix a pandemic, but at least I can still make a difference to the world, she told herself. As the youngest intern working for the Green Freedom Party in the run‑up to the elections, Lindiwe had been sure she’d be sent home to wait out the lockdown. Instead, to her surprise and pride, Mr Khumalo had made her his personal assistant. Although she had overheard the campaign manager talking to someone else on the team: Makes sense that Max would pick her. Teens are least likely to get the worst symptoms of the virus . . . and the least likely to be working for the opposition.

  Lindiwe liked to hope there had been more to her appointment than just youth. She might only be sixteen but she liked to think she had a lot to offer.

  When she reached Mr Khumalo’s house, a security man was leaning against the front gate. Lindiwe should have felt reassured, but instead she felt a twinge of fear. She was living and working at Campaign HQ in the centre of the city, in lockdown with the rest of the team. Meeting someone new felt so dangerous. He could have the virus, she thought. He could give it to me.

  As Lindiwe approached, the man straightened. She saw he was wearing a sleek, dark respirator mask. He held out a hand. ‘OK, stay there,’ he warned. ‘Let’s keep plenty of distance. What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m Lindiwe Matuza,’ she called, her voice muffled through her mask. ‘I’m personal assistant to –’

  ‘Yeah, Mr Khumalo sent over your picture.’ The guard pulled out a phone and checked the screen. ‘That’s a match, kid. You need letting in?’

  ‘I have a key,’ she called.

  ‘Then I’ll get out of your way.’ The guard pressed his finger to his phone screen and the gates to the residence slowly swung open. ‘In you go.’

  Lindiwe walked forward, impressed by the stately home she saw beyond the barrier. As she walked up the neatly paved pathway, security lights snapped on. Beyond the bright glow of the lights, shadows stretched across immaculate lawns in the gathering evening darkness. The large windows, framed with tasteful trims, gave a glimpse of the world within; they seemed to whisper stories of laughter and love shared among family and friends.

  With a twinge, Lindiwe thought of Mr Khumalo’s son, Grant, and sighed as she pressed on to the front porch, with its graceful pillars. The front door opened easily. Only after she had slipped into the cool tiled hallway and closed the door behind her did Lindiwe finally pull off the mask and draw in a deep, grateful breath. She could hear a strange hissing sound; Lindiwe supposed it was the air con, or a filtering system, keeping possible pathogens out of the atmosphere.

  The hall was large, with minimal furniture. Nice, but not too showy, she thought approvingly. Just like the man himself. The man who hoped to become the next president of South Africa at the election in three weeks’ time.

  ‘And you’re his assistant,’ she told herself out loud. ‘So, get assisting.’ Once she’d found the laptop Mr Khumalo had asked for, she’d head back and join the others working on the election campaign.

  Mr Khumalo had told her that his study was off the hall on the right. Lindiwe found herself tiptoeing into the room; the house was too quiet. She went over to the elegant wooden desk and gave the framed photo of Grant there a little brush with her fingertips. Grant went to the same school as she did, and had told her about the part‑time intern job. She used to hope that Grant had helped her because he liked her. Now she didn’t know what to think about him. He had gone missing weeks ago, and since then footage had emerged linking him to anti‑hunt activists who the state media claimed were responsible for unleashing the virus.

  Of course, Max Khumalo’s political opponents were making the most of Grant’s apparent involvement, despite several independent sources claiming that the footage had been faked. The ordeal was taking its toll on Mr Khumalo. He continued to protest his son’s innocence, trying to prove that Grant had been abducted and forced to take part in whatever he was involved in. But the rumours and conspiracy theories were like a virus themselves, multiplying beyond anyone’s ability to control them. Lindiwe chose to believe Grant, to stay loyal, but she knew that many people saw the situation as proof that all politicians were self‑serving liars. The Green Freedom Party had slipped in the polls as locked‑down voters vented their anger.

  And South Africa’s President Mbato was not above feeding that anger, with carefully phrased press statements that pointed the finger at political opponents and minority groups, stoking discontent into a blaze to distract people from his own government’s failings. In his house, protected by razor wire, and his offices in the top floor of a glass‑walled skyscraper, the president would never understand what regular people were living through. The fear of dying . . . the disruptions in supplies of food and medicines . . . the removal of basic freedoms. Everyone was so busy working out how to schedule supermarket trips and hoping that there would be food on the shelves when they were finally allowed to go that they had little energy left to scrutinise Mbato’s corrupt government. But Lindiwe was part of a growing groundswell – regular people and news outlets were starting to resist the government PR line. Some commentators even claimed that Mbato would postpone the election, that he was using the lockdown as an excuse to extend his term of office – dictatorship by stealth. Lindiwe would do anything she could to stop that happening. That was why she worked so hard: because she believed her country deserved better than a leader who cared more about controlling people and creating scapegoats than improving people’s lives.

  The steady hissing of the air filters was louder in this room. Lindiwe licked her cracked lips; her mouth felt dry. She searched through the drawers of Mr Khumalo’s desk, but the laptop wasn’t there.

  Something else was in the room, though.

  Lindiwe heard a sharp rasping chik‑chik and stared in horror as a creature the size of a small dog, but dark, chitinous and clawed, crept out from behind the heavy half‑closed curtains. Lindiwe’s heart thumped, then seemed to freeze in primal fear.

  Her vision narrowed. Everything ground into sticky slow motion as the nightmare of arachnid legs and pincers moved clear of the curtains. It was a scorpion – but one of monstrous proportions. Its body was at least half a metre long, and the curve of its segmented tail brought its thick stinger up to her hip height. She’d never seen anything like it.

  Quickly, Lindiwe retreated behind a chair. The scorpion froze, and Lindiwe saw its cluster of eyes around its hideous head: they were bright red, like fresh blood.

 
; Suddenly the monster scuttled towards Lindiwe with horrible speed. Adrenaline and terror made Lindiwe push over the heavy wooden chair. It landed on top of the giant scorpion, pinning it to the floor. Repulsed, Lindiwe brought her foot down hard on the underside of the chair, crushing the beast against the floor. The sickening crunch of carapace and the stench of the thick fluid that burst from it brought her back to herself. Lindiwe took a shaking breath and stared at the dark, mangled mess on the floor. Where the hell did that come from?

  Wherever it was, another gigantic scorpion had followed. It stalked silently into sight from behind the desk.

  Without thinking, Lindiwe ran in panic from the study. But yet another scorpion now stood in front of the front door. Its legs clicked and chittered on the tiles as it started towards her.

  Groaning with fear, Lindiwe pelted up the stairs, stumbling as she reached the landing. She heard the chik‑chik again and turned to see both scorpions pursuing her. She scrambled up, wrenched open the nearest door and ran into the room, slamming the door behind her. She fumbled for a light switch and saw with a frisson of embarrassment that she was in the master bedroom. It was spotlessly clean, dominated by a large, neatly made bed. The only sound was that of the air filters, which seemed even louder in here, and her own ragged breathing.

  This can’t be happening, she thought desperately. No scorpion’s as big as they are. And yet she knew from the cold hate in their bulging red eyes that these creatures were real – and aggressive. They had come at her, homing in. And at that size, the venom in their stings had to be deadly.

  But if they’re here, it’s not me they’re after, Lindiwe thought. It’s Mr Khumalo. I have to get out and warn him! She ran for the window. If she couldn’t climb down, maybe she could shout out to the guard for help.

  Lindiwe wasn’t even halfway towards the window before two more of the giant scorpions crawled out from under the bed and ran for her, their arched tails twisting and bending. One ran into Lindiwe’s legs, knocking them from under her. As she fell, she felt something sharp, like a giant needle, hook into her shoulder. Screaming, she rolled onto her back. The second scorpion jumped on top of her and its stinger lanced down into her chest. Lindiwe screamed again as pain surged through her body. She couldn’t feel her limbs, but she saw its huge claws clamped around her wrists, pinning her to the carpet. Her ribs ached and it was hard to breathe. As the world grew dark and dizzy, all Lindiwe could hear was the steady hissing of the filters. All she could see were the scorpions’ red eyes, cold and narrowed, staring down at her.

  This is all wrong, Lindiwe thought numbly as a third stinger drove between her ribs. I’m not meant to die here.

  The scorpion creatures did not care. They killed the young intern as indifferently as they would have killed anyone else.

  1

  Ralph Ballantyne checked the knots in the ropes holding Josef Gerhard to the chair. Still tight, still holding fast. He couldn’t deny he felt some satisfaction in seeing the man who’d done so much to hurt him and his family and friends trussed up like a turkey in a cleaning cupboard in his own underground complex. He glanced across at his sister, Robyn, and from the grim smile on her face guessed that she must feel very much the same.

  He was struck for a moment by how gaunt Robyn looked after the weeks of ordeal they’d been through together. Living on the run. Hardly a thing to eat. Chased across the Lebombo Mountains by soldiers, poachers and predator beasts. Sickness, stress, trauma. He hadn’t fared so well himself: his clothes hung loose on him and his body was a mass of bruises. He’d barely recognised himself in the mirror yesterday.

  Then there were the changes on the inside. Ralph knew that he and his sister had been transformed by their experiences. Hardened. Neither of them would be the same again.

  He eyed the half‑filled syringe in his sister’s hand.

  ‘Stay back,’ Gerhard hissed, his grey eyes bulging as Robyn took a step towards him. ‘Don’t you come near me with that!’

  ‘After all that you’ve put us through?’ Robyn snorted. She held up the syringe and pushed gently on the plunger to release a few viscous drops from the needle. ‘You should be thanking me, not whining like the sick animal you are.’

  ‘Rob, are you sure about this?’ said Ralph quietly. ‘Maybe he doesn’t deserve it.’

  Gerhard was a monster, sure: a brilliant tech mogul turned mad scientist. He’d been playing God with DNA, breeding prehistoric predators and other ancient beasts for his hunting grounds in a clandestine programme of animal cruelty – backed by the president of South Africa himself, Julius Mbato. And in the course of his sick experiments he’d unleashed a deadly virus that was now affecting millions – and he had manipulated the media to put the blame squarely on the Ballantynes.

  ‘He deserves to be punished,’ said Robyn, her eyes on Gerhard as he struggled against his ropes. ‘And I’m going to make sure it happens. He’s not wriggling out of this.’

  Ralph jumped at a rap on the door.

  ‘Ralph, Robyn?’ came the voice of their father, Roland Ballantyne. ‘Everything all right in there with our house guest?’

  ‘It will be,’ Robyn said, moving within reach of Gerhard’s arm. ‘One little scratch and it will all be over . . .’

  The door opened and Roland walked into the room. His sheer physical presence made the room feel half as large, and the cuts and bruises on his face only emphasised his heroic good looks. Behind him came Niko, his girlfriend. Niko’s friendly, unassuming air belied her determination to excel. She was a professor of epidemiology and zoonotic diseases, and she worked for a medical organisation called SangoMed, but all her knowledge and expertise had meant nothing when she’d contracted the virus herself. She still looked pale and unwell; that she’d survived at all was a small miracle. A miracle wrought by the same antiviral agent that was in Robyn’s syringe.

  Robyn looked sullenly at Roland and Niko. ‘I can handle this,’ she said. ‘I don’t need watching over.’

  ‘We’re not here to watch you,’ said Roland. ‘We’re here to watch him.’

  Niko nodded. ‘It’s not every day you get to see Josef Gerhard receive a taste of his own medicine – literally.’

  Ralph smiled darkly at the joke. A quirk of Ballantyne inheritance had left Roland and his children with a remarkable natural immunity against Ebola, coronavirus and other viruses. Robyn had come through the sickness with the help of herbal medicines from the local indigenous people, and the resulting antibodies in her blood had then saved Niko from certain death. They hoped that these antibodies would be the basis for a global cure.

  ‘What’s wrong, Gerhard?’ Niko sneered. ‘You’ve been out for Ballantyne blood for so long, you should be glad you’re finally getting some.’

  ‘It’s good stuff,’ Roland agreed, clapping Gerhard on the shoulder. ‘Might give you immunity to all kinds of things.’

  ‘Except justice,’ Ralph put in.

  ‘I told you to keep away!’ Gerhard nearly spat the words at Robyn. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t have the virus.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Roland agreed. ‘But we’re not taking the risk of you dying from it before you confess your crimes – and those of President Mbato.’

  His heart heavy, Ralph nodded. It made him feel sick to think of a man like Mbato in charge of South Africa – a man who longed to legalise big game hunting, to force indigenous tribes from their homelands, to use Gerhard’s tech to further his own influence and ambition. His corruption would poison South Africa for ever if the two of them weren’t stopped.

  And taking Gerhard captive is the key, Ralph thought. We need to take him to the city and force him to clear our names – and incriminate himself and Mbato! But he had only to look at Gerhard – at the calculating intelligence in his big grey eyes and the snarl on his lips – to know that, even tied up as he was, the man was as dangerous as the predasaurs he’d raised, and their plan wasn’t going to be that simple.

  ‘Get going, Rob,’ said Roland. ‘We’ve got other things to do.’

  ‘Like waiting to die?’ Gerhard suggested quietly. ‘It’s been, what, twenty‑four hours since you forced me to warn Mbato to keep this place quarantined? And he hasn’t heard from me since. He’ll have scented a rat by now. You’ll never get away from here.’