Sam tripped on a stringy vine that was as tough as steel and went down on one knee, which jarred her thoughts back to the present. She picked herself up and moved forward. In the early days at the FBI academy she remembered hearing tales of a one-man army of some sort. She also remembered that she’d heard the word Greek used in the discussions. She wondered if they were one and the same. She stopped and turned around, fixing her gaze on Slick and Hawkins. “Back in the first few weeks at the Academy do either one of you remember hearing a story about a Greek who was some kind of one-man army? A legend in his own time, that kind of thing. I can’t remember if someone told me or if I overheard it. My mind must have been on something else because I don’t remember any of the details. Did either one of you hear it?”

Slick and Hawkins shook their heads.

Olivia snapped a branch from a sapling. Her eyes looked worried. “What does it mean, Sam? I mean if you’re right, and Pappy is that one-man army?”

“I don’t know. Probably that he’s qualified to run this operation. You have to admit, it’s a pretty impressive place, built into a mountain the way it is.”

Zoe screamed, a bloodcurdling sound that stopped Team Three in its tracks. “Snake!” she screamed again.

In the time it took the others to stop in their tracks and turn around, another sound could be heard, a hard wind, a crash of brush, then a black-and-silver streak that landed in front of them. Sam saw a white flash of teeth and the snake—which had to be a foot long and at least two inches thick—sailed through the air minus its head. She almost fainted.

No one moved as they watched the part dog, part wolf, shake his head from side to side before racing off.

“Okayyy, I think that’s enough hiking for one day,” Slick said, heading off in the same direction the dog had taken. She was trembling from head to toe.

“Was it a poisonous snake?” Kayla asked, her voice shaking.

“Probably. Its head was smaller than its body. I think that means it’s poisonous. Maybe it’s the other way around. I read that somewhere in a dentist’s office. National Geographic,” Hawkins said in a jittery voice.

As Team Three walked out of the forest, they saw Havapopulas in his golf cart, Alpha sitting next to him. The dog’s ears looked like sharp spears as he eyed all six of them.

Sam had no intention of asking the question, but the words tumbled off her lips. “Was the snake poisonous?”