The Seventh Plague Page 24

  “Was that back in 1895, at the British Museum, when a bunch of researchers opened an artifact once owned by David Livingstone?”

  Simon tilted his chair back, his eyes wide.

  How much did this man already know?

  “What else is in that book of yours?” Painter asked.

  “Tesla extrapolated a design, based on what he learned of the organism’s properties and what was being discovered about the ionosphere, for a crude version of what we’ve built here. Again the technology and power sources necessary to pull it off weren’t available to him at the time.”

  “So you improved and expanded this work and built Aurora Station.”

  “It’s my Wardenclyffe. A local test station for a grander global vision.”

  “And what’s that vision?”

  “As I said before, it’s the same as Tesla’s. World peace, cheap and limitless energy, and a healthier planet.” Simon challenged his guest. “Is that not a worthy goal?”

  “Of course it is. And I’m more than happy to admit that. But it’s how you intend to achieve such a lofty goal that concerns me.”

  “You’re referring to the acquisition of Dr. al-Maaz.”

  “Kidnapping and murder would better describe that act.”

  Simon nodded, conceding the point.

  Painter rattled his cuffs. “And then there’s this.”

  “All unfortunate. And never intended. In fact, most of the deaths leading up to this moment you can place at the feet of Professor McCabe. If he hadn’t acted so rashly, many lives would have been spared.”

  “It’s easy to blame the dead.”

  “But no less true.”

  The phone on Simon’s desk chimed. He checked the ID.

  Ah . . .

  He faced his guest and buzzed the guards in the hall. “I have a few matters to attend. So we’ll have to end this discussion for now.”

  “Wait.” Painter shuffled in his seat. “Tell me how you plan to bring about Tesla’s vision.”

  Simon smiled and lifted the book. “It’s best you hear this from the great man himself. Though maybe not in his native Serbian. I’ll have a translated copy sent to your room. After you read it, we’ll talk again. Maybe then you’ll fully understand what’s at stake.”

  The guards entered, and with a bit of clanking chains, escorted the hobbled prisoner out of the room. Once Simon was alone, he tapped the button for the incoming call and lifted the receiver.

  “Anton, are you all patched up?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be joining the search crews immediately.”

  “Good. Find them. We need to secure the data stolen from the lab.”

  With the mummy incinerated, the topographic map of the body’s tattoos offered the best chance for learning how to tame that deadly microbe. From the webcam discussion they had tonight, it sounded as if Rory and Dr. al-Maaz had been close to discovering something important.

  Anton growled into the phone. “If they’ve harmed Rory . . .”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  The two men had grown fond over the past two years, which Simon allowed, even encouraged. Though for Anton, love was a strained and strange commodity. His relationship with his sister, Valya, was unhealthy, codependent, binding the pair as surely as their shared tattoo. It wasn’t sexual, thank god, but still injurious to them both. This new relationship also served Simon by weakening that sibling tie, making Valya more useful as a solo operative—and more ruthless.

  Nothing like a woman scorned, even if it’s by her own brother.

  But now perhaps Anton’s feelings for Rory were becoming a detriment.

  “Anton.”

  “Sir?”

  “Just find that disk. No matter the cost. Do you understand?”

  There was a long pause, then a firmer, more determined response.

  “It will be done.”

  4:32 A.M.

  “Hello, hello . . .”

  Kat knew Safia’s efforts were futile. In the passenger seat of the Sno-Cat, Safia clutched Kat’s satellite phone, trying to raise Thule Air Base while Kat concentrated on fighting both the treacherous terrain ahead and the storm. Icy winds buffeted the cab, howling in frustration at not being able to reach them. Dry, pebbly hail pelted the sides.

  By now, they must have crossed the border into Quttinirpaaq National Park, though she couldn’t be sure without GPS.

  Safia lowered the phone and craned at the mountains out her window. “Maybe if we got higher.”

  “It wouldn’t help,” Kat said, squinting over the steering wheel.

  The Sno-Cat’s headlamps stretched only yards into the gloom and blowing snow. They were traveling alongside a frozen river, the ice melted or broken in stretches to reveal the blue waters rushing below. Black jagged peaks framed the valley, appearing and disappearing into the storm.

  “Then maybe there’ll be a break in the weather,” Safia said.

  “It’s not the weather that’s the problem.” Kat looked at the roiling dark clouds overhead. “It’s a different storm that’s cutting us off. A geomagnetic storm from a recent solar flare. Until it calms down, we’re not going to get any satellite feed.”

  “She’s right,” Rory said from the backseat. “It’s forecasted to last a day or two.”

  Kat glanced in the rearview mirror. She had stopped long enough to tie his hands behind his back with some rope found in the rear of the Sno-Cat. She had also bound his waist to the seat’s buckle braces. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  He caught her looking at him and lowered his chin.

  She remembered his earlier concern for Safia, acting genuinely contrite and remorseful, but she also recalled the fear in his voice at seeing Anton’s blood trail. She suspected the two must have developed a deeper bond.

  At Sigma command, she had reviewed the record on Anton Mikhailov, back when he was sixteen years old. The crimes listed had been “petty theft” and “immoral acts.”

  In Russia at that time, homosexuality was still considered a crime.

  Kat also recalled her review of the disappearance of Professor McCabe from two years ago. There had been reports of friction between father and son, of the two butting heads. Even Jane had mentioned the same, attributing it to her brother railing against their domineering father.

  Kat didn’t doubt that was part of the reason.

  But maybe not the only reason.

  Had Professor McCabe known about his son and never accepted it . . . or had Rory kept his orientation a secret, driving an unspoken wedge between father and son?

  Rory had some explaining to do, but now was not the—

  “Kat!” Safia grabbed her arm.

  She pulled her attention forward. Something large loomed directly ahead, caught in her headlamp. The dark, shaggy form stood by the river, head down, drinking from the river through one of the breaks in the ice.

  A muskox.

  Kat swerved the Sno-Cat sharply to avoid a collision, but the only path was across a frozen stretch of the river. The treads ground across the ice. She cringed at every pop and crack, but they made it to the far bank and climbed away.

  “Sorry about that,” Kat said, wiping her brow.

  The terrain and the storm clearly did not like being ignored.

  “You need some sleep,” Safia said softly.

  I do. “Once we reach Alert.”

  That was their plan. On the far side of Quttinirpaaq National Park was the Canadian outpost of Alert, where their military maintained a garrison and a weather-monitoring station. But Quttinirpaaq was Canada’s second-largest park, which meant they had to traverse one hundred and fifty miles of untamed landscape to reach safety.

  The journey would take many hours, if not most of the day.

  And that’s if we’re not hunted down first.

  She posed that concern to Rory. “Back at Aurora, what type of ground pursuit vehicles do you have at the station?”

  Rory shrugged. “Snowmobiles, snow bikes. But they were m
ostly used for recreation. Aurora’s a scientific installation, not a military base.”

  She recognized that, knowing it was likely the only reason she had managed to escape with the others in the first place. As isolated as that facility was, the hostile terrain was probably considered security enough against most threats.

  “Some guys used to hunt from the Cessnas,” Rory continued with a frown. “Not exactly sporting, but it offered a way to blow off steam.”

  Kat studied the sky. It was the one small blessing of the storm. At least it had grounded the station’s small fleet of bush planes.

  But even such hunters were not Kat’s biggest concern.

  In the neighboring seat, Safia still clutched the satellite phone to her chest. Kat had asked her to keep trying to raise Thule Air Base. While there was only a slim possibility that a lull in the geomagnetic storm would allow them to reach Colonel Wycroft, Kat had assigned this duty to Safia to keep her distracted.

  As Safia gazed out her window, one of her hands reached up and rubbed a cheek. Kat knew the fear behind that gesture, picturing the rip in the biosafety suit, the splatter of blowback. While decontamination had been prompt, had it been in time?

  Kat had refrained from telling her about Dr. Kano’s assessment of the disease’s progression, how it took as little as two hours for infectious particles to reach the brain once inhaled.

  Had our rescue attempt only ended up dooming the woman?

  The Sno-Cat’s heater rattled loudly, sounding asthmatic. It blew warm air throughout the sealed cabin, a noisy reminder that Safia might not be the only one at risk.

  The engine suddenly coughed, jolting through the vehicle. Kat bumped into the steering wheel, but the motor steadied, rumbling smoothly again. She let out a relieved breath, but a worry remained. She imagined the station’s Sno-Cats were mostly used for minor duties around the base and feared they weren’t maintained well enough for a cross-country trek through the gnashing teeth of a storm.

  As if everyone recognized this, they continued in silence for a long stretch—until a new noise cut through their fears.

  It sounded like an avalanche, a rumbling cascade, growing louder.

  Then suddenly dark shapes appeared out of the darkness behind them and swept past to either side, converging again in the headlights ahead. The thundering passage was accompanied by a panicked, mournful lowing.

  It was a herd of caribou, hundreds of heads, rushing past the Sno-Cat like a river around a boulder. Then as quickly as they came, they vanished back into the storm.

  Safia craned her neck to look out the back window. “What do you think spooked them?”

  Kat suspected the answer and searched for lights behind them. She got the vehicle moving faster, chasing after the ghostly herd, taking heed of its warning.

  Someone’s found us.

  4:38 A.M.

  Painter rubbed his sore wrists as he paced his cell. The guards had unshackled him, strip-searched him, and tossed him a pair of gray coveralls. They hadn’t even given him any shoes.

  But that was the least of his problems.

  Worry ate a hole in his gut—for Kat, for Safia.

  They had locked him up in Safia’s old room. Her scent still lingered here, a faint hint of jasmine that conjured up their shared past, of desert sands and green oases. It also acutely reminded him of the dangers ahead.

  While Kat and Safia had escaped, taking Rory with them, he didn’t know how long they could keep ahead of their pursuers. Despite Simon Hartnell’s cordiality, Painter knew the man would stop at nothing to recapture them.

  A scraping noise drew his attention around.

  Now what?

  A small grate at the bottom of the door slid open. Something was tossed through. It skittered over the floor to Painter’s toes. As he bent down to examine it, the grate snapped back shut.

  He picked up a thick sheaf of papers, which were punch-holed and bound together with brads. He flipped through the pages, noting large sections of the text had been redacted with thick black stripes, including what clearly hid diagrams and charts.

  Intrigued, Painter crossed to the room’s desk and sat down.

  He knew what this must be.

  A translated copy of Tesla’s black notebook.

  At least in this regard, Hartnell had proved himself a man of his word. Still, from the redacted sections, the man clearly refused to be forthcoming about what was truly going on here.

  But I’ll take what I can get.

  From this gesture, Painter suspected Hartnell wanted to be understood, even respected for his brilliance and enterprise. Or maybe the guy merely needed an appreciative audience for what was to come and was willing to educate that person to fulfill that role.

  Painter was happy to cooperate.

  I’ll even clap if it gets me what I want.

  Still, Painter knew the man was no fool. He only had to look out the window to see what the man had built, under the very noses of DARPA, even funded by them. He knew better than to underestimate this guy.

  Painter stared down at the bound pages.

  If he’s given me this, there’s something more he wants from me.

  So be it.

  He turned to the first page and began reading.

  As the story unfolded, an icy certainty grew inside him.

  This is not going to end well . . . for any of us.

  19

  June 3, 10:22 A.M. EAT

  Sudan Desert

  In the belly of the god, Gray listened as the muffled roaring of Seichan’s bike faded behind him. He hoped there was an exit back there, and if not, he knew Seichan would hole up somewhere with Jane McCabe, trusting Gray and the others to keep them safe.

  Kowalski climbed out of the archway into the stomach and gave him a thumbs-up. The big man had prepared a small surprise inside if any of the enemy opted to use the esophageal route into the abdomen. The only other entrance into this half of the slumbering god was through the opening in the diaphragm.

  Gray’s team kept watch on this side, guarding that pinch point. It was their best defensible position. The opening was only large enough for one person to pass through at a time. From the shelter behind a stone loop of duodenum, Gray fixed his SIG Sauer upon that archway, wishing he had more firepower.

  To his right, Derek crouched behind a hill of rubble where a chunk of anatomy had fallen from on high and shattered into pieces. He kept looking worrisomely up toward the roof, as if expecting something else to fall. The man held a spare sidearm—a Beretta 96A1—and swore he was proficient with a handgun. He claimed it was a necessary skill as an archaeologist who often worked in war-torn countries or places overrun by militant rebels.

  Kowalski had his own suggestion for Derek upon hearing this: Maybe you should think about buying a whip.

  Right now, Gray would welcome any additional weapon.

  Kowalski took a position behind the bulge of the stomach, staying near the opening in case there was any incursion that way. He shouldered his Piezer shotgun, the weapon loaded with shells of piezoelectric crystals, ready to deliver a shocking greeting to any uninvited guest. He also had a Desert Eagle .50-caliber pistol tucked in his belt.

  No one spoke, all their ears straining for any sign of the enemy’s approach.

  In preparation, Gray had his team click off their lamps to make them less of a target in the dark. Their only light source came from Seichan’s helmet. Gray had confiscated it before she left and positioned it on the floor with its beam pointing toward the opening.

  Past the glare of the helmet, he saw no movement, but he swore he could hear faint noises: a brush of pebbles, a rasp of cloth, the creak of leather. If the noises weren’t his ears playing tricks, someone was out in the next chamber, moving dark, likely wearing night-vision gear.

  Then everything happened at once.

  A rifle cracked, and the helmet lamp shattered, sinking the place in darkness.

  At the same time, a loud blast and a brilliant flare
of light burst from the archway into the stomach. Someone had hit the trip wire planted by Kowalski across the esophageal opening. It was attached to a pair of flash-bangs.

  With his head turned from the brilliance, Kowalski pointed his shotgun blindly into the glare and fired. Scintillating blue piezoelectric crystals exploded inside the stomach, ricocheting all around, dazzling in their own right as the flare of flash-bang faded.

  Gray used the moment to toss a smoke bomb toward the tunnel through the diaphragm. It burst at the threshold, casting a thick pall. Derek fired through it to discourage any approach.

  With the view into the abdomen momentarily blocked, Gray took off his helmet, clicked on its lamp, and placed it on the floor. “Fall back to position two!”

  Derek retreated with him, but Kowalski lunged headlong into the stomach with his Desert Eagle leveled. He fired a single round, likely dispatching someone stunned inside, then popped back out. He dragged something with him and rushed over.

  “Thought we might need this,” he said.

  His prize was the black tube of a Russian RPG-7—a rocket-propelled grenade launcher—along with two rounds.

  Gray turned toward the diaphragm wall with a deep sense of unease.

  If the enemy had one rocket launcher, they probably have—

  A thunderous boom rocked the world. The opening in the diaphragm blasted apart, herniating wider, sending huge cracks up the sandstone wall dividing the two cavities. Massive chunks rained down, forcing Gray and the others farther back. One slab struck the stomach, crushing it.

  Through the stir of smoke and rock dust, dark shapes ran low across the floor, fading in and out of view.

  Gunshots rang out, peppering all around.

  A round hit his abandoned helmet, shattering its lamp.

  Darkness fell like a black shroud.

  Derek moaned beside him. “What do we do now?”

  10:29 A.M.

  Seichan ducked from the explosions, bobbling the bike as everything quaked around her. Jane’s arms squeezed the air from her lungs as she grappled to stay seated. She braked to a stop and looked back the way they had come.