Sigma Force 10 - The Sixth Extinction Read online

It trundled up to Dylan’s vehicle and came to a stop. A window rolled down. His second-in-command poked his head out.

  “The professor’s not holed up in that Kraut sub,” McKinnon said. “We checked it from stem to stern.”

  Dylan had sent the Scotsman back to make sure Harrington hadn’t gone into hiding inside the German vessel.

  Knowing this for sure now, Dylan faced forward.

  Then they truly set off on foot.

  Earlier, one of his scouts had found tracks along the riverbank, but Dylan had wanted to make certain someone hadn’t laid a false trail. He couldn’t believe Harrington had the bollocks for such an overland trek.

  Seems I keep underestimating you, old man.

  Unfortunately, it had also taken his team too long to get the CAATs loaded for the mission—especially after a hidden clutch of British soldiers ambushed his team at Hell’s Cape. In Dylan’s mad rush to reach Harrington at the outset of the raid, he had failed to properly clear the station. A handful of soldiers had gone into hiding, only to waylay his team, pinning them down for a furious ten minutes. Eventually they were dispatched.

  Still . . .

  We lost too much time.

  But now he would make up for it. Harrington could not have gotten too far on foot. He straightened, shrugging away his irritation, and climbed into his CAAT.

  He holstered his pistol and called to the others, “Mount up! Move out!”

  Time for the real hunt to begin.

  23

  April 30, 11:33 A.M. AMT

  Boa Vista, Brazil

  “Now this is interesting,” Dr. Lucas Cardoza said, straightening from his hunched position over his computer.

  Painter rose from a stool and crossed over to his side.

  The Brazilian geneticist headed the Genographic Project in Boa Vista. He was a portly fellow, with dark hair, a thick black mustache, and studious eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses. Cardoza and his team had been collating and recording DNA from the native tribes of South America for the past decade. Using a proprietary algorithm, he compiled the gathered data to trace the ancient migration patterns for hundreds of tribes who made the Brazilian forests their home.

  Painter and Drake had joined Cardoza in his office at the Universidade Federal de Roraima, the city’s main university. The researcher had agreed to perform a DNA analysis on the blood sample from the only surviving gunman from the assault at the café. As expected the prisoner, now under police custody, had refused to talk, even tried to hang himself in his cell in a failed suicide attempt. Such a desperate act spoke to the fervency of Cutter’s followers and the tight tribalism among his group.

  But what tribe was it?

  “I think I might have found something,” Cardoza said, waving Painter closer to his computer.

  Drake bent down, too, grumbling under his breath. “About time.”

  Painter checked his watch. Jenna had been kidnapped roughly three hours ago. Her captors had a significant lead, and as time ticked away, her trail grew colder. He knew his team only had a narrow window in which to find her. Cutter Elwes had kidnapped her for a reason, likely to question her, to discover what the Americans knew about him. But after that, he would have no further use for her.

  Knowing that, Painter had sent Malcolm and Schmitt to the Brazilian air base, prepping for the arrival of their new transport. The aircraft was flying in from a U.S. warship located in the South Atlantic. Kat had expedited all the arrangements, applying pressure through contacts in the Brazilian government and military to gain their cooperation. Also, staying one step ahead, Kat had made provisions to supply additional support to Painter, which was already en route. That was Kat’s main strength: always anticipating what was needed versus passively waiting for orders.

  He especially appreciated that now.

  We can’t lose any more time.

  And not only for Jenna’s sake.

  Kat had also shared the news that a medium-yield nuclear device had reached the Mono Lake region and was being readied for deployment. Her assessment of the aftermath was grim. A hundred square miles would be firebombed, while the burst of radiation and fallout could contaminate over four hundred square miles, including all of Yosemite National Park. Worst of all, there continued to be no guarantee such a drastic tactic would eradicate the bioorganism.

  So Painter needed answers—and the Brazilian geneticist was their best hope.

  “What did you find?” Painter asked.

  “I’m sorry this has taken so long,” Cardoza apologized. “DNA analysis has gotten much swifter over the past few years, but the level of details necessary for such a genetic study takes painstaking precision. I didn’t want to make a mistake and send you in the direction of the wrong tribe.”

  Painter placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I appreciate your willingness to help on such short notice.”

  The researcher nodded gravely and pointed to the monitor. “Look at this.”

  On the screen glowed multiple rows of vertical grayscale bars. It looked like a bar code, but this code actually mapped the prisoner’s genetic legacy.

  “I’ve identified twenty-two markers unique to natives of northern Brazil, which normally wouldn’t help much, as the number of tribes in this area is rather large and their peoples scattered. But this sequence right here—” He circled a group of bars with his finger on the screen. “It’s a unique mutation found in a subgroup of the Macuxi tribe, a tribe within a tribe, if you will. This particular group is notorious for their isolation and inbreeding, including a strange history of multiple births.”

  “And the prisoner belongs to this tight-knit group?”

  “I’m almost certain.”

  It was that almost that made Painter nervous. “How sure are you?”

  He adjusted his glasses. “In the ninety-ninth percentile. Maybe a fraction more than that.”

  Painter hid a smile. Only a scientist would qualify a 99 percent match as almost.

  “Where does this tribe live?” Drake asked, leaning closer.

  Cardoza tapped at his keyboard and brought up a topographic map. A red dot appeared about a hundred miles southeast of Boa Vista, deep into the rain forest.

  Painter blew out a frustrated breath. That was still a lot of territory to cover. “What do you know about this section of the rain forest?” he asked, hoping for some break.

  Cardoza shook his head. “Very little. It’s almost impossible to reach overland due to the fractured nature of that geology. The terrain is broken into deep chasms, choked with vegetation. Few have ever ventured there.”

  “No wonder that tribe was inbreeding,” Drake commented.

  “Here’s a satellite image of the area.” Cardoza toggled from the topographic map to a panoramic photo taken from low orbit, showing the spread of dense canopy.

  It looked impenetrable. Anything could be hidden under that dark green bower, but Painter had a gut instinct.

  From reading everything he could about Cutter, Painter had begun to build a profile of the man’s personality. Cutter had a flair for the dramatic, coupled with an ego that would make it hard for him to hide his head in the sand . . . even when playing dead.

  “Can you zoom out?” Painter asked, remembering an unusual feature found on the topographic map.

  “Certainly.”

  The image widened, panning out to include a larger chunk of the rain forest. The red dot marking the village lay close to the only significant break in that emerald sea. A tall mountain pushed high out of the rain forest to the south. The cliffs were sheer, looking unscalable. Its summit lay shrouded in mists.

  “What’s that?” Drake asked.

  “A tepui,” Cardoza explained. “A fractured piece of an ancient tableland. The towering plateaus of this region are centers of myths and legends, full of stories of vengeful spirits and lost passageways to the underworld.”

  Painter straightened.

  And maybe a good place for a dead guy to return to the living.

&nb
sp; Drake glanced over to him. “Think that’s the place?”

  “If not, it’s close enough to the village marked on the map. We could always drop in on them for a visit.”

  Drop in, being the best description.

  Painter added, “If we find nothing at that mountain, hopefully someone at that village would know something about Cutter Elwes.”

  “Then let’s go.” Drake turned swiftly without a thank-you or good-bye for Dr. Cardoza.

  Painter understood the Marine’s haste but took the time to shake the geneticist’s hand. “You may have saved a young woman’s life.”

  As he hurried after Drake, he prayed that was true.

  11:38 A.M.

  Jenna stood at the edge of civilization.

  The jungle spread before her, buzzing with insects, whistling with birdcalls, while behind her, the helicopter’s engine ticked and knocked as it cooled in the forest clearing.

  A pair of bare-chested natives in stained shorts hand-pumped fuel into the grounded aircraft from giant black barrels. On the far side, hammocks hung from between the trunks of trees, tented with mosquito netting. Piles of cigarette butts littered the forest floor beneath the slings. A pornographic magazine lay atop the mounds, looking quickly dropped, likely after hearing the approach of the helicopter. The air stank of oil, tobacco smoke, and human waste.

  She had moved to the edge of the clearing to escape it, imagining what it must smell like when the camouflage netting was drawn back over this festering pit of man’s corruption. Currently the net drooped from the canopy, waiting to be pulled back into place after the helicopter departed, to once again hide this refueling station.

  She stared up into the face of the noon sun, at the bluest of blue skies. The heat was blistering, already burning her winter-pale skin, made worse by the appalling humidity. She stepped into the shade of a mahogany tree, drawing the attention of her guard. The pilot had a rifle across his knees and glanced in her direction. Her captors hadn’t bothered to keep her tied up.

  Where could I go?

  Even if she tried to run, these tribesmen knew this jungle far better than she did and she’d be quickly recaptured.

  At the rain forest’s edge, she inhaled the perfume of the jungle, trying to push down her terror. A breeze stirred leaves, bringing the scent of forest blossoms, damp soil, and green life. As a park ranger, she found it hard to ignore the raw beauty here and the miracle of life in all its myriad forms: from the towering trees leading up to the thick emerald canopy, to the whispering passage of a troop of monkeys through the lower branches, even the parade of ants up the bark of her shade tree. She had read how the naturalist E. O. Wilson had counted over two hundred species of ants on a single rain forest tree. It seemed life was determined to fill every nook and niche in this resplendent Eden.

  Something larger stirred closer at hand in the jungle, stepping free of the shadows only yards away, startling her.

  The ebony-haired woman strode forward, as bare-chested as the men. Her only clothes were a pair of dark brown shorts that blended with her skin. She carried a bow over one arm, with a quiver of arrows strung across her back. Over her shoulders, she balanced the limp body of a fawn. It had a gray head and black legs, with fur of reddish brown. Large black eyes stared glossily out at its former home.

  She passed by Jenna without even a glance.

  The woman had only been out in the forest for fifteen minutes. She dumped the carcass near the hammocks, leaving it for the two natives who must live at this refueling station. For the woman, it looked like the hunt had not been for meat or skin, but only for the personal sport.

  Jenna noted how the men avoided staring at the woman, even though her breasts—which were quite spectacular—were exposed.

  The woman slipped back into the blouse hanging from a branch and spoke to the pilot in a low, relaxed voice. Her dark eyes flicked to Jenna, then back to the man before her. The pilot nodded, yelled at the pair of natives, and waved for them to clear their gear out of the way.

  Apparently it was time to go.

  Minutes later, Jenna was back in her seat in the rear cabin. The rotors spun up to a roar and the helicopter leaped skyward, breaking free of the jungle and out in the blaze of the midday sun. Tilting its nose slightly down, the helicopter sped over that endless expanse of green canopy.

  She stared ahead.

  A dark shadow rose near the horizon, still a long ways off.

  Is that where we’re headed?

  She had no way of knowing. All she knew for sure was that whatever waited for her at the end of this trek would not be pleasant. She closed her eyes and leaned back, girding herself against what was to come, missing her usual source of strength and resilience.

  Nikko . . .

  But her partner had his own battle to fight.

  8:40 A.M. PDT

  Sierra Nevada Mountains, CA

  Lisa wheeled the gurney toward the air lock that led out of her in vivo lab. The one surviving rat stirred in its test cage, coming forward to watch her pass, its pink nose twitching.

  Sorry, I can only save one passenger on this sinking ship.

  Nikko lay on his side on the cushioned stretcher, barely breathing after the light sedation. His left front leg was splinted stiffly out, hooked to IV lines running to two bags: One contained fluids infused with a cocktail of antivirals and the other held platelet-rich plasma. The bags rested on the cushion next to the dog, waiting to be re-hung on poles.

  Nikko’s stretcher was a patient containment transport gurney, sealed tightly under a clear hood with its own oxygen supply, flowing from tanks secured on the underside.

  She pushed the gurney into the air lock, waited for the pressure to equilibrate, then as the green light flashed, she nodded to the figure outside. Edmund Dent hauled open the air lock door on his side and helped her draw the gurney into the small conference room at the center of the BSL4 labs.

  “We must hurry,” Edmund said. “Don’t have much time.”

  She knew this, too.

  Lindahl and his cronies had all gone to oversee the arrival of the nuclear device to the mountain base, taking with him the entire team of nuclear and radiation scientists. For a brief window, the lab was mostly empty. The researchers still present were colleagues of Edmund, who had agreed to turn a blind eye to their current actions. They had all met Jenna, knew about her kidnapping and Lindahl’s plan to irradiate the dog.

  Still, who knew how long that silence will last under pressure?

  Edmund helped manhandle the containment gurney to the main decontamination air lock. A Marine stood guard on the far side. Edmund lifted an arm as the guard turned, as if what they were doing was totally normal.

  Lisa entered the air lock alone, leaving Edmund behind to help cover for her. In her wake, he was going to sabotage the air lock into her lab, to delay Lindahl for as long as possible from discovering Nikko had gone missing.

  The decontamination process started. Sprays bathed her suit and the outer shell of the gurney, followed by ultraviolet radiation, then another round of spraying and air drying. The entire process took an agonizing twenty minutes.

  The Marine outside would glance in her direction every now and then. Lisa avoided eye contact.

  Finally the light flashed green, allowing her out. In the anteroom beyond the air lock, she shed out of her containment suit. Sweat pasted her clothes into every bodily crevice, mostly from the heat inside her sealed suit, but also from fear of discovery. She grabbed the gurney’s handles and, with some effort, wheeled it out into the main hangar.

  “Ready?” the guard asked.

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  Corporal Sarah Jessup—an auburn-haired Marine in a perfectly pressed uniform—had been assigned as Painter’s personal aide. She had come with the highest praise from the base commander.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” Lisa said as the two of them whisked Nikko through the cavernous space.

  The woman shrugged. “I’m
not breaking any rules. Director Crowe was assigned to be my direct superior. He verbally approved your actions. So I’m following orders like any good Marine.” Still, she smiled softly back at Lisa. “Besides, I have a chocolate Lab at home. If anyone ever tried to hurt Belle, they’d sorely regret it.”

  Lisa took a deep steadying breath, thankful for the corporal’s cooperation. If Jessup had not agreed and had not arranged to cover this guard shift, stealing Nikko out of the lab would have been impossible.

  The corporal had facilitated matters in one other way.

  “I set up the temporary quarantine area per your instructions,” Jessup said. “In a place few would think to look.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Again that soft smile. “Back room of the base chapel. The chaplain has agreed to keep our cover, to deflect any inquiries.”

  “You got a priest to lie for us.”

  Her smile widened. “Don’t worry, he’s Episcopalian—and my boyfriend. Plus he loves Belle as much as I do . . . which he’d better or I’d never consider marrying him. Belle and I are a package deal.”

  Lisa heard the young love in the corporal’s voice, reminding her of her own postponed nuptials. Missing Painter more acutely, she tamped down an ache in her heart.

  She let Corporal Jessup lead the way, knowing this escapade would only buy them so much time. Eventually someone would talk or Nikko’s hiding place would be discovered. Even barring that, the larger nuclear threat loomed over all.

  With another storm due to hit after midnight, Lindahl had set a timetable for detonation as early as nightfall.

  She pictured a fiery mushroom cloud blooming over these mountains.

  Despair settled over her. Someone had to find a way to stop all of this before it was too late.

  But who . . . and most important, how?

  11:43 A.M. AMT

  Roraima, Brazil

  For the past two hours, Kendall had labored under the intense scrutiny of Cutter Elwes inside his facility’s BSL4 lab. Both of them were encased in bright white biosafety suits with yellow air hoses coiling up to the wall.

  Kendall held up two vials and read the labels.