The Doomsday Key Page 33

  Then it fell on top of her.

  She was slammed deep. The current churned her and spun her. She could not say which way was up. Water surged into her nose. She gagged in reflex, swallowing more stinging water.

  Then the buoyancy of her jacket dragged her back to the surface.

  She tried for a gasp of air, but all she could do was choke. She blinked away the salt, struggling to see.

  Another wave rose before her.

  No …

  Then something grabbed her from behind.

  Terrified, she screamed. The wave crashed over her. But still those arms held her. Hard legs wrapped firmly around her hips. They rode out the tumult together. She had no air, but the raw panic bled away, leaving only a steady fear.

  Though she couldn’t see him, she knew who had grabbed her.

  They surfaced together, riding higher with two life jackets.

  She twisted to find Gray clasped tightly to her, his eyes rock-hard and determined.

  “Save me,” she whispered, putting all she could into those two words. Even her heart.

  7:24 P.M.

  The lights of the fishing village glowed through the storm. The beach lay directly ahead. Kowalski aimed toward it.

  Gray kept to his side.

  He had to admit the man did know how to pilot a boat.

  While he and Seichan had been battered in the churning waves, Kowalski had found them and brought the boat around in the rough seas. A lifeline was tossed, and they were dragged to the boat and hauled back on board.

  The rest of the crossing was brutal, but no one else got tossed overboard. Seichan coughed behind him, still struggling to clear the water out of her chest. She had never looked so pale.

  But she would live.

  Kowalski worked the wheel and drove the catamaran into the shallows. A final wave lifted the boat and shoved it onto the beach. The twin keels dragged through the sand with a violent shudder of its deck. Then at long last they stopped.

  No one had to be told. They all abandoned ship, splashing into the ankle-deep water and fleeing from the last of the waves. Kowalski took an extra moment to pat the side of the catamaran.

  “Nice boat.”

  As a bedraggled and sodden group, they climbed from the shore up toward the fishing village of Aberdaron. Like Bardsey Island, the place was shuttered against the storm. No one was on the streets.

  Gray wanted to be gone before anyone discovered the beached ferry. After the dangerous crossing, he didn’t want to end up locked in a local jail.

  He rushed them through the dark town and up to the church of Saint Hywyn. Their stolen truck was where they’d left it, still parked near the church. Gray turned to Wallace as they headed through the churchyard.

  “What about your dog?” he asked and pointed to the rectory.

  Wallace shook his head, though it clearly pained him. “We’ll leave Rufus be. He’s better off sleeping next to a fire than traipsing about in this boggin’ weather. I’ll come back for him when this is all over.”

  With the matter settled, they all piled into the Land Rover.

  Gray got the engine started, quickly headed out of the lot, and spun them away from Aberdaron. He accelerated as he hit the main road out of town.

  But they still needed a destination.

  “Saint Malachy’s tomb,” Gray said and glanced in the rearview mirror toward Rachel. “What can you tell us about its history?”

  They’d never had a chance to discuss the matter in more detail. All he knew from a cursory inquiry with Rachel was that Malachy was laid to rest in northeastern France. Rachel had tried to elaborate, but at the time it had been enough. Gray had needed to concentrate on getting them all off the island.

  With a long ride ahead of them, it was time he learned more.

  Rachel spoke while staring out into the storm. “Malachy died sometime in the middle of the twelfth century. He expired in the arms of his best friend, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.”

  Kowalski twisted his head. “Saint Bernard? Didn’t he invent those slobbering mountain dogs?”

  Rachel ignored him. “Malachy was buried in an abbey that Bernard founded, the Abbey of Clairvaux. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles outside of Paris. Most of the abbey was destroyed in the nineteenth century, but a few buildings and walls still exist, including its main cloister. But there’s a small problem.”

  From the way she said it, Gray knew the problem was not small.

  “What?”

  “I tried to tell you before …” She went suddenly sheepish, as if she thought she should have pressed him harder earlier. But like Gray, she’d also had a lot on her mind.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “What is it?”

  “The ruins are protected. They may be the best-guarded buildings in all of France.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The Abbey of Clairvaux … it lies at the heart of a maximum-security prison.”

  Gray swung around in his seat to look her full in the face. She had to be joking. From the stern and worried look on her face, she wasn’t.

  “Great. So now we’re breaking into a prison and a tomb.” Kowalski sank down and crossed his arms. “Nothing could possibly go wrong with that plan.”

  26

  October 13, 8:18 P.M.

  Svalbard, Norway

  Krista paced the length of the ice-cold warehouse on the outskirts of Longyearbyen. Crates were stacked to the rafters. The place smelled of oil and coal. She wore a thick sweater to cover the bandages on her arm. A morphine haze clouded the edges of her thoughts. Other men were in worse shape. Two bodies on the warehouse floor were covered over by tarps.

  Only eight men left.

  She held the phone to her ear, waiting for instructions. She had dialed the number he had left. It rang and rang. Finally, the line was picked up. “I’ve been briefed,” the man said.

  “Yes, sir.” Krista struggled to hear any indication of the man’s mood, but his words were calm and precise, unhurried.

  “With the turn of events, we’re radically altering our objectives for this mission. With Karlsen now in Sigma’s hands, the decision is to abort all operations in Norway.”

  “And what about in the UK?”

  “We took a chance on co-opting those outside resources to assist us in finding the key. After the current turn of events, we no longer have that luxury. We must gather our chips and leave the table for now.”

  “Sir?”

  “The article stolen by Father Giovanni. Secure it.” “And the others?”

  “Kill them all.”

  “But what about our—?”

  “All have been deemed a liability, Ms. Magnussen. Make sure the same isn’t said about you.”

  Krista’s throat tightened into a hard knot.

  “You have your orders.”

  FOURTH

  THE DARK MADONNA

  27

  October 14, 5:18 A.M.

  Airborne over the Norwegian Sea

  Painter watched the Svalbard Archipelago vanish behind them as the private jet sailed south over the Arctic Sea. They’d lost half a day evacuating the group trapped in the seed vault. Afterward, it took some fancy footwork by Kat in Washington to get them off the island before the media storm struck.

  The dramatic bombing had drawn the world’s eye. Already a flurry of international news crews and NATO investigators were converging on the tiny archipelago. The remoteness of the place and the fierce storm had allowed Painter just enough time to slip away.

  But he didn’t come alone.

  Monk and Creed were sprawled over the cabin’s couch. Senator Gorman sat dead-eyed in one of the chairs. Their final passenger sat across from Painter.

  Ivar Karlsen accompanied them voluntarily. He could have made it difficult, if not impossible, to extract him from Norwegian territory. But the man had an odd sense of honor. Even now he sat straight in the chair, staring out the window as the islands disappeared. It was clear that he most likel
y had been the primary target of the bombing at Svalbard, that his former ally had turned into his enemy.

  He also knew to whom he owed his life and respected that debt.

  Painter meant to take full advantage of that cooperation.

  The small jet lurched in the unstable air, thickening the tension in the cabin. They were headed to London. Neither Painter nor Kat had heard from Gray’s team. He wanted to be on the ground in England as the search continued in the Lake District. Depending on what was found, they would refuel and continue to Washington.

  But during this five-hour flight, Painter needed to wring this man dry of all he knew. Kat was investigating the sites of the seed-production fields that had been harvested throughout the Midwest. The news was grim: she’d already found multiple cases of unexplained deaths near fifteen test farms. A postmortem on one body had revealed an unknown fungal agent. And there were sixty-three more test fields still to check.

  Karlsen spoke, sensing Painter’s attention. “I only wanted to save the world.”

  Senator Gorman stirred, his eyes sparking with anger, but Painter gave the senator a hard glance. This was his interview.

  Staring out the window, Karlsen failed to note the silent communication. “People talk about the population bomb, but they won’t admit it’s already gone off. The world population is racing toward a critical mass, where population outstrips food supplies. We are only a heartbeat away from global famine, war, and chaos. The food riots in Haiti, Indonesia, Africa, they’re just the beginning.”

  Karlsen turned from the window to face Painter. “But that doesn’t mean it’s too late. If enough like-minded and determined people coordinated their efforts, something could be done.”

  “And you found those people in the Club of Rome,” Painter said.

  Karlsen’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “That’s right. The club keeps raising the alarm, but it falls on deaf ears. More trendy crises consume media attention. Global warming, oil supplies, the rain forests. The list grows. But the root of all of the problems is the same: too many people packed into too little space. Yet no one addresses that problem directly. What do you Americans call it? Politically incorrect, yes? It’s untouchable, tangled in religion, politics, race, and economics. Be fruitful and multiply, says the Bible. No one dares speak otherwise. To address it is political suicide. Offer solutions and they accuse you of eugenics. Someone has to take a stand, to make the hard choices—and not just with words but with concrete actions.”

  “And that would be you,” Painter said, to keep him talking.

  “Don’t take that tone. I know where this all ended. But that’s not where it started. I only sought to put the brakes on population growth, to gradually decrease the human biomass on this planet, to make sure we didn’t hit that crisis point at full speed. In the Club of Rome, I found the global resources I needed. A vast reservoir of innovation, cutting-edge technologies, and political power. So I began steering certain projects toward my goals, gathering like-minded people.”

  Karlsen looked at the senator, then away again.

  Despite Painter’s warning, Gorman spoke up. “You used me to spread your diseased seed.”

  Karlsen glanced down to his hands folded in his lap, but when he glanced up, he remained unabashed. “That came later. A mistake. I know that now. But I sought you out because of your advocacy for biofuels, for turning crops like corn and sugarcane into fuel. It was simple enough to support such a seemingly good cause, a renewable energy source that freed us from oil dependency. But it also served my goal.”

  “Which was what?”

  “To strangle the world’s food supply.” Karlsen stared at Painter with no apology. “Control food, you control people.”

  Painter remembered overhearing Karlsen paraphrase a line from Henry Kissinger. Control oil and you control nations, but control food and you control all the people of the world.

  So that was Karlsen’s goal. Strangle the food to strangle the growth of the human population. If done skillfully enough, it might even work.

  “How did supporting biofuels help you control the world’s food supply?” Painter could guess the answer, but he wanted to hear it from this man.

  “The world’s best croplands are overworked, forcing farmers to turn to marginal lands. They make more money growing crops for biofuels than for food. More and more good farmland is being diverted to grow fuel, not food. And it’s horribly inefficient. The amount of corn needed to produce enough ethanol to fill one SUV tank could feed a starving person for a year. So of course, I supported biofuels.”

  “Not for energy independence …”

  Karlsen nodded. “But as one means of strangling the food supply.”

  Senator Gorman looked aghast, knowing the role he had played.

  But Painter noted the odd bit of emphasis. “What do you mean by one means?”

  “That was just one project. I had others.”

  5:31 A.M.

  Monk had been following the conversation with growing alarm.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “Something to do with bees.”

  He pictured the giant hives hidden under the research facility.

  Karlsen glanced over at Monk. “Yes. Viatus researched Colony Collapse Disorder. It’s a global crisis that I’m sure you’re aware of. In Europe and the United States, over one-third of all honeybees have vanished, abandoning colonies and never returning. Some areas have lost over eighty percent of their bees.”

  “And bees pollinate fruit trees,” Monk said, beginning to understand.

  “Not just fruit trees,” Creed interjected, next to him on the sofa. “Nuts, avocados, cucumbers, soybeans, squash. In fact, one-third of all food grown in the United States requires pollination. Lose the bees, you lose much more than just fruit.”

  Monk understood Karlsen’s interest in Colony Collapse Disorder. Control the bees, and you control another large segment of the food supply.

  “Are you saying you caused the bees to die off?”

  “No. But I know what did, and that’s what Viatus wanted to exploit.”

  “Wait a second.” Monk scooted closer. “You say you know what killed the bees?”

  “It’s no great mystery, Mr. Kokkalis. The media sensationalize the theories—mites, global warming, air pollution, even aliens. But it’s much simpler—and proved. Only the media chooses to ignore it in favor of sensation.”

  “So what caused it?”

  “An insecticide called imidacloprid, or IMD.”

  Monk remembered the codes stamped on the giant hives. They’d all had those same three letters: IMD.

  “Many studies have already incriminated the chemical as the cause, along with an analog called fipronil. In 2005 France banned both chemicals, and over the course of the next years, their bees returned while the rest of the world’s hives continued to collapse.” Karlsen glanced around the cabin. “But did any of you hear about that?”

  No one had.

  “It’s not newsworthy enough,” Karlsen explained. “Imidacloprid, fipronil. Not as colorful as aliens. The media still hasn’t reported on the success in France. Which is fine by me. IMD has its uses.”

  Monk frowned. “Less bees, less food.”

  “Eventually even the media will wise up, so Viatus continued its own research into the compounds—to incorporate IMD into our corn.”

  “Just like Monsanto engineered its herbicide Roundup into its GM seeds,” Creed added.

  “If IMD is ever banned,” Monk realized, “you’ll still be able to control the bee populations.”

  Karlsen nodded. “And in turn, the food supply.”

  Monk sat back. The man was a monster—but a brilliant one.

  5:40 A.M.

  Painter needed to fill in more blanks. He went at Karlsen from another direction. “But Viatus was doing more than just engineering insecticides into its crops.”

  “Like I said, we had many projects.”

  “Then tell me about the peat mummies—the
fungus found in those bodies.”

  Karlsen’s steady gaze grew less sure. “As a biotech company, we test thousands of new chemicals every year, drawn from the four corners of the world. But this ancient fungus …” His voice took on an edge of wonder. “It was amazing. Its chemical nature and genetic structure suited my goals perfectly.”

  Painter let the man talk to see what he’d reveal on his own. “From the desiccated bodies, we harvested fungal spores that were still viable.”

  “After so long?” Monk asked.

  Karlsen shrugged. “The mummies were only a thousand years old. In Israel, botanists grew a date palm from a seed that was over two thousand years old. And peat was a perfect preservative. So yes, we were able to grow the spores, to learn more about the fungus. Examination of the remains also showed how the fungus got into the bodies to begin with.”

  “How was that?”

  “It was ingested. Our forensic pathologist determined that the mummified people had starved to death, yet their bellies were full of rye, barley, and wheat. The fungus was in all of it. It’s a very aggressive crop mold, like ergot in cereal crops. The fungus is capable of infecting any vegetation. All for one purpose.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To starve any animal that eats the infected plant.” Karlsen acknowledged the shocked looks on all their faces. “Crops infected by the fungus turn indigestible. Additionally, the fungus will invade the animal’s gut, further reducing food absorption. It’s the perfect killing machine. It starves the host to death with the very stuff that is meant to sustain it.”

  “So you eat and eat, yet still starve to death.” Painter shook his head. “What advantage is that to the fungus?”

  Monk answered. “Fungi are one of the main reasons dead things decompose. Dead trees, dead bodies. Doesn’t matter. By killing the host, the fungus was creating its own fertilizer, its own growth medium.”

  Painter pictured the mushrooms growing in the bellies of the mummies. But he also remembered Monk’s description of the discovery in the lab, of the sporulating pods that matured out of those same mushrooms. That was how it spread, casting out airborne spores that would infect more fields and start the whole process over again.