The 6th Extinction Page 8
Painter turned to Jenna.
She shrugged. “I couldn’t say if it was him. It all happened so fast, and I never got a good look at his face. But it could have been Dr. Hess. Still, there’s one other thing. Whoever it was, he was trying to run into that toxic cloud before he was recaptured, like he would rather die than be taken away.”
“Which suggests the prisoner must have secrets he didn’t want the enemy knowing.” Painter sounded darkly worried.
“Secrets about what?” she asked.
“That’s what we need to find out.”
“I’d like to help.”
Painter studied her for a long moment. “I’ll admit we could use your eyes during this initial investigation. There may have been some detail you’ve forgotten or didn’t think was important at the time. But I must warn you, it will be dangerous.”
“It’s already dangerous.”
“But I believe it’ll get much worse. Whatever was started here is likely the tip of something larger and far more deadly.”
“Then luckily I’ve got help.” Jenna placed her palm on Nikko’s head. He thumped his tail, ready for anything. “What do we do first?”
Painter glanced to Dr. Cummings. “At first light, we go into that toxic wasteland. Look for clues to what went down.”
“And perhaps to what got out,” his companion added.
Jenna felt the blood coldly settle into her lower gut as she pictured reentering the trap she had just escaped.
What have I gotten myself into?
7
April 28, 3:39 A.M. EDT
Arlington, Virginia
“Why are we always stuck in a basement?” Monk asked.
Gray glanced over to his best friend and colleague. They were presently buried in the sublevels of DARPA’s new headquarters on Founders Square in Arlington, Virginia. They had accompanied Dr. Lucius Raffee back here. The Biological Technologies Offices took up a large swath of real estate on the seventh floor. Upstairs, the director of BTO continued to make calls, trying to rouse someone in the middle of the night who had more than a cursory knowledge of the research going on at the facility in California.
In the meantime, they had their own business down here.
“In your case,” Gray answered, stretching a kink from his neck as he sat at a computer station, “you’re destined to either be holed up in a basement or swinging from some bell tower.”
“Is that a Quasimodo crack?” Monk scowled from a neighboring station.
“You are developing a bit of a hunch.”
“It’s from hauling two growing girls in my arms all day. It’d give anyone a bit of a hitch in their back.”
The third member of their team made a small sound of exasperation and huddled deeper over his keyboard, typing rapidly. Kat had sent Jason Carter to run a digital forensics analysis on the base’s files and logs, to cull through the mountains of data, inventory requests, and countless e-mails for some clue as to what was really going on in California.
The three of them were encased in DARPA’s main data center, a small room with a window that overlooked banks of black mainframes, each the size of a refrigerator. The walls of the subbasement were three feet thick and insulated against any form of electronic intrusion or attack.
“I think I found something,” Jason said, looking up bleary-eyed. An empty Starbucks cup rested by his elbow. “I ran a search crawler through the stacks, using both Dr. Hess’s name and Social Security number. I cross-referenced that with the term neogenesis.”
“What did you find?”
“The search ended up still pulling out several terabytes of information. It would take days to sift through it all. So I refined the crawl to cross-reference with VX gas.”
“One of the toxins used as a countermeasure by the base?”
He nodded. “I figured those files might address whatever organism that poison was engineered to kill. But look at the first folder that popped up.”
Gray crossed over to his station, joined by Monk. He read the file name.
D.A.R.W.I.N.
“What the hell,” Monk muttered.
“The folder is massive,” Jason said. “I glanced briefly through the first few files. They mostly reference the British Antarctic Survey. They’re the major UK group involved in research on that continent. The first paper was highlighted and detailed the group’s success in bringing a fifteen-hundred-year-old Antarctic moss back to life.”
Gray could see why that would intrigue a scientist like Hess, a researcher interested in exotic life.
“But check out this subfolder titled History,” Jason said. “I clicked on it, hoping it would offer some background about how this British scientific group was connected to Dr. Hess’s research in California. But look what showed up instead.”
Jason tapped the folder icon and a series of maps appeared. He clicked on the first one, listed as PIRI REIS_1513.
“I’ve heard about that map,” Gray said, leaning closer. “It’s got quite a history. A Turkish explorer, Admiral Piri Reis, compiled this chart on a piece of gazelle skin back in 1513, showing the coast of Africa and South America, along with the northernmost edge of Antarctica.”
Gray ran a finger along that coastline on the bottom of the screen.
“What’s unusual about that?” Monk asked.
“Antarctica wasn’t discovered—at least not officially—until three centuries later, but more mysteriously, some claim that his rendition shows the continent’s true coastline, a coastline without ice.” Gray looked up. “The last time the coast was likely free of ice was six thousand years ago.”
“But all that’s highly disputed,” Jason added. “The landmass shown here is most likely not even Antarctica.”
“What do you mean?” Monk asked. “The map’s a fake?”
“No,” Gray said. “The map is authentic, but the Turk admits in a series of notes in the margins that he compiled his map from more ancient charts. So the appearance of this Antarctic coastline is likely just a combination of mapmaking confusion and coincidence.”
Monk scratched his chin. “Then what’s it doing in a folder among Dr. Hess’s files?”
Gray had no answer, but Jason apparently did.
The kid spoke while typing. “This map and several others in the folder are all tagged as coming from a Professor Alex Harrington.”
Gray leaned closer.
Jason flashed through various windows rapidly. “I just Googled him. Says here he’s a paleobiologist attached to the British Antarctic Survey.”
“Paleobiologist?” Monk asked.
“It’s a discipline that combines archaeology with evolutionary biology.” With his fingers still tapping, Jason added, “And it looks like the professor exchanged a slew of e-mails and phone calls with Dr. Hess, going back almost two decades. They shared a common interest in unusual ecosystems.”
Jason glanced up at Gray with one eyebrow high.
Gray understood. If anyone knows intimate details about Hess’s research, it might be this guy.
“Good work,” Gray said. “But we should run this past Raffee upstairs. Maybe the director knows something more about this relationship with the Brits. Can you print this file up?”
Jason scowled, reached down, and yanked a flash drive from a port. “Already copied everything here. It would take hours to print all of this. When you reach the director’s office, all you have to do is find the USB port on his computer and—”
“I know how to use a flash drive. I’m not a dinosaur.”
“Sorry. You’re like twelve years older than me. In digital times, that’s at least the Pleistocene era.” He hid a grin behind his Starbucks cup as he tried to suck down the last dregs of coffee.
Monk clapped Jason on the shoulder. “I now get what Kat sees in this kid.”
Gray pocketed the drive and headed toward the door. “Keep searching those files,” he ordered. “See if you can dig up anything else while I talk to Director Raffee.”
He tapped the button for the seventh floor. As the car rose smoothly upward, Gray pulled out his phone, looking to see if there was any message from Kenny about their father. It was Gray’s first chance to check in the past hour, as the subterranean data center had no cell reception. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw no messages.
At least it should be a quiet night.
As the elevator opened, Gray hurried through the dark, deserted corridors. It was a maze up here, made tighter by the stacks of boxes standing outside doors. Scaffolding and paint cans also blocked the way. DARPA was still transitioning from its old headquarters a few blocks away to this one in Founders Square. Some divisions were still in the former building; others had either moved out or were in the process of settling in. He imagined the chaos during the day, but at this late hour, everything was hushed and calm.
Turning a corner, he spotted a cracked open doorway aglow with lamplight. It seemed Raffee had earned a corner office. Gray hurried toward it—when a harsh shout stopped him.
He faded against one wall.
The voice, muffled by distance, hadn’t sounded like the director. Gray’s hand reached to his service weapon, a SIG Sauer P226, from the shoulder holster under his jacket. As his fingers tightened on the grip, a distinct pop, pop, pop echoed to him.
The door to Raffee’s office swung open, casting light far down the corridor. Gray slunk lower, sheltering behind a parked Xerox copier in the hallway. He peeked out enough to see four men—dressed in black camo and carrying pistols equipped with silencers—file out and sweep toward his position. Gray glanced behind him. The nearest door was yards away.
Too far.
He calculated quickly. His pistol held a dozen .357 rounds. He would have to make each shot count, especially if the combatants were equipped with body armor. His only advantage at the moment was the element of surprise.
He steeled himself to act, centering his breath.
The last man through the door barked into a radio. “The others are downstairs. Sublevel three. Take the stairs, we’ll use the elevator.”
He pictured Monk and Jason, ensconced in the small room, unaware of the firestorm headed their way.
Gray waited until the first two men passed his hiding spot. Focused on their goal, they failed to see him crouched behind the Xerox machine.
He fired twice, both head shots—then pivoted and rolled low into the open. He aimed back toward Raffee’s office and the other two men. He shot the closest in the knee, dropping him—but even in pain and caught off guard, the man fired his pistol as he fell.
The round whistled past Gray’s ear.
Damn . . .
These were plainly hardened professionals, likely former military. As the other’s shoulder hit the floor, Gray blasted him point-blank in his face, not taking any further chances.
The final gunman retreated behind a piece of scaffolding, peppering rounds down the hall. Gray stayed flat on the ground, using the body in front of him as a shield. Shots pounded into the man’s teammate or ricocheted off the linoleum.
Gray had to act before his target fled back into Raffee’s office. From the way the man cast a glance in that direction, it was clearly his intent: to get to safety and call up reinforcements.
Can’t let that happen.
Gray popped up and strafed at his adversary’s position. Rounds pinged off the scaffolding or buried into the far wall behind his target. The man kept hidden as Gray kept pulling the trigger, his arm straight out, stepping over the body on the ground.
Finally he reached his twelfth shot—and his slide locked.
Out of bullets.
His adversary rose back into view, aiming his smoking weapon, a triumphant sneer fixed on his face.
Gray dropped his SIG Sauer. As the other’s eyes twitched to follow its fall, Gray used the distraction to swing up his other arm, revealing the pistol he had hidden behind his thigh, a weapon he had confiscated from the dead man on the floor. He pulled the trigger twice—but once would have been enough.
A clean shot through the eye dropped the final combatant to the floor.
Gray rushed forward and burst into Raffee’s office. He didn’t hold out much hope that the director was still alive, but he had to check. He found the man in his chair, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up. A bloom of crimson stained the center of his white shirt and a clean round hole pierced his forehead.
Biting back his fury at the callous execution, he grabbed the phone atop the desk, but he immediately saw the cord had been cut. He took a breath, considered searching for another phone; even if he found one, he wasn’t familiar enough with the system to know how to reach the subbasement extension. And with no cell reception down below, the phone in his pocket was useless.
He had no way of warning Monk and Jason.
4:04 A.M.
“Maybe those debunkers are wrong about that Piri Reis map,” Jason said, straightening his hunched shoulders from the monitor. He took a deep breath, hiding his nervousness about broaching such a conclusion on his own. He knew about the past exploits of Commander Pierce and his partner and felt out of their league.
I’m only a glorified tech geek.
Still, his gut told him that what he’d found might be important.
“What do you mean?” Monk asked, letting out a jaw-popping yawn. He sat with his boots up on the neighboring desk.
“You’d better check this out.”
Monk grumbled under his breath—something about kids always waking him up. He shifted his feet to the ground and slid his chair next to Jason. “What did you find?”
“I’ve been looking through the other historical maps included in the folder from the British Antarctic Survey and reading through Professor Harrington’s notes on them.”
“The paleobiologist.”
“That’s right.” Jason cleared his throat, swallowing hard. “Here’s another pair of maps of Antarctica, both dating about twenty years after the Piri Reis map was drawn in 1513. One by a fellow named Oronteus Finaeus and the other by Gerardus Mercator.”
“Notice again that they both show Antarctica without ice,” Jason said. “Harrington also notes that the maps reveal mountain ranges, peaks that are currently buried deep under glaciers and should not have been visible back in the sixteenth century. Likewise, the maps include fine details about the continent, like charting Alexander Island and the Weddell Sea.”
Monk scrunched his brow. “And both of these maps were drawn centuries before the continent was ever officially discovered.”
Jason nodded. “And many millennia after Antarctica’s coastlines were ever free of ice. There’s also this map from 1739 by a French cartographer named Buache.”
“See how this chart shows Antarctica being depicted as two landmasses, separated by a river or sea. That’s true. While the continent appears to be one continuous landmass, strip away the ice and it’s actually a mountainous archipelago broken up into two main sections: Lesser Antarctica and Greater Antarctica. This detail wasn’t known until seismic mapping was done by the U.S. Air Force in 1968.”
“And this map was from the eighteenth century?”
“That’s right.” He couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice.
“But what does any of this have to do with Dr. Hess’s research in California?”
The question deflated his enthusiasm. “I don’t know, but there’s a lot more from Professor Harrington in this folder, some files dating back to World War II. Much of it highly redacted. I’ll need time to go through it all.”
“Sounds like you’re going to need a keg of coffee when we get back to Sigma command.”
Jason resigned himself to this fact. “I suppose when it comes to mysteries surrounding Antarctica, it’s better me than anyone else.”
Monk stared harder at him. “What do you mean?”
“Kat . . . I mean Captain Bryant . . . never told you?”
“There’s lots of things my wife doesn’t tell me. Most of it for my own good.” Monk pointed a finger at him. “So spill it, kid.”
Jason stared at the man’s raised hand, noting the slight unnatural sheen to its surface. It was a prosthetic, eerily lifelike, showing fine hairs on the back and knuckles. Jason knew the story of how Monk had lost the hand and respected the man all the more for it. Afterward, DARPA had replaced it with this marvel of bioengineering, incorporating advanced mechanics and actuators, allowing sensory feedback and surgically precise movements. Jason had also heard that Monk would detach the hand and control it remotely via contact points on the titanium cuff surgically attached to the stump of his wrist.
Jason would love to see such a performance someday.
“If you’re done staring . . .” Monk warned, a slight growl in his voice.
“Sorry.”
“You mentioned you had a connection to Antarctica.”
“I once lived there, but it’s been a while. My mom, stepdad, and sister are still there . . . near McMurdo Station.”
Monk squinted at him, sensing there was more to his story, adventures left untold, but he left it there. “Then with your background, maybe you should be the one to interview this Harrington guy. Find out what the Brit knows.”
Jason perked up. He always wanted to do fieldwork someday, and this might be the opening he needed. Anything to break free of motherboards, logic circuits, and code-breaking algorithms.
A door closed down the hallway, the sound echoing to them.
Monk stood up.
Jason glanced over his shoulder. “Sounds like Commander Pierce is back.”
Hopefully with something more exciting to do than look at maps.
“Kid, do you have a side arm?”