CYCLOPS.
Stealth was out of the question. They didn’t have a week to sweep the jungle in search of a tunnel that might lead into the mountain. What they did have was infrared technology that would electronically strip Cyclops of enough foliage to reveal any suspicious anomalies, such as heat.
They’d landed the tactical C-17 at the Sentani airport, refueled, and immediately climbed back into the skies to take on the mountain looming over the coast. The forecast was fair, the winds were down, and the team had slept well on the flight over the Pacific.
Even so, Thomas couldn’t shake his anxiety. What if he was wrong? What if Rachelle had been mistaken?
And another piece of information now complicated things: He’d failed to retrieve the Books of Histories in his dream. Qurong still possessed them all except for the one book with blank pages. The only useful information he had from his dreams was Rachelle’s claim that Monique was here, in this mountain.
The transporter flew low, scanning the trees, covering the backside of the mountain in long sweeps. Captain Keith Johnson approached him from the cockpit looking like something out of a comic book with all of his camouflaged equipment: a helmet with a communications rig that allowed him to view the proximity of each of four team leaders through a visor that hovered over his right eye. Parachute. Jungle pack. Two grenades. A green-handled knife with a shiny blade that Mikil might trade her best horse for.
The rest looked the same. Only Thomas was dressed down. Camouflaged jumpsuit, knife, radio, an assault rifle he had no intention of using, and a parachute he had no choice but to use. Buddy jump.
“Just completed the first full sweep,” the captain said, dropping to one knee. “Nothing yet. You sure we shouldn’t cover the other side?”
“No, this side.”
“Then the operator wants to go lower. But you know anyone down there’s going to hear us. This thing sounds like a stampede flying over.”
Thomas removed his helmet and ran his fingers through damp hair. “You have an alternative?”
They’d been through a dozen scenarios on the flight over. Thomas had offered his thoughts, but when it came to electronic surveillance, he was clearly out of their league. He’d deferred to them.
“No. Not with your time constraints. But I gotta tell you, if they’re down there, they’re all eyes.”
“I’m not sure we don’t want them to find us. If we’re lucky, we’ll force their hand. They can’t leave without exposing themselves.”
The captain eyed him, then nodded. “I don’t mind saying that we’re hanging our rear ends out pretty far. This wouldn’t be my first choice.”
“I realize the danger, Captain, but if it makes you feel any better, the president might put the entire 101st Airborne in these same shoes if he thought it would speed Monique de Raison’s recovery. Let’s take her down.”
The decision to use the French secret police to deal with Hunter had been Armand Fortier’s call. The head of the Sûreté had called Carlos directly. They were putting over three hundred agents on the case, each with the order to return Hunter to France immediately or, thus failing, to kill him. They’d already activated a wide network of informants in the United States and learned that the man had flown to Fort Bragg and then disappeared.
Three possibilities, Carlos thought. One, he was still at Fort Bragg, keeping a very low profile. Two, he was on his way to France to deal directly with Fortier. Or three, he was on his way here, to Indonesia.
Carlos peered through the binoculars at the approaching transporter and knew that he’d made the right call. No doubt Hunter was in that plane.
The man now unnerved him in a way not even Svensson could. Three times Hunter had miraculously slipped out of his grasp. No, not entirely correct: Twice he had been mortally wounded and then apparently healed, and once he’d slipped from his grasp—the last time.
It wasn’t just his nine lives. Hunter seemed to know things that he had no business knowing.
True, it was from the man’s dreams that they had supposedly first isolated the Raison Strain. But if Carlos was right, the man was still learning things from his dreams. The plane that now approached, undoubtedly with infrared scanners, was proof enough. He’d elected to let the French track Hunter in the United States while he returned here, where he was sure the man would eventually come. He would come for Monique.
“How many times?” Svensson’s voice crackled on the radio.
Carlos keyed his mike. “Seven. They’re coming in lower this time.”
Static.
“How did they find us?”
“As I said. He knew about the virus, he knew about the antivirus, now he knows where we are. He’s a ghost.”
“Then it’s time to bring your ghost in for a talk. You don’t think a crash will kill him?”
“I don’t. The rest maybe, but not Hunter.”
“Then bring them down. No other survivors.”
“We’ll evacuate?”
“Tonight, by dark. Fortier wants this man in France.”
“Understood.”
Carlos stepped from the shielded netting that had kept his heat signature to a minimum, shouldered the modified Stinger launcher, and armed the missile. A direct hit would cut the transporter in half. He wasn’t certain that Hunter would survive, of course, but it was a gamble he was gladly willing, even eager, to take. More than a small part of him wanted to be wrong about Hunter’s impossible gift. Better for him to die.
He waited for the plane to turn at the far end of the valley and head back toward him. Svensson had dug into the mountain at its center, and
the plane was now approaching him at eye level. They would see him this time. He would have one good shot.
It was all that he needed.
“Contact bearing, two-nine-zero.”
Thomas heard the electronics operator above the aircraft’s din. He twisted and looked out of his window.
“Contact, one—”
“Incoming! Incoming!”
The warning came from the cockpit, and Thomas immediately saw the streaking missile through the window.
He was right then. Monique was here.
He was also staring death head-on.
He grabbed the rail by his seat. The C-17 rolled sharply away from the incoming missile.
“Countermeasures, deployed.” The pilot’s voice was drowned out by the sudden roar of the four Pratt and Whitney engines as the jet pitched up and groaned for altitude.
“It’s gonna hit!” someone yelled.
For a brief moment panic fired the eyes of twenty men who’d faced death before but not in these circumstances. This fight could be over before it started.
Whomp!
The fuselage imploded with a huge flash of fire just behind the cockpit. A ball of heat rolled back through the cabin, hot enough to burn bared skin.
Thomas got his head down before the heat hit him. A roar swallowed him. Hot air. Then cool air. Someone was screaming.
It all happened so quickly that he didn’t have to react. He knew they’d been hit by a missile, but he had no understanding of what that meant.
His eyes sprang open. The C-17 floated lazily to his right, cut into three pieces just in front of the wings and at the tail. The middle section was still under full power and now roared past the nose and tail sections.
Thomas was suspended in the air, still strapped to his seat. He didn’t seem to be falling, not yet. He’d been thrown from the aircraft, maybe through the exposed tail, and now floated free.
But the trees were less than three thousand feet below him, and this buoyancy wouldn’t last more than—
It occurred to him that he was already falling. Like a rock.
Panic immobilized him for a full three count. Thunder to his right jerked him out of it. An oily tower of fire rose from where the main fuselage slammed into the valley under full power. No one could have possibly survived an impact like that.
Thomas twisted in his seat, but the chair just turned with him. He grabbed the harness release, flipped it open, and rolled to his right, fighting his instinct to stay in the relative safety of the metal frame.
Two thousand feet.
The chair caught wind and flipped past him. Now he was free-falling without a seat. He’d jumped from a bungee tower once, but he’d never even worn a parachute before today, much less made a jump.
The nose and tail sections plowed through trees on the opposite mountain slope. No explosions.
One thousand feet.
He grabbed the rip cord and jerked. With a pop the chute deployed, streamed skyward, and snapped open. The harness tugged at him. He gasped, sucked in a lungful of blasting air. His helmet had flown off at some point.
The green canopy rushed up to his feet. Something cracked loudly, and at first he thought it might be his leg, but a branch was crashing down beside him. He’d broken a branch off.
Leaves obscured his view of the ground. The moment his boots struck a solid surface below him, he rolled hard. Too hard. He slammed into a thick tree and collapsed by its long exposed roots, winded and barely aware.
Birds screeched. A macaw. No, a year bird; he’d know the distinctive call anywhere. The long-beaked black bird was sitting atop one of the trees nearby, protesting this sudden intrusion.
I’m alive.
He groaned and forced a breath. Moved his legs. They seemed to be in one piece. What if he was actually unconscious and back in the desert?
He pushed himself up. Slowly his head cleared. The foliage was a mix of reed grass and bushes, thanks to a creek that gurgled thirty yards off. A huge fallen log rested on the bank to his right.
Thomas stood, released the parachute harness, and quickly checked his bones. Bruised, but otherwise intact. His only weapon was the bowie knife strapped to his waist.
Smoke boiled to the sky several miles up the valley. He grabbed the radio at his hip, twisted the volume switch.
“Come in, come in. Anybody, come in.”
The speaker hissed. He tried again, got nothing. The transmitter could be dead. But from what he’d seen, he thought it was more likely that the people on the other end were dead. His gut turned. Maybe a few had survived by getting clear like he had, although he couldn’t remember seeing any other falling bodies.
Thomas turned, ran up the riverbank, vaulted the log, and landed ankle-deep in sucking mud.
Slow down, slow down. Think!
He scanned the jungle again. If he remembered right, the missile had been fired from a point halfway up the eastern slope. He had to get to the C-17 wreckage. Survivors. A weapon. Radio. Anything that might help him. And before nightfall if he could. He didn’t have the same body as Thomas of Hunter in the desert, but he had the same mind, right? He’d been in worse situations. He’d been in one far worse, a hundred Horde assassins within striking distance of his throat, just last night.
Thomas cut back into the jungle, where the canopy shielded the sun and slowed the undergrowth, and headed for the boiling smoke several miles up-valley. His mission took precedence over any survivors, regardless of how inhumane that felt. His purpose here was to find Monique at any cost, even if that cost included the death of twenty soldiers.
He gritted his teeth and grunted.
Several times he resisted the temptation to cut to his right and angle for the source of the missile. But he ran on. They’d surely seen his parachute deploy. They would be ready for him this time.
And this time he wouldn’t bounce back from a bullet to his head. He needed more than a knife.
Carlos lifted the radio. “How far?”
“A hundred meters. Running up the river,” the voice said softly. “Take the shot?”
“Only if you know you can hit him below the neck. Are you sure it’s him?”
A pause.
“It’s him.”
“Remember, I need him alive.” A tranquilizer dart could kill if it hit a man in the head.
Carlos waited. They’d tracked Hunter since his landing, three miles down the valley. Four others had survived the crash: two in similar manner as Hunter, two others broken and bleeding but alive near the crash site. Their survival had been temporary.
If his man didn’t take the shot now, they would take him at the wreckage. Better now. The last thing Carlos needed was another of Hunter’s escapes.
“Status?”
It was Svensson on the other radio.
Carlos keyed the transmitter. “We have him in our sights.”
“So he did survive.”
“Yes.”
“He’s healthy?”
“Yes.”
“Keep him that way.”
Come out here and keep him healthy yourself, you impossible sloth. Of course he would keep him healthy. As long as the man didn’t try anything.
“Target down,” his other radio crackled.
He waited, sure that a reversal would immediately follow the report. Target back up and running.
But no such report came.
“He’s still down?”
“Down.”
“Handcuffs tight. And I suggest you hurry. He may not be down for long.”
Monique lay on the mattress only half-aware. She’d dreamed of thunder. A loud peal from the crashing skies announcing the end of the world. The people cried out to a huge face in the clouds, which presumably belonged to God. They begged for a hero to save them all from this terrible and unfair turn of events. They wanted a fix. So God had pity. He pointed to a woman with long dark hair named Monique. This was the one who’d first made the Raison Vaccine. This was the one who could now tame it.
Monique opened her eyes and took a deep breath. But there was a problem. Svensson now owned her fix.
The deadbolt slid open and the door creaked.
She closed her eyes. The only thing worse than being trapped in this white room was having to face Svensson or the man from the Mediterranean who smelled like a bar of scented soap. Carlos.
Several sets of feet walked in. Something thudded softly on the concrete floor. What was that? She dared not look now.
The boots left and the door was once again bolted shut from the outside.
Monique waited as long as she could before opening her eyes. She moved her head. There in the middle of the floor lay a body with its face down and turned away from her. Camouflaged jumper and muddy black boots. Hands cuffed behind. Dark hair.
She sat up. Thomas?
It looked like it could be him, but he was dressed wrong.
She hurried across the room and walked around the man. Yes, it was a man—his forearms were too well muscled for a woman. Then she saw his face.
Thomas.
A hundred thoughts raced through her mind. He’d come for her. He knew where to find her. He had come as a soldier. Were there others?
To see a man unconscious and handcuffed at her feet would normally turn her stomach, but today was not normal, and today the sight of a friend filled her desperate world with so much joy that she suddenly thought she was going to cry.
She knelt and nudged his shoulder. “Thomas?” she whispered.
He was breathing steadily.
She shook him hard. “Thomas!”
His cheek was pressed against the clean floor, bunching his lips. A day’s growth of stubble darkened his face. His wavy hair was tangled and knotted.
“Thomas!”
This time he moved, but only barely before settling back into oblivion.
She stood and stared at his prone body. What kind of man was he really? Her thoughts had been drawn to Thomas Hunter a hundred times in the ten days since he’d first burst into her world and kidnapped her for her own safety. To save the world, he’d said. An absurd suggestion to any person not thoroughly intoxicated.
Now she knew differently. He was special. He knew things he couldn’t possibly know, and he made a habit of risking his life to defend that knowledge.
And on a more personal level, to defend her. Save her.
Monique glanced up at the security camera. They were watching, of course. And listening.
She walked to the sink, dipped a beaker into the basin of water (the mountain provided no running water, at least not in her quarters), slipped the hand towel from its rack, and returned to him. She wet the towel and gently wiped his face and neck.
“Wake up,” she whispered. “Come on, Thomas, please, we need you awake.”
She squeezed more water on his head, his face, his shoulders, and she shook him again. He closed his mouth, swallowed. Finally his eyes fluttered open.
“It’s me, Monique.”
His eyes turned up to her face, widened, and then squeezed shut with furrowed brow. He groaned and struggled to rise.
She grabbed his handcuffed arm and pulled him, but it didn’t seem to help much. He struggled to get his knees under him and his seat in the air. She wasn’t sure how to help him—he was awkward yet determined on his own. Finally he managed to bring his head up and sit back on his haunches, eyes closed.
“Are you okay?” she asked. It was a dumb question.
“They shot me,” he said.
“You’re wounded?” Where? She hadn’t seen any blood!
“No. They drugged me.”
He just rolled his neck and swallowed.
“You should lie down. Here, let me help you.”
“I just got up.”
“I have a mattress.”
“We don’t have time. As soon as they think the drugs have worn off, they’ll come for me. We have to talk now. Can you get these handcuffs off?”
She looked at them. “How?”
“Never mind. Man, my head feels like . . .”
His eyes suddenly widened.
“What?” she demanded.
“I didn’t dream!”
The dreams again. She wasn’t sure what to make of them anymore, but they were certainly more than mere dreams.
“You were drugged,” she said. “Maybe that affected you.”
He spoke as if he actually was in a dream. “It’s the first time I haven’t dreamed in two weeks. I mean from this side anyway. There I stopped dreaming for fifteen years by taking the rhambutan fruit.”
He was handcuffed and on his knees in a white dungeon, and the world was dying of a virus bearing her name, and he was talking about a fruit.
“Rhambutan,” she echoed.
“And we think that you might be connected to Rachelle,” he said.
“Rachelle.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then he turned away and whispered under his breath. “Man, oh man. This is crazy.”
She didn’t know why he thought she would be connected to Rachelle, and for the moment it really didn’t matter—he was clearly given to fantasy. What did matter, on the other hand, was the fact that Thomas was the only one who seemed to be able to find her. She glanced at the camera again. They had to be careful.
“They’re listening. Sit by my bed with your back to the opposite wall.”
He seemed to understand. She helped him across the room and he sat heavily, cross-legged, facing her mattress.
“If we talk quietly, they may not hear us,” she said, easing herself onto the mattress.
“Closer,” he said.
She scooted closer, so that their knees were nearly touching.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
He stared at her, then past her. “First the virus. It’s been released.”
“I . . . I know,” she said. “How bad is it?”
“Bad. Twenty-four gateway airports. It’s spreading unchecked.”
“They haven’t closed the airports?”
“Won’t slow the virus enough to justify the panic.” His voice was clearer now—the drug was wearing off quickly. “When I left Washington, only the affected governments were even aware that the virus existed. But they can’t keep it quiet for long. The whole world’s going to wake up to it one of these days.”
She swore softly in French. “I can’t believe this happened! We took every precaution. It wasn’t just heating the vaccine to a precise heat; it was holding it there for two hours. One hour and fifty minutes or two hours and ten minutes, and the mutation doesn’t hold.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Maybe not, but you do know that my vaccine was actually a virus that—”
“Yes, I know all about your vaccine actually being a virus; you told me that in Bangkok. And it was a brilliant solution to some very big problems. If anyone is to blame here, it’s me. I was the one who told the world how your vaccine could be changed into the virus it’s become.”
“Through your dreams.”
“Yes. Where you’re connected to Rachelle.”
She didn’t want to talk to him about these dreams right now. He’d looked at her strangely each time he’d claimed that she was connected to Rachelle.
She refocused the discussion, keeping her voice to a whisper. “Do they know who’s behind this? Do they know where we are?”
“The French are involved. Or at least some rogue elements in the French government. That’s the prevailing theory. Svensson’s not on his own—he’s the man behind the virus, but there’s a lot more to this than the virus. They call themselves the New Allegiance, and they’re demanding huge caches of nuclear arms from all the nuclear countries in exchange for the antivirus.”
“They’ll never agree!”
“They are already,” he said. “China and Russia. The United States is preparing to comply.” He blinked and she wondered how true that was. “Others. Israel may be a problem, but with enough pressure they’ll probably go along. The prospect of whole populations dying off in a matter of weeks trumps any other logic. This all comes down to the antivirus.”
“What about my father? Is the company looking for a way?”
“Your father is screaming bloody murder in Bangkok, but apart from trying to find an antivirus, there’s not a lot he can do. Everyone’s looking for a way—another reason to delay telling the public. If they do find a way to stop the virus, panic will never have a chance to gain momentum.”
“They have leads, then.”
“No. Not that I’ve heard. Not besides you.”
“You mean the back door.”
“I’m guessing that’s why Svensson took you in the first place. Did your key survive the mutation?”
Someone had obviously filled him in. “Yes. And I think I may be able to create a virus that will render the Raison Strain impotent. Hopefully.”
He exhaled and closed his eyes. “Thank God.”
“Unfortunately, I’m here. And now so are you.”
“Did you give it to Svensson? And what do you mean hopefully ?”
“Hopefully, as in I haven’t actually tried it yet. I gave it to them twenty-four hours ago.”
“Can you tell me what this virus-killer looks like?”
She knew what he was asking. If they were separated, or if he escaped but not she, he could carry the information to the outside world. But the antivirus in her mind was far too complex for anyone without an education in genetics to remember, much less understand.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so because you don’t know how to or because it’s too complicated?”
“I would need to write it down.”
“Then write it down.”
“It is.”
“Where?”
“By the computer.” She glanced over his shoulder at the work station. “I would much rather you just take me out of here.”
“Trust me, I’m not going anywhere without you. I’d never hear the end of it.”
“From whom?”
“From Rachelle,” he said.
Thomas’s head slowly cleared. The handcuffs bit deep—there was nothing he could do about them. They had to get out with the antivirus, but there was nothing he could do about that at the moment either. The only thing he could do anything about right now was Monique.
He looked into her brown eyes and wondered if Rachelle really was in there somewhere, now, at this very moment. Honestly, looking at Monique now, he wasn’t sure that she was Rachelle.
He glanced at Monique’s right forefinger. The cut was there, exactly like Rachelle’s. He looked into her eyes again. The last time he’d seen Monique was in Thailand last week. But that was fifteen years ago, before he’d married Rachelle. Odd.
Monique’s full understanding of the situation might have critical and practical value, however. If they became separated and Monique knew that she could connect with Rachelle, she might find a way to do what Rachelle had done. She might be able to dream as Rachelle if need be.
Thomas considered this as he stared into her eyes.
Monique broke off the stare. “Who’s Rachelle?”
Both women shared the same fiery spirit. The same sharp nose. But as far as he could see, that was where the similarities ended.
“Thomas?”
“Rachelle?”
“Yes, Rachelle,” Monique said.
“Sorry. Well, you know how I’ve told you about my dreams. How I learned about the Raison Strain from the Books of Histories in my dreams.”
“How could I forget?”
“Exactly. Every time I fall asleep, I wake up in another reality with people and . . . and everything. I’m married there.”
“Rachelle is your wife,” she said.
She knew! “You remember?”
She stared at him, and for a moment he thought she did remember.
“Remember what?”
Why had he said that? “I don’t know exactly how it works, but Rachelle dreamed she was you. She told me where to find you.”
He paused. “You might be Rachelle. I . . . we don’t know.”
Monique stood. Thomas couldn’t tell if she was offended or just startled. “And what on earth brought you to that conclusion?”
“You have a paper cut on your right forefinger. I know that because Rachelle woke up with a paper cut on her right forefinger. If you and Rachelle are not the same, at least Rachelle is sharing your experiences.”
Monique lifted her finger and glanced at a tiny red mark. Then she lowered her hand and slowly looked to Thomas.
“Your wife’s in danger.”
The door bolt slammed open. Monique’s eyes widened and shifted over his shoulder.
Mike Orear had been sure that Theresa was overreacting. She had taken the full brunt of the virus’s threat head-on and come away reeling. He didn’t doubt any of her facts. It was true, a man named Valborg Svensson had released a virus that had mutated from the Raison Vaccine. The virus was undoubtedly very dangerous and would kill millions, maybe billions, unless it was stopped.
But it would be stopped.
The world didn’t just end because some group of deviants got their hands on a vial of germs. His life wouldn’t end just because Svensson or whoever was pushing his buttons wanted some nukes. Things just didn’t work like that.
That was three days ago, T minus eighteen, give or take a few days if they believed the models at the CDC. Now it was T minus fifteen, and Mike Orear was converting to Theresa’s religion of fear.
He sat in his office and studied the spread of legal-pad notes in front of him. They all screamed the same thing, and he knew what they were screaming, but he knew there was a mistake here somewhere. Had to be. Just had to be.
He’d talked to Theresa a dozen times in the last three days, and each time he’d asked if anyone had made any progress on an antivirus, expecting that eventually she would respond in the affirmative. She would say one of the labs in Hong Kong or Switzerland or at UCLA had made a breakthrough.
But she didn’t. On the contrary, the labs working on the problem were learning just how unlikely finding any antivirus in less than two months would be.
News about a highly virulent outbreak of a mutated viral vaccine, dubbed the Raison Strain, on a small island south of Java had hit the wires yesterday morning, and the wires were burning hot. The population of the island was roughly two hundred thousand, but there was no airport, and the ferries to and from had been suspended. The island was isolated, and the virus contained. No other shipments of the vaccine had been released.
Given the nature of the virus, the World Health Organization, together with the Centers for Disease Control, had put up unrestricted funds and massive rewards for an antivirus that would save the two hundred thousand people who would otherwise die in less than three weeks. Contracts were being bought out by the government to free up all of the major labs across the country. The healthcare community had gone nearly ballistic.
A red herring, Mike thought, a red herring for sure. And even then the networks were reporting a watered-down version of the story. They understood the threat of panic and they were playing ball.
But they didn’t know the half of it, Mike thought. Not even a hundredth of it. How could a threat of this magnitude not leak to the press? How many other newsagents were sitting in their offices right now, thinking the same thought? Maybe they were all afraid to run outside and declare to the world that the sky was about to fall. The story was too big. Too unbelievable.
He stood and walked to the mirror on his wall. Opened his mouth and looked at his gums. Stretched his cheeks and peered around his eyeballs. There was no indication at all that he was infected with a killer virus. But he was. He’d given Theresa a blood sample just to be sure, and it had come back positive. He didn’t know if he’d caught it from her or from someone else that day, but according to her report, he was a dead man walking.
Mike returned to his desk and stared at his notes. He’d spent most of the last two days scouring the electronic highways and making discreet phone calls in his attempt to piece this puzzle together, and now that it was together, he wasn’t sure his effort had been a good idea.
Fact: The president had gone underground for the last four days. The official word was that, due to health concerns, he’d canceled three fund-raising dinners and an alternative-energy lobbying trip to Alaska. He was having some polyps on his colon checked out—routine stuff, they said. He had even gone to the hospital on two occasions. Maybe there was some truth to the polyps story.
Fact: The Russian premier had canceled a trip to the Ukraine due to pressing matters connected with Russia’s energy crisis. Another good cover. But Russia’s entire naval fleet had also been recalled and was now converging on several major ports. For what purpose?
Fact: No fewer than eighty-four military transport columns had been spotted headed east in the last two days alone. The rails were no exception. There was a lot of military hardware headed to the East Coast. Nothing that would spark a wave of concern to anyone who didn’t see the whole picture, but surely some of the officers in charge suspected something, especially if they married this movement of arms with the steady repositioning of navy vessels headed to various eastern seaports.
Fact: The French government had gone virtually AWOL. Two sessions of the National Assembly had been canceled, and a number of papers were asking some troubling questions about the sudden departure of their prime minister, supposedly on an unscheduled vacation. To make matters even more interesting, the bulk of the French army had been called to its northern border for what they called emergency exercises.
Fact: The highest offices in England, Thailand, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, and India, plus another six nations, had gone oddly silent over the past three days.
These were five of twenty-seven facts that Mike had painstakingly compiled over the past forty-eight hours. And they all said that the most powerful people in the world were as concerned with something as Theresa was with this Raison Strain. Maybe more so.
And why had he compiled all of this information? Because Mike knew he couldn’t keep his mouth shut for long. When he did open his mouth and let the world know what was really happening while they went about daily life as if all was just peachy, he would have to substantiate his claims with his own data, not data that pointed to Theresa. He felt bound to certain rules, even if the world was in a countdown.
“This is nuts,” he mumbled.
Yesterday he’d dropped the finance anchor, Peter Martinson, at the airport for a flight to New York. “Hypothetical question,” Mike had said.
“Shoot.”
“Let’s say you had some information that you knew would affect the markets tomorrow. Say you knew the markets were going to crash, for example. You have an obligation to report it?”
Peter chuckled. “Depends on the source. Insider trading? Off-limits.”
“Okay then, let’s say you knew that a comet was going to wipe out Earth, but you were sworn to secrecy by the president of the United States because he didn’t want to start a panic.”
“Then you go out in a flame of glory, spilling your guts to the world just before dying with the rest.”
He’d forced a small laugh and changed the subject. Peter had prodded him once but then let it go. He left promising to return with the definitive word on whether the market was going to crash in the next week or so.
A knock sounded on Mike’s door. He shuffled the papers together. “Come in.”
Nancy Rodriguez, his coanchor on their late-afternoon show, What Matters, poked her head in. “You going down to the meeting?”
He’d forgotten that the news director had called the meeting to review a new evening lineup. “Go ahead. I’ll be right down.”
She pulled the door closed.
He stuffed the papers in his right-hand drawer. Why was he going to a meeting about a new lineup anyway? Why wasn’t he back in North Dakota visiting his parents and friends? Why wasn’t he bungee jumping at Six Flags or buying a Jaguar or stuffing lobster down his mouth? Or better still, why wasn’t he down at the church confessing to the priest? The thought stopped him.
A slow wave of heat spread over his head and down his back. This was really happening, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just a story. It was his life. Everyone’s life.
How could he not tell them?
The door opened. “I’ll try to get you the paper,” Monique whispered. She was speaking about the antivirus.
Thomas twisted. Carlos walked into the room, followed by a man Thomas hadn’t yet met. He was tall and walked slowly with a white cane, favoring his right leg. His black hair was greased back. Svensson. He’d seen pictures in Bangkok.
The Swiss looked like he was smothering a temptation to gloat. Carlos, on the other hand, looked more grim.
The man from Cypress pulled the chair from the desk to the middle of the room, walked up to Thomas, grabbed his handcuffs, and hauled him up. Thomas stood and staggered backward before his shoulder joints were unreasonably strained.
“Sit,” Carlos ordered, pointing four fingers at the chair. His fingernails were long but neatly manicured. He smelled like European soap.
Thomas walked to the chair and sat. Carlos herded Monique to the sink, where he handcuffed her to the towel rack. Why?
Svensson moved around Thomas slowly. “So this is the man who has given us both the world and a world of trouble. I must say, young man, you look younger than your pictures.”
Thomas stared at Monique. He could take care of the old man—even with handcuffs it would hardly be a challenge. But Carlos was another matter. Carlos walked behind him and made the thought pointless by quickly securing his ankles to the chair legs with duct tape.
“I understand you have a few skills that make you quite valuable,” Svensson said. “You found us; Armand regards that with some fascination. He wants you in France. But I have some questions of my own to ask first, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that you answer them.”
“You need both of us alive until the end,” Thomas said.
The scientist chuckled. “Is that so?”
“Only a fool would eliminate the two people who first made this all possible with information they alone had.”
Svensson stopped circling. “Perhaps. But I now have that information. At some point your usefulness becomes a matter of history.”
“Maybe. But when?” Thomas asked. “When does the virus mutate again? What kind of antivirus will be needed then? Only we know the answers, and even then, we don’t know all of them yet. Armand is right.”
He didn’t know who Armand was, but he assumed it was a person Svensson worked for.
“There will be no more mutations,” Svensson said easily. “But I’m happy to announce the formulation of the first antivirus.” He pulled a small syringe filled with a clear fluid from his blazer. Now his gloating did spread to his mouth. “And I thought it would be appropriate for both of you to see the fruit of your labor.”
He slapped the crux of his left arm with two fingers, removed the plastic shield from the needle with his teeth, and clenched his fist. He found a blue vein in his arm and pushed the needle into it. Two seconds and the liquid was in his bloodstream. He jerked the syringe out and put it into his jacket pocket.
“You see. I am now the only person alive who won’t die. That will change shortly, of course, but not before I extract my price. Thank you, both of you, for your service.”
He waited as if expecting an answer.
“Carlos.”
Monique saw the long stainless-steel needle before Thomas did, and the bottom of her stomach seemed to fall out. Carlos stepped up to Thomas and let the point hover over his shoulder.
“Penetrating the flesh isn’t so painful,” Svensson said. “But when he tries to push the needle through your bones, it will be.”
“What are you thinking?” Monique cried.
All three looked back to where she stood by the sink.
Svensson was the one who answered. “Loftier thoughts than you, I’m sure. Please try to control yourself.”
They hadn’t even started on him yet and already her eyes were blurry from tears. She clenched her teeth and tried to still the trembling in her hands.
“It’s okay, Monique,” Thomas said. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve seen how this ends.”
She doubted that he had. He was only trying to confuse them and ease her mind.
“Then let’s start with this knowledge of yours,” Svensson said. “How did you find us?”
“I talked to a large white bat in my dreams. He told me that you were in a mountain named Cyclops.”
Svensson regarded him with a frown. Glanced at Carlos.
The man from Cypress pushed the needle into Thomas’s shoulder about a centimeter.
Thomas closed his eyes. “There are books in my dreams called the Books of Histories. They’ve recorded everything that has happened here. That’s how I first learned about the virus.”
“History books? I’m sure there are. Then tell me what happens next.”
Thomas hesitated. He opened his eyes and looked directly at Monique. She could hardly stand to watch him with that needle sticking out of his arm.
“Over half the world dies from the Raison Strain,” Thomas said. “You get your weapons. The times of the Great Tribulation begin.”
He kept his eyes on hers. They were speaking to each other in this strange way, she thought. She wouldn’t look at his arm. She would look only into his eyes, to give him strength.
“Yes, of course, but I was referring to the next few days, not weeks. It doesn’t require any precognition to guess how this will end. I want to know how we will get there. Or more to the point, what the Americans will do in the next few days.”
He thought about the demand. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do. We know you’ve met with the president. Tell me what his plans are.”
Monique felt her chest tighten. This wasn’t about his dreams. They wouldn’t stop until they knew what had passed between Thomas and Robert Blair.
“They didn’t tell me what their plans were.”
Svensson glanced at Carlos again.
“You want me to make something up?” Thomas said. “I told you, I don’t know what the United States will do.”
“And I don’t believe you.”
Carlos pushed and the needle slid in easily before abruptly stopping at the bone. Thomas closed his eyes, but he couldn’t hide the tremble that overtook his cheeks.
Carlos leaned on the needle.
Thomas groaned. His body suddenly relaxed and slumped. He’d passed out! Thank God, he’d passed out.
Carlos grunted and withdrew the needle.
“Just a little aggressive, are we?” Svensson said, eying the man.
“I would have expected more from him,” Carlos said.
“He still has drugs in his system.”
Svensson walked over to the computer, ripped the cord from the wall. He picked up Monique’s notes and the pencils she’d used earlier. Satisfied that he’d confiscated her basic tools, he moved toward the door.
“We’ll have plenty of time later. I want them ready to move by nightfall.”