The Seventh Plague

  “Then what—?”

  “Moscow found a single record of a young man, a boy really, sixteen years old, with half of this symbol tattooed on his face. He had been convicted of petty theft and immoral acts about a decade ago in a small town of Dubrovitsy, not far from Moscow. He ended up escaping before going to prison.”

  Kat sighed, sensing another dead end. “Director, it’s not much to go on. I anticipated we might get several false hits, especially with the Kolovrat symbol becoming popular with Neo-Nazi groups. An Internet search will show hundreds of white supremacists, mostly men, bearing this tattoo.”

  “But what about someone with only half the symbol?” Painter pressed.

  She had to admit that was odd.

  “And what about this?” Painter opened the file and slid out a printout of the kid’s mug shot. Angry lines of Cyrillic lined the bottom of the page, likely listing the boy’s crimes. He tapped the photo. “Look familiar?”

  Kat stared down at the young, unlined face. His skin was notably pale, his hair snowy white. He was actually quite handsome, with thin lips and a sharp nose. Unfortunately, the prominent tattoo across his left side marred those features, turning them beastly.

  Painter placed a finger on a boxed-off word in Cyrillic.

  “It states here, he’s an albino.”

  Kat’s eyes widened, remembering Seichan’s description of the woman’s ghostly countenance. “Okay, maybe this is worth pursuing further. What’s his name?”

  “Anton Mikhailov.”

  She held out a hand for the file. “I’ll see what I can find out about him.”

  As she took the bundle, she read the worry shining in Painter’s eyes.

  She didn’t need him to spell it out for her.

  Time was running short for Safia al-Maaz.

  12:10 P.M. EDT

  Ellesmere Island

  It’s all my fault . . .

  With guilt eating at her, Safia had a hard time facing Rory McCabe. A step away from her, Harold’s son had stripped to a pair of boxers and now struggled to climb into the yellow biosafety suit. She kept her gaze diverted, not out of modesty of his half-naked form, but from her own shame. Rory’s right eye was purplish and almost swollen shut.

  Yesterday, she had tried to drag her feet. With a rigorous schedule set for her, she had attempted a passive protest, feigning exhaustion, moving slowly, only pretending to read through Professor McCabe’s volumes of old notes. Instead, she had used the time to study her surroundings, contemplating how she might escape. The conclusion she came to was grim.

  There’s no way out of here.

  The base on Ellesmere Island was surrounded by thousands of acres of open tundra, bordered to the northwest by a sea of shattered ice. At night, unable to sleep, she could hear those jagged floes moaning and cracking as they ground together in a continuous chorus. She imagined they went silent only in the dark of winter, when the Arctic Ocean froze solid again and the sun vanished for months on end.

  Even if she attempted to escape across that frozen landscape, there were other dangers. From her window, she had spotted gray-white humps slowly shifting across the black granite. Polar bears haunted the island’s shores, hunting for seals, for anything to eat. This morning, before being summoned to work, she had noted a handful of workers out at the antenna array, checking cables and jotting notes on clipboards. All of them had protective rifles slung over their shoulders.

  She still had no idea as to the purpose of that hundred-acre steel forest, or the huge excavated pit at its middle. From the vantage of a window in the station’s library, she had spotted something poking up from the center of the hole. She could only glimpse the very top, which appeared to be a massive silver sphere, easily twenty yards across.

  She had tried to ask Rory about the installation, but he had ducked his head lower and glanced to their pale guard, Anton. Apparently this information was beyond her pay grade. Still, she was not surprised by Rory’s reticence. She had already assessed that the workload here was highly compartmentalized. Everything was on a need-to-know basis. The handful of other technicians she passed in the hallways had all stayed together in their own cliques, each wearing the same-colored uniform, which she guessed corresponded to their duties.

  She stared at the folded set of gray coveralls on the bench before her. They matched Rory’s. From the way the other personnel shied away from them, refusing even to make eye contact, she could guess the implication of this particular color.

  Prisoner.

  Or perhaps the better term was forced labor, with the emphasis on forced.

  Rory winced as he pulled the hood of his suit over his head, brushing the plastic against his swollen eye. Anton had sucker-punched Rory last night, catching the young man off guard. Rory had ended up on his backside, too stunned to even gasp. Anton’s gaze never left her. His words were curt, stilted by his accent.

  Tomorrow you work better.

  Apparently Safia’s work ethic had been found wanting.

  This morning she had done everything asked of her, which mostly involved reading through the guidelines for working in a biosafety lab. She was asked to memorize them and was tested by Anton afterward. This time, the Russian nodded, satisfied.

  Safia ran through the main instructions as she suited up.

  —All personnel must wear a positive pressure air suit.

  —Biological samples must be double-sealed and passed through a disinfectant dunk tank or fumigation chamber.

  —Decontaminate all work surfaces.

  —Before exiting, the outer suits must be cleansed in a chemical shower.

  There were scores of other details and procedures, and she knew the punishment for any violation would fall upon Rory’s shoulders.

  If that mistake doesn’t kill me first . . .

  She could not dismiss the tremor of fear as she pulled on her hood and sealed the suit, feeling a moment of claustrophobic panic. Working quickly, she snapped and twisted the air hose in place. The hiss of cold air swelled through her suit, which helped stave off full panic. She took several gulps of the metallic-tasting air.

  Rory stalked in front of her, like some tethered astronaut. “Are you okay?” he asked, using the voice-activated radio system.

  She nodded, maybe a bit too vigorously.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she managed to squeak out, then answered again with more assurance. “I’m fine, Rory. Let’s get this over with.”

  She didn’t want to make it look like she was balking from her responsibilities. Anton stood in the outer antechamber, his hands behind his back. He wore an earpiece to monitor their radio chatter.

  “Let’s go,” she urged Rory.

  He led the way through the next set of doors. They passed through the chemical shower station to reach the main facility. From the condition of various stations along the walls, others had been here this morning. They must have been ordered to leave so she and Rory could have this private audience with their subject.

  The tall sealed crate awaited them, as did its contents.

  Despite her terror, Safia found herself fascinated by the figure of the mummified woman seated atop the tarnished silver throne. The serenity in her bowed head helped calm Safia. She took it all in, noting the finer details now that she was this close. The woman’s scalp was smooth and bald, but Safia suspected it wasn’t decomposition that had stripped this Egyptian princess of her dark locks.

  She had been shaved.

  There was not a hair on her body; even her eyebrows were missing.

  Curiosity drew her closer.

  “This must have been a ritualized death,” she whispered to herself, but the radio picked up her words and transmitted them.

  “My father thought the same,” Rory said. “He believed she was sealed up in her tomb while still alive. Worst of all, there was a rim of old ash around its base, suggesting she had been baked inside after being imprisoned.”

  “I don’t think she was
imprisoned. I think she went in there voluntarily. Look how she sits so peacefully on that throne. She’s not shackled or tied down. The pain must have been excruciating.” Safia tilted her hooded head, studying the charred edges where the woman’s skin came in contact with the silver chair. “Yet, she never left that burning seat.”

  Safia reached for the latches to unseal the transport crate.

  “Let me,” Rory said.

  Safia nodded, stepping back to allow him to work, experiencing a flicker of impatience. Yesterday, Safia had been assigned to review Professor McCabe’s work—or at least, the little that was left of it. Though the exact details were kept from her, she had learned that Harold had tried to destroy his research prior to his escape. He had been only partly successful. Snatches of his work survived, bits and pieces of a more comprehensive study. It was Safia’s role—with Rory’s help—to put that patchwork together again.

  Yet, it was plain they were keeping secrets from her.

  She still had no clue where this woman had come from or why she was so important.

  Rory finally freed the last latch and swung the door wide.

  Anxious for answers, Safia moved forward until she stood toe-to-toe with the princess. Her gaze swept the figure, noting the details she had missed from a distance. The carved finials on the back crest rail were masterworks of Egyptian art, from the curled lip of the lion—frozen in midgrowl—to the bashful sweep of the queen’s cheek on the other side.

  But her eyes settled on the true wonder before her. This dramatic work had faded with age, but there was no mistaking its beauty.

  No wonder her body had been shaved.

  Across the surface of the woman’s skin, hieroglyphics had been tattooed. They ran down her body, row upon row, from the arch of her skull to the tops of bare feet.

  My god . . .

  Desperate to read what was written, Safia found it hard to breathe. She knew the woman had died to preserve this story for eternity.

  She stared again at her serene countenance and whispered softly.

  “Tell me everything.”

  2:13 P.M. EDT

  Washington, D.C.

  “I got another hit!” Jason called from the next room.

  Kat turned from her desk. Her office window looked out onto Sigma command’s communication nest. A single monitor glowed in the darkened room, illuminating the face of her chief analyst, Jason Carter. He was former navy, like herself, only he was a decade younger. Kat had recruited him into Sigma after the kid broke into DoD servers with nothing more than a BlackBerry and a jury-rigged iPad. Despite his towheaded and boyish appearance, Jason was a savant, especially when it came to analysis.

  She stood up and crossed into the next room. “Show me.”

  Over the past two hours, they’d had three other hits on their quarry—Anton Mikhailov—but each of them had failed to pan out.

  Jason hunched over this terminal, tapping away. “This one’s promising.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” Her voice came out more scolding than she intended. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry.”

  “Not a problem.” He glanced back. “I understand the pressure you’re under. I ran into the director in the hall. He’s . . . well, intense.”

  “He’s worried. We all are.”

  He nodded. “Maybe this’ll help.”

  He brought up a passport photo on the screen and placed it beside the composite they had created of an older Anton Mikhailov. The latter had been constructed by running his young mug shot through age-progression software. She had then forwarded the altered photo to a global facial-recognition database, hoping for a match. As a precaution, she also sent two versions: one with the prominent tattoo and another without it. She could not discount the possibility that the man had covered or removed this distinguishing mark to better hide himself.

  She was glad she had chosen to send both versions, because the man in the passport photo had no tattoo.

  Still, Kat compared the two faces. They appeared to be a close match. She read the name on the passport. “Anthony Vasiliev.”

  Jason cocked an eyebrow. “Anthony . . . Anton. Surely that can’t be a coincidence. So I went ahead and ran a background check under that new name. Found this.” He brought up a new photo.

  It was an employee ID.

  Kat leaned closer and read the company’s name. “Clyffe Energy.”

  “According to his file, Anthony is head of security at a research base—called Aurora Station—up in the Arctic.”

  In the Arctic . . .

  Kat began to wonder if she could be wrong. Maybe the similarities in features and name were merely coincidental. Clyffe Energy was a multinational conglomerate with hundreds of patents on sustainable energy platforms. It had its fingers in multiple pies. Its CEO—Simon Hartnell—was a wunderkind, a tech billionaire who was pushing the boundaries of solar, wind, and geothermal energy. In addition, while other such industry giants bought basketball teams or lived glamorous lifestyles, Simon Hartnell was a philanthropist, donating millions to charities, especially throughout Africa.

  “If this is truly Anton Mikhailov,” Kat said, “his new identity must have been bulletproof to pass that corporation’s background check. Clyffe Energy oversees multiple government contracts, including working with DARPA. Maybe this isn’t our guy.”

  Instead of answering, Jason typed and brought up what appeared to be a medical file for the man.

  “How did you access—?” Kat shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Why are you showing me this?”

  He pointed to one line. “He’s on a regular prescription of nitisinone.”

  “Which does what?”

  Jason brought up a Web page for the National Institutes of Health and read from it. “It treats oculocutaneous albinism, type one-B, a genetic defect in the production of tyrosine, an amino acid needed for pigment production in skin and eyes.” He glanced back to her. “In other words, Anthony Vasiliev is an albino.”

  Kat stood straighter.

  “He’s gotta be our guy,” Jason said. “But that’s not all.”

  “You have more proof?”

  “Better than that.” Jason typed again, then leaned back and stretched his arms, cracking his knuckles. “He has a sister.”

  On the screen glowed another Clyffe Energy employee badge. The photo showed a stern woman with the same pale complexion and white hair. Again there was no tattoo visible, but that dark sun could have been eclipsed under a thick coat of makeup.

  “Her name’s Velma Vasiliev,” Jason said, “but I doubt her name is any more real than her brother’s.”

  A thrill passed through Kat as she stared at the woman’s face.

  “Send this picture to Seichan’s phone,” she ordered. “See if she can make a positive ID. Then pass an alert to passport security both in the EU and northern Africa. I want to know if Velma Vasiliev made a recent visit to the U.K., and if so, where she might be now.”

  Jason nodded and returned to his terminal.

  Even if Seichan could not confirm this was the same woman, Gray’s team should be on the alert for her.

  She turned, ready to share this breakthrough with Painter, but she gave one last order to Jason. “While I’m gone, pull everything you can about that Arctic station where her brother works.”

  “You got it.”

  Riding on adrenaline, Kat headed out and crossed in firm strides over to the director’s office. His door was ajar, but she heard him speaking inside, so knocked on the jamb. “Sir?”

  Painter sat on the edge of his desk, facing one of his wall monitors. He waved to her. “C’mon in, Kat.”

  Another voice also encouraged her. “Great. Now it’s a real party.”

  She entered to find her husband’s mug up on the screen again. Monk’s meeting with the Research Science Directorate at NAMRU-3 must have finished, and he had been briefing the director.

  Monk grinned at her, which went a long way to tempering he
r anxiety. “Hey, gorgeous.”

  “Hey, yourself.”

  Monk’s left eye narrowed. “Babe, what’s wrong?”

  As usual, he easily read her tension. “I believe we’ve identified the woman who attacked Seichan and the others in Ashwell. And maybe even played a role in the abduction of Dr. al-Maaz.”

  Painter swung toward her. “Tell me.”

  Kat ran through the chain of analysis, interrupted by a sporadic question or two from Painter or Monk. As she finished, the doubt in Painter’s eyes hardened to certainty.

  “Well done,” Painter said.

  Kat couldn’t take full credit. “Most of the heavy lifting was done by Jason Carter.”

  Painter nodded, rubbing at his lower lip in thought.

  “Still, no matter the assist,” Monk said, “it’s a slam dunk.”

  Painter stepped back around his desk. “I know about that Arctic installation. Aurora Station. Or at least I’m familiar with it.”

  “How?” Kat asked.

  “The place is partly financed by DARPA.”

  Monk snorted from the screen. “Really? Why?”

  “Bad press,” he answered cryptically and dropped back into his seat. He began typing at his desktop computer.

  “Back in 2014,” he explained, “the U.S. Air Force closed down its HAARP facility up in Alaska. Which stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. Funded by DARPA, the program’s purpose was to study the earth’s ionosphere, that shell of plasma enclosing the planet hundreds of miles overhead, a layer that’s vital to satellite and radio communication. Experiments involved sending high-frequency signals from ground-based radio antennas up into the sky. Doing so allowed HAARP scientists to study how to improve communications to our submarines, along with performing countless other tests. One project—the Lunar Echo Experiment—once bounced a beam off the moon.”

  “Why?” Monk asked. “Were they trying to blow it up?”

  Kat smiled, but Painter took him seriously.

  “No. In fact, that’s the least crazy charge against the facility. Once the public learned of a remote subarctic base that was shooting invisible rays into the sky, all sorts of accusations arose. It was a space weapon, a mind-control device, a weather-control machine. Even the 2011 Japanese earthquake was blamed on HAARP.”