So now they would know it was her. So what? What were they going to do, fire her? There was nowhere for anyone to go, and Fischer’s men would be here soon.
All that mattered was the data.
Jian stood, reached under her desk, and in one smooth motion pulled out the foot-long petabyte backup cartridge.
The two women stood there, facing off, Jian holding the project’s future, Erika holding a fire axe.
“Jian, just give that to me.”
Jian stood, shook her head no, then stepped back.
Erika stepped forward.
GUNTHER’S FINGERS TRACED the printed pages of a three-ring binder. He had to figure out how to reboot the system. The support docs said that would clear out Fuck-You Feely’s damn loops and hacks.
Colding’s voice hissed in his earpiece. “Gun, come on, where is that bastard?”
“I’m trying.” Wait. There it was. Just call up the prompt window, enter that bit of code …
“Gun! Fix the friggin’ camera!”
“Hold on!” Fingers typed the code, then hit enter.
The monitors flickered, then all popped back to life. “Got it, hold on!” Once again he had a complete view of the facility’s security system. He flipped through the cameras, scanning for motion. Empty hall, Rhumkorrf crouched at the foot of his bed, empty hall, empty genetics lab, Erika’s room … the blankets thrown back but that wasn’t Erika … then the bioinformatics lab, that was Erika, holding an axe and moving toward Jian.
“Holy fuck, Colding! It’s not Tim, it’s Erika!”
“What?”
“Tim’s sacked out in Erika’s room. Get to bioinformatics, fast, Erika is going to kill Jian.”
A new beep joined the cacophony of security room alarms. Gunther knew that sound—the radar system.
“And we’ve got another problem. One aircraft inbound. ETA … five minutes.”
“GO AWAY,” JIAN said in a childlike voice.
Erika didn’t want to hurt anyone, but she was out of time.
Jian backed up until she hit the wall. Nowhere to go. Erika held out her left hand, beckoning for the cartridge. Jian threw herself facedown on the tile floor, her body covering the cartridge as she screamed at the top of her lungs. Erika ran to her, grabbed the bigger woman’s shoulder and yanked hard, trying to roll her over.
“Jian, give it to me!” She kept pulling without effect—the woman wouldn’t budge. The axe point would punch through the back of her skull like an eggshell, but Erika sure as hell wasn’t going to kill the woman.
She straddled Jian’s legs, then reached out with her right hand, grabbed a handful of thick black hair and yanked. Jian’s head snapped back and she howled in pain. Erika slid the axe head past Jian’s throat, then grabbed the handle with both hands and pulled cold wood against warm flesh.
Jian started to choke. She’d have to let go of the backup drive to grab at the axe, then Erika could smash the drive and end all this bullshit. Erika pulled harder, steadily increasing pressure on Jian’s fat neck, but the woman just wouldn’t let go. “Geef me die cartridge, gestoord wijf!”
Jian started thrashing from side to side, sputtering out hoarse choking noises, but held the drive tight.
COLDING SPRINTED INTO the bioinformatics lab to see a bizarre sight: a snarling, skinny, forty-five-year-old woman using a fire axe to choke a 250-pound Chinese lady wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Two middle-aged scientists going at it like a couple of prison inmates during a race riot.
He moved in fast, not slowing down, lowering the gun even as he closed the distance, a flash-thought of wondering where to put it because he didn’t have a holster and he wasn’t going to fire on an old woman and if he did the bullet might hit Jian. Erika looked up just as Colding grabbed her left shoulder and yanked. The move caught Erika off guard. Her left hand slid off the handle and she fell back, her right still clutching the axe halfway up the shaft. Jian let out a hissing, painful cough.
Colding held the Beretta awkwardly at his right side, more of a hindrance than a weapon. Erika rolled to her ass and saw the gun. Her eyes widened in instant recognition, instant panic, and she even shook her head a little as if to say no, no that’s not supposed to happen.
“Doctor Hoel! Drop that—”
But that was all he got out before she panicked and swung the axe one-handed with her right arm. The swing was slow, a little clumsy, but he hadn’t expected such a snap reaction. The blade’s top edge sliced through his down parka. Small white feathers flew into the air. A stinging pain streaked from his left shoulder to his sternum.
The axe’s weight and momentum actually turned Erika, still sitting on her ass, pulling her right arm around and stretching her forward like she was reaching out to pick something off the ground. The axe blade dug into the linoleum floor with a chonk.
Colding didn’t think, he just moved, taking one step forward and snap-kicking Erika Hoel in the ribs. He felt and heard something crack. She screamed a strange, sharp scream that cut off almost instantly. The kick’s momentum flipped her on her back. The axe remained embedded in the tile floor, handle sticking out at a forty-five-degree angle like some cheap prop from a horror flick.
Pain still stinging his chest, Colding stepped forward and swung the Beretta, aiming for the bridge of Erika’s nose. Sanity kicked in at the last second. He pulled back, fighting his own momentum until the top of the Beretta barrel touched Erika’s pain-scrunched face with all the force of a mother’s goodnight kiss.
Erika Hoel wasn’t going anywhere. She tried to move, but the obvious agony of broken ribs kept her fixed to the floor. Colding shook his head, shook away the rage. He already felt horrible about hurting her that bad, but the woman had hit him with an axe, for fuck’s sake. Damn, did this hurt. How bad was he cut?
A hoarse, guttural cough pulled his attention away from Erika.
“Jian, are you okay?”
She paused for a moment, then looked up, her eyes barely visible through the mop of black hair. She scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around his neck, almost knocking him over. She clutched him tight. Silent sobs suddenly racked her body.
“I’m … okay, Mister … Colding. She … she choked me so hard.”
Colding kept his left hand down and away from her. The pain seemed to radiate, oddly making his left elbow and right shoulder ache although neither had been touched. He felt his shirt clinging wetly to his skin. He patted Jian gently with his right hand, which was still holding the gun. “Just calm down. You need to let go now, I have to take care of this.”
Jian gave him one more squeeze, making his cut scream louder. She let him go and snatched up the thing she’d clutched tight even while Erika had choked her.
“What is that?”
“Petabyte drive,” Jian said, her voice a bit more calm. “We have succeeded.”
Colding didn’t have time to ask what she meant before his earpiece crackled with Gunther’s excited voice.
“Boss, great work, but that bogey is almost here.”
Who was it? Mercenaries hired by a competitor? No, his gut told him it had to be Longworth’s people. “How long till it lands?”
“Less than three minutes.”
“Okay, listen closely. That will probably be U.S. Special Forces, maybe Canadian, but either way armed to the teeth. Gather up Rhumkorrf and Tim and get them to the front airlock, leave them with Andy. Then you run the perimeter and see if you can find Brady. I want all of our people calm and visible, with weapons holstered, you got that?”
“Weapons holstered, understood.”
“Good. If this is an assault team, we cannot win, and I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
“Yes sir, I’m on it.”
Andy Crosthwaite entered the bioinformatics lab. The thick stench of burning fuel oozed off him, as did a smell Colding had prayed he’d never encounter again—the smell of burning human flesh.
Greasy streaks covered Andy’s face, hands and jacket sleeves. He took one
look at the scene, then strode forward and leveled his sidearm at the prone Erika Hoel. “You’re dead, cunt.”
“Goddamit, Andy,” Colding said. “You left your post again?”
“Drop the left your post bullshit, Colding. This isn’t a fucking John Wayne movie. You going to finish this bitch or what?”
“We’re not going to finish anyone! It’s Erika, for God’s sake.”
“I know who she is. She’s a backstabbing twat that worked side by side with us for two fucking years, then just went ape-shit and killed Brady.”
Colding’s heart dropped. “Brady’s dead?”
Andy nodded. His upper lip snarled when he spoke. “I pulled his body out of the hangar. He burned alive.” Andy glared down at Erika. “So who’s paying you, whore? Monsanto? Genetron? How much did you get for killing a man that guarded your ass every day for two years?”
Erika’s eyes squinted shut, and not just from the pain. Colding could see the guilt wash over her. She’d never intended to kill anyone.
Andy cocked his Beretta, knelt down and put the end of it against Erika’s forehead. Her eyes squeezed tighter.
Colding raised his own Beretta.
The movement caught Andy’s eye. When he turned to look, he stared straight down a barrel.
“Andy, drop your weapon.”
Andy opened his mouth, then closed it. “Fuck a duck, man, what are you doing?”
“I said drop your weapon. Nobody else dies today.”
For the second time in as many minutes, Colding had moved before thinking, caught up in the situation’s express-lane pace. He’d never pointed a gun directly at anyone in his life, and now here he was with a dead man outside, a wounded woman on the floor, a chopper coming in and his pistol in the face of a special forces killer. If Andy got crazy, got mad, if he tried to aim his own weapon, then Colding would have only a split second to pull the trigger or probably be killed himself.
Moving slow, Andy simultaneously stood and pointed his gun to the ceiling. “Okay, okay, chief. I’m going.”
Colding raised the barrel as Andy stood, keeping it pointed right at the man’s face. “I told you to drop your weapon. Take Jian outside.”
“But we have incoming. You want me to go out there unarmed?”
Andy meant it as a rhetorical question, but that was exactly what Colding wanted.
“Andy, drop your goddamn weapon and get out front … now.”
Andy slowly squatted and lowered his gun to the ground. “You’re going to regret this shit. Wait till Magnus hears about this.” He grabbed Jian’s elbow and guided her to the door. She clutched the petabyte drive to her chest as if it were her only child.
When they left the lab, Colding sighed. No good could come of making Andy Crosthwaite an enemy. But no one else was going to die here, and that was that. He picked up Andy’s gun, flipped on the safety, then slipped it into the waist of his pants.
He knelt next to Erika. “Doctor Hoel, I’m sorry I had to do that to you.”
SO MUCH PAIN. She suspected it was just some broken ribs, but she’d never had a broken anything before. The agony consumed her. It felt like big sticks were jammed into her right side. Or maybe spikes. Jagged ones, made of glass.
“Doctor Hoel,” Colding said. “Talk to me. Can you hear me?”
She couldn’t even move. The tiniest shift sent waves of near-blackout pain through her chest. As much as her body screamed, it wasn’t enough to block out the horrid feeling that she’d killed a human being.
It hurt to talk, but she forced out the words. “Is Brady really … dead?”
Colding looked away, then looked back. He nodded. “If Andy was that mad, then yeah. Brady’s dead.”
What the hell had she been thinking? She was a middle-aged woman, not a commando. Was revenge on Claus really worth all this? Certainly not worth Brady’s life. Brady had been a nice kid, polite, respectful. Maybe twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? She couldn’t remember, and now it didn’t matter because the man would never see thirty.
“My God … Colding. I … I swear … I didn’t mean it.”
Colding nodded. He wasn’t gloating, he wasn’t angry. He looked sad, like someone who’d just seen a disaster and knew it was real but didn’t want to accept it.
“Listen, Doctor Hoel, I need to keep everyone else alive. Tell me what’s coming.”
She started to shrug, but that hurt even more than talking. “Don’t know … Fischer … will be here soon.”
Colding nodded again, as if she had just confirmed his suspicions. “Why is Fischer coming now? We’ve been here for two years.”
She shook her head. “Don’t know. Just wanted … wanted to ruin Claus. I didn’t mean it, I swear.”
“Okay,” Colding said. He reached out a hand and gently caressed her hair. It felt comforting. “Just stay still. I’ll come back as soon as I can with something for the pain.”
P. J. Colding stood up and ran out of the room, leaving Erika Hoel crying from shame, shock and sheer agony.
NOVEMBER 8: HITCHIN’ A RIDE
COLDING RAN TO a hallway bathroom and tore open a wall-mounted first-aid kit. He grabbed gauze, steripads and a bottle of Advil. Would the Advil help with Erika’s pain? He didn’t know, but he had to do something. He’d lost it, gone into some kind of rage and kicked that woman’s ribs as hard as he could. Like he was some kind of fucking animal. Like he’d been when he attacked Paul Fischer.
Don’t forget the axe, big guy. Erika’s axe almost killed you.
No, no excuses, he was in charge and that meant everything—Erika’s injury, Brady’s death, the explosion—was all his fault.
He pulled his parka open and looked in the bathroom mirror. Blood soaked the gray shirt underneath. He gently pulled at the cut fabric to see the gash in his skin. It was still bleeding in spots, but more of a deep scratch than a life-threatening injury. Bad enough to merit kicking a woman’s ribs? No, but he tried to check that thought—it was ridiculous to feel guilty for defending himself against that kind of attack.
He started to tear open the gauze pack when the sound of jet engines caught his attention. Erika’s pain, his own cut, those would have to wait. He shrugged the bloody jacket back on, puffing up a small cloud of downy white feathers. He ran to the front airlock. Seconds later, Colding stepped into the winter night. The hangar flames had died down considerably. A light wind drove falling snow at an angle, making the exterior lamps look like shimmering cones of light. The approaching jet engines screamed louder than he thought possible.
Fischer was almost here.
Fischer, the man who organized investigations of transgenic companies, who coordinated elements of the CDC, WHO, CIA and USAMRIID. Fischer, who apparently had the ability to reach out and manipulate brokenhearted, bitter women into saboteurs and inadvertent murderers.
Fischer—the man once in charge of the project that had killed Colding’s wife.
All of it made Colding long desperately for another round with him, to do far more than just fuck up the man’s knee. Colding’s rage had no place being directed against a forty-five-year-old woman, but against Colonel Paul Fischer? That was a different matter.
Out by the ruined satellite dish, Gunther and Andy stood with Rhumkorrf, Jian and Tim Feely. Gunther, God bless him, had his gun holstered. Colding walked up and joined them, Beretta in his right hand but down at his side. He kept Andy in sight. Tim looked so drunk he might fall over at any moment. Jian shook with huge sobs.
Twenty feet from the group, a green tarp covered an unrecognizable, smoldering lump. A lump about the size of Brady Giovanni. The night wind made the tarp’s edges snap loudly and carried away most of the oppressive stench. Most of it. The odors of burning flesh and burning fuel still hung in the air.
None of them looked at the body. Instead, they looked up into the night sky. The bogey Gunther had warned about was coming in for a landing, but it wasn’t a chopper—they saw a massive silhouette, running lightless, flat-black paint soaking
up the firelight from the warehouse’s flickering flames.
“Mein gott,” Rhumkorrf said. “That thing is gigundous.”
Colding couldn’t believe his eyes. The plane’s headlamps flipped on, casting long cones of light onto the snow-covered landing strip. The plane was so big it looked as if it were barely moving. There was only one vehicle that had those massive dimensions …
A C-5 Galaxy.
“Sara,” Colding said quietly. But it couldn’t be. Erika’s attack had just happened. How could Danté have responded this quickly?
The C-5 had been Colding’s idea. A flying lab to keep the ancestor project mobile in case of something … well, in case of something exactly like what had just gone down. One of the world’s largest planes, the 247-foot C-5 ran almost from goal line to goal line on a football field. Its wings spread out like the arms of a giant, 222 feet from tip to tip, and the top of the tail towered six stories high. The cockpit looked like a small black Cyclops eye notched into the elongated, rounded triangle of a fuselage. A 450,000-pound monstrosity large enough to move an entire biotech lab—cows and all—to anywhere in the world.
Five sets of massive wheels, each set the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, extended to meet the snowy landing strip. The C-5 seemed to be moving in slow motion, but it was a jet coming in for a landing at around 120 miles per hour.
Gunther moved to stand at Colding’s shoulder. “What do you want us to do?”
If not for the burning hangar, the charred body on the ground and the woman in the bioinformatics lab with at least a couple of broken ribs, Colding might have laughed at the question.
“Do? Just get in. Our ride is here.”
NOVEMBER 8: WAR ZONE
THE C-5’S TAIL ramp slowly lowered. The wind picked up speed, whipping light snow across the landing strip and sending hands to shield squinting eyes. Lights blared from the plane’s twenty-foot opening, a glowing cave that made a hazy, shivering corona against the falling snow. It struck Colding as a giant mechanical monster, jaws agape, waiting to swallow the Rhumkorrf project whole.