The 6th Extinction (5 page)

Still, she hurried gladly toward that meager shelter, taking strength from the stubbornly standing walls and roofs. As she neared the closest structure, she pulled out her cell phone, hoping she was high enough to get a signal. With her truck’s radio drowned in that toxic sea, her cell phone was the only means of communication.

With great relief, she noted a single glowing bar of signal strength.

Not great, but I’m not complaining
.

She dialed the dispatch office. The line was quickly picked up by a breathless Bill Howard.

Though the connection was dodgy, she heard the relief in her friend’s voice. “Jen, are you o . . . ay?”

“I’m banged up little, but I’m okay.”

“What’s . . . banged up?”

She bit back her frustration at the reception. She tried speaking louder. “Listen, Bill. You’ve got trouble rolling your way.”

She tried to explain about the explosion, but the spotty signal made communication difficult.

“You need to evacuate Lee Vining,” she said, almost shouting. “Also any of the area’s campsites.”

“I didn’t . . . et that. What’s that about an evacuation?”

She closed her eyes, exasperated. She took a couple of breaths.

Maybe if I get on the roof of one of these barns, I could get a better signal
.

Before she could consider the best course, a low thumping sounded. At first she thought it was her own heart pounding in her ears. Then Nikko whined, hearing it too. As the noise grew louder, she searched the skies and spotted a blip of navigation lights.

A helicopter.

She knew it was too soon for Bill to have sent up a search-and-rescue team. With her nerves jangling a warning, she flicked off her flashlight and rushed toward the shelter of the ghost town. Reaching the outskirts, she ducked alongside an old barn as a helicopter crested into view.

She recognized the sleek black shape of the aircraft. It was the same bird she had seen lifting off from the military base just prior to the explosion.

Had they caught sight of my truck racing away from the blast zone and doubled back? But why?

Not knowing for sure, she kept out of sight. Reaching the gaping barn door, she hurried inside with Nikko. She rushed across the dark confines, halting only long enough to check her phone.

Her call to Bill had dropped, and the screen now showed no bars.

She was cut off, on her own.

Reaching the far side of the barn, she peered carefully out through the broken glass of a window. The helicopter lowered toward a meadow on that side. Once the skids were close enough to the ground, men in black uniforms bailed out on both sides. The rotor wash of the helicopter pounded the scrub brush around them.

Her heart thundered in her throat as she noted the shouldered rifles.

This was no rescue party.

She touched her only weapon, holstered at her hip. A taser. By law, California Park Rangers could carry firearms, but it was mostly discouraged when assisting with tours like today.

Nikko growled at the growing commotion outside.

She waved him silent, knowing that their only hope of surviving was to stay hidden.

As she slunk lower, the last man—a true giant—hopped out of the helicopter and strode a few steps away. He carried a long muzzled weapon. She didn’t recognize it—until a jet of fire shot out the end, lighting up the meadow.

Flamethrower.

It took her a moment to understand the necessity for such a weapon. Then her fingers tightened on the sill of the barn’s window, noting the dried and warped wood. She was hiding in a veritable tinderbox.

Outside, the cluster of armed men spread wide, preparing to circle the small outcropping of buildings.

They must know I’m here, hiding somewhere in the ghost town
.

Their plan was clear. They intended to burn her out into the open.

Beyond the men, the toxic sea swirled around the hill’s crown. There was no escaping this island. She sank to her heels, her mind feverishly running through her options. Only one certainty remained.

I can’t survive this
.

But that didn’t mean she would stop being a ranger. If nothing else, she would leave some clue to her fate, to what really happened out here.

Nikko sidled next to her.

She hugged him hard, knowing it was likely for the last time. “I need you to do one more thing for me, buddy,” she whispered in his ear.

He thumped his tail.

“That’s a good boy.”

3

April 27, 11:10
P
.
M
. EDT
Takoma Park, Maryland

When it rains, it pours . . .

Gray Pierce sped his motorcycle down the wet suburban street. It had been storming solidly for the past week. Overtaxed drains left treacherous puddles along the road’s edges. His headlamp cut a swath through the heavy drops as he aimed for his father’s house.

The Craftsman bungalow lay midway along the next block. Even from here, Gray spotted light blazing from all the windows, illuminating the wraparound porch and the wooden swing that hung listlessly there. The home looked the same as it always did, belying the storm that awaited him inside.

As he reached the driveway, he leaned his six-foot frame into the turn and rumbled toward the detached garage in the back. A harsh bellow rose from behind the house, heard even over the roar of the Yamaha V-Max’s engine.

It seems matters had worsened here.

As he cut the engine, a figure appeared from the backyard, stalking through the rain. It was his younger brother, Kenny. The family resemblance was evident, from his ruddy Welsh complexion to his dark, thick hair.

But that was the extent of the similarities between the two brothers.

Gray tugged off his motorcycle helmet and hopped off the bike to face his brother’s wrath. Though they were the same height, Kenny had a beer gut, a feature well earned from a decade living the soft life of a software engineer in California, while nursing a drinking problem. Recently Kenny had taken a sabbatical from his job and returned here to help out with their father. Still, he threatened to head back west almost every week.

“I can’t take it anymore,” Kenny said, balling his fists, his face bright red with aggravation. “You have to talk some sense into him.”

“Where is he?”

Kenny waved toward the backyard, looking both irritated and embarrassed.

“What’s he doing outside in the rain?” Gray headed toward the rear of the house.

“You tell me.”

Gray reached the yard. The single lamp above the kitchen back door offered little light, but he had no trouble spotting the tall man standing near a row of oleanders that bordered the fence. The sight stopped Gray for a moment as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing.

His father stood barefoot and naked, except for a pair of boxers, which clung damply to his bony physique. His thin arms were raised, his face upturned to the rain, as if praying to some storm god. Then those arms scissored together in front of the bushes.

“He thinks he’s trimming the oleanders,” Kenny explained, calmer now. “I found him wandering in the kitchen earlier. It’s the second time this week. Only I couldn’t get him back to bed. You know how stubborn he can be, even before . . . before all of this.”

Alzheimer’s
.

Kenny would rarely say the word, as if fearful he might catch it by talking about it.

“That’s when I called you,” Kenny said. “He listens to you.”

“Since when?” he muttered.

While growing up, Gray and his father had had a tumultuous relationship. His father was a former Texas oilman, rugged and hard, with a personal philosophy of grit and independence. That is, until an industrial accident at a drilling rig sheared one of his legs off at the knee. After that, his outlook soured into one of bitterness and anger. Much of which he directed at his eldest son. It eventually drove Gray away, into the Army and finally into Sigma.

Standing here now, Gray sought that infuriatingly hard man in the frail figure in the yard. He gaped at the ribs, the sagging skin, the map of his spine. This was not even a shadow of his father’s former self. It was a shell, stripped of all by age and disease.

Gray stepped over to his father and gently touched his shoulder. “Dad, that’s enough.”

Eyes turned to him, surprisingly bright. Unfortunately it was old anger that shone there. “These bushes need to be cut back. The neighbors are already complaining. Your mother—”

Is dead
.

Gray bit back a twinge of guilt and kept a firm grip on his father’s shoulder. “I’ll do it, Dad.”

“What about school?”

Gray stumbled to match the old man’s timeline, then continued smoothly. “I’ll do it after school. Okay.”

The fire dulled in his father’s bleary blue eyes. “You’d better, boy. A man is only as good as his word.”

“I’ll do it. I promise.”

Gray led him to the back porch and into the kitchen. The motion, the warmth, and the brighter light seemed to slowly help his father focus.

“Gr . . . Gray, what are you doing here?” his father asked hoarsely, as if seeing him for the first time.

“Just stopped by to check on how you were doing.”

A thin hand patted the back of his arm. “How ’bout a beer then?”

“Another time. I’ve got to get back to Sigma. Duty calls.”

Which was the truth. Kat had caught him en route from his apartment, asking him to join her at Sigma command in D.C. After he had explained about the situation with his father, she had given him some latitude. Still, he had heard the urgency in her voice and didn’t want to let her down.

He glanced to Kenny.

“I’ll get him up to bed. After episodes like this, he usually sleeps the rest of the night.”

Good
.

“But, Gray, this isn’t over.” Kenny lowered his voice. “I can’t keep doing this night after night. In fact, I talked with Mary about this earlier today.”

Gray felt a twinge of irritation at being left out of this conversation. Mary Benning was an RN who watched over their father during the day. The nights were mostly covered by Kenny, with Gray filling in when he could.

“What does she think?”

“We need around-the-clock care, with safeguards in place. Door alarms. Gates for the stairs. Or . . .”

“Or find a home for him.”

Kenny nodded.

But this is his home
.

Kenny must have read the stricken expression. “We don’t have to decide right away. For now, Mary gave me the numbers for some nurses that could start covering the night shift. I think we could both use the break.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll get it all arranged,” Kenny said.

A twinge of suspicion rang through Gray, wary that his brother’s sudden resourcefulness was driven more by a desire to wash his hands of their father and escape back to California. But at the same time, Gray recognized his brother was likely right. Something had to be done.

As Kenny led their father toward the stairs and the bedrooms above, Gray pulled out his cell phone and dialed Sigma command. He reached Kat almost immediately.

“I’m coming in now.”

“You’d better hurry. The situation is growing worse.”

Gray glanced toward the stairs.

It certainly is
.

11:33
P
.
M
.

Gray reached Sigma command in fifteen minutes, pushing his Yamaha to its limits on the nearly deserted streets, chased as much by the ghosts behind him as he was drawn forward by the urgent summons to D.C. He could have begged off on coming in, but he had nothing but worries waiting for him at his apartment. Even his bed was presently cold and empty, as Seichan was still in Hong Kong, working with her mother on a fund-raising project for impoverished girls in Southeast Asia.

So for the moment, he simply needed to keep moving.

As soon as the elevator doors opened onto the subterranean levels of Sigma command, Gray strode out into the hallway. The facility occupied long-abandoned World War II–era bunkers and fallout shelters beneath the Smithsonian Castle. The covert location at the edge of the National Mall offered Sigma members ready access both to the halls of power and to the Smithsonian Institution’s many labs and research materials.

Gray headed toward the nerve center of the facility—and the mastermind who ran Sigma’s intelligence and communication net.

Kat must have heard his approach and stepped out into the hallway to meet him. Despite the midnight hour and the long day she’d had, she was dressed in a crisp set of navy dress blues. Her short auburn hair was combed neatly in a boyish coif, but there was nothing boyish about the rest of her. She nodded to him, her eyes hard and focused.

“What’s this about?” Gray asked as he joined her.

Without wasting a breath, she turned and headed back into Sigma’s communication center. He followed her into the circular room, banked on all sides by monitors and computer stations. Normally two or three technicians manned this hub, and when an operation was in full swing, there could be twice that number. But at this late hour, only a single figure awaited them: Kat’s main analyst, Jason Carter.

The young man sat at a station, typing furiously. He was dressed in black jeans and a Boston Red Sox T-shirt. His flax-blond hair was cowlicked and disheveled, like he’d just woken up, but more likely, the exhaustion on his face was from not having slept at all. Though only twenty-two, the kid was whip-smart, especially when it came to anything with a circuit board. According to Painter, Jason had been kicked out of the Navy for breaking into DoD servers with nothing more than a BlackBerry and a jury-rigged iPad. After that incident, Kat had personally recruited him, taking him under her wing.

Kat spoke to Gray. “A little over an hour ago, a military research base out in California had some sort of disaster. There was a frantic mayday.”

She touched Jason’s shoulder.