Jake looked down when the growling started.
Into the eyes of the biggest dog he’d ever seen.
It curled its lip back, revealing a glittering set of fangs, and growled more deeply. Fur bristled along its back, which was higher than Jake’s waist.
The dog tensed for an instant and then sprang.
An invisible cold hand seized Jake’s chest and he whirled, instinctively protecting his face, and ran. His sandals flew to one side as he fled, not toward anything, but away. Away from the gargantuan creature. It couldn’t be a dog. No dog was that big. A damn wolf was after him.
A street opened to the right and Jake veered off, heart thudding loud enough to scramble any thoughts. An empty trash can jumped out in front of him, but he barreled through, metal crashing in his wake. He glanced back as the wolf went airborne, clearing the trash can. Drool hung from its mouth.
Jake went right, and so did the wolf, but it skidded on the sidewalk, nails scrabbling for purchase on the concrete but finding none. Keep turning. He cut through an alley, and the wolf followed. Each twist bought him a precious few seconds, but the wolf never stopped.
The black eternity of space wrapped the city in its embrace, impenetrable as an executioner’s hood. He’d run away from the streetlights by now. Points of white pricked the dark blanket overhead, only the moonlight glinting off windows to guide him.
Jake looked over his shoulder again, his breath coming in deep, ragged, heaves, and saw the wolf steadfastly trailing him, a blurry shadow, waiting for him to tire. Jake turned down an alley, leaving it behind for an instant until a brick wall rose from the murky depths ahead.
He hit the brakes. Or at least tried to, but his feet tangled and Jake sprawled on the pavement, gritty dirt burning his nose. He rolled away as the wolf appeared behind him and barreled in for the kill.
No, not yet. His breath coming almost in sobs now, he scrambled to his feet and lunged at the wall. Rough brick sliced his fingertips as he leapt at it like a spider, shoulders burning as he stretched and caught the top edge. He felt the skin tear from both knees as he pulled himself up and almost over. He glanced back and saw the wolf take flight, saw an angry blur of glittering fangs and yellow eyes launch itself toward him.
It went up and up, blocking out the stars overhead, so high it cleared the wall – and Jake as well. Fangs snapped inches from his neck, and specks of thick, hot saliva washed his skin as the wolf flew over and landed with a thunderous crash on the far side.
There was a yelp and then – silence. Hopefully the damn thing got impaled on a fence.
Tumbling back to the ground, Jake gained his feet and tore back down the alley as an awful ruckus sounded from behind. Shit. His bare feet skidded on asphalt as he found the street and took the first turn he came to at full speed. The weak glow of the streetlights guided him on. Jake didn’t look back.
A street sign flashed overhead. Riley Avenue. He knew this street. He’d eaten lunch here earlier today. His hotel waited a few blocks ahead. The streetlights grew brighter, and he cut through an alley, taking the same shortcut he’d used when the sun had been high above. A hard right after that and he’d be back on a main street, close to his hotel and free of this nightmare.
Clicking sounded behind him.
Summoning every ounce of strength remaining to him, Jake ran, chest heaving, legs burning. The alley mouth waited ahead, growing larger with every step. Sweat stung his eyes and each breath seared his lungs as he pelted down the narrow alley like a lost soul tumbling down the River Nile. Then, with the end so close he could reach out and touch it, the clicking stopped.
Jake looked up and saw white teeth glowing like razors in the moonlight as a demon-wolf descended.
A flash of pain, fire in his throat, and then nothing at all.
Chapter 1
Outside Mwanza, Tanzania
May 20th
The first tremor rattled this luscious stretch of savanna, an almost musical feeling under Reed Kimble’s feet. Shaking ground meant one thing here. Elephants. Exactly what elephant hunters needed.
Reed laid his palm on the rich dirt, hot and hard after a day spent baking in an unforgiving African summer sun. The loamy carpet danced ever so softly. A herd was waiting out there from the feel of it, hidden under the moonlight as stars sparked in the clear night sky.
Vast fields of dancing grass stretched all around, the landscape dotted with leafy copses and life-sustaining acacia trees. Offering shade in the daytime, and a beacon for water-seekers on two feet and four, those trees provided shelter and social spots for everything and everyone who called this land home. It was a land Reed knew well from the hundreds of safaris he orchestrated yearly. The kind of safaris where guests fired shots only with a camera.
“Over there,” Reed said. “At least a half-dozen.”
The man at his side nodded. “Where are the poachers?”
Reed considered this. For poachers to approach the elephants, they needed to come from the side. That offered the best opportunity for a through-and-through head shot. A properly armed poacher could drop a lumbering beast where it stood. But they would also need to shoot from somewhere that kept any baby elephants out of their way. Those weren’t worth killing. Their tusks hadn’t fully grown and this wasn’t a business in which haste paid dividends. Tiny ivory tusks didn’t make a poacher rich.
“To the south,” Reed said, pointing. “That’s where they’ll be. The little ones are north of their parents, and that hill gives you an elevated shooting position.”
Moonlight glinted on his companion’s teeth. “You damn right, boss.” Paul Mwashinga spat in the dirt. “That is where I would go.”
“Then let’s loop around and get those bastards,” Reed said, the tall grass tickling his knees. Despite what any poachers might think, nothing would die here tonight.
Reed Kimble wasn’t just one of Tanzania’s most successful safari guides. He was also a proud supporter of Tanzania’s National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit (NTSCIU for short), and he helped authorities stop criminals from killing what he loved most about his adopted homeland: the animals. Earlier today Mwanza’s police department had learned about poachers heading out tonight in search of ivory. Fortunately, Reed knew where to find the biggest stash near Mwanza: directly between the floppy ears he’d come to know and love, a group of roughly fifteen adult elephants Reed affectionately referred to as the Rolling Stones.
“You ready for this?” Reed asked.
Born a stone’s throw away from where they stood, Paul Mwashinga and his ancestors had called this land home for over a thousand years. As much a part of the tableau as the elephants and lions, Paul’s people owed their lives to it, and Paul offered no mercy to poachers. Paul may have been scarcely old enough to drink, but Reed trusted him in the field more than anyone else.
“You know it,” Paul said, sliding a full magazine into his rifle. “Do not forget about the whistle. If you are in trouble, use it and I will be right there.”
Reed glanced at the contraption around his wrist: a bracelet woven from twenty feet of high-tensile string with an adjustable whistle attached, hand-crafted by Paul. A bit odd, but useful when you thought about it. Hell, you could even adjust the whistle’s pitch.
“Same goes for you,” he said, nodding to an identical bracelet around Paul’s skinny wrist. “Now look sharp.”
Reed lifted a walkie-talkie to his lips. “See anything out there, Chief Ereng?”
“It is all quiet. Remain in position.” Waiting across the savanna with a half-dozen of his men, Mwanza’s police chief and Reed formed an invisible, protective cordon watching over Africa’s most vulnerable residents. If Nixon Ereng’s intelligence proved correct, a group of uncompromising criminals was out there now, looking to kill the endangered elephants Reed loved.
Reed turned to Paul. “Goggles on. No telling when they’ll show up.” Both donned night-vision headgear, set to the infrared setting. With a full moon overhea
d, the signatures given off by a poacher’s body heat were the best way to track them.
“I hope they do not keep us waiting all night,” Paul said.
“Greed makes men move mighty quick.” Reed tucked an earpiece into one ear. “I don’t think they’ll be long.”
Poachers often operated at night, using darkness to avoid government agents patrolling the protected land. Until recently, poachers had had so much success that elephants had nearly vanished from around Mwanza, but as of late the good guys had mounted a comeback, despite fighting an uphill battle. Stop one poacher and two more sprang up. Poverty and desperation turned young men against their homeland, pillaging Tanzania’s living treasures to line the pockets of gangsters and smugglers. Until they ended up dead or in jail.
While birds cried in the darkness and the Rolling Stones rattled the earth nearby, Reed and Paul waited. It didn’t take long. Scarcely an hour passed before headlights dotted the horizon. Diesel engine chugging, a pickup truck crept over the plain in their direction. Soon the headlights went out and an intense spotlight beam swept the plains.
Reed and Paul lay low as the truck rumbled to a spot several hundred yards out and stopped, the spotlight painting Reed’s favorite herd. The beam flashed off, the truck passing within fifty feet of them as it headed for the hilltop.
Reed jumped up as soon as the truck had passed. Paul knew the drill, following as they trailed the vehicle, two more shadows in a murky sea. Brake lights flashed and two men hopped from the cab, rifles in hand. Big ones. Enough to blow holes through any elephant in sight.
Everything came to life under the infrared glasses. Reed focused on a glowing truck engine and spectral men walking up the hill as he and Paul crept behind the poachers. They checked the truck’s cab as they passed and found it empty.
Reed pushed the glasses up on his head. Paul seemed to read his thoughts when he pointed at the poacher on the right. Reed takes the left one, Paul the right. Simple, easy, efficient. Metal clinked as the poachers knelt and loaded their weapons.
Reed kept one hand on his rifle while tapping a button on the radio, the signal to Nixon that he and Paul were in place.
“We see them.” Nixon’s muted reply crackled in his ear. “Do not move until we go in.”
Reed leaned close to Paul and relayed the instructions. Both poachers moved closer to the gray giants. Paul stepped forward, but Reed laid a hand on his arm. Nixon Ereng knew what he was doing. At least Reed hoped so. His chest tightened as the poachers moved closer with no sign of the police. Come on, Nixon. They’re getting too close. The poachers kept going. Reed lifted his gun, the stock tight against a shoulder.
Red and blue lights flashed in the night and sirens cut the still air. Police and national wildlife service agents erupted from the darkness to surround the two poachers, beating Reed and Paul to the party. By the time the two of them had scrambled over the plain and joined the circle, the two criminals had dropped their weapons, hands raised to the sky.
Paul frowned. “We are too slow. Next time I will be in charge. Chief Ereng made me worry.”
“I never lost faith,” Reed said as policemen snapped cuffs on the poachers. “Not for a second.”
“You are a terrible liar.” Paul smacked the poachers’ truck, his baritone laughter booming across the plains. The elephants were safe and, despite Reed’s concern, one thing was certain. All the authorities here loved Tanzania and were doing everything they could to keep the nation’s natural beauty alive. Tonight it was enough.
Chapter 2
New York City
May 17th
A needle slid through white fur and pierced skin, and blood filled the syringe. The tiny patient squeaked.
“Easy there, little guy.” Dr. Sarah Hall lifted the mouse with care, transferring her most valuable test subject back to his cage. “Sorry about the pinch,” she said. “There’s a treat in your food bowl to make up for it.” The mouse raced through his oversized home, headed to the upper level and the treat he got after every blood draw. Sarah always gave her mice a special morsel of food after taking samples. It was the least she could do.
“Now to see if fortune favors you, little friend. Fortune and science, that is.”
One of the many testing devices scattered through her lab began whirring when she inserted the blood sample, digital data flashing onto the attached monitor moments later. When the machine fell silent, Sarah’s heart jumped in her throat. “It worked.”
It shouldn’t be possible. It couldn’t be. But, then again, that’s what Sarah Hall had been searching for. The impossible. And now she’d found it. A way to alter genetic code in one very specific way.
She turned to the mouse, now racing through his wire-and-plastic house. “You might be the fastest mouse on earth.”
He stopped, looked up at her, and squeaked.
“You’re welcome,” Sarah said, grinning as she grabbed the pen tucked behind her ear. A few loose strands of auburn hair fluttered across her vision. “No one is going to believe this.”
This was the first time anyone had successfully altered an animal’s genetic code with such specificity. The kind of thing only a select group of people had ever attempted, none successfully. Now, an interloper in their exclusive club had done it. A veterinarian by training, Sarah had merged her passion for animals with an innate scientific curiosity by creating her own career: a veterinarian conducting scientific research on the side. Research with a purpose, years of it, and now it had borne fruit. The hair on her arms rose as she jotted notes.
Confirmed successful targeted mutation to enhance muscle fiber contraction.
A door opened across the room, and Sarah looked up to see one of her fellow researchers walk in, white lab coat swishing as he moved.
“Good morning, Sarah.”
“Morning, Adam,” she said. “Come over here.”
Her face must have betrayed her mood.
“You look excited about something,” Adam said. “What’s going on?”
“Look at this.” She tapped the notebook in front of her. “I did it.”
“Seriously?” As he stepped back, a ray of sunlight flashed across her friend’s face and he blinked hard. “You actually changed the target section?” She nodded. “Where are the test results?”
“On the screen.”
“Let me see.” Adam whistled as he scrolled through the data. “I’ll be damned. You did.” His head shook slowly. “Let me be the first to congratulate you. Everyone in Zurich will be in for a surprise. Nobody expected it to happen before they arrived, though I’m sure a few hoped.”
“I haven’t even packed yet,” Sarah said. The keyboard rattled as she entered her notes from this latest test into the project database. “Haven’t had a chance. This project has taken up all my time since Ian left.” The thought of Ian Napier brought up mixed emotions. Not that she’d ever admit it to Adam.
“Good riddance,” Adam said. “He was a strange bird. I’ll take the extra work if it means seeing the last of him.”
Sarah gave him a mock frown. “Ian wasn’t that bad. Quiet, yes. A little hard to read, but not awful.”
Adam crossed his arms. “Ian Napier had strange ideas.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t realize at first.” Walking toward a window, he pulled the blinds open to reveal a narrow expanse of green lawn surrounded by a college campus. Cornwell Industries leased space in a local university’s science department, providing their research team with a quiet and academic environment to conduct research. The greenery, a rarity in New York, didn’t hurt either. “We had drinks after work one day,” Adam continued. “I was surprised Ian even agreed to go. After a few beers he loosened up, actually started talking. We had a few more, and then out of the blue he starts talking about a CRISPR research paper he’d read, and how he thinks it’s a game-changer.”
She’d never heard this story. “He’s right,” Sarah said. “That’s why I’m studying it now, same a
s you.”
Adam lifted a hand. “I agree, of course. It’s huge. Precision editing of genetic code could change everything. Cure disease, repair defective genes. I get it, and I don’t disagree. It’s how he talked about using the technology that made me uncomfortable.”
“Most uses are speculative at this point.”
“Not anymore,” Adam said. “Look at what you just did. You wanted to enhance that mouse’s natural abilities, and you did. CRISPR genome editing is going from fantasy to reality faster than we ever imagined.”
Sarah shrugged. “It’s only one experiment. We’ll see if it can be replicated in Zurich. But back to Ian,” she said before he could respond. “What did he say?”
Adam shook his head. “He was pretty drunk at this point. Most people didn’t know this, but Ian’s father died when he was young. Muscular dystrophy. It’s why Ian became a scientist.”
Sarah nodded. “One of my friends became a medical doctor because her father died from cancer when she was young.”
“I’m sure it’s not unusual. However, it was more than a driving force for Ian. It bordered on obsession.” Adam stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Ian told me he wanted to start testing his theories on humans. He talked about changing human genetic code, not just animals.”
“That’s insane.” She waved a hand toward her mouse test subject. “I’m barely comfortable using mice right now. Primates are a long way off, and as for human testing? Who knows.”
“Correct,” Adam said. “But Ian wanted to start now.”
“He’d never get approval. They would laugh him out of the room.”
“I know that, you know that, and I can’t imagine he doesn’t. But you should have seen him. He wasn’t joking.”
Funny that Ian had never said anything to her about it. “What else did he say?”
“Nothing important. We had a few more beers, then Ian went home and we never spoke about it again. The next time I saw him he was the same quiet, hard-to-read guy we all knew. A few weeks after that he was gone.”
The Turn Series Box Set Page 12
