Amazon Roulette

by C. M. Gleason

  Cora felt around the edges of the second door, searching for another lever or some other way to open it. Her fingers were stiff and cold from fear and desperation, and the scent of stale urine filled her nostrils, fighting with the damp and musty inside of the space.

  A sob—her own—caught her by surprise as she examined the door in vain. Nothing. There seemed to be no way to open it, yet she continued to dig at it, as if somehow this would be her saving grace. As if somehow opening that door would save her—no matter how absurd it seemed.

  When her fingers were sore and bleeding, Cora sank onto the ground, hugging her knees to her chest. She sobbed, rocking back and forth as she thought about her life, the choices she’d made, and whether she’d ever see her father again. And Jerry.

  With a cry of frustration, she tipped her head sharply back against the wall, slamming into the coppery covering. There was a soft ping and the wall behind her groaned. Then began to move.

  Cora leapt unsteadily to her feet. A small black crevice had been revealed, unmistakable but hardly wide enough for a finger. With a cry of triumph, she pulled and pushed, and the door inched open a little further.

  No sooner had the soft spill of light cascaded into the chamber beyond than Cora heard a curious, ominous sound. Tiny, infinite scuttling legs…then the soft buzz of countless wings filled her ears.

  She stepped back as a swarm of something poured from the dark chamber, surrounding her and the area, buzzing, darting, diving, and thudding into her and the walls.

  Stifling a scream, she whirled and staggered into one of the stone pyramids. It fell, collapsing against her. Cora tumbled to the ground as the stones and the insects pelted her in turn.

  NINETEEN

  September 26

  University of Illinois—Champaign

  “This is the most fascinating specimen I've ever seen,” said Eli Sanchez, the beetle expert. His shoulder-length dreadlocks were pulled into a messy club at the nape of his neck, exposing the Chinese symbol for peace inked just behind his left ear. A pristine white lab coat was open to reveal a vintage-style Beatles t-shirt.

  Marina suspected his choice of attire wasn’t a coincidence.

  He was also gloved and masked, as were Marina and Gabe, on Dr. Hyram Puttesca’s advice. They weren’t sure what about the beetles—if anything—was causing the deaths, but no one was taking any chances.

  Currently, Sanchez’s face was pressed onto the eyepieces of the serious-looking microscope with WILD Heerbrugg printed on its base. He made a sound of interest then disbelief as he moved the dial of the fiberoptic light-control box, turning up the illumination on the specimens. His mask puffed in and out like an elevated heartbeat.

  “…Reticulate…elytral window punctures…quite conspicuous… Hindwings…definite, strong venation…cuticle scales!… My God, this is unbelievable,” he murmured to himself in snatches that meant nothing to Marina. Then he froze, his tall, lanky body going rigid. “Three ocelli?” he exclaimed, fairly dancing at the microscope even while peering down into it. “It can’t be. But, by God… Do you have any idea what this means?”

  “If I knew what ocelli were, I might…but probably not,” Gabe muttered.

  Sanchez’s long-fingered hand gestured excitedly, like a surgeon expecting someone to hand him an instrument, all the while remaining in position over the microscope. Then he fumbled blindly on the table for a small pair of forceps. “Three ocelli,” he said again, his voice filled with glee. “And scales! Where did you say you found this?” He popped away from the microscope, his dark eyes wide and sparkling with excitement.

  “In a man’s pants cuff,” Gabe said. Marina could almost read his mind: if the guy was so excited about three whatever ocelli were, he’d be really stoked if he knew it might have something to do with a group of terrorists. “But what can you tell us about the beetle? Where it’s from, if it’s dangerous to humans…anything?” Now his voice had a bit of impatience. “In English, please. I can tell you we think it’s related to a terrorist group.”

  “A terrorist group.” Sanchez’s brows rose, but he made no further comment. Instead, he gestured with the forceps. “Well. The specimen is Coleoptera, of course—a beetle, suborder Archostemata. That’s one of the four major subgroups of Coleoptera, and the smallest of them, with the fewest species. There are Archostemats on every continent except Antarctica—that we know of, anyway. They're quite rare, and most specimens from this suborder have previously been found in eastern Asia. Siberia, that area.”

  Gabe looked at Marina, and she was aware of her heart ramming harder in her throat. Siberia. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  “Are they dangerous?” she asked.

  “Beetles aren’t dangerous—at least in the way you might think of them as being dangerous. They don’t bite or carry venom. They can be devastating to crops, of course, and yards, like Japanese beetles, and problematic in other ways—infestations in houses at times, sometimes in food—in fact, Spanish Fly is actually a species of beetle. But regarding Archostemata…we actually don’t know a lot about that suborder simply because there aren’t very many living specimens, and many of what we have to study are fossils. They’re all very primitive species. But I…” He turned back to his work, pulling out the dish from beneath the microscope. “I can’t believe…and the elytra…they seem—”

  “Elytra?” Marina prodded.

  “The forewings. The most easily identifiable characteristic of a Coleopteran—beetle—is its hard, protective front wings. They aren’t used for flying, but to protect the hindwings, which are the more gossamer-like fragile ones beneath—and what they actually fly with. And even the hindwings on this one,” he murmured, looking back at the specimen which was now sitting on the counter in full view, “they’re amazing. They appear to be…copper…but they can’t…it’s impossible…”

  Still muttering to himself, he lifted the insect delicately with the very fine-pointed forceps and placed it on a small block. Then he inserted a tiny needle through the side of the body. Holding the pin with a slightly larger forceps, he pushed it into a tiny cube of cork, which he then impaled firmly on a long black pin with a gold head. He placed the entire thing, now on a piece of white foam board, under the microscope again, and adjusted the light. He pushed a few keys on a keyboard, and leaned back, looking at a large video monitor above the lab bench. The beetle was there, in all its glory, much larger than life. He moved the light wands around a bit, and repositioned the beetle.

  Marina caught her breath, getting this incredible magnified view of the beetle for the first time. There was a scale indicator on the video screen, showing the beetle to be about eight millimeters, and now that it was blown up to the size of a big-screen television, all she could think was what a primitive-looking creature it was. Its body was separated from the head with what looked like a short, ball-like neck, but surely had some specific entomological name. The critter looked as if a child had assembled it from mismatched parts. As she and Gabe watched the screen, they could see as Sanchez used the forceps to carefully open one of the outer wings. A moment later, he sliced it off with a small glass blade, and placed it into yet another glass dish.

  “Will you look at that,” he murmured like a man to his lover as he slid the wing under another microscope. “I’ll be damned.”

  Then, with a strangled sound of excitement, Sanchez whipped away from the eyepiece. He looked even wilder than before, his intense eyes nearly popping from their deep sockets. “Wait a sec…” Giving his chair a good, solid shove, he went careening across the room, still in his seat. In a whirl of white lab coat and a bounce of dreadlocks, he dug open a small cabinet and withdrew a small wooden box. “It can’t be…too much of a coincidence…” he muttered, extracting another dish. Another shove and he zoomed back across the floor, returning to the microscope bench. “But maybe…”

  Marina peered over his shoulder at this new addition and saw a small jumble of what looked like melted metal before he slipped t
he dish in place under yet another impressive-looking microscope. Her interest spiked when she saw a glint of copper and something that looked like a thick hair…or an insect leg. “What is that?”

  “Another specimen someone brought me a few days ago.” Sanchez sounded supremely distracted as he traded positions between the two viewers, sliding back and forth on his chair, clearly comparing the different material. “Damn right. It could be. It could very well be. I think it’s the same…or damned close.” His voice dropped low and smooth again. More keypunching, and then two more video monitors were showing magnified bits of beetle.

  “Another specimen?” Gabe moved for the first time, pushing himself away from where he’d been leaning against the wall. He glanced at Marina, then demanded, “From where? Are you certain?”

  “As certain as I can be with it in this condition—melted all to hell and fried into a crispy critter.” Sanchez gestured vaguely to the ashy black ball.

  “Where did it come from?”

  The tone of Gabe’s voice seemed to penetrate Sanchez’s train of thought, for the entomologist actually stopped moving and turned to face him. He yanked the mask down to expose the rest of his face, including a square jaw and expressive, sensual mouth underscored by a neat goatee. “A friend referred someone to me. They found this mass of fried copper and beetle parts over in St. Louis, where that blackout started. Right at the power plant that caused the blackout. Since the insect isn’t indigenous to North America, they brought it to me to ID.”

  Gabe made a sound and, eyes wide, yanked out his phone. He tore off his purple lab glove and began to type on the screen with sharp, fierce stabs as Sanchez replaced his mask and turned back to work.

  So this bug—insect—had been found near the source of the blackout? Marina felt a little shiver of inevitability, followed by a nudge of nausea. Surely it wasn’t a coincidence.

  Sanchez concentrated once again on the intact specimen Gabe and Marina had provided, poking it with a pair of forceps as it floated on its pin anchor. She watched the video monitor in fascination as he used the tool to ease one of the hindwings open.

  The underwing glowed coppery in the strong white light of the light wand, and she moved closer to look at the delicate webbing of the wing. It looked like the most delicate of metal sculptures, translucent and rust-colored.

  But this was a real insect, not a mechanized one. Wasn’t it?

  “What about that black stuff on its legs? It looks a little like dust, but it keeps smudging off on things. Is that normal for a beetle? I know bees sometimes have pollen that clings to their legs—do beetles have that sort of thing?” she asked. “And where would it come from? Can that help identify the origin of the bu—insect?”

  By now Sanchez had removed the hindwing as well, and the impaled beetle sat, half denuded, on its specimen block. “It’s not a normal trait of coleops, but there are some species of insects commonly called assassin bugs that carry bacteria on their mid- or hind-legs. That, in fact, is how Chagas disease is spread. You might have heard of it. The kissing disease? Fairly rampant in the Amazon jungle.” He continued to lecture as he pressed his eyes to the microscope, glancing up only briefly to fumble for a tiny metal pick. “But that’s the family Reduvidae, order Hemiptera—and those would be real bugs.” He said dryly, his eyes crinkling above the corners of his mask. “In the case of Chagas disease, the insect does bite its victim. But it carries bacteria from its own waste on its legs. The waste is pretty much liquid, as the coleop’s diet is liquid—blood, to be exact. When it settles to feed, often near the mouth of the victim, it deposits the bacteria. The bacteria are on the skin. The bite itches, the person scratches, and the bacteria get into the body. That bacteria is actually what causes the illness—not the bite. In fact, some people think Charles Darwin died of Chagas disease.”

  “Lovely thought,” Marina replied dryly, resisting the urge to rub the corner of her mouth behind her mask. She glanced at Gabe, who was having a quiet, intense conversation on his phone.

  But Sanchez wasn’t paying attention. He pulled the specimen out from under the microscope and pinned it into a small white box with a shiny bottom. “Something else I wanted to check,” he muttered, taking the box over to another complicated device consisting of a large Nikon microscope with what appeared to be a very expensive digital camera on top, attached to a computer monitor. A keyboard sat in front of it, and several other boxes were attached by various cables and cords. He clicked a few buttons, turned a knob on one of the boxes, tapped the keyboard…then suddenly an image popped up on the computer screen.

  It was an enlarged version of the beetle’s head, and whatever he saw made Sanchez’s breath catch. “Definitely three ocelli. I can’t believe it. That’s just—seriously, you must tell me exactly where you found this specimen. Get me security clearance or whatever—I’ve done work for the FBI. Helen Darrow can vouch for me. But I have to know…” He looked back and forth between them, his dark brown eyes sparkling with delight and filled with pleading.

  “What’s an ocelli? And why are three of them a big deal?” Marina asked when Gabe, still on the phone, shook his head mutely at the entomologist’s plea.

  “The ocelli are eye spots, which are the simplest form of an eye we find in nature—it doesn’t have a cornea or a lens. It doesn’t really see anything other than light or the lack thereof. Jellyfish have them, snails, many other creatures. Coleops can have them too…but all known beetles have only two ocelli…except for a very primitive, rare family called Jurodidae. And we’ve only ever found one living, non-fossil Jurodid. In eastern Siberia, like I said earlier. Here. Let me pull up an image.”

  Clearly unaware of the implications of his information, Sanchez sent his chair gliding over to another desktop computer, which was attached to a tower of several large external hard drives. His fingers tapped efficiently over the keys and he clicked the mouse a few times. Propping his masked chin on a gloved hand, he peered at the image that came up on the screen. It was of a beetle that looked exactly like the one Marina and Gabe had brought him.

  But he was shaking his head. “Look at this. Not even close.” That tone of excitement was stronger now. “See this? They’re not the same damn beetle. The pronotum is narrower, the angle of the hind-coxae…” He tsked, but with glee. “Definitely not the same. Jurodidae for sure, but not at all Sikhotealinia. The variegation on the elytra, the mandibles…it’s obvious they aren’t—and that’s without even a dissection!”

  You could’ve fooled me. Marina figured this must be how some people felt when she was discoursing on the differences between cuneiform and ogam.

  “And so…?” Gabe was still on his phone, but he spoke to Sanchez. His face displayed tension, but his eyes remained sharp.

  “So that means you’ve brought me a specimen from a completely new species of beetle—one from the most primitive genus.” Sanchez had pulled his mask away again, revealing a brilliant white smile. His dark eyes were bright with excitement and fascination. “I have got to write a paper about this.”

  “Great,” said Gabe, pulling away from the lab table. “So you can’t tell us anything about it? Where it’s from?”

  “Oh, I can tell you plenty about it—especially after a complete dissection. It might not be details you want, but once I’m finished, I can likely tell you where it came from and what its habitat is, what it eats—”

  “And how about this—can you tell us how it’s killing people?” Gabe asked. “Because we’ve got three deaths already, and who knows how many more to come.”

  The thrill died from Sanchez’s expression. “Killing people. So that’s it. I’ll have to do some lab tests. It’ll take time. Give me a day.”

  “How about five hours,” Gabe said. It wasn’t a request.

  TWENTY

  Chicago

  Near the FBI Field Office

  Marina hesitated briefly, then lifted the lid of her laptop.

  She pressed the power button, then, while the
sleek silver device booted up, she walked over to draw the hotel room curtains closed. It was after four in the afternoon and this was the first chance since arriving in Chicago she’d had to be alone and to work on her own projects.

  After arriving in Chicago, she’d spent all of the last two days, and into the evening, at the FBI field office with Gabe, Bergstrom, and Helen Darrow until being released to a Marriott less than a mile from the field office at ten o’clock at night. Early this morning, Gabe had showed up and taken her with him to meet with Eli Sanchez, then back to the office—doing his job keeping her in protective custody. Or so they claimed.

  By four o’clock, she was done with hanging around the field office trying to manage some of her work on the iffy Wi-Fi in the conference rooms, and finally insisted on returning to her hotel.

  Marina wasn’t the least bit disappointed with the two-room arrangement for her and Gabe at the hotel. It had nothing to do with him and everything to do with herself needing space and privacy. She appreciated Helen’s consideration—if that was what it had been.

  Besides, there was nothing to keep them from sharing a room if they so chose—although she didn’t expect to get a visitor. Gabe had escorted her here last night, then returned to the FBI field office with Helen and Colin Bergstrom until who knew how much later. When he picked her up for the visit to the entomologist, he looked as if he’d hardly slept.

  The laptop was booted up by the time she returned to the awkward hotel desk, settling into the chair. She found it much easier to do work from a field site—in tents or even on the ground beneath a tree—than in a hotel room. The furnishings were so uncomfortable, and always seemed to be designed for a person taller and bigger than she.

  When she checked her email, she found a response she’d been waiting for from a colleague in Amsterdam.

  Where did you find this? Leif wrote. Agree w your assessm’t—it could definitely be Celtiberian. Note the lengthened characters in the sample you sent me, compared to attached sample I’ve reviewed. And appendages to limbs—hardly noticeable on confirmed sample, but more evident in yours. Completely different medium, too, of course. But if I had to conjecture, I’d say definite influence if not mere stylistic difference because of the medium. Did you say this was in North America? What a find!