The Genesis Code
Page 22
Hidden in a van in the lower level of the parking garage above, a digital timing mechanism ticked away the seconds toward detonation.
One Hundred Three
Subbasement, Level C
Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York
“Help me with Ambergris,” said Madison. His right shirtsleeve stuck to his arm, soaked with blood.
Grace unbuckled her belt and pulled it off.
“You’re not going to get very far unless we stop that bleeding,” she said, wrapping the leather belt around his upper arm and pulling it tight.
Madison grunted in pain. His vision blurred, then cleared as the pain subsided.
“You take his other side,” he said, putting Ambergris’ arm around his shoulders to help support his weight.
Together, Madison and Quiz carried Ambergris toward the corridor leading to the exit. Grace led the way, running just ahead of them, watching the time tick away on her watch.
“Faster!” she yelled, urging them to pick up speed.
Madison’s arm screamed in pain as they finally reached the exit to ground level. Grace slammed open the door, and sunlight streamed into the darkened hallway.
Outside in the street, police and emergency vehicles had cordoned off a perimeter around the Millennium Tower. Flashing lights and police barricades blocked the streets and sidewalks. A ring of officers in body armor, helmets, and riot shields guarded the perimeter.
“Help us!” cried Grace. “We need help!”
Several police officers in body armor ran from the police line and sprinted across the pavement.
One of the policemen grabbed Dr. Ambergris in a fireman’s carry, hoisting him over a broad shoulder. Another placed an arm around Madison’s waist, helping him to stand on trembling legs. Together, the group sprinted toward the perimeter of barricades and flashing lights.
One Hundred Four
Subbasement, Level C
Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York
Grace glanced back at the Millennium Tower as she ran past the police barricades. She stumbled and began to fall, slipping from the grasp of the policeman. A young woman in an orange vest reached out, grabbed Grace by the arm, and kept her from falling to the ground.
“I’ve got you,” said Jennifer, slipping an arm around Grace’s waist. Together, they ran across the pavement toward a line of police cars and emergency vehicles.
In the back of the van parked in the lower level of the parking garage, a timing device ticked away its last remaining second. As the display on the digital timer hit zero, it sent an electric impulse down two thin wires to a detonator.
A tremendous explosion shattered the windows of the first eight floors of the Millennium Tower, blasting out a billowing cloud of smoke.
Police officers and civilians alike dove to the ground, covering their heads and diving behind anything that would provide shelter from the explosion.
A rolling fireball erupted from the Millennium Tower in a swirl of fiery orange and yellow. Glass, concrete, and debris filled the air. Clouds of thick smoke darkened the sky and blotted out the sun.
The shock wave from the explosion ripped through the concrete structural support columns in the parking garage at a rate of three thousand feet per second.
Shards of metal and concrete pounded against the pavement of the street like tiny missiles, ricocheting off its surface. Windows in the surrounding buildings shattered and imploded from the concussive blast. The deafening roar of the shock wave drowned out all sounds.
When the sky finally stopped raining glass and debris on downtown Manhattan, the Millennium Tower had disappeared, collapsing inward on itself and into the massive crater left by the explosion.
One Hundred Five
Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York
Madison lay on his side on the hard cement. Blood ran down the side of his face from a gash in his scalp as he looked up in horror at the Millennium Tower. He watched helplessly as a tremendous explosion rocketed through the mammoth skyscraper, blasting a maelstrom of dark smoke, glass, and concrete into the dawn sky. Above the deafening roar of the blast, the screams of men, women, and children echoed in the air.
One scream rose above the din.
Madison shut his eyes.
Justin was a ghost of a child, lying thin and frail under the starched white sheets of a hospital bed. A tangle of tubes and wires crisscrossed his chest, connecting his dying body with IV bags, monitors, and machines.
The monotonous beep of a heart monitor ticked off the passage of seconds. Christian Madison sat at his bedside, gently holding his son’s hand.
Most of the time, Justin didn’t seem to know what was happening. He stared straight ahead, his eyes glassy and vacant. His breathing was labored. At times, the rise and fall of his chest would stop completely. He would make a small gurgling sound, swallow, and then his breathing would start again.
Madison was utterly powerless. He worshipped science like a religion, but science refused to perform any miracles for one of its most faithful disciples. He prayed to a God he didn’t believe in, bargaining for the life of his dying son.
Madison intellectualized the biological processes taking place within Justin’s body.
He pictured Justin’s lungs, struggling to draw in enough air.
His cells starving for oxygen.
His heart growing weaker, as it tried to pump more blood through his arteries.
Madison had expected a dramatic end, a domino-like collapse of one system after another.
But that didn’t happen.
Justin just slowly faded away. Finally, as the last rays of the evening sun winked out over the horizon, he took one last small breath.
Then he was gone.
“Good-bye, Justin,” he whispered softly.
A voice rang out.
“Christian!”
The scream that rose above the cacophony of voices was Grace, frantically calling his name.
“Christian!”
Madison rolled over onto his back as Grace reached his side, kneeling down and taking his head in her hands. As Madison looked up into her eyes, small fragments of glass fell from his hair and shoulders.
“I’m okay, Grace,” he said.
Tears rolled down his face.
She leaned over, kissing Madison fully on the lips.
“We’re going to be okay,” he said, reaching up to brush a finger across her cheek.
Several feet away, Ambergris sucked in a deep breath and called out.
“Christian…”
Two paramedics lifted Dr. Ambergris onto a stretcher. His face was deathly pale and blood streamed from a gash in his forehead.
“I’m sorry, Christian. For everything.”
He reached out a shaky hand.
Madison clasped the hand between his own. “I am too. But none of that matters now.”
A grave look descended on Ambergris’ face.
“If I die, you must decide—”
He coughed violently, and dark blood bubbled against his lips.
“You must decide for yourselves what to do with this knowledge. You must decide whether to reveal the secret of the Genesis Code.”
The paramedics hoisted the stretcher off the ground. A third EMT slipped an oxygen mask over Ambergris’ face. His voice became a rasping whisper.
“You must decide…”
After the ambulance sped away, its flashing lights receding in the distance, Grace turned to Madison.
“We can’t keep this a secret,” she said finally. “We can’t keep the secret of the Genesis Code from the world.”
Madison sighed. “I know.”
“But how do we spread the word?” asked Madison. “And without endangering our own lives?”
Grace thought for a minute.
“I have an idea,” she said.
One Hundred Six
Three weeks later
Manhattan, New York
“This doesn’t exactly look like a transport helicopter,” said Grace to their military escort. She smiled at Madison.
“No, ma’am, it isn’t. As I said, my orders are to transport you as quickly as possible to the project site and to ensure your protection and safety. The Comanche can do a hundred and sixty knots and sure as hell can take care of itself. Pardon my language, ma’am.”
She noticed two 430-gallon auxiliary fuel tanks strapped to the underside of the Comanche.
“Just how far are we going, Colonel?” asked Grace.
He smiled. “You know I can’t tell you that, ma’am.”
Within minutes, the Comanche was airborne. The ground rushed by a thousand feet below. Grace sat back in her seat and looked at Madison.
She looked down at the thick file in her lap. On the cover was stenciled:
THIS FILE IS CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET
Examination by unauthorized persons is a criminal
offense punishable by fines and imprisonment
up to 50 years and $200,000.
It was titled: “THE GENESIS PROJECT.”
“I feel like Alice right after she went down the rabbit hole,” said Grace.
After Madison had been treated for his injuries at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Grace and Madison had gone directly to the FBI. After learning of Dr. Ambergris’ discovery of the ancient warning hidden in the human genome and its dire predictions of global cataclysm, the U.S. government launched a massive program to decipher the rest of the Genesis Code. Grace and Madison were recruited to serve on the Genesis Project team, housed in a secret military installation in a remote corner of Nevada.
“So what will Quiz do now that the government has finished debriefing him?” asked Grace.
Madison chuckled. “They used the carrot-and-stick approach with Quiz. Set him up with his own consulting firm, complete with lucrative government contracts. If he cooperates, he’ll be set for the rest of his life. But if he breathes a word of what he knows about the Genesis Code, he spends the next fifty years in a military prison.”
Grace looked out the window. “I’m going to miss him.”
“Me too.”
They passed the next few minutes in silence.
Grace reached over and took Madison’s hand. “So why did you run away from me after Justin died?”
Her eyes searched his face.
After a moment, he spoke.
“I think maybe it hurt too much to care about someone. Or maybe I didn’t believe I deserved to feel happy again. I don’t know.”
Grace smiled. “Or maybe you were just being an ass,” she said, as tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Okay, I guess I deserved that,” said Madison, squeezing her hand. The lines of his face softened.
“But I’m here now,” he said.
Grace leaned in and kissed him gently. Her lips were soft and warm on his mouth. After several long seconds, she pulled away.
“How’s the arm?” asked Grace.
Madison moved his right arm up and down, pivoting his shoulder joint along a vertical axis.
“Still pretty sore,” he replied. “My shoulder too. But the doc says I’ll heal over time.”
Grace chewed on her lower lip.
“I still can’t believe that they’re gone,” she said softly. “Giovanni. Ambergris. And Bowman and Vasquez.”
“I know. I try not to think about it. I don’t do very well with death and loss.”
Grace smiled and took his hand.
“You’re going to be okay,” she said. “We both are.”
Flavia Veloso sat in her cubicle at WXNY, staring at the headline above the fold on the front page of The New York Times.
FBI SAYS AL-QAEDA BEHIND MILLENNIUM TOWER BOMBING
She didn’t believe it. Not for a minute.
Rumors were circulating about a government cover-up. In the days following the bombing, sources from Triad Genomics told her about the murder of Dr. Ambergris just days before the attack. There was talk of a groundbreaking scientific discovery, and the government’s suppression of that discovery to keep it from becoming public knowledge.
But she had no proof. No hard evidence.
A runner from the mailroom interrupted her thoughts.
“FedEx for you, Ms. Veloso.”
She took the FedEx box. It was addressed to Flavia Veloso, WXNY. No return address.
Strange.
She opened the box. Inside was a thick manuscript. Four hundred white pages filled with black type.
Madison and Grace had decided that the story of the Genesis Code must be told to the world. But perhaps there was some logic to the Order’s concerns that most of humanity simply wasn’t ready to face the dire warnings it contained. So they decided to preserve and present the story of the Genesis Code in the same manner that it had been preserved throughout mankind’s past—hidden within our myths and stories.
Fictionalized in the pages of the manuscript sent to Veloso, Grace and Madison told the story of the Genesis Code to those with the insight and wisdom to discern the kernels of truth hidden within paragraphs of fiction.
Flavia turned to page one and began reading.
She laid the cover page aside on her desk. On it was written the title of the manuscript:
THE GENESIS CODE
Acknowledgments
A veritable army of generous people gave their support to make The Genesis Code a reality. I would like to thank my agent, Susan Crawford, and my editor, Natalia Aponte, for taking a chance on a new author and believing in The Genesis Code when it was little more than a fledgling attempt at a first novel. My deep appreciation to Tom Doherty, for allowing me to join the ranks of Tor/Forge authors. Thanks also to Paul Stevens, for his guidance and assistance, and to all the good folks at Tor/Forge for their support.
Special thanks to author James Rollins, for his support and encouragement. If you haven’t read James Rollins’s novels, you simply must go out and buy them today. For the inspiration for this story, I gratefully credit the works of Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval.
Appreciation and love to my family: my parents, Betty and Jim, to whom I owe everything; my brother, Brett, for his unwavering support; my aunt, Bev Marshall, a truly gifted author who inspired me to write, and my uncle, Butch, who always believed in me; my grandfather, Ernest, the great storyteller; Steve Carle; Don Gouger; my stepson, Kyle; and my adopted parents, Ronda and David Raymond. Thanks also to my colleagues at the firm for their support and encouragement: Dave Bowman, Eugene George, Jim Toale, David Bowman, Jr., and Robert Scheb.
But first and foremost, I would like to thank my wife, my friend, and my soul mate—my angel, Amy—for sharing her life with me.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE GENESIS CODE
Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Forrest
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Forrest, Christopher.
The genesis code / Christopher Forrest.—1st hardcover ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN: 978-1-4668-0019-9
1. Geneticists—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. DNA—Research—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3606.O7483G46 2007
813'.6—dc22
2007009598
Table of Contents
&nb
sp; Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
Prologue
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five