by Ted Dekker
“You want me to figure out how to make explosives?” Her brow arched.
“I’m sure Gains can put a call in to the right people. We’re in canyon lands. Lots of rock, rich in copper and tin ores. We make bronze weapons now. Even if we withdraw, we’ll only have a few hours to find whatever ingredients you come up with and make explosives. It has to be strong enough to knock down canyon walls along a natural fault.”
“Black powder,” Gains said.
Thomas faced him. “Not dynamite?”
“I doubt it. Black powder was first made by combining several common elements. That’s your best bet.” He shook his head. “God help us. We’re casually discussing which explosive will best blow up this ‘Horde’ while breathing in the world’s deadliest virus.”
“Who can help me?” Kara asked Gains.
He flipped open his cell phone, walked into the kitchen, punched up a number, spoke briefly in soft tones, and ended the call.
“You met Phil Grant last night. Director of the CIA. He’s next door, and he’ll put as many people as you need on it.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. If black powder can be found and made in a matter of hours, the CIA will find the people who can tell you how.”
“Perfect.” Thomas said.
Kara liked the new Thomas. She winked at him and left.
Thomas turned to Gains. “Okay now, where were you?”
It was all coming back to Thomas. Not that he’d forgotten any of the details, but he’d felt a bit disoriented thus far. He could only be spread so thin. With each passing minute in this world, his sense of its immediate crisis swelled, matching the crisis that depended on him in the other world.
“Washington.”
Thomas ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t imagine a group of politicians listening to anyone as forthright as me. They’ll think I’m insane.”
“The world’s about to go ballistic, Thomas. The French, the British, the Chinese, Russia . . . every country in which Svensson has released this monster is reeling already. They want answers, and you may be the only person other than those complicit in this plot to give them answers. We don’t have time to debate your sanity.”
“Well said.”
“You made a believer out of me. I’ve gone out on a limb for you. Don’t back out on me, not now.”
“Where has Svensson released the virus?”
“Come with me.”
There was a sense of déjà vu to the meeting. Same conference room, same faces. But there were also some significant differences. Three new attendees had joined through video conference links. Health Secretary Barbara Kingsley, a high-ranking officer of the World Health Organization, and the secretary of defense, although he excused himself after only ten minutes. Something was odd about his early departure, Thomas thought.
Eyes flittered about the room on high-strung nerves. The confident glares of last night were gone. Most of them had trouble meeting his stare.
They spent thirty minutes rehashing the reports they’d received. Gains had been right. Russia, England, China, India, South Africa, Australia, France—all of the countries that had been directly threatened this far were demanding answers from the State Department. But there were none, at least none that offered the slightest sliver of hope. And by end of day, the number of infected cities was promised to double.
Raison Pharmaceutical’s report on the jacket left in the Bangkok airport took up fifteen minutes of speculation and conjecture, most of it led by Theresa Sumner from CDC. If, and it was a big if, she insisted, every city Svensson claimed to have infected actually had been infected, and if— again it was a big if—the virus did indeed act as the computer models showed it would, then the virus was already too widespread to stop.
None of them could quite grasp such a cataclysmic scenario.
“How in the name of heaven could anything like this have possibly happened?” Kingsley demanded. She was a heavy-boned woman with dark hair, and her question was greeted with silence.
This same simple question would be asked a hundred thousand times in as many clever ways as possible in the next week alone, Thomas thought.
“Mr. Raison, maybe you can give me an explanation that I would feel comfortable passing on to the president.”
“It’s a virus, madam. What explanation would you like?”
“I know it’s a virus. The question is how is this possible? Millions of years of evolution or however we got here, and just like that a bug comes out of nowhere to kill us all off? These aren’t the Dark Ages, for crying out loud!”
“No, in the Dark Ages the human race didn’t have the technology to create anything this nasty.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t see this coming.”
It was as close to an accusation as one could make, and it silenced the room.
“Anyone who understands the true potential of superbugs could have seen something like this coming,” Jacques de Raison said. “The balance of nature is a delicate matter. There is no way to predict mutations of this kind. Please explain that to your president.”
They looked at each other as if at any moment one of them would surely say something that would set this terrible mistake straight.
April fools!
But it wasn’t April and no one was fooling.
They rallied around Sumner’s repeated announcement that the virus had only been verified in Bangkok. No one else knew quite what to look for, although the CDC was working feverishly to get the right information into the right hands.
“Don’t we have a plane to catch?” Thomas finally asked.
They looked at him as if his statement should require some examination. Everything Thomas Hunter said was now worthy of examination.
“The car will take us in thirty minutes,” Gains’s assistant offered.
“Good. I’m not sure we’re doing any good here.”
Silence.
“How so?” someone finally asked.
“For starters, I’ve already told you all of this. And all the talk in the world won’t change the fact that we’re facing an airborne virus that will infect the world’s entire population within two weeks. There’s only one way to deal with the virus, and that is to find an antivirus. For that I believe we’ll need Monique de Raison. The fate of the world rests on finding her.”
He pushed back his chair and stood.
“But we can’t speak of finding Monique de Raison here, because in doing so we’ll probably tip our hand to Svensson. I believe he has someone on the inside.”
Gains cleared his throat. “You’re suggesting there’s a mole? Here?”
“How else did Carlos know exactly where to find me? How else did he gain access to my suite through the adjoining room? How else did he know I was sleeping when he entered?”
“I have to agree,” Phil Grant said. Thomas wondered if the man’s trust of his colleagues had kept his own suspicions at bay until now. “There are other ways he could have gained access, but Thomas makes a good point.”
“Then I must say that the French government would like custody of Thomas Hunter,” Louis Dutêtre said.
All eyes turned to the French intelligence officer.
“Paris has come under attack. Mr. Hunter knew of that attack before it occurred. This places him under suspicion.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gains said. “They tried to kill him this morning.”
“Who did? Who saw this mysterious intruder? As far as we know, Thomas is the mole. Isn’t that a possibility? My country insists on the opportunity to interrogate—”
“Enough!” Gains stood. “This meeting is adjourned. Mr. Dutêtre, you may inform your people that Thomas Hunter is in the protective custody of the United States of America. If your president has a problem with that, please advise him to call the White House. Let’s go.”
“I object!” Dutêtre jumped to his feet. “We are all affected; we should all participate.”
“Then find Svensson,
” Gains said.
“For all you know, this man is Svensson!”
Now there was an interesting idea.
Gains walked from the room without a backward glance. Thomas followed.
The small jet winged westward over Thailand, bound for Washington, D.C., six hours after the first fax to the White House informed the world that everything had just changed for Homo sapiens. The CDC had now verified the virus in two new cities: New York and Atlanta. They started with the airports, following indications in Bangkok, and they hadn’t needed to go any farther.
Svensson was using the airports.
Had used the airports.
The first critical decision was now upon the world leaders. Should they shut down the airports and by so doing slow the spread of the virus? Or should they avert public panic by withholding information until they had something more concrete?
According to Raison Pharmaceutical, closing the airports wouldn’t slow the virus enough to make a difference—it was too widespread already. And panic wasn’t a prospect any of the affected governments were willing to deal with yet. For now, the airports would remain open.
Thomas had been awake for only four hours, but now he was eager to fall asleep. He held the thin manila folder in his hands and read the contents for the fifth time.
Kara frowned. “It might not have the kind of power you need—it’s pretty slow burning—but Gains was right. Black powder is the only explosive you have any chance of pulling together in the middle of nowhere.”
“How am I going to find this stuff?”
“They tell me the kind of firepower you need isn’t impossible. The Chinese figured it out nearly two thousand years ago by accident. You can be nearly 50 percent off on the combination of ingredients and still get a decent bang. And the three ingredients you’ll need are very common. You just have to know what you’re looking for, which you now do. Do you have sugar there?”
“Some, yes. From sugarcane, just like here.”
“If you can’t get to the charcoal quickly enough, sugar will work as a fuel as well. Here’s a list of more substitutes. The ratios are all there. Stall the Horde, and stall them hard. Deploy a thousand soldiers to find what you need.”
“A little research and you’re ready to start commanding armies?” He grinned. “You’d be good there, Kara. You really would be.”
“You like it better there than here?”
He hadn’t considered the comparison. “I’m not sure there is a ‘there’ that’s not also ‘here.’ Hard to explain and it’s just a hunch, but both realities are actually very similar.”
“Hmm. Well if you ever figure out how to take others with you, promise to take me first.”
“I will.”
She sighed. “I know this isn’t exactly the best time to bring this up, but do you remember the last thing I told you before you disappeared for fifteen years last night?”
“Remind me.”
“It was only twelve hours ago. I suggested that you become someone who could deal with the situation here. Now you’ve come back a general. It just makes me wonder.”
“Interesting thought.”
“You really have changed, Thomas. And I hate to break it to you, but I really think you’ve changed for the sake of this world, not that one.”
“Maybe.”
“We’re running out of time. You’ve got to start figuring things out. Get past all this noncommittal ‘maybe’ and ‘interesting thought’ stuff. If you don’t, we just may be toast.”
“Maybe.” He grinned and closed the folder. “But unless I can figure out how to survive as General Hunter there, I won’t be around here to figure anything out. Like I said, if I die there, I think I die here.”
“And if you die here?” she asked. “What happens if the virus kills us all?”
He hadn’t connected the dots in that way, and her suggestion alarmed him. But it only made sense that if he died here along with the rest, he would die in the forest.
“Let’s just hope this black powder of yours works, sis.”
“Sis?”
“I’ve always called you that.”
She shrugged. “Sounds odd now.”
“I am odd, sis. I am very, very odd.” He sighed, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. “Time to get back into the ring. I’m almost tempted to ask you to rub my shoulders down. Fourteenth round and I’m dead on my feet.”
“Not funny. You have everything you need?”
He tapped his head. “I’ve read the material a dozen times. Let’s hope I can remember it. Let’s hope I can find what I need.”
“Elyon’s strength,” she said.
He cracked one eye and looked at her. “Elyon’s strength.”
7
“WAKE UP.”
His cheek stung. A hand slapped it again several times.
Thomas pushed himself up. “I am awake! Give me a moment!”
Mikil stepped back.
Thomas’s mind spun. After so long, transitions of his dreams felt surreal.
He looked at his second in command. Mikil. She could probably walk into any bar in New York and clear the place. She wore battle moccasins, a kind of boot with hardened-leather soles but cured squirrel hide around the ankles and halfway up the calf. A bone-handled knife was strapped to her lean, well-muscled leg. She wore thigh guards for battle and a short hardened-leather skirt that would stop most blows. Her torso was covered in the traditional leather armor, but her arms were free to swing and block. Her hair ordinarily fell to her shoulders, but she’d tied it back today for battle. She’d strapped a red feather to her left elbow, a gift from Jamous, who was courting her. A long scar ran from the dangling feather up to her shoulder, the work of a Scab moments before she’d sent him screaming into hell during the Winter Campaign.
Mikil’s eyes had begun to turn gray. The report of skirmishes at the Natalga Gap had come during the night—she’d left the village without her customary swim in the lake. The Forest Guard Oath required all soldiers to bathe at least once every three days. Any longer and they would risk becoming like the Desert Dwellers themselves. The sickness affected not only the eyes and the skin, but the mind as well. The Guard had to either carry large amounts of water with them on campaigns or draw the battle lines close to home. It was the single greatest limiting factor a tactician could be handed.
Thomas had once been stranded for four days in the desert without a horse. He had two canteens, and he’d used one for a spit bath on the second day. But by the end of the third day, the onset of the disease was so painful that he could hardly walk. His skin had turned gray and flaked, and a foul odor seeped from his pores. He was still a day’s walk from the nearest forest.
In a fit of panic he’d stripped naked, flung himself on the sand, and begged the blistering sun to burn the flesh from his bones. For the first time he knew what it meant to be a Desert Dweller. It was indeed hell on earth.
On the morning of the fourth day, he began to see the world differently. His craving for fresh water diminished. The sand felt better underfoot. He began to think that living life in this new gray skin might not be impossible after all. He wrote the thoughts off to hallucination and expected to die of thirst by day’s end.
A group of straying Horde found him and mistook him for one of their own. He drank their stale water and donned a hooded cloak and demanded a horse. He could still remember the woman who’d given him hers as if he’d met her yesterday.
“Are you married?” she asked him.
Thomas stood there, scalp burning under the hood, and stared at the Desert Dweller, taken aback by her question. If he said yes, she might ask who was his wife, which might cause problems.
“No.”
She stepped up to him and searched his face. Her eyes were a dull gray, nearly white. Her cheeks were ashen.
She drew back her hood and exposed her bleached hair. In that moment Thomas knew that this woman was propositioning him. But more, he knew that she was beaut
iful. He wasn’t sure if the sun had gotten to him or if the disease was eating his mind, but he found her attractive. Fascinating, at the very least. No, more than that. Attractive. And no odor. In fact, he was sure that if he were somehow miraculously changed back into the Thomas with clear skin and green eyes, she would think that his skin stank.
The sudden attraction caught him wholly off guard. The Forest People followed the way of the Great Romance, vowing not to forget the love Elyon had lavished upon them in the colored forest. The Scabs did not. Until this moment he’d never considered what a man’s attraction to a female Scab felt like.
The woman reached a hand to his cheek and touched it. “I am Chelise.”
He was immobilized with indecision.
“Would you like to come with me, Roland?” He’d given her the fictitious name knowing that his own was well known.
“I would, yes. But I first must complete my mission, and for that I need a horse.”
“Is that so? What is your mission?” She smiled seductively. “Are you a fierce warrior off to assassinate the murderer of men?”
“As a matter of fact, I am an assassin.” He thought it might earn him respect, but she acted as if meeting assassins in the desert was a common thing. “Who is this murderer of men?”
Her eyes darkened and he knew that he’d asked the wrong question.
“If you’re an assassin, you would know, wouldn’t you? There’s only one man any assassin has taken an oath to kill.”
“Yes, of course, but do you really know the business of an assassin?” he said, mentally scrambling for a way out. “If you are so eager to bear my children, perhaps you should know with whom you would make your home. So tell me, whom have we assassins sworn to kill?”
He could tell immediately that she liked his answer.
“Thomas of Hunter,” she said. “He is the murderer of men and women and children, and he is the one that my father, the great Qurong, has commanded his assassins to kill.”
The daughter of Qurong! He was speaking to Desert royalty. He dipped his head in a show of submission.
