The Extinction Files Box Set

by A. G. Riddle

  The door to the flat was locked. When it swung open, I saw instantly that our home had been ransacked. I drew my sidearm, but I was too late. In my peripheral vision, I saw a figure, dressed in black, standing in my office off the foyer, the glass pocket doors closed, obscuring him. I spun, bringing my weapon up, but he was quicker. The bullet ripped through the glass, into my side, and blew me back against the console table and the antique mirror that hung above it. But I didn’t lose my grip on the Sig Sauer P226. I squeezed the trigger, fired three rounds, and saw the man fall.

  I spun, moved to the dining room. That action saved my life. The second man was in the kitchen. His shots into the foyer barely missed me. I fired through the wall, blind, then burst into the kitchen through the butler’s pantry, catching him from behind. I had winged him. I didn’t wait for him to turn; I shot him through the shoulder. He dropped the weapon.

  I stood over him, held the gun in his face, listened for movement from my study, but heard none.

  “Who sent you?”

  Blood oozed from his mouth. He was European, with a close-cropped haircut, military or former military.

  He gnashed his teeth, grunted. I grabbed his jaw, dug my fingers into his cheeks, separating his clenched teeth, but I was too late. He had cracked the tooth. The poison had already slid down his throat. I grabbed a ladle from the kitchen, forced the handle down his throat, and tried to gag him, but his body was already going limp.

  Holding my side, I raced to the study. The other man was dead too. My files were gone. The safe lay open.

  I grabbed the phone and dialed Lin’s office at the university. No answer. I tried to stop the bleeding in my side. I’d need a doctor soon. I dialed my Citium assets in London. No answer. Berlin. No answer. Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco. They were all gone.

  I raced to our master bedroom. Drawers lay open. Our luggage was gone. So was the children’s. I counted that as a good sign.

  I heard footsteps in the foyer. I peeked out into the main hall, expecting to see a bobby, but instead saw two more black-clad former military men, guns drawn, sweeping the hall, moving toward me.

  I squatted, took a spare magazine from my belt, thrust the Sig Sauer around the door frame, and squeezed off round after round. I wanted the men alive, but I wanted to live more.

  I heard them collapse to the floor. I put a fresh magazine in, retreated to Madison’s bathroom, found a hand mirror, and used it to peer into the hallway without exposing myself. They were down, unmoving.

  I put on a black overcoat and fled into the London night. Going to a hospital was a risk I couldn’t take. A doctor we had used in my MI6 days patched me up.

  In a cheap bed and breakfast near Tottenham, I made the rest of my calls. They confirmed my worst fears: an all-out purge of the Citium had occurred.

  I still had several false identities; I used them to leave the country. I had no clue where Lin would have gone. Hong Kong was my first guess. I was wrong; she wasn’t there. I tried everything to find her. I called her colleagues, but no one knew anything; she had given no warning about her departure. I placed ads with hidden meaning in the newspaper, with no luck. I tried calling Citium members, but everyone was either dead or had gone underground.

  So I did the same.

  I waited, hoping the Beagle would make its scheduled docking at Nome, Alaska, but it never appeared. I saw three possibilities. My hope was that the vessel had been commandeered and the crew and researchers taken prisoner. Or that someone aboard had learned of the purge and that the Beagle and all souls on board had gone into hiding. I looked for proof of either scenario, but found none. That left the final option, my worst fear: they’d sunk her. The loss of the ship was tough. I had made a lot of friends on board during my time there. The research it carried was impossible to value—and essentially impossible to find.

  I didn’t try. I was entirely focused on locating Lin. She was a needle in a worldwide haystack, but I dug into it. I rented a small cottage in the country, a hundred miles from London, kept to myself, and spent every second investigating who had conducted the purge. There was no internet in 1983, no cell phones. People were much harder to find back then, but I made progress. Slowly, pieces began to emerge—Citium cells still operating. The names had changed, but there was a trail. A company called Invisible Sun Securities had absorbed much of Citium Security. I began putting the pieces together. I never stopped looking for Lin or the children.

  The years went by, and my hope faded little by little. By 1991, I had designed an operation I hoped would reveal the truth about the purge. Everything was in place. But a week before I was to make my move, a package arrived at my door, delivered by an unmarked parcel van. No signature required. The house was like a fortress. I even had a bomb shelter under it.

  With an extension arm, I cut the package open.

  What I saw inside broke me.

  It was a San Francisco Chronicle article about a medical student, Andrew Shaw, who had died in Uganda the previous week in a bushfire. He had been working for the WHO on an AIDS awareness campaign. I recognized my son’s face, but I didn’t want to believe it. Yet underneath the article were several photos of his burned body. Tears streamed down my face.

  A handwritten note on a scrap of paper was also in the box.

  Leave us alone, or the other two will be next.

  Happiness and fear fought a war within me. Andrew was dead. Madison and Peyton were alive. But what of Lin?

  I left that night, and I went deep underground. Off the grid. I never stopped researching the Citium, but I did it in a passive way now. I kept a folder on every known Citium cell, and year after year, I gathered more and more information. Several cells had survived the purge, and one of them was responsible for the slaughter. But I didn’t know which.

  I had gained one thing from Andrew’s death: a last name. And with that single clue I discovered that Lin was alive in America. I debated for weeks whether to contact her, but finally decided against it. I followed her career at Stanford. I celebrated when Peyton was accepted to medical school. I cut out Madison’s wedding announcement. And years later, I saw my children for the first time in twenty years: on YouTube. I watched videos of Peyton, sometimes for hours. She had grown into a fine woman, a wonderful doctor, with her mother’s passion for her work. She reminded me so much of Andrew; I wondered if his death had influenced her career path.

  I longed to reach out to her and Madison and Lin, but I knew it might put their lives at risk. Those years after 1991 were like prison for me. I dreaded the future. I saw the life I could have had slip away. I never got to be the father I wanted to be for my children, or a husband to Lin. My life was torture, but I held on to hope, and I prepared for a day when I could stop the Citium. Or, in the worst case, when they would find me—or force me to act.

  Unfortunately, the worst case has indeed come to pass. As I write these words, our opportunity to stop them is slipping away.

  Stop them. Don’t give up. Use everything you know, take nothing for granted, and trust no one.

  Desmond watched the words hit Peyton like punches in a boxing ring. She took them, her teeth gritted, for as long as she could—but eventually even this strong-willed woman he had met in Palo Alto twenty years ago reeled under the weight of her emotions. She had seen her EIS team killed, had discovered she was infected with a deadly virus—and now she had learned that the Citium had destroyed her life and killed her brother—and that her parents had once been members of the group… It was too much for any person to take, no matter how strong.

  A tear ran down Peyton’s cheek. Then another. He pulled her into his arms. Her body heaved as she cried. He had never seen her cry so hard, even that day in California, when he had driven away pulling the Airstream trailer. He held her tight and made a promise to himself: he would save her life, and right the wrongs that had been done to her. He would do it, because in some way, he was responsible for what was happening.

  And because he lov
ed her. He couldn’t say the words back then, and he didn’t dare say them now, but at this moment, for the first time in his life, he knew them to be true. He loved her more than anything. He had loved her for a very long time.

  He was so absorbed in holding her that he didn’t hear the footsteps on the porch.

  Chapter 83

  The door to the cottage flew open before Desmond could rise. The man moved quickly, closing the distance to the couch, a handgun pointed at Desmond. His eyes studied the back of Peyton’s head, which rested on Desmond’s shoulder.

  She turned and froze, her eyes wide.

  “Dad.”

  Peyton stood and threw her arms around her father, either unaware of or unconcerned about the gun in his hand. She hugged him with a force that made his eyes bulge. He was tall, with short white hair neatly combed over. His face was rugged, a few days’ beard on cheeks that were red from the wind that swept the island. He was fighting back tears as Peyton held him.

  But the events of this last week had confirmed to Desmond the wisdom of the advice in the pages on the table: Trust no one. With the blanket still covering his hands, he reached for his handgun.

  William raised his own weapon.

  “Don’t, Desmond.”

  Peyton released her father, looking from him to Desmond.

  “Hey, we’re all on the same team here.”

  William’s eyes never left Desmond. “We’ll see about that. Take the gun, Peyton. Hand it to me.”

  Standing between the two men, Peyton hesitated. She reached over, threw the quilt off Desmond, and slid the gun out of his shoulder holster. She kept her body in front of his, shielding him, turned, and held out her free hand to her father, just inches from his gun.

  “You too, Dad.”

  He scrutinized her, then seemed to read the There’s no negotiation look Desmond had come to know so well. He smiled just a little as he handed her the gun.

  “You’ve been watching us,” Desmond said.

  William moved out of the way of the windows and put his back against the stone wall. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “You.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I’ve been investigating the Citium for over thirty years—since the purge. I’m the only one with any chance of stopping them. And now, on the eve of the Looking Glass, they can’t afford to leave me alive. It makes sense to me that they would send someone to kill me. Someone with a great story. Someone who could leverage perhaps the only thing in this world that could make it possible for anyone to get close to me.” He looked at Peyton, indicating that she was that leverage—implying that Desmond had used her to get to him.

  “I’m not here to kill you,” Desmond said. “Just the opposite. I want to help you. To stop them. More than anything.” His tone grew skeptical. “But I’m not the one who needs to explain. In ’91, they sent you that box. They knew exactly where you were. Why didn’t they just take you out?”

  “I’ve thought about that a lot over the last twenty-five years.”

  “And?”

  “And when I trust you, I’ll tell you why I think they left me alive.”

  Peyton placed the guns on the kitchen table. “Let’s start trusting each other right now. We don’t have time to waste.” She coughed, then inhaled deeply.

  She’s getting sicker, Desmond thought.

  William studied her, seemed to realize it too. “Yes. Time is certainly of the essence.”

  Peyton motioned to the letter. “Let’s start over. Dad, you wrote this letter to Desmond. Why?”

  “Three weeks ago he contacted me online. I had developed a number of websites and identities related to the Citium and former projects. They were like breadcrumbs back to me in case someone ever surfaced. I expected maybe a scientist from before the purge.” William motioned to Desmond. “Somehow, he found me. He said the Looking Glass was nearing completion. That he had been lied to, that what they were planning was very different from what he was promised.”

  He faced Desmond. “You told me you were going to stop them. Expose them. You wanted to meet. I refused. I told you to go public first. I didn’t trust you. Again, I thought it might be an attempt to draw me out, eliminate me before the Looking Glass went live. I gave you the coordinates in the forest.”

  “Where we found the metal box.”

  “Correct. There were a hundred pounds of C4 under it. I would’ve blown you to tiny little bits if Peyton hadn’t been with you.”

  Desmond looked over at her. “Well, thanks for that.”

  “I assumed you’d brought her along as leverage. But I needed to know for sure.”

  “You let us read your story to see my reaction.”

  “Yes.” William walked closer to Peyton. “And to explain. I wrote most of it long ago, for you, Peyton, and for your sister. I wanted you to know what really happened. I thought about sending it to you a million times, but the risk was just too great. I decided it would be better for you to live not knowing, than to die for my peace of mind.”

  “Dad…” She began crying again, and William hugged her, held her tight.

  Desmond nodded. It made sense. In fact, a lot of pieces were starting to fall into place.

  William released Peyton and focused on Desmond. “What happened after you contacted me?”

  Desmond sensed that the man was still testing him, trying to decide whether to believe him. He began telling his story, starting with waking up in the Concord Hotel a week ago.

  “The message said, Warn Her, with Peyton’s phone number.”

  “Warn her of what?” William asked.

  “I think I just figured that out.” But before explaining, Desmond wanted to get all the facts out there. He described his meeting with the journalist, being captured, and his time in confinement on the Kentaro Maru. He quickly summarized their escape with Avery, rescuing Hannah, and the Labyrinth Reality app, which he had re-downloaded in Dadaab.

  “Before, in Berlin, the app didn’t provide any entrances—no locations. But in Dadaab, it provided us with the coordinates you had given me.”

  “Interesting,” William said.

  “I must have programmed the app to release the location as a backup plan—probably after a set amount of time if I hadn’t taken control of the situation. Coming here and joining forces with you would have been my avenue of last resort.”

  “Very clever.”

  “What about the second location—your childhood home?” Peyton asked. “It popped up after we reached the box in the woods.”

  “I believe that was a secondary backup plan,” Desmond said, “in case this didn’t pan out. Maybe I figured William might not show, or wouldn’t be helpful.”

  “That was prudent.” William motioned toward Peyton. “Let’s go back to the message. Warn Her. Of what?”

  “I believe I was supposed to warn her that she was in danger of being kidnapped, which is exactly what happened in Kenya. I think they wanted her to see the outbreak first, but mostly they wanted to take her so they could use her as a tool to get to you. For just the reason you stated: leverage. If you’re right, and you hold the key to stopping them, Peyton becomes the key to stopping you—and thus ensuring their success.”

  Just then, Desmond wondered exactly how far the Citium would go to get to William. Would they have deliberately let himself and Peyton go, so they would lead the Citium to William? Had the escape been a ruse?

  He checked his radio. Avery should have checked in by now. Something was wrong.

  Desmond stood, but he was too late. The door was already open. The rifle that breached the threshold pointed at him first, then moved to Peyton and William.

  Chapter 84

  Avery didn’t take her eyes off William. She pointed the rifle at the center of his chest. Her voice was commanding, devoid of emotion. “Step away from her.”

  William held his hands up and slowly moved away from Peyton.

  Desmond saw a man ready to give his life for hi
s daughter’s without hesitation.

  “He’s on our side, Avery.”

  She sidestepped, moving between Desmond and William, as if ready to shoot either. She stole a glance at Desmond, then at the corkboards that were covered with articles, pictures, and names of Citium organizations and projects.

  “What is this?”

  “Thirty years of research,” Desmond said. “The key to stopping the Citium.”

  “He’s my father,” Peyton said.

  Avery cocked her head. “Okay… Didn’t see that coming.”

  She lowered the rifle.

  “How’d you find us?” Desmond asked.

  “Tracking dot on your clothes.” Avery smiled. “Not my first rodeo.”

  “Very clever.”

  “I figured if you were in trouble you wouldn’t be able to radio me, and calling you would only reveal my presence.”

  They told Avery what they had learned, and Avery quickly summarized her experience with Rubicon, for William’s benefit. He listened quietly, then asked her who ran the Rubicon program.

  “I don’t know. I was recruited by a man named David Ward.”

  “Are you in contact with him?”

  “No. Phones are down. The websites I used for digital dead drops are too.”

  Desmond could read William fairly well—Peyton had certainly inherited some of his mannerisms—and could see that he was skeptical. Desmond knew time was running out—for Peyton and for so many others. They needed to make a plan, and quickly.

  “Okay,” Desmond said, “let’s try to put it all together. We know the Citium released the virus. We know they have a cure. Let’s assume they’ve manufactured a stockpile.”

  “Controlling the cure would effectively give them control of the world,” Peyton said.