Seichan sighed. “Just act like a prisoner.” She waved toward the lobby stairs. “For the cameras.”
Understanding slowly sank through Kowalski’s thick skull, widening his eyes. He shed his stolen gear and laced his fingers atop his head.
With a final few instructions, Gray marched Kowalski forward, flanked by the other two. From the corner of his eye, he caught a blur of shadow, easy to miss unless watching for it. Kane vanished into the bushes at the base of the building and crept from there toward the same stairs.
Bright lights lit the steps, but the lobby was dark, with only a few pools of subdued illumination inside. It looked deserted. Maybe their disguises weren’t necessary. The guards in the park had certainly been easy to take down. Gray had even caught his target sleeping.
The enemy plainly must have thought themselves safe out on this island—especially since they suspected no one was looking for Amanda.
Gray marched with the others up the stairs. They kept their faces lowered from the cameras. Gray motioned for Tucker to run ahead and check the tall glass doors that led into the lobby. The man ran forward and tugged. The door swung open, unlocked. Tucker looked relieved. It saved them the trouble and exposure of using the minipellets of C-4 to blast the deadbolts, or larger pyrotechnics if necessary.
The only one disappointed by the ease of entry was the team’s explosives and demolitions expert. “Aw, man,” Kowalski groused. “I was all set to blow some crap up.”
Gray poked him in the back with his rifle. “Keep moving.”
Kowalski stumbled across the threshold. Gray and the others crowded in behind him.
The lobby soared five stories high, drawing the eye up. In the center rose a grand spiral staircase, made entirely of glass and sparkling in the wan light with Swarovski crystals and figurines depicting sea creatures. It wound up from the grand entry hall, spiraling around the central axis of the tower and continuing ever upward.
The only illumination came from a ring of huge pillars, also made of glass. They formed massive vertical aquariums, glowing with an inner soft radiance that slowly shifted along a spectrum of hues.
Initially, Gray thought the aquariums were empty, merely bubbling on the inside, catching and multiplying the glow. Then his eyes adjusted, and the bubbles became palm-size jellyfish, swarming and drifting within the giant pillars.
The wonder of the moment was interrupted by a harsh call.
A towering, beefy figure rose out of hiding from behind a security desk and stalked forward, rubbing a knuckle in one eye. Somebody else had been caught napping. The man shoved a black beret on his head, clearly the leader of this African contingent.
A second figure crawled from behind the desk and stood. A dark-skinned girl of thirteen or fourteen, slim, frail-limbed, wearing a soldier’s uniform. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The leader’s pants were unbuttoned.
So the man hadn’t been caught sleeping.
Fury roiled up inside Gray. He knew many of the village children nabbed by the warlords of Somalia weren’t all turned into soldiers, like Baashi, but instead were brutalized as sex slaves.
Or both.
The monster’s gaze remained fixed on Kowalski as he stalked across the wide lobby, clearly mystified by the sudden appearance of this prisoner. The ruse would only last another couple of sec—
The leader froze, half-skidding on one foot, his hand lunging for his holstered pistol.
Seichan whipped her SIG Sauer out.
“Don’t shoot!” Gray snapped—the noise of a firefight, even a single shot in this crystal echo chamber, would surely draw any other guards and alert the enemy hidden within.
The leader freed his sidearm, under no such restraint.
But Gray had seen the flicker of movement from Tucker’s wrist, heard a whispered command over the radio.
Kane burst out of the shadows behind the man and barreled forward. The girl squealed, dancing to the side. The dog hit the man in the ankle, hamstringing him and flinging him into the air. He flew high—then landed hard, his head striking the marble floor.
His pistol slid away into the shadows.
Tucker was already moving, charging forward, blade in his fist. He slid on his knees, passing Kane, whose momentum carried him in the opposite direction. Tucker reached the downed man, raised his dagger, then simply lowered it.
“Neck’s broken,” Tucker said.
“So we each got a soldier,” Kowalski said, lowering his arms, rubbing his shoulders. “I gotta get me one of those dogs.”
From the shadows to the side, the young girl reappeared. She held the lost pistol in both hands, pointed at Tucker. Her face was a mask of terror.
Tucker dropped his dagger and raised his palms. “It’s okay …” the man intoned softly.
The girl spat something in Somali. They didn’t have a translator, but it sounded more angry than scared. She steadied her pistol, her finger finding the trigger.
Then the girl suddenly jerked back a step—coughed blood. She dropped the pistol, her fingers scrabbling for the silver blade sticking out of her neck.
Gray turned to the source.
Seichan had a second throwing dagger in her fingers, ready if needed.
It wasn’t.
The girl slumped to her knees, then toppled forward.
Tucker gave out a soft cry of dismay. He lunged forward, going to the child’s aid, but it was no use. “What did you do?”
“What needed to be done,” Seichan said, her eyes glassy and cold.
Tucker stared across at her. “She was just a child.”
“No, she wasn’t,” Seichan whispered under her breath. “Not any longer.”
Logically, Gray knew she was right. The girl would likely have shot and killed Tucker, and the noise would have jeopardized everything. And a sad truth of the matter: some brutalized war orphans never recovered, never healed, becoming no more than animals in children’s bodies.
Still, his heart ached at the death, echoing Tucker’s anguish.
Seichan merely headed across the lobby. “Let’s find Amanda. That’s what we came here for.”
Still, he noted her fingers trembled as she tried to return the unused blade to its wrist sheath.
“Seichan’s right,” Gray said and pointed to Tucker. “Get your dog. We need to pick up Amanda’s trail.”
Tucker glowered at Seichan, but he obeyed.
As dog and handler worked in tandem, sweeping through the lobby, Gray moved to the security desk. There he found a bank of monitors. It appeared the desk was wired to the lobbies on each floor. He began hitting each button, bringing up one view after the other, looking for any evidence of habitation. Reaching the penthouse lobby on the fiftieth floor, he came up empty. Every lobby was dark, offering a dim view of marble elegance, fine rugs, and the continuation of the spiral stair.
Everything looked deserted, untouched.
“Over here,” Tucker called quietly. “I think we found something.”
Kane sniffed furiously at one of the doors along a curved bay of elevators.
Gray crossed toward him, collecting Seichan along the way.
She stood off by herself, staring into one of the aquarium pillars, her face unreadable. As he reached her, she nodded to the glowing and swirling pillar of jellyfish in front of her, reading the sign.
“It’s a giant hybrid of Turritopsis nutricula.”
He shook his head, not understanding.
“At the end of this species’ life, the adult jellyfish reverts back to a juvenile state. This cycle repeats over and over again, starting fresh each time.”
She stared over at the bloodied girl. Her eyes were damp with tears, possibly seeing herself lying there. Did she wish for such a chance—for both of them—to be reborn, to start again pure and untainted, to have their childhoods back?
“The process makes the jellyfish immortal,” she whispered.
He nodded, understanding this unusual marvel of nature.
But Seichan had a different viewpoint about life everlasting and mumbled it aloud. “It’s so horrible.”
Gray didn’t comment as she turned away. He followed silently with her and allowed her to work through her grief, to process it. He did keep close to her side, letting fingers brush along the back of her hand, the one that had thrown the dagger.
He expected her to pull away, but she didn’t.
They joined Tucker and Kane.
Kowalski stood nearby, neck craned, staring up, following the coil of the crystal staircase through the heart of the eternally spiraling tower.
Gray followed his gaze.
Again nagged by something.
Something about the shape …
6:47 P.M. EST
Washington, DC
The DNA molecule slowly spiraled on the computer screen, a dance of code that mapped out the human body in all its glory—but this fragment of genetic material was unlike anything Painter had ever seen diagramed. A third strand snaked within the heart of the typical double helix.
“What do you make of it?” Painter asked, using the mystery here to keep him distracted from his worries about Kat and Lisa.
“It’s a triple helix,” Renny Quinn said, his voice flush with awe. “The Holy Grail of genetics.”
Renny leaned his large fists on Kat’s desk to stare closer. Sigma’s resident biogeneticist had been summoned to help Painter sift through the huge volume of data coming from that lab’s servers. The man was of Irish descent, with a ruddy complexion and dark auburn stubble over his scalp and cheeks. He was also a former college boxer—which included a fair amount of bare-knuckle brawling, a habit that got him discharged from the army rangers.
Afterward, Sigma grabbed him. Renny proved the stories true of men with big hands—but in his case, it meant he had a huge brain. And Renny was going to need it to slog through this mountain of data.
The files from Charleston arrived disordered and unclassified, much of it in raw code. Kat must not have had time to pare the data down to the most essential files. Instead, what arrived was the definition of a data dump—a load far more than the SD card in her pen could handle. A lot of the files came corrupted, others not fully decrypted. As a consequence, it could take days, if not weeks, to decipher, decode, and repair the damaged files.
Still, it didn’t take a computer engineer to ascertain that most of the files dealt with advanced genetics and reproductive studies, all tracing directly or indirectly back to this one image.
“A triple helix of DNA,” Painter said, staring at the monitor, as perplexed as he was intrigued.
“Actually …” Renny leaned over and dragged a finger down two of the spiraling backbones. “These strands are deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. The third—this snake wrapped around the tree of life—is peptide nucleic acid, or PNA.”
Renny tapped the new helix. “This strand is artificial. Man engineered this, not God. What we’re looking at is the result of cybergenetics, the merging of biology and technology.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Not only possible. It’s been done. A team over at the University of Copenhagen have already managed to insert a PNA strand between two DNA strands. In a test tube, of course. But the only obstacle to moving their research to the next stage is a simple hurdle.” Renny nodded to the screen. “That triple helical assembly isn’t stable in water. Build a raincoat around that strand and the whole world changes.”
Painter frowned up at him. “What do you mean?”
Renny explained. “Our entire genetic code is built on four chemical bases: guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine. G, A, T, C. From that four-letter vocabulary, all life is formed.” He cocked an eye at the spiraling molecule. “But PNA is not restricted to those four letters. Can you imagine what could be created with more letters of the alphabet? We could rewrite mankind.”
Despite Renny’s obvious excitement, Painter imagined only horrors.
“But far more importantly,” Renny pressed, “this cyberstrand of PNA can be designed to specifically turn on and off certain genes. PNA has already been used to cure a form of muscular dystrophy in lab mice. But that’s just the beginning. The potential is limitless. We’re talking about blocking cancer, treating hundreds of genetic diseases, even extending life.”
Renny stared longingly at the computer. “If DNA holds the key to life … then PNA is its lock pick. For whoever holds that tool in hand, nothing would be impossible.”
Painter’s dismay grew darker, picturing the lab in Charleston, the women floating in tanks.
Jason tapped at the open office door and saved him from having to ponder worse. “Director, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we just finished receiving an extremely large file from Charleston. I thought you might like to see it. The folder’s name is HISTORY AND ORIGINS.”
Painter sat straighter, happy to forgo any more biological discussions for now. He wanted to get to the root of everything and that file name sounded promising: history and origins.
Jason dashed some of that hope. “But, sir, the folder is badly corrupted. We’re working on it, but I can forward what we have so far, a couple odd pictures and documents.”
“Do it,” Painter said.
Jason pointed to the computer. “Already done.”
No wonder Kat loves this kid.
Painter swung to the keyboard and clicked open the first few uncorrupted documents. A drawing filled the screen.
It showed a trio of men, in colonial attire, with their arms clasped together: gripping right hands above their heads and left hands below. In both of the upper corners of the sketch, a three-headed snake coiled.
“What is this?” Painter mumbled, not expecting an answer—but he got one.
“That’s the Holy Royal Arch,” Renny said, sounding equally surprised to know the answer.
Painter turned to him. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’m a member of the guild.” Renny must have read Painter’s stunned look. “Not that Guild. I’m talking about the masons. My family has been members going back to our time in Ireland.”
Painter pointed to the screen. “And this?”
“Don’t know a whole lot about it. What’s drawn there is the ritual of three-times-three, a sacred number in freemasonry. It’s a part of the initiation into the Royal Arch Degree, but plenty of mystery surrounds that exclusive degree, like its exact origin. It’s said to be tied back to the Knights Templar. The three-times-three ritual … in other words, nine … represents the original nine founding members of the Knights Templar.”
Painter stared at the screen. What is this drawing doing on the servers of a genetics lab?
Despite the oddity, he had a suspicion of the answer—but only because of the previous discussion with Renny. Painter studied the three men entwined together, the three-headed snakes. It was eerily similar to the three-stranded helix, three wound together as one. Even Renny had used the term a snake wrapped around the tree of life to describe the triple helix.
Painter read the annotation at the bottom of the drawing, stating the source: a book titled Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor, printed back in 1866.
How could a book dated almost a century and a half ago be referencing—at least symbolically—a triple helix?
Painter was reminded of the file folder’s name.
History and Origins
Sensing the importance here, he wanted the rest of this folder decrypted as soon as possible—if it was possible.
Jason suddenly dashed back to the door with grim news. “Director! We just lost connection to Charleston. The feed from Captain Bryant’s device suddenly ceased in midtransmission.”
Painter sat straighter. “The pen’s battery? Did it die?”
“No, sir. This time we were monitoring the charge levels. It was still good.”
Painter’s heart sank, knowing there was only one explanation left.
> Jason stated it aloud. “Someone must have discovered her bug and disabled it.”
But what did that mean for Kat?
26
July 2, 6:48 P.M. EST
Charleston, South Carolina
“Find them!”
Kat slipped silently into a side room off the dark lab hallway. Before disappearing inside, she caught a peek of Dr. Marshall at the far end, storming out of her office, surrounded by a cadre of security guards.
“Split up! search every closet, storage space, and lab on both sides!”
Kat closed the door quietly, struggling with the handle due to her greasy palm. The room was lit only by the glowing screensaver of a computer monitor. Again it depicted that strange triple helix. Kat hoped the files she’d been downloading had reached somebody at sigma.
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she noted the neighboring wall contained shelves of five-liter glass jars, reflecting the meager light. Dark things lurked and floated inside. Kat caught the barest glimpse of curled tiny fingers. She turned her back, not wanting to see more, not after witnessing the horrors out in the main room, the women in the tanks. These jars likely held the end product of that research.
Kat still held her folding combat blade, dulled now from all the hacking and sawing. She’d had only two minutes to ready herself for the siege ahead, barely enough time to get Amy hidden and out of harm’s way. In her head, calculations continued to run as a mental timer ticked down.
Seven tanks … 300 psia/tank … estimated volume of laboratory space …
She heard doors opening and slamming, men shouting orders, working swiftly down the hall toward her position. She had left a door open farther back—but the guards would reach her first.
As planned.
She closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths. She used the extra seconds to smear more of the gelatinous fluid over her face and shaved scalp, leaving a thick film. Her clothes and the rest of her body were equally slathered and dripping with the hydrophilic gel—the same pinkish material that was filling the monstrous tanks in the main room.
Footsteps pounded up to her hiding place. She faced the door as it was ripped open. A guard—then another—came charging inside, with pistols pointed at Kat.
Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel Page 25
