The Seventh Plague

by James Rollins

  He glanced to the side. Somehow Jane had managed to fall asleep on the hotel’s sofa. Seichan napped on a nearby chair, her chin resting on her chest, a pistol on her lap. Derek suspected that woman would be on her feet at the first sign of danger. The last member of the group, the giant named Kowalski, took his turn standing guard by the window. After arriving by train in the middle of the night, they had secured the hotel room under false names, but no one was taking any chances.

  Derek returned to his research. He had the leather-bound collection of Livingstone’s old correspondences open before him. He found himself staring at another of the pages tabbed by Professor McCabe. The marked letter was addressed to Stanley and contained a meandering account of the flora and fauna found in the swamps surrounding Lake Bangweulu, where Livingstone had been continuing his quest for the source of the Nile. The page also held another of Livingstone’s naturalist drawings, this time of a species of caterpillar and butterfly.

  Though not an entomologist, Derek recognized the name of this particular insect: Danaus chrysippus. It was the common tiger or African monarch, indigenous to the Nile basin. With his background in archaeology, he knew about this rather large specimen because it was one of the first butterflies to be illustrated in ancient art. It was discovered painted on an Egyptian fresco in Luxor, some 3,500 years ago.

  Derek rubbed his tired eyes again.

  What did any of this mean?

  He flipped one last time through the book, unable to discern what had interested Professor McCabe in this volume of old letters. He returned again to the first image he had shown Jane, a picture of a beetle, an Egyptian scarab.

  He tried to focus, but exhaustion blurred his vision.

  He sighed loudly, ready to give up.

  This is all a wild goose—

  Then he saw it. What had escaped his determined attention all night revealed itself because of his fatigue. Shocked, he scooted his chair back rather loudly.

  The sudden noise disturbed Jane on the sofa. She lifted her head from the crook of her arm. “What is it?”

  Derek wasn’t ready to tell her.

  Not until I’m sure.

  He reached for his iPad, needing to make certain. He took a picture of the page and used the hotel’s wireless Internet to do a Google search.

  Please let me be right.

  Jane must have suspected he was on to something. “Derek, what are you doing?”

  “I think . . .” He looked over at her. “I think I know where your father went.”

  A gruff voice spoke behind him. “We got company,” Kowalski said, swinging away from the window. “Time to go.”

  8:51 A.M.

  Her heart pounding, Seichan was on her feet immediately. She cursed herself for being so lax. Her mind ran through the possible ways they might have been followed, but nothing made sense. She pictured the assassin from last night, her pale face shining in the moonlight reflecting off the spring-fed pond in Ashwell. Seichan should have known better than to underestimate this particular adversary.

  Kowalski frowned at the SIG Sauer clamped in her fist. “Calm down. It’s just Gray and Monk.” He glanced back to the window. “They’ve brought someone with them.”

  Seichan kept her weapon up, weighing whether or not to shoot the man for needlessly panicking her. She took a deep steadying breath. She noted the frightened looks on the other two and holstered her pistol.

  “You’re safe,” she assured them. “It’s the colleagues I mentioned would be meeting us here.”

  Derek licked his lips and nodded. Jane had moved closer to the man, partly sheltering behind him.

  Seichan waved to the table. “Gather everything up. Kowalski is right. We should be ready to go.”

  Derek remained where he was. “But I think—”

  “Think while you’re moving,” she ordered. “The longer we’re in one place, the more likely we’ll be tracked down.”

  The short-term plan was to secure Derek and Jane at a safe house near the coast, a place arranged by Director Crowe. Everything was on schedule, which only made Seichan’s heart pound harder. Again the assassin’s tattooed face flashed before her eyes. She was glad Gray had arrived. She wanted to talk to him, to help her gain perspective.

  It can’t be . . .

  Ever since she had stood frozen alongside the bank of that dark pond, trepidation wore at her. She had run the scene through her head countless times. At that moment, her instinct had been to continue the chase, but she knew she would have been too exposed out on the pond, needlessly putting herself at risk. Still, she had considered it—until the church bells had rung, calling her back to her duty, reminding her that she was no longer an assassin for the shadowy Guild. She had other responsibilities now, other lives to protect. But deep down she had wanted to continue the hunt, regardless of the risk to her own life.

  She studied Derek and Jane, all but smelling their fear as they hurriedly collected the research material from the table. Disdain iced through her. It was a reflex, like a phonograph needle grinding deeper into a well-worn track. The reaction only made her angrier, at herself, at them.

  She turned away.

  What am I doing here?

  A knock sounded at the room door. Kowalski had already moved to the threshold, anticipating the arrival. He pulled open the door, and the newcomers piled into the room.

  Seichan caught Gray’s attention as he entered first. He smiled at her, which helped calm the tempest inside her, but only barely. Past the doorway, Gray quickly swept the room, taking everything in. Monk and a tall black woman followed behind him, the two in a deep discussion, their heads bowed together.

  Seichan motioned Gray aside, needing to confess what she had witnessed, especially before they continued to the safe house.

  Monk’s voice interrupted, shock sharpening his voice. His eyes were still on the stranger at his side. “And you think that’s what killed Professor McCabe?”

  The woman answered, “Either that or the process that led to his mummification. We didn’t have time to complete the analysis before his body was burned.”

  Jane pushed past Derek, facing the two, her face pale with shock. “What are you talking about?”

  Monk finally seemed to realize he had an audience. He stammered, plainly chagrined to be caught speaking so brusquely about the death of the young woman’s father. “I’m . . . I’m sorry, Ms. McCabe.”

  Gray intervened and explained. “Someone firebombed the quarantine lab where you father’s body was being held.”

  Jane stepped back, but Derek slipped an arm around her shoulders to steady her. “But why?” she asked.

  Derek answered, “Probably the same reason they destroyed your family cottage. Someone is trying to cover everything up.”

  Gray nodded and tried to explain more, but Jane cut him off, her gaze turning to Monk and the stranger.

  “You also said something about what killed my father.”

  Monk exchanged a look with the tall woman, then pointed to Jane. “She has a right to know.”

  “Then best I show her.” She slipped a messenger bag from her shoulder and stepped toward the table. She removed a laptop from inside and set it down. “Though you must understand these results are still preliminary.”

  As everyone circled the table, Seichan pulled Gray aside. “I need to tell you something about last night, something I held off telling Director Crowe.”

  His brows knit together with concern. “What is it?”

  She had trouble meeting his eye, not only afraid of what he might think about her withholding this information, but also anxious that he might see the desire buried deep in her heart. She pictured the woman blithely escaping across the pond, pausing only long enough to look back, as if challenging Seichan to follow. In that fleeting glimpse, there had been no fear in the other’s face, not even anger. Instead, freedom had shone forth, along with a wild abandon that had called out to Seichan, stirring what she was fighting so hard to keep buried.
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  All too well she remembered what it had felt like to be that woman, of surviving at the edge, beyond right and wrong, of living only for one’s self.

  “What’s the matter?” Gray pressed.

  Seichan kept her face turned, resisting when Gray gently brushed her cheek with his knuckles. They had been apart for over a month, and she missed his touch, his smell, his breath on her neck. She knew he loved her, and his love had been the anchor to which she had moored herself during the tumult of these past few years. Still, was that fair to Gray? In an attempt to answer that, she had taken that assignment in Marrakesh on purpose, to give herself some breathing space.

  Instead, she had found something else as a piece of her past was dangled before her.

  “The woman who escaped last night,” she said. “The one with the tattoos.”

  “What about her?”

  “I recognized her.” Seichan faced Gray with the undeniable truth. “Or at least I should say I knew of her. By her reputation.”

  “What are you saying?”

  She refused to look away. “She’s an assassin for the Guild.”

  7

  May 31, 9:14 A.M. BST

  London, England

  That’s impossible . . .

  Gray fought through the shock of Seichan’s revelation, ready to dismiss her words, but he noted the stony certainty in those green eyes.

  “But that makes no sense,” he said. “We destroyed the Guild.”

  Seichan turned toward the hotel window, her voice going bitter. “I’m still here. I was part of that same murderous group.”

  Gray reached to her shoulder. “That was the past.”

  “Sometimes you can’t escape your past.” She turned, folding herself into his embrace. Her body trembled. “We may have chopped off the head of the snake, but who’s to say another hasn’t grown in its place.”

  “We were thorough.”

  “Then maybe something new grew in its place, filling that power vacuum.” She looked up at him, her expression guarded, as if she were hiding something from him. “Either way, the Guild certainly employed others like me, others who had been brutalized and trained to work for them, and who likely vanished into the shadows afterward.”

  “Where they could have found new masters to serve,” Gray acknowledged.

  “Like I did.” She broke from his side.

  “Seichan . . .”

  “Once you’re in the shadows, you can’t ever come out. Not fully.” She stared up at him. “You very well know I’m still on multiple terrorist lists. Even the Mossad maintains a shoot-to-kill order on me.”

  “But Sigma will protect you. You know that.”

  She snorted under her breath. “As long as I’m useful.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She kept her gaze fixed on him. “Do you truly believe that?”

  Gray considered her question. He knew Sigma’s inner circle, which included the director, would never betray her, but he could not deny that her past had been kept secret from everyone else, including those in DARPA who oversaw Sigma. What would happen if she were ever dragged out of the shadows into the light?

  Before he could answer, Dr. Kano straightened from where she had been hunched over her laptop. “This is what we’re battling,” Ileara announced. “And why it’s so important that we stop it.”

  Gray touched Seichan’s elbow, silently promising that they’d continue this discussion. Though still unsettled, she waved to the table and crossed with him to join the others.

  “What are we looking at?” Derek asked, leaning on the back of a chair to get a closer peek at the window she had opened on the screen.

  Ileara explained, “It’s a three-dimensional volumetric rendering of an electron microscopic image of a nerve cell. Those fluorescent roots are the ends of a neuron collected from Professor McCabe’s brain. The neighboring rods, covered in hairlike projections, are the unclassified pathogen discovered throughout the deceased’s inflamed neural tissues.”

  “So the contagion is not viral,” Monk said, sounding surprised. “It’s bacterial.”

  Ileara shook her head. “I’m afraid you’re wrong on both counts.”

  Monk frowned. “How’s that possible?”

  “That single-celled microbe is not a bacterium. It has no nucleus and no other organelles inside. It’s also biochemically very different from ordinary bacteria, even from most forms of life.”

  “What is it?” Jane asked, looking slightly sickened about this discussion of her father’s fate.

  “It’s an unclassified member of the Archaea domain.”

  “Ah . . .” Monk nodded, plainly understanding. From the confused looks on everyone else’s faces, he was the only one.

  Ileara thankfully elaborated, “Life has three primary branches or domains. There are bacteria, which we’re all familiar with. Then there are eukaryotes, which encompass most everything else. Algae, fungi, plants, and even us. But it wasn’t until 1977 that Archaea were identified as unique unto themselves, having an entirely different evolutionary pathway from the primordial slime that gave rise to all life. They are one of the most ancient forms of life and quite strange.”

  “How so?” Gray asked.

  “They reproduce asexually, by binary fission, but they are really efficient at incorporating other life into their biochemistry and genetic makeup, including viruses. Some evolutionary biologists believe the two developed alongside each other, a codependent relationship going back two billion years. In fact, the specimen on the screen is chock full of viral particles, most of which we’ve yet to identify.”

  Gray pictured that hairy cell churning with a slew of viruses.

  What the hell are we facing?

  Ileara continued, “This strange genetic makeup has allowed Archaea microbes to survive in the most extreme environments. Like the blistering heat found in geysers. Or across frozen tundras. They also thrive in highly acidic or alkaline environments.”

  Gray sensed the woman was getting somewhere and pointed to the screen. “What about this species?”

  She put her fists on her hips, frowning at the screen, as if facing a tough opponent. “To be such hardy survivors, Archaea employ a variety of energy sources. Sugars, ammonia, metal ions, even hydrogen sulfide. Some can fix carbon, others use the sun’s energy.”

  “Like plants do?” Derek asked. “Using photosynthesis?”

  “Actually, no. They employ a different chemical pathway, unique to their species. But like I said, they’re innovative. Especially this bloody bugger.”

  “What does it survive on?” Gray asked.

  Her gaze swept the room. “Are any of you familiar with Geobacter or Shewanella?”

  Monk stirred, his eyes widening as he leaped ahead of everyone else. “You’re not suggesting—?”

  “I am.”

  Kowalski, who maintained a post by the window, interjected. “Just spill the beans already.”

  Gray appreciated this sentiment and looked to Monk for answers.

  He obliged. “The bacteria she mentioned are both electricity eaters.”

  Ileara nodded. “And it’s not just those two. There are ten other bacterial species, all different, found across the globe, and probably countless more still undiscovered. But this is the first Archaea species to do the same.”

  Seichan scowled. “You’re saying these bugs actually eat electricity.”

  “It’s not all that different from what our own cells do,” Monk explained. “We basically strip electrons off of sugar molecules and store them as ATP, which powers our life functions. In the case of these electrical bacteria, they simply cut out the middleman and harvest electrons directly from the environment.”

  “But from where?” Derek asked.

  Ileara shrugged. “Off the surface of minerals, from the electrochemical voltage streaming across seabeds. Scientists are discovering new species by simply shoving electrodes in the mud and seeing what comes up to feed.”

  Gr
ay studied the laptop’s screen. “And this specimen does the same?”

  “Admittedly I don’t know how it harvests its electricity,” Ileara said. “But if we knew where it came from, maybe I could answer that.”

  Gray noted Jane and Derek sharing a look.

  What’s that about?

  “But what I do know,” Ileara said, drawing back his attention, “is that this bug didn’t choose Professor McCabe’s brain by accident. I believe the microbe, once it infects an individual and gets into the bloodstream, settles in the one part of our anatomy that’s rife with energy.”

  Gray understood, picturing neurons firing in a cascade of energy.

  Ileara continued, “Those hairlike projections latch on to nerve cells, acting like energy vampires. In turn, the body reacts like it would against any foreign invader, resulting in inflammation.”

  “Triggering meningitis,” Monk said. “And the hallucinations you reported.”

  Ileara nodded grimly. “Yes, but instead of bacterial meningitis—which is hard enough to treat—we’re dealing with an Archaeal meningitis. This is a disease we have never seen before. And that may not even be the worst of it.”

  “What do you mean?” Gray asked.

  “As this microbe finds a place to grow, they multiply rapidly. It’s why we believe the clinical signs advance so quickly. But with each multiplication, the dividing cells cast out the loads of the viruses harboring inside, a slew of different species. We still barely have a grasp on what that spread might be doing.”

  “So for any hope of a cure,” Monk said, “we’ll need to fight a battle on multiple fronts. Not only do we need to find an antibiotic that can kill that hairy bugger, but also an arsenal of antiviral medications.”

  “Exactly. As of now, we still have not assessed the mortality rate, nor do we understand how it spreads, though we’re pretty sure it can pass directly through the air. Models also project that it will likely infect nonhuman species.”

  “That makes sense,” Monk agreed. “Anything with an electrical nervous system could be at risk. Dogs, cats, mice. Hell, maybe even insects. This is going to go bad and fast.”