The Seventh Plague

by James Rollins

  “And if I still refuse?”

  Hartnell looked disappointed. “You can be part of the solution or part of the problem.”

  Painter imagined problems were promptly eliminated here.

  He eyed the armed guards.

  “I’ll try my best,” he said. “That’s all I can do.”

  “And that’s all I ask.” Hartnell stared out at the storm. “It’s what we should all do when faced with a challenge—at least try to do something about it, to make the world a better place.”

  Painter nodded.

  I intend to do just that.

  10:55 A.M.

  Kat shivered as she poured the last of the diesel into their vehicle’s thirsty tank. She estimated they had enough fuel to travel another eighty miles over such unforgiving terrain, maybe farther if she nursed the engine. Still, she had to accept that they might not reach the Canadian outpost at Alert.

  And it’s not like we can hoof it.

  Without parkas, they would freeze.

  And then there was Safia’s deteriorating health. Her fever had been steadily climbing. She had been exposed six hours ago at the lab, so this was likely still the early stages of the disease.

  For the moment, Kat and Rory both seemed fine, but trapped in the enclosed cab with the sick woman, how long would that last?

  And what choice do we have?

  She climbed back into the Cat and got them moving again. They were traveling along the northwest shore of Lake Hazen. It stretched forty miles long and only eight wide and pointed straight toward Alert. Unfortunately, beyond the lake’s tip it was still another hundred miles over a treacherous terrain of mountains and glaciers.

  At least the wind and snow had let up slightly, but she knew this was only a respite before the storm rallied again. The skies rolling toward them from the west were far darker.

  As she stared in that direction, she caught tiny flashes of light along the mountains. She prayed it was lightning. It was not entirely unlikely, but she pressed the accelerator harder, speeding them up, forgoing any attempt to eke out better gas mileage.

  She kept watching the west, but the lights never reappeared.

  Safia stirred in the passenger seat, her lips dry, her eyes glazed with fatigue and fever. “It’s hot . . .”

  “You’re burning up,” Kat said. “Just try to rest.”

  She shared a glance in the rearview mirror with Rory.

  “She needs medical help,” he whispered. “Maybe if we go back . . .”

  Kat knew that would be certain death for Safia. The station would not risk exposing everyone. Plus Kat refused to turn over their hard-won data. Safia had risked her life—and now might be paying with it—to keep that information out of Hartnell’s hands.

  “No,” she said. “We’re not turning back.”

  Rory’s gaze shifted to the windshield. “Kat, look! Out on the lake.”

  She focused forward. Off to her right, a trio of hide tents, frosted white by the snow on their windward sides, sat on the ice. In front of each tent, small circular holes glowed blue, with poles planted next to them, trailing lines. The grumbling noise of their approach stirred the ice fishermen from their warm tents.

  From this distance, they looked like small bears in fur coats and thick pants.

  “I think they’re Inuit,” Rory said, leaning forward as much as his restraints would allow.

  Safia showed no interest, even shading her eyes from the sight. “It’s bright,” she mumbled.

  Kat’s worry for her friend flared. One of the signs of encephalitis was photophobia, an aversion to light.

  Safia’s head lolled back, her eyes rolling even farther. “So bright . . .”

  11:04 A.M.

  Safia struggles to turn her face from the sun. It stings her eyes, hanging in an achingly blue sky. She gasps at the heat, each breath fiery. Her bare feet sink in the burning sands as she struggles toward the cool promise of the river.

  “Safia, Safia . . . you have to drink . . .”

  She searches for the voice.

  The world shimmers before her, shaking the palm trees. Through the ripples of the mirage, she sees a strange white land, frozen over and dark. Her ears hear distant thunder.

  “C’mon, just a few sips . . .”

  Then it’s gone, and she sees only sand and death again. Fly-encrusted beasts lay bloated all around. Scavengers tear into their flesh, screaming at her passage. She continues stumbling forward, cresting a dune to look upon the river.

  As thirst closes her throat, she sees her salvation is a lie.

  The river runs red with blood, draining the life from the lands.

  She searches the heavens, begging.

  “Drink, Safia . . .”

  Beyond the river, the sky is black, coursing with lightning, angry and punishing. It falls toward her, toward the world, intending to crush it.

  She backs one step, then another. “It’s coming . . .”

  Then a coolness flows down her throat, spills along her neck.

  She is drowning under the sun.

  “Stop fighting, Safia, please . . .”

  Again the world shimmers like a veil. The sun dims to darkness, and sand becomes snow, and a shadow becomes a face.

  One she knows.

  “Kat?”

  “I’ve got you, honey. I’ve got you. You’ve had a small seizure.”

  She can’t help it and begins to sob.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Something bad . . . something horrible is coming.”

  11:32 A.M.

  At least they’re consistent.

  Painter waited for the first guard to key open the communication shack. It sat at the summit of a tall hill, a squat concrete bunker festooned with antennas on the roof.

  As he waited at the threshold, he took a moment to appreciate the view from here. To one side stretched the Arctic tundra; on the other, the breadth of Aurora Station. The spiral of the array was clear from this height, as was the tower poking from the old mining pit.

  The cargo jet he had spotted earlier was parked near the runway, its rear-loading ramp lowered. A fleet of laden forklifts headed its way.

  Beyond that island of activity, nothing else moved out there. It was as if everything was holding its breath for what’s to come.

  “Quit gawking,” the guard behind him said, urging him at gunpoint into the shack. He clearly wanted out of the cold.

  Can’t blame him.

  Painter sighed, slumping into the one-room bunker. He paused at the threshold, noting a rumpled bed to one side. The back of the space was packed with communication gear, including multiple radios, even a VLF transmitter used to contact submarines.

  In the center of that nest hunched a heavyset young man wearing headphones. With his back to his new guests, his only greeting was a raised arm.

  “How’s it going, Ray?” the first guard asked.

  The other man poked Painter again.

  About time.

  Painter twisted sideways and stepped back. With the barrel of the rifle now across his belly, he swung his arms up and hooked the links of his cuffs around the startled guard’s neck, then lunged at the waist and tossed the man over his shoulder and into the room.

  The first guard spun, firing in his direction.

  Painter had already dropped to his butt, shielded by his choking prisoner. As the first panicked rounds pelted into the man, Painter drew his bound wrists in front of the prisoner, as if hugging him from behind. Painter’s hands found the wounded man’s weapon, and he snagged a finger on the trigger.

  He strafed wildly.

  A lucky couple of shots hit the exposed guard: in the knee, in the chest. The man crashed to the side. Painter firmed his aim and only needed one more shot, which he took. The guard slumped. Still cradling his prisoner, who gasped and choked in his arms, Painter swung the rifle toward the radio operator, who sat stunned, a deer in headlights.

  “Hey, Ray, how about you pat down your friend
, find the keys to these cuffs, and let me free?”

  Ray hesitated, glancing back at his equipment, then to Painter.

  “Now, Ray, either I shoot you and find the keys myself, or you help me and you end up wearing these cuffs and live to see another sunrise. And up here, that might be a good long while.”

  In the end, Ray proved to be a reasonable guy.

  Painter rubbed his wrists after cuffing the operator to the bed and tying his ankles with his own headphones. For good measure, he had also stuffed a sock in the man’s mouth and duct-taped it in place.

  “Okay, Ray, unless you have an objection, I’m going to take that Sno-Cat out there and go find my friends. And you’re not going to say a word, right?”

  The man nodded vigorously.

  So very reasonable.

  Painter grabbed one of the rifles and pocketed the two extra magazines found on the dead guards. Armed, he headed out into the cold, climbed into the Cat, and put his back to Aurora Station. The open tundra spread before him.

  Now down to business.

  12:45 P.M.

  Simon stood at the helm of the command station for the Aurora array. His heart pounded as he stared through the window at the massive tower, a testament to Tesla’s genius.

  And my own.

  Men and women continued to prepare for the test firing, triple- and quadruple-checking every system. He had green lights across his board from all stations.

  On a monitor to his left, he watched the Boeing cargo jet steam across the heated runway, gaining speed. Its flaps dropped and it lifted skyward, carrying its package toward the heavens.

  Simon grinned, following its trajectory toward the clouds.

  Then he heard the patter of feet behind him and turned to see a man in black coveralls rush to his side, one of Anton’s crew.

  “Sir?”

  Simon hoped it was good news from the search crew, but from the man’s pale face, it was not. “What is it?”

  “We just got word that the prisoner who was being escorted to the communication shack has escaped, killing the guards. According to the radio operator, the man took off with a Sno-Cat, going after his friends. He was well armed.”

  Simon clenched a fist in frustration, his cheeks flushing, close to exploding. Clearly Painter Crowe was far more than a DARPA investigator. Still, Simon forced his fingers to relax and to take a deep breath.

  Look at the bigger picture.

  Nothing had fundamentally changed. With the two women still free, the situation here was already compromised—but fixable. This new development did not significantly worsen matters.

  At least not for me.

  He took a deep steadying breath. “Let Anton know what has happened. Tell him to watch his back out there.”

  “Yes, sir.” The security guard turned on a heel and dashed away.

  Simon shook his head at Painter Crowe’s futile actions.

  Where does he think he can go?

  1:04 P.M.

  Painter crouched in the cavernous hold of the cargo jet.

  Under his boots, he felt the vibrations of the jet’s four engines as they fought the storm winds. The plane jostled and rocked. Cargo creaked and shifted around him ominously, threatening to crush him.

  He was aboard a wide-bellied Boeing C-17 Globemaster, normally used by the military for long-haul transport, moving troops, equipment, even battle tanks. It was uniquely built for dropping air loads in midflight from its rear hatch. While the behemoth had recently gone out of production, Hartnell must have acquired one that he had redesigned and configured for his needs.

  After leaving the communication shack, Painter had set out into the storm in the Sno-Cat. He drove it deep into the blowing snow until he reached a relatively open stretch of tundra, then jammed a crowbar found in a tool chest against the gas pedal and sent the vehicle trundling away on its own, leaving a false trail.

  He didn’t expect his ruse to last for long. He just needed enough time to backtrack to the station and over to the idling Globemaster waiting on the tarmac.

  Using the cover of the storm, he had run behind hillocks of plowed snow and through netted piles of crates until he could get under the plane. He had flown aboard these big birds in the past, back when he was still with the Navy SEALs, which seemed a lifetime ago.

  Still, some things never changed.

  He knew when you packed a big bus like this there were plenty of places to hide.

  So he scurried to the aft of the plane, to where its rear-loading ramp still touched the tarmac. He slid under it and waited for a forklift to back out, turn, and zip away. A couple of peeks and he saw his opportunity to roll onto the ramp and dash into the hold.

  As expected, the entire space was crowded. Two rows of pallets, nine to a side, held aluminum crates as tall as Painter, each crowned by parachute-like pouches. They sat atop a hydraulic air delivery system designed to push the two rows of cargo out the rear hatch in midflight.

  Painter wasted no time cramming himself between two of the pallets, dropping low, ready to shift to keep hidden if necessary. Though he doubted anyone would dally too long with a search of this hold. Red biohazard labels were plastered on each side of the aluminum crates.

  He knew what these containers held.

  Cultured vats of Pestis fulmen.

  The parachutes on top must be Hartnell’s weather balloon system. Painter imagined they must self-inflate once the crates were ejected, carrying aloft their deadly cargo. Once high enough, the crates would burst open like toxic seedpods.

  Picturing that, Painter stared at the label near his cheek.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a bright idea.

  23

  June 3, 5:08 P.M. CAT

  Akagera National Park, Rwanda

  We need to keep moving . . .

  With the sun hovering low on the horizon, Gray wanted to take advantage of what little day they had left. He remembered the blasts and gunfire heard over the phone with Monk. Matters were worsening by the hour in Cairo, and likely to boil over throughout the volatile region and beyond.

  If there was something to be found here, they dared not delay.

  To that end, Gray had gathered with his team on an open wooden deck overlooking Lake Ihema, the second-largest lake in Rwanda. They had flown by bush plane from Khartoum and landed as close as they could to the X marked on Livingstone’s map, setting down at a dirt airstrip in Akagera National Park. They were awaiting the arrival of a local guide who had worked here for twenty-five years.

  From the park map spread on the table, they certainly needed someone with boots-on-the-ground knowledge of this place. Akagera National Park spread across five hundred square miles, encompassing rolling savannas, papyrus swamps, and mountainous jungles. It held a labyrinth of lakes and interconnecting waterways, all branching off the Kagera River, which formed the park’s eastern border.

  Jane ran her finger along the same river on the map. “This must be the correct tributary, right?”

  Back in Khartoum, the group had charted the rivers flowing into Lake Victoria—which served as the headwaters for the White Nile—trying to determine which of its many feeders best corresponded to the one drawn on Livingstone’s secret map. The Kagera River was a perfect match, flowing west out of Victoria and coursing between Uganda and Tanzania before turning south along the Rwandan border.

  Still, they couldn’t be a hundred percent sure.

  “Look at this,” Derek said.

  While they waited for their guide, he had been seeking further corroboration, using his tablet to study more maps, both new and old. He showed them a chart of the region with the Kagera River highlighted and some measurements drawn on it.

  “As you can see,” Derek said, “the park lies about eighty miles due west of Lake Victoria.”

  “And that’s significant, why?” Gray asked.

  Derek pulled up the sketch that Livingstone had drawn of the butterfly and caterpillar. He zoomed in on the latter.

  �
��Look how the caterpillar is drawn with eight segments. I think Livingstone was using the worm as a legend for his hidden map. As a yardstick, if you will.”

  Gray nodded. “Eight segments, eighty miles.”

  While not definitive proof that they were on the right course, it did support the case. Even Jane smiled, patting Derek’s hand appreciatively. Plainly they all needed this little measure of reassurance.

  Seichan turned from the deck rail, where she had been watching the lake and skies. “I think this is our guy coming.”

  A rumble of a motor grew louder and drew them all to her side. An odd-looking watercraft charged toward the dock below. The boat had clearly seen some rough miles over the years. The scarred green metal hull bore dents along its sides, and the windshield had a crack in it that looked ominously like a bullet hole.

  “Lake’s low,” Seichan noted. “Not sure he has enough draft to dock here.”

  This fact did not seem to concern the man behind the wheel.

  “He’s not even slowing,” Derek said, backing a step.

  The craft reached the dock—and continued past it. The bow lifted as the boat hit the bank, riding up to reveal a pair of treads, like the undercarriage of a tank. The amphibious craft continued out of the water and rode up alongside their deck and finally stopped with its port-side gunwale even with their rail.

  The driver smiled, clearly enjoying their surprise. “Muraho!” he greeted them in his native Kinyarwanda. He wore a khaki safari jacket with matching pants. Despite being sixty, he looked fit, with only some specking of gray in his dark hair.

  “Welcome to Akagera,” he said. “My name is Noah Mutabazi, and while I don’t bring an ark with me”—he patted the flank of his boat—“I assure you this vessel will not disappoint.”

  But the method of arrival wasn’t his only surprise.

  He hadn’t come alone.

  Kowalski retreated two steps. “Okay, what’s with the lion?”

  From behind his seat, a creature rose into view, spine arching in a typical feline stretch. A yawn revealed long fangs and a pink tongue.