Frozen Fire

by Evans, Bill; Jameson, Marianna

  The video faded to black. A few seconds later, the GAIA logo appeared, ghostlike, over a full-color, real-time loop of the Taino jet exploding.

  “In my professional opinion, we’re fucked,” Tom said.

  “Get him,” Lucy said coldly. “I don’t care how, and I don’t care where. I want him in custody as quickly as we can arrange it. Alive, if necessary.”

  Before he could respond, the intercom on Lucy’s desk buzzed and her assistant quietly announced that President Benson was on the phone and would like to speak with her.

  Tom was a few steps outside of Lucy’s office when his cell phone rang.

  “Tom Taylor.”

  “Mr. Taylor, it’s Victoria Clark. Have you seen the video that Garner—”

  “Yes. I think we need to talk, Ms. Clark.”

  There was the briefest of pauses and something in that silence made him stop midstride.

  “I agree,” she said quietly.

  “Will you come to my office, or will you allow me to come to yours?”

  “Let me check with Ambassador Deen and get back to you,” she said after a strained moment that had the hair on the back of Tom’s neck standing upright.

  “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

  1:05 P.M., Sunday, October 26, off the coast of Taino

  Cyn leaned against the side of the inflatable and tried to suck in as much fresh air as she could. Not that she wanted to diminish the still-wonderful effects of the painkiller, but she knew there weren’t going to be fun times ahead. This wasn’t the way she’d wanted to get onto Taino but she’d been assured that there was a real doctor there, who had a real X-ray machine and could set her arm properly. She’d been told that after her arm was seen to she’d have to speak to several people, maybe even Dennis Cavendish himself. And when she’d been questioned by whoever wanted to question her, she’d be released to the custody of the U.S. Navy.

  And a good time was had by all. Pouting, Cyn braced herself against the pounding of the boat. Despite the drugs, she could feel every bump and bounce in her injured arm.

  The boat slowed and she watched the armed guy driving it start to frown. He grabbed the radio unit strapped to his shoulder and murmured something into it, then waited for a reply. The boat neared the dock now, and he slowed it further. Without taking his eyes off the land, he repeated his radio call. Abruptly he brought the engine to idle, grabbed the binoculars Velcroed to the side of the small craft, brought them to his eyes, and stared just past her shoulder.

  As wary and alert as she could be in her altered state, Cyn knew something was wrong. She turned her body to face the shore just as the man at the helm sharply ordered her to turn around and get to the floor. He gunned the engine and threw the boat into a tight 180-degree turn, racing back to the ship they’d just left—and away from the twisted, lifeless bodies littering the dock and the beach.

  She closed her eyes and tried focus on the pain shooting up her arm every time the boat slammed into another wave. It was more comforting than trying to figure out when her vacation had turned into a trip to the island of death.

  1:10 P.M., Sunday, October 26, Embassy of Taino, Washington, D.C.

  Nearly two hours after she’d spoken with Tom Taylor, Victoria stood in a small, bare room near the embassy’s security offices in one of the building’s lower levels. Across from her stood one of her own staff members, a woman who, until a few moments ago, had been familiar to her only on paper but was now unlikely ever to be forgotten.

  Mustering what dignity she could, Victoria slipped on her blouse and buttoned it as she stepped into her shoes.

  “I’m very sorry, Secretary Clark,” the woman said for what had to be the twentieth time. “It was Ambassador Deen’s order.”

  “Yes, you’ve said that,” Victoria replied evenly, wanting to destroy Charlie Deen. She had expected her purse and briefcase to be searched before she was allowed to go—accompanied by an aide who was more like a guard—to meet with Tom Taylor at the DNI’s office. Even being patted down or wanded would not have come as a surprise. A full strip search, however badly executed, had been overkill, and had solidified her resolve.

  She wouldn’t be coming back.

  Victoria gently swung her drift of long hair off her shoulder and felt it brush against the silk that covered her back once again.

  The security officer handed her her small purse and briefcase, and escorted her to one of the side doors of the embassy. Handed off to her “aide,” Victoria waited while the Americans’ car passed through the gates and onto embassy property. When it came to a slow stop, she walked forward and climbed into the car’s back seat. The aide followed, and they both returned the polite greeting from the otherwise silent federal agent who had been sent to fetch them.

  Only the most perfunctory conversation took place during the twenty-minute drive to Bolling Air Force Base. Located near the southeastern tip of the District on the Maryland side, the base was standard-issue military: a collection of mismatched, mostly drab buildings of gray or beige that were marked by numbers when they were marked at all.

  At the entrance gate, the military police checked the IDs of the driver and both passengers, used mirrors to look under the car, swept the floors with their flashlights, and gave the trunk a cursory search. It was all done quickly and quietly, and then they were waved through the gate with a smart salute.

  Victoria wasn’t sure how she was going to manage it, but she knew she had to quickly concoct a story plausible enough to allow her to ditch her babysitter.

  The agent pulled up into a reserved slot in front of an unremarkable building in the center of the base. He escorted the two women through twin sets of doors that led to the lobby, which was no more than a vestibule containing a security checkpoint, then left after a curt goodbye.

  Tom was standing on the other side of the checkpoint’s Plexiglas wall. Wearing a neutral expression, he waited for each of them to go through the routine of having their identification confirmed and the contents of their bags and pockets reviewed. Victoria, as the senior ranking official, went through the metal detector and turnstile first, and was just shaking Tom’s hand when she realized that her babysitter hadn’t cleared yet.

  Clearly annoyed, the woman had slipped off her shoes as requested and was in the process of removing her hair clip. Her irritation turned into full-blown alarm when Tom casually instructed the security staff to escort her to the tenth-floor conference room when she cleared, then slipped a hand under Victoria’s elbow and led her down the bare, linoleum-floored corridor toward the elevators.

  Shouts from the woman that she had to stay with Victoria were ignored by all as the American military police efficiently moved the woman out of the vestibule to a private screening room.

  Enjoying the first shred of humor she’d encountered in more than twenty-four hours, Victoria looked at Tom with a hint of a smile once they were in the privacy of the elevator. “Is that standard?”

  “I don’t think that’s been tried since the Russians were still called the Soviets,” he said dryly. “She’ll be treated with the utmost courtesy and sent home in about an hour, in case you’re curious.”

  “Is there a tenth-floor conference room?”

  “There isn’t a tenth floor.”

  Victoria smiled more broadly. “So what does that mean?”

  “That her invitation has been revoked. When did Charlie Deen decide you needed a sitter?”

  “I’ve been under house arrest since yesterday evening.”

  His only visible response was a raised eyebrow. “Then why are you here?”

  “I’m very persuasive. And he didn’t want any bad press. Or you on the embassy premises.”

  “I’m wounded. What does he think you’ve done?”

  Her smile faded. “He and Dennis are convinced that I’m Garner Blaylock’s mole.”

  His other eyebrow went up. “Are you?”

  Victoria rolled her eyes, inwardly gratified at his mild incredulit
y. She said nothing more until they’d gotten off the elevator on the eighth, and top, floor.

  The décor was significantly not military. The corridor was carpeted and hushed, the walls were, no doubt, blastproof, rebar-reinforced concrete block. But unlike the walls on the ground floor, these were covered with drywall, wainscoting, and attractive colors of paint. And paintings that were probably on loan from the National Gallery.

  The conference room Tom led her to was not large, but held an attractive table and comfortable chairs, and had a stunning view up the Potomac. She could see the Capitol dome sparkling in the midday sun.

  Tom indicated that she should take a seat, and then seated himself.

  “You’re an American, so you don’t need asylum. Do you want protection?” he asked bluntly.

  “Yes.”

  “Done. We’ll put you up at one of the hotels downtown, with an around-the-clock security detail. So, other than curing your cabin fever, what did you want to talk about, Ms. Clark?”

  “The weather,” she said, leaning back in the stiff chair and meeting his eyes. “You were right about the mining operation. So was Garner Blaylock. As I told you, communications with the island were cut off completely early this morning, so what I’m going to tell you is based on our worst-case scenarios. I believe what we predicted is happening.” She paused for a heartbeat to rein in the emotion that was threatening her voice. “The foam is being caused by a methane leak on the seafloor, which happened when the landslide knocked out our underwater habitat and apparently dislodged the drilling apparatus. I am not sure if that was part of Blaylock’s plan—the release, I mean—but I have to assume it was. We had all the infrastructure in place, Mr. Taylor, and were about to begin a live test. If Blaylock’s mole was highly placed, he or she would know that.”

  He displayed no surprise at anything she said, merely nodded slightly. “I think we can safely assume the mole is a she. There are very few men in Blaylock’s organization. Do you know who it is?”

  “The only person it could possibly be is my deputy, Micki Crenshaw. She knows just about everything there is to know about Taino, the institute, and the technology. She is still on the island, or was when I left.”

  “No one’s left the island.”

  “There is a fleet of submersibles—” Victoria began.

  “Ms. Clark, no one has left that island,” Tom repeated softly. “Tell me about Micki Crenshaw.”

  For all his ease with her, Victoria knew she was in federal custody and had put herself there voluntarily. There was no point in getting annoyed with him. She folded her hands and leaned forward. “As I said, this morning all communication with Taino went dark, even the backup systems and the emergency systems. Only she could have done that.”

  He corrected her: “About an hour ago, we picked up something pinging a satellite in low-earth orbit. It lasted for less than a minute and terminated as soon as a signal was returned, so we presume it was a test. We’re going to continue to monitor it. Now, tell me what the worst-case scenario is when methane leaks from the seafloor to the surface.”

  Not dropping eye contact, Victoria reached around to the back of her head and unclipped the two multigigabyte lipstick drives she’d fastened into her hair, close to her scalp, and handed them to him. “These will provide all the details you want.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her as his hand closed around the small drives. “Do you always carry this kind of insurance?”

  “Never. I had a bad feeling about this trip, Mr. Taylor. I wanted to send Micki up here, get her off the island. President Cavendish insisted I go instead. I actually brought these in case there was trouble on the island.”

  “In your hair?”

  “I took a chance. Believe me when I say my scalp is the only place the embassy staff didn’t search,” she said dryly.

  “What’s on them?”

  “Everything,” she said crisply. “They contain years worth of research into methane-hydrate mining, information about the habitat and mining operations, and full briefings on our worst-case disaster scenarios.”

  “What’s the condensed version?” he asked, slipping them into the pocket of his suit jacket.

  “The methane rises into the atmosphere and stays there, functioning as a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide. Global warming will accelerate in proportion to the amount of methane that accumulates.” She paused. “That is, if it’s pure.”

  “Which this methane isn’t?”

  She met his eyes. “No, it’s not. And I think you already know that.”

  He nodded once. “What’s in it? And what does it do?”

  “It’s a proprietary compound. I don’t know what it’s made of, but it’s meant to stabilize the methane. It makes the gas dense, and therefore safer to handle. Pure methane is highly volatile, lighter than air. This isn’t.”

  “It won’t go into the atmosphere? Isn’t that a good thing?”

  Feeling a wave of shame wash over her, she had to look away. “No. It’s bad, Mr. Taylor. It’s going to hug the surface for a while before it rises. It’s going to create an oxygen-deficient atmosphere wherever it goes—across the surface of the water or the land,” she finished in a voice that had gone low with emotion. “Lots of people are going to die.”

  CHAPTER

  26

  1:30 P.M., Sunday, October 26, aboard the Marjory Stoneman Douglas, off the eastern coast of Taino

  For the second time in a few hours, Captain Simon Broadhurst had left his own ship, the Wangari Maathai, to board the Marjory, only to hear stories that chilled him to his very core. The first, about the sea turning to foam and eating ships, he’d believed reluctantly and only because he knew four of the five people involved and had questioned them separately.

  This time, the thought of dead bodies on the island left him incredulous. Lack of sleep and the stress of running the search-and-rescue, and then search-and-recovery, operations had left him exhausted, with very little imagination and absolutely no sense of humor. Radio contact with the base on the island had been intermittent and on an as-needed basis ever since the secure channels had gone down early this morning. But surely if someone or, more frightening, something, had killed people on the island, anyone who had escaped that fate would have contacted him.

  Unless everyone was dead.

  The thought made a shudder run through him. He shook it off and focused a hard glare on the stoned, sunburned civilian with one arm in a sling who sat in front of him, and then shifted it to the security staffer who sat opposite her at the small table.

  “Did you see the seagulls?” the woman asked with no preamble, and both Simon and the officer turned to look at her. Between her American accent and painkiller-slurred words Simon could barely understand her.

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked coolly.

  “I was asking him,” the woman said, and pointed a limp finger at the officer. “He was looking at the beach with binoculars. I’m just wondering if he saw the seagulls in the water.”

  Not hiding his exasperation, Simon ignored her and turned his attention back to the officer.

  “Hey, don’t dismiss me,” the woman said, speaking as if moving her mouth were difficult. “Your people gave me the drugs. This isn’t how I usually operate, Admiral.”

  “Thank you for the promotion, but it’s ‘captain,’ ma’am. What about the seagulls?” Simon asked sarcastically. “Were they pretty?”

  “They were dead.”

  Her words made him do a double take. Intelligence flashed behind the woman’s dilated pupils and glazed look.

  “Dead?”

  “Yes. Dead. About a dozen of them. Maybe more. Floating in the water. How do you suppose a whole flock of seagulls dies, Captain? Fly into the mast of a sailboat?”

  He swallowed the sharp reply that immediately came to mind. “How do you think they died, ma’am?”

  “Same way the people on my boat died before it sank out of sight and the same way the p
eople on the beach died. I think they breathed something that killed them,” she said slowly. “I couldn’t see the faces of the people on the beach, but I saw their bodies. Curled up in balls or crumpled up with their hands near their throats.”

  Simon looked at the security officer, who was nodding at the woman’s words.

  “Carlson, is this true?”

  The officer nodded. “Yes, sir. Their hands were near their throats and chests, and most of their mouths were open. The ones whose faces I could see.”

  Holy buggery fuck. What’s out there? Simon gritted his teeth and looked at the woman.

  “The foamy patch where my boat sank was just on the other side of where we were going to dock, isn’t it? The dock is kind of on the tip of the island, right? The clipper was coming around the tip when that foamy patch appeared. I think something is in the air near that foam, Captain, blowing around. And whatever is causing that foam is killing anything that breathes it in.”

  “Thank you, Miss...?”

  “Davison. Cynthia Davison.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Davison.” Simon stood up abruptly. “Patterson. A moment,” he said, looking at Maggy Patterson, captain of the Marjory and wide-eyed observer of the conversation.

  She followed him out of the small room.

  “I’m giving you command of the search-and-recovery operation, effective immediately. Jones will assume command of the Wangari until I return,” he said, crisply and quietly.

  Surprisingly, Maggy Patterson didn’t nod in agreement.

  “Where are you going?” she demanded, clearly not pleased.

  You’re questioning me? He frowned at her. “I’m going to take one of the security teams and go around the north head of the island. If we can land safely, we’ll try to make it to the bunker to see if anyone is there.”

  “You’re crazy,” she said thinly. “The whole island could be toxic.”

  “I believe that’s ‘you’re crazy, sir,’” he snapped. “If I don’t return within two hours, you can assume we’re dead. That’s all, Patterson. You have your orders.”