Towering mountains shadowed the soggy graveyard on three sides. At the far end of the valley, a bulbous rock formation protruded like a kangaroo’s pouch from a cluster of peaks. It was enormous, rising several hundred feet above the valley’s floor. Running down the middle of it was a broad, ragged fissure at least thirty feet across.
Water poured from the bottom of the fissure.
Father Joe came over the rise at that moment. He exchanged a silent gaze with her, then raised his hand over the scene. “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls…”
Megan jumped at the sound of a thunderclap overhead. She looked up and a raindrop struck her in the eye. Then a cluster of black clouds opened up.
Puddles of water formed quickly and churned like boiling red broth.
She turned to the priest. He stood frozen in prayer.
Thunder boomed again and sheets of rain poured over her. She stumbled along the edge of the muddy lake and took cover under an overhang of jagged rock.
A minute later the rain stopped as quickly as it had started. She stepped out into the open and started around the edge of the lake, looking for survivors.
Above her, patches of dark limestone spotted the forested peaks, staring down on the wet clay like hunters’ eyes taking in the fresh meat of their kill.
She passed the body of a pregnant woman who looked about her age. Megan stooped and felt the woman’s abdomen. It was quiet.
By the time she reached the other side of the valley, the scale of the wounded earthen formation had grown to freakish proportions. Three peaks rose to either side and behind the massive stony pouch. A jagged V-shaped fissure ran up to the top of what looked as if it had been a gigantic earthen reservoir — a geologic oddity that collected runoff from rivers hidden beneath a carpet of green on the towering peaks above her. She was standing a hundred or so feet below the lower edge of the breach.
It appeared as though the bulbous front wall of the reservoir had ruptured, releasing a small ocean of water that carried with it the mountain’s earthen slopes. The mud had probably consumed the shallow valley in a matter of seconds.
She waded through ankle-deep mud along the shoreline and maneuvered around a tree trunk snapped in half by the torrent.
When she stepped back onto firm ground, what she saw stopped her in mid-stride.
A fresh boot print.
She looked closer. A second and third print led into a coppice of trees on her left. She glanced behind her. Father Joe was making his way around the valley with a downward gaze.
A thought tapped her on the shoulder, and then screamed at her.
Get out of here. Now!
It happened before she could scream. Her feet left the ground, her body arched by the torque of the force. A hand came up over her mouth.
“Watch out. She bites,” were the last words she heard before the world went dark.
33
“I’m telling ya, Elmer, there’re too many peculiar goings-on here.”
Ben Wilson had just recounted the unlikely events of that morning — discovering the Killer T-cells in Jane Doe’s lungs, and moments later learning that his senior lab tech had inexplicably mislabeled the girl’s autopsy tissues for incineration.
“Margie doesn’t make those kinda mistakes,” Ben added.
The two men were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, staring at a ten-foot-tall Plexiglas mosquito pen in the center of Elmer’s malaria lab. The only other person in the lab couldn’t hear them talking; he was inside the see-through enclosure, wearing a rubberized suit and netted hood to shield him from the mosquitoes swarming around him.
Elmer ran a hand through his tousled white mane. “Maybe you should have a talk with someone in Security.”
“If I talk with anyone, it’s going to be the police,” Ben said. “Luke is right. Every time we get a lead going on that Guatemalan boy or Jane Doe, some hobgoblin pulls the rug out from under us. Something’s up.”
Elmer turned to him. “Have you talked to Luke this morning?”
“I called several times, but he didn’t answer.”
“All this stuff going on…” The older man’s eyes drifted out of focus. “I’m worried about my son, Ben.”
Both men turned back to the enclosure when the hooded man tapped on the Plexiglas.
When the man saw that he had their attention, he started removing the covers from a row of petri dishes. Throngs of mosquitoes immediately blanketed the bottom of each dish, covering the thin red layers of blood agar.
“The one person I’d most like to talk to,” Ben said absently, “is lying in the morgue.”
“Oh?”
“I’m thinking of Kate Tartaglia.”
“You really think Zenavax had something to do with those children’s deaths?”
“I have no idea, but twenty-five years in this business tells me that whatever killed them is not a natural biological process. Somebody’s messing with Mother Nature. Jane Doe was attacked by a stampede of Killer T-cells, the likes of which I’ve never seen, and I’m willing to bet I’d’ve found the same thing going on in that Guatemalan boy if the autopsy hadn’t been stopped.” Ben held up a pair of fingers. “Two deaths, both with findings that sound strangely similar to your episode with those mice.”
Elmer held up a hand, as if pushing back an uncomfortable thought. “But the other day, you told me that the girl’s pancreas and bile ducts were damaged.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I can’t think of any reason that a vaccine would damage those organs,” Elmer said. “There’s got to be another explanation.”
“I’m just following the trail these children left,” Ben said. “Death always leaves a trail, and you and I are gonna find out where this one leads.”
“Sounds like I’m being recruited for something.”
Ben nodded. “The alphavirus vector you developed for your flu vaccine — how similar was it to Zenavax’s?”
“Almost identical. That’s how the lawsuit came about.”
“Would Zenavax use the same alphavirus for their malaria vaccine?”
“Without a doubt. It’s the perfect vector for a malaria vaccine. They’d have made a few changes, but most of what’s unique about their strain would remain the same.”
The man in the mosquito pen picked up a handheld light that was shaped like a gun and aimed it at the petri dishes. Mosquitoes passing under the blue swath of light sparkled like glitter.
“So,” Ben said, “with what you know about their alphavirus strain, could you identify it, isolate it from other strains? That is, could you tell me whether someone was exposed to it?”
Elmer’s head moved up and down while watching the man in the pen. “Months after the vaccine is given, you can still find small amounts of the alphavirus circulating in the patient’s blood. Give me a sample of whole blood from those children. It may take a few days, but if they received a Zenavax vaccine during the last several months of their lives, we’ll know.”
Ben was shaking his head even as Elmer spoke. “There’s no whole blood. The girl died hours before they found her. Her blood had already coagulated. And the boy’s blood went out the door with the rest of his remains when the autopsy was cancelled.”
Elmer began walking in a tight circle, pulling on his earlobe.
Ben knew to leave the man alone when he was thinking.
Halfway around his third lap, Elmer stopped and asked, “The boy that died in our E.R. — did you send any of his blood for viral cultures?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“When we do viral cultures, we always split the blood specimen and send a portion to the state lab. Regulations. The state makes us send them part of each specimen so they can do their own tests on random samples to check our results.”
Ben was generally familiar with controls of that type — the State Health Department exerted its influence over every department at their hospital — but he didn’t know the
specific regulations that applied to Elmer’s lab. It was one of the myriad quality control practices that regulators thrust upon hospitals, and in this instance he wanted to kiss the bureaucrat who had devised that procedure.
Ben rubbed his hands together. “I’ll send one of my techs to pick up the blood specimen from the state lab. When he gives it to you, label it using an alias. I don’t want anyone to know what we’re doing.” He glanced back at the closed door. “And Elmer, tell no one — and I mean no one—about this discussion.”
A lab technician suddenly threw open the door. The sound of a TV carried from the next room.
“Dr. McKenna, you better come in here,” the tech said. “It’s — it’s…there’s something on TV that you need to see.”
* * *
“What about the bodies?” the client asked.
“There weren’t that many,” Calderon replied. “A few got washed downstream by the flood, but my men cleaned the area. Like I said, that village is now buried under forty feet of mud.”
The background hum in Calderon’s earpiece stretched for several seconds before his client’s sterilized voice said, “What about the woman and that priest?”
“They’re tucked away.”
“Make sure your men understand. We need her alive, to take care of Petri.” A heavy breath, then, “How’s he doing?”
“Not good. Maybe my men should get him to a hospital.”
“No. We’ve got a doctor there now — that woman. Put her to work.”
“Okay.” Calderon looked out his hotel room window at the helicopters over Griffith Park. “I assume you’ve seen the news reports about McKenna.”
“Yes,” his client said. “Amazing how the cops managed to botch a simple arrest. But his escape plays into our hand, makes him look guilty.”
“I still think we should’ve gotten rid of him, and that pathologist.”
“Forget the pathologist. He has nothing left to work with. It’s over,” his client said. “As for McKenna, give the police another hour or two. They may find him. But if they don’t—”
“My men have the script.” Calderon checked his watch. “They’ll call it into one of the local TV stations at noon.”
“You think McKenna will take the bait?”
“I hope so.” In fact, Calderon was certain that McKenna would take the bait. He just wasn’t going to tell his client that.
“Good. If he does, then you can deal with him.”
* * *
Luke was packed into the corrugated drainage pipe like an oversized bundle of cannon fodder. It was going on two hours and the muscles under each of a dozen welts and bruises were steadily hardening into rigid knots.
But he was still outside the police dragnet.
He had glanced back when he leapt over The Observatory’s retaining wall, catching a glimpse of helmeted cops with assault rifles fanning out along the eastern side of the grassy promenade. Apparently, they hadn’t considered the possibility that he had already come that far west.
He had made his way to Ferndale, an eclectic little area on the southwestern edge of Griffith Park. Each day, Ferndale played host to youthful birthday revelers, hikers, philosopher-chess players, indigents, and amateur botanists. This early in the morning, it was usually deserted except for the occasional runaway teenager sleeping off a drug stupor.
A flotsam of decaying leaves and muck drifted under him in a stream of rust-colored water. He watched as it made its way out the end of the drainage duct.
He lay on his stomach, arms stretched out in front of him, breathing through his mouth to lessen the stench. In a prior life, the stink would have barely registered. Proteus warriors suppressed everything but mission.
The military apparatus had used Luke and his fellow Proteus members, collecting them like lab rats for some sort of perverse Darwinian experiment. It was elegantly simple. Bring together the fifty most capable special ops commandos in the U.S. military — each man selected for his primal alpha traits, physical prowess, and killing skills — then submit them to a training program that stretched the known limits of human performance to the breaking point. The warriors had fed on one another like a fusion reaction, the training itself costing two men their lives.
When it was done, Luke was among the final twenty-four selected for Proteus.
In his lifetime, only one goal had consumed him more fully — undoing what Proteus had done to his psyche. He had worked for years to dismantle the unflinching ferocity and lethal instincts that for a time had been his defining identity.
He shook himself free of the unwanted memories and aimed his gaze at a public restroom nestled in a copse of trees.
Where is Sammy?
When the grim reality of his situation had taken hold, Sammy’s smirking face surfaced in his mind, as if to say, I knew you’d be calling. Sooner or later, everybody needs Sammy’s help. Exactly how Sammy Wilkes helped people, and the types of problems he helped them with, had never been entirely clear to Luke. When asked, Sammy would throw out the term “corporate security,” but when pushed to describe what that meant — exactly — the man had always displayed an astonishing talent for vagueness.
Ex-Proteus member or not, there was something conniving about him, and Luke had always stood clear of him. That is, until today, when there seemed no viable option but to dive headlong into the dark crevasse of Sammy’s world.
The sun was out, which strengthened Luke’s concealment. Set back six feet from the mouth of the pipe, he was invisible to eyes constricted by the sun.
Five more minutes passed before a tall, lanky black man dressed in gray coveralls walked into the restroom carrying a red metal toolbox. When he came out, he wasn’t carrying anything.
The man dusted his sleeves — no threats in sight — then disappeared from view.
A minute later Luke was in the restroom donning coveralls and ill-fitting shoes left for him in the toolbox. A minute after that, he climbed into the front passenger seat of the white van in which Sammy was waiting.
“Let’s get out of here,” Luke said.
He was studying the sleepy tree-lined road when the hard, blunt end of a rounded cylinder brushed against his ear.
“Don’t make me splatter your brains.” Sammy threw a pair of handcuffs onto Luke’s lap. “Put ’em on. I figure the po-lice will want you cuffed when I hand you over.”
34
“The hell you thinking?” Wilkes said. “That Sammy’s gonna risk everything, help you escape after popping that football player? Now put the cuffs on.”
Luke could feel a thick sighting blade at the top of the rounded barrel. A revolver.
“Slo-ow and easy, Flash.”
Luke leaned forward slightly when he reached for the handcuffs.
Sammy flexed his wrist, following the forward motion of Luke’s head, and shoved the muzzle deeper into his captive’s ear.
It was exactly what Luke had expected. Both movements loosened Sammy’s trigger finger for just that instant. An immutable reflex. When combined with the slower double-action trigger of a revolver that had to rotate the cylinder while cocking and releasing the hammer, it was long enough.
Luke grabbed the pistol before Sammy took up the trigger’s slack, thrusting the barrel upward and out of Wilkes’s hand in a lightning-fast motion.
He pointed the gun at Sammy’s chest. “You were never very good at the close-in stuff.”
“Eew-weee.” Sammy’s luminescent white teeth blossomed into a smile. “Flash still got the touch.”
“Did you have something you wanted to ask me?”
Sammy’s face became a blank mask. “You do him?”
“No.”
“Well, okay then.” Sammy’s eyes brightened. “I guess we’re cool.”
Luke took in the nickel-plated finish on the Smith & Wesson.357 Magnum, then emptied the bullets onto his lap. He flipped the gun in his hand, showing Sammy the pistol butt.
Sammy took the gun and stuffed it into his belt. H
e let out a belly laugh as he turned over the engine and checked the rearview mirror.
“It’s time to introduce Flash to Sammy’s world.”
* * *
The first thing Megan heard was her own voice, a long and sluggish moan echoing in the black ether.
The darkness whirled around her, her eyelids too heavy to open. She tried to lift herself into a sitting position, but fell back when the nausea struck. A projectile of vomit erupted from her. Then the vertigo.
Through the fog, she heard, “Lie still, dear. Try not to move.”
The priest. What was his name?
She moaned again, louder this time, and then another wave of nausea hit. Her stomach convulsed with dry heaves.
“Oh, dear God”—cough—“help the poor girl.”
Another voice, in Spanish: “Shut up!”
The shouting peeled away a layer of her stupor, and her senses edged toward wakefulness.
Suddenly, her eyelid was pulled open. A bright light brought an explosion of pain. She struggled to turn away from the beam.
“Stop it. Let her be.”
The light vanished, her eyelid fell closed. A moment later she heard a sickening thud, and then a weak groan coming from the priest.
The other voice said, “Your friend needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.”
A radio crackled. Through the static she heard, “The old man’s getting worse. Is she awake yet?”
“No.”
“We need her over here — soon. Let me know as soon as she wakes up.”
Megan tried to count the fading footsteps before the blackness returned.
* * *
“Sammy’s not into causes. Sammy’s into coin, and this is gonna cost you.”
Wilkes hadn’t changed, physically or otherwise. He had a restless, bouncing gait that accentuated his lanky farm-boy physique. His long arms swung in undulating waves as he paced around the room.
“I can pay you,” Luke said.
“Now how you gonna do that, Flash? On the run, the po-lice on your tail, no wallet. Shit. You living in a fairy tale.” He gave Luke a loose-wristed wave of his hand. “You what they call a pariah. A penniless pariah.”
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