The Doomsday Key

by James Rollins

  The pilot interrupted. “We’ve begun our descent into Longyearbyen. Please secure your seats for landing.”

  Painter glanced out the window as the sun finally began to rise. It was high time he had a conversation with that man. Still, he checked his watch. He had one other concern as the jet dipped toward the frozen archipelago, one that grew more worrisome with each passing hour.

  11:01 A.M.

  Spitsbergen, Norway

  “Still no word from Gray?” Monk asked as he stood in the icy parking lot. He wore a snowsuit, boots, gloves, goggles, and carried a helmet under one arm.

  Painter shook his head, clutching his satellite phone. “I had hoped by sunrise to have heard something from him. Or from the patrols. They had choppers up at first light, searching the highlands. Fire crews report the entire valley is a smoldering ruin. I also checked with Kat. He’s not checked in with Sigma Command either.”

  Monk read the pain in the director’s face. “He had to make it out of there. Maybe there’s a reason he’s gone silent.”

  From his expression, Painter took little consolation from Monk’s words. If Gray had gone silent, it was because he was in some sort of trouble. The director stared off into the distance.

  The sun still hung low on the horizon, reflecting painfully off the ice and snow that covered the island of Spitsbergen. In another month the archipelago would sink into a permanent Arctic night that would last four months. Even at midday the temperature had climbed to only a single degree Fahrenheit above zero. It was a barren place, treeless and broken into sharp peaks and crevices. The name of this island of the Svalbard archipelago—Spitsbergen—translated from the Dutch meant “jagged mountain.”

  It was not a landscape that inspired hope.

  Especially with the dark skies rolling in from the north.

  “There’s nothing more we can do at our end,” Painter finally said, his voice firming again. “I have Kat continuing to monitor reports from both the fire crews and the search-and-rescue teams. She’ll do what she can to coordinate a wider search. Until then, we have our own objective here.”

  Painter stood next to the Volvo SUV he had driven from the airport. Monk had followed in a second vehicle, hauling a trailer behind it. Creed was back there now freeing the two snowmobiles. They’d rented the pair of Lynx V-800 snow machines from a travel service that offered winter safaris into the wilds of the archipelago. The travel agency’s logos were painted brightly on their sides.

  Inside the Volvo, Senator Gorman sat in the passenger seat. The plan was for the senator and Painter to head directly to the Svalbard seed vault. Monk and Creed would take a more circuitous route overland by snowmobile. The pair would get as close as possible to the vault without raising suspicions, which was the primary reason for the rentals.

  According to the tour operator, his company regularly led overnight tours into the mountains to view the wildlife that inhabited the place. But since the construction of the Doomsday Vault, the well-publicized site had become a frequent tourist stop. Their presence should not warrant a second look. Monk and Creed would be ready in case further firepower was needed or a fast evacuation was necessary.

  “A back door out of the bank vault,” as Painter described it.

  The roar of an engine erupted from behind their tow vehicle.

  “Let’s get moving,” Painter ordered. He clapped Monk’s forearm in a warm grip. “Stay safe.”

  “You, too.”

  The two men headed in opposite directions. Painter climbed back into his SUV; Monk joined his partner by the two snowmobiles. Creed sat atop one, outfitted like Monk in a snowsuit and helmet.

  Monk crossed to his machine and hiked a leg over it.

  As Painter spun out of the parking lot, Monk checked the assault rifle secured beside his seat. Creed had a matching weapon. They didn’t bother hiding the guns. Here in Spitsbergen, where polar bears outnumbered humans, such firepower was a requirement. Even the glossy tourist brochure Monk had picked up at the rental agency had stated, “Always carry a weapon when traveling outside the settlements.”

  And Monk was not about to break Norwegian law.

  “Ready?” he yelled, lifting an arm toward Creed.

  His partner revved his engine as answer.

  Donning his helmet, Monk twisted his ignition key. The beast roared to life beneath him. Throttling up, Monk edged his snowmobile toward the snowy valley beyond the lot. His machine’s rear track bit into the ice with a sure grip. The pair of skis glided smoothly as he dipped over the edge and sped down into powder.

  Creed followed in his tracks.

  Ahead rose the mountain of Plataberget, home to the Doomsday Vault. Its jagged peak scratched into a lowering sky. Behind it, the world was nothing but dark clouds.

  Definitely an ominous place.

  Especially as Monk recalled the final warning printed in that tourist brochure. It pretty much summarized this harsh land. Shoot to kill.

  11:48 A.M.

  Painter parked his vehicle in the designated slot. They had to pass through two barricades manned by Norwegian military guardsmen on the only road up the mountainside. Other trucks and a large bus already occupied the small parking lot, likely the transportation used by the World Food Summit contingent.

  As Painter climbed out of the heated SUV into the icy cold, he also noted a minibus-sized snow vehicle resting on massive treads like a tank. It was a Hagglunds, the official vehicle for exploring Antarctica, painted with the Norwegian flag and army insignia. A couple of soldiers stood near the vehicle, smoking. There was also a smaller two-man Sno-Cat, similarly marked, patrolling the perimeter. Though at the moment, judging by the way it careened and wheeled around out there, someone was doing a little joyriding with it.

  Senator Gorman, bundled in a parka, joined Painter and they headed toward the entrance to the seed vault. The only section of the installation that was aboveground was a concrete bunker. It stuck out of the snow at an angle, like the prow of a ship encased in ice. And maybe in some ways it was. Buried below was the Noah’s Ark for seeds.

  The entrance towered thirty feet, a flat concrete surface decorated at the top with a windowlike plate of mirrors and prisms lit by turquoise fiber optics. It glowed in the darkening day. Already the storm clouds were rolling over the mountain, pressing the sky down on them. A gust of wind kicked up a whirlwind of ice crystals and stinging snow.

  Hunched against the cold and wind, they hurried toward the entrance.

  Crossing a small bridge, they reached the outer blast doors that sealed the facility. Another pair of armed guards checked the senator’s pass and logged in their identification.

  “You are very late,” one of the guards said in halting English.

  “Trouble with our flight,” Gorman answered. He grinned good-naturedly at the young guard and shivered against the cold. “Even way up here, airlines still somehow lose your bags. And the cold … brr … I don’t know how you can stand it out here. You’re made of heartier stuff than me.”

  The soldier matched Gorman’s big grin, as did his partner, who probably didn’t even speak English. The senator just had that way about him. Painter had to hand it to him—the guy had charisma. He could turn it on or off like a flashlight. It was no wonder he was so successful in Washington.

  The door was hauled open for them. Painter knew that three massive locks secured the vault. As an additional safeguard against malicious attacks, no single person on the planet had all three keys.

  Once they were through the doors, the winds cut off, which was welcome, but the air inside was no warmer. Kept at a near constant zero degrees Fahrenheit, it was like stepping into a walk-in freezer.

  Down a short ramp, a long circular tunnel stretched, large enough to accommodate a subway train. Underfoot lay cement slabs; overhead ran rows of fluorescent lights and an open lattice of pipes and utility conduits. The walls—steel-reinforced concrete blown with fiberglass—were roughly textured, giving the place a cavelike ap
pearance.

  Painter had studied the schematics for the facility. The layout was simple. The tunnel descended five hundred feet and ended at three massive seed vaults, each sealed by its own air lock. The only other feature was a set of office rooms down by the vaults.

  Voices echoed up to them. Brighter lights glowed far ahead.

  As they walked down the tunnel, Senator Gorman spoke softly and waved an arm at the walls. “Ivar was one of the major financiers for the vault here. He firmly believed in preserving the natural biodiversity of the world and judged all other such seed banks to be inadequate or half-assed.”

  “I get that about him. Man likes to be in control.”

  “But in this case, he’s probably right. There are over a thousand seed vaults scattered around the world, but a majority of them are threatened. The national seed bank in Iraq was looted and destroyed. In Afghanistan, it was the same. The Taliban broke into their storehouse, not for the seeds, but to steal the plastic containers. And other seed banks are just as fragile. Poor management, suffering economies, failing equipment, all threaten these depositories. But most of all it was a lack of vision.”

  “And Karlsen stepped in?”

  “The vault was the brainchild of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. But when Ivar heard about the project, he added his full support—both financially and vocally.” The senator rubbed his temples with his gloved fingertips. “I still can’t balance that man with the monster he seems to be. It makes no sense.”

  They continued in silence. Painter had heard the trace of doubt in Gorman’s voice. After the initial shock of betrayal, skepticism had begun to creep back. It was human nature. No one wanted to believe the worst of their best friend or to face their own gullibility and blindness.

  Ahead, a group of people massed near the end of the tunnel. The gathering rang with a party atmosphere. Along one wall stood a row of ice sculptures, lit from below to a stunning brilliance: a polar bear, a walrus, a model of the mountain, even the symbol for Viatus. On the other side stood a cold buffet and a steaming coffee bar.

  Gorman plucked a champagne flute from a passing hostess. She was dressed in mukluks and a heavy coat. At this event, the parka was the equivalent of a black tie. Two dozen bundled guests crowded the tunnel, but from the number of servers and piles of untouched food, attendance was lower than expected.

  Painter knew that the attack at the Grand Hotel—blamed on terrorists—had scared away several of the attendees.

  Still, for a party just a hop, skip, and jump from the North Pole, it was a smashing success. At a microphone, a familiar figure was in midspeech. Reynard Boutha, copresident of the Club of Rome, spoke at length about the importance of preserving biodiversity.

  “We are in the midst of a genetic Chernobyl. A hundred years ago, the number of varieties of apples cultivated in the United States stood at over seven thousand. Today, it’s down to three hundred. Beans numbered almost seven hundred. Now it’s down to thirty. Seventy-five percent of the world’s biodiversity has vanished in just one century. And every day another species goes extinct. We must act now to preserve what we can before it’s lost forever. That’s why the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is so important, why we must continue to raise money and awareness …”

  As Boutha continued, Painter spotted Karlsen across the crowd. He was flanked by two women. One was svelte and tall with long blond hair, her face mostly hidden within the hood of her parka. The other woman was older and bent Karlsen’s ear as Boutha spoke.

  “Who’s that?” Painter asked, indicating the woman speaking to Karlsen.

  “She’s the former president of Rockefeller’s Population Council and another member of Ivar’s inner circle. They’ve been friends for years.”

  Painter knew about the Population Council. They were major advocates for population control through family planning and birth control, and if you believed some of the wilder rumors and rhetoric, some of their methods bordered on eugenics.

  No wonder Karlsen was such good friends with her.

  Gorman pointed out a few other figures in the crowd who were members of the inner cabal. “That large fellow with the beer gut over there represents a major German chemical and pharmaceutical company. Viatus has been researching how to incorporate one of their insecticides into a new generation of GM crops. If he’s successful, it would severely lessen the pesticide load needed in fields, making crops cheaper to grow and increasing yields.”

  Painter nodded as Gorman listed others. It seemed Karlsen’s circle consisted of those who were either seeking ways to address the overpopulation crisis or researching ways to increase food supplies. The senator was right. The man did seem to have the world’s welfare at heart.

  So how did that balance with a man who ordered the massacre of a village and who pushed forward the wholesale release of a genetic threat that could contaminate and corrupt the biosphere?

  The senator’s earlier assessment was right.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Painter drew his attention back to Karlsen. Before he confronted the man, he wanted to know all the key players. “What about that other woman,” he asked, “the blonde practically hanging off Karlsen’s arm?”

  Gorman squinted. “I don’t know. She looks vaguely familiar, but she’s not a member of his inner circle. Maybe just a friend.”

  Satisfied, Painter nudged Gorman and headed through the crowd. In such a gathering, it was doubtful Karlsen would do anything directly to threaten them. Where could he run?

  Shifting through the partygoers, Painter soon stood before Karlsen. The man was momentarily alone, having finished his conversation with the Population Council president. Even the woman hanging on his arm had wandered off toward the buffet table.

  Karlsen failed to recognize Painter. His gaze skipped over and fixed on Senator Gorman instead. The Norwegian’s face immediately brightened with delight as he thrust out an arm.

  Reflexively, Gorman shook it.

  “Dear God, Sebastian,” Karlsen said. “When did you get here? How did you get here? I tried calling your hotel when you didn’t show up at the airport. With all the commotion after that attack last night, I couldn’t get through. I thought maybe you’d flown home.”

  “No. Security just moved me to a new hotel,” Gorman explained smoothly. “I couldn’t make it to the airport in time, and I didn’t want to hold everyone up. So I booked my own flight.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. I insist that Viatus cover your expenses.”

  Painter watched the two interact. Though the senator put on a good show, he was plainly out of sorts, clearly on edge and unsettled.

  Karlsen, on the other hand, looked genuinely pleased to see the senator. His expression was sincere. Painter could read no evidence that the man standing here had ordered the senator’s assassination the night before. Either Karlsen truly wasn’t involved or he was one frighteningly cool customer.

  Gorman glanced over at Painter. The senator’s expression radiated growing doubt. He stammered for a moment, then lifted a hand toward Painter. “I think you’ve already met the investigator from the office of the Inspector General.”

  The Norwegian’s weighty gaze dropped on Painter. A moment of confusion settled back to recognition. “Of course, I’m sorry. We spoke briefly yesterday. You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been an insane twenty-four hours.”

  Tell me about it, Painter thought.

  As he shook Karlsen’s hand, he continued to study the man’s face, looking for cracks in his demeanor. If the man knew Painter was more than just a DCIS agent, he wasn’t showing it.

  “The senator was kind enough to allow me to join him,” Painter said. “I had hoped we might still conduct our interview. I only have a few questions, to tie up some loose ends. I promise it won’t take long. Maybe there’s a private place we could chat.”

  Karlsen looked put out, but he glanced over at Gorman. Maybe for just an instant, Painter spotted a flicker of guilt. It had been the senator’s
son who had been killed in the massacre in Africa. How could he say no in front of a grieving father?

  Karlsen checked his watch, then nodded toward a doorway off to the right. “There are some offices back there. Catering has taken up the front half, but there’s a small conference room that should be unoccupied.”

  “That will do fine.”

  They headed off together.

  From across the crowd, Painter noted the blond woman staring at them. Though her expression was deadpan, it was also colder than the Arctic temperature in the vault. Caught looking, she glanced away.

  Abandoned at the party, she did not look happy.

  Krista watched the trio enter the vault’s administration office. That couldn’t be good.

  Moments ago, she had almost choked on the olive floating in her vodka tonic, shocked to see the black-haired Sigma operative appear out of nowhere. With Senator Gorman in tow. She had barely gotten out of the way in time.

  She stared at the office door as it closed. How could they be here? She thought she’d left them far behind in Oslo.

  Suddenly feeling as if eyes were upon her from all directions, she adjusted the hood of her parka so its mink-lined edge better shadowed her face. She was glad she had taken the extra precaution to don a blond wig for the excursion here. She didn’t want any more trouble like with Antonio Gravel.

  She retreated down the tunnel. It ended at a cross passage that branched into the three seed vaults, each secured by air locks. With everyone still listening to speeches, she had the place to herself for the moment and a chance to regroup.

  Leaning her back against one of the seed vault doors, she clutched the phone in her pocket. She had not heard any word from her superior. What was she supposed to do? He had told her that he’d take care of the Sigma operative, but here the man was with the senator. Should she act on her own? Wait for orders? At her level in the organization, she was expected to think on her feet, to improvise as needed.

  She took several deep breaths and let a plan crystallize. If she had to act, she would. For now, she’d just see how matters unfolded here. Still, that didn’t mean she shouldn’t take precautions.