“And the secretary of defense.”
“General Byrd?”
“He’s still our secretary of defense, last I heard.”
“Why wouldn’t you have access to it? You’re the director of the NSA, for Christ’s sake.”
Holmes jacked up his eyebrows mildly. “I’m not in the loop of eyes-only intel.” He paused. “And if I’m not in the loop, you sure as hell aren’t,” he added, swiveling away from his computer and confronting Mellors.
Mellors decided he must be on to something with his investigation of the apocalypse equation. Words didn’t get flagged for no reason. But what? Apocalypse equation? What on earth did it mean?
“Don’t you find that strange?” said Mellors.
“What? That I’m not in the loop?”
“Yeah.”
“No. I don’t make policy. I just eavesdrop on people. You guys are in charge of policy.”
“Then why don’t I know what the apocalypse equation is?”
“You’re not high enough up on the food chain, obviously.” Holmes turned away from Mellors and straightened his desktop. “I don’t have any more time for this.”
Mellors retreated for the door. That left Byrd, he decided. He wondered if he’d get anywhere with Byrd by questioning him about the apocalypse equation. Somehow Mellors doubted it. The two of them had a history of not getting along with each other. Mellors ascribed it to envy on Byrd’s part. A West Pointer, Byrd seemed to harbor an innate grudge against Ivy Leaguers like Mellors. Mellors had never been a fan of Byrd’s either, for that matter.
Still, Mellors would make the effort. He had to know what the hell this apocalypse equation was all about. The very fact that it rated a red flag at the NSA was enough to arouse his suspicions, if they hadn’t been aroused already. And how did this clandestine Orchid Organization, an entity that nobody had ever heard of, fit in?
As Mellors was closing Holmes’s door behind him, he suddenly thought of the director of national intelligence Hilda Molson. Maybe she knew something of Orchid.
Chapter 14
His footfalls echoing through the hallway, Mellors trooped down the corridor to DNI Hilda Molson’s office and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” said Molson.
Mellors entered Molson’s office and the first thing he clapped eyes on was Molson’s pet bulldog that was sitting in front of Molson’s desk watching him. The white dog eyed him with curiosity, its jowly muzzle drooling saliva onto the floor.
“I’m a bit busy at the moment,” said Molson, sitting behind her desk in her poky room, finishing signing a document that lay on the green blotter on her desktop.
An attractive blonde in her early forties, she was rumored to be having an affair with the director of the FBI Harold Paris.
It seemed nobody wanted to talk to him, decided Mellors, like they were trying to fob him off by telling him they were occupied. No matter. He would plow ahead.
“How are you, Director?” he said.
Putting down her ballpoint pen she looked up at him.
“As well as can be expected, considering the circumstances.” She glanced around her makeshift office. Uninspired paintings of landscapes hung on the cement walls. “How is the NCS these days?”
“Down to a skeleton crew, I’m afraid.”
Molson fetched a sigh. “Aren’t we all?” She paused. “Is this a social call? I really don’t have the time.”
“No. It’s not a social call.” He cut to the chase. “Have you ever heard of the apocalypse equation?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t ring any bells. Why?”
“I’m trying to find out what it is. It may have some bearing on the cause of the plague.”
“I can’t help you. Is that all?”
Discouraged, but not to the point of giving up, Mellors persisted. “No, it isn’t. What about the Orchid Organization?”
Molson plucked up a pencil that was lying on her desktop and started drumming the eraser tip reflectively against her green blotter. “I’ve heard of it.”
Maybe he was finally getting somewhere, decided Mellors. “What is it?”
Her pet bulldog took that moment to right itself and waddle with its bandy legs around her desk to her side. The dog’s claws clattered against the hardwood floor like miniature castanets.
“It’s a philanthropic organization of transhumanists,” said Molson.
“Transhumanists?” said Mellors, puzzled.
“Haven’t you ever heard of transhumanism?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
Molson shrugged imperceptibly. “I’m not surprised. Not many people have.”
Mellors massaged his chin. “What exactly is transhumanism?”
“It’s the belief that the human race can evolve beyond its mental and physical limitations through the application of science and technology.”
“Is it anything like the eugenics Nazi Josef Mengele put into practice during the days of the Third Reich?”
“The ‘Angel of Death’? I should hope not. The transhumanists aren’t into selective breeding. Mengele and the Nazis were all about improving human stock through genetics and selective breeding, like breeding dogs and cattle.”
“That’s not transhumanism?”
“As I understand it, the transhumanists want to use science and technology to improve each human beyond their normal mental and physical capacities, or limitations, if you will. In other words, to accelerate the evolutionary process of Homo sapiens without having to wait for nature to bring it about.”
“They want to use science and technology to speed up evolution.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
Mellors heard the bulldog’s claws click against the floor again as the animal ambled to the end of Molson’s desk.
“I don’t understand. What’s so awful about that?” said Mellors.
“I didn’t say there was anything awful about it. You’re putting words in my mouth,” she said, bobbing her head in animation.
When Molson held her head at a certain angle, the planes of her face with its high cheekbones caught the light and Mellors could discern she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Maybe she figured there wasn’t any point, now that she didn’t have much of a staff left. Or maybe she figured she didn’t need it. She looked plenty fine without it, in fact, decided Mellors.
“Then why are you tracking them?” he asked.
“Who told you we’re tracking them?”
“They’re not on your radar?”
“No. Why should they be?”
“Then how do you know about them?”
“I’ve read about them in the papers or magazines or somewhere. I can’t recall. I read a lot.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” said Mellors, baffled.
“Not many people have. They don’t get much publicity, and they like it that way.”
“Are you saying they’re secretive?”
“No. What I’m saying is, they’re not publicity hounds.”
Mellors could not get his head around it. Why was the Orchid Organization mentioned in the documents on Coogan’s encrypted laptop, and what was the organization’s connection to the Erasmus Medical Center where the plague virus had been created?
“Does Orchid have anything to do with the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam?” he asked.
“It’s news to me. But I honestly don’t know what their connection is, if any, to anything. All I said is, I’ve heard of them. And that’s pretty much as far as it goes.”
Mellors didn’t get it. Why would a philanthropic group of transhumanists, of all people, be involved with the Erasmus creation of the mutation of H5N1 that had wiped out the world’s population? It made no sense.
Chapter 15
Nevada
Halverson was dying of thirst as he trudged through the Nevada desert under the blazing sun. Even though a dingy cloud of dust particles drifted through the cloudless sky partially screening the sun, the temperature had to be clo
se to a hundred degrees, if not more, decided Halverson, his face beading and dripping with sweat.
He wished he had a hat with him. The top of his head was burning up.
Halting in his tracks, he reached behind his back into his knapsack, snapped up a plastic liter water bottle, knocked back what remained in it, and tossed the empty bottle aside. Blindly, he groped for another water bottle behind his back. His heartbeat accelerated as he failed to feel the outline of another bottle. Was he out of water already? he wondered frantically.
With renewed vitality and alacrity born of desperation, he groped again inside his backpack. He sighed with relief as he felt the smooth contours of another plastic bottle under his fingers. He withdrew the bottle from his sack, unscrewed the bottle’s cap, and took a long draft of warm, verging on hot, water. He wished it was cold, but he had no means to cool it in his knapsack, save for the thin Styrofoam insulation lining in the canvas satchel, which prevented the water from boiling, at least.
He dreaded to think of it, but he must be down to his last bottle of water or near to it, anyway. At the rate they were guzzling water, he and Victoria would run out of it before they reached the outskirts of the desert. They had no choice. If they didn’t drink up the last of their water, they could not go on hauling their heavy knapsacks through the intense heat. They would pass out from heat prostration, followed not long after by shock and death.
Shifting his thoughts to Victoria he turned around to look at her.
She was dragging her feet through the hot dirt some twenty yards behind him. He didn’t know how much longer she could last. As an NCS black ops agent, he was trained to endure physical hardships like this, whereas she wasn’t. He knew, in good condition as he was, he was barely hanging on, so she, without his physical training, must be in worse shape.
Smarting, his lips felt thick. He felt them with his fingertips. His lips were chapping under the relentless assault of the sun.
He called out to her through a raspy throat. “How are you doing?”
She contrived to wave back at him listlessly.
He waited for her to catch up to him.
She stumbled and pitched forward into the dirt.
He jogged as best he could over to her, considering the weight on his back. He helped her to her feet.
“What happened to nuclear winter?” she muttered.
He emitted something resembling a laugh. “Good question.”
“I can’t last much longer like this.”
“Me neither. I’m running out of water. I’m drinking gallons of it in this heat. What about you?”
“I don’t know,” she said groggily. “I haven’t checked recently.”
Halverson stepped behind her and inspected her knapsack. She had one and a half liter bottles left.
“You’re better off than me, but not much,” he said.
“I feel like I’m gonna pass out,” she mumbled. “This knapsack is too heavy.”
Halverson thought about it. “Maybe we should lighten our loads. We could go faster without these cans of food to bog us down.”
“What’ll we do without food?”
“What good is food if we pass out from heat prostration?”
Crestfallen, Victoria shook her head. “Damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”
“Right now the issue is water, not food. Let’s eighty-six some cans of food.”
They removed their knapsacks from their aching backs.
Free of the excess weight, Victoria sighed with relief.
“I feel better already,” she said and stretched her arms over her head.
Leaning over she rooted through her sack, casting around for cans she could discard. She tossed the ones she selected out onto the dirt. Halverson followed the same procedure.
“That’s enough,” he said.
“I hope we don’t regret this,” she said, slipping her lightened knapsack onto her back.
“It’s all about water. It’s our number-one concern.”
“Are you married?” she asked suddenly.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must have some idea.”
Well, I’m a spy for the CIA and my whole life is one big lie, he thought. Living a life based on dissembling, he was able to get along with a lot of people, but, in the end, he really did not get along with anybody, including women.
“Maybe I’m a workaholic,” he said.
“Even workaholics have girlfriends.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t have girlfriends, but nothing ever worked out.”
“I know about not working out,” she said. “That’s why I divorced my husband.”
“I got the impression most of them were just playing me off their boyfriends to convince their boyfriends to marry them.”
“They already had boyfriends?”
He noticed her fleshy lips were becoming chapped under the acrid sun. “It turned out that way most of the time, though none of them ever told me that at the beginning.”
Victoria thought about it. “I’m pretty sure my ex was seeing someone else. All we did well together was scream at each other.”
“Why are we talking about this? We need to get out of this desert,” said Halverson and brushed off beads of sweat on his forehead with the back of his arm.
“Work is a good refuge from a train wreck of a personal life.” She offered a flicker of a smile.
They struck out to the east again.
CHAPTER 16
It wasn’t such an ordeal to walk, now that they had discarded some weight, Halverson realized. He glanced around at Victoria, who was tramping behind him. She was walking straighter now, he could see. She didn’t look as fatigued as she did earlier. Still, he did not think she could walk a whole lot farther in the heat of this desert furnace. Even with a lighter load, she could not keep up with him.
It did not surprise him. She was used to designing and making dresses, not hiking through the arid desert. Moreover, she was still depressed about having lost her only child Shawna to the plague. He knew how she felt. He had lost his brother in the same manner. Still, losing a child was probably worse than losing a sibling, he decided.
They had trekked about a mile farther when he fancied he could see something moving toward them in the distance. Shading his eyes from the sun’s glare with his hand to his brow, he tried to make out the object. The rising thermals distorted the view, lending it a shimmering aspect.
It looked to be a vehicle of some sort, decided Halverson. He could not swear to it. Not only was the heat distorting his view with wavering lines, the object was kicking up dust around it as it maneuvered across the desert flatlands, obscuring its silhouette.
Halverson came to a halt and waited for Victoria to catch up to him.
“Do you see that out there?” he asked as she approached him, gasping for breath.
She hunched over. “Let me catch my breath,” she said hoarsely.
“Are you OK?”
“It’s nothing. Just the heat and all this walking.”
“Do you see what I see?”
Recuperating her breath, she managed to raise her head and peer into the distance. “Looks like a vehicle of some sort. Hard to tell.”
“It’s moving faster than us. That’s for sure.”
“If only we had a vehicle. Let’s flag him down.” She set to waving her hands at the object.
Halverson screwed up his face. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“He can give us a ride.”
“Remember what happened the last time we saw a vehicle out here?”
Cringing, she stopped waving. “Don’t remind me.”
The vehicle was approaching them. He could discern it now.
It was a stake truck and it was coming fast. It must have been doing at least sixty.
“It’s heading our way,” he said.
“Do you think they saw us?”
“If we
can see them, they can probably see us. If they don’t now, they will soon enough.”
“If we could get our hands on that truck, we could get out of this desert in one piece.”
“I hear ya.”
Like the Coke truck had earlier, the stake truck was heading for them at speed.
Halverson shrugged his MP7 off his shoulder and limbered up the weapon.
CHAPTER 17
As the stake truck neared them, Halverson could see it was weighted down with assorted types of furniture piled on its bed, including several mattresses, a refrigerator, a stove, bureaus, bedsteads, and a sofa. Without such a heavy payload, the truck could have been cruising even faster.
Driving past sagebrush and isolated Joshua trees the truck was heading toward him and Victoria. The driver must have seen them, Halverson decided.
Halverson gripped his MP7 tighter but did not raise the barrel as the truck drew up to them. He did not want to scare the driver. Whoever the driver was he knew how to drive a vehicle, not like that flesh eater in the Coke truck. That was a good sign, decided Halverson.
The stake truck halted ten feet from Halverson.
A five-nine middle-aged guy with a shock of white hair clambered out of the driver’s seat, wearing baggy jeans and a pastel button-down shirt. He was also wearing a pair of Ray Bans.
Not good, decided Halverson. He could not make out the driver’s eyes.
The driver was holding a semiautomatic pistol in his hand.
Even worse, decided Halverson.
His gun slightly raised but not aimed at Halverson, the driver edged circumspectly toward Halverson.
The driver stopped, uncertain whether to proceed.
He must have made Halverson’s MP7, decided Halverson.
Gun at the ready, Halverson scoped out the driver, trying to figure out if the guy had hostile intentions. Halverson would have preferred it if he could see the driver’s eyes. At least then he could be sure if the driver had turned or not.
Halverson started at the sound of clanking metal.
It was the stake truck’s passenger-side door opening.
A one-armed man in his thirties slid out of his seat and approached Halverson. The one-armed man was pushing six four and was heavier than Halverson. The guy looked like he worked out a lot, decided Halverson. A scar carved a scimitar in the guy’s acne-pitted cheek under the pair of aviation sunglasses he was sporting. His jeans had a hole in one of the thighs. He had the slow, easy movements of a big man, confident of his size. He gripped a gun in his only hand.
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