Sigma Force 10 - The Sixth Extinction

by James Rollins

  “She was okay with that being published?” Bill asked.

  Drake read for a bit longer. “She was definitely not against it.”

  Jenna took in a deep breath. “We should relay this to the sheriff’s department and Director Crowe. That Camry is an ’09 model. Likely equipped with a GPS unit.”

  “And with the VIN number,” Bill said, “we should be able to track its location.”

  “It’s worth checking out,” Jenna agreed.

  Drake stood up and waved for her to follow. “In the meantime, we should get back to the helicopter. Be ready to move once we have a location.”

  Jenna felt a measure of pride at being included—not that she would’ve had it any other way.

  “Go.” Bill reached for a phone. “I’ll set everything in motion and alert you as soon as I hear something.”

  With Nikko in tow, Jenna and Drake hurried out of the office and across the visitors’ center to the front doors. As she exited, a few cold raindrops struck her face.

  She studied the skies and didn’t like what she saw.

  A spatter of lightning lit the underbellies of a stack of black clouds.

  Drake frowned, matching her expression. “We’re running out of time.”

  He was right.

  Jenna rushed for the waiting vehicle.

  Somebody had better come up with some answers—and quick.

  8:04 A.M.

  Lisa studied the rat in the cage, watching it root in the bedding, pushing its pink nose through the wood shavings. She empathized with the tiny creature, feeling equally trapped and threatened.

  The test subject sat in a cage that was divided into two sections separated by a dense HEPA filter. On the opposite side was a black pile of dust—debris from one of the dead plants.

  She typed a note into the computer, a challenging task with the thick gloves of her BSL4 suit.

  FIVE HOURS AND NO SIGN OF TRANSMISSION.

  They had run a series of trials with various pore sizes and thicknesses of filters, trying to evaluate the size of the infectious agent. So far this was the only rat that continued to show no signs of contamination. The others were all sick or dying from multi-organ failure.

  She struggled not to think about her brother, entombed in the patient containment unit across the hangar.

  Hours ago, she had performed a necropsy with a histopathologist on one of the rats in an early stage of infection. Its lungs and heart were the worst afflicted, with petechiae on the alveoli and rhabdomyolysis of the cardiac muscle fibers. Its heart was literally melting away. With initial lesions manifesting so dramatically in the chest, it suggested an airborne mode of transmission.

  It was why they started this series of filter tests.

  She continued to type.

  ASSESSMENT: INFECTIOUS PARTICLE MUST

  BE UNDER 15 NANOMETERS IN SIZE.

  So definitely not a bacterium.

  One of the smallest known bacterial species was Mycoplasma genitalium, which topped off between 200 and 300 nanometers.

  “Gotta be a virus,” she mumbled.

  But even the tiniest virus known to man was the porcine circovirus, which was 17 nanometers in size. The transmittable particle here was even smaller than that. It was no wonder they were still struggling to get a picture of it, to examine its ultrastructure.

  Two hours ago, a CDC technician had finally finished setting up and calibrating a scanning electron microscope inside a neighboring lab in the hangar. Hopefully soon they’d get to confront the adversary face-to-face.

  She sighed, wanting to rub the knot of a headache out of her temples, but suited up she could not even brush the few hairs away that were tickling her nose. She had tried blowing them to the side before finally giving up. She knew exhaustion was getting the better of her, but she refused to leave the suite of BSL4 labs that were conducting various stages of research.

  The radio crackled in her ear, then the lead epidemiologist, Dr. Grant Parson, spoke. “All researchers are to report to the central conference room for a summary meeting.”

  Lisa placed a rubber palm on the plastic cage. “Keep hanging in there, little fella.”

  She stood, unhooked her oxygen hose from the wall, and carried it with her through the air lock that led out from the in vivo animal-testing lab to the rest of the complex. Each lab was cordoned off from the other, both compartmentalizing the research and further limiting the chance of an outbreak spreading through the facility.

  She stepped into the central hub. Every other hour, the lab’s scientists gathered in the room to compare notes and confer about their progress. To facilitate these meetings, a long table had been set up with additional monitors to aid in teleconferencing with researchers across the United States. A window behind the table looked out into the dark hangar.

  She spotted a familiar face out there, standing at the glass.

  She lifted an arm toward Painter and pointed to her ear. He wore a radio headpiece and dialed into a private channel.

  “How’re you doing?” he asked, resting his hand on the window.

  “We’re making slow progress,” she said, though she knew he was asking about her personal status, not an update on the research. She shied away from that and asked a more important question. “How’s Josh?”

  She got regular updates from the medical staff, but she wanted to hear it from Painter, from someone who personally knew her brother.

  “Still sedated, but he’s holding his own. Josh is tough . . . and a fighter.”

  Painter was certainly right. Her brother tackled mountains, but even he couldn’t battle what couldn’t be seen.

  “The good news is that it looks like the surgeons were able to salvage the knee joint,” Painter added. “Should help his recovery and physical therapy afterward.”

  She prayed there was an afterward. “What about . . . is there any sign of infection?”

  “No. Everything looks good.”

  She took little comfort from this news. Josh’s contact with the agent had been via a break in the skin versus being inhaled. The lack of symptoms could just be due to a longer incubation period from that route of exposure.

  A fear continued to nag at her.

  Had I gotten his leg off in time?

  Dr. Parson spoke up behind her. “Let’s get this meeting started.”

  Lisa settled her gloved palm over Painter’s hand on the window. “Keep an eye on him for me.”

  Painter nodded.

  Lisa turned to join the other researchers. Some sat, others stood, all in their BSL4 suits. Over the next fifteen minutes, the head of each lab module gave an update.

  An edaphologist—a soil scientist who studied microorganisms, fungi, and other life hiding in the earth—was the first to report. Anxiety fueled his words.

  “I finished a full soils analysis from the dead zone. It’s not just the vegetation and wildlife that’s being killed. To a depth of two feet, I found the samples to be devoid of any life. Bacteria, spores, insects, worms. All dead. The ground had been essentially sterilized.”

  Parson let his shock show. “That level of pathogenicity . . . it’s unheard of.”

  Lisa pictured those dark hills, imagining the same shadow penetrating deep underground, leaving no life in its wake as it slowly rolled across the landscape. She had also heard about the inclement weather descending upon the Mono Lake Basin. It was a recipe for an ecological disaster of incalculable proportions.

  A bacteriologist spoke up next. “Speaking of pathogenicity, our team has run through a gamut of liquid disinfection traps, seeking some way to sterilize the samples from the field. We’ve tried extremes of alkalinity and acidity. Lye, various bleaches, et cetera. But the samples remain infectious.”

  “What about extreme heat?” Lisa asked, remembering Painter’s belief that they might have to scorch those hills to stop the blight from spreading.

  The researcher shrugged. “We thought we initially had some success. We burned an infected plant to
a fine ash—and at first it seemed to work, but after it cooled, it remained just as infectious. We believe the heat merely put the microbe into some type of spore or cyst-like state.”

  “Maybe it takes something hotter,” Lisa said.

  “Possibly. But how hot is hot enough? We’ve discussed a nuclear level of heat. But if the fires of an atomic bomb don’t kill it, the blast could scatter and aerosolize the agent for hundreds of miles.”

  That was definitely not an option.

  “Keep searching,” Parson encouraged.

  “It would help if we knew what we were fighting,” the bacteriologist finished, which earned him many nods from his fellow scientists.

  Lisa explained her own findings, confirming that they were likely dealing with something viral in nature.

  “But it’s exceedingly small,” she said, “smaller than any known virus. We know Dr. Hess was experimenting with extremophiles from around the world, organisms that could thrive in acidic or alkaline environments, even some that could survive in the molten heat found in volcanic vents.”

  She looked pointedly at the bacteriologist. “Then to make matters worse, we know Hess was also delving into the very fringes of synthetic biology. His project—Neogenesis—sought to genetically manipulate the DNA of extremophiles in an attempt to help endangered species, to make them hardier and more resistant to environmental changes. In this quest, who knows what monster he created down there?”

  Dr. Edmund Dent, a CDC virologist, stood up. “I believe we’ve caught a glimpse of that monster. Under the newly installed electron microscope.”

  All eyes turned to him.

  “At first we thought it was a technical glitch. What we found seemed too small—unimaginably small—but if Dr. Cummings’s assessment concerning the size of the infectious particle is accurate, then perhaps it’s not a mistake.” Dent glanced to her. “If you’d be willing to join us . . .”

  “Of course. I think we should also bring in a geneticist and bioengineer. Just in case, we—”

  A loud klaxon sounded, drawing all their gazes to the window. A blue light flashed in the darkness, spinning in time with the alarm. It came from the patient containment unit.

  Panic drew Lisa to her feet.

  12

  April 29, 3:05 P.M. GMT

  Brunt Ice Shelf, Antarctica

  “Hold on tight!” the pilot called out.

  The small Twin Otter plane bucked like an untamed stallion as it crossed high over the iceberg-choked Weddell Sea. The winds worsened as they neared the coast.

  “These bastarding katabatics are kicking me in the arse!” the pilot explained. “If you’re feeling lurgy, I got airsickness bags back there if you’re going to chunder. Don’t go messin’ my girl up.”

  Gray kept a firm hold on the strap webbing of his jump seat. He was belted in tightly along one side of the cabin. At the back, crates of gear and supplies rattled and creaked. He was normally not prone to motion sickness, but this roller coaster of a flight was testing even his mettle.

  Jason sat across the cabin, his head lolling, half asleep, plainly unfazed by the turbulence. Apparently he’d had plenty of experience with this storm-swept continent. Instead, the kid seemed more afflicted by the twenty-four hours of long flights to get to the south end of the world.

  At least this was their last leg.

  Earlier today, just after sunrise—which was noon this side of the world, the beginning of their dark winter—they had flown from the Falkland Islands to the Antarctic Peninsula, landing atop a rocky promontory on Adelaide Island, where the British maintained Rothera Station. That flight had been aboard a large, bright red Dash 7 aircraft, with British Antarctic Survey emblazoned on its side. At Rothera, they had switched to this smaller Twin Otter, similarly painted, and set off across the Weddell Sea toward the Brunt Ice Shelf: a floating hundred-meter-thick sheet that hugged the far coastline in a region of East Antarctica called Coats Land.

  As they made their approach, the aircraft’s twin props chopped into the polar airstream—called the katabatic winds—which rolled down from the higher elevations of the inner mountain ranges to roar out to sea.

  Their pilot was an older UK airman named Barstow, who clearly had had plenty of arctic experience. He continued his ongoing commentary and tour. “Did you know the name of these winds comes from the Greek word katabaino, which means to go down?”

  “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen to us,” a voice grumbled behind him.

  Joe Kowalski huddled in the back. His large frame was folded nearly in half to fit into the cramped space. He looked like a shaven-headed gorilla crammed into a sewer pipe. He kept his head ducked from the low roof—not that he hadn’t hit it a few times during the bumpy ride over the Weddell Sea.

  Kat had sent the big man along on this mission as additional support and muscle, while voicing another reason, too. Get him out of here. After his breakup with Elizabeth Polk, all he does is mope around these halls.

  Gray wondered how Kat could tell the difference. Kowalski was never a beam of sunshine, even on his best days.

  Still, Gray hadn’t complained. The guy might not look or sound it, but the former Navy sailor had his own skill set, which mostly involved things that go boom. As Sigma’s demolitions expert, he had proved invaluable in the past. Plus his cantankerous attitude sort of grew on you, like mold on bread. Once you got used to him, he was all right.

  Not that I would ever admit that aloud.

  “You can see Halley Station up yonder,” Barstow called back. “It’s that big blue centipede sittin’ atop the ice.”

  Gray twisted to look out a window as the Twin Otter banked toward a landing.

  Directly below, the black seas rode up against cliffs of blue ice, the walls towering as high as a row of forty-story skyscrapers. While the Brunt Ice Shelf appeared like a craggy coastline, it was actually a tongue of ice protruding into the sea, sixty miles across, flowing out from the higher glaciers of Queen Maud Land to the east. It moved at a rate of ten football fields every year, calving into bergs at the end, broken by the warmer waters of the Weddell and by the motion of the tides.

  But what drew Gray’s full attention was something perched atop those cliffs. It did indeed look like a centipede. The Halley VI Research Station had been established in 2012, using a unique design of individual steel modules, each colored blue, connected to one another by enclosed walkways. Each pod rested on stilt-like skis with the height controlled by hydraulics.

  “That’s the sixth version of Halley,” Barstow said, bobbling the craft in the wind. “The other five were buried in the snow, crushed, and pushed into the sea. That’s why we have everything on skis now. We can tow the station out of deep snow or keep it ahead of the drifting ice.”

  Kowalski had his nose to the window. “Then how come it’s so close to that drop now?”

  He was right. The eight linked modules, all lined up in a row, sat only a hundred yards from the cliff’s edge.

  “Won’t be there much longer. Be movin’ her inland in a couple more weeks. A group of climate eggheads have been doing a yearlong study of melting glaciers, tracking the speed of ice sliding off this bloody continent. They’re just about done here, and the whole lot will be shippin’ out to the other side of Antarctica.” The pilot glanced back to them—which Gray didn’t appreciate as the Twin Otter was in mid-dive toward a landing. “They’re heading over to the Ross Ice Shelf. To McMurdo Station. One of your Yank bases.”

  “Eyes on the road,” Kowalski groused from the back, pointing forward for extra emphasis.

  As the pilot swung back to his duty, Gray turned to Jason, who had stirred at the jostling and noise. “McMurdo? You still have family there, right?”

  “Near there,” Jason said.

  “Who’d want to live out here?” Kowalski said. “Freeze your goddamned balls off if you even tried to take a piss.”

  Barstow snorted a laugh. “Especially midwinter, mate. Then you’d likely lose your to
dger, too. Come winter, it’s monkeys out there.”

  “Monkeys?” Kowalski asked.

  “He means it’s damned cold,” Gray translated.

  Jason pointed below. “Why’s that one section of the station in the middle painted red and all the others are blue?”

  “It’s our red-light district down here,” Barstow answered, fighting the plane to keep level as the ice rose up toward them. “That section is where all the fun happens. We eat there, raise a few pints on the rare occasion, play snooker, and have tellies for watching movies.”

  The Twin Otter landed and slid across a plowed surface that doubled as a runway. The entire craft rattled and thrummed atop its skis, finally coming to a stop not too far from the station.

  They all exited. Though bundled deep in thick polar jackets, the winds immediately discovered every gap and loose fold. Each breath was like sucking in liquid nitrogen, while the reflected glare of the sun sitting low on the horizon was blinding off the ice. Sunset was only a half hour away. In another couple of days, it wouldn’t rise or set at all.

  The pilot followed them out, but he kept his coat unzipped, his hood down. He turned his craggy face up to the blue skies, as if basking in the last moments of sunlight. “Won’t be this warm for much longer.”

  Warm?

  Even Gray’s teeth ached from the cold.

  “Got to get your tan when you can,” Barstow said and led them toward a set of stairs that climbed up to one of the giant blue modules.

  From the ground, the sheer size of the station was impressive. Each pod looked as big as a two-story house and was elevated fifteen yards above the snow-swept ice by four giant hydraulic skis. A full-sized tractor could easily drive under the station, which from the parked John Deere nearby probably occasionally happened.

  “Must be how they tow the modules,” Jason said, eyeing the American-built piece of machinery. He then squinted at the ice-encrusted bulk of the station. “Whole setup looks like something out of Star Wars.”

  “Right,” Kowalski agreed. “Like on the ice planet Hoth.”