by Scott Sigler
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
Magnus turned and walked out the door. Andy followed him, leaving Colding alone with the corpse of his friend.
NOVEMBER 30: ENDGAME
Implantation +21 Days
MAGNUS SAT IN front of the secure terminal, thick fingers drumming a relentless pattern on the desktop—babababump, babababump, babababump. He waited for Danté’s face to appear. While he waited, he read the email again.
FROM: FARM GIRL
TO: BIG POPPA
SUBJECT: FUNNY STUFF AT HOME
I HEARD ABOUT THAT FUNNY PRANK CALL TO DAD. CRAZY PRANK CALLERS!
ROTFL! IT WAS A SILLY THING FOR THE PRANKSTER TO DO. DAD’S GUYS AT
THE OFFICE ARE GOING TO TRACK THAT DOWN. WILL TAKE FIVE DAYS AT
LEAST, SIX AT THE MOST. OH, AND I WOULDN’T TAKE THE CAR. DAD’S LOOKING FOR IT. LOOKING HARD.
TTYL—FARM GIRL
It was over now. Even Danté had to see that. No place left to run. Taking the C-5 out again was a crapshoot at best, and even if they got it off the island undetected, they didn’t have any more secret facilities. Fischer would have access to satellite coverage. He’d have people watching. He couldn’t see everywhere at once, granted, but the word would be out about the C-5—no more buying off air traffic controllers. If the C-5 passed near an airport radar system, even a small airport, that might be it.
Five days at best, maybe six.
Finally, the Genada logo disappeared, replaced by his brother’s panicky face.
“Magnus, what the hell is going on? My computer guys told me our system called USAMRIID?”
“It was Jian,” Magnus said. “She hacked into the secure terminal, used your end to call Fischer.” He watched Danté’s face, the predictable wave of emotions—disbelief, anger, then anxiety.
“What … what did she tell him?”
“The usual chitchat. What she had for lunch, ancestor research, that kind of thing. The only piece of luck was she didn’t get a chance to give our location.”
“You broke the connection in time?”
“You could put it that way, sure.”
“You … you didn’t,” Danté said. “Magnus, please tell me you didn’t.”
Magnus said nothing.
“But she’s the whole project. You idiot! What the fuck are we going to do without her?”
Magnus was the boots on the ground, making real-time decisions, saving Genada’s ass, and Danté was calling him an idiot?
“So what now?” Danté screamed, shaking his fist at a camera hundreds of miles away. “That’s just a brilliant business decision on your part, you fucking psycho. What the hell do we do now?”
“We cut our losses,” Magnus said. “We cover our trail, move on to the next opportunity.”
“What do you mean, cut our losses?”
“Big brother, you’d better pull your head out of your ass and do it quick. Don’t you get it? Jian called Fischer. He wants Colding and Rhumkorrf. He thinks he’ll get them to roll over so he can nail us on other charges. But when we give Colding and Rhumkorrf to Fischer, we make sure they won’t talk. Ever. He set up the game this way, not us. He gets what he asked for, and the G8 know without a doubt that Genada is out of the transgenic game. That’s all the governments really want. Our lawyers unfreeze the accounts. Presto chango, we move on.”
Danté leaned in toward the camera until his face filled up the screen. “We can’t do that! Those are our people, and we’re so close! Once the ancestors are born, the public and press won’t let anyone get in our way. We’ve won, we just need a few more days!”
Magnus kept his face expressionless, but inside he felt a rare spurt of sadness. Poor Danté. Never able to make the decisions that had to be made.
Danté’s face lit up, like the answer to the world’s problems had just flashed in his head. It made him look like a special-ed kid who just caught a bug after hours of failed attempts. “Manitoba! Listen, let’s move the C-5 to Manitoba. I’ll have crews start building facilities that can hold something the size of a tiger.”
Magnus nodded. Sure. Why not? “Okay, brother. How do you want to do this?”
“Let’s think it out. There’s a major blizzard coming across Lake Superior tonight. The fringes of it are probably already hitting Black Manitou. Our weather report says that’s going to last the better part of two days, and there’s another storm right behind it. I assume you talked to Farm Girl?”
“Got an email from her,” Magnus said. “According to her, we have five days.”
“Perfect,” Danté said. “I’ll have to do some travel jumping to lose Fischer’s men first. I’ll be at Black Manitou in four days, as soon as the second storm fades a bit, with flight plan and strategy in hand. Okay?”
“How big are these storms?”
Danté reached for his keyboard. The picture changed to a weather map of Michigan. The land was brown, the water was blue, and the two-fisted storm was an angry green mass hung like a massive shroud over the northern shore of Lake Superior.
“Well well well,” Magnus said. “That is a big storm.”
The picture switched back to Danté’s face. “Almost hurricane-class winds. Nobody will fly in that, and any boat will be a death trap. Just give me four days, Magnus. I’ll be there on December fourth. We’ll find a way to get the C-5 out of there, in secret, and to Manitoba. We have to find a way.”
Magnus nodded. “Four days? I think I can handle that.”
“Wonderful,” Danté said. “You’ll see, little brother, we’ll pull through this, together.”
Magnus smiled, then disconnected. Family was such a funny thing. You can pick who you fuck, who you kill, but you can’t pick your own brother.
Fly to Genada headquarters? In a massive plane that Fischer was looking for? Danté had lost it.
Magnus called up the computer’s password program, locking out all access except for his own. When he finished, he left the security office and headed for the hangar.
NOVEMBER 30: COLDING SAYS GOOD-BYE
COLDING WIPED THE back of his hand across his forehead. It just smeared dirt on his skin more than it wiped away the sweat. How had it come to this? How?
He bent to scoop up a last shovelful of dirt, dumped it, and patted it down. For all of her genius, for an intellect that should have been celebrated all across the world and in the history books forever and ever, Liu Jian Dan ended up in a shallow, frozen, unmarked grave.
Now she would be nothing more than carbon.
It had to be a shallow grave. Hard as hell to dig through that dirt. He’d pickaxed and shoveled through about eighteen inches of frozen soil. Below that, the ground temperature must have been above freezing, because he saw no more ice crystals. His arms started to give out at four feet deep, so he’d stopped and placed her inside. She wasn’t going to be here for long. He’d make sure of that. Soon, snow would cover the broken dirt, and the grave would vanish. But he could find her again. He’d buried her in a small clearing near a single birch sapling that hadn’t quite reached ten feet tall.
He lifted the pickax, looked at it, wondered what it would be like to swing the point into Magnus Paglione’s head. Soon enough. He set it down and pulled on his parka. From the pocket, he pulled out a can of Dr Pepper.
“I’m sorry, Jian. I failed you.”
That was all the eulogy he could muster.
Colding gently set the can of Dr Pepper on the pile of loose dirt, shouldered the pickax and shovel, then started the walk back to the mansion.
NOVEMBER 30: A HOTSHOT LIKE YOU
SARA SAT IN the lounge, curled up on a leather chair with a blanket over her legs. She was halfway through the now beat-up printout of Hot Dusk. Without Colding to hang out with for the past few days, she’d spent her free time reading Gunther’s novel. Not really her thing, but it was fun to read a book by someone she knew. Clearly, though, written by a guy—ruby penises? Seriously?
She like
d the book, but her eyes merely grazed over the words, marking the brief intervals between long looks out the window toward the angry water and the ice-covered rocks. The hazy afternoon sun hid behind clouds that blended from gray to a road-mud black at the horizon.
Colding walked into the lounge. Her face lit up, but she saw no return smile. He looked dirty, rumpled and chilled to the bone. His pants were soaked around the legs and streaked with dark, crumbly dirt. He walked straight toward her and stood, looking down. She’d never seen such an expression on his face: a look of anger and concentration and fear all mashed up into one.
“What are you reading?”
He knew exactly what she was reading. He had given it to her. “Um … Gunther’s book.”
“Yeah? Is it good?” He held out his hand. So odd. She handed him the manuscript. He took the pages, then they slipped out of his hands. He bent to pick them up, pushing the loose pages together again.
“Sorry,” he said. He handed her the manuscript. “Actually, I’ll have to check it out another time. I have some more work to do. Later.”
He turned and walked away without another word. She set the book in her lap, and her finger brushed a small piece of paper barely sticking out of the top of the stack. A piece of paper that hadn’t been there a second ago.
Sara casually flipped to that page and read the small note he’d slipped into the manuscript.
MAGNUS KILLED JIAN. I JUST BURIED HER. I THINK HE ALSO KILLED ERIKA. WE’RE IN A LOT OF TROUBLE. ACT NORMAL. WE MAY HAVE TO MAKE A MOVE VERY SOON. BE READY TO DO WHAT I TELL YOU WITHOUT HESITATION. YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. EAT THIS NOTE SO MAGNUS DOESN’T FIND IT.
Her eyes seemed to fall out of focus. She blinked, then read it again.
Jian … dead?
And Erika Hoel, murdered?
Peej wouldn’t joke about something like this. Not about murder. Holy shit.
As casually as she could, Sara crumpled the note. It was hard not to look up at the cameras, one mounted in each corner of the room. She brought her hand to her mouth and coughed. Mouth filled with the taste of paper, she coughed a few more times, the hand in front of her mouth hiding her furious chewing. She swallowed.
Sara felt a sudden urge to gather up her crew. Run a full check on the C-5 and make sure everything was shipshape. If she had to move quickly, she didn’t want any unexpected trouble from the plane. She put the book down and calmly started toward Alonzo’s room.
SARA, ALONZO, CAPPY and Miller trudged through the snow, walking the half mile from the mansion to the hangar. The heavy black clouds had closed the distance, pushing the gray aside like a broom slowly sweeping dust. The first flakes of snow swirled around in crazy spirals. More would be coming, and soon.
“You gonna tell us what’s up?” Alonzo said, his shoulders in their usual cold-weather position high up at his ears. “Do you really expect us to believe you want a surprise inspection?”
“Quit your bitching, ’Zo,” Sara said. “Just get it done.”
“You’re full of shit, boss,” Miller said.
“Yeah,” Cappy said. “Full of shit.”
She stopped. So did they. The snow swirled around them. She looked each of them in the eye. Her friends. Her family. “Do you guys trust me?”
All three nodded.
“Then do the inspection, and don’t ask any more questions.” She turned and walked toward the hangar. Her friends followed. The less the boys knew, the less chance of someone slipping up, tipping their hand to Magnus. If he had killed Jian, he wouldn’t think twice about whacking the C-5 crew.
They entered the plane, leaving the growing wind to howl outside. Once inside, Sara stopped to give everyone instructions.
“Miller, Cappy, do a status check on the flight harnesses for each cow.”
The Twins exchanged a glance.
“Just in case, right?” Miller said.
“Yeah,” Cappy said. “In case we had to hypothetically fly in bad weather?”
Sara nodded. The Twins nodded back, then quickly and quietly went about their duties. Sara walked down the aisle between the cows, Alonzo at her side.
“Know what?” he said. “I have this crazy urge to do the preflight checklist.”
“I’d start in the lab,” Sara said. “You know, make sure all the equipment is locked down. Just in case.”
“Just in case, right. Because far be it from me to tell you that storm coming in is going to be a high-toned son of a bitch.”
“No way we’d fly out in that,” Sara said. “But after the storm passes … anyway, doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
“Say no more, mon capitaine.” Alonzo walked to Tim’s lab area and got started.
Sara moved through the barn toward the fore ladder, walking past the cows, suddenly very annoyed with the ever-present smell of cattle and the stink of cow shit. Alonzo was right. That storm was a high-toned son of a bitch, and by the time they prepped the C-5 for flight it would be right on top of them. They couldn’t safely bust out until tomorrow, when the weather broke. That gave her one night to talk Colding into leaving.
She climbed the front ladder, reached the top and walked into the cockpit—
—to find Magnus Paglione sitting in the comm chair. He smiled at her. The cockpit lights played off his freshly shaved head. Sara’s heart beat double time. Adrenaline shivered through her body.
“Sara, are you okay? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“You scared the piss out of me, Mister Paglione. What the hell are you doing in here?”
Magnus shrugged. “Just checking out the plane, making sure everything was in good shape. You don’t mind if your boss checks up on you, do you, Sara?”
She forced a smile. “Of course not.”
“Is it still getting nasty outside?”
Sara felt sweat trickling down her armpits. Maybe he’d decided she knew too much. Maybe he was here to kill her, too. “Yes sir, still nasty. Wind is already picking up. That storm will be on top of us real fast.”
“I’ll bet it would be difficult to fly this big bird in weather like that.”
Sara nodded, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, grateful to have an actual subject to discuss. “Oh hell yes. Taking the C-5 up now would be downright stupid.”
“But you could do it,” Magnus said. He stood up and walked closer, breaking the three-foot cushion. The killer stared down at her. This close to him, all alone, she felt like a child, home from school after another disciplinary incident, waiting for her father to make her go fetch the belt.
No, not a child … she felt like an insect.
Magnus reached up slowly and brushed a flake of snow off her shoulder. “I bet a hotshot like you could fly this beast into that storm.”
Her voice came out small and thin. “I … yeah … we could do it. You know, in an emergency, I suppose.”
Magnus smiled. “Well, consider this an emergency. Danté has intel that Colonel Fischer could be here as early as tomorrow morning. You’re bugging out tonight.”
Sara stared up at him, fear vanishing in the face of swelling anger. “You can’t be serious, Magnus. I wasn’t yanking your chain about that storm.”
“I’m serious, too,” Magnus said. He leaned down. Sara couldn’t help but flinch a little as his scarred face, with its odd violet eyes, stopped only inches from hers. She smelled Yukon Jack on his breath.
“I want you flying off this island by twenty-thirty hours,” he said. “Not a second later, you got that?”
His voice was no longer the smooth, calm monotone she’d heard all this time. Now it crackled with authority, a voice that had undoubtedly ordered men to attack, to shoot, to kill.
“Yes sir.” The words came out of her mouth of their own volition.
Magnus stepped back, then nodded once with the flair of a Prussian officer snapping his boot heels together. He slipped past her and out of the cockpit.
Sara shivered. Maybe the storm wouldn’t be as bad as she thought. And e
ven if it were, it had to be better than being stuck here with Magnus Paglione.
NOVEMBER 30: 7:34 P.M.
“YOU TWO FUCKTARDS must be on crack to send us up in this weather.”
Sara. Such a way with words. And yet Colding did, indeed, feel like a Grade-A Fucktard, because sending her up in said weather was the only way he could think of to get her to safety. Like that made any sense—get her to safety by putting her in severe danger.
Magnus drove Clayton’s Bv206. Colding sat in the passenger seat, Sara in the back. That’s how bad and how fast the storm had hit—they needed the Nuge to drive down the half-mile road from the mansion to the hangar. Colding had seen many winter storms, but never one from the vantage point of an island in the middle of Lake Superior. Wind seemed to shake the very ground, the clenched fist of a roaring elemental god. The snow didn’t fall, really—it permeated. Thick sheets blew in all directions, including up. And this was just the front end of a killing blizzard that had already cut visibility to a mere twenty yards.
Sara leaned forward over the front bench seat. “Let me make this clear. See this snow blowing fuckall over the place? In the air force we’d ground all flights.”
“You’re not in the air force,” Magnus said. “I got your point the third and fourth times you said it. The tenth is just overkill.” Magnus wore a big black parka, the hood pulled so far forward it hid his face. Colding couldn’t help but think he looked like a modernized version of the Grim Reaper—Death drives a Bv206.
Hazy lights grew visible as the Hummer crept forward. Visibility was so bad they were fifty yards away before Colding could make out the monstrous plane’s tail, and even then the front of the plane remained hidden by the storm. In the whipping haze, the black plane’s dimensions looked even larger, almost otherworldly.
Magnus stopped the Bv206 a few yards from the C-5. The wind’s demonic shriek even drowned out the idling jet engines. Colding, Magnus and Sara hurried out and scrambled up the rear ramp, fighting the wind all the way.