The Midnight Watch

by James Rollins

  Jason regained his legs, searching behind them.

  One down. . .

  The two other bikes hit the berm, flew high, landed expertly on their back wheels—­and sped after them.

  A new barrage of gunfire chased them, coming from both motorcycles.

  Jason felt a round whistle past his ear. Two others pelted the top edge of the windshield. Kowalski pushed Sara lower, almost cramming her into the foot well. Jason followed his example and dropped flat to the bench seat.

  The sudden change in tactics by the enemy suggested that circumstances had changed, that new orders had been radioed from their superiors.

  Shoot to kill.

  KOWALSKI KEPT ONE eye on the shadowy terrain ahead of him and another on the rearview mirror. The two angry black hornets gained on his position. The riders had momentarily stopped firing, hunkering down instead, forgoing the attack to race faster.

  He understood their plan.

  They intended to flank him, to trap the Jeep in cross fire.

  Like hell . . . you’re on my home turf now.

  Though admittedly that turf was long gone. Over the past month, he’d often climbed up to the roof of the Castle and watched the heavy equipment scrape away the old lawn, haul in truckloads of new topsoil, and excavate irrigation trenches and deep pits for future cisterns. He had found the rumble of John Deere motors and the chatter of work crews to be soothing. It was his white noise, his version of the patter of rain or the sonorous calls of whales.

  “Where are you going?” Jason called to him, a note of panic in his voice.

  Ahead, a mountain of dirt blocked their path, climbing two stories.

  “Up,” he answered.

  He had no doubt the Jeep could tackle this summit, but he needed all the torque he could muster from the Chevy engine. He momentarily slowed, dropping a gear. The two motorcycles narrowed the gap, each swinging wider, preparing to flank him. From the blistering screams of those bikes, he imagined they were stretching their two-­stroke engines to their limits.

  But was it enough for the steep banks of loose dirt?

  Let’s find out.

  As he reached the foot of the mountain, he pounded the accelerator, while popping into first. The Jeep’s wheels momentarily spun—­then the treads caught, and the vehicle bolted forward like a spanked horse. It shot up the steep slope, accelerating swiftly, proving how true a thoroughbred the vehicle was deep down.

  Dr. Gutierrez gasped, falling back in her seat; Jason swore behind him.

  The enemy gave chase, riding up the bank of topsoil. Both riders were plainly skilled, shimmying their rear tires to keep from miring down in the dirt. They soon drew even with Kowalski’s rear bumper, their reflections filling either side mirror. The bikers freed pistols from thigh holsters, readying to open fire on the Jeep.

  “Kowalski!” Jason moaned.

  The crest of the mountain was only yards away. Still, they’d never reach the top before being overtaken.

  Just as well.

  Kowalski slammed the brakes hard, drawing the Jeep to a swift stop.

  The maneuver was too sudden for the enemy to respond. Both bikes blasted past the Jeep’s stalled position, then reached the summit and shot high. Kowalski tried to imagine the view from those bikes.

  He grinned darkly and edged the Jeep up to the top. From that lofty vantage, he watched the two cycles arc high—­then tumble headlong toward a massive pit on the mountain’s far side. The hill had been formed as the construction crew had dug out a deep cistern, one that was destined to hold over two hundred thousand gallons of water.

  Plus two motorcycles now.

  The pair of bikes crashed hard into the muck at the bottom of the pit.

  Jason patted Kowalski on the shoulder as he reversed the Jeep down the embankment. “I owe you.”

  “A dozen hand-­rolled Cubans and we’ll call it even.” Kowalski turned to Dr. Gutierrez, who looked pale and near shock. “So why are you so important?”

  JASON LET SARA breathe heavily for a ­couple of minutes before pursuing Kowalski’s line of questioning. Once the Jeep cleared out of the restoration site and got back onto Madison Drive, he leaned forward in the backseat. Behind him, he watched the flashing lights of emergency vehicles closing in on the Mall.

  It was time to get clear of here—­and get some answers.

  “Sara, can you tell us what you were working on for the Smithsonian? Why you were at the museum?”

  She turned toward him. Her eyes were still huge, but her breathing had calmed. “I’m here on a fellowship, working with the Smithsonian’s Ancient DNA program.”

  Jason had gleaned that much from her staff file. “What sort of work are you doing for them?”

  She gave a confused shake of her head. “The goal of our program is to study genetic variability and changes over time in various species. To help achieve that, my colleagues and I extract and analyze DNA from ancient sources.”

  “Ancient sources?”

  “From mineralized bones, archaeological artifacts, or in the case tonight . . .” She retrieved her leather satchel from the foot well and placed it protectively in her lap. “From museum specimens.”

  Kowalski grimaced at the bag. “What sort of specimens?”

  “Each of us is assigned a different taxonomic family of species. In my case, I work with all Hominidae. That covers all the great apes. Orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos.”

  “But also one other,” Jason added. “Hominidae also includes the genus Homo, which includes us humans.”

  She nodded, glancing more intently at him for knowing this. “That’s right. I’ve collected and documented genomic samples from most known hominin species, from the most ancient to modern man.” She ticked them off. “Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Homo neanderthalensis, and several other obscure ancestors of ours. It’s why I was at the museum tonight. To collect DNA samples from a newly acquired set of fossils.”

  “And you’ve been storing these results on your lab computer?”

  “That’s right.”

  Jason leaned back, struggling to understand what the Chinese might want with such esoteric scientific data. It made no sense. But for the moment that could wait. He remembered the mission assigned to him: secure not only Dr. Gutierrez but also her computer. Beyond safeguarding the files that had not been stolen in the initial cyber attack, he was still hoping there might be some digital evidence left on her computer that might point to the perpetrator.

  “Sara, I need to access your computer . . . tonight . . . before anyone corrupts what’s there. After we drop you off somewhere safe—­”

  She swung toward him. “I’ll need to go with you.”

  “Why?”

  “My computer is doubly secured, both with an alphanumeric password and an EyeLock myris system.”

  “What’s that?” Kowalski asked.

  Jason groaned, knowing the answer. It was a commercially available iris scanner used for identity authentication. “Looks like we’re all sticking together a while longer.”

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Kowalski drove the Jeep down a small, winding road through Rock Creek Park. The darkly forested route led toward the rear of the National Zoo property, where a private gate offered easy access to the campus of the Rock Creek Research Labs.

  “The gate should be around the next bend,” Sara said as she shivered against the gale of cold wind sweeping across the open-­air vehicle.

  Kowalski had cranked the heater up as high as it would go, but it was like holding your hands around a candle in a blizzard. He found his own teeth beginning to chatter.

  “My office is only a short distance past the fence,” she promised them.

  Jason leaned closer to Kowalski. “The director has the campus locked down by the Zoological Park Police. They should be waiting for us at t
he gate.”

  Sara lifted a white staff card. “If not, I have my pass.”

  As the Jeep rounded the bend, the perimeter fence appeared. A small ser­vice gate stood open, lit by a single lamppost. Kowalski spotted no guards or the promised police escort.

  He shared a worried look with Jason.

  “Maybe the staff left it open for us,” the kid offered. “Or maybe they’re waiting for us at Sara’s office.”

  And maybe pigs fly out my ass.

  As he approached the gate, Kowalski goosed the Jeep faster, just in case anyone tried to ambush them at the fencerow. None of his passengers asked him to slow down.

  He sped through the gate and onto the zoo grounds. A cluster of office buildings hugged both sides of the road ahead, looking like any business complex. Beyond them, past another fence, the main park beckoned.

  “My office is in the second building on the left.”

  It appeared to be the only one lit up this night. A lone figure stood limned against that glow.

  “That’s Jill Masterson,” Sara said, sighing out her relief, plainly happy to see a familiar face. “She’s a lieutenant with the park police.”

  Kowalski drew alongside the officer, still searching for any threat. As he kept the engine idling, he could make out the nighttime cries and calls of the neighboring park’s denizens. The breeze carried the scent of cherry blossoms, along with an underlying heavier musk blowing from the grounds.

  The lieutenant approached. She appeared to be in her midthirties. She was fit, dressed in a crisp park uniform with her auburn hair tucked into a cap. From the scowl fixed to her face, she was not happy about this midnight assignment.

  She introduced herself, then added, “I’m not sure why my boss roused park ser­vices to open the gate and secure this building. Everything’s been quiet.” She offered a brief smile toward Sara. “But it sounds like you’ve had a rough night, Dr. Gutierrez.”

  “And I’ll be happy when it’s over.”

  They all unloaded and headed toward the office building.

  “I thought there would be more boots on the ground here,” Jason commented.

  Masterson cocked an eyebrow at him. “At this hour? We’re not DC Metro. With budget cuts, we barely have enough staff during the day. Still, I managed to corral three officers to canvass the building and make sure everything is secure. I still have a man inside.”

  “What about the other two?” Kowalski asked.

  “Once we had matters in hand, I sent them back into the park. We got a glass-­breakage alarm at the front gate’s kiosk a few minutes ago. They went to check—­” From their expressions, she must have known something was wrong. “What?”

  “It’s like back at the museum,” Sara moaned.

  Jason forced them to move faster. “Everyone inside. We need to secure that computer and set up a defense. Radio your man, Lieutenant.”

  She obeyed, confirming that all remained quiet inside.

  Still, Kowalski pulled out his Desert Eagle, which earned a double take from Masterson. Jason took out his cell phone and called Painter, filling him in on the fly. As they entered the front door of the building, Sara guided them in a rush toward her lab offices at the back.

  “Help’s coming,” Jason said as he hung up.

  Let’s hope they get here in time.

  As they crossed the lobby, a loud roar echoed to them.

  Kowalski froze, but Sara smiled nervously back at him. “That’s Anton, a Siberian tiger caged in the neighboring Reproductive Sciences Department. They’ve been collecting semen from him this week as part of an endangered tiger breeding program.”

  Lucky him.

  She glanced down a side hall. “Anton’s generally a pussycat, but he’s notoriously cranky when woken up early.”

  Me, too.

  They hurried to the back of the building and found Masterson’s other man waiting inside Sara’s office. He introduced himself as John Kress and joined his boss in guarding the hall as Jason followed Sara into the depths of her lab. The small space was cramped with stainless steel equipment, shelves of glassware and pipettes, tall freezers, and a workbench holding a trio of computers.

  “Mine’s in the center,” Sara said.

  Jason pulled out a portable thumb drive. “If you can get me access, I need to copy the root directory to capture any malicious executable code and get a record of the night’s TCP/IP connections. After that, I’ll try to—­”

  Sara cut him off. “Do anything you have to.”

  She woke up her computer, typed in the long string of a password, and lifted a wired blue puck toward her face. A small light flashed across her left eye, then the blank login screen cleared, revealing her desktop.

  She stepped back. “All yours.”

  Jason took her place and slipped his drive into a USB port on the side of her keyboard. He began typing rapidly with one hand, while manipulating her wireless mouse with the other.

  “Interesting,” Jason mumbled.

  Sara drew closer. “What?”

  “The hackers seemed to have targeted any of your files tagged as N­­_sis.” He glanced back to her. “What does that stand for?”

  “It’s just my shorthand for Neanderthalensis,” she answered. “Those are my files comparing Neanderthal sequences with those of modern man, highlighting those genes we obtained from our long-­lost ancestor. Most of us carry a small percentage of Neanderthal genes, some of us more than others.”

  Kowalski waited for someone to glance in his direction at this last statement, but thankfully no one did.

  Jason suddenly swore, lifting his hands from the keyboard. Files flashed on the screen, opening and closing on their own, as if there was a ghost in the machine. But it wasn’t any ghost.

  “We’re being hacked,” Jason realized. “Right now.”

  JASON KICKED HIMSELF for being so stupid, so shortsighted. He considered yanking the power cord to the computer, but he knew it was already too late. In just that fraction of inattention, they’d stolen everything.

  “What’s happening?” Sara asked, watching as he furiously typed.

  “As soon as you logged on, the first thing I did was cut your computer off from the Internet, from the world at large, but someone attacked your server through your LAN. Your local area network.”

  “And that means what?” Kowalski asked.

  “The hacker must still be in the area, close enough to have connected to the system locally. Probably in the same building. They must’ve waited to ambush the system but first needed Sara to unlock it.”

  No wonder the enemy tried to avoid killing her at the outset. They wanted her to return here and access her computer.

  “Even the false alarm must have been used to lure Masterson’s forces away,” Jason realized aloud, “long enough so that they could get an operative close enough to orchestrate the attack.”

  “But where are they?” Kowalski asked.

  Jason continued to type. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out, but whoever did this mirrored their trace across eight different computers.”

  Sara clutched her arms across her chest. “That’s the number of computers networked in this building,” she said, confirming his fear.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kowalski said, swinging toward the door. “I know where they’re at.”

  Jason looked over a shoulder at him. “How?”

  KOWALSKI COLLECTED LIEUTENANT Masterson and the other officer on his way out the door and down the hall. “One of you, head outside and canvass the perimeter. The other, stay in the lobby and cover the front door.”

  Just in case I’m wrong.

  He had a narrow window to catch the culprits red-­handed and retrieve what was stolen. He left Masterson in the lobby as the other officer ran for the front door. He headed to the left, to the hall he ha
d noted Sara glancing down earlier—­when the tiger had roared.

  He remembered her earlier words: Anton’s generally a pussycat, but he’s notoriously cranky when woken up early.

  He hoped she was right on both counts.

  He had initially written off the tiger’s outburst as a complaint against their arrival, but what if whoever had bothered the tiger was closer at hand, invading the animal’s private space? Maybe that was what had made him cranky.

  It was a thin lead, but better than nothing.

  He reached a set of double doors with a sign that read DEPARTMENT OF REPRODUCTIVE SCIENCES. He hoped Jason was as good as he claimed to be. The kid had said he could hack into the building’s security system and unarm all the building’s electronic locks, opening a path for Kowalski.

  He tested the knob, and it turned freely.

  Good job, kid.

  Leading with his Desert Eagle, he cracked the door enough to slip inside, then closed it behind him. The hallway ahead was dark, flanked by small offices. The main reproductive lab was directly ahead of him at the end of the hall.

  That’s where Sara said the department’s main server was located. He hoped it was the correct networked computer. He had one in eight odds of being right.

  He edged down the hall, sticking to one wall.

  His ears strained for any sign of an intruder—­then he heard glass break, followed by a shout from outside. A loud gunshot exploded from inside the lab ahead.

  Kowalski rushed forward, hit the swinging set of doors, and slid low into the room. Skidding on his knees, he took in the view while bracing his Desert Eagle. The reproductive lab looked more like an operating room, with a pair of stainless steel hydraulic tables, overhead swing-­arm lights, and banks of glass cabinets.

  Between the tables, a computer rested on a large desk.

  At the station, a small, wiry figure was detaching a palm-­sized drive from the back of the monitor, while on Kowalski’s left, a man who matched him in size and muscle stood bathed in the moonlight flowing through a shattered window. The guy held a smoking pistol in hand—­likely used to fire at the officer outside. The weapon whipped toward Kowalski and fired.