And would that be such a bad thing?
They would let Eli go—she would make certain of it. No one would die in the jungle.
And she’d have an excuse to study the contents of the library. The decision would be made for her—she’d done everything possible, everything she could do to not have to agree, to not take the temptation offered her.
Was it worth the risk of dying, of Eli dying somewhere in the wilds of the Amazon?
Maybe it was her calling. Maybe it was her legacy. The very thought of poring over numerous scrolls, scripts, papyruses, and books made her lightheaded and her fingers tingle. What secrets would she find? What secrets had Lev already found? What information could she discern, and bring to the world, and use to answer questions, to share knowledge and history?
A sudden rush of energy flushed through her, overwhelming her with the hot, prickling sensation. It was similar to how she’d felt huddled in the embrace of the banyan tree, curled up in Gaia’s palm, close to the source of life.
It was as if Gaia agreed.
As if Gaia wanted her here.
The flood of emotion made her nauseated and lightheaded, and she reached out to touch the body of the plane to steady herself.
“I have an idea.” Suddenly Eli was there in front of her, and his words jolted Marina from her reverie. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, sorry. I was just—”
“Contemplating going back? Giving in? Setting aside your moral convictions in order to save my life?” His grin was wry, his eyes held her steadily. “I don’t know where you stand on the moral scale, but in my mind, there’s nothing worth more than a life. Not a treasure, not a book, not even a sexy, rare, electrically charged coleop.” He was holding a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup and a bottle of water. “If you go back to the Skaladeskas, you might save our lives, but you’d be joining a clan responsible for taking those of others.”
Marina nodded. “I know. And—understand this, Eli—I wouldn’t join them. Even if I went back, it would be only temporary. Until I could find a way to escape.” Surely Varden would help her.
“So we’re back to ‘Eli,’ are we? That’s good.” His gaze flashed warm. “I’m looking forward to getting out of here and somewhere with a good glass of red, a big, fat steak, and—most important of all—a comfortable bed. So let’s make it happen.”
“You have an idea?” she said, mortified at the heat that flushed her cheeks at his plain speaking. And that she was just as eager for that outcome as he was—and not just for the steak.
“It’s crazy. But I think it could work.” He set the can of soup and the bottle of water on the plane wing and began to dig in one of his bulky side pockets. “We’ve got a source of electrical charge right here.”
When he pulled out a dark plastic bottle, at first Marina was confused. Then she gave a short laugh. “You want to use the beetles?”
Eli grinned. “Why not? We know they have an electrical charge—that’s why they were sizzling and popping in the air during the thunderstorm. Obviously each one doesn’t have much of a charge on its own, but if we were to harness the power from, say, ten or more of them…”
She was shaking her head and laughing, yet amazed. “Well, hell, if a cluster of them took down the power plant in St. Louis, why not? But what’s up with the Campbell’s?”
“You ever watch MacGyver?” he said, using the pull-top ring to open the soup can. He held up the lid. “This is going to be our plunger. And the collector of the charge. And this,” he said, twisting off the cap of the water bottle, “is going to be our bug container.”
“You’re going to sacrifice a bunch of your little darlings?” Marina said as he drained the bottle of water in several big gulps.
“Survival of the fittest,” Eli said, swiping his mouth. “Besides. I have more.” He patted another pocket, also weighted down and bulky.
Marina helped him rig up the MacGyver-like battery. They used the knife to cut the bottom off the water bottle. The soup can top barely fit inside at an angle, but Eli nodded with satisfaction. “The idea is to push all the beetles together so the charge is collected in one small area and is strong enough to do what we need.”
Then he ran the red wire from the ignition through the pull-top ring of the soup can and twisted it tightly around it. “If this works—and why wouldn’t it?—the charge will be collected by the metal circle and travel along the wire to the ignition. And boom—it jumps it and we’re in business.”
“Don’t we need something to ground it?” Marina asked.
“Yep. That’s why I’m cutting off this other end of the bottle—so we can set it right on something metal…let’s see. Right here’s good.” He gestured to a piece of the plane’s metal frame. “Probably should scrape some of that paint off, though, just to make sure…”
Marina did that while he worked on the only other problem: how to transfer the beetles from his opaque carrying bottle into the clear plastic water bottle without them swarming into a frenzy. Though the light was dim, it would be enough to set them off. But then she saw him wrapping the plastic bottle in a rag and knew he had it all figured out.
“I’ll dump them into the plastic bottle, then fit the soup can top in place again. Then when we’re ready, I’ll pull away the rag and shine your squeeze light on them,” Eli said. “Get ’em all worked up.”
“And I’ll be pushing the ignition switch. Ready to go.” Marina nodded. This could actually work.
This could work.
A soft metal clang startled her, and both Marina and Eli spun to look. The small rear doorway was shivering—as if someone had just passed hastily through it.
Yes. One of the guards was gone. The other remained slumped in the corner—but that didn’t matter. One was gone. They would be discovered.
“Now. This has to work now,” snapped Eli. “They’ll be here in minutes. Let’s go.”
Marina had already given him her light, and she scrambled into the cockpit. “Ready when you are.”
Shouts reached their ears. “So soon? They must have sent off a signal of some sort!” Eli’s voice was tense. “Push it.”
She pushed the ignition switch and watched as he whipped the rag from the plastic bottle and used the cut-off part of it to push the metal disk down into the bottle. The squeeze light flashed and Marina heard a pop and the engine rolled over.
And caught.
“Hurry!” she cried, then bolted from her seat to grab Eli’s arm and drag him up and into the plane.
He tumbled face-first into the seat next to hers, but she couldn’t wait to help him. The shouts were there, the roar of the engine drowning out everything, and she crossed her fingers.
Fly, baby, fly!
When the wheels began to turn, and the aircraft began to move, Marina blocked out everything else: the shouts, the hangar door—which wasn’t open!
Eli flung himself from the plane before she could speak, and fell when he landed on his bad ankle. Marina gasped, but he pulled himself up and dashed unsteadily to the door. As he rolled it open, barely wide enough for the plane to clear, she saw dark figures running across the airstrip toward them.
Marina shot the plane forward, forcing it to pick up speed. She left the controls and lunged from her seat to reach over and down. Eli was there…right there, but the figures were coming closer. Then the sound of gunshots—gunshots!
“Here!” she cried as the plane careened wildly through the doorway. He flung himself toward the aircraft and she caught him by the arm, gave a good, hard yank, and then tumbled back into her seat.
Something pinged into the side of the plane, another ping on the glass shield in front, and Eli jolted and muffled a cry as Marina pulled on the wheel and the plane’s nose lifted.
One hand on the wheel, another grappling him into the seat next to her with the door still open, surrounded by shots and shouts, and the jungle looming just in front of her—too close, too tall, the air was too humid for them to ge
t high enough…
Marina closed her eyes, pulled back steadily on the wheel, accelerated…and prayed.
* * *
October 1, 9 a.m.
Detroit, Michigan
Helen Darrow was just climbing into her rental car—the administrative work fast-tracked because she was a Fed, thank goodness—when her phone rang. She recognized the number as the Tech department back in Chicago, and shoved the key into the vehicle ignition, then answered the call.
“Agent Darrow, I’ve got something that might be relevant.” It was Tom’s young, eager voice. She smiled because he still called her Agent Darrow, which bespoke of his newly minted condition and awe for the Bureau itself.
“Good, because I’m still not sure what the hell I’m doing here in the Motor City.” But she and Gabe had decided it was a good idea to have her on the ground in Detroit while he went to Vegas, since they seemed to be the only two locations that pinged either of their so-called radar. Nevertheless, her plans were wishy-washy—something that made Helen very uncomfortable.
Since Rue Varden’s tracker had stopped moving yesterday in Ann Arbor, her first plan was to go there and check out the last location he (or it) had been—in a building on campus at the University of Michigan. After that…she wasn’t certain.
“We were able to get a little more from that recorded conversation in the room before Dr. Alexander and Dr. Sanchez were abducted,” Tom said. “And they mentioned New York.”
“They? Who? Could you tell who was speaking?” She sat in the car, her fingers still grasping the ignition key…but she hadn’t turned it yet.
“It wasn’t Dr. Alexander. It was one of the others in the room. It was part of the same conversation about the first. The actual transcript reads: ‘Traveling to New York as planned.’ Then something still indiscernible. And then, ‘the first as scheduled. No changes. I’ll report to…’ And then indiscernible.”
New York.
“New York City? Or just upstate New York?” she mused aloud. Now what? Everything seemed to indicate east rather than west, but Gabe should be landing in Vegas in a couple hours. “Thank you, Tom. This is very helpful. If you get anything else, please let me know immediately. I’m on the ground now and available by cell.”
“I will, Agent Darrow. Thank you,” he said just as she disconnected the call.
New York. She looked down at her phone, then, sighing, dragged out the iPad from her briefcase. Better call someone in NYC to give them a heads-up. Not that she knew what to warn them about…
Her voice mail dinged and she saw that a call had come in and gone to voice mail—likely while she was on the plane. But by the time she’d finished listening to the message, Helen was pulling out of the rental car parking lot, heading to Ann Arbor.
The message had been from local law enforcement in Michigan who’d checked on the location of Rue Varden’s tracker at the request of the Feds. “He was in a biochem lab, mixing up something to do with an antibiotic. I’ve got a witness who saw him. She’s here and happy to talk to you.”
An antibiotic. Curious.
According to the GPS, Ann Arbor was thirty minutes away. Helen intended to make it in twenty. Her fingers were tingling like crazy—which told her she was onto something important.
But she was just pulling into a parking structure after driving around for ten minutes looking for an empty spot when her phone rang again.
The area code was 212. New York.
She slammed on the brakes in the middle of the structure (good thing no one was behind her) and fumbled the phone to her ear. “Agent Darrow,” she said, inching the car along once more.
“Agent Helen Darrow? This is Dr. Westfall, hospital administrator at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York,” said a businesslike female voice. “We’ve had a patient here whose symptoms pinged a notification you filed with the CDC, and your name came up as an urgent law enforcement contact. Her name is Melissa Addington, aged twenty-eight, and she expired two hours ago from sudden cardiac arrest.”
“Did she present with a severe rash?” Helen was asking before the woman even stopped speaking. “If so, it’s extremely contagious—”
“Yes, we saw the notice and have taken the necessary precautions. Local law enforcement is on their way here as we speak.”
“Put them in touch with me when they arrive. I’ll be in New York as soon as I can get there.” Helen looked around at the rows of parking places filled with cars. “Screw it.” She could interview the research assistant by phone, for clearly Rue Varden was no longer here in Ann Arbor.
Time to head to New York. Her fingers were really tingling now.
* * *
Las Vegas
October 1
10:00 a.m., PST
Gabe fished the cell phone out of his suit pocket as the plane taxied to the terminal. He powered it on and waited for any texts, voice mails, and emails to settle in and download.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
The soft alerts went on for more than a minute; not a big surprise, for he’d been on the plane for almost three hours. Normally he would have paid for Wi-Fi while in the air (business expense), but as his luck with electronics had continued to be shitty, there was something wrong with the service on this flight, so he’d been off-grid for far too long.
He tensed when he saw that several of the alerts were from Helen Darrow, and one from Colin Bergstrom. Another from Inez.
Damn.
That probably wasn’t good.
He paged through the texts as the plane edged up to the terminal bridge and stopped.
It’s NYC.
Helen’s text was terse and to the point.
Not Vegas.
Gabe swore, looked at the time stamp, and swore again. He glanced up when the elderly woman next to him huffed, but even her shocked blue eyes didn’t make him feel guilty.
He was already on the phone to Helen by the time it was his turn to deplane.
“Where are you?” he demanded as soon as she answered.
“Getting off the plane in New York,” she said, her voice jerky with motion. “From Detroit.”
“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” he said, furious with himself, with the whole situation. “What else? How do you know it’s there?”
“I sent you an email. Details there. We got more info from the recording on Marina’s phone.”
He could tell she was getting ready to hang up. “Wait!” He was rushing through the terminal now, threading between the other deplaning passengers, heading for a ticket desk—any ticket desk. Four hours to NYC at least. That’ll put me there after six o’clock. Damn.
“What?” Helen barked through the phone. “The deets are in your email. Short version: the bugs have killed someone in New York. Gotta go—”
“Helen,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was wrong about Vegas! I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s all right. We did the best we could—I have to go; getting a call from my local contact.”
“Helen!” he said loudly, his fingers tightening on the phone.
“What? Gabe, I have to take—”
“Please, Helen—please be careful.”
“I will.” The phone went dead, and Gabe took off at a run.
He was getting to New York by six if he had to fly there himself.
FORTY
5 p.m., EST
New York
The apartment of Missy Addington
“Agent Darrow, take a look at this.”
“Excuse me for a moment, Miss Crutcheon,” Helen said to Delia Crutcheon, Missy Addington’s roommate, whom she’d been interviewing. The young woman wore the stunned look of someone who’d just had the shocking news of a friend’s death.
She walked over to the cluttered desk where NYPD Officer Valliencourt had been combing through folders and papers and three inboxes. The papers the officer gave Helen were a stack of purchase orders, contracts, and menus for La Beau-Joux Catering. A glance showed Missy Addington’s signature on all of th
em. She was the owner of the company, which Delia had already informed her. The caterer did medium and small jobs for school PTOs, baby showers, business meetings. Run-of-the-mill sorts of events; nothing that jumped out at her.
Yet her fingers were really prickling now. There has to be something here. She watched over her shoulder as the NYPD officer shuffled through more papers, and then something caught her eye.
An invoice for today’s date: October 1. Helen snatched it up, along with its attached menu and contract. Invoice to: The Alliance. Location: Pembel-Rose Building. Date: October 1. Time of event: 6 p.m. New York. Helen looked at the clock, her pulse shooting through the roof. It was after five.
She scanned the contract, and saw that it was a very different sort of event than Le Beau-Joux Catering usually handled. Larger, and from the looks of the menu—and the price per head!—Miss Addington’s company had hit the big time. She flipped to the last page to see who’d signed the contract. Susan Gottlieb. No company name.
Helen pulled out her trusty iPad and searched for The Alliance, Pembel-Rose Building, and today’s date. Nothing popped.
Nothing.
She frowned.
The date of the event was October 1. Missy Addington had died today, after being exposed to the beetles within the last forty-eight hours at the most. Something was going to happen today. It had to be related.
Still mulling, Helen searched Susan Gottlieb, and that produced pages of information. CEO of Macrohl Chemical. Adrenaline shot through her when she saw one of the headlines from the list of results—an article from Time magazine: Worst Environmental Defenders of the Year. Macrohl Chemical Corporation was listed as one of them.
Now Helen’s mind was racing and her fingers were alive with energy.
“Everyone! I think we’ve found something. Look around for anything else related to this event”—she showed them the papers, read the info—“in the trash, on her cell, laptop, anything you can find.”
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