“Ridiculous,” he mumbled.
“What?” Kendra asked.
“She’s ridiculously large.”
“She’s lovely,” Kendra replied, carefully depositing the drop of venom into a vial with solvent for analysis. Within fifteen minutes, the mass spectrometer software was able to distinguish the correct compound from other substances in the poison sac by comparing them to a library of all possible monounsaturated compounds related to known pheromones.
“We’ve got it,” she said, downloading the data.
Jeremy entered the room. “Can I help?”
“We’ve just isolated a pure version of the queen’s recognition pheromone,” she told him. “We could use another computer.”
“What can I do? Just tell me,” he said eagerly.
Paul handed him a flash drive. “You can send this over to Jack Carver at the USDA.”
“Good old Jack,” Jeremy chuckled. “He still around?”
“Yes,” Paul said. “And he’s waiting for these results with barrels of base solution, ready to synthesize it into a mix.”
“What about the alarm pheromone?”
“Working on it,” Kendra said over her shoulder. “We need to hit them quick before nightfall. It would help to know the locations of the entire colony.”
Jeremy shook his head. “Like I told you, these ants have been too genetically mangled for my computers to predict their direction.”
“Then we saturate the entire city.” Paul shrugged. “It would be helpful to know their locations, but it’s not imperative.”
Kendra bit her lip and eyed the general. “How about the army?”
“What about the army?” Dawson replied.
“Don’t you have special equipment that can see through buildings and underground?”
The general folded his arms in contemplation. “Our satellites can give you aerial views of the streets, but they can’t penetrate walls or the earth.”
“GPR,” Mayor Russo said with a brisk nod. He held up a finger. “The bunker is equipped with its own ground-penetrating-radar system. It can detect any object from twenty meters below the bunker, all the way up to the surface.”
Kendra shook her head with doubt. “We need something that can locate the ants across the entire island of Manhattan.”
“Still, it might give us an idea of how they travel and congregate,” Jeremy said. “How do I get into the bunker computer system?”
“I can give you access,” Russo told him.
“First get that formula to Jack,” Paul said.
“I’ll follow you,” the mayor said to Jeremy, and the two men headed for the computer room.
“You should get started on that second pheromone,” the general told Kendra. “The clock is running.”
She nodded hesitantly and stared down at the queen, wringing her hands. It would be incredibly difficult to identify the alarm pheromone from a single queen using gas chromatography. The principal method was the same as the one she used in the desert: shake the queen and capture pheromones released from the gland opening above her mandibles. Then run a computer analysis to isolate the pheromone. The problem was, there was only a single specimen. Kendra typically needed a dozen queens to come up with enough extract to isolate the pure pheromone.
As the queen came out of her cold slumber, Paul placed her carefully in a specimen jar. “You ready?”
Kendra nodded. He gently shook the jar, then a bit more vigorously.
“Careful,” Garrett said sternly.
Kendra prepared the syringe and pushed it through the top of the specimen jar. She held the tip of the needle directly above the queen’s mandibles. The jaws barely opened, which wasn’t a good sign. The queen had gotten used to all that bouncing around inside the bottle and wasn’t much alarmed. Still, Kendra drew the plunger, soaking up her scent, and removed the needle.
“It’s not going to be enough,” she muttered to Paul and he nodded.
“We have to at least try.”
The sample was analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, but it proved to be inconclusive. The trace amounts of pheromone did not register a signal above the background noise.
“The numbers aren’t there,” Kendra said under her breath.
“Follow your instincts,” Paul whispered back. “They’ve gotten you this far.”
Kendra squared her shoulders and turned to the general. “The gas analysis didn’t work. I need to dissect her glands.”
Her words hit a wall of silence. Dawson and Garrett eyed each other for a moment.
The colonel spoke, “Under no circumstances can you destroy that ant. It’s the property of the United States Army.”
Dawson seemed more compromising. “Is it absolutely essential?”
“Dissecting her mandibular glands is the only way to get enough of the pure pheromone that I need.”
“General, we have no way of knowing if this experiment will work,” Garrett protested. “It probably won’t, and then what? The colony could spread and this queen might be the only key to destroying them.”
Dawson gave a slight nod. He told Kendra, “Do whatever’s necessary.”
Garrett huffed and retreated to the back of the room.
As Paul prepared the queen for dissection, Kendra felt suddenly exhausted and her vision blurred. She chugged down some water and tried to stay focused.
The clock on the wall read 2:30.
The queen was frozen in a dry ice acetone bath and placed on a watch glass under the microscope, dorsal side up. The top of her head was punctured and the cuticle layer peeled away toward the front. The remaining part of the head shell was held back, and one of the mandibles was pulled out gently, transferred to a clean probe and placed in a vial.
This time the chromatographer came up with a pure form of the pheromone.
It was minutes before Jeremy returned for the information. Kendra washed up in the sink and handed him another flash drive.
“Get this to Jack,” she said.
Jeremy took off, with a small salute.
Garrett shook his head in doubt. “It will never work in the field.”
“It’s our only hope,” Russo said.
“Our best hope is still Operation Colony Torch. Unless you can prove this method will work, the president will not change our strategy,” said Garrett.
“You may be right,” the general replied.
“How on earth will we test it?” the mayor asked. He turned to the general. “We need more time. You’ll have to call off the operation until tomorrow.”
“He can’t do that,” Garrett answered for his superior. “These ants must be stopped before nightfall. We’ve been given a green light by the president and there’s no turning back.”
The general told Kendra, “Hold on to that queen. Don’t let her out of your sight.” He started for the door.
Paul said, “So I guess there’s nothing to do but wait.”
“Pack up your belongings,” the general said before heading out. “Get ready to evacuate. Pheromones or bombs, I want everyone on the roof by eighteen hundred hours.”
CHAPTER 38
COLONEL GARRETT WAS ALONE with Paul and Kendra as they placed the dissected queen in a specimen bottle. She might have been dead, but she was still precious cargo, a valuable commodity that Garrett eyed curiously, biting his lower lip.
“So you managed to find a queen,” he said. “They aren’t easy to spot, lost in a sea of twenty-two million.”
“It wasn’t that hard,” Kendra replied sternly. “This queen was isolated, all alone on a leaf while the rest of her army was trying to kill us.”
“Don’t you find that strange?” Paul asked, equally intense. “In every ant species, the queen is the source of life. In the field, the guards engulf and protect her.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Why do I get the feeling you do?”
Garrett didn’t answer.
“Come on, Colonel, we’
re in this together,” Kendra said. “Maybe we can help each other.” She tilted her head back and smiled at the colonel, batting her thick lashes, awkwardly running her fingers through her blond locks.
Paul rolled his eyes at Kendra’s obvious attempts to woo Garrett. “Don’t be ridiculous, Kendra. This guy’s no scientist. He’s just an army pawn, as clueless as the ants.”
Garrett stroked his chin in thought. Then his expression shifted and he was beaming as if he’d struck upon an idea. “All right, Doctor. I will admit we recovered some of the genetic information from the laboratory. It’s highly classified, but I’m willing to share some of data—if you’re willing to make a deal.”
Paul stared with a dubious expression. “I’m listening.”
“You are correct, these are not ordinary queens. Laredo programmed their DNA for specific behavior and selectively bred them over twenty generations. The queens, in fact, control the whole colony.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“Because these ants are a weapon. A very important weapon that now belongs to the United States military. Shall I continue?”
Paul nodded.
“The workers have no fighting pheromones. Laredo isolated the alarm pheromone and removed it from all the ants. Without the queens, they won’t attack. You see, it’s the queens’ alarm scent that sends the armies into battle, while the workers merely repeat her orders through stridulation, that chirping sound you hear.”
“In other words, Laredo turned an ant species from a cooperative society into a murderous dictatorship.”
“You obviously don’t understand the implications of this colony. These ants are a weapon to end all wars. There isn’t a nation that would use nuclear bombs after seeing what these insects can do. Not as long as America has possession of these ants.” Garrett approached Kendra with a look of expectant applause. “Siafu Moto are the perfect weapon: all the power of an atomic blast without the radioactive mess.”
The room fell silent.
“So what’s the deal, Colonel?” Paul asked.
“I want your cooperation,” he said, with a hint of desperation. “There are things I know that would send you screaming into the night. For twenty-five years I’ve worked with the CIA. I’m one of the few people who know how close this planet is to extinction. Iran and Iraq, their secret alliance formed with Russia. They’ve enriched enough uranium to blow up Israel, Britain and America ten times over. Then we have North Korea and China teaming up to beat them to it. The end of humanity is inevitable. It’s just a matter of who will be the last to go.”
Paranoia, Paul thought. An unavoidable consequence of working too long for the CIA. He looked at Kendra and rolled his eyes.
Garrett continued with a hazy expression, “Don’t you see? The Siafu Moto changed everything.”
“Why don’t you cut to the chase?” Paul said.
“Tell the general you were mistaken, that your pheromones cannot work.”
“Colonel, no disrespect—but fuck you.”
Kendra put a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “So you’re asking us to help destroy a city, kill thousands of people for a weapon that’s so unstable it should never have been developed in the first place?” She shook her head. “Forget it. In a couple of hours we’ll have enough formula to stop the bombing. We’ll kill these insects and your weapon will be lost forever.”
The colonel gave a rakish smile. “You think the president of the United States is going to change his strategy on a hunch? Unless you can prove your formula works, Operation Colony Torch will stand.”
Paul looked at the clock. They had less than two hours. No one said a word, until someone cleared his throat, and they all turned to the doorway.
“Operation Colony Torch is finished,” General Dawson announced. “The formula has been analyzed and approved by our scientists. They ran preliminary tests and they’re certain it will work.”
Kendra looked shocked. “I’m glad to hear that, General. But how can your scientists be so sure?”
“Because they know these ants. The Siafu Moto were not created by terrorists. There is no such group as Earth Avengers. The entire project was funded by the United States military.”
CHAPTER 39
GARRETT BELLOWED AT HIS superior, “This is outrageous! Revealing top-secret information to civilians! Why, it’s treason.”
General Dawson stood with fists wound tight at his sides. “This has gone far enough, Tom. We’ve been waiting for a method to destroy these ants for twenty-five years.”
“You can’t assume their feeble experiment will succeed. The entire world is at stake.”
The general’s face reddened. “I’m relieving you of all duties regarding this mission.”
Garrett ignored the comment. “The decision has already been made by our commander in chief to evacuate and bomb the city.”
“That was before we had a way to destroy the colony. The plan has been changed.”
“On whose authority?”
Dawson shook his head. “The cover-up is over. I’ll be sending out a report to every department in Washington. I can assure you that Operation Colony Torch will be called off, just as soon as I contact the president.”
Colonel Garrett walked out of the room, fuming.
Dawson turned to Paul and Kendra. “I can’t even imagine how this looks to you.”
“You created the damn things?” Paul was aghast.
“We created a weapon.”
“With no off switch!”
“This is the United States military. Damage is our first priority.”
“Using living insects—screwing around with their DNA for your own destructive purpose!”
“Is it anymore horrible than biological warfare? Viruses, germs, infectious diseases, self-replicating organisms that eat away living tissue of their hosts. Smallpox, anthrax, yellow fever. It’s all the same.”
No one said anything.
“Look, this nation owes you a debt of gratitude. But don’t try to make sense out of insect warfare. Very few people on the outside understand how the military works.” Dawson rubbed the side of his face.”Sometimes I’m not sure myself.”
The general was anxious to get to Russo’s office and phone the president. He asked Paul and Kendra to come along.
“I’d like you both to be there for the call.”
As they moved swiftly down the corridor, Dawson explained that when the twenty-five-year project was terminated, Laredo was furious. He went crazy, blowing up the entire lab, killing everyone inside, and sneaking off with a queen.
“Why was the project terminated?” Kendra asked,
“As you probably noticed, these ants are uncontrollable. They started eating everything in sight, doing things they weren’t designed to do. There was no way to stop them, and even worse, no way to destroy them. Then we discovered that Laredo was making a deal to sell a queen to a terrorist organization. He actually did have ties to environmental groups.”
“So the FBI is in on this?”
“No. Just a select group of people in the army and the CIA. When Cameron started following our money trail, we created Earth Avenger to throw him off track. Undoubtedly, this will all come out in the hearings.”
“No offense, General,” Paul said, “but the military has to be off its rocker to turn ants into a weapon. Why exactly would you put all this effort into creating something so unstable?”
“Same reason the government does everything. Money. The United States military is stretched about as thin as at any time in history. Most of our noncombat jobs in the Middle East are outsourced to other countries and a growing number of our soldiers are paid recruits from Europe. Ever since the draft ended in 1974, the number of fighting units has decreased and with the growing unpopularity of the wars we’ve been fighting, the budget has been slashed to a tiny fraction over the last decade.” He threw out a hand and said, “Siafu Moto were the answer to all our problems. They get no salary, no benefits and no o
ne cares about the casualty count. There’s no bureaucracy, in-fighting or pulling rank in an army of insects. They follow orders and don’t make trouble. They’re the perfect soldiers … almost.”
Kendra looked at the bottled queen in her hand. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“These are the warriors of the future,” Dawson insisted. “We can’t depend on old methods anymore. There’s just not enough money or support. You’ll see—if it’s not ants, it will be some other creature.” They reached the mayor’s office. Dawson led them inside and said, “And after twenty-five years we finally have a method to destroy them.”
Paul and Kendra both dropped their shoulders with relief.
“Your buddy Jack Carver came through for us. He has a dozen chemists working on a metric ton of the pheromone, almost ready to take off.”
Kendra closed her eyes. Consumed with fatigue, she could barely open them.
“When’s the last time you two got any rest?”
“What day is it?” Kendra asked.
“Saturday.”
She squinted, too tired to do the math.
Dawson grinned. “I’ll call the president and get those pheromones in the air. You can both take a couple hours off. It will be at least that long before the planes are loaded.”
* * *
The shower was as small as a coffin. Paul and Kendra stood entwined under a hot spray that soothed their aching muscles and washed away the filth of the streets, but not the memories. The left side of Kendra’s hip glowed with an enormous bull’s-eye bruise of deep purple, yellow and black that closely matched the one on Paul’s backside. There were smaller bruises and scrapes, but fatigue took the greatest toll.
Kendra stared up at Paul with sleepy lids and rested her head on his shoulder, feeling the warmth of the steam. His dark hair hung long and damp, and she swept it away from his eyes, the same lovely brown as always, but she couldn’t read his thoughts.
It was more than despair.
The Colony: A Novel Page 18