“Have they said anything yet?”
“The woman woke up screaming…before Van Horn boarded. I never had…chance to ask them—”
“They didn’t say a word?”
“The guy thanked…and assured the woman they…safe now. She freaked…about not being able to find her brother.”
“Nothing else?”
“What’s going on…there, Pike?”
“Patch me through to Van Horn.”
“What did you find?” Brazelton whispered.
“Get yourself changed and ready to head out. I need you on the ground over here. Now patch me through to Van Horn like I told you to!”
“Yes, si—” Brazelton cut himself off in his hurry to patch through the communication.
“Van Horn,” came the crisp reply from the interim static.
“I need whatever men you can discreetly spare on Ambitle.”
“What kind…men?”
“Our kind. Have them fully equipped and on the water in five minutes. They’re to pick up Brazelton on their way. He knows where to go. You’re on point over there. Get every available diver from the Huxley into the water to salvage anything that looks even remotely interesting. Every piece of equipment from every lab. I want those bodies down there brought to the surface and thoroughly evaluated. And get the data guy on that security footage now!”
“What aren’t…telling me?”
“I want you personally to get everything they know out of the two we found in the Mayr, even if you have to beat it out of them.”
“Someone else…handle things on this end. If you’ve got a…scent, let me—”
Pike terminated the transmission and stuffed the transceiver back into its holster.
“Think there’s any chance the people who reached this island are still alive?” Walker asked. He finally broke his stare from the cadaver and looked at Pike. The sun had slipped from the sky, stranding them in darkness broken only by the sporadic strobes of lightning out over the open sea.
“That’s what we’re about to find out.”
Nineteen
R/V Aldous Huxley
John Bishop gratefully cupped the hot mug of tea in his hands and allowed the steam to warm his chapped lips and nose. He felt as though he might never be warm again, especially not in these thin, baby blue scrubs and slippers that they insisted he wear. He still had no idea exactly how long he had been sealed inside the isolation chamber and tried his hardest not to even think about it. He focused on the speck of a tea leaf that swirled on the surface, on the cold sensation of the stethoscope against his back while the doctor listened to him breathe. Anything not to relive the confinement that nearly killed him. The eternal hours pacing back and forth behind that Plexiglas barrier, simultaneously praying for it to hold back the weight of the ocean on the other side and to break so they at least had a chance to swim to freedom, all the while able to see the release mechanism on the other side that he would never be able to reach. Listening to the metronomic plip…plip… of the water leaking through the seams and rivets, the accumulation inside their cage rising slowly, yet inevitably. The moaning and wailing of the research vessel as it tried to tear itself apart, blended with their own cries for help they feared would go unanswered. Wearing the oxygen masks long after the air had ceased to flow from the tanks in the wall, hoping that even a few molecules might leak out to keep them alive while they burned through their finite supply too quickly in their panic, and then more slowly as their bodies grew sluggish, their tired eyes wanting nothing more than to close for a few precious seconds. Resisting the urge while watching the silt accumulate on the other side, sealing them off from the laboratory with the finality of a tomb. Holding Courtney as long as he was able, trying to console her with his touch long after his words expired, until his arms simply fell from her shoulders into the rising water and the cold blackness claimed him, a part of him thankful for the release from the suffering. Most of all, he tried not to think about the fact that everyone else had died while he and Courtney still lived.
The hospital suite was nearly identical to the one on the Mayr. The same vinyl examination table with the same roll of paper to cover it. The same chair in the corner and the same black stool at the doctor’s computer desk. The same cupboards and the same equipment mounted to the walls. Only the framed degrees were different, and where Dr. Partridge had tacked up the obligatory poster of a kitten clinging to a tree branch that read “Hang in there!”, Dr. Stephen Kiley had mounted Christian Reise Lassen seascapes that made Bishop feel like he was drowning.
“Deep breath in,” Dr. Kiley said. His head was shaved bald and so deeply tanned it looked like a catcher’s mitt. His bulbous nose cast an omnipresent shadow over his ebon pencil-mustache. He was a cadaverous man with skeletal wrists and long, feminine fingers who appeared more than uncomfortable in his starched lab coat. “And again.” At least the stethoscope had finally warmed to his skin. “There’s a rattling sound in the lower lobes of both lungs called rales. It suggests there’s fluid in there at the least, or quite possibly pneumonia. But considering what you’ve been through, if that’s the worst of it, we’ll call it a victory.”
Bishop nodded and slurped the tea. The heat trickling down through his chest and into his belly was the most wonderful sensation he had ever experienced.
“We’ll start you on a course of antibiotics…”
The physician’s words faded into the background noise. Bishop looked through the open doorway into the observation room, where Courtney slept in the single hospital bed with the covers tucked up to her chin. A slim tube disappeared under the blankets from the IV bag hanging on the pole beside her. The bedside monitor tracked her heart rate, blood pressure, and pulse oxygen. Her slumber was artificially induced by the calming influence of the anti-anxiety medication and the mild sedatives, and he was grateful for it. After everything she had endured, learning that her brother had been lost to the sea was more than she could bear, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon to find the world burning. In those long hours—days?—of imprisonment, of knowing with complete certainty that they were going to die, they had forged a bond that few people could ever comprehend. Not even he could fully rationalize the intense emotional connection they now shared. They were safely aboard the ship that would eventually take them home, among people who tended to their every need, and still he had to fight the urge to leap to his feet to pummel anyone who so much as approached her room.
He watched her breathe, as he had only wished he could in the darkness of the isolation room, rather than feeling her respirations slow through the arms wrapped around her to keep her from freezing to death even as he leeched her body heat from her. The nasal cannula filled her lungs with pure oxygen, giving strength to the rising of the blankets on her chest. The color was slowly returning to her face. Her freckles no longer stood out like blood spatters on snow. Perspiration beaded her forehead and dampened her slicked back auburn hair. After holding her so close for so long, his body felt her physical absence like an amputation.
He prayed her sleep was restorative, for when she awakened, he knew she would be forced to confront Tyler’s death and the barrage of questions she would have to relive their nightmare to answer. As he was sure he would have to at any moment now, as well.
Kiley clapped him on the back.
“…a lucky man, Mr. Bishop.”
Bishop could only nod.
The front door of the hospital suite opened inward. Unlike the laboratories on the level below them, there was no need for the pressurized stainless steel airlocks and the security codes.
A tall man Bishop recognized stepped into the room. He was one of the three men who had ushered him across the tumultuous ocean from the decrepit tug to the Huxley. Now that he was clothed and somewhat oriented to his surroundings, Bishop truly saw him for the first time. The man’s rigid posture and bearing were pure military, and while he had a solid build and clearly defined musculature, he had the look of a man m
ore accustomed to using his brains than his brawn. His dark hair shined with the pomade he used to smooth it back from his widow’s peak. His perfectly tweezed eyebrows arched over blue eyes that sized up Bishop even as he scrutinized the man in return. The man offered a practiced smile filled with veneers.
“Our introduction was a little rushed earlier, and definitely not under the most ideal circumstances.” The man strode across the room and proffered his hand. He casually wiped it on his pants after Bishop shook it. “I’m Dr. James Van Horn, a geneticist employed by our shared benefactor, GeNext Biosystems. To say we’re all relieved to have you with us is an understatement.” He smiled again and inclined his head toward Dr. Kiley. “This quack treating you well enough?”
Kiley chuckled as he returned his lab coat to its hanger and slung his stethoscope around his neck.
This whole disingenuous act was wearing on Bishop’s already frayed nerves. And why had they sent a geneticist?
“I’d kill for a cheeseburger, but otherwise I’m fine.” Bishop locked eyes with Van Horn. “So let’s cut to the chase. What do you need me to do?”
The smile never left Van Horn’s face. It was disconcerting, but not nearly as much as the almost predatory spark in the man’s eyes.
“To be blunt, I need your help accounting for every second of the time between our last communication with the Mayr and her sinking. Are you up for it?”
Bishop hopped down from the examination table.
“I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’m more than ready to get this over with.”
“Good.” Van Horn gestured toward the open door. “Then if you’ll come with me, perhaps we can get you that cheeseburger on our way.”
Twenty
Ambitle Island
Pike stood at the edge of the forest, out of the rain, and watched his men haul the Zodiac past the debris and into the trees to his right. Storm clouds blotted out the stars and the moon. The only source of illumination in the otherwise pitch black night was the spectral lights on the Huxley that diffused through the mist rolling into the harbor from the east. Pike had hoped to smell wood-smoke on the wind after sundown, but wasn’t surprised in the slightest that he didn’t. If his suspicions were correct, there was no one left alive to start one. That wasn’t exactly true. There was still someone on this island, whom he imagined would soon enough come looking for them.
He walked over to where his men were already equipping themselves from the padded cases on the small vessel. Each had already donned a pair of thermal infrared night vision fusion goggles, which allowed them to clearly see the forest around them and any variations in heat signatures. Anything below eighty-one degrees Fahrenheit appeared in shades of black and midnight blue, while above that the scale ascended through lighter blues and purples to reds and oranges, and finally to the brilliant yellow of human body temperature and blinding white above it. The men looked like sleek black insects. Under one arm, they each holstered military-issue Advanced Taser M26s with laser illumination and a thirty-five foot range, while beneath the other they packed Beretta M9A1 semiautomatic pistols with fifteen-round magazines of 9mm Parabellum jacketed hollow point rounds, and front-activated infrared laser sights. Walker tossed him a rucksack, the contents of which included a one-liter hydro bladder, an LED Maglite, a handful of nutrition bars and dry rations, matches, flares, heat packs, a chemical gas respirator mask, and a portable emergency scuba tank with a regulator. He slung it over his shoulder, exchanged his wet shoes for a pair of waterproof, steel-toed black combat boots, and donned the night vision gear. He switched on the apparatus and appraised his men. Their faces were yellow and orange below their goggles. Fuchsia coronae framed their heads. Their black scuba suits appeared purple and blue.
Van Horn had chosen well. In addition to Brazelton and Walker, the only one among them who hadn’t been on the Zambian mission, Jericho Montgomery, a former biological warfare specialist with the Department of Homeland Security, and Roger Pearson, an experienced field surgeon, had made the crossing from the Huxley. Both men were broad-chested and stood over six feet tall. In their wetsuits and goggles, they could have passed for twins, save for Montgomery’s thick blonde goatee.
Pike gave them all a quick once over, then struck off into the jungle. They weaved through trunks and snarls of vegetation, the rain on the leaves shimmering blue, until they reached the flattened trail and the abandoned lifeboat at the end of it. Pearson paused to study the blood smears on the gunwales.
“Nothing life threatening,” he said. “The blood’s superficial, not arterial.”
Pike nodded and led them up to the crest of the slope where they’d found the disemboweled corpse on the rock ledge. The physician’s assessment matched Pike’s. The cause of death was drowning. The abdominal wounds had been inflicted postmortem, and only the intestines had been removed. A glance confirmed that Pearson had made the same leap of logic that Pike had. Montgomery drew his pistol and chambered a round.
Good. They were all on the same page.
“So what now?”Brazelton asked.
“Here’s how I see it,” Pike said. “Seven people reached the shore and dragged their boat high enough onto land that there was no way another tsunami could wash it away. They were drenched, shivering, and terrified. The first thing they did was crack open the First Aid kit to tend to whoever was bleeding while the others set about gathering whatever dry kindling and wood they could find. Then something startled them to flight. Possibly one of them discovered this gutted body while hunting for firewood…or maybe something else. Either way, they abandoned their craft in a hurry, taking only what was readily at hand.”
“Then where did they go?” Montgomery asked.
“Their trail disappears at the top of this rise,” Walker said. “There’s no sign of them beyond that point. Whatever tracks they left were wiped out by the rain.”
“There’s always something,” Montgomery said. “No one can pass through space without leaving a physical trace. We’ll find their path.”
“They had to have gone one of two directions,” Pike said. “They either struck off toward higher ground, or chose the route of least resistance in order to travel faster, which means heading downhill toward the western shore. With the tidal waves coming from the east, they would have figured the bulk of the island would shield them.”
“It would help if we knew for sure if we were dealing with civilians or crew.”
“We have to assume both.”
“Crew would have known someone would eventually track the activated SART on the lifeboat, and that’s where they would start looking. Even under duress, they wouldn’t have wanted to stray too far from it. A civilian’s instinct would be to head for the nearest beach and try to signal an airplane or a passing ship.”
“Then it’s possible that in a panic they could have split up. We’re going to have to do the same.” Pike looked up the steep hillside toward the distant dormant volcano, then down to his left where the dense forest obscured the topography. “Montgomery and Pearson. You two head north toward higher ground. The rest of you, come with me. Keep your transceivers on. I want to know the moment you find anything. And I mean anything.” He paused. “I know I don’t have to tell you what we’re potentially dealing with here. Take all necessary precautions, but use your tasers first. If at all possible, I want this thing alive.”
He dismissed them with a nod and watched the multicolored spectral shapes of Montgomery and Pearson vanish into the blue and black forest without a sound.
“’I want this thing alive’?” Walker asked.
Pike brushed past him and started the treacherous westward descent through the slick mud, weeds, and brush.
“Saddle up, men,” he said. “Let the hunt commence.”
Twenty-one
R/V Aldous Huxley
Bishop followed Van Horn into one of the engineering rooms on the main deck. The worktables had been swept clean of the tools that had once covered them and replaced
with a half-dozen computer terminals. Men he had never seen and who were given no introduction labored in front of the keyboards, their faces reflecting the changing colors on the monitors in front of them. None of them so much as acknowledged him with a glance.
Van Horn guided him to one of the stations and cleared his throat. The man at the terminal blinked his eyes and turned toward them.
“We’re nearly done downloading the security footage from the Mayr,” the man said. With his chestnut hair slicked back from his round face and black-rimmed glasses, he reminded Bishop of an owl. “Bear in mind, the storage unit wasn’t designed to take such a beating, nor was it intended to be fully immersed for any length of time, so the quality is significantly degraded, but I think we should be able to clean it up well enough to at least make it viewable.”
“Very good, Mr. Barnes.” Van Horn drew a stool from beneath the table behind them and gestured for Bishop to sit. “While we wait, would you be so kind as to play the video from the dive earlier this afternoon for Mr. Bishop.”
“Aye, sir.”
Van Horn pulled up another stool and sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Bishop.
“What exactly do you need me to do?” Bishop asked.
“You’re about to see the video feed from the divers who explored the wreckage and found you. I want you to tell me what we’re looking at and everything you remember.”
“The whole thing’s still foggy. I can only clearly recall bits and pieces.”
“Then perhaps this will refresh your memory.”
The large monitor divided into four quadrants. The top two and the bottom left showed dim underwater images while the bottom right remained blank. Flashlight beams diffused into hazy water churning with small bubbles and microorganisms. Everything outside the beam’s limited reach remained in absolute blackness until the diver swung the light in its direction. The reality that the Mayr had become a sunken ghost ship struck him like a hammer. It barely looked like the same vessel upon which he had set sail less than a month ago, as though it had been rotting on the ocean floor for decades. The walls were buckled, the doors warped. Sediment covered everything and schools of fish had laid claim to the ruins.
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