Douglas Preston - Mount Dragon

“Maybe he likes the scenery,” said Carson.

“Frankly, he gives me the willies. During the week, all the security personnel live in fear of him. Except Mike Marr, his assistant. They seem to be friends. But I suppose a facility such as ours needs a Captain Bligh for a security director.”

He looked at Carson for a moment. “I guess you riled up Rosalind Brandon-Smith pretty good.”

Carson glanced at Singer. The director was smiling again and there was a gleam of good humor in his eye.

“I pushed the wrong button on my intercom,” said Carson.

“So I gather. She filed a complaint.”

Carson sat up. “A complaint?”

“Don’t worry,” Singer said, lowering his voice, “you’ve just joined a club that includes me and practically everyone else here. But formality requires that we discuss it. This is my version of calling you on the carpet. Another drink?” He winked. “I should mention, though, that Brent places a high value on team harmony. You might want to apologize.”

“ Me ?” Carson felt his temper rising. “I’m the one that should be filing a complaint.”

Singer laughed and held up a hand. “Prove yourself first, then you can file all the complaints you want.” He got up and walked to the balcony railing. “I suppose you’ve looked through Burt’s lab journal by now.”

“Yesterday morning,” said Carson. “It was quite a read.”

“Yes, it was,” said Singer. “A read with a tragic end. But I hope it gave you a sense of what kind of man he was. We were close. I read through those notes after he left, trying to figure out what happened.” Carson could hear a real sadness in his voice.

Singer sipped his coffee, looked out over the expanse of desert. “This is not a normal place, we’re not normal people, and this is not a normal project. You’ve got world-class geneticists, working on a project of incalculable scientific value. You’d think people would only be concerned with lofty things. Not so. You wouldn’t believe the kind of sheer pettiness that can go on here. Burt was able to rise above it. I hope you will, too.”

“I’ll do my best.” Carson thought about his temper; he’d have to control it if he was going to survive at Mount Dragon. Already he’d made two enemies without even trying.

“Have you heard from Brent?” Singer asked, almost casually.

Carson hesitated, wondering if Singer had seen the e-mail message sent to him.

“Yes,” he said.

“What did he say?”

“He gave me a few encouraging words, warned me against being cocky.”

“Sounds like Brent. He’s a hands-on CEO, and X-FLU is his pet project. I hope you like working in a glass house.” He took another sip of coffee. “And the problem with the protein coat?”

“I think I’m just about there.”

Singer turned, gave him a searching glance. “What do you mean?”

Carson stood up and joined the director at the railing. “Well, I spent yesterday afternoon making my own extrapolations from Dr. Burt’s notes. It was much easier to see the patterns of success and failure once I’d separated them from the rest of his writings. Before he lost hope and began simply going through the motions, Dr. Burt was very close. He found the active receptors on the X-FLU virus that make it deadly, and he also found the gene combination that codes for the polypeptides causing the overproduction of cerebrospinal fluid. All the hard work was done. There’s a recombinant-DNA technique I developed for my dissertation that uses a certain wavelength of far-ultraviolet light. All we have to do is clip off the deadly gene sequences with a special enzyme that’s activated by the ultraviolet light, recombine the DNA and it’s done. All succeeding generations of the virus will be harmless.”

“But it’s not done yet,” said Singer.

“I’ve done it a hundred times at least. Not on this virus, of course, but on others. Dr. Burt didn’t have access to this technique. He was using an earlier gene-splicing method that was a little crude by comparison.”

“Who knows about this?” Singer asked.

“Nobody. I’ve only roughed out the protocol, I haven’t actually tested it yet. But I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t work.”

The director was staring at him, motionless. Then he suddenly came forward, taking Carson’s right hand in both of his own and crushing it in an enthusiastic handshake. “This is fantastic!” he said excitedly. “Congratulations.”

Carson took a step backward and leaned against the railing, a little embarrassed. “It’s still too early for that,” he said. He was beginning to wonder whether he should have mentioned his optimism to Singer quite so soon.

But Singer wasn’t listening. “I’ll have to e-mail Brent right away, give him the news,” he said.

Carson opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again, just that afternoon, Scopes had warned him against being cocky. But he knew instinctively that his procedure would work. His dissertation research had proved it countless times. And Singer’s enthusiasm was a welcome change from Brandon-Smith’s sarcasm and de Vaca’s brusque professionalism. Carson found himself liking Singer, this balding, fat, good-humored professor from California. He was so unbureaucratic, so refreshingly frank. He took another swig of the bourbon and glanced around the balcony, his eye lighting on Singer’s old Martin guitar. “You play?” he asked.

“I try,” said Singer. “Bluegrass, mostly.”

“So that’s why you asked about my banjo,” Carson said. “I got hooked listening to performances in Cambridge coffeehouses. I’m pretty awful, but I enjoy mangling the sacred works of Scruggs, Reno, Keith, the other banjo gods.”

“I’ll be damned!” said Singer, breaking into a smile. “I’m working through the early Flatt and Scruggs stuff myself. You know, ‘Shuckin’ the Corn,’ ‘Foggy Mountain Special,’ that kind of thing. We’ll have to massacre a few of them together. Sometimes I sit out here while the sun sets and just pick away. Much to everyone’s dismay, of course. That’s one reason the canteen is so deserted this time of the evening.”

The two men stood up. The night had deepened and a chill had crept into the air. Beyond the balcony railing, Carson could hear sounds from the direction of the residency compound: footsteps, scattered snatches of conversation, an occasional laugh.

They stepped into the canteen, a cocoon of light and warmth in the vast desert night.

Charles Levine pulled up in front of the Ritz Carlton, his 1980 Ford Festiva backfiring as he downshifted beside the wide hotel steps. The doorman approached with insolent slowness, making no secret of the fact that he found the car— and whoever was inside it—distasteful.

Unheeding, Charles Levine stepped out, pausing on the red-carpeted steps to pick a generous coating of dog hairs off his tuxedo jacket. The dog had died two months ago, but his hairs were still everywhere in the car.

Levine ascended the steps. Another doorman opened the gilt glass doors, and the sounds of a string quartet came floating graciously out to meet him. Entering, Levine stood for a moment in the bright lights of the hotel lobby, blinking. Then, suddenly, a group of reporters was crowding around him, a barrage of flashbulbs exploding from all sides.

“What’s this?” Levine asked.

Spotting him, Toni Wheeler, the media consultant for Levine’s foundation, bustled over. Elbowing a reporter aside, she took Levine’s arm. Wheeler had severely coiffed brown hair and a sharply tailored suit, and she looked every inch the public-relations professional: poised, gracious, ruthless.