Douglas Preston - Mount Dragon

He switched the PowerBook back on and logged in a second time. If he heard from Levine again, he’d tell him exactly what he thought of his methods. Then he’d turn the machine off before Levine had a chance to reply.

He turned back to the screen and his heart stopped.

Brent Scopes is paging.

Press the command key to chat.

Fighting back dread, Carson began typing. Had Scopes picked up the message?

Ciao, Guy.

Hello, Brent.

I just wanted to welcome you back. You know what T.H. Huxley said: ‘The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.’ That is what has happened here. It was a beautiful idea, Guy. Too bad it didn’t work out. Now, you’ve got to move on. Every day we go without results costs GeneDyne almost a million dollars. Everyone is waiting for the neutralization of the virus. We cannot continue until that step has been accomplished. Everyone’s depending on you.

I know, Carson wrote. I promise I’ll do my best.

That’s a start, Guy. Doing you best is a start. But we need results. We’ve had one failure, but failure is an integral part of silence, and I know you can come through. I’m counting on you to come through. You’ve had almost a week to think about it. I hope you have some new ideas.

We’re going to repeat the test, see if by chance we overlooked something. We’re also going to remap the gene, just in case.

Very well, but do it quickly. I also want you to try something else. You see, we learned something crucial from this failure. I’ve got the autopsy results on Brandon-Smith in front of me. Dr. Grady did an excellent job. For some reason the strain you designed was even more virulent than the usual X-FLU strain. And more contagious, if our pathology tests are correct. It killed her so fast that antibodies to the virus had only been in her bloodstream a few hours when she died. I want to know why. We had the strain cultured from Brandon-Smith’s brain matter prior to cremation, and I’m having it sent down to you. We’re calling this new strain X-FLU II. I want you to dissect that virus. I want to know how it ticks. In trying to neutralize the virus, you fortuitously stumbled on a way to enhance its deadliness instead.

Fortuitously? I’m not sure I understand—

Jesus Christ, Guy, if you figure out what made it more deadly, maybe you can figure out how to make it LESS deadly. I’m a little surprised you didn’t think of this yourself. Now get to work.

The communications window on the screen winked shut. Carson sat back, exhaling slowly. Clinically, it made sense, but the thought of working with a virus cultured from Brandon-Smith’s brain chilled his blood.

As if on cue, a lab assistant stepped through the entranceway, carrying a stainless-steel tray loaded with clear plastic bioboxes. Each biobox was marked with a biohazard symbol and a simple label: X-FLU II.

“Present for Guy Carson,” he said with a macabre chuckle.

The late-afternoon sun, streaming in the west-facing windows, covered Singer’s office in a mantle of golden light. Nye sat on the sofa, staring silently into the kiva fireplace, while the director stood behind his workstation, back turned, looking out at the vast desert.

A slight figure with an oversized briefcase appeared in the doorway and coughed politely.

“Come in,” Singer said. Gilbert Teece stepped forward, nodding to them both. His thinning wheat-colored hair imperfectly covered a scalp that gleamed a painful red, and his burnt nose was already peeling. He smiled bashfully, as if aware of his own inadequacy to the hostile environment.

“Sit down anywhere.” Singer waved his hand vaguely over the office furniture.

Despite the empty wing chairs, Teece moved immediately toward Nye’s sofa and sat down with a sigh of contentment. The security director stiffened and shifted, moving himself away.

“Shall we get started?” said Singer, sitting down. “I hate to be late for my evening cocktail.” Teece, busy with his briefcase latch, looked up and flashed a quick smile. Then he slipped his hand inside the case and removed a microcassette player, which he laid carefully on the table in front of him.

“I’ll keep this as short as possible,” he said.

At the same time, Nye brandished his own recorder, laying it next to Teece’s.

“Very good,” said Teece. “Always a good idea to get things down on tape, don’t you think, Mr. Nye?”

“Yes,” came the clipped reply.

“Ah!” said Teece, as surprised as if he had not heard Nye speak before. “English?”

Nye slowly turned to look at him. “Originally.”

“Myself as well,” said Teece. “My father was Sir Wilberforce Teece, Baronet, of Teecewood Hall in the Pennines. My older brother got the title and the money and I got a ticket to America. Do you know it? Teecewood Hall, I mean.”

“No,” Nye said.

“Indeed?” Teece arched his eyebrows. “Beautiful part of the country. The Hall’s in Hamsterley Forest, but Cumbria’s so near by, you know. Lovely, especially this time of year. Grasmere, Troutbeck ... Windermere Lake.”

The atmosphere in the office grew suddenly electric. Nye turned toward Teece and focused his eyes on the man’s smiling face. “I suggest, Mr. Teece, that we cut out the civilities and proceed with the interview.”

“But, Mr. Nye,” Teece cried, “the interview has started! As I understand it, you were once chief of safety operations at the Windermere Nuclear Complex. Late seventies, I believe. Then there was that dreadful accident.” He shook his head at the memory. “I keep forgetting whether there were sixteen or sixty casualties. Anyway, before joining GeneDyne UK, you couldn’t find work in your chosen field for nearly ten years. Am I right? Instead, you were employed by an oil company in a remote portion of the Middle East. The details of your job description there are, unfortunately, rather vague.” He scratched the tip of his peeling nose.

“This has nothing whatsoever to do with your assignment,” said Nye slowly.

“But it has a lot to do with the strength of your loyalty to Brent Scopes,” Teece said. “And that loyalty, in turn, may have a bearing on this investigation.”

“This is a farce,” Nye snapped. “I intend to report your conduct to your superiors.”

“What conduct?” Teece said with a faint smile. And then without waiting for an answer, he added, “And what superiors?”

Nye leaned toward him and spoke very softly. “Stop playing coy. You know perfectly well what happened at Windermere. You don’t need to ask these questions, and you’ll learn bugger-all from me about it.”

“Now, wait a moment,” Singer said with false heartiness. “Mr. Nye, we shouldn’t—”

Teece held up his hand. “I’m sorry. Mr. Nye is right. I do know everything about Windermere. I just like to verify my facts. These reports”—he patted his massive briefcase—“are so often inaccurate. Government workers write them, and you never know what some witless bureaucrat might say about you, now do you, Mr. Nye? I thought you might appreciate the chance to set the record straight, erase any existing calumnies, that kind of thing.”

Nye sat in rigid silence.

Teece shrugged, pulled a manila envelope out of his briefcase. “Very well, Mr. Nye. Let’s proceed. Could you tell me, in your words, what happened on the morning of the accident?”

Nye cleared his throat. “At nine-fifty, I received word of a stage-two alert from the Level-5 facility.”