Douglas Preston - Mount Dragon

Suddenly, de Vaca knelt beside him in the dust.

“What are you doing?”

“Tying my shoe.”

“You’re wearing slip-ons!”

De Vaca stood up. “I know that, idiot.” She dusted one knee, shook her hair back from her head and looked at him. “There isn’t a car made that I can’t hot-wire.”

Carson looked at her.

“I used to steal them.”

“I believe it.”

“Just for fun,” she added defensively.

“Uh-huh. But these were once military vehicles, and this was once a top-secret facility. It won’t be like breaking into a Honda Civic.”

De Vaca frowned, kicking the dust at her feet with the heel of one shoe.

Carson spoke again. “On my first day here, Singer implied that the security is better than it looks. Even if we did bash through the perimeter fence, they’d be after us in a second and would just run us into the earth.”

There was a long silence.

“There are two other possibilities,” de Vaca said. “We could take the horses. Or we could walk.”

Carson looked out over the vast, endless desert. “Only a fool would attempt something like that,” he said quietly.

They both stood silently, looking out into the desert. Carson realized that, for the moment, he felt no fear: just an oppressive weight on his shoulders, as if he were supporting a terrific burden. He did not know if that meant he was brave or simply exhausted.

“Teece was no fan of the product,” he said at last. “He told me as much in the sauna. I’ll bet his hasty departure had something to do with PurBlood. He probably had enough doubts about X-FLU to want to stall the release of our other products, at least until he was satisfied there was no flaw in our procedures. Or until he’d learned more about Burt.”

As he was speaking, he noticed de Vaca suddenly become rigid. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered.

There was the sound of footsteps; then the figure of Harper came down the covered walkway leading from the residency. Carson noticed a bulge under the scientist’s shirt where a large bandage was attached.

Harper stopped. “Heading to dinner?” he asked.

“Sure,” said Carson after a brief hesitation.

“Come on, then.”

The dining hall was crowded, and only a few tables remained vacant. Carson looked around him as they took their seats. Since Vanderwagon’s departure, Carson had taken to dining alone, well past the peak hour for dinner. Now he felt uneasy, seeing such a large number of Mount Dragon workers together at once. Could all these people really .. . He pushed the thought from his mind.

A waiter approached their table. As they gave their drink orders, Carson watched the waiter continually smooth an imaginary mustache: first the left side, then the right side, then the left, then the right. The skin of the man’s upper lip was red and raw from being continuously pawed at.

“So!” said Harper as the waiter walked away. “What have you two been up to?”

Carson barely heard the question. He had realized what else was contributing to his uneasiness.

The atmosphere in the dining hall seemed hushed, almost furtive. The tables were full, people were eating, yet there were very few conversations going on. The diners seemed to be simply going through the motions of eating, as if from habit rather than hunger. The dying echoes of Harper’s question seemed to ring in three dozen water glasses. Christ , have I been asleep? Carson asked himself. How could I have missed this?

Harper accepted his beer, while Carson and de Vaca drank club sodas.

“On the wagon?” Harper asked, taking a long pull at his beer.

Carson shook his head.

“I still haven’t had an answer to my question,” Harper asked, smoothing his thinning brown hair with a restless hand. “I asked what you two have been up to lately.” He looked back and forth between them, his red eyes blinking rapidly.

“Oh, nothing much,” said de Vaca, sitting very stiffly and looking down at her empty plate.

“Nothing much?” repeated Harper, as if the words were new to him. “Nothing much. That seems odd. We’re working on the biggest project in GeneDyne’s history, and you guys haven’t been up to anything much.”

Carson nodded, wishing Harper wouldn’t talk so loudly. Even if they could steal a Hummer, what would they say when they got to civilization? Who would believe two wild-eyed people, driving out of the desert? They needed to download proof onto some kind of transportable media and take it with them. But did they dare leave X-FLU in the hands of a lot of people who were going insane by degrees? Not that there was much good they could do if they stayed. Unless they could somehow get the proof to Levine . Of course, it wouldn’t be possible to transmit gigabytes of data across the net, it would be noticed, but—

He felt a hand twisting the material of his shirtfront. Harper had balled it into his fist.

“I’m talking to you, asshole,” he said, pulling Carson forward in his seat.

Carson began to rise in protest when he felt a meaningful pressure on one forearm.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. De Vaca’s pressure on his forearm eased.

“Why are you ignoring me?” Harper asked loudly. “What is it you aren’t telling me?”

“Really, George, I’m sorry. I was just thinking about other things.”

“We’ve been so busy recently,” said de Vaca, desperately trying to put a bright note in her voice. “We’ve got a lot to think about.”

Carson felt the grip tighten further. “You just said you were doing nothing much. You said it, I know you said it. So which is it?” Carson glanced around. People at nearby tables were looking at them, and though the gazes were dull and vacant, they still held the kind of slack anticipation he hadn’t seen since a bar fight he’d witnessed a long time ago.

“George,” de Vaca said, “I heard you made an important breakthrough the other day.”

“What?” Harper asked.

“That’s what Dr. Singer told me. He said you’d made extraordinary progress.”

Harper dropped his hand, immediately forgetting Carson. “John said that? I’m not surprised.”

De Vaca smiled and laid her hand on Harper’s arm. “And you know, I was very impressed with how you handled Vanderwagon.”

Harper sat back, looking at her. “Thanks,” he said at last.

“I should have mentioned it earlier. It was thoughtless of me not to. I’m so sorry.”

Carson watched as de Vaca looked into Harper’s eyes, an expression of sympathy and understanding on her face. Then, significantly, her eyes dropped to Harper’s hands. Unaware of the suggestion she was planting, Harper looked down and began examining his nails.

“Look at that,” he said. “There’s dirt here. Shit. With all the germs in this place, you have to take precautions.”

Without another word, he pushed his chair back and headed for the men’s room.

Carson breathed out. “Jesus,” he whispered. The scientists at the surrounding tables had returned to their meals, but a strange feeling remained in the air: a close, listening silence.

“I guess coming here was a bad idea,” de Vaca murmured. “I’m not hungry, anyway.”

Carson tried to steady his breathing, closing his eyes for a moment. As soon as he did so, the world seemed to sink away beneath his feet. Christ, he was tired.

“I can’t think any more,” he said. “Let’s meet in the radiology lab at midnight. Meanwhile, try to get some sleep.”

De Vaca snorted. “Are you crazy? How can I sleep?”

Carson glanced at her. “You aren’t going to get another chance,” he said.

Charles Levine stared at the blue folder in his hand, lavishly stamped and embossed, a large signature scrawled across the seal. He began to open it, then stopped. He already knew what it would say. He turned to throw it in the wastebasket, but realized that, too, was unnecessary. Destroying the document would not make its substance go away.