Douglas Preston - Mount Dragon

All bases had been covered. He could proceed as planned. There was nothing to worry about.

So why the strange, subtle, anxious feeling?

Sitting on his comfortably battered couch, Scopes probed his own mild anxiety. It was a foreign feeling to him, and the study of it was very interesting. Perhaps it was because he had misjudged Carson so thoroughly. De Vaca’s treachery he could understand, especially after that incident in the Level-5 facility. But Carson was the last person he would have suspected of industrial espionage. Another might have felt terrible, even overwhelming anger at such a betrayal. But Scopes felt merely sorrow. The kid had been bright. Now he would have to be dealt with by Nye.

Nye—that reminded him. A Mr. Bragg from OSHA had left two messages earlier in the day, inquiring as to the whereabouts of that investigator, Teece. He’d have to ask Nye to look into it.

He thought again about the data file Carson had tried to send. There wasn’t much, and he hadn’t looked it over carefully. Just a few documents related to PurBlood. Scopes remembered that Carson and de Vaca had been messing around in the PurBlood files just the other day. Why the sudden interest? Were they planning to sabotage PurBlood, as well as X-FLU? And what was all this Carson had said about everyone needing immediate medical attention?

It bore closer looking into. In fact, it would probably be prudent for him to examine the aborted download more carefully, along with Carson’s on-line activities of the last several days. Perhaps he could find the time after the evening’s primary order of business.

At this new thought, Scopes’s eyes moved toward the smooth, black face of a safe set flush against the lower edge of a far wall. It had been built, to his own demanding specifications, into the structural steel of the building when the GeneDyne tower was constructed. The only person who could open it was himself, and if his heart stopped beating there would be no way to open it short of using enough dynamite to vaporize every trace. As he pictured what lay within, the odd sense of anxiety quickly melted away. A single biohazard box—recently arrived via military helicopter from Mount Dragon—and inside, a sealed glass ampule filled with neutral nitrogen gas and a special viral transport medium. If Scopes looked closely at the ampule, he knew he would be able to make out a cloudy suspension in the fluid. Amazing to think such an insignificant-looking thing could be so valuable.

He glanced at his watch: 2:30 P.M., eastern time.

A tiny chirrup came from a monitor beside the couch, and a huge screen winked into life. There was a flurry of data as the satellite downlink was decrypted; then a brief message appeared, in letters fifteen inches tall:

TELINT-2 data link established, lossy-bit

encryption enabled. Proceed with transmission.

The message disappeared, and new words appeared on the screen:

Mr. Scopes: We are prepared to tender an offer of three billion dollars. The offer is non-negotiable.

Scopes pulled his keyboard over, and began typing. Compared to hostile corporations, the military were pansies.

My dear General Harrington: All offers are negotiable. I’m prepared to accept four billion for the product we’ve discussed. I’ll give you twelve hours to make the necessary procurements.

Scopes smiled. He’d carry out the rest of the negotiations from a different place. A secret place in which he was now more comfortable than he was in the everyday world.

He resumed typing, and as he issued a series of commands the words on the giant screen began to dissolve into a strange and wondrous landscape. As he typed, Scopes recited, almost inaudibly, his favorite lines from The Tempest:

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Charles Levine sat on the edge of the faded bedspread, staring at the telephone propped on the pillow in front of him. The phone was a deep burgundy color, with the words PROPERTY OF HOLIDAY INN, BOSTON, MA stamped in white across the back of the receiver. For hours he had spoken into the mouthpiece of that receiver, shouting, coaxing, begging. Now he had nothing more to say.

He rose slowly, stretched his aching legs, and moved to the sliding glass doors. A gentle breeze billowed the curtains. He stepped out to the balcony railing and breathed deeply of the night air. The lights of Jamaica Plain glittered in the warm darkness, like a mantle of diamonds thrown casually across the landscape. A car nosed by on the street below, its headlights illuminating the shabby working-class storefronts and deserted gas stations.

The telephone rang. In his shock at hearing an incoming call—after so many excuses, so many curt rejections—Levine stood motionless a moment, looking over his shoulder at the telephone. Then he stepped inside and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” he said in a voice hoarse from talking.

The unmistakable rumble of a modem echoed from the tiny speaker.

Quickly, Levine hung up, transferred the jack from the telephone to his computer, and powered up the laptop. The phone rang again, and there was a flurry of noise as the machines negotiated.

How-do, professor-man.The words rushed immediately onto the screen without the usual introductory logo. I assume it’s still appropriate to call you professor, is it not?

How did you find me?Levine typed back.

Without much problem, came the reply.

I’ve been on the telephone for hours, talking to everyone I can think of, Levine typed. Colleagues, friends in the regulatory agencies, reporters, even former students. Nobody believes me.

I believe you.

The job was too thorough. Unless I can prove my innocence, my credibility will be gone forever.

Don’t fret, professor. As long as you know me, you can be assured of a good credit rating, if nothing else.

There’s only one person I haven’t spoken to: Brent Scopes. He’s my next stop.

Just a minute, my man!came Mime’s response. Even if you could talk to him, I doubt he’d be interested in hearing from you right about now.

Not necessarily. I have to go now, Mime.

One moment, professor. I didn’t contact you just to present my condolences. A few hours ago, your Western homeboy Carson tried to send you an emergency transmission. It was almost immediately interrupted, and I was only able to retrieve the initial section. I think you need to read this. Are you ready to receive?

Levine replied that he was.

Okay, came the response. Here it comes.

Levine checked his watch. It was ten minutes to three.

Carson and de Vaca rode through the velvety blackness of the Jornada del Muerto, a vast river of stars flowing above their heads. The ground sloped downward from the compound and they soon found themselves in the bottom of a dry wash, the horses sinking to their fetlocks in the soft sand. The light of the stars was just enough to illuminate the ground beneath their feet. Any moon, Carson knew, and they would have been dead.

They rode down the wash while he thought.

“They’ll expect us to head south, toward Radium Springs and Las Cruces,” he said at last. “Those are the closest towns besides Engle, which belongs to GeneDyne anyway. Eighty miles, more or less. It takes time to track someone in this desert, especially across lava. So if I were Nye, I’d follow the track until I was sure it was heading south. Then I’d fan out the Hummers until the quarry was intercepted.”