James Rollins - Altar Of Eden

“What are you doing here?” he called out loudly. He eyed the kids and kicked the closest one. “Drop your pistol and move into the lab.”

Lorna had no choice. She let the pistol clatter to the floor. The children came rushing up to her. She backed through the swinging doors into the main lab.

She turned to find Malik and Bennett stopped and staring at her.

“Dr. Polk?” Bennett said, his voice full of surprise, suspiciously so. Lorna noted a flinch of guilt pass over his features.

Malik’s eyes widened upon seeing the clutch of children sticking close to her legs. “What luck.”

Bennett glanced to him.

“I could use a couple of these specimens,” the doctor explained. “They’d be perfect seeds for the new facility.”

Lorna’s stomach sank toward her feet. She’d delivered them straight into the hands of the monster.

Edward pushed into the room behind her. He had confiscated her pistol and pointed it at her. He took in the scene with a glance: the briefcase, the Dewar flask. His eyes flicked up to the emergency exit sign.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

Malik took a step forward, crouching slightly with a hand on his hip. He eyed the remaining children, as if trying to pick out a ripe melon. “I won’t lie to you, Edward. You deserve at least my honesty. The island is going to blow up in about seventeen minutes.”

Edward stumbled forward. The tip of the pistol wavered with his shock. “What?”

Lorna felt equally stunned. She now understood their furtive urgency.

“Don’t worry,” Malik said. “Your work won’t be in vain.”

Edward swung his pistol toward the two men. “Take me with you.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible. No room. Especially now. We need these specimens.”

Malik straightened from his crouch. A tiny pearl-handled pistol had appeared in his hand as if by magic. He pointed it at Edward’s face and fired.

The shot was loud, stinging her ears.

Edward fell backward, tipping like an axed tree.

Even Bennett gasped at the cold-blooded murder.

Malik turned to his boss, but he kept his pistol aimed at Lorna. “We could each take one specimen. A breeding pair would trim at least a year off our new start-up.”

Bennett checked his watch, knowing he had no time to argue. He growled, “Pick which ones and let’s go.”

His gaze briefly brushed across Lorna’s. The guilt that had flickered before now shone steadily. Lorna suspected he normally kept himself above such dirty work, purposely diverted his eyes from the bloody reality of this project. But such innocence was no longer possible.

The same couldn’t be said of Malik. Working in the trenches from the start, he was covered in blood up to his elbows. “I’m afraid we’ll have to leave you here, Dr. Polk. You’ll have your freedom for”-he checked his own watch-“another fifteen minutes.”

Malik bent down and grabbed a boy by the arm and dragged him into the air, carrying him like a sack of groceries. “We’ll need a female, too. Take that one.”

He pointed his pistol.

Bennett bent down and gently scooped the child in one arm. His gaze fixed to Lorna. “I’m sorry.”

As they backed away a massive explosion ripped through the space.

The blast lifted her off her feet and tossed her backward. She slid across the floor. A flaming book tumbled past her nose, trailing ash. More debris blasted into the space. She fought to raise up to an elbow.

Children had been blown to the far wall. Bennett and Malik lay sprawled facedown.

Lorna searched around for a weapon.

Edward’s body had rolled against a table. There was no sign of her pistol, but his rifle was still tangled over his shoulder.

If she could reach it-

But Malik was already pushing up off the floor.

Bennett heaved over to his back. He had sheltered the girl with his body and still clung to her.

Lorna began to sidle toward the rifle-when something massive bounded out of the fiery doorway and landed in a crouch. She stared in disbelief at the monstrous tiger. The beast roared, black tongue curled, exposing saber-sharp fangs.

Malik scuttled away like a crab.

Bennett froze in place only yards from the monster.

Lorna recognized the tiger from the video feed on the other island. The psychotic bunch must have broken free of their prison-and plainly had come for revenge. She now understood why Bennett’s group was blowing this place to kingdom come.

More shapes piled in behind the first, pouring out from the short tunnel that connected to the villa. Flames and smoke obscured their shapes, but some walked upright on two legs.

Off to the side, Malik had backed to the emergency exit. He had somehow kept hold of the Dewar cryogenic flask. He hugged it to his chest and dove out into the tunnel.

Bennett was trapped, pinned down by the monstrous army.

One of the hominids came forward. He was missing an ear, and his face was massively scarred. Lorna recognized him from the video feed. He had been the one with the pregnant female, the one Bennett had named Eve.

That would make him Adam, she thought.

He came at Bennett with a long spear.

The man didn’t bother to move or struggle. There was nothing he could do.

Then the children suddenly rushed forward, moving like a flock of starlings protecting a nest. They piled on top of Bennett, joining the girl in his arms and shielding his body with their own.

Adam stood over them. More hominids appeared behind him.

Through the doorway, a heavily muscled shape bulled into the room, knuckling on claws. A giant sloth. They’d gone extinct ages ago. The genetic throwback settled to its haunches. Fur along one flank had been burned to the skin and still smoked.

Its large eyes scanned the room, then joined the others in staring down at the knot of children.

Bennett finally sat up, as confused as Lorna at the behavior of the children. The young ones continued to stand between the monsters and the man.

All their small eyes locked gazes with the elders.

A silent negotiation seemed to be under way.

Then voices echoed from the demolished doorway. Half deafened by the blast, she couldn’t make out the words, only that it sounded like English.

Another figure stepped through the smoke on two legs.

Only it wasn’t a hominid.

Lorna choked on her shock, at the impossibility of it.

She struggled to her feet.

“Jack…?”

Relief welled through Jack as he heard his name called out. He blinked tears from his stinging eyes and stumbled farther inside the room. It looked like some mad scientist’s workshop. Flaming debris dotted the floor and curled smoke into the room.

Jack squinted, straining-then spotted a figure rising from the floor.

Lorna…

He rushed toward her.

She came at him.

Reaching her, he crushed her in his arms. He took her scent deep into his chest. Her heartbeat pounded against his ribs. Her cheek, tender and soft, nestled against his neck. He needed to make sure she was real and not a feverish delusion. He clung harder to her.

But she broke the embrace too soon, fighting him in desperation. Her face stared up, wide-eyed and full of worry. With his shirt ripped open, she placed a hand against his bare chest. Her palm was ice against his skin.

“You’re burning up.”

He took her hand down and clasped her fingers. “Just a fever. Flu. Doesn’t matter.”

She didn’t look convinced. But for the moment she had a larger fear. Her fingers tightened on his hands.

“Jack, the island. They’ve planted bombs here. Set to blow in another ten minutes or so.”

He tensed, picturing the exploding napalm charges. So it wasn’t just the one island. The bastards were cleaning house and burning all bridges behind them.