Greg Keyes - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - Firestorm

He heard her breathing, and prayed she didn’t hang up.

“Yes,” she said, finally. He waited patiently for her to go on. “I have something I think Linda would have wanted you to have,” she finally said.

He felt his pulse speed up a little.

“Is that so?” he said.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Well, can we meet somewhere?”

“I don’t like to go out,” she said. “I’m afraid of the virus. But I’ll meet you in Delores Park. I’ll give it to you there.”

“When?”

“Now, if you can come.” She paused, and then continued. “It scares me to have it.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

“It will take me a little longer,” she said. “I’ll be in a lime-green sweater. I have red hair. I’m, well, thirtyish.”

“I’ll be there,” he said. “I’m tall, with blond hair. I’ll be in jeans and a plaid shirt, I’ll wear a hat—a Forty-Niners cap.”

As he hung up, he felt sort of like someone in a spy novel.

Then it also occurred to him that if this was a spy novel, he might well be walking into some sort of trap.

“What happened to the goddamn camera?” Corbin snapped.

“I think we have to assume the chimps got it,” Malakai replied. “One or all of them must have known what it was.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Malakai, Clancy, Corbin and his crew were gathered around the monitors in the command centre.

“Not really,” Clancy said. “A lot of these guys have been monitored by cameras all of their lives.”

“They didn’t notice it when they first found the fruit.”

“No,” she said. “But this might be a different group.”

“It might be the leader, this time,” Malakai added.

“Leader?” Corbin grunted.

“Everything they do is organized,” Malakai said. “Very well organized. That implies a leader—and, furthermore, a leader with superior intelligence. Or perhaps, in fact, human intelligence.”

Corbin looked like he’d eaten something sour.

“There was a guy,” he said. “He followed them out here when they first came. We thought at first he might be leading them. But he wasn’t.”

“How sure are you of that?” Malakai asked.

“Very sure,” a new voice said. Malakai looked up to see that Trumann Phillips had entered the room. “He had been the owner of one of the chimps, that’s all.”

“So you talked to him?”

“He was interviewed, yes.”

“That doesn’t rule out the possibility that they have a human leader,” Malakai said.

“No,” Phillips responded, “I suppose it doesn’t. So how are things going?”

“Some of them found the fruit a while back—six, seven maybe. They ate some of it and left. They didn’t carry any with them, so the tracking chips are still there.”

“Maybe they went and got the rest of the, what, herd?” Phillips said.

“Troop,” Clancy corrected.

“So maybe the troop is gorging on fruit salad even as we speak, every living one of them.”

“That could be,” Clancy said. “Our theory is that there is one large group of them somewhere, and several smaller bands that are foraging. Based on their behavior in the grocery stores in Mills Valley, we assumed that if they found fruit, they would bring it back to the rest—to the slower ones, the infants, the injured.”

“But that doesn’t seem to be the case, does it?” Phillips said. Then he turned. “Assemble a strike force, Corbin. Take them to where you dumped the fruit.”

“Hang on,” Corbin said, peering at the screen. “The markers are moving now. All eight of them.”

“Headed where?” Phillips asked.

“Northwest,” the mercenary said.

“They’ve been tracking generally northeast, haven’t they? Based on the bodies you’ve found, the trails, the encounters?”

“We believed they had moved to the north side of Mount Tam,” Corbin affirmed.

“This looks more like they’re going along the steep ridge trail.” Phillips glanced questioningly at Corbin.

“We haven’t searched there,” he admitted.

“I think the trails over Mount Tam were false,” Malakai said. “Deliberate misdirection.”

Phillips took a moment to look astonished before exploding.

“Why haven’t you said anything?” he demanded. “Why hold it back until now, Mr. Youmans?”

“I voiced my opinion to Mr. Corbin, there.”

“Really?” Phillips spun on his employee. “Corbin?”

“It seemed too ridiculous to consider, sir,” Corbin replied.

Phillips stared at him icily for a moment.

“From now on you report everything , do you understand? We hired these people because they know apes. You do not know apes—you are an ape. Your job isn’t to evaluate their recommendations. It’s to report them, and, when in the field, follow them.”

“Yes, sir,” Corbin replied brusquely. His face was bright red.

Phillips turned to Clancy.

“It seems you may be right after all,” he said. “Good work.”

“How will you capture them, sir?”

Phillips blinked.

“We have an expert team,” he said. “They’ll come in by air. We have nets, tranq guns, the works. We just needed to know where they were. Now we do, thanks to you and Mr. Youmans here.”

Then he turned and left the room.

Corbin, still red-faced, rose to carry out his orders.

“Come on, experts,” he said. “You’re riding along.”

“My expert advice?” Malakai said. “Don’t send any helicopters. Not until they stop. Not until we know for sure where the main group is. They can hear the choppers coming from miles away.”

The Humvee bumped along the Shoreline Highway, taking steep, hairpin turns. The evening fog was rolling in, but it didn’t obscure the view.

There were no giant trees here, but rocky, broken slopes slanting and sometimes plummeting down to where the restless sea battered against rocky cliffs and narrow shingles. Gulls swarmed in the skies like the flying rats they were, and in the distance Malakai made out the singular profiles of pelicans. It had always interested him, what a difference a few miles could make in landscape, especially when the sea and elevation were involved.

This didn’t seem at all like the sort of place that apes would feel at home and yet a short traverse from here stood some of the tallest trees in the world.

A red SUV came around the curve, half in their lane. Corbin swore and honked as the vehicle hurtled by.

“I thought all of the roads were closed,” Clancy said.

“Can’t close this one,” Corbin replied. “It’s the only way in and out of the communities along the shore. We closed the Panoramic Highway, and there’s been plenty of hell raised over that. Hopefully we’ll get this whole mess mopped up pretty soon and get out of here.”

Corbin glanced at his GPS and suddenly slammed on the brakes, just before a car pullover. There was a brown sign informing them that this was where the Steep Ravine Trail began—or ended. The trail led up a steep hill thick with small trees and shrubs, becoming low scrub as it climbed. Beyond the hill, only sky was visible from this vantage.

“That’s the trail up there,” Corbin said, presumably for those who couldn’t read.

He popped the door open and stepped out, tranq rifle in hand. He scanned the hill above.

Trying to still his heavy breathing, Caesar watched the car stop, and the man get out. He concentrated on keeping still, on making even his thumping heart less noisy. If the man came over—if he took four steps—the shrub Caesar hid behind wouldn’t conceal him anymore.