Mark Alpert - Extinction

Kirsten’s eyes stung. The damn things weren’t any good for seeing, but they could still cry. Jim was her friend and the best commander she’d ever worked for. He’d saved her life in Nairobi and built the camera-glasses for her afterward. And this was the first time he’d asked for anything in return. For fifteen years he’d been the brave, stoic soldier, acting as if he’d put the catastrophe well behind him. But now he was coming apart.

She turned away from Jim as she reached for the telephone. She didn’t want him to see her face. “Okay, give me a minute.” She swallowed hard, then dialed the number of one of her contacts at the Pentagon. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Layla stood on the deck of the Athena as the yacht entered the Pedro Miguel lock of the Panama Canal. The canal’s locks were an engineering marvel. First, the Athena cruised into “the bathtub,” a concrete-walled basin a hundred feet wide and a thousand feet long. Then the massive steel gates clanged shut behind the yacht, and the water level in the bathtub started to rise. Thousands of gallons of water from Gatun Lake gushed into the lock from valves at the bottom of the bathtub. Within a few minutes the boat ascended to the lake’s level, and then the gates in front of the Athena opened.

At the same time, a giant Panamax freighter coasted into the parallel lock, which was handling the boat traffic going the other way, toward the Pacific. The freighter, loaded with hundreds of shipping containers, was towed into the bathtub by “mule” locomotives running on both sides of the lock. It was called a Panamax freighter because it was built to the maximum size that the Panama Canal could handle. There was less than two feet of clearance between the boat’s hull and the bathtub’s concrete walls. Layla clucked her tongue in amazement. There was nothing she loved more than a well-designed machine.

Gabriel Schroeder’s predictions had come to pass. The naval warships, both American and Chinese, had backed off from the Athena after it beat them to the canal. But the yacht was still being pursued. A convoy of SUVs traveled on the road beside the canal, keeping pace with the Athena as it left the locks behind and cruised into Gatun Lake. And a pair of black helicopters hovered overhead, transmitting a barrage of radio-frequency noise to disrupt the Athena ’s satellite links. The jamming had prevented the yacht’s crew from connecting to the InfoLeaks Web site and publicizing the documents from Dragon Fire.

Layla stood there on the deck for several minutes, observing the suspicious helicopters and SUVs. Then Schroeder came out of his cabin and joined her at the railing. He was in such a glum mood that he didn’t even try to put the moves on her. With no radio links to the outside world, Schroeder was stymied. He couldn’t access his Web site or communicate with his supporters. Worse, he couldn’t view the latest satellite photos of the Caribbean to see if there were any U.S. Navy warships waiting for them at the other end of the canal. The Athena might be heading straight into a trap.

Schroeder let out a long sigh. “Look at this, liebchen, ” he said, gesturing at the helicopters. “Our enemies are everywhere. They’ve shut us down.”

Layla frowned. She hated defeatism. It was an aversion she’d inherited from her father. “Have you tried any electronic countermeasures? To cut through the jamming?”

“We’ve been trying all day. But the noise is intense, and it covers the whole spectrum of radio frequencies.”

Layla looked closer at the helicopters. Their fuselages were studded with antennas. “They’re hovering low to make the jamming more effective. The closer the source, the stronger the noise.”

“Yes, they’re probably CIA.” He gave the helicopters a baleful glance, then pointed at the shore of the canal, where a welter of power and telephone lines ran alongside the road. “It’s a shame we can’t access one of those landlines. In five minutes we could upload all the documents to our Web site.”

Layla thought it over for a moment. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. Give me a flash drive containing the English translations of the files and the photos of the fly. Then I’ll get in one of the Athena ’s Zodiacs and head for those buildings.” She pointed to a small town on the right side of the canal, a couple of miles ahead. “There’s bound to be a computer connected to a landline over there.”

Schroeder smiled, then shook his head. “I like your spirit, liebchen , but your plan won’t work. The CIA agents will grab you as soon as you step out of the Zodiac.” He gestured again at the helicopters overhead and the SUVs on the road.

She thought it over a little more, trying to remember everything she knew about the Panama Canal. Aside from the engineering of the locks, she didn’t know much. But after some effort, she recalled a conversation she’d had two years ago with one of her classmates at MIT, a biology major who’d gone on a field trip to Panama. He mentioned a tropical research station on a forested hilltop. The area had been flooded a hundred years ago when the canal was dug, and the hilltop became an island in Gatun Lake, crowded with monkeys and toucans that biologists loved to study. Layla racked her brain until she remembered the name of the place.

“Barro Colorado,” she said. “It’s an island in Gatun Lake. Very rugged, covered with rain forest. No bridges to the mainland and no landing zones for helicopters. But the Smithsonian Institute runs a research station there, and they must have a landline.”

Schroeder didn’t respond right away. He just stared at Layla for several seconds. Then he turned around to face the row of chaise lounges on the deck. Angelique, who wore a yellow bikini today, was sunning herself on the nearest chaise. Her eyes were closed and her body glistened with tanning oil.

“Angie,” Schroeder said, “did you hear the intriguing idea that Fraulein Pierce just mentioned?”

Without opening her eyes, Angelique nodded. “It’s a good plan. I’ll go with her on the Zodiac.”

No way, Layla thought. The bathing beauty’s not coming along. “I appreciate the offer, but it’s better if I go alone. I need to do this fast.”

Schroeder chuckled. “Angie, show the fraulein how fast you are.”

Angelique languidly rose from her chaise. Then she lunged across the deck and pinned Layla to the railing. One of her glistening arms hooked around Layla’s neck.

“Shit!” Layla cried. “Let go!”

“Sorry,” Angelique said. “Before I met Gabriel, I was in the French marines.” Smiling apologetically, she let go of Layla. Then she turned around and headed for the Athena ’s lower decks. “I’ll prepare that flash drive for you.”

Jim and Kirsten lay on the hard metal floor of a C-17 transport plane flying over Central Asia. They’d found some space in the plane’s cavernous fuselage, which was crowded with armored vehicles and a dozen Army Rangers, who sat in a circle and played Texas Hold ’em. Jim couldn’t sleep—the roar of the C-17’s engines was deafening—but Kirsten dozed right through it, curled on her side, with her head resting on Jim’s olive-green duffle bag. The plane was headed for Bagram Air Base, the military airfield in Afghanistan.

Having nothing better to do, Jim stared at the Rangers. They were in the 75th Regiment, First Battalion, which specialized in raiding Taliban hideouts in the Afghan mountains. It was one of the most dangerous assignments in the army, but the soldiers didn’t look worried. They shouted and guffawed as they played round after round of poker, manic and high on adrenaline. Jim had felt the same way during his own years in the Rangers. Before his NSA assignment, he’d served in the 75th’s Third Battalion, jumping from one hot spot to the next—Panama, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Somalia. He’d started in ’86 as a platoon leader, and by ’93 he was the battalion’s intelligence officer. It was a fantastic ride, the greatest job in the world. And then suddenly it was the worst.