Scott Sigler: Ancestor

Paul picked up the phone. His boss answered on the first ring.

“This is Longworth. What’s your call, Colonel?”

“I’ve ordered General Curry to use the fuel bombs.”

There was a slight pause. “I still can’t believe this,” Longworth said. “From a goddamn pig? How can a pig virus infect people?”

Paul sighed. Longworth ran the show, but he didn’t get it. Probably never would. One of the main monitors switched from the steady procession of the dead to a shaking, blurry, bird’s-eye view of the Novozyme facility. Bomber-cam.

“The pig genome was modified to include human proteins,” Paul said. “That has to happen if you want to make the pig organs transplantable into humans. A new swine flu variant incorporated those proteins and it jumped species.”

“Put it in terms that I can understand.”

“Fast-moving, airborne, no known treatment, three out of four people die horribly. Goes global within eight weeks. On a scale of one to ten, this is an eight, and my ten is the complete extinction of mankind. We need to go scorched Earth here, sir.”

Paul heard Longworth’s heavy sigh.

“Finish up there as fast as you can, then get your ass back to D.C.,” Longworth said. “President Guttierez is calling a black meeting. All the European nations, India, China, everyone capable of this kind of work. We’re shutting everyone down until the WHO can put monitors in place. I need you at that meeting.”

“I see,” Paul said. A black meeting . A disaster of biblical proportions was just a broken airlock away, and the world’s leaders would meet in secret to discuss the options. No one would ever know.

Not even Matal’s family.

On the bomber-cam monitor, Fischer recognized the field he’d just walked through, then the white Quonset-hut hamster town. A fraction of a second later, he heard the roar of the jet’s engine. Only seconds now.

“After the D.C. meeting, you go after Genada,” Murray said. “We’re shutting everyone down, but we get Genada’s facility at Baffin Island first.”

The monitor switched to a view from a camera that must have been mounted up with the radar dishes on the Quonset’s roof. The Novozyme facility was there for a brief second, then a giant orange flash filled the screen. The ground shook. A small mushrooming cloud lifted into the dawn sky.

“Sir,” Paul said, “I think I should be on hand for the Monsanto facility in South Africa, or Genzyme’s Brazilian installation.”

“Genada first,” Longworth said. “We already know those fucking Paglione brothers were conducting human experimentation. They’re a proven threat. Any progress finding the Russian girl?”

The Russian girl. Galina Poriskova, PhD. She’d threatened to blow the whistle on Genada’s human experimentation. She’d contacted Fischer, met with him and claimed to have evidence, but the Pagliones had paid her off before she delivered.

“Just tracking some financials,” Paul said. “Investments and the like. NSA is pretty sure she’s in Moscow, but we can’t get the Russians to cooperate.”

“I’m guessing they’ll cooperate now,” Longworth said. “I’ll escalate it to the State Department. P. J. Colding made the human experiments vanish the last time we were chasing Genada. He also took Poriskova right out from under your nose. So we start with Genada before he can do that shit again.”

Paul swallowed, closed his eyes. He should have known P. J. Colding’s name would come up.

“I understand, sir,” Paul said. “But I remind you that I have an asset on the inside at Baffin Island. I can send a message. If anything looks amiss, the asset can cripple transportation, stranding Colding and the entire project.”

“Still rubs my ass raw you won’t tell me who your asset is.”

“Until your people find out how Magnus and Danté Paglione get inside information from the CIA, it’s best I’m the only one to know.”

“I said it rubs my ass raw, I didn’t say it wasn’t the right strategy. But, Colonel, can your asset get a message back to you?”

Paul ground his teeth. He knew exactly where this was going. “No sir.”

“Which means you won’t know when the Paglione brothers find out about the bomb you just dropped. They’ll figure out what happened, and when they do, Colding will take the Genada project on the run. I’m not about to tell the president that there’s a rogue xenotransplantation element unaccounted for, not after what just went down. While you do the D.C. meeting, I’ll call up the special threats CBRN platoon. You’ll go in with them.”

The special threats CBRN team. Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear . Paul didn’t know much about those men, he wasn’t cleared to know, but they would be much more than just enlisted soldiers in hazmat suits. They’d be special forces. Whip-smart killers.

“I’ll have a flight for you out of Thule,” Longworth said. “Tell your asset to take out all transportation so Colding and the Genada staff can’t get away.”

From bad to worse. That action would leave Paul’s asset with no support until the CBRN team touched down. Considering the caliber of Genada’s security forces, that could be very bad indeed.

“Sir, I suggest we just wait. They’ve got fifty animals in the facility… they can’t go far in ten hours.”

“Colonel Fischer, we’re done here. As soon as I get approval from the Canadians, you order your asset to destroy all transportation, take out any research data and kill the baboons.”

“Cows, sir,” Paul said. “Monsanto is using baboons. Genada is using cows.”

“Then kill all the cows. Stop arguing with me.

“Paul rubbed his face in frustration. His ex-wife, Claire, used to tell him that the movement made him look like a little kid who needed a nap. He’d never broken the habit, and now every time he did it he immediately thought of her nagging at him to stop.

“Colonel Fischer,” Longworth said. “Will you follow my instructions, or not?”

“Yes sir. I’ll send the order as soon as you give the green light.”

STOP IT, HANDS .

Her fingers brushed long black hair out of her eyes. The hair fell back, slowly, almost floated into place, and she pushed it away again. Her small hands seemed to move of their own accord, grabbing, stitching, sewing.

Stop it, hands , she wanted to say, but she couldn’t speak. She could only watch.

It was wrong .

It was dangerous .

It was what she deserved , deserved for being bad. A dulled sense of dread filled her mind, a metallic-gray cloud of doom.

Her hands held a fuzzy, stuffed, black-and-white panda. But her favorite toy wasn’t exactly the way she remembered. It was the panda’s body, all right, but it had no arms, no legs, and no head.

The possessed hands reached down and came up with the orange-and-black arm of a stuffed tiger, fabric torn where it had once joined at the shoulder, white fluff hanging out in long strands. Liu Jian Dan’s hands began sewing. The needle flashed again and again. The tiger arm joined the body.

She felt a pinprick of pain.

Jian looked at the possessed hand. A rivulet of blood trailed down her tiny, chubby finger. The droplet pooled in the joint between her fingers, then fell onto the panda body, staining the fuzzy white fur.

Fear sent a wash of tingles over her skin, like a billion bites from a billion carnivorous bacteria. Her small body shivered.