James Rollins: The 6th Extinction

His fiancée, Lisa Cummings, surveyed the landscape through a set of binoculars. From his vantage behind her, Painter examined her in turn. She wore a yellow bikini covered by a thin cotton wrap belted at the waist. The sheer fabric allowed him to appreciate the curve of her backside, the angle of her hip, the length of her leg.

From his vantage, he came to a definitive conclusion.

I’m the luckiest man in the whole world .

Lisa interrupted his reverie, pointing below. “This beach is where I conducted research for my doctoral thesis. I was testing the diving physiology of harbor seals. You should’ve seen the pups… so cute. I spent weeks tagging the older ones with pulse ox sensors, so I could study their adaptation to deep-sea diving. The corollary to human respiration, oxygen saturation, endurance and stamina—”

Painter stepped to her side and scooped an arm intimately around her waist. “You know we could do our own research on endurance and stamina back at the hotel room.”

She lowered the binoculars and smiled at him, using a pinkie to whisk a few windblown strands of blond hair. She arched an eyebrow at him. “I think we’ve done plenty of that research already.”

“Still, you can never be too thorough.”

She turned into him, pressing against him. “You may be right.” She kissed him lightly on the lips, lingering there for a moment, then broke loose of their embrace. “But it’s late, and we do have to meet the caterer in an hour and arrange the final menu for the rehearsal dinner.”

He sighed heavily, watching the sun fade completely away. The wedding was in four days. It was going to be a small affair officiated on a local beach, attended by their closest friends and family, with a reception afterward at the Four Seasons Biltmore in Montecito. Yet, as that fateful day grew closer, the list of details only seemed to grow longer. To escape the chaos for a few hours, the two had taken a late afternoon walk along the Carpinteria Bluffs overlooking the Pacific, strolling across open meadows dotted with towering eucalyptus trees.

It was such moments that also allowed Painter to learn more intimate details about Lisa’s childhood, about her roots out west here. He’d already known how she had grown up in Southern California and graduated from UCLA, but to experience her in her own element — reminiscing, telling stories, simply basking under her native sun — made him love her all the more.

How could he not?

From her long blond hair to the smoothest skin that bronzed with the lightest touch of the sun, she was the epitome of the Golden State. Still, only the most foolhardy would assume her looks were the extent of her assets. Behind that beauty was a mind that outshone all. Not only had she graduated top of her class from UCLA’s med school, but she had also earned a PhD in human physiology.

With such a connection out west, they had chosen Santa Barbara as the location for their wedding. Though the two of them now made their home on the opposite coast — in Washington, D.C. — a majority of Lisa’s friends and family were still out here. So shifting the venue to California only made sense, especially as Painter had no real family of his own. He had been orphaned at a young age and mostly distanced from the Native American side of his family; his only blood relative was a distant niece, and she was going to school at Brigham Young in Utah.

That left only a handful of guests who would need to make the cross-country trek, namely Painter’s innermost circle at Sigma Force. Not that such a journey was without hardship for those few. The group’s lead field commander, Grayson Pierce, had a father slipping further into the mental fog of Alzheimer’s, and—

“Did I tell you I heard from Kat this morning?” Lisa asked, as if reading his mind.

He shook his head.

“She managed to find someone to watch the girls. You should have heard the relief in her voice. I don’t think she was looking forward to such a long flight with two young children in tow.”

He grinned as they headed back across the darkening bluffs. “I also suspect Kat and Monk could use a vacation from diapers and midnight feedings.”

Kathryn Bryant was Sigma’s chief intelligence expert, and Painter’s second-in-command, his proverbial right arm. Her husband, Monk Kokkalis, was a fellow Sigma operative, trained in forensic medicine and biotechnology.

“Speaking of diapers and midnight bottles…” Lisa leaned into him, entwining her fingers with his. “Maybe that’s a chore we’ll soon be complaining about.”

“Maybe.”

From her slight sigh, she must have heard the hesitation in his voice. They had, of course, spoken of having children, of starting a family. But dreaming was different from staring that reality full in the face.

Her hand slipped from his grasp. “Painter—”

A sharp and insistent bleat from his phone cut her off, saving him from any explanation — which was a good thing because he couldn’t explain his reluctance even to himself. His back stiffened at the distinctive ringtone. Lisa didn’t object as he answered, knowing that particular chime sounded only in the case of an emergency.

Painter lifted the phone to his ear. “Crowe here.”

“Director.” It was Kat Bryant. “We’ve got trouble.”

For his second-in-command to be calling him now, it had to be big trouble. Then again, when did Sigma ever deal with small problems? As a covert wing for DARPA — the military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — Sigma Force dealt with global threats of a scientific or technological nature. As director of the group, Painter had gathered a select group of Special Forces soldiers from across the different branches of service and retrained them in various scientific disciplines to act as field operatives for DARPA. If a problem landed in Sigma’s lap, it was seldom a minor concern.

While normally such an urgent call would set him on edge, he could not discount the relief he felt, welcoming the distraction. If I have to taste another piece of wedding cake or decide which centerpiece to go with which table at the reception…

“What’s wrong?” he asked Kat, bracing himself for the answer.

“No, no, no!”

Jenna pounded the truck’s brakes, throwing her hard into the seat belt’s shoulder strap. Nikko tumbled off the seat next to her. As the husky scrambled back up, she stared into the rearview mirror.

The world behind her had become a smoky black wall, rolling relentlessly down from the highlands above. She had to get out of its path, but the road ahead turned in a hard hairpin, zigzagging down toward the distant basin of Mono Lake. To take that switchback would send them driving back toward the poisonous smoke. Twisting in her seat, she followed the curve of the road and saw the way did indeed lead back into that roiling cloud.

Despite the early evening chill, she wiped sweat from her brow.

Nikko studied her, trusting her to get them to safety.

But where?

She flipped on her high beams and studied the switchback ahead. She noted a faint pair of tire tracks aiming away from the gravel road and out into the open terrain of sagebrush and scrubby pinyon pines. She didn’t know where that thin track led. Certainly tourists and local teenagers often made their own illegal paths, camping in neighboring box canyons or building bonfires beside creeks. Heaven knows, she had chased plenty of them off herself in her role as park ranger.

With no other choice, she gunned the engine and sped to the switchback. She bumped the truck over the shoulder and onto the thin off-road trail. She raced along the rutted track, rattling every nut and bolt in the Ford. Nikko panted beside her, his ears tall, his eyes everywhere.