He could see all the way down the long fuselage to the front loading ramp, now folded up behind the closed nose cone. Along most of that length ran just over a hundred feet of cattle stalls, seven feet deep, twenty-five to a side with a five-foot aisle down the middle. Clear plastic walls separated each stall. Clear plastic doors completed each cage, with a bin inside the door to hold feed pellets that were dumped in by an automatic system. The outside of each door held a flat-panel control monitor that showed the cow’s heart rate, weight and several other factors Colding didn’t recognize right off the bat.
Big-eyed black-and-white Holstein cows occupied the stalls, each partially supported by a durable harness that hung from the ceiling. Hooves still touched the deck, but the harnesses carried most of the weight—couldn’t have fifteen-hundred-pound animals jostling around during flight. The occasional moos helped reinforce the surreal scene. An overwhelming smell of cows and cow shit permeated the place. A labeled plastic tag hung from each cow’s right ear—A-1, A-2, A-3 and so on.
The animals seemed perfectly calm and happy. Calm, but big, standing five feet tall at the shoulder. Colding could only imagine trying to control fifty of them inside the plane if something caused a panic.
Just inside the ramp to his right was the aft ladder that led to a second deck containing equipment, computers and lab space for Rhumkorrf and Jian. Up there they had almost all of their equipment from the Baffin facility, just a lot less space in which to work it.
Past the cow stalls and on the right-hand side of the center aisle sat twenty feet of veterinary lab space filled with computers, supply cabinets and a big metal table that ran along the aisle’s edge. On the aisle’s left side was an open space where a ten-foot-by-seven-foot elevator platform could lower down from the upper deck. Past that were twelve crash chairs arranged in three rows of four. Beyond the crash chairs, the folded-up front ramp and a metal ladder to the upper deck.
Miller and Cappy scurried about, checking readouts and testing the straps securing each cow. The men gave Colding several quick looks, as if they expected him to move forward, but the C-5’s interior held him awestruck. The two crewmen quickly walked over to him, both moving nearly in lockstep with the same quick gait.
“You need to get seated, sir,” Miller said.
“Yeah,” Cappy said. “You need to get seated.”
Colding nodded apologetically and walked deeper into the plane. “Sorry, guys, it’s just a bit… overwhelming. And don’t call me sir, call me P. J.”
“Okay, P. J.,” Miller said.
“Yeah, okay, P. J.,” Cappy said.
They led him to the crash chairs where Andy, Gunther, Rhumkorrf, Jian and Tim were already strapped in. Tim was asleep, a little drool trickling down from his lower lip.
The sound of heavy hydraulics whined through the C-5. The rear ramp slowly folded up on itself, tucking away for the upcoming flight. Two outer rear doors closed behind it, returning the plane to a smooth, aerodynamic profile. The C-5’s entire nose section could also lift up like a gaping mouth. With both front and rear ramps down, a fifty-seven-ton, twelve-foot-wide M1-Abrams tank could literally drive in one end of the plane and out the other.
Colding sat and reached for the restraints, wincing in pain as his sliced chest and shoulder burned with the new movement.
Sara dropped down the ladder from the upper deck. She turned and saw him fiddling with the restraints. “Let’s go, Colding. Buckle up, dammit, we’re taking off.”
“I, uh… I need some help.”
Sara walked up to him. In the C-5’s bright interior lights, she seemed to notice his torn jacket—and his blood—for the first time.
“That’s a mess,” she said. “Let’s see your wound.”
“It’s nothing. Can you just help me with the buckles?”
She ignored him, instead reaching out to open his coat and look inside. Sara took in a short hiss of breath when she saw the damage.
“What did that?”
“An axe,” Colding said.
Andy laughed his grating laugh. “An old lady with an axe, you mean. Better not let you meet my grandma, Colding, she might whip your ass for shits and giggles.”
“Andy,” Sara said, “shut the fuck up. Colding, I’ll take care of this once we’re in the air. For now, try not to bleed all over my plane.”
She reached down to both of his sides, grabbed the restraints, buckled him in and tightened him up. Once finished, Sara walked back to the fore ladder and ascended.
Seconds later, the C-5’s four giant TF39 turbofan engines hummed with raw power. Colding felt the massive plane start to inch forward. Steady thrust pushed him back into his seat. The plane rattled as it accelerated across the snowy airstrip, then much of the rattling dropped away as the wheels cleared the ground.
NOVEMBER 8: TAKE IT
THREE UH-60 BLACK Hawk helicopters came in low, just thirty feet above the night-darkened snow. The two lead choppers flew in a wide circle around the Baffin Island facility’s perimeter. The third Black Hawk hung back, stationary.
Inside that third helicopter, Colonel Paul Fischer looked through binoculars, surveying the damage below. The ruins of a large sheet-metal building lay crumpled like a giant, stomped Pepsi can. Dying flames propelled tendrils of black smoke through the torn metal. The place looked like a war zone. Good thing he was going in with twenty-four soldiers.
Paul wore a bulky, blue bodysuit. He felt ridiculous, but the Chemturion suit would protect him against any infectious agent. At least it would if he’d put on the helmet, which was now sitting at his feet in a tiny gesture of rebellion against strict orders based on ignorance, as issued by one Murray Longworth. Didn’t change the fact that Paul looked like a cross between a Smurf and the Stay Puft Marshmallow man.
The eight armed men seated with him in the Black Hawk looked far meaner in their full Mission-Oriented Protective Posture gear. MOPP suits consisted of a mask and a hood that hung down over the neck and shoulders, along with a charcoal-lined bodysuit and gloves. The whole rig provided significant protection against chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear hazards. Not as much protection as Paul’s smurfy Chemturion suit, were it properly worn, but what the MOPP suits gave up in total protection they made up for in mobility. He had no doubt these men could move fast and efficiently use their weapons—mean-looking M249 squad automatic weapons and compact Fabrique National P90s.
Eight more MOPP-suited soldiers rode in each of the other two Black Hawks, sixteen men who would storm the facility and lock everything down. The eight with Paul were part backup, part babysitter. He, apparently, was the baby that needed sitting. He wasn’t part of the combat operation. When the men weren’t talking directly to him, they referred to him as “the package.”
All of this gear was overkill anyway. The odds of another lethal transgenic virus breaking out right now were about as high as a cell phone store full of monkeys testing out the complete works of Shakespeare in the next twenty-four hours. But Murray Longworth’s orders had been both obnoxious and clear—go in with all due precaution.
Colding had already evaded them once, made an entire research project vanish and eliminated any evidence of Genada wrongdoing. That was why Longworth wanted to go in fast, go in hard, make sure Colding couldn’t pull a repeat performance. Looking at the burning hangar, Paul had to wonder if they were already too late.