“Feely,” Rhumkorrf said. “How big would you say those embryos are?”
“Umm… at least eight ounces.” Tim’s voice dropped to barely a whisper. “Maybe even a little more. Normal embryonic growth for a two-hundred-pound mammal should be less than a tenth of an ounce.”
“Eighty times the normal growth rate,” Rhumkorrf said. “That’s even higher than you projected, Jian. Fantastic!”
Fantastic. Was that the right word to describe it? No. It was not. From a single cell to half a pound in less than forty-eight hours. She should have felt elated. But instead, she felt afraid.
And she wasn’t quite sure why.
NOVEMBER 11: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS
Implantation +2 Days
COLONEL PAUL FISCHER stood on the edge of a Brazilian rain forest, staring up into the dark canopy. Never in all his days had he felt this drained, this utterly exhausted. His feet hurt. His eyes burned. This kind of sleep deprivation and world-hopping schedule would grind a twentysomething into the ground, and Paul was pushing fifty.
Amgen had built its xenotransplantation facility in the middle of the deep jungle. A stunning view surrounded the compound, mostly because there were no roads to tarnish the tree line. Amgen had used helicopters to bring everything in and out. Behind Paul, the special threats CBRN team was moving through the compound, completing their mission of seizing the facility and shutting down Amgen’s research.
A bird sailed from one tree to another. Paul wondered what kind it was. Maybe after all this crap was over he could retire, come back down here and spend months cataloging all the bird species just for the fun of it. Before he could contemplate retirement, however, he had to finish the job.
Approaching footsteps called his attention away. He turned to face the approaching special threats soldier. This one was bigger than most and put off a more frightening vibe than anyone Paul had ever known. He wore a MOPP suit without the hood, exposing his thin blond buzz cut and a mass of scar tissue where his right ear should have been. The man carried an FN P90 in his right hand and a sat-phone in his left.
“Colonel Fischer, sir.”
Fischer tried in vain to remember the man’s name, then cheated and looked at the name patch on the man’s left breast. “What is it, Sergeant O’Doyle?”
“Mister Longworth would like a status report.” O’Doyle handed over the sat-phone. Paul took it. O’Doyle took a step forward and stared out at the tree line, both hands now on the P90 submachine gun.
Paul lifted the sat-phone. It felt like it weighed eight thousand pounds. “This is Fischer.”
“Colonel,” Murray Longworth said. “How’s it look?”
“We’ve secured the place. No biohazard warnings, everything looks fine.” Of course everything looked fine. The Novozyme accident had been a fluke. Paul and the special threats team had flown to four continents and shut down five facilities in the last three days, and he’d known there wouldn’t be an issue as long as no one was dumb enough to put up a fight.
“Nice work, Colonel,” Longworth said. “The only one left is Genada, wherever the hell they went.”
“Any progress on that?”
“Nothing,” Longworth said. “Like they vanished. Colding is good.”
Paul nodded to no one. Colding was good. Back when they’d worked together in USAMRIID, Paul had never suspected just how good Colding could be. “Nothing on freezing Genada’s accounts? Can’t we flush them out that way?”
“Switzerland, Cayman Islands and China refuse to cooperate with that. All three countries believe the ecoterrorist attack was real, and that Genada is out of the game. Danté Paglione does a lot of business in those countries, so they won’t freeze his assets unless we have something concrete to show that Genada is still doing xenotransplantation research. Keep digging, Colonel. Find me something tangible to take to those governments. Anything from the Russians on Poriskova?”
“Nothing yet, sir,” Paul said. “But their effort is encouraging.”
For over a year, Paul had been trying to get the Russians’ help in tracking down Galina Poriskova, former Genada employee and whistle-blower. Russian authorities had been mostly unresponsive, but all of that had changed in the last three days. Several Russian agencies had called Paul directly, asking what he needed and how they could help. Near as Paul could estimate, the Russians had at least fifty investigators searching for any sign of Poriskova.
“Well, that’s something,” Longworth said. “How long until they find her?”
“They think maybe four or five days.”
“Good. I’ll keep bird-dogging on my end. I have Interpol and other agencies cooperating. We’ll figure this out, Colonel, just stick with it.”
“Yes sir,” Paul said, then handed the sat-phone to O’Doyle. Paul wondered just how tired he had to sound if Murray Longworth felt the need to bust out a pep talk. But however tired he sounded, it wasn’t half as tired as he felt.
NOVEMBER 11: GALLERY AND/OR JUGGS
Implantation +2 Days
ANDY CROSTHWAITE SHIFTED his brown grocery bag to his left hand, sighed contentedly, and punched in the code 0-0-0-0 on the security room door. Inside, the familiar rack of weapons was waiting for him.
Real weapons that could do real damage.
Not that the Beretta 96 was a toy. The magazine held eleven .40-caliber rounds, plus one in the chamber (Andy always had one in the chamber), for twelve shots of solid stopping power. It wasn’t his favorite, but the 96 was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
Still, he far preferred the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. Magnus provided the .40-caliber variant, providing for consistent ammo with the Beretta sidearms. The MP5s had thirty-round magazines and fired at eight hundred rounds a minute. Accurate at a hundred meters, the thing turned deer into hamburger-on-the-hoof and killed humans dead.
Andy pulled one of the MP5s out of the rack and carried it over to the security monitor table. He tossed down his tattered brown paper bag. It landed on its side and tipped, spilling copies of Juggs and Gallery across the desktop.
He sat, hands caressing the weapon’s well-known curves and angles. He’d break it down, clean it and put it back together. At least it was something to do while taking his completely unnecessary shift. What a fucking joke. No one was going to find them here.
He scanned the monitors anyway. The desk setup looked identical to the one on Baffin Island. More of Magnus’s consistency. Why pay money to train people on multiple systems when you can just train them once and install the same system in all locations? Made sense. Everything Magnus did made sense.
Andy checked the infrared feeds of the area surrounding the mansion and the hangar. The infrared worked just fine—and showed nothing. He switched back to the black-and-white pictures of the grounds, the inside of the mansion. Several of the little five-inch monitors were blacked out—typical Colding, no monitoring private rooms except for that suicidal Chinese bitch.
But what about the mythical Room 17? Sara’s room. Yep, the camera was off.
He set the MP5 on the desktop, then flipped a switch. Sure enough, the screen lit up, showing the inside of Sara Purinam’s room. There she was, on her bed. Too dark, though. He scanned the controls… ah yes, night vision. He pushed a button and saw Sara Purinam’s naked upper body gleam in green-tinged glory. Just a B-cup, but he’d still do her.