He raised his voice over the thundering helicopter above. “You sure picked the wrong boat, eh?”
Carlo jerked his head up and spat, but Caesare’s reaction was instant. He drove a powerful fist straight into Carlo’s face, slamming his head against the cockpit floor.
Caesare stood up, watching Carlo’s eyes roll upward. He came in close to Alison so she could hear him and nodded out toward the swirling water. “Any chance dolphins would eat a human?”
“I wish.”
He frowned and then addressed Clay. “Langford says you need to get back to the Bowditch, pronto.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“He said it was urgent. He asked me to apologize to Alison.” He looked at her. “Which is rare for the Admiral. Don’t worry, John, I’ll stay and bring them in.”
Alison gripped Clay’s arm. “Do you have to go right this second?”
He peered at the Oceanhawk with its blades still beating the air above them. One of the pilots had his helmet against his side window, looking down and waiting.
“I’m afraid so,” he sighed. “They’re burning fuel.” Clay sized up the jerry cans in front of him. “You should have more than enough to reach the Bowditch.”
He surprised Alison when he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a long kiss. “You’ll be fine with Steve. He should have you to the ship by noon at the latest. Just get some rest and take care of Lee and Chris.”
“Okay, we will.”
He nodded at Caesare. “The bag is on the bow.”
Clay smiled at Kelly before grabbing the harness, still lying on the deck. He clipped himself in, grabbed the rope, and gave the signal to raise him.
From the deck, Alison watched Clay quickly ascend up towards the helicopter. From there, the copilot reached out and pulled him in, not letting go until Clay got his footing.
The front of the helicopter immediately dipped forward and accelerated. Within moments, it was gone, and the thundering blades faded into the night.
Carlo fell hard, striking his face against the filthy deck of his speedboat. The craft was larger than one would have expected, which meant it was likely stolen from a previous victim.
“Whoops. Sorry about that,” Caesare said, then dropped Josias next to Carlo with the same force and bounced him off Junior, who was already face down.
Caesare turned and stepped back over the side. With a short hop, he landed on the edge of the Prowler and stepped down next to one of the seats. He opened Clay’s large waterproof bag and withdrew a Springfield .40 caliber semi-automatic. Before he returned to the speedboat, he glanced over his shoulder to Alison and Kelly, who were both watching. “Cover your ears.”
They watched him hop back into the other boat. The women suddenly froze when he pointed the gun down and, without hesitation, rapidly unloaded the entire magazine.
Oh, my god! Alison stood horrified. They were both speechless… until Caesare reached down and turned something. He then pulled up on a large panel, which looked to have over a dozen neatly placed holes in it.
It was one of the panels to the engine compartment. Even without direct light, Caesare could make out the dark fluids squirting out of the thick damaged hoses and pooling at the bottom of the compartment. With a satisfied nod, he dropped the panel and let it clang shut. “That’ll do.”
The men were still watching wide-eyed from the floor of their boat when Caesare crossed back over, untied the line, and pushed off.
As they floated away, he called out a heartfelt, “Bon voyage!”
43
It was still dark when deckhands guided the Oceanhawk down onto the Bowditch’s pad. Clay slid the heavy door open and jumped down beneath the slowing rotor blades. He trotted to the base of the metal stairs where Neely Lawton was waiting for him.
“They’re waiting for us,” she said, waving him up the stairs as she started climbing. Clay followed her up and checked his watch. It was four thirty-five a.m.
When they reached the small conference room, Captain Krogstad and Will Borger were already seated at the table. On-screen were a tired looking Admiral Langford and Merl Miller. Kathryn Lokke appeared surprisingly alert.
Clay and Lawton sat down on opposite sides, keeping all of them just within frame of the small camera above the monitor.
“Everyone,” Krogstad said, “I’d like to introduce Commander Neely Lawton, our resident biology expert and head of the research team aboard this ship. She is the one who requested this meeting. I can also assure you she is as sharp as they come.”
If the introduction bothered Lawton, she didn’t show it. Only Langford knew that she was also Krogstad’s daughter.
Lawton cleared her voice. “I’m sorry to bother all of you at this early hour, but I have some information that I think you will all agree warranted an immediate call. As you know, my team has been studying the sample which Commander Clay brought aboard from one of the Chinese trucks.” She pressed a button on her laptop and a picture of the sample appeared on the monitor for all to see.
“Now, please be aware that we have had less than forty-eight hours to study it, so for all intents and purposes this should be considered a preliminary finding.” She paused for any questions. Receiving none, she continued. “We began with tests on all of the plant cells’ organelles: nucleus, ribosomes, mitochondria, everything. Finding nothing unusual, we then examined the plant’s chloroplast and thylakoid spaces and measured its photosynthesis properties.”
“And?” asked Langford.
“Its photosynthesis capacity appears to be above average, but not by much.”
“So, you’re saying there is nothing special about its photosynthesis?” Langford asked.
“Correct. Nor is there any significant oil composition or production that we can detect. Again, this is a preliminary examination. There are still more tests to carry out, but I can say with some degree of confidence that these initial measurements are accurate.”
Miller rubbed his eyes. “Commander Lawton, I presume there is at least something noteworthy for us to discuss on this call.”
“Yes, sir. After finding nothing in the preliminary tests, we decided to dig deeper. As you may know, DNA has already been mapped for many modern plants, but to do a complete mapping here would take months, even in a larger laboratory. But we did study its chromosomes. In particular: their lengths, the position of centromeres, and branding patterns. The name of this kind of study is called karyology, and we found something interesting.”
“The somatic cells of humans, as we all know, have forty-six chromosomes. Orangutans and gorillas have forty-eight. Animals like bears and wolves range through the sixties and seventies. Plants, on the other hand, generally have a lot less. So these somatic numbers vary from species to species.”
Miller nodded. “I presume you are going to tell us how many our mystery plant has?”
“Eighteen, sir,” was Lawton’s reply. “But the number is not all that important. What is important is the behavior of those chromosomes. My intention is not to turn this call into a biology lesson, but I thought it worthwhile to refresh everyone’s memory on a few subjects. Chromosomes are organized structures of existing DNA and proteins. They essentially package portions of DNA and control its various functions.”
“The reason for my primer is that we found something interesting regarding the chromosomal behavior of Commander Clay’s plant. As a matter of fact, ‘interesting’ wouldn’t be the right word. What we found is rather staggering, and it has to do with a very specific part of the chromosome.”