King’s concerns were not unwarranted. He had been present when a group of bandits, intent on assaulting Felice had been at the receiving end of such a surge and were transformed into mindless zombies. And that had been triggered merely by the threat of violence.
“I spent two years learning meditation and biofeedback techniques to control my emotions,” Felice continued. “I can enter a trance state at will, completely shut myself off to all external stimuli. Is it enough? Who knows? But I’m not going to let fear of what might happen control me, or keep me from doing something that I feel is important.”
King nodded slowly. “I can’t argue with that.” He took a breath, let it out slowly. “You know what we’re about to do. And you know how it might end. I want you to stay here.”
The request did not come as a surprise. “I get it,” she said. “And you’re right. I’m no soldier. I wouldn’t be of much help.”
“I’ll ask David to stay with you.”
“There’s something you need to know,” she blurted. “Maybe it doesn’t even matter, but I’ve been running simulations on the possible effects of a nuclear explosion at the lake bottom. The research we were doing identified an extremophile as the source of most of the natural gas. If the gas bubble were to erupt violently, it would almost certainly bring some of those microbes to the surface.
“This is an extremely durable and robust organism. It has adapted to survive… no, make that thrive, in extreme environments. Imagine what would happen if it started colonizing on the surface? This rain forest is an all-you-can-eat buffet of carbon. Add to that the boost of CO2 released from the lake and the fact that atmospheric carbon dioxide has doubled since the last time the lake erupted, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.”
“Worse than two million dead?”
“The microbe turns vegetation into natural gas with a very low flashpoint. It would transform the entire Congo Basin into a flammable swamp. In the short term, that would be disastrous for the people who live here. In the long term, it would spike greenhouse gases even higher, creating a positive-feedback loop. I don’t even want to think about what might happen if the organism escapes Africa, and ends up somewhere like the Amazon.”
“Okay, I get it. It doesn’t change what we have to do.” He turned away, and Felice was left to wonder if she’d made the right decision in burdening him with the additional responsibility. It was a hard thing to have the fate of the world in your hands, but she was starting to realize that it was even harder to accept that sometimes it was out of your hands.
She watched the team make their final preparations. She hadn’t felt this helpless since Ethiopia. There was nothing she could do now to help them succeed.
Her gaze fell on Bishop.
Maybe there was something she could do after all.
She found herself moving toward him, and as she approached, he straightened and turned toward her, awkwardly expectant. She didn’t meet his eyes right away. Instead, she stared at the ragged slashes that crisscrossed his broad, muscular chest. He had thrown away the tattered remnant of his shirt, and now looked like some kind of mighty barbarian warrior. She could not help but be impressed.
Attractive? Hell, yes. The scientist in her recognized him as a prime alpha male specimen, and who was she to argue with biology? But there was more to it than that.
She placed her palms flat against his chest, just as she had done after the first raptor attack. Once more, she felt him recoil ever so slightly, as if her touch might make him vulnerable. Vulnerability, she supposed, was the only thing that truly frightened him.
She lightly touched one of the scabbed over gashes. “Are you all right?”
“I’m a fast healer. And it’s not as bad as it looks.”
At last she was ready to meet his eyes. As close as she now stood to him, he towered above her, and she had to crane her neck to look up at him. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it as the words deserted her. She tried again. “So, listen, I…”
“Yes.”
“What, yes?” she said with a laugh.
“Whatever it is you were going to ask me, the answer is yes.”
“Good.”
His lips curled into something that she recognized as a valiant attempt to smile, then he started to turn away.
“No, wait,” she said, and circled around to face him again. “You need to listen to me. I…”
Damn it, what am I trying to say?
She took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes again. “You are, without a doubt, the strongest, toughest, most bad-ass person I’ve ever met. But there’s something inside you that’s…” The words eluded her once more.
“You’re right,” he said in a quiet, almost embarrassed voice.
“It’s eating at you. You think you can control it, but…”
“I know.”
“I can help you.” When he didn’t respond, she continued. “Believe it or not, I’ve actually got a little experience with this kind of thing.”
He nodded. “King told me.”
“Did he?”
That son of a bitch, she thought. But at least he had saved her the trouble of explaining it to Bishop.
“Okay. Well, the point is, I can help. I want to.”
His eyes stayed locked with hers for several seconds, then something caught his attention and his gaze flicked away. The rest of the team was lining up to begin the mission.
“I have to go.” He knelt and picked up his machine gun.
Felice felt the moment slipping away. “Will you let me help?”
“I already have,” he said in a quiet voice, and then he turned to join the others.
49
As dusk settled over Lake Kivu, Monique Favreau decided she had waited long enough. It would be mid-morning in Washington by now, plenty of time for Marrs’s colleagues to digest her ultimatum and reach some kind of consensus.
She was giddy with excitement. Some would probably want to buy her off, while others would demand military action. Unable to agree, they would choose instead to stall for time by offering to negotiate, but she would give them nothing. They would bow to her will or she would destroy their prize.
The simple act of disconnecting the bomb from the helicopter’s stand-by electrical system felt like a pivotal moment. The battery back-up would keep the bomb primed and operational for a few hours. That was plenty of time to get it in position, but just barely enough to bring it back and plug it in again. That time constraint would set the tone for the negotiations with the Americans. There would be no room for equivocation or stalling.
She carried the device on her back through the camp, to the tent where General Velle had established his command. Okoa was there, seated at a folding table, not bound but under constant supervision from two of her men and a handful of Velle’s soldiers. Favreau ignored the general — the man who would be president — and went instead to the man who, legally speaking at least, had the actual job.