Hurricane Fever (22 page)

Roo shook his hand. “Prudence Jones. I’m mostly retired these days. I used to be in security. You?”

“Hurricane refits,” Upton said. “I built the walls for this mansion. The owners viewed putting it up on pylons as gauche.”

“View’s better on pylons,” Roo noted. “You’d get to see the beach.”

“The stone walls are retractable.” Upton waved the objection away. “When hurricane season is over they lower them so that the beach is viewable. Beats the hell out of hammering wood over your windows!”

As they waited their turn for drinks, he talked about his work growing more artificial reefs on islands up and down the Caribbean to help with storm surge and beach mitigation. “I also am spending a lot on a project to genetically engineer tougher foliage. There’s some neat things you can do with sea-grape trees, but I think the good money’s on mangroves. We really need more mangroves to blunt hurricane damage. The more people we can put into hardened high-rise buildings, and restore reef and greenage around them, the less increased hurricane activity hurts us.”

Roo took one of his cards and politely disengaged.

The tiny earpiece embedded deep in Roo’s ear canal kicked on. “Roo, this is Rhodes. I’m riding shotgun.”

Roo grunted.

A waifish woman with deep green eyes talked to him for a while about bauxite derivatives and hurricane insurance, and then Roo had to listen to an older government official talk about the Beijing Accord meetings, where he’d played some role in advocating for an infrastructure bank that invested in bike highway systems across the world.

The lights dimmed, cutting off the humble bragging. At a set of steps around a chocolate fountain at the front of the room a bald-headed man raised a hand. Screens faded away, and the audio qualities of the room shifted as devices kicked in audio tunneling focuses to allow him to speak to everyone softly.

“Thank you so much for attending yet … another successful Hurricane Ball. One of many more to come, I’m sure, given the Atlantic’s busy summer.” People in the room chuckled. “I am your host for Okath, and I want to say, thank you for trusting me to this. As your host, I’m allowed just a few words, I promise I’ll make this brief. I won’t pull a Petrov on you.”

More polite laughter, obviously an inside joke. Roo noticed some people glancing around, then joining the laughter. Those who didn’t laugh would stand out.

A way to separate who was new to the ball, Roo thought.

“You all know we’ve come a long way since the government-dominated days of missions to orbit and beyond. Many know that I think it’s important that we, as a species, find a way to live off our planet. Not just because our world now turns against us with storms and disaster, but because there are those among us filled with a desire for war. All it would take is
one
dangerous nation,
one
rogue state, to take us all down with them.”

Charleton paused dramatically and looked at his audience.

“My life’s work has been to create a very cheap way to put lots of what we need into orbit, and the Verne Plus gives us just that. It is an important leap for our species. And for us. Imagine, not hunkering down in a building like this, but watching these storms from orbit. Secure. Safe. Above it all.”

Behind him a live satellite picture of the great swirl of Okath’s arms appeared as a hologram in the air. As if everyone in the room were already above the atmosphere. In Charleton’s vision of the future, they were all looking down at the inconvenience of the storm. Above plagues. Above it all.

Upton had moved back Roo’s way, and nodded at him. “One vision of the future,” he groused. “Never mind trying to fix what’s on the ground. Just leave it all behind and run away.”

Roo scanned the attentive audience for some sign of Beauchamp.

“After this remarkable storm passes,” Charleton continued, “I invite any of you who wish to come and see a launch of the Verne Plus for yourselves. The location, on the east coast of the island where the Atlantic hits the shore, is stunning. However, to demonstrate the all-weather abilities of our system, we will actually be making a launch tonight, right in the middle of the storm. A weather instrument system that will remain suborbital and take measurements of both Okath and, at the other side of its trajectory, a new hurricane already developing off the horn of Africa. So please, enjoy our live feeds, or just head upstairs to the blast-proof windows and enjoy the storm!”

Video appeared on walls of the strikingly long barrel of the Verne Plus. Live hurricane feeds resumed on others. Some guests headed for the curved stairs up toward the top of the mansion.

There were antique wooden chairs and tables in nooks and quiet spots around the edge of the ballroom. Roo sat down at one with his empty glass, watching the hundred or so guests.

An attendant in tails appeared and held out a stiff piece of paper. “The menu, sir.”

“Oh.” Roo stood. “I’m not hungry, I didn’t realize that’s what the chairs were for.”

“Of course,” she said. Her long hair was expertly pinned, lacquered, and sculpted into a spiral shape. More hurricane references. “Can I refill your glass?”

“I think I’ll just leave it and go upstairs to see the storm,” Roo said.

“Very good, sir,” she said, as if he’d just made a wise choice of some sort.

He meandered away, up the long sweep of stairs and through corridors. Small clumps of people sat on couches and chatted about things Roo couldn’t hear due to invisible audio chips neutralizing their words outside the bubble of space they stood in.

There would be deal-making going on. Business. Fortunes making connections.

“Roo!” hissed Kit. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down the corridor.

She spun him into a bathroom, locked the door behind them both, and yanked a small pen from a purse. She clicked it and static swamped Roo’s earpiece.

“Katrina Prideaux, formally Beauchamp,” Roo snapped. The anger in him boiled over, threatening any attempt he had been planning of being even-tempered if he saw her. “It seems every time I meet you, I meet a whole new person.”

“I can’t believe you came here,” she muttered, ignoring his anger. “You might have made things worse if he saw you. Do you know if he saw you?”

“You should have told me you were his
daughter,
” Roo shouted.

“Hush. Life is packed with the misery of things we
should
have done.” Kit searched through her purse for something. “I
should
have realized I’d be followed, instead I ended up getting your nephew killed. Almost got you killed. Couldn’t talk you out of going right to the labs. I should have just left with the frog. It had the info I needed, but I stayed to help with your mess. What are you hoping to do here, something even more spectacular?”

Roo folded his arms. “The CIG is listening and watching everything, and I promised them I wouldn’t do anything. But the short answer is: I’m here to kill your father. Somehow.”

“You’re not broadcasting,” Kit said.

“What?” As soon as he said that out loud, he felt silly. The static. Of course.

She waved the pen in the air. “I’m using the same technology you had on the boat to jam any signals.”

Roo reached for the pen, curious. Kit grabbed his wrist. “I need you to pay attention, Roo. You need to tell this to your people. Get your attention off revenge and onto the bigger issue.”

“Which is?”

“The reason I helped you at the island. The reason I helped you storm that ship to get away. My father and his people are launching the engineered plague tonight, in the storm. They’re going to use the Verne Plus.”

“They’re dumping it into Okath?” Zee’s obsession with storms and wind patterns now made sense.

Kit nodded. “To spread it around the Caribbean and into America. The moisture-rich storm environment will help the virus from getting dried out. A second launch directly into Africa also finishes it up.”

“It’s going to be hard to bomb them in the middle of a hurricane,” Roo said.

“And a cruise missile capable of sterilizing the coastal area near the Verne Plus might well veer of course in those winds and kill Barbadians,” Kit said. “Or worse, spread the virus across the island if it doesn’t quite hit right. So you need to mobilize troops when your team comes to get you out of here. Now, please answer my first question: did my father see you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good, then he won’t launch early.” Kit looked relieved. She slid a capsule out from her purse and jabbed the end into Roo’s forearm. It spit against his skin.

“Kit!”

“Sorry. It’s just a sedative. I need a head start. I didn’t think you would show up here. Not after what you’d been through.”

Roo leaned against a sink, his vision failing. “You should have … told us…”

“I’ve been doing the best I can. I just now heard Charleton give the speech saying he was launching in the middle of the storm. That was when I realized what he was doing. I’m sorry, Roo.” She grabbed his shoulders and helped him slide gently down to the polished marble tile floor. “There’s just one last thing I need to tell you. The fever: did you notice what its victims had in common?”

Roo breathed deeply, trying to fight the drugs. “They…” He frowned.

“The immigrants in France. My husband, Hamid. They all had high melanin counts, Roo. They were brown-skinned.”

“Zee didn’t have
that
much melanin,” Roo said. Zee had passed as white in Europe. In fact, it made him a useful agent for the CIG, even if Zee was as Caribbean as anyone else in the office.

“That may have given him the time he needed in Florida to contact you before he died,” Kit said. “My father lied to you about the fever. I’ve been able to do some snooping of my own, Roo. The virus is targeted. I think it hunts specific genes related to skin color. He has been terrified of what he calls the clash of civilizations in Europe. He thinks we’re living in the final days of the end of Western Civilization, and is determined to strike first.”

“Kit…”

“He killed Hamid, Roo. I’m going after him. I have to stop him. For Hamid. For me. For everyone. You’ll be out for fifteen minutes, Roo. That’s all I need, a head start. Talk to your people.”

Roo’s eyes had been closed for a while, but now her words faded away as well.

*   *   *

He startled himself awake with a dry mouth and wiped drool off the side of a numb face with his sleeve. He unlocked the door, swaying for a second, then pushed it open. An annoyed man standing outside said, “Finally!”

“Rhodes?” Roo jogged down the hallway.

“Where the hell have you been?” Rhodes snapped. “You went offline when you saw Katrina Prideaux. We have a few men inside as waiters, but they couldn’t find you.”

“I’m okay. Listen…” As he moved down the stairs over the party Roo summarized everything, talking silently into his sleeve, shoving past guests who made disgusted faces at his lack of manners as he moved toward the main doors.

Rhodes was quiet for a second. “A virus that targets…” He swore. “I’ll mobilize. Barbadian police and soldiers will work with us. Caribbean Special Forces are in Trinidad; they won’t be able to fly out.”

Roo stopped at the door and looked at one of the screens. “You have forty minutes,” he said.

“Forty?”

“The Verne Plus launch is counting down live in here. Forty minutes. I’m not sure what Katrina is planning, but she’s fifteen minutes ahead of us.”

He turned from the screen to leave. But not before he spotted Beauchamp’s familiar face. The man was holding a flute of champagne and smiling … until he saw Roo.

The shock on his face gave Roo a thrill of satisfaction, but then Beauchamp began to move through the crowd at him.

Roo kept walking. The massive doors he’d come through earlier had been shut and barred, but a side door now allowed guests in and out through an airlock-like system of sliding steel doors.

He was struck by the wind the moment he stepped outside. His locks fluttered and flapped, and he had to brace his feet carefully and lean forward. The rain stung: needle sharp and painful.

“Oh thank God,” a man in a suit with a woman thirty years his junior stumbling next to him shouted at Roo, hurrying past. “Here are the keys, make sure you get it in the garage
right
away! It’s a vintage, original Tesla Roadster, I waited far too long to get here.”

“I
told
you,” the woman shouted. “I said to you not to delay, but you had to call…”

They were cut off by the sliding doors.

Roo looked down at his tuxedo, his mouth open to say something. Then he looked at the key fob, and at the Tesla sitting in the lashing rain.

Forty minutes.

He slid into the vehicle, set the mirror, and looked up to see Beauchamp step out of the doors. Roo almost got back out of the car. Right here, right now, Beauchamp was just fifty feet away.

But there was a Verne Plus launch to stop.

Roo hit the accelerator and peeled out of the drive, heading for the massive gates of the estate. Beauchamp shouted into a phone and one of the massive tornado-proof Humvees moved to the door to pick him up.

23

The Roadster kicked and skidded on the wet road. There was no one else out, it didn’t matter that he spent the first few seconds sliding sideways over asphalt. Like any given electric car with a good motor, all the torque was available to the driver. No waiting for the gas to explode and slowly transmit its power down through an axle.

On a dry day it meant getting from zero to sixty at what used to be considered supercar levels of acceleration.

The wipers could barely keep up with the rain as Roo sped along the highway, hydroplaning through patches of wet road where the ocean spilled over the beach, up over retaining walls, and onto the road.

“Roo. What are you doing?” Rhodes asked.

“Going after her,” Roo said.

He leaned forward to plug in the location of the Verne Plus into the large screen, tapping it out with his fingers. He missed seeing the dark object in the rain gaining on him in the mirror.