Jurassic Dead (3 page)

He sighed. “I’m not even talking about the microbes, but this is the first…the first preserved specimen from more than sixty-five million years ago. Who knows what viruses it might be carrying, or other bacteria? We can’t expose it yet, I don’t think.”

“Not paying you to think,” DeKirk shot back. “At least, not about this. You did your thinking and got us this far, for which you’ll be handsomely rewarded. Money and fame is just the start. I take full responsibility for everything else, and we
will
contain it. Biologically, we have everything we need to keep it secure. My tanker is already en route to the port. We’ll be there before you’re done raising the specimen. I’ve had the hold outfitted to maintain it in optimal, biosecure conditions to prevent not only decay, but also the spread of any contaminants.”

DeKirk grinned as his face took over the whole screen. “Dr. Ramirez, this is the find of a lifetime, a feat that puts you on par with Columbus and Neil Armstrong. You’ll go down in history as a pioneer of new worlds!”

Alex shuffled closer. “But the
T. rex
… I saw it had wounds. Big chunks of flesh torn out of its hide. It could be that it’s now infected with whatever infected my friend, and the Russians…”

“Why the hell is this person still making noises?” DeKirk asked. “I’m rethinking possible deliverance of this pest to the Russians. Control your son, Marcus.”

“Yes sir, but I really feel that we need a little patience here. Bring in the CDC and other experts?”

DeKirk laughed. “I’m signing off right now to watch the extraction. Looking forward to viewing our prizes firsthand.” He shook his head in wonder. “A
T. rex
and two Cryos! Fantastic work. See you in Adranos, Mr. Ramirez.”

As the screen went blank, Alex asked,
“Adranos?”

Marcus sighed. “DeKirk’s private island and research facility in the South Pacific, named after some Sicilian fire god or something. I guess that’s where I’m headed next.”

“Fire god?”

Marcus shrugged. “It’s got an active volcano.”

“Wonderful. So…that’s where they’re bringing that thing?”

“Not until I raise it,” Marcus said, “and after what you told me, I’m thinking we’re
not
going to raise it. The hell with what DeKirk said.”

“I don’t think it’s your call, Dad.” Alex pointed to the window.

The cranes were lit up as they set into motion, turning, facing each other. On the screens, lights flashed, men on rafts waved glowing lights, water bubbled and steam arose in advance of a spiny cleft—a giant carapace breaking Kraken-like through the surface.

“We’ll see about that.” Marcus moved to the microphone and barked out orders to stop, but he knew it was futile. They were DeKirk’s men, and this was no longer his operation—if it ever had been.

“Sixty-five million years,” Alex said. “That thing is coming to us, and it’s not coming alone.”

5.

Retrofitted Oil Tanker Hammond-1, twenty miles off the northern coast of Antarctica.

The helicopter deposited its payload, refueled, and departed as quickly as it had landed, as if fearing to remain a minute more than necessary on the icy top deck of the giant tanker.

Xander Dyson pulled back his white arctic hood and lifted his goggles over his thick head of wavy blond hair. Despite having dressed in so many layers that he had lost count, he winced against the brutal cold and the biting wind as the three men approached. The flight from the port in Chile had been every bit of the white-knuckle hell ride that he imagined, and now to be here at the frozen toilet of the world,
ordered
here, no less, taken away from his research and the imminent accolades he was so close to achieving, was nearly unbearable.

“Captain,” Xander said, addressing the bulky brute of a man in the middle whom he assumed was in charge. Although he couldn’t really be sure, but usually, the control figures let their lackeys carry the guns.

“Mr. Dyson, welcome aboard.”

“I need three things,” Xander insisted. “One, immediate warmth. Two, a shot of your strongest alcohol, and three, an explanation as to what couldn’t wait that I had to be rushed to this world of frozen misery.”

The captain grinned beneath bushy white eyebrows crusted with flakes of ice. “The first two will pale in comparison to what we’ll show you.”

Xander frowned. “I doubt that. What have you got?”

“It’s what Mr. DeKirk has found, and he insists he sees your reaction first hand. So come with us down below, where it’s warm and the vodka is plentiful.”

Xander bowed, and let them lead the way.

DeKirk.
What did that old bastard have up his sleeve? There weren’t many men who could order Xander halfway around the world and he’d go, but DeKirk was one of them. Certainly a man of Xander’s genius, talents, connections and skills, didn’t need DeKirk, but he was one of several competing benefactors, stocking Xander’s lab in Austria, bankrolling several lines of research and ensuring that his less-than-legal efforts failed to attract attention of the authorities. Xander’s needs ran towards the very expensive, but his products were in high demand. He was near to closing several deals, pitting various agencies and governments against each other in a bidding war that would ensure his future—and his place in history, at only the ripe old age of thirty-eight.

They led him down a brittle metal staircase, and then across a lower deck teeming with crewmembers rushing about, preparing the great open area with winches and hydraulic cranes, de-icing the large cargo doors. Xander paused to stare as they opened the doors, expecting the hold to be filled with some sort of precious cargo.

Instead, as the doors completed their motion, they revealed an enormous empty space inside. Empty except for giant chains set to secure something immense.

“What the hell, did you find King Kong?”

Xander looked back to the captain for an answer, but found him disappearing into an open door, with the soldiers outside, flanking the entrance.

Following quickly, with just a backwards glance, as huge spotlights burst into light, aimed at the hold. The ship surged and Xander had to grip a railing or lose his balance. He didn’t know what he hated more at this point: helicopters, boats, or just the brutal cold.

“What’s your intended cargo, Captain?” he asked, as he entered and the door closed hard behind him.

A chuckle, and a shot glass was thrust in his face. The captain had tossed aside his coat and in a black wool turtleneck, he raised his own glass and drank with Xander.

“You won’t believe me until you see it for yourself,” he said. “You may need another shot, but here…” He approached a laptop on the desk in the cramped but warm room and turned to face Xander. “These will be your quarters, by the way, for the duration until we get to Adranos Island.”

“What?” Xander swallowed the bitter vodka, licked his lips, and glanced around. Small bed, one desk and no windows. A bookshelf and of course the laptop and monitor. “I’m not going to any island.”

Then the laptop screen sparked and resolved into the familiar visage of DeKirk’s face. “Ah, Xander! Welcome to the party.”

“Yeah,” Xander replied, pulling up a chair and sitting level to DeKirk. “I don’t recall having the option to RSVP.”

“No need, my friend. Now, I hope you’re ready?”

Xander shrugged, glanced at the captain, who was busy refilling both glasses, and now Xander wondered how many the man had already imbibed
, and what, exactly, made him need so many?

“I’m sending you images from our American friends down at Erebus Station, Antarctica.”

Great,
Xander thought,
we’re going somewhere even colder.

“Hold onto your balls, and prepare to have your mind blown seven ways to Sunday.”

Xander accepted the glass. “I’m intrigued. Bring it on already.”

DeKirk pulled back and made some clicking noises, and the screen changed to a grainy bright view of an icy work site, an industrial place of cranes and platforms. Dozens of men in parkas bustling about, and then… a shift, and a view in a tunnel, something rising on a platform. Something huge, something…

Xander peered closer, squinting

His fingers flinched, opened, and the glass fell and shattered.

“Holy shit, is that…?”

“It is,” came DeKirk’s voice, barely containing his giddiness. “Perfectly preserved, and it’s not alone. We’ve found at least two other dinosaurs, different species, but just as intact.”

“This is it,” Xander whispered, marveling. The cold, the flight, and the rough seas were all forgotten. “It’s…everything.”

6.

Monitoring the ship’s bow from her darkened office with a small set of next-gen rangefinder binoculars outfitted with night-vision technology, Veronica Winters observed the helicopter’s take-off. She waited with baited breath to see who could possibly be so important as to warrant a dangerous delivery to DeKirk’s private and super-secret tanker.

She waited, hoping she’d get her first glimpse of his face, if the man dared remove his hood in the extreme winds and temperatures outside. She hoped that even from this distance that she’d be able to make an ID. If not, she’d have to break her cover as the
Hammond’s
doctor, a cover her CIA superiors had worked hard and pulled several lucky favors to get in place. After spending the last two years in much more agreeable climates, such as Morocco and Monte Carlo, Veronica had no urge to consider heading out into less extreme conditions any time soon.

Come on
, she thought.
Mystery man, show your damn face and save me the trouble.

Already, she felt far too vulnerable on this mission: being the only woman, and a beautiful one at that, alone, with thirty female-starved crewmembers loaded with testosterone and bad manners, was not her idea of a good time. Every one of them would be feigning injuries at some point to book an appointment with the hot doctor, and for this mission, Veronica actually adopted a contrary disguise, toning down her looks, cropping her hair, and bundling herself in incredibly itchy and unattractive sweaters, but it did no good. Not with this crew of louts, or that ever-drunk captain always leering at her. It had been a long six days since cast-off from Chile.

Antarctica.
She knew the destination from their Intel hacked from a rare less-than-secure email communication from one of DeKirk’s contractors. A paleontologist, of all people, named Marcus Ramirez. What DeKirk wanted a fossil-hunter for was anybody’s guess, but this had been a ten-year case of trying to nail DeKirk on anything, hopefully gaining evidence on a multitude of international crimes: money-laundering, sex-trafficking, drug running, artifact stealing, and corporate espionage were just a few of the possibilities. It should not have been this hard, but it was. He had deep pockets and incredible security. He was rarely seen in public, although he sat on at least twenty different boards, most with charitable leanings to provide himself some degree of legitimacy. He had no known romantic attachments, no indiscretions as far as Veronica could ascertain, and no weak links.

It was a nearly impossible assignment, and although she had come close on several occasions, she had come closer still to having her cover blown and the whole thing going up in smoke. Back in Morocco, she could have nailed him on a lesser charge of tax fraud, but held out when she had an indication that he was working toward something much, much bigger. Something with global implications. The highest secrecy, and something that involved a new direction for DeKirk:
genetics
. He now had teams of biologists and labs set up in several third world countries and islands in the Atlantic. That was the first priority, and Langley confirmed it, rushing to get her a new identity after intercepting the urgent communication from the American Antarctic base.

She shipped out to Chile, assumed the role of doctor on the tanker, and now… she was so close. She knew this mystery man wasn’t DeKirk: far too fit and spry by his movements. He did have that the same arrogant, overconfident edge that DeKirk had, though, but he also had something else. Irritation. He was pissed off about being here, and that much was certain. So, he wasn’t DeKirk himself or one of his lackeys. This was someone else, someone important and someone—

The captain approached with two thugs, and the new arrival pulled back his hood and lifted his goggles.

It was only a couple seconds before one of the soldiers obscured the view, but it was enough.

She could never forget that face.
Those high, pronounced cheekbones, the comma-shaped scar on the left cheekbone, the angry blond hair. Those eyes: cruel and hard as nails.

His face was in every law enforcement’s most wanted database. FBI and CIA had joint teams looking for him with Interpol assistance. He was a ghost, a phantom.

Worse, an assassin. He killed not with bullets or knives, but with rare toxins and biological agents. Viruses were his specialty, and if he was involved, Veronica’s fears of a global initiative with DeKirk’s funding and reach might be sorely understated.

All that paled to the real reason she nearly cried out at the recognition of Xander Dyson.

Seven years ago, he had killed her partner and lover, murdered him in the worst way imaginable—a viral death that took days, and gave him just enough time to make it back to her, only to die in her arms. It was a loss that haunted Veronica every minute of every day.

Now, at last, here in the most unlikely of places, Xander was in her sights.