The 6th Extinction (33 page)

Painter caught a few words in Spanish, but the rest was a mix of some unknown native patois. One word in Spanish caught his attention. It was repeated again, more urgently.

Mujer
.

Painter tensed, glancing back to the café.

Mujer
meant
woman
.

“Where’s Jenna?” Painter asked, his heart pounding harder.

Malcolm kept his gaze on the Volvo across the street. “Inside. It’s all clear.”

Or maybe not
.

Disregarding the threat of the shooter, Painter bolted for the door and rushed inside. He held his pistol up with his good arm and scanned the tables, the bodies, and waded through the aftermath of the gun battle. He checked behind the counter, the kitchen.

A spat of gunfire echoed to him from the street.

A moment later, Drake burst into the café through the front door. His face looked stricken, scared, revealing a depth of emotion beyond the simple concern for a teammate.

“Jenna?” he asked.

“Gone.” Painter nodded toward the street, knowing they had one chance of discovering who had taken her. “What about the third shooter?”

Drake understood the significance of his question, going paler. “He shot himself.”

Dead
.

Painter breathed heavily.

Then we lost her
.

8:22
A
.
M
.

The world returned to Jenna on waves of pain. Blackness shattered into light that was too bright, sounds too loud. She lifted her head from the rattling floor of a van, igniting a lancing stab that ran from a knot above her left temple to her neck.

Oww . . .

She bit back a groan, fearful of attracting the attention of her kidnappers. She took a fast assessment of her situation, her heart pounding in her throat. From her vantage, all she could see out the window was the upper floors of buildings sweeping past and the tangles of power lines.

A trickle of blood traced fire down her left cheek.

She remembered the ambush, allowing anger to hold back the terror icing at the edges of her self-control. She had been crouched behind the café counter, watching Malcolm and Schmitt cross to the window and start shooting into the street. The deafening barrage covered the approach of her attacker from the kitchen area. The only warning was a soft honeyed scent.

She turned to find a dark woman with shadowy eyes crouched a yard away, the balls of her bare feet positioned perfectly to avoid the broken glass on the floor—not to avoid getting cut, but in a feral level of stealth.

Before Jenna could react, the woman lunged, her arm sweeping wide whip-fast. The butt of a pistol cracked against Jenna’s skull. Her vision flared brightly, then collapsed into a black hole, dragging her consciousness away with it.

How long was I out?

She didn’t think it was long. Not more than a minute or two, she guessed.

From the front passenger seat, a face turned to peer back at her. Long black hair framed a darkly beautiful face. Her skin was the color of warm caramel, her black eyes aglow. Still, an edge of threat shone through those handsome features, from the hard edge of her full lips to the glassy-eyed menace in her gaze. It was like confronting the cold countenance of a panther in a tree, displaying nature at its most beautiful—and deadly.

Jenna wanted to retreat from that gaze, but she held the other’s stare, refusing to back down. Not that Jenna could do anything more. Her wrists and ankles were secured with plastic ties.

The bright tinkle of a ringtone interrupted the standoff. The woman twisted back around as the driver passed her a cell phone.

She brought it to her ear. “
Oui
,” she answered, her voice as silky dark as her complexion. She listened for a long breath, then glanced back to Jenna. “
Oui, j’ai fini.
”

Jenna knew she must be the topic of this conversation. Someone was confirming that she’d been captured, or at the very least that one member of the American team had been grabbed. She strained to eavesdrop on the rest of the conversation, but she didn’t speak French. Still, she could guess who was on the other end of that line.

Cutter Elwes.

Apparently he must have had someone watching that guesthouse, making sure any trail that Amy had left in Boa Vista was continually under surveillance. Or maybe that kindly proprietor was not as
kindly
as she appeared and had sent word of the Americans who had come calling. Either way, Cutter must have ordered a local team to apprehend one of them, someone he could interrogate to find out how much the world knew about him, about his operations.

As a dead man, he plainly wished to remain in his currently deceased state.

The van fled faster as it broke free of the central district of Boa Vista. Jenna craned over her shoulder, fearful for Drake and the others. Had they survived the firefight? She prayed so, but she held out no hope that they would be able to track or follow her.

She faced around again, recognizing a hard truth.

I’m on my own
.

After several more minutes, the van braked hard, sliding Jenna forward a couple of feet. She scooted up. Out the front window spread a rusted slum, the homes densely packed, clearly fabricated from whatever could be scavenged. But this wasn’t her kidnappers’ destination.

An old helicopter rested on a dirt pad. Its rotors already chopped at the air, preparing to depart.

Jenna despaired.

Where are they taking me?

8:32
A
.
M
.

Still in Cutter’s main lab, Kendall stood at the threshold to a neighboring Level Four biosafety facility, where a few technicians labored inside, their suits tethered with yellow air hoses. A moment ago, Cutter had stepped away to take a call. Kendall breathed deeply, still struggling to decide whether to help the bastard or not.

If I don’t, the entire world could be destroyed.

If I do, would the end result be the same?

He balanced on a dagger’s edge, his decision teetering upon one unanswered question: What was Cutter’s plan for Kendall’s synthetic eVLP? He remembered the man’s worrisome description of that perfect empty shell.

A Trojan horse . . . a flawless genetic delivery system
.

Cutter clearly planned on filling that Trojan horse—but with what?

Can I trust him when he says no one would be killed from whatever he planned to engineer into that empty shell?

Kendall’s mind spun around and around, glad for whatever call allowed him the additional time to come to a decision. He used the delay to study the quarantined space before him. Like the main genetics facility behind him, the Level 4 lab contained the latest in DNA analysis and gene manipulation equipment. The back wall held a large refrigerated unit with glass doors. Rows of vials glowed behind that window.

A chill traced up his spine as he tried to imagine what was stored in there. But it was the four adjacent rooms flanking the refrigerator that truly terrified him. Each chamber contained a different piece of medical equipment. He recognized a simple X-ray machine in one room and a CT scanner in the next. The last two rooms held a magnetic resonance scanner for looking deep into tissues and a PET—positron emission tomography—scanner, for developing three-dimensional images of biological processes.

The presence of these pieces of equipment left no doubt.

Cutter had advanced to animal testing.

But how
advanced
was that testing?

Cutter finally returned, his manner more relaxed, as if he’d had good news. “Looks like we may be entertaining a guest before much longer. But we have much work to do before that, don’t we, Kendall?”

Cutter lifted a curious brow, expecting an answer.

Kendall stared into the BSL4 lab. “And you swear, if I cooperate—if I teach you my technique—that no one will die as a result?”

“I can promise you that what I plan to use this technique for is entirely non-lethal.” Cutter frowned as he must have read the distrust still shining on Kendall’s face. “Maybe I can ease your mind with a short excursion. Won’t take but a few minutes.”

Cutter turned on a heel and headed away.

Kendall hurried after him, more than happy for the additional delay. Mateo followed behind, his ever-present shadow.

“Where are we going?” Kendall asked.

Cutter smiled back at him, a boyish enthusiasm glowing from his face. “A wonderful place.”

Still, as Cutter turned back around, Kendall noted the drawn pull of his left shoulder. He imagined the thick scars binding that side. It was a reminder that despite appearances, that
boy
was long gone. He died on that African savannah ages ago. What was left was a hard and twisted genius with dark ambitions, deeply embittered at the world.

They exited the main genetic hall and followed a long natural tunnel. Kendall imagined they were crossing toward the middle of the plateau.

Cutter strode along, taking large steps. “We are not so different, you and I.”

Kendall didn’t bother disagreeing.

“We both care for this planet, are concerned where it’s headed. But where
you
seek to preserve the status quo through your conservation efforts, I believe the world is too far gone. Man is incapable of reversing what its industry has wrought. Our appetites have grown too gluttonous, while our vision has grown narrower and narrower. Conservation is a lost cause. Why save a species here or there when the entire ecology collapses around your ears?”

“It was just such a calamity that I was trying to solve in California,” Kendall countered. “To find a system-wide solution.”

Cutter scoffed. “By attempting to engineer XNA hardiness and adaptability into various species as a whole? All you’re doing is stealing from one biosphere in order to preserve another that is dying.”

Kendall’s back stiffened. So Cutter knew what he had been attempting to accomplish. The scientific term for it was facilitated adaptation, to fortify DNA in order to make a species more resistant to disease or make it more robust to survive in a harsh environment. He refused to apologize for his work. His research had the potential to protect many species against the ravages to come, but his work was still in its early stages. Unfortunately, what he had created so far was unrefined, dangerous, consuming all it touched, destroying any DNA it encountered.

It was never meant to be released.

As anger flared anew, Kendall confronted Cutter. “Then what would you have us do? Nothing?”

Cutter turned to him. “Why not? Get out of nature’s way. Nature is the greatest innovator of all. It will survive us . . . maybe not in the form that you like or are familiar with. In the end, evolution will fill all those gaps created by a major die-off. All five past extinctions triggered an explosion of evolution afterward. Look at humankind. The dinosaurs had to die so we could rise. It is only through death that new life can grow.”

Kendall had heard this central tenet of Dark Eden often enough to recognize it here. He boiled it down to its essential. “The great extinction holds the promise to bring about a new genesis.”

Cutter nodded. “The beginning of a new Eden.”

From the ardor in the other’s voice, it sounded like he could not wait for that to happen.

Kendall sighed. “There remains a fundamental flaw to your reasoning.”

“And what is that?”

“Extinction is fast. Evolution is slow.”

“Exactly.” Cutter stopped, looking close to hugging him for a moment. “That’s exactly right! Extinction will always outpace evolution. But what if we could
speed
evolution up?”

“How?”

“I’ll show you.”

Cutter had reached a thick steel door that blocked the tunnel. He pulled a keycard from around his neck. “Conservation must worry less about
preserving
the life that was, and focus on
nurturing
what will come next.”

“But how do we know what’s coming?”

“We create it. We
direct
evolution toward this new genesis.”

Kendall was stunned into silence.

Cutter swiped his card, and thick bolts began to slowly unlock.

“That’s impossible,” Kendall whispered, but even he couldn’t convince himself. Genetic engineering and DNA synthesis were already at that threshold.

“Nothing’s impossible,” Cutter countered, as he pulled open the door. “Not any longer.”

Bright daylight flooded the dimly lit tunnel, accompanied by a sweet mélange of scents undercut with the familiar muskiness of loam and rotted leaf. Drawn by that light, by the fresh air, Kendall followed Cutter gladly out of the passageway and onto a metal scaffolding that protruded from the side of a cliff.

As his boots clanked across the grating, Kendall craned up at the blue sky. The perch was fifteen feet from the lip of what appeared to be a huge sinkhole. The walls had been terraced into various levels of gardens, bursting with orchids, bromeliads, leafy vines, and blossoms of every hue and size. Each tier was connected by a winding road that corkscrewed along the inside walls.

Kendall watched an electric golf cart glide silently along that road, climbing toward their position, passing by gates that opened automatically before it. A triangular yellow sign with a black lightning bolt hung on the neighboring fence, indicating that each level’s barrier was electrified.

Worry dampened his momentary wonder.

Cutter stood to the side, scanning the nearby walls, as if searching for weeds growing in his fantastical garden. “Ah,” he finally said. “Down here. Come see for yourself.”

He opened a gate along the landing’s railing and climbed down a steep set of metal stairs to the stone road winding by at his level. Kendall kept his gaze away from that long central drop. It was so far down that he could barely see the bottom, especially with the morning sun still low on the horizon. Still, he noted what appeared to be the crowns of giant trees down there, possibly a piece of the Brazilian rain forest trapped below.