Cooper motioned to his truck. “We go quick-quick. Don’t want to stop after dark.”
“No, we don’t want that,” Pierce said to himself. He checked his watch. Just after three-thirty local time. At this latitude, sunset was almost always at the same time every day, about six p.m. But thirty miles didn’t sound too far. They ought to be able to make it there, recruit Felice Carter into the Herculean Society and be on the plane before nightfall.
Cooper’s truck was about what Pierce expected—battered but functional—and the Liberian was considerably more assertive behind the wheel than Pierce’s taxi driver. In no time at all, they were racing north along a paved highway through endless miles of ramshackle shantytowns—the West African equivalent of urban sprawl. The pavement soon gave way to a dirt road, which did not slow Cooper down in any appreciable way. As they veered northeast into the interior, the neighborhoods became less dense and gave way to sparsely populated woodland.
Pierce turned his thoughts to the reason for his hasty trip: Dr. Felice Carter. While he had never met her personally, he already knew a great deal about her. Carter, a native of Washington State, with degrees in microbiology and genetic engineering, had twice crossed paths with Pierce’s good friend and Fiona’s father, Jack Sigler, and while she bore no responsibility for the crises that had unfolded from those encounters, she would carry the scars for the rest of her life.
As Sigler had explained it, during the excavation of a primitive Paleolithic archaeological site in Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley, Carter had been exposed to a bizarre retrovirus that had rewired her DNA at the subatomic level and turned her into a living ‘kill switch’ for humanity. In certain extreme situations, such as when facing a life-or-death threat, Felice Carter had a…the only words to describe it was ‘psychic ability’ to shut off the part of another person’s brain that governed sentient thought. Anyone nearby, whether the source of the threat or simply an innocent bystander, would become a mindless drone with no desire other than to protect her. The effect was permanent, and there was a very real possibility that, under truly dire circumstances—such as Carter’s own death—the range of influence might encompass the entire human race.
The explanation for this phenomenon required an understanding of quantum physics that Pierce didn’t have, but the upshot was that Felice Carter had become one of the most dangerous people on the planet. And yet, despite being a living doomsday weapon, she had chosen to spend her life in places where she would be at the greatest risk.
Whether it was because of her African-American heritage, or some deeper connection imbued by the Ethiopian retrovirus, Carter had made it her life’s work to improve conditions for the people of Africa. Given the sheer size of the continent and the scope of the problems facing its inhabitants, it seemed a fool’s errand, but she had put her scientific knowledge to good use. She had worked to stop the spread of AIDS in Central Africa, conducted ground-breaking research into the field of microbe-produced biofuels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and most recently, she had responded to the Ebola outbreak in Liberia.
While there was no arguing that she had done important work and had made a meaningful contribution to human society, Pierce was troubled by the scientist’s seemingly irresponsible attitude toward the threat she posed. In her place, Pierce would have chosen to hide out in a cabin in the wilderness or exile himself to a monastery—anything to stay away from potentially threatening situations. Then again, maybe Carter’s altruism was a way of preserving her link to humanity.
Probably best to avoid that topic altogether, he thought.
After about forty minutes of driving, they came upon a pair of old Land Rovers parked along the roadside. Beneath a layer of mud splatter, Pierce could make out the blue United Nations logo on the doors, but there was no sign of the occupants. Cooper pulled his pick-up off to the side of the road, just ahead of the other vehicles.
“Where are they?” Pierce asked.
“In the bush, bossman,” Cooper said, as if that explained everything.
As they got out of the truck, Cooper reached behind the seat and took out a rust-spotted machete, which he handed to Pierce.
Pierce hefted the blade, recalling his promise of the night before to start carrying a knife. Not exactly what I had in mind. He took an experimental swing at the tall grass on the roadside. “Are we going to have to do a little trail-blazing?”