“We’re not testing it on primates. I want a human cohort of 50 ready to test.”
Chang straightened himself and said with more force, “Setting the morality aside, which I urge you not to do, we would simply need a lot more data to begin a human trial, we would need—”
“You have it doctor. It’s all in the file. And we’re retrieving more data now. That’s not all. We have two subjects with sustained Atlantis Gene activation.”
Chang’s eyes widened, “You, two, how—”
The man pointed to the file in a cobra-like, short motion. “The file doctor. It’s all there. And they’ll be here, soon. You better be ready. All you have to do is replicate the gene therapy.”
Chang was flipping through the pages, reading, and murmuring to himself. He looked up. “The subjects are infants?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
“Uh, no. Well, maybe. Or maybe not.”
“Maybe not is the right answer. Call me if you need me, doctor. Four hours. I don’t have to tell you what’s at stake.”
But Dr. Chang couldn’t hear him. He was lost in the notes of a Dr. Katherine Warner.
CHAPTER 5
Clocktower Safe House
Jakarta, Indonesia
Thirty minutes after the train blast, David was sitting at a cheap fold-out table in the safe house, enduring the medical tech’s brutal treatment and trying to make sense of the attack.
“Oww.” David winced and reeled back from the alcohol swab the tech had dabbed on his face. “Thank you, really, but let’s do this after. I’m fine. Flesh wounds.”
Across the room, Howard Keegan stood up from the bank of computer screens and walked over to David. “It was a setup, David.”
“Why? It makes no sense—”
“It does. You need to see this. I received it right before the blast.” Keegan handed him a sheet of paper.
<<< EYES ONLY >>>
<<< CLOCKTOWER >>>
<<< CENTCOMM >>>
Clocktower under attack.
Cape Town and Mar del Plata Stations destroyed.
Karachi, Dehli, Dakha, and Lahore breached.
Recommend initiate Firewall.
Please advise.
<<< END BULLETIN >>>
Keegan tucked the page back in his coat pocket. “He lied about our security problem.”
David rubbed his temples. It was a nightmare scenario. His head was still throbbing from the bomb blast. He had to think. “He didn’t lie—”
“Underestimated at the very least, or more likely a lie of omission to cripple and distract us for this larger attack on Clocktower.”
“The attack on Clocktower doesn’t mean the terrorist threat isn’t real. It could be a prelude—”
“Maybe. But the only thing we know is that Clocktower’s back is against the wall. Your first duty is to secure your station. You’re the largest operation in Southeast Asia. Your HQ could be under attack right now.” Keegan picked up his bag. “I’m going back to London to try to manage things from there. Good luck, David.”
They shook, and he saw Keegan out of the safe house.
On the street, a kid carrying a stack of newspapers ran up to David, waving them in the air and screaming, “Have you heard? Jakarta is under attack.”
David pushed him away, but the kid shoved a rolled up newspaper in his hand and darted off around the corner.
David started to toss the newspaper aside, but… it was too heavy. And there was something wrapped inside. He unrolled the paper. A round black pipe, about a foot long. A pipe bomb.
CHAPTER 6
BBC World Report - Wire Release
Potential terror attacks in residential neighborhoods in Mar del Plata, Argentina and Cape Town, South Africa
*** Breaking News Update: additional blasts reported in Karachi, Pakistan and Jakarta, Indonesia. We will update this report as details emerge. ***
Cape Town, South Africa // The sound of automatic gun fire and grenade explosions shattered the early morning calm in Cape Town today, as a group estimated at 20 armed assailants entered an apartment building and killed 14 people.
Police have released no official information about the attack.
Eye witnesses at the scene described it as a special-operations-style attack. A BBC reporter onsite took this eyewitness statement: “Yeah I seen it, looked like a tank or something, you know, one of them armored troop carriers, rolling up on the curb and then they was dudes pouring out it like ninjas or robot soldiers or something, moving all mechanical like and then its like the whole building exploded, glass falling all over the place and I ran up on out of there. I mean, it’s a rough neighborhood, but man, I ain’t never seen nothing like that. I figured, at first, it was, you know, a drug raid. Whatever it was, it done gone real wrong.”