Though he knew one person who was definitely involved.
The blast down on the first floor had shaken the entire guesthouse. Afterward, he had reviewed footage of the confinement cell. He had watched Dr. Whitaker’s shaven-headed assistant attach his prosthetic hand to the cell door—then a blinding blast took out the cameras. Later, Nolan had watched the same man free the altered cheetah, setting it loose on Nolan’s own soldiers. That “assistant” was clearly more than he appeared.
Maybe military, maybe even an intelligence operative.
Nolan shook his head, realizing how thoroughly he had been deceived by that man. The bastard had sat right across from him, feigning subservience and nervousness. Nolan had always considered himself a good judge of character.
But I was completely fooled.
That infuriated him more than anything.
He returned to the bank of monitors and stared across at the smoke, the chaos, and the sprawl of bodies. At least, the research area appeared intact. He could still carry on his work. But precautions would have to be taken.
A chime drew his attention to the camera view outside his door. A figure stood there. A scarred face glared up at the lens. Twin trails of blood flowed from a swollen, crooked nose.
“About time,” he mumbled and hit the release, unlocking the door.
Lieutenant Ekon stalked into the room. Fury shone in his eyes, along with a glimmer of shame. The soldier had allowed the prisoners to escape. He clearly intended to right that wrong.
He bowed his head. “Commandant.”
Nolan remained silent, letting the other recognize his disappointment. He tapped another button, and the steel shutters slowly lifted across the room’s French doors. He turned without a word and stepped out to the balcony.
Ekon followed.
Nolan stood at the rail and gazed across the forest canopy to the river. Its black mirror reflected the scatter of stars. Farther off, storm clouds stacked near the horizon. A distant rumble of thunder reached him.
“It appears they’re headed downriver,” Nolan said.
“Oui. In your Tirranna.”
He pictured his racing boat. It was one of his favorites. “Get Draper on the horn. Right now.”
He focused on the riverside glow in the distance, marking the mining town of Katwa, one of several that his company owned. Draper had left just before sunset in the helicopter, flying there to address a problem, a panic among the local miners. Nolan trusted that Draper would quickly stamp out any trouble before it grew into a full rout.
Nolan now had an additional duty for the captain.
“Order Draper to push the ore barges out into the river. Manned with artillery and floodlights. Create a blockade across the river.”
“Oui, Commandant.”
Nolan turned to Ekon. “Also activate all the jammers. Every one of them. Shut this entire region down.”
After establishing this compound, he had hidden towers along the river, even down some of its tributaries, securing the privacy of his personal fiefdom.
They won’t escape my net.
He glanced back at his office, to the gold African crown shining in its glass case.
Not when I’m the master of this jungle.
18
April 24, 9:02 P.M. CAT
Tshopo Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Gray braced himself in the rear of the lumbering Shatun ATV. The vehicle rattled and jolted through the jungle at breakneck speed. The back swayed wildly, swinging from where it articulated with the front compartment.
“Slow down!” Gray yelled.
Kowalski sat behind the wheel, leaning over it, a smoldering cigar at the corner of his lips. Faraji sat next to him, trying his best to guide the determined driver. The windshield was smeared with glowing streaks, remnants of the toxic moths that had splattered against the glass or were swatted away by the wipers.
It looked like the ATV had cleared the worst of the swarm.
But the team had not escaped unscathed.
Gray returned his attention to Benjie. The student lay on his back, still addled and dazed. An oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose.
After getting Benjie back aboard, Gray had broken out the army medkit built into the sidewall of the ATV. Not knowing the nature of the neurotoxin, Gray had treated his patient symptomatically. He had shot Benjie up with diazepam to control his quaking limbs, along with a jab of antihistamines and adrenaline to stem signs of anaphylaxis. Gray had also scrubbed the blistering spots on the student’s hand and cheek, trying to remove as much toxin as possible.
“How’s the kid doing?” Kowalski called back.
“Coming around I think.”
Bleary-eyed, Benjie nodded at this prognosis. He tried to remove the mask, but Gray pushed his hand away. The young man was lucky only two moths had grazed him. Any more, and Benjie would not have survived.
Still, Gray knew his condition could worsen again.
Too much was unknown.
As they continued through the jungle, he weighed breaking radio silence and calling in an evac. But he feared alerting the enemy if his call reached the wrong ears. Plus, any delay would set them farther from their goal.
Still, they owed the young man. If it wasn’t for Benjie’s earlier warning, they’d all have succumbed to the swarm’s ambush.
Faraji suddenly yelled from the passenger seat. He pointed up, while ducking low. A moth crawled along the roof above Kowalski’s head, its carapace shining softly. Gray had thought they’d cleared the ATV, but one must have slipped past their hurried inspection. It dropped toward the top of Kowalski’s shaved head.
Before it could land, Kowalski took out his cigar and stabbed the moth back into the roof with its smoldering stub. Wings fluttered as its body hissed and burned. When it stopped moving, Kowalski cracked open the side window and flicked the cigar and dead moth out into the jungle.
“That better be the last of ’em,” Kowalski said. “If I’m going to die, it better not be because of some goddamned butterfly.”
“Moth,” Benjie corrected in a muffled, weak voice. He pushed his mask down, avoiding Gray’s second attempt to keep it in place. “An African batwing, Holocerina angulata, native to the Congo.”
Gray wanted to encourage Benjie to rest, but he needed his expertise. “I’m assuming they’re not normally toxic.”
“Not the adults,” Benjie said hoarsely. “Their caterpillars have spikes that are venomous, triggering a painful sting.”
“You got more than stung,” Kowalski called back, fighting the ATV through a dense patch of undergrowth.
Benjie tried to sit up, but it took two attempts and Gray’s help. “Something must’ve twisted the species. Like with the army ants. But I thought such alterations were just behavioral, not physiological.” He stared at Gray. “It seems like something’s radically changing the jungle.”
Gray stared past the windows at the bobbling view of the dark forest. “You’re thinking it was the virus.”
“I can’t say for sure, but if it is, we’re heading the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?”
Benjie stared at the twin beams of the headlights burrowing into the darkness. “I wager the deeper we go—the closer we get to the source—the worse it will get. And even then . . .” His voice trailed off.
Gray sensed he was holding something back. “What?”
He rubbed at his blistered cheek. “The ants, the baboons, even the moths. The changes in them had to have been recent. New alterations, generated at the expanding fringe of the viral spread. Where we’re headed, the virus may have been active for untold millennia. There’s no telling what it could produce over that length of time, what those transformations might look like.”
Gray took a moment to absorb Benjie’s words.
Kowalski was less contemplative. He jabbed Faraji with an elbow and nodded ahead. “Tell me we don’t have much farther to go.”
Faraji turned to Kowalski, then back to Gray. “We here.”