Kimura smiled. “More volunteers,” he said cheerfully, gesturing to an examination table where a gore-stained sheet lay crumpled into a ball. “Savages.”
He’s using our useful allies as lab rats as well as bat food. Wolff put the thought away, nodded, and simply said, “Proceed.”
“I was able to determine that bacteria cultured in ASF-free growth media multiply explosively but then enter a dormant phase. I would expect to find a similar dormancy taking place somewhere in your pet.”
“Like a seed,” Wolff said, as much to himself as to Kimura. But there was no mistaking the rising excitement in his voice.
Kimura smiled again. “Very much like a seed . . . an apt analogy. A seed waiting to be planted . . . waiting to hatch out once it enters a victim’s body.”
“But a seed that will never grow into a tree,” Wolff added.
“True. Once the seed is watered, it dies and spreads its poison. The original culture carries on in the host.”
“So there’s absolutely no chance that this seed will multiply and show up at our front door once the enemy has been destroyed?”
“Correct, again.”
After savoring his moment of one-upmanship, the Japanese biologist gestured toward two rows of small, pod-shaped structures—mission-ready components from his lab in Manchuria that he had brought aboard the Demeter. Now, pulsing with life’s surge, they had been mounted under a climate-controlled isolation hood.
Wolff was about to ask how he planned to infect entire populations with the bacterium when Kimura brought an index finger up to his lips.
“Shhhhhh,” he whispered. “The children are sleeping.”
By the morning of February 8, two days after his rescue, R. J. MacCready was up and about, no longer needing reassurance that his friends were not ghosts.
“Gotta stop Wolff,” MacCready said. “Gotta blow that place.”
“Of course, Redundzel,” Thorne said. “Just like you’ve been ranting for the last two days. Although walking ten feet without falling on your face is usually a requirement for attacking a missile base.”
“You need to walk at least twenty feet, Mac,” Yanni added.
The trio had kept a low profile since their reunion. Yanni had built a well-camouflaged lean-to and nursed MacCready back to health with a combination of leaves, tree sap, and smashed seeds. Thorne was assigned sentry duty and did what little cooking they dared over a small campfire lit for the briefest periods each day.
“With you in broken-record mode, once we deciphered this crying Wolff thing, we took the liberty of procuring you some very interesting supplies.”
MacCready glanced over at Yanni, who gestured toward a backpack set a conspicuous distance from their tiny camp. “Tick tick boom,” she said with a smile.
“You guys got me explosives? How the—”
“Seems this gold miner we ran into was more than a little intrigued by my recent trade proposal,” Thorne said. “A sack of mushrooms I collected for a sack of TNT.”
MacCready shot his friend a puzzled look. “Mushrooms?”
“Funny mushrooms,” Yanni added. “Got it?”
MacCready nodded.
“So what’s your plan, Stan?” Yanni said. She was carving a long, skinny piece of wood.
“We need to get a message out to Major Hendry. Enlist his help.”
Bob and Yanni began laughing, simultaneously. “Look around you, Mac. Mushrooms and TNT we got, but shortwave radios? They are not in season. So now what is your plan?”
“The plan is I’m goin’ back to that Nazi base . . . real sneaky-like. Then I’m gonna blow that fucking place up.”
Thorne shook his head. “You really don’t want to do this, do you?”
“What’s your alternative?”
“Head to Cuiabá, radio your pal, Hendry.”
“That’ll take days. And we don’t have that kind of time. With me missing, he’s probably sent in another team. Maybe they’re closer than Cuiabá, but who knows what direction they’d be coming from?”
“Yanni can help us solve that problem.”
“That’s fine, but even if we find them today, it’ll be days before they can send in the proper ass-kicking gear.” Mac slammed his fist down on the dirt with determination. “And that’s why I have to go in there.”
“Okay, Mac,” Yanni said. “One thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“We are goin’ wit you.”
MacCready started to object but Thorne held up a hand. “Do not bother yourself. We will not budge on this topic.”
“Nope.” Yanni put down her carving and began stirring the cooling contents of a wooden soup bowl.
“That smells delicious,” MacCready said, hopefully. “Whatcha cookin’, Yanni?”
“Mac, you do not want this soup.”
Thorne finished for her. “Poison arrow frogs.”
CHAPTER 25
Preparations
The importance of information is directly proportional to its improbability.
—A FUNDAMENTAL THEOREM OF INFORMATION THEORY
February 11, 1944