The 6th Extinction (Sigma Force 10)

She stared at the rolling black hills, recognizing the seriousness of this threat. She estimated this dead zone covered at least fifty square miles.

But what did it mean? Had the explosion aerosolized whatever was growing in that lab, seeded it far and wide? If so, had Dr. Hess’s toxic countermeasures managed to neutralize it?

The only answers lay back at the Marine base, where a Level 4 biolab was being set up within a hangar. She was anxious to get back there to study the samples and specimens.

Finally, green hills appeared ahead, softened by the morning light. It looked like they were traveling out of a black-and-white film toward something shot in Technicolor. She took hope from that beauty, from the resilience of nature.

Then she spotted all the bodies in the hills—birds, deer, even lizards and snakes—and a heavy despair settled over her shoulders. Or maybe it was these darned oxygen tanks. She shifted her harness trying to get more comfortable.

“Look over there.” Jenna pointed toward the edge of the blackened swath.

Then Lisa saw it, too. “Stop the truck,” she ordered Drake.

He obeyed, and the vehicle ground to a halt.

To the side of the road, the line of wooden stakes that marked the boundary of the dead zone was still where the Marines had pounded them into place earlier. Only now, that dark shadow had spread past that margin, edging farther down that green slope.

“It’s still spreading,” Jenna said, her voice hushed.

Drake swore.

Lisa swallowed away the dry fear in her mouth. “We should measure how far it’s moved past the stakes.” She ducked to check the clock on the dash of the Hummer. “We can calculate a rough estimate about how fast it’s moving.”

“I’m on it,” Drake said.

The gunnery sergeant retrieved a tape measure from an equipment locker at the back of the bed and hopped down to the road.

Josh followed him. “I’ll help you.”

Lisa moved to join them, but Painter came on the radio. “Lisa, I’ve got you on a private channel.”

She stopped, gripping the edge of the truck bed. She waved for the others to continue. “What is it?”

“If that organism is still alive, if it wasn’t killed by the toxins in the gas, we might have to incinerate the area.”

“But will fire actually kill it?”

“I think it might.”

“Why?”

“The assault team arrived with a flamethrower as a part of their gear. It’s an unusual choice.”

Lisa understood. “Unless they were anticipating the need for such a weapon.”

“Exactly. The team had been sent to raid a lab with a known contamination breach. Someone might have dispatched them with the means to blaze a safe path to reach Hess.”

“I hope you’re right.” She looked toward the carcasses littering the landscape. “Maybe the secondary goal of the nerve gas—if the toxins failed to kill the organism—was to kill anything that could move, anything that might carry this organism out of the area.”

“To keep the contagion localized.”

She nodded to herself. This conversation made her even more anxious to get to that biolab, to test these theories.

A sharp cry drew her attention beyond the truck. Josh was down on one knee. Drake helped her brother up.

“Gotta watch those hidden rocks up here,” Drake said.

Josh shook loose of the man’s grip and backed a step. He was staring down at his left leg. “I got stabbed. A thorn, I think.”

“Let me see.”

Drake began to examine it—but Lisa yelled over to him. “Stay back!” She hopped down and hurried toward them. “Josh, don’t move.”

She reached the two men, noting her brother’s face had gone pale.

She crouched and examined the tear in his suit and the sliver of branch pinned to his leg by an imbedded thorn.

The bit of stem and leaf were both black.

“Get duct tape!” Drake yelled to the other Marine; then to Lisa he said, “We can patch up his suit. It’s not a big rip.”

Instead, Lisa reached her gloved fingers and tore the hole larger. She got a peek at Josh’s shin. The skin around the impaled black thorn had already gone a purplish red.

“Really stings,” Josh said, wincing.

Lisa turned to Drake. “We need rope. A belt. Something to make a tourniquet.”

Drake ran off.

“You’re going to be fine,” Lisa said, but even her words sounded rote and unconvincing. She stood with her kid brother, finding his hand and squeezing tightly.

Behind his mask, Josh breathed hard, his eyes narrowed by pain. He looked a decade younger, the fear turning him into a boy looking to his older sister for help.

Words echoed in her head.

Kill us . . . kill us all.

Drake came pounding back, dragging everyone but the driver with him. He had a length of climbing rope in his hands. She helped secure it around Josh’s thigh.

“Make it as tight as you can,” she said.

Jenna stood with her arms anxiously crossed, clearly recognizing the threat. “Will the tourniquet keep it from spreading?”

Lisa didn’t answer, not wanting to lie.

Once the rope was secure, dug deep into the muscles of Josh’s thigh, the Marines helped haul Josh back to the Hummer. As they lifted him into the bed, Lisa crossed to the equipment box and retrieved what she needed.

Painter came on over the private line. “Lisa . . .”

“It has to be done,” she whispered back.

“At least wait until you get back here.”

“We’ll lose too much time.”

Drake gaped when she turned, seeing what she was carrying. She passed him the fire axe.

“At the knee,” she said. “Take it off at the knee.”

9

April 28, 10:17 A.M. EDT

Washington, D.C.

“That’s him,” Gray said.

He leaned on his fists atop the computer station in Sigma’s nerve center. He was alone with Kat, though Jason was in the neighboring room, visible through the window, working on the files they’d recovered from DARPA’s servers.

Thank God I still had that flash drive with me.

Concentrating on the monitor, Gray stared at the photo of the man on the screen: his chiseled features, his pinched nose, his cropped blond hair. He remembered that same face glowering at him from the end of the hallway back at DARPA’s headquarters.

“You’re sure it’s him?” Kat asked.

“Without a doubt. Who is he?”