The 6th Extinction (Sigma Force 10)

“What was it?” Gray pressed.

“I confirmed this with independent sources. This particular detail is definitely true. Back in 1999, a group of researchers discovered a virus in Antarctica—one to which no animals or humans were immune. What’s even odder is that this microbe was found far out on the desolate ice fields, where nothing else lived. Some of the scientists from that time speculated the virus could have been some form of prehistoric life that thawed out of the ice . . . or maybe it was part of an old biological weapons program. Either way, the discovery excited both Harrington and Hess.”

Gray understood why this detail had provoked Jason. Considering what was happening in California, it could be significant.

Before they could discuss it further, the phone on Kat’s desk rang. She picked it up. Gray hoped it was further news from California. He checked his watch; the expedition team should be on their way back out of the hot zone—hopefully with some answers.

Kat glanced to Gray. “I’m being connected to Professor Harrington.”

He straightened. Maybe this was even better.

Kat put the call on speaker.

“Hello, hello.” The connection was faint, cutting in and out. “This is Alex Harrington, can you hear me?”

“We can, Professor. You’re speaking with—”

“I know,” he said, cutting her off. “You’re with Sigma.”

Kat glared at Jason.

He mouthed, “I didn’t say a word.”

“I was good friends with Sean McKnight,” Harrington explained.

Gray and Kat gave each other startled looks. Sean McKnight had founded Sigma Force. In fact, he had recruited Painter into the fold over a decade ago, and eventually the man gave his life in the line of duty, dying within these very walls.

“Sir,” Kat said, “we’ve been trying to reach you. I don’t know if you heard about the accident at Dr. Hess’s lab in California.”

There was a long pause, long enough that Gray worried the connection had been lost.

Then Harrington spoke again. He sounded panicked and angry. “That fool. I warned him.”

“We need your help,” Kat pushed. “To better understand what Dr. Hess was researching.”

“Not over the phone. If you want answers, you’ll have to come to me.”

“Where are you?”

“Antarctica . . . Queen Maud Land.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“No. Come to the Halley Research Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf. I’ll have someone meet you there—someone I can trust—and they’ll bring you to me.”

“Professor,” Kat continued to press, “this matter is time critical.”

“Then you’d better hurry. But first tell me this, is Dr. Hess dead or is he missing?”

Kat’s lips narrowed, clearly judging how much to say. Finally she opted for the truth. “We believe he may have been kidnapped.”

Again there was a long pause on the line. Fear replaced anger in the professor’s voice. “Then you’d better get here now.”

The line clicked and went dead.

A new voice spoke behind them. “Sounds like a road trip is in order.”

Gray turned to find Monk at the threshold, standing in sweatpants and a sopping T-shirt with a basketball under one arm.

“Came up to see if you wanted to play some one-on-one,” Monk said, “but it sounds like that’ll have to wait.”

“True,” Kat said. “Someone needs to go down there and interrogate Harrington immediately.”

Gray nodded to Monk. “We can handle it. It shouldn’t take more than the two of us.”

“You may be right,” Monk said, “but this trip is not for me, buddy. Not this time. You need someone familiar with Antarctica at your side.”

“Who’s that?”

Monk pointed. “How about him?”

Gray turned to Jason. The kid?

Jason looked equally surprised.

“Monk’s right,” Kat said. “Jason has read through all the files and has spent time on that continent. He’ll be a valuable resource on the ground out there.”

Gray didn’t bother arguing. He trusted Kat’s operational assessment as much as he did Painter’s. “Okay, when do we leave?”

“Right now. Before the professor changes his mind about cooperating. From his behavior just now, Harrington is clearly paranoid and terrified of something . . . or someone.”

Gray agreed.

But who could that be?

10

April 28, 9:33 P.M. AMT

Roraima, Brazil

He always loved the jungle at night, as the day fell away, giving up its conceit of safety, leaving behind only darkness, shifting shadows, and the rustle of nocturnal creatures. Without the sun, the bright forest became a primordial dark jungle, where man had no place.

As Cutter Elwes stood on the balcony overlooking the compound’s lake below and the rain forest beyond, a scatter of lines from a poem within the pages of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book popped into his head. He read it often to his young son, appreciating Kipling’s lack of sentimentality, while honoring the beauty of Nature.

Now Chil the Kite brings home the night

That Mang the Bat sets free—

The herds are shut in byre and hut,

For loosed till dawn are we.

This is the hour of pride and power,

Talon and tush and claw.

O hear the call!—Good Hunting, All

That keep the Jungle Law!

He closed his eyes and listened to the buzzing of gnats and flies, the ultrasonic swoop of funnel-eared bats, the warning cough of a spider monkey. He heard the breeze brushing through the leaves of towering kapoks, the whisper of wings from a flight of parrots. On the back of his tongue, he tasted the scent of heavy loam, of rotted leaf, accompanied by the sweetness of night-blooming jasmine.

Words interrupted from the open doors behind him. “Viens ici, mon mari.”

He smiled, knowing how hard Ashuu tried to speak French for him. He turned, leaned on the balcony rail, and stared at her naked, dusky skin, the fullness of her breasts, the long fall of ebony waves to the small of her back. She was of the Macuxi tribe; her name meant small, but it also was used to describe something as wonderful.

He crossed and palmed the slight swelling in her lower belly, heralding her second trimester.

Wonderful, indeed.

She ran her fingers from his shoulder to his back, the tips tracing the ragged scars found there, knowing how it excited him. He wore his wounds with pride, remembering the African lion’s claws ripping through his flesh, marking him forever. Some nights he could still smell that fetid breath, full of blood and meat and hunger.