The 6th Extinction (Sigma Force 10)

Please.

“We may have a good lead,” Painter admitted, though he sounded hesitant, plainly worried. He gave her a fast update of his situation in Brazil.

Lisa found herself standing by the end of his story. “Someone kidnapped Jenna . . .”

She let go of Josh’s hand and turned toward the complex of BSL4 labs across the hangar. Nikko was doing no better than Josh. The dog was on a plasma and platelet drip, growing moribund with every passing hour. In fact, the poor husky would already be dead if not for the herculean efforts of Dr. Edmund Dent. The virologist was using every medical tool in his arsenal to support Nikko and Josh. And while Edmund hadn’t been able to reduce the viral load in his patients, his palliative treatments seemed to slow the progression of clinical signs.

Painter offered one glimmer of hope. “We’re on our way to a facility in Boa Vista run by the Federal University of Roraima and tied to the Genographic Project. For years, they’ve been gathering genetic information from all the various indigenous Brazilian tribes, using autosomal markers to calculate migration patterns and subgroups of the various tribes. They’ve put together an extensive database. With a blood sample from the man we apprehended, we might be able to find out what tribe he belongs to.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Remember those photos Jenna took of the assailants who attacked her at the ghost town near Mono Lake?”

“I remember.”

“It appears that group that attacked us here were of the same native tribe. Makes me wonder if Cutter Elwes hasn’t gone all Heart of Darkness on us out in the rain forest, woven himself into that same tribe and bent them to his will. If we can find that tribe, we might find not only Elwes . . . but hopefully Jenna and Kendall Hess, too.”

A silvery surge of optimism cut through her dark exhaustion. She took in a deep, shuddering breath. “You have to find something,” she pressed. “Something I can take to Lindahl to halt or delay his plans.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will. I love you.”

“Same here, babe.”

She wasn’t satisfied with his reflexive response. “Just say it back, so I can hear it.”

He laughed, which stoked that silvery shine inside her. “Not in front of the boys.”

She pictured Drake and his teammates and found a smile dawning on her lips. She heard the same smile in Painter’s voice.

“Okay,” he said. “I love you, too.”

After they said their good-byes, Lisa felt reinvigorated, ready to tackle anything. Her radio buzzed again. She hoped it was Painter, having forgotten to tell her something—anything to hear his voice again—but it was Edmund Dent.

“Lisa, you need to get back to your lab ASAP.”

“Why?” She glanced in that direction. “Has Nikko gotten worse?”

“I was changing a bag of plasma for the big guy, and Lindahl left his radio mike open, broadcasting to the team here. He plans to have the nuclear research team experiment on Nikko. They want to know the effects that radiation will have on the organism when it’s deeply entrenched in living tissue, to calculate a dosage that’s high enough to kill it inside a body.”

“They’re planning to irradiate Nikko?”

“In ever-escalating dosages while taking biopsies of his kidney and liver, to see how much radiation it will take to eradicate the virus.”

All the shining optimism from a moment ago ignited into a fiery anger. Jenna had put her life at risk to help them all, and they planned on killing her dog, torturing him, when the ranger’s back was turned.

Over my dead body.

She rushed to the air lock of the quarantined ward.

“You’d better hurry,” Edmund warned. “I just overheard another order from Lindahl on the radio.”

“What now?”

“He’s commanded the Marine security team to bar you from your lab if you show any resistance.”

That bastard . . .

She yanked the air lock door open and began the decontamination process. As the jets sprayed the exterior of her suit, she struggled to find a solution, a way of saving Nikko. By the time the green light flashed the all clear, allowing her to exit, she had come up with only one possibility—a gambit that would require great personal risk.

But she would take that chance.

For Nikko . . .

For Jenna . . .

She owed them both that much, but a worry nagged at the edges of her resolve as she stepped out of the air lock and crossed the dimly lit hangar toward the suite of BSL4 labs.

How much time did Nikko have? How much time did any of them have?

She knew only one thing for sure.

Somebody needed to find an answer—and fast.

22

April 30, 1:03 P.M. GMT

Queen Maud Land, Antarctica

“We can’t just keep hanging around here,” Kowalski commented, looking ready to kick the side of the stalled gondola.

Gray understood his teammate’s consternation. He adjusted his night-vision goggles as he surveyed the landscape beyond their small cage in the sky. Their gondola hung four stories above the cavern floor. Dark waters washed against a shore of rock directly below. There was no going back the way they’d come, and the infrared illuminators along the undercarriage of the cage failed to penetrate very far ahead, revealing only a few of the ubiquitous petrified trunks, like pillars holding up the roof.

Who knew what horrors lay beyond that darkness?

Because what was visible here was terrifying enough.

The slow-moving river below churned with hidden life. Sleek fins broke the surface occasionally. He watched a turtle-shell-backed creature lumber through the shallows, its head spiked like the tail of a Stegosaurus. A crocodilian beast slithered on its belly from the algae-covered bank to avoid this hulking trespasser and vanished into the waters. Higher on the shore, clouds of batlike birds, looking little larger than thumb-sized sparrows, swirled up in tidy eddies and whorls, like smoke rising from their guarded nests. As Gray’s eyes adjusted, finer details emerged. Patches of mossy growths sprouted from the algal beds; mists of tiny gnats or other midges swirled among the trunks of the petrified forest; pale white slugs inched up the walls, leaving glowing trails, like slow-moving graffiti artists.

Stella spoke to her father, drawing his attention around. “He’s right.” She nodded to Kowalski. “We can’t stay here. Dylan Wright must know where we are and that we’re trying to reach the Back Door. By now, he must have discovered that you reengineered the bunker busters to be shut out from the main station. After failing to reel us back in, he’ll send a team after us.”