The 6th Extinction (Sigma Force 10)

Thunder boomed overhead, rattling the hangar, reminding her that it wasn’t just Josh and Nikko who were at risk. The storm had finally reached Mono Basin, and the rain had begun to fall in the highlands beyond. According to Director Crowe, emergency crews were using helicopters to dump piles of sandbags into all of the lower streams and dry creek beds, to try to limit the contagion’s spread.

Not that anyone expected total containment.

Even if the initial sandbagging efforts were effective, how long would those makeshift dams hold? And what if the organism reached the subterranean aquifers that drained throughout the region, contaminating the very water table?

Drake was right.

She kept her thumb on the talk button. “But how can we help find out anything more about that damned microbe? Especially locked up inside here. With the saboteur dead, that was our last direct lead.”

“Then what about indirect?” Drake offered.

Jenna took a deep breath, trying to push back her anxiety and frustration. With the base blown up, with Hess kidnapped and still missing, the trail seemed cold. As far as anyone knew, Hess’s inner circle of researchers was present at the lab at the time of its destruction. Amy Serpry had been their only hope.

With more time, maybe another clue could be found.

But they didn’t have that time.

“Is there something we missed?” Drake asked, plainly racking his own brain.

She reviewed everything in her head: from the initial SOS received by Bill Howard to watching Amy Serpry’s body being airlifted away, sealed in a body bag. Her corpse had become the focus of attention over at the suite of BSL4 labs across the hangar.

Jenna closed her eyes, walking herself through the horrors of the past forty-eight hours. It was hard to believe only two days had passed since that call from Bill Howard.

That call . . .

She opened her eyes, letting the shock show.

“Jenna?” Drake asked.

“I have to reach Painter Crowe! Now!”

8:12 P.M.

For the moment, Painter had Colonel Bozeman’s office to himself. It was a rare moment of privacy in what had become the command center for emergency operations in the area. In the past two days, a hurricane of political, military, and law enforcement agencies had crashed down upon this area, mostly falling upon Painter’s own head. If an agency had an acronym, they were here, needing to be pacified, directed, or consulted.

As was usual with such matters, it had quickly threatened to become an ineffectual clusterfuck. Luckily, due to past efforts by Sigma, the president had personally intervened and granted Painter emergency authority, tapping him as the top dog here.

But be careful what you wish for . . .

Painter was still struggling to rein in the various agencies, to get everyone moving as a team. It had left little time for him to think, only react, to put out fires where he could.

So he took advantage of this momentary calm, while knowing this was only the proverbial eye of the hurricane.

I should go down and check on Lisa.

It had been hours since he’d last visited her. Not that talking through a window was the same as holding her. She had looked a ghost of herself even back then. He knew what drove her to such a ragged edge. Josh was getting worse, and there remained no effective treatment on the horizon.

He shoved his chair back, ready to comfort her as best he could—when the door opened. It was the Marine who had been assigned as his aide, a straight-laced young woman in a crisp uniform and cap named Jessup.

“Director Crowe,” she said, “I have Ranger Beck on the line. She said it’s urgent.”

“Patch the call through.”

He had spoken only briefly to Jenna and Drake after they returned from Yosemite. So far, the pair remained in good health and had likely avoided exposure. It was a small bit of good news in an otherwise bad day, especially as there remained no word from Gray’s team in Antarctica, not since he had reached that British ice station. So far Kat was not overly worried, reporting that a massive solar flare was compromising communication across most of the southern hemisphere.

Hopefully they’d hear something from Gray soon.

In the meantime . . .

He picked up the phone. “Director Crowe here.”

“Sir!” Jenna did sound agitated. “I just remembered something that might be important.”

He sat up straighter. “What is it?”

“Back at the cabin, before I broke in, before I heard Amy’s last plea for help—I heard a cell phone ringing inside. After everything that followed, I forgot to mention it.”

“Are you sure it was a cell and not the cabin telephone?”

“I’m sure. Maybe it was someone checking up on her. An accomplice, someone who hired her. I don’t know.”

“But that makes no sense. We recovered Serpry’s cell phone and personal belongings from the cabin before it was sealed up. Everything was thoroughly examined. I personally reviewed the LUDs pulled from her phone, hoping for some outside connection like you mentioned.”

“And?”

“And there was nothing significant. A few calls to relatives and friends. But more important, there was not a single incoming or outgoing call placed in the past twenty-four hours from that cell phone. Even if she hadn’t picked up, that call attempt would’ve shown up in those line-usage records.”

There was a long pause on the line. “I’m sure it was her cell phone,” Jenna said firmly. “Someone was attempting to reach her.”

Painter had learned a healthy respect for the ranger and took her at her word. “I’ll have a technician look over that phone again.”

If Jenna was right and if those records had somehow been erased or corrupted, such an action had to be significant. It would certainly suggest that last call had been placed by one of Serpry’s cohorts, possibly even by whoever was pulling her strings.

“You may have given us a new lead,” Painter admitted.

“Good. Then if anything turns up, I want to be involved in following it up.”

In the background, he heard a brash voice echo that sentiment, coming from Gunnery Sergeant Drake. “Me, too!”

Painter knew how determined the pair was to help, especially after what had happened to the ranger’s dog.

“Let’s see where this leads first,” he said noncommittally.

“We’re not sick!” Drake yelled in the background. “We’re going! Even if I have to take a scalpel and cut our way out of here.”

Painter understood their determination. He saw the same in Lisa’s eyes each time he visited her. But sometimes all the determination in the world wasn’t enough. Sometimes only one path was left open.