Danté’s face felt hot. He didn’t like to talk about that girl, not with his brother. “No, I haven’t forgotten her. But we have to bring in Purinam and her crew. We just don’t have a choice.”
“Of course we have a choice. We had a choice with Galina.”
It wasn’t what Magnus said, but the way he said it. Danté blinked a few times. “That’s not funny.”
“Odd,” Magnus said. “I’m so well known for my sense of humor.”
Danté shook his head. Surely Magnus couldn’t seriously suggest such a thing. “This is different. These people are loyal to us, so don’t mention it again.”
“Are you sure? Colding and Feely, they’re both ex-USAMRIID, same department Fischer works for.”
“We wouldn’t even have a company if it wasn’t for Colding.”
Magnus shrugged. “And Feely? How do you know Fischer doesn’t have him on a string?”
Danté rubbed his temples. “What choice do we have? Colding tells me Feely is the only reason Jian and Erika can work together at all.”
“I think we should just end it.”
“And then what? Do you want to tell the Chinese that Jian is gone? That their money is gone?”
Magnus looked at the da Vinci sketches. “Speaking of money, the Chinese cut us off even before the Novozyme incident. No more spendy-spendy for you, round-eye. The whole company is in the red because of Rhumkorrf’s project, and now we’re adding costs with Purinam and the plane? How are we going to pay for this?”
“I have an investor presentation scheduled. Five extremely rich individuals. I just have to ask for more than I originally planned.”
Magnus turned back to look at Danté. Magnus rarely showed emotion, but Danté knew how to spot telltale signs of things like anger, frustration. Magnus had another tell, one he only seemed to express for Danté—the half-raised eyebrows of admiration.
“Five?” Magnus said. “Think you can get them all?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
Magnus smiled again, a genuine one this time. Magnus possessed many skills Danté did not, but what Magnus couldn’t do was charm billionaires out of their precious money. Danté could. Every time.
“This project is too important to stop now,” Danté said. “We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of lives.”
“Hundreds of thousands? Being a little grandiose, don’t you think? Maybe you’re really talking about one life, in particular.”
Danté’s face flushed red. “That’s not what this is about,” he said, although he knew full well that when you got down to brass tacks, when you got down to the real nitty-gritty, that one life—his life—was exactly what it was all about. “We’re pushing forward, Magnus. This benefits all of humanity. I don’t care if we go into the red. This project puts Genada on top, that’s what Dad would have wanted.”
Magnus stared, but then his eyes softened, just a little, and he nodded.
“Magnus, these are trying times, but the hardest steel is forged in the hottest fires. Do you have my back, or not?”
Magnus drew a deep breath, then sighed and relaxed. “Of course I do. Always. You know you don’t have to ask. I’m just not going to rubber-stamp everything you say is all.”
“We wouldn’t be much of a team if you did. Please get Purinam and her crew ready, and you go with them. Load up one of the local backup herds before you take off. The move will be faster if we don’t have to load the Baffin Island cattle. When you’re thirty minutes out, call Colding and tell him to gather the staff for an emergency evac. Even if Fischer does pick off those signals, I don’t think he’ll have time to react.”
Magnus stood and walked out of the office. Danté would have to watch him. His brother got things done, no question about that, but in stressful times like these he could make bad decisions.
Like the one he’d made about Galina Poriskova.
NOVEMBER 8: RUNNING SUCKS
“I HATE RUNNING,” Harold Miller said between big breaths.
“Yeah,” said Matt “Cappy” Capistrano, “I fucking hate running.”
Sara Purinam shook her head, then wiped sweat out of her eyes. “Three more laps to go, let’s dig.”
Outside the hangar, winter winds swept across the snowy plains of Manitoba. Inside, however, she kept the temperature nice and warm. The huge plane took up most of the space, but she made sure all equipment was at least six feet away from the hangar walls. That left a nice running track all the way around. Civilians or not, her boys were going to stay in shape.
“Running sucks,” Harold said.
“Yeah,” Cappy said. “Running sucks.”
The Twins, as Harold and Cappy were known, had elevated looking pitiful to an art form. Both jogged along, heads lolling a little bit, hands swinging loosely more than pumping. They ran the same, wore the same facial expressions, and repeated each other like sycophant parrots. They might have actually passed for twins save for the fact that Cappy was as black as an old Al Jolson caricature and if Miller were any whiter, his skin would have been transparent.
Sara looked up at the far wall. Alonzo Barella, the last member of their crew, had a half-lap lead. “Come on, guys, let’s catch ’Zo.”
“You catch him,” Harold said as his already pathetic pace slowed to a walk.
“Yeah,” Cappy said. “You catch him and shit.”
It was one thing to piss and moan, another thing entirely to quit. Sara felt an automatic diatribe of discipline build up in her head, but she stopped it—they weren’t in the military anymore and she wasn’t their superior officer. They were all partners. Friends.
Instead of yelling, she doubled her pace, leaving the Twins behind. She reached the corner and turned left, keeping the hangar wall always on her right. Maybe this time, she would catch him.
Unlike the Twins, Alonzo Barella loved to run. The skinny man could go all day. Sara pushed her pace even more, cutting his lead in half, then slowed instantly as her cell phone rang. Not with the normal ring, but with Darth Vader’s theme from Star Wars—the special ringtone she’d set up for Magnus Paglione.
“’Zo! Hold up!”
Up ahead, Alonzo stopped and turned. Jogging in place. He wasn’t even sweating.
Sara answered. Within seconds she had her orders. After a year and a half of getting paid to do nothing but maintenance, it was time to bust out “Fred” and earn their keep.
And, she had to wonder, if she’d finally see that piece of shit P. J. Colding again.
NOVEMBER 8: NOT WIRED THAT WAY
INSIDE THE VETERINARY medicine lab, Erika Hoel cursed under her breath. Sixteen straight failures of the immune response test. Claus had been mad before, but this time his face had turned so red Erika wondered if her former lover might have a stroke.
Claus. That asshole. Erika hated the scientific failure, but couldn’t help feeling some satisfaction at seeing Claus so angry. So… frustrated.
She’d loved him once, back when they worked together on the quagga project. Claus wanted what he couldn’t have, and what he’d wanted was for Erika to love only him. But she wasn’t wired that way. She had needs, baseline drives and desires that couldn’t be ignored and didn’t need to be corrected. There was nothing wrong with her. She liked men. She also liked women. If Claus had been right for her, he would have understood that, accepted it. But no, for all his brilliance, for all his righteous ego and accomplishments, deep down inside he was a small-souled man who needed to control people. A man who needed to be the only one.