His bug-eyed glare swept around the room, eliciting delayed nods of agreement from all of them. They were close, maddeningly so. Jian just couldn’t find that missing piece. It almost made her long for the days before the medicine, when the ideas came freer, faster. But no, that wouldn’t do—she knew all too well where that led.
Rhumkorrf took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I want you all to think about something.” He put the glasses back on. “It took us an hour to conduct this experiment. In that hour, at least four people died from organ failure. Four people who would have lived if they had a replacement. In twenty-four hours, almost a hundred people will die. Perhaps you should consider that before you start bickering again.”
Jian, Tim and even Erika stared at the floor.
“Whatever it takes,” Rhumkorrf said. “Whatever it takes, we will make this happen. We’ve just failed the immune response test for the sixteenth time. All of you, go work from your rooms. Maybe if we stop sniping at each other, we can find that last obstacle and eliminate it.”
Jian nodded, then walked out of the lab and headed back to her small apartment. Sixteen immune response tests, sixteen failures. She had to find a way to make number seventeen work, had to, because millions of lives depended on her and her alone.
NOVEMBER 8: GAME… OVER?
DANTÉ PAGLIONE SAT behind his massive white marble desk, watching, waiting. His brother, Magnus, sat on the other side of the desk, reclining in one of the two leather chairs, cell phone pressed to his left ear, eyes narrowed. Magnus’s nostrils flared open, shut. Open, shut. His thumb constantly spun the Grey Cup championship ring on his right hand. The office lights gleamed off of Magnus’s shaved head.
To anyone else in the world, Magnus looked perfectly calm. In truth he was. Always. At least on the surface. But Danté had known Magnus all of his life, and he could tell when something chewed at his little brother’s guts.
“Continue,” Magnus said into the phone.
Danté looked to his office wall, taking in the series of original Leonardo da Vinci sketches. Da Vinci’s work was the epitome of control, of calmness, methodical execution of perfection. Things that Danté strived for in all phases of his life.
“Elaborate,” Magnus said into the phone. His nose flared again, just a little. He sat up slowly until his back was perfectly straight. Separated by only a year and a half, Danté and Magnus looked extremely similar—both had violet eyes, a big jaw, both were tall and solid, but Magnus had spent far more time in the weight room and it showed.
Although the two were instantly recognizable as brothers, the youngest had another key differentiator—he just looked dangerous. The thin scar running from his left eyebrow down to his left cheek was a big part of that look. And when Magnus focused like he was focusing now, staring off into nothing, that cold brain processing all the information, the truth was that Danté’s kid brother looked creepy as fuck.
Magnus folded the phone, casually slid it into an inside pocket of his tailored sport coat, then sat back slowly and crossed his left leg over his right knee. “The Novozyme facility in Denmark blew up.”
“Blew up? The animal rights activists bombed it?”
“Somewhat bigger than that,” Magnus said. “Our little NSA hacker friend isn’t sure, but she thinks it was a fuel-air explosive.”
Danté let out a slow breath. He didn’t have to ask what that meant. There was only one reason to incinerate a billion-dollar facility: a virus had jumped species. “What about Matal and his staff?”
“Dead,” Magnus said. “He was in the facility. The entire main staff is gone.”
Danté nodded. Novozyme was Genada’s primary competitor. Matal had been their answer to Claus Rhumkorrf. You could always build new facilities, but you couldn’t replace talent like Rhumkorrf or Matal. In the gold rush for viable xenotransplantation, Novozyme was no longer a factor.
“This works for us,” Danté said. “Novozyme is out of the game.”
Magnus smiled, just a little. “I’m afraid the game is over. For everyone. The G8 are cooperating to shut all of us down. Farm Girl says Fischer is in charge, and he’s starting with us.”
Farm Girl. The code name for their NSA contact. She would never reveal her real name. Only Magnus spoke with her. Farm Girl’s information was always reliable, and she was right—if Fischer was coming their way, it meant major problems.
Anger, annoyance and anxiety all flared up in Danté’s chest. Fischer had come after Genada when Galina Poriskova tried to blow the whistle on the surrogate mother fetal experiments. Danté had hired P. J. Colding and Tim Feely to clean up the mess and get rid of any evidence. If those two hadn’t succeeded, Fischer would have shut the company down and probably sent Danté and Magnus to jail.
Magnus’s smile faded, his blank expression returned. “Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“That we get shut down over a virus jumping species, and yet our specific line of work ensures that can’t happen. If only you hadn’t kept that a secret, Danté, the G8 would leave us be.”
“We couldn’t announce our method. If we had, Novozyme and Monsanto and the others would have tried to copy it.”
Magnus shrugged and raised his eyebrows, a gesture that said oh well.
It was bad, but perhaps not that bad. Danté could find a way to make it work. “What if we tell them now? I can call Fischer. Or better yet, have Colding do it. They have a history.”
Magnus laughed. “They’re not exactly poker buddies. And anyway, it’s too late now. They won’t believe our methods are safe, not after Novozyme’s accident. It’s over.”
Danté took a deep breath. He let it out, slow and controlled. There was always a way. He hadn’t made Genada one of the world’s largest biotechs by sitting around waiting for something to happen. He succeeded because he always thought ahead.
“We knew it might come to this,” Danté said. “That’s why we have the plane.”
Magnus stared for several seconds. His right hand rubbed at his left forearm, the fabric hissing quietly in the silent room. His nostrils were flaring again.
“Danté, you can’t be serious about actually using that thing.”
“Of course I’m serious. You think we spent fifty million dollars on something so we don’t use it when we need it most? Rhumkorrf is close. They could have an embryo within a few weeks.”
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,” Magnus said. “Funny how I’ve heard the phrase within a few weeks for the last six months.”
“Rhumkorrf produces results, Magnus. Venter’s artificial bacteria, bringing the quagga back from extinction… every project he touches ends in success. He’s been producing Nobel-quality work since he was ten years old.”
“Has he also been racking up billion-dollar debts since he was ten years old?”
“Screw the debt,” Danté said. “We’ve invested far too much money to abandon this.”
“Invested? Is that what you still call it? We’re broke. The well has run dry. Do you have any idea what it costs to actually fly that contraption?”
“I know.”
“And what about Sara Purinam and her crew? That makes four new noses deep in our business. The more people, the more chance for infiltration.”
“Now you sound like Colding.”
The small smile returned. “A rare occurrence, I assure you, but sometimes Colding is right. Every person we add is a risk, or did you already forget about Galina?”