He could tell that his words failed to convince her, but it was a start.
“We should get out of here,” he said, rising to his feet. “You have some answers now; you know what happened. There’s nothing more for you here.”
She considered this for a moment, her eyes still fixed on the semi-circle of motionless zombies, then gave a weak nod. As if responding to the gesture, the group abruptly turned and filed back into the cave.
Relieved, King finally turned his attention to the ropes that bound his wrists. The knots were pulled tight, but appeared to be fairly simple. He tugged them loose with his teeth, and in a matter of seconds, was able to wriggle free. He then helped Felice to her feet and together they moved toward the parked vehicles.
Moses was waiting for them, his hands spread in a gesture of contrition. “Please,” he said, as if to forestall an act of retribution. “I never meant for that to happen. You were not to be harmed.”
King wasn’t sure how to respond, but to his surprise, Felice spoke first. “I believe you. And I understand why you felt you had to do this. I wish you had told us what you wanted in the first place. It would have prevented all of this from happening.”
Moses was as speechless as King.
“The cave is dangerous,” Felice continued. “I know you believe that it represents a source of wealth for the future of Africa, but it’s not safe. You must see that.”
He nodded dumbly.
She held out a hand to him. “I haven’t forgotten that you rescued me once. I remember it all now. Let me return the favor.”
Almost tentatively, the young Ethiopian took the proffered hand. King kept his expression neutral, doing his best to hide his reservations. He doubted that they had anything more to worry about from Moses, but a betrayal was nonetheless a betrayal. And there was no telling how far the ripples of that action would spread.
As if to underscore what he was thinking, the unmistakable sound of helicopter turbines-distant but nevertheless growing closer-became audible. King scanned the horizon in all directions and quickly located two sets of green and red aircraft lights approaching from the east.
It was of course highly unlikely that the helicopters belonged to the Pan African Army of Freedom, or any other ragtag rebel group, but that was of little comfort to King. As far as he knew, there was only one other group that knew the location of the cavern: Felice’s former employers at Nexus/Manifold.
For the first time since getting free of his bonds, it occurred to King that he had not armed himself. He had no idea what had become of his MP5. The bodies of the three rebel fighters, and the AK-47s they had wielded, lay some fifty meters away. The Dragunov rifle was presumably still in its case in the SUV, but there almost certainly wasn’t enough time to break it out and assemble it before the helicopters arrived. Even the attempt might provoke a hostile response; it was a sure bet that they were already under scrutiny from observers in the aircraft.
“Change of plans,” King declared. “Back to the cave.”
Felice was visibly shocked at the suggestion. “What?”
“No time to explain.” He took her hand and began striding purposefully across the open area toward the mouth of the cave.
It was already too late. One of the craft swooped down between them and their destination, flaring its rotors and buffeting them with a blast of artificial wind. King held up a hand, partly to deflect some of the grit that was blasting into his face, and partly to shade his eyes from the high intensity spotlight that stabbed out from the helicopter, transfixing him and Felice like bugs on a pin. The message was crystal clear: stay put. There didn’t seem to be any alternative.
But then, as the turbines were shut down, returning the night once more to silence, King heard a familiar voice reach out from the center of the blazing light. “Jack? Is that really you?”
19.
It was difficult to say who was more surprised at the reunion. Sara rushed forward, and in an uncharacteristic display of emotion, wrapped her arms around King. She felt cold to the touch and her kiss tasted faintly of salt, but he welcomed it nonetheless. Days of uncertainty about her fate had been swept aside, and all the questions about what had happened seemed completely unimportant.
When he at last drew back from her embrace, he got a look at her traveling companions, most of whom had deployed in a defensive perimeter around the two helicopters. They all, Sara included, wore dark fatigues, but aside from Sara, only one man was not openly wielding some kind of weapon. That lone hold-out was a handsome dark-haired man, who seemed to be waiting for Sara to make an introduction.
“So you must be the friend that Sara told me about,” he intoned. “Jack, is it? I’m Max Fulbright.”
King nodded, and cast an inquisitive glance in Sara’s direction. Her expression told him that she had volunteered only the barest minimum of information about him. “That’s right. Generally speaking, Sara and I try not to interfere in each other’s work, but sometimes there’s a bit of overlap.”
“This time there’s a lot,” Sara said. “Manifold Genetics is involved, Jack. And you’ll never guess what they’ve been up to.”
“Actually, I might.” King beckoned Felice forward. “I don’t know if you got a chance to meet her back in Addis, but this is Felice Carter.”
Sara did a double-take as she recognized the geneticist. “Last time I saw you…” She left the sentiment hanging as something else dawned in her eyes. “Jack, she could be infected.”
King shook his head. “It’s much worse than that.”
He gave a quick synopsis of everything that had happened from the moment he rescued Felice from the burning hospital room, up to their arrival at the cavern. Felice seemed visibly pained by what he was saying, but the information was too important for him to sugar-coat anything. When he was done, Sara turned to Felice.
“I’ve been to the Manifold lab where they were trying to exploit what you found, and I’ve seen their research. They want to isolate the contagion that causes this…” She turned back to King, “zombie state. It’s the key to all of this, and she may have it in her.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” King countered. “There’s something else at work here.” He glanced at Felice, then took Sara aside and in a low voice, described what had happened when the rebels had tried to assault Felice. “She changed him,” he explained. “Just like that. One second he was attacking her, and the next, he was a mindless drone. That wasn’t the result of exposure to a contagion.”
Although he hadn’t been invited into the conversation, Fulbright spoke up. “Are you saying that she’s doing it…changing people with some kind of supernatural power?”
King glanced at Sara, curious to see her reaction to that suggestion. “I don’t know what the mechanism is, but I know what I saw.”
“Then we’ve got to keep her safe,” Fulbright declared. “I’ll arrange for transport to a secure facility.”
As Fulbright moved to the nearest helicopter, King turned back to Sara. “Who is that guy?”
“I think he’s CIA.”
“You’re not sure?”
She shrugged. “You know how spooks can be. But he arranged the takedown of a Manifold lab. He’s trying to get out in front of whatever they’ve got planned.”
“I don’t trust him.”
Sara playfully punched his shoulder. “Jack, are you jealous?”
He offered a half-hearted grin. “Guilty as charged. But seriously, this is some bad shit. I don’t trust anyone right now, least of all the Company.”
“I don’t know if we have any other options right now. If what you say is true-if she’s not in control of this…this ability-then we’ve got to keep her under wraps.”
Sara took a breath then continued. “I don’t buy into this idea of psychic power, but there are any number of other ways this might have happened. The research we took from the Manifold lab indicates that the virus they discovered here might have been responsible for the genetic mutation that led to the rise of human consciousness hundreds of thousands of years ago. They thought a second exposure to the virus might switch that gene off, essentially reversing that evolutionary leap. But maybe the trigger is something else. A pheromone that she releases when threatened. Just imagine how that could be used as a weapon. We’ve got to isolate exactly what that trigger is so we can come up with a way to stop it, and if we’re lucky, reverse the process.”