Cooper motioned to his truck. “We go quick-quick. Don’t want to stop after dark.”
“No, we don’t want that,” Pierce said to himself. He checked his watch. Just after three-thirty local time. At this latitude, sunset was almost always at the same time every day, about six p.m. But thirty miles didn’t sound too far. They ought to be able to make it there, recruit Felice Carter into the Herculean Society and be on the plane before nightfall.
Cooper’s truck was about what Pierce expected — battered but functional — and the Liberian was considerably more assertive behind the wheel than Pierce’s taxi driver. In no time at all, they were racing north along a paved highway through endless miles of ramshackle shantytowns — the West African equivalent of urban sprawl. The pavement soon gave way to a dirt road, which did not slow Cooper down in any appreciable way. As they veered northeast into the interior, the neighborhoods became less dense and gave way to sparsely populated woodland.
Pierce turned his thoughts to the reason for his hasty trip: Dr. Felice Carter. While he had never met her personally, he already knew a great deal about her. Carter, a native of Washington State, with degrees in microbiology and genetic engineering, had twice crossed paths with Pierce’s good friend and Fiona’s father, Jack Sigler, and while she bore no responsibility for the crises that had unfolded from those encounters, she would carry the scars for the rest of her life.
As Sigler had explained it, during the excavation of a primitive Paleolithic archaeological site in Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley, Carter had been exposed to a bizarre retrovirus that had rewired her DNA at the subatomic level and turned her into a living ‘kill switch’ for humanity. In certain extreme situations, such as when facing a life-or-death threat, Felice Carter had a…the only words to describe it was ‘psychic ability’ to shut off the part of another person’s brain that governed sentient thought. Anyone nearby, whether the source of the threat or simply an innocent bystander, would become a mindless drone with no desire other than to protect her. The effect was permanent, and there was a very real possibility that, under truly dire circumstances — such as Carter’s own death — the range of influence might encompass the entire human race.
The explanation for this phenomenon required an understanding of quantum physics that Pierce didn’t have, but the upshot was that Felice Carter had become one of the most dangerous people on the planet. And yet, despite being a living doomsday weapon, she had chosen to spend her life in places where she would be at the greatest risk.
Whether it was because of her African-American heritage, or some deeper connection imbued by the Ethiopian retro-virus, Carter had made it her life’s work to improve conditions for the people of Africa. Given the sheer size of the continent and the scope of the problems facing its inhabitants, it seemed a fool’s errand, but she had put her scientific knowledge to good use. She had worked to stop the spread of AIDS in Central Africa, conducted ground-breaking research into the field of microbe-produced biofuels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and most recently, she had responded to the Ebola outbreak in Liberia.
While there was no arguing that she had done important work and had made a meaningful contribution to human society, Pierce was troubled by the scientist’s seemingly irresponsible attitude toward the threat she posed. In her place, Pierce would have chosen to hide out in a cabin in the wilderness or exile himself to a monastery — anything to stay away from potentially threatening situations. Then again, maybe Carter’s altruism was a way of preserving her link to humanity.
Probably best to avoid that topic altogether, he thought.
After about forty minutes of driving, they came upon a pair of old Land Rovers parked along the roadside. Beneath a layer of mud splatter, Pierce could make out the blue United Nations logo on the doors, but there was no sign of the occupants. Cooper pulled his pick-up off to the side of the road, just ahead of the other vehicles.
“Where are they?” Pierce asked.
“In the bush, bossman,” Cooper said, as if that explained everything.
As they got out of the truck, Cooper reached behind the seat and took out a rust-spotted machete, which he handed to Pierce.
Pierce hefted the blade, recalling his promise of the night before to start carrying a knife. Not exactly what I had in mind. He took an experimental swing at the tall grass on the roadside. “Are we going to have to do a little trail-blazing?”
“Maybe so,” Cooper said, still rooting behind the seat. Pierce expected him to produce a second long knife, but instead Cooper took out a pump-action shotgun. “Maybe other things.”
Without further explanation, Cooper headed out across the grass and soon located a well-traveled path that headed south into the forest. The temperature in the interior was hotter, and the air was more humid than in Monrovia. Cooper handed Pierce a one-liter bottle that looked as if it had been used in a soccer game — as the ball — but the seal on the lid appeared to be intact.
How do I want to die, Pierce thought, from dehydration or dysentery?
He thanked Cooper and jammed the bottle into his pocket. He knew he would eventually be desperate enough to take a chance, but he wasn’t quite there yet.
The trail took them through dense woods, where the shade offered no relief from the heat. The pace was urgent but the path was well-trodden. Pierce didn’t have to swing his machete even once.
After an hour of relentless trekking, Cooper signaled him to stop with a raised hand. Pierce raised his blade, ready to swing it at whatever had aroused his guide’s concern, but the forest was quiet.
Unnaturally quiet.
No birds chirping, no insects buzzing.
They waited there for several minutes, but the pervasive silence did not lift. Finally, Cooper indicated they should resume, but when he started walking again, his steps were softer and more deliberate. He offered no explanation for the eerie phenomenon, but his anxiety was palpable. And contagious.
Ten minutes later he stopped again.
“What is it?” Pierce asked, unable to suppress his curiosity any longer.
Cooper turned a slow circle, then pointed at the ground. “This plant. I do not know what it is.”
Because he was not familiar with the native flora, it had not occurred to Pierce that anything was out of the ordinary, but it was easy to see why the plant in question had caught Cooper’s attention. It was everywhere, blanketing the ground and partially obscuring the trail, climbing up tree trunks and smothering all other plant life. The dark green three-lobed leaves and coiling vines reminded Pierce of creeping kudzu, which had infested parts of the American South.
“I have never seen this before,” Cooper reiterated. “It should not be here.”
Pierce was not sure how to react. Of all the potential hazards he had been worrying about — cutthroat bandits and revolutionaries, predatory wildlife, infectious disease — the one thing that had not even appeared on his radar was an infestation by an invasive plant species. In hindsight, he should have added dangerous plants to the list, but risk of getting skewered by a thorn or developing a nasty rash did not quite rank alongside getting mauled by a lion or contracting hemorrhagic fever. But Cooper seemed genuinely alarmed by the situation.
“We should keep going,” Pierce said. “Find the WHO scientists. They might know what this is.”
The last statement snapped the guide out of his paralysis, and he started forward again with more urgency. As Pierce moved after Cooper, he felt something tugging at his feet. He looked down and discovered that his boot had become entangled in thread-like tendrils that sprouted from the stems of the strange plant. The vines broke apart when he lifted his foot, releasing a faint noxious odor that made Pierce’s eyes water.