Jason rose to his feet, defeated and grief-stricken.
There’s nothing else I can do…
31
“Picking up a smoke column ahead,” Sergeant Suarez said from the cockpit of the Valor. “It’s rising from that summit.”
Painter leaned to the window as the tiltrotor swept toward the lofty plateau of the summit. The engine nacelles turned, slowing their forward momentum. The pilot expertly shot the Valor over the tepui, banking slightly, then came to a perfect hover. Its blades chopped through a stream of smoke flowing out the open doors of a rustic French Normandy — style home, hidden within the mouth of a cave.
Had to be Cutter Elwes’s abode.
Elsewhere, Painter noted a still pond and a sinkhole in the middle of a stunted forest. As they hovered, a handful of men ran into view on the ground, taking potshots at the intruder.
“Abramson! Henckel!” Suarez called out. “How about we show them how the Marines say hello?”
The Valor swooped lower, lifting Painter slightly out of his seat. The hatch opened on one side, bringing in the roar of those engines and the bluster of the props. The two lance corporals already had their lines hooked. The ropes were thrown down and the men rolled out just as quickly. They fired as they spun along those lines, dropping several assailants, scattering the rest.
The Valor’s wheels touched down a moment later.
“Let’s join the party,” Drake said to Malcolm and Schmitt.
Painter followed, a SIG Sauer in his fist, as the Marines bailed out.
Suarez came behind them. “My men and I’ll hold the summit.” He tapped his ear. “Comms are open. Call if you need help.”
Painter looked to the haze-shrouded home, knowing where they needed to search first.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Painter led the team at a low run toward those open doors. The Marines had rifles at their shoulders, their beard-rusted cheeks fixed to their stocks. Painter kept his pistol ready, gripping the weapon two-handed.
A lone assailant shot from an upper-story window.
Drake shifted faster than Painter could react — and fired. Glass shattered, and a body fell through and toppled to the stone. They rushed past and entered a huge reception hall.
Empty.
“Elevator!” Painter said, pointing his pistol toward the wrought-iron cage.
They hurried forward and found a handsome woman huddled on the floor in a neighboring alcove. She appeared unarmed, distraught. She offered no sign of resistance. From her puffy eyes and tear-stained face, whatever distressed her had little to do with their arrival.
Painter pulled out a pair of laminated photos: one of Kendall Hess, one of Jenna Beck. He held them in front of her face. “Are these two people here?”
She looked up, pointed to Hess, then the elevator.
Painter had no time for niceties, not with a nuclear device set to detonate in California in under an hour. He pulled the woman to her feet. “Show me.”
She stumbled to the elevator and pointed to a lower-level button, somewhere beneath this home.
Painter let her go and piled into the cage with Drake. “Malcolm, Schmitt, search this place floor by floor. Look for Jenna. For Cutter Elwes.”
He got confirmatory nods.
Drake yanked the cage gate, and Painter pressed the button. The elevator sank away, passing through solid rock, dropping for longer than Painter had expected. Finally, the smoke grew thicker, and the cage dropped into a huge lab.
Fires burned in spots, soot hung in the air, and a wall of glass looked like it had been shattered into this room from a neighboring lab.
A pair of struggling men rolled into view from behind a workstation.
The one on the bottom was clearly losing, his belly bloody, his neck throttled by a huge hand. His attacker lifted his other arm, baring a shattered piece of bloody glass. The aggressor’s face was a blackened ruin — but Painter still noted the trace of a familiar scar.
He aimed his SIG Sauer and shot twice, both rounds piercing the man’s forehead. The giant toppled backward to the floor.
Painter hurried forward, going to the aid of the injured man. He wore a biosafety suit with the hood torn away. It was Kendall Hess.
“Dr. Hess, I’m Painter Crowe. We’ve come to—”
Hess didn’t need any more encouragement. Maybe the Marine in full battle gear behind him was enlightenment enough. Gloved fingers clutched Painter’s arm.
“I need to get word to California. I know how to stop what was unleashed from my lab.”
It was the first good news in days.
“What about Jenna Beck?” Drake asked.
Hess glanced to him, likely hearing the distress in the Marine’s voice. “She’s here… but she’s in grave danger.”
“Where is she? What danger?”
Hess’s gaze flicked to a wall clock. “Even if she lives, she’ll be gone in another thirty minutes.”
Drake’s face paled. “What do you mean, gone?”
Jenna struggled through the fog filling her head. It took an extra thought for every movement:
… grab vine.
… hook leg.
… shimmy to the next branch.
Jori kept glancing back at her, his brow wrinkling in concern, not understanding why she was slowing so much.
“Go on,” she said, waving him forward. Even her tongue felt sluggish and leaden, refusing to form words without that same extra bit of attention.
She tried her mantra to keep her moving like before.
I am Jenna Beck, daughter… daughter of… She shook her head, trying to dislodge that haze. I have a dog.
She pictured his black nose, always cold, poking her.
Nikko…
Those sharp ears.
Nikko…
His eyes — one white-blue, the other brown.
Nikko…
That was good enough for now.
She focused on the boy, following his actions, mimicking instead of having to think. He slowly got farther ahead. She lifted an arm to call him, but no name came out. She blinked — then remembered, the name rising through the fog, but she feared if that haze got any thicker soon nothing would come through.
She opened her mouth again to call him, but another beat her to it, shouting from somewhere ahead.
“JORI!”
Cutter called again, growing hoarse. “Jori!”
Earlier he had heard an explosion, saw a strange aircraft thunder past the sinkhole, followed by an echoing spatter of gunfire. He felt his world collapsing around him, but nothing else mattered at this moment.
“Jori! Where are you?”
His group had reached the base of the corkscrewing ramp and started along the long gravel road through the forest. Rahei had the lead, shouldering a rifle equipped with a stun attachment. Five more men flanked and trailed him, all heavily armed. Cutter also had a triggering device for the munitions buried below the floor of this sinkhole. It was a contingency plan if he ever needed to cleanse this place, but at the moment, he contemplated it more as an act of revenge.
If these beasts harmed my son…
“Jori!”
Then to the left of the road, a faint call pierced the forest. “PAPA!”
“It’s him! He’s alive.”
A joy filled him like no other — accompanied by a measure of dread. He could not let anything happen to his son.