Wincing, she shook her hand and nodded to the head tech. “You were saying?”
“From what we just learned, I should be able to lower the yield of our nuke to as little as a single kiloton. If we can get that bomb to blow four miles up — which that drone chopper can reach — it should produce an electromagnetic pulse of at least 0.5 Tesla. It’ll cover more than enough territory to sweep the hot zone with negligible radiation. Nothing worse than what you’d get from a dental X-ray.”
“How long will it take?”
“I can still make that noon deadline.”
She nodded. “Do it.”
“What about D.C.?”
“Let me worry about D.C. You get that nuke in the air.”
As he hurried off, she looked at her bruised knuckles.
Definitely will need a manicure.
Kendall watched the tepui drop below as the V-280 Valor fled from the summit. They had only a minute to spare before Cutter’s charges exploded, destroying his macabre experiment in synthetic biology and genetic engineering.
Good riddance.
He returned his attention to the cabin. The space was packed with people. Cutter’s private helicopter had already left with Ashuu and Jori, but only after ferrying two flights of native workers out into the surrounding rain forest, getting them clear of any danger.
He presently shared the back of the cabin with Cutter, who was strapped down in his stretcher, one wrist handcuffed to a railing. An IV line ran to a catheter in the back of his hand. His deep wounds still needed surgical attention, but a thick compression wrap around his chest should last until the aircraft reached Boa Vista in a couple of hours to refuel.
Cutter stared out the window near his head. “Ten seconds.”
Kendall followed the other’s gaze toward that cloud-wrapped summit. He silently counted down. When he reached zero — a towering blast of smoke and rock shot from the summit, occluding the sun, turning it bloodred. Thunder rolled over that shattered mountaintop, as if mourning the deaths of so much strange life. Then slowly the plateau cracked, shedding a shoulder of rock, like a calving glacier. The pond on top spilled over that fracture, reflecting that bloody sunlight, becoming a flow of fire down that broken rock.
“Beautiful,” Cutter whispered.
“A fitting end to Dark Eden,” Kendall added.
Cutter glanced over to Jenna. “But you saved a sliver of it. For her.”
“And maybe for the world.” He pictured his frantic search for those vials before destroying the lab. “That counteragent may hold some promise of treatments for other mental disabilities. It will certainly bear more study. Some good may yet come from your work.”
“And you saved nothing else? Nothing from my genetic library?”
“No. It’s better off lost forever.”
“Nothing’s lost forever. Especially when it’s all up here.” Cutter tapped a finger against his skull.
“It won’t be there for long,” Kendall said.
The man was simply too dangerous.
With everyone distracted by the show beyond the window, Kendall lifted what he had secretly pocketed back at the lab, what Cutter himself had foolishly left on a tabletop in his panic over his son. He leaned forward and pressed the jet-injector pistol against the side of the man’s throat. It was the same tool used on Jenna. The intact vial still held one last dose of Cutter’s engineered code.
Cutter’s eyes widened with horror as Kendall pulled the device’s trigger. Compressed gas shot the dose into the man’s neck.
With his other hand, Kendall injected a sedative into Cutter’s IV.
“By the time you wake, my friend, it’ll all be over.”
Cutter looked on in dismay.
“This time Cutter Elwes will die,” Kendall promised. “Maybe not the body, but the man.”
34
“Wasn’t exactly your beachside wedding,” Painter said, swirling a glass of single malt in one hand, the love of his life snuggled under his other arm.
“It was perfect.” Lisa pulled tighter against him.
They had both changed out of formal attire and found this deep-cushioned love seat before the massive stone fireplace of the Great Lounge of the Ahwahnee Hotel. The reception party was winding down behind them as guests either filtered to rooms or headed home.
The wedding had been at sunset on a great swath of lawn, beautifully lit, flowers bountiful, including his wife’s favorite chrysanthemums, each petal a deep burgundy trimmed in gold. The hotel had even picked up the tab, a small thank-you for all the pair had done to save the valley and surrounding area. The generous offer was made possible because tourism was still slow to return.
Bioterrorism and nuclear bombs…
It would take a little more time to shake that reputation, but it made it easier to arrange these last-minute wedding plans. They had held off until Josh was recovered enough to attend, sporting the latest in DARPA prosthetics. He and Monk had plenty to talk over at the dinner table. Lisa’s kid brother was remarkably resilient considering the circumstances, even amped to get back out on the mountains and face new challenges.
The final reason they’d chosen this venue was its proximity to the cleanup and monitoring of the neighboring Mono Lake area. Lisa was still working with Dr. Edmund Dent, the virologist, and his team. In turn, Painter used the opportunity to spend some time away from the office with Lisa. Kat was able to handle the day-to-day, with the exception of this weekend.
She and Monk had left shortly after dinner with the two girls propped up in their arms, returning to their rooms before an early morning flight home. During their absence, Gray had been holding down the fort out in D.C., having to stick close to home for personal reasons.
Some other guests, well…
Kowalski sidled up to them, his jacket over one arm, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. He puffed on a cigar.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke in here,” Lisa warned.
Kowalski took the stogie out and stared at it. “C’mon, it’s a Cuban. Can’t get any more formal than that.”
Jenna passed behind him with Nikko on a leash. “Gotta see a man about a horse!” she said, heading for the parking lot. “Or at least Nikko does.”
Like Josh, the Siberian husky had fully recovered, even earning a medal for his actions.
Kowalski scowled after the pair and shook his head. “First Kane, now that dog. Before long, Sigma will have to build its own kennel.” He pointed his cigar at Painter. “And don’t get any ideas — I’m not cleaning up after them.”
“Deal.”
Kowalski nodded and headed away in a cloud of cigar smoke.
Painter sighed and held out his hand. “Shall we retire ourselves?”
“Certainly.” She placed her palm atop his. “But you weren’t expecting to sleep?”
With a gentle tug, Painter pulled her to him, slid his hand behind her head, and kissed her, breaking away only long enough to say, “Who can sleep? We’ve got a family to start.”
Jenna headed down 395 through the center of town in her new Ford F-150 pickup, freshly decaled with the star of the California State Park Rangers. It was courtesy of the department after everything that had happened. Even the interior still had that new-car smell.
Not that it’ll stay that way for long.
Nikko panted in her ear from the backseat. She would normally scold him, but instead she reached back and scuffled his muzzle. Though he had recovered physically, she could read the smaller signs of post-traumatic stress. He clung more to her and was incrementally less apt to charge into situations, but he was slowly recovering even from that.