Jun frowned at the lack of simple courtesy. No bow of greeting, no acknowledgment of the hardship of his coming down here. It was said the young man suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism. But Jun personally believed his colleague was simply rude and used such a diagnosis as an excuse.
Jun joined him at the monitor and treated him as brusquely. “What results?”
“I’ve been gathering data from neutrino labs around the world. From the Russians at Lake Baikal, from the Americans at Los Alamos, from the Brits at Sudbury Observatory.”
“I’ve heard,” Jun said. “They all recorded the spike in neutrinos.”
“I had those other labs send me their data.” Tanaka nodded to the scrolling columns. “Neutrinos travel in a straight line from the source of their creation. Neither gravity nor magnetic fields deflect their path.”
Jun bristled. He didn’t need to be lectured on such fundamentals.
Tanaka seemed unaware of the affront and continued: “So it seemed a simple matter to use that data from various points around the globe and triangulate the primary source of the blast.”
Jun blinked in surprise. It was such a simple solution. His face flushed. As director here, he should have thought of that himself.
“I’ve run the program four times, refining the search parameters with each pass. The source definitely appears to be terrestrial.”
Tanaka tapped at a keyboard below the monitor. On the screen, a narrowing set of crosshairs fixed to the globe. First, encompassing the Western Hemisphere, then North America, then the western half of the United States. With a final few taps, the crosshairs sharpened and the global image zoomed into a section of the Rocky Mountains.
“Here is the source.”
Jun read the territory highlighted on the screen.
Utah.
“How could that be?” he choked out, finding it hard to fathom these impossible results. He remembered his earlier words with Dr. Cooper, how it would take a hundred hydrogen bombs to generate a neutrino blast of this magnitude.
At his side, Tanaka shrugged, his manner insufferably calm. Jun restrained a desire to slap the man, to get a reaction out of him. Instead, he stared at the screen, at the topography of the mountains, with a single question foremost in his mind.
What the hell is going on out there?
Chapter 7
Hank leaned low over the mare’s withers, avoiding low-hanging branches as the horse raced downhill through a forest of Douglas firs, western spruce, and lodgepole pines. Still, he got battered and scraped. Behind him, clutching tightly around his waist, Kai fared no better.
He heard her sudden cries of pain, felt her bounce high out of the saddle they shared, but mostly he sensed her terror, her fingers digging into his shirt, her breath ragged.
Hank gave Mariah free rein, trusting her footing and eye for the terrain. He corrected her only with sudden tugs on the lead to keep her path within the shelter of the forest. His dog, Kawtch, kept up with them, racing low to the ground, taking a more direct path through the trees.
Behind them, the military helicopter gave chase, thundering above the treetops. The woodland canopy offered some protection, but Hank was growing more certain that the hunters were tracking them by body heat, using infrared.
Off to the left, a spate of gunfire shredded needles and branches from a spruce tree. Splinters stung his exposed cheek. The hunters’ aim was getting better. As the roar of the chain guns died away, a sharp cry burst forth behind him.
“Professor!” Kai called out. She risked freeing an arm and pointed.
Ahead, a meadow cut across their path, bright with sunshine. It was wide and grassy, dotted by a few scraggly junipers and a handful of granite outcroppings. The forest continued beyond the meadow, but how to reach it? Out in the open, they’d be picked off easily.
As if sensing his worry, Mariah began to slow.
Someone else also noted their dire situation. A fresh rattle of gunfire tore into the forest behind them.
They’re trying to drive us out of the forest.
With no choice but to obey, Hank spurred Mariah into a full gallop, faster than was safe in the dense woods. He whistled for Kawtch to keep at his side as they burst into the sunshine. Free of the forest, Hank aimed for the closest rocky outcropping. Gunfire pursued them, ripping twin lines through the grass as both of the chopper’s guns let loose.
Hank ripped Mariah around the outcropping as if it were a barrel in a rodeo race. The mare cut sharply, hooves digging deep into the loose soil and grass. Hank leaned to keep balance, but he felt Kai’s arms slip, caught by surprise by the sudden turn.
“Hold tight!” he hollered.
But she was not the only one who was surprised by the maneuver.
Rounds sparked off the stone that shielded them — then the chopper shot past overhead, missing its target. It spun, banking around, pivoting to come at them again.
Hank had not slowed Mariah. He aimed straight for the diving helicopter. As it swung to face them, he tugged his pistol from his holster. It was a Ruger Blackhawk, powerful enough to deal with the occasional wild bear. He didn’t know if it was an act of war for a Native American to fire upon a National Guard chopper, but he had not started this fight. Plus his goal was not to kill, only to distract.
He pulled the trigger over and over again as he raced head-on toward the helicopter, emptying the clip. He saw no reason to be reserved. A few rounds even found their target, cracking off the windshield.
The attack caught the hunters off guard.
The chopper bobbled, a spate of return fire cut off abruptly, aborted as the vehicle jostled the gunmen. Hank used his heels to urge Mariah onward, ducking straight under the belly of the helicopter. It was so low now that Hank could have reached up and brushed his hand along the landing skids.
He spotted one of the gunmen hanging out an open hatch overhead, dressed all in commando black. They locked eyes, then Mariah cleared the helicopter. With the thunder of the engines and pound of the rotor wash, the mare needed no further urging.
Mariah shot for the woods again, diving back into the shadows.
Kawtch hit the forest’s edge a few yards to the left.
The chopper’s engines whined into a banshee’s cry as it climbed again and spun after them.
This cat-and-mouse game could not last forever. They’d been lucky so far, but farther down the mountainside, the alpine forests would dwindle to a smattering of oaks and open fields. The hunters must have known the same. The helicopter sped after them. Their pursuers would not be surprised again.
Plus Hank was out of bullets.
A sparkle of silver drew his eyes to the right. A small stream, glacier-cut and flooded with snowmelt and rain from the passing storm, raced down a series of cataracts. He used his knees to guide Mariah toward it.
Once they’d reached the bank, he goosed Mariah with his heels. She leaped into the middle of the stream with a heavy splash — but from here, they would need to part ways.
Hank let loose the reins, grabbed Kai’s wrist, and rolled out of the saddle downstream of the horse. With his other hand, he managed a fast slap to Mariah’s rump, both as a good-bye and to get her moving.
She jumped out of the river as Hank and Kai hit the freezing-cold water. Kawtch splashed next to them. The current grabbed them all and spun them downstream. The last thing he heard before being dragged underwater was a sharp cry from the girl.
Kai scrambled for the surface, kicking wildly, striking a soft body with her heel. She had been too stunned to react when she was first pulled out of the saddle, but once the cold struck her, it loosed a scream, one trapped inside her since the explosion hours ago.