The Seventh Plague

9

“I come bearing good news and bad,” Monk said.

Gray looked up from his inventory of the team’s gear. Packs, along with weapons and ammunitions, were spread across a long table under an open tent. Beyond the shelter, an expanse of tarmac stretched toward a waiting C-130 U.S. military transport plane.

His team was scheduled to hitch a ride aboard the turboprop aircraft for the two-hour hop from Cairo to Khartoum. The capital city of Sudan lay a thousand miles to the south, nestled at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile, where those two main tributaries merged to form the mighty Nile River.

From there, the group would head out and search the surrounding region for a trail of bread crumbs that might lead them to where Harold McCabe had been held. He pictured the professor stumbling forth across the desert, near death, half-mummified, and carrying a plague inside his feverish skull.

What had happened to the old guy?

To help answer that, Jane and Derek were holed up in a hotel neighboring the airfield, poring through field journals and searching historical references. Gray had left them to their work, guarded over by Seichan and Kowalski.

Gray shaded his eyes against the glare of the Egyptian sun. Heat mirages shimmered over the tarmac as midday temperatures crested the century mark. He watched Monk duck under the tent, followed by Dr. Ileara Kano.

“So good news or bad?” Gray pondered. “I’m not sure which I want first.”

Monk swiped a damp brow with an equally wet palm and gave a tired shake of his head, clearly not sure himself of where to start.

Ileara let out a gasp of relief once inside the shade. “No wonder my parents emigrated from Nigeria. Remind me never to complain about London’s rain and fog again.”

The pair had spent most of last night and this morning at NAMRU-3, the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit located in Cairo. The base had been established back in 1942 to combat a typhus outbreak during World War II. Since then, the unit had grown into one of the largest U.S. biomedical research laboratories outside of the States, the goal of which was to study and combat emerging diseases.

So NAMRU-3 had become ground zero for monitoring and investigating this new pandemic in its own backyard. The unit’s military doctors and scientists were working with the Egyptian Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to coordinate a worldwide effort to stop its spread and find a cure.

Monk and Ileara had been attending scientific briefings and talking to the frontline researchers investigating the new pathogen, a strange organism that subsisted on electricity. From their puffy red eyes, the pair looked like they’d gotten little sleep.

“Let’s start with the good news,” Gray decided.

He’d had his fill of the bad. And it might get worse, even on the personal front. His brother had left him a voicemail, asking Gray to call him first thing in the morning, which with the six-hour time difference between D.C. and Cairo would not be for another hour or so. He knew the sudden call must concern his father’s health, and that worry sat like a stone between his shoulders.

But one disaster at a time…

“The good news,” Monk started, “is that some patients are showing signs of recovery. Which means the disease is not one hundred percent fatal.”

“Yet, at the moment, we don’t know why some rebound and others succumb,” Ileara cautioned.

“Still, that is good news,” Gray admitted.

“I’d call it somewhat good.” Monk shared a worried look with Ileara. “While there are survivors, current estimates still put the mortality rate between forty-five and fifty percent. We’re lucky the rate isn’t higher, but it’s rare for an infectious disease to kill every person it afflicts. Even the Ebola virus isn’t one hundred percent fatal. In fact, it shares the same mortality rate as this microbe, around fifty percent.”

Gray grimaced.

“But it’s still early for such firm conclusions,” Ileara said. “It’s only been five days since the first reported case. Much is still up in the air.”

“Okay, then if that’s the somewhat good news, what’s the bad?”

Monk turned to Ileara, who answered, “We’ve determined the disease can spread via the air. One sniff of the microbe and it latches on to the nerves inside the nose and travels straight to the brain, triggering encephalitis. But even more frightening, it can take as little as two hours from exposure until the pathogen is settled in the brain, where treatment becomes problematic.”

Monk rubbed his palms. “And like a cold bug, this bastard spreads easily. It’s why we’re anticipating this pandemic will quickly grow into a firestorm.”

Gray was not surprised. He remembered the trip from the airport to their hotel yesterday. Cairo was normally a bustling city, but the streets had been nearly deserted. The handful of pedestrians in sight had worn paper masks or scarves over their mouths and noses. They had hurried along with their shoulders hunched, sidestepping one another. According to news reports, people were already hoarding essentials. Fights had broken out. Many had been killed — either out of fear of the sick or from altercations during looting.

It seemed panic was proving to be as deadly and contagious as this disease.

Even now, Gray heard a scatter of gunfire echo in the distance.

“But all of this raises one other mystery,” Ileara said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s strange that the first people to become sick were those who attended the autopsy of Professor McCabe.”

Gray recalled the shocking footage of that event. “But why do you find that surprising? Clearly the morgue team would have been directly exposed when the professor’s skull was opened.”

“True,” Ileara said. “In fact, I suspect the electromagnetic stimulation from the prior MRI may have exasperated the situation by exciting the microbes in the brain. Which probably also contributed to the glowing effect caught on video. We know these electricity-eating organisms not only consume electrons as a food source, but in the right circumstances, they can shed them if overfed, too. For that reason, it might be better to consider these specimens to be electricity breathing rather than eating.”

“She’s right,” Monk said. “I did some reading. Researchers right now are looking into practical uses for such microbes. A lab in Denmark cultured vats of these electrical bacteria, showing how they could form daisy chains and carry electrons over some distance, like living wires.”

Ileara nodded. “And Archaean biology is extraordinary. They’re true shapeshifters. Some are capable of fusing together to form supercells. Others link up into hairlike filaments.”

Gray pictured the frilly cells that Ileara had shown them on her laptop and imagined them tying together, one after the other.

“I think,” Ileara continued, “that this microbe might be capable of doing the same. It could explain why there are persistent reports of vivid hallucinations. Maybe these living filaments are rewiring the brain and directly stimulating those hallucinations. Maybe even on purpose.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked.

“Perhaps these hallucinations are intended to inflict fear, which would further fire up the victim’s brain, creating a richer energy source for the microbes to feed upon.”

“Like stuffing a goose to make foie gras,” Monk added.

Gray’s stomach churned at the thought.

“Still,” Ileara conceded, “this is all preliminary.”

“And perhaps off track for the moment.” Gray returned the conversation to the original train of thought. “Dr. Kano, you never explained why it’s a mystery that the morgue team was the first to be infected.”

Ileara cringed. “Sorry. You’re right. It’s strange because they shouldn’t have been the first. Remember the group of nomads who found Professor McCabe in the desert? They transported him in their cart for hours, caring for him until he died. Yet, they still remain perfectly healthy. They never got sick.”

“Which makes no sense,” Monk said, “especially considering how contagious we now know this pathogen to be.”

“Could they be immune?”

“We can only hope so,” Ileara said. “The family has been quarantined for testing. But so far, the doctors have no explanation.”

Gray read something shining in the woman’s eyes. “But you have an idea.”

She nodded.

Gray’s mind raced to catch up with her.

What possibly could be the reason for—

Then it struck him.

His back straightened. “You’re thinking it’s connected to the strange state of Professor McCabe’s body.”

From Ileara’s shocked look, he had hit the nail on the head.

Monk chuckled. “It’s okay, Ileara. After a while, you get used to Gray making these damned intuitive leaps. Sure, it pisses you off at first, but then you learn to roll with it. But never play poker with him. Trust me. That’s a real bad idea.”

Gray appreciated his partner’s support, but he stayed focused. The one detail of this story that made no sense was the mummified state of the professor’s body. The supposition was that the man had been tortured by his captives into undergoing this painful process and had escaped before it was finished.

But maybe we got this all wrong?

Gray stared at Ileara. “You’re thinking the mummification could have been self-inflicted. That it was done on purpose by the professor.”

“Possibly. Especially after talking to his daughter over the past two days. While Professor McCabe was certainly stubborn in his theories, he sounded like a kind man. So it got me thinking why he would come out of the desert carrying a disease that could trigger a pandemic. I think he would’ve sacrificed himself before allowing that to happen.”

“Unless he believed he could do so safely.”

Ileara nodded. “Maybe this process of preservation poisoned the body enough to kill the organism throughout his peripheral tissues, driving it into the only place it could survive.”

“His brain.”

“Where it became bottled up.”

Gray imagined this threat like a snake coiled inside the professor’s skull.

Ileara squinted toward the burning tarmac. “Perhaps the professor set off across the desert, hoping he could live long enough to tell his story, to warn us of some threat, something his captors were planning.”

Gray considered this, his heart pounding harder. He knew this entire region was a hotbed of terrorist activity. He also recalled Seichan’s story of the assassin who attacked her group at the church in Ashwell. The tattooed woman had a connection to the Guild, a group notorious for twisting scientific discoveries to their own ends. If someone were planning an act of bioterrorism, this Archaea organism would be the perfect ready-made weapon.

He considered how it had taken only one patient zero — Professor McCabe — to inflict this much death and panic.

What if the enemy unleashed a whole infected army?

Monk drew him back to the moment. “Okay, Gray, we’ve given you the good news and the bad. Now how about the truly terrifying?”

Gray braced himself. “There’s worse?”

Monk glanced to Ileara, then back to Gray. “Oh, yeah. We’ve only been talking about the first plague. There’s more to come.”

Ileara turned away. “But this is something Jane McCabe needs to hear.”

This is all going to get much worse…

Jane huddled at the end of the hotel room sofa, hugging her knees as she watched the newscast on the television. Her lunch sat forgotten on the end table next to her. She cradled a cup of coffee between her palms, needing its heat to ward against the cold certainty of what was to come.

For the past hour, she had been flipping between the BBC and local stations. She was fluent enough in Egyptian Arabic to follow the various talking heads on the Cairo broadcasts. There were persistent reports of growing chaos, of lawlessness in the streets. But she didn’t need the news to tell her that. Sirens echoed continually from outside. A glance out the suite’s fourth-story window showed an achingly blue sky marred by multiple columns of black smoke.

The city was coming apart at the seams.

And all because of my father.

Guilt weighed on her. She had to make this right somehow. Her father had always sought to leave his mark on the world, to forge a legacy, one that could be carried on by his children. It was what drove him so adamantly to pursue his belief that events recounted in the Book of Exodus were more than allegory. He wanted his name known to the world at large.

Well, Dad, you’ve accomplished that in spades.

Her father was mentioned on many of the broadcasted updates, often showing his smiling face, his features tanned and sun-wrinkled. Snatches of old video were sometimes played, the footage shot around the time the survey team had vanished. Seeing those images, hearing his voice again, pained her, but she could not look away. One photo showed the entire vanished party, including a stern, determined-looking Rory.

The picture reminded her that more was at stake than just her father’s legacy.

For the thousandth time, she prayed her brother was still alive.

A harsh laugh drew her attention to the window. Kowalski leaned there, watching the street below. His neck was crooked as he cradled a cell phone to his ear.

“Maria,” he said, “I might be on the same continent, but I don’t have time to check on Baako. I’m sure the big kid is fine. He’s probably making all sorts of new jungle friends.”

Jane eavesdropped on the conversation, glad for the distraction. From prior talks over the past days, she’d gotten to know the big guy better. He had a girlfriend who was in Germany, working with her sister at some lab. He had been visiting them when he had been called to London.

His partner, Seichan, was out in the hotel hallway, keeping guard.

A weight fell heavily onto the sofa. She turned to find Derek rubbing his eyes. He propped his shoeless feet onto the coffee table. She noted a hole in the toe of his left sock. For some reason, she found it inordinately charming, a testament to Derek’s absentmindedness concerning the everyday details of life, like buying new socks.

He caught her staring and curled his toes to better hide the hole, then grinned at her. “As you recall, we didn’t have much time for packing.”

A small laugh escaped her, catching her by surprise.

Derek’s smile broadened. “At least I’m wearing socks.”

She drew her bare feet closer, tucking them under her.

He gave a scolding shake of his head. “Simply shameless, Ms. McCabe.”

A sharp voice drew both their attentions to the television. A robed man was yelling in Arabic, jabbing a finger at the newscaster. He was a local imam, clearly fired up.

“What’s he saying?” Kowalski asked.

Jane translated. “He’s insisting that everyone should ignore the health ministry’s warning to avoid public places. Instead, he wants them to gather for services at the city’s mosques. He’s even telling them to bring the sick to be prayed over rather than seeking medical help. It’s insane. Thousands more would be infected.”

Derek sat straighter. “He believes this is a punishment from God. Only by beseeching forgiveness can people be saved.”

Jane listened closer. “He’s now claiming he’s prayed with one of the sick and heard the man speaking in tongues and experiencing visions of locusts darkening the skies, of people dying beside blood-red rivers, and of lightning ripping apart the heavens.”

Derek shook his head. “I didn’t think it would be long before someone tried to tie this epidemic to the biblical plagues.”

Jane heard her father’s name mentioned. “Quiet.”

As she listened, her blood grew colder.

Derek slid across the couch and put an arm around her. “Just turn it off. The guy’s clearly a nutcase.”

“What did he say?” Kowalski pressed.

Derek took the television remote and muted the sound.

Jane fell deeper into the sofa’s cushions. “He said that my father was the vessel for God’s wrath. He went out into the desert, looking for proof of Exodus, and returned carrying the very plagues of that time to punish this world for its infamy.”

Derek faced her. “Jane, that blathering idiot is a fearmonger, a bloody opportunist. He’s only glomming on to this angle because of your father’s well-publicized positions. You know his theories were mentioned in the news when his team vanished. Back then, these same religious nuts claimed they went missing because Harold dared to seek the truth of Exodus through science instead of faith. Now they’re spinning it the other way to suit their own ends.”

The hotel door burst open, making them all jump.

Seichan stalked in, cupping a hand over her radio earpiece. “Gray’s on his way up.”

Kowalski frowned. “Are we leaving already?”

“Not yet. Monk and Dr. Kano are with him. They want to go over something first.”

Derek stood up. “What?”

Seichan’s eyes settled on Jane. “Something about a new set of plagues.”

Jane’s gaze shifted to the silent television screen. The imam was up on his feet now, red-faced and shouting at the newscaster. Her father’s photo hovered to the side. She wanted to believe Derek’s dismissal of the imam’s words, but one worry fought against it.

She stared at the blustering figure on the screen.

What if he’s right?

10

Gray noted the tension as soon as he entered the hotel room. Jane McCabe stood with her arms hugging her chest. Derek hovered near her with concern. Kowalski and Seichan were whispering together, both staring toward a muted television.

As Monk and Ileara crowded into the room behind him, Jane unfolded her arms and took a step forward. “What’s this about a new plague?”

Gray turned to his two companions. “Catch them up first and let me know when you’re done.”

He strode toward the neighboring bedroom, needing a moment of privacy. He checked his watch and slipped out his satellite phone. It should be a little after eight in the morning in D.C. He owed his brother a return call.

Once in the bedroom, he partially closed the door, then dialed his brother’s cell. It rang several times before a bleary voice answered.

“Wh… who is this?”

“Kenny, it’s Gray.”

“Oh, hey.” His brother coughed to clear his throat. “What time is it?”

Gray felt a familiar twinge of irritation. “Never mind the time. You asked me to call you. What’s wrong? Is Dad okay?”

“Yeah… no. Hell, I don’t know.”

His grip tightened on the phone. “Kenny, just tell me what’s going on.”

“I was at the nursing home yesterday. Dad’s under an isolation order. You have to wear gloves, a mask, and gown before entering. Real pain in the ass.”

Gray rolled his eyes. Cry me a river already.

“Dad’s got some kind of new infection. Resistant staph or something.”

Concerned, Gray sat down on the bed. “Staph? Are you talking about MRSA?”

“Huh?”

“Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Doctors are afraid it might go septic. So they put him on a bunch of new antibiotics. May mean Dad has to stay even longer.”

Great… just great.

“How’s he holding up?”

“He’s in and out when I visit. Something to do with his blood pressure. They’re also watching a spot that might blow up into a bedsore.”

Gray fought a pang of guilt for not being there. He pictured the frail figure of his father in the bed, hooked up to machines and IV lines. He could only imagine the anxiety the old man must be experiencing, lost in that fog, unable to understand what was happening to him.

His father’s last words still haunted him.

Promise me.

Gray suspected his dad wasn’t talking about a pledge to return and see him before he passed. Instead, the old man’s earlier words had stayed with Gray.

I’m ready to go.

The statement had been accompanied by a silent plea shining in his father’s eyes, asking for help, for Gray to make the hard decision when the time came.

But can I do it?

“That’s all I got,” Kenny said, winding up the call. “I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

“Thanks… thanks for being there, Kenny.”

There was a long pause. When his brother finally responded, his voice was softer, drained of its usual bitterness. “You got it. I’ll hold down the fort until you get back.”

Kenny hung up, and Gray lowered the phone. He sat for a few breaths, hearing the murmur of the others in the next room. With a sigh, he hauled to his feet. He turned to find a figure shadowing the room’s doorway, hovering at the threshold as if reluctant to intrude.

“Everything all right?” Seichan asked.

He pocketed his phone. “Not really, but there’s not much I can do about it.”

At least, not yet.

Promise me.

She came forward, slipped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his chest in sympathy. He pulled her closer and tightened his embrace, knowing she was struggling with her own ghosts out of the past. Still, they took advantage of this brief respite to share this moment together.

Finally, a shout rose from the next room.

“Gray!” Monk called. “You’re going to want to hear this next part.”

Seichan leaned back, her eyes glinting with amusement. “Or we can simply leave. Right now. When I canvassed the hotel, I spotted a fire escape.”

Despite her attempt at levity, he read something deeper in her eyes, a seriousness that underlay her words. He found himself considering it. What would it be like to turn his back on everything and be truly free, to take that fire escape and never look back?

But before he could contemplate this further, Seichan broke their embrace. She turned away quickly, as if perhaps fearing he would see the depth of her own desire.

“Duty calls,” she said and headed toward the door.

Gray followed, drawn by his responsibilities, both here and back home.

Promise me.

Derek kept close to Jane, sensing the cloud of despair building around her.

For the past several minutes, they had listened as Monk and Ileara updated them on the status of the growing pandemic, but in all that gloom there had been one bright spot, concerning Jane’s father.

“So you think it’s possible he was attempting to protect us by undergoing the mummification process?” Jane asked, hope and relief in her voice.

“I do.” Ileara touched Jane’s shoulder. “Unfortunately with his body gone, we can’t confirm it.”

“Still, it could be one of the reasons why the medical lab in London was firebombed,” Monk said. “To cover this detail up.”

Jane swallowed. “But you mentioned something about other plagues on the horizon.”

“Yes, the other shoe that’s yet to drop.” Monk waved to Gray and Seichan as they joined them from the neighboring room. “You’re just in time.”

Gray nodded to Ileara. “Tell us what you meant.”

The woman scrunched up her face, clearly struggling with how to explain. “Are any of you familiar with the term gene drive?” After getting blank stares, she continued. “How about Zika then?”

Gray frowned. “You mean the virus that swept through South America and now threatens the U.S.?”

“Exactly.”

Even Derek knew about this disease. It caused tragic birth defects, including microcephaly in newborns. He remembered seeing photos of those poor children.

“Some countries, including the U.S., are considering combating the spread of this disease by employing gene drive technology, specifically targeting the mosquitoes that carry the virus.”

“How?” Jane asked. “What is gene drive technology?”

“It’s when scientists add or modify genes in such a manner that the change is inheritable across an entire population. In Florida, scientists are proposing releasing genetically altered swarms of Aedes aegypti—the mosquitoes that carry Zika — into the wild. When these altered pests breed with ordinary mosquitoes, the next generation of females are born sterile, while fertile males continue to carry this damaging gene forward into the succeeding generations. From estimates, Aedes aegypti could be extinct in Florida within a year, eradicating the threat of Zika at the same time.”

“But I don’t understand,” Derek said. “Are you proposing this gene drive technology as a way to fight this new pandemic?”

“No.” Ileara looked around the room. “On the contrary. I think what we may be facing here is a natural version of this gene drive technology, but in this case, we are the target of extinction rather than the mosquito.”

Ileara twisted around and pulled out her laptop. “Let me show you.” As she powered up her computer, she continued. “I told you before how Archaea microbes evolved alongside viruses, and that this particular specimen is crammed full of a slew of different viral particles, which it releases when it infects a patient.”

“Think of it as a Trojan horse,” Monk said. “Once it enters the castle, it unleashes what is hidden inside.”

“Luckily most of the viruses are proving to be harmless, except for one, which happens to be in the same flavivirus family as Zika. It’s proven to be a particularly nasty fellow.”

“What does it do?” Gray asked.

“It attacks cells undergoing meiosis,” she explained. “Most of our body heals and grows through mitosis, where a cell divides to produce two identical daughter cells. But meiosis occurs in ovaries and testicles to produce gametes. Sperm cells and eggs. Which carry only half of the mother cell’s genetic code.”

Derek didn’t like the sound of this. “What damage does this virus do?”

“It’s very specific, targeting a single chromosome.” Ileara stepped back from her computer. “Humans — and most mammals for that matter — have gene pairs that determine our sex. XX for females, and XY for males.”

She pointed to her laptop. “Here is a volumetric rendering of those two genes in a healthy individual. As you can see, the X chromosome is significantly larger and more robust than its diminutive Y companion.”

Ileara tapped the smaller image on the screen. “The virus in question targets only the Y chromosome. We don’t know why. It might be a weaker target. It might be pure chance. Either way, on this next rendering, you can see how much damage it does.”

On the screen, a large section of the chromosome was now missing.

“It looks like an oven glove,” Kowalski noted.

“I suppose it does,” Ileara said.

The large man grunted, apparently satisfied with his contribution to the discussion.

Ileara continued, “The damaged section has been analyzed by geneticists. They believe that males who survive this disease will have sperm cells that carry this defective Y chromosome, which would have an impact on any children he sires. Baby girls should be fine, as they would be carrying the normal XX complement, but any boys, if not stillborn, would be born with the damaged Y chromosomes and likely die within months.”

Derek began to understand the threat. “That means, even if we survive this Archaean pandemic, we could still be doomed as a species because of this virus.”

Jane took a step back from the desk, her face gone notably paler.

“What is it?” Derek asked.

“It’s the tenth plague,” she mumbled.

He frowned. “What do you—?”

She crossed to a table strewn with books, picked up her father’s Bible, and flipped to a tabbed page. She read a passage from the Book of Exodus. “ ‘And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts.’ ”

She lowered the book. “Even the firstborn of beasts,” she repeated. “Dr. Kano, you mentioned that this microbe was likely to infect not just humans but also most animals.”

“Correct. Anything with an electrical nervous system.”

“So this virus could be the scientific explanation for the tenth plague,” Jane said. “One that strikes both people and beasts. Back in ancient Egypt, the change in the Nile would have taken months to wash out of the watershed, while this secondary genetic damage could have lasted even longer. I can easily see how all these deaths of male offspring — both human and animal — could have been transformed and folded into the story of the plagues, its final curse.”

Ileara nodded, looking as if she had expected Jane to come to this conclusion.

“And Professor McCabe had his own theory about the rest of the plagues,” Derek added, drawing everyone’s attention. “I spent many long nights challenging Harold about the truth behind the Bible’s ten plagues. He proposed a theory for explaining them that’s not dissimilar to what we’re talking about.”

“What was his theory?” Gray asked.

Jane answered before he could. “He believed it all started when some environmental change turned the Nile red. There are certainly plenty of reports of bodies of water spontaneously changing color. Due to algal blooms, bacterial overgrowth, even heavy metal contaminations.”

Ileara agreed. “And one of the most dramatic of those changes occurs seasonally right here in the Middle East. Lake Urmia in Iran turns to a bright crimson every summer due to an overgrowth of Halobacteriaceae.” She turned to Gray, lifting one brow for emphasis. “Which happens to be an Archaea microbe.”

“Like the pathogen we’re facing.” Gray’s eyes pinched. “So there’s precedent for this happening in the region.”

“And not just here,” Ileara said pointedly. “There’s another Archaea microbe that turns your Great Salt Lake in Utah a blushing pink at times.”

“Okay,” Gray conceded, “but how does this lead to the other nine plagues?”

Derek answered, “If the Nile — the lifeblood of the region — turned toxic, the subsequent plagues could be explained without needing the hand of God.”

He crossed and opened the professor’s journal to where Harold had jotted down the ten plagues. He ran his finger down the list, while sharing the professor’s thoughts on the subject.

“The next three plagues — frogs, lice, and flies — could have been triggered after the waters turned red. Frogs would have flooded out of the poisoned waters of the Nile, where they subsequently died. Their sudden drop in population would have led the frogs’ prey — mosquitoes, flies, and lice — to explode in numbers.”

“And remember,” Jane said, “bloodsucking insects are major vectors for disease, which would have wreaked havoc on the area’s livestock. In addition, boils would have spread from all those bites.”

“So plagues five and six,” Gray said, looking over Derek’s shoulder at the list.

Derek tapped the next three items. “Hail, locusts, and darkness have a different explanation, one unconnected to the poisoning of the Nile.”

Gray looked at him. “What’s the cause?”

“A volcano named Thera up in the Greek Isles. It erupted about thirty-five hundred years ago, with an explosive force never seen before, casting out billions of tons of ash, which would’ve swept over Egypt. In fact, archaeologists have discovered pumice — rocks formed from cooling lava — throughout Egyptian ruins.”

“And Egypt has no volcanoes,” Jane reminded them.

Derek continued, “The plume from that eruption would’ve produced dramatic atmospheric effects, especially if it coincided with the rainy season. Meteorologists have shown that seeding hot ash into thunderclouds can result in dramatic hailstorms and violent lightning.”

“And I suppose those same ash clouds would have darkened the skies,” Gray said. “But what about the plague of locusts?”

“Locusts prefer damp conditions to bury their eggs,” Jane explained. “With all that hail melting and changes in atmospheric conditions following Thera’s eruption, it could have led to a proliferation of locusts.”

“Which brings us to the tenth plague,” Derek said. “Harold attributed it to the fact that the firstborn sons were revered by their families. They got the most food. So if the locusts ate most of the grain and what was left had turned moldy, those sons would’ve become sick first, dying of fungal poisoning.”

Jane turned to Ileara. “But even my father wasn’t entirely convinced about that last explanation. Many others would have eaten the same contaminated grain and died, too. And it certainly didn’t justify why the firstborn of livestock were also succumbing.”

Derek stared at the laptop’s screen. “Maybe now we have a better explanation, a clearer path to connecting the first plague to the last.”

Seichan spoke for the first time. “But why is number seven circled on the page?” She pointed to where Harold had highlighted that plague, a storm of hail and fire.

Derek shrugged and looked to Jane, who could only shake her head. “We have no idea,” he admitted.

Gray raised another question. “If we’re right about this microbe being the trigger for most of the plagues, including the last one, how did the Egyptians stop it?”

Jane struggled to answer. “It was a different world back then. More isolated. The disease could have burned through the region locally, then died away again.”

Ileara scowled, clearly dissatisfied with this explanation. “Unless there’s another reason. Something hidden out in the desert that your father stumbled across.”

Gray cast a skeptical eye at her. “Do you truly think these ancient people could have found a cure for a disease that challenges the best medical researchers today?”

Ileara shrugged. “It’s happened before. Take MRSA, for example.”

Gray stiffened, looking more sharply at her. “What about MRSA?”

“While that superbug has been the scourge of hospitals, a researcher at the University of Nottingham tested a recipe for an eye salve found in a ninth-century medical text called Bald’s Leechbook. It’s basically a preparation using garlic, onions, and leeks, along with wine and cow bile.”

“Cow bile?” Kowalski muttered. “If that’s the cure, I’d rather be sick.”

Gray ignored him and waved for Ileara to continue. “And what happened?”

“Microbiologists tested the concoction against cultures of MRSA and discovered it was capable of killing up to ninety percent of the bacteria.”

“So it worked,” Gray said.

Ileara nodded. “And who’s to say the Egyptians hadn’t stumbled upon a similar cure? Even if it’s a slim possibility, we must search for it.”

Gray checked his watch. “Then we’d better get moving. Our transport plane is scheduled to be wheels-up in fifteen minutes. We don’t want to miss it.”

Everyone scattered to get ready.

As Derek gathered his pack together, Monk pulled his partner aside. “I spoke to Painter earlier, before meeting you at the airfield. He wants Ileara and me to remain here in Cairo, to coordinate with everyone at NAMRU-3.”

“Let me guess. He wants you to be Sigma’s eyes and ears on ground zero of the plague.”

“He’s also concerned about the political unrest. Religious groups are freaking out. Some are claiming it’s the apocalypse. In a region that’s already a powder keg, all this fiery rhetoric isn’t helping matters.”

“Then it sounds like you’d better grab a helmet and a fire hose.”

Monk clapped him on the shoulder. “Still, I’m better off than you.”

“How’s that?”

“At least I’ll have air-conditioning.”

Seichan joined them, interrupting. “Monk, when you spoke with Painter, did he mention anything about identifying that assassin who attacked us at the church in Ashwell?”

Derek’s ears piqued sharper at this question. He was equally concerned about some killer still hiding out there.

Monk shook his head. “He’s still working that angle with Kat. But trust me, Painter is motivated. That tattooed woman may be the only lead to the whereabouts of Safia al-Maaz.”

Seichan glowered. “Then he’d better find her before I do.”

11

Valya Mikhailov lowered the binoculars to the windowsill of her rented room. She continued to watch the C-130 Hercules bank across the blue sky. It turned like a heavy bird toward the south. Earlier, she had used the binoculars to spy upon her targets as they scurried into the rear hatch of the plane. She had to make sure Jane McCabe remained with the group.

Satisfied now, she pulled her Bluetooth receiver closer to her lips. “They are en route to Khartoum,” she reported to her younger brother.

Anton’s voice whispered in her ear. “Then all is going as planned. Our best chance to secure the professor’s daughter without raising an alarm will be out in the desert. I’ll have an extraction team waiting for you at the rendezvous site.”

“Understood.”

She ended the connection.

For the past two days, Valya had trailed her quarry. Few could match her skill at tracking, a talent honed from decades of training with the Guild. She bore the crisscrossing of scars on her back as proof, punishment from whenever she was spotted by her prior masters. To avoid such punishment, she had learned to become the true ghost that her pale skin and countenance portended.

Pairing that skill with the resources of her new employers, she had easily followed her targets from the train station in Ashwell to their hotel in Cairo. At every step, she had sought a way of separating the young woman from her guardians. But Valya had learned patience during her training. To move with haste only earned one another scar.

But there was a better reason for such caution now.

Moya sestra…

Valya had studied the woman who caught her off guard in Ashwell and who so efficiently dispatched her men. Valya had spotted her briefly across the pond behind the church, but it wasn’t until she was tailing her targets that she came to truly recognize her adversary. Less from her features than from her manners and skills. Three times the woman had come within a breath of spotting Valya.

No one did that — not unless they shared her past.

So the truth slowly grew to a cold clarity inside her.

She knew whom she faced: a dark sister, a shadow of herself.

Valya had heard stories of a woman who had betrayed the Guild, someone of Eurasian descent, one of the Guild’s most skilled assassins. The consequence of that traitorous act had left her and her brother destitute, near ruin, scrabbling to hide from those who sought to cleanse the world of the Guild.

But luckily I know how to hide.

So she and her brother had escaped that purge. Eventually, they had found a new employer, but it would never be the same. She owed that traitor for her suffering, for her loss. Fury stoked inside her — along with a measure of excitement.

Valya longed for a true challenge.

Now she’d found it.

She stepped over to her room’s table, where her knives lay bared, freshly honed to a razor’s edge. She picked up the oldest dagger. It had belonged to her grandmother, who had lived in a rural village in Siberia before being recruited to fight the Germans during World War II. She had been part of an all-women unit, the 588th Night Bombers Regiment. They had flown old biplanes — Polikarpov Po-2 Kukuruzniks — which puttered too slowly for daytime runs. Instead, the women pilots took to the air after sunset, gliding quietly across Nazi antiaircraft batteries to drop bombs on the unsuspecting enemy encampments. Their deadly efficiency earned them the nickname Nochnye Vedmy, or the Night Witches.

Valya smiled, knowing why her grandmother had been so attracted to that particular unit. She turned the old blade in her hands and ran a finger over the black handle. Her grandmother had carved it from a living Siberian spruce under a full moon. It was an athamé, a dagger used in magical ceremonies. Her grandmother had been a well-respected babka, a village healer. She had eventually passed this skill and its tools to her daughter, Valya and Anton’s mother.

Which proved to be unfortunate.

Rural areas were notoriously superstitious and insular. A few bad seasons in such a harsh climate and people looked for someone to blame. A widow with two strange, pale children quickly became a target. They had been forced to flee their home, making their way to Moscow. Penniless, their mother had turned to prostitution. Mercifully, she died within the year, murdered by one of her patrons. Valya had come upon this crime and in a fit of rage stabbed the man with her grandmother’s dagger, turning a tool of healing into one of death.

Afterward, she and Anton — only eleven and twelve at the time — fended for themselves on the streets, becoming savage and wild, until the Guild found them and turned that anger into skill.

Valya stared at the mirror above the desk. She had powdered over her tattoo to hide this distinguishing mark, but the dark sun still shone through. She and her brother had disfigured their faces in this manner, as a promise to forever be there for each other.

But nothing lasts forever, she thought bitterly.

Anton had found someone else.

She lowered her eyes from her reflection, still holding the athamé blade. The tip of the knife was normally used to carve powerful symbols into candles and magical totems. She had turned it to darker purposes, marking her victims’ foreheads with an evil eye, one derived from these very lands, a stylized version of the Eye of Horus.

She pictured the woman who had destroyed the Guild, who cast her and her brother out onto the streets, and dug the tip of the dagger into the desktop. She slowly carved a new promise into the wood, determined to anoint the traitor with this same mark.

Once done, she stared down at her handiwork.

Unlike my brother’s oath to me, I will keep this promise.

12

“Gray and company landed safely in Khartoum,” Kat announced as she entered the director’s office, noting the scatter of Starbucks cups across his desk.

Too many for just the morning.

Painter lifted up a hand, silently asking for a moment. He sat with his sleeves rolled up, hunched over a thick file, while the three wall-mounted screens behind him displayed various feeds. One was a muted BBC broadcast, another displayed a live map scrolling with data from the CDC, and the last puzzled her. It appeared to be a webcam feed from a bare office. The oddity drew her attention. There was a chair pushed back from a desk. She noted a bookshelf to one side, with the texts bearing titles in both English and Arabic.

Then a familiar figure dropped into the chair. Her breath caught in her throat at the unexpected surprise. It was her husband.

Monk leaned closer to the webcam, spotting her and grinning. “Hey, honey, I’m home.”

Kat stepped around the corner of Painter’s desk, drawing nearer to the screen and microphone. “Where are you?”

He glanced around the room. “The folks at NAMRU-3 were kind enough to lend us an office. It’s in the basement, but it’s not far from the facility’s medical library, which comes in handy.”

Monk tilted back his chair and whistled off to the side.

Kat frowned. “What are you—?”

Another face leaned into view. “Hi, Kat.”

It was Dr. Ileara Kano. She was dressed in a waist-length lab coat, with her dark hair modestly secured under a scarf. She carried a pile of journals under one arm.

Kat grinned at her friend. “Ileara, it’s good to see you. I trust my husband hasn’t been too much trouble.”

“Not at all.” Then she added, “Well, he could stop hogging all the jelly babies. With the shortages out here, they’ve become a premium.”

Monk showed no sign of remorse. “What can I say, I’m a growing boy.”

Kat felt a surge of affection. “He does have an insatiable sweet tooth.”

“That’s why I married you, the sweetest woman I know.”

Oh, brother…

“Feel free to punch him,” Kat said.

“Maybe later,” Ileara answered. “Especially if that candy jar is empty when I get back from the library.”

She waved and departed.

Kat had so much she wanted to say to Monk, to share with him, about their two daughters, about how much she missed him. He had been gone only a few days, but she could not discount what a huge presence he was in her life, how much she needed him, if only to sit quietly with her at night after the girls were put to bed.

“I miss you, too,” Monk said, his grin softening with sincerity.

She wanted to hug him and inadvertently took a step forward, but she wasn’t alone.

Painter shifted his chair away from his desk and stood up, stretching his back with a pained grimace. She knew he had been in his office all night. With his wife, Lisa, off visiting her brother in California, he had claimed he had no reason to abandon his station during this crisis.

But Kat suspected the real reason had nothing to do with his empty house, but something closer to his heart.

Safia al-Maaz still remained a ghost, and he would not rest until she was safe.

Painter stepped next to her, stifling a yawn with a fist. “Monk was catching me up on events in Cairo. Then he had to—”

“—talk to a man about a horse,” Monk finished. “Even at the epicenter of a pandemic, when nature calls, a guy has to answer.”

“And it proved to be a timely call,” Painter said. “While he stepped away, I received a report from an Interpol office in Moscow. I’m not sure it’s relevant. But it’s something I’d like you to follow up on.”

“Of course,” Kat said.

“Sounds like you two kids are busy,” Monk said. “And I have a medical briefing in ten minutes with the Research Science Directorate here. I’ll report back if there’s any significant news.”

Monk gave her a wink and ended the feed, but not before grabbing a fistful of jelly babies.

Kat shook her head and faced Painter. “What did you hear from Moscow?”

She suspected it involved Seichan’s tattooed assassin, a woman who might share her past ties to the Guild, but Kat refused to get her hopes up. For the past forty-eight hours, she had been hitting one dead end after the other in her attempt to identify her. Seichan had only known the woman by her reputation. Like Seichan, the assassin had been a notorious hunter-killer for the Guild. Kat remembered Seichan’s description of the woman’s skill.

Once she has your scent, you’re already dead.

Seichan surmised the only reason her group survived back in Ashwell was because the assassin had been caught off guard by Sigma’s involvement.

But it’s not a mistake she’ll make again, Seichan had promised.

Painter pulled a sheet of paper from the file he had been reading and slid it toward her. “Kat, you may’ve been right about the significance of this symbol.”

Kat recognized what was illustrated on the page. After the attack, Seichan had transmitted a sketch of the woman’s tattoo. It looked like half of a sun. The dark mark was the only concrete clue to identifying the pale woman. Kat had run that information through various criminal and police databases, but nothing had turned up.

After twenty-four hours, with no new leads, Kat had played with the symbol, wondering if it could be half of a whole. So she had mirrored those two halves together to form a full sun, which was printed on the page before her.

The sun’s rays were kinked at the ends, forming a wheel-like shape. It hadn’t taken long for Kat to identify the symbol. It was a Kolovrat, a pagan solar symbol from Slavic countries. It had once been tied to witchcraft but was later co-opted by nationalistic parties, including Neo-Nazis.

Using this information to narrow her search parameters, Kat had concentrated her investigation on Slavic countries. Through her network of contacts in the intelligence communities, she had reached out to Interpol offices in those thirteen nations and asked them to canvass local police records in smaller towns, records that might not have reached the Interpol’s main database in Lyon. To be thorough, she had also requested the same of Moscow’s office, as many Slavic countries had once been part of the former Soviet Bloc.

That had been twenty-four hours ago.

“You got a hit on this?” Kat asked. “Has someone found a record of a woman with half this symbol on her face?”

“No,” Painter admitted, squashing her flicker of hope.

“Then what—?”

“Moscow found a single record of a young man, a boy really, sixteen years old, with half of this symbol tattooed on his face. He had been convicted of petty theft and immoral acts about a decade ago in a small town of Dubrovitsy, not far from Moscow. He ended up escaping before going to prison.”

Kat sighed, sensing another dead end. “Director, it’s not much to go on. I anticipated we might get several false hits, especially with the Kolovrat symbol becoming popular with Neo-Nazi groups. An Internet search will show hundreds of white supremacists, mostly men, bearing this tattoo.”

“But what about someone with only half the symbol?” Painter pressed.

She had to admit that was odd.

“And what about this?” Painter opened the file and slid out a printout of the kid’s mug shot. Angry lines of Cyrillic lined the bottom of the page, likely listing the boy’s crimes. He tapped the photo. “Look familiar?”

Kat stared down at the young, unlined face. His skin was notably pale, his hair snowy white. He was actually quite handsome, with thin lips and a sharp nose. Unfortunately, the prominent tattoo across his left side marred those features, turning them beastly.

Painter placed a finger on a boxed-off word in Cyrillic.

“It states here, he’s an albino.”

Kat’s eyes widened, remembering Seichan’s description of the woman’s ghostly countenance. “Okay, maybe this is worth pursuing further. What’s his name?”

“Anton Mikhailov.”

She held out a hand for the file. “I’ll see what I can find out about him.”

As she took the bundle, she read the worry shining in Painter’s eyes.

She didn’t need him to spell it out for her.

Time was running short for Safia al-Maaz.

It’s all my fault…

With guilt eating at her, Safia had a hard time facing Rory McCabe. A step away from her, Harold’s son had stripped to a pair of boxers and now struggled to climb into the yellow biosafety suit. She kept her gaze diverted, not out of modesty of his half-naked form, but from her own shame. Rory’s right eye was purplish and almost swollen shut.

Yesterday, she had tried to drag her feet. With a rigorous schedule set for her, she had attempted a passive protest, feigning exhaustion, moving slowly, only pretending to read through Professor McCabe’s volumes of old notes. Instead, she had used the time to study her surroundings, contemplating how she might escape. The conclusion she came to was grim.

There’s no way out of here.

The base on Ellesmere Island was surrounded by thousands of acres of open tundra, bordered to the northwest by a sea of shattered ice. At night, unable to sleep, she could hear those jagged floes moaning and cracking as they ground together in a continuous chorus. She imagined they went silent only in the dark of winter, when the Arctic Ocean froze solid again and the sun vanished for months on end.

Even if she attempted to escape across that frozen landscape, there were other dangers. From her window, she had spotted gray-white humps slowly shifting across the black granite. Polar bears haunted the island’s shores, hunting for seals, for anything to eat. This morning, before being summoned to work, she had noted a handful of workers out at the antenna array, checking cables and jotting notes on clipboards. All of them had protective rifles slung over their shoulders.

She still had no idea as to the purpose of that hundred-acre steel forest, or the huge excavated pit at its middle. From the vantage of a window in the station’s library, she had spotted something poking up from the center of the hole. She could only glimpse the very top, which appeared to be a massive silver sphere, easily twenty yards across.

She had tried to ask Rory about the installation, but he had ducked his head lower and glanced to their pale guard, Anton. Apparently this information was beyond her pay grade. Still, she was not surprised by Rory’s reticence. She had already assessed that the workload here was highly compartmentalized. Everything was on a need-to-know basis. The handful of other technicians she passed in the hallways had all stayed together in their own cliques, each wearing the same-colored uniform, which she guessed corresponded to their duties.

She stared at the folded set of gray coveralls on the bench before her. They matched Rory’s. From the way the other personnel shied away from them, refusing even to make eye contact, she could guess the implication of this particular color.

Prisoner.

Or perhaps the better term was forced labor, with the emphasis on forced.

Rory winced as he pulled the hood of his suit over his head, brushing the plastic against his swollen eye. Anton had sucker-punched Rory last night, catching the young man off guard. Rory had ended up on his backside, too stunned to even gasp. Anton’s gaze never left her. His words were curt, stilted by his accent.

Tomorrow you work better.

Apparently Safia’s work ethic had been found wanting.

This morning she had done everything asked of her, which mostly involved reading through the guidelines for working in a biosafety lab. She was asked to memorize them and was tested by Anton afterward. This time, the Russian nodded, satisfied.

Safia ran through the main instructions as she suited up.

There were scores of other details and procedures, and she knew the punishment for any violation would fall upon Rory’s shoulders.

If that mistake doesn’t kill me first…

She could not dismiss the tremor of fear as she pulled on her hood and sealed the suit, feeling a moment of claustrophobic panic. Working quickly, she snapped and twisted the air hose in place. The hiss of cold air swelled through her suit, which helped stave off full panic. She took several gulps of the metallic-tasting air.

Rory stalked in front of her, like some tethered astronaut. “Are you okay?” he asked, using the voice-activated radio system.

She nodded, maybe a bit too vigorously.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she managed to squeak out, then answered again with more assurance. “I’m fine, Rory. Let’s get this over with.”

She didn’t want to make it look like she was balking from her responsibilities. Anton stood in the outer antechamber, his hands behind his back. He wore an earpiece to monitor their radio chatter.

“Let’s go,” she urged Rory.

He led the way through the next set of doors. They passed through the chemical shower station to reach the main facility. From the condition of various stations along the walls, others had been here this morning. They must have been ordered to leave so she and Rory could have this private audience with their subject.

The tall sealed crate awaited them, as did its contents.

Despite her terror, Safia found herself fascinated by the figure of the mummified woman seated atop the tarnished silver throne. The serenity in her bowed head helped calm Safia. She took it all in, noting the finer details now that she was this close. The woman’s scalp was smooth and bald, but Safia suspected it wasn’t decomposition that had stripped this Egyptian princess of her dark locks.

She had been shaved.

There was not a hair on her body; even her eyebrows were missing.

Curiosity drew her closer.

“This must have been a ritualized death,” she whispered to herself, but the radio picked up her words and transmitted them.

“My father thought the same,” Rory said. “He believed she was sealed up in her tomb while still alive. Worst of all, there was a rim of old ash around its base, suggesting she had been baked inside after being imprisoned.”

“I don’t think she was imprisoned. I think she went in there voluntarily. Look how she sits so peacefully on that throne. She’s not shackled or tied down. The pain must have been excruciating.” Safia tilted her hooded head, studying the charred edges where the woman’s skin came in contact with the silver chair. “Yet, she never left that burning seat.”

Safia reached for the latches to unseal the transport crate.

“Let me,” Rory said.

Safia nodded, stepping back to allow him to work, experiencing a flicker of impatience. Yesterday, Safia had been assigned to review Professor McCabe’s work — or at least, the little that was left of it. Though the exact details were kept from her, she had learned that Harold had tried to destroy his research prior to his escape. He had been only partly successful. Snatches of his work survived, bits and pieces of a more comprehensive study. It was Safia’s role — with Rory’s help — to put that patchwork together again.

Yet, it was plain they were keeping secrets from her.

She still had no clue where this woman had come from or why she was so important.

Rory finally freed the last latch and swung the door wide.

Anxious for answers, Safia moved forward until she stood toe-to-toe with the princess. Her gaze swept the figure, noting the details she had missed from a distance. The carved finials on the back crest rail were masterworks of Egyptian art, from the curled lip of the lion — frozen in midgrowl — to the bashful sweep of the queen’s cheek on the other side.

But her eyes settled on the true wonder before her. This dramatic work had faded with age, but there was no mistaking its beauty.

No wonder her body had been shaved.

Across the surface of the woman’s skin, hieroglyphics had been tattooed. They ran down her body, row upon row, from the arch of her skull to the tops of bare feet.

My god…

Desperate to read what was written, Safia found it hard to breathe. She knew the woman had died to preserve this story for eternity.

She stared again at her serene countenance and whispered softly.

“Tell me everything.”

“I got another hit!” Jason called from the next room.

Kat turned from her desk. Her office window looked out onto Sigma command’s communication nest. A single monitor glowed in the darkened room, illuminating the face of her chief analyst, Jason Carter. He was former navy, like herself, only he was a decade younger. Kat had recruited him into Sigma after the kid broke into DoD servers with nothing more than a BlackBerry and a jury-rigged iPad. Despite his towheaded and boyish appearance, Jason was a savant, especially when it came to analysis.

She stood up and crossed into the next room. “Show me.”

Over the past two hours, they’d had three other hits on their quarry — Anton Mikhailov — but each of them had failed to pan out.

Jason hunched over this terminal, tapping away. “This one’s promising.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Her voice came out more scolding than she intended. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem.” He glanced back. “I understand the pressure you’re under. I ran into the director in the hall. He’s… well, intense.”

“He’s worried. We all are.”

He nodded. “Maybe this’ll help.”

He brought up a passport photo on the screen and placed it beside the composite they had created of an older Anton Mikhailov. The latter had been constructed by running his young mug shot through age-progression software. She had then forwarded the altered photo to a global facial-recognition database, hoping for a match. As a precaution, she also sent two versions: one with the prominent tattoo and another without it. She could not discount the possibility that the man had covered or removed this distinguishing mark to better hide himself.

She was glad she had chosen to send both versions, because the man in the passport photo had no tattoo.

Still, Kat compared the two faces. They appeared to be a close match. She read the name on the passport. “Anthony Vasiliev.”

Jason cocked an eyebrow. “Anthony… Anton. Surely that can’t be a coincidence. So I went ahead and ran a background check under that new name. Found this.” He brought up a new photo.

It was an employee ID.

Kat leaned closer and read the company’s name. “Clyffe Energy.”

“According to his file, Anthony is head of security at a research base — called Aurora Station — up in the Arctic.”

In the Arctic…

Kat began to wonder if she could be wrong. Maybe the similarities in features and name were merely coincidental. Clyffe Energy was a multinational conglomerate with hundreds of patents on sustainable energy platforms. It had its fingers in multiple pies. Its CEO — Simon Hartnell — was a wunderkind, a tech billionaire who was pushing the boundaries of solar, wind, and geothermal energy. In addition, while other such industry giants bought basketball teams or lived glamorous lifestyles, Simon Hartnell was a philanthropist, donating millions to charities, especially throughout Africa.

“If this is truly Anton Mikhailov,” Kat said, “his new identity must have been bulletproof to pass that corporation’s background check. Clyffe Energy oversees multiple government contracts, including working with DARPA. Maybe this isn’t our guy.”

Instead of answering, Jason typed and brought up what appeared to be a medical file for the man.

“How did you access—?” Kat shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Why are you showing me this?”

He pointed to one line. “He’s on a regular prescription of nitisinone.”

“Which does what?”

Jason brought up a Web page for the National Institutes of Health and read from it. “It treats oculocutaneous albinism, type one-B, a genetic defect in the production of tyrosine, an amino acid needed for pigment production in skin and eyes.” He glanced back to her. “In other words, Anthony Vasiliev is an albino.”

Kat stood straighter.

“He’s gotta be our guy,” Jason said. “But that’s not all.”

“You have more proof?”

“Better than that.” Jason typed again, then leaned back and stretched his arms, cracking his knuckles. “He has a sister.”

On the screen glowed another Clyffe Energy employee badge. The photo showed a stern woman with the same pale complexion and white hair. Again there was no tattoo visible, but that dark sun could have been eclipsed under a thick coat of makeup.

“Her name’s Velma Vasiliev,” Jason said, “but I doubt her name is any more real than her brother’s.”

A thrill passed through Kat as she stared at the woman’s face.

“Send this picture to Seichan’s phone,” she ordered. “See if she can make a positive ID. Then pass an alert to passport security both in the EU and northern Africa. I want to know if Velma Vasiliev made a recent visit to the U.K., and if so, where she might be now.”

Jason nodded and returned to his terminal.

Even if Seichan could not confirm this was the same woman, Gray’s team should be on the alert for her.

She turned, ready to share this breakthrough with Painter, but she gave one last order to Jason. “While I’m gone, pull everything you can about that Arctic station where her brother works.”

“You got it.”

Riding on adrenaline, Kat headed out and crossed in firm strides over to the director’s office. His door was ajar, but she heard him speaking inside, so knocked on the jamb. “Sir?”

Painter sat on the edge of his desk, facing one of his wall monitors. He waved to her. “C’mon in, Kat.”

Another voice also encouraged her. “Great. Now it’s a real party.”

She entered to find her husband’s mug up on the screen again. Monk’s meeting with the Research Science Directorate at NAMRU-3 must have finished, and he had been briefing the director.

Monk grinned at her, which went a long way to tempering her anxiety. “Hey, gorgeous.”

“Hey, yourself.”

Monk’s left eye narrowed. “Babe, what’s wrong?”

As usual, he easily read her tension. “I believe we’ve identified the woman who attacked Seichan and the others in Ashwell. And maybe even played a role in the abduction of Dr. al-Maaz.”

Painter swung toward her. “Tell me.”

Kat ran through the chain of analysis, interrupted by a sporadic question or two from Painter or Monk. As she finished, the doubt in Painter’s eyes hardened to certainty.

“Well done,” Painter said.

Kat couldn’t take full credit. “Most of the heavy lifting was done by Jason Carter.”

Painter nodded, rubbing at his lower lip in thought.

“Still, no matter the assist,” Monk said, “it’s a slam dunk.”

Painter stepped back around his desk. “I know about that Arctic installation. Aurora Station. Or at least I’m familiar with it.”

“How?” Kat asked.

“The place is partly financed by DARPA.”

Monk snorted from the screen. “Really? Why?”

“Bad press,” he answered cryptically and dropped back into his seat. He began typing at his desktop computer.

“Back in 2014,” he explained, “the U.S. Air Force closed down its HAARP facility up in Alaska. Which stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. Funded by DARPA, the program’s purpose was to study the earth’s ionosphere, that shell of plasma enclosing the planet hundreds of miles overhead, a layer that’s vital to satellite and radio communication. Experiments involved sending high-frequency signals from ground-based radio antennas up into the sky. Doing so allowed HAARP scientists to study how to improve communications to our submarines, along with performing countless other tests. One project — the Lunar Echo Experiment — once bounced a beam off the moon.”

“Why?” Monk asked. “Were they trying to blow it up?”

Kat smiled, but Painter took him seriously.

“No. In fact, that’s the least crazy charge against the facility. Once the public learned of a remote subarctic base that was shooting invisible rays into the sky, all sorts of accusations arose. It was a space weapon, a mind-control device, a weather-control machine. Even the 2011 Japanese earthquake was blamed on HAARP.”

“So lots of bad press,” Kat said.

“That HAARP could never fully shake.”

“But what does any of this have to do with Aurora Station?” Monk asked.

“Aurora Station is basically HAARP reborn, only on a much bigger scale. Its antenna array is tenfold larger, its technology beyond cutting edge. And being privately owned versus run by the military, the place has garnered less attention, especially due to its remoteness. Because of this, DARPA has been quietly funding part of the project, in order for HAARP’s experiments to continue away from the public eye.”

Kat understood Painter’s interest in this project. Before becoming director, Painter’s area of expertise with Sigma had been in high tech, basically anything with an on/off button. Not only had he earned a PhD in electrical engineering, but he also held several patents.

Painter transferred an image onto the wall monitor behind him. It was the familiar logo for the corporation running Aurora Station. It depicted an egg inscribed with scientific nomenclature that was about to tip over.

“This pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the company and its CEO, Simon Hartnell,” Painter said. “In fact, it’s his involvement that likely further insulated the facility from public scrutiny.”

“Why?” Monk asked.

“With all of his charity work, he’s developed a sterling public persona. Plus everyone uses his tech. From his fast wireless chargers to his powerful batteries. With all of that goodwill, no one’s accusing him of building a mind-control device.”

Monk scrunched up his brow. “But what did you mean about that egg telling us everything we needed to know about the man?”

Painter glanced over his shoulder at the Clyffe Energy logo. “It’s supposed to represent the Egg of Columbus.”

“Which is what?” Monk asked.

“According to a story, Columbus once claimed he could balance an egg on its tip and challenged his critics to do the same. When they tried and failed, he took the egg and cracked its end atop a table, thus flattening its bottom. This, of course, allowed the egg to sit upright.”

“In other words, he cheated,” Monk said.

Kat scowled at him. “The story is intended to be a lesson on creativity, about thinking outside the box to find a solution to a seemingly impossible problem.”

“Which pretty much encapsulates Simon Hartnell’s philosophy,” Painter said. “But the logo also has an additional layer of significance. Hartnell considers himself to be the intellectual heir to the inventor Nikola Tesla, practically worships the guy.”

Monk waved to the logo. “But what does this obsession have to do with that egg?”

“At a world exposition in 1893, Tesla set out to repeat Columbus’s accomplishment, only this time scientifically. He set a copper egg to whirling within a rotating magnetic field. The gyroscopic forces along its major axis turned the egg up on its end, spinning on its tip. Thus winning Columbus’s centuries-old bet.”

“And without cheating,” Monk added, sounding impressed.

“Columbus didn’t—” Kat gave up and waved to Painter. “What exactly is Clyffe Energy doing with that expanded facility in the Arctic?”

“A slew of new projects. Like mapping the shift of the magnetic north pole. Or testing plasma clouds in the upper atmosphere. But the main emphasis is on studying climate change. The facility is using ELF and VLF signals — transmissions normally used to communicate with submarines — to monitor the thickness of the Arctic ice pack.”

Kat felt a twinge of concern. “That’s becoming a huge industry up north.”

“And a political firestorm to boot,” Painter said. “With the Arctic melting, the wealth of resources under all of that ice has become a territorial free-for-all. Canada, Russia, Denmark are all fighting to stake out claims. It won’t be long before someone pushes someone else too far.”

A scuffle of feet sounded behind them, followed by an urgent knock on the office door. Jason Carter pushed into the room. “You all gotta see this.”

Painter shifted to the side, allowing the young man access to his computer. He could tell the kid was worked up about something.

Jason spoke as he worked. “Kat asked me to look into that base up in the Arctic. Everything in that region is under surveillance. Military satellites, NOAA weather stations. Canada’s Northern Watch program has drones in the air, on the ice, and under the water, monitoring traffic throughout the region to protect their interests. It’s getting to be that a polar bear can’t fart up there without triggering a seismic sensor.”

“Jason…” Kat warned.

“I know, I know. Give me a second.”

Painter shared a look with Kat, silently acknowledging how Jason’s observations dovetailed into their prior discussion.

“I thought,” Jason continued, “why not take advantage of all that surveillance? So I set up a search protocol around Aurora Station, specifically for the twenty-four-hour period following the abduction of Dr. al-Maaz.”

Painter clenched a fist.

“And I found this on a Norwegian Polar Institute satellite.”

Jason transferred a video clip to the room’s third monitor. The footage showed a grainy overhead view of a helicopter sitting on a stretch of snow and black rock. The rotors spun, and small figures labored around the aircraft. Then a closed stretcher was hauled out of the cargo hold and carried toward a cluster of boxy buildings.

Jason glanced to Painter. “I couldn’t get a look at whoever was being transported. But it seems odd that someone is being medevacked to that remote base.”

Painter pictured the tranquilizer darts striking Safia, the shock on her face, her hand lifting toward him in a silent plea for help.

“What do you think?” Jason asked.

The fury smoldering for days inside Painter erupted. His vision narrowed, his throat tightened. He couldn’t speak. He simply stared as the footage looped again. He watched the stretcher being whisked away, vanishing into the building.

“Sir?” Kat pressed.

“I’m going out there,” he said tersely, barely able to unclench his jaw.

“Someone should,” Kat agreed. “But we have others who—”

“I’m going.” Painter turned his back on the screen and faced the others. He took a deep breath, but his features remained stony. “DARPA has a vested interest in Aurora Station. It’s high time that place had an inspection.”

Kat studied him, clearly running the merits of his plan through her head. “I suppose we could get General Metcalf at DARPA to orchestrate such a cover story.”

“Still, to pull it off, it would take someone with a solid tech background.”

“Like you.” Kat glanced to Monk. Both of them were clearly concerned about his personal stake in all of this. Finally, Monk gave Kat a small nod, and she faced Painter again. “Then I’m going with you.”

“It’s better if I—”

This time Kat cut him off. “You go, I go.” She waved to Jason. “Carter can hold the fort. And if need be, Monk can help him from the field.”

“Not a problem, sir,” Monk said.

Painter recognized he needed Kat’s cooperation for any chance of rescuing Safia. He might be Sigma’s director, but in many ways, Kat was the true puppet master here.

Accepting this reality, he nodded. “Then grab your parka.”

13

As the sun sank away, Gray stood at the headwaters of civilization.

The spit of parkland lay between two rivers. To his left, the White Nile rolled sullenly past his position, churning with chalky clay, which gave the waterway its name. To Gray’s right, the Blue Nile streamed past in a thinner black course.

But it was what lay before him that held him transfixed.

The two tributaries wove together, mixing their waters, merging to form the lifeblood of this region: the Nile River.

He gazed down its length as it snaked north toward Egypt. He could feel the agelessness of this place, accentuated by the haunting call to evening prayers echoing across Khartoum. Overhead, a sickle moon hung in the twilight skies, reflecting in the dark waters like a set of silvery bull’s horns.

Seichan joined him and slid an arm around his waist. He recalled her suggestion in Cairo, that they simply cast everything aside and take off. He felt that pull even stronger in this timeless moment.

She sighed next to him, as if sharing this reverie, but knowing it could not be — at least not yet. “Kowalski called in,” she said, drawing his attention to the present. “He’s on his way back with our transportation. Should arrive in another ten minutes.”

Painter and Kat had arranged a vehicle sturdy enough to take them into the deep desert. Kowalski had gone to collect it, along with food, water, and extra diesel. Where they were headed next, they’d be on their own.

Hopefully.

Seichan had shown him the photo Kat had sent, of a glowering woman with white hair and dead eyes. Back in Ashwell, Seichan had only managed to get a glimpse of the assassin’s face, so she couldn’t be sure it was the same woman.

Still, following that encounter, Seichan remained more wary, her gaze always moving. To spook someone like Seichan, this woman must be big trouble.

A bright laugh rang out behind him — coming from above.

He looked back. A small Ferris wheel turned a few yards away, part of a tiny amusement park, which took its name—al-Mogran—from its location, meaning “confluence.”

He stared up at Derek and Jane as they rode round and round, their heads bowed together, smiles on their faces. While it wasn’t the wisest way to occupy their time, maybe it was for the best, especially considering what lay ahead.

The team had landed two hours ago in Khartoum. The late afternoon had been unbearably hot. The plan had been to set out after sunset, when the desert temperatures plummeted. The first leg of their journey was a seventy-mile trip to the south, to the small village of Rufaa, where the family who had found Professor McCabe lived. They were currently under quarantine because of their exposure to the sick man, but a local villager — one of that family’s cousins — had agreed to serve as a guide and take them into the desert.

The Ferris wheel slowed to a stop and began to unload its riders. Seichan stood to the side, studying the darkening park for any threats.

Gray met Derek and Jane as they climbed off. They both looked more relaxed, years younger in fact. Derek helped Jane out of her seat, holding her hand. His grip lingered a little longer than necessary.

“That was fun,” Jane said. “You could see for miles all around.”

Derek nodded. “I had hoped to spot the site of the new dam construction, where all of this trouble started. But it’s too far away, about a hundred miles to the northeast.”

Gray knew the project — located at the Nile’s Sixth Cataract — was where Professor McCabe’s survey team had started its fateful journey two years ago. The group had vanished into a harsh terrain of broken rock, blowing sand, and towering dunes, a desolate landscape that covered thousands of square miles.

And we’re about to head out there ourselves.

Gray got them all moving. “Kowalski should be here soon. Let’s get back to the street.”

As they crossed the amusement park, Jane glanced back toward the silvery confluence of the two rivers. “I’ve read so much about this region, but to see it for yourself…”

Her eyes were wide with wonder.

Gray was reminded of how truly young she was, only twenty-one. While clearly smart, most of her education must have come from classrooms and libraries, seldom from fieldwork. Still, after everything that had transpired, she was holding up remarkably well.

He stepped alongside her.

“Jane, as we’re about to follow your father’s footsteps out into the desert, maybe we should know more about the theory he was trying to prove. You mentioned before that most archaeologists found his theories about the Book of Exodus to be controversial.”

“Not just archaeologists, but also Jewish rabbis.” Jane looked down as she walked, clearly uncomfortable discussing this, but she went on. “Many people believe the story of Moses to be allegorical, rather than historical. They base this decision on the fact that the real-life Ramesses the Great is mentioned in the Book of Exodus, but because there’s no archaeological evidence of a plague or slave revolt during his reign, they dismiss the story of Moses as a fairy tale.”

“Sounds cut and dry, so what’s your father’s take on this?”

“He — and several colleagues — questioned some inconsistencies found in the Book of Exodus concerning the name Ramesses, calling into question if Ramesses the Great was truly the pharaoh who Moses cursed with his ten plagues. It’s all rather complicated.”

“But why does that matter?”

“It matters because it allows archaeologists the freedom to look elsewhere for evidence of Exodus and not be pinned down to the reign of Ramesses the Great.”

“And with this newfound freedom, did your father and his colleagues find anything?”

“They found everything.” She stared toward the distant desert hills. “If you look to an era four centuries before Pharaoh Ramesses, you discover all the missing archaeological evidence for Exodus.” She ticked items off on her fingers. “A town of Semite slaves. Signs of a massive plague. The frantic emptying of the city. There’s even a crypt discovered that bears a striking resemblance to the tomb of Joseph that’s described in the Bible. It all lines up.”

“And this is what your father was trying to verify?”

“It’s called the New Chronology. He believed if he could find proof of a series of great plagues from around that time, then he could authenticate this theory.”

No wonder the man was so obsessed with the biblical plagues.

Jane sighed, clearly no longer wanting to talk about it, which was just as well.

By now, they had reached the street bordering the park.

It appeared Kowalski had beaten them here. At the curb, a large truck idled heavily, as if out of breath. It was a reconditioned dark green Mercedes Unimog, a true beast of a four-wheeler. It had a wide-framed double cab with a small open bed in the back, all sitting atop hip-high tires with aggressive treads. It was a vehicle built to eat through the toughest terrain. And if it ever bogged down, the truck came equipped with a large winch on its front bumper to help haul itself out of trouble.

Kowalski sat behind the wheel, his elbow resting on the sill of the open window, cigar smoke wafting out. “Now this is a truck,” he grunted, slapping the outer door with his palm.

Gray understood Kowalski’s affection. The pair made the perfect match. Both were slow, loud, and somewhat crude.

Seichan waved everyone aboard, but she kept watching the streets.

“We good?” Gray asked her.

“For now.”

Then that’ll have to do.

In the truck’s backseat, Derek worked on his iPad.

After forty-five minutes riding south along a two-lane road that hugged the curves of the Blue Nile, Derek had lost interest in the passing landscape. They had left the bright lights of Khartoum far behind and were now traveling back in time. Most of the surrounding terrain was the same as it had been for centuries: dark tilled fields cut through by silvery irrigation channels, stands of palm trees, the hulking forms of idle water buffalo, the occasional mud-brick hovel.

But the Blue Nile was only a trickling shadow of the mighty flow that coursed north through Egypt, the source of that kingdom’s fertile bounty. The river here was less generous. The farmlands and plantings did not stretch as far, needing to huddle closer to the restrained river.

Derek could easily see low hills in the distance, limned in silvery moonlight, barren and empty. They looked like bent-backed old beggars, dying of thirst. Beyond those hills, a sun-blasted desert awaited them, spreading for thousands of miles.

To traverse it, they needed a plan.

This was what he focused on now — fine-tuning what had been discussed earlier. Once they reached the village of Rufaa, the team was scheduled to travel overland through the desert to where the professor was found. From there, the plan grew sketchy. But Derek had an idea.

Jane stirred beside him. The engine’s grumble, the rocking of the suspension, and the strain of the past few days had lulled her into a light slumber. “What are you doing?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

The iPad’s screen illuminated her face in a soft glow. He found himself transfixed by the fine curl of her eyelashes as she looked down at his work.

He cleared his throat. “I was trying to map a possible route for us. Or maybe I’m deluding myself.”

She leaned against his shoulder. “Show me.”

He was surprised at how much he wanted to share this with her. Plus it helped to talk it out.

“We know your father left from Nile’s Sixth Cataract with his survey team, only to reappear two years later hundreds of miles to the south, not too far from the village of Rufaa. Unfortunately no one knew where he was during that time or what route he and the survey team took through that trackless desert. But now, from the clue hidden in Livingstone’s old sketch of an Egyptian scarab, we might know where your father was drawn.”

He shifted his iPad so she could see. “I took a satellite map of the region and drew a line across the two tributaries of the Nile that corresponds to where Livingstone had split the river between the two scarab’s wings.”

He showed the result.

“I then connected a dashed line from the Sixth Cataract — where your father left from — to the village of Rufaa, where he ended up.” He tapped the X formed on the map where those two lines crossed. “I think this is where we should start looking.”

“That’s brilliant,” Jane said, placing a hand on his knee.

A second person concurred. “She’s right,” Gray said from the far side of the backseat.

Derek’s cheeks heated up. He hadn’t known Gray was eavesdropping. “Thanks.”

Gray held out his hand. “Can I see that?”

Derek passed him the iPad, and Gray leaned forward to show Seichan and Kowalski, who were seated up front.

Seichan’s praise was less enthusiastic. “Guess it’s better than just driving aimlessly through the desert.”

From behind the wheel, Kowalski pointed forward. “Got lights up ahead.”

Gray checked the map on his satellite phone. “That should be Rufaa.”

Jane removed her hand from Derek’s knee, suddenly looking nervous. He could guess the cause of her anxiety. Her father had died trying to reach here.

“It’ll be okay,” he said softly.

He hoped that was the truth.

The village was larger than Jane had expected. She had pictured a cluster of huts surrounded by walls made of millet stalks, but Rufaa was actually a good-sized town clustered against the curve of the Nile.

“It looks like it’d be easy to get lost in there,” Derek commented.

She agreed.

Dirt roads divided the sprawling place up into a veritable maze of square, flat-roofed buildings, set off by narrow alleyways or sectioned into small walled courtyards. Everything appeared constructed of the same mud bricks, giving it a uniformity that confounded the eye. The only landmark that stood out was the local mosque. Its white minaret shone like a beacon.

Jane knew that the Rufaa people, who gave this town its name, were of Arabic descent, practicing a Sunni form of Islam. Many of the families had roots here but still maintained a nomadic lifestyle. This was certainly true for the group who found her father. They were part of the Jaaliyin tribe, who still roamed the desert as they had for thousands of years, claiming to be descendants of Abbas, an uncle to the prophet Muhammad.

As their truck slowed to a crawl through the outskirts of the village, children peered at them from the roadside, while goats fled from their grumbling path, bleating in irritation. Finally, a thin figure waved them down and stepped into the road.

“Is that the guy we were supposed to meet?” Kowalski asked.

“Seems so,” Gray answered. “They were told to watch for us.”

As the truck drew to a stop, their escort hurried to the open window on Kowalski’s side. He appeared to be a boy of sixteen or seventeen with skin the color of dark mocha. He was dressed in a purple-checkered football jersey, beige shorts, and sandals.

“I am Ahmad. Be welcome.”

Kowalski glanced back to Gray, who nodded, seeming to recognize the name.

“I take you to my family. We eat.” He pantomimed putting food in his mouth. “Then go. Yes?”

Kowalski shrugged. “I could eat.”

Ahmad pointed to a stretch of open dirt. “Put truck there. Not far to go.” From their worried looks, he added, “It safe. No worry.”

Seichan frowned at this suggestion. “I should stay with the truck.”

Gray nodded and ordered Kowalski to park their vehicle. Once the engine cut with a final cough, he climbed out and fitted an earpiece in place.

“Seichan, radio us if there are any problems.”

Concerned, Jane followed Derek out the other side. Her eyes were on the boy. “Do you think we can trust him?”

“Considering he’s about to lead us into the wilds of the Sudanese desert, we might as well start now.”

With everyone ready, Ahmad led them into the main village, but not before letting out a sharp whistle. In response, a thin, rib-chested dog raced from the shadows to his side. Its tail wagged vigorously. It looked young, with bristly black-and-gold fur, dark eyes, and stiff, wide-splayed ears.

“She good girl,” Ahmad said proudly.

Jane held out a hand for the dog to sniff. “What’s her name?”

His grin widened at her interest. “Anjing.”

Jane frowned in confusion.

“What’s that mean?” Kowalski asked.

She knew enough Sudanese to answer. “It means dog.”

Kowalski shrugged. “Well, I guess that works.”

Derek leaned closer to Jane as they walked. “I think his pet is an African wild dog. Or at least a mix.”

Jane eyed the beast with more respect. She had heard tales of the infamous pack hunters. She remembered offering her hand to it a moment ago.

Luckily, I still have it.

Ahead of them, Ahmad looked like he wanted to run, barely keeping his excitement in check. He talked and talked, playing proud tour guide.

“Over there.” He pointed to a low green domed structure. “Tomb of Sheik Tana. Very important. And on that corner. A man once ate a whole goat by himself.” He glanced at them. “It true.”

Kowalski was the only one who looked impressed with this claim.

They finally reached an arched gateway into a courtyard. As they all ducked through, the smell of baking bread stirred a hunger in Jane she hadn’t been aware of. The sizzle of a grill also drew her forward. A clutch of robed figures, men and women, came out to greet them, as if they were all old friends. A few barefooted children hung at the fringes or stayed shyly in the doorway.

Ahmad stepped over to a tethered donkey, gave the beast a quick hug around its thick neck, and introduced his new friend, “Kalde.”

Kowalski glanced to Jane again.

She translated. “Means donkey.”

The big man shook his head. “I don’t get it. Does the kid have no imagination or is he trying to teach us his language?”

More introductions were made. When Jane’s name was mentioned, the group became more somber, clearly realizing whose daughter she was. They came forward, one by one, heads bowed, and offered their condolences. Their sincerity touched her. She felt tears welling and had to turn away for a moment.

Derek stayed beside her.

She leaned into him. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m suddenly so upset.”

He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Grief does that. It can catch you off guard when you least expect it.”

She took a few breaths to settle herself. “I’m okay. We shouldn’t be rude.”

Off to the side, an open-air table quickly filled with food, a veritable feast of Sudanese cuisine: pungent stews redolent with spices and meats, a thick sorghum porridge, platters of dates, a mound of yogurt-and-carrot salad, and piles of flatbread to scoop everything up.

They all tucked into the spread, while Gray spoke to an elder who spoke fluent English, gaining as much insight as possible into where they were headed.

Jane refrained from eavesdropping. She preferred to appreciate the meal, thanking the women, sharing a piece of grilled sheep’s liver with Anjing, who seemed as welcome at the table as any of the guests. With her stomach quickly full, she leaned back. Small twinkling lights lined the castellated walls of the courtyards, but they paled in comparison to the sweep of stars overhead.

For this brief moment, she felt content and at peace.

Still, deep down, she knew it couldn’t last.

It’s about time…

Seichan lay flat on the roof of an abandoned home, about a block from where the Unimog sat parked in an empty lot. Ten minutes after the others had left, she had stepped out of the truck and cupped her ear, feigning a radio call. After a moment, she had responded, continuing the charade: Understood. Everything’s quiet here. I’ll be right there.

She had then grabbed her pack and followed in the others’ footsteps. She hiked for several blocks, as if heading over to them. Once she was certain she wasn’t tailed, she circled back and climbed atop a home that offered a view of the abandoned truck.

She then waited to see if anyone took her bait.

The truck might tempt a would-be crook in the village, but such a thief was not her target. Ahmad had seemed confident that the Unimog would be unmolested by those in the village. She had learned over the years that such towns often had a strict code. It was okay to steal from strangers, but if a guest was under the protection of a family from that village, they were not to be touched.

So, for the past forty minutes, no one approached the vehicle.

Until now.

A figure appeared to Seichan’s right. The stranger was wearing a jalabiya, a collarless, ankle-length white robe with long sleeves and a matching woven turban. Many men in the village wore the same attire, as the light color and loose fit helped keep them cool. So his presence wasn’t unexpected. He moved with no sense of threat, casually walking toward the parked Unimog, as if curious about the hulking desert truck.

Still, something about him set off warning bells in Seichan. He glanced once to the right, then the left, then focused fully on the truck. He also carried something in his hand, but the drape of his sleeve hid it.

Seichan waited until he was fully out in the open, unable to easily fade back into the tight maze of the village. Satisfied, she rolled silently off the flat roof and dropped to the packed dirt on the far side of the building, out of view of the empty lot. Staying low, she circled the home and approached the man from behind.

She had her SIG Sauer in hand, ready to act if need be. Closer now, she could see the man wasn’t carrying a weapon, but she could not make out what he held. Her nerves danced. For a brief moment, she considered shooting him in the back.

But what if I’m wrong?

Murdering an innocent man in cold blood would not win over the cooperation of these desert nomads. So she took another step toward him. Then another. Though she moved without disturbing a grain of sand and held her breath, something alerted her target.

The man swung around, his eyes flashing, his dark face hard and cold.

She knew immediately this was no common thief. She fired, but her target dove to the side, rolled over a shoulder, and gained his feet. He took off without a moment’s hesitation.

She ran after the man, tracking him with her gun. She refrained from firing when he dashed across the face of a home, the windows aglow with life. She feared striking someone inside if she missed.

The man took advantage of her restraint and vanished up a narrow alleyway leading into the village. By the time she reached the alley, he was gone. She was not dumb enough to risk following him into that twisting dark labyrinth, where he could easily ambush her.

Instead, she touched the mike taped to her throat and radioed Gray. When he answered, she knew they had only one course open to them.

“Time to go,” she said.

He didn’t ask for an explanation. Her tone told him enough.

Three minutes later, Gray arrived with the others in tow. He gripped a SIG Sauer, guarding Derek and Jane. Kowalski brought up the rear, shouldering a shotgun.

Gray caught her eye. She nodded the all-clear and waved them to the truck.

Only then did Gray question her. “What happened?”

She told him.

“So it could have been a simple thief,” he said.

She remembered those eyes, how he had moved. “No, it wasn’t.”

He took her at her word.

A figure suddenly came running out of the village. Seichan whipped her weapon up, but it was only Ahmad.

“Wait! I go with!” he shouted to them.

Gray looked like he was about to refuse, plainly concerned about endangering the young man.

Seichan reminded him of their original plan. “We still need someone who knows the deserts around here.”

Ahmad nodded his head. “I know very well.”

Gray sighed, his back stiffening, as if already taking the weight of this kid’s life on his shoulders. “Okay. Everyone aboard. We’re leaving right now.”

Ahmad smiled, then turned and whistled.

His dog came rushing to join him.

Gray accepted this last-minute addition by turning and heading to the truck.

Kowalski was not as reticent. “At least the kid’s not bringing his donkey.”

The loud growl of a truck’s engine reached Valya’s hiding place. Her targets were leaving. Their thunderous departure echoed throughout the village, matching her mood.

Damn that woman.

Standing inside one of the local homes, Valya stripped out of the borrowed jalabiya robe and tossed aside the turban that had hidden her white hair. She stood naked, taking a deep breath. For now, she continued wearing the dark brown makeup that colored her pale skin and tattoo. She would need it again when she changed her disguise to that of an old woman. Part of her training had been to learn to vanish into the background. This she had easily mastered. She considered her white form to be a blank slate upon which she could paint any number of faces.

Two hours ago, Valya had come straight here from Khartoum, where she lay in wait for her quarry to arrive.

The team Anton had sent here were already in the deep desert, readying the true trap. She had hoped to better their odds of success. The enemy’s truck was old, built before the age of GPS units. So there was no way to remotely track it, especially once the group was running overland across the desert. She had hoped to fix that problem by hiding a transceiver inside the wheel well. Such a simple solution — yet, still she had been thwarted, chased off by the other woman.

The only small advantage gained tonight was that Valya had overheard the woman’s name.

Seichan.

Valya took satisfaction in this. The woman was less of a mystery now, less of a myth. She was someone who could be killed.

Still, Valya swore not to underestimate her again.

Turning, she crossed to the two dead bodies in the corner of the room. The pair lay sprawled across the bare floor with their throats slit. Pools of blood seeped into the parched dirt.

They were the elderly owners of the home. She had stalked them after arriving here, wrapped head-to-toe in a burka, following them to their doorstep like a beggar. Once inside, she shed her cloak, revealing her true pale self. She used that moment of shock to silently dispatch them, appreciating their looks of horror. In many places in Africa, albinos were thought to be magical, holding good luck in their bones. Such superstitions led to children being slaughtered across the continent, their mystical body parts sold on the black market.

She stared down at the two bodies.

Maybe we’re not so lucky after all.

With time to spare, she slipped the black-handled athamé, her grandmother’s witch-dagger, from its wrist sheath. She knelt beside the old woman and used the knife’s tip to carve her mark on the corpse’s forehead. Slowly the Eye of Horus opened upon that cold flesh and stared back at her, almost approvingly.

She felt calmer now, and a soft smile formed. Soon another would bear the mark, someone truly worthy of it. She whispered that name aloud.

“Seichan…”

14

As the Gulfstream banked over the open water of Baffin Bay, Painter studied their destination. Ellesmere Island lay directly ahead, shrouded in a haze of ice fog. The coastline was a craggy line of jagged inlets, small bays, jumbles of rock, and beaches of broken shale. Plates of ice had run aground in some sections, stacking up like a scatter of playing cards.

“Not exactly hospitable,” Kat said, watching from her window across the cabin.

“But man finds a way nonetheless,” Painter said, having read up on the place on the flight here. “The island’s been occupied by indigenous hunters going back some four thousand years. Then the Vikings arrived later, followed by the Europeans in the seventeenth century.”

“And now the pair of us,” Kat said, trying to lighten the mood.

Painter simply nodded, his stomach still knotted with anxiety. Back in D.C., he had not wasted any time coordinating this mission with General Metcalf, his boss at DARPA. The man had questioned the necessity of an excursion a thousand miles above the Arctic Circle, but Painter had been adamant. He and Kat had flown due north, pushing the Gulfstream G150’s engines. They had landed and refueled at Thule Air Base, the U.S. military’s northernmost camp, located on the western coast of Greenland.

If Painter had any question as to the importance of the region, Thule answered it. Run by two different air force squadrons, the base was home to a ballistic missile early-warning system and a global satellite control network. It also acted as the regional hub for a dozen military and research installations peppered throughout Greenland and the surrounding islands, including Aurora Station on Ellesmere.

And that was just the United States.

Canada had additional camps, including one on Ellesmere called Alert, a seasonal military and scientific outpost about five hundred miles from the North Pole.

Painter tried to spot the place as their jet swept over the middle of the island, but the distances here were deceptively vast. The pilot navigated a course between Quttinirpaaq National Park, which took up the northern end of the island, and the spread of glaciers to the south. Below their wings, the Challenger Mountains rose up in a jumble of snowy peaks.

“We should be getting close,” Kat said.

Aurora Station had been constructed on the northwest coast of the island, bordering the Arctic Ocean. According to his research, the site had been chosen for a number of different reasons, but primarily because it was closest to the magnetic north pole, which was the subject of several of the station’s research projects. While the geographic north pole was relatively fixed, the magnetic pole had been drifting for centuries, slowly sweeping past the coastline of Ellesmere and up into the Arctic Ocean.

The pilot radioed back to them. “We’re twenty miles out. Should be on the ground in ten. And from the look of the weather ahead, we’re lucky we made such good time.”

Painter turned his attention from the ground to the skies. While there were only a few clouds above, to the northwest the world ended at a wall of darkness. Painter had known a storm was coming, but forecasts had been worsening by the hour. The region was predicted to be socked in for days, maybe weeks. It was one of the reasons he had pressed General Metcalf so hard. If he missed this window, the chances of rescuing Safia would grow grimmer with each passing day.

He couldn’t let that happen.

Still, there remained another problem.

Kat voiced it aloud. “Once that storm hits, we’ll be trapped until it clears.”

With those forecasts predicting gale-force winds, the jet would touch down at the station, drop them off, and promptly take off again for Thule, where it would weather out the storm. The commander at the air base, Colonel Wycroft, had been alerted under a confidential order to be ready for an emergency evacuation if they were successful. But even he had warned them that the storm could compromise such a mission.

Still, Painter remained undeterred.

“We have no choice but to keep going,” he said.

She glanced at him, as if to argue against that statement — then thought better of it and returned her attention to the window. He knew he was driving this mission hard. She, in turn, fought to keep a steady hand on the reins, urging a more measured approach. So far they hadn’t come to any true loggerheads. Down deep, he recognized she was trying to do what was best — both for their safety and Safia’s.

Kat let out a small gasp.

“What?” he asked.

She kept her gaze out the window. “The photos don’t do it justice.”

Painter turned to look, returning his attention below as the jet swept toward the airstrip that served Aurora Station. A handful of Cessnas — the typical bush planes of the Arctic — were parked nearby. It looked like the planes were being anchored down ahead of the storm. Another jet was being rolled into a steel hangar.

But Painter knew this sight was not what had drawn a gasp from Kat.

Past a cluster of squat research buildings was the true engineering marvel of Aurora Station. The base’s Ionospheric Research Instrument, or IRI, occupied more than three hundred acres of flat tundra. While its beam-generating powerhouse was buried underground, the prickly face it presented to the world were its two thousand steel antennas, all networked together. Each stood ten stories tall with crossbeams stretched out like arms.

“It almost looks like the Milky Way,” Kat commented.

Painter understood. Where HAARP’s 180 antennas had been set up in a rigid grid, the array here had been positioned into a fractal spiral, almost fluid looking. It was a work of engineering art, equally beautiful and practical.

At the heart of the steel constellation was a deep pit. It was a former mine, one of many such operations throughout the Arctic Archipelago. The whole region was pocked with these excavated holes, digging copper, gold, lead, zinc, even diamonds out of the frozen earth. The mineral resources of the Arctic were vast and mostly as of yet untouched. Though that was rapidly changing as the region thawed, opening more and more territory.

“What’s that rising from the center of the hole?” Kat asked.

Painter squinted at the pinnacle-shaped tower of steel scaffolding. It pointed toward the sky and supported a massive sphere. The shining globe was cradled within a nest of concentric copper rings, which was wound throughout by braids of thick cables and connected to trapezoidal magnets, each the size of a Volkswagen Bug.

“Consider it a testament to Simon Hartnell’s obsession,” he said. “It’s his attempt to replicate and improve upon the work of the man he worships, Nikola Tesla.”

“But what is it?”

“It’s Hartnell’s version of Wardenclyffe Tower, one of Tesla’s most ambitious projects.”

Painter noted the similarity of design below, if only superficially. He pulled up a picture on his iPad to compare the two, then passed the tablet for Kat to see.

“Tesla purchased two hundred acres in Long Island and built a power plant that serviced an eighteen-story wooden tower topped by a giant cupola. He had dreams to build the world’s first global wireless communication system, envisioning thirty or more of these towers around the world. Later he believed he could even tap into what he called the resonance frequency of the earth to also use this network to create a worldwide wireless power system.”

“Sounds ambitious.”

“And maybe ahead of his time. It ended in failure as funding fell through. The place was abandoned and demolished a few years later.” Painter looked below. “Still, even in defeat, such lofty aspirations inspired others. In fact, Simon Hartnell picked his company’s name — Clyffe Energy — as an acknowledgment of Wardenclyffe and the hopes and dreams it represented.”

“And the tower down there?” Kat asked. “What’s Hartnell’s plan for it?”

He frowned. “That’s a good question.”

In his rush to get here, he had managed only a cursory review of the station’s various projects. From what he read, the tower was an amplifier for the antenna array. The design and shape were merely an homage to Tesla. According to all reports, the tower was intended to magnify the same ionosphere-stimulating beam achieved by HAARP. The increased energy output, though, would expand the research capabilities of the array, along with producing more accurate results. It was basically a larger version of HAARP, one engineered for the same research goals as its smaller cousin.

But now that I’m seeing it in person…

Painter felt that knot in his stomach tightening. He had been so focused on Safia that he had never given this project its full due diligence, glossing past inconsistencies in specifications and protocols.

Or maybe I’m falling under the spell of the same conspiracists who looked upon HAARP and read nefarious purposes into its mysterious antenna array.

The pilot radioed again. “Buckle up, folks. We’re beginning our descent.”

Painter leaned back, settling on one certainty.

It’s too late to turn back now.

As Kat offloaded from the Gulfstream, she braced herself, but the bitter cold felt like plunging naked into a mountain lake. A steady wind blew off the neighboring Arctic Ocean, tasting of salt and ice. It cut through the neck of her parka.

She shivered and huddled against the gusts, clutching the collar of her hood with one hand and hauling her hard-shell carry-on with the other. The temperature hovered at record lows for early June — a few degrees above zero — and would likely break those records with the coming storm.

She stared out to sea, past the broken ice pack to the black clouds stacked to the horizon. The sun sat low on the west edge of the storm, as if cowering from the threat, but there would be no escape. At this polar latitude, the sun would not fully set until the first week in September.

To her left, something white dashed across the black tarmac of the small airstrip, then vanished over a berm of gray-white snow. It was an arctic hare, a reminder that despite the desolate appearance of this outpost, life found a way to survive, both on land and sea. This was the domain of polar bears, seals, narwhals, and beluga whales. Herds of caribou still roamed the wilds here, along with the shaggy musk ox. In fact, the old Inuit name for Ellesmere was Umingmak Nuna, or “Land of the Muskox.”

Past the airstrip, patches of blue grass poked up from the snow, while open stretches of silt and soil were daubed with yellow arctic poppies and the white-flowering chickweed.

She took heart from these hardy pioneers, surviving against the most impossible odds.

She shifted her gaze to the neighboring cluster of concrete buildings, all painted orange to stand out from the terrain. Painter headed toward them, barely giving his surroundings a second look.

As the Gulfstream swung around behind them, readying for its flight back to Thule, Kat stared after the vanished hare.

Let’s hope we prove to be as stalwart at surviving here.

She set off after Painter. Ahead, a welcoming committee awaited them at the main doors into Aurora Station. They were huddled within the steamy breath being exhaled through the open doors into the frigid cold. Painter strode purposefully toward them, as if to escape the weather, but she knew it was the fate of Safia al-Maaz that drew him forward.

She followed, noting the base was being battened down against the storm to come. A pair of Sno-Cats trundled down a ramp into an underground garage. Tarps and tie-downs anchored the handful of Cessnas parked near the airstrip. Apparently there was no room in the hangars for such minor aircraft. She saw a sleek Learjet sitting in one hangar, and as the doors to another were being trundled closed, she spotted the tail of a large-bodied Boeing cargo jet.

The place is practically a full-service airport.

But considering how isolated this station was, maybe that wasn’t surprising.

They finally reached the open doors and were ushered into the warm heart of the station. Though she had been outside only for a few minutes, she sighed as the heat enveloped her.

The doors were sealed behind them, and the man in charge stepped forward, a big smile on his face. It was Simon Hartnell himself. He wore a thick wool turtleneck, jeans, and well-scuffed work boots. Kat was surprised the CEO of Clyffe Energy would serve such a lowly duty as station greeter.

“Welcome to the end of the world,” he said, then waved toward the north. “Okay, maybe not the end, but we can certainly see it from here.”

She smiled, though she suspected this was an old joke, part of a well-rehearsed greeting to put newcomers at ease. In turn, she played her role.

“Thank you.” She pushed back the hood of her parka. “We weren’t sure we’d make it with the storm coming.”

Painter nodded, his manner reserved. “We appreciate you accommodating us on such short notice.”

Hartnell waved away this concern. “Spot inspections are part and parcel of any organization. And DARPA is always welcome. Without your work over at HAARP, Aurora Station wouldn’t exist.” His smile widened. “Besides, it gives me a chance to show off a bit. We’re all very proud of our work here and the promise it holds.”

“To fight climate change?” Kat said, delicately prying.

“Exactly. Currently we have thirty-four different active projects, but the main goal of Aurora is to study, monitor, and test theoretical models for combating global warming.”

“A noble effort,” Painter said.

He shrugged. “And hopefully a profitable one. Despite my considerable resources, I still do have a board to appease.” He turned and led them away. “But we can discuss this more in the morning. Even with the sun still shining, it’s getting quite late. Come, let’s get you both settled in.”

He led them down a pastel blue corridor to an elevator bay.

“We built the station’s lodging on its lowest sublevel,” he explained as they entered the waiting cage. “It’s the most naturally insulated and easier to keep warm.”

He pressed the B4 button.

Kat had studied the base’s schematics. The upper buildings sat atop four subterranean levels, which housed labs, offices, workrooms, storage spaces, and even an extensive recreation area that included an indoor tennis court, pool, and movie theater.

It was a veritable city.

To find Safia in this labyrinth would be difficult.

Kat had also noted the security cameras mounted in the entry hallway. She had no doubt the entire complex was watched. She remembered the pale face of the man who was head of station security: Anthony Vasiliev, aka Anton Mikhailov.

If Hartnell had employed Anton and his sister — two people with past ties to the Guild — how many others had been similarly recruited to protect this base?

She could almost feel those ice-blue eyes studying her.

She had no doubt Hartnell had thoroughly investigated his two new visitors, along with their cover story. He proved this as the elevator doors opened and led them out.

He turned to the director. “Painter Crowe. I know about you.”

“You do?” Painter said, showing only mild surprise.

Under such a tight schedule, he and Kat hadn’t bothered with false names. Both of them had a long record as being employed by DARPA, which was true and went to further corroborate their story. Even under the closest scrutiny, their role with Sigma — or even the existence of Sigma Force — would not be found in any records. And under a similar tight schedule, Hartnell’s security team would only have had hours to prepare for this surprise inspection. Any background check could only have been cursory.

“Yes,” Hartnell said. “I believe you’re the same Painter Crowe who patented a temperature-controlled microrelay circuit.”

Painter lifted his brows. “That’s right.”

Hartnell smiled. “We have over seventy thousand of your circuits installed here. Truly a brilliant bit of microengineering. How you handled heat dissipation… pure genius.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I may have to steal you away from DARPA one of these days.”

Good luck with that, Kat thought.

Hartnell guided them through a vast common room, which was mostly empty at this hour. A few faces lifted from meal trays to look their way. The neighboring kitchen still steamed on the far side, wafting with the smell of garlic. He pointed that way.

“If you’re hungry, there’s food offered around the clock. Unfortunately, we’re on a limited menu at this late hour. But we do serve the world’s best coffee.”

Kat nodded, tempted by the latter.

Hartnell took them to a corridor on the left. “I apologize in advance. I’m afraid your accommodations are rather Spartan, but I did get you adjoining rooms.”

“Anything will do,” Painter said. “We’ll be in and out before you know it.”

Let’s hope that proves to be true.

He passed them keycards. “The whole station is controlled electronically. Normally these cards would even learn your schedule, enough to adjust your room’s thermostat accordingly. They keep track of everything.”

Kat found that a little unnerving and wondered if that was his intent.

Simon lifted his empty palms. “But like I said, we’ll get to know each other better tomorrow and make sure DARPA is getting its money’s worth out of our efforts here.”

“Thank you,” Kat said, stifling a yawn that was not feigned.

“I’ll leave you to make yourselves at home.” With a small nod, he set off down the hall.

Painter swiped his card over his door’s lock, while flicking a look at the hall’s ceiling-mounted camera. “We should get some shut-eye.”

“Sounds good,” she said, playing along.

They both entered their respective rooms. As she crossed inside, she realized her definition of Spartan was distinctly different from their host’s. Her accommodations could easily have been found at the Four Seasons. The room had hardwood floors, heated from the feel of them, and a king-sized bed dressed in damask and silk. One wall had drapes, which were parted to reveal a plasma screen glowing with a scene of a sunlit beach, gently massaged by waves, as if the room looked out upon the Caribbean. Soft music played throughout the room. A glimpse into a marble bath showed a jetted tub and a steam shower.

She shook her head, imagining Hartnell meant this all to be a surprise.

Well, we have our own surprises.

She crossed to the bed and placed her bag on the duvet. Camouflaged compartments in the case hid a dissembled SIG Sauer. For the moment, she refrained from opening anything. Instead, she used the time to inspect the rest of her room.

Finally, a knock sounded on the door that led to Painter’s room. She crossed over and swiped her card to allow him inside. He stepped silently into her room, while she stood with her arms crossed. He paced from one end to the other, both there and in the bathroom. He held a device in one hand, pausing every now and again to bring it closer to a wall or vent.

With a satisfied nod, he said, “Looks like both rooms are clear. Should be safe to talk.”

“What now?” she asked, stepping to her bag, ready to retrieve and assemble her weapon.

“We find Safia.”

She read the strained worry in his eyes, but she needed him thinking clearly, focused, for all their sakes.

“She’s alive,” Kat assured him. “They wouldn’t have brought her all the way out here only to kill her. They need her for something.”

“But for what?”

“That’s a good question. If we can figure that out, we might have a better chance of finding her.” She glanced toward the door. “But where to start?”

He focused on her question, his anxiety visibly waning. He finally pointed toward the hallway.

“We start with a couple of cups of the world’s best coffee — then we get to know our neighbors.”

It makes no sense.

Seated in the station library, Safia rubbed her tired eyes. She and Rory had spent the better part of the day copying the hieroglyphs found tattooed on the Egyptian princess’s body. The age and leathery mummification had made it a painstaking chore. It also didn’t help that they had to accomplish this task while in biosafety suits.

Some sections had been easier to read, as if they’d been inked years ago instead of millennia. Others required using ultraviolet or infrared lights to draw the images from the skin. Then there was the challenge of anatomy, like trying to get to glyphs between her desiccated thighs or read tattoos on her toes that were so very small.

After nine hours, they had slowly built a copy — which they had digitized for easier manipulation, transforming each age-mauled glyph into a more readable version. She had one section of the reconstruction up on her laptop. It had a moth-eaten appearance, full of gaps and missing pieces.

Even with the most careful work, some of the tattoos ended up being irretrievable. In a final attempt to learn more, she and Rory had positioned a 3-D topographic scanner around the body seated on the throne. The device’s four lasers would map every nook and cranny, delving deep into the epidermal layers. Its imaging software could even stretch and extend the skin, hopefully revealing more.

But it was a slow process, requiring hours to run.

Leaving it to work overnight, she and Rory had come to the library. They were attempting to translate the few intact sections recovered from the body, but so far they were making no headway.

“It’s all gibberish,” she said.

Rory worked across the table from her, laboring over the same puzzle on his laptop. “It can’t be. Why would this woman go through so much effort to tattoo her entire body and have it all be nonsense?”

“They could simply be decorations. I’ve heard of people getting Chinese letters inked on them without realizing that what was written was pure twaddle.”

“I’m not buying that.”

She sighed. “I’m not, either. There must be something important she was trying to preserve.”

But what?

“Then maybe we start fresh tomorrow,” Rory said. “It’s late and we’re both tired. We can try to fill in more of the gaps in the morning.”

She nodded, frustrated. “It’s like trying to read a book where every other word is missing and those that are left have half their letters erased.”

“And with the mummy’s rear side burned beyond recognition,” he reminded her, “we’ve also lost the back end of the book.”

“True.”

Rory tried to suppress a yawn but failed.

She smiled. “We’ll try again when we can hold our eyes open.”

“Maybe not this one.” Rory pointed to his bruised and swollen eye, a painful reminder of the cost of failure.

The source of that injury sat near the door. Anton’s gaze seldom shifted away from them.

“We’ll figure it out,” she promised Rory.

They both began to close up shop, collecting their laptops. While her computer was mostly locked down, she could still use it to communicate via e-mail or video chat with Rory, in case either of them had any insight during the night.

“One last question,” Safia said. “There was that rectangular strip of missing skin. You said you believed your father cut it out for tests.”

“To try to discern the exact nature of her mummification. He thought it was odd.”

“Odd how?”

“He believed there was something unique about the ritual she had undergone prior to being entombed, but he never elaborated. We were only allowed to talk for one hour each week.” He glanced back to Anton. “That is, if we both did what was asked of us.”

She pictured the corresponding blank section of hieroglyphs on the reconstruction. “Did he ever copy down what might have been written on that excised piece?”

“I have no idea. But if he did, it was likely destroyed with everything else.”

“What was your father trying to hide?” she mumbled to herself.

Rory heard her. “Apparently something worth dying for.”

Safia winced and touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”

He looked down at his feet, his voice edged with bitterness. “And he left me to pick up the pieces.”

Rory strode toward the door. She hurried to catch up, seeking some words to console the young man. She could not imagine what it must be like. Not only must Rory be struggling with the grief of losing his father, but clearly there was some resentment toward Harold for abandoning him. His father had chosen to risk his life, while leaving his son in their captor’s clutches. And now Rory was being forced to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Safia wondered about that final act of Harold’s.

Was it done out of selfishness or desperation?

As she reached Rory, there was a knock on the library door. Anton waved them back. He opened it, while blocking the view inside with his body. After a short exchange, a file was passed to him.

Anton closed the door and held out the folder. “Test results.”

Safia was momentarily confused, but she took what was offered. She opened it and saw it was a DNA analysis on their subject. It was just one of a battery of tests, from tissue samples to carbon dating. She had not expected to get these results so fast, but she should have known better, considering who was financing this endeavor.

She stepped away from the door, drawing Rory with her. She didn’t expect anything particularly surprising. She had asked for a genetic analysis of the mummy’s autosomal and mitochondrial DNA in an attempt to trace the woman’s ancestry. She hoped it might give them some clue as to where in ancient Egypt this woman might have lived.

The file held more than thirty pages of detailed results, including graphs and charts, but the summary was on the top page. She read aloud from the last line. “ ‘Subject carries several corroborating alleles and markers, but the most significant is the presence of Haplogroup K1a1b1a, suggestive of a Levant ancestry, while lacking any presence of the I2 subclade expected of an Egyptian origin.’ ”

Rory frowned. “Archaeogenetics was never my cup of tea. What does that mean?”

Safia swallowed, picturing the ravaged body of the woman on the throne. “It says she’s not Egyptian.”

“What?”

She read the most significant line to herself again: suggestive of a Levant ancestry.

“I think…” She turned to Rory. “I think she’s Jewish.”

Simon climbed naked out of the ice-cold plunge pool. With his body quaking from the frigid dip, he grabbed a towel from the heated rack and buffed his skin dry.

It was his ritual before retiring each night. His personal pool was only a yard wide and twelve feet deep, filled with water kept at a steady 55 degrees. Each night he jumped in and dropped down to grab a stainless steel ring bolted to the bottom. He held tight to that anchor for as long as his breath would last, then shot back out.

Already he felt the anxiety-ridding effect of the cold plunge, one of many benefits from this ritual. It was also said to improve lymphatic circulation, strengthening the immune system, while activating brown fat to help with weight loss. If nothing else, it obviously had a cardiovascular effect, as his heart hammered in his chest.

His whole body shook once more, then he pulled on a thick robe.

He found he slept much better after shocking his system with this bit of cryotherapy, a ritual that helped stave off his body’s confusion in this land where months could be sunk in darkness or bright all day.

He could also think clearer, shedding the day’s aggravations.

Like this surprise visit from a pair of DARPA inspectors.

Why now of all times?

An important experimental trial was scheduled in less than forty-eight hours. The conditions were perfect. Not only was the pending storm a warm one — a rarity up here, where conditions were considered to be desert-dry — but it coincided with a geomagnetic storm from a powerful solar flare recorded two days ago. Everything was in place, and he hated the thought of delaying.

With his mind running through the variables, he abandoned his plunge pool and headed barefoot to his library. His suite of rooms encompassed the entire breadth of a private fifth sublevel, where access was limited to only a handful of station personnel. He entered his library, appreciating the radiant heat rising from the hand-scraped plank flooring. The room was a mix of the old and the modern. Three walls were encased in mahogany shelves, holding books and volumes dating back centuries, along with glass-encased artifacts and treasures.

One entire wall was devoted to Nikola Tesla. It was a veritable museum to the inventor. Even the plasma screen that bloomed to life as he entered presented a view of Manhattan from the vantage of Tesla’s old suite at the Hotel New Yorker — Room 3327, which still bears a memorial plaque to the man on its door.

It was in that room that his life ended and my life’s passion began.

He gazed upon his most prized possession. A thick black book rested under glass, softly illuminated from above.

The morning after Tesla passed away in 1941, his nephew Sava Kosanovic rushed over to the hotel, only to find his uncle’s body had already been removed and the room ransacked. Volumes of technical papers were missing, including a notebook of several hundred pages that Sava was told by Tesla to preserve upon his passing. The FBI investigated and confiscated all the remaining work and technical papers, with the government declaring it a matter of national security.

And no wonder.

Simon glanced to a framed copy of the New York Times on the wall, dated from July 11, 1934. The headline read: TESLA, AT 78, BARES NEW DEATH BEAM. The article described a particle-beam weapon that could bring down ten thousand planes from hundreds of miles away. But rather than a weapon of war, Tesla believed his invention could bring about world peace, stating that when all countries possessed this beam, all fighting would stop. He also envisioned using this same invention to transmit power wirelessly, even to use it to heat up the upper levels of the atmosphere, creating a man-made aurora borealis to light the night skies around the world.

Simon smiled.

The man was a visionary, ahead of his time.

But now that time had finally come.

He stared at the black notebook, each page carefully inscribed in Serbian, the language of Tesla’s birthplace. Simon had discovered it while helping to fund the renovation and expansion of the Tesla Museum in Belgrade. Back in 1952, the government finally released Tesla’s papers to his nephew, which were preserved at the museum. But even Sava knew a large portion was kept by the U.S. government, specifically by the National Defense Research Committee, which was run at the time by John G. Trump, the uncle of a certain New York real estate magnate.

In the end, Sava was proven right.

Simon spent millions looking for those missing documents. Then he learned that when John Trump died in 1985, he bequeathed a massive cache of scientific papers to his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Simon sent a research investigator over to MIT to comb through that truckload of documents, specifically looking for anything related to Tesla.

It wasn’t a haphazard request on Simon’s part. Later in life, John Trump founded the High Voltage Engineering Corporation, which produced Van de Graaf generators, a current-producing device not all that dissimilar to the Tesla coil. Trump was even declared by the National Academy of Engineering to be a “pioneer in the scientific, engineering, and medical applications of high voltage machinery.”

An acclaim that could easily describe Tesla.

Suspicious — especially since John Trump oversaw the shuttering of the NDRC — Simon sent that investigator poking around. Buried deep in that cache, the man found an unmarked notebook, scrawled by hand in the Serbian language.

Simon stared at that book under glass.

Tesla’s lost notebook.

It was no wonder that the NDRC considered it of little value. The journal was not a treatise on building a particle-beam weapon — at least, not entirely — but rather told a wild tale going back to 1895. Later, Tesla would hint at the secrets found within his notebook in an interview, declaring he had discovered the true nature of power “from a new and unsuspected source.”

And indeed he had.

While Trump and the NDRC might have dismissed the book as a work of fabrication and fancy, Simon took it for the truth. To verify the book’s claims, he poured millions into charitable work in Africa, including funding construction and housing projects along the Nile, which in turn meant financing archeological surveys of such regions. With universities scrabbling to endow research projects, especially expensive fieldwork, it had not been hard to co-opt such efforts to serve his own ends.

Then two years ago — after a decade of searching, guided by the vaguest of clues — Simon found what Tesla had sworn never to reveal.

It was a true wonder, but one that came with great risks.

The ongoing pandemic was testament to that.

Simon frowned at the book, understanding why Tesla and his two companions had made a pact to keep silent. What they had discovered was beyond their abilities to harness, the risk of failure too great.

So they kept it buried in the desert — until the world was ready.

Simon formed a determined fist.

I will do what Tesla could not.

For the sake of the world.

No matter the cost.

A chime sounded behind him. He turned to the one wall not covered in bookshelves. It held a bank of monitors, serving as his digital eyes upon the station. He crossed over and accepted the incoming video call. He took this same call at midnight every day.

Anton’s face appeared on the center screen, ready to pass on his final briefing for the day.

“Have you put your charges to bed?” Simon asked.

“Dr. al-Maaz is locked back in her room,” he reported. “She made good progress today, including a discovery I believe even escaped Professor McCabe’s attention.”

“Concerning what?”

“The subject in the lab — the mummified woman — she’s not Egyptian, but rather of Jewish descent.”

“Jewish?”

Anton shrugged. “The significance is unknown, but work will continue tomorrow.”

Simon sat down on the chair before the monitors, contemplating this news. After discovering Tesla’s notebook and the plans found within it for the electrical microbe, Simon had sought a means of taming such a virulent organism — through both scientific means and historical.

Tesla had hinted at such a solution in his book, but the answer seemed to disturb and frighten him — enough so that he refrained from elaborating on it.

It was the one piece holding Simon back from the final stage of his work. From a theoretical standpoint, everything made sense. But any failure risked an ecological disaster, one that would make the Exxon Valdez oil spill look like an overturned cup of milk.

Still, the world faced an even greater threat.

Here on Ellesmere, warming conditions were already changing the chemical conditions of ponds and wetlands, resulting in the loss of species and habitats. And that was only the tip of the proverbial melting iceberg. Researchers estimated that, if unchecked, the global biosphere could collapse within this century.

Unless a true visionary steps in.

Simon considered the challenges before him. The test slated to commence in two days was the first phase, a localized trial. It would serve as a real-world proof of concept. But did he dare risk it, especially now with the station under watch?

“What about our guests?” Simon asked. “Our friends from DARPA?”

“Last I checked they were in the cafeteria, chatting over coffee.”

“And you’re confident in your background check?”

Anton nodded. “They work for DARPA, going back nearly a decade.”

Good.

Simon didn’t need any more problems. “We’ll give them the official tourist tour tomorrow, then send them packing as soon as possible.”

Still, something bothered him about them, something he couldn’t put a finger on. And he trusted his intuition. As Tesla once stated, instinct is something which transcends knowledge.

“Anton, let’s keep an extra eye on them.”

“Of course.”

“And what of the news from the Sudan? How is your sister faring with that other problem?”

“All is on schedule. That matter should be settled soon.”

“Very good.”

After a final few details were discussed, he ended the connection.

He sat for a moment, then toggled up a new feed from another secure section of the station. A view into a cave appeared, illuminated by bright halogens. It was part of the old Fitzgerald Mine, which once operated on the island, digging for nickel and lead. The cavern had flooded half a century ago and remained unfrozen at those insulated depths. He remembered seeing it for the first time when Aurora Station was being built. The waters had been a perfect blue, as if a memory of the sky.

In the end, this old bore pit had served as the perfect holding tank.

He studied the lake. Its flat surface mirrored the steel catwalk spanning its length. But the waters were no longer a crystalline azure but a dark ruby, like so much spilled blood.

He felt a shiver of apprehension, remembering another quote from Tesla, wondering if the visionary was foretelling what might happen if the secret in his journal ever came to light.

You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.

Simon prayed for once that the man he admired was wrong.