Something hard and heavy and electronic, no doubt. Although she didn’t know. The police had never confirmed what he’d been listening to. And now, suddenly, she wanted to know. Desperately.
She’d turned to go, fueled by a dim idea of calling the police superintendent, when Brenda’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“Todd’s the one who found them, ma’am.”
Katherine blinked at the zombies, sitting in their expensive ergonomic chairs, bobbing their heads to the kind of music she’d never been able to stand. No artistry at all. Just the loud, constant thump of drumbeats.
At least these zombies worked for her. Though some of them, she knew from detailed reports, had somewhat distasteful pastimes outside these walls, they all excelled at their jobs.
Flustered by the way her mind had drifted, Katherine forced a smile to her stiff lips and focused on Brenda’s pleasantly mature countenance.
“Todd, could you bring up the satellite photos you showed me earlier?” Brenda asked, voice as poised and modulated as Katherine’s once was.
Without a word, the man did as he was told. There was perhaps a touch of hubris in the tilt of his head, but she laid that at the door of his youth.
Katherine turned and squinted at the screen, seeing nothing at first. What were they looking at? She wouldn’t ask. Asking would make her appear weak in the mind. As much as she hated depending on a cane for ambulation, a failing body was nothing compared to a failing brain.
“This location is about halfway between Burke-Ruhe and our facility. This morning. Zoom in, please.” Brenda stepped back to let Katherine look. “This”—she indicated with a laser pointer—“is evidently some structure. We have no record of ownership. Probably Russian. Andthat,” she said, more excitedly, “is exhaust.”
The screen wasn’t entirely clear, the image blurry at the edges, but still a miracle that they’d taken this photo from space. She could hardly fathom it.
“What else?”
“Close in, Todd.” Brenda smiled, walked to the big screen, leaned up, and slapped something. “This.”
Katherine squinted irritably. Could the woman not just spell it out, for heaven’s sake? These images were minuscule and—
She couldn’t contain a gasp. There, in the middle of the image, tiny but clear as day alongside an unidentifiable orange square, was a neat pile of metal tubes. “The—”Virus, she’d almost said, which wouldn’t do, since keeping the various departments in the dark about this project was imperative.Need to knowwas of the essence when one was planning a mass cleansing of the world’s population. All for the greater good, of course. She settled for “tubes” instead.
“Yep. We’ve got the samples. And the location. The clear solution is to prepare a team to go in as soon as the weather warms.”
“I don’t havetimefor that.” She inhaled slowly to steady herself. Appearing erratic in front of the staff was hardly the best way to handle this. But goodGod, the frustration she’d felt when those imbeciles had flown the wrong samples to the Facility.
For the sake of appearances, she forced a smile to her parched lips and turned to Brenda. “Please send Sampson’s team.”
“No planes will fly in this—”
“They flew last week, didn’t they? And again a few days ago? And I understand we’ve made airdrops in the dead of polar winter. Surely, now that we’ve located the samples, they can…” She shook her hand vaguely. “Parachute in or something. Take them. And return to the Facility.”
Mutiny shone in Brenda’s eyes and her dark skin took on a heated cast, her cheeks going pink. When Brenda opened her mouth, Katherine wasn’t entirely sure which way she’d go, but the words “yes, ma’am” assuaged her fears.
Greater good. Those words, that idea, mattered to people like Brenda, who’d lost her mother to disease.
“Good.” Orders given, she turned to go, then stopped and swiveled painfully. “And you, young man. What’s your name again?”
He glanced at Brenda before looking back at her, which was both a good and bad sign—not so big for his britches that he’d overreach, though he clearly needed a lesson on who the boss was around here.
“Todd. Todd Jenkins, ma’am.”
“Good work, Todd.” She smiled a genuine, heartfelt smile. “You can expect a bonus for your efforts.”
And possibly, just possibly, I’ll let you keep your life when all of this is over.
Chapter 39
Day 14—Norwegian Field Research Camp, 142 Miles from Volkov Station
Angel was in trouble. Deep, deep trouble. With no way out. Literally no way out, since she was stuck here with the object of her…affections? Gosh, that didn’t really seem to encompass it. Obsession, maybe, althoughhungerfelt more like it, given that what she felt for Ford was on a par with the stomach-gnawing pangs of starvation.
