Darkness Falls (27 page)

The scent of pine was strong as Teague threw open his door and stepped into the thick mud. He thought it fitting that he was taking these final steps surrounded by pristine wilderness and silence. It would be a constant motivator -- a reminder of the state he would return the world to. The vulgar beach houses would be washed away, the empty streets of Manhattan would crack and heave as the buildings slowly crumbled onto them. Bison herds, miles across, would roam the plains again.

Udo was already reaching for the canister of bacteria when Teague leaned back through the door to retrieve it. The German backed away, allowing Teague to pull the thermos from between the seats. The wind immediately turned the metal cold in his hands, and for some reason that, too, seemed fitting.

When Teague entered the building, the generators and lights were already on and Jonas was standing in front of a television watching the latest reports on the situation that so concerned him.

"The tar sands are completely protected," he said. "There are patrol planes and satellites taking pictures. All the roads in have been blocked by the army."

"What difference does it make?" Teague said, putting the canister on a table covered in a thick layer of dust. "We're a hundred miles from the edge of the tar sands."

"But they're close," Udo interjected. "They're working out the details, Michael."

"They're too late."

Udo glanced at his brother and shook his head subtly. They'd obviously been talking about this privately.

"I understand your feelings about Erin Neal," Udo said. "But it would be a mistake to underestimate him or Jenna. They are brilliant people, Michael. And we looked up this Mark Beamon on the Internet. He has a similar reputation in his own field. They know us, they know the bacteria, and they've already calculated that we'll use the tar sands to --"

"And yet here we are," Teague said angrily. "Despite Jenna, despite Erin Neal, and despite the best Homeland Security has to offer."

"But --"

"Enough!"

He took the thermos from the table and walked to the center of the room where a thick pipe rose from the concrete floor.

Ten feet below ground it was connected to an old pipeline that traveled hundreds of miles north to an abandoned oil extraction facility in the middle of the tar sands. Before it was mothballed, the pipeline had transported oil to a much larger system that crossed the border into the U. S.

The part of the pipe that snaked beneath the tar sands now contained a mix of oil and fertilizer that would increase the growth rate of the bacteria exponentially. Once introduced, his creation would spread uncontrolled until it filled the entire length of the pipe. Then it would only be a matter of releasing it.

"Michael!" Jonas yelled. "Come here."

He ignored the shout until Udo seconded it. "Michael, please! You must see this."

Teague let out a frustrated breath and walked toward the television, stopping suddenly when he saw the screen filled with a photograph of him speaking at Yale. The volume came up as photos of Udo and Jonas joined his on-screen, but Teague wasn't listening.

They were deep in an unpopulated stretch of the Canadian wilderness, far from the area the government was focusing on, and far from anyone who could identify them from those photographs. Once again, he was one step ahead.

"They aren't saying anything about Jenna," Udo pointed out. "We were right. She must be working for them."

Jonas slammed the remote on a table and rushed through a door at the back of the building, but Teague paid no attention, continuing to watch his image on the screen.

He would have liked another month of anonymity but, in the end, it wouldn't matter. He'd always planned for this to come out -- for the world to know who had done this and why. Humanity would know that they had brought this on themselves with their reckless campaign to destroy millions of years of creation in the hollow pursuit of meaningless comforts.

"This is a dangerous time," Udo said. "The bacteria will grow quickly, but until it reaches critical mass, everything we've worked for is vulnerable."

Teague could hear the clang of metal behind him and he walked to the back of the building, leaning a shoulder against a doorjamb to watch Jonas free the chain wrapped around a heavy steel cabinet.

"What is it you think you're going to do?" he asked as Jonas pulled a rifle from the cabinet.

"I'm going to correct our mistake. I am going to kill Jenna and Erin Neal."

"How do you propose to find them? They're working with the government in the United States."

"I will make them come to me."

Teague nodded silently. Jonas, like the other weapons in that cabinet, was a useful tool. There was no way to predict exactly the path society's collapse would take and how quickly or violently it would happen. And in the face of that kind of uncertainty, someone like Jonas could be useful.

On the other hand, he was becoming increasingly difficult to control. At first, Teague hadn't been concerned because Udo seemed to hold sway over his brother. But now, he was afraid the relationship was having the opposite effect, that Jonas was making his older brother more defiant.

Perhaps this was for the best. If he kept Jonas here, his anger and frustration could further contaminate his brother. And for what? An unpredictable enforcer who would almost certainly not be needed.

What would happen if he let the German go? Perhaps he would succeed in dealing with Erin and Jenna -- and although getting rid of them was probably not critical, it certainly would eliminate one of the most prominent threats to them. On the other hand, if Jonas failed, it would likely be the end of him, and that had the potential to solve a number of other nagging problems.

Teague turned and walked back to where Udo had attached the thermos to the top of the pipe jutting from the floor. It looked like some kind of modern sculpture -- the graceful stainless curves of the thermos gleaming against the dirty rust of the industrial pipe.

Udo held out a large wrench and Teague took it, sliding it around the valve release and throwing his weight against it. For a moment it didn't move, but then it submitted, sending the bacteria into the pipe in a barely audible rush.

Finally, it was done.

Chapter
38.

The wind blew the hair across Jenna Kalin's face, but she didn't bother to push it away, instead letting it fill her mouth and eyes along with the foul air.

She stood alone at the crumbling edge of a large concrete reservoir, hands shoved deeply into the pockets of her down jacket, and watched clouds swirling over the endless oil-soaked dunes. Canada's tar sands, now universally seen as humanity's savior, would more likely be the cause of its demise. And once again, it was her fault.

The rusting industrial building a quarter mile away had been one of the first facilities to extract oil from the area -- washing it from the sand, collecting it, and then transporting it to far away refineries. As technology had improved, though, it had become obsolete and finally was abandoned to decay in what had once been a vast emptiness stretching from horizon to horizon.

The first helicopters to land had been filled with Canadian special forces, who quickly secured the area but found no one. Now, two hours later, the landscape was dotted with helicopters and people were everywhere -- studying derelict pipes and machinery, taking soil samples, shouting into satellite phones.

The initial sweep confirmed their worst-case scenario. Not only were Michael and the Metzgers not there, but it looked like no one had been for years.

Did she really think it would be this easy? That she could swoop in and save the day? No. But she hoped she would. And other than Erin, hope was all she had anymore.

She squinted into the distance, finally finding him standing behind a partially collapsed trailer to keep out of the wind. He was kicking at the ground, head down, while Mark Beamon talked heatedly with someone she didn't recognize.

They'd decided to leave her alone, mostly because neither seemed to know what else to do. Erin made the occasional awkward attempt to make her feel better, but he still couldn't decide whether to comfort her or to strangle her. The funny thing was that strangling her would have probably been better for both of them in the long run.

Their feelings for each other had the potential to further complicate an already impossible situation. The truth was that she didn't have much of a future. Maybe no one did.

Mark Beamon waved to her and she reluctantly started picking her way through the industrial debris littering the ground. The wind died down and as she got closer she slowed, trying to pick up what was being said.

"Look, I don't know what you want from me," Beamon protested. "I --"

The man in front of him cut him off. "Do you know how difficult it was to get you this kind of access, Mark? To get our people to cooperate with you at all? Your press is telling the world that we're hoarding our oil and trying to starve you. Our embassy's been attacked. And do you know what your government's doing?"

"Nothing," Beamon said. "I know. But it's just the press. They say what sells papers. What can we do?"

"Your president could get on television and tell the American people everything we're doing to try to help. He could --"

"Bullshit, Carl. How long have you and I known each other? More than a decade? And I don't remember ever thinking you were stupid. Politicians love diversions, and you're the diversion du jour. As long as the American voters are pissed at you, they don't have time to get pissed at the people who actually got them into this."

Beamon looked relieved when Jenna finally reached them and he put a hand on her shoulder in what she knew was an honest attempt to be reassuring. "Jenna, this is Carl Fournier. He's my counterpart here in Canada."

Fournier didn't offer his hand, instead folding his arms and staring at her with an expression too opaque to read. He was much more imposing than Beamon probably six foot four -- with a narrow waist, well-defined features, and a precision haircut that seemed impervious to the elements.

"And what if we don't think that your government standing by doing nothing is good enough?" he said, looking at her, but talking to Beamon.

"You've got to be kidding me, Carl. You're giving me an ultimatum? Now? If this bug gets loose, the few Canadians that are left will be living in caves and hunting moose with spears."

"You don't make it easy, though, do you, Mark? It's not enough for you to come here and start making demands when the relationship between our countries is at an all-time low, but you bring the woman responsible. How do you think that looks to the people I work for?"

As far as Jenna was concerned, the Canadian's reservations about her were completely justified. Even she couldn't completely understand why she was still roaming around free. When she'd asked, Beamon told her not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the complete silence on the matter was becoming increasingly eerie -- as though someone was lurking just out of sight, waiting for the moment she was no longer useful.

"I'm not trying to bark orders, here," Beamon said. "I'm offering my help. And all the PR crap aside, so is the American government."

"Oh, right. You've been so generous in offering military assistance to secure our energy reserves. Seems a bit convenient, though, doesn't it? I wonder how hard it would be for us to get those reserves back if we accepted your help?"

Beamon didn't immediately answer, his unwillingness to deny Fornier's accusation clearly not an oversight. "What's the bottom line here, Carl? Do you think I'm here to screw you?"

Fournier considered the question for a moment. "You personally? No."

"Then can we move on?"

Fournier's expression suggested that he knew he had no choice but to cooperate, and he turned to Erin. "You've searched the building. Have you learned anything at all?"

"That there's nothing here."

"Well, that's helpful, isn't it?"

"There are a few old factories like this in the tar sands," Beamon said, cutting Erin off before he could respond. "What makes this one unique is that it was bought by a company we can't get a handle on. The deeper we dig, the more confusing the ownership gets. Basically, a classic front corporation."

A fighter jet screamed overhead, drowning out even the wind, and they all looked up as it angled north and began to climb.

"Are you sure you didn't miss anything?" Beamon said as the sound of the engines faded.

Erin shook his head. "Look around you. The place is falling down. There's no power, no containers left that aren't rusted through, and even if they weren't, they aren't big enough to do what Michael needs to do."

"Maybe we're totally wrong," Jenna said.

"Maybe he is in Russia. Or maybe he's come up with something we haven't even imagined. I mean, he's had years to think about this. We've had a few days. We're wasting our time. We don't have a chance . . ."

She fell silent when Fournier's phone began to ring. He turned his back and moved out of the shelter provided by the trailer.

Beamon put his hand on her shoulder again. "You've got to do me a favor and forget the past. You can't change it and it's just going to cloud your judgment. If Teague wins, you'll most likely get your opportunity to die horribly and pay for your sins. Until then, though, I need you to stay focused."