Darkness Falls (30 page)

"Forensics people from San Francisco," Hirst explained.

Beamon watched them drag equipment out onto the ground for a few moments before pulling a phone from his pocket.

"You won't get a signal," Hirst said, holding out a satellite phone. "Try this one."

"You've got eight hours," Beamon said as he dialed. "Go over everything you can and make arrangements to take whatever you don't have time to look at."

"What happens in eight hours?"

Beamon ignored the question, listening to the phone ring before being picked up.

"General Vance's office," the woman on the other end said.

"Hi Kelly -- it's Mark Beamon. Put Chuck on. I need a little favor."

"Come on!" Beamon shouted as Erin and Jenna ran toward the helicopter spinning up behind him.

"This is the most incredible place I've ever seen!" Erin said as he helped Jenna into the back. He was a bit breathless, but Beamon wasn't sure if it was from the run or all the eco-gadgets he'd spent the day poring over.

"It's all state of the art and purpose-built. Even the solar panels are sealed in a way that won't let the bacteria damage them. There are three all-metal windmills lying at the edge of the forest. I assume they're going to set them up on high ground as soon as the government collapses and stops monitoring the use of public lands."

"Strap yourself in," Beamon said as the sound of the blades grew louder.

"Did you catch the gun room, Mark? There's enough stuff in there to take over France. It seems like Teague isn't inclined to share."

Beamon twisted around in his seat and held out a video camera. "Do either of you know how to work this thing?"

"I used to have one kind of like that," Jenna said. "But I'm no expert."

"You are now. We tried to get the press in here, but they didn't have enough fuel to make the trip and I didn't have time to find them any. So we're just going to have to film it ourselves."

"Film what ourselves?"

He pointed to the east at a formation of fighter jets just coming into view.

"What are those for?" Jenna asked.

"Are you filming?"

She shrugged and searched for the camera's ON switch as their pilot turned the helicopter to give her a better view.

"Okay, I've got it," she said. "But I still don't see --"

Flame burst from the side of one of the jets and Beamon smiled as the missile impacted the roof of the main building. Two horses that had resisted every effort to run them off wisely started galloping toward freedom.

"Jesus Christ!" Erin shouted, pressing his face against the window. "What the hell are you doing? That place is

"Don't stop filming!" Beamon shouted as one of the barns was hit, shooting solar panels high enough in the air to force their pilot to retreat to a safer distance.

"Are you responsible for this?" Erin said, looking almost panicked. "Do you have any idea --"

"Hell, yes, I'm responsible. Pretty wild, huh?"

The missile impact with the microhydro dam was dead center and it sent out a wave high enough to flatten most of the cornfield.

"Nice one!" Beamon said, clapping energetically. "Isn't it amazing how when they shoot those things --"

"Are you nuts?" Erin screamed. "Do you have any idea what went in to building a facility like that? What an incredible piece of engineering it is? There's technology in there that I've never even seen -- that nobody's ever seen. Stuff that we're going to need if Teague manages to release that bacteria."

"No," Jenna said, sounding increasingly depressed as she zoomed in on the drowning corn. "What good would it do, Erin? There's no time. Mark's right."

"What the hell are you talking about, Mark's right?"

"You know as well as I do that Michael's watching the news. When he sees this when he sees that he's going to end up like everyone else, do you think he'll still go through with it?"

Erin leaned into the glass again and watched the fire spread into the trees. "I guess not. I mean, I see what you're getting at, but couldn't you have just filmed your guys swarming all over it?"

Beamon shrugged. "I guess I could have, but it wouldn't have been anywhere near as satisfying."

Chapter
43.

Michael Teague stumbled again, this time over nothing but his own feet. His hips were deeply bruised from the weight of his pack, creating a dull throb that was starting to eclipse the pain from the bleeding blisters on his feet.

He had spent a sleepless night out in the elements, snow collecting on his sleeping bag as he listened to the wind and Udo's rhythmic snoring. He could still feel the effects of that, too, in his bone-deep fatigue and the knot in his lower back.

Udo, though, seemed unaffected by any of it, his pace even more grueling than the day before. When he dropped out of sight over a small rise, Teague felt a moment of panic at being left alone in the endless wilderness. He forced his shaking legs forward, using his hands for balance as he tripped up the hill, and finally brought the German into view again.

"Udo! Slow down!"

He didn't seem to hear, jumping off a large boulder and once again disappearing from sight.

"Udo!"

The German didn't reappear, but the sun broke through the clouds and illuminated a clearing a few hundred yards ahead. They were finally back.

In the open, the wind was a palpable force, pushing him forward and slamming the open door of the warehouse repeatedly against its metal siding. Teague raised his hand to keep the dirt out of his eyes and ran inside, struggling to close the door behind him.

They'd left the heat on and the warmth began to penetrate his heavy clothing, causing his skin to burn and itch as though it didn't remember what it was like not to be wet and half frozen. Udo stripped his pack off and began lining up the samples he'd taken next to his microscope.

"How long until you know?" Teague asked, pulling off a glove and fumbling to turn on the television.

"Not long."

The German's voice had lost its animation since Jonas had died, and now Teague wondered if it was ever really there. Had his brother's suicide changed something in Udo, or had Jonas's brooding presence just made everyone seem exuberant by comparison?

"That's not an answer."

"It will take a few hours to examine the samples and another hour to calculate the optimal date for release. Is that better?"

Teague nodded and began removing his jacket, turning his attention to the television and a man making suggestions on how to cut back on skyrocketing food costs and still get a balanced diet.

He flipped to Fox, which was airing an interview about an attempted carjacking in Miami that had ended in a half-hour-long gunfight. Another turn of the channel brought him to some shaky overhead footage of a spreading wildfire.

Several buildings had been consumed, but it was impossible to see detail with the flames leaping around their burned-out husks. He was about to go get something to eat when he realized that the scene was strangely familiar.

"It isn't clear exactly what started the fire," the disembodied voice of the newscaster said. "And we haven't been able to get any updated information beyond the fact that it's now under control."

Teague remained motionless, his exhausted mind having a difficult time grasping what he was seeing. The camera pulled back, revealing what was left of a pattern that he recognized as the one he had so painstakingly designed -- the main house, the stables, the storage barns. The only thing not burning was part of the cornfield that had been inundated by his shattered dam.

It wasn't possible. The buildings were made primarily of earth and concrete, with gravity-fed fire sprinklers. Even if the fire systems failed, there was still no way to account for this kind of destruction.

It became harder and harder to breathe as he realized that it wasn't an accident. His refuge had been purposely destroyed.

Teague took a hesitant step backward, but bumped into something that stopped him. He spun and found Udo staring up at the screen.

"It's all gone," Teague stammered. "Everything we built. How? There was no connection between us and that property. I was so careful . . ."

Udo didn't acknowledge that he'd even heard; instead, he just turned and walked back to his microscope while Teague tried to process his new reality.

It wasn't possible. He'd spent more time on that facility than any other part of his plan, parceling out the design and manufacture to companies all over the world, creating a paper trail that led through an endless maze of blind alleys and dead ends, switching contractors various times during construction so that no one would have the full picture. He'd been so meticulous, so confident in his preparation, that there had been no need for a backup plan.

He looked over at Udo, who was calmly putting an oil sample on a glass slide. Did he understand what had just happened? What it meant? They had no protection at all from the collapse that the bacteria would cause. The facility they were standing in had enough heat, electricity, and food for a few more months, but that was all. There had been no reason to supply it further.

They would lose power like everyone else. The truck that brought them there would fail, cutting them off. Their food would run out and Canada's bitter winter would descend.

He reached for a chair and sat, leaning his elbows on his knees and holding his head in his hands. This building would become their tomb. They would die there of starvation and cold, alone and anonymous.

No.

He stood and walked unsteadily past Udo into the back room. The gun cabinet was unlocked and he reached inside, pulling out an automatic pistol. He had money, various identities, passports. He could call Homeland Security, tell them about the pipeline, and then disappear into Canada, which, with its undamaged reserves, not only would be untouched by the massive economic fallout his water-injected bacteria was continuing to cause but would quickly become one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It would be a life on the run, but if he was careful, it could be a comfortable one.

Teague took a deep breath and let it out slowly, staring through the open door leading into the main part of the building. He'd been so close -- only days from changing the world on a level that no one had ever even conceived of before. Only to be stopped by the blind luck of some government hack.

When he passed back through the door, the German was no longer sitting at his microscope.

"Udo? Where are you?"

No answer.

He continued forward slowly, his gun hand behind his back. Although Jonas had been more outwardly aggressive, it would be a mistake to assume his brother was any less committed. There was little doubt in Teague's mind that Udo intended to follow through with their plan and then just sit down in the snow to die. He would never agree to stop, and even if he did, he would become a liability -- someone Teague would have to support and worry about for the rest of his life. No, it was time for him to join his brother.

Teague moved carefully around a divider wall, but Udo was still nowhere to be found. The radio control to the pipeline bombs was built into a low table bolted to the floor and Teague knelt beside it, grabbing the cables that fed it with a sweating hand. Once it was destroyed and Udo was out of the way, he would drive the truck back to civilization and disappear. As soon as he was satisfied that he was safe, he'd call the hotline number that was running across the bottom of nearly every television screen in the world and tell them how to find this place.

The pain in the back of his head flared suddenly and unexpectedly, robbing him of his balance and sending him pitching forward. He could see the shards of glass falling around him before everything lost focus and he smashed onto the concrete.

His disorientation was more the result of fatigue and surprise than the blow, and the sensation of his cheek being cut by the glass on the floor cleared his head, but not before he felt the gun being pulled from his waistband. He spun, swinging an arm wildly behind him, but it was far too late. Udo had already stepped back to a safe distance and was aiming the pistol at his chest.

"My brother is dead. I have no home. No friends. No life at all. I gave it all up. For this."

"Udo, stop!" Teague begged, holding a hand out in front of him while he got slowly to his feet. "I wasn't going to hurt you. You know that I wouldn't do that. I was trying to help you. If we keep on with this, we'll both die. We don't have any protection at all. We'll be like all the others."

"Yes," Udo agreed. "Just like all the others."

"But none of this is our fault! We tried to protect the world. We tried to warn people."

"Not our fault? Are you certain, Michael? How are we different? How much was destroyed to build our houses? Our cars? Our clothing? No, we're not innocent in this."

When Udo pulled the hammer back on the gun, his eyes turned into a lifeless facsimile of his dead brother's.

"No! Don't kill me," Teague shouted, putting his other hand in front of him and taking a step backward. "I swear I wasn't going to hurt you. You have to believe that."