The Colony: A Novel (15 page)

“I have other plans,” she said, and squared her shoulders. “Keep at it, huh?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

CHAPTER 23

KENDRA REACHED THE LABORATORY,
ready for an argument. She found Paul staring into a microscope looking panicked. His hair stuck up in odd directions and his shaky hands were clumsily turning knobs and adjusting slides. There was a chaotic mess of printouts strewn across the counters.

Paul snapped to attention when he saw Kendra and fanned out several loose sheets of paper, stammering out his findings. “The reports are not good. Results are coming back from every institute on the planet. They all say the same thing.
Indestructible.”
He fired off the data. “Negative to fungus and disease. Negative to parasites. Negative to natural enemies. Strepsiptera, Orasema, nematodes, mites, phorid flies. They tried high-pressure oxygen. A hundred pesticides.” He smacked the pile of reports. “Those damn corporate suits just hightailed it out of the city, for chrissakes.”

Kendra stormed across the room and snatched the papers from his hand. She threw them in the air and they rained down like ticker tape. “Are you insane?” she shouted. “We’re dealing with weapons. Monsters. Creatures from the deep!”

“Oh, I see. This is my fault.” Paul said it like he wasn’t thinking the same thing.

“Wasn’t that your job? Didn’t the mayor put you in charge? Why didn’t you demand he evacuate the city?”

Paul was flustered under the barrage of questions. “Don’t you think I blame myself? Of course I do, but who would ever…” He was becoming angry; his cheeks reddened. “You saw them yourself. I believe the words you used were ‘preposterous’ … ‘ridiculous.’”

“I didn’t mean…” Kendra wasn’t sure what she meant, but hurling insults wasn’t part of the plan.

“This study of yours,” he said. “Will it work on these ants?”

“It’s possible. But we need to find a queen if it stands a chance.”

Paul reached across the counter to a couple of boxes marked
BUG OUT
. He tossed one suit to Kendra and threw a rucksack over his shoulder.

“So let’s get the damn thing.”

*   *   *

The two moved swiftly to the mayor’s office. A new sense of urgency weighed heavily on their shoulders, along with the bundles they carried, filled with supplies.

Paul wanted details. “So tell me about your research. How did you kill the colonies?”

Kendra kept a steady pace. “It all goes back to your experiment on brood pheromones. Remember how you saturated grains of rice with extracts from newly hatched larvae?”

“Of course.” Paul nodded. The well-received study was cited in every major science journal. As a college freshman, Paul had unwittingly revitalized a movement in integrated pest management with his first published paper. “The workers hauled the rice back to brooding chambers and tended to the grains as if they were real offspring.”

“Right. You showed that ants could be fooled by their own chemicals. So I started playing around with different concentrations of various queen pheromones, and injected the formula into the nest.”

“It must have caused extreme agitation in the colony,” he commented.

“More than that. Within hours, I had hundreds of queen corpses.”

Paul stopped short. “Your theory?”

“The high concentration of the sex pheromone caused the workers to kill off the queens.”

“Quantitative pheromone effect.”

“If you want to get technical. Then I added the queen’s alarm pheromone to the mix, and the whole colony started killing each other off.”

“So you’re saying you found a way to synthesize pheromones into a formula that causes the workers to kill off the queens and each other?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Paul started walking again. “Impossible. Nothing like that has ever worked.”

“Not in sixty years of trying.”

“Do you realize the implications of your findings? Fire ants terrorize twenty-two states.”

“Twenty-four.”

“If you can apply this method to other insects, you could save farmers millions of dollars.”

“Billions.”

“You could prevent crop depletion across the nation.”

“Across the planet.”

“You might wipe out the insecticide industry.”

She grinned. “I can live with that.”

They reached the mayor’s office. “It sounds very promising. Still, Siafu Moto aren’t normal ants. They might not respond to your cocktail.”

“Paul,”
Kendra groaned.

He held a finger to his lips and reevaluated his position. “I like it.”

“You like it?”

“Okay, I love it.”

“And?”

“And your radiance blinds me. I’m not worthy to carry your microscope.”

Kendra smiled with satisfaction. “I do like the new you.”

CHAPTER 24

MAYOR RUSSO SEEMED HOPEFUL
for the first time that day, listening to Kendra and Paul divulge their plan to capture a queen. Kendra explained that if the pheromone operation was successful, it would trigger two immediate reactions. The workers would kill off the queens and then destroy each other.

General Dawson was interested in hearing the specifics of the chemical synthesis, asking questions about how it was done, the results of Kendra’s own experiments in the desert. He took notes and occasionally spoke into a small recorder.

Colonel Garrett was entirely skeptical. “My team of top scientists spent months trying to find a way to kill these ants. You waltz in here the day you learn about them and tell us you have some magic formula?” He shook his head vehemently. “General, you know as well as I, these ants are indestructible. Nothing that kills ordinary insects will kill Siafu Moto.”

“We don’t have a clue how to destroy them,” the general replied. “But their idea is far safer than any I’ve heard today.”

“We agreed on the solution, an infallible plan. Not some half-witted theory that hasn’t been tested.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything, and neither has the president. I’m willing to give the pheromones a try—if it can be done quickly. That means twenty-four hours.”

Garrett started for the door. “As far as I’m concerned, this matter has already been decided.” He left the others in silence.

“He’s right, you know,” the general told Kendra. “This is a long shot, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” she admitted. “But I’m sure it stands a chance.”

“What do you need from us?” Russo said.

“We could use some help finding a queen. Perhaps the army, or National Guard.”

Russo shook his head. “I’m afraid the Guardsmen are too busy with the chaos on the streets, evacuating the city.”

The general concurred. “Besides, none of my men know the first thing about finding an ant queen.”

“It takes a trained professional.” Paul nodded to Kendra. “Guess we’re it.”

“You’ll need a gun out there. People are going nuts. Agent Cameron will issue you a weapon.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Kendra said. “Our only concern is the ants.”

“We have nothing to protect you from those insects or help you find a queen.”

“We’ll be in full gear, searching the city for nesting sites,” Kendra told them. “It doesn’t take a lot of fancy equipment, just good instinct.”

“Where will you look?” Russo asked.

“I hate to sound morbid,” Paul replied, “but we should check the biggest food supply. There are plenty of residential buildings in Midtown. I’m going to assume these ants are like Siafu. Attack all night, rest in tree trunks—or I should say buildings—all day.”

Kendra wondered if she should mention that Jeremy’s computers predicted the same thing. She decided not to.

“What are your odds?” Russo asked Paul.

“Better than one in a million.”

“So let’s say, by some miracle, you find a queen,” Dawson said. “What then?”

“We synthesize enough pheromones to cover the city,” Kendra replied.

“How much do you need?”

“Not as much as you think. This is potent stuff, and insects have highly developed receptors in their antennae. Just to give you an idea, it takes less than one tablespoon of trail pheromone to lead an ant around the world five thousand times. Just a few molecules can stop a colony.”

“We’ll hit every street in Manhattan,” Paul said. “After that, we can pump the chemicals into the sewers and subways where they hide.”

“Of course, we should spray all the buildings as well,” Kendra said, and her expression darkened. “We have to consider alates.”

“What’s that?” Russo asked.

“Something we don’t want to think about but have to be prepared for,” Paul replied.

“It may happen soon.” Kendra explained to Russo the mating ritual of ants. During the flight of the alates, winged virgin queens take off in a nuptial dance with the males, filling the sky with billowing gray clouds of swarming insects. Then the newly pregnant queens fly away to begin new colonies. “They can fly thousands of miles. It would be devastating.”

“It usually happens once the queens reach full maturity,” Paul said. “Hopefully we’re not too late.”

“So you can make these pheromones in the lab?”

“No, we can’t. We can isolate and identify the molecular structure, but we’ll need at least a metric ton of the synthetic pheromone to kill the colony.”

“Where will we get that?”

“I have a friend, Jack Carver, at the USDA. One call and he can whip up enough base for this pheromone right in his laboratory.”

“I’ve got a direct line out,” Russo said, and picked up a phone with a heavy cord snaking to the wall. He handed Paul the gold-plate receiver.

Paul dialed the Washington number, waited for a connection. He was relieved to hear Jack on the other line.

“Good Lord, Paul. Don’t tell me you’re still in New York City? Somewhere safe, I hope.”

“Can’t say exactly.”

“Well, it’s good to know you haven’t been eaten. Guess the ants have better taste than that.”

“Jack, this is no joke. I’m here with Kendra and she’s possibly found a way to kill these crazy beasts, but I need your help.” Paul relayed a short version of their plan.

“I’d like to help you, but I’ve been snubbed by the Pentagon. Tried to send out a team after our last excursion, but they pulled the plug on our whole operation. They don’t want the USDA involved.”

“I have a United States Army general here who can give you all the clearance you need.”

General Dawson gave a nod.

“He’ll be calling you as soon as we find a queen. In the meantime I need you to whip up a metric ton of base for the pheromone. Maybe soybean oil. Nothing that can evaporate. I need at least forty-eight hours of nondiluting odor.”

“A metric ton? You’re talking millions of dollars.”

“Don’t worry about it, Jack. It’s not on your tab.”

“How long do I have?”

“No more than six hours.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Never more so.”

“I’ll have every synthetic chemist on it, Paul.”

“Thanks.”

“Tell Kendra if her experiment works, she’ll have my job.”

“Doubt she wants it. She’d just wind up a sarcastic old geezer like you.”

“You just get me the breakdown.”

Paul hung up the phone. “We need a way to spread the chemical over the city.”

General Dawson nodded. “I can get a fleet of aerial firefighting aircraft. The Green Sweep C-130 is a converted cargo plane capable of dropping twenty thousand gallons of liquid. It’s been instrumental in cleaning up the oil spills in the Gulf and putting out the Los Angeles fires. It will be perfect for widespread areas and buildings.”

“Terrific. Get me a couple of those. And a few crop dusters for the smaller streets.”

“I’ll have them deployed immediately.” The general spoke into his handheld recorder. “Jack Carver, USDA.” He winked at Kendra and started for the door. “Good luck out there and remember, you’ve got just twenty-four hours. By sundown tomorrow I want this city completely evacuated.”

Kendra furrowed her brow, unsure why the statement sounded so foreboding.

Mayor Russo waited for the general to leave. He gestured to Paul and Kendra, waving them over surreptitiously. They leaned in close as he spoke quietly, a dire look in his eyes. “There’s been talk of dropping low-yield nuclear bombs on Manhattan.”

“Nuke the city?” Kendra gasped. “Whose dumb idea was that?”

“Colonel Garrett has been telling everyone at the State Department with ears that radiation kills the beasts.”

“Do you think they would actually do it?”

“I think the colonel is blowing smoke, grasping at straws to save his own hide. Can you imagine the president authorizing such a thing?” The mayor huffed. “As long as I’m alive, there won’t be any bombs falling on this city.”

*   *   *

Kendra started for the lab to gather equipment for the trip. Paul tracked down Agent Cameron, who wasn’t pleased about issuing a gun to a scientist with no training.

“You’ll probably shoot yourself,” he said, and reluctantly led Paul to a small room with a large closet that was loaded with weapons locked down tight.

Cameron grabbed a pistol and opened a file cabinet that was full of magazines. He eyed Paul suspiciously. “You’re wasting your time out there.”

“No one else is doing anything productive.”

“That’s because they want to save their weapon,” he muttered.

“What weapon?
”

Cameron bit down hard. “Never mind.”

“Do you know something about these ants, Agent?”

Cameron slammed the file cabinet, startling Paul. “That’s the problem. No one does. This was an FBI investigation from the beginning. I was
this close
to exposing whoever was funding this operation, until the plug was pulled by Military Intelligence. My sources disappeared, the money trail evaporated, we were thrown off the case. So Garrett rushes into Bolivia and destroys the entire laboratory without gathering any evidence. His technical crew didn’t bother to investigate who created these monsters, how they did it. You’re a scientist; don’t you find that odd?”

“I find your suspicion odd.”

“You didn’t see what I saw. Those bodies in Bolivia were completely mutilated. Liquefied. The people who created these ants are extremely dangerous. Garrett doesn’t seem to care about finding them.”