Bitter Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 2) (45 page)

“Let’s just say that I was in a unique position to offer my services to the United States Government at a time when they had precious few alternatives. Not only to help rescue you, but to get the research effort against these creatures jump started.”
 

“But you destroyed everything in Lab One! And who knows how long it will take to get the archived data we had from the EDS and SEAL. That’s assuming they reopen the SEAL facility.”

Morgan shook his head, still smiling. “My dear, we have backups for everything. Nothing was lost in Lab One except whatever was physically there. All of your data is still safe, believe me. I invested far too much to toss it all away, even under threat of Agent Boisson’s wrath.”
 

Next to Naomi, Boisson rolled her eyes.

“And SEAL won’t be reopened. I’ve already spoken to the powers that be about that. We’ll be using one of our facilities that’s at least as well suited for the job and isn’t in the middle of a heavily populated area.”

Naomi frowned. She wasn’t happy about being under Morgan’s control again, even indirectly, but that had been a major issue with the location of the SEAL facility when it had first been established: if something ever did go wrong, the people of San Antonio would be at risk. But for a variety of reasons, some good and some bad, that’s where they’d put it. Now it was nothing more than an empty shell, and apparently would remain that way.

“Where is this place you’re taking us to?”

“You’ll find out.”

Naomi looked out the still-open door as the helicopter headed east. A heavy pall of smoke lay over the Los Angeles basin from dozens of fires across the metropolitan area. Nearly every street was backed up as people tried to flee the city. “Where are we going now?”

“San Bernardino Airport,” Ferris answered. “We’ll fly out a corporate jet with the rest of your research team.” He shook his head. “All the other airports from San Bernardino west to Oxnard have been closed. Even LAX. And once we fly out, San Bernardino will be closed, too.”

“They’ve ordered a quarantine?”

Ferris nodded. “Yeah. All flights in or out of the LA area are cancelled. Planes already in the air are being diverted to Air Force bases by friendly neighborhood F-16s. It’s the same sort of thing with maritime traffic with the Navy and Coast Guard sealing the ports, and all the roads have been closed.”

“It’s a good try, but it’ll never stop them from getting out.”

“You know that and I know that, but what else can they do? Nuke the entire valley?”

Naomi didn’t say anything, but the cold analytical part of her mind answered that question with astonishing rapidity. The rest of her mind shied away from the unspoken reply.

“Naomi,” Morgan said, “there’s one thing that I don’t understand. You said these things originated with the Beta-Three corn, that anything eating either the seed or the resulting crops would be transformed.”

“Yes. It’s basically a transgenic weapon that rewrites the host’s DNA with that of the harvesters.”

“You also said that you thought this new generation could reproduce.”

Naomi nodded. “Yes. That’s what we thought based on Harmony’s comparison of some regions of harvester DNA with
Amoeba dubia
, and I think I saw one of the adult harvesters actually give birth to a larval form on the news video at the mall. Where are you going with this, Howard?”

“Only the obvious: how the hell could there be so many of them?”

“That all depends on their reproductive rate and when the first host — or hosts — was exposed to the infected corn.” She frowned. “And we won’t have any idea when that might have happened without going to the safe house where Kelso stashed The Bag. That’s where it all must have started.”

“Kid, I am not turning this bird around,” Ferris said. “Pretty please or not.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to, Al.” Naomi hated to admit it to herself, but she was scared. She shivered as she remembered the sight of the enormous larvae coming at them. They were abominable, far worse than the adult forms.

“That was somebody else’s job.”
 

Everyone turned to look at Boisson. “We sent a second team to check out the safe house. They reported their arrival, but nothing after that.”

“How many?” Naomi had to know. “How many agents were on the team?”

“Eight. They went in with tactical gear, but without the homemade flamethrower stuff we had. They never came out, and that entire area’s been overrun.”

“I’m sure this won’t mean much to you, coming from me, but I’m sorry, Agent Boisson.” Morgan had turned to look out the windscreen, surveying the unfolding disaster that was destroying the Los Angeles area. “You and your people demonstrated extraordinary courage in what you did.”

Boisson nodded, as if to herself, but said nothing.
 

Now that Naomi had a chance to think beyond her immediate survival, her thoughts turned to Jack. “Al, did Renee say anything about Jack?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Listen, that guy can take care of himself. He’s got more lives than a litter of cats.”
 

And how many has he used up?
Naomi wondered, praying that Jack was all right.

Ferris went on. “And I’m sure Renee’s had her hands full while I was doing the whole knight in shining armor bit. With Mr. Morgan’s help, of course.” Al turned around and grinned at her. “He bought this bird just for you, you know. None of the corporate copters were big enough. Three million bucks! I like this job. Except for the parts where we get shot at or things are trying to eat us.”

Naomi turned to stare at Morgan, who continued to look out the windscreen at the city, below. “You just walked up to somebody and bought this?”

“I’ve got a pretty impressive limit on my company card,” he said dryly. “Think of it as a small contribution toward my penance for my misdeeds.”

At that, Boisson laughed. “Okay, Morgan. You may be a corporate crook, but you’re a crook with style. I’ll give you that much.”

“Why thank you, Agent Boisson.”

Alexander, who’d been cowering with Koshka under Naomi’s seat after one of the other agents pried them from her back, climbed into her lap. Koshka remained coiled at her feet, occasionally glancing up at her human companion.
 

The big Siberian cat curled up and submitted to her stroking his fur, but his intensely green eyes never left the glass carboy and its lethal prisoner.

* * *

At San Bernardino, Ferris landed on the grass near the end of runway six-zero. Morgan and the others got out as Ferris shut down the Bell 412 and hurried after them.

“You’re just leaving it here?” Naomi pointed to the helicopter.

“That’s what the boss said,” Ferris told her. “I guess we’ll come back and get it later.” He frowned. “Or not.”

“Three million dollars is a lot to pay for a one-way fare.”

Morgan dropped back to walk beside her. “I suspect, Naomi, that it’s only a small tithe of the price we may all have to pay before this is over.”

Ahead of them, already waiting at the end of the runway with engines running, was a white Boeing 727 passenger jet, a boarding ladder truck pulled up beside it.

Boisson shook her head. “Did you buy that, too, Morgan?”

“No, I just leased that one for this flight. The owner gave me a good deal. Otherwise, the plane would be stuck here. We were the plane’s ticket out of the quarantine zone.”
 

Ferris led them past the whining engines to where the boarding ladder was pulled up to the port side entry door, just aft of the cockpit. A man wearing the uniform of a copilot waited for him. They shook hands, and the copilot disappeared back into the cockpit while Ferris remained by the door.

“Get your butts in your seats and strap in. No safety briefing today, folks. Oh, and no shopping magazines, either.” He grinned. “Those cost extra. Sorry.”

“Smart ass.” Naomi shook her head as she passed by, leading the two cats on their leashes.

“Holy shit,” Boisson breathed. “I’ve got to get me one of these.”

The interior of the plane was lavish, to say the least. This was no cattle car: the plane could probably hold fifty people in oversized cream colored leather chairs. There were also love seats, along with conference tables and audio/video equipment. The bulkheads and doors that in a regular aircraft would be made of plastic and metal were all done in polished wood.
 

Naomi saw Harmony Bates and the other members of the Lab One team, already strapped in toward the rear of the plane. They waved and called their greetings, but real conversation would have to wait. Ferris wanted to get the plane off the ground.

Naomi collapsed into the seat next to Morgan and strapped herself in, the cats settling at her feet. She noticed that both kept their eyes on the carboy containing the harvester, which was held by one of the agents on the opposite side of the plane. “Thank you, Howard. I thought we weren’t going to make it.”

“No thanks are necessary, Naomi.” He turned to her. “I’ll confess that I wasn’t exactly happy with you when the FBI came down on us.” He stopped. “My God, that was just this morning, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. It seems like forever.”

Morgan grunted. “No, I wasn’t happy with you at all. But I understand now that what you did was the right thing. And believe it or not, I want to do the right thing, too. I still want my legacy, Naomi. And despite the terrible tragedy that’s unfolding around us, this is a God-given opportunity for me to help create that legacy.”

“What about Kelso?” Boisson sat across from them.
 

“I hope he burns.”
 

Both women were taken aback at the intensity of Morgan’s words.
 

“He’s been with me for years. Beyond the not inconsiderable amount of money I paid him to do his job, I trusted him. He was in on everything the company did. Then he betrayed us all. He betrayed me.” He looked at Naomi. “And that’s something that I very rarely forgive.”

They looked up as Ferris shut the forward door and dogged it shut. “Okay, boys and girls, the ladder’s clear. We’re taking off immediately.”

He disappeared into the cockpit and closed the door behind him.

As the engines spooled up, Morgan looked at Boisson as he continued. “Off the record, Agent Boisson, let me just say that I’ll use every resource available to me to find Dr. Kelso. When I do, I’ll deliver him to your doorstep.”

“What, you’re not going to take off his head?”

Morgan laughed. “No, that’s not my style. I’ll do what I need to in order to protect my interests, but I’m not a violent man.” He glanced out the window as the 727’s three engines began to roar and the plane accelerated down the runway. “I’ll be content to let the FBI have its due. But I wouldn’t shed a tear if Adrian Kelso went straight to Hell.”

* * *

Kelso had been nursing a drink in the first class lounge when he noticed people gravitating toward the television at the far end. He hated television, particularly the news. His preferred method of whiling away the handful of hours he had to wait until his flight to Brasilia was to read. He preferred mysteries and thrillers, but would bend toward the occasional horror novel if one took his fancy.

Today’s fare was the latest thriller in a series he’d greatly enjoyed, and from which he’d taken several ideas that had helped him build his fortune with Beta-Three. Despite the setbacks he’d suffered earlier that morning at not being able to retrieve the data, he wasn’t unhappy. He already had millions of dollars tucked away, more than enough to start a new life on a sunny beach somewhere in South America. His only true regret was not being able to drive his vengeful spear all the way through Morgan Pharmaceuticals.

Another couple, whom he’d thought were absurdly young to be well-off enough to be in the first class lounge, got up to go watch the television, and those already watching it were murmuring in what he could tell was shock.

Annoyed with himself, he dumped his e-reader into the traveler bag he’d bought when he got to the terminal, picked it up, and went to join the others watching the television.

He leaned over to an older gentleman who’d been watching for some time now. “What’s happening?”

“There are riots all over the city! And there are these things running about. Look, there goes one!” He pointed at a dark, clearly inhuman shape that pounced upon a young man who was at the trailing end of a crowd of people running across a parking lot. “They thought at first that it was a Hollywood production, but these things are now all over Altadena and Pasadena. It’s incredible.”

Kelso’s gut turned to ice at the mention of Altadena. That was where his safe house was, the repository for the Beta-Three, the New Horizons corn.

Could it be?
He wondered silently as he watched the carnage unfold on the television. He had been extremely careful with the corn after he’d learned about how truly dangerous it could be.
After
he’d learned. But what about before, when he’d first gotten it? He had tossed the bag in the trunk of his car after he’d obtained it from the now-dead New Horizons employee, then stored it in his home, which was only three miles from the safe house that he’d eventually acquired.
 

No. He’d put the corn into containers before taking them to the safe house, then he’d burned the bag. Nothing could have spilled at his house when he’d filled the containers. He’d been very careful. And at the safe house, the containers were kept in locked freezers, except when he was putting together a package for a buyer.
 

Kelso thought back, trying to remember if anything had ever gone awry. His heart sank as he recalled with vivid clarity the package he’d prepared for his French buyer. He had been in a rush that day, because he had been delayed at one of Morgan’s board meetings and was going to be late for his flight. Not only was he late, but he was angry, Morgan having taken him to task again for the Beta-Three team’s failure to make more progress. And this, after Morgan had removed him as the team lead!
 

Still overcome with fury, Kelso had washed his hands as he always did, but hadn’t taken the time to dry them properly. With his hands still damp, he couldn’t get the rubber gloves and mitts on that he normally used.