Bitter Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 2) (49 page)

“But you don’t want to be in here when that happens,” the lab technician warned.
 

“Right,” Naomi said absently as she watched the technician take the carboy from the agent, who surrendered it with obvious relief.
 

The woman opened one of the dog crate-sized containment chambers, which had a top-loading door. Then she removed the metal cap on the big glass jar and upended it over the opening to the chamber.

Naomi had to admire the woman’s nerve, for she didn’t show the least bit of fear in handling the carboy and its occupant.
 

As if sensing the opening, the harvester larva quickly oozed toward the neck of the bottle and dropped into the chamber below.
 

The technician set the carboy right side up in another chamber, then closed and locked the door. Then she opened the adjacent chamber and set the carboy inside, then sealed it. “Until we’re sure the organism can’t propagate on a microscopic level, all containers will be quarantined.”

Naomi nodded, impressed. She had made the assumption that the creature was contiguous unless it was physically separated, as she’d done with the larva that had killed Garcia at the mall. But assumptions with anything dealing with harvesters could be deadly. She vowed to not make that sort of mistake again.

“Now let’s take a look at mama monster and her squirming bundle of joy,” Renee said.

* * *

The adult harvester containment cells were on the main basement level, which was laid out in similar fashion to the sub-basement, but was slightly larger. Over half of the level was devoted to labs and equipment storage, while the rest was taken up with containment cells.

“Some of the cells we set up are much like those you had at SEAL,” Morgan told her as they passed through a thick armored door in the main hallway that passed into the containment area. “They’ve got thick polycarbonate walls, reinforced doors, and sensor pods in the ceiling, and are airtight. Those, of course, wouldn’t work for the larvae, so we had two metal cells installed. They’re like the ones downstairs, except larger and reinforced. But we’ve only got two.”

“That should be enough,” Naomi told him as they entered a room that had monitors taking up space on every wall and a series of computer consoles on a large U-shaped table that ran around the walls except the one holding the door. Some showed various status displays, but most showed views of the containment chambers. Seven technicians in white lab coats had their attention focused on the screens.

“This is our main monitoring station,” Morgan said. “We have at least two cameras looking into every chamber, along with what few instruments we can insert without compromising containment integrity.” He turned to Naomi. “That’s going to limit much of the data you’ll be able to get from the larvae.”

“We don’t have much choice,” she replied, but her attention was riveted on the screens that showed the chamber with the adult harvester. It was an abomination, its upper half still in the form of the woman it had mimicked, while its lower half looked like a crushed cockroach. The thing was pulling itself along the floor with its arms, periodically glancing behind it. “What’s it doing?”

“It seems to be trying to avoid the larva it just spawned,” one of the technicians said. “As soon as the larva separated, the adult moved away from it, and the larva is clearly pursuing the adult.”

“Has the adult said anything?”

The technician shook his head. “Only an endless string of curses. We’ve tried asking it questions, but it’s completely ignored us. The only thing it’s concerned about is the larva.”

“Here’s the police report,” Renee pointed to a screen. “I thought you might find it interesting.”

Unwillingly taking her eyes away from the strange pursuit in the chamber, Naomi skimmed over the report from the airport security force at Kansas City.

Then she stopped. “Oh, my God.” She reread one of the lines of the report:

Officer Baginsky reported that suspect appeared to drop a small object soon after the suspect was struck by the shuttle bus. Baginsky saw the object roll under the bus, but was unable to find it again after suspect was restrained.

She leaned back, looking up at Renee. “If this is right, it reproduced around the time that it was hit by the bus.”
 

“What?” Renee leaned over Naomi’s shoulder and read the report again. “Oh, shit! I missed that. How could I have missed that?”

“Forget it. What’s important is that if this is right, it’s spawned two offspring in as many hours.”

“How many?” Morgan was staring at Naomi.

“Two offspring in roughly two hours.” Turning back to Renee, she said, “Get me a propagation model. And contact the airline. See if the cabin crew remembers this woman. It’s a long shot, but I’d like to know if they saw her going to the bathroom, and I’d like someone to look at the sewage tank on that plane. Carefully.” The things could feed on both the sewage in the tank and the tank itself if it wasn’t made of metal. The people on that plane were probably very lucky indeed. “Does anyone have an idea of how long it takes to fly from LAX to Kansas City?”

“Yeah,” Ferris said. He’d been silent since they’d arrived, but now wore a haunted look on his face. “I used to fly that run. Most of the flights have a stopover and the trip takes around eight hours.” He frowned. “So you think this thing was heading back to the bathroom every hour or so to dump one of its babies into the toilet?”

“I know we’re making some big assumptions right now, but yes, that’s right.”

He shook his head. “Then unless the little bastards ate through the tank wall and are crawling around inside the plane, they’ve already been pumped into the main sewage system at the airport.”

“Into the main sewers,” Boisson said. “Jesus.” She looked at Naomi. “You were thinking that’s how the ones in LA could have multiplied without being noticed, right?”

Naomi nodded. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Holy sh…” Ferris suddenly looked pained. “Ah, jeez. I can’t even say it.”

Renee, who’d been madly typing at one of the computer consoles, suddenly leaned back, her mouth dropping open in shock.
 

“What is it?” Naomi asked.

“It’s the population projection,” Renee said in a hoarse voice. “I’m really tired, and I hope this is all messed up, but I already did it three times.”

Everyone leaned over her shoulder to take a look.

“I think,” Morgan said slowly as he took in the horrifying numbers that Renee had come up with, “that I need to call Richards. The President is going to want to see this right away.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“There is a fighter sending out a warning to us,” Khatuna said nervously as Jack helped Mikhailov back into the copilot’s seat.

“You have not answered, have you?”

She turned to the Russian captain, scowling. “Of course not! You think me an idiot?”

“Never,” he said as he slipped on his headphones and switched over to the civilian guard channel that Khatuna had been monitoring.

“What are they saying?” Jack scanned the sky around them, looking for any other aircraft. For probably the first time since they’d left Zadonsk, there were none.

“They are ordering us to Andreapol. If we do not comply, they will shoot us down.” He frowned, then looked at Khatuna. “Did you hear that?”

With wide eyes, she nodded.

“What?” Jack was frustrated that he didn’t have headphones, and couldn’t understand what was being said even if he did.

“Another aircraft answered!” Mikhailov looked out his window, trying to see beyond the bare trees that reached for them as Khatuna guided the old biplane north. “The fighter is after someone else!” He listened a moment more. “Whoever they are pursuing is refusing to turn. The fighter warned them again.”

“
Bozhe moi!
Look!” Khatuna pointed out her side to the left.
 

Jack leaned down so he could see where she was pointing. Off in the distance, barely visible, he saw a thin white streak arrow down from high in the sky. Just when he was sure it was going to hit the ground, a tiny orange and black fireball appeared.
 

Khatuna ripped her headphones off, and Jack heard the voice of the pilot of the plane that had been attacked, screaming.
 

The fireball gave birth to a fuzzy trail of smoke that plummeted earthward. The scream suddenly ended.

* * *

The old Antonov droned north for what seemed like forever. As each barrel ran dry, Jack shifted the fuel hose to a full one. Then he went through the onerous task of opening the cargo door and kicking out the empty barrel. The first few times he’d done that, he’d felt an odd sense of wrongness, like he was dumping a huge pile of trash along an interstate at home. You just didn’t toss fuel drums out of airplanes. But here he was, doing just that.

After the third or fourth, he stopped caring. He and the others were thirsty and hungry. He just wanted the flight to be over. He wanted to be in Norway and find out what the hell was happening with Naomi.

By the time they reached Lake Ilmen and Khatuna turned the plane due north, they had heard intercepts of two other aircraft. One had quickly given in and diverted to the airbase the fighter had ordered them to. The other had refused. Fortunately, it had been too far away for Mikhailov and Khatuna to hear the pilot of the doomed plane when the missile hit.

Jack had tried to convince himself that maybe it had been a harvester. It was a convenient thought that he clung to.

The damnable thing was that the Russians pursuing them weren’t the enemy. He couldn’t hate or despise them. They were simply afraid and were leaping to conclusions, looking for someone to blame for the horror that had befallen them.
 

He just wished he could have spoken to Naomi, both to know that she was all right, and to find out if what he knew was really as important as Mikhailov believed. Mikhailov, perhaps even Khatuna, might be willing to sacrifice their lives to get Jack out of Russia. Jack just wished he knew if such a sacrifice would be worth it, or if they were going through all this for nothing. What if the FSB had just wanted to question him, and would then have been happy to turn him over to the American Embassy? But both Mikhailov and Khatuna had dismissed the idea. If the FSB got their hands on him, he wouldn’t be seeing daylight for quite some time. And every minute he spent in custody was another minute the harvesters could solidify their hold on the world.
 

No. What they were doing was necessary. The risks they were taking were worth it. They had to be.

Below them, the endless expanse of northern Russia swept by, uncomfortably close. It seemed to Jack that as they burned off the heavy barrels of fuel, Khatuna flew lower and lower. Three times he’d heard the thump of frozen tree limbs hitting either the landing gear or the lower wings, but he said nothing. He was terrified of crashing, but he knew that her skill at low-level flying was the only thing that had kept them all alive.
 

Khatuna pointed ahead. “Lake Ladoga.”
 

Looking out, Jack watched as the plane left land behind and flew over a vast sheet of ice that stretched ahead of them and to both sides as far as he could see.

“A man named Alexander Nevsky fought a famous battle here against the Teutonic Knights in the thirteenth century,” Mikhailov said. “The Battle of the Ice.”

Jack glanced at him. “Who won?”
 

With a smile, Mikhailov said, “Nevsky and the Russians, of course. The Teutonic Knights were wearing heavy armor. They fell through the ice and drowned.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

The An-2 droned northward across the lake for a full hour before reaching the other side, and Jack was relieved when they were again over land. Frozen and inhospitable as it might be, he would rather take his chances in the forests of northern Russia than the icebound wasteland of Lake Ladoga.

Khatuna turned to him. “Jack, check fuel.”

“Right.” Stepping into the cargo area, Jack rapped the side of the single remaining fuel barrel with his knuckles, trying to determine how much was left. It was nearly empty.
 

He undid the strap holding the barrel in place, then leaned it over partway so the fuel would gather in the bottom corner. He guided the hose to the auxiliary pump into the remaining bit of fuel, waiting for it to run dry.

He called up to Khatuna. “That’s it!”
 

In the cockpit, Khatuna turned off the pump. Now all the plane had left was the fuel in its main tanks. While it was technically a full load, they still had more than eight hundred kilometers to go.

Jack pulled out the hose, then wheeled the barrel aft. Bracing himself against the bitter cold, he opened the door, then kicked the barrel out. He watched to make sure it cleared the tail before he slammed the door shut.
 

“Christ, it’s cold out there,” he muttered as he made his way forward again.

As they continued on, the earth below seemed to be made of nothing more than snow-covered forests and irregularly shaped lakes covered in ice. Had this been the first time he had ever set eyes on the world, he would never have known that humans existed.

“That does not look so good,” Mikhailov said.
 

Ahead of them, dark gray clouds began to fill the horizon.

* * *

Starshiy praporshchik
Pavel Ignatiev stared thoughtfully at his radar console. He was the senior operator on-board a Beriev A-50M “Mainstay” airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft orbiting over the Kola Peninsula in northern Russia near the border with Norway and Finland. He was tasked with finding an aircraft bearing a fugitive who was attempting to reach Norway. For the last four hours, he and his fellow crewmen had been watching for any aircraft that matched the profile of the plane they were looking for, an antiquated An-2.

He knew that four planes had been intercepted to the south of their patrol area by MiG-29s that had been assigned to the hunt, but the powers that be had not been content to let the matter go. The MiGs, after having finished their search grid to the north, had been allowed to return to base. Now only the Mainstays like his and their assigned fighters maintained the vigil against the renegade aircraft.