Frozen Fire (47 page)

Without even thinking about it, she took another hit from the neatly rolled spliff in her hand and held the hot smoke in her lungs.

Hell of a way to go, with half your organs missing and the other half slowly falling to shit
.

She closed her eyes and exhaled, then breathed in the easy, peaceful night scents that surrounded her. Night had always been her time, and it was still her best time, even now. Maybe especially now. The nature of her days had changed, though. They were no longer just the means to another night. She had to endure the daylight hours now, and they had their own identity: harsh, bright, hot, too full of promise, too reminiscent of what she was going to lose all too soon. Miley preferred the darkness, the magic, bone-deep island darkness that wrapped itself around her like a wizard’s cloak and made reality reinvent itself. It’s why she spent so much time out here on her widow’s walk with nothing but the sea in front of her. At night she had soft air, soft light, and, except for when the tourists arrived, the nights were usually full of soft sounds.

And her beach. She loved her hidden slice of beach for many reasons, but one of the best was its entertainment value. Her beach was a perennial favorite for unsuspecting tourists. Couples, always couples, would park their cars near the dunes and jump and skid down the rocks or, if the tides were right, walk around the broken old seawall that jutted out from the sand. Thinking they were unseen, they would usually get right to it. No messing around, just togs off and—
Action!

After years of it, most of the action was pretty fucking boring—
pretty boring fucking
, she thought with a grin—but that didn’t stop her from watching. Hell, if they wanted privacy, they should pay for a motel.

She didn’t think of her behavior as voyeuristic; it just was what it was. Life went on, and she had a seat in the bleachers.

She heard the door to the widow’s walk open.

“Miley?”

Her new nurse’s voice was too gentle, too sweet, but what else could she expect from a blond, blue-eyed angel? Miley preferred the last nurse, Barbara. She’d been big, strong, and loud, strident almost. Barbara had been compassionate but unsympathetic, and had made Miley laugh too hard. But the big house tucked away on a quiet edge of the Keys hadn’t been to her liking. Barbara needed people around her, and all the dirt and noise that came with them, so she’d headed back to Detroit. The aptly named Angela had taken her place just this week and now Miley had to put up with the tender touch of an angel. Obviously, she was nearing the end or the universe would never play such a cruel joke on her.

“Yes?” Miley rasped.

“I just wanted to check on you. Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

Angela wouldn’t come into the small space unless Miley asked her to. It wasn’t the three-story open height that bothered her, it was the couples on the beach. Angela had made it demurely clear that she thought watching them was perverted, even if it was from a block away.

Miley shifted to look at the nurse’s young, unlined face. “I’m fine. But I think I’ll go downstairs, since you’re here. That way I won’t have to call you in a few minutes.”

“I don’t mind coming back for you.”

“I know. But I’ll be nice to you for a change.”

She carefully tamped out her joint until it wasn’t glowing any longer, gently slid the nasal tubes back onto the perpetually sore skin of her septum and turned on the small flow of oxygen, then stood up. Grabbing the frame of her walker, Miley felt its legs meet the ground sturdily as she began to put her weight on it. Angela’s arms were around her then, lifting, guiding. When Miley was on her feet and steady, she lingered for a minute, trying to detect a last hint of the night’s scents past the faintly antiseptic odor of her manufactured oxygen.

Vague human commotion down on the beach brought forth a delicate sound of disapproval from Angela, and Miley glanced at her with a grin. Then other muffled noises, strange and ominous, pulled the women’s attention from each other.

“What is that?” Angela asked suddenly as a soft shape plummeted to the ground from the top of a tree a few yards away. “A bird?”

“I’ve never seen one fall out of a tree,” Miley replied dryly. “Maybe it
ate some pot seeds I left lying around this afternoon. It wouldn’t be the first stoned seagull in the Keys.”

“One fell over there, too.” Angela was pointing toward the other end of the widow’s walk and, as Miley turned to look at her, a look of surprised panic filled the nurse’s face.

“I . . . I can’t breathe.” She let go of Miley and sucked in a huge lungful of air, her hands wrapping around the base of her throat. Then she bent from the waist and dropped to the floor, writhing and making choking, squealing sounds as Miley watched the young woman’s eyes roll back in her head, their whites glowing horrifically in the shadows of the night.

“Angela,” Miley cried and dropped to her knees, smoothing back the soft blond hair from the distorted, darkening face. The oxygen tank was too heavy and the tubes had little give, so Miley reached up and pulled them out of her nose, seconds later realizing they were the only reason she was still alive.

As she breathed in, her lungs filled with a heavy, burning emptiness. Groping weakly for the tubes that lay near to her on the floor, she felt the suffocating pressure of death swelling inside her head, pushing on her eyes, and then she fell forward. She felt the cool stream of air on her weakening fingers as her hand curled around the thin tubes—

8:45
P.M
., Sunday, October 26, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.

When Tom walked into to Lucy’s office after a quick knock on the door, she looked up from her computer screen, then leaned back in her chair. She was exhausted. It showed on her face, in her eyes, in the way she held herself.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I was just thinking of a term I used to use a lot. I haven’t used it lately, but it just came to mind. Can’t imagine why.”

“You came over here to tell me that?”

“I thought you’d enjoy it.”

She put down the pen she held in her hand and folded her arms across her chest. “Let me guess. Is it FUBAR?”

“Hell, no. I mean, it fits—this situation
is
fucked up beyond all recognition—but I use that one all the time. Do you remember what BOHICA means?”

She didn’t crack a smile, didn’t even blink. “Bend over, here it comes again.”

He acknowledged her memory with a nod. “Very good. It’s an expression that might come in handy in the next few hours or days,” he replied, seating himself in one of the chairs in front of her desk. “The winds near Taino are holding steady. The plume is maintaining a fast and firm course toward Miami.”

“Is there any good news?”

“Yes, actually. A small system from the Gulf brought some rain to parts of Miami tonight, so that will help keep things under control.”

“So if we cloud-seed—”

Tom shook his head. “Briscoe doesn’t think that will do much.”

“So we’re screwed,” she said dryly.

“I’ve come around to the idea of the microbes.”

“Somehow, I knew you would.” She stifled a yawn. “Any more reports of deaths?”

“The coast guard has found a few more boats adrift off the Keys. Some of the bodies showed signs of being cyanotic, but they’d also been roasting in the sun for several hours. We probably won’t know any more for a while. Anyone looking for dead people would be dead soon themselves, right? Unless the wind changes direction.” He sighed. “God, I just love election years in South Florida.”

Lucy stood up abruptly, as if he’d poked her with a lit match. “I’m not in the mood for your black humor, so just shut the fuck up if you can’t say anything constructive.”

For the first time in a long time, Tom felt undisguised shock course through him and he rose to his feet, concerned more at her actions than her words. “I’m sorry. What’s wrong?”

“What the hell is going
right
?” she snapped.

“Lucy.” It came out so softly, he barely realized he’d said it.

She brushed it away and took a harsh breath. “I have family in Miami, okay? They can’t be moved,” she said tightly. “Subject closed. Have any of those bomb doctors come up with any ideas?”

Knowing she would resent and likely never forgive any show of sympathy, he simply shook his head. “They’re still in a huddle with Briscoe.”

“Well, I need some answers. Fast.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. Her color was high and her body was so tense she was practically throwing off sparks. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going back to the president. We need gas masks and we need evacuations.”

“It might already be too late. Even if it isn’t, he’ll never go for it.”

“The hell he won’t—”

Tom leaned across the desk and grasped her wrist, jerking her toward him and forcing her to meet his eyes. “Lucy, think about it.
There’s nowhere for anyone to go
.”

9:50
P.M
., Sunday, October 26, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.

“Dr. Briscoe, Director Denton said you should see this.”

Sam looked up to see a young woman standing at his elbow with a manila folder in her hands. He’d been so absorbed by the chaos on his screen that he hadn’t even heard her come in.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the folder as he sat back and rubbed his burning eyes. The hours spent in the glare of the computer screen were taking their toll. Taking a breath to clear his head, he glanced down at the folder. The top was covered with thick blue stripes, with the words
TOP SECRET
stamped in large letters in the center.

Oh, hell. What now?

He flipped open the folder and began reading an e-mail sent from some department in NOAA that he’d never even heard of. Seconds later he jumped to his feet, cursing, as a bad excitement flooded his brain.

“What is it?” Marty asked, already on his way to Sam’s side.

“God damn son of a bitch,” Sam roared, shoving the paper at Marty, who took it and scanned it as quickly as Sam had.

Sam barely had time to shove a hand through his hair and tug on the roots before Marty raised his eyes, wide with disbelief, to Sam’s face.

“This has to be wrong, Sam. It has to be,” he said quietly.

“No, Marty,” Sam said, his voice full of loathing at the results on the paper, at Dennis Cavendish. “Between the satellites doin’ gas spectrometry and the devices they’ve been droppin’ into the plumes for the last few hours, I gotta believe this.”

“Sam, that methane can’t be converting to phyrruluxine. It . . . it can’t. It’s got to be—”

Sam looked at his oldest friend, who seemed to have aged a lot in the last few hours. Even the dancing hula girls on his shirt were starting to sag. “Forget ‘can’t,’ Marty. It
is
, and all bets are off. What’s comin’ out of the water is adulterated methane. What’s blowin’ ashore is phyrruluxine. You do the math.”

Marty stared at him. “The dennisium.”

Sam shook his head. “Whatever is in that dennisium is causing one helluva transformation.”

Both men looked up as Victoria Clark and Lucy Denton entered the room. Victoria walked directly to Sam, who was trying to ignore the clawing nausea in his stomach. What fresh Hell was she bringing him?

“The woman our people picked up from the clipper is Cynthia Davison,” she said quietly, searching his eyes.

Thank God
. Sam’s legs nearly went out from under him as relief and emotion threatened to choke him.

“Excuse me,” he muttered as he sank into a chair. He buried his face in his hands, his breath hard and choppy as it fought its way past the aching lump that had suddenly formed in his throat.

A light hand came to rest on his shoulder. “I’m so glad for you, Sam. She’s got a dislocated shoulder and a broken wrist, and is pretty bruised and shaken up, but she’s otherwise okay. We’ll get her back to you soon,” Victoria said softly.

Sam nodded, then stood up, wiping his hands across his wet face. “Thank you, Ms. Clark. Thank you.” Taking a deep breath, he shook his head and looked around the room. “Now back to our regularly scheduled programmin’. Ms. Denton, we got trouble. There’s phyrruluxine in the plume.”

She frowned. “What is that?”

“It’s a highly toxic, highly flammable gas. It’s not something that methane typically converts to. Make that n
ever
converts to. Not without help.” Sam shook his head. “Phyrruluxine is bad, Ms. Denton. Worse than methane. It’s even worse than hydrogen sulfide, but stinks just as bad. Seriously nasty stuff. You don’t want it blowin’ around,” he said.

“Do we have a solution?” she asked quietly.

His heart rate still coming down, Sam shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Marty found some researchers with live methanotrophic colonies. Some have agreed to begin building the colonies and to give them to us.”

“You don’t sound pleased.”

“I’ve told you before, this is dangerous, Ms. Denton. We’ll be gettin’ all different bugs, and we’ll be sendin’ ’em into an unknown and unpredictable environment.” Sam shrugged as he watched Lucy’s intelligent, expressionless face. “Microbes can mutate just as fast as their environments do. We’ve gotten an idea of some of what was in that dennisium, but not its original molecular structure, which can make a difference. What we do
know is that the interaction between methane and dennisium is supposed to take place under extreme pressure at low temperatures, and the interaction is supposed to be with methane
hydrate
, not methane
gas
. So that’s three parameters that have changed already. The new mixture has been exposed to air, sunlight, heat, and surface pressure for about twelve hours, and bad things are happenin’. The steady and, frankly, ma’am, alarmin’ production of phyrruluxine may be just the beginnin’. At this point, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say anything is possible, includin’ some sort of chain reaction.”