The Doomsday Key (44 page)

Only eight men left.

She held the phone to her ear, waiting for instructions. She had dialed the number he had left. It rang and rang. Finally, the line was picked up. “I’ve been briefed,” the man said.

“Yes, sir.” Krista struggled to hear any indication of the man’s mood, but his words were calm and precise, unhurried.

“With the turn of events, we’re radically altering our objectives for this mission. With Karlsen now in Sigma’s hands, the decision is to abort all operations in Norway.”

“And what about in the UK?”

“We took a chance on co-opting those outside resources to assist us in finding the key. After the current turn of events, we no longer have that luxury. We must gather our chips and leave the table for now.”

“Sir?”

“The article stolen by Father Giovanni. Secure it.” “And the others?”

“Kill them all.”

“But what about our—?”

“All
have been deemed a liability, Ms. Magnussen. Make sure the same isn’t said about you.”

Krista’s throat tightened into a hard knot.

“You have your orders.”

FOURTH

THE DARK MADONNA

27
October 14, 5:18 A.M.
Airborne over the Norwegian Sea

Painter watched the Svalbard Archipelago vanish behind them as the private jet sailed south over the Arctic Sea. They’d lost half a day evacuating the group trapped in the seed vault. Afterward, it took some fancy footwork by Kat in Washington to get them off the island before the media storm struck.

The dramatic bombing had drawn the world’s eye. Already a flurry of international news crews and NATO investigators were converging on the tiny archipelago. The remoteness of the place and the fierce storm had allowed Painter just enough time to slip away.

But he didn’t come alone.

Monk and Creed were sprawled over the cabin’s couch. Senator Gorman sat dead-eyed in one of the chairs. Their final passenger sat across from Painter.

Ivar Karlsen accompanied them voluntarily. He could have made it difficult, if not impossible, to extract him from Norwegian territory. But the man had an odd sense of honor. Even now he sat straight in the chair, staring out the window as the islands disappeared. It was clear that he most likely had been the primary target of the bombing at Svalbard, that his former ally had turned into his enemy.

He also knew to whom he owed his life and respected that debt.

Painter meant to take full advantage of that cooperation.

The small jet lurched in the unstable air, thickening the tension in the
cabin. They were headed to London. Neither Painter nor Kat had heard from Gray’s team. He wanted to be on the ground in England as the search continued in the Lake District. Depending on what was found, they would refuel and continue to Washington.

But during this five-hour flight, Painter needed to wring this man dry of all he knew. Kat was investigating the sites of the seed-production fields that had been harvested throughout the Midwest. The news was grim: she’d already found multiple cases of unexplained deaths near fifteen test farms. A postmortem on one body had revealed an unknown fungal agent. And there were sixty-three more test fields still to check.

Karlsen spoke, sensing Painter’s attention. “I only wanted to save the world.”

Senator Gorman stirred, his eyes sparking with anger, but Painter gave the senator a hard glance. This was
his
interview.

Staring out the window, Karlsen failed to note the silent communication. “People talk about the population bomb, but they won’t admit it’s already gone off. The world population is racing toward a critical mass, where population outstrips food supplies. We are only a heartbeat away from global famine, war, and chaos. The food riots in Haiti, Indonesia, Africa, they’re just the beginning.”

Karlsen turned from the window to face Painter. “But that doesn’t mean it’s too late. If enough like-minded and determined people coordinated their efforts, something could be done.”

“And you found those people in the Club of Rome,” Painter said.

Karlsen’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “That’s right. The club keeps raising the alarm, but it falls on deaf ears. More trendy crises consume media attention. Global warming, oil supplies, the rain forests. The list grows. But the root of all of the problems is the same: too many people packed into too little space. Yet no one addresses that problem directly. What do you Americans call it? Politically incorrect, yes? It’s untouchable, tangled in religion, politics, race, and economics.
Be fruitful and multiply,
says the Bible. No one dares speak otherwise. To address it is political suicide. Offer solutions and they accuse you of eugenics. Someone has to take
a stand, to make the hard choices—and not just with words but with concrete actions.”

“And that would be you,” Painter said, to keep him talking.

“Don’t take that tone. I know where this all ended. But that’s not where it started. I only sought to put the brakes on population growth, to gradually decrease the human biomass on this planet, to make sure we didn’t hit that crisis point at full speed. In the Club of Rome, I found the global resources I needed. A vast reservoir of innovation, cutting-edge technologies, and political power. So I began steering certain projects toward my goals, gathering like-minded people.”

Karlsen looked at the senator, then away again.

Despite Painter’s warning, Gorman spoke up. “You
used
me to spread your diseased seed.”

Karlsen glanced down to his hands folded in his lap, but when he glanced up, he remained unabashed. “That came later. A mistake. I know that now. But I sought you out because of your advocacy for biofuels, for turning crops like corn and sugarcane into fuel. It was simple enough to support such a seemingly good cause, a renewable energy source that freed us from oil dependency. But it also served my goal.”

“Which was what?”

“To strangle the world’s food supply.” Karlsen stared at Painter with no apology. “Control food, you control people.”

Painter remembered overhearing Karlsen paraphrase a line from Henry Kissinger.
Control oil and you control nations, but control food and you control all the people of the world.

So that was Karlsen’s goal. Strangle the food to strangle the growth of the human population. If done skillfully enough, it might even work.

“How did supporting biofuels help you control the world’s food supply?” Painter could guess the answer, but he wanted to hear it from this man.

“The world’s best croplands are overworked, forcing farmers to turn to marginal lands. They make more money growing crops for biofuels than for food. More and more good farmland is being diverted to grow
fuel, not food. And it’s horribly inefficient. The amount of corn needed to produce enough ethanol to fill one SUV tank could feed a starving person for a year. So of course, I supported biofuels.”

“Not for energy independence …”

Karlsen nodded. “But as
one
means of strangling the food supply.”

Senator Gorman looked aghast, knowing the role he had played.

But Painter noted the odd bit of emphasis. “What do you mean by
one means
?”

“That was just one project. I had others.”

5:31 A.M.

Monk had been following the conversation with growing alarm.

“Let me guess,” he said. “Something to do with bees.”

He pictured the giant hives hidden under the research facility.

Karlsen glanced over at Monk. “Yes. Viatus researched Colony Collapse Disorder. It’s a global crisis that I’m sure you’re aware of. In Europe and the United States, over one-third of all honeybees have vanished, abandoning colonies and never returning. Some areas have lost over eighty percent of their bees.”

“And bees pollinate fruit trees,” Monk said, beginning to understand.

“Not just fruit trees,” Creed interjected, next to him on the sofa. “Nuts, avocados, cucumbers, soybeans, squash. In fact, one-third of all food grown in the United States requires pollination. Lose the bees, you lose much more than just fruit.”

Monk understood Karlsen’s interest in Colony Collapse Disorder. Control the bees, and you control another large segment of the food supply.

“Are you saying you caused the bees to die off?”

“No. But I know what did, and that’s what Viatus wanted to exploit.”

“Wait a second.” Monk scooted closer. “You say you
know
what killed the bees?”

“It’s no great mystery, Mr. Kokkalis. The media sensationalize the theories—mites, global warming, air pollution, even aliens. But it’s much
simpler—and proved. Only the media chooses to ignore it in favor of sensation.”

“So what caused it?”

“An insecticide called imidacloprid, or IMD.”

Monk remembered the codes stamped on the giant hives. They’d all had those same three letters: IMD.

“Many studies have already incriminated the chemical as the cause, along with an analog called fipronil. In 2005 France banned both chemicals, and over the course of the next years, their bees returned while the rest of the world’s hives continued to collapse.” Karlsen glanced around the cabin. “But did any of you hear about that?”

No one had.

“It’s not newsworthy enough,” Karlsen explained. “Imidacloprid, fipronil. Not as colorful as aliens. The media still hasn’t reported on the success in France. Which is fine by me. IMD has its uses.”

Monk frowned. “Less bees, less food.”

“Eventually even the media will wise up, so Viatus continued its own research into the compounds—to incorporate IMD into our corn.”

“Just like Monsanto engineered its herbicide Roundup into its GM seeds,” Creed added.

“If IMD is ever banned,” Monk realized, “you’ll still be able to control the bee populations.”

Karlsen nodded. “And in turn, the food supply.”

Monk sat back. The man was a monster—but a brilliant one.

5:40 A.M.

Painter needed to fill in more blanks. He went at Karlsen from another direction. “But Viatus was doing more than just engineering insecticides into its crops.”

“Like I said, we had many projects.”

“Then tell me about the peat mummies—the fungus found in those bodies.”

Karlsen’s steady gaze grew less sure. “As a biotech company, we test
thousands of new chemicals every year, drawn from the four corners of the world. But this ancient fungus …” His voice took on an edge of wonder. “It was amazing. Its chemical nature and genetic structure suited my goals perfectly.”

Painter let the man talk to see what he’d reveal on his own. “From the desiccated bodies, we harvested fungal spores that were still viable.”

“After so long?” Monk asked.

Karlsen shrugged. “The mummies were only a thousand years old. In Israel, botanists grew a date palm from a seed that was over
two
thousand years old. And peat was a perfect preservative. So yes, we were able to grow the spores, to learn more about the fungus. Examination of the remains also showed
how
the fungus got into the bodies to begin with.”

“How was that?”

“It was ingested. Our forensic pathologist determined that the mummified people had starved to death, yet their bellies were full of rye, barley, and wheat. The fungus was in all of it. It’s a very aggressive crop mold, like ergot in cereal crops. The fungus is capable of infecting any vegetation. All for one purpose.”

“What’s that?”

“To starve any animal that eats the infected plant.” Karlsen acknowledged the shocked looks on all their faces. “Crops infected by the fungus turn indigestible. Additionally, the fungus will invade the animal’s gut, further reducing food absorption. It’s the perfect killing machine. It starves the host to death with the very stuff that is meant to sustain it.”

“So you eat and eat, yet still starve to death.” Painter shook his head. “What advantage is that to the fungus?”

Monk answered. “Fungi are one of the main reasons dead things decompose. Dead trees, dead bodies. Doesn’t matter. By killing the host, the fungus was creating its own fertilizer, its own growth medium.”

Painter pictured the mushrooms growing in the bellies of the mummies. But he also remembered Monk’s description of the discovery in the lab, of the sporulating pods that matured out of those same mushrooms.
That was how it spread, casting out airborne spores that would infect more fields and start the whole process over again.

Karlsen drew back his attention. “The goal of our research was only to extract the chemical that made those grains indigestible. If we could engineer it into the corn, we’d be able to decrease its digestibility. With less digestible corn, you’d have to eat more to have the same caloric benefit.”

“So once again,” Painter said, “you’d be restricting the food supply.”

“And in a way that gave us
total
control. By manipulating this gene, we could turn a grain’s digestibility up or down like twisting a dial. That’s all we intended. And it’s not as if we were the
first
to seek such genetic control.”

Painter focused on those last words. “What do you mean?”

“In 2001 a biotech company called Epicyte announced they’d developed a corn seed engineered with a contraceptive agent. Consumption of the seed lessened fertility. It was proposed as a solution to the overpopulation problem. All this blatant announcement got them was a huge amount of bad press, and the corn seed vanished. As I said, addressing this issue openly only welcomes retribution. It has to be kept underground, out of the public eye. That was the lesson. And I learned it.”

And that was the point where everything went wrong.
Painter kept his voice neutral. “But your new GM corn wasn’t stable.”

Karlsen gave a slight shake of his head. “The fungus proved more adept than we imagined. This organism has evolved alongside its host plants over eons. We thought we were only engineering one aspect of the fungus—its effect on digestibility—but it mutated in successive generations and returned to full potency. It regained its ability to kill, to germinate again into its mushroom form. But worst of all, it regained its ability to
spread.”