The Swarm (109 page)

He'd found the door.

It was incredibly well concealed. He would never have spotted it if he
hadn't been looking so determinedly. Even when he and Weaver had searched for it earlier, they'd fallen for the artful disguise. He still couldn't make out the contours, just an apparently random collection of details that in combination hid a door.

Weaver!

Would she have got to Rubin? Should he call her off, in line with what he'd said to Li?

Breathing heavily, he paced up and down the empty deck, unsure what to do. Suddenly the ship took on the aspect of a prison. Even the gloomy hangar with its yellow lights seemed oppressive.

He had to think.

Striding towards the starboard side of the vessel, he stepped on to the elevator. Gusts of wind tugged at his clothes and hair. The swell was still rising. Within seconds his face was covered with spray. He walked to the edge and gazed down at the turbulent lunar landscape of the Greenland Sea.

What was he to do?

Control Room

Li was standing in front of the monitors. She watched as Johanson inspected the bulkhead and strode across the hangar deck in frustration.

‘What was all that crap about an agreement?' growled Vanderbilt. ‘You don't really think he'll keep his mouth shut until tonight?'

‘It wouldn't surprise me,' said Li.

‘And what if he doesn't?'

Johanson disappeared out of the hangar bay on to the elevator. Li turned ‘You should know better than to ask. You're going to solve the problem, Jack. Right away.'

‘Hang on a minute,' Peak objected. ‘That's not what we'd agreed.'

‘How do you mean,
solve?
' Vanderbilt asked warily.

‘Solve,' said Li. ‘I mean
solve
. A storm's getting up out there. You'd think people would know better than to wander outside. A gust of wind…'

‘No,' said Peak. ‘No one said anything about—'

‘That's enough, Sal.'

‘Jude, we could lock him up for a few hours. That's all we need.'

Li didn't bother to acknowledge him. ‘Do your job, Jack,' she said to Vanderbilt. ‘And make sure you do it
personally
.'

Vanderbilt grinned. ‘With pleasure, baby.'

Lab

Oliviera's long face was now even longer. She stared at Weaver, then at Rubin.

‘Well?' said Weaver.

Rubin blanched. ‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Mick, listen to me.' Weaver moved between him and the table and laid an arm across his shoulders in a gesture that seemed almost friendly. ‘I'm not a great talker. I like short, snappy conversations. So why don't we start again? This time, don't wind me up with excuses. There's a lab directly above us. You can get there from the hangar deck. Sure, the door's well camouflaged, but Sigur saw you going in and out. And you socked him one. Isn't that right?'

‘I might have guessed.' Oliviera looked at Rubin contemptuously.

The biologist tried to free himself from Weaver's grip, and failed. ‘I've never heard such utter—No! Stop!'

Weaver's free hand was wielding a scalpel. She pressed the tip against his artery. Rubin flinched. She pushed the blade a little further into his skin and tightened her grip. The biologist was locked in her embrace. ‘Are you out of your mind?' he croaked. ‘What right do you have to—'

‘Mick, I'm not squeamish. And I'm stronger than you'd think. When I was little, I cuddled a cat and accidentally crushed it. Isn't that awful? I only wanted to stroke it, and then, crunch…So, you'd do well to think over carefully what you're about to tell me…'

Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt had no real desire to kill Johanson, but neither was he interested in keeping him alive. In a funny way he liked the guy, but that was beside the point: he'd been given the assignment, and his instructions were clear. Johanson wouldn't pose a security risk for much longer.

Floyd Anderson accompanied him. Like most of the men on the
Independence
, the first officer was there to serve a dual role. His training was with the navy, true, but his loyalties lay with the CIA. Almost everyone on board, with the exception of Buchanan and a few crew men, was on the CIA's books. Anderson had already taken part in covert operations in Pakistan and the Gulf. He was a good agent.

And a killer.

Vanderbilt pondered the turn of events. He'd maintained his belief that they were fighting terrorists until the bitter end, but now he had to concede that Johanson had been right all along. It seemed a shame to kill him, particularly as it was Li's idea. Vanderbilt couldn't stand that blue-eyed witch. Li was paranoid, conniving and twisted. He hated her, and yet he couldn't fault the perfidious logic of her ruthlessness. She might be crazy, but she was right. And she was right about this.

Suddenly he thought of how he'd warned Johanson about Li in Nanaimo.

She's nuts
. Capisce?

Clearly Johanson hadn't understood.

No one understood at first. They didn't get what was wrong with Li: her tendency to see conspiracies everywhere and her obsessive ambition meant that she overreacted. She lied, deceived and was willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to achieve her goals. That was the real Judith Li. She was the President's darling, and even he didn't see her for who she really was. The most powerful man in the world had no idea who he was fostering.

We should all watch out, thought Vanderbilt. Unless someone grabs a gun and solves the problem - when the time comes.

They hurried along the passageways. In loitering on the external platform, Johanson was doing them a big favour. How had that mad bitch put it? A gust of wind…

Control Room

Vanderbilt was barely out of the room when Li was summoned to one of the consoles. The man at the desk pointed to the monitor. ‘Looks like funny business in the lab,' he said.

Li watched the action on the screen. Weaver, Oliviera and Rubin were
standing in a huddle. Weaver had an arm round Rubin's shoulders and was pressing him to her chest. Since when had those two been such good friends?

‘More sound,' said Li.

They heard Weaver talking. Her voice was faint, but clear. She was interrogating Rubin about the hidden lab. On closer inspection, Rubin's eyes were filled with fear, and Weaver was holding something that glinted in the light. It was uncomfortably close to Rubin's throat.

Li had seen and heard enough. ‘Sal, I need you and three men with machine guns - at the double. We're going in.'

‘What do you intend to do?' asked Peak.

‘Restore order.' She turned away from the screen and went to the door. ‘That question just cost us two seconds. Waste any more time, Sal, and I'll shoot you myself. Get your men. You've got one minute. Then we're going to straighten out a thing or two with Weaver. The closed season for scientists is over.'

Lab

‘You worthless bastard,' said Oliviera. ‘You knocked Sigur unconscious. What the hell were you thinking?'

There was blind panic in Rubin's eyes. He scanned the ceiling.

‘That's not true, I—'

‘Don't bother looking for cameras, Mick,' Weaver said softly. ‘You'll be dead before anyone gets here.'

Rubin started to shake.

‘I'm going to ask you again, Mick,
what's going on up there?
'

‘We've developed a toxin,' he stuttered.

‘A toxin?' echoed Oliviera.

‘We used your work, Sue. I mean, yours and Sigur's, of course. Once you'd worked out the formula for the pheromone, there was nothing to stop us manufacturing as much of it as we liked and…Well, we coupled it to a radioactive isotope.'

‘You did what?'

‘We contaminated the pheromone - the yrr-cells can't tell the difference. We ran some trials and—'

‘Do you mean you've got a deep-sea chamber up there too?'

‘Only a small one…Karen, please. Put the knife away. It's futile. They can hear and see everything—'

‘Stick to the point,' said Weaver. ‘And then what?'

‘Well, the pheromone kills defective yrr-cells. They die because they don't have special receptors - it's just like Sue said. Once it was obvious that programmed cell death is part of yrr-biochemistry, we had to find a way of inducing it in healthy yrr as well.'

‘Via the pheromone?'

‘It's the only way. We can't mess with the DNA directly because we haven't fully decoded the genome, and that would take years. We coupled the scent to a radioactive isotope that the yrr can't detect.'

‘And what does it do?'

‘It shuts down the special receptor. It means the pheromone is deadly. It can kill healthy cells too.'

‘Why didn't you tell us?' said Oliviera. ‘None of us actually likes these creatures. We could have come up with a solution together.'

‘Li's got her own plans,' squawked Rubin.

‘But it won't work.'

‘It has worked. We trialled it.'

‘It's madness, Mick. You don't know what you're unleashing. What if you wipe out the yrr? They control seventy per cent of our planet. They're the force behind a sophisticated form of biotechnology that's been around since the year dot. They live in other creatures too. I mean, for all we know, they could be present in every single marine organism. And what if they're breaking down methane or carbon dioxide? God knows what will happen to the planet if you destroy them.'

‘But why should it kill
all
of them?' asked Weaver. ‘Doesn't the toxin just kill individual cells? Or collectives?'

‘No, it starts a chain reaction.' Rubin was wheezing now. ‘Programmed cell death. As soon as they start to aggregate, they all destroy themselves. Once the pheromone docks on to them, it's too late. There's nothing they can do to stop it. We're recoding the yrr. It's like a deadly virus. They all infect each other.'

Oliviera grabbed Rubin by the collar. ‘You've got to stop these trials,' she said urgently. ‘You can't go down that route. For God's sake, Mick,
don't you see that they're the ones in charge? It's their planet. They
are
the planet. They're a superorganism. Thanks to them, the oceans are intelligent. You've got no idea what you're doing.'

‘And if we don't use the toxin?' Rubin gave a croaky laugh. ‘Don't give me all that self-righteous crap about ecosystems. We're going to die, that's what. Do you think we should wait for the next tsunami? I suppose there's always the methane build-up or the ice age to look forward to.'

‘We haven't been here a week yet, and we've already made contact,' said Weaver. ‘Why can't we keep trying for an agreement?'

‘It's too late,' rasped Rubin.

Weaver's eyes darted over the ceiling and walls. She didn't know how much time she had left before Li or Peak showed up. Maybe Vanderbilt would come running. It couldn't be long. ‘What do you mean, too late?'

‘It's too late!' screamed Rubin. ‘We're releasing the toxin in less than two hours.'

‘You're crazy,' Oliviera whispered.

‘Mick,' Weaver said, ‘I need you to tell me exactly how you're going to do it. Otherwise my hand might slip.'

‘I'm not authorised—'

‘I mean it.'

Rubin was trembling all over. ‘We're using two torpedoes on Deepflight 3. We've packed the radioactive pheromone into projectiles.'

‘Are they on the sub already?'

‘No, it's my job to load them and—'

‘Who's taking them down?'

‘I'm going with Li.'

‘She's going herself?'

‘Well, it was her idea. She doesn't leave anything to chance.' Rubin managed a smile. ‘You won't be able to stop her, Karen. There's nothing you can do. We're the ones who're going to save this planet. Our names are the ones that people will remember—'

‘Shut up, Mick.' Weaver began to push him towards the door. ‘You're going to take me to your lab. That toxin isn't going anywhere. The script's just changed.'

Well Deck

‘So is anything going on between you and Karen?' asked Greywolf, stowing equipment in crates.

Anawak was taken aback. ‘Er, no. Not really.'

‘Not really?'

‘As far as I know, we're just good friends.'

Greywolf gave him a look. ‘It's about time one of us started to do things right,' he said.

‘What if she's not interested?' As soon as he'd said it, Anawak realised what he'd confessed. ‘I'm hopeless at that kind of thing, Jack.'

‘Evidently,' said Greywolf, sarcastically. ‘You didn't join the world of the living until your old man died.'

‘Hey…'

‘Calm down, buddy, you know I'm right. Why don't you chase after her? She obviously wants you to.'

‘I came down here to see you, not because of Karen.'

‘I appreciate it. Now, go.'

‘For God's sake, Jack. Stop shutting yourself away. Let's take a walk before your feet turn into fins.'

‘Fins would suit me fine.'

Anawak glanced at the tunnel, unsure what to do. Of course he was impatient to go after Weaver - and not only because he had feelings for her, as he'd just admitted to Greywolf and himself. No, he was sure that something was bothering her. She'd seemed agitated and tense. He couldn't help thinking of what she'd told him about Johanson.

‘OK, you moulder away by yourself, then,' he said to Greywolf, ‘but feel free to come and find me if you change your mind.'

He left the well deck and walked past the lab. The door was closed. He thought about popping in. Maybe Johanson would be there. Then he decided against it and carried on up the ramp towards the hangar deck to look at the mysterious wall.