blew up.”
She stared at him for further explanation.
“There was a gas leak. I dropped my cigar—”
She waved away the rest of his words with her machete. Her pickup was scheduled at the northern peninsula in under a half hour. On that timetable, she had to reach the compound, break into the safe and obtain the vials of antidote. She set off into the jungle, noting a trail. The man followed, dragged along in her wake.
“Whoa…where are we going?”
She freed a rolled-up poncho from her daypack and passed it to him.
He struggled into it as he followed. “Name’s Kowalski,” he said. He got the poncho on backward and fought to work it around. “Do you have a boat? A way off this friggin’ island?”
She didn’t have time for subtlety. “In twenty-three minutes, the Brazilian navy is going to firebomb this atoll.”
“What?” He checked his own wrist. He had no watch.
She continued, “An evac is scheduled for wheels up at 8:55 a.m. on the northern peninsula. But first I have to retrieve something from the island.”
“Wait. Back up. Who’s going to firebomb this shithole?”
“The Brazilian navy. In twenty-three minutes.”
“Of course they are.” He shook his head. “Of all the goddamn islands, I had to shag my ass onto one that’s going to blow up.”
Shay tuned out his diatribe. At least he kept moving. She had to give him that. He was either very brave or very dumb.
“Oh, look…a mango.” He reached for the yellow fruit.
“Don’t touch that.”
“But I haven’t eaten in—?”
“All the vegetation on this island has been aerial sprayed with a transgenic rhabdovirus.”
He lowered his hand.
“Once ingested, it stimulates the sensory centers of the brain, heightening a victim’s senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“The process also corrupts the reticular apparatus of the cerebral cortex. Triggering manic rages.”
A growling yowl echoed through the jungle behind them. It was answered by coughing grunts and howls from either flank.
“The apes…?”
“Baboons. Yes, they’re surely infected. Experimental subjects.”
“Great. The Island of Rabid Baboons.”
Ignoring him, she pointed toward a whitewashed hacienda sprawled atop the next hill, seen through a break in the foliage. “We need to reach that compound.”
The terra-cotta-tiled structure had been leased by Professor Salazar for his research, funded by a shadowy organization of terrorist cells. Here on the isolated island, he had conducted the final stages of perfecting his bioweapon. Then two days ago, Sigma Force—a covert U.S. science team specializing in global threats—had captured the doctor in the heart of the Brazilian rain forest, but not before he had infected an entire Indian village outside of Manaus, including an international children’s relief hospital.
The disease was already in its early stages, requiring the prompt quarantine of the village by the Brazilian army. The only hope was to obtain Professor Salazar’s antidote, locked in the doctor’s safe.
Or at least the vials might be there.
Salazar claimed to have destroyed his supply.
Upon this assertion, the Brazilian government had decided to take no chances. A storm was due to strike at dusk with hurricane-force winds. They feared the storm surge might carry the virus from the island to the mainland’s coastal rain forest. It would take only a single infected leaf to risk the entire equatorial rain forest. So the plan was to firebomb the small island, to burn its vegetation to the bedrock. The assault was set for zero nine hundred. The government could not be convinced that the remote possibility of a cure was worth the risk of a delay. Total annihilation was their plan. That included the Brazilian village. Acceptable losses.
Anger surged through her as she pictured Manuel Garrison, her partner. He had tried to evacuate the children’s hospital, but he’d become trapped and subsequently infected. Along with all the children.
Acceptable losses were not in her vocabulary.
Not today.
So Shay had proceeded with her solo op. Parachuting from a high-altitude drop, she had radioed her plans while plummeting in free fall. Sigma command had agreed to send an emergency evac helicopter to the northern end of the island. It would touch down for one minute. Either she was on the chopper at that time…or she was dead.
The odds were fine with her.
But now she wasn’t alone.
The side of beef tromped loudly behind her. Whistling. He was whistling. She turned to him. “Mr. Kowalski, do you remember my description of how the virus heightens a victim’s sense of hearing?” Her quiet words crackled with irritation.
“Sorry.” He glanced at the trail behind him.
“Careful of that tiger trap,” she said, stepping around the crudely camouflaged hole.
“What—?” His left foot fell squarely on the trapdoor of woven reeds. His weight shattered through it.
Shay shoulder-blocked the man to the side and landed atop him. It felt like falling on a pile of bricks. Only, bricks were smarter.
She pushed up. “After being snared, you’d think you’d watch where you were stepping! The whole place is one big booby trap.”
She stood, straightened her pack and edged around the spike-lined pit. “Stay behind me. Step where I step.”
In her anger, she missed the trip cord.
The only warning was a small thwang.
She jumped to the side but was too late. A tethered log swung from the forest and struck her knee. She heard the snap of her tibia, then went flying through the air—right toward the open maw of the tiger trap.
She twisted to avoid the pit’s iron spikes. There was no hope.
Then she hit…bricks again.
Kowalski had lunged and blocked the hole with his own bulk. She rolled off him. Agony flared up her leg, through her hip, and exploded along her spine. Her vision narrowed to a pinprick, but not enough to miss the angled twist below her knee.
Kowalski gained her side. “Oh, man…oh, man…”
“Leg’s broken,” she said, biting back the pain.
“We
