Frozen Fire (35 page)

All human activity on the island took place along the coast. The volcano rose steeply from the sea at the northern end of island and sloped more gently toward the south. At the southeastern tip of the island, centuries of storms and currents had carved a deepwater port, where the institute’s research vessels and the occasional supply ship could dock. To the west of the port, the calm, warm waters of the Caribbean lapped a black sand beach. Not far from the water’s edge sat a small compound of simple residences and low-slung offices. The southern wall of the volcano was the thickest, and given that it was also the most convenient to his compound, that’s where Dennis had built a bunker.

The shelter had been built almost as an exercise in imagination. Dennis never really thought he’d need the bunker for anything other than perhaps shelter from the occasional hurricane. Still, he’d wanted a bunker, so he built one.

After months of careful blasting, excavation, and construction, the space was habitable. The entire structure functioned independently of the main residential compound near the beach. It was blastproof, floodproof, and self-sufficient, with running water, a purified air supply, and solar-, wind-, and wave-generated electricity. The bunker was comfortably furnished and didn’t lack for luxuries, and its command-and-control center was an identical copy of the island’s primary system and continually updated in real time. When Dennis was inside it, he felt invincible, like he owned the world instead of just his island. He’d always known the bunker was only part necessity and mostly folly, but more than that, it was a novelty. The bunker had even helped enhance his mystique abroad. And yes, he’d made occasional use of it for some not quite mission-critical adventures, including a few with Micki a few years ago, although under significantly different circumstances.

Right now, however, the space was being put to its true use: protecting him from a harmful situation developing outside the ancient lava walls. Unfortunately, the enemy was inside with him.

Dennis sat in a chair made for relaxing, his body perfectly still, his breathing controlled, and his mind clearer than it had been at any time since early yesterday morning. He was seething with anger, his muscles bunched like a cat ready to pounce and adrenaline rushing like a river through his bloodstream. He was watching Micki. She sat across the airy, well-lit room from him, smiling as if everything that had transpired was a joke, a prank that had been executed without a flaw.

“Chill out, Dennis,” she drawled, her low, lilting voice rich with laughter. “Isn’t that what you usually do when you’re here? Or was that only with me?”

“Murderous bitch.”

Her smile faded. “And you? What about the lives you’ve ended or destroyed?”

“I’ve saved—”

“You’ve saved nothing,” she stated, cutting off his reply. “You told the world that’s what you were going to do: save a pristine ecosystem, save the marine life. They were empty words, Dennis. You knew when you uttered
them that you were lying. You have destroyed what you said you would save, and now you’ve killed all the people you brought here under false pretenses.” She shrugged. “They were fools for believing you; they deserved what they got. You can’t defy Nature and expect to survive the experience.”

He began to push himself out of his chair and she casually raised the Taser and aimed it at his chest. “Sit yourself down, darlin’. I’ll tell you when you can get up.”

Slowly, Dennis resumed his seat. “They didn’t deserve any of what happened to them. You killed them in cold blood.”

She laughed and shifted in her chair, her warm caramel eyes never leaving his face. “I didn’t put those people on that plane, and I didn’t put those people in a canister under the sea, either. It was your mindless need for domination that did. Your need to boast about how you would harness and constrain Nature to suit your bottom line. That’s what killed those people, Dennis. Your ego.”

“And what about all the people here on Taino who will die? Your colleagues. Your friends.”

“Friends? No, Dennis, not my friends.” She shrugged carelessly. “They’re just as bad as you. They came here out of greed, not to save the Earth or Her creatures. Their deaths are your doing. And they won’t be missed, just like you won’t be missed.”

Her voice, the way she’d draped herself over the chair, the way she held her drink—everything about her was calm and easy, as if they were having an inconsequential chat on a lazy afternoon. Calm and self-assured, she didn’t even have the decency to be cocky.

Dennis had to admit that he found her nonchalance unnerving, but he was determined not to let it affect him. He’d lost enough time as it was. Right now he had to focus, to find her blind spot and exploit it.

“What about you, Micki? Will you survive? If what you described is actually happening out there, we’ll both die. We can’t stay in here indefinitely. The space isn’t designed for that. Our supplies will run out.”

She tilted her head and looked at him with an almost gentle gaze. “Oh, of course we’ll both die, sugar. Don’t you fret about that,” she said, her voice softening as her drawl became deeper. “Maybe we’ll go out there together and take a last deep breath of the poison you’ve spewed into the air. That would be a fitting end for you, wouldn’t it? You murder the environment and then let it murder you.”

Dennis said nothing and she laughed again.

“You don’t think I’ll do it, do you? Of course I will. I’m not afraid to die, Dennis. I’ll be happy to go. I’ve done my bit for the world. I’m satisfied. I have no regrets.” Micki cocked her head and looked at him almost flirtatiously. “But I can tell that you’re afraid of what’s ahead of you. Probably wonderin’ if you said enough prayers as a child. Well, darlin’, don’t worry your head about it.” Her voice dropped to a gentle whisper. “I’m your Earth Angel, here to assure you that your death will be empty, Dennis, and that you will die wanting to live on. Your last thought will be regret.”

If it weren’t for the Taser dangling loosely from the long, elegant fingers draped over the armrest of her chair, Dennis would have crossed the room then and killed her. He’d have cheerfully grabbed her by the slender, honey-sweet column of her throat and crushed the breath out of her.

With no regrets.

11:15
A.M
., Sunday, October 26, Gainesville, Florida

“Look, I know you guys have a lot of other things on your plate right now, but this is literally life and death,” Sam pleaded with the Taino embassy worker bee on the other end of the phone. He was on his deck, pacing the short distance from the steps to the sliding glass door of his bedroom. It was a miracle he hadn’t worn a groove in the planks that made up the floor. He’d been on the phone with every agency he could think of ever since he’d left the office after talking to Marty.

“Sir, I have no information to give you in answer to your question.”

“Can you transfer me to someone who does?” he said, striving for calm.

“I am that someone,” the woman said, frustration finally creeping into her voice. “I have no information about any pleasure craft or persons taken into custody today.”

“Look, even CNN is talkin’ about a boat that’s gone missin’, for Christ’s sake,” he exploded. He leaned one hand on the deck’s railing and curled his fingers around it to keep it from punching something. “How the hell can you not know about it? It happened in your territorial waters just a few hours ago.”

“Because I’m in Washington, D.C., not on the beach in Taino with a pair of binoculars,” she snapped. “And there’s no reason to curse at me. I’m trying to be helpful but you refuse to pay attention to what I’m saying. I don’t have the information you’re looking for.”

He unclenched his fist and slapped his open palm onto the railing of the deck. “Well, someone has to, ma’am. Who else can I talk to? There has to be someone.”

“Try calling the company that chartered the boat your girlfriend was on, or try the Royal Bahamas Defence Force. That’s the Bahamian coast guard.”

“I did. The charter company hasn’t heard from the captain for ten hours. He should have checked in by now. The Bahamians couldn’t tell me anything, and the U.S. Coast Guard and the navy don’t have any information, either. Look, lady, if the boat was in your waters, then
your
people would have found it,” he growled. “What would they have done with the crew if today was a normal day?”

“We wouldn’t do anything with the crew. Our security personnel would escort the vessel out of the area and file a report.”

“Well, would it kill you to find out if they did that?” he practically shouted, pushing his hand through his hair and sitting on the top rail of his deck.

The woman on the other end of the call let out a large, exasperated breath and her voice, when she spoke, was heavy with forced patience. “As I’ve told you several times already, sir, we’re having some communication difficulties. Why don’t you give me your name and telephone number and I will contact you if I hear any information regarding a pleasure boat. Would that work for you?”

“Fine,” he said, then stood up abruptly. “Well, actually, no, that won’t work for me. We both know you’ll never call me with anything. You’re probably not even goin’ to write down my number.”

“I resent that,” she said stiffly. “Unfortunately, you just lost your best chance for getting any information. Goodbye.”

He heard the click and found himself staring at the silent handset.

“Well, that didn’t work too well.”

With a start, Sam jerked his head to look in the direction of the soft voice and saw Sabina standing on the middle step leading to the deck from his backyard.

What the hell is she doing here?
He stared at her while his mind pulled itself back to the moment. “Uh, hi. I didn’t know you were there.”

She smiled. “I just got here. May I come up?”

He set the phone on the round table that sported a striped umbrella and four citronella candles, courtesy of Cyn, and two freshly emptied Coors bottles, courtesy of Cyn’s failure to call in. “Sure. What can I do for you?”

“Nothing. I was hoping I could do something for you,” she said, walking toward him with a smile that had gone hesitant.

Oh, shit
. “Um, I, ah—” He ran his hand through his hair again. He wasn’t sure how to ask Sabina to leave, but he knew that the last thing he needed was a distraction, much less one that looked, walked, and smelled like Sabina.

“Um, Sabina, this isn’t a good time—”

She glanced away from him as she set her purse on the table. “I’ve been monitoring that change in the atmospheric methane values since I told you about it. I think it could be getting troublesome. I wanted to get your opinion on it. I tried calling you a few times, but I couldn’t get through.” She looked up at him, and shrugged with a smile. “It might be important. I hope you don’t mind that I came over.”

Sam stared at her, blinked, and tried to focus on her words rather than her other attributes.

“Uh.” He cleared his throat. “What do you mean by ‘troublesome’?”

She dropped her hand to the table and opened the thick manila folder that had escaped his notice. “The numbers are odd. But they are consistently odd, so I think they may be accurate.”

She moved around the small table to stand next to him, holding the sheaf of green-and-white striped printouts in her hands. “Here are the values since ten o’clock this morning. Here is what I find odd. Methane in its pure state is lighter than air, and so should rise. This isn’t rising. It’s hugging the water,” she said, pointing to the rows of small print. “The winds have been calm and steady down there and are predicted to remain so until this evening. So the concentration isn’t diminishing too much and the methane seems to be spreading laterally as it moves across the water. The wind is taking it almost directly toward the shore. There is a storm to the east, though, and the winds near the island are already beginning to change direction. That will blow the methane away from Taino and toward the Florida Keys.”

Sam scanned the printouts. She was right. The numbers
were
odd. More than odd. They were crazy.

He glanced at her. “Is something else showing up in the gas?”

“I haven’t yet identified anything else but the gas is not pure methane. The hydrate beds in this region—can this be some variant of methane? Have the beds ever been sampled?”

Sam shook his head as he continued to review the printouts, dropping to the next page, and then the next. “The water’s too deep and Taino won’t
let anyone in except people associated with its own Climate Research Institute. And if they’ve done tests, they aren’t sayin’.” He frowned as he kept reading. “It could be a more pure form, like what they found in that Siberian lake bed a few years ago. But if it was purer, it would rise faster, not slower.”
And we’d be heading for some serious atmospheric trouble
.

“Then could something be mixed into it?”

“If there was something else in it, it would have shown up in the data,” he muttered.

“So it’s just an anomaly?” Sabina asked, with such doubt in her voice that Sam looked up.

“What are you getting at?” he asked.

“Shouldn’t we do something to find out why the gas is behaving that way?”

“Something like what?”

She hesitated. “Well, tell someone.”

“Tell who? And tell them what? NASA’s aware of what’s going on. GISS has been on it since it began. NOAA knows about it, too.”

“But is anyone doing anything?”

Sam put the papers on the table and looked at her. “Sabina, what are you talking about?”

Even with her brows pulled together in a frown, the woman was stunning.

She let out an abrupt breath in frustration. “Well, if the gas is not rising, it’s hugging the waterline. That would mean it’s creating an oxygen-depleted atmosphere at sea level, wouldn’t it? I mean, the concentration of methane is high. And if it’s not diffusing as it’s blowing toward shore, wouldn’t it start to have an effect on . . . things?”

He stared at her blankly.

“If there is too much methane in the mixture of air, wouldn’t people on the beach and on boats die when they breathed it in?” she said, her voice deepening and cracking a little.