fire blazed at the end of a paper match. Cyrus snatched up a sheaf of reports and rolled them into a tube. Otto held the match to the roll, and as it caught, the glow flooded the room, pushing back the shadows.
Cyrus cried out in delight as if with all of the technology he and Otto had stolen or created, this simplest of man’s tools-fire-was the wonder of the ages. He and Otto hurried over to the wall and watched as Hecate attacked the dial once again. This time the tumblers clicked one-two-three and she jerked the door open.
The safe was large and there were stacks of papers, bundles of currency, cases of jewelry, and several high- capacity flash drives banded together with oversized rubber bands. One whole side of the safe was taken up by a large briefcase with a corrugated metal cover. It was very heavy and Hecate grunted as she pulled it out and they carried it over to the desk. Otto swept the last of the papers onto the floor as Hecate set the case down and unlocked it. She punched the on button and they all held their breath.
A tiny green light popped on and the screen flashed from black to blue.
“Thank God!” said Cyrus.
“Lead case in a lead-lined safe,” said Hecate. “My father taught me to be extra-careful.”
Cyrus looked up at her and there was such a depth of love in his eyes that Hecate felt her own eyes growing moist. She said, “I want us to survive this.”
“We can’t…”
“We can’t escape the island,” said Hecate. “But there are caves and tunnels all through this island. We may be able to find a place to hide until we can escape.”
“What are the chances?” said Otto with a calculating coldness.
“Slim. But that’s better than none.”
Otto studied her and then nodded. “Your father and I have faced longer odds.”
“Like when we faked my death in Brazil,” Cyrus said. “That was the first time one of the ‘Family’ had to be sacrificed for the cause.”
“What do you mean?”
“We drowned a clone and let his body be found. By then we were in Cabo and reading about it in the papers.”
The computer finished loading.
There was a sudden racket from outside. Yells and gunfire.
“They’re here!” Cyrus cried, but when Hecate ran to the door and looked out she shook her head.
“No… it looks like a single soldier.” She turned back, smiling. “I have a dozen Berserkers on this floor at all times. They’ll tear him apart. We have time.”
Cyrus dug the flash drive from under his shirt and lifted the lanyard over his head. He kissed it lovingly and handed it to Otto, who punched in the security code that activated the drive.
“How will we transmit?” asked Otto as he handed the drive to Hecate. “The EMP will have taken out your router.”
“Satellite uplink,” she said. She fitted the drive into a USB port and tapped a few keys. “The uplink’s built into the computer. We can hack three different Mexican satellites from here.” She turned the laptop around with the keys toward Cyrus.
“Good,” said Cyrus. “The next steps are critical. I have to upload the release codes and then transmit. The signal also sends an automatic verification sequence. Unless I hand-enter a cancel sequence, then the release codes are unscrambled when the Extinction Clock reaches zero.”
“When’s that?” asked Hecate, caught up in the sorcery of her father’s plan.
“Noon tomorrow.”
The gunfire in the hallway was punctuated by hoarse death screams. Hecate chewed her lip. The screams sounded more like Berserkers than ordinary men. More soldiers must have reached this floor.
“What if those soldiers break in here and take the trigger device?”
“Doubting the unstoppability of your transgenic toys?” Cyrus said with a smile.
“I don’t want to fail when we’re this close.”
“We won’t. Once this is sent, all we have to do is… nothing. Unless they know the cancel sequence it won’t matter.”
“
“It’s all yours, Father,” she said. “Let’s change the world.”
“Let’s not,” said a female voice.
They whirled to see Grace Courtland standing in the doorway to the closet.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Nine
The Dragon Factory
Tuesday, August 31, 3:04 A.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 32 hours, 56 minutes E.S.T.
I went down and I almost went out.
The only thing that saved me was my injured leg. As soon as I saw the Berserker lunge at me I shifted backward and my bad leg buckled under me. He still nailed me, but it wasn’t full-power. It was enough, though, to knock me across the hallway and smash me into the far wall. My head felt like cracked church bells were ringing and fireworks burst in my eyes.
I heard the Berserker laugh.
He drew his sidearm as he came out of the office. I brought my gun up and fired over and over again, trying to aim through the haze and distortion filling my eyes. There’s an Army saying that if you put enough ordnance downrange you’re bound to hit something. I put half a magazine into the air where I thought his head should be.
He never returned fire.
I blinked my eyes clear and stared. The Berserker was leaning back against the door frame and he slowly… slowly sat down. His eyes were wide and filled with surprise, and there was a black dot above his right eyebrow.
I’d fired eight shots and hit him once.
Once was enough.
A voice inside my head said,
I got to one knee. Then to my feet. My left leg felt like it was made from Silly Putty and a furnace had opened in my chest. My head was a bag of broken stones.
“Grace…,” I said.
I kept going down the hall. There was just one door left, and as I reached for the handle I heard shouts and then gunshots. I tried kicking the door open, but my bad leg collapsed under me and I fell.
“There!” someone yelled, and I turned to see more of the goddamn Berserkers pounding down the hallway toward me. I leaned against the office door, raised my pistol, and fired.
And then from the other side of the door I heard Grace Courtland scream.
Chapter One Hundred Thirty
Grace
Tuesday, August 31, 3:05 a.m.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 32 hours, 55 minutes E.S.T.
For Grace Courtland it had all come down to this. A single moment in time when what she did and who she was would matter most.
She had climbed up through the long darkness of the access stairs and emerged into the darkness of the utility
