dominant male had taken her as his mate, protecting and feeding her, while other females were allowed to perish when food was scarce, and in time, when she bore offspring, she discovered that they shared her abilities. She conceived of a way to pass information to them, a system of communication where sounds and gestures had specific meaning that all of them understood.
Not surprisingly, her children thrived. Her first male child matured to become the dominant male, and his offspring, as well as all those of the Old Mother’s brood, also shared her gift. Within two generations, all the offspring born to the clan were of her bloodline.
Now she was old. It had been a long time since the blood flowed from her loins, even longer since any of the males showed even the slightest desire to mate with her. In many ways, her offspring had surpassed her, building on the knowledge she had given to them, innovating, and improving their common language to express new concepts and make new discoveries.
But she was still the Old Mother, and greatly honored.
And she was the only one who had the dreams.
The dreams guided the clan, leading them to abundant hunting grounds, guiding them to water and shelter, warning of dangers like the coming of storms that took fire from the sky and set the grasslands ablaze. She had taught the others how to read signs in earth and sky-to anticipate the changing of the seasons, or the migration of the animals-but none of her children or her children’s children experienced the visions that first enabled her to grasp these concepts. When she was gone, the dreams would be no more.
That time was drawing near. This also she had dreamed.
She dreamed of a place of death. She dreamed of her destiny approaching like a great gray wall, emerging from the setting sun.
Then, one night, she awoke from the dream.
It was time.
The Old Mother looked around the cave where the clan slept, oblivious to their wondrous future. The dim embers of the cook-fire offered little illumination, but she could make out the clumped shapes of mated pairs and families huddled together in repose.
She struggled to her feet, her age clinging to her withering muscles and creaky joints. It was good that this moment had finally come; in a few more turnings of the moon, she wouldn’t be able to move at all.
None in the clan stirred as she made her way to the mouth of the cave. A half-moon cast a silvery glow on the landscape and a bright river of stars lit up the sky. Yet, the Old Mother did not need illumination; the path she followed was one glimpsed in a dream and she could have followed it blind.
She walked all night, the urgency of her purpose pushing her onward through the pain and fatigue. At last, as the sun broke over the horizon, she found them.
She was not unfamiliar with the great beasts. The land belonged to them. Like her clan, they were herd animals, usually gathering in groups that numbered more than she could count on all of her fingers. From time to time, the clan would hunt them, taking stragglers that were too old or weak to keep up with the herd, but there was great risk in that endeavor. Even the weakest of the great beasts could crush them with hardly a second thought. The clan never approached a herd directly.
This herd was like nothing she had ever seen before.
Their numbers were, despite her gift, beyond her ability to comprehend. They were a great mass, stretching out in the direction where the sun would set at day’s end, farther than her eye could see. And as she drew near, they began to stir.
A shiver of excitement gripped her as the beasts began trumpeting and stamping their massive feet. She was afraid and awestruck, but this was the moment she had dreamed of, and witnessing the great herd, feeling the earth shake as they danced, was strangely satisfying.
Then, from out of the thunderous mass, several of the beasts advanced.
They were old, like her, the matriarchs of dozens of herds. She felt a tremor of fear as they drew close, surrounding her, but they did not attack. Instead, acting in unison, they knelt before her.
Images flooded into her mind, the thoughts not just of the matriarchs, but of the entire assembly, and a scream tore from her throat…
# # #
Felice Carter awoke from her long dream, and opened her eyes in the middle of a nightmare.
7.
King spun away an instant before the thermate compound in each grenade ignited. Unlike the flash-bangs, there was no detonation, no deafening blast. Rather, there was only a flare of light, as bright as an arc welder, followed by a palpable wave of heat that permeated the room.
The carpeted floor instantly erupted in flames, as did the wooden tables nearest the ignition. The molded plastic containers which had been used to transport the CDC team’s equipment began to melt, despite being several feet away from the flames, and as the emerging conflagration began to destroy natural fibers and manmade compounds alike, a miasma of black smoke filled the room.
All of this happened in mere seconds.
King felt the waves of heat at his back and the stinging of chemical fumes in his eyes as he searched the room for some other exit. He couldn’t exit through the door; the gunmen would almost certainly be waiting for him. What did that leave?
Through the persistent ringing in his ears he heard a new sound, the low wailing of a fire alarm, and at almost the same instant, it started to rain in the room. King glanced back, trying to avoid directly looking at the blinding incendiary flares, and saw that the automated sprinkler system was having little effect on the fire. The droplets simply flashed to steam, while under the shelter of the tables, the flames were spreading.
He returned his attention to the matter of escaping the room. There were no windows, but as his vision improved, he saw that one of the walls was different. It was not a true wall, but rather a series of temporary partitions that had been set up to divide a much larger area into two smaller rooms. He dashed past the blossoming inferno to the partition, stepped back and then delivered his best door-smashing kick.
The partition didn’t budge. His heel rebounded and a wave of agony shuddered through his entire body, aggravating injuries that he didn’t even know he’d suffered. A grunt of pain escaped through his clenched teeth.
Stupid, Jack. Very stupid.
He shook off the hurt and took another look at the partition. It was mounted on tracks, one on the floor and another on the ceiling, similar to a sliding patio door, and secured in place with a flush-bolt. He thumbed the latch mechanism and heard a click as the bolt released, allowing him to slide the partition away with almost no effort.
Lesson learned, he thought. Think next time.
He sprinted through the adjoining room to the door in the corner, and with his MP5 ready, pushed it open.
Beyond was a scene of total chaos as people fled in response to the fire alarm. He peeked out, looking down the hallway, and saw two black-clad figures lingering at the doorway to the other half of the conference room, a good thirty meters away. Their very presence only intensified the general hysteria, but they seemed oblivious; their attention was fixed on the doorway.
He considered taking them out but quickly dismissed the idea. He knew they were wearing body armor, so the only way to guarantee a kill was a head shot. He might be able to get one of them, but if he failed to get them both, it would mean a firefight, and that would only keep him from his real objective, to say nothing of putting a lot of innocent lives in jeopardy.
He took a deep breath, and then strode out into the hallway, moving into the crowd of people evacuating from deeper within the hospital. The urge to look back at the gunmen was almost overwhelming, but doing so would risk drawing their attention. Instead, he focused on searching the crowd for Sara. She wasn’t there, but as he moved through their midst, he soon located a stairwell packed with people escaping the upper levels. Like a salmon
