than the coldest temperature ever measured here at this time of year. Based on my calculations, the surface temperature will drop another full degree by nightfall. Each day, the effect will deepen. Soon, a giant well of chilled water will occupy the center of this tropical ocean while in another section of the ocean the microbots are doing the exact opposite, absorbing heat, keeping the ocean warm. The temperature differential will create winds, for some it will bring storms, for others it will smash all hope of avoiding a monstrous famine.”
“You’re insane. You’ll kill millions of people.”
“The
She fell silent. Neither of the other two spoke. All three of them kept their eyes turned away from the blazing reflection.
Jinn bathed in the crystalline light as if it were glory itself. Certainly it was vindication, and proof of the godlike powers he now held in the palm of his hand.
“You’ll never get away with this,” Paul said.
“And just who is going to stop me?”
“My government, for one,” Paul added. “The Indian government, NATO, the UN. No one is going to let you starve half a continent. Your little force here won’t last long against a squadron of F-18s.”
Jinn stared at Paul. “You operate from a fundamental misunderstanding of power,” he said. “True, I and my people are inconsequential in the global scheme. But power does not exist only in your nations. It exists in balance all around the world. Once the rainfall begins to feed Chinese mouths, the Chinese will not allow the UN or your government or the men in New Delhi to redirect their newfound bounty so quickly. They will veto any resolution to act, frustrating your desires to proceed. They will be joined by the countries of the Middle East and Pakistan and the Russians, all of whom will benefit from what I’ve wrought and who will pay me and protect me for what they receive. It will be an easy thing to play them against your nation. If you believe otherwise, you are hopelessly naive.”
“You risk war,” Gamay said. “Enough to engulf the whole world, you included.”
“More likely, just a bidding war.”
He relished the moment. In little over twenty-four hours he’d crushed his enemies, both internal and external. He’d proven his brilliance and now he would reap the rewards. Money would pour in from China and new partners he’d take on in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Counteroffers from India and other lands would follow and the bidding would rise.
“They’ll still come after you and your vile creation,” Paul said.
“Of course they will,” Jinn replied. “But they will never find me, and they will prove to be no more capable of destroying what I have built than they are of eradicating the world’s insects or bacteria. So they kill millions of the horde. The trillions that remain will continue to reproduce. It will be a simple matter for the microbots to take the remnants of their dead and use the same materials to build new ones. That’s what they do. That’s what Marchetti designed them to do.”
Marchetti looked away, shaking his head in anguished regret.
“And there will be consequences if anyone challenges me,” Jinn added. “The horde will spread to the far corners of the world. The seven seas will soon be under my control. If any nation is foolish enough to defy me or simply refuses to pay the tribute I will demand, they will suffer. Their fishing grounds will be destroyed, their food sources consumed before their very eyes, their ports will be overrun and blockaded, their ships attacked in transit.”
“They’ll come after you in person,” snapped Paul. “You’re the snake, all they have to do is cut off your head.”
“They will be well advised to leave the snake alone,” Jinn insisted. “For I have already programmed a doomsday code into the horde. Should I die or be forced to activate it for other reasons, the horde will go from a weapon wielded with precision to a scourge of unimaginable proportions, consuming and growing and attacking everything in its path. Like the locusts of the desert, it will leave nothing but death behind it.”
The two Americans looked at each other. If Jinn measured the look right, it was one of defeat. The silence that followed confirmed this for him.
He wiped his brow. He was beginning to sweat as the air temperature around the island began to rise with all the reflected energy. A breeze began to blow across the deck, the first one in days, but it wasn’t cool and refreshing. It was a hot wind caused by the differential heating. It marked the beginning of the storm.
CHAPTER 41
AFTER SEVERAL HOURS OF FLOATING, LUCK HAD SHOWN Kurt nothing but contempt.
The sun beat down on them, blocked only by the makeshift tarp of the parachutes. The rear air chamber was so far down now that it made little sense trying to keep it from deflating further. The boat was tilted over, awash in that right rear corner like a car with a flat tire. And despite Ishmael’s valiant effort, the right front cylinder was looking weaker all the time.
Kurt gazed out through a small gash in the parachute the way a child might look through holes cut in the bedsheet of a ghost’s costume.
“Anything?” Leilani asked.
“No,” he said. The word came out hoarsely. Despite the water he’d guzzled on the airplane, his throat was getting dry once again.
“Maybe we should start the engine,” Leilani said. “We must not be in the shipping lanes.”
Kurt knew for certain that they weren’t. Few ships passed across the dead center of the Indian Ocean. His hope had been to get close enough to Africa to reach a north-south route from the Red Sea or a tanker route from the Gulf, plowed by ships too big to pass through the Suez and making their way for the Horn of Africa.
They’d fallen well short of those goals. By at least a hundred miles.
“We can’t get there on the gas we have left.”
“But we can’t just stay here,” she said.
“We have one gallon of fuel,” he said. “We’re not wasting it and then wishing we had it.”
Leilani stared at him, her eyes filled with fear. She was trembling. “I don’t want to die.”
“Neither do I,” Kurt said. “Neither does Ishmael. Right, Ishmael?”
“Right,” Ishmael said. “Not ready for that. Not ready to die, big-time.”
“And we’re not going to die,” Kurt said. “Just stay calm.”
She nodded, still near the aft section, trying to keep the cylinder from completely deflating.
“Might as well move up front,” he said. “That one’s had it.”
Leilani let go of the rubber fabric and moved to the front of the boat on the port side. With her weight up front, the rear corner rose a fraction and the boat wallowed a bit less.
Kurt looked out from under the makeshift tent again. From the position of the sun he guessed it was three o’clock or so. He was waiting for nightfall. Once the stars came out, he could determine more exactly where they were and they could make their plans accordingly.
Kurt let his gaze fall to the horizon and watched as a strange effect took hold. It was something like the shimmer of a mirage on an open road in the desert. He blinked twice as if his eyes were deceiving him, but the effect only intensified.
Without a sound the sea began to shimmer. It wasn’t the dappled sun on the water that every mariner and amateur painter knows so well but an almost effervescent appearance.
It was brightest to the west, in line with the afternoon sun, but he could see the same thing looking to the east, north and south as well.
“Kurt!” Leilani shouted.
He looked back under the tarp.
“You’re sparkling.”
Kurt would have looked at himself, but he was too entranced by what he saw on her. She looked as if she’d been spritzed with stardust.
Ishmael wore a similar coating, but Leilani was covered the worst. It was as if they’d been coated with a fine
