When she saw the micrograph, her eyes widened. The virus that Dr. Denton had sent over, stored in the dinoflagellates of the water samples, had been blown up to enormous magnification. The micrograph showed several pairings of slender strands connected by horizontal bars, like tiny ladders. The pairings were all twisted and bore a remarkable resemblance to DNA, which was odd since the magnification was only high enough to capture gross viral particles.
Samantha stared at the print, her mind racing. It was unlike anything she'd ever seen.
'I've sent it to diagnostics to run genetic sequencing on it,' Tom said. 'Reverse transcriptase, polymerase chain reaction, nucleic acid probe test-the whole nine yards. I'd like to see if we can find a match in the gene bank.'
Samantha tried to swallow, but her throat clicked dryly. She felt the movement of her heart in her chest. 'You won't find a match in the gene bank.'
'Well, we'll see after diagnostics-'
'You can run diagnostics all year, it's still not gonna show us how the virus acts.' She blinked hard, trying to focus. 'That shipment of rabbits for the Crimean Congo tests. Did it arrive?'
Tom nodded.
'I want them in here,' Samantha said. 'In the operating room.' She pointed through the crash door. 'And I want a pellet of the virus.' Tom started to object, but Samantha closed her eyes, feeling her heartbeat pounding in her temples. 'Now!'
Fifteen minutes later, she stood in the operating room, the rabbit cages at her feet. A syringe full of the virus poised in one hand, she bent over and opened the top of the cage, pulling up a rabbit by the scruff of its neck. Tom and several other colleagues watched her from the obser-vation post. Samantha injected the first rabbit, setting it back in its cage, then followed with the remaining five. The other scientists looked on silently.
She finished and crossed to the window, looking at Tom. Behind her, the rabbits thumped softly in their cages.
'The first rule of virology,' she said. 'Let the disease be your teacher.'
Chapter 30
Szabla pulled her shirt off and tossed Tucker a bottle of sunblock, pointing to her back and straddling the cruise box. Justin was working Tank's hamstring and from the expression on Tank's face doing a pretty good job.
A wave rolled in, hitting the lava plain to the west and sending up steam-whistle bursts through the blowholes. Just above the water's edge, a ruddy turnstone picked at sea lion afterbirth. Szabla turned and faced the island, admiring how the low shrubs of the beach gave way to dry, rocky terrain and tree-spotted slopes. Above the slopes the green-hazed mountaintops presided over the island, imperious and remote, lurking behind fingers of garua. 'What a fuckin' place,' she said. 'From desert to forest in a stone's throw.'
Tucker smeared a handful of sunblock across her shoulders, rubbing it high on her neck and along the rims of her ears. Justin eyed the sun-block across Szabla's back. 'I don't see what you need that shit for, given you're a native people.'
Szabla turned to face him with a half-smile. 'You'd better watch your mouth, boy, or I'll tell your wife to bitch-slap your shit in line like she normally does.'
'Please don't,' Justin said. 'She's been doing a lot of curls lately.'
'Where the hell did Savage go?' Szabla asked, looking around.
Tucker pointed down across the face of the cliffs. 'He wandered off that way while you were pulling your shirt off.'
'He makes no causal argument,' Justin said.
Szabla rose and pulled her tank top on, adjusting her bra. 'I'll go grab him.'
She took off at a jog along the beach, kicking the sand behind her in white sprays. She slowed when she stepped up onto the lava plain that spread like an apron out from the base of the Punta Berlanga cliffs. The lava was slick with sea spray, and the tide pools were clogged with brown floating algae and dotted with black-shelled snails.
She put her foot down on something live and it twisted and squirmed out from under her. Leaping back, she stumbled and went down hard on her ass, breaking her fall with the heels of her hands. A shape moved on the rock, black against black, and she realized she'd almost crushed a marine iguana.
A fat lizard about two feet long with tough folds of black skin and a row of spikes running from its neck to the base of its substantial tail, it had a prehistoric appearance. Two beady black eyes peered out from the lumpy white scales encrusting its face.
Szabla stayed still for a moment, suddenly aware that all around her, the lava was covered with marine iguanas, some longer than two feet. Their gray-dusted black scales blended perfectly with the dark rock. Sev-eral were pushed up on their front legs in a position of elevated basking, allowing the breeze to cool them off. They all lazily rotated their heads toward her.
One of the marine iguanas made a sharp sneezing sound, spitting through its nose to clear the brine, and a few others followed suit. Though Szabla knew they were harmless herbivores, they looked fierce, almost ferocious, and she rose quickly to her feet.
A promontory abruptly interrupted the curve of the cliffs to the west, angling out into the sea with a spill of rocks. Szabla headed for the point, carefully avoiding tide pools and iguana colonies. She waded out around the cliff, navigating her way through patches of green sea urchins. The water surged in, forcing her toward the wall, but she held her ground, planting her boots underwater against a flat lava ledge as the undertow spent itself.
A large spray of white mangrove sprouted from the outermost point of the promontory like a strange tumor. A fallen beetle floated on its back below the leaves, paddling in little circles with the bicycling move-ments of its legs. Szabla pulled back the mangrove, revealing a small crescent of black sand nestled just beyond the promontory, cliffs towering protectively above and around it. She inhaled sharply.
Naked, Savage was standing on the dark beach, gazing out at the bril-liant aquamarine bay. Szabla drew back slightly, hiding behind an out-cropping.
Savage rested his clothes in a mound atop his boots. He stepped into the water, dipping his hips beneath with a slight grimace, and backstroked in circles as the birds swooped to their nests in the cliffs above him.
A penguin wiggled through the water and shot up onto a shady nook in the cliff, sticking out its belly to shade its feet. It was very small, standing little more than a foot tall, its white underbelly a dot against the dark lava. It opened its beak, panting to expel heat, and spread its wings to pick up the breeze. It shit on its feet to cool them off.
A manta ray lazed through the water to Savage's left, and he turned on his side, avoiding it. He leaned back, pulling his bandanna free, his hair soaking in the water. He ducked underwater, then slicked his locks back over his head.
Szabla watched in silence, the sun beating down on her. Sweat glis-tened across the top of her chest, and her forest-green tank top was ringed with moisture along the scoop neck. His back to her, Savage exited the water. He shook his hair from side to side, sending droplets of water flying. Szabla couldn't take her eyes off him.
She hadn't realized how long his hair was since the bandanna took up most of its length, but seeing it now unbound, she would have bet it reached his shoulders in the back. For a man over fifty, Savage was in remarkable shape. His back was grooved with muscle, his calves firm knots. When he turned, Szabla was shocked by the definition of his chest and shoulders. A patch of hair spread across his pectorals. The hair was neatly contained; it didn't climb back over his shoulders.
Her eyes traced over his naked body as he stood, slapping the sand from his feet. A scar compassed his right arm at the peak of the biceps. Her transmitter vibrated silently beneath the skin of her shoulder, sur-prising her. She started and had to step to regain her balance, her foot plunking loudly in the water. She looked up anxiously, standing in full view of Savage.
He was still naked, holding his undershirt. He didn't look up, but he smiled as he bunched the shirt in his hands and pulled it over his head. 'Tell 'em I'll be there in a minute,' he said, not raising his eyes. He made no effort
