The Hatching Read online

  “I know, Ben.” She looked at the president. “I know it sounds crazy, but Zouskis makes a really good case here. Our first impulse was the same as yours, but it doesn’t add up. There has been no amassing of troops, no inflamed rhetoric, nothing to signal a political move or a territorial expansion, even when we look at it in retrospect. Things have been pretty good with China. So we looked at other avenues, all the things that come easily to mind like some sort of civil protest that got out of hand, but that’s not the kind of thing that the Chinese would drop a nuke over, and unrest of the scale requiring nuclear pacification isn’t really the sort of thing they could keep entirely quiet. We would have heard rumblings.”

  Alex sighed. “I suppose it’s possible there was a full-scale secret military facility on the site and we just missed it, and it was a rogue faction of the army that had to be pacified with a nuke, but if that was the case, then we need to give the Chinese a hell of a lot more credit in their ability to hide themselves. No. As much as it sounds like a bit of a stretch, I think the most likely explanation is that there was some sort of a small lab. Really small. Just a scientist or two tinkering around. Off the reservation. I don’t mean a lab that is completely off-the-books, but a lab that just wasn’t considered important enough to be kept on a military facility site. Small-scale. A sort of boutique kind of shop with a mad scientist. Small enough that they weren’t prepared for the kind of success they had in coming up with a new weapon. The kind of lab where they threw a couple hundred thousand dollars at the scientists and sent them off to go fail in peace. We do the same thing here. Do you know how many crazy, speculative projects we fund, both on and off the books? Nano parasites and sonic lasers and death rays and all that sort of crap? Look, I’d be really happy to come in here and say our information points to it being an accident or that the Chinese dropped a nuke out of political motivation, but that’s not what we’re seeing.” She paused and looked at each of them.

  And then she said, “I think it’s something worse. I think it’s worse than whatever we are actually thinking right now.”

  Alex stood up and pinched the touch screen, pulling back to a map that showed the entire province. “We aren’t seeing soldiers fighting soldiers on the ground, and we aren’t seeing the kind of troop movement that would indicate outward expansion. Maybe it’s the use of the word bugs that’s throwing you here, but when I say ‘bugs’ think of it as just a nickname for something. Our best bet—with what little intelligence we have right now—is pointing toward some sort of bioweapon that they lost control of. Right now, whatever it is, it’s something we don’t understand, and that something scared the shit out of them. It scared them enough that when trying to contain it they failed, and they were willing to drop a thirty-megaton nuke in order to clean up the mess they made. Whatever it is, I don’t think we’re looking down the barrel of a conventional ground war. I mean, Madam President, what would scare you badly enough that you’d be willing to nuke one of our own cities?”

  “Okay.” The president stood up and walked over to the monitor showing the map. “Bugs. A bioweapon. Whatever. The point is that our analyst . . . ?”

  “Zouskis.”

  “Zouskis has given us information that shows something was going on. So can we agree, at this point, that we are ruling out the Chinese explanation, that it was simply an accident?”

  “Maybe that’s for the best,” Manny said. “On some level the idea that the Chinese just accidentally turned part of their country into a glowing wasteland is actually more disturbing than the idea that they did it on purpose.”

  The president nodded. “Okay. So we’re already in the process of deploying troops outside the country based on the idea of containment if the Chinese are planning to use the explosion as a gambit to make a move for territory,” she said. “But what if Alex is right? Because I have to be honest, as crazy as it sounds, and as much as there is no fucking way we can whisper a word of this to the press—can you imagine the civil unrest if word leaked that there was some sort of Chinese bioweapon experiment gone wrong that required a nuke to contain it?—I think there is a compelling argument here that this might have been pure panic on the part of the Chinese. So the real question is, what do we do?”

  “Madam President,” Ben said. He smoothed the folds in his uniform with his palm. “With all due respect to Alex and her little analyst, this is ridiculous. Two sentences that use the word insects, a couple of grainy photos, and a few seconds of jerky video? Based on that, we’re going to assume there is some sort of new, virulent superweapon out there?”

  Manny watched Steph stare at Ben. That was one of the things he liked about her. She wasn’t afraid to make everybody wait on her if she needed to think about something. She looked away from Ben to the map that showed troop deployments and then back at Ben.

  “Get them back,” she said.

  “Ma’am?” Ben looked confused.

  “Get them back,” Steph said. “All the troops we started shifting outside the country. Boots back on the ground.”

  Billy, who had been quiet for most of the past ten minutes, perked up. “You want us to pull all the troops who are OCONUS back home?”

  “Not all of them,” the president said. “Just the ones we sent in reaction to the nuke. And I want it done now. Immediately.”

  Manny saw Ben roll his eyes and struggle to keep from yelling. Ben looked like a teenager on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum because he had been told he couldn’t get a new cell phone. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs firmly believed the only appropriate response was to keep the Chinese in line with a show of troop strength, and he’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours trying to make sure it happened. Interestingly, Billy didn’t look too put out. The secretary of defense merely seemed curious.

  “Madam President?” Billy said. “Let’s say that we’re wrong about the Chinese trying to expand their territory, and that Alex is right that they dropped the nuke to contain some sort of biological weapon. Okay? Alex is right. So why the hurry? Maybe Alex is right, maybe Alex is wrong, but either way, it won’t hurt to let the deployment play out and then reel everybody back in with a little patience. If Alex is wrong, the smart play is to have our troops deployed, and if Alex is right, then we can order everybody back and start dealing with the shifting realities on the ground.”

  Manny sat up straight. He couldn’t stop himself from blurting it out. “The flu.”

  Billy stared at him. “Pardon me?”

  “The flu,” Manny said. “If it is a bioweapon, maybe it’s not contained by the blast. We act like it’s a flu pandemic. The big one.”

  “Ding.” Steph had a grim smile. “Three points for Manny. How quick can we get moving on this? Quarantine zones and soldiers in place? I don’t want anything rolled out yet, but I want everything ready to move.”

  There was a moment of quiet in the room. Despite everything, Manny’s first thought concerned the political ramifications. “This is going to be a disaster. You might get a brief bounce in the spirit of patriotism, but if we have to deploy troops at home, you are going to get killed in the polling.”

  Steph actually smiled at him. “Not my biggest worry right now, Manny. I think this might be the time where we have to ask if we care about doing what is right or if everything is about getting the political win.”

  “The latter. It’s always about the political win,” Manny said, but only because he knew Steph expected it of him. Despite her laugh, she looked as though she was feeling the weight of the presidency. He couldn’t stop himself from worrying about the political ramifications, but if it was some sort of virus that had run amok to the point where the Chinese were willing to go nuclear, the political fallout—he almost laughed at the thought of fallout—of having to enforce quarantines and of billeting troops in the cities was going to be less of an issue in the next election than the problem of thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands, of dead Americans. Fucking Chinese and fucking bioweapons. There was a
part of him that longed for the good old-fashioned wars where men dug trenches and died in the conventional manner.

  Still, the president and the others laughed at Manny’s predictable reply. He started to speak again, but there was a knock on the door followed by the entrance of the president’s personal secretary. “Excuse me, Madam President,” she said. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but he’s absolutely insisting.”

  “Who?”

  “The director of the agency. He says he has to talk to you about Bill Henderson.”

  Manny couldn’t see it, but he knew Steph was rolling her eyes. She certainly appreciated the fund-raising work Henderson had done on her behalf, but the truth of the matter was that the news of his plane crash was just swallowed up by the apparent willingness of the Chinese to break out the nukes. They’d release the statement, and at some point she’d answer questions about the crash, and she’d go to Minneapolis for his funeral, but with the Chinese thing, Henderson’s funeral just wasn’t the most important thing going on. He was about to tell the president’s secretary that Steph would call back, but the president spoke first.

  “What about Henderson?”

  When the secretary hesitated, Manny got a bad feeling.

  The secretary wasn’t the sort of woman who hesitated.

  “The director,” she said, “insists that he has to talk to you.” She paused as if picking her words very carefully. “He says that Mr. Henderson may have been eaten by spiders.”

  At that, the president’s head lifted up and Steph stared at the secretary. Manny realized they were all staring at the secretary.

  “Spiders?” Manny heard his own voice but wasn’t actually convinced he was the one asking. “Spiders. As in, you know, bugs?”

  “Spiders,” the secretary confirmed. “The director seems quite . . . rattled.”

  The president stood up and pointed at Ben and then Billy. “Not just the ones we sent in response. Every fucking man and woman in the forces that we can pull. All of them. Boots back on the ground here at home. Ben, how quickly can we get ready to respond to this?”

  “We’ve got the plans in place and everything is stockpiled, so probably twenty-four hours if we put a hellfire to it.”

  “Light the match,” Steph said, “but don’t put it to the wick yet. I don’t want a single soldier outside the grounds of a single base, but I want trucks ready to roll.”

  “Steph,” Manny said. “Madam President, I think . . .” He trailed off. He didn’t know what he thought.

  Steph walked to the end of the table that held a phone. “You think I’m overreacting, and you’re probably right, but we know the Chinese nuked their own territory to keep something in check, something they are calling bugs, and now we’ve got a billionaire who crash-landed in Minneapolis and was eaten by spiders. I’m not exactly Mrs. Conspiracy Theory, but we better act on this. Worst case, what? We call it a training exercise?”

  “A training exercise,” Alex said. “We say we’ve had the plans in place for a year, but we didn’t alert anybody because we wanted to really give it a test. That’s the story we spin if we’re overreacting.”

  “Okay,” Manny said. “I don’t like it, but I can live with it.”

  Billy raised his hand. Manny almost laughed. The man actually raised his hand.

  “What?” Stephanie snapped.

  “What if we aren’t overreacting?” he said. “Near as we can tell, this started, what, six days ago? Six days from the start to China dropping a nuke? What if we’re already moving too slowly?”

  Stephanie looked at the secretary. “Put the director through,” she said, and then she turned back to Billy. “If we aren’t overreacting, then God help us all.” She picked up the phone, but then paused and pressed it to her chest. “And Manny,” she said, turning to look at him, “call your ex-wife. I’ve got some questions about spiders.”

  American University,

  Washington, DC

  “Professor Guyer?”

  Melanie snapped her head up from the desk. “I’m awake. I’m awake,” she said. Her cheek and the side of her mouth were damp, and she wiped the drool off her face. Jesus. How long had she been asleep? As she turned to look at Bark, she could feel a sharp pain in her lower back. She had a couch in her office for this very reason, so she could sleep at her lab when she wanted, and yet she’d still fallen asleep at her desk. She glanced at her watch. Nearly four in the afternoon.

  “Professor Guyer?” Bark said again, her name still a question.

  She looked at him and then past him, to see that neither Julie nor Patrick was drafting behind him, and then she said, “How many times, Bark?”

  “I’m sorry? How many times what, Professor Guyer?”

  “How many times have I had your dick in my mouth? And you’re still calling me Professor Guyer?”

  Bark blushed, which, Melanie hated to admit, was kind of cute. He was really, really good in bed, though he seemed oblivious to it, always asking her if things were okay or if that was what she wanted, and that was part of his charm. Of course, that same cluelessness was what made her want to brain him with her desk lamp.

  “You know it makes me uncomfortable when you speak like that,” he said. He looked over his shoulder to make sure none of his colleagues had heard Melanie’s remark, and then he shut the door behind him and came around her desk. He sat on the desk and put his hand on her shoulder. He’d been in the lab all night, as she had, but he still smelled good. A mix of soap and something a little stronger. His hand was big and heavy, and despite herself, she could feel herself starting to sink into its weight. She turned her head and, very lightly, sunk her teeth into the edge of his palm.

  She released his palm. “But my saying I had your dick in my mouth doesn’t make you so uncomfortable that you’d stop me from doing it,” Melanie said. “Spare me the old-fashioned ‘delicate flower’ bullshit, okay?” She yawned and stretched. There was something seriously tight in her back, and she really wanted to just put her head back down on the desk and close her eyes again. She felt as if she could sleep for days. She’d been dreaming about spiders—she always dreamed about spiders—and there was a nest of cobwebs in her head.

  “It’s time, Professor Guyer,” Bark said. “It’s happening.”

  That cleared away the cobwebs. There weren’t that many eureka moments in science. Mostly it was just hard work, data collection, the slow and steady roll of progress. And she loved it. She genuinely liked spending time in the lab, in observation and notation. Back in high school she was the only kid who thought titration exercises were interesting, and then as an undergrad and a grad student, even when she was bored by the grind, she’d been able to maintain her concentration. She was brilliant, there was no disputing that, but there had been a couple of other students in her graduate program who were equally brilliant. The difference was that they didn’t carry the same level of discipline she did. She’d become famous in her field because she was able to make the logical leaps that pushed the science forward, but she knew that at the core, she’d been successful because she was a grinder. She didn’t just come up with ideas; she was able to prove her theories through methodical research.

  But no matter how much she was willing to grind, no matter how disciplined she was, there was nothing, absolutely nothing that compared with the excitement of a breakthrough. And if she was being honest, it had been a while since she’d done anything exciting in the lab.

  Yes, discovering the medical use of venom from the Heteropoda venatoria two years ago had been a great follow-up to the work that had made her what passes for famous in the world of entomology in the first place, but as much as she was still fond of the huntsman spider, she felt as though she’d finished that avenue of research. It was time for something new.

  Despite her annoyance at her graduate students yesterday when they’d ambushed her outside the classroom and reminded her of her drunken rambling about Peru and the Nazca Lines, she’d clearly been onto something. To sa
y what was happening with the egg sac was interesting was an understatement. This was potentially one of those scientific moments that could define a career. There was an evolutionary ecologist in Oklahoma who’d started trying to resurrect dormant eggs back in the 1990s, and he’d had early success with eggs that were decades old. By the early 2000s, however, he was hatching eggs a hundred years old, and by 2010 he managed to get eggs more than seven hundred years old to hatch. Okay, admittedly, from what she remembered about the article, he’d been working with water fleas, which were quite a bit simpler than spiders, but still. The idea wasn’t completely insane. So if it was interesting enough just to have found a calcified ten-thousand-year-old egg sac at the Nazca site, to have it hatch was at another level all together.

  This could be huge. The cover of Science or Nature huge.

  She gave her face a wash in the lab sink. She could have taken a quick shower in her private bathroom in her office—that bathroom, in and of itself, was reason enough to come to American University, forget the fact that she needed to get to DC for Manny or that American University made her the best offer—but if it was time, she didn’t want to miss anything.

  The three graduate students were huddled along the back wall of the lab. The insectarium was next to a cage containing a rat that Patrick had nicknamed “Humpy,” for the cancerous growths on its back. On the other side of the insectarium, one of the students’ laptops was playing a live stream of the news, the words a low mumble washing over them. Julie was bent over and writing something down in her notebook.