The 6th Extinction Read Free Page B

the little that there was. They were understaffed and overworked, but over these past few years, she had learned to love the moods of the lake, of the animals, even of her fellow rangers.
    “I don’t know for sure what’s up, Jen, but I was hoping you could take a swing up north. Emergency services relayed a partial 911 call to our office.”
    “Give me the details.” Besides acting as curators of the parks, rangers were also fully sworn law enforcement officers. Their duties encompassed a wide variety of roles, anything from criminal investigations to emergency medical response.
    “The call came from outside of Bodie,” Bill explained.
    She frowned. Nothing was outside of Bodie , except for a handful of gold-rush-era ghost towns and old abandoned mines. That is, except for—
    “It came from that military research site,” Bill confirmed.
    Crap .
    “What was the call about?” she asked.
    “I listened to the recording myself. All that could be heard was shouting. No words could be made out. Then the call cut off.”
    “So it could be anything or nothing.”
    “Exactly. Maybe the call was made by mistake, but someone should at least swing by the gate and make an inquiry.”
    “And apparently that would be me.”
    “Both Tony and Kate are out near Yosemite, dealing with a drunk-and-disorderly call.”
    “All right, Bill. I’m on it. I’ll radio once I’m at the base gate. Let me know if you hear anything else.”
    The dispatcher agreed and signed off.
    Jenna turned to Nikko. “Looks like those ribs are gonna have to wait, big fella.”
    7:24 P . M .
    “Hurry!”
    Four stories underground, Dr. Kendall Hess pounded up the stairs, followed closely by his systems analyst, Irene McIntire. Red emergency lights strobed at each landing. A siren rang a continual warning throughout the facility.
    “We’ve lost containment levels four and five,” she gasped behind him, monitoring the threat rising up from below on a handheld bioreader.
    But the screams that chased them were enough of an assessment.
    “It must be in the airways by now,” Irene said.
    “How could that be?”
    His question was meant to be rhetorical, but Irene still answered it.
    “It can’t be. Not without massive lab error. But I checked—”
    “It wasn’t lab error,” he blurted out more sharply than he intended.
    He knew the more likely cause.
    Sabotage .
    Too many firewalls—both electronic and biological—had failed for this to be anything but purposeful. Someone had deliberately caused this containment breach.
    “What can we do?” Irene pleaded.
    They had only one recourse left, a final fail-safe, to fight fire with fire. But would it do more harm than good? He listened to the strangled cries rising from below and knew his answer.
    They reached the top floor. Not knowing what they faced—especially if he was right about a saboteur—he stopped Irene with a touch on her arm. He saw the skin on the back of her hand was already blistering, the same along her neck.
    “You must go for the radio. Send out a mayday. In case I fail.”
    Or God help me, if I lose my nerve .
    She nodded, her eyes trying to hide her pain. What he was asking her to do would likely end in her death. “I’ll try,” she said, looking terrified.
    Burning with regret, he tore the door open and pushed her toward the radio room. “Run!”
    7:43 P . M .
    The truck bumped hard from the paved road onto a gravel track.
    Leaning heavily on the gas pedal, Jenna took less than twenty minutes to climb from Mono Lake to the eight-thousand-foot elevation of Bodie State Historic Park. But she wasn’t heading to the neighboring park. Her destination was even higher and more remote.
    With the sun a mere glimmer on the horizon, she bounced down the dark road, rattling gravel up into her wheel wells. Only a handful of people outside of law enforcement knew about this military site. It had been rapidly established, with barely a word raised about it. Even the building