The Devil Colony (14 page)

Ahead, the valley floor dropped into a shallow declivity, roughly circular in shape, stretching thirty yards across and worn deep into the cliff face to the left. Closer by, the rocky edge still continued to crumble into gravel and coarse sand, slowly expanding the pit. Beyond the rim, the pit itself sloped downward, full of fine rock dust, until near the center it dropped precipitously into a deep, steaming hole.

Water boiled down that dark throat, aglow with subterranean fires. A tremor shook underfoot, and a geyser of superheated water and steam jetted into the night sky, accompanied by a sonorous roar. They all backed away warily.

Once the fountain died out, Chin crossed to within a yard of the crater. “The blast has definitely broken into the geothermal strata under our feet,” he said, his voice muffled by his mask. “This entire region sits atop a volcanic hotbed.”

Ryan followed with Bellamy to the rim of the pit. “Careful of the edge. It can give way.”

Chin nodded, stepped warily to the lip, then dropped to a knee and opened his portable case. Inside, meticulously organized, was a slew of scientific tools and chemicals, along with rock hammers, containers, brushes, and picks.

The geologist spoke as he prepared a series of collection kits. “I need several samples of the detritus and silt, starting from the periphery and working toward the middle.” He freed a hammer and chisel and held them out. “If one of you could chip a piece of granite near the lip, that would speed things up.”

Ryan motioned for Bellamy to obey. “Why do you need a chunk of stone?”

“To use as a baseline for the composition of the local bedrock. Something to compare against the samples from the blast zone.”

Bellamy took the tools and a small sample bag, crossed a few yards away, and set to work. The young black man had been a linebacker for the Utah State Aggies, but a knee injury had sidelined him. With a wife and a young daughter on the way, he had quit school and joined the Guard. He was a good soldier and knew how to work fast and efficiently.

Chin attached a glass vial to a telescoping aluminum pole. Bending down, he stretched the rod and scooped up a sample of the coarse sand closest to the edge.

While the geologist worked, Ryan stared across the pit. The debris grew even finer out there, becoming a powdery dust near the center, where it seemed to swirl in an hourglass shape, spiraling downward and disappearing into the throat of the steaming hole.

A muffled gasp drew his attention back to Chin. The geologist held his pole out over the pit. He’d been successful in scooping up a sample of the hot sand in the glass vial. Only now the jar’s surface was covered in a web of cracks.

Had the heat shattered it?

As Ryan watched, the vial’s bottom cracked off, spilling the sample back into the pit. As the chunk of glass hit the surface, it seemed to melt into the powder. No, not
melt
. In a matter of seconds, it dissolved away, vanishing into nothingness.

Chin straightened from his crouch. He still held aloft the pole with the remnants of the broken vial clamped at its end. As both he and Ryan stared, the rest of the container crumbled into a fine glassy powder and sifted into the pit. Even the tip of the aluminum rod began to disintegrate, working slowly down its length. Before it could travel more than a few inches, Chin tossed the pole into the pit. It impaled the powdery surface like a javelin—then continued to sink as if into quicksand.

Ryan knew it wasn’t just sinking.

“It’s denaturing,” Chin said, amazement countering Ryan’s terror. “Whatever’s going on here, it’s breaking down matter. Maybe at the atomic level.”

“What the hell’s causing it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Then how do we stop it?”

Chin only shook his head. Ryan pictured the process continuing to spread like a cancer over the mountains, digging ever deeper at the same time. He remembered the geologist’s words, describing what lay beneath his feet.

This entire region sits atop a volcanic hotbed.

As a reminder, the ground gave another violent shake, much worse than before. The geyser spouted again, reaching as high as the treetops, casting out a wall of superheated air.

Chin shielded his face with an arm while pointing the other man back toward the Guard post. “This is far too unstable! You need to evacuate this chasm. Retreat at least a mile.”

Ryan had no intention of arguing. He yelled to Bellamy, who still stood a few yards away with a hammer and chisel. “Forget that! Get the men ready to move out! Gather all our gear!”

Before the big man could take a step, another boulder broke off the cliff face behind the private and crashed into the pit. Damp powder splashed outward. Several black splotches struck Bellamy on the lower right leg.

“Get back from there!” Ryan ordered.

Needing no urging, Bellamy trotted toward them. By the time he reached them, his face was a mask of pain. He hobbled on his right leg.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan asked.

“Leg’s on fire, sir.”

Ryan glanced down. The flame-retardant trousers should have protected his skin against any burn from the splatter of hot powder.

“Get him on the ground!” Chin barked out. “Now!”

Ryan jumped, responding to the command in the geologist’s voice. He reached for Bellamy’s shoulder, but the private suddenly screamed, toppling as his right leg crumpled under him. The limb cracked midshin, breaking sideways.

Ryan managed to catch him and lower him to the ground.

“Fuuuuck,” the private yelled, writhing in agony.

Ryan didn’t admonish the cursing. He felt like doing the same himself. What the hell was happening?

Chin knelt by Bellamy’s legs. He had a blade in hand, a military KA-BAR knife. He slit the private’s trouser leg from knee to ankle, revealing an ugly compound fracture midshin. A splintered chunk of tibial bone poked out of his calf, stark white against the man’s dark skin. Blood seeped, but not as much as Chin had anticipated.

“He’s contaminated,” Chin said.

Ryan struggled to understand what that meant—then as he watched, the sharp end of shattered bone began to turn to dust before his eyes. The skin along the edges of the wound retreated, dissolving away from the wound. Ryan pictured the splash of powder hitting Bellamy and remembered the word the geologist had used a moment ago.

Denaturing
.

The powder must have eaten through Bellamy’s suit and set to work on his leg.

“Wh-what do we do?” Ryan stammered.

“Get an ax!” Chin ordered.

It wasn’t the force of command that got Ryan moving this time, but the fear in the geologist’s voice. Chin had already cut away the stained piece of fabric, careful not to touch it, and tossed it into the pit. If Ryan had any doubt as to Chin’s plan, it was dispelled when the geologist yanked off his belt and began preparing a tourniquet.

Bellamy also understood, letting out a low moan. “Noooo . . .”

“It’s the only way,” Chin explained to the private. “We can’t let it spread up your leg.”

He was right. As Ryan ran toward his camp, he remembered the question he’d posed earlier, picturing the expanding crater.
How do we stop it?

He had his answer.

At great cost.

All they could do for now was damage control.

In less than a minute, he returned with an ax, collected from the camp’s firefighting gear, along with two of his men. By the time they arrived, Chin already had his belt cinched around Bellamy’s thigh. The private lay on his back, pinned at the shoulders by the geologist. Behind his mask, Bellamy’s face shone with terror and pain.

Gasps rose from the other two soldiers.

Ryan understood. Bellamy’s leg looked like a shark had taken a bite out of the calf. Only meat and skin still held the appendage together. The rest had been eaten away by whatever had contaminated him.

Chin met Ryan’s gaze as the other two soldiers took his place. The geologist glanced from the ax to Bellamy. “Do you want me to do this?”

Ryan shook his head.
He’s my man. My responsibility.
He hefted up his ax. He had only one question for the geologist. “Above or below the knee?”

He found the answer in the grim expression on Chin’s face. They dared take no chances.

Heaving with all his strength, he swung the ax down.

Chapter 11

May 30, 10:20
P.M.
Provo, Utah

Painter Crowe forced his fingers to loosen their death grip on the armrests of his seat. The race from Salt Lake City to the university town of Provo had challenged even his steely resolve. He had tried to distract himself by placing a call to his girlfriend, Lisa, to let her know he’d landed safely, but as they raced down the highway, dodging around slower traffic, often swerving wildly into the opposite lanes, he had wondered if perhaps that call had been premature.

Kowalski finally killed the engine on the Chevy Tahoe and checked his watch. “Twenty-eight minutes. That means you owe me a cigar.”

“I should’ve listened to Gray.” Painter shoved the door open and almost fell out. “He told me to keep you away from anything with wheels.”

Kowalski shrugged and climbed out, too. “What does Gray know? Guy spends most of his time pedaling around D.C. on that bike of his. If God had wanted men to ride bikes, He wouldn’t have put our balls where they are.”

Painter stared over at Kowalski. Dumbfounded and at a loss for words, he simply shook his head and headed across the parking lot with Kowalski in tow. The larger man wore an ankle-length black duster, which allowed him to hide the Mossberg pump-action shotgun strapped to his leg. To blunt its lethality in the urban environment, the weapon was equipped with Taser XREP shells—wireless, self-contained slugs that delivered a paralyzing jolt of electricity into their targets.

It was a wise precaution, considering the man who was wielding that weapon.

At this late hour, the campus of Brigham Young University was quiet. A few students walked briskly down the sidewalks, bundled against the chilly wind blowing off the snow-crowned mountains surrounding the city. A couple glanced curiously their way, then moved on.

Ahead, streetlamps shone warmly along wooded walkways, and a tall bell tower loomed in the distance. University buildings, mostly dark, spread outward in all directions, while a few still glowed brightly with late-night classes.

Painter checked the campus map he’d pulled up on his cell phone. Professor Kanosh had asked them to rendezvous at a lab in the earth sciences building. Gaining his bearings, Painter led the way.

The Eyring Science Center was situated along a tree-lined path off of West Campus Drive. It was hard to miss the large domed observatory resting atop it. A wide staircase led up three levels to its massive glass facade.

Once they were through the doors, Kowalski frowned as he eyed the cathedral-like lobby, whose main feature was a giant Foucault’s pendulum suspended from the ceiling, weighted down with a giant brass sphere. To the side a small café—closed at this hour—was shadowed by a giant life-sized allosaurus nestled amid tall ferns.

“So where now?” Kowalski asked.

“We’re to meet at a physics lab in the basement.”

“Why down there?”

That was a good question. It was an unusual place to meet a historian, but Professor Kanosh had mentioned something about some tests being run for him. No matter, it was still a remote and quiet place for them to meet. Painter checked a directory, then crossed to a stairway leading down. The Underground Physics Research Laboratory truly lived up to its name. The lab wasn’t just in the building’s basement; it was buried under the lawn on the north side of the building.

As they crossed into the complex, it wasn’t difficult to find the specific lab, deserted as the facility was now. Raised voices echoed down the hall from an open doorway.

Painter hurried forward, fearing someone had already found Kai and Professor Kanosh. As he entered the room, he reached for the shoulder-holstered pistol under his suit jacket. He was on alert as he took in another man, who seemed to be threatening Professor Kanosh with a dagger—but Painter let his arm drop away from his holster as he fully absorbed the situation. The man with the knife was wearing a white lab coat, and the dagger looked old, possibly an archaeological artifact. Furthermore, Professor Kanosh was showing no fear, only irritation. Clearly the other man was a colleague, one who seemed determined to make a point.

“This may be the very proof we’ve been looking for!” he said, slapping the dagger on the tabletop. “Why are you so obstinate?”

Before Professor Kanosh could answer, the two men noted Painter’s sudden arrival as he swept inside. Their eyes widened and grew even rounder as the hulking form of Kowalski followed him into the room.

The two colleagues were seated at a long table in the center of an expansive lab. A few lights glowed deeper in the facility, revealing an array of equipment. Some Painter recognized from his own background in electrical engineering and design: mass spectrometers, various solenoids and rheostats, resistance and capacitance boxes. One piece of equipment drew his eyes. In a neighboring alcove, the tall column of an electron microscope hummed alongside a series of glowing monitors.

“Uncle Crowe?”

The question came from the shadows alongside the microscope array. A young woman stepped tentatively into the light, her arms wrapped around her chest, her shoulders slumped. She stared up at him through a fall of long black hair.

It was his niece Kai.

“Are you all right?” Painter asked. It was a stupid question considering the circumstances.

She shrugged, mumbled something under her breath, and joined Professor Kanosh at the table. Painter tracked her.
So much for the warm family reunion.
Then again, it had been over three years since he’d last seen Kai. It had been at her father’s funeral. In that short span of time, she had grown from a gangly girl to a young woman, but in her face, he could see that she had also grown harder, far more than she should have grown in only three years.