Sitting astride the big man, Hecate shrugged. “Paris has other tastes.”

Tonton ran his rough hands over her small breasts. Her white skin was still flushed to a scalding pink from her last orgasm. He was on the edge of exhaustion, but she still had that fire in her eyes.

“He’s not like you,” murmured Tonton. “No one’s like you.”

Hecate smiled, thinking about how right he was. There was no one on the earth quite like her. Not anymore.

Tonton was only semi-erect, but Hecate moved her hips in a way that had three times changed that. It was taking longer this time. She smiled to herself, thinking, Men are weak.

She decided to throw Tonton a bone. “No one’s quite like you, either, my pet.”

“Nah,” he said. “I’m just another grunt.” It was feeble humility. Though it was true that there were hundreds of Berserkers now, it was equally true that he was physically far stronger than the others. The gene therapy Hecate had given him had brought him to a different level. His muscle mass was 46 percent denser than an ordinary man’s. He was six feet, eight inches tall and carried his 362 pounds of mass as easily as an Olympic athlete. He could do one-arm chin-ups in sets of fifty and he could do those for hours. He could bench-press a thousand pounds without straining. He could climb a redwood tree and snap a baseball bat in half in his bare hands.

Tonton loved his strength. So did Hecate. He was the only one of the Berserkers she allowed into her bedroom, and over the last few weeks he’d gotten that call from her at least four times a week.

“How come Mr. Paris isn’t like you?” he asked as she moved slowly up and down on him. He was hoping to distract her long enough for her to switch off. She may not have limits, but he did.

Hecate had her eyes closed, concentrating on what she was doing, and Tonton thought she wouldn’t answer, but then she murmured, “We’re like lions, my pet.”

“I don’t get it…”

“The males are dumb and lazy and they lay around while the females do all the wet work. We hunt; we kill. We’re the real pride leaders.”

Tonton said nothing.

Hecate opened her eyes and the blue irises were flecked with spots of hot gold. She smiled-at least Tonton thought it was a smile-and in the uncertain glow from the candles her teeth looked strangely sharp. More like a cat’s teeth than he remembered them being.

Hecate said, “All the males do is look pretty and fuck.”

She ran her sharp fingernails over Tonton’s throat and increased the rhythm of her hips.

Tonton understood the message, and tired or not, he did his best to serve the needs of the leader of his pride.

Chapter Sixty-Seven

The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, August 29, 5:38 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 22 minutes

Church logged into his old e-mail account from his laptop and his fingers flew over the keys.

“Same sender as the hunt video,” he said. To the communications officer he said, “Track this back and find out where the user logged on. Do it now.” The officer sprinted out.

We were still reeling from the shock of the news about Jigsaw, but the fact that we might have another clue was like a shot of pure adrenaline. I wanted a scent I could chase down. I wanted someone in my crosshairs. I wanted someone’s throat in my hands. I wanted it so bad I could scream.

Church sent the video to the conference room server and punched keys to display it on the flatscreen. The screen popped with white noise, faded to black, and then we saw the face of a young teenage boy, maybe fourteen. Dark hair, rounded face, a slight gap between mildly buck teeth, and brown eyes that held a look of such comprehensive despair that it chilled me.

“If he finds out that I sent this, he’ll kill me,” said the boy. It was recorded with some kind of stationary camera, maybe a webcam. Grainy and dark, with a weak streaming image. “But I had to try. If you got the other file I sent, then you know what’s going on from what the two Americans said.”

“But the sound kept cutting out,” Bug said. “We could hardly-”

“Shhhh,” said Hu.

“You have to stop them. What they’re doing… it’s…” The kid shook his head, unable to put his horror into words. “I don’t have much time. I stole one of the guards’ laptops, but I have to get it back before they notice I took it. I read Otto’s file, so if you’re who I think you are, then you have to do something before everyone in Africa dies. And maybe more than that. You got to stop them! If you can’t find this place, then see if you can find the Deck. That’s the main lab; that’s what you have to find. I know it’s in Arizona someplace, but I don’t know where. Maybe you can find that out when you get here. And then you have to do something about the Dragon Factory. I don’t know where that is, but Alpha thinks it’s in the Carolinas. I don’t think so because I heard Paris tell his sister that they had to get back to the ‘island.’ I just don’t know which island.”

He paused, looking desperate.

“I don’t even know if I’m making sense. Oh… wait!” He obviously spotted something and darted out of shot. We heard the rustling of paper and then he was back, with a big piece of white paper in his hands. He turned it in a few different directions, trying to orient it, and then turned it around toward the camera. “Can you see this? I think this is us; I think this is the Hive.”

He suddenly stiffened, lowered the paper, and sat with his head cocked in an attitude of listening.

“Someone’s coming. I have to be quick. If you get this, if you come… then broadcast on this frequency.” He read off the numbers. “It’s only short range, but I made it myself. If you’re here, I can help you get past the guards… but you have to be careful of the dogs. The dogs aren’t dogs.”

He turned his head again.

“Oh no! I have to go.”

And with that he punched a button and the screen went blank.

Without waiting for comments Church ran it again and then froze the image on the map.

“Bug,” he shouted, “download that image and find me that island. Now!”

“On it.”

“Grace,” Church said, “prep the TOC. By the time Bug locates that island I want birds in the air.”

The Tactical Operations Center was the mission control room. It had MindReader stations, satellite downlinks that fed real-time images, and was networked into every branch of the military and intelligence network. And I don’t mean just ours… MindReader didn’t give a crap about nationality.

Grace hesitated. “I want to-”

“I know what you want, Grace,” he said, “but it looks like we’re going to have multiple targets. This site… Arizona, and maybe the Carolinas or an island. I need you to prepare Alpha Team for a trip out west.”

As she hurried out, she threw me an evil look. “Teacher’s pet.”

Church looked at me. “You’re up, Captain.”

I leaned across the table. “Church… the kid said that the answers were on the hunt video, but that file sucked and we got maybe one word in twenty. Can you get someone who reads lips? Maybe they can pick up something…”

“Good call. Now-go!”

But I was already running for the door.