“The one you went after with your rock?” I asked.

“Yes.” He told us about the female who had been brutalized over the dropped rock. “Otto says that a dedicated program of humiliation erodes the will and rewrites the instincts to accept all forms of abuse as a natural part of life.”

Bunny said, “Boss, I really want to spend some quality time with this asshole, Otto.”

“Stand in line, Farmboy,” Top growled. “I got a few things to say to him myownself.”

“Okay, Kid,” I said, “time for answers. What’s happening in Africa on September 1, and what the hell is an ‘Extinction Clock’?”

“Didn’t you watch the video?”

“I already told you. Sound was bad on most of it and we just translated a fragment.” I showed him the transcript on my PDA. “September 1 is a couple of days from now. Tell me absolutely everything you can.”

“The two guys talking during the hunt was an accident. If Hans had heard them, he’d have done something bad to them.”

“Who’s ‘Hans’?”

“The guy leading the hunt. Hans Brucker. He’s here at the Hive.”

Top flicked me an inquiring look, but I shook it off.

“Who exactly is Otto Wirths? Is he any relation to Eduard Wirths?”

“From Auschwitz? I think so. There are portraits of Eduard Wirths here and at the Deck.”

“Where’s the Deck and what is it?”

“It’s short for the ‘Dodecahedron.’ That’s Alpha and Otto’s lab in Arizona. I don’t know exactly where. In the desert and mostly underground.”

“Alpha… he’s Cyrus Jakoby?”

“Yes.” He looked at Bunny. “Can I have my stone back?”

Bunny glanced at me; I shrugged and nodded. The kid put it back in his pocket.

“Okay, big question now, Kid,” I said. “What’s the Extinction Wave?”

“I don’t know much, but it has something to do with the release of some kind of disease-or maybe a couple of diseases-that’s supposed to make all of the…” SAM cut a look at Top and then back at me. “Um… all of the black people in Africa sick. Really sick. With something that could kill them.”

“Just the black Africans?” Top asked.

The Kid flinched when Top addressed him. Top saw it and knew that I did, too. File that away for later.

“Yes. Just the… um… blacks.”

“And it’ll be released on September 1?”

“Well… yes. That and the other stuff.”

I said, “What other stuff?”

“Other diseases.”

“In Africa?”

SAM shook his head. “All over the place. I heard something about Jews in Louisiana, but I don’t know what exactly will happen there, or how they’ll be released. That’s why I needed help. We have to find out and stop them.”

“Yes, we do,” I said. “I need you to show me where the computer rooms are and the right labs. I need information and proof.”

“Okay.”

“Kid,” asked Bunny, “why’s Otto got such a hard-on for black Africans?”

The boy edged slightly away from Top as if he expected to be hit for what he was about to say.

“You have to understand,” he began in a trembling voice. “These are their words, not mine, okay? Otto and Alpha. It’s not how I think.”

Top smiled his warmest smile. He was the only one of the Echo Team who had kids. “Kid, you’re helping us out here. If you were one of them, then you wouldn’t be here with us.”

I liked the way he leaned on the words “them” and “us,” and I could see how the subliminal hooks softened the Kid.

SAM nodded.

“Otto and Alpha always separate people into three groups. There’s the Family, the white race, and the, um… mud people.” He looked at Top as if expecting the genial smile to melt, but Top gave him a nod and a light pat on the shoulder.

“Yeah, Kid, I’ve heard that sort of thing before. Heard worse. Bet you have, too… living here with people like that.”

SAM’s eyes filled with tears and he looked down at his shoes. “A lot worse,” he said softly. “Heard and seen. You don’t understand… you don’t know.”

“Then show us, SAM,” Top said. “Show us what we need to see so that we can stop this.”

“It’s all in the computer rooms.”

“Take us there,” I said.

SAM looked desperate and he turned back toward the New Men. “You’re going to help them, aren’t you?”

“Those records are first priority.”

“But you will help them?”

I nodded. “Yeah, Kid… we’re going to help them. Bet on it.”

SAM searched my eyes for a lie and didn’t find one. Tears rolled down his bruised and bloody face, but eventually he nodded. “Okay, then I’ll take you to the computers.”

He turned back to the waiting New Men.

“Downtime!” he cried, and immediately the New Men fell out of line and shuffled back to their cots and chairs and the wretched reality of their lives. Only the one female lingered. Once more she raised her head and stared at SAM. Then she touched her face with a finger and drew it to one side as if she was wiping away a tear. SAM stared at her and then did the same motion.

When he led the way out of the room SAM was sobbing.

Chapter Eighty-Nine

The Hive

Sunday, August 29, 4:14 P.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 67 hours, 46 minutes E.S.T.

We found the computer room without incident, but there was a nasty surprise inside.

The computers were slag.

Every last one of them. Rows of networked supercomputers leaked oily smoke. Puddles of melted plastic and silicon had formed around each one.

“Son of a bitch,” growled Bunny. He slipped a prybar from his pack and forced open the front panel on one unit, but the insides were a melted mass that looked like a surreal sculpture.

Top poked at the melted goo. It was still soft and hot. “This just happened. We missed it by a couple of minutes.”

No one said anything, but we were all aware that while we were in the New Men barracks we could have been here. Should have been here. A few minutes might have changed everything.

“What’s the call, Cap’n?” asked Top quietly.

“We better hope we can find some disks or paper records,” I said. “And I mean now. You two work on that.”

“Where you going, boss?”

“I want to go have a talk with our boy Carteret.”

“He won’t help you,” said SAM. “And you can’t threaten him. He’s a mercenary. He’s really tough.”

“Then I’ll have to ask him real nice,” I said with a smile.

I headed out alone, watchful for guards and tiger-hounds and any other bit of nastiness that the Hive might have to throw at me, but the halls were empty. My heart was sick at the thought of losing all that computer data. If that meant that we wouldn’t be able to stop the release of a pathogen designed for ethnic genocide…

God, I didn’t even want to think about that.

Chapter Ninety

Tactical Operations Center

Sunday, August 29, 4:27 P.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 67 hours, 33 minutes

“Copy that, Cowboy,” Church said. “Deacon out.”

Church leaned back in his chair and pursed his lips. Grace, Bug, and Dr. Hu surrounded him, each of them waiting to learn what had happened down in Costa Rica.

“Every time I think we have a handle on the definition of evil,” Church said, almost to himself, “someone comes along to prove that we’re shortsighted.”

“As a conversational opener,” Bug said, “that makes me want to run and hide.”

“The computers at the Costa Rica facility have been destroyed. Some form of thermite-based fail-safe device. Captain Ledger thinks it was remote detonated. However, Echo Team has found some paper records and a handful of flash drives and disks. There was also one laptop that wasn’t networked in and it did not receive the self-destruct code, so we may get lucky there.”

“That’s something,” said Grace.

But Church shook his head. “At first glance all that Captain Ledger has found are references to the Extinction Wave, and the date, but most of the paper records are coded and we don’t have the code key. Without that we don’t know how many pathogens, their exact names and strains, or any information to tell us where, how, and by whom they will be released. Africa is a big continent.”