And worst of all, she imagined a swarm of wasps hundreds of times the size of the one that had eaten through the elephant and killed every patron in the stands in a matter of seconds rolling over the suburbs of Atlanta like a storm cloud.
III
“The last of the remains just arrived,” Lauren said. “If nothing else, at least we can be certain that the threat is contained.”
“We’ve had crop dusters buzzing overhead all day, dropping insecticides over the entire area, as you requested,” Cranston said. His face filled the laptop monitor. Behind him, she could just see the pinnacle of the big top. “You’re certain we have this under control now?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Very reassuring.”
“It’s a reasonable assertion that all of the wasps would have been drawn to the amplifiers and drowned in the lake, but we simply can’t take that chance. Some could have flown off into the woods; hence, the insecticides. Or they could have stung a possum or a dog or livestock in one of the nearby fields—”
“I get the picture.”
“What about the sound frequency?”
“We have a team of experts analyzing it as we speak. The problem is that so far they’ve been able to isolate nearly a dozen different frequencies from the digital recording, ranging from sub- to supersonic, all of them overlaid on separate tracks.” He turned and nodded to someone off-screen. “You know there’s only one way to determine which frequency’s our trigger.”
“Yeah.” Lauren shuddered at the prospect. “Have your men send me the samples when they’re ready.”
“Careful what you wish for.” Cranston again turned to the side and whispered to someone out of sight. His eyes were alight when he looked back into the camera. “We think we might have found something. You know better than I do what we should be looking for. I want you to walk through it with me. Okay, doc?”
Before she could reply, Cranston grabbed the video camera with a rustling sound. She saw his palm, and then what might have been his ear. When the image settled, she was staring at a handful of agents in FBI windbreakers. They were unloading bulletproof vests and assault rifles from the back of an unmarked van. When they closed the doors, she saw the sign for the camel rides and the dirt pen. A blue vest blocked her view for a split-second. Cranston must have attached the camera to some sort of mount on his hat or on a headset.
“Still with me, doc?”
His voice was louder and distorted, his breathing harsh. A microphone in front of his mouth, she assumed.
“What’s going on?”
“We’ve been doing a systematic physical search of the premises. Remember that trailer we saw the guy with the hat go into? The one by the elephants? One of my agents found a set of keys sitting on the counter that didn’t fit any of the trailer’s locks.” He started to run while he was talking. The image on the screen bounced with his exertions. His heavy exhalations echoed all around her small office. She recognized the path leading up through the sycamores toward the dirt parking lot, then the rows of cars that would eventually have to be towed. “The keys weren’t high on our priority list, at least not at first. But considering how that guy was acting and the fact that the trailer appeared to be his base of operations, we had to follow up on them. We eventually found that one of the keys unlocked a pickup truck in the parking lot. The door of the camper trailer hitched to it was wired with explosives.”
“Explosives?”
“C4. We’re obviously not dealing with a low-rent operation here.”
“Why would…?” Lauren’s voice trailed off as the image focused on a black Ford F-150 and the Wildwood trailer hooked to its fender. It was parked it the middle of the lot as though in an effort to be invisible. And yet the keys had been left out on the counter and the trailer door rigged with explosives. It didn’t make sense, though. If it wasn’t meant to be found, why leave the keys behind and go to the effort of setting up the booby trap?
Something else bothered her about the situation, something she couldn’t quite pin down.
On the screen, two men wearing full bomb squad gear stepped away from the trailer door. Cranston paused only long enough to look at another agent and give a sharp nod. The agent pulled the door open and Cranston climbed up into the darkness, leading with his pistol. She heard shouts from the other agents, identifying themselves, warning anyone inside.
A burst of light that the aperture struggled to rationalize.
She saw a countertop. A rusted sink. Cupboards. An unmade bed. A dirty tabletop. The mirror on the closed bathroom door. The patterned linoleum floor. The view shifted quickly in time with Cranston’s stare as he tried to capture every detail at once. The trailer rocked as more men climbed inside.
“Open that door!” Cranston shouted.
He stepped back and Lauren stared down the length of his arms and the sightline of his pistol at his reflection on the bathroom door.
Whoever was responsible had created the perfect untraceable killing machines in the wasps. A bomb was beneath the skills of someone who could play God with the genes of half a dozen species.
“This isn’t right,” Lauren whispered.
The trailer was meant to be found, and there was only one reason she could think of as to why.
“Don’t open the door!” she screamed.
An agent drew the bathroom door open with a squeal. She watched, helpless, as Cranston stepped forward into the small room. There was a loud shriek of feedback from an alarm on the door. Everything was yellow plastic. The walls, the sink, the showerhead, the toilet. Everything except for the listless cocker spaniel sprawled on the floor in a crusted puddle of urine. Flies swirled around it, crawled on its eyes. Its fur was matted and clumped, its abdomen distended, its rectum prolapsed. It tried to raise its head, but dropped it heavily back to the ground.
“Oh, Christ,” Cranston said.
The dog whimpered and the fur on its flank ruffled as though blown by a sudden gust of wind.
“Out!” Cranston shouted. “Everyone out! Goddamn it! Everybody—!”
A feverish buzzing sound erupted with the cloud of wasps that boiled out of the dog’s side. The tatters of skin flapped back like a baked potato. She saw the insects shooting straight toward the camera and then Cranston was in motion. An agent’s face, eyes wide with terror. A collision. Tumbling to the floor. Panicked cries. The incessant buzzing. The whine of feedback. Cranston crawling over another man’s body. He fell through the doorway and collapsed onto the ground. Shadows darted in and out of view, so close to the lens that it couldn’t clearly capture them. Legs running away from her.
A lone insect landed on the dirt in front of the lens. Its blurry shape was nearly a foot wide on her laptop screen. Its wings vibrated and its body twitched. And then it was gone, leaving only the droning buzz in its wake.
Bodies scattered across the parking lot.
Silence crackled from her speakers.
Lauren started to cry.
IV
Lauren entered the quarantine room wearing a full beekeeper’s suit. The white cotton and polyester blend fabric hung loosely from her body, while the leather boots and gloves were snug all the way up to her knees and biceps. She wore a helmet under a hooded veil, which hung over her face to the middle of her chest. Beneath the mesh was a biohazard mask with a Plexiglas face shield and a mouthpiece attached to the portable oxygen tank strapped to her back. All of the ventilation ducts had been plugged with a two-foot layer of steel wool that would allow an insecticidal mist to be forced into the room, but wouldn’t permit any of the wasps to pass through in the opposite direction. With the impeded circulation, the air was stifling and oppressive, despite the cooling units set up throughout the room to slow the rate of decomposition. The smell was like nothing she had ever experienced before. The body bags were stacked five-high against the side walls in some places, and ran the length of the room. They weren’t going to be able to release the remains to the next of kin until they were embalmed, the larvae flushed from their systems, their blood replaced with formaldehyde.