“The team at DAWA is building the presentation in real time.”

  “All right, that I can swallow,” Rusty said, nodding at the rest of us.

  I decided to trust Purdy on that count and gestured for him to go ahead.

  “DAWA identified these events this year,” he began, indicating the flashing spots on the map. “In the past month, it considered four of them confirmations.”

  He manipulated his tablet, and twelve of the sixteen spots faded out. The picture zoomed in on the Arabian Peninsula, where two hotspots flashed side by side. “Earthquakes are exceedingly rare in this part of the world. Fewer than ten in recorded history, and yet two occurred here within days of one another, both magnitude sevens.” On the rightmost panel, video clips ran of collapsing buildings, people fleeing, and city centers in ruins.

  “Oh, man!” Yoofi exclaimed.

  The map panned over Russia until it was centered on a spot in eastern Siberia. “The Kamchatka Peninsula,” Purdy said, “one of the wettest regions in Asia. More than a hundred inches of rainfall per year. However, this month marks its fourth month of drought and the beginnings of a famine crisis.”

  More videos, these showing fields of cracked earth, dead livestock, and long lines of people awaiting handouts at an aid station. The images of human suffering were hard to take, especially the gaunt faces of children.

  “Finally, the Atacama Desert in Chile,” Purdy said, “noted for being one of the driest regions in the world.”

  “Let me take a wild one,” Rusty said. “Storms?”

  “Monsoons,” Purdy confirmed as videos showed torrential downpours and flooding. “More than twenty inches of rainfall in the last month alone for a region that receives half an inch in an entire year.”

  Sarah stared, unmoved. “So there have been weather and seismic anomalies.”

  “Extreme anomalies,” Purdy stressed, “occurring in close proximity in time. Not only that, DAWA sees a pattern.”

  Maybe it had been the images of devastation, but my mind was already sharpening into mission-prepping mode. Sensing that Sarah and Purdy were on the verge of another back-and-forth over whether the system could be trusted, I cleared my throat. “You said two more events confirmed earlier this morning?”

  “Yes,” Purdy said. “Here and here.”

  The map centered over the U.S. now, where two areas were flashing, one in Montana and another in south Florida.

  “More disasters?” I asked.

  “Disease outbreaks,” Purdy said.

  My thoughts jagged back to Dani in the cancer ward at Beaumont Regional.

  “I haven’t been aware of any outbreaks,” Sarah said, frowning over her tablet.

  “They’re occurring on tribal reservations,” Purdy replied. “And the outbreaks are still in the early stages.”

  “Then how does DAWA know?” she asked.

  “Centurion has a contract with Indian Health Service. They supply much of the tech, including computers and servers.”

  “DAWA pinched the data?” Rusty’s eyes sparkled. “Nice.”

  But Sarah’s gaze remained cool and scientific. “What kind of disease?”

  With a grim face, he turned back to the screen. Where the videos had played was now a still image of a woman in a hospital bed, her bloated arms and face a sickly shade of green, eyes reduced to weeping slits.

  “Ooh,” Yoofi said. “That does not look good.”

  “It only gets worse,” Purdy said. “Same patient.”

  In the next image, she’d been moved to a bed crowded by monitors and machines. Dark pustules had broken out over her body, like a severe case of chicken pox. In the third image, she was wrapped in bandaging, spots of blood leaking through, and her body seemed to have collapsed in on itself.

  By the fourth image, she was skeletal, her dark hair gone pale and wispy. She looked like a different woman. Her left hand had been amputated, along with most of her right arm and part of her lower jaw. Terrified eyes stared from gaping sockets.

  By the next image, the same eyes were blood-streaked. She was a sunken torso now, no arms, no legs. Restraints secured her to the bed as what remained of her head strained forward, the upper teeth bared.

  The final image just showed a pillow-sized lump covered in a sheet.

  “The entire process, from infection to death,” Purdy said as the image disappeared, “took six days.”

  “Six days?” Sarah repeated.

  “And there are two dozen more cases like hers.”

  “Why isn’t the CDC involved?” she demanded.

  “The tribes are sovereign nations with inherent powers of self-government. The only way the Centers for Disease Control—or any government agency—gets involved is if the tribe makes an emergency declaration requesting help. They haven’t yet, and I’d like to keep it that way. For now, anyway.”

  Sarah blinked rapidly. “Even at the start of a deadly outbreak?”

  “You’re an expert in pathology, correct?” Purdy asked rhetorically.

  “Yes.”

  “My team has uploaded all of the patients’ medical information to a secure server. We’d very much like your input.” Sarah consulted her tablet, straightening with what appeared a sense of importance. Purdy addressed the entire table now. “At this stage I’m proposing an emergency fact-finding mission to the Chocasukee Indian Reservation in South Florida. I want you to identify the source of the outbreak and eliminate it.”

  “You talk as if we’re dealing with a prod,” I said.

  “I can’t claim to think like the AI, but I know a thing or two about doomsday prophesies. Earthquakes and weather events are often harbingers of what’s coming, while plagues are a first phase of the coming. Do you follow? Frequently, it’s represented by beings. Why, in Christian theology, it’s the very first horseman: Pestilence.” He motioned toward the map. “DAWA has identified these outbreaks as a key phase in the pattern, but more importantly in the progression of the pattern.”

  “So if we can stop the outbreaks,” I said, catching on, “you’re thinking we can halt the doomsday scenario in its tracks.”

  Determination took hold in his eyes. “That’s the hope.”

  “It’s still not sanctioned by Centurion,” Sarah said. “I don’t see how we can accept it.”

  “Officially sanctioned, no,” Purdy said. “But in the fine print, I listed Legion as a ‘synergistic partner’ to DAWA, meaning the two programs can utilize the others’ resources. And as developer of DAWA, I’m calling up Legion’s resources, i.e., the entire team.” He peered over at me. “The clause in Captain Wolfe’s original contract still holds, however. He has authority to reject the mission.”

  I picked up the underlying offer: You help me, and I help you.

  As my teammates looked at me, their commander, I considered what I would be getting them into. A mission involving a contagious, corrosive disease of unknown origin that might not even involve a prod. And Purdy would be the de facto client, a man I still didn’t trust.

  But what if DAWA was seeing something? What if Purdy’s intentions were true? The images replayed in my mind—storms, drought, destruction, human misery. Isolated for now, but with the potential to cascade into greater disasters that could threaten human existence. I saw the sick woman’s eyes staring from her wasted body, imploring someone, anyone, to help her. I thought of Dani.

  “We’ll put it to a vote,” I said.

  Nodding, Purdy laced his fingers in front of him.

  “A private one,” I added.

  “Of course.” He unclasped his hands and strode toward the door. Underneath his composure, I could feel his nerves. He needed us. I waited for the door to close before turning back to my teammates.

  Purdy’s eyebrows went up as I stepped into the corridor.

  “We need a few assurances,” I said.

  “What sorts of assurances?”

  “First, that what you told us in there is the truth.”

  His thin mustache bunched up as his lips pursed in thought. “Do you believe we each have a life’s work?” he asked. “A specific reason we were put on this earth?”

  “I can’t say, and the question’s irrelevant.”

  “Well, DAWA is my life’s work. And it’s exactly as I laid it out to you.”

  “So you believe an apocalyptic sequence is unfolding?”

  “I do, Captain.”

  I watched his eyes closely, picking out that mix of fear and conviction again. No deception that I could see, but he’d had a lot of practice.

  “What about the lumina?”

  “We’ll begin processing it this morning. We’ll send some when it’s available.”

  “And the other monster hunting teams? I noticed you didn’t mention them.”

  “I didn’t,” he admitted. “One is en route to Montana to investigate the outbreak on the Crow reservation. I’d prefer it if you kept that to yourself for now. I’ll act as the go-between for information sharing. If the missions are successful, that will be the extent of your collaboration. And that would be the ideal outcome, for several reasons.” He cast me a knowing look.

  “How long have you been with Centurion?”

  “Almost forty years.”

  “And you’re willing to put those forty years in jeopardy for DAWA?”

  “When you discover your purpose for being, Captain Wolfe, you mobilize all forces at your disposal, no matter the consequences.”

  My thoughts shifted from the professional risk he was taking to the victims in our last assignment, villagers turned zombies that we’d had to gun down like rabid dogs. Purdy may not have knowingly sacrificed them for the lumina, but he’d accepted the cost.

  “Do you consider us expendable?”

  He met my fierce lupine gaze. “I consider you our best hope.”

  “Your best hope,” I repeated.

  “And just so you know, I’m not making your wife’s care conditional on the outcome of the vote. I’ve already informed Dr. Moreno of the situation. She should be at her bedside shortly. But as I said, if DAWA is forecasting what I believe it is, your wife’s health will hardly matter in the long run.”

  “That’s reassuring,” I growled.

  He shrugged as if it couldn’t be helped. “I should let you get back to the vote,” he said.

  “We already did, and it was almost unanimous. I was the lone holdout.”

  Purdy’s eyebrows went up again.

  “We’re going,” I decided.

  3

  I watched the horizon pale with the coming sunrise. Far below, the desert continued its slow surrender to the hills of Central Texas. I released a breath, clouding the plane window, and returned to my tablet.

  I’d been over the mission three times now, and I still didn’t like it. The info was vague, our prep had been hasty, and with Takara recovering, we were short a teammate while the others were running on fumes. But if DAWA was onto something, mission failure could spell global catastrophe.

  I needed a break. I also needed to make a call.

  A gruff voice answered: “Yeah? Who’s this?”

  “Mr. Coble,” I said, caught off guard. I was expecting Dani, not her father. “It’s Jason.”

  Descended from one of Texas’s original cattle rustlers, Mr. Coble was brusque and no nonsense. But as a former serviceman, he respected me, and the feeling was mutual. At Dani’s and my wedding, he’d confided in me his fear that his daughter was going to end up with a “sissy,” as he’d put it.

  “Jason,” he echoed, his guard immediately coming down. “She’s just gone in for the treatment. They’re going to give her a dose of chemo now, then install some sort of port in her chest for an infusion pump she’ll have to carry around. The whole thing’s supposed to take a couple hours.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “Oh, you know Dani. Puts a sunny face on everything.”

  “She does, doesn’t she?” I gave a small laugh, even as my heart stove in.

  “But I’ll tell you,” he said in a lowered voice, “this isn’t looking good. The doctor keeps using the word ‘aggressive.’ ‘Aggressive’ this, ‘aggressive’ that. It’s like he’s telling us not to get our hopes up too much.”

  “That’s what they’re trained to do,” I said, my protective instincts pushing back against his gray outlook. “He’s just following protocol.”

  “Well, if he says that word again, I’m liable to fatten his lip for him.”

  “Listen, I arranged for a specialist to see her,” I said. “A Dr. Moreno from Houston.”

  “Oh, yeah. Got here about an hour ago. Introduced herself and then met with the team. Now her I like.”

  “Okay, good.” Something steadied inside me, like I’d wrested some small control from the cancer. “She’s supposed to be the best at what she does.”

  “Appreciate that, Jason. The more expertise we can get in here, the better.”

  Purdy was ultimately to thank, but my gratitude toward him felt guarded right now.

  “How’s Mrs. Coble doing?”

  “Holding it together as best she can. I mean, hell, Dani’s our only daughter. How about you?”

  “About the same,” I said. “Like I told Dani, I’ll be there as soon as I wrap up an assignment.”

  “Hey, you take care of yourself.” He said it like a warning. “My daughter’s in good hands until you can get here. Understand what I’m telling you?”

  “I do, sir.” He was telling me to keep my head in what I was doing until it was done, one serviceman to another. Something I probably needed to hear. “Thanks, Mr. Coble.”

  “You bet. I’ll see you when I see you.”

  As I ended the call, Sarah came and sat beside me with her tablet. She’d been reviewing the patients’ records. I hadn’t said anything to my teammates about my wife’s medical emergency, and I considered getting Sarah’s opinion, but her expertise was in trauma and pathology, not cancer. And Mr. Coble had a point. I wasn’t going to do Dani any good if I allowed my worries to fragment my focus.

  “Any insights?” I asked.

  Sarah frowned and adjusted her glasses. “The disease process follows a predictable pattern, but it’s not like any I’ve seen. It begins with flu-like symptoms suggestive of a viral infection—fever, aching, lethargy. The disease soon manifests in the patients’ skin. Bumps and blisters quickly advance to breakdown, right through the dermal layers to facia, muscle, and bone. You saw the images. It behaves like an aggressive necrosis, but that’s more indicative of a bacterial process.”

  I flinched inwardly at the word aggressive.

  “Antibiotic regimens are ineffective, however. The process goes on to afflict brain tissue, often causing violent psychosis.” I remembered the late-stage images, where the limbless patient was restrained. “That’s concurrent with widespread organ failure, so they don’t survive long in that state. Mercifully, perhaps.”

  I dragged a hand through my thick hair, stopping to scratch behind an ear. “How contagious are we talking?”

  “Difficult to know, but the infection pattern in the population is unusual. You’d expect to see clusters at the very least, but the cases are distributed throughout the reservation. It could suggest that some people are more resistant to the infection than others. I won’t know until I can examine the cases myself.”

  “Any thoughts on the origin?”

  “In most outbreaks, a mutation allows an infectious agent to jump from an animal population to a human one. But with this one happening in two geographically distinct, and distant, points in the U.S., we can all but rule out that scenario. It seems more likely that the disease was introduced intentionally.”

  “As in someone releasing the agent?”

  “Considering they’re both tribal communities, I doubt it would be a coincidence.”

  I considered what she was saying. “A biological attack doesn’t really line up with Purdy’s theory, though,” I said at last. “According to him, this is supposed to be the first stage in some doomsday prod’s arrival. ”

  “That’s why we’re investigating,” she said. “To see where the evidence leads.”

  Because the mission hadn’t come through the normal channels, I’d been worried Sarah would be unwilling to go along, maybe even undermine the whole thing by contacting Director Beam. But with the medical challenge, she was all in—just as Purdy had known she’d be. Regardless, she just made an excellent point.

  “See where the evidence leads,” I echoed. “Good idea.”

  My flex tablet read ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit and ninety percent humidity as we disembarked from the plane at just before ten in the morning. Rusty wiped his freckled forehead with a sleeve and squinted around the small airfield west of Miami. Beyond a line of perimeter fencing, the edge of the Everglades stretched away, its rivers of sawgrass and palmetto islands dull yellow in the oppressive heat.

  “This is supposed to be a vacation destination?” Rusty asked.

  Yoofi giggled, then quickly turned serious. “Yes, and where are the soldiers to help us?” Save for a single control tower and a couple of ground personnel, the airfield was desolate. “Did they forget to come?”

  “As much as possible, Purdy wants the mission to remain below radar,” I said. “It’s why he changed our communication protocols. It also means no soldiers. We’re going to handle the offloading and loading ourselves.”

  Purdy had arranged for our armored vans to be delivered ahead of us, and they sat side by side at the far end of the airstrip. While Sarah and Rusty retrieved them, Yoofi, Olaf, and I started carrying out the containers.

  “Does this mean no reaction force?” Yoofi asked between loads.

  “Purdy can arrange emergency exfil, if needed,” I replied. “Otherwise, yeah, we’re going to be on our own.”

  “I do not like the idea of being stuck down here,” he said. “If it is the end of the world, I would rather it be somewhere with nice beaches and pretty women.” He shook his head as he turned back toward the plane, nearly running into Olaf, who was setting down two large containers at the edge of the airstrip.