Pale Horse (A Project Eden Thriller) Read online

  The man hesitated a moment, then followed him and shut the door.

  Ash went over to the monitor mounted on the rock wall that controlled the entrance, and touched the screen, engaging the lock. The others would be able to release it from the inside, but it would at least slow them down a bit. As far as Ash was concerned, none of them deserved the chance at escape. They had all played their parts in the plan to kill most of humanity, so they could all go to hell.

  “Give me that,” Chloe said to Olivia’s man as she ripped the flashlight he was holding out of his hand. “Come on!”

  The three of them headed quickly down the tunnel, the flashlight’s beam bouncing across the ground ahead of them.

  “How much time?” Ash asked.

  Chloe glanced at her watch. “A minute if we’re lucky.”

  They weren’t.

  They made it halfway to the opening of the cave when they heard a low rumble behind them.

  “Faster!” Ash yelled.

  The sound grew louder and louder as the ground began to shake, and dust and pieces of rock started to fall from the top of the tunnel. Ten steps on, a large chunk dropped from the ceiling and grazed the side of the other man’s head, knocking him to the ground. Ash yanked him back to his feet. The man was bloodied and dazed.

  “I got you,” Ash said, putting an arm around him.

  The man stumbled forward, gained his footing again, and began running on his own.

  More rocks assaulted them as the rumble became a roar.

  Ahead, the tunnel curved slightly to the right. As soon as Chloe reached the bend, she yelled something back at them. Ash couldn’t hear her above the noise, but when he reached the point where she’d been, he saw what she was trying to tell him.

  The opening of the cave, just fifty feet away. Ash thought he could see some movement beyond it, but it was hard to tell, because the perpetual dark of the Arctic winter was only slightly lighter than the pitch black of the cave.

  A loud boom suddenly engulfed the tunnel, shaking the ground so hard all three of them were thrown off their feet. A large section of the ceiling crashed down between Ash and Chloe.

  Ash grabbed the other man and pulled him back to his feet, then half carried him over the fallen rock. Once they cleared it, Chloe braced the man on the other side. They headed off again just as part of the ceiling behind them collapsed, and bits of rock pelted them in the back.

  Nearing the opening, Ash could hear the wail of the wind, and realized the movement he’d seen moments earlier was snow, but not just normal snow. Blizzard snow.

  The storm that had been threatening earlier had arrived.

  They stopped at the entrance just long enough to pull on the hoods of their jackets, then made their way on the narrow pathway that led across the cliff face back to the relative safety of the island.

  “Where are the others?” Chloe asked.

  The rest of Olivia’s team had left Bluebird not long before them, but the path was empty.

  “Back to base,” Olivia’s man said. “Supposed to meet there.”

  “Do you know the way?” Ash asked.

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  Think so? Ash thought. He and Chloe had only come this way the one time, and while both were excellent with directions, navigating through a full-on blizzard would magnify even the slightest of mistakes.

  They were three-quarters of the way toward the top when the ground shook again. Chloe grabbed on to the cliffside. Ash started to do the same, but Olivia’s man began waving his arms around, attempting to regain his balance as he tipped backward toward the edge. Below were rocks, the icy sea, and certain death.

  Ash whipped out a hand, snatched the man’s sleeve, and tried to pull him back. For a second, he thought they would both go over the side, but then Chloe grabbed the man’s other arm and stabilized them.

  Ash took two deep breaths, and glanced toward the cave.

  The entrance was gone.

  Once the shaking subsided, they continued along the path. When they reached the top, they huddled together, the snow whipping across their faces. Even with the flashlight, their visibility was only a dozen feet at most.

  “Which way?” Ash asked.

  The guy looked around for longer than Ash would have liked, then pointed. “That way. Until we reach the ridge.”

  Chloe looked at Ash, the silent question in her eyes, “What if he’s wrong?”

  He grimaced and stared at her for a moment. “Okay, we keep our pace steady, and hold on to each other at all times. Chloe, you lead.”

  “Goody,” she said.

  They headed through the storm.

  5

  FOURTEENTH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS, FRANCE

  6:13 PM CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME

  CHRISTOPHE DE COSTER paid the cab driver and climbed out onto the sidewalk. It had taken him a bit longer to get to Gare Montparnasse than he’d hoped, but, as was his nature, he’d built a buffer into his schedule, and still arrived at the station in plenty of time to greet Marcus Lunt when his train pulled in.

  Lunt was one of the primary owners of the advertising company Christophe worked for, but he had long ago moved into semi-retirement in Bordeaux. Every month, he would make the trip to the capital, spend the next day at the office being briefed on current projects, and head back home. And every month, Christophe would be at the station waiting for him when he arrived, and accompany Lunt to the man’s Paris apartment, where Christophe would give his boss a pre-briefing. This ensured that when Lunt showed up the next morning, he would look more involved than he really was in the everyday workings of the company.

  Christophe’s efforts had helped him steadily move up the chain of command, and, if everything went as hoped, by this time next year, he fully expected to be named the new president.

  As he walked toward the station entrance, he noted that construction on one of the buildings across the street was still ongoing. Now, in addition to the scaffolding and piles of building materials that seemed to have been there for months, there was a large metal box on the street right out front—a shipping container, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  He’d all but dismissed it when the most curious thing happened. The top of the box seemed to split lengthwise, then each section started to rise, creating an opening. Casually, he glanced at the building, thinking the construction people must be working late—an unusual thing, to say the least—but he could see no one around.

  Odd, but then again, if a construction worker walked through his office and saw how advertising operated, that person might find things strange, too.

  Nearing the station entrance, he thought he could hear a hum coming out of the shipping container.

  Ah, he thought. A portable workshop. What a great idea.

  He passed through the doorway and joined the crowd inside. As he headed for the platform, his thoughts turned to the items he would be discussing with Lunt, and how he would change a few things once he was in charge.

  Unfortunately for Christophe, that day would never come.

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  12:15 PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME

  IT HAD BEEN two weeks since Mary Jackson had first called City Hall to file a complaint. The person who had answered listened for a moment, then transferred her to the Department of Public Works. The man she talked to there had seemed pleasant and helpful, and had told her he’d make sure someone came out to check.

  But after four days, no one had shown up. Mary knew this because she could see from her living room window the big metal box in the empty lot next to the convenience store. Sure, her neighborhood wasn’t the most beautiful in the world, but she’d lived there for over forty years. No way was she going to let it get any worse. And to her, someone dumping a corrugated eyesore right in her view was definitely pushing things in the wrong direction.

  So she called again, this time talking to a bored woman who couldn’t even get her name right, and again the following day, getting someone completely new who acted
like it wasn’t the responsibility of his department.

  For the next week, she did nothing but stew and watch the box. If she’d been younger, maybe she would have walked over to see if there was a phone number on it anywhere. But at her age, she rarely even set foot on her porch anymore.

  She had made up her mind that she would give it one more day then call again, only this time she’d bypass Public Works and go directly to the mayor’s office. But her plan changed when the top of the box opened, and it started to hum.

  She reached for the phone.

  “Office of Public Works. May I help you?”

  She recognized the voice as belonging to the man she’d talked to the first time she called, the one who’d seemed so helpful.

  “Yes, this is Mrs. Jackson. You’ve got to do something.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am?”

  “About the box. I talked to you two weeks ago about it.”

  “The box?” He paused. “Oh. Oh! The metal box across the street from you.”

  “You said you’d send somebody out, but they never came. And now the thing has opened up and is making a weird noise.”

  “Opened up?”

  “Yes. Opened up. Did you not just hear me?”

  “Are you sure?”

  Her lips squeezed together. She was not in the mood to be doubted. “Never mind. I’ll call the mayor. I’m sure he’ll do something about it.”

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry no one has come out yet. There was obviously a mix-up somewhere.”

  Yeah. With you, she almost said but held her tongue.

  “As soon as I hang up, I’ll make a call and have someone come out right away.”

  “Well, okay. But if I don’t see them in the next hour, I’m going to call the mayor.”

  “I completely understand. Now, could you give me the address again?”

  Once she had given him the information and hung up, she sat in her chair and kept an eye on the box. Even through her closed windows she could easily hear the noise. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who noticed the strange sound. Not long after she’d sat back down, a couple of teenagers wandered over to the box.

  She watched as one of them boosted the smaller of the two up so he could get a look inside. Something very strange happened then. As the small kid leaned over the opening, the collar of his jacket started to flap like it was caught in the wind. He was only there for a second before he wiped his hand across his face, and jumped off his friend’s hands to the ground. He dropped to his knees and covered his eyes.

  Mary leaned forward, muttering to herself, “I told them there was something wrong with that. I told them!”

  The taller kid hunched over his friend. After several seconds, the smaller one rubbed his eyes and stood up. His friend asked him a question, and the short one shrugged and smiled. The tall one punched him in the arm, and soon they were both laughing. But as they walked away, the short one glanced back at the box, giving it a wary look.

  He seems okay, Mary thought. But she still didn’t like it.

  Twenty minutes later, a Public Works truck turned onto the street, slowed, and pulled into the lot where the box was.

  How about that? I guess I should threaten to call the mayor every time.

  The man who got out looked at the box with disinterest, walked around it, stopped back where he’d begun, and stared at it again. Finally he pulled out a phone and made a call. As he talked, he gestured toward the box several times, so Mary assumed he was talking to his boss. Finally, with a visible sigh, he put the phone back in his pocket, and pulled a ladder off his truck.

  Setting it next to the box, he climbed up high enough so he could look inside. Unlike the kid earlier, he didn’t lean all the way over the edge. Still, his hair fluttered from the moving air coming from inside. At one point, he touched his cheek and rubbed it for a moment. When he moved his fingers away, he looked at them as if there was something on them.

  When he climbed back down, the disinterest he showed earlier was no longer on his face. He whipped out his phone, his conversation considerably more animated than it had been the last time.

  Within ten minutes, two more Public Works trucks and a city-owned sedan arrived. Five minutes after that, the fire department was on the scene.

  Mary smiled. They should have listened to her earlier. At least now she’d get the damn thing out of there.

  Unfortunately, she was mistaken. The only thing that would be moving was Mary, when she was taken to an evacuation center halfway across town, where, in a few short days, she would take her last breath.

  OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA

  9:16 AM PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  BECKER WAS GETTING impatient. He’d been sitting in his car for over an hour now, parked at the side of the road. What he shouldn’t have done was down the entire cup of Starbucks coffee as fast as he had. Now he had to piss. Bad.

  He looked at his watch. Maybe something was wrong. His eyes moved back to the shipping container on the back of the parked truck just down the street. If things had gone according to plan, the Implementation Delivery Module—or IDM—should have opened by now. Was there some sort of delay? Had the directors decided to reschedule?

  If that were the case, somebody would have called him by now, right?

  He picked up his phone. He had a good signal, but there were no missed calls.

  Then what the hell is taking so long?

  He bounced his legs up and down, attempting to ease some of the pressure on his bladder.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” he whispered.

  Then, as if magically obeying his command, the top of the IDM began to rise.

  With a sense of relief, he smiled. It was really happening. The new world they’d been working toward was about to arrive.

  He shifted his gaze past the truck, to the buildings about two miles away—Marine Corps base Camp Pendleton, directly downwind from the module.

  He picked up his phone and hit the preset number. “It’s me,” he said. “It just opened.”

  6

  LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO

  10:20 AM MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME

  THE DECADES IT had taken Project Eden to move from an idea for a better world to the actual Implementation Day had been wisely spent in preparation. With a goal as large as theirs, it was vitally important that every detail was well thought out.

  One of the priorities on the list was the creation of storage facilities to ensure that those chosen to restart humanity would have the supplies they needed to guarantee their survival through the transition. The depots were spread across the world, and were designed to serve the dual purpose of storing the supplies, and acting as a shelter for Project members during the unfortunate but necessary step of killing off over ninety-nine percent of mankind.

  It wasn’t that the members needed the facility to avoid contracting the KV-27a virus—all had been vaccinated—but after the release of the disease, there would likely be a period of chaos until the pandemic burned itself out. It was believed this would not last for more than a month, meaning those taking refuge in the depots would barely make a dent in the storage supply.

  Depot NB219 was located just north of Las Cruces, New Mexico. By all appearances, it was just another farm along the Rio Grande. If the local population had been given a tour of the facility, they would have been shocked to find out how much of the place was actually underground.

  Due to its remote location, on Implementation Day NB219 was one of the least populated facilities, with only forty-three Project members using the living quarters. One of those present was the Project’s primary fixer, a man named Perez. His status as the Project Eden directors’ golden boy made him not only the highest-ranking member at the depot, but the second highest of all members not currently at Bluebird. So while he didn’t immediately insist on taking over for NB219’s facility director, he did make sure he was involved in every decision.

  When the hour of implementation approached, he joined Director Kane
and his assistant Claudia Lindgren in the main conference room to monitor the events.

  There were some tense moments when the hour came and went without any reports that activation had occurred. Then, nearly five minutes late, a message appeared on the television screen:

  ACTIVATION COMPLETE

  Soon after that, news started to trickle in from spotters scattered around the globe that the IDMs were going live.

  Kane smiled broadly. “I think we should break out the champagne.”

  Claudia rose from her chair and pulled a bottle of Dom Perignon out of the small refrigerator along the wall. She grabbed three glasses from a nearby cabinet, and returned to the table.

  As she popped the cork and started to pour, Perez said, “None for me.”

  Kane’s smile slipped a little. “Are you sure? It’s a special occasion.”

  “I’m sure.”

  The director looked like he didn’t know what to do.

  “I’ll have one with you,” Claudia said. She held a glass out to the director.

  With a weak smile in Perez’s direction, Kane raised it in the air. “To the new beginning.”

  “The new beginning,” Claudia repeated.

  They both took a drink.

  Perez’s refusal to join them had not been any kind of anti-alcohol stand, nor was it based on the fact it was still morning. As someone who had routinely killed people for the Project, he clearly understood the sacrifice the rest of the world was about to make. To him, celebrating that was beyond inappropriate. But he said nothing.

  As it approached ten thirty, he watched the monitor for the expected follow-up message from Bluebird. When it didn’t come on time, he thought perhaps it would be delayed the same amount of time as the activation message.

  But five minutes passed with nothing. Then six. Then seven.

  “Are we still online?” he asked.

  Kane, red-cheeked from the two glasses of champagne he’d already downed, leaned toward the monitor. “I, uh, think so. Yes, I believe we are. Is something wrong?”