All eyes turned to him.
The newest member of Sigma seemed to shrink a little under their combined attention, but he held up. “After what happened in Princeton, I looked a little deeper into GM crops. In 2000, a GM corn called StarLink, a corn not approved for human consumption like the Viatus strain, ended up contaminating food products across the country. More than three hundred brands. It was suspected of triggering allergic reactions and resulted in a massive recall. The Kellogg Company had to close its production line for two weeks just to clean out the contamination.”
The senator nodded. “I remember. The government had to buy up Kellogg stock to keep the industry afloat. Cost us billions.”
“And that was only one of many such reports of foreign GM products ending up in the human food supply.” Creed glanced over at Painter. “There remains a much larger concern about all this.”
“What’s that?”
“Pollen migration and genetic contamination.”
Frowning, Painter waved for him to explain in more depth.
“There is no way to contain pollen movement of a GM crop. It blows in the wind, gets washed into neighboring fields. Some seeds have been found growing as far away as thirty miles from a planting. So don’t be fooled. Wherever fields are planted with the Viatus corn, it will spread from there.”
“And genetic contamination?”
“Even more concerning. There have been cases of genetic modifications passing from engineered species into wild ones, spreading the contamination at the genetic level into the biosphere. And with the instability noted by Dr. Malloy in the Viatus corn sample, I think that likelihood is even greater.”
“So what you’re saying is that the whole Midwest could be contaminated?” Monk asked.
“It’s too soon to say that,” Painter said. “Not until we have more answers.”
Still, Painter remembered what Gray had discovered in England. The mummies in the peat bog had been riddled with mushrooms, just like the bodies found at the lab. Had Karlsen unwittingly unleashed that organism back into the world?
Worse, what if it wasn’t an accident?
Karlsen had clearly manipulated the senator to his own ends. But what was his goal in all of this?
Only one man could answer that.
The pilot interrupted. “We’ve begun our descent into Longyearbyen. Please secure your seats for landing.”
Painter glanced out the window as the sun finally began to rise. It was high time he had a conversation with that man. Still, he checked his watch. He had one other concern as the jet dipped toward the frozen archipelago, one that grew more worrisome with each passing hour.
11:01 A.M.
Spitsbergen, Norway
“Still no word from Gray?” Monk asked as he stood in the icy parking lot. He wore a snowsuit, boots, gloves, goggles, and carried a helmet under one arm.
Painter shook his head, clutching his satellite phone. “I had hoped by sunrise to have heard something from him. Or from the patrols. They had choppers up at first light, searching the highlands. Fire crews report the entire valley is a smoldering ruin. I also checked with Kat. He’s not checked in with Sigma Command either.”
Monk read the pain in the director’s face. “He had to make it out of there. Maybe there’s a reason he’s gone silent.”
From his expression, Painter took little consolation from Monk’s words. If Gray had gone silent, it was because he was in some sort of trouble. The director stared off into the distance.
The sun still hung low on the horizon, reflecting painfully off the ice and snow that covered the island of Spitsbergen. In another month the archipelago would sink into a permanent Arctic night that would last four months. Even at midday the temperature had climbed to only a single degree Fahrenheit above zero. It was a barren place, treeless and broken into sharp peaks and crevices. The name of this island of the Svalbard archipelago—Spitsbergen—translated from the Dutch meant “jagged mountain.”
It was not a landscape that inspired hope.
Especially with the dark skies rolling in from the north.
“There’s nothing more we can do at our end,” Painter finally said, his voice firming again. “I have Kat continuing to monitor reports from both the fire crews and the search-and-rescue teams. She’ll do what she can to coordinate a wider search. Until then, we have our own objective here.”
Painter stood next to the Volvo SUV he had driven from the airport. Monk had followed in a second vehicle, hauling a trailer behind it. Creed was back there now freeing the two snowmobiles. They’d rented the pair of Lynx V-800 snow machines from a travel service that offered winter safaris into the wilds of the archipelago. The travel agency’s logos were painted brightly on their sides.
Inside the Volvo, Senator Gorman sat in the passenger seat. The plan was for the senator and Painter to head directly to the Svalbard seed vault. Monk and Creed would take a more circuitous route overland by snowmobile. The pair would get as close as possible to the vault without raising suspicions, which was the primary reason for the rentals.
According to the tour operator, his company regularly led overnight tours into the mountains to view the wildlife that inhabited the place. But since the construction of the Doomsday Vault, the well-publicized site had become a frequent tourist stop. Their presence should not warrant a second look. Monk and Creed would be ready in case further firepower was needed or a fast evacuation was necessary.
“A back door out of the bank vault,” as Painter described it.
The roar of an engine erupted from behind their tow vehicle.
“Let’s get moving,” Painter ordered. He clapped Monk’s forearm in a warm grip. “Stay safe.”
“You, too.”
The two men headed in opposite directions. Painter climbed back into his SUV; Monk joined his partner by the two snowmobiles. Creed sat atop one, outfitted like Monk in a snowsuit and helmet.
Monk crossed to his machine and hiked a leg over it.
As Painter spun out of the parking lot, Monk checked the assault rifle secured beside his seat. Creed had a matching weapon. They didn’t bother hiding the guns. Here in Spitsbergen, where polar bears outnumbered humans, such firepower was a requirement. Even the glossy tourist brochure Monk had picked up at the rental agency had stated, “Always carry a weapon when traveling outside the settlements.”
And Monk was not about to break Norwegian law.
“Ready?” he yelled, lifting an arm toward Creed.
His partner revved his engine as answer.