Safe Passage. Loreth White Anne
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another big contract in the works for Kepplar. A U.S. contract. We’ll make headlines, Doctor.”
Skye nodded. She liked the money that came with success. It helped her buy freedom. But she shunned the publicity. That could cost her dearly. She shifted to the edge of her seat, leaned forward. “Marshall, I don’t need to tell you I’m still unhappy with the early target date. And I know I don’t need to warn you no project is without risk, including this one. Ideally, I’d like more field trials.”
“Nonsense. The contained trials had excellent results. We haven’t got time for more. The risks are minimal. I’ve read your report.”
“Any time an alien species is released into an ecosystem there’s a risk the new bugs could become pests themselves. Or worse, become a vector for another disease.”
“Dr. Van Rijn, you are a pessimist. This bug was bred in our labs. It’s clean. There’s minimal risk of transmitting new disease.”
“I’m no pessimist, Marshall. I’m a pragmatist. Yes, we bred the bug here. Yes, it’s clean. But we started with a bug imported from Asia—”
“It went through the requisite quarantine process.”
“There’s always risk when meddling with nature.”
Marshall rolled his silver pen tightly between his thumb and middle finger. “But you have a fair degree of confidence in this project?”
“I do.”
“And the first colonies will be ready in two weeks?”
“Yes. But as I said, I’d like more—”
“Good. Because the last thing our southern neighbor needs right now is this army of whitefly marching south from Canada and heading straight for their produce basket. They’re already scrambling with the damned cattle plague. Now this. It’s straining diplomatic relations and they’re looking for scapegoats.”
“I’ve seen the papers. The Americans figure we should have moved earlier to control the epidemic in our own backyard. But these things know no borders.”
“Well, neither will our predator bug so it better damn well work.” Marshall slapped the pen onto his blotter. “If it does, Kepplar is made. If not, we go under.” His beetle eyes bored into her. “This is make or break, Doctor.”
“I read you, Marshall.” Skye felt anger starting to bubble. She had no doubt it would be her who took the fall should the project fail. Not Marshall. Not Kepplar Biological Control Systems. Not Agriculture Canada. She’d be the one hung out to dry. Held out to the media as the pathetic scapegoat who failed to avert an economic crisis.
She stood. “Anything else?”
“No. Thank you, and, um, congratulations, with the wedding stuff and all.”
It took all of Skye’s control to walk quietly out of Marshall Kane’s office, to close the door gently. But once shut, she stormed down the corridor. No elevator for her. She needed to work out her adrenaline on the stairs.
For Marshall, it always came down to the bottom line—cold hard cash. Personal acclaim. For her, it was the satisfaction of making something work. For finding a way to kill a parasite. To stop a blight from spreading.
And this whitefly had certainly become a blight on North America’s agricultural map. Skye knew of about twelve hundred different species of whitefly, but this was not one of them. It was a new species. A voracious species that could withstand extreme temperatures. And as yet, no one knew where it had come from and no one had isolated a natural predator to counteract it. So she had set out to create one, adapting a tiny black Asian beetle and breeding it in her lab. Her work was so promising that last year the feds had started taking a keen interest. And early this spring, the Canadian department of agriculture had ordered a massive beetle shipment from Kepplar for large-scale release across the country.
Marshall was still basking, gloating, shareholders patting him on his back for her hard work. Now it looked as though he had set his sights on U.S. contracts. He had even bigger fish to fry. More shareholders to woo. Damn him.
Skye couldn’t care less if Marshall took credit for her work. It helped keep her out of the media, below the radar. But now he was rushing this project. He was running risks she was uncomfortable with. The margin for error was too great.
And failure would make headlines, place her in the international spotlight. She couldn’t have that. She couldn’t let the last decade go to hell in a handbasket now.
She ran down the stairs, working off her fury with physical motion. It always boiled down to this. One way or another she was always running from her past, the threat of exposure. By God, she wished she could stop running.
By the time she got back to her lab she’d found a measure of outward control. She snapped on her gloves and got back to work, avoiding Charly’s questioning eyes. By the time Skye looked at the clock again it was after five. She flipped the switch on her microscope. “That’s it. I’m done and I’m outta here. I need my beauty sleep tonight.”
Charly got up, gave her a kiss on the cheek. “There’s my girl, clocking out at a decent hour for a change. I’ll be at your place at the crack of dawn with champagne and croissants.”
Skye laughed. “That’s all I need, a loaded maid of honor with croissant crumbs down her cleavage. I’ll be happier if you make sure those adult beetles get packed nicely into those bottles with vermiculite while I’m away.”
“We’re on it. No worries. That first shipment will be gone and released before you get back from your honeymoon.”
“Yeah.” She mumbled to herself as she slipped out of her lab coat. “That’s exactly what worries me.”
Scott washed and rinsed the blue cereal bowl for the third time. The kitchen sink was the best vantage point. From here he could watch the early morning wedding activity next door, and keep an eye on Honey in the yard.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d adopted such a domestic pose. It was in another life. When he was happy. When Leni cooked and he cleaned up and little Kaitlin chattered from her high chair.
Before the “accident.”
The old pain began to pulse at his temple. He pressed two fingers hard against the throb and for the billionth time cursed Rex…himself…the whole bloody world.
The damned wedding next door was bashing on bolted doors to memories. The woman next door had woken the sleeping monster within him, and it thrashed like a caged beast.
Scott slammed the cereal bowl into the drying rack, picked up a glass, rubbed viciously with the dishcloth.
It was nine years ago his wife and baby girl had been blown up in their car. The Plague Doctor’s men had done it. Scott’s family had died because of his job.
Because of him.
Because he hadn’t backed down from hunting one of the world’s most wanted men. He’d helped Rex take down the Plague Doctor in White River just over three years ago. But the global significance of their victory had rung hollow in Scott’s soul. It hadn’t brought his family back. It had done nothing to quell the desire for vengeance that pumped through his veins, or to fill the bitter, aching void in his heart. Nothing to dull the sharp edge of guilt that sliced at him. And seeing Rex so happily reunited with Hannah, the mother of his son… It had burned a hole clean through him.
Rex had saved his family.
Scott hadn’t.
The failure couldn’t be more stark.
And he couldn’t stand to have his face rubbed in the sharp gravel of that reality. So he’d taken one job after another out in the field, in the far wild corners of this earth. Anything to keep him away from a place that had once been home. Anything to keep him from looking in the mirror, facing himself.
Scott’s