The Eighth Day

Chapter 34

"He's right below us."

The helicopter banked right, and Emma Tyler peered out the window. They skimmed across the skyline. Below them, streams of vehicles trawled the streets while tiny pedestrians marched in lines like ants. Echo-7 was down there, masquerading as one of them.

To her left, Chad Dodd bent over his tablet, tracking Echo-7's movement. He used the pads of his fingertips to zoom and scroll and brushed at a bead of sweat perched on his brow. They sat facing the front of the helicopter. The Alpha perched next to Jensen opposite them. His hands lay folded in his lap, fingers twined. He stared at her without expression.

"I can smell you," he said.

The whir of the helicopter's electric engine mixed with the battle cry of the rotor blades, which were locked in a mortal struggle to beat gravity into submission. The clamor of the power train vibrating in its mounts sent tremors through the cabin. Regrettably, the soundproofing that lined the cabin's interior dulled these noises enough to make conversation possible.

"Your hair. It smells like citrus. Oranges and lime."

It reminded her of the flight she took when she began her training as a special agent, packed into the back of a chopper with seven other trainees. The others were all men. They rode in silence, posturing and sizing each other up as they vied for dominance. And in their eyes, she wasn't competition but the prize, and the winner would perform some bird-of-paradise courtship ritual or just club her over the head and drag her back to his cave to have his way with her.

"And something else. Blood, maybe. Tell me, are you menstruating?"

The chopper had taken her and the other trainees to a compound in the Mojave Desert in Nevada, a series of concrete structures that rose out of the sand. Three weeks of training followed by a headliner that pitted the trainees against one another with nothing but a survival pack and paintball rifle for company. During the day, she slept buried in the sand beneath a thermal blanket and navigated by the stars of Orion and Cassiopeia at night. She stayed hydrated by sucking on cacti meat and used makeshift snares to catch lizards and rodents, which she skinned and roasted over a low campfire.

Everyone expected this big Swede, Aleksander Kjerlan, to come out on top. Six and a half feet and over 250 pounds of solid muscle. But in the end, Emma was the last man standing. She poked the barrel of her rifle out from beneath her blanket, aimed, and plugged him in the neck from over five hundred meters away. An arterial spray of red paint, and Kjerlan screamed and dropped like a rock. The welt on his neck during the graduation ceremony served as a vivid reminder that Emma was no one's prize.

The wop-wop of the helicopter's blades and a change in engine noise jarred her back to the present. Skyscrapers rose around them and pierced the sky as they descended toward one christened with Roman Biogenics' corporate logo. Jensen sat with lidded eyes. The man hadn't uttered a word since they rejoined him with the Alpha in tow.

The aircraft settled onto the rooftop, and its engine began to spool down. Dodd flung the door open and glared at the Alpha.

"Get out."

The Alpha climbed out of the cabin, and they piled onto the roof after him. The wind blustered around them while Dodd studied his tablet. Jensen crossed his arms and stood motionless, and the Alpha fingered the graphene choker around his neck and studied the horizon.

The rotors slowed to a stop, and the pilot clambered out of the cockpit and used tie-down ropes to secure them to the airframe.

Dodd checked the moving map display on his tablet. "He's taking the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to Long Island," he said. "My guess is he's planning to link up with Harrington."

"Who's Harrington?" Emma asked.