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Carla Spector? Someone even more heinous?

McCarthy and the Stooge get to work. They are each holding a small hypodermic needle. The Stooge forces Maddy’s head onto the floor.

Seeing her savior about to be attacked, Belinda seems to have had enough. She bends her knees and aims her bound feet at McCarthy, giving him a kick that does nothing more than knock him aside.

“Bitch!” he screams. Then he looks at the Stooge. “Let’s do it!”

At that moment both men plunge their syringes into their victims’ necks.

The two young women quake uncontrollably, and within moments they both pass out.

CHAPTER 79

BURBANK, WITH HIS extraordinary technological skills, has set the trap for Glenn Ambrose impeccably.

Jericho, newly returned from North Carolina with his own set of skills, has set up a tracking system that is mind-boggling, so we can monitor for the satellite signal that deploys Terrageddon.

We’re off to the races.

We watch the video displays, but… damn… it looks like we arenotoff to a particularly great start at all.

The two Peruvian government security agents who have committed to aiding us in this project have notified the Scientific University of the South in Lima to begin a rapid evacuation of the campus. These agents know that any person left on campus will be destroyed should we be unable to thwart Ambrose’s launch of Terrageddon.

The first big problem? The rapid evacuation of the UCSUR campus is not rapid, not very rapid at all. Despite the dean’swillingness to comply, the campus has been on general lockdown as a precaution to avoid the Newbola virus. First being told to shelter in place, and now being told to evacuate immediately has people confused, some of them skeptical of this new, opposing order.

I watch some people make slow, meandering paths off campus, some of them hugging or prolonging their good-byes.Move! Goddamnit! Move fast or be killed!

Burbank, controlling the various visual mechanicals, remains calm. His only comment on the campus scene in Lima is “Give the idea some time to breathe, sir. We’ve only just begun.”

It’s great advice, wise advice. I should be able to take it. Strength, order, serenity, are at the basis of my very existence. Yet, try as I might, I am becoming not merely nervous but also extremely angry.

“Why can’t people do what they’re told?” I say hopelessly and sadly to Margo, Burbank, Tapper, Jericho, Hawkeye, and Grandma Jessica. Bando whimpers from beside my feet.

I close my eyes tightly. I clench my hands to my chest. I consider the thoughts and teachings of Dache.

When the initial evaluation is inaccurate, the best path is reevaluation.

Is it that time? Time to reevaluate?

“Move! Run! Get out the hell out of there!” I yell at the screens as if the people might actually hear me.

“Careful, boss,” Tapper says, clearly alarmed at my loss of temper.

Even as I yell, in the back of my mind is the vital question:

Should we abort the plan?

CHAPTER 80

SHOULD WE SIMPLY abort this plan?

At the moment my answer is a resounding… “I’m not really sure.”

After all, there are literally millions of human lives at stake.

Concentrate, Lamont. Meditate, Lamont.

Yes, I am the vessel of the unique powers taught to me by Dache. But I don’t need those superpowers right now. I need the power that exists in every single one of us—the power to dig deep inside and take control of our emotions.