Killer Dust Read Online Free Page B

and critics argued that the “bugs” had originated as the wind swept the islands, and could not have survived three to six days of transit. It was necessary to prove that the little critters could and did survive exposure to ultraviolet light, and survived it for up to 5,000 miles.
    Calvin leaned down over his machinery one more time to retest the offending clips, leaning hard onto the port rail. As he did so, he saw, out of the corner of one eye, the sudden appearance of yet one more idiot rushing at the bow, bearing down on him. Calvin had only enough time to put out one arm to protect his apparatus, and no time at all to choose an epithet before he felt himself being lifted over the side. As shock and fear exploded though his body, he flailed his arms and legs, trying desperately to connect with the outside of the rail. He missed. That hope dashed, he tried instead to propel himself outward, away from the curling bow wake that waited, three stories below, ready to suck him under the length of the ship before spitting him one limb at a time through its immense propellers.

– 4 –
    When Tom Latimer returned (his head bowed with some abstract form of repentance), it was too late for him to regain control of his immediate future. Faye and I had already decided to go to Florida.
    In the first minutes of the hour that he was gone, Faye dissolved to tears, but that was nothing new. Tears had been flowing down her face with fair regularity ever since she had become pregnant, and she had long since asked me to quit noticing them. The hormonal shifts brought on by her little hitchhiker had wreaked havoc with her usual cool stoicism, and the difficulty of adjusting to the consequent marriage to her very cerebral lover had filled in where the hormones left off. This time she made it additionally clear that she didn’t want my help by locking herself in the bathroom and running water to cover her sobs.
    I jumped onto the computer that Tom had left running in the living room and got to work, stopping only to shout over the water when I couldn’t figure out how to get through the security system he had rigged to keep prying eyes out of the business he did through that portal. Security systems of all types were now his stock-in-trade. Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, antiterrorist security had been his FBI assignment, and since his so-called retirement, he had become a consultant, again making it his professional pursuit. The retirement was
part of the deal he and Faye had cut to form sufficient common ground on which to build a marriage: His work for the FBI had been dangerous, and she didn’t want to raise a kid with a father who might at any moment get shot. Consulting seemed suitably remote from chasing bad guys down dark alleys, allowing Faye the pleasant fantasy that Tom had settled down.
    Faye gave me instructions that would get me into her section of the computer’s hard drive and onto the Internet. Once there, I logged on to a search engine and typed in FLORIDA DUST. I wasn’t trying to kid myself that such a casual action would help me figure out where Jack was in Florida or what he was doing there, but at times like this, I liked to keep my mind busy.
    My hands shook slightly as I worked. Jack had originally come to Salt Lake City to work with Tom on antiterrorist security. Did his current assignment mean that there was another wave of terrorism on the horizon? Certainly Florida had been in the news since the September 11 attacks … the first anthrax death had occurred there, and anthrax came in the form of dust. I had pushed specific notions about Jack’s assignment far to the back of my mind since his sudden departure, but now they crowded to the front. Terrorism made my blood run cold; not only did I not want that happening to my country, or in my world, but I didn’t want the man I loved right smack in the middle of it. Call me selfish, but the very thought turned my