Page 33 of Jacob

His did.

Yeah.

Jacob had seen enough of the world to know that most of mankind was selfish and could turn brutal if their interests were touched. He and his company operated on behalf of the ones who weren’t brutal, though they weren’t the majority.

“Queens of IT,” Jacob said, and sketched a sitting bow. “I thank you and salute you.”

“Yeah.” Alex shook her head. “You guys are amazing. Thank you so much. We need to know what we’re walking into.”

“Be careful,” Emma warned. “That country is pretty lawless.”

“But you have Jacob,” Riley said simply.

“And Black Inc.,” Hope added.

“Before we sign off,” Jacob said, “can you see if any flights have gone from around the Atlanta area to any airport near Zelenograd in the appropriate time frame? Say, from five days ago. It would be a private flight, anything from a Gulfstream on up.”

“Gotcha.” Emma bent immediately over the keyboard.

“We’re on it,” Hope said, and shot a two-finger salute off her forehead.

“We’ll also find out if a CRISPR-Cas9 was delivered to the site.”

The connection switched off.

“Wow.” Alex blew out a breath. “I feel better knowing they are on our side. Why aren’t they working for you, again?”

That was a sore point. “I wish they were.” Jacob could hear the chagrin in his voice. “I’ve asked often enough. At one time or another I’ve offered them all jobs with me, really good jobs, but they are engaged or married to ASI guys, and they’re happy where they are, and they all like living in Portland. But we cooperate with ASI all the time, it’s a very good outfit, and at least one Queen is always available to help us. We call them the Queens and the Queens are always ready to help.”

“And you’re in the same time zone,” Alex said.

“There’s that, too. The Queens are really hard workers. They work around the clock if they need to. And have.”

“That’s good that you have them. That you and ASI can count on each other.” She was silent a beat. “The CDC used to be like that. You could absolutely count on help from anyone, day or night. We were all working for the same goal, public health. To protect people.”

Jacob could hear the wistfulness in her voice. “But now?”

She sighed. “But now…” She sighed again. “Never mind. We have enough to deal with right now.”

Jacob made a mental note to press her on this. Later.

Alex ate the last spoonful of the raspberry and fig ice cream, placed the spoon on the plate and sat back with a sigh. “That was wonderful. If the world is going to end, at least we can go out in style.”

Jacob touched her shoulder with his. “I’d very much like for civilization not to end. We can do without culinary delights, but I do like running water and antibiotics.”

“Dentistry and Netflix,” she sighed.

“Cellphones and air conditioning.”

“Yeah.” Alex leaned her head back. “We could lose it all. I keep coming back to that. To what could possibly make someone like Elias team up with the bad guys. Bad guys nowadays have immense power. They truly could end the world as we know it. Who would want that?”

Jacob had an answer to that. “People who think civilization could fall but not for them. There are some who actually wouldn’t mind if we lost civilization as long as they are at the top of the heap of ashes. They think they can keep all their privileges, even though everyone else has been reduced to starvation.”

“And cities reduced to rubble.”

“And humanity left with roving gangs of bandits.”

“I keep hoping Elias isn’t part of this. That he is being kept… I don’t know. Against his will.”

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