Triple Threat - James Patterson Page 0,53

driver slams the gas, and the entire convoy swerves off the highway and begins to speed up.

A mustang’s top speed can reach over fifty miles per hour, but I’m confident we can outrun them. I feel even more hopeful as I watch other Marines in each of the escort Jeeps slide their M14s out their windows and unleash a torrent of automatic gunfire at the galloping broncos, quickly felling one after another.

But it’s still too little, too late.

The remaining horses blast right through our line of vehicles. Glass shatters, metal groans, blood splatters, and bones crunch as thousands of pounds of car and horse collide at highway speed.

Two Jeeps, the ambulance, and one Suburban are toppled immediately, tumbling in different directions.

Then the Suburban I’m riding in is hit—and spins wildly, doing donuts in the desert dirt. Our driver, a female Marine, struggles to regain control as we’re thrown around the car’s interior like clothes inside a dryer.

“Go, damnit, go!” Leahy yells as the Marine pounds the accelerator, kicking up more dust behind us. He pulls her sidearm from her holster and fires frantically out the broken window at the mustangs as they regroup and charge again.

We can’t get away fast enough. Neighing and snorting, the colts ram us again, head-on, with incredible force, first knocking the Suburban onto its side and then flipping it onto its roof.

Shattered glass rains down around me as I dangle upside down, pinned, suspended by my seat belt. Beside me, Sarah and Freitas are also hanging—it looks like the impact of the crash has knocked them both out cold.

I start to get woozy. Images of Chloe and Eli flash through my mind. If I’m dying, I definitely want those two to be my final thoughts.

My head flops over in the other direction. Through the dusty haze I can make out the yellow hazmat vehicle.

It’s also been tipped over and is being pummeled just as mercilessly by multiple mustangs, its white-suited passengers as helpless as we are.

One of the horses manages to bash open the back doors—and the animal suddenly rears up on its hind legs in terror.

Helen is inside, still strapped to her gurney, but the plastic quarantine tent around her is badly torn, and she’s screaming and baring her teeth at the horse.

Another mustang notices. Then another, then another. Before long, the colts have regrouped and are charging yet again—away from us.

The rest of the horses rejoin the fleeing pack and kick up another massive dust cloud in their wake.

When it finally settles, they’re gone.

Wrecked vehicles and bloody horse limbs litter the desert ground. Human moaning wafts through the hot air, along with Helen’s feral screams.

Chapter 22

My sneakers and rubber-tipped cane squeak against the floor as I hobble down this long, sterile hallway. I’m late to one of our frequent all-hands meetings, thanks to a pit stop at the lab’s infirmary to grab a fresh handful of painkillers.

Over the past forty-eight hours, I’ve been popping those little guys like candy.

I push open the door of the conference room, which isn’t easy. The stitches in my shoulder are still sore, and my busted knee still aches. Not to mention my three chipped teeth, sprained wrist, and the cuts and bruises over my whole body.

Seated around the giant marble table, their meeting already in progress, are Freitas, Sarah, Leahy, and most of the other scientists on our team. I say “most” because, between the feral human attack in the jungle and the mustang stampede on the highway, we’ve lost six colleagues in half as many days.

As I gently, painfully, sink into an empty chair, I have to remind myself how much worse my fate could have been.

Dr. Marilia Carvalho, a neuroscientist from São Paulo, is showing a series of colorful MRI brain scans on the large display screen. Since we arrived at the Idaho National Laboratory, we’ve been meeting like this often to share our research.

“But as you can see, while the subject’s neurological structure is still identical to that of a typical human’s, the vast majority of her neurological activity is occurring in the cerebellum, the medulla, and the basal ganglia.”

“The so-called reptilian brain,” Sarah offers. “An anatomical holdover from our days in the wild.”

“Precisely. The higher capabilities in Helen’s mind, like emotion and reason, have somehow been switched off. She most likely sees us modern humans as threats because her brain is literally functioning like a Neanderthal’s.”

“But why?” booms Leahy, jabbing his bulky arm cast in the air for emphasis. “That’s the question Washington