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  PRAISE FOR THE NATURALIST

  “[A] smoothly written suspense novel from Thriller Award finalist Mayne . . . The action builds to [an] . . . exciting confrontation between Cray and his foe, and scientific detail lends verisimilitude.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “With a strong sense of place and palpable suspense that builds to a violent confrontation and resolution, Mayne’s (Angel Killer) series debut will satisfy devotees of outdoors mysteries and intriguing characters.”

  —Library Journal

  “The Naturalist is a suspenseful, tense, and wholly entertaining story . . . Compliments to Andrew Mayne for the brilliant first entry in a fascinating new series.”

  —New York Journal of Books

  “An engrossing mix of science, speculation, and suspense, The Naturalist will suck you in.”

  —Omnivoracious

  “A tour de force of a thriller.”

  —Gumshoe Review

  “Mayne is a natural storyteller, and once you start this one, you may find yourself staying up late to finish it . . . It employs everything that makes good thrillers really good . . . The creep factor is high, and the killer, once revealed, will make your skin crawl.”

  —Criminal Element

  “If you enjoy the TV channel Investigation Discovery or shows like Forensic Files, then Andrew Mayne’s The Naturalist is the perfect read for you!”

  —The Suspense Is Thrilling Me

  OTHER TITLES BY ANDREW MAYNE

  Murder Theory

  Looking Glass

  The Naturalist

  JESSICA BLACKWOOD SERIES

  Black Fall

  Name of the Devil

  Angel Killer

  THE CHRONOLOGICAL MAN SERIES

  The Monster in the Mist

  The Martian Emperor

  Station Breaker

  Public Enemy Zero

  Hollywood Pharaohs

  Knight School

  The Grendel’s Shadow

  NONFICTION

  The Cure for Writer’s Block

  How to Write a Novella in 24 Hours

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Andrew Mayne Harter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542092562

  ISBN-10: 1542092566

  Cover design by M. S. Corley

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  As the aerial tram glided up the hillside to the fortress-like hospital above, Rebecca Graham felt anything but safe. The bearded man at the back of the car was watching her. His eyes were dark, and he clung to the back window as if he were his own shadow.

  His jacket was tattered, his hands rough and dirty. Yellow papers with what appeared to be satanic symbols stuck out of his pockets.

  This man was clearly nuts. The strange thing was that when she got onto the tram, she hadn’t even noticed he was there. Unlike the other homeless she’d encountered working as a nurse in the shelter in the city below, he had no scent. She’d thought she was alone until she glanced at the window in front of her and saw his face reflected from behind her.

  She tried to maintain her composure and not show fear. Her left foot trembled, and she braced herself with the overhead handrail. The lights of the hospital were too far away. The tram was moving too slowly.

  She was trapped.

  She tried to look away from the reflection but was afraid that she’d find his hands around her throat a moment later. And then?

  She glanced at the emergency button. Should she push it? Nobody could get to her while she was between stations, but at least help could be waiting on arrival . . .

  The tram passed a tower and shook. When she looked in the window again, the man’s face was gone. Her heart started racing. Her right hand reached for the red button . . . until she saw his reflection as the tram left the tower’s shadow and its interior once again brightened.

  He was still behind her. Still staring.

  Rebecca Graham scarcely breathed until the tram finally reached the platform. It was the most frightened she’d ever been—and she’d experienced death on a regular basis.

  She had no reason to know that their paths would cross again, or that when they did, it would change her fate forever.

  CHAPTER ONE

  NORA

  Nora watched the doorway. This was when the Night Lady usually stopped at her room and stared inside.

  The first time she thought she was dreaming. The woman didn’t seem real. Her face was blank and without expression.

  It reminded Nora of when she woke up in the middle of the night and saw a face in a pile of clothes.

  But this woman was real.

  At least Nora was certain now.

  The Night Lady walked through most nights. But it was only when there were no other adults here that the bad things happened.

  Four nights ago, after Nurse Christina had left and the slip-plop of her shoes trailed to the elevator, the Night Lady had gone into Robert’s room.

  A half
hour later, the alarms had gone off and everyone rushed to see Robert.

  They didn’t say what happened, but the next day when they wheeled all the beds out to watch a movie, his bed wasn’t there.

  They’d left his toys and shoes in his cubbyhole.

  Going away meant going someplace where you didn’t need your shoes anymore.

  That didn’t sound like a good place.

  Nora waited to see what room the Night Lady would visit next.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NO-FLY ZONE

  Under a dull gray sky, the nose cone of the West Air double-decker jetliner is resting inches over the clay shingles of a two-story house in an Austin suburb. Fire-suppressing foam is spilling out from backyards like snow while emergency crews are trying to pump thousands of gallons of jet fuel into two tanker trucks parked in the street. I roll down the window so I can get a better view of the outermost starboard engine, barely visible through a gap between the houses. It looks like a black metal nest ripped apart by the hands of an angry god.

  “Amazing that nobody died,” says Deputy Reddis from the driver’s seat of the SUV, taking me through the disaster zone.

  Twenty minutes ago, I’d been lost in my own world—less than eight miles from the crash site—when a loud knock came at the door. I could tell from the staccato rhythm that it was law enforcement. My heart raced as I worried which of my many misdeeds could have finally caught up with me.

  “Dr. Cray?” Reddis had asked at the door. My girlfriend, Jillian, was at her bakery café taking care of the influx of Little League baseball teams that flooded in on cupcake Saturdays.

  “Yes?” I replied, studying his uniform and wondering if I was about to be served a warrant.

  “You’re needed at the crash site.”

  “Crash site?” I’d heard sirens in the distance but hadn’t connected them to anything in my world.

  “The West Air jumbo jet? It just went down an hour ago.” He saw the confusion on my face. “A few miles from here. You’re on the list.”

  “The list?” In my experience there are good lists and bad lists. Being on a list connected with an airplane crash didn’t sound like a good thing. My mind raced, and I thought of Jillian. “Where exactly did it crash?”

  “Sage Brook.”

  I exhaled with relief. That was the opposite direction from Jillian.

  “The pilot took it down over the conservation land. Nobody was hurt . . . that we know of. Now, if you’ll come with me . . .”

  I didn’t move. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Agent Lowell from the Department of Homeland Security sent me to get you.”

  I didn’t know a Lowell at DHS. “Why?”

  Reddis shrugged. It seemed genuine enough. “I was told to bring you to the staging area.”

  Okay, that was a mild relief. If he’d said the police station or DHS headquarters, I’d expect to be arrested. Still, I hesitated.

  Reddis stared at me for a moment. “You really haven’t been watching the news?”

  “No.”

  “Every airport in the country is shut down right now. Every airplane is grounded,” he explained. He glanced to the side, as if to make sure we were alone, then said in a lower voice, “They think this might be part of a terrorist attack. A big one.”

  After we’d left my house, I checked the news on my phone and asked Reddis questions as he drove us through traffic with sirens wailing. He didn’t know much beyond what I saw on CNN, Fox, and Twitter: way more guesses than facts. Generally, I find it a good idea to wait a day or so before forming an opinion about a crisis, because the first twenty-four hours are usually filled with bullshit speculation by reporters paid by news channels to fill the air with baseless observations while the internet is taken over by people who prefer to speak first and think last.

  Our SUV passes the front of the plane and nears the end of the block, where another deputy waves us through a barricade and directs us to a middle school parking lot.

  I follow Reddis out of the vehicle and into Eagle Bluff Middle School. The halls are filled with police, federal agents, and every other type of responder you’d expect to find at a disaster like this. Classrooms have been turned into mini command centers as responders deal with the many spin-off crises an event like this creates. Besides the immediate problem of what happened, someone has to figure out where to put the survivors or how to get them home. I can hear a woman on a cell phone asking a hotel how many rooms they have available. Someone else is patiently dealing with a resident yelling at them over the phone about when they can reenter their home. From the barking coming from the cafeteria, I can tell they’ve already dealt with the four-legged passengers from the cargo hold.

  “This way,” says Reddis as he directs me to a door protected by two Army National Guardsmen holding M4 rifles. “This is Dr. Cray.”

  I’m ushered into the gymnasium, where dozens of scattered tables host people working on laptops. I spot FBI, DHS, ATF, and several other three-letter acronym jackets spread around the space. Reddis leads me to a woman with a DHS jacket.

  She has dark, curly hair pulled back into a practical ponytail. Suntanned to the point of making her look a few years older than she probably is, she wears an intense expression that I’d hate to have focused on me in anger. Even in a room full of high-testosterone law enforcement males, something tells me she’d be the alpha.

  “Cray?” she says, looking up from her laptop.

  “Lowell?” I reply.

  She gives me a quick nod. I’d bet anything she’s ex-military, like Jillian. “One hour and twenty minutes ago, West Air flight 8801 leaving Austin had two engines blow up two minutes after takeoff. We believe shrapnel from the first engine took out the second, forcing an emergency landing. The pilot was able to set it down in the conservation area behind us with minimal injuries. As a precaution, we’ve grounded all flights in the United States.”

  “Because you think it might be terrorism?” I ask.

  “I don’t think anything. I follow protocols and what my bosses tell me. Right now, they want to know if it’s safe to reopen air travel.”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “You and about five other people here, as well as our experts back in DC. The computer popped your name up as someone in the immediate vicinity with government clearance and experience.”

  “I’m a biologist . . .”

  “A computational biologist and the guy that caught the Grizzly Killer and John Christian and helped stop the attempt to sabotage the DoD vaccine supply. You’ve also worked with counterterrorism operations. I think you’d agree that institutional knowledge only goes so far?”

  “Okay. What else do we know?”

  “Follow me.” Lowell walks quickly to another section of the gym separated by plastic strung over a volleyball net. A group of forensic technicians wearing clean suits and clear face shields are hovering over something on a table.

  Lowell hands me a pair of latex gloves and a face shield. “Let Dr. Cray have a look.”

  A technician holding a camera steps aside, revealing a twisted shape that vaguely resembles a spider. It’s about a meter across and has armatures bent at odd angles.

  “What’s the first question that comes to your mind, Dr. Cray?”

  I think back to the sight of the exploded engine. “How did this drone survive the explosion?”

  “Exactly,” says a man with a gray beard watching from the other side of the table.

  “This is Dr. Rossman, formerly of NASA,” says Lowell. “He’s one of the other brains the computer recommended.”

  “Take a closer look,” says Rossman.

  I kneel to get a better view. The body of the drone is made of metal. “Steel?”

  Rossman nods. “Yes. Heavier than aluminum or carbon fiber, but likely to do more damage.”

  “You think this is intentional?” I ask.

  “If I had to guess, this is Chinese or Russian made.”

  “What m
akes you say that?”

  “It’s not as sophisticated as some of our technology. But still effective.”

  “Why Russian or Chinese? Why not a hobbyist?”

  He stares at me blankly. “Why go through the effort of a custom build? It’d be much easier to buy one online that could do as much damage.”

  I glance at Lowell, checking to see if she noticed Rossman backed down in less than ten seconds regarding how much damage a commercial drone could do.

  “What exactly did you do at NASA?” I ask.

  “Propulsion,” he replies.

  Okay, he’s more qualified to be here than I am.

  “We’ve seen equally sophisticated drones in Syria and Yemen,” says a woman standing to my right. “Some were homegrown. Others made by the Chinese.” She turns toward me and holds out a hand. “Captain Sarah McCallum, air force, retired.” She’s tall with short dark hair and a demeanor about as serious as Lowell’s.

  “Okay,” says Lowell, “now that we have you all here, what’s the verdict? Onetime event or a master plot? We’re getting pressured to open up the skies. What do you say?”

  “Well,” Rossman starts to say before I cut him off.

  “Shut up.”

  He shoots me an angry look.

  I raise my hand. “Hold on. Lowell, before any of us start speaking out of our asses, what exactly is the purpose of the little brain trust here?”

  She gives me an impatient glance. “DHS wants outside experts to weigh in on this. We’ve dealt with criticism in the past for not relying on other expert opinions. You’re an advisory panel.”

  “I’ve been here fifteen minutes.” I glance at the others. “Have any of you had more than twenty minutes here? Have any of you been told anything else?”

  Rossman and McCallum shake their heads.

  Lowell glares at me. “This is the real world, Dr. Cray—the country is at a standstill. Time is something we don’t have.”

  “Maybe not, but it feels like we’re being set up as some kind of scapegoat for you. I seriously doubt the DHS is waiting on our advice. Your bosses just want someone else to share the blame if another attack happens.”

  “What’s he saying?” asks Rossman.

  “That this is bullshit,” replies McCallum. “If we tell them to open up the skies and another plane falls, it’s on us, at least partially.”