Mastermind: A Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood Thriller Read online

  Chimpanzees confused Europeans because the primates were a lot like them, but also so different. African tribes struggled with the chimpanzee-classification problem, too. While there were many stories of unpleasant interactions in which chimpanzees kidnapped and murdered children and (hopefully apocryphal) stories of chimps raping human women, chimps never made it deeply into African folklore. They were both too familiar and too weird.

  And for every story of a tribe of chimpanzees killing a human, there were probably a thousand more of humans killing chimps. We may be cousins, but uneasy ones.

  I’ve been up close with chimpanzees. I’ve helped sedate them. I’ve been there when their teeth have been cleaned. I’ve had young chimps cling to me and been hugged by a much older chimp who was as docile as a grandmother.

  I’m still terrified of chimps.

  I’m terrified of chimps in the same way that I’m terrified of a cornered man in an unfamiliar situation who is stronger than me, a more ferocious fighter than me, and programmed by evolution never to back down once a fight has started. You don’t talk a chimp down from a rampage. You tranquilize them at best and shoot them at worst.

  Right now, there could be as many as thirty chimpanzees closing in on us. Baring my teeth and showing dominance is more likely to get me torn to shreds than make the primates back down. These chimps were raised in a zoo, not a circus. They never got the beatdowns from an underpowered human with a weapon to force them into docility.

  Zoo chimps, even the best-cared-for ones, can kill. Chimps at sanctuaries have cooperated to pull keepers into their enclosures to attack them. These chimpanzees, stuck in this unfamiliar environment, are capable of anything. And from the scat on the floor, it’s clear what they’ve been feeding on.

  Now fresh food has entered their territory, and they’re trying to figure out how best to kill it. The alpha male and his lieutenants are probably closest right now. When they make visual contact, they’ll look for a weakness and then attack. It’ll feel coordinated, but in truth it’ll be one chimp spotting an opening and the others jumping in a split second later.

  Jessica and I both have guns, but the problem is that if the first shot doesn’t scare them, the others won’t make much of a difference. We have to use each bullet to kill. Even assuming perfect aim, one bullet per chimp may not be enough.

  We’re surrounded; we’re outgunned.

  I have to make a decision now, before the chimps do.

  “I think I have a plan,” I whisper to Jessica as quietly as I can and still hope she hears me. “We wound the most dominant one and make a run for it.”

  “That’s a horrible plan,” she whispers back. “Let’s make it out of here alive with our fingers and faces intact.”

  I look down the dark corridor of empty server cabinets. In a moment we’re going to be surrounded with chimps on either side and crawling over the top.

  In a normal encounter, it might just be one or two aggressive males that do the attacking, but in this situation, as frightened and starving as they are, it could be a free-for-all of flying arms, hands, nails, and teeth.

  Jessica’s back is to mine. She’s probably scanning the tops of the cabinets like I am, waiting for the attack to begin. I’m not sure she understands what we’re up against. One adult male chimp could devastate the entire top tier of the UFC. It’s not just their strength; their teeth are like bolt cutters.

  Clank.

  The echo of an object hitting the floor fills the air, followed by the buckling sound of something heavy climbing on metal.

  “You mean hide? If we get inside a cabinet, they’ll tear it apart. Chimps can rip off car doors if they’re angry enough,” I whisper.

  “That’s not my plan. This is a server facility, right?”

  “Yes,” I reply, watching a moving shadow in the distance.

  “Where are all the cables supposed to go?” she asks.

  “It’s a floating floor . . .”

  So, underneath us.

  Server rooms are built several feet above the ground with a false floor where all the cables run. There’s at least two or three feet of crawl space underneath our feet—enough room for cables and a human to connect them to all the junctions.

  “I’m not sure it would be any better if we get trapped down there with them,” I tell Jessica.

  “Where do you think we stand a better chance? In a two-dimensional fight or a three-dimensional one?” she asks.

  Okay, she knows my language. “Cover me while I lift a panel.”

  “Theo,” she says under her breath.

  I glance back in her direction and see a large male chimpanzee blocking that row. I look back to my end of the aisle and spot two more.

  I kneel to inspect the floor, keeping my gun aimed in their direction. Chimps don’t coordinate like we do, but they react and adapt so quickly, it’s effectively the same.

  The floor is perfectly smooth. I can spot the seams where the panels fit into their recesses but can’t fit a fingernail in to pry one up, much less a finger.

  Normally they use suction cups attached to handles to lift the tiles. I left mine at home. “They’re moving closer. Should we try a warning shot?” asks Jessica.

  “Um, yes. But let me do it.”

  I point my gun at the floor and aim it an angle. Bang!

  My bullet tears into the flooring, leaving a thumb-size hole. When I glance up, the chimps are still advancing.

  “That didn’t work. I think they lost their fear of guns,” says Jessica.

  “It still may help us.” I wave my gun at the chimps on the left side, then hear the scratching of nails on the cabinet to my right.

  I’m about to tell Jessica my plan when her gun fires and makes a loud clang as the slug ricochets off the metal cabinet.

  There’s a loud thump as something jumps to the floor on the other side. I don’t look back because my chimps are getting closer. If I had to guess, she just shot near the one trying to climb over the top. The vibration of the bullet hitting the metal was enough to scare it. But for how long?

  They’ll all go apeshit in a second.

  I reach down, shove my thumb through the bullet hole I made in the tile, and lift it up.

  “Jessica!”

  I don’t know how, but she manages to drop to her knees and slide under my legs and into the opening before I can get the last syllable of her name off my tongue.

  “Theo!” she yells, pulling at my foot from the crawl space.

  I slide my legs in, and she pulls me all the way under. I try to straighten the panel so the chimps won’t have an easy time of getting it open, but with their strength, anything is possible.

  “This way,” she whispers, crawling in the direction of the entrance.

  “Hold up.” I crawl back and take a position with my gun aimed at the tiny spot of light streaming through my bullet hole.

  “What?” she asks.

  “I need to discourage them.”

  “With what? A backhanded Instagram compliment?”

  An intelligent primate doesn’t need to have watched a dozen prison-break movies to understand what just happened. Chimps hunt other chimpanzees and monkeys. They’re accustomed to clever thinking and on-the-fly adaptation. They’re extremely fast learners when it comes to matters of survival.

  The light through the tiny hole suddenly vanishes, which means a chimpanzee is inspecting our means of escape.

  Bang!

  I fire through the hole just to the side of the creature, intending only to wound him. There’s a loud scream, followed by angry thrashing as a chimpanzee starts flailing. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I grazed or mortally wounded it.

  Also, unfortunately, I just shot at a chimp. I didn’t want that to happen. They’re victims of circumstance like we are.

  The light vanishes again. I fire a second time to the side.

  There’s a thud and the sound of feet running away. That should buy us a little time until the chimps realize they can j
ust punch their way through the tiles.

  When that happens, it’s game over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  SURVIVAL

  Jessica and I keep moving, or at least she gracefully moves through the crawl space while I drag myself through the tiny passage, feeling every pebble and loose drywall nail in my kneecaps. Our illumination is a small penlight she’s using to guide the way.

  We’re about thirty yards from the server room entrance when she stops moving and rolls onto her back, angling her ear at the floor above us. I stop moving and do the same.

  The footsteps are quiet and stealthy, but the chimps, or at least some of them, are directly above. They can hear us. How long before . . .

  Scratch. Scratch.

  Chimpanzee nails trying to fit between the gaps in the floor tiles.

  Damn.

  It’s one thing if a chimp gets down here and we have a line of fire to shoot them. It’s another if they figure out how to pull the tiles free and yank us out from our crawl space.

  Scratch.

  Scratch.

  I’d fire again, but I’m afraid it will only create a new hole that they can use to lift up the tile.

  “Keep going for the exit,” I tell Jessica. “I think they’re following my clumsy ass, not yours.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Hope you figure something out? Maybe there’s a fire-suppression system. You could try to reach that and turn it on.”

  “All right,” she says reluctantly. “The Thai military is at least a half hour away.”

  “How do you know that?” I ask.

  “I texted for help.”

  I have no idea when she did that, but I’m glad at least one of us was thinking a little more multidimensionally.

  I weigh the option of sitting still and waiting for more men with guns to arrive. The problem is that if the chimps get smart and attack, it’ll all go down in seconds. There will be no chance to buy more time.

  I can see the outline of Jessica’s body in the distance as she gets closer to the exit.

  Hopefully she’ll survive. She seems really good at that.

  I’ve already decided that when I have one bullet left, that one’s for me . . . if I can get the gun to my head. You don’t survive a chimp attack like this without immediate help, and I don’t want Jessica trying to save me.

  Scratch.

  Scratch.

  Bam!

  Dust falls into my eyes as a chimpanzee smashes at the tile. Bam!

  The whole floor rattles.

  The chimp can feel it giving way. Now he knows he can smash his way through.

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  A crack of light shines through the gap between the tile and the frame as the flooring bounces from the force being thrown at it.

  Bam! Bam! Crack!

  I’m bathed in light as the tile is thrown free. Three sets of chimpanzee eyes peer down at me. They stare at the metal object in my hand, trying to comprehend.

  I fire a bullet an inch to the left of the one closest to me. He flees, and I fire another over the sloping forehead of his companion before the third moves out of the way.

  I pull myself backward. Bam!

  Another chimp strikes the floor directly over me.

  BAM!

  A chimpanzee fist punches through the tile over my stomach.

  Just as quickly, it disappears.

  I aim at the hole. Before I can fire, a fast-moving hand rips the tile free, exposing another section of the floor. I crab-slide backward, keeping my gun aimed at the openings.

  A chimp drops into the gap and comes at me faster than I can imagine, a nightmare of fangs and fury.

  I fire.

  I fire again.

  Another chimp drops into the crawl space. I fire near him.

  Again. And . . . click.

  I lost count of my bullets, and now I’m out. I didn’t have a chance to steal a spare clip when we were in the police station. I curse myself for not being prepared.

  I hear, but can’t see, another chimp drop into the crawl space. His frightened brothers are waiting for the right moment to attack.

  My hands scrape around, looking for a weapon. All I can feel is cable and electrical conduit.

  The chimpanzee starts loping toward me.

  All that talk about saving the last bullet for myself . . .

  Well, the joke’s on me, the computational biologist who couldn’t count.

  I grab for anything I can and feel the conduit rip free. There’s a blue arc as it hits the metal of the struts supporting the floating floor.

  Damn, this cable is live. Like twenty amps worth of live.

  I feel something heavy land near my legs. Something snarling.

  I make a tight fist, tucking in my thumb, and swing the electrical line in that direction. An impossibly strong hand grasps my wrist and starts to pull my fist into its mouth.

  My wrist explodes in pain, but not nearly what the chimp must have experienced before the current made his heart skip a beat.

  I can smell the scent of burning hair and flesh. I pull myself out from underneath the unconscious chimp and crawl in the direction of Jessica.

  I hit a wall near the door. A tile is yanked free. I cower in fear, ready for death.

  “Theo! Out now!” Jessica yells.

  I pull myself through the gap and realize what she’s done.

  Jessica slid a large equipment cabinet in front of the door as a kind of barricade. She pushed it a meter forward so I could crawl out of the hole.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she says, opening the metal door behind us.

  The metal creak attracts the attention of a band of six other chimpanzees that had been watching the melee in the floor. They come running toward us on all fours and leap onto the cabinet.

  Jessica pulls me through the gap in the door and slams it shut on the screaming chimpanzees.

  We run through the next door and then the exit, making sure each is closed tightly behind us.

  Finally, we reach her rental car and get inside, lock the doors, and catch our breath.

  She starts to speak. “Holy . . .”

  “Crap,” I finish for her.

  We’re both pumped full of adrenaline, like some crazy drug rush. Neither of us is assuming it’s completely over, but for a moment we don’t have to worry about being attacked.

  Jessica stares back at the facility. “What a damned waste. What a goddamn waste.” She looks at me, eyes filled with pain.

  I shake my head.

  In this moment, I realize how much I respect this woman. She feels only sadness over having to hurt those poor animals. She understands compassion and accepts its burden.

  “Now what?” she asks.

  “We wait for the army to show up and find out what they were doing in the other half of that facility,” I reply.

  “Other half?” she replies.

  “That was only half the interior. Someone bought it unfinished, maybe from a bankruptcy, and repurposed it for something else.”

  “Genetically modifying chimpanzees for aggression?” she asks.

  “No. Those were normal chimps. Normal chimps stuck in a nightmare scenario. I want to know why.”

  “I want to know who,” she adds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  WETWORK

  Jessica and I kept a lookout on the building, guns drawn, in case any of the chimpanzees tried to make an escape. We debated whether it would be best to let them run and let Thai animal control deal with them, but we decided that an escaped chimp in an unfamiliar location is a dangerous chimpanzee. Never mind that we have no idea what’s been done to the chimps and if they carry any infectious diseases.

  When the Royal Thai Armed Forces arrived, Jessica explained the situation to General Phathanothai and his aide, who then directed his unit to surround the building and enter through the front.

  Although they had tranquilizer guns from the Thai wildlife agency, Phathanothai wasn
’t taking any chances—his men were fully armed.

  Jessica and I both stood outside at a safe distance waiting for gunfire. Other than a few warning shots, it never happened. They managed to tranquilize most of the chimps and get some of them into an armored truck. Afterward, General Phathanothai went in to inspect the facility before giving us the all clear to enter alongside the Royal Thai Police.

  Captain Chuntakaro, a tall man who’s worked in Thai anticorruption for years, escorts us into the facility. “We’ve found twenty chimpanzees,” he explains to us in English with a slight Australian accent, revealing where he studied abroad.

  We walk into the server room, where bodies of unconscious chimpanzees lie everywhere amid blood spatter across the floor. A few soldiers are holding the lifeless body of a chimp to take a photograph. Chuntakaro yells at them and they apologize, putting the chimp down and scurrying somewhere else.

  “I apologize for their behavior,” Chuntakaro says to me. He then addresses Jessica: “If this is too traumatizing for you, we can move on.”

  “Traumatizing for her?” I reply. “I’m the one who pissed myself. She took out the first chimp that attacked us.”

  “My apologies,” says Chuntakaro.

  Jessica gives him a polite smile, waving off the remark. How often does she have to deal with men assuming that because she’s a woman, and not one who hides it, she can’t roll with the best of them?

  For a woman like Kieren, it’s probably different. She broadcasts military from a hundred miles away. And Jillian, her soldiering days behind her, seems almost relieved to have men assume she wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone take down a crazed serial killer at point-blank range. Which she did, but I got the credit for it.

  Jessica has to navigate a world of chauvinism and presumably chooses her battles carefully. Every subtle insult she protests, every condescending remark she calls out, would only get in the way of her trying to solve the problem at hand. It’s a tremendous sacrifice of ego that I don’t think I could ever manage.

  Perhaps she realizes that she wins by catching her suspects and closing her cases.