“No, they’re loading it now,” Dipesh explained to Irene. He shielded his eyes from the array of halogen lights set up around Hachiman. Night had fallen. The bomb squad’s forklift was loading it into an insulated metal box. “We got permission to go with it to Edwards Air Force Base. It has the closest biohazard lab with the security they’ll need.”
“Good,” Irene said. “David and I will meet you there.”
A white flutter caught his eye. Seagulls, in violation of the police line, flew in to peck at rubbish in the sand. He wondered, if Hachiman succeeded in altering the earth’s climate, would these ubiquitous birds survive long after humans had succumbed? Not likely. It would be the cockroaches. But he couldn’t get the image out of his mind, the image of evolved seagulls combing the surface of a superheated wasteland, pecking at rubbish. The thought gave him a shiver.