Altar Of Eden

“Sir,” Duncan said, biting back his surprise. “I hadn’t expected you to be here. I thought you’d still be at the Ironcreek presentation in D.C.”

“Not much reason after losing our cargo.”

The older man glanced at Lorna. His only reaction was a deepening of a crease between his eyes. Then he ignored her. She sensed he didn’t give women much shrift. She had met her share of such men.

“I flew in this morning,” the big man explained. “Just in time for the commotion here.”

Duncan sighed through his nose. “I was just heading down to talk to Dr. Malik about the incident.”

“He’s waiting for you.” The man lifted an arm to the wall of books and artifacts. “We’ll talk afterward.”

“Yes, sir.”

A section of the bookshelves slid open to reveal that the main hall continued past the library-and into the side of the mountain.

Lorna’s heart beat faster. Connor nudged her toward the opening. She had no choice but to follow Duncan into the buried section of the complex.

The door sealed behind her with a dread finality.

Will I ever see the sun again?

Connor spoke, stepping closer to Duncan in a conspiratorial way. “What’s Bryce Bennett doing here?”

Duncan’s voice was a black glower. “Malik must have been keeping our boss informed about the problems here. I told him not to bother the boss, but that just proves you can’t trust a raghead. Not even one on our side.”

Duncan continued down a short passageway. It dumped into a large circular work space, broken into stations, with additional rooms and passageways radiating deeper underground. White-smocked technicians worked at various stations. Some glanced at her-then quickly away again. It seemed the villa was a front for this underground complex, the perfect facade to hide what lay beneath it.

As she entered, she looked around. Much of the main room was nearly a match to Dr. Metoyer’s genetics lab, only tenfold larger and better equipped. It housed an extensive array of thermocyclers, gel boxes, hybridization ovens, incubators, even a LI-COR 4300 DNA analyzer. There were also a bay of clean hoods and banks of shakers and centrifuges, and at the back, a full electron microscope suite and microarray facility.

There was nothing this lab didn’t have-and couldn’t do.

The scientist in her grew jealous, while another part paled at how much all this must cost. And what it implied. Someone had spent a fortune to hide this lab beyond U.S. jurisdiction and control.

Duncan led her across the room and down another hall.

“Take Dr. Polk to one of the holding pens in back,” he ordered as he ducked through a side door. “I need to have a word with Dr. Malik.”

Connor poked her in the back to keep her moving. As she continued a hall window opened on her left and revealed a view into a surgical suite. It was sparsely furnished with a stainless-steel table and overhead halogens on a dual swing arm.

A middle-aged man dressed in scrubs stood in the room. From his swarthy complexion and thick black hair, he looked Arabic or maybe Egyptian.

Duncan stepped into the room through another door. From the storm clouds building on the man’s brow, he was not happy.

Lorna slowed, mostly because of what lay on the table.

Connor didn’t press her. He was staring, too.

“How did this specimen get all the way over to our side of the island?” Duncan said, jumping straight in with no pleasantries. “I thought you were constantly monitoring them.”

“We were,” the man said, irritated, matching the other’s heated tone.

It had to be Dr. Malik. Lorna guessed he was the scientific head of this facility, while Duncan ran security. The two had clearly locked horns in the past.

Malik pointed to the table. “The other specimens must have cut the tag out of this one. With something sharp. Maybe a stone ax. Let me show you.”

The doctor stepped to the side, allowing Lorna to see fully for the first time what lay on the table. She covered her mouth in shock. Blocked by Malik, all she had seen before were legs and a lower torso. From the fur and small body, she had assumed it was an orangutan or some other great ape.

But as Malik moved out of the way, she knew she was wrong.

The arms were less furred, and the chest bore a clear set of bullet holes. But it was the face and head that made her gasp out loud. Matted, coarse hair framed a bare face with a protuberant jaw and maxilla, but not as prominent as an ape. It was flatter. Also the eyes were larger, rounder, the forehead taller and ridged.

Lorna had seen pictures of early man, of hominid species like Australopithecus or Homo habilis. The resemblance was unmistakable. What lay on the table was no ape.

She remembered the throwback traits seen in the animals from the trawler, a turning back of the evolutionary clock. Her vision darkened with the implication of what lay on the table. They weren’t just researching with animals.

She turned to Connor and couldn’t keep the disgust or horror from her voice. “You’ve been experimenting on humans.”

Chapter 40

Jack stood in the office of his sector chief, Bernard Paxton. It had been Paxton who had handpicked Jack a year ago to lead the Special Response Team-though at the moment, he looked like he might be regretting that decision.

Paxton stood on the opposite side of his desk. He was in full dress uniform after speaking to the press all morning: navy blue slacks with black piping and matching shirt. He’d oiled his dark hair and even donned his ceremonial “Ike” jacket, but he left it unbuttoned and loose as he leaned over the desk.

A detailed map of the Gulf of Mexico was spread on the table.

Paxton tapped a finger on the map. “That’s where you picked up Dr. Polk’s signal? From the tracker you planted on her?”

Jack nodded. “Those are the coordinates. Lost Eden Cay. Somewhere in that cluster of islands.”

Paxton heard the hesitation in his voice. “But you can’t be absolutely certain.”

“We only caught a few seconds of signal-then lost it.”

Jack bunched a fist as he stood stiff-backed. The FBI consultant had finally picked up a signal off a military GPS 2R-9 satellite orbiting twelve thousand miles over the Gulf. The reading had seemed solid, strong enough to pinpoint a location about a hundred miles off the coast of Cuba. Then the reading had simply vanished.

“You lost the signal and never picked it up again?” his boss asked.

“Her kidnappers might have taken her inside. Somewhere blocked from satellite pickup. Or, according to the FBI guy, the kidnappers might be employing some form of local electronic jamming equipment, keeping the island locked down.”