The Lost Island Page 17

  A tense silence ensued. All the goodwill generated by the speech seemed to dissipate.

  “Oops,” murmured Amy. “Looks like the natives aren’t accepting beads anymore.”

  Reaching into his bag again, Gideon thought fast. What could he give them better than a flashlight? His hand closed on the grip of the .45. No way. There were some knives…but they already had plenty. Granola bars, briefing book, matches, medical kit…he could feel the sweat trickling down his face.

  The old chief was looking restless and irritated. It was obvious he felt condescended to in public by being given a flashlight as if it were a gift from the gods.

  Gideon pulled out one of the grenades.

  Amy stared at him. “Gideon, are you crazy—?”

  With a flourish, Gideon presented it to the chief. A great murmur rose up. The chief received it in both hands, examined it with a professional eye, and then hooked it on his sash by its lever. Clearly, he knew what it was and highly approved. He gave Gideon’s hand a vigorous shake. The other men followed, shaking his hand. All was well.

  Now it was the chief’s turn. He gave a long, windy, incomprehensible speech in his native language, with many favorable glances thrown Gideon’s way, which held everyone spellbound. When the speech was over, the chief went into his hut. There was a long, anticipatory silence.

  “Here comes the comely daughter,” Gideon muttered to Amy.

  Instead, the chief emerged with a small, polished wooden box. He handed it to Gideon. The box was of exquisite workmanship, beautifully hand carved of some dark, exotic wood, with a likeness of the same god or demon who graced the top of the totem pole. Gideon opened it to reveal some dry grass padding. A delicious smell of honey and cinnamon wafted up. Gideon drew aside the grass to reveal, nestled within, a strange-looking object, a dried flower bud perhaps—black, wrinkled, about an inch in diameter. He took it out.

  Everyone began talking at once. Clearly it was something of enormous value.

  He looked at Amy. “What is this—some kind of drug?”

  Amy was staring at the object with great intensity, and then her eyes shifted to Gideon. “I believe these people are the Lotus Eaters. And they’ve just given you a lotus.”

  40

  AMY TOOK THE thing out, cradling it in her hand, its intense smell rising in the heat. Gideon felt temporarily stunned, staring at the thing, which looked like a dried pod or bud of some kind. Was this really the lotus—the healing remedium? He felt a rush of hope, immediately followed by doubt.

  “Gideon?” Amy said, sotto voce. “Hello? Aren’t you going to say something?”

  “What? Oh.” He turned to the chief. “We thank you very much for this gift! Muchas gracias!” He gave a low bow.

  “Find out where it comes from,” said Amy.

  “Yes, absolutely. Ah, donde, donde…My Spanish is no good…” He held up the thing. “Donde?”

  The chief’s eyes opened. He pointed toward the invisible ocean. “Isla,” he said. “Isla Tawaia.”

  “Isla,” repeated Gideon. It came from an island.

  Everyone was now crowding around, pushing and shoving. The chief led them to a smaller hut off to one side, pulled open some hanging palm leaves covering the entrance, and—with much talk and gesturing—indicated that this was where they were to sleep: on woven mats laid on the ground, with tattered supermarket sheets and a polyester child’s blanket decorated with Tweety Bird.

  “Thank you,” said Gideon. “Gracias.” He indicated they wanted to go inside and rest. The sun was now setting, casting a golden glow through the jungle foliage.

  The chief left and Amy threw herself on one of the mats. “I’m exhausted.”

  “I want to reconnoiter,” said Gideon. “I want to see if we can identify this Isla Tawaia where the lotus came from. I’m going down to the ocean. You coming?”

  “Of course.” Amy got to her feet.

  As soon as they were out of their shack, iPhone came over. He spoke rapidly, making gestures of help.

  “I think you have a new friend,” said Amy.

  “We’re going to the ocean,” said Gideon. “A la mar. We’re going swimming.” He made a swimming motion. iPhone nodded his understanding. He pointed to a small opening in the brush that indicated a trail.

  Gideon began heading down the trail, Amy at his side. He was glad iPhone wasn’t following. As they walked, the sound of the sea grew in intensity, until they passed through a mass of sea grapes and there—through a scattering of palm trees—was the ocean. A golden light lay across the water, and a heavy sea was running.

  Amy stopped, staring at a faint blue cluster of mountainous islands in the great distance offshore. She took the binoculars out of her bag and peered through them for a long time. Finally, in silence, she handed them to Gideon.

  The distant islands were spectacularly rugged, steep volcanic peaks that thrust almost vertically from the ocean, soaring a thousand or more feet high. Their flanks were black, ripped with landslides, the tops covered in lush green jungle, gilded in the light of the setting sun. A single cloud hovered over the nearer, higher island, glowing vermilion in the dying light. But the thing that caught Gideon’s attention was a lone spire of crooked rock before the island cluster, surrounded by boiling surf. It stuck out of the sea like a black corkscrew.

  “The Twisted Place,” said Gideon, staring at it.

  “Incredible. Tortuosum locum. And those islands behind are the trans ultra of the clue. ‘Beyond the beyond.’ That’s our final destination.”

  Gideon lowered the glasses. “How the hell are we going to get there?”

  “Our friends will take us.” She pointed to a row of dugout canoes hauled far up on the beach.

  “Cross that sea in a dugout? No thanks. It’s time to call Glinn, take him up on that offer of a fresh boat.”

  Amy paused. “Let’s wait on that.”

  Gideon looked at her. “I don’t get it. Why are you so opposed to accepting Glinn’s help?”

  A long silence. “I don’t like his controlling methods. And I’m not sure bringing a big yacht in here is going to help us win the trust of the locals.”

  “We are working for him, after all.”

  She lowered the glasses and looked at him. “No. We’re working for the project.”

  For a while they looked out at the mysterious islands, and then Gideon said: “I’d like to take a swim, if you don’t mind. I’m sweaty and covered with bug bites.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  “Well, um, I obviously don’t have a bathing suit.”

  “Who cares? Neither do I.”

  Gideon shrugged and pulled off his filthy clothes, then ran down the beach and into the ocean. It was wonderfully refreshing. The water was relatively calm, inside where the waves were breaking farther offshore. He swam about, rinsed himself off, and came out. He shook off as much water as he could, spread his shirt on the sand, and sat down. Amy returned a moment later and he found himself admiring her body, which was just about as buff as he’d imagined.

  She sat down next to him. “A gentleman does not stare at a naked woman.”

  “Sorry.” He colored, turning his back.

  A light breeze came off the water, drying them off. They remained awhile in silence.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” Amy said at last. “Glinn told me about how you managed to steal that page from the Book of Kells. That was some very, very slick work.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t know how I feel, though—having an art thief for a partner.”

  “I grow on people,” Gideon said.

  “I’ll bet you do. Like a fungus.”

  Gideon shook his head, laughed.

  “Did you ever get caught?” Amy asked.

  “Nope.”

  “So you were never in jail?”

  “Yes, I was. Once. Mistaken identity. I was arrested for a hit and run. Spent the night in a cell, and they caught the real guy the next day
.”

  “What was that like? Being behind bars, I mean.”

  Gideon shrugged. “I read poetry.”

  “Poetry?”

  “There was an old, battered anthology of poems in the holding cell. It was either that or The Watchtower.”

  They began to dress. “I hate putting these dirty clothes back on,” said Amy.

  “Think boat. Think showers. Soap. Fresh linen. Clean sheets. Soft bed. Hot espresso.”

  “Espresso…”

  “If we want to explore those islands, we’re going to need a boat, we’re going to need maps and a GPS. We won’t need the trust of the natives. Tomorrow, we’ve got to call Glinn.”

  Amy was silent a long time, and then she sighed. “All right. Tomorrow morning.” She smiled. “I could really use an espresso…”

  41

  THIS TIME, THERE were only three of them in the conference room: Garza, Glinn, and Weaver, the chief DNA tech. The atmosphere was tense, like a newsroom in which a big story was about to break.

  Weaver—who had in past meetings looked apprehensive—now seemed haggard, at the limits of exhaustion. It had been days since his last report. This time there were no papers before him, no reports or documents of any kind.

  “Let’s have it,” Glinn said simply.

  The tech ran one hand through his sandy hair. “We reran the DNA analysis, as requested. In fact, we’ve done not only a second run, but a third as well, all with fresh genetic material. We sampled several hundred sequences along the genome. The gene sequences among all three runs have been linked and cross-matched. They agree beautifully: the runs have proven functionally identical. Also, the BWA-SW hybrid routine has completed its analysis of the sample: the level of contamination is roughly 0.04 base pairs, well below statistical relevance.” He fell silent.

  “And?”

  “All runs pointed to the same thing. The DNA is primarily human—with some major differences. There were a few sections of the DNA that belonged to no recognizable species. There are sequences that appear to be pongid, that is, ape-like.”

  Garza shook his head. This was getting more bizarre by the minute.

  Weaver cleared his throat. “And then there were a number of key sequences that we were able to identify as—” Here his voice dropped almost to a whisper—“Neanderthal.”

  “What?” Garza said.

  “Neanderthal,” Weaver repeated.

  “That’s preposterous!” Garza blurted out. “How could you know what the Neanderthal genome even looks like?”

  “As it happens, the Neanderthal genome was fully sequenced by the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig a few years back. The analysis was done on ancient DNA taken from Neanderthal teeth found at sites in Europe. But we couldn’t believe it, either. So we went ahead and sequenced the entire genome of the creature that this vellum came from.”

  Glinn frowned. “The entire genome?”

  “It’s the best way. Once that was complete, we ran the results through our gene frequency analysis machine.”

  “What is that?” Garza asked.

  “It’s a dedicated computer—series of linked computers, actually—that can take an organism’s genome and then, in essence, reconstruct or re-create its possible morphology, behavior, and other attributes.” Weaver hesitated. “I have to warn you. We’re dealing with a species nobody has seen before. A cousin of the Neanderthals, yes, but…quite different in some ways.”

  “How so?”

  “The unusual genes of this creature fall into the areas involved in aging, size, robustness, and some areas of visual processing. Its hemoglobin shows an unusually high carrying capacity for oxygen. Its respiration and metabolic rate appear to be abnormally low, and our analyses indicate it has the ability to alter these rates at will in times of environmental stress, thus preventing oxidative damage to tissues.”

  “What does it mean?” Glinn asked. “Can you be more specific?”

  Weaver looked from Glinn to Garza and back again. “Yes. There are powerful genetic expressions in the growth and growth hormone sequences. It would appear this organism is large. Much larger, for example, than its Neanderthal cousin.”

  “How much larger?” Garza asked.

  “Hard to say. Fifty percent larger, perhaps.”

  “So, you mean, like nine feet?”

  Weaver nodded. “All factors indicate an extremely robust, moderately intelligent, and highly aggressive beast.”

  “Aggressive?”

  “Yes. There’s a whole suite of genes involving the fight-or-flight response, hormonal changes involving the control of emotion, and areas of the brain used in processing fear and aggression—all significantly enhanced. In the same way that it’s unusually adaptive to its environment, it also appears to be well developed to defend that environment.”

  “So we’re talking about a large, primitive hominid,” Garza said. “Intelligent, aggressive, powerful. Well adapted to its environment.”

  “Did you determine the age of the vellum?” Glinn asked.

  “Yes. It carbon-dates to about fifteen hundred years ago. In other words, this species didn’t become extinct until sometime after 500 AD.”

  Glinn shifted in his wheelchair. “That’s remarkable. Tell me more about the visual processing genes.”

  Weaver glanced at him. “I was wondering when you’d ask. That might be the strangest thing of all…”

  42

  FIRST THING THE next morning, Gideon and Amy took the sat phone down to the beach, where they would have the best chance for reception. Amy turned on the unit. As it warmed up, the LED screen flashed with calls received and messages left. There were several—all from EES. Gideon felt a twinge of nervousness: they hadn’t called Glinn in days, and the man was not going to be happy.

  Amy set the phone to speaker and put in the call. It was answered immediately—by Glinn. The voice wasn’t, as Gideon expected, excited or angry. It was cool, formal, measured.

  “It’s been too many days since I heard from you,” Glinn said. “Would you care to explain yourselves?”

  “We have to talk fast,” Amy said. “We’re down to four percent battery power, and no way to recharge.”

  “Then talk.”

  Gideon listened as Amy launched into an explanation of her discovery related to Homer’s Odyssey. But Glinn almost immediately interrupted her. “I’ve heard enough. This is irrelevant. Listen to me please—and listen well. We’re aborting the mission.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Gideon asked.

  “There’s new information that needs to be evaluated.”

  “What new information?”

  “We solved the riddle. No time to go into the details, except to say that the vellum was made from the skin of a Neanderthal-like hominid.”

  “Wait. What are you saying?”

  “This new information has thrown off our computer models. In addition, there is a consensus here that you can’t be left on your own any longer—we’ve got to regroup, reanalyze, and plan a revised mission. I’ll be sending a boat to pick you up and bring you back to New York. I commend your fine work and I look forward to debriefing you both—”

  The battery indicator on the sat phone started to blink red.

  Amy reached over and shut off the phone.

  Gideon stared at her. “What are you doing?”

  Amy turned her dark eyes on him. “Is that what you want to do? Abort the mission? After all we’ve risked, all we’ve done?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “How about no frigging way! We’re twenty miles from our goal.” She gestured toward the distant islands. “It’s right there. We can see it.”

  Gideon stared at her. “Okay. I hear you.”

  “I hope you’re going to do more than just hear me. All we have to do is get to those islands, explore them, identify the source of this medicine—which I have little doubt is the very ‘lotus’ these natives gave you—and bring it back.”

  “Going agains
t Glinn may have consequences. He might try to stop us.”

  “He doesn’t know where we are,” she said.

  “He can make a pretty good guess.”

  “The only thing I want to know right now is this: are you in or not?”

  Gideon took a deep breath. He still had his doubts about her theory—but the appearance of the Lotus Eaters had gone a long way toward quelling them. He’d never seen such conviction or such fearlessness before, in man or woman. “I’m in.”

  Amy smiled, leaned toward him. “You know, I could kiss you for saying that.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Not right now. We’ve got work to do.”

  He started to laugh. “If not now, when?”

  “You’ll know it when it happens.” She packed the satellite phone back in the drysack and stood up, brushing off the sand. Then she paused, looking out to sea.

  Gideon followed her gaze toward the nearer of the mountainous islands, lying on the horizon at the very edge of visibility, its vastness cloaked in purple haze, so distant and mysterious. A lone cloud clung to the highest peak. Was it possible—even remotely possible—that a cure for his terminal condition might be found in that mythical-looking land?

  43

  WHEN THEY RETURNED to camp, iPhone was there to meet them. He invited them to sit by the fire and partake of an unappetizing breakfast of gluey maize pudding with mashed green plantains. After they had eaten, Gideon motioned iPhone over. “Isla,” he said, pointing out toward the invisible ocean. “Vamos isla.” He pantomimed rowing a canoe and pointed again in the direction of the islands. “We want to go to island. Okay?”

  iPhone seemed put out by the suggestion. He frowned, shook his head. Gideon persisted. “Vamos isla. Importante. Vamos ahora.”

  More shakings of the head and negative murmurings. Finally iPhone got up and went into the chief’s shack. A moment later the chief came out, a somber expression on his face. He sat down with them.