Search: A Novel of Forbidden History

ONE

Is that human?

David Weir was dying, and the reason was on his computer, even though he didn’t understand it. His finger moved reflexively to strike the key that would blank the screen, but he stopped himself. Too late.

Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know anyone was still here. He turned, covering his surprise. It was almost ten on a Friday night. Last time he’d looked, all the workstations in the lab’s open office space were empty, computer screens dark. He’d been so lost in his search, he hadn’t heard approaching footsteps—unusual for him. His mother used to say he had better ears than a dog. As a child, he’d been able to detect his father’s pickup make the turn onto their street five blocks away.

Budget hell. Colonel Miriam Kowinski hefted the thick green binder she carried. From his one year’s experience as a civilian technician in the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, David knew those two words were as much of an explanation as his boss would be giving him.

The colonel leaned forward to peer more closely at his screen, then frowned. Mitochondrial DNA. But some of the markers are wrong.

It’s a reference sample. The lie came easily.

Chimp?

To the untrained eye, the electrophoresis patterns on his screen would resemble smeared, ghostly photographs of banded worms lined up side by side, some sections dark, some light, with a scattering of small numbers and letters running to either side, spelling out gibberish. Kowinski, though, wasn’t just another army bureaucrat. She was a trained forensic biologist. It would be foolish to underestimate her.

Closer to human. Neandertal. David held his breath, gambling that the colonel’s expertise didn’t stretch to extinct hominins.

Really.

Yeah. A twenty-nine-thousand-year-old Neandertal baby. From the Mezmaiskaya fossil.

Is this a personal project?

David knew why she asked. The lab’s primary mission was to identify the remains of American military personnel through DNA analysis, not just for present conflicts, but for wars past. Beyond that, if resources and personnel were available, the lab could use its expertise to aid outside researchers in cases of scientific or historic interest. It could also help other government and law-enforcement agencies carry out drug tests, develop forensic evidence, even determine parentage in child custody cases.

However, personal projects were just that—personal and unauthorized. Illegal.

No, ma’am. It’s part of that new quality assurance protocol I’m developing.

Colonel Kowinski regarded him impassively. She’d folded her arms over her budget binder, holding it close. Despite the late hour, her olive drab jacket was still buttoned and crisp. Her sleek salt-and-pepper chignon might as well have been molded from plastic, not a hair escaping.

Go on.

David couldn’t tell if his supervisor wanted to hear more because she was interested or because she sensed, correctly, that he was lying. Either way, he felt ready. The old saying was true: Imminent death did have a way of concentrating the mind.

The lab’s been collecting DNA from every recruit since 1992. That’s just over three million samples.

Kowinski tapped her budget binder with a short, polish-free nail. I’m aware of the statistics.

Well, statistically, there’s always an error rate in sequencing DNA samples to create a genetic profile.

The colonel said nothing, and David continued. Out of three million samples, we can estimate a few thousand of our profiles will be incorrect. Since it’s expensive to repeat the sequencing of all three million to look for just a few flawed results, I’m hoping a mathematical analysis of the profiles in our database will find the errors instead.

The Neandertal connection, Mr. Weir. It’s late.

David pushed on. We know the mitochondrial DNA in every cell of every human in almost all cases passes directly from mother to child, without sexual recombination with the father’s DNA. So, technically, every person on Earth today can trace their genealogical descent back to a single female who lived in Africa about a hundred and fifty thousand years ago and—

Mitochondrial Eve. Kowinski interrupted to remind him he wasn’t shining a visiting politician.

David instantly jumped ahead to details he hoped would distract her even more from what was actually on his screen. "Okay, so when we compare nine hundred and ninety-four key mtDNA sequences from people around the world, the average number of those sequences that differ between any two people is eight, and the maximum is twenty-four. That’s how closely related every person is—less than a three percent difference.

MtDNA from Neandertals, though—that differs from modern humans by twenty-two to thirty-six sequences, with an average of twenty-seven.

He touched the screen’s incriminating image with one finger to draw her attention where he absolutely needed it. At the same time, he tapped the function key that expanded that image, to force the codes beneath it off the screen and out of sight.

He shot a glance at Kowinski, wondering if she’d caught his manipulation of the image.

That difference indicates the last common ancestor we and the Neandertals shared dates back to maybe four hundred and fifty to five hundred thousand years ago.

This helps quality assurance how?

It gives us a baseline for identifying improperly processed samples in our database. So I set up a simple comparison program—strictly using the lab’s idle computer time—comparing our samples with this one.

Kowinski’s expression was unreadable. Couldn’t you use a set of standardized human sequences just as easily?

Oh, I’m using that technique, too. My program compares our samples with a range of ten different datasets. It’s a statistical study more than anything else. The Neandertal sequences just add another range of values to make comparisons with. After a couple of hundred thousand runs, I should be able to cut it down to the two or three sets that consistently give the best results in identifying erroneous results.

And you’re only using idle computer time.

Yes, ma’am. For now it’s strictly a background program that runs as an adjunct to the lab’s standard quality checks.

Kowinski’s clear eyes studied him. David tensed, unsure what he’d do if the verdict went against him.

I don’t suppose you’ve found any Neandertals among our recruits.

Only in the marines, ma’am.

The colonel’s smile was brief but humanizing. Carry on, Mr. Weir.

Yes, ma’am.

David waited until he had seen the main doors of the lab offices swing closed behind her before he restored the full image on the screen, complete with the identifying codes that ran along the bottom.

If Kowinski had been able to read those codes, and understand them, she’d have realized the DNA they described did not come from Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. She’d have realized why he was working late and alone, and why he’d felt the need to lie to her.

Because the DNA sequence that was on the screen, that carried the genetic markers of something other than human, was his own. Working swiftly, David copied the eight personnel files from his computer to the small flash drive he had hidden in a U.S. Army promotional key fob. Then he wiped his work history from his hard drive, so that no investigator could ever recover any trace of what he’d done. Or discovered.

Thirty minutes after the colonel, he signed out of the drab, utilitarian armed forces facility. As usual, the guards gave his backpack only a cursory inspection.

In the parking lot, beneath the impersonal gaze of the lab’s exterior security cameras, David walked unhurriedly to his beat-up Jeep and tossed his pack onto the passenger seat, handling his ring of keys casually, as if they weren’t keeping company with a flash drive of files worth at least another ten thousand dollars to him. Just like the last two sets.

He waved to the parking lot guards at the gate and sat back as they shone their flashlights into the Jeep, then opened the barricades for him.

Focused on survival, David pushed the speed limit all the way to Washington, D.C., and his meeting with his buyer that might save his life.

Tonight, using a computer program roughly similar to the one he’d described to Kowinski, he’d succeeded in identifying a cluster of eight more individuals among the lab’s database of more than three million—proof that there were others like him. So far, though, he’d failed to find the exception to the rule. Those who shared his nonhuman DNA markers had one thing in common: They were younger than twenty-seven or they were dead.

David Weir was twenty-six.

TWO

Nathaniel Merrit was a killer, and underwater he found it easy to practice his craft. His contoured silicone mask kept his vision focused only on what was directly ahead, no distractions. The rhythmic rush of each exhaled breath from the regulator in his mouth reminded him of his daily meditation. Each slow and deliberate kick of his fins made him think of the kata he performed every morning: a ritual ballet of unarmed combat. His arms floated loose at his sides. His knife was sheathed—but not for long.

On the fifth day of this expedition, his two-man crew had found what he searched for, exactly where they had been sent to look on the small southern comma of this barren atoll. Now it was his job to make the retrieval—if there was anything to retrieve.

The water was warm, crystal clear, visibility near sixty meters. Merrit had no trouble seeing Krause and Renault. Dappled by sunlight, marked by silver threads of air bubbles, they were holding their positions by the opening in the steep coral bed twenty meters down. Their scuba tanks were fluorescent yellow. Even their dive knives had bright yellow stripes, all for better visibility.

Merrit’s twin tanks were unpainted, bare aluminum alloy. His buoyancy compensator vest, weight belt, equipment, and titanium-thread wetsuit—all were black. For some of his assignments, visibility could be counterproductive.

At the ragged opening, Merrit first engaged his crew in a showing of their wrist dive computers. Krause and Renault had been down twice this morning to set the explosive charges and then check the results. They were good for at least another forty minutes at this depth, longer if Merrit could lower fresh tanks to them so they could take more time ascending to avoid the bends. Merrit gave them the okay sign to let them know they didn’t have to worry about their return to the surface today—he’d be taking care of them.

He next began his examination of the edges of the opening for structural integrity. The chunks of drab, dead coral that had been blasted free had tumbled down the sloping bank of the atoll. Another twenty meters deeper, they lay amid the almost imperceptible mounds of stone blocks that once made up the rest of the structure built when this atoll was an island. As for who those builders were and when they had toiled here, Merrit had no opinion. The fewer questions he entertained, the simpler his work.

Satisfied the opening wouldn’t collapse in the next hour, Merrit unclipped the pistol-grip LED spotlight from his vest and shone it into the waiting darkness. The turbidity from the explosions had settled, and the water in the revealed passageway was clear.

Merrit swam in first, barely moving his fins to avoid kicking up the thick layer of silt that covered the passageway’s floor. After ten meters, the rough textures of coral and barnacles ran out to reveal the passageway’s bare walls and arched ceiling.

He checked over his shoulder. Krause and Renault swam after him, but clumsily. Behind them, billows of silt rose up in their wake to obscure the route back to the open sea and sunlight. The reduced visibility would make it easier to do what Merrit had planned.

He swam on, locating the chamber entrance at fifty meters, exactly where the coordinate map had placed it.

His employer’s briefing had described this particular section of the site as originally protected deep below the structure’s central core, and the open passageway he floated before as sealed by a pair of thick wooden doors bound by iron. Once the ocean had swallowed the island, either through a gradual rise in sea level or the violence of the volcanic explosion that had formed the atoll, the ocean’s woodborers had come and consumed the doors within decades. After another century or two, the ocean’s own oxygen had transformed the iron bands to rust, long since swept away.

Merrit signaled to his divers to wait in the entranceway, then swam ahead into what his employer called the treasure chamber. This was the third expedition on which he’d seen such rooms. The first had been three years ago in the Ghaggar-Hakra dry river valley of India. A second had been high in the Peruvian Andes just three months ago.

This chamber, like the others, was circular, with a diameter a little less than eight meters, and the height of the encircling wall just over two. Its curved ceiling was a perfect hemisphere.

In the Andean chamber, the wall and ceiling had still retained traces of a type of plaster on which markings of some kind had been made. Merrit’s employer had been disappointed that not enough plaster remained to permit reconstruction of what those markings might have been. Here, underwater, Merrit saw no remnant of any wall covering that had survived the sea’s corrosive chemistry.

However, something else familiar had—a circular stone disk mounted on a central stone pedestal. Like those in the Indian and Andean sites, the structure resembled a round table about two and a half meters across and a meter high, though the buildup of sediment on the chamber floor made the pedestal’s height seem less.

Only the stone disk interested Merrit.

With Krause and Renault watching from the open entryway, Merrit drew his knife and delicately probed the disk’s surface layer of sediment as if searching for land mines. In a few weeks, his employer would dispatch a full archaeological team, and they would use vacuum hoses to meticulously expose the site and the other rooms it contained. But Merrit’s employer had made it clear that only Merrit was to retrieve the artifacts from the treasure chamber.

On his fifth attempt, his knife made contact with an object. Merrit waved in his crew to assist him with their lights. Then, using his free hand to scoop away the silt, he located the outer edges of the object. Recognizing it by touch, he didn’t reveal it further. Instead, he continued methodically probing the rest of the table-stone. If it was identical to the others, then on its surface would be twelve incised wedges radiating from the center. Each wedge would have a uniquely shaped, carved indentation designed to hold a different object. On his two previous expeditions, the treasure chambers had been looted sometime in the past. In only one—in the Andes—had one of the twelve artifacts been recovered. Merrit’s employer had hopes that this long-lost chamber would be different.

Again and again, Merrit slid his knife into the sediment, each time hitting only stone. When he was certain there were no other artifacts to recover, he paused and made a show of patting his buoyancy vest, looking for something not found. Then he signaled Krause and mimed using a camera, indicating the diver should retrieve one from the equipment cache netted against the coral slope outside.

Krause signaled okay and swam off.

Merrit waved for Renault to enter the room, then pointed to the top of the curved ceiling where a mercurial pool of light shimmered—the captured air from his regulator.

Directing his attention to the ceiling, where reflections from his dive light flashed rippling streaks of silver across the chamber’s walls, Renault was unaware of danger slipping into place behind him until he felt the tug as Merrit slashed his air hose.

Merrit watched from behind as Renault wasted a few of the last seconds of his life flailing blindly for the thrashing hose behind him. By the time Renault remembered to reach for the emergency air bottle on his vest, it was too late. Merrit had grabbed both of his forearms from behind and now held on as the diver kicked and writhed and sent them both on a twisting trajectory across the chamber. Merrit’s metal tanks clanged against the wall of stone.

Abruptly Renault went limp, but Merrit didn’t relax his hold. He and his victim had worked this site for five days, trading stories. Renault had enjoyed displaying the jagged crescent of scars on his thigh where a shark had pulled him under years ago—a shark he’d fought off with his knife and fists. Men like that don’t die easily. Merrit maintained his grip. He was in no hurry.

Ten seconds later, Renault jerked violently as he fought in vain to escape.

He failed. This time when the diver’s body sagged, it was due to loss of consciousness.

Merrit twisted the handwheel on Renault’s tank regulator to stop the flow of air, then unhooked the diver’s weight belt so he’d float faceup to the undulating bubble of silvery air, reuniting with his last breaths.

Merrit recovered Renault’s dive light, switched it off. He took a position above the entryway, extinguished his own light, and waited in the warm darkness of the still water for the second diver to return.

It took longer than anticipated.

Merrit was tempted to drop down and look back along the passageway. His eyes were dark-adapted now, and he was certain he’d be able to see Krause silhouetted against the faint blue glow of the opening, but to leave his position was to risk losing the advantage of surprise. So he stayed in place, breathing slowly, not once thinking of the body floating a few meters above him.

Until he felt a current flow past him, as of someone swimming in darkness.

Merrit instantly stopped breathing, listening for the sound of another regulator. Why would Krause swim back without using his dive light? Did he suspect what was planned for him?

Hearing nothing, Merrit consciously took another breath. Unconsciously, he looked up into the darkness above him. What if Renault had outwitted him, held his breath just a few seconds longer—enough for Merrit to release him, look away? Did the diver get to his emergency bottle of air?

Merrit felt the water move around him. There was someone else in the chamber. He reached for his knife.

Another hand was faster, ripping the quick-release sheath from his leg. Now two hands grabbed each of his forearms, dragged him down.

Merrit took a deep breath, bracing for his own air hose to be cut.

Instead he was blinded by a disorienting flash of light.

In the instant before his vision whited-out completely, Merrit saw two divers with sleek rebreathers that released no air, and impenetrable obsidian lenses that glinted on their full-face masks.

They’d used infrared to hunt him.

Their next move was unavoidable. It was what he’d do in their place.

Kill the enemy.

THREE

No one looked twice at David Weir as he entered the busy lobby of the Hay-Adams Hotel. Late on a Friday night, even speeding when he could, the drive from Rockville, Maryland, to the center of D.C. had taken him just over an hour, most of that spent bumper-to-bumper on the George Washington Memorial Parkway. He’d had no opportunity to change from the clothes he wore at work—jeans, Nikes, a creased white shirt with his one concession to the lab’s dress policy: a narrow black tie.

Tonight, a majority of the people in the dark-wood-paneled, amber-lit lobby were clad in Beltway power suits, the exception being a few women in dramatic evening wear. It was that kind of place. Still, since the historic old hotel was located directly across from the White House and attracted clientele from international diplomatic circles, a mix of dress and ethnicities was also to be expected. Neither he nor his jeans would cause notice. Politics ran this town, not fashion.

He stood in the doorway to the lobby bar, backpack in hand. With its small square tables, soft lights, high upholstered chairs, and a multitude of hushed discussions, it was called Off the Record for a reason. Its sound had a complex, layered ambience that on another occasion David would be recording for his collection.

He glanced around the room, looking for the contact he had met the last two times—a tall, blank-faced man with a shaved head. Instead, a different figure approached, built like a powerlifter, with a full head of bristling brown-black hair, spiked with gel. The hairstyle was ten years too young for the beefy face beneath it, and the dark banker’s suit with chalk white pinstripes was a good twenty years too old. The whole effect was of a bad disguise.

Weir, right?

David was very aware he was risking his freedom, and his life, by what he was prepared to do, and had done before. In these circumstances, he wasn’t about to talk to a stranger.

I’m waiting for a friend.

Merrit’s not here. I’m taking the meeting.

Where is he?

There was a faint trace of Texas in Pinstripe’s husky voice. On that island you sent him to.

David’s suspicion grew. How’d he know which one to go to? It had only been five weeks since he’d sold Merrit the second set of files outlining a possible common geographic origin for the nonhuman DNA he shared with a few unlucky others. I only tracked the second cluster to Polynesia—that’s more than a hundred major islands.

Pinstripe’s only response was to tap his suit jacket, where something in the inner pocket made a bulge. I’ve got your money.

David weighed the odds: his need to understand the bomb ticking in his own genetic structure against the risk of being entrapped. If Pinstripe was working for the FBI or Army Criminal Investigation Division, David knew he’d be arrested, guaranteeing he’d die in detention before he ever got to trial. On the other hand, if Pinstripe was a source of new information that could help him—

Okay.

Pinstripe led him to a corner table with two chairs. There was an empty glass and a Heineken bottle on the white linen cloth. All the cashews had been picked out of the bowl of nuts. Pinstripe had been waiting.

David sat down, backpack between his feet. A white-jacketed waiter arrived to take his drink order. David chose water. Pinstripe looked at his empty glass, clearly wanting another beer, but he ordered a club soda instead. His left foot thumped against his chair leg, restless.

The waiter left.

Give me the files.

David suddenly saw a chance to accelerate his search. Whoever Merrit and Pinstripe were working for, they had the capability—and the cash—to launch field expeditions halfway around the world on only a few weeks’ notice. Maybe they could help him more directly.

I want to change our arrangement.

Pinstripe leaned forward, threatening. Ten grand. That’s it.

It’s not the money.

Pinstripe hesitated, confused.

You know how I’m getting my information. It’s risky.

So? You’re getting paid. Pinstripe half turned away, touched his ear, and for the first time David noticed he had a small device in it.

David tried to recapture his attention. Look. It takes weeks to run simple searches without being detected. Searches that a dedicated lab could do in a day or two.

Pinstripe was already pushing away from the table, getting to his feet.

David saw his sale evaporating; he retrenched immediately. Okay, okay. Forget I said anything. I’ll do it your way. He shoved a hand into his pocket to dig for his keys but stopped as Pinstripe’s next words changed everything.

You got an invite upstairs. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.

It seemed redundant to have a presidential suite in a hotel within sight of the White House. Then again, other countries had presidents whose visits required similar accommodations. Tonight, the figure sprawled on the yellow brocade sofa beside a woodburning fireplace was anything but a public official, though he was often a target of their investigations.

He was oversized himself, six foot five, three hundred pounds, and instantly recognizable from near constant exposure in the news.

David revised his speculation about potential access to resources. Holden Stennis Ironwood had been on the Forbes billionaire list for more than a decade, hovering easily in the top ten even in the throes of global recession. He owned telecom companies, bought and sold entire news organizations, cornered strategic metals, and was building his own orbital tourist rocket in Nevada. This man could buy the world.

Ironwood held out his hand without getting up. The man’s heavy grip was crushing, and from his predatory smile, he knew it.

Now you know who you’re dealing with, you’re thinking you should’ve been charging more. As familiar as his face, Ironwood’s voice was a raspy baritone with a down-home southern twang, the same as Pinstripe’s.

Pretty much.

That’s what I like. With a grunt, Ironwood swung his bare feet onto the thick Persian rug and sat up. Piles of newspapers and magazines, in many languages, were scattered on the floor around him. You stay honest, we can do business. He nodded to Pinstripe, who swept David with a metal-detector wand. "You are honest, right?"

I’m selling you restricted data from army files that technically I don’t have access to. The wand squealed as Pinstripe moved it over the backpack. David handed it over without being asked.

Ironwood’s expression was the look of command, just like Kowinski’s. The billionaire’s good ol’ boy routine was exactly that: a routine. David had no doubt that the mind behind it was as sharp as the creases on the colonel’s uniform.

"Honest with me, Ironwood said. The army’s corrupt, just like the government. Stick it to those fools, I say. He stood up, towering over David, as formidable physically as he was financially. But you try and stick it to me . . . Well, you’re a smart guy. You can figure it out. He looked over at Pinstripe. J.R.—everything aboveboard?"

J.R. had sorted the contents of David’s backpack on the table in the dining alcove: gym clothes in one pile, two old paperbacks, a small black iPod tangled in earbuds, an even smaller digital recorder, and a phone.

So far. He removed the batteries from David’s phone and recorder, then shoved everything, including the iPod, into a lead-foil bag intended to protect film from X-rays.

Ironwood padded over to another alcove, this one with a well-appointed kitchen. Who’s got the files?

David held up his keys and drew the end off his army key fob to reveal the flashdrive. I’ll need a computer.

Ironwood opened the refrigerator, waving a hand at J.R., who took the keys from David. J.R.’s attitude said he didn’t like being waved at. So you have a proposal for me. Ironwood pulled out a bottle of generic diet cola, filled a cut-glass tumbler, and drained it. Go.

In the few minutes it took David to lay out his idea, Ironwood was back on the sofa, feet up, eyes closed.

So what’s it going to cost me?

"The computers and peripherals would be the most, maybe a hundred thousand. Another fifty for lab equipment and