The God Gene

  “Is not!” Keith said.

  The Frenchman slammed his gun against Keith’s shoulder.

  “Silence!”

  “He’s a famous zoologist in New York who—”

  “Zoologiste?” the Frenchman said with a smile. This seemed to make him happy. “Go on.”

  “He disappeared without a trace almost two months ago and his family has been searching for him ever since. It’s been a long, strange trip but we tracked him here. His mother and sister are waiting for him in Morondava and our helicopter pilot will be coming back to pick us up in a couple of hours.”

  The last two were outright lies—she hadn’t had a chance to call Antso about the return trip—but Rick understood the reasoning. She was putting them on notice that other people had the coordinates and knew they were here.

  Yeah, she was the smart one.

  The pockmarked one’s fists were opening and closing with suppressed fury as he glared at Keith and mumbled something that sounded like Spanish but wasn’t. Had to be Portuguese. He seemed to have a real case against Keith.

  The Frenchman rattled back in the same language, saying “Bakari” in a soothing tone. He pointed to the other black and said the name Razi.

  While they were yammering, Rick noticed movement in the trees. He glanced up to see dozens and dozens of the little primates Keith had called dapis. They hung on branches, clung to the fat trunks, and stared with those big blue eyes.

  “Laura,” he said softly, nodding above him. “Check it out. Mozi’s relatives.”

  She looked up and gasped. “The island must be crawling with them.”

  When he was finished, the Frenchman turned back to Rick and Laura. “My two Shangaan associates are also brothers and they are going to search you.”

  “They can search me,” Rick said, “but they keep their hands off her.”

  “You are in no position to make demands, monsieur—”

  “Anyone lays a finger on her and I’ll be on you like a fly on shit and if you think you can stop me before I reach you and ass-whack you and your two errand boys, think again.”

  He didn’t know how well he could back that up, but he intended to try. Apparently he was convincing because Frenchie took a step backward.

  “We are not here to harm anyone or cause offense. We are civilized people.” He shook Keith again. “Which is more than I can say for your brother here. She may empty her pockets and hand the contents to Razi.”

  He rattled some Portuguese. Razi looked disappointed, but nodded.

  Laura started emptying what little she carried in her pockets into her shoulder bag as the bloody-nosed Bakari patted Rick down. Rick kept watch on Bakari’s right arm, knowing the man would not be able to resist a retaliatory shot. He’d let it happen. When he saw the fist close and the biceps start to bulge, he tightened his abs as hard as they’d go. When the punch landed, it hurt, but caused nowhere near the pain it could have.

  Rick gave an exaggerated grunt as he doubled over and staggered back. Let the guy think he’d scored a shot. Might mollify him.

  Bakari let loose an evil laugh while his brother grinned, revealing a Michael Strahan–class gap in his uppers.

  It took Bakari a while to check all the pockets of Rick’s bush jacket. That was why he wore the damn thing after all: lots of pockets. He confiscated his satellite phone, passport, compass, and wallet, and seemed inordinately pleased when he came across Rick’s stash of zip ties.

  “Laffite!” he cried, holding them up. “Olha!”

  Laffite? Was that the Frenchman’s name? Like the pirate?

  He looked from the ties to Rick. “You were planning to detain someone, monsieur?”

  “A thousand and one uses,” Rick said.

  “I can think of one already.” He snapped his fingers at Bakari. “Me dê.”

  As Bakari handed him the ties, he tucked the revolver into his belt and zip-tied Keith’s hands behind his back.

  “No more poisoning for you. Sit!”

  After Keith had lowered himself to a cross-legged position on the ground, Laffite strutted over to Razi and pulled Laura’s wallet from her bag.

  “Laura Fanning, MD. Medical examiner, it says.” He nodded toward Bakari. “We almost had a dead body for you to examine.”

  Bakari glared at Keith again. Rick guessed he’d survived whatever poison Keith had used.

  Laffite moved on to Bakari and took Rick’s wallet from him.

  “Did he really try to poison you guys?” Rick said.

  “Absolument.”

  “That’s not like my brother.”

  “Still, it is true. Wait. Perhaps he is not your brother. Did you not say his real surname was Somers?”

  “Correct.” He knew where this was going. “Mine is Hayden because we had different fathers.”

  He could have added that they had different mothers as well, but no point in getting into family dynamics.

  Laffite raised Rick’s wallet and passport. “I will keep these.”

  That had an ominous ring.

  “We came for my brother. We’ll just take him home and leave you to your business.”

  Laffite sighed. “I wish it were that simple, monsieur. But it is not. I will need to control communications for now.”

  “Why?”

  “I am not sure it is a good idea to let you take your brother home.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I need him to research the dapis and to publish his findings. He—”

  A cry of pain interrupted him. Keith lay on his side on the ground, curled into a fetal position. Bakari stood over him wearing a satisfied smirk. Rick hadn’t seen it, but he was pretty sure Bakari had kicked him in the gut.

  “Fucking coward!” Rick yelled, following Laffite as he strode toward the pair.

  “Rick!” Laura said, giving her head a quick shake. “Stay out of it.”

  Rick wanted to ignore her, but realized she was right. He watched Laffite give Bakari a tongue lashing in Portuguese, then direct him away from Keith. He returned to Rick without a backward glance.

  Rick said, “Kicking a guy whose hands are tied—that’s a low-rent shot.”

  “Bakari has a right to be angry. He almost died from your brother’s poison.”

  Damn. What had gotten into Keith?

  “Then why keep him around? He’ll just be trouble. Let us take him off your hands.”

  Laffite was shaking his head. “These dapis will be valuable on their own, but they will be worth even more after your brother announces to the world that they are the missing link.”

  Stunned, Rick looked at Laura and was sure her shocked expression mirrored his own.

  Whaaaaaaat?

  6

  The Frenchman, Laffite, led the way, with Keith directly behind him. Laura walked beside Rick, just behind Keith. The two native brothers brought up the rear.

  Laffite hadn’t threatened them or drawn his gun, he’d simply announced that they all were heading to their camp near the western wall. Keith had been pulled to his feet, she and Rick had been nudged by Razi, and they’d all started moving in the same direction.

  She’d given Rick a quick nod that she hoped conveyed her wish that he cooperate. She knew how quick he was and how deadly he could be at close range. But the Frenchman seemed sane and reasonable. She felt sure they could all reach an accommodation that would allow everyone to go their separate ways.

  At least Rick hadn’t hit her with an I-told-you-so—Did I or did I not say you should helo back to the airport? And he probably never would. Not his style.

  As they marched—with the indigenous blue-eyed fauna following through the subcanopy and understory above—she used the opportunity to check out the flora below. So many plants she didn’t recognize. New species and subspecies for sure. And others she was sure were prehistoric, found only in fossil records. This island was like a time capsule. If only she could stop and examine them more closely.

  Finally they arrived at what might
pass for a camp—a small, hacked-out clearing with three tents, a Coleman stove, animal traps, and a larger cage holding one lonely dapi. Her heart went out to the little thing as it watched all the goings-on with its wide blue eyes.

  “You three stay here,” Laffite said.

  He wasn’t a bad-looking man. He needed a shave and a haircut, but he had a certain magnetism about him. Not as tall as Rick, not as solid, but he exuded a certain roguish charm. Maybe it was the French accent. Maybe because he bore a famous privateer’s name.

  “Can she have a blanket at least?” Rick said. “To sit on?”

  “Yes-yes. I will get her one. But you stay together—close together. I do not want you moving about. Bakari is going back to the boat to gather some equipment, and Razi is going to check the traps. Do not think this is an opportunity for something foolish.” He patted the revolver in his waistband. “I will be watching.”

  “How about my hands?” Keith said. “Can you untie them now?”

  “No. I have not yet decided what to do with you.”

  As the Frenchman wandered away and busied himself around the camp, Rick turned to Keith and spoke in a low voice.

  “What’s this ‘missing link’ bullshit?”

  “What makes you say it’s bullshit?”

  “Your assistant Grady told us there are lots of missing links along the evolutionary tree, not just one.”

  “Grady is Keith’s assistant, not mine, but he’s right. There are many. But Laffite doesn’t know that. It makes me valuable to him.”

  “Right,” Rick said, anger growing in his voice. “So valuable that he wants to keep you here—and us too. I want to get Laura off this island, so tell him the truth.”

  Keith shrugged. “It wouldn’t do any good. It’s something he wants to believe and he’ll think I’m changing my story just so he’ll let me go. Besides, I’m not ready to leave the island yet. There’s something I need to do first.”

  “What?”

  He smiled. “That’s my business.”

  Rick shook his head. “I can see why they want to kick your ass. What’s happened to you?”

  “Necessity was the mother of my invention.”

  My invention … the way he said it gave Laura the impression he’d attached another meaning to the cliché. He was speaking as Marten Jeukens. Pieces were staring to fall into place. Was he saying…?

  “What necessity?” she said. “What did Keith find in Mozi’s genome that led him to invent you?”

  The question clearly shocked him. And, judging by Rick’s expression, him as well.

  Keith sputtered but managed to say nothing, so Laura pressed further.

  “Was one of the so-called God Genes involved?”

  “A ridiculous term!” he said. “I hate it. If you must know, Mozi’s genome showed that she was a member of a supposedly extinct primate species known as adapiformes. Do you even know what that means?”

  She flipped through the mental notes she’d made. “She’s a transitional species, with characteristics of both…” What were the terms Grady had used? “… Haplorhini and Strepsirhini, right?”

  His eyes widened, then narrowed. “Oh. Your talk with Grady, right? He loves to talk.”

  “He found your diagram that showed how you were tracking the appearance of one of the God Genes that—”

  “Do not use that term in my presence!”

  “Very well. The diagram tracked your hunt for a gene connected with human creativity.” She paused. She wanted to get this right—she had to get this right. Memory, don’t fail me now. “Hsa-mir-3998.”

  “He told you about 3998? That’s confidential information!”

  Here was where Laura was going to go out on a limb. Mozi’s genome had caused Keith to freak out. Using the data she had, she could come up with only one scenario that would shock the hell out of a researcher.

  “I’m betting that you—I mean Keith—found something in Mozi’s genome that didn’t belong there. As an adapiform, she should have been extinct but wasn’t. An exciting find.”

  “You might say,” he said. “Sometime in the late Miocene they managed to reach this natural vivarium. They’re smart enough to have wiped out whatever predators and competitors were here before them. With a safe, stable habitat they no longer had environmental pressure to adapt or evolve and so their genome has remained pretty much the same for millions of years.”

  Laura nodded. “Right. So finding her alive would be exciting but not shocking. Discovering that Mozi carried hsa-mir-3998, however, would have been mind blowing.”

  “You’re just guessing,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “But it’s an educated guess. And I’m right, aren’t I.”

  She knew from his expression that she’d hit the bull’s-eye.

  “Only partially right. Yes, 3998 should not have been there. It’s an astounding anomaly but not, as you put it, ‘mind blowing.’”

  He was trying to wriggle off the hook, but Laura wasn’t about to let that happen.

  “Sure it is. You couldn’t find the gene in any primates or hominids until you got near Homo sapiens, where it appeared seemingly out of nowhere, just like miR-941 did a few million years ago.”

  “All true,” he said with a sad smile. “I guess I underestimated you.”

  Not the first time she’d been underestimated along the way.

  She wasn’t about to let him know she was ninety percent faking it. She had to keep pushing ahead before she revealed the true superficiality of her knowledge of genetics. But raised voices stopped her.

  Over by the cage, Laffite seemed to be throwing a hissy fit with Razi in Portuguese. He’d told them he’d sent the brother to check the traps. Razi didn’t have any dapis with him, so she guessed he’d come up empty.

  She turned back to Keith, trying to picture the chart Grady had shown them. “Okay, you couldn’t find this 3998 creativity gene in the Neanderthals, and it wasn’t in heidelbergensis or any primates before it. Yet you find it in a transitional species that should have been extinct for millions of years. Isn’t that mind blowing?”

  He shrugged. “Ever hear of HGT?”

  “Horizontal gene transfer? Of course. It’s how bacteria share antibiotic resistance.”

  “We’ve learned that it happens in mammals too.”

  It did? That was a new one for Laura. But she didn’t keep up with evolutionary genetics.

  “We’re talking eukaryotic cells?”

  “Well, yes,” he said, his tone turning testy. “That’s the kind we mammals tend to have.”

  “No need to get snarky,” Laura said.

  “Whatever. HGT often has a viral vector. If a human retrovirus could have infected a dapi germ-line cell with 3998 from a human, the gene could be passed along to all that dapi’s subsequent generations.”

  “That’s kind of far-fetched, don’t you think?”

  “Far-fetched or not, what matters is we know HGT happens in mammals, which means Mozi carrying 3998 is not impossible. We have a mechanism to explain it.”

  Laura felt as if she’d suddenly been scooted back to square one.

  “But-but-but—” She caught herself. She sounded like a damn motorboat. “But then why the big freak-out?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” Rick said, getting in Keith’s face. “I’ve been keeping my mouth shut here because I’ve understood maybe half of what you two’ve been talking about, but the takeaway seems to be that there’s a scientific explanation for this human creativity gene being in your monkey pal. If that’s the deal, let me echo Laura by asking, why the freak-out? Why kill Mozi and incinerate her body and erase every trace of her genome?” He waved his hands up and down at Keith. “And why all this bullshit? The shaved head, the beard, the accent, the stolen identity, the disappearance? Why? If there’s such an easy explanation for 3998 in her genome, why the fuck are we here?”

  Couldn’t have said it better myself, Laura thought.

  Keith took a deep breath.
“Imagine you’ve lived all your life alone in a huge, dusty, dirty mansion with so many rooms you’ve yet to visit them all. It’s powered by a generator in the cellar that has a lever in the on position. The lever can’t be moved—when it was pushed into the on position it locked in place and keeps powering the house. And then one day you happen upon a well-lit, inordinately neat bedroom, with clean sheets and not a spot of dust anywhere. What conclusion would you draw from that?”

  He’s going to answer us with riddles? Laura thought. Like some Delphic Oracle?

  She was about to challenge him but Rick beat her to it.

  “We’re not here to play games, Keith. We want—”

  But before he could finish, Laffite appeared with Razi. The Bantu grabbed Keith’s arm.

  “We are exiling you,” Laffite said as Razi began pulling him away.

  Keith looked frightened, flustered. “What? Why?”

  “We do not want to look at you, so we are hiding out of sight. Exiling you to your own little Elba, you might say.”

  “Exile?” Rick said, his voice grim. “What are you really going to do to him?

  “No harm, I assure you,” Laffite said, watching him stumble away. “Actually it is for your brother’s own good. I do not trust Bakari near him. The poison made him very sick. No telling what he’ll do if he has to look at him all the time.”

  Laura was ready to scream with frustration. Keith had looked ready to spill.

  “Why the freak-out, Marten?” she called after him. “What did you find in Mozi’s genome? You never answered the question!”

  He looked back at them over his shoulder. “It’s never been about what was in Mozi’s genome. It’s all about what wasn’t there.”

  7

  Razi led Marten about fifty feet from the camp to a large stand of bamboo. He felt his bladder clench as the Shangaan pulled a wicked-looking knife from a sheath attached to his belt.

  “Wait! Wait, you’re not—!” Razi grabbed a shoulder and roughly turned him around to face the bamboo. “Wait! Please!”

  He felt the knife begin to saw through the zip tie. Was he freeing him?

  He was spun back to face Razi who pulled one of Garrick’s zip ties from his pocket and handed it to Marten. Through hand signals Marten gathered he was supposed to tie it around his right wrist. He did as indicated, making sure he didn’t pull it too tight. Razi turned him around again and pushed his face against the green bamboo rods. From the corner of his eye, Marten watched as a second zip tie slipped through the first and was fastened to a particularly sturdy-looking rod—a good four inches in diameter—locking Marten in place.