Altar of Eden (26 page)

Five meters underwater, Jack sped above a line of reefs into the island’s shallows. His fingers gripped the handles of a portable Mako underwater scooter and powered toward the shoreline. He adjusted the pitch of the unit’s propeller to keep him a foot above the seabed.

To either side, Mack and Bruce paced him, zipping through the shallow waters. They all wore black neoprene wet suits. Each of them hauled oilskin dry sacks holding clothes and weapons. M4 carbines and H&K double-action pistols. Jack had also packed his Remington 870 shotgun.

He didn’t hold out any hope that such firepower was sufficient for a full-out frontal assault. The weapons were meant as a last resort. This mission’s success or failure hinged less on firepower than on stealth. To that end, Jack had coordinated with the Thibodeauxs’ boat. The others should have raised a distress signal by now, drawing attention to the far side of the island while Jack’s team snuck in the back door. As an added precaution, he had studied the satellite maps and opted to make land-fall on the wooded island to the north. With the villa on the southern island, this smaller island would be less likely to be watched.

Or so he hoped.

Jack slowed his scooter as the seabed rose under him. Twenty yards off the beach, he powered the propeller off and let the scooter drop to the sand below. He carefully floated to the surface and peeked his mask above the surf to scan the shoreline. A thin strand of beach fringed a dark wall of forest, mostly palms and mangrove trees near the water with Caribbean pines and walnuts up higher. With the sun setting on the far side of the island, the woods were thick with shadows.

He watched for a long minute for any sign of movement.

All seemed quiet.

Mack and Bruce joined him, hovering to either side. He shed his air tanks, weight belt, and swim fins. Holding his breath, he grabbed his dry sack, then signaled for the others to follow. With a kick of his legs, he propelled himself toward shore, staying underwater for as long as possible. Finally, with sand rasping the belly of his wet suit, he surged up and lunged for the beach.

In seven steps, he was out of the water and into the shadows of the woods. Bruce followed next, his lithe shape barely making a splash. He dove over the sand and rolled into the shadows on the right, not even leaving a footprint. On the other hand, Mack stormed the beach like an amphibious landing craft. He lunged out of the water and pounded low across the sand, hitting the woods to the left.

Once under shelter, they kept silent. Beyond their hiding places, the waves slowly washed away most evidence of their landfall.

Jack shivered as he waited. Now that he was no longer moving, his skull began to ache again. The smells of the forest filled his head: moldy leaf rot, wet sand, some spicy-scented flower. His feverish eyes burned, making even the shadows seem too bright. All his senses stretched outward, wary for any sign that their landing had been spotted.

But no alarm sounded. No shouts rose.

Satisfied, he motioned for the others to get ready. They stripped out of their wet suits and into rough duty uniforms in green and black. Weapons were freed; radios fixed to ears and throats.

Once outfitted, Jack lifted an arm and dropped it like an ax in the direction of the land bridge that separated the two islands. The bridge lay not far from the villa. Using the cover of this island should allow them to creep almost to the doorstep of the place.

From there, they would need information. He planned to ambush one of the outlying guards, to interrogate the man under threat of great bodily harm—a threat that would be realized if the man didn’t cooperate. Jack had no time for subtlety. He intended to find out if Lorna was here, and if so, where she was being kept.

Jack again felt that bone-deep surge of fierceness. His vision narrowed as he headed into the dappled forest. His men moved silently to either side.

No matter where Lorna was, he would find her.

LORNA STOOD BEFORE
a closed door. It read authorized personnel only. Malik swiped his ID card. Bennett stood behind her. They were accompanied by Lorna’s assigned bodyguard, the redheaded Connor, who wore his usual hard scowl.

The guard posted himself at the door as the lock disengaged and Lorna and the two men entered a nondescript anteroom. A second door led into the next room, but it couldn’t be opened until the first door was closed.

Like an air lock.

Malik turned to Lorna. “What you’re about to see may seem callous at first glance—but it is necessary.”

“In order to maintain their purity,” Bennett added.

Malik gave a half shrug. “Or in other words, to isolate variables. To strip any possibility that contact with animal minds is contributing to the psychotic breaks demonstrated by the first generation of specimens. To that end, let me show you the second generation of our research.”

Lorna suddenly quailed against stepping across that threshold, fearful of discovering what new horrors lay hidden here. Malik opened the doorway—and Lorna was shocked to hear childish laughter, accompanied by the clapping of small hands. Music also wafted out. The theme song from
Sesame Street.

The incongruity of laughter in this house of pain set her teeth on edge. Fear grew sharper inside her.

“Come with me,” Malik said and led her inside.

Lorna had no choice but to follow, trailed by Bennett.

Malik continued his dialogue, sounding vaguely nervous, maybe even embarrassed. “Though they’re isolated here, we treat them very well.”

Lorna stepped into what could pass for an ordinary dayroom in any preschool. A chalkboard covered one wall. Beanbag chairs dotted the floor in a rainbow of colors. Crayon drawings decorated a corkboard, and in a corner, a plasma television showed a furry puppet conversing with Big Bird.

But it was the children in the room who drew Lorna’s full attention. Dozens of children sat on chairs or sprawled on rugs, raptly staring at the television screen. Each looked around the same age, or at least the same size. They stood no taller than her waist, but these were not toddling babies. Their fully developed features suggested maturity beyond their size. And from the downy fluff on cheeks and limbs, they were clearly related to the inhabitants on the other island. But rather than being naked, the children wore matching blue jumpers.

“How old are they?” Lorna whispered, choked by shock.

“From sixteen months to two years,” Malik answered.

As she stepped farther into the room one child turned toward her, then the others all swung to face her. It reminded her of the synchronization witnessed on the camera. Like a flock of birds startled into sudden flight or a school of fish turning on a dime.

She remembered Malik’s term: a hivelike intelligence.

Was that the source of this behavior? She knew
flocking
was still poorly understood. Some scientists wondered if there might not be some electromagnetic connection between birds in a flock or fish in a school, to get them to act so perfectly in unison. But the latest consensus seemed to suggest that each individual was responding to microsignals from its neighbors and responding in a preprogrammed fashion.

Looking at the behavior here, Lorna wondered if it might not be a combination of both.

The faces eventually swung back to the screen as a new song began to play on the television.

“They’re innocents,” Bennett said. “Kept isolated here from any corruption, bonding only among their own kind.”

Malik nodded. “We’re monitoring their IQ scores with nonverbal tests and watching for any signs of aggression. So far, their IQ levels are rising every week. And they’ve demonstrated no aggression. But that might be too early to judge. Aggression really only manifested after puberty with the others. Still, we’re hopeful.”

“What are you going to do with them?” Lorna asked, fearful of the answer.

“As fast as they mature, we’ll be collecting eggs from the older females in another six months. They’ll be nearing sexual maturity by then.”

Lorna went cold, contemplating such a violation of these little ones.

“From those eggs, we’re going to attempt to destroy the active sections of junk DNA that seems to be triggering these throwbacks, to try to breed it out of the next generation.” Malik rubbed his hands as if anxious to proceed. “We’re so close to a breakthrough that could change the world.”

Bennett nodded. “That’s why we could use your help.”

Malik concurred. “Your expertise with the breeding of exotic animals and handling genetic material is perfectly suited to aid us in the last leg of our work.”

The subtext was plain: it was an offer she couldn’t refuse. Not if she wanted to live. But how could she agree? These were not exotic animals close to extinction. In fact, they weren’t animals at all.

One of the children, a little girl, wandered from her beanbag and lifted her arms up in a universal gesture. Lorna leaned down and picked her up. The child was heavier than she expected, thicker boned, but her tiny hand lifted, and the girl began to suckle a thumb. Her small head settled to Lorna’s shoulder while bright eyes followed the alphabet lesson on the television.

(. . . brought to you by the letter W. . . )

Lorna could feel the child visibly relaxing. A slight tremble in her small body quieted with each breath. Lorna sensed the deprivation of these children, the lack of warm contact. It raised a question in her mind.

She glanced to Malik. “What happened to this child’s mother? To all their parents?”

Malik sought to assuage her. “You’ve seen them. They’re housed at the habitat. When we populated the other island, we separated the youngest specimens here. We’ve built this nursery with copper wiring in the walls to confine this group’s neural network to this handful of rooms, to isolate them from contamination while their brains are still pliable.”

Lorna pictured the violence caught on video, of one of the hominids attacking a guard. By Malik’s own admission, these weren’t dumb animals. Though they didn’t have the power of speech, they were plainly highly intelligent, communicating among themselves in ways no one could fully understand.

She began to suspect the reason for such an attack, for such savagery.

She was carrying it in her arms.

Maternal instinct was strong in most animals. In a communal setting, that instinct would be magnified. The loss of each child would be felt by the whole. Such abuse could drive them into a maddened state. Combine that with heightened intelligence—
growing every week,
according to Malik—the danger posed by the compound’s inhabitants would intensify.

No wonder the security measures were so strict.

Heaven help anyone who set foot over there.

FIVE MINUTES AFTER
hitting the beach, Jack led his team through a grove of pines. He had quickly sought higher ground, but continued to parallel the beach as he circled toward the land bridge. In his head, he kept his position by fixing the sun’s position, the angle and direction of shadows.

Still, he wanted to getter a better lay of the land.

Spying a limestone outcropping that might suit his need, he lifted a fist.

Mack and Bruce dropped into shadows to either side, rifles fixed to their shoulders. Jack clambered up the rocky boulder. Sunlight dappled its surface. For the first time, he had a good view across the island, all the way to the cove on the western side. He noted a white speck out there. It trailed black smoke against the setting sun. He hoped Randy and the Thibodeauxs had enough smoke canisters to maintain their ruse.

He turned his attention to the immediate landscape below. He spotted the spit of sand connecting this island to the other. A glint of steel concerned him. It looked like some barricade split the bridge. The structure hadn’t been on any of his satellite maps, but the surveys had been old and the detail poor.

He frowned at the barricade but knew he had no other recourse. He would face that challenge when he reached it. Still, its presence nagged at him.

Why construct a barricade between the two islands?

Frustrated, he backed to the edge of the boulder, intending to hop down—when a stuttering spat of rifle fire erupted, exceptionally loud. From his perch, he spotted a flock of doves explode out of the forest, taking flight halfway between his post and the bridge.

He crouched, expecting the foliage to shred around him, believing he’d been spotted. But a moment later, the rifle fire turned into bloody screams. They rang out brightly through the air.

Then the screaming cut off with a note of finality. Silence followed, as if the forest were holding its breath.

Jack slipped off the boulder and back down into the shadows, keeping as quiet as possible. A cold certainty set in. He pictured the barricade. Something else shared this small island with them.

He didn’t know what that might be, but he knew one thing for sure.

He was on the wrong side of that fence.

Duncan leaned his fists on the curved desk of the monitoring station.

The security nest had been built into a bunker in the hillside. It offered immediate access both to the villa and to the subterranean lab. Behind him, bulletproof windows offered a sweeping view of the cove and the foundering fishing charter as it limped within a pall of smoke into their waters. It was not his most immediate concern. The gun battery atop the villa kept the boat under a tight watch.

Instead, his attention remained fixed to the dark screen.

He listened to the static in his earpiece, straining for any sign of his scouting party. The horrific screams over the radio still echoed in his ears. He couldn’t tell how many throats issued those cries.

Were any of his men still alive?

“Play the tape again,” Duncan said.

The technician seated at the desk manipulated a toggle, and the dark screen fuzzed with a blur of brightness—then stopped on a crisp image of a freshwater spring bubbling out of the side of a forested hill-side. Camera 4A had been positioned near the island’s sole watering hole. It was one of twelve cameras posted at key positions, areas that offered the best vantage for observing the test subjects’ daily routine.

Duncan’s team had managed to install the new unit. The image wobbled as the camera was quickly positioned and secured. He caught a glimpse of an arm waved in front of the camera, testing its function.

Then the hand jerked back, and one of his men sprinted past the camera. His rifle was on his shoulder, his cheek pressed tightly to the stock. Though there was no sound transmitted over the camera feed, the gun rattled and smoked as it was fired. Then the man disappeared out of view.

A moment later, the image cracked and went black.

Duncan straightened, taking in a sharp, deep breath. It was more than his men’s fate that worried him. He stared across the remaining eleven cameras. They displayed various views of the island: a crude latrine, a rocky ledge, a shallow cave, and three cameras alone focused on the main village habitat. It all looked peaceful, except there was not a single sign of any of the inhabitants. Their conspicuous absence left only one conclusion.

“They know about the video cameras,” he mumbled.

All of them.

His mind worried on that implication.

So then why only take out one camera?

The answer was simple enough. The bastards had set a trap intended to lure men to the site. But why? To exact revenge? He didn’t think so. The act was too calculated, too purposeful. He pictured again the rattle of the assault rifle. Another possibility asserted itself and grew more certain as he considered it. The broken camera was not meant to lure men—but
weapons.

Duncan shifted to a computer monitor. It displayed a map of the island. Tiny red dots moved in real time across the screen. They represented the tracking tags of the fourteen ape-men and the twenty-three other specimens. But none of those tags had come near the spring at the time of the attack. As he stared at the screen he noted several of the tags remained fixed in place, some in the village huts, two in the cave, the rest in the jungle.

Duncan reached out and counted the number of immobile tags.

. . .
twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

The same number as the ape-men. That couldn’t be a coincidence. There could be only one other explanation.

“They’ve removed their tags,” he said aloud.

“Sir!” The technician jolted and pointed to the live feed from one of the cameras. “You’d better see this.”

Duncan joined him at the monitor. The screen displayed a view of a jungle clearing. As he stared he saw nothing at first. Then a shift of shadows at the edge of the glade drew his eye. Shapes crept through the forest.

Two, maybe three.

He squinted.

Were they the missing inhabitants?

Then one of the shadows slipped into a dappling of sunlight. The figure wore trousers, a camouflage jacket, and carried an assault rifle. At first he thought it might be one of his men, still alive. But the gear was wrong. Duncan knew all of the men who had crossed the bridge into that hellish place. This wasn’t one of them. Someone else was over there.

He weighed the possibilities. Ever since the trouble in Haiti, raiders had been growing bolder in the region. Could that be who they were?

On the monitor, the mysterious party disappeared into the jungle.

“What do you want done?” the technician asked.

Duncan turned to the computer monitor. The chaotic motion of the red blips had stopped. As he stared they began to move again, all of them—converging toward the trespassers like a tightening noose.

His lips thinned with grim satisfaction. The fools had picked the wrong island to land on.

“Sir?”

“Keep monitoring,” Duncan said. “This problem should take care of itself in a few moments.”

But it didn’t address another worry. How the hell did a raiding party get onto that other island in the first place? Duncan swung to the arc of windows overlooking the sea. The smoking boat continued to limp into their cove.

That had to be the answer.

He’d heard of birds that would fake a broken wing to lure a cat away from a nest. The same was going on here. The distressed ship had been used to draw their attention, to get them to drop their guard.

Anger stoked to a burn deep in his chest.

Time to grind that bird under a heel.

“Call up the gunner in the bunker,” Duncan ordered, still staring down at the cove. “Tell him to open fire on that boat.”