Forty-Eight X (34 page)

“Link, in this last week I’ve been reading a lot about chimpanzees and this genetic research. If humans and chimps are over ninety-eight percent genetically identical to us, how come they have ten percent more DNA than us?”

“I don’t know,” McGraw replied, obviously distraught at was happening. “The science geeks have left a lot of unanswered questions. You know what’s interesting, though,” he went on, “every primate—chimps, orangutans, gorillas—doubles the birth weight of their brains from birth to adulthood. We humans—we triple ours.”

“So?”

“Well, my chimps, they’ve been measuring them. Some have nearly tripled their brain weight, as well.”

McGraw had mentioned those facts and more when he argued with General Shell to save his troops.

“Their DNA is nearly identical to ours, and we’ve made them even more like us,” McGraw pressed his argument before the general.

“They’re not human, Link,” Shell responded. “Just because their DNA is ninety-nine percent like ours doesn’t make them ninety-nine percent human. Our DNA is about seventy-five percent similar to a worm’s. And a worm is not seventy-five percent human. I can’t save worms, and I can’t save your chimps.”

“Sir, would the cavalry have ever considered killing their horses? Or the dogs that sniff out bombs and our men lying under rubble, would we be so cavalier in doing away with them? These animals have served us well. They deserve better.”

He had felt like Abraham pleading with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah—if but for ten righteous souls. But the general had orders, too. The decision was made. The “how to” was not.

“You know, I never told anyone this,” McGraw continued with Fala, “but when we were in the field, just me and my troops, I used to read them children’s bedtime stories to relax them.”

“Did they understand?”

“I don’t know, but they didn’t like it when I read the same story a second time and changed the ending.”

There was a collective sigh. McGraw gently stroked Fala’s hair, but she abruptly pulled away.

“I can’t be with you when we all leave here,” she said. “I have to be with him.”

“If you fall in love with somebody else, it’s not your fault.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she said remorsefully. “I still love him.”

Fala stood and kissed McGraw gently on the cheek.

“Astaghfir Allah,”
she said in farewell. “God forgive me for lusting after you—my monkey man.”

He took her hand and held it tight. While his heart told him not to let go, he knew when a battle was lost and it was time to retreat. He kissed her hand, one last time, and she departed.

W
ithdrawals, Mack Shell thought. That had always been his specialty.

It would take only a few days to return Diego Garcia, BIOT—British Indian Ocean Territory—back into the sleepy military outpost it had been a decade earlier. Huge air force jumbo cargo jets landed with the frequency of a major airport for several days—ferrying personnel and equipment back to the United States. The advanced science buildings were gutted. In months ahead, universities throughout the country would be reaping the benefits as a great deal of very expensive scientific equipment was listed on the Internet for sale for pennies on the dollar.

Although the maps called it Diego Garcia, those who came to work and live on the island for years came to call it Lemuria. Many resented the end of their time in “paradise.” And if anyone was looking to place blame, it was understandable they might exorcise their anger against those they viewed as interlopers on their island. General Shell had Fala, Krantz, and Maggie Wagner on the first plane out. It was a six-hour flight on a C-130 to Singapore and then on to the United States on a commercial flight.

From the air, Fala saw the base garbage barge. A tug was towing it out to sea. The barge was as big as a football field—ninety-one meters in overall length, twenty-seven meters wide. Its shell was six meters above the waterline. The barge was loaded with a mountain of garbage—the detritus of over five thousand military and scientific personnel on the island. Scampering atop the pile were several hundred brown figures, and Fala instantly knew the plan. These were the chimps of Lemuria, and McGraw was towing them out to sea to drown. She trembled. She felt nauseated. Trying to put the picture out of her mind, she walked back to the rear of the aircraft where Krantz was strapped to a gurney. He was conscious but sedated with several intravenous lines running in fluids and antibiotics. She took his hand and squeezed it hard.

“Some adventure, huh?”

Krantz exercised a weak smile.

She held up a small wooden object with a carved moon-shaped face at one end and fork prongs at the other.

“It’s a barrette. I found it at an abandoned construction site on the north end of the island. You know, the original inhabitants of the island were not from Mauritania or the Seychelles. They were slaves from East Africa—judging from this piece, probably from Somalia or Mozambique.”

Fala then held up some photographs. “And there were probably much older civilizations on the island. I found these petroglyphs.”

Krantz studied the photos. Petroglyphs were drawings carved into rock. They were prehistoric, usually Neolithic symbols, a form of pre-writing used in communication approximately ten to twelve thousand years ago by the classical cavemen. The drawings were either easy to decipher, like pictures of animals, or, after millenniums of cultural separation, near impossible to decipher. But through his drug-hazed eyes, Krantz clearly saw what these images represented. They were pictures of troops in formation, of airplanes, and dead humans. These were not petroglyphs carved by some ancient cavemen, but modern drawings made by chimpanzees who were recording their history.
Recorded history is the hallmark of human civilization
, Krantz thought.
These chimpanzees are not millions of years behind us in evolution. They’re perhaps now just ten thousand years behind
.

Fala set the photos aside. Krantz had tried to speak, but his morphine pump weighed his lids shut and he fell asleep again.
That’s best
, she thought.
When he wakes, he’ll be feeling better and this horrid adventure will be our own ancient history
. She was anxious to resume their old life—archaeologists in search of the truth of the past. Other than being together, she wanted no more to do with the world of the present.

From the wheelhouse on the tug, McGraw watched Fala’s C-130 head east. He was sailing west. The tugboat’s skipper and two other senior officers were aboard. McGraw had suggested the “termination” plan, and General Shell had sent two of his officers along to assure it was carried out and to photograph the event as proof. It was a sensible plan. The animals were uncaged, but they followed commands. Others had suggested they just shoot them all—but even to Shell that seemed nauseatingly bloody. And he knew the animals could be vicious. One or two could get away and maim or kill soldiers or civilians. And then there was the mess. No, McGraw’s plan was simple and clean. There would be no need to bury or incinerate the bodies. They would simply disappear into the sea.

McGraw watched his former “command” frolicking on the mounds of garbage on the barge. If they didn’t find things worthy of eating, they found plenty of things for play. The tug captain wanted to turn back about twenty miles offshore, but McGraw insisted they sail on for several more hours. When they were nearly fifty miles from Diego Garcia with no land in sight, no other ships, McGraw released the tow rope. The barge floated free. His two chaperones prepared to video the event. McGraw had set explosive charges on the hull of the barge. With a nod for the officers to begin filming, he hit the switch on a remote and set them off, rupturing airtight compartments in the hull. The barge filled with water and began to quickly settle under the water. Soon, hundreds of monkeys were swimming frantically amidst the garbage. McGraw knew from what he read that chimpanzees did not like to swim. Their stocky bodies prevented them from being good swimmers. They had enjoyed splashing in the surf, but he had never seen them swim and never taught them to. Clearly several were already drowning.

“Semp fah, semp fah!” several of the animals began to yell.

“What are they yelling?” one of the captains asked.

“I don’t know,” the other replied, turning to McGraw for an answer.

“Words. I taught them some words.”

“What?”

“Semper fi, semper fi,” McGraw repeated.
Semper fidelis
, the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps. It was Latin and meant “always faithful.”

“Do we need to see this out, Captain?” McGraw asked his escort and videographer. The officer knew the work that Colonel McGraw had accomplished with these animals. And seeing the colonel’s chin tremble, the captain knew McGraw was drowning inside, as well.

“I’ve got enough.”

McGraw moved to the helm of the tug, turned the boat east, and gunned the engine. He wanted to be far away very soon. Ten minutes later, the scene of the crime was well out of sight.

There were twelve watertight compartments on the shallow-keeled garbage barge. McGraw’s explosives had ruptured four, enough to sink a ship holding two hundred tons of cargo. But empty, the ship could still stay afloat if only half those watertight compartments remained intact. McGraw had spent a long night doing the math and praying he was right. At a depth of two hundred feet, the sea had finally swept away the tons of garbage. The barge then ended its descent and slowly began to rise. More than half of his chimpanzees had already drowned when the great barge erupted to the surface. The survivors frantically clambered aboard.

McGraw had spent an informative afternoon the day before with the base meteorologist, an army lifer who didn’t know the front end of a gun. McGraw chatted him up about some vague combat missions. That kind of talk made the weatherman feel more like one of the “warrior” class. In exchange, McGraw got a quick but useful education on air and ocean currents. Fifty miles offshore and south of the island of Diego Garcia, they would be at the edge of the Agulhas current. Except for the Gulf Stream, the Agulhas was the swiftest of all the world’s ocean currents. The warm Agulhas ran west—and unfortunately south, as well. McGraw had taken a gamble. The current would either quickly carry the great barge west to the east coast of Africa—to Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, or even the island of Madagascar, places with terrain and climate where his troops could survive—or the current could carry the barge south, to the freezing waters of Antarctica.

His orders were to sink a barge in the middle of the ocean and dispose of an experiment. Colonel Link McGraw had followed his orders. If his “experimental” animals survived, it would be because of a miracle—and the fortunate scientific pairing of physics and oceanography.

Mack Shell had not been immune to the emotional and logical arguments posed by Link McGraw. But he, too, had orders—from a commander-in-chief. In the days preceding the “drowning,” Mack trekked alone through the chimp compound. Despite the “accident,” he wasn’t afraid of these animals. He went looking for solace. He wanted to see animals and animal behaviors. Indeed, most of the chimps just lay about on the ground, some in their own filth, or just staring vacantly at nothing. And it pleased him.

“Am I a god?” he mused. “I have the power to create living beings and destroy them.” At times he would stop and close his eyes. He wanted to listen, to hear. This was Lemuria, and if there was any place on earth where creatures could commune with their thoughts alone, this was it.

“Speak to me of your righteousness,” he demanded, sprinkling his thoughts like seed in the air. But his mind remained silent of anything incoming and he walked on. Then, he stopped to watch two of the chimps groom each other. One stopped and stared back at him. The animal reached out and plucked some debris, a piece of a fallen leaf, from his hair and with a gentle fingertip tried to clean the birthmark from Shell’s cheek.