The Bone Hunters (29 page)

30 May

Dieter's Island

Off Devil's Backbone

North Eleuthera

Bahamas

Zhou Shen Wui sat wedged into a chair in his stateroom aboard the recovery ship as it rocked and tossed in the brutal sea. He had been violently ill for the last two hours. The sour odor of his vomit filled the room as he waited for the sea to subside long enough to recover the assault boats and retrieve the Peking Man.

Spray was rattling against the portholes like hailstones as he heard a tap at the stateroom door.

“Enter,” ordered Zhou.

It was Colonel Mu. His face was almost as green as Zhou's, although he had managed to control his stomach. His uniform was sopping wet. It was obvious that he
had been outside on the deck and seen the conditions himself.

“The captain wishes me to respectfully give you his opinion that we can no longer stay here, my lord,” said Mu.

“We cannot leave until the mission is completed,” said Zhou firmly.

“My lord, the captain begs to inform you that he cannot hold his position in these seas,” said Mu. “The barometer continues to fall and we are alarmingly close to the reef known locally as the Devil's Backbone. The captain says that if we do not navigate into safer waters, there is every possibility this ship will founder on the reef.”

As if to confirm those conditions, the ship began to roll alarmingly over onto its left side. Colonel Mu lost his footing and fell sideways toward the bulkhead. Above his prone body, Zhou could see that the portholes were actually covered with seawater.

“What have you heard from my son?” demanded Zhou.

Regaining his footing, Mu held on to the table that was bolted to the deck and said, “We have lost communication with the penetration teams. Each one had a well-trained radioman equipped with a weatherproof transmitter. Both fell silent a short time after they landed on the island.”

Zhou disentangled himself from his perch as the ship slowly righted itself again and went to the closest porthole. It was like no sea condition he had ever witnessed. The waves seemed as tall as the high-rise buildings in Shanghai. Even the cars of his supertrain would appear like toys against these monstrous and jagged mountains
of water. For a moment, he wondered what it must be like for Li and his men on the little island.

“The captain recommends that we return to the protected anchorage at Dunmore Town until the storm subsides,” said Mu.

The ship began another slow roll, this one more frightening than the last. Zhou returned to his perch and wedged himself in again. Beyond the stateroom door he could hear loud crashing noises as crockery and glasses broke loose from their cupboards in the dining compartment and smashed on the deck.

The ship began groaning loudly as it continued its roll. He could see how far the deck was slanted because it looked as if Mu were walking up a steep hill. It was so steep he could no longer stand on it and fell away toward the outer bulkhead. With horror, Zhou realized that the ship was not merely rolling. The deck remained slanted.

He waited breathlessly as the ship finally stopped rolling and began to come upright again. When it finally did, the motion did not stop, however. It kept rolling straight over to the other side, sending Mu tumbling through the air across the room again.

It is like living death,
thought Zhou as he cracked his head against the corner of the metal cupboard by his chair and felt a jolt of dizzying pain.

“Tell the captain it is time to go,” said Zhou.

“Yes, my lord,” said Mu, dragging himself toward the stateroom door.

30 May

Dieter's Island

Off Devil's Backbone

North Eleuthera

Bahamas

Macaulay awoke to another clap of thunder and the gleam of a kerosene lamp in the shadowy light of the rock hut. He was lying on Dieter Jensen's bed. The wind was still shrieking like a demented chorus outside. Barnaby sat at the table eating peaches from a fruit jar. Lexy was trying to make the old man's decrepit radio work with the hand-crank generator.

“What time is it?” Macaulay asked.

Lexy's face lit up.

“You're back with us again,” she said.

“You've only been out about thirty minutes,” said Barnaby.

“I found an ampule of morphine in Dieter's medical kit and a hypodermic needle,” said Lexy. “Hopefully, it eased some of the pain.”

Macaulay felt a deep ache inside him. His thigh was no longer on fire, the pain reduced to a dull throb unless he attempted to move it. He knew he couldn't walk. They would somehow have to carry him when it was time to go, or leave him and come back with more help.

“No lessening yet in the storm,” said Barnaby, pointing down at the floor with his spoon. Macaulay glanced down. The stone outcropping was covered with six inches of water.

Barnaby had sealed the window slit opening with a block of coquina rock held in place by Jensen's heavy iron stove. The stout entrance door was secured with its length of timber inside its iron brackets.

“Are we expecting anyone?” asked Macaulay.

“No one has been invited for dinner, but it's better to be safe,” said Barnaby, finishing the jar of peaches. “If you're hungry, I can offer you peaches and coconut milk.”

His words were still in the air when they heard a loud rapping on the door. A shiver of fear crossed Lexy's face.

“If it was our friends from the ship, I doubt they would bother to knock,” said Macaulay.

“It's me,” came a voice over the wind. “Mike McGandy.”

Lexy removed the brace and swung it open. McGandy swept in along with a rush of wind and driving rain. Lexy secured the door behind him.

“Sweet Jesus, I was sure you were done for,” said Macaulay. “I thought your boat blew up.”

“It did,” said McGandy, shaking the rain off his poncho and sitting on a rock ledge. Barnaby handed him a fruit jar and he opened it, eating the Caribbean peaches greedily.

“I wrote off the boat when I decided there was no way I was going to get past that ship,” he said, the juice running down his chin. “I figured if it had assault boats, the ship was equipped with smart weapons, and so I beached it across the lagoon at the closest island. When I opened
fire on the assault boat with my BAR, it was from the shoreline. I think I put some hurt into them.”

“How did you make it back over to Dieter's island?” asked Macaulay.

“I swam,” he said.

“You swam back in this tempest?” asked Barnaby.

“You don't think black people know how to swim, Dr. Finchem?” he said in mock anger. “Actually I found one of the scuba rigs undamaged in the wreckage of my boat along with fins and a mask. Underwater it was easy.”

“What are our chances of getting back across to Dunmore Town?” asked Barnaby. “We're going to need help from Washington to complete our mission.”

“The storm should begin to lose power in an hour or so,” said McGandy. “Between now and then, we ought to get Steve down to the mangroves. I found one of the assault boats there and it looks seaworthy. It also has secure radio communications gear aboard.”

“We don't have any weapons,” said Lexy. “Did you find any?”

McGandy shook his head.

“I don't think any of the Chinese are left,” said Macaulay. “I dropped two of them near the beach and another went down in quicksand. Li and the other four were killed in the blast.”

“I think I took care of at least two of Brugg's men in the boat,” said McGandy. “I also found one dead in the mangroves and another along the path.”

“One more was killed by an obstacle left by Mr. Jensen,” added Barnaby.

“And two more were murdered by Li,” said Lexy.

“That leaves one more,” said Macaulay. “Probably Brugg.”

“Wouldn't he have been at Dieter's cemetery with his two commandos if he was still alive?” asked Lexy.

No one answered.

“I think we'll just have to take the chance,” said McGandy.

A few minutes later, he had rigged a crude litter for Macaulay with two lengths of two-by-fours inside one of Jensen's mattress covers. Barnaby and McGandy would carry him down to the mangroves. When they reached the assault boat, Barnaby would attempt to reach Ira Dusenberry at the White House.

They were on the main path and passing the grape arbor when a jagged spike of lightning lit up the purplish black sky. Lexy was following Barnaby, who was carrying the back end of the litter holding Macaulay. In the glare of the fire bolt, she turned to look over at the place where the cemetery had once existed. A few feet off the path, she saw something sticking out of the ground that glinted momentarily in the harsh light.

She walked over and bent down to pick it up. She was just starting to examine it when another flash of lightning revealed something so horrifying that it sent her reeling backward toward the path.

The man had been standing just a foot away from her.
All the hair had been burned off his scalp. His left eye was missing from its socket, and what had once been his face was now a fire-blistered horror.

Li Shen Wui was pointing his machine gun at her.

“Where is the Peking Man?” came the scream from his ruined mouth.

“We don't know where he's buried,” said Lexy. “That's the truth.”

“Then you are of no assistance to me,” said Li, raising the barrel to her chest.

Macaulay saw it as an approaching monstrous shadow. Later, Barnaby said he thought it looked more like a moving basalt mountain. One moment, Li was about to fire the machine gun and the next he was enveloped face-to-face inside the massive arms of Juwan Brugg.

The Chinese dropped the machine gun and Lexy picked it up as Li was raised high in the air, furiously scissoring his legs. Fighting to release himself from Juwan's bear hug, he slashed down again and again with the heel of his hand at the bigger man's throat and face, all the while screaming something in Chinese.

Li tried to brace his legs against Juwan's knees to push away from him, but Juwan's strength seemed so massive there was no end to it. As the others watched silently, Li's efforts to break the hold slowly diminished as Juwan crushed the air out of his chest. The struggle ended with a loud crunching noise as Li's breastbone and ribs caved in.

When Juwan released him, Li crumpled in a heap to the ground.

“Sweet Jesus,” said Macaulay.

Juwan Brugg stared down at the body for several seconds and then seemed to realize once more that he had three bullets in his chest. He looked toward the others and dropped to his knees.

“What was it you were all after?” he asked. “The treasure.”

“Homo erectus,”
said Barnaby before Brugg toppled over.

31 May

McGandy Clinic

Dunmore Town

North Eleuthera

Bahamas

Dazzling sunbeams splashed through the screened windows of the airy patient recovery room in Cora McGandy's medical clinic. The cobalt sea beyond the windows was calm and inviting.

Macaulay lay in a hospital bed with his elevated leg wrapped in pressure bandages. An X-ray had confirmed that the machine gun bullet had only grazed his fibula and Cora had assured him he would make a full recovery.

Lexy sat across the room from him in one of the two cushioned bamboo chairs examining a glass object. Barnaby was slumped in the second one, trying to stay awake. Since they had gotten back across the Devil's Backbone in the assault boat from Dieter's Island, he had wanted to do nothing but sleep.

That had been his plan for the entire day until he received word that the president's national security adviser was arriving by jet at the local airport in thirty minutes. Ira Dusenberry had come straight to the clinic.

“What happened to all your hair?” were Dusenberry's
first words to the napping Barnaby when he stepped into the room. “You look like the loan officer at my bank.”

“It was shorn for a good purpose,” said Barnaby, waking up. “It may even have saved several lives.”

“I'm glad to see you too, Dr. Vaughan, and of course General Macaulay, although it seems like whenever we meet, you're recovering from honorable wounds,” said Dusenberry.

“Thanks to you,” said Macaulay.

“Always in a good cause, I can assure you,” said Dusenberry. “I gather you had a few challenges down here.”

To Barnaby, it looked as if Dusenberry had grown exponentially since they last met in the situation room of the White House. He had abandoned his attempt to wear three-piece suits. His new tropical worsted suit jacket was bright orange and billowed away from his vast stomach like tent flaps.

“So, where are the Chinese?” asked Barnaby.

“Zhou Shen Wui left this morning after reporting the failure of his mission to his betters in China,” said Dusenberry. “According to the transcript of the cable we just decrypted, he places the blame for failing to recover the Peking Man on his son, Li.”

“It wasn't for lack of trying,” said Lexy.

“Incidentally, where is the Peking Man?” asked Dusenberry. “Not that it's important anymore.”

“He was on that island,” said Barnaby. “He may still be there.”

Barnaby described what led them to the old hermit's island, finding the remains of the red teak crate that had held the fossils, the ongoing gun battle in the storm, the massive blast of high explosives in the cemetery, and their
survival at the hands of Juwan Brugg. By then, Dusenberry was checking his latest text messages on his smartphone.

“It sounds like one of those lurid thrillers I hate,” he said, texting back to someone in Washington. “Anyway, I'll take it from here.”

“We owe Mike McGandy a new dive boat,” said Macaulay.

“That and any other losses he or the people you worked with here sustained,” said Dusenberry. “By the way, I checked on your friend Carlos Lugo. He is at Bethesda Naval Hospital and doing well. They have plenty of experience treating battle casualties that lost toes and fingers.”

“You said a little while ago that finding the Peking Man was no longer important,” said Macaulay, his voice rising in anger. “Why not?”

“The important thing is that the Chinese now believe we have the Peking Man,” said Dusenberry with an indulgent smile. “You found him. That's the message that is going to Beijing through back channels. The Peking Man was on the
Prins Willem
when you dove on it. The whole recovery is documented now thanks to you, Tommy Somervell, and June Corcoran. By the time Zhou Shen Wui gets home, he'll be facing a firing squad for letting Peking Man fall into the hands of the Americans.”

“What about the religious movement . . . all those people who are getting slaughtered for their beliefs?” asked Barnaby.

“The word will continue to spread as it does with all these religious movements. They will believe that hope is on the way. Someday we'll deliver it.”

“Yeah . . . that's great,” said Macaulay.

“And you have earned the gratitude of the president,” said Dusenberry. “He wanted me to tell you that you're all welcome in the White House for an overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom. For now, feel free to stay down here to recharge the batteries at the nation's expense.”

“I'm flying back with you,” snapped Barnaby. “There is someone I need to see in Cambridge.”

The image of his natural blond goddess Astrud lying naked and waiting on his bear rug in the Viking bed was already recharging his own batteries.

Dusenberry's phone began to bleat like an angry gerbil.

“I have to take this. . . . Be back in a minute,” he said, heading for the corridor outside.

When he was gone, Lexy brought the object she had been examining over to Barnaby.

“I found this last night,” she said, putting it in his hand. “It was lying near the trail about fifty meters from the blast site.”

The object was a jagged shard of glass, about two by three inches. One of the edges was straight and held a narrow wooden frame. In a corner of the frame were four tiny letters. Dusenberry put on his reading glasses to see them clearly.

“P . . . U . . . M . . . C,” he said aloud.

“Peking Union Medical College,” said Lexy. “You may recall that was where the Peking Man was packed in glass containers before the marine convoy picked up the red crate.”

“Some of those containers might still be intact where the cemetery was,” said Barnaby. “As soon as you get the general here on his feet and put the roses back in his cheeks, it might be worth another trip out there.”

Lexy glanced out the window into a morning bathed in sunlight. Beyond the grounds of the clinic, the beach was littered with storm debris. As she watched, a spotted sandpiper landed near one of the fallen palm fronds.

The brown-and-white bird walked stealthily along the beach, occasionally stopping to stab its needle bill into the sand and extract its tiny unseen prey. She wondered how the sandpiper always knew it was there.