by James Barney
Then Uruk was defeated and the kingship was taken to Semionm.
“Notice any similarities between that account and the biblical account we read a little while ago?” Eskridge asked.
“The life spans . . .”
“Yeah, they petered out a couple generations after the flood, didn’t they?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And who was the last recorded king with an abnormally long life span?”
Kathleen looked down at the thesis. “Gilgamesh.”
“Son of a phantom, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sound familiar?”
“The Nephilim?”
Eskridge stood up, leaned over the table toward Kathleen, and then spread Sargon’s sheet of paper on the table between them. “Now, let’s look at this epitaph again.”
They both studied it for several seconds, and then Eskridge spoke—slowly, deliberately. “Okay. Putting all these symbols together, here’s what I think they mean . . .”
Kathleen waited anxiously as Eskridge considered the paper in silence, apparently collecting his final thoughts.
“My best translation is . . . ‘The Last Nephilim.’ ”
As those words sunk in, Kathleen’s mind exploded with a dozen thoughts at once.
“Or,” Eskridge continued, “using a slightly different vernacular of the time . . . ‘The Last Giant.’ ”
“Gilgamesh,” said Kathleen quietly.
“So it would seem.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rockville, Maryland.
“Sorry I’m late,” Kathleen said as she entered the QLS conference room. “Reagan National was an absolute madhouse this morning.”
Kathleen, Carlos, Julie, and Jeremy—the staff of QLS—took their seats around the conference table just before noon. Office supplies were stacked high at one end of the table, and boxes of glassware and other laboratory supplies were lined up along the walls.
“The reason I wanted to get everyone together,” Kathleen said, “is to discuss a new project that I’d like to get started on right away.” She nodded toward Carlos.
Carlos acknowledged her signal and quickly retrieved from his briefcase the clear Ziploc bag containing the tooth. She had called him from Boston last night and asked him to bring it to the meeting, though she hadn’t explained why.
“This,” Kathleen announced, holding up the Ziploc bag for everyone to see, “is an artifact from Iraq. As I understand it, it came from the tomb of a very important figure in Mesopotamian history. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that it may be important to our research.”
“How?” Jeremy Fisher asked skeptically. He was a lanky guy in his late twenties, with black, unkempt hair and two days of stubble on his face. He wore ripped, faded jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt with the words AIM SHOOT DELIVER on the back, and the logo of the U.S. Paintball Association on the front. Aside from being a first-rate slacker, Jeremy Fisher was also a brilliant molecular biologist. He’d graduated near the top of his undergraduate class at Berkeley and then completed an impressive Ph.D. program at Stanford. He’d been a much sought-after post-doc at NIH when Kathleen discovered him and quickly recruited him away to QLS two years earlier.
“Well,” Kathleen said, answering Jeremy’s question, “it’s possible this artifact may contain some useful DNA.”
“DNA?” blurted Jeremy. “What is that thing, anyway?” He craned over the table and brought his face to within inches of the Ziploc bag. There was a momentary pause, and then—“Is that a . . . tooth?”
“Yes,” Kathleen replied flatly. “It’s a tooth. From a mummy.”
There was immediate commotion in the room as Julie, too, stood up to inspect the relic. “Gross!” she whispered as the details of the discolored tooth became apparent.
Julie Haas was the opposite of Jeremy in many ways. Most notably, she was an optimist, who (unlike Jeremy) naturally assumed things would always work out for the best. She was pretty—short blond hair; sparkling blue eyes; round, smooth face; and an easy smile. And she had a breezy personality that made her a pleasure to be around. That was one reason Kathleen had brought her over from NIH two years ago, where she’d been Kathleen’s lab assistant since graduating from college three years earlier.
But Julie was more than just pleasant and pretty. She was also a very competent biologist. Perhaps not as brilliant or inspired as Jeremy, but a solid researcher nonetheless. Indeed, Julie and Jeremy seemed to complement each other nicely in the lab. What Julie lacked in raw talent, she more than made up for with determination, perseverance, and plain hard work, qualities that Jeremy did not always exhibit.
The commotion over the artifact eventually died down, and Kathleen gestured for everyone to take his seat. “Like I said,” she continued, “I’d like to conduct some tests—”
“On that?” Jeremy interrupted.
“Yes. On this.”
“What kinds of tests?” asked Julie. “I mean, how does this relate to our core research?”
Kathleen hesitated. “Well, to tell you the truth, it’s kind of complicated. And I’m not even sure I understand it myself. So let’s just take things one step at a time, okay? This may turn out to be nothing at all . . . or it may be huge. I just don’t know at this point. So let’s start with a few simple tests.”
The room fell silent, and Kathleen noticed Jeremy and Julie exchanging disbelieving glances. They think I’m crazy, she thought to herself. Maybe they’re right.
Suddenly, Carlos spoke up in his typical, authoritative voice. “Absolutely, Dr. Sainsbury. Just tell us what tests you want run, and we’ll make sure they get done.”
Kathleen smiled appreciatively at him. Sergeant Guiterez to the rescue!
“Let’s first see if we can extract some usable DNA from this thing.” She placed the bag on the table in front of Jeremy and gave him a nod. “I was hoping you could take care of that.”
Jeremy picked up the bag with his thumb and index finger and inspected its contents. He was already shaking his head doubtfully. “I’d be amazed if there’s any intact DNA in here,” he said dismissively. “I mean, look at this thing. It’s degraded. It’s discolored. Who knows what kinds of conditions this thing’s been exposed to. Not to mention contamination. I mean, you’ve probably got viral DNA, insect DNA, bacteria . . . all sorts of garbage in there.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “I mean, you might get a few fragments of DNA, but an intact sample? I don’t see it happening.”
“Well, please try,” said Kathleen.
“Sure, okay,” Jeremy said, adding under his breath, “just don’t expect much.”
Kathleen ignored his last comment and turned to Julie. “Now, assuming Jeremy is successful in extracting some usable DNA, can you be in charge of sequencing it?”
“Okay. Are we looking for anything in particular, or—”
Kathleen cut her off. “For starters, let’s just verify it’s human.”
There were confused looks all around the table.
“What else would it be, Dr. S?” asked Julie.
“Uh, what I mean is, let’s just verify that we have a complete human sequence, okay?”
“Sure,” said Julie, a bit hesitantly.
“Hey, Dr. Sainsbury?” Jeremy interjected. “Like, when do you want all of this done?”
Kathleen turned to Carlos. “When’s the next shareholders’ meeting?”
“Teleconference next Friday.”
Kathleen winced. The quarterly shareholders’ meeting was only ten days away. Those meetings were always an uncomfortable experience for her, and this one—coming at the end of Year Two with funding nearly depleted—promised to be a doozy. “Okay,” she said, “if possible, I want the results by then.”
Julie and Jeremy looked at each other with wide eyes.
“I know that’s asking a lot,” Kathleen continued, sensing their uneasiness. “And I know Sunday is Easter. But this is really important. You know, our funding is getting low. At our cur
rent burn rate, we’re going to be out of cash in a few months, and the investors are getting nervous. It’s been two years, and—let’s be honest—we’ve really got nothing to show for it. We need to give them some results or . . .” She paused and looked around the room. “Well, I don’t know what will happen.” She pointed at the Ziploc bag on the table. “Let’s just give this a try, okay? I have a hunch about it.”
“Don’t worry,” said Carlos. “We’ll get it done.”
Bryce Whittaker called a little after 3:00 P.M., and Kathleen took the call in her office. “How was Boston?” he asked.
“It was . . . Hey, how’d you know I was in Boston?”
“I called your office this morning. Your colleague, Carlos, told me you were flying in from Boston.”
“Oh.”
“Were you up there for business?”
“Yeah . . . sort of. It was an unexpected trip. By the way, I’m sorry I missed your call last night. My meeting went pretty late.”
“No problem. That’s what I figured. So anyway . . . you up for dinner tonight?”
Kathleen smiled, relieved that Whittaker apparently wasn’t angry about being blown off last night. “Sure.”
“How do you feel about sushi?”
“Love it.”
“Great. I know a wonderful little sushi place in Bethesda, not too far from your apartment.”
“You must be talking about Hake, I love that pla—” Kathleen stopped short. “How’d you know where my apartment is?”
“I looked it up.”
“You did?”
“Hey, I’m a reporter, remember? I get paid to be nosey.”
Kathleen said nothing.
“So, can I pick you up around eight?”
“Better make it nine. I’ve got a lot to catch up on here.”
“Nine it is.”
“And I’ll meet you at the restaurant.”
“Okay. I’ll see you there.”
Late in the afternoon, Jeremy and Julie stood alone in the QLS laboratory, on opposite sides of a long soapstone workbench. Julie had just completed the last batch of data for the day on the fruit flies, and Jeremy was preparing materials and glassware for his new project—the artifact.
“Check it out,” Jeremy said jokingly, holding the Ziploc bag in front of his mouth. “Think I ought to see a dentist?”
Julie grimaced. “Very funny. Will you please put that thing down. It is so gross!”
Jeremy complied.
“So, have you figured out what you’re going to do with it yet?” Julie asked.
“Yeah, I called a friend of mine who does forensics analysis for the San Francisco PD. He sent me a procedure they use for degraded specimens like this. You know, like when they find human remains buried in some psycho’s basement.”
“What’s the procedure?”
Jeremy picked up a sheet of paper and skimmed it. “Let’s see . . . sterilize in phosphate balanced salt solution, stabilize in polyester resin. Hmmm . . . then I need a drill.”
“What, are you building a birdhouse?”
“No, seriously. According to this, I’ve gotta drill into the tooth to extract the dental pulp, if there still is any.”
“Can’t you just grind up the whole specimen and extract the DNA?”
“Nah. Too many contaminants in the outer surface. We’ve got to get to the pulp and hope this guy’s dental hygiene was pretty good. Otherwise, bacteria-ville.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. No telling where that thing’s been in the past few thousand years.”
“Exactly.”
“What do you do after you extract the pulp? PCR amplification?”
“Yep. Of course, most likely, I’ll just be amplifying garbage.”
Julie smirked. Faux pessimism—classic Jeremy. “Hey, do you think you can handle this yourself this weekend? I’d like to drive up to Philly to see my folks for Easter.”
“Yeah, no problem. I’m just gonna UV sterilize all the tools and glassware tonight. I’ll go shopping for a dental drill tomorrow.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks, I’ll need it.”
Two hours later, Jeremy was alone in the QLS laboratory. Julie and Kathleen were gone for the day. Carlos was in his office, working on some paperwork for the upcoming shareholders’ meeting. A small collection of glassware sat assembled on the workbench, awaiting sterilization. Jeremy surveyed this collection carefully, mentally going through each of the steps of the procedure he intended to follow. As he stood there with his arms crossed, the artifact caught his eye.
The brownish tooth was clearly visible through the plastic Ziploc bag, resting a few feet away on the soapstone workbench. Jeremy walked over, leaned down, and inspected it closely.
Something about it was strangely mesmerizing.
Who had it belonged to? He moved closer and studied the minute details: the way the crown was worn down smooth, the texture of the enamel. Soon, his imagination was off and running, the tooth seemingly taking on a life of its own.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bethesda, Maryland.
“Try the Unagi Maki,” Whittaker said, placing a cylindrical sushi roll on Kathleen’s plate. “Freshwater eel. It’s delicious.”
They were seated by the front window of Hake, a trendy Japanese restaurant on Cordell Avenue in Bethesda. Outside, fashionable people bustled by: young, beautiful women in impossibly tight miniskirts, men in casual sport coats, and gaggles of twenty-somethings gearing up for the clubs.
“Any special plans for the weekend?” Whittaker asked as he ate.
Kathleen shrugged. “Just driving to Annapolis to see my grandfather.”
“Oh, I thought he lived in Great Falls.”
“He used to. But he moved to a retirement home in Annapolis a few years ago.”
“Hmmm. I’ve never been to Annapolis,” said Whittaker. “I hear it’s nice.”
“It’s beautiful. Especially in the spring. He really loves sailing, so I thought it’d be nice for him to be in a place where he could see sailboats every day.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Mm-hmm.” Kathleen watched as Whittaker transported a piece of sushi from his plate to his mouth with a pair of chopsticks.
“So,” Whittaker said after devouring the morsel, “would you like some company?”
“What, for Easter?”
“Sure. I don’t have any plans, so I thought, you know . . . maybe I could go to Annapolis with you.”
Kathleen didn’t respond.
“Like I said, I’ve never been there.”
Kathleen was consciously debating the idea in her head. Her instincts, however, were already screaming, “No!” A dozen logistical and personal issues came to mind all at once. Her grandfather . . . the travel arrangements . . . dinner at the nursing home? It all seemed so awkward.
Seconds passed, and Whittaker suddenly began to look embarrassed.
Decision time, Kathleen realized. She liked Whitaker and definitely wanted to get to know him better. He was really a sweet guy, and she enjoyed being around him. But a whole day in Annapolis? She was just about to politely decline the offer when something stopped her. A tiny voice in the back of her mind was whispering: “Book smart, man dumb.” Not this time, she decided. She would not let this relationship fizzle like all the others before it.
By now, Whittaker was already backtracking. “If you’ve got other plans—”
“No, no, no,” Kathleen said. “That sounds great. Let’s go together.”
Whittaker looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I could use the company.”
Whittaker smiled broadly. “Great,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to it.” Then he devoured another piece of raw fish.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Easter Sunday. Sunset Knoll, Maryland.
The Garrison Manor Assisted Living Center could easily be mistaken for an upscale hotel and conference center. Located on twenty acres
of manicured lawns and gardens in Sunset Knoll, ten miles north of Annapolis, it consisted of two long wings adjoining a large, two-story entry hall with a buff-colored limestone façade and a high, red-tiled roof. The wheelchair-accessible front entrance led to a Southern-style covered porch, painted light gray, with white wooden columns and a white turned-spindle railing. At the back of the porch was a wide automatic sliding-glass door, flanked by two stylishly etched sidelight windows and a semicircular transom-and-window unit above.
“Very nice,” said Whittaker as he and Kathleen pulled up to the front entrance in her Subaru.
“It’s one of the best assisted living homes in the area,” Kathleen remarked as she eased into the first available parking space. “The staff’s really great. They do a lot of fun stuff with the residents. Music nights, and different themes for meals on weekends. Every Wednesday in the spring and summer they take a bus down to the harbor to watch the regattas. That’s my grandfather’s favorite.”
“Yeah, you mentioned he likes sailing.”
“Uh-huh. I come out here to watch the races with him sometimes . . . when I get can get away from work, that is.” She frowned as she surveyed the parking lot, which was less than half full. “Sad that more people don’t visit on holidays. It means a lot to the residents when their families show up.”
“I bet.”
They made their way toward the front entrance, where Kathleen stopped just short of the steps. “Bryce?”
“Hmmm?”
“There’s something I need to explain about my grandfather before we go in.”
“Okay . . .”
Kathleen took a deep breath and braced herself. “My grandfather has Alzheimer’s disease. Stage five, which is a fairly advanced stage of the disease.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He has good days and bad days. And lately, more bad than good. I just wanted to let you know in case . . . well, in case he’s having a bad day.”
Whittaker smiled compassionately and said, “I understand.”
They walked up the steps together and entered the building through the automatic glass door. The main hall was nicely furnished, though far from luxurious. It smelled strongly of disinfectant—like a hospital. There were garish Easter decorations pinned here and there on the walls. A paper cutout of a cartoon bunny on one wall, paper Easter eggs on another. A banner across the front desk read “Happy Easter!” in bright pastel colors. It reminded Kathleen of the décor of a second-grade classroom.
