The Lucifer Genome: A Conspiracy Thriller

by Glen Craney

  “Suicide note?”

  Cas realized the corpse must have deteriorated so severely by the time the cops got to it that the Leviticus quotation on the woman’s forehead was unrecognizable. He glared a silent warning at Marly not to mention it or the Deceptio message that they had erased from the acid-etched floor. “Who’s the parrot now, Avi? What I am saying is that, if your theory’s correct, she would have left a suicide note, probably with instructions on where she was going to resurrect herself in three days.”

  Isserle rolled his eyes. “This isn’t Hollywood!”

  Seeing that the interrogation was going nowhere, the Jerusalem detective shifted impatiently behind the two Americans. Leaning over their shoulders, he tapped his watch at Isserle. “What do you want me to do with them? I’ve got other cases waiting.”

  Isserle glared at the detective for interrupting him, leaving no doubt that he could care less about the local workload. After retrieving his file from the table, the Mossad agent strolled toward the door. “Keep them locked up for the night. I’ll send a couple of my men from Tel Aviv in the morning to take them to our detention facility in the Negev.”

  “Whoa now!” Cas shouted.

  Marly protested, “You just said you know we didn’t kill that girl! We got a witness here!”

  Turning back, Isserle grinned at them, enjoying their reactions on learning that this time they wouldn’t be escaping prosecution. He told Cas, “I’m recommending the charges be filed on your little plane fraud fiasco. And your carping co-conspirator here will get the same tour of our judicial system. I’m a man of my word. You should know that by now.”

  “Let’s talk this out, Av.”

  “What, so now I’m not Josh?” He pulled a glossy photograph out of his file and flung it to the table. “Here’s something to keep you two ‘spiritual seekers’ occupied while you wait for your arraignments. Maybe you’d like to meditate on what can happen when you go off your meds.” He laughed and walked out of the room.

  Marly turned the photograph around and saw that it was an evidence shot of Bridget Whelan’s decomposing corpse. She threw it against the slamming door and glared at the city detective, who stood in the corner watching them with smirking bemusement. “That girl didn’t kill herself in some imitation martyrdom! She wasn’t even a Christian. Why would she go off the deep end after coming over here with a good-paying job to help breed cattle?”

  “Cattle?” the flunkie detective said with a dismissive snort. “Whatever that woman was doing in our country, she wasn’t working on cattle.”

  Cas leaned closer to the detective. “Why makes you say that?”

  The detective glanced at the door, looking worried about Isserle eavesdropping. He turned off the one-way light on the mirror and then nodded for Cas to continue.

  Cas reached into his Speedos, slid out a wad of bills, and laid it on the table. “I probably shouldn’t be carrying around this much money in here.”

  “And here we all thought you were just well-endowed,” the detective said. “I guess we need to start doing a better job of frisking suspects.”

  Cas made his best puppy eyes. “Would you mind keeping the cash in a safe place for me, Inspector?”

  Taking the hint, the detective walked back to the table and, with the deftness of a magician, stuffed the bills into his pocket.

  Cas cleared his throat, a signal that he was waiting for his end of the barter.

  The inspector flicked on the one-way mirror light, making sure no one was watching from the observation room, then he turned the light back off. “We found a discarded Petri dish in the biomedical-waste receptacle at that kibbutz laboratory.”

  Cas cocked his ear to make sure he had heard correctly. “And this is worth”—he angled his gaze toward the bulge of bills in the inspector’s pocket—“how exactly?”

  “The Petri dish held an embryo, all right. Of a human. Not a cow.”

  Marly slammed her fist on the table, as if having suspected Cohanim was involved in some kind of genetics chicanery. “Anything else interesting show up in your investigation?”

  The detective turned his shoulder to shield his next revelation from being heard through the door crack. “Does the name ‘Lucy’ mean anything to you?”

  Cas glanced at Marly, who seemed distracted and disturbed by the detective’s question. He shook his head at the detective to indicate that the name drew a blank.

  The detective shrugged. “The forensics team found a rather interesting cache of documents in a drawer at the crime site. Whoever left them there must have been in quite a hurry to get away. Didn’t do a real thorough job on their cleanup. These documents purported to contain data about the DNA taken from a woman identified only by the first name, Lucy.”

  “I’m not exactly seeing my money’s worth here,” Cas said.

  “I thought it might have some significance. Isserle found it important enough to mark as classified.”

  Cas dropped his chin and studied his navel, trying to unravel this new knot of mysteries. He looked back up at the detective. “Not that we don’t appreciate chewing the fat with you, but why are you sharing this intel with us? I mean, aside from my generous donation …”

  The detective sat down in a chair and tied his shoestrings, using the task as an excuse to reveal in a whisper under the table, “Isserle and his Mossad toadies treat us District politsyants like parking-meter cops. You just got a sampling of it. They think they run the country, barging in anywhere they please and taking over local investigations.”

  Marly sensed an opening. “Anything we can do to help you?”

  The detective came back upright and tapped his fingers on the table, as if choosing his next words carefully. “I wouldn’t be all that upset if someone we all know lost a couple of rendition suspects due to his ineptitude.”

  Cas was all ears. “And how might that happen?”

  The detective rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Transfers from our jurisdiction to Mossad’s holding pens have to be authorized with a written directive by the agent in charge. Our mutual acquaintance fancies himself as too important to be bothered with paperwork, so he always orders us to do it for him. Of course, a judicial panel investigating the escape of two prisoners would never be told of this abuse of protocol.”

  “Why is that?” Marly asked.

  “It would be quite embarrassing for an intelligence agent to have to admit that he had no transfer documentation to present to the court.” He stood up and walked toward the door, but then looked back at Cas with the beginnings of a wink. “I read your background file.”

  “Pretty boring stuff,” Cas said. “You must not be as busy as you let on.”

  The detective flashed him a grim smile. “You’re being way too humble, Mr. Fielding.”

  Marly’s snort of disbelief interrupted Cas’s explanation.

  “Ignore her,” Cas told the detective. “You were saying?”

  “For all I know, you may be insane, like most people suspect. But you’ve got one hell of an impressive record in the field. You’re the only Westerner I’ve ever met who became blood brothers with the Bedouins and lived to tell of it.”

  Flattered as he was, Cas knew another sandal was about to drop.

  The detective put his hand on the doorknob and, pulling its sleeve out an inch, turned the mechanism counterclockwise three times, demonstrating a secret fail-safe release, designed for cops who might find themselves trapped inside without a key. “I like to see our detainees get plenty of exercise. The best time for a stroll around headquarters here is usually around four in the morning.”

  “I do enjoy evening constitutionals,” Cas said, taking his meaning.

  The detective hesitated before opening the door. “All I know is, it’d be a damn shame if a man as important as Agent Isserle were to find himself answering negligence charges at a disciplinary hearing for losing a couple of transfer prisoners.”

  “Yeah, a damn shame.” Cas tried to control his salivation a
t his sudden turn of fortune. “And it probably wouldn’t help his case if the prisoners he lost had left behind a farewell note wondering why the local detective had been ordered off the case.”

  “By the way,” the detective said. “Just out of curiosity, did either of you happen to smell anything on Mr. Isserle’s breath?”

  Marly got into the act. “You know, I did detect a rather heavy whiff of scotch. And he was slurring his words so badly, I was afraid the poor fellow might have suffered a stroke.”

  Smothering a smile of revenge, the detective walked out and shut the door behind him.

  Cas pranced around the room. “And you think my karma’s run outa gas.” He flashed Marly a smug smile. “Hah! Avi boy is going to have—oh, I’m on a roll—a cow!”

  While he practiced his Dancing With The Stars tryout, Marly sat quietly, troubled by something the detective had said earlier. Rousing finally, she muttered to herself, “Lucy.”

  “Yeah, how about that. I loved that show.” Cas switched to a rumba. “I used to entertain the boys with a killer Desi Arnaz imitation. I even thought about angling for a Guantanamo posting just so I could get to Cuba.”

  Marly glared at him. “Will you cut the crap for two seconds!”

  “What bug’s gotten under your buns all of a sudden? We just got dealt a royal flush. You need to stop and enjoy these rare moments of triumph in life.”

  “A few months ago, I came across a news item in the Journal of Biological Archaeology.”

  “Archaeology? That’s a little far afield for you, isn’t it?”

  “You’d be amazed what I do to avoid actual work.”

  “Um, I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

  She shot him a warning glare at his crotch, one that might have been interpreted as a reminder that he didn’t have any Speedo padding left to protect him from a kick to the groin now. “Anyway, there was a notice in it reporting that someone had broken into the museum where they kept the skeletal remains of the oldest female ancestor of humans ever found on Earth.”

  “Fascinating.” Cas looked around the room for something to entertain himself with until they could escape. “I mean, c’mon. Let’s play strip poker or something. Hell, I’d rather look at that corpse photo than listen to—”

  “The archaeologists who dug up this Humanoid female named her Lucy. If I remember correctly, the only thing taken from the exhibit on the night of the break-in was a tooth.”

  Cas was half listening. “Maybe the thief was a fetishist dentist.”

  She ignored his sophomoric quip. As if speaking to the only intelligent person in the room—herself—she said, “I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but then I read somewhere that teeth retain DNA longer than any other part of a skeleton.”

  That last comment registered a rare brain wave in Cas’s head, and he nearly fell from his go-go dancing perch atop his chair. “Wait a minute. And you’re telling me this now?”

  “Hey, you’ve laughed off all my other theories. Why should I share?”

  He leapt down and confronted her. “You think Cohanim—”

  “He hired that Boston thief to steal the Black Stone of Mecca around the same time that Lucy’s tooth went missing, didn’t he? I’d bet this year’s pay—which, by the way, happens to equal the amount of money I’ve earned from this wild goose chase—that Cohanim stole the Lucy tooth, too.”

  “That’s a real stretch. Burning calves is one thing. But breaking into museums and burglarizing famous artifacts?”

  “Maybe, but I’ve got a gut feeling that our detective friend who just left had a reason for telling us about that classified Lucy notation in the murder file. He suspects something, too.”

  “Suspects what?”

  Marly took over from Cas's pacing while he sat back down, and she began slapping herself on her forehead. “Why didn’t I see this before?”

  “See what?”

  “The Immaculate Deception!”

  Cas blinked repeatedly, trying to follow her. “Wait, slow down!”

  “This is what that poor girl at the kibbutz was trying to say with her acid-etched message!”

  Cas was getting dizzy from watching her orbit him. “Dammit, slow down!”

  She stopped in mid-step, savoring a lording smile at having bested her spook partner at his own game. “Cohanim’s been using this cattle-breeding business as a cover for his real work.”

  Cas didn’t know if he really wanted to hear an answer to his next question. “Which is?”

  Marly could barely believe she was saying it aloud. “He’s mating the DNA from the oldest woman on Earth.”

  “He’s … what? Did you say mating?”

  She repeated her theory, slow enough for even him to understand: “He's mating the DNA … from the oldest woman on Earth … with the DNA that spawned human life … on this planet.”

  Cas glanced at the one-way mirror, then whispered, “Look, we’re getting out of here in a couple hours. You don’t have to play the insanity card.”

  Marly looked downright possessed. “Cohanim somehow managed to extract the ancient DNA from the Black Stone. That’s why he went to all the trouble and expense to have it stolen from Mecca and delivered to him, only to return it a few days later.”

  Cas fell motionless. The red in his face rose from his neck to his forehead like the mercury in a thermometer. With a sudden burst of anger, he spun and kicked a chair across the room. “And stealing our commission in the process!”

  “He must have seen that study back in the late Sixties,” Marly said. “When scientists found elements of RNA in the Murchison meteorite in Australia.”

  Cas was still kicking the chair, cursing and muttering promises of revenge.

  “How far back do Muslims believe the Black Stone dates?” she asked.

  He halted his raging fit long enough to look at her in astonishment. “From the time of Adam and Eve.”

  She nodded. “Which means that the Black Stone of Mecca must contain the first building blocks of DNA on Earth.”

  “You’re saying the Stone carried Adam’s DNA?”

  “I’m not saying it. The Bible and the Koran are saying it.”

  The two shared a stunned moment of silence.

  Then, Cas asked her, “But why would a Texas cattle rancher want DNA that old?”

  Marly pulled an imaginary cowboy hat down over her eyes and pawed at imaginary holstered guns at her sides, as if making a quick draw. “I don’t know, pardner, but I’m aiming to find out right fast.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  East Jerusalem

  AS THE FIRST RAYS OF the Judean dawn flashed against the golden Dome of the Rock, Cas hurried Marly toward a line of taxis that sat waiting beyond the Jaffa Gate. He kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting their old friend Isserle to show up at any moment with a small army of Mossad agents. Finally feeling safe enough to stop running, he pulled Marly into a niche in the giant ashlars that bordered the ancient Roman Citadel. “We’re not going another step until you let me in on the rest of this little theory of yours.”

  She didn’t look particularly motivated to elaborate.

  “Cohanim puts the Adam DNA and the Lucy DNA in the genetics batter and makes a pancake out of it. I get that. But why? Is he trying to come up with some kind of new, high-powered energy drink?”

  After a hesitation, she said, “I think he’s trying to clone something.”

  “Something? Okay, I’ll buy a vowel for two hundred, Vanna.”

  She turned away and mumbled, as if trying to blunt the impact. “God.”

  He leaned in, waiting for her to finish her thought. “God what? God almighty? God bless America?”

  She braced for the reaction. “Just God … I think he’s trying to clone God.”

  Cas couldn’t even dredge up a laugh. “How, exactly, do you figure that?”

  “The Bible says that God made Adam in His own likeness and image.”

  “Yeah, and … ?
”

  “It’s a simple logical syllogism. Adam looks like God.”

  “Following, so far.”

  “Adam has DNA.”

  “Of course he does.”

  “Therefore, God has to have Adam’s DNA, and Adam has to have God’s DNA. Get Adam’s DNA, and—wala!—you’re on your way to spawning the new black sheep sibling of the Trinity. … God the Holy Clone.”

  His jaw dropped.

  “Don’t say it.”

  “That’s utterly ridiculous. With the emphasis on ‘utter.’”

  Marly wasn’t laughing. “Apparently Bridget Whelan didn’t think so.”

  “If she was helping Cohanim,” he protested, “why would he kill her?”

  “Good question.”

  “Yeah, and one that I’m going to pose to that Texan pickpocket at the point of a shark knife when I catch him.” He inched his eyes around the corner. “But I’ll bet he’s long gone from here by now.”

  “I wouldn’t take that bet.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “How do you figure?”

  “There’s one critical element of Cohanim’s demented experiment that he’d still have to obtain in this part of the world.”

  He waited for the punch line.

  “A Semitic woman to impregnate with the God embryo.”

  He cocked his head sideways, still waiting.

  “A modern Virgin Mary.”

  “Whoa.” Blown away, he circled her, trying to make sense of it all. “You’ve got this whole thing figured out, don’t you? You know, I’m starting to think I’m either rubbing off on you, or you’re just a regular mad scientist.”

  “When was the Black Stone stolen from Mecca?”

  “Oh, I guess about—”

  “Not ‘about.’ I mean the exact date.”

  He dug deeper through the ashes of burned-out brain cells. “The Hajj last year was November Fourteenth. The Stone went missing exactly two weeks before. So, November First … but why does that matter?”

  “Today is June Thirtieth,” she said. “That's right at nine months.”

  Suddenly he understood. “Okay, stop for a second. Assuming your Dr. Yahwehstein somehow found a willing local woman to accept some super-holy baby oil into her womb, then you're saying that the birth could be any day now?”