Altar of Eden

by James Rollins

  He nodded. “It’ll take that long to put a team together anyway. Trackers, hunters, people who know the coastal region of the delta. I’ll bring along my SRT.”

  She glanced at him for explanation.

  “Special Response Team.” Jack nodded to the white patrol boat moored off the other island. “The Border Patrol’s equivalent of Special Forces.”

  “In other words, Border Patrol commandos?”

  “They’re good men,” he said a bit too defensively, only realizing afterward that she was gently joking with him.

  Flustered, he turned away.

  A flurry of activity was going on across the water. The Fish and Wildlife boat—a foil-supported catamaran—had arrived and anchored offshore. The wardens and border agents were busily ferrying cargo from the trawler’s hold.

  “Let’s get back over there,” Lorna said.

  Jack heard the desire in her voice, plainly anxious to oversee the offloading herself. She had left the jaguar cub on his boat, cradled in an empty fishing tackle box.

  They were wading toward the Zodiac—when the fishing trawler exploded.

  Chapter 6

  Knee-deep in water, Lorna watched in horror as the trawler’s hull shattered outward in a blast of fire and smoke. Its wooden fishing booms went sailing high, trailing flaming nets. Debris scattered over the island and out to sea.

  Along with bodies.

  She covered her mouth.

  How many had been aboard the trawler?

  Burning planks and wreckage rained down upon the two anchored patrol boats. Shouts and screams echoed over the water. Smoke roiled high into the blue sky.

  Jack grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the Zodiac.

  They climbed into the pontoon boat and shoved off. Jack yanked on the outboard’s starter, and seconds later, they were flying across the waters. He had the radio to his ear. She listened to his end of the conversation.

  Confusion still reigned, but command filled his voice. “Call back that chopper! Let emergency services know we’re coming in with wounded.”

  Across the way, the broken husk of the trawler smoldered on the beach. The other two boats circled the nearby waters, searching through the floating wreckage and flaming pools of oil. Survivors fished bodies out of the water.

  Jack opened the throttle and shot the Zodiac back to the island.

  Lorna pointed to a figure rising out of the surf. It was one of the Border Patrol agents. He struggled to his knees, cradling one arm. Blood ran down his face from a scalp wound. He looked stunned, in shock.

  “Jack! Over there!”

  He responded and swung the Zodiac in the man’s direction. They sped over and collected the injured man. It was the agent who had passed Jack the flashlight earlier. His arm was broken, clearly a compound fracture from the white bone poking through his sleeve.

  Lorna held a fistful of rags to his forehead, stanching the bleeding.

  “Where’s Tompkins?” the man asked, bleary-eyed. “He . . . he was still on the upper deck.”

  They searched the waters. The wounded agent tried to stand in the Zodiac, but Jack barked for him to stay seated.

  Lorna noted Jack squint toward the beach one last time and away again. Only then did she spot a body sprawled near the tree line. Smoke steamed from his burned clothes. A dark stain flowed into the sand. The body was missing an arm and half its skull.

  Jack met her gaze as he swung around. She read his expression.

  Tompkins.

  Lorna felt tears swelling—not in grief but at the senselessness of it all. “What happened?” she whispered to herself.

  Still, Jack must have heard her as he cut the engine and let the Zodiac drift up against his patrol boat. The pontoons bumped them to a stop. “A dead man’s switch,” he answered cryptically as men scrambled down to help carry the injured agent up to the deck of the boat.

  Another replaced Jack at the rudder of the Zodiac, ready to continue the search for survivors. Jack was needed above, to take command. Lorna followed him up the ladder.

  The open deck had been converted into a triage hospital. The uninjured tended to the wounded. Some sat up; others were flat on their back. She also noted one form covered over with a tarp.

  Without being told, Lorna headed to the emergency medical kit on the deck. She began to administer first aid, using her medical skills as best she could, moving from patient to patient. Shortly thereafter, a Coast Guard rescue helicopter and a Life Flight air ambulance flew in and began loading the most critical cases.

  Word slowly spread of the number of casualties.

  Three dead.

  A horrible number, but it could have been worse.

  The Border Patrol boat began its journey up the Mississippi, followed by the Fish and Wildlife catamaran. A newly arrived Coast Guard cutter remained behind to secure the area and keep it cordoned off until a forensic team could sweep the wreckage.

  Lorna stood by the bow rail, letting the wind cool the sweat from her brow, but it did little to ease the tension or shock. Amid the chaos, she had focused on her work, staying professional, turning her full attention upon a laceration, a concussion, a broken bone. It was a crutch she used to get through the morning. The remaining injured were now stable and monitored by a Coast Guard doctor.

  Once she was no longer needed, the weight of the tragedy settled over her. She hugged her arms around her chest. What if I’d still been in the hold with Jack . . . what if we hadn’t gone to the island?

  She suddenly sensed someone behind her and glanced back.

  Jack stood a few steps away, as if unsure if he should disturb her.

  She appreciated his civility, though it irritated her a little, too. Did he think she was that fragile? She nodded to him to join her. She wanted answers, some explanation that would allow her to sleep at night. She hoped he could give it.

  He came forward. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this. If I had known—”

  “How could you have known?” She turned to study the shoreline as Jack joined her at the rail. A long stretch of silence followed as each tested their footing with the other.

  “What do you think happened?” she finally asked. “The explosion. Earlier you had a theory. Something about a dead man’s switch.”

  He made a noncommittal sound at the back of his throat. “We’ll need a demolition expert to confirm it. But while you were working here, I inspected the wreckage. Looks like the fuel tank exploded. Maybe triggered by some sort of fail-safe.”

  “Your dead man’s switch.”

  He nodded. “Someone else knew about that boat. The cargo had to come from somewhere, had to be headed somewhere. After the storm, when no word reached that other party, they must have triggered the fail-safe by radio.”

  “To destroy the cargo.”

  “And cover things up.”

  His words reminded her of her other responsibility. “The animals . . . how many made it?”

  “Unfortunately, the team only had time to ferry off a handful of the animals before the explosion. The parrot, the pair of monkeys, the lamb. They also managed to salvage that clutch of python eggs. But the snake and all the rest were lost.”

  “We also have the jaguar cub.”

  “That’s right. I hadn’t forgotten. Despite all that happened, there’s another survivor to worry about.”

  “The cub’s mother.”

  “She’s still out there somewhere. As soon as we hit New Orleans, I’ve got to arrange a search party.”

  “And in the meantime, I’ll set in motion the genetic studies necessary to figure out exactly what happened to those animals, try to ascertain who might have been capable of all this.”

  “Good. I’ll call tomorrow to see what you found.”

  He began to turn away, but she grabbed his arm.

  “Wait, Jack. I can have everything set up at ACRES before nightfall.”

  His brow crinkled in confusion, not understanding the implication behind her words.
r />   “I’m going with you tonight,” she said.

  His crinkles failed to smooth. If anything, they grew deeper.

  She sighed in exasperation. “When you go hunting for the cat, I’m coming along.”

  He stared hard at her, his features turning granite. “No. There’s no need for you to come. It’ll be too dangerous.”

  Anger warmed through her—and a part of her appreciated feeling anything after so much death. She took strength from that.

  “Look, Jack. I’ve hunted big game before. I’m an expert marksman with a tranquilizer gun.”

  “So am I—and I’m not talking about a tranquilizer gun. And I know the bayou better than you.”

  “And I know big cats better than you.”

  “Lorna—”

  “C’mon, Jack. Be reasonable. If I were a man, would we even be having this conversation? You told me that you were going to put together a team of experts: trackers, hunters, your Special Response Team. I’m offering you my expertise.”

  He looked ready to argue, but she refused to back down—and not out of pride.

  “I know big cat behavior better than anyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line.” She stared him square in the eye. “My knowledge could save someone’s life. You know that. Or is preserving your male ego worth someone dying over?”

  She knew those last words weren’t fair. Her anger had gotten the best of her. Though before she could take her words back, Jack turned away.

  “Be ready by dusk,” he said and stalked off.

  Chapter 7

  Hours later, Lorna stood inside the isolation ward of the veterinary hospital at ACRES. Power was back up. The overhead lights shone brightly off the bank of stainless-steel cages climbing one wall. The ward had been commandeered in order to quarantine the animals recovered from the trawler.

  Only five left . . . along with the clutch of eleven python eggs.

  Dressed in scrubs, she cradled the jaguar cub in the crook of her arm and held a bottle of milk. It suckled and gnawed at the rubber nipple, eyes closed. A low growl flowed whenever she jostled him too much. Hungry little fella. It was his third bottle of milk since arriving here six hours ago.

  She had spent most of her time here and was glad to do it. After all the death, there was a balm in spending time with the animals, to get them settled, examined, and fed. As always, she drew comfort and consolation in caring for her patients.

  As a scientist, she understood why. There had been thousands of studies of the human—animal bond, how petting a cat lowered a person’s blood pressure, how visiting dogs got bedridden hospital patients to respond and revive. While no one could quite explain this bond, it was real and quantifiable.

  But for Lorna, it ran even deeper than that. When surrounded by animals, she felt more herself, more alive, even her senses seemed more acute: noting the milky smell of a puppy’s breath, the coarse feel of a cat’s tongue on the back of her hand, the rumble of a frightened dog, more felt under her palm than heard. She had always been that way, going back to childhood. From third grade on, she knew she wanted to be a veterinarian. And over time, while other colleagues grew jaded, her bond only grew stronger.

  As Lorna continued to feed the cub, she walked the bank of kennels. The conjoined monkeys shared a middle cage. The two were clutched together, asleep, nestled in a warm pile of towels. She noted the small white bandages over their elbows where they’d collected blood samples and run intravenous fluids to hydrate the mistreated pair. A steel dish in a corner held a pile of monkey chow, along with slivers of fresh bananas.

  Lorna had already reviewed the medical file hanging on a clipboard below the cage. Their blood chemistries and CBC were unremarkable. Mild anemia and elevated liver enzymes, most likely from prolonged malnourishment. But despite the terror of their new surroundings, the pair had eaten well after their initial tests.

  She noted that someone had already filled in the space for the patients’ names. They had scribbled in Huey and Dewey.

  She smiled. So much for professional detachment. But she could hardly complain. She rocked the cub in her arm like a baby. She had named him Bagheera after the panther from Kipling’s Jungle Book.

  Still, despite the endearment of names, the facility had a mystery to solve concerning these animals. Someone had gone to some effort to produce this bizarre cargo. Blood had been shed to cover it up. But why and to what end—and more importantly who were they?

  Lorna sensed that answers were locked within these animals. Shortly after arriving, each had undergone a thorough physical exam, including a full-body Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan. The MRI data was still being compiled by a new computer-modeling program, which used the data to produce three-dimensional images of all internal organs. She was anxious to see the results.

  What other genetic abnormalities might they find?

  At the back of the ward, a hay-lined run held the small lamb, a little girl. She lay in a pile of straw, looking forlorn without her mother. Large brown eyes stared at Lorna as she passed. She was worried about the lamb. So far she had refused to nurse off a bottle.

  Before Lorna could ponder other ways to get the lamb to suckle, a loud irritated squawk drew her attention to the final patient. She turned to the last survivor of the trawler. An avian expert on staff determined the bird to be a male African Grey parrot, a species from the rain forests of West and Central Africa. Though without any feathers or plumage, that identification remained far from certain. The judgment was based on the bird’s characteristic white irises. Set against black pupils and gray-green skin, the color pattern made the eyes excessively expressive.

  She knew he wanted out of the cage. The parrot had already escaped once. Shortly after arriving here, he had used his beak and claw to flip the door latch and swing it open. They found the bird atop the bank of cages, screaming whenever anyone came close. They’d had to use a net to capture him and return him to his kennel, its door securely locked now.

  “Sorry, Charlie,” she said as she stepped closer.

  The parrot leaped to the front of the bars and flashed its eyes, black pupils waxing and waning in anger.

  “Igor!“ the bird screamed at her in an eerily human voice. “Igor . . . good, Igor . . . Igor, Igor, Igor . . .”

  Lorna realized what he was trying to communicate. She smiled. “So my little man, you’re Igor.” She stressed the last word, clearly his name.

  His eyes stopped flashing. The bird cocked his head back and forth, studying her more quizzically, like someone debating whether to share a secret.

  The name was disturbingly fitting. Igor was Dr. Frankenstein’s deformed assistant. Someone out there had a black sense of humor.

  The parrot turned his head to the side, staring at her with one eye. “Want to go. Go away. I’m sorry.”

  A chill crept through with his words. She knew psittacine species, which included all parrots, had a brain-to-body ratio equal to that of chimpanzees. Parrots were the smartest of all birds with the cognitive capacity, according to some studies, of a five-year-old child.

  Igor’s nervous words reminded her of the famous case study of Alex, an African Grey parrot owned by Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a professor of psychology at Brandeis University. Alex wielded a vocabulary of a hundred and fifty words and showed an amazing ability to solve problems. He could answer questions, count numbers, even understood the concept of zero. And more than that, the bird could also express his feelings quite plainly. When Alex had been left at a veterinary hospital for a surgical procedure, he had pleaded with his owner: Come here. I love you. I’m sorry. I want to go back. Igor’s words here in the isolation ward echoed eerily that same cognition and understanding.

  Curious, she moved to place the jaguar cub back into its cage. The cub had finished the bottle and was already contently half asleep.

  Igor continued to watch her, tracking her as she returned Bagheera to a woolen nest of blankets. Once she had the cub settled, she crossed back to the parrot and leaned closer
.

  She spoke softly. “Hello, Igor.”

  “Hello,” he mimicked back and climbed up and down the bars, still clearly nervous with his new surroundings.

  She struggled to think of a way to help calm him—then remembered her visit to the trawler’s hold and had a sudden inspiration. She slipped a PDA out of her pocket and keyed up the calculator. She pressed the icon for a familiar Greek letter.

  Once ready, she asked, “Igor, what is pi?”

  The parrot froze on the cage door, eyed her again, then hopped back to his wooden perch. He stared at her with one eye, then the other.

  “C’mon, Igor. What is pi?”

  He squawked again, his head jogged up and down a couple of times, then he began a familiar recitation. “Three one four one five nine two six five . . .”

  His head continued to bob with each number, rhythmic and regular. She stared at her calculator’s display. It was the mathematical constant pi. The number sequence was correct. The parrot’s nervous shivering slowly settled as he continued, passing beyond the number of digits on her PDA’s display. He sank low to his perch and crouched over his claws, clearly finding some solace in the concentrated repetition, like someone knitting or an old man working a crossword puzzle.

  He went on and on, slipping into an almost hypnotic rhythm.

  She lost count of the number of digits he spouted.

  It had to be well over a hundred.

  She didn’t know if the continuing sequence was just nonsense, but she planned on repeating the test at the first opportunity. She listened for several minutes in stunned silence, recognizing she would need pages and pages of the mathematical constant to see if the bird was correct.

  How long a sequence has he memorized? And who taught him?

  Before she could consider this further, the door to the isolation ward pushed open with a soft pop of its double seals. Igor immediately fell silent. She turned as the lanky figure of Dr. Carlton Metoyer strode into the ward.

  “Carlton,” she said, surprised by the director’s unannounced visit. “What are you doing down here?”