Altar of Eden

by James Rollins

  Two Zodiac rafts floated in the shallows. Children were being loaded into the boats while Jack’s two teammates hauled his limp form.

  Was he still alive?

  She ran faster, knowing time was running out.

  As she reached the edge of the beach something snagged her wrist and hauled her around to stop. All that kept her on her feet was the viselike grip on her arm.

  The scarred male hominid had hold of her. She tried to yank her arm away, but his grip was iron. He twisted her around. She was ready to scream for help—when a shape stepped from behind a flowering bush. It was another of the hominids. The female. Her breasts were huge, her belly still big. Only she carried an infant in her arms now, a newborn from the look of it. She had swaddled it in a banana leaf.

  It was Eve’s child.

  The woman had given birth.

  The female came to her and held out her baby. Lorna shook her head, not understanding. Eve came closer, pushing the baby into her arms.

  “No . . .”

  The male shoved Lorna roughly from behind.

  Eve’s eyes pleaded with her.

  Lorna finally raised her arms and took the child. Eve turned and hid her face in her mate’s chest. He waved Lorna toward the beach, toward the boats.

  They wanted her to take the child.

  She backed a step, shifted the tiny baby under one arm. She motioned to them. “Come with us.”

  Her plea fell on deaf ears. The pair retreated together, back toward the forest. The other beasts followed.

  Lorna stumbled after them. “It’s not safe! Come with me!”

  The male turned and snarled at her, making it plain the discussion was over. Eve glanced back before vanishing into the shadows. Tears flowed down her face, but Lorna also read the peace in her expression.

  There would be no changing their minds.

  “Lorna!” Kyle had spotted her and waved. “Hurry up!”

  With no choice, Lorna cradled the child to her bosom and ran for the rafts.

  Kyle waited and helped her through the shallows. He frowned at her burden. “Is that a baby?”

  Lorna ignored him. She waded over to Jack’s boat. Half the children were there, along with Bennett. She passed the child up to the older man as she climbed into the boat with them.

  Bennett lifted a questioning eyebrow.

  “Eve’s child,” she explained.

  Bennett’s eyes widened as he glanced down at the baby. The other children gathered closer.

  The Zodiac’s pilot gunned the outboard engine and tore away from the beach. The other raft followed. The water in the cove was as smooth as glass. The boats took advantage and gathered speed, shooting across the surface.

  The fishing charter had already begun steaming away and had almost cleared the cove.

  Lorna turned to Jack’s sprawled body. The larger of his two companions sat with his slack form in the bottom of the boat.

  “He’s still breathing,” the man growled. “For now.”

  She placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder. Even through his clothes, she felt the feverish heat of his body. He continued to quake under her touch, locked in a continual seizure. It was burning him up.

  Before she could get a better assessment of his condition, a rumbling shook across the still waters of the cove.

  “Hang on!” the pilot yelled.

  Lorna turned as the villa blew apart, shattering outward in a massive explosion, most of it vaporizing into a thick black column of smoke. The column pushed high into the sky, glowing at the core with hellish fires. A hot wind washed over them as they raced away.

  But it wasn’t over.

  A secondary blast erupted, even stronger than the first. The entire top of the hill blew off this time, shoving the smoky column higher, curling it into a fiery mushroom cloud. Debris pounded into the water, some boulders as large as minivans. But the two rafts had fled far enough away. All that reached them was a large swell.

  It picked up their boat and sped them even faster out to sea.

  Lorna continued to stare as the island burned.

  She finally turned to the pilot, fearing for Jack. She had never taken her hand off him. “I need to get him over to that ship.”

  What she intended was too dangerous to attempt here.

  She prayed it wasn’t already too late.

  Bennett stared over at her. “What are you going to do with him? Like I said, no one’s ever survived.”

  “Duncan did.”

  Bennett was taken aback by her statement.

  Lorna needed to talk it through. “You said he was attacked back in Iraq, by one of the earlier incarnations of these altered forms. But he survived. So what made him different?”

  Bennett shook his head.

  “You told me Duncan’s injuries were so severe that he spent a week in a coma. That’s the difference. This deadly protein hyperexcites the brain. So the only way a brain could protect itself during such an assault was to turn itself off until the infection ran its course. I think that’s why Duncan never got sick.”

  Bennett frowned. “Then what are you going to do with Jack.”

  Lorna took a deep breath and stared over at the larger boat. Stating it aloud made it seem insane, but she had to face it.

  She turned to Jack and answered Bennett’s question.

  “I’m going to send him into a medically induced coma.”

  Chapter 61

  “You’re going to do what to my brother?”

  Randy’s voice cracked with disbelief.

  Lorna followed Jack’s body down into the ship’s hold. Mack carried him in his arms. His other teammate was receiving first aid for a bullet wound. The captain had offered Lorna the use of his cabin.

  Randy dogged her steps. As Jack’s only kin here, she had confided in him. He had a right to know, but from his terrified expression, maybe such honesty wasn’t appreciated.

  “I’m going to drug him,” Lorna said. “Send him into a coma and keep him there until a medevac helicopter arrives.”

  The ship had already radioed for help, but it would take hours for anyone to reach them. Jack would be dead by then. She had confirmed the prognosis with Bennett. Once the seizures started, patients died within the hour.

  It had to be attempted.

  Randy reached to his forehead, as if looking to adjust a ball cap that wasn’t there. His eyes shone with worry.

  Kyle followed behind him. “My sister knows what she’s doing.”

  Randy turned on him. “She’s a vet!”

  “And a darned good one!”

  They reached the captain’s cabin. Mack manhandled Jack inside.

  Out in the hall, Lorna turned to them. “Randy, you should stay out here. I promise I’ll do everything I can to save him.”

  Randy faced her, balanced between fury and fear. He lunged at her. She took a startled step back. But he only grabbed her in a bear hug.

  “Take care of my little brother,” he whispered in her ear, biting back tears. He straightened. “I know there’s bad blood between our families. But Jack trusts you. So I do, too.”

  Lorna nodded.

  Kyle took Randy’s shoulder. “Wanna beer while we wait?”

  Randy sagged, nodded, and turned with Kyle back toward the stairs.

  Lorna joined Mack in the captain’s cabin. The big man had Jack sprawled across the bed.

  “Need a hand?” he asked.

  “I could use the company,” she said, smiling wanly, not wanting to be alone.

  He sank to the bed beside Jack’s head. She placed the drug bottle down on the bedside table. It was labeled sodium thiopental. She had taken it from the Malik’s surgical supplies. It was a common anesthetic used in animals, and considering Malik’s research, she knew the lab would have a supply.

  But she intended to do more than just anesthetize Jack with it.

  For years, thiopental had also been used by medical doctors to send patients into an induced coma. Though the drug propofol was
employed more commonly today, thiopental was still useful in cases of brain trauma or swelling. The drug triggered a marked decrease in neuronal activity, which was the effect Lorna needed most right now.

  Jack’s brain was on overdrive.

  She had to turn that engine off.

  Working quickly, she prepped Jack’s arm and established a tourniquet. Ready, she picked up a syringe that she had preloaded with the thiopental.

  She met Mack’s gaze over his body.

  “You can do this,” he said.

  Swallowing back her fear, she inserted the needle, aspirated blood to make sure she had a good stick, then released the tourniquet.

  Slowly she pushed the plunger and sent the man she was growing to love into a coma.

  HALF AN HOUR later, Lorna stood on the stern deck of the ship. Mack continued to watch over Jack. She had needed to get some air. At least for a minute. Her body trembled with exhaustion and stress.

  Standing by the rail, she took deep breaths and stared out at the dark sea. Stars glistened overhead, but the moon had not yet risen.

  The scratch of a match made her jump.

  She turned and found Bennett seated on a deck chair. Lost in her own thoughts, she had failed to see him in the dark. He brought the match to his pipe. The tobacco glowed ruddily as he puffed it to life. He stood up and joined her.

  “How’s he doing?”

  Lorna sighed. “I don’t know. His fever’s dropped. The anesthetic has quieted his spasms. But I don’t know if he’s still even in there. He’s been seizing for a long time.”

  Bennett exhaled a stream of smoke. “You’re doing all you can do.”

  They stood quietly for a long moment.

  She needed to change the subject. “How’s the baby?”

  “Sleeping. We found some formula. The captain’s wife has a four-month-old. Lucky for that.” Bennett turned to her. “Eve’s baby is a little girl, by the way.”

  “How about the rest of the children?”

  “They’re all sleeping in there with her. I think they recognize one of their own and want to welcome her into the fold. Or maybe it’s just plain childish curiosity. Hard to say.”

  Silence stretched again, but Bennett was full of questions.

  “Why do you think Eve gave her up?” he asked.

  Lorna had pondered the same question. She couldn’t say for sure, but she could guess. “I think it’s the same reason they let us go . . . or rather let the children go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The baby’s pure. It’s neural net is still infantile. I think back at the villa the older ones recognized that the children were equally uncorrupted. In that moment of confrontation, the two hive minds met. One was pure and innocent, while the other had been tortured into psychosis. I think the older hive mind recognized that the younger ones were lost to them, that they could only offer poison and pain.”

  She remembered the agony and grief in Adam when one of the little ones had offered his hand.

  “So they did the only thing they could,” she said. “As a final gift and sacrifice, they let them go.”

  “What about afterward? Do you think they knew they were going to be killed?”

  She pictured Eve’s last expression. It had been full of peace and acceptance. “I think they did.”

  Bennett spent a long introspective moment with his pipe. He finally got around to the true question that had been troubling him.

  “Why did they protect me? It doesn’t make sense. The monsters were going to kill me.”

  “You may know that answer better than I.”

  He stared at her. Tears glinted in his eyes. He needed some direction. She didn’t know if he deserved it, but she took her example from the kids.

  “They protected me, too,” she said. “Though they can’t bond to us as intimately as they can with each other, I think they possess a strong sense of empathy. They sensed something in you worth saving.”

  “But what could that be? All that I did . . . all that I turned a blind eye to . . . and sometimes not even a blind eye.”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know. I can’t read your heart. But maybe they recognized the possibility of redemption in you. And amid all that bloodshed, they couldn’t let it be destroyed.”

  Bennett turned from her. He covered his face with his hands. His shoulders shook.

  “What have I done?” he sobbed softly.

  “That’s just it. It’s not what you did, but what you have yet to do.”

  As those words passed her lips she took them to heart herself. For so long, she’d let her past define her, to isolate her, to keep her trapped in a limbo of her own guilt. No longer. Jack’s last words came back to her.

  Tom’s gone.

  It was time for her to truly see that, to act on it.

  She prayed she still had the chance.

  Chapter 62

  The uptown campus of Tulane University rose amid clusters of turn-of-the-century mansions, magnolia-shaded parks, and college housing complexes. It was only a short ride on the St. Charles streetcar from Lorna’s Garden District home.

  Still, for the past three days, she seldom left the neurology department on the fourth floor of the Tulane Medical Center. She paced the hall outside the room, anxious for the neurologist to finish his exam.

  Jack had been airlifted here from the Thibodeauxs’ fishing boat. Lorna had gone with him during that flight, explaining to the doctors about his treatment. She glossed over many details but was honest about his condition.

  Half the hospital departments had been through Jack’s room. Once here, he had been switched to a propofol infusion to maintain his coma, his EEG was monitored around the clock, and his body was hooked to a battery of equipment.

  But today was critical. The doctors had been weaning him off the infusion all morning, slowly allowing him to wake while closely monitoring his EEG for any sign of continuing seizure activity. So far so good. But a bigger question remained.

  What was left of Jack?

  The neurologist seemed confident that there was no permanent brain damage, but after such an injury, he could make no guarantees. Jack could remain in a vegetative state or fully recover. But the doctor had warned that the more likely result was somewhere in between.

  So they waited.

  Randy sat down the hall with Jack’s mother and father. Kyle had gone down to the cafeteria to fetch them all more coffee. None of them had slept. In the trenches these past days, they had all grown closer.

  During their vigil, Lorna had finally shared the whole story of that night with Tom, of the loss of her baby, the attempted rape, Jack’s rescue, and its tragic conclusion. Once she started, it had poured out of her. There had been many tears, on all sides, but in the end, just as much healing.

  “You were just a child,” his mother had said, taking her hand. “You poor thing. Such a burden to bear all these years.”

  The door to the room finally swung open, and a cluster of white coats and nurses flowed out. The neurologist came over. Lorna tried to read some clue from his face. Jack’s family joined her.

  “We’ve taken him off the infusion,” the doctor explained with a sigh, “but we’re going to maintain a low-dose benzodiazepine drip as he wakes. We’ll also be monitoring his EEG and vitals.”

  “Can we sit with him?” Lorna asked.

  The doctor frowned at the large group. “One at a time.” He admonished them with a finger. “And not for too long.”

  Lorna turned to the family.

  Jack’s mother patted her arm. “You go on in, dear. You’re family now, too. Besides, if my boy wakes, he should see a pretty face first.”

  Lorna wanted to argue, but she allowed herself this moment of selfishness.

  She hugged Jack’s mother, then hurried through the door. Inside, a nurse stood by a bank of monitoring equipment. Lorna crossed and sat on a bedside chair. She had spent the night in that same seat, holding Jack’s hand, talki
ng to him, praying.

  She stared over at his pale face. She watched his chest rise and fall. Lines and tubes ran from under his sheets to machines that beeped and blinked. She leaned forward and took his hand.

  “Jack . . .”

  His hand twitched—causing her heart to jump. But was it in recognition or were the seizures starting again? Fearful, hopeful, she stood up, still grasping his hand. She leaned over him and stared down.

  His chest rose heavily, then he sighed loudly.

  His lids fluttered open, but his eyes remained rolled back.

  “Jack,” she whispered down at him. She placed her other palm on his cheek. “Please . . .”

  He blinked slowly—once, twice—then she found him staring back up at her. “Hey,” he whispered groggily.

  She squeezed his hand. “Hey yourself.”

  A ghost of a smile shadowed his lips. They just stared at each other. His eyes seemed to drink her in. Then his fingers tightened on hers with surprising strength. His expression became a mask of regret.

  “What I said before . . .” he said hoarsely, his voice raw with exhaustion and maybe something more.

  She stopped him. She understood the guilt buried in those two words.

  Tom’s gone.

  It had haunted both their lives, but it was time to free that ghost.

  She leaned down, brushed her lips against his, and whispered into his breath. “But we’re here.”

  Chapter 63

  Three months later, Jack was speeding down the waterway in his cousin’s airboat. The wind whipped his hair. His only companion, Burt, sat in the bow, his tongue lolling, his ears flapping. Jack guided the craft with deft ease and a light touch on the stick. He sat high in the pilot’s chair. The height allowed him to see over rushes, reeds, and bushes.

  It felt good to get away from the city, from the station house. He was also tired of needles, rehabilitation appointments, and psychological tests. Besides a residual numbness in his left hand and the need to take a low-dose anticonvulsant tablet once a day, he had fully recovered.

  Still, the best therapy of all could be found out here.

  As the midday sun glared off the water he took a deep breath of the rich bayou air, heavy and humid, redolent with brackish water, yet sweetened by sedges and summer flowers.