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by Judith Reeves-Stevens

  Now she knew that the object that fit within the silhouette of the Archer’s Bow had nothing to do with hunting. It was a meteorite with an impossibly ancient map of the solar system.

  Under her cousin’s watchful gaze, Jess turned page after delicate page of the old book, trying her best to look anew at each illustrated silhouette—the symbols of her faith. What object could possibly fit within the Branch? The Skull? The Blossom? What had been their purpose? And why had the dimensions of the Chamber of Heaven remained unchanged over millennia while the secret of its contents vanished?

  Jess felt her heart pound. Her fingers pulsed painfully with the same urgent rhythm. What she believed and what she knew had never been in conflict before.

  What if everything she’d been taught was a lie?

  “What are you thinking?” Su-Lin asked.

  Jess wasn’t ready to share the depth of her fears. Instead, she offered a question of her own. “Why keep this from the rest of the Family?”

  “Jessica, really. You know the answer to that.”

  “I don’t.”

  Su-Lin replied as if she were stating the most self-evident truth. “Because the Family would fall apart. As defenders, we can’t permit that. The Secret is what unites us. Not just the Twelve. Not just the 144. All of us. We’ve almost a thousand in the direct lines. Without a unifying purpose, the Family would have no reason to continue. Nine thousand years of unbroken history would come to an end.”

  Jess closed Lowell’s book, thinking of the locked cabinet in this library, filled with writings only a handful of people had ever read, even over millennia.

  “Has any defender ever lost faith? When they’ve learned the truth?”

  A momentary shadow seemed to cross Su-Lin’s calm face. “None that the Traditions record.”

  “Then how can you say what the rest of the Family would do? If everyone knew what we’ve lost, I believe they’d work tirelessly to rediscover it. A thousand scholars can do considerably more work than just the twelve of us.”

  Her cousin’s voice cooled. “A word of caution. If I, or any defender, has reason to think you’re going to betray our knowledge, you’ll be replaced . . .”

  Jess already knew about the two other “cousins” who would remain in reserve until she had children of her own: a twelve-year-old boy in Athens and a nine-year-old girl in Barcelona.

  “. . . or confined,” Su-Lin added.

  Confined? I’ve never heard of that . . . Jess felt the stirring of unease. “Has that ever happened before?”

  “As often as required.”

  Jess closed the book and spoke carefully, truthfully. “I’d never betray the Family.”

  “That’s right. You won’t.”

  The ensuing awkward silence was broken by Su-Lin. “Do you feel ready to go back into the world?”

  “Yes.” Jess had slept for almost twenty hours after the revelations in the shrine and her subsequent trip to the building’s infirmary. The three full days since then, spent shuttling between the Foundation’s residential quarters and the library, were more than enough time spent in limbo.

  Su-Lin slid a stiff brown envelope across the reading table. “Good. Your first assignment.”

  Jess opened the envelope. There was a large color photograph inside, apparently a blow-up from a driver’s license. It showed a young man, good-looking, somewhere in his twenties, rather long dark hair, unusual eyes. Caucasian, but his features suggested a mixed background of some kind: Native American, Chinese . . . Jess couldn’t tell. “Who’s this?”

  “His name’s David Weir. He works in a lab that does genetic analysis for the U.S. Armed Forces. On the side, he works for Holden Ironwood.”

  “Doing what?”

  “That’s what you’re going to find out.”

  There was only one reason Jess could think of that would explain why Su-Lin was giving her this assignment. “Did he have anything to do with Florian’s murder?”

  “It’s possible.” Su-Lin passed over two sheets of paper: addresses, phone numbers, a description of David Weir’s car. “Some of his expenses have been paid by the same company that handles Ironwood’s expeditions.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Ironwood surprised us in India, then Peru. We didn’t want it to happen again, so Emil’s been monitoring the expedition company, keeping track whenever it charters planes and boats, hires divers, pilots, what have you, for Ironwood. That’s how we learned about the South Pacific expedition. And why Florian caught up with them in days, not months.”

  Su-Lin tapped the photo. “But this man, he’s not expedition material. He’s never been out of the United States. Never published in any journals. Yet his expenses are being covered by the same company. If he has any connection to Ironwood’s temple expeditions, we want to know.”

  Jess studied the photograph of the young man, caught again by the odd cast to his eyes. “He works in genetics?”

  “That’s the work of the lab he’s in. He’s a technician. Low level.”

  “Archaeology and genetics. Is there a chance Ironwood recovered remains from any of the temples?”

  Su-Lin shook her head. “There was no indication of that in India or Peru, and the Polynesian site was underwater for a few thousand years at least. No bodies would survive that.”

  Jess scanned the printed sheets. Whoever he was, David Weir didn’t seem to have done much of anything.

  “Su-Lin, anyone can check this man out. I’d rather go to the South Pacific, see the temple for myself.”

  “You will. Just not yet. We’re putting together a full expedition to the atoll, with armed security.”

  Jess started to protest further, but Su-Lin held up her hand. “Think about what happened, Jessica. Florian’s death at a temple site could have several explanations, including involvement by Ironwood, but the attack on you . . . You must see the implications that concern us.”

  Implications? It took a moment for the realization to strike Jess.

  “I was next in line.”

  “Exactly. Everyone in the Family knows there are twelve defenders and each one has two or three potential successors.”

  “Everyone in the Family . . .” Jess felt suddenly cold.

  “No one outside the Family even knows that there are defenders, let alone who’s next in line.”

  “Unless someone from inside the Family . . .” Jess felt her throat tighten. “What do we do?”

  “Keep that suspicion to ourselves and move as quickly as we can to stay ahead of whoever it might be. Emil’s in charge of the internal search, and no one can know the details.” Su-Lin stood. “I’ll make arrangements for your travel.”

  Jess nodded, all protest gone now, understanding what her cousin had left unsaid.

  Someone in the Family was a traitor.

  TWELVE

  Late-night planes from Atlantic City International droned overhead, their lights flashing through breaks in heavy clouds the same color as the night sky. Their engines sounded distant, their power swallowed by thunder that still rolled up from the south. In the industrial park far below, the only thing moving or making a sound was a lone cable television installer, and he was completely out of place.

  The only buildings within sight were mostly derelict or run-down: a printing plant, a few low-rise brick office buildings with heavy wire mesh over cracked glass panels on their doors and ground-floor windows, and an old, U-shaped warehouse converted into storage rental units. It was just past eleven on a Saturday night, and every window on the poorly lit and rain-wet street was dark—no telltale blue glow of a working television anywhere.

  Still, there was a cable television van across the street from the courtyard parking lot of the converted factory. A sign on the back asked HOW’S MY DRIVING? Through small windows hidden in the dark areas of the van’s colorful images of happy customers, a full suite of optical, infrared, and acoustical sensors scanned the warren of rental units across the street.

&n
bsp; The van was the installer’s destination. He reached the back of the vehicle and knocked twice, directing his gaze at the hidden port where the camera was positioned.

  Then the rear latch clicked, and he yanked open the door and stepped up and into his office. The surveillance specialist gave him the bad news at once.

  “They’re talking about E.T. again.”

  Jack Lyle sighed as he settled into the swivel chair bolted to the floor of the van’s back compartment. When he had started this case, it was challenging but straightforward: A copy of one of the country’s most vital defense databases had been stolen, and the prime suspect was Holden Ironwood. All Lyle and his team of investigators had to do was prove who was responsible and stop him from selling it to America’s enemies. Surveilling a petty criminal like David Weir to use him as an informant against a major criminal and potential traitor like Ironwood was a tried-and-true investigative technique. A methodical exploitation of such an asset should have resulted in an open-and-shut case.

  Except for the damned aliens.

  Lyle worked for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations’ Region 7 detachment—the only detachment that didn’t cover a specific geographical territory. Instead, Region 7 ran operations around the globe, and Lyle’s cases routinely brought him into contact with the extreme cutting edge of the country’s most advanced—and most secret—defense-related technologies. Ironwood’s reputation as a notorious UFO fanatic was well known, and Lyle had initially discounted it for good reason.

  In countless interviews, he’d heard top scientists and engineers lament the fact there were no crashed saucers in hidden hangars, no antigravity machines to reverse engineer, and no other miraculous outer space technology that would make their jobs easier. So, if the people at the apex of America’s most advanced military R&D didn’t know about alien spacecraft, then those spacecraft did not exist. More to the point, if flying saucers did exist, it was dead certain the civilians in the government would be incapable of keeping that information secret for more than, oh, about ten seconds, let alone since 1947.

  Therefore, as far as Lyle was concerned, Ironwood’s eccentric beliefs had no bearing on the air force case against him.

  Until Weir and his nonhuman DNA came along.

  No one in the AFOSI, including Lyle, knew what the hell that was about.

  Colonel Kowinski had reported the genome on Weir’s computer was some up-to-now unknown combination of readily identifiable human DNA and not-so-identifiable nonhuman DNA. “Anomalous” was what the colonel called it, which to Lyle meant she didn’t have the personal expertise or resources to identify its origin.

  Naturally, Kowinski had pressed him to grant her lab staff the necessary clearance to study the mysterious genome, but he’d refused. The fewer people who were part of this investigation, the less likely Ironwood would learn about it.

  Kowinski had next made the case for him to bring in specialists of his own who already had top clearance. She went so far as to suggest this could be something of profound international and scientific value. She said the army would appreciate the air force’s interest and enthusiasm. Like that would ever happen.

  Lyle had refused again.

  He had a higher-priority goal: protecting America.

  That meant Holden Ironwood was first up, and all else was second—a decision that would make what was threatening to be a complex situation simple.

  Or so he kept telling himself.

  “How long this time?” Lyle asked.

  Del Chang looked properly apologetic as he glanced away from his bank of surveillance equipment. The young man had lost his left leg in Iraq, and though the army no longer wanted him, he still skinned his scalp like a boot-camp recruit. The net result was Chang looked even younger than he was. That made him a perfect fit with the rest of the team. Everyone was young but Lyle.

  Chang checked a notation he’d made in his duty log—a securely bound book with lined and numbered pages. “Ironwood called subject on subject’s mobile at 21:57 hours, sir. They’ve been talking for—”

  “An hour and six minutes,” Lyle said. Let’s see the kids do that without a calculator.

  “Right,” Chang confirmed. At least he didn’t sound surprised.

  Lyle looked to a monitor screen. He massaged his stiff knee, another unwelcome reminder of his own veteran status. Rain was not his friend these days.

  The monitor filled with a blurred and shimmering infrared image of David Weir in his “lab”—one of the smallest rental spaces in the converted warehouse across the street. According to the floor plan Roz Marano had obtained from city files, Weir’s unit came in at 102 square meters, about the floor space of a compact two-bedroom house, and apparently just big enough to house the equipment he needed to hunt Ironwood’s Martians.

  In the past fourteen days since his resignation from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab, David Weir had received deliveries here of approximately $130,000 worth of computer and lab equipment, all paid for by a subsidiary of Ironwood Medical Imaging Systems.

  Over that same period, Lyle and his technicians had painstakingly tracked every phone call, text message, and e-mail Weir had sent and received. So far, annoyingly, everything matched the deal Weir and Ironwood had agreed to in the D.C. hotel: The kid was to search for so-called nonhuman DNA sequences in the genetic records of millions of individuals. That meeting and that first conversation, and all subsequent conversations, had been equally bizarre. Wall-to-wall aliens. Hidden outposts. Government conspiracies.

  Lyle was convinced it had to be a smoke screen for something more down-to-earth: Ironwood’s real agenda. The billionaire had to be using Weir as the equivalent of the magician’s assistant, whose purpose was to distract the audience. Either way, whether the kid’s involvement was intentional, or he was an unwitting pawn, he was an accomplice—and accomplices could be turned.

  “Put them on speaker,” Lyle said. He needed to concentrate on something other than these tight and uncomfortable confines. The air in the van was hot and dry from all the electronics, and there was no room to stretch out his complaining knee.

  Chang flicked a switch, and Weir’s annoyed voice came through the grille above his panel. Simultaneously, a small screen began displaying a rapidly moving green trace, visually mapping two voices as they were recorded.

  Lyle settled back.

  Ironwood’s smoke screen couldn’t last forever. Eventually, someone would make a mistake.

  Someone always did.

  THIRTEEN

  “Because evolution proceeds by chance,” David insisted. “That’s why.” Before Ironwood could interrupt him again, he held his phone close and continued in one breath. “So it is impossible that the billions—no, make that trillions—of chance occurrences that led to the evolution of humans on Earth happened in exactly the same way on another planet.”

  David inhaled deeply and sat back in the rickety office chair he’d drawn up to his makeshift desk. The walls of his new lab were soot-stained red brick with heavy wooden beams. The not-so-clean floor was splotched and cracked slab concrete. The hanging light fixtures on the twelve-foot ceilings were antique fluorescents, buzzing and flickering, washing everything below in sickly green.

  He was a half hour and a world away from Ironwood’s luxury casino resort in Atlantic City: close enough to be convenient, far enough away not to cost real money. Bargains for billionaires, David thought. Being cheap was either how Ironwood got rich or how he stayed that way.

  “Two things wrong with that argument, Dave.”

  “Only two?” David tried to hide his frustration. Ironwood’s incessant calls were making it hard to work at all. Still, he’d kept his word and paid for the equipment David had requested.

  “First up, you’re assuming that biology itself is blind. But you have to admit it’s equally possible that it follows rules like every other science—universal rules. I mean, stars form wherever enough hydrogen clumps together, right? And that’s no matter
where or when. Why is that? Because those are the rules for how hydrogen behaves. So why can’t that be true about life? What if the rules of biology make it so only RNA and DNA can carry genetic information?”

  David winced and held the small phone away from his ear. Ironwood’s voice blared from the speaker.

  “What if only carbon-based life can get smart?”

  David knew this conversation wouldn’t end until Ironwood ended it. “So what’s the second thing wrong with my argument?”

  “Well, it just could be that Earth’s some kind of alien farm, and we’re the cattle.”

  David was glad he wasn’t having this conversation by video, so Ironwood couldn’t see him roll his eyes. “We’ve been seeded here, you mean.”

  “Seeded. Engineered. Hell, we could be a galactic art project for all I know. But the fact remains: If aliens created life on this planet, it stands to reason they used their own biology to do it. Which means,” Ironwood triumphantly concluded, “their DNA can interact with ours.”

  David wanted to pound his phone on the worktable. Instead, unable to let the argument go, he made a counterargument. “The only thing wrong with that hypothesis is that there’s absolutely no proof of it.”

  “You mean, there didn’t used to be proof—until you found it.”

  David’s jaw clenched. “I have to get to work.”

  “ ’Course you do. Got to know where they landed, and when.”

  “There’s going to be another explanation.”

  “Good man—spoken like a scientist. Doubt everything till you get the data that prove the hypothesis.”

  David mouthed a silent scream. “If the data exist.”

  “They exist, all right. Just ask the government.” Ironwood barreled on. “Work hard, Dave. You’ve got my money. I want your results.”

  Then, mercifully—dead air.

  David snapped his phone shut. What was it with people who didn’t know the difference between facts and supposition? And what was it with his own inability to simply walk away from an unproductive argument?