by Richard Edde
“Good morning,” he said, placing his coffee cup on the table. “Started early, eh?”
“Thought I would start processing the specimens before you got here. Rock from one tooth is all ready for the mass spec. It’s laying there on the table.” Dixie pointed to the glass tubing next to the Guidon unit.
“Great. Let me down this coffee, then I’ll help you.”
“Sleep well?” she asked.
He nodded, coffee cup at his lips.
Dixie smiled at him. “If you want to run the tooth material, I’ll prepare one of the leg bones. I know how you hate the tedious lab work, and I don’t mind.”
“Okay,” Harry said. “The sooner we can get the professor the raw data, the sooner he can come up with some dates.”
She picked one of the bones and began cleaning it while humming a tune.
“You sound pretty chipper this morning,” Harry said. “Must have had an erotic dream or something.”
“Stop it, mister,” Dixie said, scowling at him.
They both laughed and continued working. Dixie continued to hum her tune.
Harry took the Vycor glass tube and fastened it into the mass spectrometer’s inlet portal where it was vaporized by an electrical current. The resultant vapor, made up of various ions, was then pumped into the analyzing chamber where they were analyzed and quantified. The results were plotted on a curve for visual reference and the graph popped up on the computer screen. The conversion of this raw data into a usable age for the specimen was a complicated mathematical affair, best left to the larger computers back at Cal Pacific.
Harry pushed the start button and waited, while downing the rest of his coffee. He observed Dixie as she labored over the leg bone. She looked especially appealing this morning, with her freshly shampooed hair pulled into a bun. And she had applied a hint of makeup, something unnecessary on an archeological dig. He marveled at her delicate fingers as they ground bone fragments with the mortar and pestle. But the delicateness belied a strength that was characteristic of Dixie. In spite of her privileged upbringing, she was eager to do the heavy work of an expedition.
Today, knowledge of fossil ages came primarily from radiometric dating, also known as radioactive dating. Radiometric dating relied on the properties of isotopes--chemical elements, like carbon or uranium--which were identical, except for one key feature--the number of neutrons in their nucleus.
Usually, atoms had an equal number of protons and neutrons. If there were too many or too few neutrons, the atom was unstable, and it shed particles until its nucleus reached a stable state. The nucleus was like a pyramid of building blocks. If you tried to add extra blocks to the sides of a pyramid, they may stay put for a while, but they’d eventually fall away. The same was true if you took a block away from one of the pyramid’s sides, making the rest unstable. Eventually, some of the blocks would fall away, leaving a smaller, more stable structure.
The result was like a radioactive clock that ticked away, as unstable isotopes decayed into stable ones. You couldn’t predict when a specific unstable atom, or parent, would decay into a stable atom, or daughter. But you could predict how long it would take a large group of atoms to decay. The element’s half-life was the amount of time it took for half the parent atoms in a sample to become daughters.
To read the time on this radioactive clock, scientists used a device called a mass spectrometer to measure the number of parent and daughter atoms. The ratio of parents to daughters could tell the researcher how old the specimen was. The more parent isotopes there were--and the fewer daughter isotopes--the younger the sample.
The mass spectrometer hummed and, with a beep, churned out a graph that displayed numerous peaks and valleys. Harry jotted the numbers in a notebook, saved the graph into a computer file, and refilled his coffee mug. When Dixie had the second specimen ready for the mass spec, he fitted the tube on the inlet and repeated the process. It was late morning when they had collected and recorded the last of the data. Dixie cleaned up while Harry walked back to the command tent. A brilliant sun was high in an azure-blue cloudless sky.
Along the way, Li joined him. “Finished with the specimens?” he asked as the two continued to walk.
“Got the data right here, as well as saved in the computer,” Harry said, patting his notebook. “I’m going to send the graph and numbers to the Professor right away. It’s late back home but I know he’s waiting eagerly to hear from me.”
“Where do we go from here, Harry? I gave the workers the morning off as you wished, but they’re going to want to know. What do I tell them?”
In the command tent, Harry sat at the computer and turned it on. “Well, for starters, it’s business as usual. Get them back to working, according to our original schedule. Then we’ll see.”
Li sat opposite him and shook his head. “What do you really think about these specimens, boss? Think they could turn out to be something big?”
“The mystery is intriguing, Li. Why would a Soviet military plane be carrying old bones and teeth? And to where? From where? Just how old is the plane? The questions are endless, but I’m not sure any of the answers are pertinent to us being here. After I’ve talked with the professor, I’ll have a better idea of where we’re going.”
***
Rutherford Eastwood sat behind his massive desk with a copy of the New York Times in front of him. Across the desk, ensconced in a burgundy leather chair, was Ben Doyle, his chief of security operations. Doyle was a large-framed, muscular man in his mid-forties who had a scarred and pockmarked face from an IED while serving in the Iraq War. After recovering from the injury, he had been transferred to the army military police corps which reported directly to the provost marshal general. Doyle had quit the service with the rank of captain after a disagreement with a superior officer nearly got him court martialed. Doyle was vacationing in the Bahamas for the past few weeks, recovering from Eastwood’s latest venture in Saudi Arabia, and had not sounded happy when Eastwood had summoned him to New York. But Doyle was all smiles as the two men chatted amicably about his fishing excursions in the clear waters around Eleuthera.
At a break in Doyle’s story, Eastwood picked up the Times and smiled. “Look at this article, Ben.” He passed the paper to Doyle. “I’ve circled it.” He lit a cigar and sat back in his chair while Doyle read the newspaper article.
A few minutes later, Doyle handed the paper back, nodded, and waited for Eastwood to continue.
“This looks interesting, Ben. These guys in Mongolia may have stumbled onto something.”
“This Dr. Kesler, he’s leading the expedition?”
“No. He is a well-known anthropologist at California Pacific University in San Francisco. Heads the department there. His colleague is in Mongolia, leading the expedition.”
“They’re looking for human fossils?” Doyle asked.
“Hominids, Ben. Hominids. Human ancestors. They may have stumbled onto something interesting and possibly lucrative for BioGen.”
Doyle shifted in his chair. “What’s on your mind, sir?”
“Whatever it is could be worth a lot of money. Human fossils always make the news, Ben. Something that changes the way science looks at mankind would be worth a fortune. Especially if it were a human skeleton.”
“I never understood why fossilized bones are such a big deal to these scientists,” Doyle said. “I just don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to get it,” Eastwood retorted, flicking the cigar’s ash in a crystal ashtray. “You just have to trust my judgement.”
“You’re thinking of appropriating their discovery?”
“Great choice of words, Ben. We’ll let them process whatever it is, then move in and take it off their hands. That will be your responsibility. I want you to start getting your team ready to fly over there and begin surveillance. If they unearth what looks like an important relic, you are to notify me.” Eastwood’s intercom buzzed. He laid the cigar in the ashtray.
“There’s a
Mr. Sawyers on the line, sir,” a soft, female voice crackled. “He said he was an assistant with the White House.”
“The White House?” Eastwood said, eyebrows raised. “What in the world?” He put the phone on speaker. “This is Eastwood.”
Doyle excused himself and left the office.
“Mr. Eastwood, this is Garrett Sawyers. I’m an administrative assistant to the president. How are you?”
“I’m fine. How can I help you?”
“I’m calling, Mr. Eastwood, to inform you of the formation of a presidential charity commission. He has formed this commission to investigate compliance by charitable organizations with government regulations and make recommendations on how to improve oversight. He has chosen you to head this commission if you would be willing.”
Astonished Eastwood sat silent, momentarily speechless.
“Mr. Eastwood,” Sawyers asked, “did you hear me?”
“I’m flattered, Mr. Sawyer, but how did the president arrive at my name, if I may ask?”
“Well, the fact that BioGen International is a Fortune 500 company didn’t hurt. The fact that you built the company yourself without much outside help was the clincher.”
“Like I said, I’m flattered but I really don’t know.” Eastwood puffed again on the cigar. Acrid smoke swirled above him.
“I perfectly understand, sir. The president would like to meet with you personally and describe his ideas more fully. Would that be acceptable?”
“The President wants to meet with me?” Eastwood’s voice betrayed his excitement, though he tried to hide it. “Of course. I can find the time to come to DC. When would you suggest?”
“How about next week sometime? I can have my secretary call when the president’s schedule is put together.”
“That will be fine, Mr. Sawyer. I look forward to meeting him.” Eastwood leaned back and smiled. A gray haze hung over the East River, making Brooklyn barely visible. A meeting with the President of the United States. How far I have come, indeed.
***
Harry was on a satellite video conference call with Professor Kesler. Dixie and Li sat around the table, staring at the laptop’s monitor. It had taken several attempts before a clear and audible transmission signal had been found. They worked with impatience, trying to get Kesler’s wrinkled face to appear on the screen.
“Harry, about the age of the specimens. Are you ready for this? Approximately one hundred thousand years old. And I have examined the photos over and over meticulously, and they definitely are not Homo. Not modern human.”
“Wow,” Dixie said, surprise showing on her face.
“And they are nothing like the Neanderthals, either. That is way too late to be a hominid predecessor. At that age, I don’t know what else they could be, other than a Homo species or a Neanderthal, but the specimens don’t fit into either category. I haven’t done a mitochondrial DNA analysis so they could turn out to be something along the lines of the Denisova fossils. At our current knowledge, there isn’t anything else living in that time frame. Then, too, they could belong to a species entirely new and different, heretofore unknown. Of course, I need to wait on a final opinion until I examine the actual specimens.
“I don’t know if you are aware, but K40 decays to non-radioactive Ar40. Argon is a gas and escapes into the atmosphere as soon as it forms, unless it’s trapped in solid rock. With igneous rock formed from magma, argon escapes from the magma. Therefore, any Ar40 trapped in such rocks has accumulated since the rock solidified. By careful measurement of the amounts of K40 and Ar40 in igneous rock, it is possible to determine how long it has been since that rock formed.”
“Professor, this is Li. Those specimens were found on the airplane so they, in all likelihood, are not even from around here. We don’t really know why they were on the aircraft, where they came from, or where they were going. Who knows how long the plane has been here? The cap found near it is from before the dissolution of the old Soviet Union so the plane has been here at least fifteen years. Skeletons of the pilot and copilot are still strapped in their seats.”
“Well, that does pose a problem, doesn’t it?” Kesler said, his smile twisting into a grimace. “If that’s the case, then I suppose you need to keep digging and see what else turns up. Not being able to determine the exact origin of these specimens makes them almost useless at this juncture.”
“We are eventually going to have to inform the Mongolian authorities,” Harry said.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Harry,” Kesler argued.
“Why?” Dixie interjected. “They’re going to have to know eventually.”
“And have a bunch of uninformed lay people tramping all over the site, contaminating it?” Kesler said, his tone noticeably irritated.
“I think we can hold off on that for a little while longer, Professor,” Harry said.
Chapter 6
Dr. Kesler turned out the light in his office and walked out of the Physical Sciences Building to the parking lot. After leaving the university campus, he started the drive down the peninsula to his home in San Mateo. The stars hung like silver jewels in a black-velvet sky. Over the quiescent waters off to his left, an orange moon rose above the bay, the moonlight filtering across the water in shimmering waves of light. Once he passed the San Francisco International Airport, the highway hugged the coastline, coursing south then southeast. US 101 was the most historic highway in California. It followed the route the Spanish explorer Juan Gaspar de Portola followed in 1769, which later became El Camino Real, the King’s Highway. This historic road connected the twenty-one California missions and served as the main north/south road in California until the 1920s. The missions were constructed about thirty miles apart, which was one day’s journey by horseback, and the local padres lined the road with mustard seeds to mark the trail with bright yellow flowers.
Passing Candlestick Park, Kesler noticed a large two-masted sailboat moored in the bay with its lights reflecting in the water.
The events of the evening had left him confused but curious. He had rechecked his calculations on the computer numerous times but the results were the same. The bones were one hundred thousand years old, no doubt about it. Unless Harry and Dixie had made some mistake and Kesler doubted that possibility--for they were top-notch scientists. He switched on a Mozart symphony that was in the CD player and tried to concentrate on the music.
Kesler was Lithuanian by birth. He had escaped Europe, during the Nazi occupation of 1941, when a hundred thousand of his countrymen were murdered. Following the German Army, as it swept through the country, were the Nazi killing squads who began organizing the systematic murder of Jews. His parents took him to live with a non-Jewish family and they cared for him until the end of the war.
His mother and father were sent to Sobibor Concentration Camp and died there. His adopted family traveled to the States and Kesler finished high school in Baltimore. Educated at Penn and Harvard University, Julius Kesler had forged a career in anthropology and paleontology and become one of the country’s leading researchers in the field. He once fell in love with a beautiful graduate student while at Harvard and, for a year, they’d lived a bohemian life together, partying, studying, listening to music, going to the opera. But one day she up and left him for a well-to-do professor of humanities and they got married. Kesler wasn’t even invited to the wedding. The experience left him soured on the opposite sex. Although he could still appreciate their wit and beauty, he wasn’t about to enter into another love affair. He wasn’t much for entertaining or working the social set and spent his spare time on his hobbies of photography and coin collecting.
He had come to California Pacific University from Harvard at the request of his former dean, who was now the school’s president. Prior to Harry joining his research team, Kesler had gained national prominence with the discovery of a new hominid species, Ardipithecus Sensus, with an almost complete skeleton located in Ethiopia. It had caused an international sensation,
modifying the way scientists looked at human evolution. Those days were long past, and Kesler ached for a new, earth-shaking discovery.
Kesler pulled his SUV into the drive of his San Mateo home and killed the motor. Headlights from a large vehicle shone through the rear window, blinding him. He removed the key from the ignition but, before he could open the door, two dark figures opened it and yanked him out. He fought to get a look at their obscured faces but they were muscular and forced his arms behind him.
“What the hell,” he yelled, pain shooting into his shoulders.
“Shut up and you won’t get hurt,” said one of the dark figures.
The two figures manhandled Kesler and shoved him into the rear seat of a dark Suburban. One of the figures piled in beside him, a bandana in his hand.
“Tie this over your eyes, sit still, and don’t say a word. Move and you’ll get a bullet in your brain.”
Kesler did as commanded. The car’s interior smelled of new leather, while the man next to him reeked of stale cigarettes and alcohol.
He felt the other man jump behind the wheel. The SUV lurched out of Kesler’s driveway and sped away, lurching first in one direction, then another. He heard several car horns blast as they careened around a corner, hit a bump, slowed for a second, then accelerate again. His impression, by the turns the truck made, was that they were traveling north, back toward San Francisco.
His abductors did not say a word and Kesler decided to remain silent. He was dazed by the suddenness of the event and confused as to how he should act. Should he put up a struggle? Fight for his life? Not knowing what would happen next caused his hands to sweat and a pain to well up deep in his chest.