by Ted Kosmatka
Gavin nodded.
“This one’s a cross of a lion father and a tiger mother. Nine feet long and still growing, as far as we can tell. Like a tiger, it swims. There’s also a lesser-utilized cross—the tiger father and lion mother. This makes a completely different animal, did you know that?”
“No.”
“The tigon isn’t as large. They tend to have darker fur and smaller manes. They’re also less social and behave more like tigers, but they do something true tigers don’t. Do you know what that is?”
“No.”
“They roar.”
The old man stared through the bars. His face made an expression that might have been a smile. “We house a lot of animals here at the facility.” He swept his arm wide. “I’ve been called a collector, but that isn’t true. Collectors wish only to possess, but there’s work being done here. Important work. We do things here, you understand.”
“Yes.”
At that moment, a cry rose up from the distance—a strange sound that Gavin couldn’t place. It came from somewhere around the next bend of the trail, from a different series of cages no doubt, nestled somewhere farther out on the grounds. At first the sound seemed to be the howl of a wounded dog, or perhaps a monkey. But it changed as it rose in pitch, transforming into a screech of anguish.
Gavin looked to the old man for an explanation, but the old man offered only, “There are places here where the work is lost. Places I don’t visit anymore.”
It was then that Gavin noticed the bucket. It sat in the trampled grass by the old man’s feet, white plastic, a five-gallon bucket coated in gore, dried blood and fat accreted along the lip and sides. The old man followed Gavin’s gaze and bent toward the bucket, reaching inside. He pulled out a thick slab of dripping red meat. He held the meat in his gnarled hands for a moment, its bulk sagging in the middle like one of those novelty steaks served as marketing ploys in certain kinds of restaurants: five or six pounds, finish it in an hour and your meal is free.
With a grunt of effort, the old man tossed it through the bars, into the cage.
The giant cat lumbered forward and sank its teeth into the flesh. Its mouth jerked twice, movements too quick to follow, and the meat was gone. The old man continued, “Years ago, when I first started my work, I didn’t truly understand the scope of what I’d undertaken. It was after graduate school, before the genetics boom, back before cytology caught my interest. I was unsure of the direction I wanted to take. I had only questions, and no clear path before me by which I might someday arrive at the answers.”
Gavin tried to picture Martial Johansson unsure of anything. His imagination failed him.
“Working with animals reveals many things about nature,” the old man continued. “Animals, you see, will develop a compromise with captivity.” And here Martial paused; he bent and pulled from the bucket another dripping slab of meat. His hands were coated in blood. “With enough time, they come to understand it. They need to eat, after all.”
Martial tossed the second slab of meat through the bars, and the big cat snatched it out of the air with paws the size of dinner plates. It gulped the meat down in a single swallow. The big cat’s head came up, and its eyes locked on them through the bars. Huge tan eyes—a liquid predator stare that raised the hair on Gavin’s arms. The big cat began to pace.
“But not so with the lion,” Martial continued. He gestured through the bars. “The lion is different from other animals. The lion is an animal with whom no compromise is possible.”
The old man kicked the white bucket over and blood poured out, draining into the grass. A clutch of black flies sprang from the bucket and circled angrily as the old man bent and picked up a last chunk of meat. “I came to realize that for the lion, its hatred outweighed its need for food.” Martial gestured toward the cage again. “Like this big beast’s father here.”
The big cat followed the old man’s gestures with its eyes.
“Every day I’d go down to the cages, and I’d watch the lion watching us. And when I fed it, those eyes would turn toward me, three feet away, and my insides would go all soft, because my body knew that stare. Even the first time it happened, my body knew—some feedback mechanism in my brain recognizing what death looks like, that big beast staring at me. And I knew something else. I knew what none of the other researchers knew. I knew, absolutely, that if anyone ever left the cage door open, that lion wouldn’t just escape. It would kill as many people as it could before it was shot.”
The old man threw the last chunk of meat through the bars. The cat was on it in a flash of movement. A moment later, the meat was gone. “Now this one, this half lion, I’m not sure of. Is it like its father, I wonder?” The old man stared at the big cat. “If so, I don’t see it. Or maybe it’s too sly to let me see.”
The big cat resumed its pacing.
“That lion,” Gavin asked, “where is it now?”
“I killed it,” the old man said. “That was a long time ago.”
They watched the big cat in silence.
“There is an ancient proverb,” the old man said at last. “Begrudge not the lion’s existence. Be thankful God didn’t give it wings.”
The old man started coughing. He reached into the back pocket of his pants and pulled out a blue handkerchief. He coughed into the blue cloth for a moment and then wiped his hands meticulously with it before putting it back in his pocket.
Seconds more passed in silence as they watched the big cat pacing, and Gavin realized that the old man was waiting for something.
“Flores, sir?” It was the only way to encapsulate the question, the only way to phrase it in its entirety.
“Things went badly in Flores,” Martial said.
“They did.”
“People died.”
“Yes,” said Gavin.
“The reports I read made me very unhappy. It was a mess. Come, there’s something else I want you to see,” the old man said. He turned and headed farther up the trail.
Gavin followed. Here the trail was well marked, a short path through a stand of trees to another ring of cages.
There was a paddock and, inside it, a small group of horses. Looking closer, Gavin noticed a small zebra mixed in with the herd.
“The horses are a special treat,” Martial said. “The meat is delicious, by the way. Zebras hybridize very easily with horses, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“The offspring are sterile, of course, but they’re strong and healthy. They grow large. The stripes are codominant, extending up the legs but usually without spreading over the torso.”
Gavin watched the herd graze.
“Do you know what you get if you shave a zebra?” the old man asked.
“No.”
“A zebra, still. The stripes are on the skin as well.”
Gavin nodded.
“Horses, zebras, and donkeys all hybridize easily. All you have to do is put them in the same enclosure. Lock them up together, and they take care of it. No cloning required. Nothing fancy. Put sperm in contact with egg, and Mother Nature handles all the heavy lifting. As species, they aren’t particularly closely related to each other, separated by nearly eight percent of their genomes. A donkey is as different from a zebra as an orangutan is from a gorilla.”
The old man led Gavin past the paddock, toward a row of large cages attached to a small building. The cages were obviously runs of some sort. Whatever animals they housed were hidden in the building.
These cages were taller. The bars closer together.
The old man gestured toward them. “I wouldn’t get any closer to the bars. They’re very fast when they want to be, and they have access to their run; I see the door is open.” Ignoring his own advice, he took another step forward. “Chimps,” he said. “Have you ever worked with them?”
“No.”
“They are fucking bastard animals.” Spittle flew from the old man’s mouth when he spoke.
The sound of his
voice drew them.
They entered the runs through a small steel door in the side of the building. Four of them, one after another, knuckle-walking the packed earth, moving in single file. They stopped a few feet from the bars, staring out at their visitors. Then the largest chimp sat, seeming to lose interest.
“No closer,” the old man muttered. “If we went just a few feet closer…” His hand reached out, trembling slightly. A sheen of sweat covered his scalp. “A few feet closer, and it could reach us through the bars.”
Martial dropped his hand to his side. “The chimp is a strange creature. Very like the lion in some respects.” He chuckled, with a bitter, humorless sound. “It has the ability to be offended. It can hold a grudge. But it is in some ways more dangerous.”
“More dangerous than a lion?”
“It has one major difference from the lion. It can feign docility, you see.” He waved a hand in the direction of largest of the chimps—a thick-limbed, muscular form squatting in the dirt. “This one here … is the worst of our pets. It bit off the face of one of our keepers. It bit off his fingers and his toes. It broke his arms. But it left him alive. Why would it do that?”
“I don’t know,” Gavin said, resisting the urge to step back from the man who sweated and shook before the cage.
The beast looked dumbly on. Gavin watched it, its dark eyes following the old man’s face.
“I am not so good at feigning, Gavin. I never have been.”
“Sir?”
“And there are certain things coming. Things I will need help with. Can I count on you?”
“Of course.”
“No, I mean it. I am not the man I once was. I have become impatient in my increasing years. I have no patience for fools. I am not a politician, and yet I am forced to deal with politicians.”
“I understand, sir.”
“I will need you here from now on.”
Gavin stared at him, uncomprehending.
“An executive position, you might call it,” the old man continued. “There are difficult things coming, and I can use a man like you. I will need you here full-time from this day forward.” There was finality in his tone. Gavin realized this wasn’t a suggestion.
“But my … my work,” Gavin stammered.
“Will continue. Will expand. You’ll find opportunities here that you never knew existed.”
There came a howling again from the distance. The same strange, twisted cry.
“Things you never dreamed of,” the old man said. “But I need two things from you.”
“What?”
“Loyalty. Commitment.”
“You—”
The old man held up one hand to stop him. “Do not say it unless you’re prepared to back it up.”
“You’ve always had that, was what I was going to say. But this is a different kind of arrangement than what we had before. I have my career, after all.”
“You do,” the old man said flatly. “You still have it.”
Gavin stared at the old man. The grizzled old visage.
“And if I don’t come?”
“Then who can say.”
Martial turned back toward the chimps. “But that’s the stick, Gavin. You haven’t seen the carrot. There are things happening that you couldn’t possibly guess at. Important things. Things that you’ll now be a part of. Things that will change the world.”
Gavin was silent.
The largest chimp rose and moved closer to the bars.
“You’ve been on my payroll, in some capacity or other, for the last twenty years, but only in a part-time, as-needed capacity; it’s time you received a promotion. Do I have your commitment?”
In the end, there wasn’t a choice. When working with Martial, there was never a choice. Gavin wondered, vaguely, what he was losing. What was he giving up? “You have it,” he said.
“Good,” the old man replied. His tone was matter-of-fact. “Then that is settled. Now, about the subject of Flores, which you mentioned. The reports I’ve read are serious. Very serious indeed.”
Gavin said nothing.
“It couldn’t be helped,” the old man said. “Everything that happened. I want you to know that.”
“I don’t understand,” Gavin said.
“Who controls the bones controls their interpretation. You understand that, do you not?”
“Yes.”
“We got word that the Indonesians were going to shut down the dig, so we had to act. Still, death wasn’t part of the plan.”
Gavin stared at him. “The plan? What do you mean you…” But Gavin couldn’t finish, a suspicion freezing the words on his tongue.
“I mean nothing but exactly what I said,” Martial responded. “More than that, you’ll understand in good time.” The old man looked directly at him. “But for now, there is something I don’t understand.”
“What is that?”
“Paul.”
Gavin studied Martial’s face, but it gave away nothing. Behind him, up the trail, Gavin again noticed the three men in suits.
“You told me to pick the best team, so that’s what I did,” Gavin said. “You said I could pick whoever I wanted.”
“And you picked him, of all the samplers?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“He came highly recommended. He had the right credentials.”
“Do you think I’m a fool?”
Gavin thought of the pacing cat. “Because I was curious,” he said. “And I felt he was owed something.”
“Owed something.” The cracked and failing voice became steel. “What was owed?”
Gavin met the old man’s eye and said nothing.
Martial nodded. “Do you feel the debt is paid?”
“I wish I’d never involved him. I regret it. If I’d known it would happen like that, I never would have brought him to the island.”
In the distance, the strange sound came a third time. The distorted cry. The skin tightened at the back of Gavin’s neck.
He looked into the old man’s face and found the usual confidence had vanished, replaced by the expression of a man who didn’t have all the answers. The cry continued, rising higher, a strange mewling like nothing Gavin had ever heard before.
“I was told that he crushed a man’s throat,” the old man said.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“If true, it was an unusual response to the circumstances. An unexpected response.”
“What would have been the expected response?”
“To those circumstances? To die, of course.” The old man rubbed his palm over his sweating head. “You brought him into this.” The old man’s eyes burned. “You are responsible for what happens.”
“I understand.”
Martial nodded to himself. “You’ve put me in a very difficult situation.”
“No more difficult than if it had been somebody else on the team.”
“Again, you call me a fool.”
“If not him, it would have been somebody.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No.”
The old man turned to look at the crouching chimps.
After a moment, he spoke: “So then tell me this. Is he his father’s son?”
“In some ways.”
“Is he going to let this go? The deaths. The things he’s seen.”
“He might.”
The old man shielded his eyes from the sun, still blazing even as it set. He wiped his cracked lips with the back of his hand and coughed into his handkerchief again. Then he asked the question that had drawn Gavin across thousands of miles of ocean, inexorable and inevitable from the first moment: “Can we trust him?”
Gavin watched the big chimp in its cage. He considered lying for a moment, but he knew the old man would see it on his face.
“No, we cannot.”
18
The glass wall formed a single, seamless barrier unless you knew where to look.
The
doors had no handles, no smudges, glass on glass, and it all unfolded on invisible hinges, swinging inward as Paul approached. Behind him, across the short stretch of marble flooring, the elevator doors closed with a soft ding.
The fifth floor.
Heaven.
Paul stepped from the elevator entryway and onto the soft carpet of the administration level. He’d been here only once before, on the day he’d been hired. He remembered being very impressed with the lighting. The ceilings were beveled at complicated angles, hidden lights reflecting off recessed ceiling panels. The effect produced a well-lit room that nonetheless lacked windows or any visible means of illumination. That first day, waiting for his interview, he’d sat in the comfortable reception area and looked for a shadow, any shadow. There were none. The light was just everywhere, all at once. Like the inside of a video game.
Across the room, a beautiful woman sat behind a large, curved structure that was intermediate between a desk and a high, elegant countertop. This was the receptionist. She was not just beautiful, Paul decided as he approached. She was stunning. Her blond hair was cut in a short bob that framed the perfect oval of her face.
Soft music played in the background. A soothing jazz. The carpet was plush, deep red; it yielded underfoot. The room smelled of flowers.
It was the kind of room you’d choose to die in, if you had to choose a room.
“Can I help you?” The woman parted her lips. Her eyes were liquid blue pools.
“I’m here for Mr. Belshaw.”
“Certainly. He’s expecting you, Mr. Carlsson.” Her hands moved behind the counter, hidden from view. Like the lights. “You can go right in.”
There was a click, and across the room a door opened—the first in a series of doors that extended down a long hall. This door was heavy and wooden.
Paul crossed a league of carpet. Belshaw was sitting when Paul entered his office. “Please,” Belshaw said, gesturing to one of the leather chairs near his desk.
The office had the same lighting as the reception area, the same recessed ceilings. The floor, though, was polished hardwood. Near the door Paul noticed a light switch and felt a pang of jealousy.