Ignatowski paused for a long moment.
“What is it, Iggy?” Lindsey asked.
He cleared his throat. “You know, at the NRO, we have only so many satellites and bandwidth available for tracking humanitarian missions. Since nothing ever happens at night at those missions, the satellites with the capabilities you refer to are not deployed as such.”
Bishop shrugged, smiling. “In other words, the more capable satellites are deployed for military use. Figures.”
“Be nice,” Lindsey commanded, and the two men continued on their way. Except for the crackling of small twigs beneath their feet, they silently followed the woman through the rainforest.
“Now, about Haeckel, please continue,” Lindsey said, breaking the silence.
“How far is it from here?” Bishop asked, wiping sweat from his forehead while obediently following Lindsey and Ignatowski through the rainforest.
“It’s about a ten-minute hike to the shabono and another ten from there to the caves.”
“All right, where was I? Oh yes. Haeckel tried to prove Darwin’s theory of evolution by finding physical evidence all over the world. You have to know that besides him being a racist, the German Haeckel was a philosopher, naturalist, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist who discovered, described, named and drew thousands of new species. He was the one who promoted Darwin’s work. Without Haeckel, Darwin’s work wouldn’t have been half as popular. In his time, he was a celebrated man. He was a flamboyant figure who could take giant non-scientific leaps with hardly any evidence. That is also why he has been discredited on a lot of his theories over time.
“Regarding evolution, at the time when Darwin published The Origin of Species, Haeckel argued that human evolution entailed exactly twenty-two phases. The twenty-first phase is the one we know as ‘the missing link.’ These are also the phases Haeckel drew in his Tree of Life where he gave the missing link the name “Pithecanthropus Alalus,” which translates to—”
“Apeman without speech,” Ignatowski interrupted.
“Check,” Bishop replied.
“We also did our homework.” Ignatowski smiled.
“The same Pithecanthropus Alalus,” Bishop confirmed, “that was misplaced on the cave’s finger painting that you showed me. Anyway, you have to know that at that time, at the end of the nineteenth century, no human ancestry remains had ever been found or identified. Haeckel named and described all twenty-two phases of human evolution in great detail without ever seeing or identifying one of them.”
“Except for the last,” Lindsey added.
“Of course,” Bishop conceded. “And at the same time, he sent his students all over the world searching for proof.”
“Look, over there,” Lindsey called out as she stopped and pointed right. The two men caught up with her and looked into the forest. A few hundred feet into the woods, the circular, slanted rooftops of the shabono looked desolate in the shadow under the treetops.
“Bigger than I thought.” Bishop gazed at the ingenious construction. “Can we?”
“If there’s any time left, later on, we can go and visit the place,” Lindsey answered. “For now, I think the more interesting place is the cave.”
“You’re the boss,” Bishop answered, and Lindsey picked up the pace again. “So, no sign of any other tribe members, but everything they owned was left behind?”
“No one, and yes, they left everything behind, but you must realize that except some clothing and hunting gear, they don’t own much, and clothing is simply loincloths.”
Bishop smirked.
“What?” Ignatowski raised his voice.
“Uh, nothing. I think it’s, um... let’s say, remarkable, how you can lose an entire tribe that you’re surveilling by satellite overnight.”
No response followed. For the next five minutes, the forest stayed silent except for the sounds of birds and bugs.
“We’re here.” Lindsey pointed to the gray, stone wall fifty feet away. They made their way up and took off their backpacks. “Let’s take out our lamps and go inside. We need to be careful not to spook the family. We tried to communicate that we would be back, but I’m not sure they understood.”
“Wow.” Bishop rubbed a hand over the smooth rock of the entrance. “This looks man-made. But who would carve a cave out of solid rock, out here, in the middle of nowhere?”
Ignatowski looked at him as he put a strap with headlight over his head. “Amazing, but maybe the Mashco-Piro did it themselves. It’s known that ancient tribes stayed inside caves seasonally to avoid the heavy rain seasons.”
“Sure they did, in existing caves.” Bishop thought that the rock formation looked like it was formed of out of steatite, not the hardest of stones. “But still, the people who lived here ten thousand years ago—and even now—hardly had the tools to dig a hole in the ground, let alone carve one out of the existing rocks.”
“Shall we?” Lindsey asked, and they entered the cave. The cave was dry and dusty, and the lights from their headbands carved their beams into the passageway.
Bishop stopped, shining his light on a painting on the rock. The images in red, made from oxidized iron, depicted men, animals and some tools. He recognized a man with a bow and arrow, something that could be a spear, and animals that could be swine and deer. But his eyes were drawn to other symbols on the wall, symbols that looked like a worm that could also be a ladder or a man waving a fist, that could just as easily have been an elephant with a large tusk raising its trunk.
“What is it?” Lindsey asked.
“Nothing much. I once read about the Toquepala Caves in the south of Peru. There’s some rupestral art over there that looks a lot like these, and I wondered what they would have thought and meant ten thousand years ago when they drew these pictures on the wall of these caves.”
Lindsey took a few steps back and took in all the paintings. “I guess we’ll never know. We need to go. Kajaq,” she called out as they started walking again.
“Kajaq?” Bishop tilted his head. “What or who is Kajaq?”
“We’re not sure, but when we were here the last time, it was something the native man spoke several times. And when we repeated it, he seemed to calm down. It could have been his name, but we’re not sure. I hope it helps us find him and make contact again.”
“Over there.” Ignatowski pointed to a flickering light at what looked like the end of the passageway. The three stopped as the flickering light rapidly came closer, and a silhouette became clear. “It’s the female carrying a candle.”
“You think?” Bishop eyed Ignatowski as the woman stopped a few feet in front of them, wearing nothing. Her hand reached out to the headlight on Lindsey’s head. She touched it, and as Lindsey shook her head, the young woman took a step back and looked from left to right following the light beam.
“It’s okay,” she tried to sound assuring and reached for the woman’s hand. The woman gave a soft grunt, and carefully took Lindsey’s hand and smelled it. “It’s her.” Lindsey recognized the tiny, dark tanned woman from her visit before. “Kajaq?”
“Kajaq,” the woman repeated, as she tried to pull Lindsey further into the cave. “Kajaq, Kajaq.”
Lindsey smiled. “It’s Lucy.”
“Lucy?” Bishop questioned.
“We nicknamed her Lucy, after the oldest fossilized woman ever found and who died about 3.2 million years ago.”
“Lucy and Lindsey.” Bishop tilted his head a bit and grinned.
Lucy pulled Lindsey a few steps further into the cave. “Let’s follow her.” The four took a few turns and arrived at the room Lindsey and Ignatowski visited before. “It’s the same room.”
“As gray as before, and decorated the same,” Ignatowski replied in a mocking tone. In the corner of the room, the man and baby lay down, both with closed eyes, on a few pieces of animal fur. In a few steps, Ignatowski kneeled next to them. He picked up the baby’s head. She immediately opened her eyes and started crying. He let go
of the baby again and turned to the man. He grabbed him at the shoulder and shook. Nothing happened. He then grabbed his two shoulders and sat him upright against the wall and checked his pulse. “His heart’s still beating,” he concluded.
Lindsey hastily reached into her pockets and came back with a small rectangular box. She handed it to Ignatowski, who opened it and took a disinfecting wipe from it and cleaned a small area of the man’s lower arm. Then he took out a syringe complete with a needle that was filled with an orange liquid. He took off the safety cap, sprayed a few drops away—removing possible airdrops—found a vein, and in one push emptied the syringe into the man’s arm.
Bishop squinted. “What was that? What did you just give him?” he asked in demanding tone.
Ignatowski continued to inoculate Lucy and the baby before he put away the syringe and eyed Lindsey. “Please, Matthew, let me explain. The last time we were here, we took blood samples from all three of them. It wasn’t easy, but after some food, we were allowed to draw some blood. Back home, we had the blood samples analyzed and, please don’t ask me for the specifics, but our lab found some strange readings. Our technicians told us that there was a fair chance that when we would return here, the family would be sick or possibly dead. They gave us these syringes with instructions, and here we are.”
“And they gave you no clue as to what they found in the blood or what was in the syringes?”
“They said there was something parasitic in the blood and that after receiving the medicine, they would rapidly get better.”
“If they were still alive,” Bishop mocked. He turned to the woman, reached into his pocket and took out a chocolate bar. He took off the wrap, bit off a small piece, and chewed it. He took it out of his mouth and presented it to the young woman.
She grabbed it from his hand and smelled it thoroughly. Pleased with the smell, she bit off a small piece and chewed on it for a second.
“Kajaq?” he asked.
Lucy responded with a grunt as she took the full bar from Bishop’s hand. He reached into his pocket again, and this time, he took out a piece of paper with the part of Haeckel’s tree of life on it and showed it to the woman, “Kajaq?”
Squatting, the young woman neared him and took the paper from his hand. She looked at it closely, then looked around the room and back at the paper.
“Kajaq?” Lucy spoke again as she grabbed onto Bishop’s sleeve and pulled him in the direction of one of the adjacent tunnels. Bishop followed her as she led him through a narrow tunnel into another small room.
“You stay here,” Lindsey commanded Ignatowski, and she quickly followed Bishop.
Bishop looked around the new room. It was empty and looked much the same as the one they came from. Then he noticed one difference. The floors and lower parts of the walls were shining somewhat. He bent down and felt the lower wall. Water. We must be close to the groundwater level or maybe an underground river or lake. There was also something soft along the walls which rubbed off as he brushed his fingers over it. It must be some kind of dirt with moss growing on it. The woman grunted and pointed to the corner next to Bishop.
Bishop kneeled next to it, and there it was, a few inches above the floor. The top of the ‘Tree of Life’ and a bit lower the two switched ancient species. Bishop put his finger against the first A at the top of the text and followed the carving as it was written.
He looked at his finger and then to the ground. Small pieces of moss had fallen from the wall as he redrew the word. He turned to Lindsey. “Small fingers.”
Lindsey frowned.
“It must have been written by someone with small fingers. Kajaq?” he asked Lucy, showing her the drawing on the paper again. Lucy looked at him, questioning and pointed at the picture on the wall. Bishop sighed and looked around him. How could he ask her if there were more like this, more drawings or other things in the cave that didn’t belong there? He looked at the picture again and narrowed his eyes. “Wait.” He turned the piece of paper around and showed Lucy the blank side. “Kajaq?” he asked, pointing at the white paper. “Kajaq?”
The young woman hesitated for a second, took the paper from his hand and groaned before walking out of the room. Bishop followed in a hurry as the young woman picked up the pace. “Here we go,” he exclaimed. “Follow us if you can.” With the two light beams from the headlights crossing the gangways like searchlights, they passed several small rooms.
Lindsey argued, panting. “We never came this far the first time around. I wonder where she’s taking us.” As she said it, Lucy turned a corner and stopped.
“Wow, that’s not indigenous.” Bishop rubbed his nose and chin.
“You can say that again,” Lindsey added.
The room looked the same—the same size, the same colors, even the same musty smell. However, against the back wall stood a table, an ordinary-looking, modern table with a wooden top and metal legs. It looked empty.
Bishop looked at it closer, and with his hand, he rubbed over the top. “Looks almost new.” Bishop looked around the room again. “Weird. What’s a brand-new table doing in a cave like this? See if you can find any more drawings near the edges of the floor.”
Lindsey carefully shone her light around the edges on the floor while Bishop inspected the table from left to right again.
“Nothing,” Lindsey stated.
“Nothing here either,” Bishop added.
Lucy kneeled next to Bishop, took his hand, and pulled him to the ground.
Bishop pulled loose. “Hey!” he cried out as she retook his hand.
This time, she pulled harder, making him fall on one knee. As he looked at her, she put her head under the table.
Bishop looked at Lindsey, raising an eyebrow.
“You better follow her.”
Bishop put his head next to Lucy’s under the table. “Ah,” he uttered.
“What is it?”
“You want to join us?”
“No, thank you, just tell me.”
“I’ll do better.” Bishop came back from under the table and brought Lucy back with him. He grabbed the edge of the table and flipped it backward. “You see?”
Lindsey took a closer look. A large piece of paper was taped to the bottom of the tabletop.
“A blank piece of paper?”
“I asked for a blank piece of paper, and I got one.” He smiled.
Lindsey nodded. “That’s true. Can you take it off?”
Bishop carefully peeled the tape from the four corners. As the paper came off, he held it high to prevent it from dropping onto the wet floor. “Help me set the table back up straight.” With the table on all four legs again, he turned the paper and stretched it out over the tabletop. “I’ll be damned.”
“Well, that’s unexpected,” Lindsey uttered. “What do you think?”
Bishop rolled up the piece of paper and handed it to Lindsey. “I think we need to take this with us and inspect it in daylight. In the meantime, we can see if Lucy has any other interesting things for us to find.”
Lindsey nodded. “Let’s do that.”
Chapter 7 – Naegleria Fowleri
Boston, MA, Six Months Ago
Sylvia Porter passed a row of parked ambulances before heading to the entrance of the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Cox building in Boston. With 999 beds, the third oldest hospital in the country was the original teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and ranked the number two hospital in the U.S., with an annual research budget of over $1 billion.
The gray eight-story concrete building looked a bit worn down, and nothing like the prestigious Tropical Medicine Practice Sylvia read about on the website on her way here. Mass Gen’s Tropical Medicine Practice was part of the Infectious Diseases Division, specializing in the diagnosis, treatment and care of people with illnesses and infections most common to tropical climates. When you traveled from a developing world and contracted some kind of fungal, viral, bacterial, mycobacterial, parasitic or ectoparasitic infection, Mass
General was the place to be.
It had taken her Uber three hours to get there from her home in New Haven. Above the large glass doors, the sign read, ‘Cox Entrance.’
As Sylvia passed under the sign, she wondered why they brought her daughter here. On the phone, they wouldn’t tell her anything but the fact that Jennifer fell ill during a presentation at her university almost two days ago. They told her Jennifer was first brought to the Yale-New Haven Hospital near her home, but after triage, she was rushed to the Boston hospital to receive specialized treatment at the Tropical Medicine Practice. Of course, she knew that her daughter traveled to Africa and South America for her work in the past year, but what could be wrong with her? Jennifer was always very precise in taking the advised preventive medication against diseases like hepatitis, typhoid and, of course, malaria.
Sylvia arrived at the circular desk in the center of the entrance. “I’m looking for Jennifer Porter.”
“One moment,” the woman at the desk replied as she typed on her computer’s keyboard. “Room 716. Take the elevator behind you to the seventh floor and exit to your right.”
“Thank you.” Sylvia turned just as the elevator doors began to close. “Please hold,” she called, and before the doors closed, a hand grabbed the door from the inside, causing the doors to slide open. In her late 60s with gray hair, Sylvia, who had a slender build, was still fit from practicing Tai Chi and Jane Fonda’s yoga and fitness videos daily. In a few quick, big steps, she reached the elevator doors and got in. “Thank you,” she said to the man who had risked his hand between the elevator doors.
“You’re welcome, Ms. Porter,” the man, who wore a white coat and stethoscope around his neck, replied.
Sylvia tilted her head. “Do I know you?”
“I’m sorry, no. My name is Dr. Elder. David Elder. Seventh?” He put his finger on the floor button. Sylvia nodded. “It’s quite a coincidence, actually. I know your daughter. I met her a few years ago at the Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron, Israel, when I interned there, and your daughter was admitted after a car accident.”
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