The God Gene

by F. Paul Wilson

  Clotilde had never explained just how the sylyk, as they called their healers, recognized the chosen recipients. Laura suspected each sylyk made his or her own choice and attributed it to the All-Mother. Whatever. She could see how leaving it to the goddess lightened the hellacious burden of deciding who got well and who stayed sick.

  When she had asked why Clotilde was designating her a sylyk, she’d said Laura had “the soul of a healer” and that the All-Mother “smiles on you.” Again, whatever. She didn’t believe in the All-Mother any more than she believed in hobbits and elves.

  However, she had no choice but to believe in the ikhar.

  Educated in the scientific method, Laura had vigorously resisted the possibility of a cure-all. But finally she’d come to accept its existence. What other option did she have? She’d seen it bring her own daughter back from the brink of death. Stahlman’s pulmonary fibrosis—a terminal diagnosis—had cleared overnight. The scientist part of her demanded to know its method of action, but the ikhar had resisted all analysis. Finally she’d raised a white flag of intellectual surrender and simply gone with it.

  As for choosing who would get this dose, Laura wasn’t about to wait for the All-Mother. The ikhar was a miracle waiting to happen, so she’d decided to choose her recipients carefully. After weeks of careful consideration, she’d settled on James Fife. She’d harbored a deep, personal reason for gravitating toward Fife, but he hadn’t worked out. She had other possibilities, though. Hopeless cases, nearing the end of their ordeals. But they had to be worthy.

  A couple of weeks ago she’d found the perfect candidate at the VA Medical Center in Northport: Emilie Lantz met the criteria of hopelessness and worthiness—in spades.

  She squeezed the snuff bottle. Less than an hour’s ride to the medical center. If she left right now …

  No, if she hit traffic in either direction she wouldn’t be here when Marissa came home, and that wouldn’t do at all. Besides, tomorrow was her usual volunteer day. They’d notice her, ask why she’d shown up on a Tuesday instead of her customary Wednesday. And then if Emilie woke up tomorrow fully cured, they’d remember.

  If … Listen to me. If Emilie woke up tomorrow fully cured …

  Despite the testament of her own experience, part of her—a big part of her—still resisted the ikhar, still refused to believe any such thing could exist.

  But if Emilie woke up cured, someone might well say, Hey, that Laura Fanning volunteer showed up unexpectedly yesterday. Didn’t her daughter have a miracle-cure too? What’s up with that?

  She had to be careful, so very, very careful. People had died horribly for dispensing the ikhar. Rick and Stahlman already knew about it, of course—they were in on the discovery—but she’d told no one else.

  She’d wait until tomorrow. That meant another day of misery for Emilie. She felt bad about that, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Laura replaced the snuff bottle in the box and returned it to the upper shelf.

  6

  THE VILLAGE OF MONROE, NEW YORK

  Rick found Monroe pretty much as he’d left it: a charming little village stuck between Glen Cove and Lattingtown on Long Island’s preferred North Shore. Years ago the city fathers had overhauled the downtown area into a faux whaling village design, and that hadn’t changed—still as faux as ever. He was glad to see Memison’s still in business. Back in the day it had gained a rep as the best restaurant in town, renowned for its fish dinners.

  Hari yakked on and on as he piloted the pickup along Main Street, past the Monroe Yacht and Racquet Club; rows of garden apartments followed, segueing into postwar tract homes, and then finally into the chi-chi environs. He turned onto Shore Drive where the waterfront homes were mansion class.

  “I’ll never get why some people name their homes,” Hari said as they cruised along. “Here’s one: Toad Hall. Really? You’ve got a waterfront mansion and you name it Toad Hall? I don’t get it.”

  Rick glanced at the willow-lined yard. “Never read The Wind in the Willows with Mister Toad?”

  “I went on Mister Toad’s Wild Ride at Disney World when I was a kid. I hear they’ve closed it down. Is that the same?”

  “The same.”

  She shook her head. “Now I get it even less.”

  Finally he came to a white-columned mansion and turned onto the long driveway.

  “Home sweet home,” she said. “You miss the big old place?”

  “Nope.”

  He stepped out and paused to look. It had a majestic front with a high, rounded portico and stately columns. But this place had never been home. He’d grown up in Switzerland. When they all eventually returned to America, Long Island real estate had been in a down cycle and Dad got a good deal on the place.

  Rick’s two-bedroom apartment in White Plains was perfectly fine with him.

  They passed between the columns to the front door where a dark-skinned woman who appeared half African, half Asian answered his ring.

  “You must be Lena,” Rick said, extending his hand. “I’m Garrick.”

  She gave his hand a quick shake. “Yes-yes. Please to meet you. And I already know Ms. Tate. Come in.”

  They entered the foyer just as his mother was making her entrance, breezing down one side of the curved double staircase. Really, who needed two staircases in a foyer, no matter how big?

  “Well, well,” she said in a tone even more imperious than he remembered, “the Prodigal Son returns.”

  She wore a floor-length gown of some sort of shimmery blue material. She’d stayed slim but had let her hair go silver and cut it short and close to her scalp. Going for a Judi Dench look?

  “Hello, Paulette.”

  She drifted past him without stopping or even slowing. “Come into the sitting room and we’ll discuss your brother.”

  He shook his head and had to smile as he followed. After years away, that was his welcome home. He hadn’t expected a big hug and a kiss—she probably thought she’d be contaminated with CIA cooties—but she didn’t even offer to shake his hand.

  Rick realized he was fine with it. Home was where the heart was. And his heart had left this place a long time ago.

  He had no desire to tour the place for old times’ sake. He’d been in touch with his sister Cheryl for a while after he’d left. She’d said Paulette had remade his old bedroom into a guest room and had completely gutted and refurbished Dad’s study, erasing all trace of him.

  Hari started setting up in the sitting room but it quickly became apparent that it offered insufficient tabletop space, so they moved to the dining room, where she could spread out her voluminous paperwork.

  Rick had to admit she knew her stuff. She’d tracked the sales from Keith’s brokerage account and the withdrawals from his IRA through various banks around the world. She even had a graph showing the progress of the funds from bank to bank, country to country, until they all wound up in a single Grand Cayman account.

  “The money was transferred from that account just forty-eight hours before he disappeared,” she said as the three of them stood around the long, littered mahogany table.

  “Where to?” Rick said.

  “That’s the big question. The account was in the Bodden Bank of the Caymans, privately held with its only office in George Town, and fiercely secretive.”

  “What are our options?” Paulette said.

  Hari said, “I propose to open an account there simply to initiate contact. Once I have people to talk to, I’ll press for information. Money may have to change hands.”

  “You mean a bribe,” Paulette said.

  Hari snapped her fingers. “That’s the word I was looking for.”

  Paulette—immune to sarcasm—groaned. “How many more banks before we reach the final destination?”

  “I think the next bank will be the caboose to this train. Someone did a very good job of diffusing the funds to blur the trail. But they all wound up in the Caymans. I’m reasonably sure the next stop will be the last one.
”

  “Whatever it takes, then,” Paulette said. “I want an answer. Find who wound up with the money and we’ll find whoever took Keith.”

  Rick waved his hand over the papers before them. “This is all very elaborate, but ultimately cut and dried. A paper trail.” He looked at his mother. “How’s it connected to the monkey you mentioned?”

  Paulette rolled her eyes. “That Mozambique monkey! That little blue-eyed devil! Keith was entranced with it.”

  “A pet monkey? Keith?”

  Paulette shook her head. “I know. So unlike him.”

  “And since you’ve seen it, I assume he brought it here.”

  Paulette made a face. “Unfortunately, yes. The thing was his constant companion. He called it ‘Mozi.’”

  “Mozi from Mozambique … how original.”

  “Don’t be snide about your brother. He missed you.”

  No way was Rick buying that. “You’re kidding, right? I doubt he even knew I was gone.”

  Paulette shook her head. “On the contrary. He asked quite frequently if I’d heard anything from you.”

  “Bull.”

  “It is true,” Lena said. “Many time he ask for you.”

  Rick stared at her, shocked. He could write off Paulette’s claims as fabrications or, at best, wishful thinking. But here was a stranger backing her up.

  Keith … wondering about him … asking about him? Totally out of character.

  Paulette said, “I know Keith could be aloof, and he didn’t pay much attention to you or Cheryl when you were here, but he definitely seemed to miss you when you weren’t. And as for that monkey, he might not have given it the most original name, but he certainly doted on it.”

  She sounded almost jealous.

  “Keith? Affectionate?”

  Had he stepped into the Bizarro World? Or had he been misreading his brother all along?

  “I know. It shocked me too. The disgusting little thing seemed quite attached to him as well—figuratively and literally. The only time it left his shoulder was to pee or poop in one of my plants.”

  Keith with a monkey on his shoulder … Rick just couldn’t see it.

  “How big was it?”

  She shrugged. “Hard to say. Lots of tail, I’ll tell you that. But I’d be surprised if that oversized, tree-dwelling rat weighed even two pounds.”

  Rick smiled. “I’m getting a feeling you weren’t a fan.”

  “I’m sure Keith was taken in by its cute face and big blue eyes. But not me.”

  Definitely jealous.

  “So anyway, what could this monkey have to do with his disappearance?”

  “He said it was very important. An ancient undiscovered species. He was working on where it fit in the evolution tree and said he might even get it named after him. He liked to joke that this way the Somers name would live on after all.” She gave a dramatic sniff. “That’s something, at least, since I don’t expect any help in that quarter from my children.”

  A thought struck Rick. “Wait. Did he disappear with the monkey?”

  “Mozi died,” Paulette said. “Keith appeared here one day with the monkey’s ashes. He wouldn’t say what happened, just that it had died and he’d had it cremated.”

  “He cremated his monkey?”

  “Yes. He was very upset.” She pointed toward the Long Island Sound. “He went down to the dock and scattered the ashes on the water.”

  “Ashes,” Rick said, thinking. “So no one actually saw a dead monkey.”

  “Thank heavens, no,” Paulette said.

  His years with the Company had taught him the hard way never to believe someone was dead unless you saw their corpse. And even then …

  But this was a monkey, not a person.

  Rick shook his head. “Bizarre.”

  “Quite. But not as bizarre as what he said to me before he left. I remember the words exactly, because they were so disturbing: ‘I’m being backed into something I would have considered inconceivable just weeks ago.’”

  “He didn’t elaborate?”

  She shook her head. “Wouldn’t say another word about it. And that was the last time I saw him. The following day was the last time anyone ever saw him. He walked out of his office and disappeared.”

  Hari said, “I’m not a family member, so I hope I’m not out of line…”

  “Go ahead,” Rick said.

  “Could it be connected to his book? Once Paulette hired me, I sat down and read The Ties That Bind. Have you read it?”

  Rick shook his head. “Didn’t even know it existed until this afternoon.”

  Paulette shook her head. “Garrick, Garrick, Garrick.”

  Rick could only shrug.

  “Well, it’s very Darwinian,” Hari said, “showing the interrelations between the human genome and other animals, even plants, past and present. My point is: Could he have ticked off some crazy creationist?”

  “It’s possible, of course,” Paulette said. “Keith is a staunch evolutionist. Mere mention of creationism or intelligent design sets him off on long rants. This book was an in-your-face evolutionist manifesto.”

  “Well, then,” Rick said, “seems Hari might have a good point.”

  “Except…” Paulette raised a finger. “Keith has a chapter about certain unique features in the human genome, exclusive to humans among the primates. Oddly enough, religious factions across the globe leaped on that. They called it the God Gene, and pointed to it as proof that God started evolution and let it run its course until a certain point when he intervened and infused mankind with a soul.”

  Hari shrugged. “Hasn’t the Catholic Church been saying that for a long time?”

  “I wouldn’t know about the Catholic Church,” Paulette said. “Believers all over the world took this as vindication. Keith was incensed at first but stopped protesting when he learned how sales to Christians and even Muslims were going through the roof. Everyone, believers and skeptics alike, seems to love the book. So I don’t think it was the book.” She turned to Hari. “Do you have anything more for us?”

  The accountant shook her head. “Not till I work through the Bodden Bank.”

  “Good. Thank you for coming.”

  On impulse, Rick said, “I’ll bring Keith back.”

  He wasn’t sure why he said that, but he meant it.

  “But we don’t know where he is.”

  “Hari’s homing in. When she finds him, I’ll go get him and bring him back, no matter where he is.” He looked at Hari. “You’ll keep me informed?”

  She glanced at Paulette who gave a curt nod. “Sure. No problem.”

  He found his mother staring at him. “You’ve changed, Garrick. You’re different. What did they do to you?”

  “‘They’?”

  “Those thugs in the CIA. What did they make you do?”

  “Nothing too terrible. Toppled a few legitimate governments and replaced them with puppet regimes, sold drugs to schoolkids so we could supply guns to psycho insurgents, and generally crushed the hopes of freedom-loving people everywhere. You know … the usual.”

  She sniffed. “I can see I’m not going to get a straight answer out of you.”

  Lady, he thought, a straight answer would stop your heart cold.

  Hari was checking her phone. “Sorry to interrupt this warm family moment, but I’ll need a ride back to the garage. They just texted me that my car is ready.”

  Rick said, “I’ll drive you. Give you my contact info on the way.”

  “Great.” As Hari started gathering her papers, she said, “Oh, by the way, Paulette. How’s the My Fair Lady thing coming?”

  Paulette put on a pained expression. “Excruciatingly slow. Like banging my head against a brick wall.”

  Rick did not want to get into this, but had to ask. “Just what is it you’re trying to do?”

  “The right thing, of course. I decided that someone must speak up about this latest revival. I’m organizing a petition and a protest.”

&n
bsp; “Against what?”

  “Two of Professor Higgins’s songs are paeans to misogyny.”

  Rick bit back a laugh. “Well, yeah. Because he’s a misogynist! That’s the whole point of the play. Contact with Eliza changes him. If he starts out as some kind of feminist, where is there for him to go?”

  “You’re missing the point. ‘I’m an Ordinary Man’ and ‘A Hymn to Him’ denigrate women. Lyrics like, ‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man?’ Can you believe it? I want them deleted. Any right-thinking person would agree.”

  Hari snapped her briefcase closed. “I’m with your mother here. I think it would be wonderful if they dumped those songs and substituted something like John Lennon’s ‘Imagine.’”

  Paulette puffed herself up and pointed to her. “There! See? That’s the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we need around here. I knew I liked you from the very beginning, Hari.”

  Rick found himself incapable of a coherent response.

  Hari smiled sweetly and winked at him. “Shall we be off?”

  Rick mumbled a good-bye to his mother and led Hari back to the pickup.

  “Are you kidding me?” he said when they reached the truck. “On the way out here you called her a ‘crackpot.’”

  “A granola-chewing, chai-sipping, PETA-donating crackpot, I believe.”

  “And then you come up with substituting ‘Imagine’?”

  She grinned. “That was brilliant, wasn’t it? I mean, even if I do say so myself.”

  “Not even close.”

  “Look, I don’t know the first thing about My Fair Lady, but I figured it was what she wanted to hear.”

  “Is that so? Because in the brief time I’ve known you, I haven’t quite gathered the impression that you say what people want to hear.”

  “I do when they’re writing the checks. She seems like the type who’d get all swoony over utopianist garbage like ‘Imagine,’ so I laid it on her.”

  “‘Garbage’? I’d hardly call it garbage.”

  Rick kind of liked “Imagine.”

  “Hey, I like a lot of Lennon’s stuff, but everybody sharing all the world? Get real, Johnny Boy. Not on this planet.”