The Bone Labyrinth Page 12

  They set off down a concrete ramp to a crushed gravel trail that led through a damp green meadow. The student, Jack, accompanied them with leash in hand. Once in the field, Maria let go of her charge’s hand, and Baako went bounding across the wet grass, chased by a barking dog.

  Fifty yards away rose a dark forest of pine, oaks, and white cedar.

  “Is it safe to let them roam loose like that?” Kowalski asked.

  She pointed to a distant fence line. “We’ve had this section of the field station cordoned off. While the chain link might not be an obstacle for Baako, he knows to stay within its confines. But I don’t think he would ever want to escape anyway.” She swept an arm wide. “Everything Baako loves is here. And despite that freewheeling carousing he’s demonstrating at the moment with Tango, he’s not the bravest soul. In many ways, he’s a mama’s boy.”

  Kowalski noted how her voice hiccuped over that last sentence, hearing both the affection and maybe even a little guilt. She crossed her arms as they headed through the grass, her gaze wistful upon the two animals playing together.

  As they followed the pair, Kowalski asked a question that had been nagging him. “So how come you and your sister both became geneticists?”

  “What? You think only men can be scientists?” She smiled softly at him, plainly teasing. “I guess it goes back to the fact that we were born twins. When you grow up with someone identical to you—while knowing you’re both so different inside—such a dichotomy carries with you, makes you want to understand it better. And, in turn, understand yourself better. So over time, questions became curiosity, and curiosity drew us into our profession.”

  “So it’s not just the sexy lab coats?” he asked, offering a small teasing grin of his own.

  “Well, I didn’t say there weren’t perks.”

  By now the furry pair ahead of them approached the tree line, where a narrow trail cut into the woods. Jack trotted forward to keep the animals in sight, demonstrating the usual boundless energy of youth. Or maybe the kid just wanted to reach the shelter of the trees and get out of the rain.

  Kowalski ducked his head as the light drizzle began to coalesce into heavier drops. He suddenly wished he had a thick pelt like Baako and Tango. He set a swifter pace toward the trees.

  Halfway across the meadow, Jack drew to a stop ahead of them.

  Kowalski’s guard went up at the sudden halt; then he saw it, too. Movement in the trees, a shift of shadows. A blast of a rifle made Maria jump. He swung his arm around, scooped her around the chest, and carried her to the ground, burying her in the tall grass.

  He sheltered her with his own body as another shot rang out. He saw Jack spin around, blood spraying from his shoulder. The kid went sprawling into the meadow.

  “Stay down!” Kowalski hissed at Maria.

  He yanked his pistol from his coverall pocket and slithered on his elbows through the wet grass toward the student. At the same time, Baako came bounding back toward them, knuckling on one arm, carrying the young dog under the other. Kowalski couldn’t get out of the way in time. The panicked pair bowled over him, striking him hard enough to knock the gun from Kowalski’s mud-slick fingers. The pistol went sailing into the tall grass and brush.

  Goddamn it.

  With no time to hunt for his weapon, Kowalski reached Jack, who lay on his back, stunned, moaning in pain. Scared eyes stared back at Kowalski. Dark shapes, all wearing knit masks, shifted out of the forest’s shadows and came running low through the grass.

  Kowalski glanced back to the primate center.

  Too far.

  Thinking fast, he wet his palm with Jack’s blood and smeared it over the side of the student’s face. “Hold your breath,” he warned. “Play dead.”

  It was all he could do for the kid.

  He crawled back to Maria as the dark group arrowed across the meadow, aiming for where Baako huddled with the geneticist. The gorilla’s bulk was an island in this green sea.

  Kowalski tugged at Maria’s arm. “Leave him. If we stay in the tall grass, we might be able to—”

  “Never.” She yanked her arm free. “I won’t abandon him.”

  A voice shouted. “Dr. Crandall! Come with us . . . with Baako . . . and no one else needs to get hurt!”

  Kowalski bit back a curse. Apparently the bastards must’ve known about Maria’s routine, about this daily excursion, and set up this ambush accordingly.

  Maria stared toward Kowalski, looking to him for some way out.

  With a groan, he demonstrated their only recourse. He lifted his arms and stood, facing an arc of assault rifles pointed at them. “Don’t shoot!”

  Maria hesitated only long enough to slip something from Baako’s wrist and attach it to the dog’s collar. “Home,” she said and pointed back toward the primate center. “Go home.”

  The pup simply shook, too frightened to move.

  As if trying to help, Baako pushed at his friend’s furry rump. This seemed to work. The small dog took off, tail tucked, racing low to the ground toward the distant loading dock.

  Kowalski tried to block the pup’s flight with his own body and waved his arms, keeping attention fixed on himself. Maria helped by standing herself. She kept a firm grip on Baako’s hand while slipping something into her back pocket. The gorilla whimpered at her side, sticking to her legs.

  “I’ll do what you ask!” she called out. “Just don’t harm—”

  Another blast rang out, cutting her off.

  Kowalski turned toward one of the gunmen. He held a smoking pistol in hand, his weapon pointed down at the ground. It was the man who had called out a moment ago, the apparent leader of this group.

  The bastard stood over Jack’s slumped body.

  Kowalski ground his teeth together as he glared at the gunman.

  You fucker.

  Maria moaned next to him, sagging closer to Kowalski. The leader stalked another two steps closer, his pistol lifting, the barrel steaming in the rain. The gun was pointed straight at Kowalski’s chest.

  Kowalski glared back, knowing what was coming.

  As usual, he was wrong.

  Maria stepped in front of him. “Don’t! If you want my help, if you want Baako, then you want Joe, too.” She elbowed him in the gut in her attempt to point at him. “He’s Baako’s trainer. Knows everything about him. How to keep him calm. How to get him to cooperate.”

  She spoke rapidly, trying everything to make him sound important. He stared down at his coveralls, at the Emory University badge on the pocket. He swallowed hard and reached toward Baako, holding out his hand, knowing this was his only hope.

  Don’t leave me hanging, buddy.

  Baako stared back at him, his brown eyes glassy with fear, his features dripping with water. Finally a dark arm lifted, and leathery fingers wrapped around his own.

  The leader stood for a long breath, studying all three of them. Then finally he lowered his pistol and turned away. “Get them to the chopper!” he ordered the others.

  Kowalski blew out a breath of relief.

  As the assault team closed in around their group, Baako let go of him and signed by cupping one hand under the other and lifting them both higher. But the meaning could be read as plainly in those frightened eyes.

  [Help us]

  The gorilla hugged tightly to Maria. She also looked pleadingly toward him. He knew he owed them both. They had saved his life just now.

  But what the hell can I do alone?

  12:23 P.M.

  Monk rubbed his eyes, then returned to reading a radiologist’s assessment of a CT scan of the hybrid gorilla’s brain. The gross morphology was distinctly different from a regular gorilla’s in many interesting ways. He perused a paragraph about the folding found in Baako’s cortex. The number of surface gyri and sulci—the hills and valleys—was three times as numerous, suggesting the brain’s surface area was larger, requiring it to be more tightly folded to fit inside the gorilla’s skull.

  It was equally fascinating an
d unnerving.

  Behind him, Amy Wu spoke on her cell. Her phone had rung a moment ago, likely another update from her colleagues at the White House.

  “Understood,” she said, pacing behind him. “I’ll proceed accordingly. Zàijiàn.”

  Monk’s ears pricked at her use of the formal Chinese for good-bye as she ended the call. So maybe it wasn’t a call from the White House, though he couldn’t rule that out. The oddity drew him to catch her reflection in a dark corner of the computer monitor. She pocketed her phone, then reached to her lower back, as if to stretch out a kink.

  Her hand returned, revealing a small silver pistol in her grip.

  Monk reacted instinctively to the threat. He ducked, while jerking his thighs back, sending the office chair shooting into Amy Wu. Her gun blasted explosively loud, shattering the computer monitor atop the desk as he hit the floor.

  He rolled to the side as the chair struck Amy in the legs, knocking her back a step. He used the moment to yank his Glock from its shoulder holster. He pointed, half blindly, and fired, trying less to kill her as keep her off guard. Still, his round grazed her thigh. She dropped with a cry of pain to one knee, leveling her pistol at him on the floor.

  By now he had enough wits to steady his Glock with both palms and point it at her. He caught her eye over his weapon, her expression cold, dropping her facade of the cooperative DARPA researcher.

  They both fired at the same time.

  Her round burned past his ear as he twisted to the side. She was not as quick. His shot grazed her neck, knocking her back. He lunged from the floor, his pistol raised and fixed. She glared at him and managed to swing her weapon back up. It centered on him before he could kick it away. With no other choice, he fired again, a head shot this time, taking no chances.

  She collapsed to the floor, her pistol dropping from her limp fingers.

  He toed it away, though he knew she was surely dead.

  He reached to her body and retrieved her cell phone. She might not be able to talk, but there might be something on the phone to explain this attack.

  His next thought was of more immediate concern.

  Kowalski and Maria.

  Someone had phoned Wu a moment ago, likely triggering this ambush.

  That could only mean one thing.

  I was a loose end.

  Monk charged to the door, weapon in hand, and raced into the deserted hallway and down to Baako’s classroom. He burst into the outer antechamber and skidded up to the observation window. The space was empty.

  No bodies, no blood, no sign of a fight.

  Even Baako was gone.

  He searched around, momentarily confused. Where are they?

  A shout echoed from a long hall that stretched toward the rear of the building. He ran toward it, hearing the anger, recognizing the voice of Leonard Trask, the director of this field station.

  “Who let this dog loose?” the man shouted in the distance. “Get this mutt back in its kennel!”

  Monk sprinted toward the ruckus. He didn’t know if any of this had to do with the missing group, but Trask might know what had happened or at least offer some insight.

  He passed a series of labs and ended up in a larger space bordered by rooms that held dog runs, stainless steel cages, and lockers. At the back, a loading dock’s double set of tall doors stood closed. A smaller exit stood open to the rainy day.

  Nearby, a dog huddled, soaking wet, trembling all over.

  Trask loomed over the scared pup, pinning it against the wall with a boot. Finally a female student in an Emory University coverall came running up with a leash.

  Monk joined them. “What’s going on?”

  Trask turned, his face red, his eyes furious. “Someone let—” His voice cut off upon seeing the pistol still in Monk’s hand. “What’re you doing?”

  He didn’t have time to explain.

  The student freed the dog and hooked the leash to the pup’s collar. As she did so, something fell loose and struck the concrete floor. She retrieved it and examined it curiously.

  Trask held out his hand. “Let me see that.”

  She passed it over. “It looks like one of Baako’s trackers.”

  Monk stepped closer. “Is she right?”

  “Yes,” Leonard answered with a scowl. “But what’s it doing on the dog?”

  The student tried to explain, looking nervous. She pointed toward the exit. “Dr. Crandall took Baako and Tango out for a walk.”

  “When?” Monk asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe half an hour ago. I had just come on shift when Jack fetched Tango out of the kennels.”

  Monk stalked to the exit and stared out into the rain and across a wet meadow.

  “They’re probably still out in the woods,” Trask said. “There’s a maze of trails out there.”

  Monk wasn’t buying it. He squinted, his gaze following a gravel path that carved through the tall grass. Something dark obscured the trail halfway across.

  Damn it.

  He grabbed Trask by the arm and hauled him along as he ran down the ramp and along that path. As he feared, the obstruction proved to be a body.

  Trask gasped, falling back a step, refusing to draw closer. “It’s Jack.”

  Monk searched the surrounding meadow, but there was no sign of the others. He studied the dark woods, but he knew he was too late. Whoever had called Amy Wu would have done so only after their goal was accomplished.

  “They’re gone,” he mumbled into the rain.

  Monk turned and snatched the tracker band still in Trask’s fingers.

  But maybe not lost.

  12:48 P.M.

  Baako huddles in the back of the cage, hugging his knees to his chest. The roaring noise rips into his head, yet still he hears the pounding of his heart in his ears. He wants to scream, to pound his chest, to let his terror loose. Through a nearby window, he sees the world whip past, slapped by rain. His gut churns at the reeking smell of the small space, at the bobbling of everything around him.

  The only center in this storm is the familiar shape of his mother. She sits beside his cage. Her eyes are too large; her skin is too white. She breathes too hard.

  He reaches a hand to her.

  Mama . . .

  But her arms are held behind her, tied together.

  Same with the big man seated opposite her. His lips are thin and tight, his nostrils flared, his eyes poke everywhere. He looks ready to pound his chest, but his arms are also stuck behind him.

  The bad shadow people, those who came with no faces, crowd the other seats. They show their faces now, peeling back the shadows. Their eyes are pinched, their skin different.

  Like the woman, Mama’s friend, who sometimes comes and tickles him.

  But these ones are not nice like her.

  Baako cowers lower, recalling how they forced him into the cage inside here, prodding him forward with a stick that burned and sparked with blue fire. Only Mama stopped them. She spoke soft words that Baako was too frightened and in pain to understand. Still, he let her guide him inside.

  Then they were mean to Mama. They roughed her all over and took her phone . . . and the man’s phone. Baako knows phones. He sometimes talked to his other mother, Lena, on one. He whimpers thinking of her now.

  “It’s okay, Baako,” Mama says.

  He softly hoots his disagreement.

  It’s not okay.

  She squirms backward in her seat, reaching through the bars with her tied hands. She looks over her shoulder, her eyes on him. The fingers of one hand move, forming letters.

  [Hide]

  He does not understand. His mothers sometimes play hiding games with him. Like putting a banana in a box that he must turn and twist, push and prod, until he could get inside and eat it.

  He draws his lips back from his teeth, showing his confusion.

  She opens the fingers of her other hand. In the palm rests a circle of plastic and steel. He knows it and shows her this by cuffing his wrist wit
h his own fingers. He remembers how she took one of the circles off and put it on Tango, then removed the second one and put it in her back pocket before the bad men came.

  Her empty hand forms words again while she thrusts the circle at him.

  [Take . . . Hide]

  He obeys and scoops it from her fingers.

  Then a voice shouts from the front. Baako is too frightened to understand, only hears the anger.

  But Mama says words he knows. “Baako is scared.” At the same time, she speaks to him with her fingers.

  [Hide . . . Now]

  Baako slinks back to the rear of the cage, unsure how to do this. He wants to be a good boy. Finally he thinks and turns from everyone. He lifts his hand to his mouth and slips the circle between his lips. He tongues it into his cheek and holds it there.

  One of the bad men shoves Mama back around in her seat, but she still nods to Baako, smiling when there can be no words. He understands, knows what she means.

  [Good boy]

  Even the large man in the opposite seat stares at him. He does not smile, but Baako reads the approval in his face.

  Baako settles back, calmer now, certain of one truth.

  I am a good boy.

  9

  April 30, 7:23 A.M. CST

  Beijing, China

  “Qıˇng bú shì . . . qıˇng bú shì . . .” the man pleaded, on his knees, his head bowed low. “Shàojiàng Lau, qıˇng bú shì.”

  Major General Jiaying Lau kept her back to him, reviewing a clipboard, which held the morning reports from the installation’s various lab divisions. She stood before a window that overlooked the Beijing Zoo, one of the world’s largest zoos. It was also the oldest in China, dating back to 1906, when it was as an experimental farm.

  How fitting a start, she thought, considering the current project.

  Jiaying took a measure of pride, knowing all the hard work and years of painstaking detail it required to bring everything to fruition. She stared out at the park. Her view was through an upper-story window of Changguanlou, a French-inspired baroque manor in the zoo’s northwest corner, built during the nineteenth century to house Empress Dowager Cixi.