The Bone Labyrinth Read online

  “I’m fine,” she told Baako, emphasizing this by giving him a squeeze. “You can see that.”

  Baako wiggled free and shook his head.

  He repeated the sign for mother, then followed it by cupping his chin with his right hand and dropping it firmly to his left hand, which was clenched in a fist with the index finger pointed toward her.

  [Mother-Sister]

  Maria nodded, understanding better now.

  He’s worried about Lena.

  Baako had two mothers: Maria and her sister Lena. Baako considered them both to be equally his maternal caretakers. At first they thought Baako might have been confused because the two sisters were identical twins, but it was quickly evident that he had no trouble telling them apart, unlike some of their colleagues at the field station.

  Baako repeated his first sign, over and over again.

  [Afraid, afraid, afraid . . . ]

  “You don’t have to worry, Baako. We talked about this. Lena might not be here right now, but she’ll be back. She is okay.”

  She signed the letters O and K.

  Again he gave a shake of his head and repeated the gesture for afraid.

  She returned to her earlier question, signing more emphatically to pry out the particular source of his anxiety. “Why are you afraid?”

  6:38 A.M.

  He sinks more heavily to his rear and stares at his open palms. He clenches and unclenches his fingers, struggling to think how to make himself clear. Finally he places his fingertips to his brow, then turns his palm toward her.

  [Don’t know]

  He crosses his left arm over his chest and jabs his right thumb twice toward his face, striking his right wrist against his left.

  [Danger]

  She frowns, then stares into the other room, toward the nest of blankets atop his bed. She touches her forehead with an index finger, then lifts it away and flexes it twice while speaking.

  “It was just a dream, Baako.”

  He huffs out a breath.

  “You know about dreams, Baako. We talked about them before.”

  He shakes his head, then imitates her gesture.

  [Not dream]

  6:40 A.M.

  Maria read the certainty in Baako’s expression. He clearly believed that Lena was in danger. It suddenly reminded her of her own inexplicable anxiety upon waking on her office sofa earlier.

  Should I be worried?

  While growing up with an identical sister, she had read about the unique bond that could develop between twins, how some pairs seemed to have a sense of each other even across vast distances. Likewise, animals were also said to share a similar preternatural ability, like dogs moving to the door several minutes before the unexpected arrival of their master. But as a scientist, she put little weight upon such reports, preferring empirical data to anecdotal accounts.

  Still . . .

  Maybe I should call Lena.

  If nothing else, her voice on the phone should reassure Baako.

  And me, too.

  She glanced to her watch, wondering what time it was in Croatia. She and Lena spoke almost every day, either by phone or over a videoconference call. They compared notes, shared stories, often talking for hours on end, trying their best to preserve their close bond across such a distance. She knew it wasn’t unusual for twins to maintain such a lifelong intimate relationship, but she and her sister had been forged even closer by hardship and heartbreak.

  She closed her eyes, remembering the small apartment where they grew up in Albany, New York.

  The door to their bedroom creaked open. “Where are my two kittens?”

  Maria huddled more tightly against Lena under the blanket of the twin bed. Already nine years old, she had her own bed, but she and her sister always slept together until their mother came home. Though they never knew their father, sometimes Lena would take down a photo album. They would stare at his face and make up stories of where he went, why he left them when they were babies. Sometimes he was the hero of those stories, sometimes the villain.

  “Do I hear purring under those blankets?”

  Lena giggled, which set Maria off, too.

  The blanket was peeled away, bringing with it the fresh scent of peach soap. Their mother always washed her hands after coming home.

  “There are my kittens,” she said, sinking to the bed, plainly tired after working two jobs: at the liquor store around the corner at night and at the crosstown Costco during the day. She hugged them both deeply, then gently encouraged Maria off to her own bed.

  Maria and Lena spent most of the day alone in the apartment. Babysitters cost too much. But they were taught to come straight home from school, then lock themselves up tight. Neither of them minded—at least not much. They had each other for company, playing games or watching cartoons.

  Once Maria was nestled in her own bed, her mother kissed her forehead. “Back to sleep, my little kitten.”

  Maria tried to meow, but ended up yawning instead, drifting back to sleep before her mother even closed the door.

  A loud tapping drew Maria back to the present.

  She turned to the observation window. Jack waved to her, lifting the end of a leash in his other hand.

  She cleared her throat and called to him, “C’mon in!”

  She tried to compose herself, to push aside her misgivings about Lena. Still, the memory reminded her how quickly life could change, how love could vanish in a moment. While they were in their sophomore year at college, there had been a midnight call to their dorm room. A robbery had left their mother dead on the linoleum floor of the liquor store.

  From then on, it had been just the two of them.

  Another sharp pang of anxiety rattled through her.

  Lena, you’d better be okay.

  As Jack headed toward the door, Baako hooted, bouncing on his hind legs, growing excited—not so much at Jack’s arrival as at who usually accompanied the student at the end of that leash.

  Still, Maria saw that the student was trailed by another man, someone far less welcome. The bald head of the field station’s director appeared behind the window. Word of the early-morning commotion must have drawn Dr. Trask from his offices across the station’s campus.

  Maria straightened, girding herself for the confrontation to come. Jack entered first, then pushed through the cage door and unhooked the leash from his charge.

  Baako huffed in excitement as the Queensland Heeler pup bounded across the distance and slammed into Baako. The pair rolled across the floor. Tango was a ten-month-old Queensland, a teenager like Baako, with speckled gray fur and a black mask. Half a year ago, Baako had picked him out of a group of young pups. The two had since become best buddies.

  Dr. Leonard Trask scowled as he entered. “I heard there was a problem with your test subject.”

  “Nothing that couldn’t be handled.” Maria pointed to the joyous greeting. “As you can see.”

  Trask crossed his arms, ignoring the pair. “You read the board’s recommendations for your subject as it grows more mature. Safeguards should be in place already.”

  “Like locking him in a cage when he’s not under direct supervision.”

  “It’s for the subject’s safety as much as for those working here.” Trask waved to Jack. “What if it had broken through the window and gotten loose?”

  “He’s not strong enough—”

  “Not yet.” Trask cut her off. “It would be better to get the subject accustomed to being caged at this pliable age rather than later.”

  She refused to back down. “I’ve forwarded the board reams of reports on how such confinement of primates can retard mental growth. Primates are intelligent creatures. They’re self-aware, able to comprehend past and future, able to think abstractly. For such creatures, isolation and confinement can inhibit healthy psychological development, which in turn can lead to stress-induced disorders, if not full-blown psychosis. That’s the greater occupational safety issue.”

  “The boar
d took in your concerns and made their judgments. You have forty-five days to implement the new restrictions.”

  She knew the board was little more than a group who rubber-stamped Trask’s will. Before she could argue further, Trask turned his back on her and headed out. She let him leave, knowing this harassment was born of professional jealousy. The amount of grant money flowing into her project dwarfed the rest of the research studies currently under way at the center, and as a consequence sucked up a lot of the resources here, including space.

  She had heard Trask wanted to expand his own program involving transplant research, using chimpanzees as test subjects. She had read his grant proposals and found them lacking. Not only did they repeat work already performed elsewhere, but they were unnecessarily cruel.

  All the more reason to hold my ground here.

  She returned her study to Baako, who cradled Tango in his lap. He had grown quiet during their argument, plainly sensing the tension, perhaps even understanding that he was at the center of this dispute. She glanced around the suite of rooms that made up his domicile, trying to imagine confining him at night.

  But is this space any less of a cage already?

  A familiar twinge of guilt flared through her. She sensed that much of the rancor she directed at Trask was the result of her own inner conflict concerning the ethical nature of her own work. She certainly did her best to minimize any stress to Baako. She refused to allow anything invasive to be done to him, nothing beyond blood draws and scans. Additionally, she tried to keep him exercised, stimulated, and entertained.

  Still, is it right?

  Many countries had research bans on the great apes: New Zealand, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden. The United States had no such restrictions in place. This unique study could be performed only in a primate center such as this one.

  Baako huffed softly at her, perhaps picking up on her distress. He hugged his fists to his chest, trying to reassure her with this sign.

  She smiled. “I love you, too.”

  Baako pointed to Tango and repeated the gesture.

  “Yes, and I love Tango, too.”

  Satisfied, Baako rolled to his legs, snatched an old blanket, and began a tug-of-war game with Tango.

  With Baako’s earlier fears mollified for the moment, Maria headed out with a firm goal in mind.

  To call Lena.

  3

  April 29, 12:45 P.M. CEST

  Karlovac County, Croatia

  Lena lay flat on her belly on the mud-slick rock. Beside her, Father Roland Novak kept to her shoulder, breathing heavily. Both of them hid in a horizontal crack off the main cavern. The opening to their hiding place was low to the floor, offering only a knee-high view beyond where they lay.

  In the pitch-darkness, she strained for some clue as to what was happening outside. Thunder rumbled as the threatening storm broke over the mountains. Behind her, she heard the telltale roaring of water, echoing up from some subterranean river. She swore the noise had grown louder since the two of them had crawled in here. She pictured that stream surging with floodwaters draining from the higher elevations.

  Or maybe it only sounded louder in the darkness.

  As she waited, all her senses had sharpened to a razor’s edge. The coppery taste of terror filled her mouth. Her heart hammered against her ribs, against the rock floor under her chest.

  “What is going on up there?” she whispered breathlessly.

  The question was rhetorical, but Father Novak answered it. “Maybe the attackers are gone. With Arnaud and Wrightson turning themselves in, maybe they left.”

  She prayed the two older men were still alive.

  Shortly after the outbreak of gunfire, a bullhorn-amplified voice had echoed from the cavern entrance, demanding that the paleontologist and geologist show themselves. Apparently the attackers had successfully ambushed the French infantry team above and now held the mountaintop. The final command echoed in her head.

  If you both want to live, come out now!

  The order was blasted in English and French.

  Upon hearing that, Wrightson had made a hasty decision. “The bastards are only demanding we show ourselves.” Wrightson faced Roland and Lena. “But not you two. Whoever planned this attack must not know we took you two down here. You weren’t originally scheduled to be here for another day—until the storm accelerated matters. So stay here, stay hidden.”

  While such subterfuge was risky, it was the best hope for all of them. With any luck, Roland and Lena could raise the alarm once it was safe to make an escape. With little other choice, she and Roland had crawled into this crack while the two older men headed up to face their fate. Afterward, Lena remained tense, expecting to hear a burst of gunfire as the two scientists were executed.

  “Someone’s coming,” Father Novak hissed, reaching over to clutch her fingers.

  Alerted by the priest, she noted a soft glow rising from the neighboring cave that led up to the surface. A knot of dark figures, all in black combat gear and wearing helmets, burst into the larger cavern. The beams of their flashlights bobbled as they rushed headlong across the space, ignoring the carefully laid-out bridge of ladders, trampling through this perfectly preserved collection of prehistoric bones and skulls. The team headed directly to the other side and vanished into the far tunnel that led to the strange burial site hidden inside a bricked-up chapel.

  “What is going on?” Father Novak whispered.

  Through her terror, a twinge of anger flared. She knew looting and grave robbing still plagued archaeological digs. Someone clearly had gotten wind of the discovery here, and they were grabbing what they could before anyone was the wiser.

  Scuffling noises, along with the sharper retorts of broken stone, echoed from the far tunnel. Minutes later, Novak squeezed her hand harder.

  “Here they come again,” he warned.

  The team reappeared, retreating just as carelessly through the cavern, but now two of the men carried a long case between them. It looked like a plastic coffin. Lena could guess what that box held. She pictured the Neanderthal remains carefully interred within that Gothic chapel. Such a perfectly preserved and intact skeleton could fetch a tidy sum on the black market. Still, the men ignored the other valuable artifacts underfoot, crushing hundreds of thousands of dollars of relics under their boots.

  Why are they—?

  A muffled boom made her gasp. Smoke and rock dust coughed out of the tunnel the team had just evacuated. Lena stared in stunned disbelief.

  They must’ve blown up the chapel.

  But why?

  The looters vanished out of the cavern, taking their lights with them. As darkness returned, Father Novak began crawling out of the hiding place.

  “We should wait,” Lena warned, snatching at his coat sleeve. “Make sure they’re gone for good.”

  He glanced back at her. “They didn’t look like they were returning, but you’re right. We should remain hidden in these caverns for a bit longer. In the meantime, I intend to see what’s left in the wake of their destruction.”

  He shoved free and clicked on his flashlight, muffling the light with the fingers of his other hand.

  Lena followed him out, recognizing the wisdom of the priest’s assessment and embarrassingly fearful of being left in the darkness by herself. She took a few shaky steps, but her terror quickly ebbed now that she was moving and had a goal, something to focus her attention on.

  Novak led with his light.

  As she tagged along behind him, she cast anxious glances over her shoulder, watching for any sign of the thieves returning. Once they reached the smoky mouth of the tunnel, she asked, “What does it matter if anything’s left here?”

  “Dr. Wrightson summoned me here personally to solve the historical mystery that’s been hidden here for centuries. I won’t let his and Arnaud’s sacrifice be in vain.”

  Lena bit back a twinge of guilt. She pictured Wrightson and Arnaud vanishing into the darkness. She had also been called h
ere to solve a mystery.

  In her case, a scientific one.

  Before entering the tunnel, she took a final look at the carved stalagmites and the impressive swaths of cave art. Father Novak was right.

  They might as well learn as much as they could.

  Before it was too late.

  1:16 P.M.

  As the only member of the Roman Catholic Church present, Roland was determined to bear witness to the desecration of this small chapel, a chapel whose construction had apparently been overseen and sanctified centuries ago by Father Athanasius Kircher. As he headed into the tunnel with his flashlight, questions swirled in his mind.

  Why did the reverend father sanctify this place centuries ago? Why was it kept hidden—and more important, why was it looted and desecrated just now?

  Hoping for answers ahead, he followed his beam through the churning rock dust and residual smoke. At last he reached the cratered remains of the Gothic chapel. The stone walls were now a pile of rubble. It looked like most of the debris had been blasted in such a manner as to completely bury the grave site with its strange petroglyphs and carefully laid-out bones.

  The American geneticist—Lena—coughed behind him, doing her best to suppress the noise with a fist pressed to her lips. “Looks like they were covering their tracks, obscuring evidence of their theft here.”

  “But you took photos earlier, yes?”

  “Damned straight, I did.” The note of righteous indignation in her voice tweaked a smile out of him. “Sorry, Father. I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s all right. I’m damned glad you took those pictures, too. And please call me Roland. I think we’re beyond formalities here.”

  She joined him at the edge of the blast site. “I don’t think we’re going to salvage anything here.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  Roland carefully stepped and climbed through the worst of the desecration, hoping the thieves were so focused on their goal that they failed to examine the far wall of the chapel, especially the side facing the old entrance to this cavern system.

  Before he could cross through the rubble, Lena called behind him. “Father . . . Roland, come see this.”