Praise for REPLICA

NJ Sunday Star Ledger . . . “Well-constructed and a fine read. Non-stop action and thrills. A sure-fire bestseller."

Delaware Weekly . . . “Exciting and moving. Twists and shocks that keep the reader wired right up till the end.

Booklist An astonishing technique for recovering extinct-mammal DNA is discovered. A 747 crashes onto a deserted island. Then . . . all hell breaks loose!

Philadelphia Book Review . . . “ Fans of Lost will love Replica.”

BookPage . . . “Lost meets Jurassic Park—without the dinosaurs—but with something much worse.”

Orlando Sentinel . . . The action-packed adventure takes readers on an exciting adventure that feels perilously real. Replica is one fun reading experience.

Mid Atlantic Book Review . . . “It’s brilliant. The plot is great, characters realistic, and the ending . . . WOW.”

REPLICA

Bill Clem

Vision Books

Published by Vision Books

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

VISION BOOKS

P.O. Box 9034

New York NY 10020

Copyright © 2009 by Bill Clem

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN 13: 978-0-979580857

ISBN 10: 0-979580854

www.billclem.com

Back cover photo by John Hertzog

Also by Bill Clem

Novels

Skin Deep

Diencephalon (Holland Carter Detective Series)

Presidential Donor

Bliss

Microbe

They All Fall Down (Holland Carter Detective Series) (2008)

Immortal

Medicine Cup (2008)

Replica (2009)

The Seventh Day (2009)

The Lazarus Effect (2009)

A Note From Anna (Holland Carter Detective Series) (2009)

Short Fiction

A Brief Interval

(Collection of Short Stories) (2008)

Contents

Praise for REPLICA

Also by Bill Clem

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Prologue

Part One. An Airline Disaster

One

Two

Three

Part Two. Extinct

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Part Three. Castaways

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Part Four. Revelation

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Part Five. Island of the Thylacines

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Fifty-Seven

Fifty-Eight

Epilogue

Sample of Anomoly

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Jon Hertzog for his editorial assistance and for his unwavering support of my work; and as always, my wife and children for just being there.

This is for the Tasmanian tiger in the hope that someday he will live again.

Author’s Note

Below is the article that spawned my imagination and prompted me to write Replica.

Extinction may not be forever after all; so hoped the Australian scientists behind an ambitious project to clone the extinct Tasmanian tiger.

The project to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction began in 1999 when Australian Museum scientists extracted DNA from an ethanol-preserved female pup in its collection.

In 2001, further DNA was extracted from two other preserved pups; the tissue source for the DNA was bone, tooth, bone marrow, and dried muscle. Dr. Mike Archer, director of the Australian Museum, said the alcohol-preserved female pup's DNA had given the scientists the Tasmanian tiger's X chromosome and the other samples the male Y chromosome.

On 28 May 2002, the scientists from the Australian Museum in Sydney announced a breakthrough in efforts to clone the extinct Tasmanian wolf, saying they had replicated some of the animal's genes using a process called PCR (polymerase chain reaction). These PCR's show that short fragments of the DNA are undamaged and undoubtedly Tasmanian Tiger DNA, and that there is no reason why these should not work in a living cell.

The next stage is to make large quantity copies of all the genes of the Tasmanian tiger so these can be used to construct synthetic chromosomes. The scientists said they hoped to clone a Tasmanian tiger in 10 years if they were successful in constructing large quantities of all the genes of the Tasmanian tiger and sequencing sections of the genome to create a genetic library of Tasmanian tiger DNA.

But Dr. Mike Archer said the technology for the final stage of cloning, putting the Tasmanian tiger's genetic material into a Tasmanian devil host cell which has been stripped of the devil's genetic material was still to be developed. "We don't know the length of this journey. It's up to the speed with which technology keeps pace with the vision. But I am optimistic," he said. The ultimate aim of this project was to clone a viable reproducing population of Tasmanian tigers in the wild.

On 15th February 2005 sad news appeared. The resurrection of the Tasmanian tiger will have to wait. After five years trying to extract DNA from preserved Tasmanian tigers in an effort to bring the lost marsupial back to life, the Australian Museum has abandoned the ambitious project, after finding its supply of Tasmanian tiger DNA too degraded. The museum said it lacked the skills and facilities to continue the project. Professor Archer, now the dean of science at the University of New South Wales, says the cloning project has lost steam since he left the museum in 2003. In a statement to ABC Science Online, Professor Archer says he is disappointed by the museum's decision but he says he still hopes it might be possible to bring the Tasmanian tiger back to life. "I and other colleagues remain interested in the project and I don't think that it will simply die because the museum can't proceed," he says. "The technology to make it happen is improving all the time. And I believe science has a duty to continue to assemble the building blocks that will be needed to do it."

Replica

Continent of Australia
Tasmania in red box

Prologue

CAPTAIN BRETT IRWIN GAZED THROUGH his field glasses. At first glance, all seemed well. Scanning the horizon, he stopped abruptly at a point some forty kilometers away.

That’s odd.

Irwin was looking at a large cargo ship, no different from the many others that traversed these waters. This ship, however, was adrift, listing at an odd angle.

A ghost ship!

Searching the hull, he located the name: SANTA ROSA. He recognized the markings it bore as Portuguese. Probably on a cargo run from Sydney. There had to be a problem; a ship that size would never be dead in the water like that. Irwin ordered his first officer to change course. We’ll find out what the hell this is.

Irwin was on reconnaissance for the Australian Navy with a crew of ten. Their mission was to investigate reports of pirates along the northern coast when they came across the stranded vessel. As his excitement grew, Irwin’s vessel pulled alongside the disabled ship and dropped anchor. A minute later, the captain climbed to the top of the cargo ship’s steel ladder.

What was that?

Irwin, peering through the inexplicable mist, turned to his left toward the bilge exhaust. In the dim light, he could make out two small circles of opaque red.

The circles blinked.

He sent two ensigns ahead of him, and then boarded the huge ship.

“It looks deserted, Captain,” one of the ensigns said. Making their way across the hot deck, a sickening stench hit them.

“Christ, what’s that smell?” the other sailor said, gagging from the funk.

The captain stepped between the two sailors, covering his mouth with his handkerchief. He noticed a lifeboat hanging half off the stern. He ran his fingers along the top of the deck rail. Quickly retracting his hand, he wiped it on his pant leg. Instantly, a dark red stain appeared.

Blood!

Irwin moved aft as the two sailors watched, joining him a minute later. Irwin heard a door slam and jerked his head in the direction of the noise. Focusing his eyes, he saw the door to the cargo-hold swinging freely. A large machete lie abandoned in the stern and Irwin suddenly noticed flies buzzing loudly. He approached the door and the stench grew worse, thickening with every step. Opening the door, he stared down the stairwell into the hold. The two ensigns came up behind Irwin.

“Jesus, what the fuck happened?” the first sailor asked, his face pale as a sheet.

Below deck, bodies were haphazardly stacked up three-high. All of them had been torn to shreds.

Irwin steeled himself and slowly descended the stairs. Fighting back bile, he sucked in shallow breaths through his handkerchief. When he reached the bottom, he saw one of the dead men wore a captain’s uniform, his face frozen, contorted in a howl of terror. Maggots and flies congregated in his eye sockets. With his foot, Irwin nudged the body over.

The back of his head was gone!

All at once, a powerful blow struck them from above. Black claws, the length of carving knives, ripped one of the sailors in two. The second ensign raised his gun to fire but before he could, the terrible stench of carrion breath filled his nostrils. Then it didn’t, as the man’s head flew off his shoulders, its arc carrying it overboard.

Irwin screamed as he suddenly found himself upside down. A terrible fire crossed his legs, just below the knees. A sound like twigs snapping sent his brain reeling. He felt himself being flung through the air, then the rush of saltwater as he sank in the ocean.

A long moment later, the captain bobbed to the surface, thrashing and choking, spitting seaweed and grit from his mouth. He spotted his boat and swam toward it, churning the water like a piston.

Suddenly, his forward motion stopped and he felt a grip on his leg like none he had ever known. Irwin curled around to look, but wished he hadn’t. A horrendous silhouette of matted fur and death slashed out at him, and the pain shot through him as he saw his legs sheared off. Why don’t I pass out? He thought as he watched the gray water turn crimson.

The reeking fury rose up in front of him. The next slash cut him in two pieces.

And he became one with the sea.

Part One

An Airline Disaster

One

THE FIRST SIGN OF SOMETHING amiss occurred shortly after 13:40 GMT (20:40 Jakarta time) above the Indian Ocean, south of Java. Senior First Officer Larry Towson and Senior Engineering Officer Roger Sippolt, at the 747’s controls, witnessed an effect on the windscreen similar to St. Elmo's fire, as if it were being hit by tracer bullets. The phenomenon persisted, so Officer Towson requested Captain Eric Hammond to return from the galley. Hammond immediately took control, checking the readings on the instruments. Despite seeing no indication of bad weather on the radar, he switched on engine anti-icing as a precaution. The Seat Belt Warning signs lit in the cabin.

* * *

In the passenger cabin, Jack Baker was half-asleep when the plane began to tremble. Growing irritated, he glanced out the window to see that the aircraft had entered a cloud. The air was nearly opaque, though he could make out the dark contour of the nearest engine. He pressed his fingers with his fingers when he heard another passenger comment that the engines seemed unusually bright. Jack looked again to see the engines appeared to have headlights in them shining forward through the fan blades producing a stroboscopic effect.

That doesn’t seem right.

Then the trembling intensified from a heavy vibration to a bone-jarring shudder. Baker pulled his seatbelt tighter and gripped the sides of the seat.

Something was definitely wrong!

* * *

At approximately 13:45 GMT (20:45 Jakarta time), an alarm pierced the cockpit. Engine four surged and flamed out. The First Officer and the Flight Engineer immediately performed the engine shutdown drill, cutting off the fuel supply and arming the fire extinguishers. Captain Hammond pushed hard on the yoke, adding some rudder to counter the uneven thrust.

The passengers could now see long glowing yellow streaks coming from the remaining engines. The atmosphere in the cabin was tense, bordering on panic. Everyone was looking for their faith, either in their god or their pilot.

Less than a minute after the first engine failed, engine two surged and also flamed out. Before the flight crew could react to that failure, engines one shut down. The plane dipped severely and, convulsing as though the hand of God was shaking it, the final engine flared its death knell. The panicked voices from the cabin could now be heard by the pilots, rivaling the screaming alarms in the cockpit.

"I don't believe it,” the flight engineer said, “all four engines have failed!"

Hammond reached over and shut off the alarms before looking at his co-pilot. Their eyes met with horrific understanding. The 747 had now become a glider.

A 747 airliner can glide 15 kilometers for every kilometer it loses in height. Captain Hammond calculated that, from its flight level of about 11,280 meters (37,000 ft.), Flight 924 would be able to glide for 23 minutes and cover 261 kilometers. Maximum.

At 13:47 GMT, Hammond leaned back to Towson. “Declare an emergency to the local air traffic control authority; tell them all four engines have shut down.”

It took the First Officer a moment to find his voice. He radioed a distress call and waited for response. And waited.

Despite the squeeze on time, Captain Hammond grabbed the cabin microphone and announced what he knew was a masterpiece of understatement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. As you may be aware, we are experiencing a few problems. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.”

* * *

The jet yawed to the west, shivering violently. The structural welds and joints started to moan as the steel cage bounced with the failing momentum. The loss of power and control was immediately obvious to Jack Baker, and he watched the other passengers as they reacted to it, each in their own way. Some became silently resigned to their fate, some prayed and counted rosary beads. More than a few were clutching, and using, the sick bags tucked in with the Sky Mall magazines in the seatbacks. In the stale, thickening air, it was obvious some weren’t bothering to use the bag.

Some just sat back and shut their eyes, their lips moving silently, while others hastily wrote notes to their loved ones, expressing love and final thoughts. Plane going down. Do your best for the boys. I’ve had a good life. We love you. For all the different personalities on the doomed airship, the messages were eerily similar. Jack thought about writing a note, but he just didn’t know who to write it to.

Some passengers cried out in dread and fear, convinced they were going to die. The few brave passengers attempted to calm the more panicky ones.

Moments later, the cabin turned as dark as the sky. Carry-on bins rattled open, and the overhead lights occasionally flickered back to life: No smoking! Fasten seat belts! This is it!

The plane was losing altitude fast, dropping like the 800,000 lb. rock it had become. It plunged, and wobbled, fighting the turbulent air around it, as the passenger cabin grew dense with the smell of vomit. People were sobbing on both sides of the aisle, while a man in the rear of the plane was on his knees praying.

Then came the announcement by the stewards: “Ladies and gentlemen, please assume crash positions. We are all going to die now!”

At least that was the way Jack Baker heard it.

* * *

The crew on the flight deck attempted to contact Jakarta for assistance, but could not be seen by Jakarta radar, despite their transponder being set to 7700, the international "general emergency" code.

Captain Hammond knew from experience that, due to the high Indonesian mountains, an altitude of at least 11,500 ft was required to cross the coast safely. He decided that if the aircraft were unable to clear it by the time they fell to 12,000 ft, he’d have no choice; he would turn back out to sea and attempt to ditch. The crew continued the engine restart drills, despite being well above the recommended maximum engine in-flight start envelope altitude of 28,000 ft. They were having no success.

At 13,500 ft, as Hammond looked at the photo of his wife he had taped to the dash, he attempted one last engine restart procedure.

Damn you, jet.

Hammond turned for the ocean and dumped the remaining fuel. He would have to ditch.

No one had ever tried an ocean landing in a 747. Not successfully, anyway.

As the aircraft made an approach in the general direction of the Australian coast, Captain Hammond lowered the flaps, trying to slow the descent. It was too little, and much too late. And he knew it.

I’m sorry, Ellen.

Seconds later, the huge plane hit the water with unimaginable force. The last thing Hammond saw was a torrent of ocean entering the cockpit.

The hull of the jumbo-liner skipped across the waves like a child’s stone across a pond. With a thunderous roar, the cabin of the 747 ripped into three pieces as though it were made of tissue. More debris was created and scattered when it came to rest on a most-inhospitable rocky outcropping.

* * *

At 13:47 GMT, Buck Johnston of the Australian Search and Rescue Service received a terse phone call from Darwin Air Traffic Control.

“AusSAR, Buck Johnston,” he answered, using the acronym for his branch of the Australian Rescue Coordination Centre, itself a division of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. After all, this was a service that appreciated brevity. Behind his desk hung a sign that read:

SECONDS COUNT

He believed that, based on his years of experience.

“Buck, this is Tim Reid over at Darwin.”

“We just got a brief distress call from a seven-four-seven, just south of here.”

Johnston’s chest tightened. “And?”

“We only had the signal for a moment, then we lost contact. This one feels bad, Buck.”

“Do they ever feel good, Tim? Give me the details.”

“British Airways flight niner out of Heathrow. The distress call went out about five minutes ago at latitude 9°40 S, longitude 124°51 E.”

“Jesus, that’s a hell of a place to go down. I’ll scramble a C-24 over there.” Johnston tapped a few keys on his laptop and looked at the screen. “There’s a frigate in that general area now. I’ll alert them, too.”

Two

JACK BAKER MUST HAVE BLACKED out on impact because he couldn’t recall how long or how far it took the plane to stop upon hitting the water. He thought he could still hear the faint whine of a jet turbine somewhere in the distance. Or maybe it was just a ringing in his ears. He looked around. He could see water through the open end of the decimated rear fuselage, sloshing against the ragged metal edges and up onto the cabin floor. Half in, half out of the opening, a man floated face down, his body rising and falling with the tide. The passenger next to Jack, who he’d been talking to a few minutes earlier, was still strapped into his seat; head gone, just a splinter of spinal column protruded from the wet stump that was his neck. A moan sputtered from within the mangled fuselage. Across the aisle, a woman wailed away her final breaths. She tried to move, but the seat in front of her had catapulted against her on impact, crushing her legs like an accordion. She kept crying, “My legs... my legs.” Jack wanted to help her, but for the first time in his life, he was too paralyzed with fear.

* * *

Captain Eric Hammond lay motionless, taking stock of his internal signals. He was bruised and battered, but as far as he could tell, nothing was broken. Opening his eyes, his thoughts were slow to focus. Everything seemed softer here... quieter. For a split second, he thought he saw a dog running into a thicket of bamboo. Hammond found a small bottle of vodka in his uniform pocket, unscrewed the top and gulped the contents in one swallow, savoring the analgesic effect on his already numb senses. He had little doubt that he was a lucky man. The reinforced cockpit had saved him any substantial trauma.

Focusing, Hammond saw the area was beach and jungle. He looked around for signs of civilization, or a rescue party. The twisted pieces of debris scattered all around him was all he saw. No buildings, no rescue party.

Not yet. Soon, probably.

Now, raising his head, Hammond could hear the sounds of the ocean. Painfully, he tried to stand up, but his legs felt feeble. He grabbed a tree branch and heaved. After the earth steadied itself beneath his feet, the pilot staggered through the surf, slowly at first, then crashing through the waves, his mind coming alive with the realization of what had actually occurred.

I lost my plane.

And, to top it all off, he couldn’t remember them making radio contact with anyone before the crash. He wasn’t sure, but he doubted it.

They may have no idea that the jet crashed. Eventually, they would realize the plane was missing. But would they know where to look? He had no idea where he was. He could only hope that the transponder was still able to send a signal.

He turned back to the shoreline and surveyed the wreckage. The small hope he had for the transponder dissipated with the spray of the wave that crashed over him. As he was pulled under the surface, he felt the urge to just go with it. Just open my mouth and let the salty brine fill my lungs.

* * *

Jack unbuckled himself and managed to climb out of the twisted plane. The miracle of his survival became more apparent when he got out and surveyed the broken hull.

The pilots had managed to ditch the plane in the ocean, keeping the front fuselage more-or-less intact until they ran out of luck and water, hitting a rocky outcropping a hundred yards shy of the beach. The plane then cart-wheeled before breaking into three pieces. The middle section sank, the rear section landed in the surf, and the cockpit and first class section catapulted onto the island.

A deep gash at the water’s edge marked this point. Further up the beach, the twisted remains of the front landing gear were half-buried, torn off when the remainder of the front fuselage began its breakup.

Jack walked to the sheared-off right wing, laying a good twenty yards from the plane’s body. Circling the broken airfoil, he silently thanked the pilots for emptying the fuel tanks. The fact that the plane didn’t become a fireball was the only good thing about the crash.

Jack made his way to the nose of the aircraft, wedged between two giant teak trees that finally stopped them. He surmised the front fuselage snapped in two just before this piece began its slide into the jungle, leaving rear passengers’ half—his half—floating in the surf. Had this not been the case, Jack’s fate would have been as bad as the birds that were smeared across the cockpit.

Jack stood and listened carefully. Voices?

Yes! He heard voices.

Three

CAPTAIN HAMMOND WALKED OUT OF the sea and fell to his knees at the shoreline. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed. A few minutes later, with his breakdown over, he rose to his feet. Not being able to tell if the salt he tasted was from his tears or the seawater, the pilot wiped his hand across his face and walked slowly to the tree line. Smoldering pieces of the airliner littered the jungle floor. A row of seats dangled precariously from a huge rubber tree ten yards in front of him.

Hammond recalled the final seconds of their harrowing ride—the sound of the engines flaming out, the downward drag of the plane as the cockpit alarms went crazy, the bewildered look on his co-pilot’s face in the final seconds—the sea getting bigger in the windshield.

Despite his years of flight experience, he was shocked to see the pieces of the plane spread out so far from the water. After all, the plane didn’t explode and break up in mid-air. Still, there were fragments everywhere, and he found this odd based on his ditch approach. The last thing Hammond remembered before ditching was seeing the islands that hug the huge coastline of Australia. This island could be one of several hundred uncharted islands off the mainland.

Hammond heard voices ahead and ran in their direction. Huddled together near a pile of luggage were a half-dozen people who looked like they’d just survived a nuclear bomb blast. Some had clothes hanging in tatters, and several had makeshift bandages wrapped around their wounds. He was relieved to see Tracy Mills, one of the flight attendants.

“Tracy, are you all right?”

Tracy nodded. “Captain. Is there anyone else—”

He looked at the ground as he answered, “I just don’t know.”

The cockpit sat twenty feet away, turned upright as if it had been dropped from the top of a building. Hammond clambered over to the cockpit, pushing aside debris.

“Help me, Tracy. Help me push this window out.”

Hammond yanked on the windshield while Tracy used her foot to push on the window frame. It took every ounce of strength they had but finally, with a decisive crack, the windscreen gave way. The momentum caused Hammond to fall backwards onto the jungle floor.

Regrouping, Hammond went to the open cockpit window and forced himself to look inside. Oh no!

The scene inside the cockpit made his heart sink. The copilot, First Officer Towson, hung upside down from his twisted seat. Hammond could only identify him from his uniform. The impact had split Towson’s head down the middle and a grayish red jelly seeped from the gruesome wound. Hammond choked back bile.

Strengthening his resolve, Hammond reached across and grabbed the radio control. He started to say something into the microphone when he noticed it.

Below the maze of switches and dials and digital readouts, a huge tangle of wires hung to the floor. Following the tangle of wires to the radio transceiver, he saw now it was hopeless. The radio was totally destroyed. He climbed down from the window and looked at Tracy and the rest of the group. He shook his head.

“Where the hell are we?” someone asked.

Wherever they were, Hammond’s impression was this island was an alien, inhospitable place where time had stood still. He definitely didn’t want to be here for very long.

“I’m not sure, somewhere around the Java Sea, maybe the Banda Sea.” Hammond said, though he was just guessing.

“Where the hell is that?” another demanded.

“Around Indonesia and East Timor, north of Australia,” he answered, more confidently. Though he didn’t know where they were, at least he knew where those seas were.

* * *

With Captain Greg Beard at the helm, the frigate Kanglour was churning toward a small chunk of land off the coast of the Indonesia. Beard studied the boat’s GPS for a moment. This uncharted island was smack dab in the middle of the sector the AusSAR had given Beard hours earlier. This was also a sector that rattled Beard’s nerves. Several ships had disappeared in the area over the last year, and Beard had heard some of his colleagues refer to it as The Pacific Triangle, relating it to the western version of the infamous Bermuda Triangle. Beard’s superstitious musings were interrupted by his first mate, who hurried to the captain with his field glasses in hand.

“Skipper, there’s a piece of a plane fuselage off the east end of the island.”

“Can you make out any lettering?”

“Yeah. I’m afraid it’s the one.”

“Shit. Okay. Is there any sign of survivors?”

“Not so far.”

“Get us in closer.”

“Aye, Captain.”

When the frigate neared the beach, Beard could see the mangled tail end of the jumbo jet rising out of the surf.

Jesus, he thought, all those people.

He scanned the surrounding area. Debris floated all around, yet he saw no bodies. Not one.

* * *

By about two a.m., it had become clear to Buck Johnston and the rest of his team at AuSAR that the plane, if it had indeed ditched, must have done so further north of the mainland. They could do nothing more until sunrise.

Dawn was a somewhat nominal concept as it brought little more than a grey fog to the scattering of islands off the coast. Visibility was limited for the search planes. However, as the day progressed, boat patrols in a score of little islands off Tasmania reported no sightings of the 747. The islands that skirted the mainland were all remote inaccessible places, but too small to disguise an airliner. Even one in pieces.

It began to look as though the ocean had just swallowed the jumbo jet completely. Worse yet, the frigate Kanglour had failed to report back, which left Johnston even more rattled. Besides his concerns for the airliner, two other ships had disappeared in as many years in that same sector, known as The Pacific Triangle. Johnson wasn’t a gambling man but in this case, he’d stake his life that the plane, and maybe now another frigate, had become the latest victims of the triangle. Despair began to settle around Johnston like a descending mist.

Part Two

Extinct

Four

PETER CARLSON SAT IN THE study of his suburban Washington, D.C. home, considering the worn parchment text in his lap. His grandfather had passed the ancient book on to him just hours before succumbing to lung cancer some twenty years ago. Peter was close to his grandfather. After his own father had walked off and left them, the elder Carlson raised Peter himself. Peter’s mother had died when he was six. He barely remembered her, so his world revolved around his grandfather. He idolized him, and his life’s work.

As Carlson scanned the worn pages, he could see his grandfather was not the quack some of the old man’s former colleagues had accused him of being. In fact, the information was as clear as a bell to Peter Carlson.

In 1921, the Tasmanian tiger, a marsupial land cat native to the island of Tasmania, was hunted to extinction by mainland Australia. Though it was widely believed to be the result of over-hunting for sport, that wasn’t the real reason they’d hunted the elusive mammals out of existence.

The Chinese had discovered that the liver of the Tasmanian tiger, when ground into a fine paste, could cure everything from impotence to cancer, and more. The Aborigines had been privy to this information for years, having lived for centuries among the animals in the dense jungles of Tasmania. When word got out to the rest of the world, every hunter with a rifle and a week’s worth of supplies flocked to the dense jungles off the Australian coast, killing every Tasmanian tiger in sight. Medical companies paid big money to have a cache of Thylacine liver to experiment with and claim as the cure for this or that. It was something akin to the medicine sideshow of the eighteenth century where one elixir would cure all ills. But unlike the medicine shows, these substances from the tiger did indeed work, in the right hands. And therein lay the key; the right hands. Mucking up the works were the charlatans out to make a quick buck. Many had substances they claimed to be legitimate, but were usually acquired in the offal at the local butcher shop. Still others had the real thing but mishandled it, rendering it useless.

Enter Dr. Gregory Carlson, a biologist with an obsession about the Tasmanian tiger. In 1954, long after the remaining Thylacine supply dried up, Carlson led an expedition to island of Tasmania, a thousand kilometers south of Melbourne, Australia. Carlson was convinced there were still Thylacine tigers living on the dense, lush island. He planned to capture one, bring it back to the United States, and resurrect the supposedly extinct animal. However, after two months of giant mosquitoes, poisonous snakes and spiders, Carlson returned home, having never sighted the legendary beast. Disgraced and called a fool by his colleagues, Carlson never let go of his dream. In his later years, he reluctantly relented that there were no more Thylacines in Tasmania or anywhere else. However, with the advent of genetic engineering, his impossible dream was theoretically now possible. There was a fetal Tasmanian tiger specimen in the Australian Museum of Natural History. It would be a simple matter of capturing some DNA from the intact organs and cloning it using a close marsupial relative, the Tasmanian devil.

Peter could see, even if his peers couldn’t, that Grandpa Carlson was way ahead of his time; genetic engineering was in its infancy at the time of his brainstorm. When he knew his days were numbered, he called his young grandson to his bedside and confided in him: “If you do one thing in your whole life, Peter, do this. Take my records and study them. This holds the answer that can save thousands of lives. Finish what I cannot.”

Now, as Peter Carlson pulled himself back from that long-forgotten time, he knew his grandfather was right. And so Peter had spent nearly his whole life researching mammal genetics with the hope of someday resurrecting a Thylacine, then extracting stem cells and synthesizing them to make a true cure-all formula.

Eventually, he’d read about another scientist in Australia pursuing the same quest. The article in National Geographic was about Michael Whiting’s work with the specimen at The Natural History Museum in Sydney. It didn’t surprise Peter that someone else had pursued it. Naturally intrigued, he delved deeper into the story and soon learned more than he’d ever expected about recovering DNA from extinct species. Finally, there was a chance.

Peter believed the key lie in his grandfather’s research. He had written to the museum in Sydney, but the law firm representing it had put him in touch with a curator, who told him there was no such project at the museum. A year later, Peter discovered the true fate of the project, in a science journal. Dr. Whiting had indeed attempted to resurrect the Thylacine from a pup preserved in alcohol. However, midway through the project, they simply ran out of money.

Peter was not surprised, for that had been his experience as well. Despite his faith in his grandfather’s conclusions, it was just too expensive. The equipment alone would run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. All his applications for grants had been turned down, and he got no further with private donors.

Throughout the ages, the debate has raged about whether there actually is such a thing as fate. Peter Carlson would argue strongly in favor. For just when Carlson was about scrap everything, someone stepped into the picture.

Someone with all the money in the world, and one dying son.

Five

THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL History in Sydney, Australia is the largest museum on the continent. Within its walls are some of the most extraordinary exhibits in the world, rivaling even the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Even though Peter Carlson had been here on several occasions, he never failed to feel awestruck, knowing the secrets held in its walls. Today, however, exiting the taxi, he felt invigorated and oddly at ease, his feet almost weightless on the hot asphalt.

Carlson made his way up the stairs to the main entrance, sweat beading up on his brow. It was already over ninety degrees that morning, but some of the perspiration was no doubt due to nervousness.

After all, it wasn’t every day you met the Prince of Dunali.

Carlson stepped inside and heaved a sigh, taking in the cool air of the museum. The first thing to greet Carlson was a gigantic skeleton of the prehistoric fish Eloxothopius. The cadre of bones was part of an exhibit aptly called Skeletons, which explored the differences between endoskeletons and exoskeletons.

Across the huge rotunda, Carlson could see the marine exhibit displaying some of the three hundred species of poisonous marine animals native to Australia. Grandfather Carlson had educated his young grandson in the dangers of Australian marine life at an early age. The elder Carlson had narrowly escaped with his life after a Great White shark attack. Two hundred stitches closed the wound above his kidneys and the months of rehab had cost him precious time away from his search for a living Thylacine. Carlson had never forgotten what his grandfather had told him: Stay out of the water if you go to Australia.

Carlson’s eyes froze suddenly as he gazed back toward the entrance. Walking through the oversized door was a procession of men in full Arab dress, escorting the most elegant man Carlson had ever seen.

Six

MUSEUM CURATOR COLIN ELKSTROM WAS a mere gnome of a man, pale and intense like a lab rat. His thin blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail that hung over narrow shoulders, and his sharp nose was splattered with freckles. Looking at his beady eyes, one couldn’t help but think he’d not slept in several days.

An influential anthropologist before taking the helm at Sydney, Elkstrom’s reputation for surliness was matched only by his ceaseless dedication to whatever museum projects were currently underway. He projected, if not enthusiasm, a protective intensity many found off-putting.

As Peter Carlson followed the feral-looking curator, he found himself walking through an eerie maze of dark-paneled hallways. The labyrinthine network appeared to have been part of the original museum built in 1936. The floor was gray marble tile with darker marble inlays in the shapes of various animals.

“Dr. Carlson,” Elkstrom finally spoke, as he briskly guided Carlson to some unknown destination, “Let me be frank with you, right off the bat.” His tone was anything but amicable. “You are here because the board of the museum wants you here. I take my orders from them, even if I disagree with their decisions. Just so there’s no misunderstanding, be aware that I do not share the board’s enthusiasm for this endeavor. Or for your inclusion, for that matter.”

Carlson could only stare. I traveled seventeen hours on a plane for this kind of welcome. This guy was no Martha Stewart.

Carlson fired back. “With all due respect, I can’t take the opinion of a caretaker,” he watched Elkstrom’s jaw tighten at that word, “too seriously. After all, I have not signed on for anything. I understood this trip was to explore the possibilities.”

“Very well,” Elkstrom said through clenched teeth, “Allow me to spell it out for you.”

“No need. I think you’ve already got the jump on that.”

Carlson’s smart remark seemed to jolt Elkstrom. He slowed his stride for a moment, his dark eyes drilling into Carlson. Then, like a viper uncoiling, he flicked his tongue over his top lip, wheeled around and strode faster, his narrow rodent head leading the way.

“Understand,” Elkstrom began, having regained his starch, “there was a time when I was all for the cloning of the Thylacine. I thought it would be the most brilliant thing ever done. I’m sure you are aware of the attempt by Dr. Whiting and his staff a few years ago. It should have been the museum’s hour in the sun, but it turned out to be more like being caught in an eclipse. My staff and I endured a great deal of criticism after that fiasco. Animal rights groups had a field day. The museum almost went broke. We threw all our financial support, as well as our reputation, behind it and our reward? It nearly destroyed us. And as for Dr. Whiting, well... I’m sure you know what happened to him.”

Carlson nodded. “Yes, unfortunately I do.” He was familiar with the museum’s doomed effort to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction. It began in 1999 when the museum’s main scientist, Dr. Alan Whiting, extracted DNA from an ethanol-preserved female pup in its collection. A year later, they extracted further DNA from two other preserved pups; the tissue source was bone, tooth, bone marrow, and dried muscle. Dr. Whiting announced that the preserved female pup’s DNA gave the scientists the Tasmanian tiger’s X chromosome and the other male samples produced the male Y chromosome.

Then in 2002, Whiting announced a breakthrough in his efforts to clone the Tasmanian tiger, saying they had replicated some of the genes using a process called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. The PCR’s showed short fragments of undamaged Tasmanian tiger DNA, and there was no reason these couldn’t work in a living cell. The next stage was to make large quantity copies of all the genes of the tiger so they could be used to construct synthetic chromosomes. Whiting said he hoped to clone a Tasmanian tiger in 10 years, provided they were successful in constructing sufficient quantities of all the genes of the tiger and sequencing sections of the genome, thus creating a genetic library of Tasmanian tiger DNA.

Unfortunately, hope and reality rarely occupy the same space. In February 2005, they announced the sad news; the project to resurrect the Tasmanian tiger was to be suspended indefinitely. After five years trying to extract DNA from preserved Tasmanian tigers in an effort to bring the lost creature back to life, the Australian Museum abandoned the ambitious project, announcing its supply of Tasmanian tiger DNA had become too degraded. In truth, the museum lacked the skills, facilities and finances to continue the project.

Six months later, Whiting killed himself.

“At any rate,” Elkstrom continued, “we now find ourselves in a similar situation. This time we are forced into it because of the financial backing behind it.”

“That would seem to eliminate the risk for you,” Carlson said.

“It eliminates the financial risk. We still have our considerable reputation on the line. And, lest you think me blinded by loyalty to the Museum, there is even more at stake. If the cloning fails and we waste that Thylacine fetus in the process, we will have lost one of the greatest exhibits in history. That fetal Thylacine is the last one of its kind in the world, period.”

Seven

A HALF HOUR LATER, PETER CARLSON sat at a huge bamboo conference table staring at the image on the screen as Colin Elkstrom tore open a manila envelope and passed some documents around. Seated across from Carlson were the Prince of Dunali and his assistants. Introductions were informal and the Prince was smiling at Carlson in a friendly way. But there was nothing in his smile that suggested pleasure.

“I’m glad we finally get to meet, Dr. Carlson.”

“The pleasure is mine, Your Highness.”

“No need for formalities. Please, call me Habib.”

Carlson relaxed a little. He was surprised that the Prince had virtually no middle-eastern accent. He spoke more like a mid-westerner. Carlson attributed this to the Prince’s education at the University of Michigan, before going on to Oxford. The Prince was obviously well refined. Everything about him said money. “Fine, Habib it is.”

“Good.” The prince shot the cuffs of his jacket, nearly blinding Carlson with the brilliant ruby cufflinks he wore. “Now, shall we get down to business? Mr. Elkstrom, if you please.”

Elkstrom frowned, and then dimmed the lights. The screen came to life with the first image being one Carlson knew well: The 1933 black and white photo from the Brooklyn Zoo of the last living Tasmanian tiger in captivity.

Carlson waited, saying nothing.

The Prince stood. “Dr. Carlson, I am by no means a scientist nor do I possess any skills in your field whatsoever. What I do have is a team of the world’s finest genetic engineers and what I feel is the ultimate genetic cloning facility. I’ve spared no expense.” Prince Habib looked at Carlson. “Here, you’ll see what I mean.”

The Prince nodded and a new image appeared on the screen. This time it was a picture of a huge modern facility bristling with high tech equipment.

“This is GenSys. Dr. Carlson. The facility is already up and running. Suffice to say the late Dr. Whiting, as we later found out, was much further along than he acknowledged. Something so fantastic that virtually overnight, he accomplished... and surpassed... what others had taken years to achieve.”

“And what was that?” Carlson asked.

The screen flickered once more and this time an image appeared on the screen that caused Carlson to gasp. For a moment, the room was quiet. Carlson sat motionless, struggling to absorb what he had just seen, as the implications of it worked its way through his psyche.

“Take a moment,” Prince Habib said calmly. “I realize it must be a hard thing for your mind to accept.”

Carlson didn’t speak. He could only stare at the screen.

That’s not possible!

Eight

IN THE HAZY MORNING LIGHT, the helicopter skimmed low along the coast, following the line where the dense jungle met the beach. The last of the secluded tourist huts had passed beneath them ten minutes ago. Now there was just lush jungle, rocky cliffs, and miles of deserted beach. Sitting in the rear jump seat, Peter Carlson stared out the window as the coastline swept past. He noted to himself that he saw no roads, no buildings, nothing that said inhabited. Leaning forward in his seat, he asked, “How much longer?”

“A couple minutes.”

Prince Habib was seated next to the pilot. He turned to Carlson. “It’s just beyond those rocks,” he said, pointing to a large cairn to their right.

“Where exactly are we? I mean geographically speaking.”

The Prince made a gesture pointing at his ear, then in the direction of the rotors overhead. “You have to speak up,” he said loudly.

Peter repeated his question, louder this time.

The Prince answered, “The island is called Poguba. It lies about three hundred kilometers southeast of Indonesia. I own it. I purchased it several years ago intending to make a resort out of it. But then, well, you know... things changed.”

Carlson nodded. “I don’t see any roads. How do you get around?”

“You don’t. It’s strictly chopper in and chopper out. Believe me, Dr. Carlson, you wouldn’t want to be out in this jungle. There are mosquitoes here big enough to fly in supplies with. And that’s the least of it.”

“So the island’s totally deserted?”

“Except for the occasional unlucky poacher or yachtsman who decides to beach their boat for a look around the island.”

“You said, unlucky?”

“Last year, a couple anchored their boat a few meters offshore and swam in. What was left of them was discovered on the beach a few weeks later. One of our pilots reported it to the Indonesian authorities, who came out and recovered the bodies, such as they were. Tragic.”

Carlson leaned forward. He was almost at Habib’s elbow. “What happened to them?”

“The authorities believe a jaguar got them. There are quite a few on this island.”

“What about the facility? Have there been any problems there?’

Habib smiled at his companion’s naiveté. “Don’t worry, Dr. Carlson, GenSys is better protected than Ft. Knox, and—“

“Excuse me, your highness,” the pilot said, “GenSys is just ahead.”

“Go around once, if you please.”

Carlson gazed out the window at the jungle below. They were flying over a row of cliffs that extended miles beyond the jungle. The helicopter banked and circled the perimeter of the rocks.

“There it is now,” Habib said, pointing out the window.

Peter Carlson pressed his nose against the window, his mouth agape.

Unbelievable!

Nine

IT LOOKED LIKE A GIANT horseshoe. But as the helicopter drew closer and the outline sharpened against the dense jungle, this resemblance gave way to a bastion of steel and glass that, from a higher altitude, could have been mistaken for a UFO. Despite Carlson’s initial excitement at being part of something as monumental as this, his intellect told him to exercise caution. For one thing, he didn’t like isolation. And this was total isolation.

It stuck Carlson that the haze of the day seemed to dissipate over the facility. In fact, Carlson had to squint against the bright sun radiating down on all sides.

Carlson rubbed his neck. He was tired, disoriented from all the hours of mind-numbing air travel. First, a jet; now, a helicopter. Only the adrenaline rush of the last forty-eight hours had got him this far. Still, the extreme fatigue hadn’t blunted his foreboding.

It wasn’t so much that GenSys had set up shop in some remote island away from the public’s prying eye; that much he understood. First, the timetable they’d established worried the scientist. Then there was the fact that they’d already started the project without him, though the Prince told Carlson personally that he was the key to the entire operation. Add to that the ominous presence of Prince Habib’s henchman, always watching, always waiting, and standing by like trained Dobermans. It was a combination that, for all its precision, seemed precarious at best and dangerous at worst. Fortunately, the Prince was planning to depart for Dunali in the next twenty-four hours to be with his son at home. Carlson found the message this trip sent to be almost subliminal. Hurry up and finish so I can save my son. After all, that’s what this was all for.

At least for Habib.

Carlson thought about the irony of the situation; here was a man of unlimited means, from a country just now creeping out of the Stone Age, whose money and power was due to decomposed prehistoric creatures that time turned into crude oil, leading the charge with the most scientifically advanced laboratory and research facility the world has ever known. And doing it in an area most of the world had no idea even existed.

As the chopper banked sharply around the trees and headed for the landing zone, Carlson watched as the chopper descended, realizing just how extraordinary the complex actually was. The outside structure alone had to be over two hundred yards long, its steel girders covered by a bewildering maze of modular solar panels. Men in yellow uniforms, rifles slung on their shoulders, stood guard at strategic points and watched the chopper approach.

The helicopter slowed as it turned, finally setting down within the orange hexagon of the landing zone. As Carlson reached for his bags, he noticed a cadre of men rushing out from the facility.

More of the Prince’s henchmen.

The pilot stepped out and opened the passenger door. Carl-son stepped out, ducking below the still-spinning blades. The air was stifling and Carlson worked hard to suck in a deep breath.

Habib stepped out from the cockpit after giving some final instructions to the pilot.

“If you’ll follow me this way, Dr. Carlson.” Habib led the way off the helipad and down a short set of steps. A uniformed guard stood outside the entrance door, rifle at his side. He nodded at the Prince and opened the door, securing it once they were inside.

Beyond lay a sun-drenched corridor, studded along both sides with open doors. The frantic hum of computers was audible as Carlson glanced curiously into the rooms they passed. They passed laboratories full of workstations and computer centers where a beehive of activity was in progress.

Turning a corner, they ascended a staircase and entered another corridor, noticeably wider and longer than the first. The rooms they now passed were larger. Carlson saw big wire cages with feeding tubes running along the side. One room had the door closed and Carlson could hear the screeching wail of an animal he couldn’t recognize. What the hell?

Carlson decided to venture a question. “Are you using test animals?”

“All in good time, Doctor. This way, please,” Habib said. The Prince stopped before a doorway halfway down the hall. Emblazoned in red letters across the gray steel door, it said:

AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ONLY

“Go right in, Dr. Carlson. I think you’ll find this most interesting.”

Ten

THE SEQUENCING LAB WAS IN the center of the building near a confluence of corridors. It was a large rectangular chamber with equipment covering one side and back-to-back computers lining the opposite wall.

After a good night’s sleep, Habib had summoned Peter to the lab for a private meeting.

Peter Carlson looked around at the wealth of equipment. It filled him with anticipation at the thought of the discoveries that could lie ahead. The room literally bristled with state-of-the-art equipment, the likes of which he could previously only have dreamed. “What do you think, Dr. Carlson?”

Carlson gazed back at the Arab, noting the unnaturally white headdress. Everything about him put Carlson at ease. His eyes were kind, his voice calm, and he spoke with a determined intelligence that Carlson appreciated. He certainly put his money where his mouth is. This facility was proof of that.

“It is incredible,” Carlson said. “But I have to ask, why me? There are at least ten other scientists researching the Thylacine. And many of them have better qualifications than I do.”

“That’s true, Dr. Carlson, but there’s one qualification they lack. None of them had your grandfather as a mentor. And you’re much too modest. You graduated at the top of your class at MIT.”

He’s done his research, Carlson thought. “Thank you.”

The Prince continued, “With your family ties, you are light years ahead of the others you allude to. Your grandfather must have passed on a wealth of information to you.”

“Speaking of years, what is the time frame for completion?”

“Dr. Carlson. I think you know my dilemma. My son is dying, getting weaker every day. There are no other treatments left to try. Everything else has failed. This is his only hope. Period.” Prince Habib placed his hand on Carlson’s shoulder. "Doctor, I realize you think our agendas are different. You seek to bring back the Thylacine for science. I seek to bring it back to save my son. But really, we are both just hoping to harness its miraculous healing properties. I just need it... first.” The Prince’s eyes flashed. “I have spared no expense here. I need results as quickly as humanly possible. I am a patient man but that patience has necessary limits, as you can imagine. You have no choice when you have an ill child. I have the utmost trust in you, Dr. Carlson. Your grandfather and my father knew each other very well. My father told me many great things about him. As you are cut from the same cloth, I trust you are, like him, a man of character. Now, let us get on with the work to be done.”

Carlson nodded. He understood the Prince needed results quickly. Still, the advanced timetable did not seem realistic. He bristled at being asked to bring about one of the most exciting scientific achievements of all time when God only knew how long he had to get the desired results.

Still, it would be an unimaginably historic discovery. Despite the unknowns, or perhaps because of them, Carlson felt his heart accelerate at the very thought of being part of such an adventure. It had been his dream for years.

Part Three

Castaways

Eleven

CAPTAIN ERIC HAMMOND SCANNED THE horizon when he had heard the staccato sounds of a helicopter. He’d thought he’d heard choppers passing over the island for days, but now, for the first time, he saw a large Bell 260 with a distinctive white line emblazoned down the side of it. He shot up from his perch on a large rock and started waving his hands frantically. He was joined seconds later by Jack Baker and Tracy Mills. In a few moments, though, the helicopter was a small speck, its sound fading in the distance.

Bob Turner came running up to the group. “Did you see it? Did they see you?”

The look on their faces answered him.

Now, an hour after the fact, Baker said, “I knew I heard helicopters last week.”

Hammond turned. “Why didn’t you say something? I heard them, too.”

“Thought it might be wishful thinking.”

“We need to try and find the others,” Hammond said. “I know they’re somewhere on this island. I saw them after the crash. Maybe they’ve got a camp somewhere up the beach.”

“Yeah, or they might be dead. That was a week ago.” Baker said.

“We still have to try and find them. It’s my obligation as captain of that aircraft.”

“I understand. Let’s get going then.”

Tracy Mills felt a sudden surge of hope. “Maybe they found the transceiver. Who knows?”

Twelve

DEEPER INSIDE THE ISLAND, Jennie Michelson, another surviving flight attendant, was shivering. Jennie, along with Flight Engineer Roger Sippolt and two other surviving passengers found themselves utterly alone. All four had wandered around searching for two days after the crash. They finally gave up hope of finding anyone else alive. Resigned to their fate, they set out to find the source of the helicopter they’d seen flying overhead.

Earlier in the day, the group, their clothes in tatters, made their way in pelting rain along a twelve-foot-high stretch of rocks to get back to the jungle. The beach trail had dead-ended into the cairn and there was no other way around.

Now, with a makeshift shelter of bamboo and banana leaves constructed at the jungle’s edge, Jennie dried her clothes in front of the small fire that Roger Sippolt had started. The island seemed immense to her. It was mostly rock that had been tortured into knobs and fissures by eons of seismic movement and cataclysms, interrupted by a few hundred yards of lush jungle that bordered a white beach.

Roger stared into the flames. “Looks like the rain finally stopped.”

“I heard that noise again,” Jennie said.

“I did too. Monkeys,” he guessed.

Jennie brightened. “I wish they’d show themselves. I could eat one right now.” This elicited a smile from Roger, whose stone-face seldom changed expression.

Jennie had long blond hair and a quick intelligence that had helped boost the morale of the group. She watched as the two other survivors gathered around the fire, the look on their faces grave. Giving them a flight attendant’s smile, she rose from the campfire and headed toward the lean-to. Already exhausted, she still managed to retain a bounce in her step. She’d be glad to get off this island and back to civilization. Rugged beautiful setting or not, she wanted to go home.

She went over to the pack of supplies they’d salvaged and took out a mini-bottle of Beefeater gin. She gulped a quick swig and shoved it back in the pack. She could feel the burn of the liquid as she swirled it around in her mouth. She stretched out on a scrap of carpet and after a few minutes, the alcohol eased her into sleep.

Two hours later, she woke with a start. In her dreams, she had heard high-pitched screams like the sound of birds in distress.

What th...

She stood up and looked toward the fire, which had now burned down to dull embers. Maybe the others had captured an animal to eat. They had set various traps that night in hopes of catching something with meat on it. When she arrived at the jungle’s edge, she saw it.

Something was horribly wrong.

Roger and the two others were under attack by a group of vicious creatures that seemed half man, half animal. The savage attackers were snarling, pulling their victims down and tearing at their flesh with claws and teeth.

One creature clutched a severed arm, which he was raising toward his mouth. Jennie screamed, and the creatures looked at her with red, luminous eyes. She wanted to vomit, but they lunged toward her and before she could move, two of them had her.

The last thing Jennie saw was a mass of tangled brown fur, and a huge set of teeth... and... that... oh God... that... smell...

Thirteen

FOG SHROUDED THE ENCAMPMENT. Jack Baker awoke at half past six in the morning and climbed out of his sleeping bag, rubbing the swollen crescents under his eyes. He took up a position on a rocky outcropping near their shelter. He slowly chewed on a dry cereal bar, washing it down with the last of his water. The day before, the helicopter had disappeared over the high rim of a distant cliff. It was too foggy to see now.

A half-hour later with Hammond, Turner and Tracy Mills awake they stood in a clearing, enveloped in the morning heat and deep silence of the island. The fog had already lifted.

“We need to get moving,” Jack said, pulling his fedora down to his eyebrows.

Jack Baker was thirty-four years old, raised in Seattle. He was lanky and strong with a thick mane of blonde hair. His body was sleek, the muscles long, his fingers thin and tapered. What Hammond and the others didn’t know was that Baker was an expert in survival. As a former Special Forces Captain, Baker had to survive in some of the worst places on the planet, sometimes subsisting on grubs and snakes for weeks at a time. He had long since given up that life to pursue an advanced degree. Baker had no interest in testing his survival skills again. Forget the past, he told himself.

At the same time, he hadn’t counted on his plane falling out of the sky, and this desolate situation had churned up his primitive side.

“Come on,” Baker said, putting a hand on Hammond’s shoulder, “let’s go exploring.”

They discovered a path and followed it until it split, a smaller trail branching off to their left. Though it was a slow incline with a tree line that blocked the sun, it was still too hot to be walking so far. Jack’s shirt was soaked with sweat; his hair clung damply to his forehead. The mosquitoes were unrelenting, as was some type of small fly that seemed drawn to their perspiration. They swirled around them in clouds, giving off a high-pitched hum. He’d give anything for some bug spray.

Hammond stopped to answer the call of nature and when he finished, he walked over to Baker.

“Hot as hell,” he said.

Tracy just smiled and Baker nodded in agreement. Bob Turner sat under a banana tree and mopped his face with his shirttail. In a minute, they were walking again.

The path was a four-foot width of packed earth, with dense jungle on either side. Big-leafed plants, vines, and creepers hung all around them. It was dark beneath the canopy of the trees, making it difficult to see very far ahead, but Jack heard things rustling about in the undergrowth. Someone had recently traveled the path. They passed an empty Coke can, a flattened pack of candy. The wrapper had the airline logo on the lower corner.

“Looks like they came this way,” Baker said, picking up the candy wrapper and handing it to Tracy.

She started to take it when a huge ant poked its head out of the paper, its sharp mandibles wide open.

“Jesus,” she said, throwing the wrapper to the ground. “What the hell is that?”

“Bulldog ant,” Jack answered. “Meanest ants on the planet. They’ll bite the crap out of you. Been known to eat large mammals.”

Hammond furrowed his brow. “You seem to know a lot about the jungle for a college professor.”

Jack shrugged, “What can I tell you?”

Rounding a curve, the group descended down a long, gradual slope. A cliff ran alongside it, and then suddenly there was sunlight in front of them. It blinded the expedition after all that time in the shadows. They soon reached an open space and were midway across it when they saw it.

Tracy put her hand over her mouth. Captain Hammond and Bob Turner just stared. Jack, perhaps three steps behind them, felt his jaw go slack.

Twenty feet ahead were the remains of a massacre.

Fourteen

JACK BAKER, CAPTAIN HAMMOND, Bob Turner and Tracy Mills stared in shock at the scene before them.

“My God. What could have done this?” Hammond asked.

Baker walked over to the closest body and looked down. “If I had to guess, I’d say a big cat, maybe a Jaguar.” Baker said. “Something with big claws and teeth.”

Tracy knelt down and picked up a stick. She poked at a bloody piece of cloth. The square of stained cotton was a shirt pocket, still buttoned. When she flipped it over, she saw the logo of Trans Pacific and then the name underneath: Sippolt. The shock made her fall backwards. She stretched out her hand and gingerly picked up the scrap.

Hammond came over and reached out his hand to help her back to her feet. After she rose, he cupped her hand as he said softly, “I’m sorry, Tracy.”

Tracy Mills and Roger Sippolt had been an item since they began working together two years earlier. She was a flight attendant, new to this airline and he, the flight engineer on her first hop. Their paths crossed frequently, and they fell in a relationship as naturally as if was their destiny. Recently, this progressed to talk of marriage, and they’d spent the previous week making plans at an exclusive resort in Tahiti, before returning to London for this fateful flight.

Tracy buried her cheek in the softness of the fabric. She felt her mind reeling backwards into oblivion. Back to Tahiti. Back to a time before they boarded this damned flight. Maybe she could will them all back there; she could warn them about the plane. Maybe with a wish and a prayer, she could change all this. She squeezed her eyes shut hard before opening them again.

Damn. This was still here.

By late afternoon, the heat of the day had taken its toll on the group. The thick, humid air produced a moist coating over their bodies. They had gone through two liters of water, but Jack felt like he could wring water straight from the air. His body couldn’t evaporate a drop of perspiration, much less what he drank, so he left the group to relieve himself.

As always, the forest intrigued Jack. He found himself gazing around as if it were a botanical exhibit. He stopped in front of a mossy boulder, which seemed as good as any place to aim for. He undid the zipper of his pants. The wave of relief he felt made him shiver and close his eyes. He kept them shut for the duration.

When he opened them, he noticed smoke off to his right.

Someone had a fire going. Maybe there were more survivors after all? Or someone else.

Fifteen

AWAKENING THE NEXT MORNING, Peter Carlson found that the GenSys facility reminded him more of a five-star hotel than of a research facility. Following his meeting yesterday with the Prince, they’d instructed him to arrive at exactly eight a.m. to meet his colleagues.

After a quick shower, the half-dressed Carlson wiped the bathroom fog from his glasses as he prepared to shave. He was self-conscious about his thick lenses, but he found it impossible to tolerate contacts. Besides, he was helpless without the thick-lense goggles, as he called them. Even the simple act of shaving would become an exercise in self-mutilation without them.

At exactly one seven fifty-five, the Prince knocked on his door and entered, just as Carlson finished shaving.

“Time to meet your associates, Dr. Carlson.”

Carlson wiped his face and tossed the towel in a chair. Slipping on his shirt, he said, “Lead the way.”

* * *

After a brisk walk, they reached the main building. It stood fifty feet wide, all glass with silver anodized beams and supports. Carlson found it determinedly high-tech. He wondered how much money the Prince dropped just on touches like that.

In contrast, the room they were in was small. There was a long table in the middle of the room. At one end sat two people, a woman and a man. Both wore casual clothes beneath white lab coats. As they entered, the man nodded first at the Prince, then at Carlson. The woman smiled. Carlson smiled back.

The young woman looked to be of Chinese descent with jet black hair and an intense gaze. She was reclining in her chair. Carlson read her nametag:

Ellen Choy

Chief Medical Officer

After making cursory introductions, the Prince led Carlson to his seat before stepping to the head of the table. He placed his well-manicured hands on the table as he leaned toward the trio of scientists. “Doctors, I’m sure by now you all are aware of Dr. Carlson’s arrival here. I would like you all to be acquainted before we get down to business. Dr. Carlson is a valuable asset to our team and has stellar credentials, not to mention a family tie to the study of the Thylacine with which you all are familiar. Had it not been for his grandfather, none of us would be here undertaking such a task. This animal would just be another extinct species, like the dodo. Now, having said that, let us get right to it.”

Habib smiled at each one of them like a proud parent before focusing on Carlson. “Peter, I’ll leave you now. Frank and Ellen can bring you up to speed. As for me, I have urgent matters to attend to back home. I’ll be in touch.” Then, with a smile and an almost imperceptible nod, the Prince stepped out into the corridor and closed the door.

Carlson folded his hands and took a deep breath before speaking. “I’ve been looking over your notes, and those of the late Dr. Whiting. I don’t see any problems replicating what you have and taking it to the next level—“

Frank Tibek’s head shot up. “Dr. Carlson, we’ve been doing this for two years now. We’re beyond Whiting. We know what we need to take it to the next level. You are just here for your sequencing expertise.” He slammed his paperwork on the table in front of him.

Carlson felt his cheeks flush. Matching the red-faced man’s demeaning tone, he answered, “I’ve read all the documents, Dr. Tibek. I am well aware of what you have done in your two years, and I know why I’m here. What I was about to say, if you’re not too busy to hear it, is that there are a number of things you haven’t addressed that need to be considered.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the growth hormone question. No one has used the human growth hormone protocol with animal cloning before.”

“It’s identical in all mammals, Dr. Carlson. I would think a man with your background would know that.”

Carlson was aware of using human growth hormone to promote cellular regeneration in mammals. They’d done it with Dolly the cloned sheep, and they routinely did it on cattle to enhance meat production. However, the physiology of the Thylacine was vastly more complex and far less understood. Moreover, the amounts that GenSys used were far larger than previously tested. Moreover, it had the potential for far bigger and unknown complications.

As Carlson prepared to speak, he knew he and Tibek would never be friends. “I do know that, but you should be aware that the amounts are specific from species to species. These amounts need to be determined and precisely calculated. It’s not one size fits all.”

Tibek’s face reddened. He grabbed his coffee and took a long swig before continuing. He looked over to Ellen Choy and attempted a smile. “I think we’ve solved that. Ellen can bring you up to speed on our latest milestone.”

The room fell silent.

For a moment, Peter Carlson just sat there, regrouping. “We were given a job to do,” he finally said, voice quiet. Rising to his feet, he continued, “I plan to do whatever is needed of me as a team member. But if comes down to my safety and the safety of the people here at this facility, I’ll put aside teamwork in a second.” Carlson pounded the table to make his point.

Seizing the moment, Peter Carlson turned on his heel, pulled open the door, and left.

Sixteen

THE GENSYS CORPORATION HEADQUARTERS SAT on a hill in the middle of Silicon Valley just outside San Jose, California. Inside its walls, some of the most groundbreaking and controversial experiments ever conducted had taken place. But the most important one they’d ever attempted was now underway in a building far removed from the sunny landscape of San Jose.

Ron Powers sat tapping his pen, waiting impatiently for a phone call from that facility. He had a deadline to meet, but someone had thrown a wrench in the works and he was pissed off.

Powers was known as an aggressive CEO among his colleagues, albeit a reckless one. Thirty-six, handsome and intense, he had been fired from a rival of GenSys for not obtaining proper state permits before performing animal experiments using endangered species. Now, as head of product development at GenSys, Prince Habib hired Powers to clone the ultimate animal. However, Powers had other plans for the Prince’s money.

The phone buzzed once when he jerked the handset out of the cradle. “Speak.”

On the other end, an angry Frank Tibek took a deep breath. “We’ve got problems.”

“That’s not what I want to hear.”

“Carlson’s going to be trouble. I tried to tell you. His Boy Scout morals and nostalgic reminiscing about his granddaddy are enough to make me sick.”

“The Arab wants him onboard. Just play along.” Powers continued, the edge in his voice sharpening, “I need those specimens in the next two weeks. You had better figure out how to do it, Without Carlson finding out. If he catches on, the Prince will be his first stop.”

Tibek hated being treated like he was stupid. He just warned Powers about Carlson, and Powers answer was to warn him back? “What about that twit, Elkstrom? He is making some noise, too. I think you may have to send someone to talk with him.”

“With what you stand to make on this, you should handle it.”

“Yeah, and why don’t I just shit some golden eggs while I’m at it? I’ve got enough to do here. I’m here to... ” Tibek chose his next few words carefully, “... see that the desired result is met. I’m not here to be your muscle.”

Now a heated discussion ensued. The deal Powers alluded to was eighty million dollars for delivery of the clone and the corresponding technology, of which Tibek would receive ten million. Tibek had guaranteed he could meet the buyer’s demand that it all happen in twelve months. There was no agreement to any early delivery, especially of the fetal clones, and Powers knew it. He also knew he was dealing with something that people desperate enough would pay any price for. Relying on this, Powers had cut his own deal for another twenty million to bring the project in two months early.

For someone else.

The tactic worked. Unbeknownst to Tibek, Powers had promised the near impossible. He’d just maneuvered himself into a position in which he could not lose. Under this new scenario, his end would be either forty million or sixty million. Either way, he’d be guaranteed enough money to leave the country and be ensured a lifetime of luxury. All he needed to do was convince Tibek.

Powers, the ultimate grifter, put on his silkiest voice. “Frank, I have the utmost faith in you. Do this and I will see to it that you receive... a bonus. Let’s say ten percent. That’s a cool million. Just to step up what you are doing anyway.” Powers could tell by the lack of argument, he was speaking Tibek’s language now. He laid it on thicker, “Not only are you a brilliant geneticist, you’re the best con artist I’ve ever met. You’ve handled the Prince masterfully; you can surely fool Carlson. And you’re right, Frank; as for our little friend, Elkstrom, I’ll handle him.”

Powers hung up. He hit the speed dialer for a number he occasionally needed to contact.

The last time he’d used it was for Dr. Whiting.

* * *

Frank Tibek would have to work fast. Powers had taken him to be a fool, but he was sadly mistaken. The very people, who had approached Powers and cut his deal, wisely hedged their bets and contacted Tibek, who negotiated his own deal. Powers, the double-crosser, was being double-crossed. Tibek relished the irony of that twist.

Unfortunately, someone had thrown a piece of shit into his soup—Peter Carlson. Although it was true Carlson could help speed things up, Tibek was prepared to do whatever was needed to protect his own interests.

Including, killing Peter Carlson if necessary.

* * *

The telephone conversation had reminded Powers of his need to appear proactive to the Prince. For this, an email would do nicely.

Your Royal Highness Prince Habib,

Just an update to report that we are progressing according to schedule. And fully anticipate delivery by, or perhaps even prior to, the date previously agreed upon.

As always, feel free to call me at any time.

Yours sincerely,

Ron Powers

He read it twice. It was short and to the point, reaffirming their arrangement, and cementing the Prince’s confidence in Powers. In the back of his mind, Powers knew that it was something that could come back to haunt him. I ways he didn’t even want to imagine.

Seventeen

COLIN ELKSTROM TRIMMED THE ROSES bordering the Australian Museum of Natural History with loving care. Although there was a crew of groundskeepers, Elkstrom found the activity helped relieve the stress of being curator of one of the largest museums in the world. But on this day, he had another reason.

He had a meeting with The Man.

Elkstrom didn’t know his name, but it really didn’t matter. The Man was like a bank. He had the cash. And lots of it!

Elkstrom saw him approach in a black late model BMW, rolling to a stop near the curb. He was just as Elkstrom remembered: Dour, plain, and not much bigger than Elkstrom himself.

“Good morning,” The Man said, his voice soft and monotone.

Elkstrom started to extend his hand, before thinking better of it.

“We can talk over here.” He led The Man to the side of the rose garden, out of view of the parking area.

Elkstrom took a seat on a marble bench and laid the garden shears on the ground beside it. The Man sat next to him, smoothing out his suit.

“You got my message,” Elkstrom said, as The Man crossed his legs.

“What’s this about, Elkstrom?”

“It’s about my fee. With what I know about your operation, I’m starting to believe I was underpaid.”

The Man stood and stared at Elkstrom, his face expressionless. “You’ve been paid well, Mr. Elkstrom.”

“Clearly, my original fee was not enough.”

The Man took off his sunglasses and began polishing them on his shirt. He squinted in the sun. “How much more will you require?”

“I was thinking another fifty thousand.”

“I don’t like being extorted.”

“Don’t think of it as extortion. Think of it as... insurance.”

“It will take me a few days to get it.”

“Of course. Take your time; your credit’s good with me.”

The Man stepped toward the bench and picked up the garden shears next to Elkstrom. “May I? It looks relaxing.”

“Be my guest. It is relaxing.”

The Man turned toward the rose hedge and took one snip, then wheeled back. Quick as a striking cobra, the man’s arms shot out, garden shears open and extended, burying the twelve-inch blades into Elkstrom’s eye sockets. A gigantic explosion of pain blossomed in Elkstrom’s brain as a glut of blood and ocular fluid erupted from each eye. Soundlessly, he slumped over on the bench.

The Man shot his cuffs. “Consider yourself paid in full.”

Eighteen

JACK BAKER STOOD UNDER A eucalyptus tree and watched the rain pound the forest canopy. The others were packed tightly in a makeshift shelter and Baker found the idea of sharing a five by ten lean-to with three strangers uncomfortable at best. His claustrophobia wouldn’t let him do it even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. Night had arrived with a storm, and the rain seemed to be endless. Moreover, the temperature had fallen drastically, leaving him chilled to the bone and miserably soaked, despite the good-sized fire he built under the cover of some trees.

In the firelight, he also noticed something he ignored earlier. A jagged piece of metal had cut a gash in the back of his calf, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off and fatigue was setting in, the wound made its presence known like a white-hot knife. He pressed at it, hoping to bleed out any debris, but even the slightest touch sent a fireball shooting up his leg and right through his groin.

Tracy Mills came up behind Jack. “Ooh, that looks nasty.”

“Ah, I’ve had worse. It hurts like hell, though.”

“It needs a couple of stitches.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“I was an OR nurse before I became a stewardess.”

“What do you plan to use for sutures?”

“I saw the medical kit sticking in a tree at the crash site. I grabbed what was left in it,” Tracy said, opening the canvas bag she’d been lugging with her.

Jack inhaled silently. “Good thinking.”

“You do realize our plane broke up before impact.”

“What are you saying? It was a bomb?”

“No. The velocity broke it up. That’s why there’s intact stuff everywhere. It launched us forward when we hit the water and landed in the trees. It’s weird.”

“Stuff must have flown hundreds of yards,” Jack observed.

“Now, let’s take care of that leg.”

Tracy moved closer to the fire for light and reached in her bag. His leg was really throbbing now and he hoped she had something for pain in her bag of tricks.

She knelt down next to Jack. “Here we go. Now, let’s see.”

Jack pulled the cuff of his pant leg up past his knee revealing the full view of his wound.

“It’s pretty bad,” Tracy said. “I’ve got some lidocaine here to numb it up. It’s gonna need a few more stitches than I thought, though.”

Jack leaned back. “I barely know you and yet, here I am letting you sew me up. Can’t you at least give me a little background on yourself?”

“I could say the same thing, except I’m doing the sewing.”

“Fair enough.” He took a deep breath. “Jack Baker. I’m thirty-eight. Associate professor of anthropology, Penn State. Born in Washington D.C.; raised in Seattle. There, now it’s your turn.”

“Tracy Mills. Flight attendant of crashed plane. Graduate of UCLA Nursing School and Pan American stew school. I’m a California girl, and I am not telling you my age. Pleased to meet you.” She extended her hand and Jack shook it warmly. “You ready to get stitched?”

“Do what you gotta do, doc.”

They were looking at one another at the exact instant they heard it. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees when an inhuman high-pitched howl pierced the pounding rain.

Nineteen

THE LITTLE-KNOWN COUNTRY OF Dunali lies between Iran and Morocco on a chunk of desert that had unlimited oil and gas reserves. Prince Habib Hamel headed the monarchy that ruled the country. The crown had passed from father to son for generations and Habib was to pass it to his son, Ali. Now, that future for the young boy looked bleak. Khalid had become increasingly weak over the last month and the concerned Prince had sent the child to Dunali’s medical center for tests. The results sent the Prince into a state of despair. His ten-year old son would not live to inherit the throne one day. He’d be lucky to see his twelfth birthday.

Habib couldn’t let his son die, no matter what the tests said. He would find a way. If he had to spend every penny that came out of the ground beneath the desert sand, his son would not die.

Then, like a thunderbolt from a desert storm, the answer to his dilemma was delivered to him. It came in the form of a magazine article. He recognized its significance the moment he’d laid eyes on it.

The Prince called his aide into his suite. “Jimi, I want you to search the Internet for every geneticist you can find. Narrow it down to the top five in the world and bring me the list. You are to do nothing else until you are finished.”

His aide mounted strenuous objections. It was impossible. In most countries, it was illegal. It was immoral, he argued, let alone the religious ramifications. And the odds were so far against it, it was probably incalculable.

Habib knew the arguments against it, but none outweighed his reason to proceed. He could not be persuaded.

“Your highness—“

“Enough, Jimi. I gave you an order. Now, do not worry about anything else. Time is running out. Do you understand, my friend?”

The aide relented. “I believe I do, sir.”

That had been six months ago. Now, as the Prince stood staring out of his son’s window into the desert below, he realized that the cure he so desperately sought, the cure they all said was impossible, might be just weeks away. He waved his aide to his side. Taking his hand, he spoke softly, “Jimi, I need you to go check on the progress at the compound. Let me know what the status is. I have to stay here with Ali.”

“But, your--”

The Prince tightened his grip, making Jimi’s knees bend a little. “Don’t argue. The chopper will pick you up in one hour. Go now.”

“Very well, Your Excellency.”

Twenty

THE SIGN ON THE DOOR said SEQUENCING and, like all the other doors in the building, it opened with a security card. Peter Carlson slipped his card in the slot. The lights blinked, and with a click, the door opened. Inside, Peter saw a large room bathed in fluorescent light.

Peter wasted no time getting to work on the gene sequencing. Although he was coming in at the tail end of the project, his expertise was paramount for their success. He could feel the resentment Tibek harbored for him. After all, Prince Hamal had summoned him here to accomplish what Tibek had not been able to achieve.

Peter began by calling up all of Tibek’s data thus far. He was surprised to find that several files were incomplete and several more required an additional security code to open. He found this odd because less than an hour earlier, Tibek had assured him of full access to all the sequencing data they’d amassed over the last three years.

Using his login information to enter the data bank, Peter typed in the proper security code.

GENE>THYLA>WHTIB:

The monitor flashed and a list of files appeared.

source     1..17411 Sept. 3, 2004
/organism="Thylacinus cynocephalus"
/organelle="mitochondrion"
/mol_type="genomic DNA"
/db_xref="taxon:9275"

tRNA       942..1009
/product="tRNA-Phe"

rRNA       1010..1961
/product="12S ribosomal RNA"

tRNA       1963..2030
/product="tRNA-Val"

rRNA       2031..3597
/product="16S ribosomal RNA"

tRNA       3602..3675
/product="tRNA-Xle"

gene       3677..4633
/gene="ND1"

CDS        3677..4633
/gene="ND1"
/codon_start=1
/transl_table=2
/product="NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1"

/translation="MFTLNLFLYIIPILLAVAFLTLIERKVLGYMQFR KGPNIVGPYG

LLQPFADAIKLFTKEPLQPLTSSWSMFILAPILALTIALTIWTP LPMPNALLDLNLGL

LFILSMSGLSVYSILWSGWASNSKYALVGALRAVAQTISYEVT LAIILLSVMLINGSY

TMKTLSITQENLWLIFTTWPLAMMWFISTLAETNRAPFDLT EGESELVSGFNVEYASG

PFAMFFLAEYANIIAMNALTTILFLGSSMSLLTPNINTLIFVIK TLLLTITFLWIRAS

YPRFRYDQLMYLLWKNFLPLTLALCLWFISM PISMSCIAPQM"

tRNA complement(4633..4701)
/product="tRNA-Xle"

tRNA 4699..4769

PRODUCTION NOTE: Sequence is tainted. Suggest abort!

SEQUENCE 1

ORIGIN

1 tagctcgcac gactctattt cagcggaaat aaaatcaatg atctatagac ataaaattaa

61         caaatcatc agttacaaca atatcaacat ctaagactac atacaatcaa tttcattaag

121        atcaataatc aatgatcgat agacataaca tcaagtatta ctaacatcat aaagacatat

181        tattatactt ccccccctgc aaacacgtat ttaccatcaa cgtttgcgtt ta cacgtata

241        tgcgtacaca cgtatatgcg tacacacgta tatgcgtaca cacgtatatg cgtacacacg

301        tatatgcgta cacacgtata tgcgtacaca cgtatatgcg tactgtgtac gtgtacgtgt

361        aaataataat taataataat taataataat taataataaa taataataaa taataataaa

421        taataataaa taataaataa taataaataa taataaataa taataaataa taataaataa

481        taatatataa taatataaaa taatatataa taaataataa taagtttctg at cattaaac

SEQUENCE 2

541        ccccctaccc ccttactaaa ttttatcgct tccgtcaaac ccctaaaccg gatgatagac

601        ctttagcaca atgaataatc atcgtacggg agaaaacatt ctaaacccaa atactattta

661        catttaactt attacctaat caaattaact aaccaaaaac aattaactaa ccaaaaacaa

721        ttaactaacc aaaaacaatt aactaaccaa aaacaattaa ctaaccaaaa acaattaact

781        aaccaaaaac aattaactaa ccaaaaacaa ttaactaacc aaaaacaatt aactaaccaa

841        aaattttctg attcaaaaag aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaatt aaatactgac

901        atagtatata aattaaaaat ttcaaaaaaa attacttttt tgtttgtgta gcttaaccaa

961        agcaaagcac tgaaaatgct tcgatggatc ataatgggtc cca gaaacac aaaggtttgg

1021       tcctggcctt actgttaatt cttattagac ctacacatgc aagtttccgc gccccagtga

1081       gaatgccctc aaaactaact aatagttttt taggagtggg tatcaggcac actcaatgag

1141       tagcccatga caccttgcct agccacgccc ccacgggata cag cagtgac taatattgag

1201       ctatgaacga aagtttgact aaattataat aaagagggtt ggtcaatatc gtgccagcca

1261       ccgcggtcat acgattaacc caagttaaca gaaaaacggt gtaaagcgtg tttaagcgaa

1321       ataaataaaa taaagttaat acctgactaa gctgtaatac gccatagtta gtactaaaat

1381       acacaactaa cgtgacttta ctatagagct gaagacacta aagctaaggt acaaactggg

1441       attagatacc ccactatgct tagccataaa cttaggtagt cgaataacga gactactcgc

1501       cagagaacta cgagccactg cttaaaactc aaaggacttg gcggtgccct aaacccttct

1561       agaggagcct gttctataat cgataaaccc cgatacacct caccccttct agctctatca

1621       gtctatatac cgccatcgtc agctcacccc aacaggggac aaaagtgagc aagattatga

1681       aaccataaaa acgttaggtc aaggtgtagc gtatggaggg ggaag cgatg ggctacattt

1741       tctaaattag aacataacga attatctatt gaaacaaaga tatgaag gag gatttagtag

1801       taaattaaga atagagagct taattgaaaa aggcaatggg gtgcgta cac accgcccgtc

It was obviously the sequencing data for the Thylacine project, but Peter was shocked that huge chunks of data were missing from the files. There were supposed to be data from two specimens, yet there was barely enough data here for one specimen. More frightening yet, the end of the first file called for aborting the project.

The last entry made a chill climb the ladder of Peter’s spine.

Sequence tainted?

The entry was dated September 3, 2003. Two days before Whiting killed himself.

A mechanical click at the door jolted Peter from his thoughts.

Ellen Choy entered, wearing her white lab coat over a white polo blouse and khaki slacks. Her security card dangled from the chain around her neck. She carried a huge, white coffee mug with the GenSys logo on the side.

“Dr. Carlson, I wanted to apologize for Frank Tibek’s behavior at the meeting yesterday. He can be a real jerk sometimes.”

“I gathered that. But, it’s okay. In this occupation, you meet a lot like him. It’s their egos.’

“What about you?”

“I’m not in this for glory. It’s more personal for me.”

Choy set her mug on the table. “You mean your grandfather.”

“Yes. Have you heard of him?”

“I’ve read some of his papers. He was very advanced for his time.”

Carlson turned, hiding a smile. “I’m very proud of the work he did.”

“You should be. He was the pioneer who brought us here.”

“So how did you end up here? I mean, what’s your official duty?”

Choy furrowed her brow. “You mean, duties, plural. I double as a doctor and researcher. Much of the research deals with cause and effect on humans. You know, because of the Prince’s son’s condition. I oversee that. But since I don’t have a full-grown specimen to work with yet, a lot of my research is theoretical. I can only hope our ancestors were right about the medicinal powers of the Thylacine. I really don’t understand the DNA sequencing part that well. It’s not my field of expertise.”

Peter smiled. “Don’t feel bad. A tonsillectomy is beyond my expertise. Speaking of sequencing, you wouldn’t know what happened to the rest of Dr. Whiting’s files, would you? It seems there are large amounts of data missing.”

“No. I came in on the tail end of this thing, just as you did. Frank keeps a really tight lid on everything around here.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Carlson turned back to the monitor in front of him and tapped the screen with his finger. “It looks like to me after the first batch of extractions, Whiting was questioning the growth pattern of the embryos.”

Ellen Choy bent down and studied the computer screen. “That’s the growth hormone issue you brought up in the meeting?”

“Yes.”

“What do those numbers mean?’

“Those codes identify the various characteristics of the growth pattern. Thylacines mature rapidly, but these codes indicate extremely fast growth patterns, at a fraction of the normal gestation.”

“But why is that?” Choy asked.

“It appears that corners were cut. I can only assume why. I know Dr. Whiting was under financial pressure from the museum to bring in some results before they ran out of money. And... well, you know the rest of the sad story.”

“Whiting killed himself.”

Peter nodded. “Such a waste. He was a brilliant researcher.”

Ellen Choy heaved a sigh. “There seems to be a lot of unanswered questions about this project.”

“Yes, and I doubt even our good Prince can answer them.”

Twenty-One

JACK BAKER LOOKED AT HIS newly stitched wound and grinned. It was still bleeding. Not heavily, just a steady ooze. “I’m impressed. Looks better than some I’ve had done by doctors.”

“I use to sew a lot when I was a teenager. We didn’t have a lot of money, so I made most of my clothes.”

“Looks like it paid off. Anyway, thanks. It feels better already.”

“At least till the Lidocaine wears off.”

The rain began to slacken. It was still falling steadily, but the downpour was over. In another five or ten minutes, Jack knew, it would stop altogether. He stepped across the clearing to check on the others. The lean-to hadn’t done much to shelter them; they were just as wet as he was.

Hammond sat up. “Did you hear that scream before?”

“I did.”

“What do you make of it?”

There was a bright, momentary flash of lightening, followed closely by a loud clap of thunder. Then the creature’s cry pealed through the night again.

“Jesus, what is that?” Hammond asked, sliding deeper inside the shelter.”

“Probably some nocturnal monkey common to this island,” Baker said.

“No monkey did that to those people back there. Or have you forgotten already?”

“On the contrary, Captain, there are monkeys who can do that. They are eight times stronger than man.”

Bob Turner spoke up. “He’s right, Captain. I saw a show on Discovery Channel. Some were real mean muthas, too.”

“Well, at any rate, we’re not safe out here. We need to set up a guard schedule.”

“I’ll take first watch,” Bob Turner said.

Hammond nodded. “Fine by me.”

* * *

An hour later, Bob Turner sat at his makeshift guard post. He’d found some teak planks and stacked them next to the fire. He stood four of them upright and made cross braces from smaller limbs. Finally, he covered the whole thing with banana leaves. Turner was sure they would have all drowned in the rain had it not been for the huge leaves.

It was dark beyond the fire, darker than Turner would have thought possible. For a while, all he heard was the relentless hum of mosquitoes and the thump of his own heartbeat in his ears. But then that high-pitched howling sound came again, louder this time, closer and more urgent. It seemed to be coming from every direction.

Turner was out beyond the safety of the fire and he realized that was a mistake. He wheeled around to run back, but suddenly his forward motion stopped as though he’d hit an invisible force field.

It was no force field.

Turner looked down and saw the source of his sudden impediment. A fur-covered arm, the size of a tree trunk, had wrapped around his chest and was now dragging him into the jungle. He felt his heels cutting a furrow in the sand as if he weighed mere ounces. He tried to scream, but he could only feel the rib-crushing arm, squeezing the breath from him. He heard the snap, the cracking of his ribs, just before the thing yanked him into the black abyss of the jungle.

Twenty-Two

WHEN PETER CARLSON ENTERED THE Medical Suite, he found Ellen Choy entering a notation on a chart.

Choy looked up, gave him a smile, then glanced back at the chart and made another entry.

“You asked to see me?” Carlson said.

“Peter. Thanks for coming.” She set aside her paperwork. “What I’m going to tell you doesn’t leave this room.”

Carlson nodded tentatively. “Okay.”

Choy turned on her stool. “I had one of the guards in here this morning. One of the Tasmanian Devils in the lab bit him. I guess he was taunting one of them and it snatched his finger through the cage. Nearly tore it off.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Doesn’t he know their reputation?”

“If he didn’t, he does now. That’s not the problem.”

Carlson furrowed his brow. “Well what’s the—“

“Listen. He immediately wrapped his handkerchief around the finger, squeezing it to stem the flow of blood.”

Carlson nodded, not sure where she was going with this story.

Choy continued. “When he got here fifteen or twenty minutes later, I unwrapped the finger. Peter, the wound was almost completely healed.”

“What?”

“I’m convinced it was something in the animal’s saliva. I did some checking and that particular animal had just undergone testing with the growth hormone mixture.”

“You believe there’s a connection?”

“There’s no other explanation. A traumatic near-amputation of a finger doesn’t heal itself in twenty minutes; or twenty days for that matter.”

“That’s... that’s fantastic.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too, until I looked at his lab work. You had better see for yourself.”

Carlson leaned across the table and eyed the lab printout. There was a brief silence. For a moment, he thought the room would start spinning.

“Oh, Jesus.”

Twenty Three

ELLEN CHOY WAITED LONG ENOUGH to establish she was alone before approaching the first of two doors marked OFF LIMITS. There was a six-inch metal box mounted on the door’s frame next to the handle. It was identical to the other security stations she’d used at GenSys for the last six months, except it didn’t have a signal light on it. Preparing to flee if she set off an alarm, she withdrew her passkey from her pocket. Taking a deep breath, she swiped the card through the thin channel on the box. With no green light, there was no way to know if she’d gained entry or not. Then she heard the distinct metallic click of a lock. She reached tentatively for the handle and turned it, pulling slowly. Bingo!

Bright light blinded Ellen, causing her to step backwards. Squinting, she stepped through the doorway, easing the door to a close behind her. She found herself in a corridor, long, bright and empty. When the door latched, she felt a momentary panic. I’m trapped! Her chest tightened as though there were no air in the hallway.

Stay calm. Keep your head.

Ellen picked her way down another shorter, less brightly lit hallway. Soon, it intersected with yet a third corridor. Despite all her time at GenSys, she was unaware that this section existed. She followed a turn in the corridor and found a door on her right. Through its uncovered window, she could see a single lamp burning on a counter, no different from those in the rest of the facility. She could make out a sink and shelves above the counter, filled with what appeared to be periodicals and textbooks. A lone computer sat at the end of the long counter, by a lamp and telephone. Several stools sat alongside. The overall look was sparse, but it still made her feel uneasy.

Ellen tried the doorknob.

Damn!

She made her way down the hall to the next door, marked: STERILE—KEEP OUT. Another security panel was mounted next to the door. She listened for a moment, then again used her passkey. She listened for the telltale click.

There it was.

As she stepped inside, the sharp smell of disinfectant was the first thing to hit her. The next was the sense that she was not alone.

She leaned against the wall as her eyes adjusted from the bright hallway to the dim light of this room. As she did so, seven pairs of close-set eyes centered squarely on Ellen.

Oh, Christ!

The sight of the row of female Tasmanian Devils staring out at her from their cages horrified her at first, but the reaction quickly turned to repulsion, then pity, at the recognition of the poor animals’ state. It was their eyes that got to her. They were so sad. GenSys had decided on Tasmanian Devils for test animals, rather than monkeys or dogs since they were the closest living relative to the Thylacine. She wanted to set them free. Ellen willed herself to concentrate on the task at hand. She turned to the rest of the vast room. In the center was a long stainless-steel examination table like that used by veterinarians. Medical instruments were everywhere. On a stand at the end of the table rested an ultrasound machine.

Along one wall was another long counter; above that, metal cupboards with makeshift labels, crude penmanship scrawled on masking tape, denoting their contents.

She opened one marked histological samples. Inside, one shelf was labeled—again crudely on masking tape—brain; another, spinal chord. Ellen knew the samples must have been from the fetal Thylacine pups.

As she turned back to the cupboards, a large barrel in the corner of the room caught her eye. It was stamped “LAB WASTE”. She went to the barrel and struggled with the lid for a few minutes trying to figure out how to remove it. There was a clasp attached to a metal strip that circled the top of the barrel, fixing the lid in place. It required considerable strength to disengage and, as Ellen strained to force it open, she inadvertently leaned into the barrel. Suddenly, the catch gave way and the lid, now free, clamored to the ground. As she shifted her weight away, a liquid sloshed out of the wobbling barrel, splashing her hands and face.

Horrified that it might be some kind of acid, Ellen wiped frantically with the sleeves of her lab coat. She pulled them long to cover her hands, and was wiping her face with them when something on the barrel’s surface drew her attention.

She stopped, sleeve-covered hands still pressed to either side of her face, and leaned closer.

“Oh my God,” she cried out.

Twenty-Four

FRANK TIBEK WAS A BUNDLE of nervous energy. He did not like meetings. Especially this early in the morning. His long fingers tapped incessantly on a lab stool as he fielded their questions. His other hand fumbled idly with a pen in the pocket of his lab coat as Jimi reviewed the file that lay open on his table.

“It seems Dr. Carlson has made a big difference.”

There it was again. Doctor Carlson, what a difference! All the work that had gone into this project for the last five years, his work, was being overshadowed by the prodigal child’s arrival. Or should that be the prodigal grandchild?

“I believe the difference is the change in the way the cells were derived this time. Clearly the response of the host to this embryo is dramatically different than any previous attempts,”

Tibek responded.

Jimi stood transfixed, clearly in over his head.

The scientist continued, “While the embryo twinning looked good in culture—I achieved an eighty percent success rate—once implanted, hyper-acute rejection has been the rule rather than the exception. I was unable to achieve proper synchronization of the adult nucleus donor and egg cell until obtaining the exact formula.”

“I take it Dr. Carlson provided that formula?”

“Yes,” Tibek answered reluctantly. “In that respect, Dr. Carlson’s help has, um, expedited matters somewhat. However, in two months—three month tops, we would have had it anyway.”

“You’re the expert, not me. I’m just here to gather information for the Prince. I must tell you, though; he is growing increasingly anxious. The boy has taken a turn for the worst.”

Tibek stood. “I’m sorry to hear that. We are proceeding as fast as humanly possible. Everything we can do is being done. You need to convey that to him. We are in day fifty of the seventy-day gestation period. It won’t be long, three weeks at most.”

Tibek strained his long gooseneck to read along as Jimi flipped through the pages of several charts.

“All but three have aborted?” he asked Tibek after studying the charts for several minutes.

Tibek nodded. “What about those three?” Tibek removed his glasses and pierced his eyes on Jimi. “Well, that’s a good question.”

Twenty-Five

PETER CARLSON FELT THE WEIGHT of the night pressing down on him. He placed the tissue culture flasks back into the incubator and closed the door. He’d been working since the previous morning. His current quest, to find a reactor cell to turn on the growth factor of the Y chromosome, required the long hours. His usual schedule of arriving at the lab at seven a.m. and working till evening did not suit this task. After three more failures that afternoon, he believed he’d finally found the gene he was looking for. Test results showed that the Thylacine Col2a1 gene has a similar function in cartilage and bone development as the Col2a1 gene does in the mouse genus. Still, the nagging feeling that GenSys was making a Promethean mistake ate at him like an offending sore.

Although Habib’s building of the magnificent facility had assuaged him initially, the effect didn’t last. Carlson’s scientist side always wrangled with his ethics and humanity. What are, or should be, the limits of science? What role do the tenets of society play in what we learn, what we should learn, and how it is applied, if it should be applied at all? Where is the line, and who gets to draw it? The politician? The church? The wealthy, the powerful? On the other hand, is it the responsibility of the scientist, the researcher? When the unthinkable becomes possible, does that make it right to make the unthinkable reality?

And the breakneck speed, and need, of this project gave Carlson further anxiety. Proceeding too quickly eliminated a key element of the research process, the chance to weigh the value and knowledge gained from each step and its possible ramifications. It eliminated time to reason. Results without understanding scared the hell out of him. What should take years to complete, the Prince wanted in mere months. Dream lab or not, what was developing before him sent a chill to his core.

Impulsively, Carlson removed his lab coat and draped it over a nearby stool. A light tapping pulled him from his thoughts. Opening the door, he was surprised to see Ellen Choy smiling back at him.

“I thought I was the only insomniac around here. Come in.”

“Are you sure? You look like you’re about to leave.”

Carlson smiled. “No, it’s okay.”

“I don’t mean to disturb you.”

“Not at all. Please.” Carlson led her inside. “So, what’s on your mind at this late, or should I say, early hour?”

“I saw something earlier. Something I wasn’t supposed to see,” her voice trailed off.

“Something you weren’t supposed to see?” Carlson asked hesitantly.

“Yes,” she answered, barely audible.

Carlson noticed her hands shaking. She followed his gaze and quickly clasped her hands together to stop the trembling. Carlson removed his lab coat from the stool and patted it. “Please. Sit down. It’s okay,” he said, soothingly.

“Is it?” she asked as she climbed on the stool.

Carlson walked to the water cooler and filled a paper cup. Ellen accepted it gratefully. They sat there in silence, facing each other. Carlson, realizing how shook up Ellen was, displayed a calm demeanor. Inside, however, he was shaking as badly as her hands.

Having allowed her time to compose herself, Carlson restarted the conversation. “You said you saw something?”

Ellen, looking at the floor, nodded, but said nothing.

Ever the researcher, he decided to take a methodical tack and start at square one. “Where did you see this... this something?”

Ellen looked up at Carlson. “In a barrel.”

The answer surprised Carlson. For the second time, he repeated her words as a question, “In a barrel?”

Ellen nodded. “I opened it. I opened it and it shook, and it splashed on me. And there... there was...” she closed her eyes.

“What?” Carlson asked. “What was there, Ellen?”

She opened her eyes and looked directly into his. “Babies. Two tiny babies, floating on the top.”

Carlson stepped forward. His face was just inches from hers now.

“What do you mean, babies?”

“They were Thylacine pups, but Peter... they were different. Much different.”

“Are you sure? They used test animals, Tasmanian Devils to be exact. Could that be what you saw?”

“These were not devils. In fact, they looked almost like... human fetuses. Except—”

Panic began to fill the void. Carlson needed to get a handle on this. “Go on.”

“Except... they had the beginnings of claws and two long front canines. There’s no way they were devils.”

“You’re sure about that? That they were Thylacine anomalies and not devils?”

She stood up. “I’m not sure what they were, but I am sure they weren’t devils, Dr. Carlson.”

With Ellen standing against the lab bench facing Peter, his face drew into a scowl. He began to pace back and forth in the lab.

“I was afraid something like this was going to happen,” he said to himself.

“What?” Ellen asked.

“Ellen, how much do you know about what Dr. Whiting did here?”

“You mean the experiments or his death?”

“The results from his experiments.”

“Just that it was the first time anyone had attempted to clone from an extinct animal. And that it was being done from a fetal pup preserved in alcohol. I wasn’t part of his team. I heard he’d used a different approach than others that were trying to clone it. Apparently he discovered a way to switch off all active genes in the DNA.”

Carlson contemplated this for a moment. If Whiting had indeed found a way to shut down the genes—in effect that would mean he had turned back its clock—allowing it to be born all over again. Restructured into a completely new replica. Carl-son stopped pacing now and turned to Choy.

“I’m afraid, Ellen, that was just the beginning.” He knew now why Whiting had to die. And he doubted more than ever that he died by his own hand.

Twenty-Six

THE SUN WAS RISING. The first thing Jack Baker noticed when he opened his eyes were shafts of light filtering through the slatted roof of the shelter. Though the day had barely begun, it was already humid—that was the next thing he noticed—his shirt was damp, ringed with perspiration. He lifted his head and looked about. Tracy was sleeping near his feet. Beyond her, Hammond lie curled into a tight ball. But Turner was gone.

That’s right, he had guard duty, Jack thought, remembering Turner volunteered to take first watch. Why didn’t he wake me for my watch?

Jack sat up and spent a few moments cataloguing the various aches and pains his body was announcing. His jaw was bruised; it hurt when he opened and closed his mouth. His shoulders were stiff and sore, and the wound on his calf had begun to ooze pus. He knew if he got an infection now, he could end up losing his leg. Or worse. The jungle is not a place you want to have an open or bleeding wound.

Tracy rose up squinting in the light. She propped herself up on one elbow.

“Where’s Turner?” she asked after a moment.

“Probably sleeping under a tree somewhere.”

Tracy came full awake and stood. “Didn’t he wake you for your shift last night?”

“No.”

“Well, aren’t you concerned?’

“Concerned? I’m not his keeper, Tracy. I’m just trying to stay alive here. We all know the score. He may have taken off on his own, for all we know.”

“And if he didn’t? What then?” That came off harsher than she had intended. She wished she could take back the tone, soften the question.

Jack raked a hand across his scalp. “Then he didn’t. I don’t know where he is. He knows where we are.”

“What if he can’t make it back here? Jesus, Jack, what if it was you out there?” Tracy said, no longer sorry for her tone.

Jack made an ambiguous gesture, half nod, and half shrug. Tracy threw up her arms and grunted in frustration. “Then I will go look for him myself.”

Jack did not like being talked to like this. Who did this woman think she was? He had to ask, “And your survival and fighting skills are what exactly?”

“I’m tougher than I look. You’d be surprised,” She said, trying to convince herself as much as Jack.

They stood there in uncomfortable silence for a minute. Jack did not want to be put in the position of being responsible for others. That had not worked out for him in the past. He looked at Tracy, hating the fact that she was right. Once again, it was not his choice to make.

“We should look for him,” Jack finally said. “Go wake the Captain.”

So that was what they did.

It didn’t take very long. Fifty yards outside their campsite, they found Bob Turner. Pieces of Bob Turner. They first discovered the pink stubs of his torn limbs lying by a huge fern. Tracy turned away and vomited. Jack nodded at Captain Hammond, who put his arm around her shoulder and led her about back to camp. When he returned, he found Jack next to a stand of bamboo, looking down. Jack looked stricken. Forcing his legs to carry him to Jack’s side, Hammond looked at what he knew he didn’t want to see. Bob Turner stared back at them with hollow eye sockets. At least his head did.

“His torso is back there in the brush,” Jack said, weakly waving his arm in the direction of what was left of Turner’s trunk.

What Jack would remember most about that day was not the scattered body parts, grisly as that was. No, what Jack would remember most was the condition of the head. It appeared something had literally ripped it from his neck. His jaw, now only a memory, gave his face the appearance of a bowling ball split in half. The missing eyes, along with the bloody hole where a nose once existed, completed the look.

And with that discovery, Jack Baker knew that the suspicions he’d been harboring—the fear he’d lived with for several days now—were absolute child’s play compared to the nightmarish reality he’d literally dropped into from out of the sky.

Twenty-Seven

PRINCE HABIB TOOK THE CALL, which lasted only a few seconds. With that, he walked over to his son’s bed.

“Good afternoon, doctor,” he said.

Doctor Kahn Apta was his son’s physician since birth. He was not just his pediatrician; over the years, he had become a trusted family friend. He reached over and lifted a chart off the foot of the bed. Temperature 100.5, despite aspirin. Pulse rapid at 115. Respiration at 24 and shallow. The boy’s blood pressure was dangerously unstable.

Habib’s son Khalid looked through his plastic oxygen mask from the doctor to his father, with eyes that belied something beyond despair, a melancholy that cut into the helpless Prince like a sword in the heart. Habib had seen all manner of deaths, from peacefully slipping away in old age to cancer and AIDS, beheadings and accidents. But this was the most brutally cruel of all. It was slow and insidious, as if he were being eaten from the inside out. Even though the Prince had plenty of time to prepare, he now realized as the time drew nearer, nothing could have prepared him for this.

“We need to move him to the hospital,” the doctor said.

“What will happen?”

“Well, there’s no way--“

The Prince interrupted him, “Please, Khan, just tell me.”

The doctor nodded. “He will need” he looked at Khalid, who may or may not have been asleep, “... assistance to sustain his breathing until... ” He looked expectantly at Habib.

“Until?”

“Well, Your Excellency, the rest is...,” the MD struggled for the right words, “out of my hands. You, of course, well, you—” he struggled despite, or maybe because of, his affection for this family, his understanding of the Prince’s position, and his fear of the Prince’s wrath.

“Yes... yes, of course,” The Prince understood, and appreciated his discretion.

“What have you heard?” The doctor asked discretely, hoping he hadn’t overstepped his bounds.

He hadn’t. The Prince held genuine affection for the physician after all these years. He was silent for a moment. “Jimi is returning today. I will know more this afternoon.”

“Time is not his friend, your highness. He grows weaker each day.”

“I know,” the Prince turned away from the doctor and pinched his eyes. “I know.”

* * *

The luxury jet landed at Prince Habib’s private airfield and taxied to the hanger. A Mercedes sedan pulled up alongside the jet. Jimi climbed down the stairs of the plane and hurried to the sedan. The chauffeur opened the rear door and Jimi jumped in. Prince Habib sat waiting, unable to hide his anxiety.

“Please tell me you have good news, Jimi.”

The messenger looked down at the floorboard. The Prince had his answer.

Twenty-Eight

JACK BAKER STOOD ON THE sugar-fine sand, gazing out at the ocean. As he stood there, he suddenly realized what had seemed wrong all morning. Not Turner, but with the island itself. Something was off.

It was the silence.

Besides the crash of the waves, there was none of the usual sounds of the jungle island. No bird squawking, no monkeys howling, no chatter of the island rodents rustling in the undergrowth. In fact, apart from the nighttime screams that had pierced the dark the last two evenings, Jack could remember nothing!

A minute later, Tracy came up. “Jack, you look lost.”

“That’s funny,” he said, less sure than he sounded.

“I mean, lost in thought.”

“I am. I was just thinking, have you noticed how quiet it is here?”

“Well, we are in the middle of nowhere.”

Jack shook his head. “No, not that. It’s the island. There’s no life here. Plant life, sure, but we’ve been here over a week now, and I have yet to see another live animal.”

“Except what we hear at night and... ” She didn’t have to finish.

And whatever killed Turner.

Twenty-Nine

OUTSIDE THE STEEL AND PLATE glass laboratory building of the GenSys research complex, the dim security lights fought bravely with the inky black of the jungle as Roger Tibek boarded a secretly chartered helicopter to take him to a port in the northern coast.

The pilot was going through a checklist when Tibek climbed on. The shell of the helicopter was mostly barren, save for a few empty coke cans and a couple of stray candy wrappers. A large open steel case set off to one side.

Tibek’s pulse pounded. One by one, he carefully removed the six titanium canisters from the duffle bag he carried. He placed each one inside its own slot in the steel case. GenSys designed the case specifically to transport these canisters.

The pilot leaned back. “Ready to go, mate?”

Tibek nodded.

Tibek could see nothing out the small window of the craft except blackness. When he looked down, he could just make out a black and white haze of churning water. The vastness of the ocean seemed to stretch to infinity. Others viewing the scene might have been humbled or felt small in comparison. It only made Frank Tibek feel more powerful.

An hour later, he could feel the sensation as the chopper descended from the darkness toward the helipad of the trawler. The movement of the ship made a smooth landing difficult. The hard seas tossed the vessel and Tibek felt the jolt as they first attempted to land on the deck of the listing ship. The chopper rose involuntarily and the pilot wrestled with his joystick to get the chopper back down. The impact jarred the wind from the rogue scientist’s diaphragm. Worse, the hard landing caused the case to rise in the air, only to bounce hard in the cabin. Tibek lunged toward the canisters and clung tightly to the steel case until at last the chopper came to rest.

He struggled against panic. He snapped open the latch on the case and looked inside. Thank God, they’re okay!

Thirty

LEWES HODGKIN SAT HUNCHED IN a dark corner of the Wahoo Bar and Grill in Cape Talbot, nursing a bottle of Matilda Bay Premium Pilsner Lager. There was no one else in the bar except a couple of mongrels that looked more like a mix of dingo and hyena than dogs. The bartender came from behind the bar and waved some scraps of meat. They immediately got excited, yelping and jumping as they followed the bartender, making his way to the door. He tossed the scraps into the dirt parking lot and the mutts chased after them, fighting each other to get the few meager scraps of fat and gristle. The bartender secured the screen door and, wiping his hands on the bar towel tucked in his belt, returned to his post by the beer taps.

Hodgkin finished his beer and motioned to the bartender for another.

Frank Tibek entered the bar and sat down next to Hodgkin, placing his case on the floor between them.

“You’re late,” Hodgkin said.

“Yeah, well, blame your trawler captain for that.”

Hodgkin smiled. “It’s all right.” He nodded towards the steel case, “That’s them?”

Hodgkin was well aware of the rumored medicinal qualities of the Thylacine and had closely followed the story of Michael Whiting’s attempt to clone the Tasmanian tiger two years earlier. His own biotech company, a mere speck compared to GenSys, was hit hard by the tech meltdown on the stock market. His company was poised to introduce a new cancer drug the year before, but found they lacked a key ingredient. When he read about the Thylacine research, he knew he had found the answer. They had research that indicated the Thylacine stem cells could reverse the course of almost any disease. He knew the potential of the animal’s genes. Nature had created a bizarre animal that possessed the most valuable DNA in the world. However, the animal being extinct, with so few specimens left in the world, made acquiring viable Thylacine DNA almost impossible. Almost.

When Hodgkin discovered that the project had been resurrected by a Prince from Dunali, he knew his company had been given a rare second chance. But he needed an insider, someone who could defeat the security at GenSys.

Enter Frank Tibek. Getting Tibek’s cooperation had been easier than he’d expected. Tibek had gotten wind of GenSys’s CEO’s plan to secretly sell the DNA to the highest bidder, leaving him and the company holding the bag for the Prince of Dunali, the venture capitalist who had funded the research in the first place. Tibek was furious and Hodgskin had his man.

Tibek got straight to the point “Did you transfer the money?”

Hodgkin handed him a slip of paper. Tibek opened it and smiled.

Hodgkin looked around and lowered his voice. “That’s a lot of dough, Frank. I hope you’ve got what I need.”

“You’re not dealing with some amateur here. Inside the case, you’ll find a plastic pouch along with six embryos. All the instructions you need are in there. I can’t emphasize this enough, do not deviate from the instructions. You only have twenty more hours left to get them back in an incubator. You’d better get going.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not dealing with an amateur, either.”

Thirty-One

PETER CARLSON GAZED AT THE three-hundred-thousand-dollar DNA sequencer, whose digital readouts blinked like distant stars announcing DNA-strand doublings. The environment that had filled Carlson with so much hope and promise now stood as a gleaming reminder of the sense of dread he felt.

Advancing to his desk, Carlson gazed down at the latest genetic map of the Thylacine fetus. The short arm of chromosome CQO12 was not consistent with the original gene map. The problem was CQO12 was only a small part of the puzzle. There were large areas that represented thousands of base pairs that didn’t match up. Carlson had no idea what they represented or if they even had a function at all. Quite possibly they could have been “turn on” genes, something left over from early mammals that were no longer needed and were only memory remnants of formerly active genes from thousands of years ago.

What troubled Carlson even more was the levels of growth hormone he’d found in the first blood samples of the Thylacine fetuses. Tibek was playing fast and loose with an unknown gene.

That was why he was so angry with Tibek. He should have known the dangers when he found he couldn’t control the growth. It was insanity to sit back and allow them to evolve on their own. He knew from the start the whole project was unpredictable.

A recent inquiry to one of the foremost researchers on Thylacine biology had gone unanswered. Carlson suspected his request for information was ignored due to the method he was forced to use. He had to use an alias and an anonymous email address for this task, a protocol strictly demanded at GenSys. The secrecy of the lab was somewhat of a double-edged sword for Carlson. It made obtaining information from the outside world difficult at best.

To make matters worse, every time Carlson even hinted of temporarily suspending operations until they determined what the DNA flaws actually were, Frank Tibek threatened to have Carlson sent back to the states. A threat Carlson ignored, since he was the only one on the project who actually knew how to sequence DNA correctly. However, Tibek being GenSys’s field man, along with the Prince’s demand for immediate results, left Carlson with no choice but to go along with the accelerated program, no matter the consequences.

And consequences there would be. They had succeeded in cloning a Thylacine fetus. Nevertheless, bringing that species to adulthood was another thing all together. Carlson slumped into his desk and dropped his head into his hands.

What have I done?

Part Four

Revelation

Thirty-Two

THAT NIGHT, WHILE THE OTHERS slept, Jack Baker heard the staccato sounds of a helicopter passing over the island. He grabbed a handful of wet leaves and tossed them on the fire, frantically trying to create smoke to attract attention. But the chopper sounds soon faded and the night was still again.

He decided to make his way down the trail they had walked earlier that day. Suddenly, Baker heard a rustling. In the faint moonlight, he could make out the outline of a figure running through the clearing on the right.

“Hello. Is there someone there?” a voice called out.

Baker stiffened. “Yes, who is it?”

“My name is Michael Whiting.”

Baker was stunned when the man approached—he was a dead ringer for Rip Van Winkle. “How long have you been here?” Baker asked.

“Three years.”

“But how—“

“I’ve been hiding from them.”

“Them?”

“You haven’t seen them? Or heard them at night?”

“I’ve heard something,” Baker admitted.

“What you’ve heard, Mr.—“

“Baker. Jack Baker.”

“Mr. Baker, what you heard are monsters. Monsters I helped to create.”

Baker was stunned. That was not the response he had been expecting. “What do you mean, monsters? What the hell are those things out there?”

“A better question is what were they supposed to be?”

Baker stood waiting. “You said you created them?”

“Thylacinus cynocephalus, otherwise known as the Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger was a wolf-like creature with jaws the size of a textbook. It had stripes across its back; and the legs were formed exactly like a kangaroo. They were vicious and would eat almost anything.

When the humans began moving into their habitat in the late 1880s to 1910s, they left them alone. Soon though, livestock began to disappear, and they thought the cause was the Thylacines. The farmers began to shoot them, and when sheep were introduced to the region, the toll went up. Soon, the government was paying one pound per Thylacine scalp, a good amount in those days. It was not until 1936 that they became protected. The last known tiger died later that year in a New York zoo. The cause of the Thylacine's death was a caretaker, named Benjamin, who simply forgot to close the door. The Thylacine crept out, and being exposed, died.

Since 1936, they’ve found no conclusive evidence of a Thylacine. However, the incidence of reported Thylacine sightings has continued. Most sightings occur at night, in the north of the State, in or near areas where suitable habitat is still available. Although the species is now considered 'probably extinct', these sightings provided some hope that the Thylacine may still exist.”

Jack cut in, “That’s great, Mr. Whiting—”

“It’s Dr. Whiting.”

“Doctor Whiting, I appreciate a good lecture. I teach at a college in the States myself. Could you just get to the point?”

“Please let me explain it my way, that way I don’t have to repeat myself.”

Jack threw up his hands and sat on a large flat rock.

Dr. Whiting continued, his way, “There have been hundreds of sightings since 1936, most of which have been clear cases of mis-identification. However, a detailed study of sightings between 1934 and 1980 concluded that of a total of three hundred sightings, just under half could be considered possible actual sightings. Nonetheless, all sightings have remained inconclusive; there has yet to be verified contact. Of the number of searches for the animal, none have been successful in proving the continued existence of the animal.”

Baker’s eyes glazed over.

Whiting sighed. “I see I’ve lost you, but the real story came after their extinction. You see, there’s a lab on this island.”

“A lab?” Baker repeated.

“Yes, a lab. We can talk about that later. Right now, we need to get out of here.”

“Can you get me to that lab?” Baker asked.

Whiting nodded. “I guarantee it.”

Thirty-Three

ELLEN WATCHED THE LAST GROUP of guards leave the viralology lab, keys jingling, their voices loud in the corridor. She locked the door and leaned against it, exhaling.

Had she done the right thing, telling Carlson what she’d found? She had no real evidence of anything except those things. She was sure Tibek could explain them away, as he did every other time she inquired about something amiss. Especially now, when the stakes were so high. The prince was expecting results. Soon.

She grabbed a heavy metal chair and propped it underneath the doorknob, jamming it in place until she was sure no one could get in, even with a key. If she had to explain blocking the door, she could always say she was spooked by noises she heard after the guards had left. The fact was the guards only made routine patrols to this part of the facility every four hours. They were more concerned with guarding the perimeter.

She would have plenty of time to work undisturbed.

Ellen hastened to the storage area contiguous with the lab. Here liquid nitrogen tanks were arranged on shelves, numbered and catagorized.

Her heart beating with anxiety, Ellen read the label of each tank until she found the one she wanted:

Thylacine embryo
Specimans 1-6
R. Tibek

The metal cylinder’s chrome lid had a pressure release valve attached. She put her hand on the latch and hesitated. Intuition told her what she would find, but she had to force herself to raise the hood.

Slowly she looked down. At first, the frozen mist blocked her view as it floated out of the storage container and spilled silently to the floor. Then it cleared and she saw the specimen container. Ellen unscrewed it, pulling it up and removing the stainless steel specimen case.

She found herself breathing hard. Ever since she was a young girl, this was what she wanted, to be a scientist. The advancement of human knowledge had always been something she cherished. It wasn’t a selfish endeavor, but something to help others.

How naïve she had been.

Since coming to work for GenSys, she had learned a hard lesson fast: Not all scientists are created equal. At least at this company, she found each one more corrupt than the next. Except for Peter Carlson. He was sincere. At least that was her hope. She had entrusted him and now she’d have to wait and see.

Ellen placed the stainless steel case on the counter. The cool nitrogen mist swirled about her legs as if it were alive. One by one, she opened the specimen trays.

Impossible!

For a moment, Ellen supported herself by leaning against the freezer, staring at the empty trays, not able to believe what her eyes were clearly telling her. She found it hard to breathe. Staggering backwards, she fell into a lab chair.

The Thylacine embryos were all gone.

Thirty-Four

BY LATE AFTERNOON THE NEXt day, the dark clouds had returned. The group had followed an ancient trail of unknown origin, barely an ally through the brush. Whiting brought them to a clearing and stopped.

“I think we should stop here for the day.”

Baker looked at the others. “I agree. There are some good vines here to lash together a shelter. Looks like more rain tonight. Everyone okay with that?”

“Suits me,” Tracy Mills said, plopping on the ground.

Hammond just nodded. He’d been unusually quiet all day. Baker noticed the Captain seemed preoccupied. With all the responsibility he felt, Jack could see why.

“Something wrong, Captain?”

“Wrong? Yeah, something is wrong, Baker. Here we are in the middle of God knows where, castaways on this fucking deserted island, and we have Rip Van Winkle and the man who led five people to their death at Mt. Everest three years ago guiding us.”

Whiting’s head shot up. “I beg your—“

Hammond faced the three of them. “That’s right. Our illustrious jungle guide, Mr. Jack Baker, was a mountaineering guide for some adventure company. He goes up to Everest with ten people, but guess what? He only comes back with five. The way I read it, he abandoned them to save his own ass.”

Tracy Mills’ mouth was agape. “How do you know—“

“How do I know it’s the same guy? Tracy, you’ve flown with me enough to know what a news junkie I am. It took me awhile to place him, but I knew I knew him from somewhere. But don’t take my word for it. Why don’t you ask him?”

Tracy lowered her head, not wanting to look in his eyes. “Jack. Is that true?”

Jack could feel the others’ eyes penetrating him. “Yes. I’m afraid it is. But not like the great Captain Hammond tells it.”

“Well, why don’t you explain it then, hot shot?” Hammond fired back.

“I don’t owe you an explanation, Hammond. I don’t owe you anything. I didn’t put us on this god-forsaken island.” Baker turned and walked off.

Thirty-Five

THE JUNGLE AROUND HIM SEEMED to echo with the hollow voices of distant memories. Jack tried to block them out.

Forget them, he willed himself. He tried hard to forget, but it always seemed there was someone or something to remind him. You could have done better, the voices whispered. Sitting alone on the rock, he felt himself reeling backward into a time tunnel.

Jack Baker and his team had pushed through the Balcony, at 27,500 feet, to the Hillary Step, at 28,800 feet. The Hillary Step, a seventy-foot rock step, is named after Sir Edmond Hillary who, in 1953, along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became the first to summit Everest. The Hillary Step, which is climbed with fixed ropes, often becomes a bottleneck, as only one climber can climb at a time. The margin of safety is razor-thin on a mountain like Mount Everest. Many hazards, such as thundering avalanches, freak storms, and hidden crevasses, are beyond a climber's control.

Once the climbers ascend the Hillary Step, they slowly and laboriously proceed to the summit at 29,028 feet. The Everest summit sits at the top of the world. Though not the closest place to the sun due to the earth's curve, it is the highest peak on earth. Due to the decreased air pressure, the summit contains less than one-third the oxygen as at sea level. If dropped off on the summit directly from sea level (impossible in reality), a person would die within minutes from the decreased oxygen level.

Baker and his nine climbers were in a region known as The Death Zone. Above that altitude, not only could human life not be sustained, it deteriorated with terrifying rapidity. Even using supplementary oxygen, no one can remain in the Death Zone for very long. Climbers who venture into this zone cannot escape the potentially deadly effects of oxygen deprivation; they can only attempt to minimize and control what breathing the thin air at high altitudes does to their bodies.

That day, Baker’s group stalled because of one climber’s faulty oxygen canister. The man was inexperienced and Baker could see he was in rough shape. “Just a little farther,” he told him. Baker gave the climber his oxygen, and then addressed the others.

“I’m going ahead and set some ropes for us. Stay put until I signal for you.”

He would later remember telling the media. "There was absolutely no noise, it was very disturbing. We only had time to swerve to the right before being mowed down.”

And mowed down they were.

The accident occurred when a huge storm blew in and a wind shear snapped an ice pillar, breaking the ropes on the area of the peak known as Bottleneck, just below the summit. As the gigantic chunk of ice flew by Baker, he unsnapped his carabiner to keep from being swept away. “Look out,” he screamed to the team below. But it was too late.

Baker spotted the first two men gazing toward the top until the clouds perpetually swirling around Everest engulfed them.

Then they vanished.

Even more frightening was seeing the huge chunk of ice strike the other team members with unimaginable force, nearly dismembering two of them. It dragged them all down the mountain a thousand feet and into a crevice where they were pancaked atop one another. Two of them didn’t survive.

In all, five people had died and authorities accused Baker of compromising his clients' safety to achieve his own ambitions. Baker, they said, reached the summit of the world's highest peak before his clients, rather than waiting to assist them, and endangered them by making the final exhausting climb without the aid of bottled oxygen. Many who knew Baker and had climbed with him for years attempted to rebut the criticism, saying he did not use oxygen because of his personal climbing ethics and he climbed ahead of his clients to set ropes for them. They also sited the fact that he went out into the storm that night from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. There was a lateral blow of snow, and little visibility. He made two forays out into 60- to 70-mile-an-hour winds in sub-zero temperatures. This, they said, “was not about his heroism, he cared deeply about those climbers.”

Baker’s mind was in shock when he finally got off the mountain, replaying slowly through the events of the last hours of the storm. After they helicoptered him out, they took him to a hospital in Islamabad where he stayed for a week before returning home. That was the last trip the adventurer would ever take....

That was three years ago. Now the reluctant hero found himself right back in the same position under a different set of circumstances.

Hammond is right, he thought. He shouldn’t be responsible for leading them off this island.

Thirty-Six

A HEMISPHERE AWAY, A COURIER driving a non-descript white van stopped in front of Gem Biotech in Rockville, Maryland. Having escorted the package all the way from mainland Australia, the courier was red-eyed and weary from the seven-teen-hour flight.

When he arrived in the lab and handed the package over to an official at the company, there was little exchange of words.

As he paused at the door, before leaving, he did say one thing.

“Be careful.”

Thirty-Seven

“JACK.” TRACY MILLS’ VOICE BECKONED. “Jack, it’s all right. It wasn’t your fault.”

Jack stood, Tracy’s voice pulling him from his painful reverie. The two men had followed her.

Hammond was silent for a moment, and then looked at Baker.

“I’m sorry, Jack. I spoke out of turn.”

Whiting inhaled silently. “It seems to me, and please forgive me if I am speaking out of turn, I have to say I think you owe Mr. Baker a debt of gratitude. For if you only knew what you were dealing with, the mere fact that he got you this far is indeed a miracle.”

Hammond swung his attention to the doctor. “And just what are we dealing with, Dr. Whiting?” he asked.

After they set up camp, Hammond and Whiting sat by the fire roasting some grubs they’d scavenged from a dead tree stump.

“So let me sum up what we have so far,” Hammond said. “This GenSys was doing research in immunobiology until three years ago. Then they’re purchased by this Prince somebody—“

“Prince Habib.”

“Yes, whoever. Anyway, at that point they hire you and some other scientists to resurrect a....”

“Thylacine,” Whiting filled in.

“Right, a Thylacine. So you are bringing this thing back because it’s supposed to be some miracle cure for everything. However, before it’s finished, you find some flaws. Flaws that cause awful mutations. When you bring it to their attention, they have you killed... or at least they thought they did. Meanwhile, the things grow at an unprecedented rate, escape from the lab, and proliferate on this island. I have to say that seems rather hard to believe, Dr. Whiting. I mean, I like a good science fiction yarn as much as the next guy, but come on. If that really happened, why didn’t you notify the authorities when you discovered these mutations?”

Whiting stopped chewing for a moment. “Let me ask you a question, Captain Hammond. If you were the authorities and I came to you with this story, what would you say?”

Hammond nodded. “I see your point. Still, how did you survive your assassination attempt and yet, make them think you’re dead?”

“I had some of the formula with me when they dumped me on the island. I put it on my wounds. When I regained consciousness, they were healed.”

Whiting pulled up his shirt. Four round scars were scattered across his abdomen. “Believe me now?”

At that moment, a howl cut through the air. Whiting wheeled around. “Come on. We need to move now!”

Thirty-Eight

PETER CARLSON STOOD STARING AT Ellen. Her presence of mind and determination had impressed him. Now, however, he was wondering if she’d gone too far.

“What do you mean, they’re gone?”

“I went to the storage tanks—“

“Are you crazy? If Tibek caught you in there, there’s no telling what he’d have done.”

“I opened the tanks. The embryos are all gone. All six of them. He must’ve taken them, who else could it be? He’s been acting strange for days now.”

Peter was silent for a minute. Ellen’s newest revelation left him deeply troubled. Her accusation, though staggeringly bold, had just opened all kinds of new doors, and got him thinking in a completely new direction. If Tibek did take them... was it for corporate or scientific espionage? What did he stand to gain?

A darker thought crept into his mind.

How far would he go?

“You’re quiet,” Ellen said, beside him.

Peter glanced over. For an instant, in the muted lighting of his quarters, he saw a softness in Ellen’s eyes he had not noticed before. Shaking off the thought, he gave her a tired sigh. “I can’t believe this. It seems to get worse with every passing hour. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t signed on for this.”

“That makes two of us.”

“What if this whole thing is a sham? What if the Prince has just put all of us here to—“

“To what?”

Peter’s words came faster now. “I hate to say it, but I think there’s much more going on here than what we’ve been told. By the Prince and everyone else.”

* * *

Peter paced in his room. Ellen had left and now his senses were tingling. He didn’t know which was more discomforting—Ellen’s news about the missing embryos or his vain attempts to contact Prince Habib.

The Prince didn’t answer.

When his cell phone rang, Peter quickly ran through his mind what he was going to say to the Prince. When he flipped open the phone, he was surprised to hear a stranger’s voice on the other end.

“Dr. Carlson?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Who I am is not important. What I’m calling about is. Listen carefully. I work for Gem/BioTech. We received a package that came from your...”

Peter heard a pop... pop... on the line, followed by static.

Then the line went dead.

Along with whoever was on the other end of the call, Peter surmised.

Thirty-Nine

JACK AND THE GROUP MADE slow progress, slogging through mud and thorny vines. They’d decided that if they were going to find the lab, they needed to get to higher ground in order to survey the landscape.

“There’s a waterfall somewhere near here. I’ve seen it before,” Whiting said, “if we can get there by morning, we can see across the island.”

An hour later, the roar of a nearby waterfall grew louder, gradually drowning out the sound of the large beetles that crackled in the night air. The vegetation grew thicker, becoming nearly impenetrable. A cool mist from the falls settled on their faces and hair, the moisture creating a welcome micro-climate, vastly different from the sauna-like heat of the day.

“There’s something up here,” Whiting whispered from ten feet ahead. Jack caught up with him, his flashlight illuminating a large dugout canoe beached at a calm eddy.

Whiting knelt in the moist mud and examined the footprints. The tracks headed inland for a few yards before hugging the shore again, disappearing in the direction of the falls.

“Aborigines, “Whiting said.

“They’ve got to be close,” Jack said.

They walked for five minutes, each yard becoming more treacherous. Mud gave way to long slabs of wet sandstone. The constant misting from the falls provided a perfect habitat for moss and lichen, which made the rocks as slick as an oily garage floor. Tracy stumbled twice, scraping her knees against the rough rock. More disconcerting, they could no longer see any tracks.

As they neared the top of the falls, they realized a slip now would be disasterous. The rocks in front of them dropped off to a sandstone floor. While it was nothing compared to the magnificent waterway at Victoria Falls, Jack knew passing the hundred or so feet of rushing water, cascading down to smash into the swirling pool below, required extreme caution.

He stopped abruptly and surveyed the scene. The falls were so loud, Jack felt confident speaking again. “We can’t go any further. It’s too risky. A slip here isn’t a bruised knee or cut shin.”

Hammond heaved a smile. “But I dragged my ass over two miles.”

“You always hated exercise,” Tracy said.

“I hate exercises in futility.”

“I can make it,” Tracy said, looking at the expanse. “I can jump that ravine over there and scout ahead a ways, then come back.”

Jack shook his head. “Are you crazy? We can’t let you go out there.”

“Jack, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

Whiting chimed in. “She might have a point, Jack. We are on the other side of the island now. Those things have their colony set up on the far side. If she can get across, she should be safe.”

“That’s a big if, Doctor.”

Tracy peered at her intended path. “Don’t worry, Jack. I’ll be back. And don’t forget. When we get out of here, you owe me.”

Forty

AT THE SIGHT OF HIS SON, Prince Habib was shocked by his appearance. Although he had not thought it possible, Khalid looked even paler than he had the day before. His eyes were visibly sunken into their sockets and were surrounded by circles so dark, they looked like he had black eyes. The rank smell of fresh vomit hung in the air.

Habib wanted to hold his son, but he couldn’t move. The agony of his inadequateness held him back, although the boy lifted his arms to him.

His disease was too powerful, and he still had nothing to offer his son. Even his vast resources couldn’t fix this nightmare. Time was running out, and every minute that passed felt like a knife in the Prince’s side. He had hoped he would be able to save his son, but without the formula, it was hopeless. Habib resigned himself to the idea that his son was not going to get better. All the palliative treatment in the world wouldn’t stop the inevitable progression of this disease.

Without any warning, the boy retched. His slender body heaved, and heaved until there was nothing left to expel.

The Prince felt a wave of anxiety wash over him as a nurse ran in to the room and cleaned the boy’s face.

At that moment, Habib’s assistant Jimi came rushing into the room, his face white. “Your Highness. It is the phone for you. This is the call you’ve been waiting for.”

Forty-One

AS THE HAMMERED-SILVER MOON hung above the dark rocky hills, Tracy Mills clambered along the slippery outcropping of the falls and raced along the tree line, looking for a way into the jungle before any monstrous pursuers caught her. She quickly arrived at a gap in the foliage the size of a small car, where she turned and sprinted down a dark path, into the gloom beneath the trees.

She heard nothing behind her and did not waste any time squinting back into the darkness. But she suspected that her predators would be silent stalkers, revealing themselves only when they pounced.

The coastal woodlands were comprised mostly of blue gum and eucalyptus, their leaves so dark now that they looked like bits of funeral shrouds. Tracy followed the winding trail as it began to slope into a canyon. The trees were so tall and thick in places, the partial moon’s glow only penetrated enough to lay a scalpel of light upon the path.

Even where moonlight revealed the way, Tracy proceeded with caution fearing the surface roots on the jungle floor, which spread across the animal-trodden path, would trip her. Every few feet, low-hanging branches presented another danger to her, but she kept one arm up and hurried along.

Soon, she would reach the bottom of the slope where she could either turn back toward the sea or head deeper into the jungle where her prospects might be bleak.

Frantically wondering which way to go, she descended the last fifty feet. The trees flanking the trail gave way to an impenetrable tangle of low-lying thorns, called African Box. A few immense ferns, ideally suited to the frequent rains, overgrew the path and Tracy pushed through them, the nettles like small hands grabbing at her.

A shallow stream cut a course through the bottom of the canyon, and she paused beside it to catch her breath.

The night was soundless.

Hugging herself, she realized how cold she was. In jeans and a tank top, she was adequately dressed for a sunny spring day on the beach, but not for the cold, damp air of a jungle night.

Spurred by cold and fear, Tracy stepped off the stream bank and onto a bank of loamy soil eroded from the heavy rain a day earlier. She tried to jump across the narrow stream, but landed a few inches short, soaking her tennis shoes. Nevertheless, she fought through more mud up a steep embankment, and then turned east toward the next arm of dense forest. She could tell east by the position of the moon and from that, she could stay on a course that would take her further up the coast to where the lab was supposed to be.

Yeah, she thought. Good luck.

She would have a hard time getting anyone to believe her story. She had no illusions about that. They would tell her she was just being paranoid and that what she’d heard was little more than a lynx or a cougar, common to the jungles of Tasmania.

But she had to try. Someone would believe her. Someone had to!

Behind her, a couple hundred yards away from the slope she had just descended, something shrieked. It was not entirely an animal cry, but it wasn’t human either. More screams followed, each one unique in its tone and pitch, answering the first shrill call.

I thought that doctor said I’d be safe on this side.

Tracy halted on the steep trail, one foot firmly planted against a small boulder. She looked back as her pursuers simultaneously began to wail, reminiscent of a pack of wolves, yet far more frightening. The sound was so bloodcurdling it penetrated her flesh like a needle to her marrow.

“What are you?” she whispered. She suspected they could see as well as cats in the dark. Could they smell her as well, like dogs can?

Her heart began to slam painfully in her breast.

Tracy Mills turned and clambered up the steep embankment and into the dense forest. She heard the wailing grow louder behind her, but she dare not look back. There was only one way to go.

Forward.

Forty-Two

PETER CARLSON’S MIND WAS IN overdrive. As he stood in the lab, these sophisticated machines were a stark reminder that not all that glitters is gold.

Carlson stepped over to his desk and gazed down at the latest genetic mapping of the Thylacine fetus. The short arm of chromosome 12 was not consistent with the original gene map. There were still thousands of base pairs that didn’t match up. It could only mean one thing.

At that moment, Ellen Choy entered the lab.

“They changed the DNA,” she said.

“How do you know?” Carlson asked, having already suspected as much.

Ellen held up a sheaf of papers, “Because I stole his notes.”

Carlson looked at the stolen documents. “He sold out. He wasn’t even trying to grow an adult. He just needed stem cells.” He read further. “Gem/BioTech!”

Ellen nodded.

“That explains a lot,” Peter said. Like why they never answered his inquiries; that was where the foremost researcher he tried to contact was from.

Obviously, Tibek was in Gem/BioTech’s pocket. Deep in their pocket. The conclusion was undeniable. Theft.

Carlson sat at the counter and swung the lamp closer. The first file he opened contained a mixture of photocopies and lined yellow pages filled with Michael Whiting’s long flowing script. The pages that had been copied represented studies, or portions thereof, that had been used repeatedly, perhaps with all the surrogates Whiting had used in his studies. Peter was already familiar with most of the scientific procedures Whiting had used, having read everything published on the subject.

The rest of the papers were from Tibek himself and contained everything from articles from Scientific American to personal finance records and handwritten formulas. One article did stand out and apparently had captured Tibek’s interest as well. Splashes of yellow highlighter dotted the article throughout. A German biotech firm had gentically manipulated cat DNA to incorporate material “friendly” to humans, creating transgenic stem cells that tricked the immune system of the human recipient. Then they took those cells, placed them back in the host with human growth hormone, repeating the process again to ‘tweak the stem cells into unprecedented growth’. In pencil at the bottom of the page, Tibek had theorized: injection of Thylacine cells into host system: same effect? A later notation declared: Additional samples are necessary. Mutations occurred.

Finally, the journal articles ended and the subsequent pages were more notes about various sequencing protocols.

Peter turned to Ellen, whose head was resting in her hands. “Well, I’d say you have your proof.”

Ellen looked up and nodded. “There’s more. I found mention of Ron Powers in those notes.”

Peter gave her a bewildered look before tearing through the papers again. “Are you sure? I didn’t see that. Ron Powers, the CEO of GenSys.”

“Yes. I think Tibek set him up.” She walked over to Carlson and flipped through the papers, finding the one she was looking for. “There,” she said pointing a shaky finger at Powers name on the document.

Peter furrowed a brow. “They are both involved.”

“This whole thing is a lie, Peter.”

Unfortunately, it was too late now.

Forty-Three

RON POWERS WAITED FOR THE sun to break through the morning mist each day before taking his breakfast out on the veranda. The afternoon brought eighty-degree weather and warm penetrating rays to deepen his already near-perfect tan. But mornings could be downright chilly.

He had to admit, his self-imposed exile hadn’t been entirely unpleasant. Thank God he’d had the presence of mind to withdraw a large amount of cash from the bank—an account his wife knew nothing of—before leaving California. But his stay at San Lupos had been costly. His European–style hotel located on the rocky cliffs cost him upwards of eight hundred dollars a day. But he had no regrets as he sat watching the Caribbean Sea hurl its powerful waves against the rocky shoreline below. In fact, the time he’d spent there had served him well. It had allowed him to think about his situation.

As the last remnants of coastal haze gave way to another idyllic morning, the telephone by his bed rang. No one had this number, no one knew he was here. He debated not answering but it kept ringing. Finally he rose from his Spanish omelet and walked inside, grabbing the receiver. He expected it to be the front desk, but when he heard the caller’s voice, he knew it wasn’t.

“Hello, Mr. Powers?”

“Yes. Who the fuck is this?’

“Just a minute, please.”

Powers took a slow sip of his vanilla latte he’d ordered with his breakfast, and then waited. Someone was going to have some explaining to do. This was a private suite, godammit!

A few seconds later a familiar voice came on the line.

Powers felt his body flush. “Your Highness. This is a surprise.” Powers sat slowly on the side of the bed.

“A pleasant one, I hope.”

“Of course. It’s always good to hear from you.” He couldn’t help but look around, though he knew there was no way the Prince knew where he was. Except the Prince had called him here. Not on his cell phone, on the hotel line. A bead of sweat appeared at his hairline.

“I trust our arrangement is still intact.”

“Yes. I was just about to call you.” He modulated his voice to show no alarm.

“Great. In that case, we can do our business in Dunali. I am sending a plane for you.”

“A plane? When? I mean... this is a bit of a surprise.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long. I’ll have you back in a day or so. I have some of my venture capitol friends coming in. I’d like you to be there. I have arranged a car to pick you up, at your hotel there in San Lupos.”

Powers shit a brick. “When will that be?”

“They should be there within the hour.”

“Very good. I’ll see you soon,” he said with fake enthusiasm.

Ron Powers was frightened. Scared shitless. Without a completed formula to give the Prince, he would lose any hope of getting the sixty million. But he had a way around that. In truth, he knew all the Prince wanted was proof that the clone embryo was genuine. That would be something he could verify through Frank Tibek. Time for Tibek to earn his cut.

However, an hour later, with the Prince’s car arriving any minute, Ron Powers hadn’t any luck contacting Frank Tibek.

Powers slammed the phone down and walked to the window. A black Mercedes sedan rolled to a stop in front of the lobby entrance. Two dark-suited men climbed out and entered the hotel.

A minute later, he heard a rap on door.

Forty-Four

INSIDE HIS OFFICE, FRANK TIBEK bent down in front of a cabinet at the bottom of his bookcase. He unlocked the thick door and reached in to grasp the heavy TSA data books that he’d written in code.

What!

His hand met empty space.

Tibek slammed the cabinet and carefully locked it, even though there was no longer anything to protect.

“Calm down,” he told himself, trying to stem a rising tide of paranoia. “You’re letting your imagination run away with itself. There has to be an explanation. Think this through.”

With a wave of apprehension, Tibek went to his desk to logon to his laptop. At first, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The spot that always occupied his computer was empty. “What the hell?”

Telling himself to remain composed and think logically, he had a sudden realization. This was no imagination going wild, no mistake, no simple case of misplaced materials. Someone had stolen his data and was now going to use it against him.

And he knew who that someone was.

Tibek would fix Carlson once and for all. And he would do it himself.

Well, almost by himself.

Forty-Five

SHARING HER TRAIL WITH IMAGINARY spiders, snakes, beetles, rats, bats, monsters and the ghostly image of Roger Sippolt, Tracy continued to run down the trail toward a distant light. Suddenly without warning, the ground gave way beneath her.

Flight or Fight.

All logic and reason had evaporated from Tracy Mills’ mind. She held no thoughts of the plane crash, the mysterious lab, Jack, the victims, the horrific attack of the others. There was one matter at hand.

Survival.

The ground skimmed by in a blur beneath her like a sleek endless highway. Whether her body was numb with fear or numb from injury, Tracy didn’t know, but she didn’t feel any pain.

Sliding on her side, Tracy was stretched out, her arms above her, hands clawing at the wet ground as she continued to accelerate down the canyon.

Suddenly, the ground beneath her was no longer soft. She realized to her horror that she sliding toward the sandstone cliff she’d seen from above.

She had arrived.

The waterfall!

The wall of water loomed for only an instant before she was in it. The blow to Tracy’s chest when she hit the base drove the wind from her lungs and rang the bells in her head.

The dark pool felt like a charged chemical vat.

Tracy’s body shuddered. Cold water streamed over her shoes and numbed her legs. Like a diver tied to a cinder block, Tracy felt herself being dragged down to the bottom of the falls. She struggled back to the surface for an instant. As if to give rise to Tracy’s own dumbstruck terror, the high-pitched scream of a wild animal cut through the air.

Then the falls pulled her under again.

Forty-Six

THE AWFUL SMELL HIT HIM like a baseball bat and Frank Tibek had to stifle his gag reflex. The big room was in semidarkness, illuminated only by a few dim ceiling lights. Tibek tried to be quiet, but his entry alerted the occupants, whose burning red eyes tracked his every move. Tibek felt like a menu item at a buffett.

He ran his flashlight along the wall until he found a switch. As the room flooded with light, a chorus of snarls filled the air as the creatures retreated to the back of their cages. Perceiving after a moment that Tibek was no threat, they crept back and pressed their nightmarish faces against the bars.

Tibek sensed that these creatures were regarding him with more than just feral hunger. They were curious, and their low growls and mutterings were a form of communication. He reminded himself that they had carried out more than one murderous rampage since their creation on this island. It would be a grave mistake to think of these creatures as mere animals. They were part human, and they could think. The other part was what was unthinkable.

Tibek tried to ignore their unwavering gazes and went about the task for which he’d come. For a moment, he hesitated, thinking about the hellish forces he was about to unleash.

Get on with it.

He hit a switch labeled DOOR. A motor hummed and the cage slid open with a metallic clank. Several creatures inched forward in the cage, not sure if this was some kind of trick. Tibek hit another switch and a second cage opened. Still, none of the creatures ventured out. They were snarling at each other and pawing in some sort of primitive communication. Beyond the doors, it was a short distance to the exterior of the compound and the creatures could merely walk through a concrete culvert to get out. Tibek turned and raced out of the room. He had unleashed the demons. Now it was up to them to do the rest.

To do what they do.

Tibek heard the sound of laughter coming from the guard shack as he passed by. Then quite suddenly, the laughter was replaced by high-pitched screams, a gunshot, and then more screams, dripping with pain and terror.

Tibek could only imagine the bloodbath that was going on, and he couldn’t help but pity the guards. They were decent-enough guys. But he knew that Carlson was prepared to have the guards lock him up. They were collateral damage. Tibek looked back to see a guard stagger a few feet from the shack and fire off a round at one of the attackers. But before he could get off another round, three more of the beasts jumped on him. Tibek could see his arms and legs flailing under the mats of fur that swarmed over him. The guard finally went still and the creatures dragged what was left of him into the shadows. They always did that—drag their prey into the dark. Why did they do that?

Tibek took one last look at the twitching bodies of the guards and ran inside, just as one of the creatures spotted him and loped toward him. He heard a thump as he slammed the steel door.

Now, to get the hell off this island.

Forty-Seven

AS THE CURRENT SUCKED HER under, Tracy kicked her legs and pushing sideways, fought her way back to the surface.

Hold on! Tracy’s brother’s voice called from beyond the grave. The same way he had when she had floundered in the icy pond as a child. Hold on! I’m coming!

The wrenching yank on her arm nearly dislocated her shoulder and expelled what little air Tracy had left in her lungs. As she was pulled up onto the sandstone boulder, a dark form appeared before her. He worn a loincloth and carried a long bamboo spear in his free hand.

An aborigine.

As the water drained from her clothes, Tracy lay in terrified silence, listening to the sounds of the waterfall. Then feeling the onset of nausea, she dragged herself to her hands and knees.

The Aborigine smiled, but said nothing.

Delirious and in pain, she crawled back toward the others.

Forty-Eight

PETER CARLSON WAS NOT SURE how long he’d been lost in thought when he got the call. It took him a moment to recognize the tired voice on the other end.

It was Prince Habib. Carlson jumped on the opportunity to spill what he knew. “I don’t have much time, Habib. I’ve uncovered some problems. The whole project has been compromised. Frank Tibek—”

“Dr. Carlson, I have everything under control. I know about the compromise and I assure you it’s being handled. I received a phone call this morning from the CEO of Gem/BioTech. He says they have synthesized the compound I need to save my son. At this point, I can’t care how they came to have it. It’s my last hope.”

“Your Highness, if you use that compound, it could kill your son... or worse. You don’t know—”

The prince cut him off. “Peter. I appreciate everything you have done, but the race is over. It’s not your fault. Perhaps later, we will finish what we’ve started. For now, I have only one priority. You understand. Arrangements are being made and you will be amply compensated. I will contact you when you get home. Good luck.”

The line went silent.

Peter took one last look around the lab.

If I get home.

Forty-Nine

THREE THOUSAND MILES AWAY, a Grumman 360 executive jet circled the airport at Raghed, Dunali. After getting the tower’s okay, it landed on the 110-degree tarmac. The heat caused ripples in the air.

Ron Powers closed his laptop and packed it away. When the jet rolled to a stop, Powers looked out the window of the custom plane to see a procession of officials waiting for him. He had to admit, for all the ass-backward ways of this desert country, they sure knew how to treat a guest.

Christ, I feel like the President.

Powers descended the narrow stairs of the plane and saw Prince Habib waiting to greet him. Powers approached and extended his hand, but instead of Habib returning the gesture, a guard in a military uniform stepped from beside him and snapped a handcuff on to his left wrist, then pulled his other arm in front of him and secured the other cuff.

Powers face flushed. “What’s going on here, Habib?”

“Why don’t you tell me, Mr. Powers?”

“I don’t understand,” Powers protested.

Habib smiled. “You will very soon, I assure you.”

With that, they blindfolded Powers and whisked him away in a white van to a staging area three miles away. When the van stopped, a guard took off the blindfold and led Powers to an area that looked like a town square. His vision now unobstructed, he stood again facing Prince Habib.

“My son, he grows weaker everyday. You and I had a deal. You cheated me, Mr. Powers. You had no intention of completing the project. Instead, you sold out to the highest bidder. You gave what was mine, what was my son’s, to someone else.

Powers started to protest. “No, it was Tibek who—”

“Silence!” The Prince barked, waving his hand. At that, the larger guard gave a roundhouse to Powers midsection, dropping him to his knees.

“Do you think I’m a fool, Mr. Powers? Did you really think I wasn’t watching you? Do you not know the resources I have at my disposal? In your case, I barely needed them. You are the fool, Mr. Powers. Now, you must be punished. In my country it is an eye for an eye.” The Prince waved over the guard who had just decked the traitor. “Stand him up.”

The brute yanked Powers to his feet. “Wait a minute. I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Ahh, but you did. You hurt my son. You hurt my honor. Now, you must hurt.”

“You can’t do thi—“

“You remain arrogant right up until the end, Mr. Powers.”

“What do you mean, the end?”

“You shall see in a moment.”

They herded Powers to a small sand-filled rectangle where a large wooden basket sat in the middle of it. Powers was momentarily confused.

A huge Arab stepped forward brandishing the largest sword Powers had ever seen.

Then he understood.

He felt his bladder let loose and the sand beneath him became wet. The guard behind him shoved him to his knees. He was kneeling in front of the basket, pleading for his life.

“Please, Habib, don’t do this...”

“You did not do your homework, Mr. Powers. You thought I wouldn’t see through your deceit. You thought I wouldn’t find out about your treason. You thought I wouldn’t find you in San Lupos. You are a very stupid man. Anyone who deceives me does not live to regret it.”

Powers felt the prod of something in his back that caused him to instantly jerk his head upwards. The last thing he heard was the whoosh of the huge saber as it swung down.

Fifty

JACK BAKER HAD BEEN IN the jungle enough times to know it claimed its victims without remorse or hesitation. As he stood at the top of the cliff looking down, he knew he should have never let Tracy set out alone.

We’ve got to get out there and find her; she has twenty-four hours at best.

* * *

The numbness that spread through Tracy’s body was like a welcome anesthetic. She managed to get to her feet and staggered a few yards more before collapsing to the ground.

* * *

Jack Baker, along with Captain Hammond and Michael Whiting, fought their way down the cliff. Baker showed them how to repel with vines and the three of them were standing at the base of the huge rock when they heard the high-pitched screams.

Tracy.

* * *

Tracy Mills felt like she was being burned alive. A terrifying sensation was spreading through her body. Everywhere—jabbing—faster and faster. Thousands of tiny hypodermic needle pricks, intensifying whenever she moved.

Tracy, her vision blurry, tried to focus on the men standing over her. She wanted to speak, but her mouth didn’t get the command from her brain. The stinging sensation in her skin was giving way to sudden deep waves of pain that rolled through her body like seismic tremors.

“Fire ants,” one of the men said. “Get her off the ground!”

Strong arms lifted her. Tracy felt hands flicking the stingers from her skin. She was being placed on a rock and something was being rubbed all over her skin. Willing herself, she focused her vision. Another man had joined the other two and was the one doing the rubbing. The Aborigine that pulled her from the falls. She felt the coolness of the liquid on her skin.

“What is that?” she asked.

The man just smiled, continuing to rub her skin.

Then she heard a familiar voice. “It’s Tea Tree oil,” Jack Baker said. “It’s an old jungle cure for fire ant bites.”

“Jack!” she squeeled.

“Trust me, it works.”

Who ever this native was or how he had found Tracy and the others was beyond her. It made no difference at the moment. I’m alive.

“Why doesn’t he speak?” Tracy asked.

“He’s taken a vow of silence.” Michael Whiting answered. “Many Aborigines do it, out of respect for nature. It also helps them to survive. They can sneak up on their prey and they can avoid being preyed upon.”

The native took a position on a high rock and waved his spear toward the group.

“He’s trying to tell us something,” Jack said. He stepped over to the rock and stood next to the Aborigine. The jungle lay spread out below him.

In the distance, the bright steel of GenSys shimmered like a mirage.

Fifty-One

A FEW MINUTES PAST NOON, Peter Carlson sat in front of the laptop he’d lifted from Tibek’s office, his face a study in concentration as he scanned the emails Tibek had received over the last six months. One, regarding a shipment of Thylacene fetuses, stood out as particularly troubling:

STATUS: > Have lost all contact with ship.

> Please verify shipment location and ETA.

> Will wait

> URGENT!

> Let me know, Alex.

Entering the office, Frank Tibek was livid. He stormed over to Carlson, his breath coming in snorts.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Carlson?”

For a moment, the lab was quiet. Carlson sat motionless, struggling to absorb what he’d just read, as the meaning of Tibek’s written words slithered through him.

“Don’t seem so shocked, Carlson. You don’t think the Prince’s son is enough to keep me in this mosquito-infested shithole, do you?” Tibek ranted.

Carlson blanched. “I’m not sure you understand what you’ve done.”

Tibek smirked, then bore down on Carlson. “Who in the hell do you think you are, Carlson? Just because your grandfather chased some extinct animals around here thirty years ago doesn’t make you the be-all and end-all of genetics.”

Carlson wheeled around when he heard the commotion. The sound of glass shattering; a door coming off its hinges. More banging and a gun blast rang out. Tibek ducked behind a desk and now the sound of loud unfamiliar voices entered the hall.

“Where the hell’s security?” Tibek yelled.

“They’re dead,” Jack Baker called out.

Behind Baker, Tracy Mills and Eric Hammond stood staring at the maze of equipment in the room.

“Who the hell are you?” Tibek asked.

“Jack Baker. My friends and I here, we survived a plane crash here about ten days ago. Landed in this nightmare. Now that’s my story. You mind telling me what the hell those things are out there?”

Peter Carlson spoke now. “Did you say, security is dead?” Baker nodded. “The outside of this place is littered with your guards. Something tore them to shreds.” “What the fuck is it?” Tracy Mills asked. “A better question is, what was it supposed to be?” Hammond stood waiting for an answer. “Doesn’t matter, they’re gone,” Tibek said. “I released them.”

“Released what?” Carlson demanded. “What the fuck do you think?”

“Are you saying you have full grown animals?”

“Had. Actually, they were Whiting’s. Crazy bastard actually did it!” Tibek let out a cackle before continuing, “Then he let most of them out, set them free. I just finished the job.”

At that moment, Michael Whiting stepped forward. “That’s a lie, Tibek.”

Frank Tibek craned his neck and turned clown-white. The gaunt old man with long white hair and a matching beard looked nothing like the Dr. Michael Whiting that Tibek knew.

“What’s wrong, Frank, cat... er... wolf got your tongue?”

“Why don’t we just feed him to them?” Baker suggested.

“Later. Right now, we need to get out of here.”

Part Five

Island of the Thylacines

Fifty-Two

BUCK JOHNSTON NEARLY SWALLOWED HIS cigar when he heard the mayday call. On the other end, a man sounded frantic.

“My name is Peter Carlson. I’m on an island called Poguba. I’m with some people whose plane crashed here ten days ago. We are under attack by wild animals. I have a group of people here, seven of us in all. We need to get off the island as soon as possible or we’re doomed. I think it’s uncharted. I have the GPS coordinates, though. They are 04°38'S, 108°17'E.”

“Hold on a second.” Johnston consulted his maps.

Holy shit! That’s near The Triangle, right where he suspected the 747 went down last week. Johnston got back on the horn. “All right. Do you know where the highest point is?”

“I’m not sure.” Carlson looked at Baker. “Can we find the highest point around here?” Carlson kept the phone pressed to his lips.

Baker nodded. “Tell him yes. We know where it is. There’s a huge cliff near the beach.”

Carlson relayed the message.

“Okay. Get to that point. I’ll have a chopper out to you inside of two hours. Good luck.”

Fifty-Three

PETER CARLSON FELT LIKE HE was moving through a nightmare as he stepped out onto the aluminum gangway of the GenSys compound. He stopped at the end, having no desire to step out into the jungle abyss ahead.

Baker led the group with Carlson close behind him. Everyone else followed in single file as he stepped onto the narrow trail that led away from the compound. The image before them made Peter recoil in horror.

“Oh God!” Peter stared, unable to believe what he saw. Bodies, and pieces of bodies, littered the ground. The guards.

Everyone stared in stunned silence.

Ellen Choy closed her distance from Peter and gripped his arm like a vice. “Peter—“

“I know... just stay close. We’ll be alright.”

“Okay, let’s move,” Jack Baker said to the group. “Stay close together.”

With Baker carrying one of the guards’ assult rifles, Peter began moving into the jungle with everyone else behind him.

They’d only gone two hundred feet into the trees when they heard a terrifying shriek. One of the guards came tearing out of the trees thirty feet in front of them. Jack raised the rifle to shoot, then hesitated as the guard cried out... “Wait... don’t shoot...” He barely got the words out.

The creature hit instantly. Peter stood frozen in place as the spectacle unfolded only a few feet away.

* * *

The guard felt the creature’s oblong head crash into him with unimaginable force. A razor sharp clamp tightened on his upper arm, slicing to the bone and locking on. A flash of white-hot pain exploded as the monster torqued its powerful jaws and shook its head violently, tearing the guard’s arm off his body. Other creatures moved in. Claws like knives stabbing at his legs, torso, neck. He had no breath to scream in agony as the creatures ripped huge chunks of his body away. The last thing he saw was a gorge of yellow teeth clamping down across his face.

Then his world went black.

* * *

Ten feet away, Jack Baker raised the rifle and unleashed a torrent of bullets into the creatures. The beasts shrieked their high-pitched calls and bolted into the jungle. Baker turned toward the others.

“Is everyone all right?”

Everyone nodded. Then Baker realized something was not right.

“I thought there were seven of us,” he said.

“It’s Tibek,” Michael Whiting said. “He ran. Just like the coward that he is.”

Fifty-Four

THE AUSAR HH-66 HELICOPTER was still ten miles away from its destination. The pilots knew many of the small islands were fog shrouded most of the time. Even with GPS locators, it was sometimes impossible to locate people. They typed the coordinates into their navigation system and hoped for the best.

Fifty-Five

THE SCREECHING HOWLS THAT PIERCED the air frightened Frank Tibek more than anything ever had before. Mainly because he knew where they were coming from. Or more precisely, what they were coming from. Though he’d not seen the complete metamorphosis of the beasts he unleashed, he was well aware of what they were capable of.

With Carlson and the others ahead of him, Tibek made a decision to turn back. Let them be the bait. He’d find a hiding spot and hold out until night. The one thing he’d engineered in to them was bad vision, especially at night. He would be virtually invisible to them, even with their incredible sense of smell, if he waited until dark. In the daylight, they could get close enough by smell to see you. Then it was too late.

Tibek spotted a cave off to his right about fifty yards. He darted toward it, even as Carlson and the others faded from sight. The howls persisted and Tibek cowered behind a tree and waited before making a break for the cave. Directly ahead was a wall of dense foliage. But beyond it, Tibek could see the cave opening. Once inside, he dropped to the ground, gasping for breath.

Then he heard it clearly. A low rumbling growl, almost like a purr. It was coming from the foliage in front of the cave. It sounded like the biggest cat he’d ever heard. A fetid odor also reached him at the same time, a disgusting carrion smell that hinted of rotted flesh.

Thylacine.

Tibek felt his bladder give way. His heart was pounding in his chest.

A second later they appeared. Three of them, an adult and two smaller ones. Tibek scrambled to his feet, unsure of what to do. As the snarling trio approached, he could see they’d changed yet again since he’d last seen one. The head was much too big for the body, an anatomical necessity to accommodate teeth the size of steak knives. And the paws were elongated with razor-sharp nails that look more like retractable switchblades. Even the smaller ones had the adult-size appendages. They were pure killing machines.

“Get the hell away from me,” Tibek yelled. “I made you. Now get away!”

The smaller ones came closer as the large adult watched. Their hands were covered with bits of flesh and blood. He could smell the carnivores, as they got ever closer. Then he smelled something else.

It was shit. His shit.

He tried to run, but the large one blocked his way and slapped him hard with its outstretched paw. Instantly, Tibek saw blood spurting from a huge gash in his shoulder. For a second, it was quiet. Then the two small ones leaped onto him and bit down decisively on his arms. The bones crunched beneath the flesh.

Tibek screamed in pain. He tried to get away but each time he did, they took another bite, until he could no longer move at all.

The large adult then joined her two young, and with a single bite, bit off his ear to the bone, taking a good piece of scalp with it. Tibek howled. He saw the two young ones chewing his fingers. Blood was glutting out of him like a clogged shower-head. Then the big one rolled its eyes back, opened its gaping jaws, and bit Tibek’s head in half.

Fifty-Six

JACK BAKER ANNOUNCED THE CLIFF about twenty yards ahead of them. “There it is,” he said to the others. “Be careful when we start climbing, it’s very slippery. Hold on to the person next to you.”

Near the top of the cliff, Peter Carlson stumbled. His glasses fell and smacked against a rock before tumbling over the edge to the chasm below. Carlson regained his footing only to find his world appeared as if his eyes were covered with Vasoline. “I can’t see anything,” he said to Baker.

“Look out!” Michael Whiting cried out a second later.

A snarling creature jumped toward Carlson, blind to his attack. Baker ripped his knife from its sheath, swung it high over his head and brought it down with all his might into the creature’s shoulder. The scream it let out was so shrill, it seemed to shake the rocks around them. With a cry that was half scream and half roar, the thing tore the knife from his shoulder and threw it aside. With murderous intent, the snarling beast turned toward Baker, foam spewing from its mouth. It was about to jump on Baker, when Michael Whiting charged headfirst and drove into the thing’s chest with all his might. Whiting screamed in pain as the monster grabbed Whiting’s back to keep from falling. But it was too late. As Whiting had intended, the blow sent the two of them over the edge, to their death on the jagged rocks below.

“Oh God, no,” Tracy Mills cried.

“What’s happening?” Carlson asked, still unable to see.

“It’s okay,” Baker said.

When the commotion quited, Carlson sat on the rocks and dug through his leather bag he’d grabbed before they left. It contained all his notes, his grandfather’s notes and luckily, an extra pair of glasses. “Thank God,” he said, adjusting the thick spectacles.

In the distance, he could hear the sound of a helicopter. A minute later, the HH-66 broke through the cloud cover and hovered above them. In minutes, it winched the five survivors, one by one, onto the chopper. “Who’s in charge, mates?” the pilot asked. “I am,” Jack Baker said.

Fifty-Seven

PETER CARLSON WATCHED THE ISLAND grow smaller out the window of the rescue chopper. From the air, his first thought was that he was seeing things, but as his eyes traced the forms running on the ground, he saw something else.

There are dozens of them, maybe hundreds... all different sizes!

As Carlson sat back in his seat, an unsettling realization began to swell in him like a volcano. He turned and looked out one more time.

But... that’s impossible!

Suddenly the truth came crashing down. The realization felt like it was going to bury him. Peter now understood. They’ve been out there all along! He pressed his nose against the window. A huge wire fence ran the perimeter of the far side of the island. Tibek had corralled them to keep them away from the compound. But he made one fateful mistake; he unwittingly allowed male and female together. Something they had strictly prohibited in their initial plan. Not only had Tibek sent mutated embryos to Gem/BioTech, he had allowed other mutations to cohabit unchecked with horrifying results. He had done the unthinkable with an unknown species. And...

They had bred.

Fifty-Eight

Six Months Later

AT THE DUNALI MEDICAL CENTER, the doctor in charge of Prince Habib’s son was Raheed Jamaal. He had been with the boy since he entered the facility six months earlier. Habib had carefully selected him as the utmost authority in his field of Genetic Serumunology. They had begun an unprecedented treatment in the preceding months that had saved the boy’s life.

He entered the boy’s suite this morning as usual. Habib waited in the lounge to make some calls, while Jamaal proceeded with the examination. Checking the monitors as he entered the room, he made notes on the chart and did the usual routine work. He noted the boy’s appetite had increased tremendously over the last three weeks and his patient had begun to gain weight rather rapidly. The normally sickly child was fast becoming a muscular teen. The serum was certainly doing its job, he thought. He also noticed that the boy was unusually quiet this morning. He sat on the edge of the bed to check the blood pressure and noticed something that sent the hair on his neck standing up. He ran to the lounge. “Your highness, I think you should come in here, now!”

When Habib entered the room, he froze in place.

The boy looked as though he was having some type of seizure. His body twitched and turned and his hands contracted.

Habib looked at Jamaal. “Do something!”

Jamaal took a step toward the boy. But one step was all he took.

Abruptly the boy’s face bulged. Not symmetrically, but rather, more in some places than others. His skull pulsed as if something writhed beneath his skin.

For a moment Prince Habib could not move. He was paralyzed by fear, unable to even blink or draw a breath. He could hear bones crunching and popping inside his beloved son, reshaping themselves with impossible speed.

The boy gurgled an unholy moan as his skull swelled upward and swept back into a bony crest. His face, now more resembling a hideously-misshapen jackal than a human, bulged as fiery demonic eyes settled into its new form with the ease of hot wax.

At last, Habib lashed out explosively. “Do something, Dr. Jamaal.” His heart pounded so hard it hurt.

His son’s jawbone lengthened into a wide snarl that split back to his ears and revealed double rows of immense, sharp teeth. He hissed at Habib and yellow threads of thick saliva drooled from his upper lip.

Habib couldn’t think of it as his son. That was too terrifying.

Jamaal started to move, but with lightening speed, a gigantic furry hand flew from beneath the bed sheet and caught Jamaal by the throat. It lifted him in the air as if he were made of paper and flung him across the room. He hit the wall with a sickening thud and slid to the floor, his legs splayed out beneath him.

The Prince’s security team rushed into the room, weapons drawn, ready to stop any threat to the Prince. When their eyes took in the hairy mass in front of them, they stood dumfounded. What in Allah’s name is...

“Shoot him,” the Prince said.

“But—”

“Shoot him, for God’s sake!”

The beast swelled its chest, making it seem twice as large, and let out a horrific howl, like the scream of a burning man filtered through a ringing bell. A sickening stench replaced the air in the room. Terrified, the guards stood frozen in place, unable to believe what they were seeing.

The thing snarled once, then howled at his father. The Prince could not comprehend how Khalid had become what he now was, but he half-remembered that a word existed for them, and in a moment, it came to him. Werewolf: monstrous half-breeds, part human, part wolf. His son was no werewolf, no unfortunate freak of nature. Then he thought of another word.

Monster.

This wasn’t happening; this couldn’t be happening. This was some kind of a mistake. A horrible mistake.

Maddeningly, the Prince knew he had no one to blame but himself.

The still-mutating creature sprang out of bed in a shot, stopping directly in front of the Prince. It sniffed the shaking man. Habib wondered if it recognized him, if it knew, on some level, that he was its father.

The beast then reared back and howled at his father, almost nose to nose. Rancid spittle stuck to his face, burning like acid. The monster took one last look at Prince Habib, then crashed through the window in a blaze of fury.

The Prince tumbled backwards against the bed. Regaining his footing, he staggered to the window just in time to see the creature, his son, running toward the open desert.

Epilogue

One year later

Washington National Zoo

PETER CARLSON GAZED AT THE newest exhibit in the marsupial house. Ellen Choy stood beside him, her arm folded around his.

“He seems to be doing really well,” Ellen said.

“Remarkable, isn’t it?”

“What do you two think?” Peter said to Jack Baker and Tracy Mills.

Jack smiled. “I think he’s a lot nicer than his cousins.”

“And a lot better looking, too,” Tracy chimed in.

Peter took a last look at the tiny Tasmanian Tiger. He had finally fulfilled his grandfather’s, and ultimately his own, lifelong dream. The young pup was perfectly healthy and had quickly become the most popular attraction at the zoo. As they walked toward the exit, Ellen looked up at Peter. They were alone now, since Jack and Tracy had stayed behind to take in some more exhibits.

“What about Poguba, Peter?”

He shook his head. It was the last thing he wanted to think about. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

WAIT!

Turn the Page for a sneak preview of Bill Clem’s next thriller!

ANOMALY

PROLOGUE

April 23, 2004

Kisangani, Central Africa

It was a two-hour ride to the site during which everyone was mostly quiet. Only the hum of the Rover’s engine and the grinding of the worn clutch kept Frank Pierce awake. Pierce had endured forty-eight hours of one rickety plane after another to reach the Congo, then had boarded a recently defunct helicopter that was quickly repaired, which sole purpose was to get his team of five anthropologists to a point where they could take a Land Rover to the excavation site.

As they approached a ridge, Pierce could see an elaborate system of tents scattered at the base just beyond an expanse of prairie. The Rover weaved through the maze of canvas and pulled up alongside a large field tent.

Seven high-tech solar panels were set up to collect the sun’s energy and transfer it through a tangle of black cables and into the tent. The panels powered specialized machines; DNA analysis, carbon dating, gene typing and other unique operations. A few laptops sat outside on an aluminum fold-up table. Pierce noted a satellite uplink dish set up behind the tent.

Whoever is bankrolling this thing has some big bucks.

Samantha Coulter, a twenty-three year old graduate student from Princeton greeted Pierce when he climbed out of the Rover behind the rest of the team. He had met her on a dig the year before and was very impressed with her tenacity and intellect.

“This is big, Frank,” she said.

“You must be walking on air.”

“You want the nickel tour?”

“Sam, I want to see it.”

She’d told Pierce that this find was something not recorded in any fossil record. As he followed Samantha up a gentle slope, all other matters disappeared from his consciousness. She had found in a cavern something that might finally vindicate him.

They approached a rocky overhang, the entrance to a system of caves on the northeast ridge. Two men with AK-47 rifles stood up as they approached the roped-off entrance.

“It’s okay,” Samantha said to the taller man.

She lifted the rope and held it for Pierce. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the light, then Samantha handed him a miner’s helmet. They followed the stream of light to the back of the cave, where Pierce noticed a smaller opening. They squeezed through the tight seam and into the next chamber. Huge folds of volcanic rock dominated the tight cave. A few feet ahead lay a large blue tarp, supported by a framework of thick planks. Pierce stopped.

“Do you have any idea of the implications you’re raising?”

“That’s just it, Frank. I’m not raising them,” she said, “he is...”

She ripped back the tarp in a flourish and let it drop to the cave floor.

Pierce had to choke back his response. He felt himself flush and his mouth went dry instantly.

“My God, Samantha. What on earth have you found?”

“What on earth? I’m not sure that’s the right question, Frank.”

A half hour later as they exited the cave, Pierce’s mind pored over past research, keeping time with his thumping heart. He asked like what seemed a hundred questions. He barely gave Samantha enough time to answer before he fired another question at her.

“We found something else, too,” Samantha said. “Something that doesn’t exist here.”

“In Africa?”

Samantha paused. “No, on this planet.”

Before Pierce had time to contemplate it, a thundering of rotors exploded overhead as two U.S. Army Chinooks, hovered above and prepared to land.

When they touched down, Pierce realized it was no fellow scientists. Someone stepped off the chopper and gazed around. Whoever he was, he looked like a funeral director. Although Pierce knew the mortuary business was competitive, he doubted anyone was here to measure them for caskets.

The man approached Pierce, side stepping some video cable. He barely acknowledged them and went directly into the tent. Pierce stepped over to the tent, pulled the flap back, and watched the spectacle unfold.

“Kevin Howard,” the man said. “I have direct orders from President Ritter to take over this excavation site at once.”

“You have some identification.” Howard asked.

“My identification is not important, Mr. Howard.”

Howard glared at him “It is if you expect me to pick up and leave. I don’t know who you are, but I have a permit from the African government to be here.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“Then you understand I have an invest—”

The man’s eyes bore down on Howard. “Mr. Howard, you will gather up your equipment and assistants, and leave this site at once. Otherwise, those nice soldiers over there in those two birds will remove you by force.”

One of Howard’s assistants taking measurements trudged over and looked at him. “What’s going on?”

“Pack it up, we’re finished here.”

* * *

Samantha Coulter stood frozen in place as the funeral director exited the tent. He went to three soldiers poised with rifles and paused. Samantha craned her neck around the side of the tent and listened.

“What’s our orders, sir? One of the Marines’ asked.

The next words from his mouth made Samantha’s blood run cold.

“Kill them all.”

CHAPTER ONE

May 21st, 2007

Suburban Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland

Claire Walters gulped down her second espresso of the morning as she rushed down the first floor corridor and glanced at her watch. Damn. Late again.

Since starting her OB/GYN residency, she’d become the poster child for arriving late for rounds. Moreover, try as she did, it was in her nature to try to squeeze in every extra minute of sleep that she could. Thus, she was always fighting the clock, and this morning was no different. Except that the medical center was starting a new, experimental invitro fertilization program, and there was an important lecture, she was supposed to be at fifteen minutes ago.

Claire tried to be as quiet as she could as she entered the long conference room, but the heavy doors banged shut and every head turned to see her flushed face, which was almost as red as her hair.

She slid into a chair and sunk down, knowing the chief resident was one of those turned heads, and no more had the thought entered her mind than she saw him glaring at her across the room. Shit!

The Chief of Obstetrics was standing next to a large bulletin board going over some statistical analysis about failure rates in current invitro fertilization programs. Claire found it boring and had it not been for the caffeine surging through her veins, she could have fallen back to sleep.

An hour later, and with the lecture behind her, she was now facing a lecture of another type. The chief resident had asked her to stop by his office as he left the conference room. Claire was sure she was about to be chastised once again by someone whom she deemed to be inferior to her and every other resident she knew. How he’d come to be the Chief Resident was beyond her, although it was rumored his father had contributed millions to the medical center. This made Claire resent him even more.

She was a simple girl from a simple family. Like most work-ing–class Irish, she’d worked hard all her life and nothing had ever come easy to her. Her father’s credo, after a few beers, was “wake early, work hard, and always tell the truth, and you’ll get somewhere in life.” Well, she got the work hard and tells the truth part right, as for the wake early... that was another story.

The Chief resident had an office on the forth floor that overlooked an ally and a set of green dumpsters that belonged to a Chinese carryout behind the medical center. Claire found it amusing that it was the least desirable office in the whole place and she knew the current occupant found it offensive given his place on the social ladder, compliments of his rich daddy.

Harold Goldstein was tapping his pencil on a small, grey metal desk when Claire walked in. His thick glasses gave her the impression she was looking at a large bug.

“So, Hal, what’s up?’

“Cut the crap, Claire. You know why you’re here.”

“Come on, I was fifteen minutes late.”

“Yea, fifteen, today, twenty yesterday, a half an hour on Monday. When does it stop? I’m tired of you disrupting everyone with your tardiness.”

“And.”

“And... if it happens one more time, I’m going to the administrator and have your residency suspended.”

Claire could feel her blood pressure approaching the danger level. She wanted to reach across the desk and rip his glasses off, then gouge out his eyes. Damn he was a pompous ass. Instead of blinding him, Claire reigned in her Irish temper and relaxed.

“Okay, Hal, I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot on my plate lately.”

“Look, Claire, I’m really sorry about your father, but they’ve put me in charge here, and I need to work within certain parameters. Otherwise, they’ll have my ass in a sling. You understand, don’t you?”

For a moment, he seemed almost human to Claire. Then she remembered, this was the same guy who just a minute earlier threatened to have her suspended.

“I’ll be sure and be on time from now on.”

“That would be great.”

Claire got up and left without saying anything else. Fuck him, she thought.

As Claire left the office, she noticed a young woman on a gurney she thought she recognized. It was her colleague’s patient from yesterday. If her memory served her, Claire recalled the woman had come in for an emergency C-section. Judging by the size of her abdomen under the sheet, they must have postponed it. And what was she doing on the fourth floor? There were no obstetric suites up here. Claire watched them push the patient to a set of double doors marked:

AUTHORIZED PERSONELL ONLY

Claire flattened herself against the adjoining wall and stood transfixed as the two men stopped and one wrangled a set of keys from his pocket. He opened the doors and they pushed the gurney through, and then disappeared from site. Claire felt her body flush.

Something just didn’t fit.

A minute later, Goldstein came around the corner.

“You still here, Walters?” You better hurry. We have afternoon rounds in ten minutes.”

Claire was about to ask Goldstein if he knew anything about OB patients on the forth floor, but then decided against it.

No, this was something she wanted to check out. She would definitely come back after rounds and find out for herself where her patient went.

CHAPTER TWO

Linda Freedman awakened in the middle of the night, dry-mouthed, with a sudden pain in her abdomen. She had been nauseated before she went to bed, thinking it was from the enormous dinner she and her boyfriend had eaten. Was it the lasagna or the chocolate tort? She went to bed expecting to wake up just fine.

Now as she lay on the exam table awaiting the doctor, she felt worse than ever. She was horribly weak and dizzy. And she was having cramps.

Bad cramps!

The doctor entered the room and smiled as Linda adjusted herself on the exam table. Her feet were up in the stirrups of the specially designed table and she wore only a paper gown allowing the doctor easy access to her vaginal area. An assistant, Freedman recognized as Gloria, came in and gently rubbed her arm.

“How are you, Ms. Freedman? Having some cramps?”

Freedman nodded. She was the first volunteer for the new invitro-surrogate program at Suburban Medical Center. The first four months had been great without a hitch, and Linda and her surrogate family were looking forward to the new baby arriving near Christmas. Now, though, Linda felt that hope was dashed. She was also scared to death. If she didn’t carry this baby to term, the contract would be void, which meant Linda would be broke again. She didn’t want to go back to the homeless shelter. It had been a nightmare, until she was approached by the liaison from Suburban. They gave her enough money to support herself and set her up in a nice apartment. And once the baby was born, she was guaranteed another twenty thousand dollars.

Gloria pulled a sonagram machine close to the table, then squirted some clear gel on Freedman’s belly. She slid the arm of the sonogram over the belly until she stopped at a point just below the navel. Freedman could hear the steady whoosh, whoosh of the baby’s heart. Freedman glanced over and looked at the screen. She always liked to watch when they did the sonogram. Even though the baby technically didn’t belong to her, she felt a sense of attachment that all mothers feel. She was used to seeing the small fetus with its arms and legs curled up to its torso. This time, however, it looked different. The body seemed much longer and the head looked as if it had doubled in size from the last visit just one month earlier.

“It’s getting big,” Freedman said to Gloria.

Gloria smiled without comment and marked various landmarks on the computer screen with the light stick. Then she stepped over to the doctor.

Freedman listened carefully to the conversation.

“I think it’s time, doctor.”

“Okay, let’s prep her.”

“Is everything all right?” asked Freedman.

“Everything is fine, were just gonna run some tests. We need you to be asleep during them. I’m just gonna put some medicine in your IV. When you wake up, we’ll be all finished.”

Freedman watched as Gloria inserted the needle into the rubber port on her IV line. Then everything went foggy as she heard Gloria’s last words to her.

“Don’t worry, it will be all over before you know it.”