CRO-MAGNON (58 page)

“
Fedor agreed to help us with the dive and try to guide us out.”

Ayni glanced around the cave. “I see only two backpacks.”

“
Teague must have discovered what we were up to,” Calder said. “He came around the lake and took Zinchenko out.”

Ayni frowned. “Took him out?”

“
Shot him,” Blaine said.

“
Fedor was my friend.” The ranger’s handsome face had gone still, and Blaine could believe he had tracked down the men who murdered his family. “He is dead, also?”

“
No,” Calder said. “Fedor arranged to leave a cloth on the anchor line if all was well. When we came up, the signal was missing.”

Ayni glanced at the modified Glock 17 still in Calder’s hand. “But if the man Teague was armed, how did . . .”

Blaine said, “I distracted him with the wolf’s head while Ian ran him through with the Neanderthal’s spear, the same one we left on the trail.”

Ayni looked at her. “Ran him . . .”

“
Stabbed him,” Calder said. “Then I dove again and brought Murzo up.”

“
That’s why Ian is standing like a little old man,” Blaine said. “He got bent.”

“
Bent?”

Blaine realized the ranger was having trouble with the excess of metaphors engendered by her and Ian’s stressed-out state. “Decompression sickness,” she said. “Nitrogen bubbles in his blood.”

Calder said, “But I’m getting over it.”

“
I wondered what was wrong. And Murzo?”

“
He took Teague’s bullet in the shoulder. The cold water saved him. Caitlin revived him, and we dressed his wound and left him beside the stove in his trailer.”

Ayni frowned. “But Salomon . . .”

“
Was due late this morning to pick up the final samples. By now, he’ll be after us.”

“
Yes. A helicopter flew over me earlier in a valley bottom. Because of the tense situation in camp, I thought it best to hide under some spruce.” Ayni frowned again. “What do you think this Salomon did with Murzo?”

“
We left a note, supposedly from Teague, attributing Gulnaz’s death to us and saying that Teague went after us. We told Fedor to play dumb. We’re betting Salomon won’t kill more Tajik citizens than necessary, since Delyanov would have to cover for him.”

Blaine said, “We need you to try to radio the International Red Cross that Fedor needs to be evacuated. And tell them to notify Evgenii Delyanov and anyone else they can think of, so that Salomon will know he can’t get rid of Zinchenko without people knowing.”

“
I can do that if I can raise Dushanbe.”

Calder said, “We also need you guide us to the southern border and out of Tajikistan.”

The ranger stroked his chin, stubbly after two days in the field. “If I work against this Salomon, I am also opposing Delyanov. The military is already angry with me for killing the rebels who . . .” He trailed off, apparently unable to finish the thought.

“
I warned you that could happen,” Calder said.

“
Only the department of nature conservation is protecting me. If the minister also turns against me . . .”

“
I told you I’d work on helping you establish yourself elsewhere,” Calder said. “But you should know that Mathiessen’s organization was my main hope.”

Blaine said, “Rolf was the one with the contacts. With him gone, we can’t promise anything. I don’t even know how I’m going to get funding to do this work.”

Ayni nodded, stroking his beard stubble.

“
But, Murzo, I promise you that Ian and I will do everything in our power to get you into the United States and find you a job—”

“
If we are going to eat a hot meal, we had better get started.” Ayni crouched to rummage in the food sack. “It will be a sixty or seventy-kilometer hike over high passes to my cousin’s
qishlaq
on the Panj. We must begin at dusk and finish by dawn.”

Blaine felt a surge of relief mixed with apprehension. She glanced at Calder. “Can you hike all night over rough terrain?”

She watched him force a smile. “Considering the alternative . . .”

#

In the mountain valleys, darkness fell quickly. They had not been on the trail long when Ayni’s portable radio crackled: “Mathiessen calling Ayni, Mathiessen calling Ayni. Over.”

Ayni halted and peered back along the icy trail at Calder and Blaine. In the wan light their faces looked as stunned as his must be. Though he had believed Mathiessen dead, he had stuck to the agreement to listen for a call at 6:00
p.m.
The two scientists
hurried forward as he unclipped the little transceiver from the waist strap of his backpack, grabbed the microphone, and punched the transmit button.

“
Murzo Ayni, here. What is your location, Dr. Mathiessen? Over.”

“
I’m stranded in a mountain village in Afghanistan called Vod Ab. Over.”

The tinny voice was faded in and out. Ayni glanced at the canyon walls, turned and scrambled up a nearby scree. Calder, leaning on the Neanderthal’s spear, hobbled after him. Blaine set down the two bags of frozen heads and followed.

Ayni said, “We heard you were dead, sir.” He double-keyed the mike to signify
Over.

“
Not quite, with no thanks to the Huey that machine-gunned us.” The transmission had not improved, the voice still sounding ethereal. “The pilot managed to slow our descent just before we hit. It broke my arm. He wasn’t so lucky.”

There was a burst of static. Then: “I’m worried about Caitlin and Ian.”

Ayni waited for a double click and said, “They are here with me. Dr. Mathiessen, did the helicopter have a mounted machine gun?”

“
Yes. Why?”

“
That was the version called a Nighthawk. The Tajik Interior Department uses them as utility helicopters. They are armed with a fifty-caliber machine gun and a Xenon searchlight.”

Mathiessen’s voice faded in and out. “Why . . . armed if . . . civil . . .”

“
The armament is in case of attack by Tajik insurgents, and the light is to pick out opium smugglers from Afghanistan. A Nighthawk passed over me today. It was flying low, which is dangerous in these narrow valleys. I did not like its looks, so I hid in a patch of spruce.”

“
That was wise.” The scientist’s voice flared. “Delyanov must have assigned an armed helicopter and gunner to Salomon. I can tell you from my military service that . . .”

The voice faded for half a minute before coming back. “. . . what the situation is with Ian and Caitlin’s mission. You say they’re with you at your cabin?”

“
We lost all before ‘situation,’ sir.” Ayni waited for a burst of static to subside. “Fitrat and Teague are dead, and Zinchenko is lying wounded in his trailer.” More static . . . “Ian and Caitlin have left the camp, and we believe Salomon is hunting them.”

“
Where are you now?” The transmission seemed to have picked up.

Ayni considered the possibility of the Nighthawk’s scanner picking up his own signal. “I would rather not say. I am putting them on.” He glanced at Calder and then Blaine, who motioned at her colleague.

Calder took the mike and said, “Rolf, what is your situation?”

“
A woman here set my arm and treated a mild burn. I used the village radio to contact the consular section of the embassy in Kabul. They’re sending a chopper as soon as they can free one. I asked if they could make a pickup in Tajikistan, and they said they are not authorized to overfly. What is your own situation?”

“
Caitlin and I have the information, plus some extra. Salomon does not have it. We are on the run.”

“
Did I understand Mr. Ayni correctly, that both Teague and Fitrat are dead and Zinchenko is disabled?”

“
Affirmative. Murzo has not been able to alert the Red Cross about him.”

“
I’ll do it before I get off the village radio. What happened?”

“
I don’t want to talk longer than necessary,” Calder said, “in case Salomon scans this frequency. We need a ride.”

“
With Delyanov in league with Salomon, I can’t get into Tajikistan right now. If you could find a village and wait till this blows over, I might be able to.”

“
Negative. Zinchenko said the villagers would turn us in. Besides, we have objects that are time-sensitive.”

“
DNA samples? You could hide them somewhere in the snow. Later, we could hire someone to retrieve them.”

Calder hesitated. “We have more than DNA, Rolf. It’s subject to thawing, and is also something they would never allow out of the country.”

“
Such as?”

Ayni, watching Calder struggling to get the information across discreetly, saw him bite his lip.

“
Heads,” he said, finally. “Frozen heads.”

“
DNA is DNA,” Mathiessen’s voice sounded perplexed and a little petulant. “Of course, it would be wonderful to be able to inspect the actual heads in the flesh. But considering the risk to your lives, I cannot concur.”

“
I’m putting Caitlin on.” Calder passed the mike.

Blaine said, “Dr. Mathiessen, I plan to download the brain contents.”

“
Download . . .” The paleoanthropologist’s perplexity carried over the airwaves. He failed to double-key his mike, and after a few moments Blaine continued.

“
At Salomon Industries my team and I scanned the brains of mice, digitalized and stored their memories, and uploaded them into cloned replicas.”

There was a pause. “That’s impossible.”

“
No, Dr. Mathiessen, it’s not.”

“
Why didn’t you tell me this at the meeting?” Ayni thought the voice sounded reproachful.

“
I wanted to,” Blaine said. “But I was afraid you’d write me off as a crackpot.”

“
Put Ian on.”

Calder took the mike. “Calder.”

“
Can Dr. Blaine do this?”

“
Clone the people? In-vitro fertilization is now common, as is cloning of animals, and there are reports of humans being—”

“
Unverified reports. I meant the brain thing.”

“
Honestly, Rolf, I don’t know. She says she can. I was as skeptical as you, but now I think it’s worth a try.”

A burst of static, longer this time, forced him to pause.

When it cleared, he said, “You can imagine the benefits to paleoanthropology, Rolf. But it goes way beyond that. According to Caitlin’s onsite findings, prehistoric people possessed combinations of genes that have since been lost in the shuffle, probably when Neanderthals were assimilated by anatomically modern humans and again when agriculture decreased human physical and mental robustness.”

“
What kind of genes?”

“
Ones she believes hold great promise for mankind, particularly in the area of cognition.”

“
I’m just an old rocks-and-bones guy, Ian.” The transmission began to waver. “But I know that even if the procedure proved feasible, the cost of what Dr. Blaine is proposing would be a major obstacle. With Salomon no longer sponsoring the work, who would pay?”

“
You, we hope.”

“
Me?” Static swelled and receded.

“
The Institute of Human Evolution, with funding you’d drum up.”

“
What about government permits?”

“
We’d go where we wouldn’t need them.”

“
Let me be sure I’ve got this straight.” Another fade. “. . . about resurrecting individuals who lived thirty thousand years ago.”

“
Caitlin says it’s not technically a resurrection.”

“
Put her on again.”

“
Blaine, here.”

“
Can you really do this?”

“
The work Henrik Volker, Peter Golub, and our team at Salomon Industries have done shows that we can, sir.”

A pause, during which Ayni could sense the IHE director’s ambivalence. “Given the cost and the notoriety associated with a ‘resurrection,’ the potential for personal and professional disaster is considerable.”

“
It was, the first time.”

“
This is no time for jokes, Dr. Blaine.”

“
I wasn’t making one. As Ian told you, we have a chance to benefit the human race.”

“
You and Dr. Calder seem to be on a first-name basis now.”

“
You would be too, if you’d gone through what we have. One way or another, I’m taking that chance.”

Silence, except for the crackling of the ether. Ayni heard Blaine draw a deep breath.

“
So,” Blaine said. “Are you in or out, Dr. Mathiessen?”

A pause. “I’ll get you out. Then we’ll see.”

Calder took the mike and said, “Murzo is risking his life and livelihood to help us. We’ll need to bring him out and get him a job.”

“
I can put him on at the Institute.”

Ayni felt his spirits lift.

“
Caitlin and I could also use Murzo,” Calder said. “He speaks Wakhi, which is probably the purest descendant of the Persian group of Proto-Indo-European languages, maybe not too distant from the original PIE. Murzo could help us to communicate—”