Fearful Symmetry: A Thriller Read online

  “Not to mention his father’s business standing and money.”

  “The institute is keeping a close eye on the boy because of his potential, not his father’s. His proposed pharmacopeia of ancient holistic treatments could revolutionize the field of modern medicine and break the stranglehold the pharmaceutical corporations have on the entire system. And you never know…he could be the one who discovers the secrets of the fountain of youth. You’d better believe I’ll be the first in line if he does.”

  Brandt laughed, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. This was a man accustomed to staring his mortality in the eye and for whom every day was a withdrawal from an ever-diminishing supply of tomorrows.

  “And Dr. Murray?”

  “You mean why did I choose someone with so little actual field experience?”

  “The thought did cross my mind.”

  “What Warren lacks in experience he makes up for in knowledge. There is no one on this planet more thoroughly versed in the evolutionary minutiae of the human race. Did you see his interview last year in the documentary about the discovery of that hominin skull in the Republic of Georgia?”

  “Bits and pieces.”

  “I thought his theory regarding consolidation of ancestral lines was remarkable. Rather than viewing each new discovery as a species in a state of completion, he proposed that each be considered a species in transition, a snapshot of a single moment in evolutionary time, if you will, thus minimizing the number of distinct branches on the hominin tree. If you consider the differences between Homo habilis and other contemporaries like Homo erectus could simply be the variations among individuals of a single, evolving line, then suddenly the entire field narrows to the study of evolving structures and features, not necessarily the leaps from one incarnation to the next.”

  “If I remember correctly, he compared his theory to the evolution of the automobile.”

  “Sometimes the simplest answer can be the right one.”

  “So he’s my complement. I find the source of the mutation in the DNA, he identifies the corresponding traits, and from there we work backwards to isolate the genes responsible for each.”

  “Precisely.”

  “And it has nothing to do with Dr. Murray’s relationship with the media and his ability to get the institute under the international spotlight?”

  “I never said I completely lacked vanity, my boy. Can you think of any better sendoff for an old man than to see his life’s dream realized in front of the entire world?”

  “I think we’re glossing over one very crucial fact.”

  “And what, pray tell, is that?”

  “The body you found. Assuming it’s even still where you say—”

  “It is.”

  “—you left it, then it’s experienced a lifetime’s worth of decomposition. There’ll be nothing left of it but bones by now.”

  “Exactly. And you can take samples of its DNA from its long bones, like any other skeletal remains.”

  “A lot can happen in seventy years. Floods, tornados, earthquakes. Any number of natural disasters could have destroyed the remains. That’s not even factoring in the human component. We’re talking about a country that’s basically been at war with the Chinese since its inception. And—no offense, Dr. Brandt—you have to allow some margin of error—”

  “For the fading memories of an old man?”

  “I can’t even remember what I wore yesterday, let alone which classes I took in high school or what my favorite cereal was in second grade.”

  “Tell me, Jordan. If you saw what I did—in the flesh—would you be able to forget a single detail, no matter how much time passed? Could you go a single day without thinking about it in every spare moment?”

  There was nothing Brooks could say.

  “I didn’t think so. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, this senile old man would like to finish going through the final preparations for an expedition he’s funding entirely by himself—”

  “I would have gone back for it,” Brooks said. “You’re right. I can’t imagine a day would come when I forgot a single detail, but I would have gone back for it. Maybe not right away. I can’t speak for what I would have done in your shoes at the time, but once the war was over and the Nazis were all gone, I would have gone back for it.”

  “We are two different men, you and I, from two different ages and schools of thought. Mine was a generation that earned its knowledge, while yours inherited it. For you, evolution was a demonstrable fact from the moment you opened your first biology book. For us, it was a miraculous theory beyond our wildest imaginations and one we laid bare the globe in an effort to prove. We never dreamed it would be accepted as scientific fact, especially in educated circles.”

  “What about the others?”

  “What others?”

  “The men from your expedition. Surely you didn’t all feel the same way about keeping your discovery a secret. Any one of them could have gone back for the remains in the last seventy years. For all we know, the corpse is in some government warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant.”

  “I assure you, none of them went back.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Trust me, my boy, there’s no way on this earth that any of them went back there.”

  “Not even to curry favor with the Nazis? Surely a discovery of that magnitude would have been worth its weight in gold to Himmler.”

  “None of them would have done that.”

  “And yet you plied your trade in a concentration camp.”

  “How easy it must be to judge when you have the benefit of history on your side.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “I don’t know. Not for sure. We parted ways with König in Sikkim. Last I knew, he was intent on continuing his explorations into Mongolia, where the Communist Russians were busy slaughtering everything that moved, but I don’t even know if he made it that far. A part of me fears his allegiance to the SS drew him back to the Fatherland and into the war. If that was the case, I have no doubt he went down firing.

  “Eberhardt and Metzger were academics. They undoubtedly walked right back into their teaching posts upon their return. You have to understand that their specialties were in the natural sciences and not what, at the time, was considered largely theoretical. Their lives were rooted in the concrete world of the easily quantifiable. Things they could touch, taste, smell, feel. Anything that didn’t fit neatly in their organized little worlds upset the balance and had no place in their lives.”

  “You never spoke to them after you left Motuo?”

  “Perhaps as an American you have no frame of reference as to what it is like living in a country besieged by air raids and ground troops, day and night. Or even trying to find your way home from another continent when every man you passed would gladly kill you if he knew your nationality. We split up in Calcutta so as not to draw attention to ourselves. Even passing through the Suez Canal was a considerable risk with the war raging in Egypt. Four Germans would have been seen as a threat, while a single road-weary academic would seem harmless enough.”

  “And what about the photographer?”

  “Hermann Wolff was more than a mere photographer. He was a cinematographer whose work was every bit as inspired as my own. I have no doubt he went on to much acclaim, although I never saw any of his films. The Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda undoubtedly appropriated his skills and likely got him killed in the process.”

  “What about the footage he filmed in Motuo? Surely he captured images of the remains.”

  “Of course he did, but we made a pact that none of us would bring to light the true nature of our discovery, no matter the consequences. And do you know how five men are able to keep a secret?”

  “To paraphrase Ben Franklin…if four of them are dead?”

  Brandt smiled sadly.

  “It only works if they trust each other, my boy, which is exactly what I’m asking you to do. Trust me when I s
ay that everything is going to work out exactly as planned.”

  Twenty-eight

  Yarlung Tsangpo River Basin

  Motuo County

  Tibet Autonomous Region

  People’s Republic of China

  October 16th

  Yesterday

  Brooks scurried out of the tunnel, swung over the ledge, and scampered down the ladder so quickly he nearly toppled the whole works. He hit the next ladder and the next, aware only peripherally of the others descending more cautiously above him. His mind was racing and he seemed incapable of catching a single thought. All he knew was that he needed to see the other bodies, knowing full well what he would find, but praying he was wrong.

  He threw himself into the passage leading to the recess where Augustus König was entombed and slid across the wet stone. The moment he cleared the opening he was on his hands and knees, the wind and the rain assaulting him with such force he could barely keep his eyes open. He shoved off the lid and shined his light at the face of the man Brandt had claimed must have been killed in the war, when he never even left Motuo.

  König’s teeth appeared normal from the front. Brooks nearly had to crawl into the coffin to manipulate the light in such a way as to see inside König’s mouth. Still, the teeth appeared well seated in their sockets. He gripped one and pulled it toward him until it broke with a snap. If there was another tooth forcing its way through the bone, he couldn’t see it.

  Scuffling sounds behind him.

  Julian crawled from the tunnel as Brooks snapped open the pick of Warren’s ice ax again and swung it toward König’s face. The tip tore through the desiccated skin and shattered the maxillary bone. The light shook in his hand when he shined it into the sinus, revealing tiny chips of bone, but no roots protruding from below. He swung again and struck the maxillary ridges between the teeth and the sinus. Wedged the tip into the fractured bone and pried off the cortex until he exposed a section of the spongy inner trabeculum. And the teardrop-shaped teeth only now beginning to form.

  Brooks dropped the ice ax and collapsed to his haunches.

  Everything Brandt had told him was a lie. König had not only never left the valley, he’d been exposed to a mutagenic virus and beaten to death before any of the genes outwardly manifested. What about the others from Brandt’s party? Were they entombed here, too? Were they similarly infected? How had Brandt left here unscathed? And what did he hope to accomplish by sending Brooks and his team now?

  The answer was painfully simple and probably the only grain of truth in Brandt’s story. He wanted them to isolate the virus and bring it back with them.

  Brooks shivered and turned to face the others.

  “We should go.”

  “What do you mean?” Adrianne asked. “Think about the implications of everything we’ve seen. This is the Garden of Eden for an entirely new species.”

  “No,” Warren said. “This is the point of divergence, and for any given species there are numerous such points, most of them false starts. Not every evolutionary step is beneficial to the species. If this one were, this mountain wouldn’t be filled with their corpses, but rather with ours.”

  “Save it for the cameras, Dr. Murray.”

  “You think I’m being melodramatic? Ask yourself this: If the people entombed here were about to take the next great evolutionary leap, then who in the name of God beat them to death? It defies the established principles of natural selection.”

  “It’s never that simple and you know it. If it were, the oceans would be filled with nothing but an ever-evolving lineage of progressively larger sharks. Every organism has to serve a specific function and have an established niche in its ecosystem.”

  “You’re making my point. Man has no established role in his ecosystem; he bends it to his will and colonizes it like a virus.”

  “Which is exactly what I’m saying. Any environment is a living, breathing entity distinct from every other. Think of it as an infinitely more complex human being. What happens in the human body when it’s attacked by a virus?”

  “The immune system creates antibodies to combat it.”

  “Exactly, which is precisely what the environment does. The environment was not ready for this particular incarnation of the human virus and neutralized it as a threat to the delicate balance of the ecosystem. That’s Population Dynamics 101.”

  “Biology always trumps the environment. Every organism either succumbs to external pressures and dies or adapts and thrives. That’s Evolution 101. Nature always finds a way to persevere. The oceans were once filled with predators of increasing size until the competition for resources became too fierce and the requisite dieback occurred. Only those species most adept at hunting the limited prey species survived. And mankind is no different. His progression from hunter-gatherer has accelerated at an astronomical rate toward the rabid consumption of all his natural resources and the ultimate destruction of his environment.”

  “Guys,” Julian said.

  “Which is why, based on your own logic, the inevitable dieback has to occur. Like you said, nature perseveres, but in its own best interests, not in those of any particular species. The ecosystem must always remain in a state of balance. Any major shift would prove catastrophic.”

  “True,” Brooks said, “but are we talking about the dieback of a species only beginning to evolve or one that’s spread like a virus and forced the environment to develop antibodies.”

  “Guys!” Julian said.

  All eyes turned toward him. He had his ear cocked to the outside world and his eyes closed.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Brooks asked.

  “It sounded like gunfire.”

  “That’s just the thunder,” Warren said.

  “I’m not an idiot. I can tell the difference between thunder and gunshots.”

  “From your days on the mean streets, Mr. Trust fund?”

  “Blow it out your ass, Dr. Murray.”

  “Where’s Zhang?” Adrianne asked.

  “I saw him heading topside a while back,” Brooks said.

  “I don’t like this,” Warren said. “We shouldn’t be here. Can’t you feel it? Something’s not right.”

  “You mean other than your theories?” Adrianne said.

  “If I’m right, we’re all in serious danger.”

  “And if you’re wrong, we’d be running away from the greatest discovery of the twenty-first century. Try to think about this rationally.”

  “I am thinking about this rationally.”

  “You’re Christopher Columbus turning back at the edge of the map. What if he’d decided not to sail just a little bit farther?”

  “Would you guys quiet down so I can hear,” Julian said.

  Brooks listened, but heard nothing over the howling wind and the sheeting rain. Adrianne’s argument was compelling, but his gut told him Warren was right. He could feel it, too. The air was electric with potential. But if they left now, it didn’t necessarily mean they would never return.

  He wondered if Brandt believed the same thing when he left their leader behind, whatever the circumstances surrounding his decision.

  “You guys are arguing theory when the only real question we need to ask is who killed and interred these people and are they still out there?” Brooks said. “And until we learn that answer, I’m with Warren. We should leave now and return when we’re better prepared. I’m not going to be responsible for risking your lives.”

  “Something’s wrong,” Julian said. “I’m telling you. I heard shooting and now…nothing.”

  “We’re not accomplishing anything sitting here. We need to get moving.”

  Brooks crawled back toward the tunnel and had just ducked his head inside when Adrianne spoke.

  “There’s something important we need to consider.” He knew what she was going to say because he’d been thinking it, too. “What if we’ve already been exposed to the virus?”

  Brooks continued crawling.
There was no answer to her question that didn’t potentially end in an unmarked burial in this very cliff.

  When he reached the bottom of the ladder he discreetly felt his gums. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No palpable anomalies or localized points of tenderness. In fact, other than the progressive symptoms of exhaustion, he felt perfectly fine.

  He crossed the narrow cavern and ascended from one ledge to the next. The others remained close behind him, barely allowing one to reach the top before mounting the ladder below them.

  Brooks thought about the grotto while he climbed, about the teeth in the Buddha’s hand. They weren’t a mix of human and animal like he’d first thought. He knew exactly where they’d come from now. He just wasn’t entirely certain of the implications. The people who traveled through here had left offerings of absurd amounts. Did they know what lay ahead of them in this valley? And if so, how long had they known? Some of the fabrics draped over the walls looked like they were hundreds of years old, nearly as old as the burials themselves. Were those the people who were responsible for hiding the remains? Were they also the ones who killed them? How far were they willing to go to make sure the secrets of this place never reached the outside world?

  He hit the top ledge and climbed upward through the narrow chute. The rock that concealed the opening had been left off, allowing the rain to fall through unimpeded and the walls to run with slick mud. Traction on the wooden rungs grew increasingly worse as he neared the surface. It didn’t help that the entire works shook with the others coming up behind him. He had to shield his eyes against the deluge when he finally poked his head out.