Search: A Novel of Forbidden History (25 page)

It had only taken a few words to Ironwood about the attack on the warehouse lab—Merrit had been careful to call it an attempted robbery—and the target and his computers were promptly shifted to a safer location, within Encounters.

Merrit straightened his sports coat and his shoulder holster, then pressed the call button on the suite’s door-entry panel.

A moment longer than he liked, the door swung open.

“Merrit.” David Weir’s surprise was an unspoken question.

Merrit pushed past him, into the marble-tiled hallway, through to the great room. “Get packed.”

“What’s up?”

Weir closed the door and followed him into the high-ceilinged room. Here, black club chairs on thick white shag carpeting were angled toward a black-and-white-veined marble fireplace and a wall of windows that showcased the Atlantic. This time of night, though, even the ocean views
were black. There was little to see but the navigation lights of passing ships and watercraft.

Merrit walked to the windows, found their controls, and started the heavy blackout curtains along their track. At the same time, he scanned the room to confirm they were alone. The usual inhabitants of rooms like this were seldom on their own. Weir, it seemed, did not need company.

“What’s going on?” Weir asked.

“You’re getting an apartment in the Marina.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Weir gestured to the dining alcove. The large glass-topped table in the mirrored room was covered with new, high-end computer equipment. “This is all the room I need. No commute, and I get room service.”

“Not anymore. The suite’s too expensive.” It was the perfect explanation for anyone who knew Ironwood. “Get your jacket.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

Weir didn’t look happy, but his shrug conveyed acceptance. “Okay, but I have to make a stop first.” He hit a few keys on his computer, then picked up something rectangular encased in shiny silver. A computer hard drive. “I found another cluster for him.”

Merrit held out his hand. “I’ll deliver it.”

“It’ll just take a minute.” Weir checked his watch. “He’s on some conference call to Hong Kong right now, and as soon as he’s done, he wants to see me.”

Merrit adapted smoothly. “I’ll go with you.”

“Suit yourself.” Weir stopped at the hall closet and pulled out a jacket.

Merrit held the suite’s door open. “Don’t mention the Marina. He’s liable to change his mind and send you back to the sticks to save himself a few bucks.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Merrit closed the door behind him, his plan unchanged. Weir would still be dead by midnight.

“England?”

“Southwest tip,” David said. “About a thousand square kilometers.”

“Cornwall!” Ironwood beamed. If this fourth cluster proved out like the last three, he’d have the new outpost’s location within a mile—without using any of his expensive toys.

He paused as a new thought struck him, held up Dave’s shiny hard drive, its glossy metal case reflecting the Roswell Suite’s warm desert colors. A comfortable thirty-five hundred square feet, the penthouse was decked out
in full Santa Fe style, complete with a two-hundred-strong cactus garden and a series of original Georgia O’Keeffes on faux adobe walls.

“I seem to remember you saying you’d need a month or more to come up with this.”

“The new database from Santa Cruz. It’s perfect for my kind of research—smaller, presorted. Saved me time.”

“Okay, then . . . You boys want a drink?”

“Sure,” David said.

Merrit shook his head a touch too emphatically.

Ironwood looked from one to the other and back again. “In the kitchen, Merrit. Diet cola. Lots of ice. Thanks so much.”

Merrit disappeared down a long hallway bordered on either side by tall ficus trees in terra-cotta pots.

“How’s he treating you?” Ironwood asked.

“Fine.” David’s answer came a touch too quickly.

“Un-huh.” It was time to have a talk with his security chief. David Weir was a valuable resource, to be handled with care. “Well, don’t forget you work for me, not him. I don’t want him interfering.”

Ironwood picked up the phone and speed-dialed his son, who answered after one too many rings. A cacophony of sounds assaulted him. The gaming floor.

“Get up here.” He disconnected without waiting for J.R.’s reply.

Merrit was back from the kitchen, carrying two tall green glass tumblers, filled to the brim with cola and clinking ice.

Ironwood took his and tapped it against David’s. “To truth.”

David tapped back. “And justice and the American way.”

Ironwood heard the cynicism in the young tech’s voice. “Still not buying it, are you?”

“About aliens? No.”

“Got a better theory yet?’

“Yeah. The nonhuman polymorphisms are SINEs.”

Ironwood grinned appreciatively and glanced at his security chief. “This boy just goes down fighting, doesn’t he?” Drink in hand, he ambled back to the huge, overstuffed couch and its mounds of canvas pillows worked in traditional Navajo designs. He swept the newspapers to the side and settled back.

David took one of two matching chairs. Merrit stayed on his feet. “Someplace else you have to be?” Ironwood asked.

“No, sir.”

“Then take a load off.” Ironwood raised his glass as Merrit reluctantly sat down on the second chair. “So, SINEs . . .”

“Short interspersed elements. Retroposons.”

“Which tells me exactly nothing.”

“A type of noncoding DNA.”

Ironwood had no time for jargon, technical or otherwise, but he wanted to be sure he missed nothing of importance. “Meaning a little bit of DNA that doesn’t actually do anything.”

“Not as far as we know,” David admitted. “But the interesting thing—depending on whose study you look at, of course—is that it accounts for anywhere between ninety-five to ninety-eight percent of human DNA. About fifty percent of that, in turn, is just endless repetitions of small sequences.”

Ironwood took a sip of cola before answering. “I know all about junk DNA, Dave. It’s one of the best indications that something other than evolution’s been tinkering with human genes.”

He took a moment to enjoy his young researcher’s instantly wary look. “In fact, I’ve been told that for every
other
animal species on the planet, junk DNA shows up in regularly spaced safety zones or some such . . . you know, separating the active genes from each other.”

Ironwood used his free hand to indicate a series of building blocks. “Here’s an active gene, then bang—bang—bang—fifty thousand repetitions of pure junk and then—bang! Another active gene. Then another fifty thousand repetitions, and so on and so forth. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe that
uniform
distribution is what you academic types call
statistically
smooth.

“But now, if we’re talking
human
DNA? There’s
nothing
uniform about that. A bunch of ‘active’ genes strung all together, then a few hundred thousand repetitions, then another ‘active’ gene, then maybe only two thousand repeats. Whatever. It’s all a big mess. Completely random. Like someone got in there and moved things around willy-nilly. Like we were designed by committee, as the old joke goes.”

Predictably, David did not agree with him. “All of nature’s random. Evolution is fueled by random events.”

“I know the standard screed, son. And I quote: ‘When a random mutation confers an advantage, that particular animal has more offspring, so the mutation expands through a population generation after generation.’ What you’re forgetting is that it’s only a mutation’s
first
appearance that’s random. As soon as it appears, and it’s
useful,
then random
stops.
” Ironwood snapped his fingers for effect. He glanced again at Merrit, but the security chief was checking something on his phone, his attention elsewhere. “Seems to me, Dave, you’re deliberately missing the whole point of what I’m saying: Natural
evolution created a regular pattern in every animal’s genome—
except
for ours.”

David took the bait. He was already shaking his head. “Look, what
you’re
forgetting is that we’re a pretty recent species. As far as anyone knows, modern humans have only been around about two hundred, two hundred fifty thousand years on the outside. Most geneticists would say that’s probably not long enough for a clear pattern to even show up in our genome.”

“You’re missing a key point, son. I’m not talking humans. I’m talking hominins. All the species and variations that led to
Homo sapiens.
Going back two million years to
Homo habilis.
Heck, even further back, like about fifty million years ago, when our branch of mammals essentially
stopped
adding more of that noncoding junk DNA. But the rats?
They’re
still adding it. And what I want to know is: Why’s our DNA and our genetic development so much different from every other natural species on this planet? Answer me that, if you can.”

He lifted his glass in a mock salute, then coughed as David surprised him.

“I don’t have a problem with aliens visiting Earth. I’m just saying there’s no evidence yet that convinces me it’s already happened. But if you ever do get that kind of proof, it’s not going to be astonishing.

“I bet the universe
is
filled with life. I think intelligence and tool using confer an advantage, so somewhere, yeah, there probably are other intelligent beings. And if they don’t blow themselves up, then traveling from one star to another is an engineering problem. In two or three hundred more years, maybe even a lot less, we’ll most likely know how to build machines that can operate for centuries in interstellar space and think for themselves. We’ll probably be able to freeze humans solid for centuries, too, so some of us can make the trip.”

The small gray handset on the table chirped. Ironwood squinted at its display. J.R. was in the hall. About time.

David wasn’t finished with him, though.

“However, if you think aliens came here
fifty
million years ago and engineered the DNA of some primate knowing . . .
knowing
. . . that they were setting into motion a chain of events that would end up with modern humans—you’re not talking about aliens, or science. You’re into the supernatural. Divine intervention.”

Ironwood waved a hand at David—they’d pick this up again, soon—and tapped an entry code into the handset. The odor of stale smoke and alcohol entered with his son.

He held out David’s hard drive to J.R. “Deliver this.”

J.R. took it from him. “This his?” He cocked his head in David’s direction.

“It’s mine,” Ironwood said.

“Right. I’ll take it down.”

“You do that.”

As if he thought the meeting had ended with J.R.’s departure, Merrit was on his feet before the door had closed.

David stayed seated. “You know, maybe if you tell me how you’re processing my data, I can give it to you a different way. A better way.”

Ironwood heaved himself to his feet. He needed to get down to the Red Room, tell Keisha he knew where to start her search for outpost number four. “I got that covered, Dave—but thanks.”

David stood up, too, carefully placing his half-f glass of cola on the table. “Have to admit I’m curious, though. I mean, you and I are using the same data, but I’m only finding areas. You’re finding outposts.”

“Not your concern, son. Just stick to what you’re doing.”

David finally took the hint. “No problem. Forget I even asked. Stand by for cluster five.”

Now Ironwood was curious. It had always been “if” and “maybe” before with his young researcher. “I thought these clusters were hard to find. What’s changed?”

“Well, one cluster could have been a statistical fluke. Two, same thing. Now that we’re up to four, I’m guessing there’s a pattern.”

As they walked together to the foyer and the suite’s private elevator, Ironwood felt the glow of satisfaction. “Well, now, if there’s a pattern, Dave—and I guarantee you’ll find there is—there’s only one reason for it. Aliens.”

David held up his hand as if signaling a stop, then split his fingers between ring and middle. “Then all I can say is, Live long and prosper.”

Ironwood chuckled, then put out a hand to restrain Merrit before he could leave. “You’ll stay and we’ll talk.”

Merrit’s eyes were locked on the young researcher.

“You two have plans?” Ironwood asked.

“No,” Merrit answered.

“Good. Dave, don’t go back to work just yet. Relax. Go see the show downstairs. Call Ellie and she’ll get you a ticket. Got a suit with you?”

“No, sir.”

“Go down to Berlatti’s. Tell Tony I said to fix you up.”

Ironwood watched the elevator doors close on David before he turned to Merrit.

“Anything I should know about you and Dave?”

“I had to finesse the robbery at his off-site lab, but I kept the company in the clear.”

“It
was
just a robbery, right?”

Merrit answered without hesitation. “No question. The police reports I saw, they seem to think it’s a gang that specializes in high-end lab equipment. Steal it here, resell in Europe. No interest in computers.”