Bestiary

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Beth knew that the scribe’s account was true; she had checked the standard historical texts, and Peter’s desertion was well recorded in the annals of the First Crusade. As was the scribe’s account of the siege of Antioch, which immediately followed.

Even though she might have expected it, Beth was still stunned at seeing the al-Kalli name. Mohammed had not been mistaken; The Beasts of Eden had indeed been created, nearly a thousand years before, for one of his direct ancestors. Despite the remarkable odds against it, it had been successfully passed down for countless generations within the family, and preserved in miraculous condition — though only now, and to her, had it yielded these terrible secrets.

“Which tie should I wear?” Carter said, coming out of the closet with two different ones draped around his neck, and laughed when he saw Beth, still sitting on the edge of the bed in her underwear, utterly absorbed in the pages. “You’re worse than I am,” he said. “You’ve got to get dressed or we’ll be late.”

She heard him, but she just couldn’t change her focus quite yet.

“Beth?” he said. “Earth to Beth? It’s six forty-five.”

“You won’t believe what I just read,” she said, and then she told him about the mention of the Sultan Kilij al-Kalli’s name.

“Mohammed will be glad to hear about it,” Carter said, “if we ever get there.”

She laid the printouts on the bed.

“Tie?” he reminded her.

“Oh — the one with the blue stripes.”

“Of course, that all depends,” he called out from the bathroom where he’d gone to put on the striped tie, “on whether or not you decide to tell him about your little discovery.”

That very question had been tormenting Beth; on the one hand, she hadn’t yet been able to get the whole thing translated, and she didn’t want to share what she had found until she absolutely knew what she had found. On the other hand, The Beasts of Eden did not belong to her; it belonged to Mohammed al-Kalli, and he had the right to know everything there was to know about it.

She could not put off telling him for very much longer.

She quickly finished dressing — a simple black dress, heels, a strand of pearls her aunt had bequeathed to her — and left Robin with all her final babysitting instructions. Joey was in his playpen, absorbed in his toys. Although they drove to Bel-Air in Beth’s car, a white Volvo that was a little newer (and a lot cleaner) than Carter’s Jeep, Carter took the wheel and Beth navigated. Once or twice they had to stop and consult their Thomas Guide.

“Dark up here, isn’t it?” Carter said, as Beth confirmed that they were to bear to the left, and not the right.

Beth was surprised at it, too. They’d only been in L.A. for less than a year, and nothing so far had taken them into the heady precincts of upper Bel-Air. She felt as if they’d been driving up and away from the rest of the city, from all the ordinary people, like themselves, who led ordinary lives, and she imagined a celebrity or studio head or tycoon of one kind or another behind every towering hedge or shuttered pair of gates.

The houses up here were getting fewer and farther between, and most of the time all you could really see was the tip of a gable, the hint of a roofline, or, now and again, the back fence of a tennis court.

“Al-Kalli’s should be at the very crest,” Beth said, putting down the map. For the distance of several blocks already, the street had felt more like a private drive, and straight ahead they could now see a lighted gatehouse. As they pulled up, a squat Asian man in a blue uniform checked their name off the invitation list and told them to follow the drive — but slowly. “The peacocks sometimes stand in the road,” he said.

“Peacocks?” Carter said to Beth as they drove, slowly, onto the grounds.

And sure enough, there they were — a flock of them, their tail feathers fanned out in a beautiful display of blue and gold, strutting around the lip of a splashing fountain.

“An awfully good replica of the Trevi,” Carter said of the ornately sculpted fountain.

“What makes you think it’s a copy?” Beth said, and Carter laughed.

“You could be right,” he said. “What’s next? The Eiffel Tower?”

At the top of the winding drive, in front of a massive stone and timber manor house, a valet in a red jacket stepped into the drive and gestured for them to stop. Another valet materialized out of the dark and swiftly opened Beth’s door. Carter could see a dozen other cars lined up neatly in front of a garage wing. All the cars were Bentleys or Jaguars or BMWs, with the lone exception of a dusty green Mustang off at the far end. They were ushered up the front steps and into a spacious, marble-floored foyer, with a wide, winding staircase on both sides; ahead of them they could hear music, and a maid in a white skirt and cap escorted them out to the back garden, where a string quartet in formal attire was playing Brahms under the boughs of a jacaranda tree.

Al-Kalli, spotting them, stepped away from a small group of people and came forward with his hand extended. “I was beginning to fear that you wouldn’t make it,” he said, and Carter apologized for the delay.

A waiter with a silver tray of filled champagne flutes appeared and al-Kalli handed a glass to each of them. His ruby cuff links glittered in the pale glow of the standing lights that had been positioned here and there in the garden.

“Your house is beautiful,” Beth said, and al-Kalli looked up at its mullioned windows and gray stone walls as if taking it in for the first time. “It’s a pity you couldn’t see our palace in Iraq.”

Carter wondered to himself if it was still standing.

“But come and meet the other guests,” al-Kalli said, “we’ll be going in to dinner soon.”

Beth had already noticed several familiar faces, including the wealthy museum patrons the Critchleys and her own boss, Berenice Cabot. The others, an interesting-looking mix of all races and ethnicities, had what appeared to be but one thing in common — money. They all exuded sophistication and style in everything from the cut of their clothes to the way they held themselves. Even as she approached them, she could hear a smattering of accents, a few words in Italian, a mention of the Venice Biennale. Beth and Carter were introduced to everyone as if they, too, were visiting royalty, and as Beth fell into the general conversation — she recognized one of the guests as a board member of the Courtauld Institute, where she had studied in London — she noticed that Carter was drawn off by al-Kalli to meet the one man who seemed not to fit in somehow. He was wearing an ill-fitting suit, and there seemed to be something wrong with his left leg. But then Mrs. Critchley launched into a story about a Mantegna, just on the market, that she thought “someone in Los Angeles really must buy,” and Beth had to shift her attention back to the conversation at hand.

“This is Captain Greer,” al-Kalli was saying to Carter as he drew the two men aside. “Formerly a member of the United States armed forces in Iraq, he is now in my employ, in charge of security.”

Carter started to introduce himself, but the soldier stopped him short. “I know you. You’re the paleontologist.”

Even al-Kalli looked surprised. Impressed a bit, too.

“I saw you on TV,” Greer explained. “You were arguing about Indian artifacts, with some guy named Running Horse.”

“I was hoping nobody’d seen that show.”

“Sorry — too late. But I can’t say I remember your name.”

“Carter Cox.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Al-Kalli smiled. “Well, now that that’s all cleared up, I will leave you two alone for a few minutes. Excuse me.”

Why, Carter wondered, was he leaving them alone? Beth was off in the thick of things, and he was now marooned with this ex-army guy. Just looking at him, Carter could tell this guy was in a bad way. His skin had an unhealthy pallor and there was a dull gleam in his eye that Carter had seen before — usually in friends of his who’d burned out in grad school and gotten hooked on one drug or another.

When Captain Greer turned to a passing waiter to put his empty glass on the tray and take a fresh one, Carter noted that when he pivoted, his left leg moved oddly. Carter assumed it was a war injury, and if that was the case, if this was indeed a war vet and al-Kalli had hired him, then that was a point in al-Kalli’s favor. Much as Carter had opposed the war, he didn’t oppose the vets — that was just one of the myriad cheap and cynical sleights-of-hand the administration had pulled, conflating criticism of the war with criticism of the men and women forced to conduct it. Carter had nothing but respect, and sympathy, for the ones who had had to appear on the front lines.

“How long have you worked for Mr. al-Kalli?” Carter asked.

Greer glanced at his watch. “About twenty-eight hours, give or take.”

Carter had to laugh. “Oh, so you don’t know a whole lot more about this spread than I do.” Carter looked around in all directions, at the back of the huge house, the rows of blossoming trees, the black-bottomed swimming pool, the gazebo — and said, “Just how big is this place?”

Greer shrugged. “I’ve had the tour, and yeah, there’s a lot more to it than you can see from here.” He gulped down the champagne the way you would normally drink a Coke. “A lot more.” Then, appraising Cox, he said, “What are you doing here? You know al-Kalli?”

“My wife does. She’s working on something for him.”

“What?”

Carter wasn’t used to the bluntness, and he wasn’t sure how much to say in reply. “Oh, just a scholarly project.”

Greer looked unsatisfied, and Carter thought maybe he was taking his new job as head of security a little too broadly. He also thought he was slugging down the drinks too fast.

A butler in a black tailcoat — Carter had never seen anything like that outside of the movies — moved across the flagstoned courtyard to al-Kalli’s side, and then started circulating among the guests. “Dinner is served,” he said to Carter and Greer in a low voice, as if it were a state secret, and with one hand gestured toward a pair of French doors that were now opened. Inside, Carter could see a long rectangular table, glittering with silver and china, lighted by flickering candelabra.

“Excuse me,” Carter said, “while I go and retrieve my wife,” but even as he turned he saw that Beth was being escorted into the dining room on the arm of al-Kalli himself. She cast Carter a confidential glance as she passed — a glance that said, I’m as much at sea as you are, but I guess we should just go with the flow—and Greer was the one who laughed now.

“That your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Not bad,” he said, “and I guess al-Kalli thinks so, too. He gets what he wants.”

Carter knew what he was implying, but it didn’t bother him. What he was wondering now was how he was going to get through a whole dinner with this guy, who was probably going to get increasingly stoned. Going into the dining room, he was immediately relieved to see that there were neatly written ivory place cards at every chair. He was looking for his own card, when he saw Beth being seated next to al-Kalli at the head of the table. He started to head in that direction, too, when the butler touched his sleeve and said, “The other side, I believe, sir.”

For a second, Carter didn’t understand, then the butler led him around the table so that he was seated on al-Kalli’s right side, directly across from Beth, who was seated at his left. Carter sat down; the butler flipped his napkin open and draped it across his lap. These were sort of the seats of honor, and Carter was, frankly, a little surprised to be sitting in one of them. He and Beth had discussed the dinner invitation — especially its late delivery — and decided that al-Kalli must have invited them as an afterthought, after some prominent guests had dropped out at the last minute. Beth had said al-Kalli was probably going to use the occasion to pump her for information about how fast the translation and restoration work was going, “and maybe even try to instill a little guilt.” Carter had figured he’d made the list strictly by virtue of being Beth’s husband.

But now it almost looked as if the dinner had been pulled together, indeed on very short notice, as a means of becoming more intimate with the two of them. Al-Kalli was already leaning forward to tell Carter he had only that afternoon read a monograph he had written on the hunting habits of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

“Even for a layman,” he said, in that upper-crust English accent, “it was a very thought-provoking piece.”

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Carter said, though he couldn’t imagine why al-Kalli would have been reading it. It certainly hadn’t been written for the layman; it had been published years before in an obscure scientific journal. “But I didn’t know that you were interested in dinosaurs.”

“I am,” al-Kalli replied. “In fact, I’m interested in many questions of natural history — particularly those involving strange and extinct life forms.” With that, he turned his attention to Beth. “Such as those depicted in a certain antique book.”

A servant in a white jacket poured some white wine into one of several glasses and goblets at Carter’s place.

“How is that coming along?” he asked Beth, and Carter dropped his eyes, lest it be too obvious what he was thinking.

“Very well,” she said. “The graphemical database is almost complete.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we can soon run the entire text against all the characters deployed in the manuscript and get the most accurate and expedited transcript.” She did not mention that the process had been somewhat slowed of late by the discovery of a secret epistle, hidden under the front cover of the book, that she had been giving priority to.

“How soon?” he asked, and even though his tone was neutral, Carter could see the urgency in his expression.

“Within the next few days,” Beth replied, and Carter hoped, for her sake, that she meant it.

Al-Kalli remained focused on her for a telltale second or two, then raised his glass to his other guests — Carter guessed there were a couple of dozen, with that Captain Greer way down below the salt — and announced, “Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I’ve been remiss all season, and I didn’t want to go another night without seeing my dear friends and enjoying their company.”

Mrs. Cabot, Carter thought, was one of his dear friends? That dithery old couple, the Critchleys? To Carter, it looked like a somewhat strange assemblage, with old-moneyed Europeans and South Americans, a few Middle Eastern types (one in the traditional Arab headdress), that new security chief, and of course, himself. But, taking the charitable view, maybe it displayed an admirably democratic streak in his host.

Though he doubted it.

The meal itself consisted of more courses than Carter had ever been served at one time, many of them with a distinctively Middle Eastern flavor. Al-Kalli was often explaining the ingredients and preparation to them—“Have you ever tried fesenjan? It’s walnuts, sautéed in a pomegranate sauce” or “This is called karafs—seasoned with parsley, celery, mint, and other herbs — and my cook is the only one in America who knows how to make it properly.” Carter had to take his word for that, never having had it before, and never, to be honest, likely to have it again. The food, he could tell, was exquisitely prepared, and most of the other guests were clearly enjoying it immensely — the man in the Arab headdress kept beaming at al-Kalli, and once bowed his head deferentially, with his eyes closed in bliss — but to Carter, whose palate was more accustomed to fast food and backyard barbecues, it was all pretty much off the charts.

Beth, however, seemed to be liking it — when it came to cuisine, she’d always been more adventurous than her husband — and all the emphasis on vegetables and yogurt and exotic herbs would, he knew, be dear to her heart. She believed in eating healthfully, and she had always contended that there were ways to do that without sacrificing the enjoyment that Carter claimed he could only experience from an ice-cold beer and a red-hot slice of greasy, New York pizza.

Carter remained unpersuaded.

When Beth wasn’t talking to al-Kalli, she was talking to the man on her left, a distinguished, silver-haired gent who appeared to have some relation to the Courtauld Institute of Art. Perhaps that was why al-Kalli had seated him next to Beth. Which did not explain why Carter had, on his own right side, an heiress from Texas who strongly believed that “if everybody’s so positive about the theory of evolution”—with a drawn-out emphasis on the word “theory”—“then why are they so afraid to teach Intelligent Design?” Because she had learned Carter was a scientist, she waited for her challenge to be refuted. And for a second, he almost did rise to the bait. He almost launched into an explanation of the difference between science and faith, between evidence and supposition, between the empirical and the assumed, between Darwin and the Bible, before reminding himself that he was off duty now, and that, no matter what you said anyway, nobody’s mind was ever changed.

“Why not indeed?” he said, and eagerly turned, though he’d never imagined such a day would come, to al-Kalli for his conversation. However sinister the man might seem, he was at least well educated and urbane. And waiting. He seemed as eager to talk to Carter as Carter was to escape the idiocy of the Texas heiress. Was this all part of al-Kalli’s clever design, too — seating him next to a buffoon, so he wouldn’t have anywhere else to turn?

“In several of your papers,” al-Kalli said, “you outlined your beliefs in the common ancestry of dinosaurs and modern-day birds. I found your arguments interesting — and not always in agreement with others in your field.”

“No, I’m not always in agreement.”

“But then, why haven’t you drawn it all together into a book? You write compellingly, and you seem to have a rare knowledge of the animal kingdom, both past and present. Has it been for want of time?”

Carter had to mull that one over. He had written a number of published papers and monographs, and he had considered — virtually every day — undertaking a major synthesis of his views, but to some extent al-Kalli was right. Carter hadn’t found the time — or more specifically, the money that would support him and his budding family — for the many months (years?) that it would take to compose and publish such a book.

“Because if finding the freedom to work on what you want is a problem, perhaps we can discuss that later.”

Carter didn’t know what he was getting at.

“My family does run a foundation — we never advertise its existence — to help with certain projects we find provocative or intriguing.”

A servant refilled the last wineglass Carter had been drinking from. Carter took the interruption to think. “Thanks very much for your interest,” he said to al-Kalli. With the way things were going with Gunderson at the Page Museum, he might be taking him up on it. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“You do that.” Al-Kalli signaled the butler, had a few words in his ear, then stood up at the head of the table and declared that dessert would be served in the garden, “along with a small musical diversion.”

On the way out, Carter was able to sidle up to Beth and ask in a low voice if Robin needed to be relieved soon.

“No, she said she can stay as long as we need. If it’s too late, she’ll just sleep over.”

Carter had sort of been hoping it would be a problem, and that he’d be able to use this excuse to leave early. Dinner parties weren’t his favorite pastime, but if Beth was having a good time — and it looked like she was — then he’d find a way to stick it out. Even if it meant — as all indications were pointing to — sitting through a string quartet concert under the stars. The musicians were gathered in a semicircle on the edge of the courtyard, just where the stones gave way to the manicured green lawn. Little round tables had been set up, with long flowing linen cloths, and tiny white lights had been threaded artfully through the overhanging branches of the jacaranda trees. Thankfully, there were no place cards in evidence here, so he wouldn’t be stuck with the Texas creationist again.

He was just guiding Beth to two seats at a table with the Critchleys (better the devil you know) when al-Kalli touched him by the elbow and drew him aside. Captain Greer, Carter noted, was standing a few feet away.

“I’m wondering if you would mind forgoing the concert,” al-Kalli said, “so that I might share something — something terribly important — with you.”

Skipping the concert was fine with Carter. He told Beth he’d be back shortly, and then followed al-Kalli into the porte cochere, where he found a four-seater golf cart waiting, and Jakob, whom he’d once seen at the Getty, at the wheel. Greer sat up front, perhaps so that he’d have more room for his bad leg, and Carter got in back with al-Kalli. Carter knew they weren’t going golfing, but other than that, he was completely mystified.

As the cart took off along a graveled pathway, Carter could hear the opening strains of a classical piece that sounded, even to his musically untrained ear, like Mozart. The music wafted through the warm night air, growing fainter as they passed out of sight of the house. The cart rumbled over a wooden footbridge, past a stable where Carter could see an Arab boy leading a docile horse back into its stall. Just how vast was this estate? Carter wondered again.

They continued along, parallel to what was plainly a service drive, until they saw, emerging from a thick copse of trees, what looked to Carter like a white airplane hangar. Did al-Kalli keep his own private air force? It wouldn’t have surprised him at this point.

Jakob steered the golf cart into a clearing within a few yards of the huge double door, then stopped it. He remained seated, as did Captain Greer, but al-Kalli got out and gestured for Carter to come with him. He walked off, taking a gold cigarette case from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. He held it out to Carter, who declined.

“Of course you’re right,” al-Kalli said, lighting one nonetheless. “It’s a nasty habit, but I can’t entirely give it up. And these I have specially made for me in Tangier.”

He drew on the cigarette, his eyes narrowing but remaining firmly fixed on Carter. Then he exhaled, the fragrant smoke — it smelled to Carter less like tobacco than cloves and cinnamon — spiraling above their heads. “I pray I do not live to regret what I am about to do.”

At first, Carter thought he must be joking — was he referring to having the cigarette? — but then he felt a sudden chill. Al-Kalli was referring to something else, and he wasn’t joking.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t do it,” Carter replied. “Why take the chance?”

“Because I must trust someone. And I believe I can trust you.”

Why he would think that — having spent no more than a few hours, total, in his company — Carter couldn’t guess. Any more than he could guess what al-Kalli was contemplating.

“What I am about to tell you, you can never tell anyone. What I am about to show you, you cannot show to anyone else. Unless — and until — I advise you otherwise. First of all, is that understood?”

Carter hated to agree to anything so vague, and al-Kalli noted his hesitation. “Please do not fear — I am not running a white slavery ring or planning a terrorist attack. On the contrary, no one owes more to this country than I do. But will you give me your word, as one gentleman to another?”

“Yes,” Carter replied. Although he hated to admit it, his curiosity had been piqued.

Al-Kalli nodded, drawing again on the cigarette. “You won’t be sorry,” he said. “Indeed, you will be very grateful that you did.”

Carter doubted that, but kept quiet, waiting for more.

“I have in my possession, as you will soon see, the most remarkable collection in the world.”

Collection of what?

“Walk with me a bit.”

As they strolled beneath the boughs of the trees, along the winding gravel path, Carter caught glimpses, now and then, of the twinkling lights of the city, far, far below and way off in the distance. He was glad that he could see the lights because it rooted him in reality even as al-Kalli told him a story too fantastical to believe. A story that, had anyone else tried to palm it off on him, he would have dismissed out of hand. But coming from al-Kalli, it had to be taken seriously — and even so, it was nearly impossible to credit.

For time immemorial, al-Kalli explained, his family had owned a menagerie. Or, as he called it, a bestiary.

“Yes, Beth has told me about The Beasts of Eden. She says it’s the most astounding illuminated manuscript she’s ever seen.”

Al-Kalli paused. “It’s not the book I’m speaking of. It’s the actual bestiary; the book is merely a… guide.”

Now Carter was confused. The book, so far as he knew, contained pictures and text describing such imaginary creatures as griffins and gorgons, phoenixes and basilisks. Medieval inventions, allegorical motifs. What was al-Kalli saying? Did he own a bunch of poor mutant animals, two-headed calves and three-legged ponies and other unfortunate creatures salvaged from traveling circuses?

“The animals in my care exist nowhere else. They have not existed for eons, if you believe the standard wisdom.” He snorted. “If you believe the standard wisdom, most of them have never existed at all.”

Carter began, for the first time, to question al-Kalli’s sanity, and his own safety. Was he taking a moonlight stroll, with two hired thugs in a golf cart not far off, in the company of a lunatic billionaire?

Even if al-Kalli sensed his doubts, he went on as if he knew they would eventually be silenced. The animals had been carefully tended to, and bred, in the desert palaces his family owned not only in present-day Iraq, but in other remote regions of the Middle East—“most notably the Empty Quarter, as it is known, of the Sahara Desert.” But with all the geopolitical changes in the region, “and of course the rise of Saddam Hussein, the situation gradually became untenable.” The al-Kalli family had forged an unholy truce with the dictator that had held for many years, but in the end, Saddam’s greed and lust for ultimate and unchallenged power had led to its unraveling. Without providing much in the way of detail, al-Kalli alluded to a catastrophe inflicted on his family, and a sudden, costly exodus. “What I was able to save of the bestiary, I saved. But you will soon see for yourself.”

“Why?” Carter asked. “Why me?”

“Because who else on earth could understand, could appreciate, such a miracle?”

Carter was flattered, but still unsure what to make of any of this.

“But first,” Al-Kalli said, “I know I have to convince you that I’m not mad.”

Carter saw no point in protesting.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I would think so, too.” He dropped the cigarette butt on the gravel and ground it underfoot. “So, shall I prove my case?”

Carter glanced over at Jakob and Captain Greer, who were conferring in front of the doors to the hangar — or zoo, Carter suddenly thought — and considered his options. He could refuse, but what kind of a position would that leave him in? Al-Kalli would consider his own position already compromised, and might now regard Carter as a potential threat. And it certainly wouldn’t help out Beth, whose access to The Beasts of Eden might suddenly be restricted or even revoked. On the other hand, if he were to accept al-Kalli’s invitation, he would be entering into some sort of complicity with him — and al-Kalli didn’t strike him as the kind of man who let you out of a deal very easily.

Al-Kalli waited, and in the distance Carter could hear the screeching cry of one of the peacocks. Maybe that was it — maybe al-Kalli thought peacocks were phoenixes. Maybe he had a crocodile in his zoo and thought it was a sphinx. Maybe he had a snow white horse and called it a unicorn. Maybe all of this was some long-inculcated family delusion, and all Carter would have to do, once he’d passed through those sealed doors, was feign astonishment and swear a bond of eternal secrecy. How hard could that be?

And, if he were perfectly honest with himself, it would satisfy his own gnawing desire to know the truth. It was like some fairy tale now. What was hidden in Ali Baba’s mountain cave?

“Okay, you’re on,” Carter said with a lightheartedness he did not feel.

Al-Kalli nodded in the direction of Jakob and Greer, and as he walked Carter toward the facility, the doors swung smoothly open, just as if someone had indeed muttered “Open, Sesame.”

As Carter passed inside, powerful blowers overhead made his clothes flutter around his body; his hair felt like a thousand fingers were mussing it all at once. The air being expelled had the strong odor of musk and fur and dung on it. And the moment they were all inside, the doors swung shut again.

Jakob and Greer stood off to one side, as Carter took it all in. Al-Kalli, right behind him, whispered, “Not a word — even to your wife — of what you see here tonight.”

Right now, Carter was just taking in the sheer size and scope of the place. The ceiling had to be a hundred feet high, and hanging just below it was a straw-covered aerie on a heavy chain. It was shaped like a huge shallow bowl, and it was swaying now, as if something had just launched itself from the perch. Carter scanned the roofline and though he saw nothing, he heard the grating cry of a swooping bird. He whirled around, just in time to see a red and gold blur, with a wingspan twice as great as a condor’s, soaring over his head.

It was like no other bird he had ever seen — and al-Kalli could tell as much, from nothing more than the stunned look on Carter’s face.

“There’s more,” he said confidingly.

Carter was still gazing up as al-Kalli guided him toward the western wall. Carter glanced at the two guards. Jakob appeared alert but unperturbed. Captain Greer, on the other hand, looked even jumpier than ever. Hadn’t he told Carter that he’d only been working for al-Kalli for twenty-eight hours? If that was true, then all of this was nearly as new and shocking to him as it was to Carter.

All along this side of the building there was a shoulder-high concrete wall, painted white and surmounted by iron bars that rose at least another ten or twelve feet into the air. From behind the wall Carter could hear strange snuffling sounds, barks and grunts, and the occasional roar. He approached it cautiously, wondering what on earth could lie behind it. The first pen — there were several, each about a hundred feet apart — had a narrow chain-mesh gate, and then another gate, about a yard inside, so that together they formed a little sealed compartment; an extra security measure, Carter surmised, to allow someone to enter the pen — for feeding or observation purposes — without permitting whatever was imprisoned here any chance of a sudden escape.

But at first he saw nothing that could escape — only a wading pond, with fresh, clear water in it and several lily pads floating idly on its surface. The floor of the pen, rolling and uneven, was covered everywhere with a layer of broken rubble, pebbles and stones colored gray and green and rust. It looked like an immense mosaic, the pattern of which could only have been discerned by rising forty or fifty feet into the air and looking down. When Carter turned to ask al-Kalli where the inhabitants were, he saw that Jakob, his arm fully extended, was holding out to him a pair of plastic goggles. Al-Kalli himself was hanging well back.

Carter took the goggles.

“You might want to put them on,” al-Kalli said, “just in case.”

Carter did, though he could not, for the life of him, see why. He stepped back into the gated enclosure and looked again into the huge pen. Maybe a hundred yards in the rear, there was a shaded enclosure, but even there he could see nothing but shadows and gloom. What was he supposed to see? Was al-Kalli so deluded that he kept imaginary creatures in gigantic, empty cages?

But the bird, the bird he’d seen was real.

He studied the rock-strewn floor again, and this time he could see just one thing strange — a blurring above some of the stones. At first, thinking it was the goggles, he took them off, breathed on them, then wiped them clean with his handkerchief. They were a sturdy pair with a snug elastic strap, but when he put them back on, the blurring continued. In fact, he saw it now in another spot. Were there steam grates, or vents of some kind, under the rocks?

“It’s not the goggles,” he heard al-Kalli say.

And then, as if it were some optical illusion, the rocks themselves moved — but not randomly, as if they were being disturbed, but as if they were alive and integrated. He blinked several times, adjusted the goggles, but the rocks now were rising up, in not one but two separate places, and they were… standing. The fogging recurred. What was he looking at?

And what was looking back at him?

There were eyes behind the fog, sinister eyes that held steady under a thick, gray brow. There were two creatures, on all fours now, their entire bodies — perhaps six or even eight feet long — covered with spikes and stony protuberances, exactly like the rocks they’d been lying on. The noises they made, as they lumbered in his direction, were wet and hoarse and rasping. The one in the lead — like a gravel pit come to terrible life — raised its head, coughed, and, like a hail of bullets, the spittle splatted against the wall, clung to the bars of the gate, and dotted the lenses of the goggles. Carter fell back, wiping away the gray-green smear, in shock.

He could hear al-Kalli and Jakob chuckling.

“They used to be quite accurate,” al-Kalli said. “Like cobras, they aim for the eyes.”

Carter stumbled out of the gated enclosure and whipped the goggles off altogether. Some of the mucus was stuck to his cheek, where it stung like a bad sunburn. Jakob handed him a hand towel.

“What is it?” Carter said, wiping away the gunk from his face.

Al-Kalli said, “I’m sure you scientists would have your own name for it. But in my family, we have always called it the basilisk.”

The basilisk? Carter thought. That was a mythical creature — not the thing he had just seen walking toward him with slow, deliberate steps, the thing that even now was just a few yards away, behind a concrete wall. Basilisks were… he struggled to remember his mythology… creatures so monstrous their breath alone could kill.

“Are you beginning to believe me?” al-Kalli asked.

As if in mockery, the huge red bird, alighted now on the lip of its aerie, let out a stuttering cry that echoed down and around the cavernous walls of the bestiary.

“Shall we move on?” al-Kalli said. “We have only so much time before the concert is over and my other guests have finished with their dessert and coffee.”

The entire menagerie was awake now and making itself heard. The basilisks were grunting and snorting — Carter wondered if there were more in there than the two he had seen — and as he was led toward the next double gate, he wondered if he should be putting the goggles back on.

“No,” al-Kalli said, intuiting his question, “you won’t be needing those again.” Carter handed them to Jakob, while Captain Greer, his limp more noticeable now, brought up the rear. Reluctantly, it looked to Carter.

“But you may wish to stay back a bit from the bars,” al-Kalli warned.

Carter did as instructed, and stepped only halfway into the next gate enclosure. This pen was as large as the one next to it, easily a couple of hundred feet in every direction, but where the first one had been barren and stony, this one was lush and filled with thick shrubbery and flowering plants. There was a dense carpet of weedy grass, speckled with dandelions. Fans in the ceiling directed a steady low breeze at the greenery, so that everything seemed to be in constant motion, gently undulating, swaying and waving in a delicate play of light and shadow… a play that was suddenly broken by a ferocious growl and a headlong rush at the bars. Carter barely had time to step back before a spotted beast, the size of a lion, had flown at the gate, its claws scrabbling at the iron bars. He had not seen it coming; he had no idea where it had even come from. It was as if it had launched itself from the lower branches of one of the ficus trees planted in the pen.

The creature snarled, its head back, and Carter saw a pair of fangs to rival those of any saber-toothed cat. But these fangs, even in his present state, he recognized were curved backward, like scimitars. The creature slipped down from the bars and stepped back, planting its paws flatly on the ground, the way a man, not a cat, might walk. Its claws were like twisted fingers, long and sharp and yellowed. Its forelegs were longer than its rear, so that it had the hunched look of a hyena, but a hyena with wings. Its massive shoulders were blanketed with a thick matt of feathery black fur, fur that right now, in the moment of its attack, had billowed out like a cape.

Again, Carter was thunderstruck.

“The griffin,” al-Kalli said simply, brushing back his ruby cuff link to glance at his watch. “There is just one more—”

But they were interrupted by a man’s voice, filled with fear and worry, carrying toward them. Al-Kalli looked displeased.

“Mr. al-Kalli, Mr. al-Kalli,” the man was calling, barely able to catch his breath, “why didn’t you tell me you were coming? If only you had told me you were coming!”

The man, a reedy Arab in an open lab coat, who looked like he had just fallen out of bed, came panting up to them. Carter noticed Captain Greer glancing at his new boss, as if wondering how this should be handled.

“You weren’t needed, Rashid,” al-Kalli said, and it was as if he’d struck the man in the face. His features froze, but then, taking in the sight of Carter — this stranger in his domain — he composed himself again.

“This is Dr. Cox,” al-Kalli explained, and Rashid nodded his head quickly. “He will be helping us.”

“Helping us?” Rashid mumbled. “With the… animals?” He glanced at Carter with panic. “Are you a doctor, sir, of the veterinary sciences?”

“I’m a paleontologist,” he replied.

It looked as if it took Rashid a few seconds to process that information — and after he had, he looked just as perplexed.

“Come along, Dr. Cox,” al-Kalli said, turning toward the last gate at the far end of the facility, and striding off. “You have yet to see the pièce de résistance.”

Carter, and the rest of the entourage, followed in al-Kalli’s brisk footsteps and at the last gate, al-Kalli himself stepped into the gated enclosure. “This,” al-Kalli said, leaving room for Carter to step in, too, “is the oldest and most prized of our collection.”

It was resting now, half in and half out of an enormous rocky cave raised several feet above the dirt. It lifted its massive, scaly snout, its long, leathery tongue flicking dismissively at the air. Its yellow eyes stared coldly across the vast expanse of the pen.

“The manticore,” al-Kalli intoned. “It’s a corruption of an ancient Persian word for man-eater.”

But Carter hardly heard him. He was looking at a creature more ancient than the dinosaurs… a reptile… and a mammal… a beast whose bones were the paleontologist’s Holy Grail. It was a monster that had ruled the earth a quarter of a billion years ago, the T. rex of its day… the most ruthless and successful predator of the Paleozoic era… wiped off the face of the earth in the Permian extinction… and named after the terrible sisters of Greek mythology who were so frightening that simply to look upon them was to die.

And now he was looking right at it.

Not, as al-Kalli would have it, the manticore of legend. Not some mythical beast.

But what paleontologists had dubbed — based on a scattering of bones and teeth, some of the oldest and rarest fossils on earth — the gorgonopsian. Or gorgon, for short.

But these bones were walking, these teeth were wet, and these eyes radiated a malevolence as old as the earth itself.