Chromosome 6

CHAPTER 6

MARCH 5, 1997

1:00 P.M.

COGO, EQUATORIAL GUINEA

BERTRAM pulled his three-year-old Jeep Cherokee into the parking area behind the town hall and yanked on the brake. The car had been giving him trouble and had spent innumerable days being repaired in the motor pool. But the problem had persisted, and that fact made him particularly irritated when Kevin Marshall pretended not to know how lucky he was to get a new Toyota every two years. Bertram wasn’t scheduled for a new car for another year.

Bertram took the stairs that rose up behind the first-floor arcade to reach the veranda that ringed the building. From there he walked into the central office. By Siegfried Spallek’s choice, it had not been air-conditioned. A large ceiling fan lazily rotated with a particular wavering hum. The long, flat blades kept the sizable room’s warm, moist air on the move.

Bertram had called ahead, so Siegfried’s secretary, a broad-faced black man named Aurielo from the island of Bioko, was expecting him and waved him into the inner office. Aurielo had been trained in France as a schoolteacher, but had been unemployed until GenSys founded the Zone.

The inner office was larger than the outer and extended the entire width of the building. It had shuttered windows overlooking the parking lot in the back and the town square in the front. The front windows yielded the impressive view of the new hospital/laboratory complex. From where Bertram was standing, he could even see Kevin’s laboratory windows.

“Sit down,” Siegfried said, without looking up. His voice had a harsh, guttural quality, with a slight Germanic accent. It was commandingly authoritarian. He was signing a stack of correspondence. “I’ll be finished in a moment.”

Bertram’s eyes wandered around the cluttered office. It was a place that never made him feel comfortable. As a veterinarian and moderate environmentalist, he did not appreciate the decor. Covering the walls and every available horizontal surface were glassy-eyed, stuffed heads of animals, many of which were endangered species. There were cats such as lions, leopards, and cheetahs. There was a bewildering variety of antelope, more than Bertram knew existed. Several enormous rhino heads peered blankly down from positions of prominence on the wall behind Spallek. On top of the bookcase were snakes, including a rearing cobra. On the floor was an enormous crocodile with its mouth partially ajar to reveal its fearsome teeth. The table next to Bertram’s chair was an elephant’s foot topped with a slab of mahogany. In the corners, stood crossed elephant tusks.

Even more bothersome to Bertram than the stuffed animals were the skulls. There were three of them on Siegfried’s desk. All three had their tops sawn off. One had an apparent bullet hole through the temple. They were used respectively for paper clips, ashtray, and to hold a large candle. Although the Zone’s electric power was the most reliable in the entire country, it did go off on rare occasions because of lightning strikes.

Most people, especially visitors from GenSys, assumed the skulls were from apes. Bertram knew differently. They were human skulls of people executed by the Equatoguinean soldiers. All three of the victims had been convicted of the capital offense of interfering with GenSys operations. In actuality, they had been caught poaching wild chimps on the Zone’s designated hundred-square-mile land. Siegfried considered the area his own private hunting reserve.

Years previously, when Bertram had gently questioned the wisdom of displaying the skulls, Siegfried had responded by saying that they kept the native workers on their toes. “It’s the kind of communication they comprehend,” Siegfried had explained. “They understand such symbols.”

Bertram didn’t wonder that they got the message. Especially in a country which had suffered the atrocities of a diabolically cruel dictator. Bertram always remembered Kevin’s response to the skulls. Kevin had said that they reminded him of the deranged character Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

“There,” Siegfried said, pushing the signed papers aside. With his accent it sounded more like “zair.” “What’s on your mind, Bertram? I hope you don’t have a problem with the new bonobos.”

“Not at all. The two breeding females are perfect,” Bertram said. He eyed the Zone’s site boss. His most obvious physical trait was a grotesque scar that ran from beneath his left ear, down across his cheek, and under his nose. Over the years its gradual contraction had pulled up the corner of Siegfried’s mouth in a perpetual sneer.

Bertram did not technically report to Siegfried. As the chief vet of the world’s largest primate research and breeding facility, Bertram dealt directly with a GenSys senior vice president of operations back in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who had direct access to Taylor Cabot. But on a day-to-day basis, particularly in relation to the bonobo project, it was in Bertram’s best interest to maintain a cordial working relationship with the site boss. The problem was, Siegfried was short-tempered and difficult to deal with.

He’d started his African career as a white hunter, who, for a price, could get a client anything he wanted. Such a reputation required a move from East Africa to West Africa, where game laws were less rigidly enforced. Siegfried had built up a large organization, and things went well until some trackers failed him in a crucial situation, resulting in his being mauled by an enormous bull elephant and the client couple being killed.

The episode ended Siegfried’s career as a white hunter. It also left him with his facial scar and a paralyzed right arm. The extremity hung limp and useless from its shoulder connection.

Rage over the incident had made him a bitter and vindictive man. Still, GenSys had recognized his bush-based organizational skills, his knowledge of animal behavior, and his heavy-handed but effectual way of dealing with the indigenous African personality. They thought he was the perfect individual to run their multimillion-dollar African operation.

“There’s another wrinkle with the bonobo operation,” Bertram said.

“Is this new concern in addition to the weird worry of yours that the apes have divided into two groups?” Siegfried asked superciliously.

“Recognizing a change in social organization is a damn, legitimate concern!” Bertram said, his color rising.

“So you said,” Siegfried remarked. “But I’ve been thinking about it, and I can’t imagine it matters. What do we care if they hang out in one group or ten? All we want them to do is stay put and stay healthy.”

“I disagree,” Bertram said. “Splitting up suggests they are not getting along. That would not be typical bonobo behavior, and it could spell trouble down the road.”

“I’ll let you, the professional, worry about it,” Siegfried said. He leaned back in his chair, and it squeaked. “I personally don’t care what those apes do as long as nothing threatens this windfall money and stock options. The project is turning into a gold mine.”

“The new problem has to do with Kevin Marshall,” Bertram said.

“Now what in God’s name could that skinny simpleton do to get you to worry?” Siegfried asked. “With your paranoia, it’s a good thing you don’t have to do my job.”

“The nerd has worked himself up because he’s seen smoke coming from the island,” Bertram said. “He’s come to me twice. Once last week and then again this morning.”

“What’s the big deal about smoke?” Siegfried asked. “Why does he care? He sounds worse than you.”

“He thinks the bonobos might be using fire,” Bertram said. “He hasn’t said so explicitly, but I’m sure that’s what is on his mind.”

“What do you mean ‘using fire’?” Siegfried asked. He leaned forward. “You mean like making a campfire for warmth or cooking?” Siegfried laughed without disturbing his omnipresent sneer. “I don’t know about you urban Americans. Out here in the bush you’re scared of your own shadow.”

“I know it’s preposetrous,” Bertram said. “Of course no one else has seen it, or if they have, it’s probably from a lightning storm. The problem is, he wants to go out there.”

“No one goes near the island!” Siegfried growled. “Only during a harvest, and it’s only the harvest team! That’s a directive from the home office. There are no exceptions save for Kimba, the pygmy, delivering the supplementary food.”

“I told him the same thing,” Bertram said. “And I don’t think he’ll do anything on his own. Still, I thought I should tell you about it just the same.”

“It’s good that you did,” Siegfried said irritably. “The little prick. He’s a goddamned thorn in my side.”

“There is one other thing,” Bertram said. “He told Raymond Lyons about the smoke.”

Siegfried slapped the surface of his desk with his good hand loud enough to cause Bertram to jump. He stood up and stepped to the shuttered window overlooking the town square. He glared over at the hospital. He’d never liked the epicene bookish researcher from their first meeting. When he’d learned Kevin was to be coddled and accommodated in the second best house in the town, Siegfried had boiled over. He’d wanted to assign the house as a perk to one of his loyal underlings.

Siegfried balled his good hand into a fist and gritted his teeth. “What a meddling pain in the ass,” he said.

“His research is almost done,” Bertram said. “It would be a shame if he was to muck things up just when everything is going so well.”

“What did Lyons say?” Siegfried asked.

“Nothing,” Bertram said. “He accused Kevin of letting his imagination run wild.”

“I might have to have someone watch Kevin,” Siegfried said. “I will not have anyone destroy this program. That’s all there is to it. It’s too lucrative.”

Bertram stood up. “That’s your department,” he said. He started for the door, confident he’d planted the appropriate seed.