Forty-Eight X (28 page)

Their efforts seemed to have come to a dead end, and in the back of his mind, Krantz wondered if Fala was even still alive. But that doubt disappeared over morning coffee and a danish at an Internet café in Isla Vista, the seaside student residential community of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He logged on to his own Web site just to see if there was any activity there. If Fala was a captive, he didn’t expect her to be able to communicate with him. But somebody might be trying to contact him. And somebody was. Rushing back to Stumpf’s motor home on Carpenteria Beach, he felt as exhilarated as if he had dredged up some priceless relic of a long lost civilization. The past—and hopefully his future—had come alive.

“My Fala’s a genius,” he announced. “She has managed to tell me not only that she is still alive but where she is.”

Krantz explained. His Web site included entries of all his research articles. There were dozens of pieces, most of interest only to a handful of archaeologists. But one esoteric article written over eight years ago had eighteen recent hits. Why? The article he recalled had been full of unsupported hypotheses and had less than an enthusiastic response from his peers. It mentioned his undersea findings on the Greek island of Milos. It was a low point in his career because it was critiqued negatively by the prestigious French research institute, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. At first he was bewildered why anyone would show interest in his most discredited work and then, he remembered that critique. The French had called his efforts “an inane search into substantiated myths—like Atlantis or Lemuria.” While Fala may not have been allowed access to communicate with anyone, her captors were allowing her to read and search the Internet. The meaning of those eighteen new “hits” on that particular article on his Web site was unmistakable. The number eighteen when written in Hebrew letters means “life.” Fala was trying to tell him she was alive and being held in Lemuria, or more accurately in BIOT, on the island of Diego Garcia.

In Washington, meanwhile, the persistent probes by Joshua Krantz and Maggie Wagner had powerful people asking questions, and Senator Berger, Senator Bruce, and their cohorts on the Armed Services Committee were busy putting out a lot of little fires.

“Do Israelis eat barbecue?” Stumpf asked, poking at some glowing briquettes on an outdoor grill. There was a special aura to the beach at night—a mystic quiet painted with the perpetual whoosh of the surf and almost florescent foam lit by moonlight and a billion stars in a pitch-black sky.

“We invented barbecue.” Krantz smiled. “How do you think we cooked manna from heaven while wandering in the desert for forty years?”

The colonel got up to lend a hand. “Here, let me help. We call Israeli barbecue
mangal
. It is very popular, especially on our Independence Day. But we do not just cook hot dogs and hamburgers. We like kebabs, or
shipudim.”

Krantz looked around, found some small twigs, and cutting up a bit of chicken, some hot dogs, onions, and peppers, he skewered them and tossed them on the grill.

“We refer to this as
al ha’esh
. Means ‘on the fire.’”

“Ah ha’esh,”
Stumpf repeated, tossing a few burgers “on the fire.”

Maggie was lying on a blanket staring up at the stars. Krantz sat next to her.

“A dying man talked about the soldiers who killed him and said one word,
Maimun,”
Krantz began. “My Fala and I, we are archaeologists and of course we thought that it referred to the Maimun of the twelfth century, the fiercest warriors of Salah al-Din, called the Right Hand of God. But now we have learned that it is a little used Arab word that means ‘monkey.’ It did not make sense at the time. And then I found a piece of an ear, bitten off in battle, in the mouth of a dead man. And this ear has the DNA made by your father in his work with monkeys. Do you think your father has made monkey men?”

“No, of course not,” Maggie answered, but then she qualified herself. “I don’t think so. He wouldn’t do that. He used chimpanzee DNA to avoid the ethical concerns that people have about manipulating human genes. Out of tens of thousands of genes in the human genome, there are perhaps just fifty that are responsible for the major differences between humans and chimpanzees. All DNA is written in a language with an alphabet of just four letters, four peptides that some refer to in shorthand as GATTACA. And long strings of DNA, which act as code for the attributes of all creatures, can be altered by simply moving around Gs and As, Ts or Cs. Moving just one letter can have a huge effect. So, since chimps are so similar to us, one way to determine how a human gene works is to put it in a chimpanzee and see what happens. My father’s work determined which genes made the animals vulnerable to HIV and cancer, malaria and the flu; and what changes in those letters could make them less vulnerable.”

“But could he make a monkey man?”

“What are you talking about? A man with the body of a monkey? No. He put human genes into monkeys for research. He didn’t experiment with people. He wasn’t Dr. Moreau creating monsters. He didn’t put monkey genes into people. That kind of trans-species experimentation would be completely unethical.”

“But he won the Nobel Prize. He
could
have made a monkey man. And maybe that’s why they killed him. Because he did or because he wouldn’t.”

Nate Stumpf brought over dinner—kebobs and burgers.

“Leave her alone, willya? She told you he wouldn’t and that’s it. The burgers are ours. You can eat the chicken and veggies on a stick.”

“The soldiers that used those weapons you described—could they have been chimpanzees?” Maggie asked.

“They’d have to be pretty smart chimps. They attacked experienced, well-equipped, well-organized terrorist groups in their home bases. That requires troops that are disciplined and well trained, and, more important, able to communicate and adjust to changes in the field.”

Maggie gazed at the stars a moment in quiet thought and then she thought out loud.

“My father wrote a controversial article in the journal
Science
in January 2005. He said that among the few genes that establish the key differences between humans and chimps, the ones that affected hearing were the most significant. How humans hear affected the evolution of speech, and with speech, the evolution of the higher centers in the brain. My father found three genes in the human genome that were not present in chimps and that he believed dealt with the development of human hearing. The most significant was one he called alpha-tectorin. Alpha-tectorin is critical for the development of the fine bones and membranes of the inner ear. Although he wasn’t positive that that particular gene gave us the gift of speech, people with mutations of alpha-tectorin inherit deficits that make it difficult for them to speak and understand speech. My father hypothesized that if chimpanzees could adapt a gene to make alpha-tectorin, they would develop finer hearing mechanisms, and in time could evolve the ability to speak.”

Maggie and Krantz stared at each other a long moment. They were both thinking the same thing. And so was Stumpf.

“What the hell are they doing on Diego Garcia?” the detective mumbled, his mouth full of burger. “Maybe they
are
making monkey men.”

“I don’t know,” Maggie answered.

“And nobody wants us to know,” Krantz said.

“Well then, there’s only one way we’re gonna know,” Stumpf fired back. “We’ve gotta go see for ourselves. We can’t live with sand fleas forever.”

Joshua Krantz raked his fingers through his hair and clutched hard at the back of his head, as if trying to squeeze out the answer. “Diego Garcia is a secure military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It’s ten thousand miles from here. There are no commercial flights there. How could we get there?”

“We could sail there,” Stumpf suggested.

“They would see us coming from a hundred miles away. The island is like an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean. You don’t just sail up to an aircraft carrier.”

Krantz got up and walked to the water’s edge.

“He’s supposed to be a big-shot spy?” Stumpf remarked to Maggie. “My ass.”

“He’s an archaeologist,” Maggie corrected.

“You know, he and I are a lot alike. We’re both spies and archaeologists.”

“How’s that?”

“He searches through garbage that’s thousands of years old. I search through modern garbage. We’re both lookin’ for the truth.”

Maggie just shook her head. “His truth smells better.”

There was still a distance between them, Stumpf thought. But he was patient and hopeful that she would someday see him in a better light. Someday Maggie Wagner would see him as he saw himself—charming, intelligent, and a great lover.

Krantz walked back with a bit more vigor in his stride.

“It’s not moving,” he said.

“What’s not moving?” Maggie asked.

“Diego Garcia. It’s not an aircraft carrier. It’s an island. And it doesn’t move.”

“Man’s a fuckin’ genius,” Stumpf smirked.

“I read a lot about rich people in Hollywood. Do you know some of these rich people?”

“I know a lot of people,” Stumpf boasted. “Some of ’em are rich.”

“Do you know one who owns a Gulfstream?” Krantz pressed.

Stumpf was quiet and toed the sand. He didn’t like not knowing the answers. He particularly didn’t like looking stupid. Why did this Israeli colonel want one of those toaster-shaped all-aluminum trailers?

“Well?”

“What kind of fucking Gulfstream?” Stumpf roared back. When in doubt come back with a “fuck” and another question.

“A Gulfstream IV or V. A big private jet.”

Stumpf’s free fall was over. He was back in his realm.

“All the big shots in Hollywood own jets. It’s de rigueur. You’ve got to have a beach house in Malibu, a home screening room big as a movie theater, a trophy wife—and a big jet.”

“So?” Krantz queried. “Is this something you can do? To get us to meet one of these people?”

“Maybe,” Stumpf said with a distinct lack of confidence.

“Maybe yes? Or, maybe no?”

“Well,” he answered, clearly his throat uneasily, “I’ll have to use a little finesse.”

“What does that mean?” Krantz asked.

“It means I may have to kiss some ass.”

“Then kiss.”

T
he gate guards at Malibu Colony would not let Stumpf’s motor home pass.

“If you don’t have an invitation, we can’t let you in.”

“Sir, just please give him a call,” Stumpf insisted in his most saccharine manner. “He knows me. I’ll talk to him. He’ll let me in.”

The guards were all too familiar with stargazers, stalkers, and freaks trying to get close to celebrities. They would try anything—even just to hear the voice of their favorite star on an intercom or phone.

“Give them twenty bucks or something,” Maggie whispered.

Stumpf just shook his head. “This is Malibu Colony, not some fancy restaurant. Besides, a twenty won’t even get you in the door at Patina. That’s all right. I’ve got another idea.”

With the annoying beep-beep of his motor home moving in reverse, Stumpf backed out from the entry gates at Malibu Colony and headed up the Pacific Coast Highway. While they couldn’t get access to the gated community of Los Angeles’ celebrity elite through the front door, the back door was entirely open. California law required that the public have access to the beach. Stumpf found a place to park on a shoulder alongside the Coast Highway about a mile up. Reaching Malibu Colony’s beach would require a trek along meandering trails, down a steep cliff, along a narrow beach, and over some man-made obstacles—but it was access nevertheless.

When the trio arrived at the beachfront backyards of the homes of Hollywood’s elite, they found a path through a side yard and made their way to the street front. The house Nate Stumpf sought was a fifteen-thousand-square-foot Cape Cod-style estate owned by Sullivan Key. Sulli Key, as his fans knew him, was part Thai, part Puerto Rican, part African American, with exotically handsome features that seemed to appeal to all three genders. He had sold millions of records to teenyboppers in the early nineties, had parlayed that fame into an Emmy-winning TV series, and now was a big box office movie star. He had a flare for romantic comedies and was a current Oscar favorite.

“Just having his name attached to a script, gives the picture a green light,” Stumpf explained.

Krantz had seen the star once or twice on screens in Israel.

“He is not so funny dubbed in Hebrew,” Krantz remarked.

“I can believe that,” Stumpf, the movie critic, responded. “The comedy leap from English to a foreign language works better when there’s more slapstick. If they fall down a lot or do a lot of silly double takes, people laugh. Sulli Key goes for charm and funny lines, and most of the time, just translating witty words isn’t funny.”

“How do you know Sulli Key?” Maggie asked.

“I spied on him once.”

“You mean you worked for him?” Krantz asked.

“No. I spied on
him
. I worked for his wife’s attorney, who was trying to get something on him to jack up the divorce settlement.”

“Does he know that?”

“Sure. I took a lot of pictures. And sometimes I had to get in his face.”

“And,” Krantz said, somewhat dumbfounded, “that’s why you think he’s gonna let us into his house to talk with him.”

“You asked if I knew anybody with a jet. He’s got a jet. I’m gonna do the best I can.”

They came to a large iron gate, dramatically embossed with undersea scenes—dolphins, whales, and fish. The gate cost more than most people’s homes. With video surveillance cameras peering down on them, Stumpf rang the bell on the intercom. There was no answer. After annoyingly ringing for several more minutes, a tactic he was quite adept at, a voice finally came over the intercom.

“Who are you and what do you want?”