Habib stepped out from the cockpit after giving some final instructions to the pilot.
"If you'll follow me this way, Dr. Carlson." Habib led the way off the helipad and down a short set of steps. A uniformed guard stood outside the entrance door, rifle at his side. He nodded at the Prince and opened the door, securing it once they were inside.
Beyond lay a sun-drenched corridor, studded along both sides with open doors. The frantic hum of computers was audible as Carlson glanced curiously into the rooms they passed. They passed laboratories full of workstations and computer centers where a beehive of activity was in progress.
Turning a corner, they ascended a staircase and entered another corridor, noticeably wider and longer than the first. The rooms they now passed were larger. Carlson saw big wire cages with feeding tubes running along the side. One room had the door closed and Carlson could hear the screeching wail of an animal he couldn't recognize.
What the hell?
Carlson decided to venture a question. "Are you using test animals?"
"All in good time, Doctor. This way, please," Habib said. The Prince stopped before a doorway halfway down the hall. Emblazoned in red letters across the gray steel door, it said:
AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ONLY
"Go right in, Dr. Carlson. I think you'll find this
most interesting
."
T
HE SEQUENCING LAB WAS IN
the center of the building near a confluence of corridors. It was a large rectangular chamber with equipment covering one side and back-to-back computers lining the opposite wall.
After a good night's sleep, Habib had summoned Peter to the lab for a private meeting.
Peter Carlson looked around at the wealth of equipment. It filled him with anticipation at the thought of the discoveries that could lie ahead. The room literally bristled with state-of-the-art equipment, the likes of which he could previously only have dreamed. "What do you think, Dr. Carlson?"
Carlson gazed back at the Arab, noting the unnaturally white headdress. Everything about him put Carlson at ease. His eyes were kind, his voice calm, and he spoke with a determined intelligence that Carlson appreciated. He certainly put his money where his mouth is. This facility was proof of that.
"It is incredible," Carlson said. "But I have to ask, why me? There are at least ten other scientists researching the Thylacine. And many of them have better qualifications than I do."
"That's true, Dr. Carlson, but there's one qualification they lack. None of them had your grandfather as a mentor. And you're much too modest. You graduated at the top of your class at MIT."
He's done his research,
Carlson thought. "Thank you."
The Prince continued, "With your family ties, you are light years ahead of the others you allude to. Your grandfather must have passed on a wealth of information to you."
"Speaking of years, what is the time frame for completion?"
"Dr. Carlson. I think you know my dilemma. My son is dying, getting weaker every day. There are no other treatments left to try. Everything else has failed. This is his only hope. Period." Prince Habib placed his hand on Carlson's shoulder. "Doctor, I realize you think our agendas are different. You seek to bring back the Thylacine for science. I seek to bring it back to save my son. But really, we are both just hoping to harness its miraculous healing properties. I just need it... first." The Prince's eyes flashed. "I have spared no expense here. I need results as quickly as humanly possible. I am a patient man but that patience has necessary limits, as you can imagine. You have no choice when you have an ill child. I have the utmost trust in you, Dr. Carlson. Your grandfather and my father knew each other very well. My father told me many great things about him. As you are cut from the same cloth, I trust you are, like him, a man of character. Now, let us get on with the work to be done."
Carlson nodded. He understood the Prince needed results quickly. Still, the advanced timetable did not seem realistic. He bristled at being asked to bring about one of the most exciting scientific achievements of all time when God only knew how long he had to get the desired results.
Still, it would be an unimaginably historic discovery.
Despite the unknowns, or perhaps because of them, Carlson felt his heart accelerate at the very thought of being part of such an adventure. It
had
been his dream for years.
C
APTAIN
E
RIC
H
AMMOND SCANNED THE
horizon when he had heard the staccato sounds of a helicopter. He'd thought he'd heard choppers passing over the island for days, but now, for the first time, he saw a large Bell 260 with a distinctive white line emblazoned down the side of it. He shot up from his perch on a large rock and started waving his hands frantically. He was joined seconds later by Jack Baker and Tracy Mills. In a few moments, though, the helicopter was a small speck, its sound fading in the distance.
Bob Turner came running up to the group. "Did you see it? Did
they
see you?"
The look on their faces answered him.
Now, an hour after the fact, Baker said, "I knew I heard helicopters last week."
Hammond turned. "Why didn't you say something? I heard them, too."
"Thought it might be wishful thinking."
"We need to try and find the others," Hammond said. "I know they're somewhere on this island. I saw them after the crash. Maybe they've got a camp somewhere up the beach."
"Yeah, or they might be dead. That was a week ago." Baker said.
"We still have to try and find them. It's my obligation as captain of that aircraft."
"I understand. Let's get going then."
Tracy Mills felt a sudden surge of hope. "Maybe they found the transceiver. Who knows?"
D
EEPER INSIDE THE ISLAND
, Jennie Michelson, another surviving flight attendant, was shivering. Jennie, along with Flight Engineer Roger Sippolt and two other surviving passengers found themselves utterly alone. All four had wandered around searching for two days after the crash. They finally gave up hope of finding anyone else alive. Resigned to their fate, they set out to find the source of the helicopter they'd seen flying overhead.
Earlier in the day, the group, their clothes in tatters, made their way in pelting rain along a twelve-foot-high stretch of rocks to get back to the jungle. The beach trail had dead-ended into the cairn and there was no other way around.
Now, with a makeshift shelter of bamboo and banana leaves constructed at the jungle's edge, Jennie dried her clothes in front of the small fire that Roger Sippolt had started. The island seemed immense to her. It was mostly rock that had been tortured into knobs and fissures by eons of seismic movement and cataclysms, interrupted by a few hundred yards of lush jungle that bordered a white beach.
Roger stared into the flames. "Looks like the rain finally stopped."
"I heard that noise again," Jennie said.
"I did too. Monkeys," he guessed.
Jennie brightened. "I wish they'd show themselves. I could eat one right now." This elicited a smile from Roger, whose stone-face seldom changed expression.
Jennie had long blond hair and a quick intelligence that had helped boost the morale of the group. She watched as the two other survivors gathered around the fire, the look on their faces grave. Giving them a flight attendant's smile, she rose from the campfire and headed toward the lean-to. Already exhausted, she still managed to retain a bounce in her step. She'd be glad to get off this island and back to civilization. Rugged beautiful setting or not,
she wanted to go home.
She went over to the pack of supplies they'd salvaged and took out a mini-bottle of Beefeater gin. She gulped a quick swig and shoved it back in the pack. She could feel the burn of the liquid as she swirled it around in her mouth. She stretched out on a scrap of carpet and after a few minutes, the alcohol eased her into sleep.
Two hours later, she woke with a start. In her dreams, she had heard high-pitched screams like the sound of birds in distress.
What th...
She stood up and looked toward the fire, which had now burned down to dull embers. Maybe the others had captured an animal to eat. They had set various traps that night in hopes of catching something with meat on it. When she arrived at the jungle's edge, she saw it.
Something was horribly wrong.
Roger and the two others were under attack by a group of vicious creatures that seemed half man, half animal. The savage attackers were snarling, pulling their victims down and tearing at their flesh with claws and teeth.
One creature clutched a severed arm, which he was raising toward his mouth. Jennie screamed, and the creatures looked at her with red, luminous eyes. She wanted to vomit, but they lunged toward her and before she could move, two of them had her.
The last thing Jennie saw was a mass of tangled brown fur, and a huge set of teeth...
and... that... oh God... that... smell...
F
OG SHROUDED THE ENCAMPMENT
. Jack Baker awoke at half past six in the morning and climbed out of his sleeping bag, rubbing the swollen crescents under his eyes. He took up a position on a rocky outcropping near their shelter. He slowly chewed on a dry cereal bar, washing it down with the last of his water. The day before, the helicopter had disappeared over the high rim of a distant cliff. It was too foggy to see now.
A half-hour later with Hammond, Turner and Tracy Mills awake they stood in a clearing, enveloped in the morning heat and deep silence of the island. The fog had already lifted.
"We need to get moving," Jack said, pulling his fedora down to his eyebrows.
Jack Baker was thirty-four years old, raised in Seattle. He was lanky and strong with a thick mane of blonde hair. His body was sleek, the muscles long, his fingers thin and tapered. What Hammond and the others didn't know was that Baker was an expert in survival. As a former Special Forces Captain, Baker had to survive in some of the worst places on the planet, sometimes subsisting on grubs and snakes for weeks at a time. He had long since given up that life to pursue an advanced degree. Baker had no interest in testing his survival skills again.
Forget the past,
he told himself.
At the same time, he hadn't counted on his plane falling out of the sky, and this desolate situation had churned up his primitive side.
"Come on," Baker said, putting a hand on Hammond's shoulder, "let's go exploring."
They discovered a path and followed it until it split, a smaller trail branching off to their left. Though it was a slow incline with a tree line that blocked the sun, it was still too hot to be walking so far. Jack's shirt was soaked with sweat; his hair clung damply to his forehead. The mosquitoes were unrelenting, as was some type of small fly that seemed drawn to their perspiration. They swirled around them in clouds, giving off a high-pitched hum.
He'd give anything for some bug spray.
Hammond stopped to answer the call of nature and when he finished, he walked over to Baker.
"Hot as hell," he said.
Tracy just smiled and Baker nodded in agreement. Bob Turner sat under a banana tree and mopped his face with his shirttail. In a minute, they were walking again.
The path was a four-foot width of packed earth, with dense jungle on either side. Big-leafed plants, vines, and creepers hung all around them. It was dark beneath the canopy of the trees, making it difficult to see very far ahead, but Jack heard things rustling about in the undergrowth. Someone had recently traveled the path. They passed an empty Coke can, a flattened pack of candy. The wrapper had the airline logo on the lower corner.
"Looks like they came this way," Baker said, picking up the candy wrapper and handing it to Tracy.
She started to take it when a huge ant poked its head out of the paper, its sharp mandibles wide open.
"Jesus," she said, throwing the wrapper to the ground. "What the hell is that?"
"Bulldog ant," Jack answered. "Meanest ants on the planet. They'll bite the crap out of you. Been known to eat large mammals."
Hammond furrowed his brow. "You seem to know a lot about the jungle for a college professor."
Jack shrugged, "What can I tell you?"
Rounding a curve, the group descended down a long, gradual slope. A cliff ran alongside it, and then suddenly there was sunlight in front of them. It blinded the expedition after all that time in the shadows. They soon reached an open space and were midway across it when they saw it.
Tracy put her hand over her mouth. Captain Hammond and Bob Turner just stared. Jack, perhaps three steps behind them, felt his jaw go slack.
Twenty feet ahead were the remains of a massacre.
J
ACK
B
AKER
, C
APTAIN
H
AMMOND
, Bob Turner and Tracy Mills stared in shock at the scene before them.
"My God. What could have done this?" Hammond asked.
Baker walked over to the closest body and looked down. "If I had to guess, I'd say a big cat, maybe a Jaguar." Baker said. "Something with big claws and teeth."
Tracy knelt down and picked up a stick. She poked at a bloody piece of cloth. The square of stained cotton was a shirt pocket, still buttoned. When she flipped it over, she saw the logo of Trans Pacific and then the name underneath:
Sippolt.
The shock made her fall backwards. She stretched out her hand and gingerly picked up the scrap.
Hammond came over and reached out his hand to help her back to her feet. After she rose, he cupped her hand as he said softly, "I'm sorry, Tracy."
Tracy Mills and Roger Sippolt had been an item since they began working together two years earlier. She was a flight attendant, new to this airline and he, the flight engineer on her first hop. Their paths crossed frequently, and they fell in a relationship as naturally as if was their destiny. Recently, this progressed to talk of marriage, and they'd spent the previous week making plans at an exclusive resort in Tahiti, before returning to London for this fateful flight.