The God Gene: A Novel Page 10

  “That and his flat affect and atonal speech. You said he never had any friends.”

  “His chatter could drive you crazy at times. He didn’t seem to need friends. He built a computer and he’d spend all his time making lists on it.”

  “Of what?”

  “Who knows? He wouldn’t let anybody see.”

  “Did he have any obsessive interests as a kid?”

  “Oh, hell, did he ever. A mania for classifying things. Our sister didn’t have a pet cat, she had a…” Rick sifted his memory for the terms. “She had a Felis catus. And he’d recite the subfamily and family and order and class. Somebody wouldn’t be walking a dog, they’d be walking a Canis lupus familiaris and so on.”

  “You have a good memory.”

  Rick shook his head. “I can’t not remember. He grew out of it after a while, but as a kid, every time he saw Cheryl’s cat or a dog, or even a freaking rose in the garden, he’d go through its classifications.”

  “Back when you worshipped him?”

  Rick sighed. “Yeah. I thought he was so smart, thought he was so cool for trying to teach me. But he wasn’t. He was just reciting what he knew. He’d have done the same if I were miles away.”

  “That jibes with his biographical sketch in his book: expert in evolutionary taxonomy. Which means he put his obsession to work for him.”

  Keith … on the autism spectrum … Asperger’s syndrome …

  Rick thought about that as he drove. He didn’t know much about—what had Laura called it?—developmental disorders, but it explained a lot. He’d gone from admiring Keith to almost hating him when he’d concluded his older brother was rejecting him because Rick wasn’t smart enough to keep up with him. But the truth was more like Keith had been incapable of including him in his life.

  That changed everything, didn’t it. Keith hadn’t rejected him … Keith had barely known he was there.

  A little knife of guilt twisted its blade inside him. All those years of bad feelings about a guy who couldn’t help it.

  Ah, well. The past is past and what’s done is done. None of that offered answers as to where Keith was now.

  “All this has got me rethinking my original position even more,” Laura said.

  Rick snapped back to the here and now. “What position?”

  “That your brother ran off. Everything pointed to a man who was planning to change his life—liquidating assets, moving the money around, shredding his computer files. It all seemed so premeditated and purposeful. But after seeing that interview…”

  “How’s that change things?”

  “People on the autism spectrum, especially the high-functioning ones, tend to like their daily routines and familiar surroundings.”

  “But then how come every time you turn around you seem to hear about an autistic kid wandering off?”

  “The ‘elopers’ tend to be low-functioning. They get it into their head that they want a donut or a swim or whatever and, because they’re nonverbal, they simply head out the door looking for a bakery or a swimming pool. They fully intend to return, but they get lost so easily.”

  Rick found himself nodding. “Yeah, from the look of things, Keith’s apartment was definitely a comfort zone.”

  “Right. You saw how he’d arranged his photos. Your brother is very high-functioning and that apartment means something to him. I can see him leaving it for research trips, knowing he’d return, but I can’t see him voluntarily giving it up altogether.”

  Rick couldn’t see it either. “But there’s the matter of shredding his drives.”

  “As you said, if he was being ‘backed into something’ or pressured about it, he might want to erase all trace of it.”

  “Or maybe someone else wanted all trace of his involvement with Keith erased and did it after he disappeared. Either way, I’ve got a feeling that little monkey’s right in the middle of it all.”

  Laura’s expression went into mock shock. “What? You agree with your mother?”

  “Even a stopped watch is right twice a day. And I never underestimate a woman’s intuition.”

  Laura leaned back and stared out at the road. “If only we could learn how it died, I think we’d be a lot closer to finding out what happened to your brother.”

  “Maybe the people he worked with will know.”

  Laura nodded. “Maybe. Let’s just hope Keith didn’t suffer the same fate.”

  Rick shook his head. “Hey, you’re supposed to be the optimistic half.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means you believe we live in the best possible world.”

  “And you…?”

  Rick said, “As the pessimist half, I’m afraid you’re right.”

  But he knew what she meant. After this long without a peep from Keith, the likelihood of a happy ending had become vanishingly small.

  THEN

  Monday, May 16

  THE MOZAMBIQUE CHANNEL

  From his position behind the wheel, Amaury Laffite watched his passenger as the Sorcière des Mers chugged along at a steady six knots through the western expanse of the channel, approximately six hundred miles from their starting point in Maputo and one hundred miles west of Belo Tsiribihina on the Madagascar coast. Straight ahead in the prow, Marten Jeukens stood in his customary stance: leaning against the rail with binoculars glued to his eyes as he scanned from port to starboard and back again, over and over.

  Amaury had told him it wasn’t necessary—he had his radar dome directly overhead on the wheelhouse roof, doing the same thing, only better. He’d told him his radar would detect an island before his eyes could, but the stubborn Afrikaner could not be dissuaded.

  The first day out had been uncharacteristically rough and Jeukens had spent much of it hanging over the stern puking his breakfast into the channel. But he never complained and by nightfall his stomach had calmed enough to allow him a light dinner.

  Amaury piloted the Sorcière the first hundred miles or so to move them out of the busiest shipping lanes, then let Jeukens take a turn at the helm while he napped. For sixty hours they ran night and day at eight knots on a northeastward course through mostly empty water, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn along the way. The Afrikaner soon gained his sea legs and seemed comfortable above and belowdecks.

  He did not prove a very communicative travel companion, except to complain about the heat. Though he revealed little about himself, Amaury managed to learn that he hailed from the temperate climes of Cape Town, which would explain his intolerance of the tropical heat here. Standoffish as he was, Jeukens somehow managed to draw out Amaury’s life story—the various enterprises, legal and not-so-legal, he’d engaged in during his checkered life, even the wife and daughter he’d left in Oran.

  “Oran?” Jeukens had said. “Albert Camus, the famous French writer, set La Peste, perhaps his greatest novel, in Oran.”

  “Never heard of him,” Amaury said.

  He had dropped out of school early—life on the Marseilles docks was so much more interesting—and did not care much for books.

  “He espoused absurdism which, I am sure, is something else you’ve never heard of—or would have any interest in.”

  He thinks I am a dullard, Amaury thought. Just because I do not read books does not mean I am stupid.

  “One never knows, monsieur. Try me. We have plenty of time.”

  Jeukens shrugged. “There’s not much to it, really. Camus thought it’s natural for humans to look for meaning in life; the absurdity comes when we realize there is no meaning in life.”

  “You sound as if you disagree.”

  “Oh, I agree wholeheartedly with the absurdity. There is a group in the United States called ‘Black Lives Matter.’ The harsh reality is that no lives matter.”

  Amaury’s feeling that he was destined for something greater … was that just a delusion?

  “This does not seem to me a philosophy that fills one with hope and joy, monsieur.”

  “Well, hope a
nd joy are illusions. Camus’s mistake was in thinking that humans actually bother to look for meaning in life. The vast majority of them do not. They simply exist moment to moment—like you. After all, didn’t you tell me you lived for profit and pleasure?”

  “I enjoy them,” Amaury said, offended. “But I do not live solely for them.” Or did he?

  “I diverge from Camus in that I believe we can and must create a purpose in life. Our lives do not matter to the universe, but we can make them matter to ourselves.”

  “The ‘higher purpose’ you mentioned in the bar.”

  “Yes! I have found mine—a way to make my life matter.”

  “Your mission for civilization … to save the Giordano Brunos of the world.”

  “Exactly!”

  “But how exactly will you do this?”

  “That is my secret. Find your own mission.”

  Well, the crazy Afrikaner may have found his higher purpose, but together they had not found the island. Perhaps today, their fourth day out, would prove lucky. Amaury couldn’t complain about the weather. The morning had broken clear and calm, with only a hint of haze on the limitless horizon.

  On the bow, Jeukens lowered the glasses. They swung from the cord around his neck as he turned and made his way aft. Amaury thought he might be headed to the galley for a bite of lunch, but instead of going below, he climbed to the wheelhouse.

  Now what?

  “We’ve worked this area to death,” he said, scratching his beard. “I want to try north.”

  Amaury repressed a sigh. They hadn’t worked it to death, not nearly. This was not the first time they’d had this conversation. Very well, once again …

  He set the autopilot for due south and motioned Jeukens to the map table. He tapped a spot to the east of Belo Tsiribihina where the Madagascar coast curved inward.

  “The Mozambique Channel is well traveled, especially the shipping lanes northward from Durban to India and the Arab countries. Those lanes run along the western side—which is why so many fall victim to the Somali pirates. Here on the Madagascar side, the area we have been exploring, is the least traveled.”

  “So you’ve said. But we’ve been exploring it up and down with no results. We haven’t seen a thing since those barren atolls we passed on the way in.”

  He was referring to Île Europa and Bassas da India, two of the Scattered Islands well known to anyone who sailed the southern reaches of the channel. The latter was dangerous because with every high tide it disappeared below the surface.

  “We’ve barely scratched the surface.” He moved his finger north on the map. “If we go north … up here … see how the Madagascar and Mozambique coastlines both belly into the channel. It’s narrowest there, and the shipping lanes all crowd together. Any islands up that way, no matter how small, have been spotted and charted.”

  Jeukens’s expression was grim as he tugged off his slouch hat and rubbed a hand over his pale bald pate. “As one of your countrymen said, ‘One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.’”

  Yet another quote!

  “Which countryman would that be?”

  “André Gide.”

  “But of course,” Amaury said, though he had no idea who that was.

  The Afrikaner’s eyes narrowed. “Are you leading me on a fool’s errand?”

  “Not at all,” Amaury said quickly. He’d seen this look before. “It is too early to quit this area. We have ten thousand square miles where a tiny island might hide.” He pointed out the salt-streaked port window. “Look out there. We are a hundred miles from the coast but the horizon is only a few miles away. There is so much yet to see.”

  If the island existed, Amaury wanted to find it as much as Jeukens—perhaps even more. A steady supply of those blue-eyed monkeys would put him on Easy Street. If he started breeding them, perhaps he could even retire.

  After squinting through the glass, Jeukens abruptly yanked open the door and hurried down to the main deck where he raised his binoculars toward the east.

  “What is it?” Amaury called. “Do you see something?”

  Jeukens lowered the glasses with a slow, disappointed shake of his head.

  “No … just a little cloud on the horizon.”

  Amaury stepped outside and looked up at the pristine blue of the sky, then toward the horizon. He could see nothing. Jeukens had been hogging the Sorcière’s field glasses, so he stepped back inside and opened the cabinet where he kept his rifle—a .30-30 Marlin. He unzipped the padded cloth case and removed the Nikon 2-7 × 32mm scope from the rail atop the receiver housing. He stepped outside and focused on the horizon. He could just make out a puff of white along the line where the darker blue below met the lighter blue above.

  Amaury felt a tingle of excitement.

  “You know, mon ami … we are going to investigate that.”

  “A cloud?”

  “Warm moist air rises from an island as the day heats up, and condenses in the cooler air above it. Could be nothing, but we are not going to ignore it.”

  He returned to the wheelhouse and immediately checked his radar. No signal, but that meant nothing, even though he had the gain already set to max. His radar was old and wide-beamed, and not very sensitive. He had little need for a more sensitive unit—or a fly bridge or a radar arch, which would have increased its range—because he used it only at night or in fog or rain, to let him know if a freighter or other large craft was near. But even if a land mass was causing that cloud, no radar, no matter how narrow the beam, would pick it up if it lay below the horizon.

  He began turning the Sorcière to port. By the time they were pointed east, Jeukens was back on the prow with his glasses. Amaury opened the throttle and the cruiser’s speed rose to nine knots. He’d been running at lower speeds to conserve fuel, but this was excuse enough to waste a little.

  The tingle in his gut increased as a green glow began to grow at the top of the black radar screen. Possibly a container ship but he couldn’t imagine what one would be doing this far east in the channel. Besides, this appeared stationary. Container ships could run a quarter mile in length these days, but they wouldn’t have their own pet cloud.

  Had to be an island. Eventually his passenger’s binoculars saw it too. Without turning, Jeukens raised his fist with a thumb up.

  I’m way ahead of you.

  An island, a tiny one not on his maps. But was it the one they were looking for? Did the object of their search even exist?

  Jeukens joined him in the wheelhouse. “It looks volcanic, don’t you think?”

  “I do not have the advantage of your binoculars, but I believe that a safe assumption. You saw Bassas da India—that atoll is volcanic, not coral. Its base is thousands of feet below the surface. I would not be surprised if what we see ahead of us is similar.”

  Less than half an hour later Amaury was able to throttle back and coast toward a steep, sheer, dark wall studded with ferns and vines and other greenery clinging to its surface. It rose to a uniform height, perhaps twenty feet above the waves. A narrow beach, little more than a strip of sand, supported an array of palms. Gulls and terns wheeled above.

  “Most definitely volcanic,” he said.

  Jeukens seemed almost frantic. “How do we get to the top? Climb?”

  “I doubt that will be necessary. I am sure we will find a break in the wall. Let’s take a tour, shall we?”

  He turned on his depth sounder—he didn’t want to run aground on some sneaky underwater reef jutting from the island—and throttled up, spinning the wheel to port and taking them northward at four knots. The face there was just as sheer but had less vegetation, clearly revealing a volcanic origin. The island proved slightly oval. He guessed its diameter at roughly half a mile.

  But nowhere did they find a break in the wall.

  “Most unfortunate,” Amaury said as they returned to their starting place.

  He idled the engine and the Sorcière i
mmediately began drifting south in the current. It seemed especially strong here.

  “Pull in and we’ll go ashore,” Jeukens said.

  “‘Pull in’?” Amaury had to laugh. “This is not a car. You cannot just ‘pull in’ to the curb.”

  “Well, then, drop anchor or whatever you do. I want to see if we can climb that wall.”

  “You expect to see a horde of your little monkeys?”

  “I have no idea what to expect up top. It could be a barren plateau. Or the wall could be the rim of a caldera filled with life. If it’s the first, we keep on searching. If it’s the second…”

  “Then we look around to see if we can spot one of your little friends.”

  Please, God, Amaury thought. Let there be a caldera and let it be crowded with them.

  “At least get closer.”

  Keeping an eye on the depth sounder, Amaury put the engine in forward. The Sorcière slowly reversed her drift and began to chug east. The gauge was giving him no readings, which meant the seabed was far down, beyond its range.

  As the boat inched toward the island, Jeukens stepped out onto the deck and lifted his glasses to scan the bushes and small trees clinging to the rock. Suddenly he stiffened and leaned over the railing.

  “What is it?”

  “See that queen palm?” Jeukens started kicking off his shoes. “I saw something move in it.”

  “What are you doing?”

  The Afrikaner said nothing as he stripped down to boxer shorts.

  “Let me get closer!” Amaury shouted. “The current—!”

  Without a word Jeukens leaped in. Not a natural swimmer—about as graceful as his clumsy leap—but his skinny arms stroked him to the beach about thirty feet downstream from the tree he had indicated.

  Pulling himself up on the ribbon of shore, he shook himself off and made his way toward the palm. He stepped gingerly with his bare feet on the rough surface. About ten feet from the tree he stopped. His bald head gleamed in the sunlight as he crouched and peered into the palm’s gently waving fronds, leaning this way and that for a better view.

  Suddenly something small and furry with a long tail leaped from the tree and grabbed hold of the wall. Amaury watched it scurry up the rocky surface and disappear over the top. He couldn’t tell if it was one of the creatures they had come looking for, but when he saw Jeukens shaking triumphant fists in the air, he knew.