Forty-Eight X (29 page)

“We need to speak to Mr. Key.”

“He’s not home. Please leave before we call Security.”

“He’s home. I know he’s there. Tell him it’s Nate Stumpf. I used to work for Gennie, his ex-wife. His ex-wife, uh, a couple back.”

After a few more minutes, the intercom came alive again.

“Mr. Key is not home at this time. We have called Colony Security. I suggest you leave immediately.”

“Now what?” Maggie asked.

“Colonel, bend down. Let me climb up on your shoulders,” Stumpf commanded.

“What?”

“Just do it. Bend down. Come on.”

Krantz reluctantly crouched down, and Stumpf piggybacked on his shoulders.

“Get me over to the camera.”

Krantz waddled over toward the surveillance camera. Stump pulled a photo from his pocket and held it up to the camera. A golf cart with Malibu Security was just turning the corner when the great electronic gates began to slowly part.

Two black women wearing colorful bare-midriff saris opened the front door. They were supermodel gorgeous—both over six feet, with exquisite figures, large breasts, wearing heavy makeup. They said nothing but invited them to sit in the cavernous living room with picture windows overlooking the beach.

“They’re not women,” Stumpf whispered conspiratorially to Krantz. “They’re transvestites.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve lived in this town all my life. Telling the difference between pricks and pussies is second nature to me.”

Krantz walked about the living room admiring the furnishings and artwork.

“It is like a museum in here,” he remarked.

“This guy has so much fucking money, he doesn’t know what to do with it,” Stumpf said, shaking his head in chagrin. “Look at that scribble over there. A kindergartener could do better.”

“That’s a Picasso,” Krantz said.

“What was the picture you held up?” Maggie asked.

“He is a homosexual,” Krantz surmised. “You have compromising pictures of Sulli Key.”

“Of course, I do. But nobody in Hollywood cares if he’s a fudge packer. You’ve got to be a fag—or at least pretend to be a little gay—to succeed in this town anyway.”

“So, what enticed him to let us in?” Maggie asked.

Stumpf was hesitant to reply. He tried to avoid Krantz’s gaze.

“Show me the picture,” Krantz asked.

Stumpf stuffed the photo deep into his pocket and moved away from Krantz, to the other side of the vast living room.

“What’s the big deal?” Maggie said. “Show him the picture.”

Stumpf hesitated. Then, morphing into his most charming smile, he turned to Krantz.

“I showed him pictures of you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I took naked pictures of you. In the shower, on the beach—I thought they might come in handy someday.”

“What?” Krantz said, astonished, moving closer to the impudent detective. “You took naked photos of me?”

“It’s no big deal. I take pictures. That’s my job.”

“You want me to be with a homosexual?”

“No. No. I just wanted to get us in to talk. And hey, what’s the big deal if you have to flirt a little bit, if it gets you closer to the love of your life?”

Krantz came toe-to-toe with Stumpf.

“If he tries to kiss me, I am going to kill him. No, no, no. I am going to kill you.”

“Hey, back off,” Stumpf replied defensively, demonstrating with every ridiculous flailing imitation karate motion he could conjure. “I can defend myself.”

Retired Israeli Colonel Joshua Krantz made a single fleeting movement with the side of his hand,
krav maga
, or “contact combat” it was called, and Nate Stumpf found himself sprawled on the floor panting.

“You didn’t need to do that!” Maggie pounced back, kneeling down to help the detective.

“Hey, don’t forget, don’t forget,” Stumpf said, looking up, still winded, “Mr. Big Shot Spy—”

“What?” Krantz said, fed up.

Nate Stumpf put an end to the conversation by bringing home the most important point. “Sulli Key,” he said, “he’s got one of them Gulf Creek jets.”

I
n the week that Fala had been on the island, Colonel McGraw had been a frequent companion. Except for the serenity of living on a beach, she found Diego Garcia a rather boring place. You could hike around the entire island in a single day. She found McGraw’s company enjoyable—picnicking, swimming, and, of course, discussing politics, archaeology, and genetics. She was learning a lot about genetics. Dr. Jaymes had given her free rein of the research facilities, and she had a lot of questions.

Everyone on the island had a mission. McGraw’s mission was to train his army of chimps. And the biotech workers on the island were ecstatic with their life. Their social agenda with their peers was full. And professionally, every day brought the gossip of a new breakthrough. They had given up an academic world of backbiting for limited research dollars in exchange for the incredible freedom of having whatever they needed to accomplish a task whenever they wanted it. The answer to their requests was never, “Why do you need that?” but “How soon do you need it?” Fala also had a mission. She was probing for a way to get off the island. Except for a few select military officers, everyone on the island had contracted to stay there for at least three years. Flights or sailings from the island were few and well secured. The research facility had a world-class library, which, of course, required access to information available on the Internet. She could search out any resource of interest. But the system blocked anyone from unauthorized communication. She did have one idea, though. She serially accessed Joshua Krantz’s Web site. She didn’t know if he would look at it and, even if he did, whether or not he would understand her message. It was unlikely.

After a week of amiable chats and picnics on the beach, McGraw invited her for dinner at his home. His was one of a complex of prefab bungalows set up for officers. The “neighborhood” fronted the beach. But this was a small island; almost every structure fronted a beach. McGraw had only one request.

“Please, do not wear perfume.”

It was a strange request. They had supplied her with a wardrobe and plenty of cosmetics. She often wore perfume. She enjoyed the scents. But perhaps the colonel liked his women unadorned. She wore a simple white summer dress with spaghetti straps. She wore no makeup and no perfume.

McGraw gave his guest a polite kiss on the cheek when she arrived and invited her to sit at a table on a small enclosed patio. A center tapered candle was lit. There were two glasses, an open bottle of wine, and one of Perrier.

“This is an Australian Shiraz,” he said. “It’s very good. I didn’t know if being Muslim, you would drink with me, so I have some water if you want.”

“No, I love wine.”

Link poured for each of them.

“I’m glad you’re not religious. I didn’t want it to be a problem.”

“Oh, I believe I am religious.”

“Really?”

“I believe Mohammad did and said many good things, just as did Jesus. But people who came after the Prophet sometimes made his words into something different. There were very few things that the Prophet called
haram
, that which is forbidden. Of course, swine meat is one of them—”

“We’re having chicken,” McGraw smiled.

“But I believe wine is wonderful.”

McGraw raised his glass. “Then to your health—and happiness,” he toasted.

“And to yours.”

“I’ve seen them flog people in Pakistan for drinking wine,” he said.

“I have seen that, too. But wine—and I have read the Koran, it does not forbid wine. ‘Draw not near unto prayer when you are drunken,’ it says. It doesn’t forbid wine; it forbids intemperance. It is just that over the centuries the mullahs have made it a sin. Eighty lashes is the standard punishment for drinking a glass of wine. But nowhere in the Koran is such a punishment prescribed. They flog people for drinking alcohol, but in Pakistan alone there are two million drug addicts. You can’t sell alcohol there, but you can buy hashish or heroin right on the streets. The stench of urine on the streets there is from addicts, not drunks.”

“I know,” McGraw began, “that you abhor what we’re doing.”

“And what is that?”

“Training animals to kill.”

“I don’t approve of training men to kill, either.”

“You should know I have discovered other benefits to our research.”

“And what is that?”

McGraw reached under his seat and retrieved a dinner bell. He rang it gently three times. A moment later two chimpanzees came out with dinner plates in their hands. As are all animals, McGraw’s chimps were naturally naked, unclothed—except for white bow ties that McGraw had placed about their necks for a formal touch.

“You trained them to be waiters?”

“It wasn’t very hard. They’re very bright. They pick up tasks quite quickly.”

The chimps carefully set dinner plates in front of their guests, and for just a brief moment Fala made eye contact with her waiter. The animal had the classic high-sloped forehead and great overriding arched brow with the close-set eyes of his species. But there was also an electricity in his gaze, Fala thought, almost as if there was—what was she thinking?—a soul behind those eyes. She flashed back at memories of her earliest studies as a young archaeologist.

The chimps stepped back, like diligent waiters, as their “guests” began to dine.

“What are you thinking?” McGraw asked.

“I was just remembering an internship I did with a French paleontologist during my early training in the nineties. We were at a dig in the Algarve, in the south of Portugal, where he thought he had found remains of Spanish sailors from the 1500s. The men had short, sturdy skeletons with small skulls, prominent arched brows, and coarse features. Not unlike your chimpanzees. But they weren’t sixteenth-century sailors. It wasn’t until we did carbon dating that we determined the skeletons were those of Neanderthals.

“Neanderthals are classified as a separate species. They disappeared about thirty-five thousand years ago. The first human fossil remains—the first homo sapiens—were found in Africa and date from about one hundred thousand years ago. So, the Neanderthals and modern humans lived together for thousands of years. The guy I worked with, and several other paleontologists, believe that Neanderthals—a not too distant relative of the chimpanzee—interbred with the earliest humans. And I think it’s obvious that a lot of people today still have those same prominent features—sloping forehead; heavy brows; stocky, big-boned physiques.”

“Yeah, I know a few modern-day Neanderthals,” McGraw said cynically.

“I was just thinking how chimp faces look a lot like the Neanderthals.”

Fala caught the glimpse of a smile from her “waiter” and reflexively she smiled back.

“For centuries,” Fala mused, “the cliché admonishing bad human behavior has been ‘don’t act like an ape.’ How ironic is it to see apes act like men… gentlemen.”

Fala took a taste of her dinner. “This is very good.”

“You’re surprised?”

“Don’t tell me they cook, as well?”

“My chimps? No. At least not yet. I cooked.”

“Well, I figured you could open a can. But this is a surprise.”

“I’m a soldier with a lot of talents—besides culinary.”

“And what would those be?”

“We’ll have to see where the night takes us. You look very beautiful, by the way.”

“Oh, and now it starts. Flattery is one of your talents. And maybe seduction?”

“Is that
haram?”

“I gather you prefer your women plain. No makeup, no perfume.”

“Is that what you think?”

“‘No perfume’ was the only request you made of me for tonight.”

“I love beautiful women—and makeup and perfume just enhances their beauty. Nothing wrong with that.”

Without asking, one of the chimp waiters moved forward and filled each of their wineglasses again. Fala was surprised. Even McGraw seemed a little taken aback.

“The scientists here have been working a decade to enhance the genetic capabilities of these chimps,” McGraw began explaining. “But it’s been millions of years since chimps and humans parted on the evolutionary tree, and during that time they developed different survival mechanisms from us. We have no interest in removing those attributes. You see, while we don’t rely on smell to survive, chimps do—in detecting enemies, seeking out food, choosing a mate. In a way, I think we’ve been robbed of a wonderful sense. I’ve been told my chimps have thirty percent more genes dedicated to the sense of smell than we have. So, it’s not your perfume I didn’t want. I just felt that this evening was not the time to provide them with extra olfactory stimulation. I think you’ve already seen how some visual stimulation can excite them.”

Fala recalled their first day cavorting in the water and watching the chimps onshore playing with “red” objects. She blushed with that enlightenment.

The evening progressed with more wine, pleasant conversation, and finally something she knew was
haram
. The punishment for this, she thought, would be stoning.

D
uring the first weeks and months that McGraw had assumed his unusual command, General Shell had been a daily visitor to his encampment, surveying his successes, his failures, his skills. And when progressively more political duties took him away, McGraw still exchanged daily reports and received useful suggestions from his general, and his patron. And he remained quite aware that this was the one duty that kept him out of Leavenworth prison.

When he had only six chimps in his command, and the first had reached maturity after years of research, genetic manipulation, and breeding, he had four enlisted men assisting him as handlers. They provided for the chimpanzees’ shelter and feeding, and they performed the unpleasant tasks of cleaning up their toilet. When his troops reached one hundred, he still had those same four enlisted men. He didn’t need any more. And now, with a force of nearly two companies, his human crew had little work to do at all. His chimpanzees had their own chain of command. McGraw had given the brightest of them rank. And the chimps trained each other in the tasks he had taught them. There was one recent element in their training that McGraw had wanted to communicate with General Shell. The general, however, was just too preoccupied lately. He had pressing business in Washington. McGraw put his comments in a report and wondered if the general was even reading them anymore. He wrote: