It remains only to say that the views expressed in this novel are mine, not theirs, and to remind the reader that a century and a half after Darwin, nearly all positions on evolution remain strongly contended, and fiercely debated.

Guitierrez was a quiet, bearded American of thirty-six, a field biologist who had lived for the last eight years in Costa Rica. He had originally come to study toucan speciation in the rain forest, but stayed on as a consultant to the Reserva Biológica de Carara, the national park in the north. He clicked the radio mike and said to the pilot, “How much farther?”

“Five minutes, Señor Guitierrez.”

Guitierrez turned and said, “It won’t be long now.” But the tall man folded up in the back seat of the helicopter didn’t answer, or even acknowledge that he had been spoken to. He merely sat, with his hand on his chin, and stared frowning out the window.

Richard Levine wore sun-faded field khakis, and an Australian slouch hat pushed low over his head. A battered pair of binoculars hung around his neck. But despite his rugged appearance, Levine conveyed an air of scholarly absorption. Behind his wire-frame spectacles, his features were sharp, his expression intense and critical as he looked out the window.

“What is this place?”

“It’s called Rojas.”

“So we’re far south?”

“Yes. Only about fifty miles from the border with Panama.”

Levine stared at the jungle. “I don’t see any roads,” he said. “How was the thing found?”

“Couple of campers,” Guitierrez said. “They came in by boat, landed on the beach.”

“When was that?”

“Yesterday. They took one look at the thing, and ran like hell.”

Levine nodded. With his long limbs folded up, his hands tucked under his chin, he looked like a praying mantis. That had been his nickname in graduate school: in part because of his appearance—and in part because of his tendency to bite off the head of anyone who disagreed with him.

Guitierrez said, “Been to Costa Rica before?”

“No. First time,” Levine said. And then he gave an irritable wave of his hand, as if he didn’t want to be bothered with small talk.

Guitierrez smiled. After all these years, Levine had not changed at all. He was still one of the most brilliant and irritating men in science. The two had been fellow graduate students at Yale, until Levine quit the doctoral program to get his degree in comparative zoology instead. Levine announced he had no interest in the kind of contemporary field research that so attracted Guitierrez. With characteristic contempt, he had once described Guitierrez’s work as “collecting parrot crap from around the world.”

The truth was that Levine—brilliant and fastidious—was drawn to the past, to the world that no longer existed. And he studied this world with obsessive intensity. He was famous for his photographic memory, his arrogance, his sharp tongue, and the unconcealed pleasure he took in pointing out the errors of colleagues. As a colleague once said, “Levine never forgets a bone—and he never lets you forget it, either.”

Field researchers disliked Levine, and he returned the sentiment. He was at heart a man of detail, a cataloguer of animal life, and he was happiest poring over museum collections, reassigning species, rearranging display skeletons. He disliked the dust and inconvenience of life in the field. Given his choice, Levine would never leave the museum. But it was his fate to live in the greatest period of discovery in the history of paleontology. The number of known species of dinosaurs had doubled in the last twenty years, and new species were now being described at the rate of one every seven weeks. Thus Levine’s worldwide reputation forced him to continually travel around the world, inspecting new finds, and rendering his expert opinion to researchers who were annoyed to admit that they needed it.

“Where’d you come from?” Guitierrez asked him.

“Mongolia,” Levine said. “I was at the Flaming Cliffs, in the Gobi Desert, three hours out of Ulan Bator.”

“Oh? What’s there?”

“John Roxton’s got a dig. He found an incomplete skeleton he thought might be a new species of Velociraptor, and wanted me to have a look.”

“And?”

Levine shrugged. “Roxton never really did know anatomy. He’s an enthusiastic fund-raiser, but if he actually uncovers something, he’s incompetent to proceed.”

“You told him that?”

“Why not? It’s the truth.”

“And the skeleton?”

“The skeleton wasn’t a raptor at all,” Levine said. “Metatarsals all wrong, pubis too ventral, ischium lacking a proper obturator, and the long bones much too light. As for the skull . . .” He rolled his eyes. “The palatal’s too thick, antorbital fenestrae too rostral, distal carina too small—oh, it goes on and on. And the trenchant ungual’s hardly present. So there we are. I don’t know what Roxton could have been thinking. I suspect he actually has a subspecies of Troodon, though I haven’t decided for sure.”

“Troodon?” Guitierrez said.

“Small Cretaceous carnivore—two meters from pes to acetabulum. In point of fact, a rather ordinary theropod. And Roxton’s find wasn’t a particularly interesting example. Although there was one curious detail. The material included an integumental artifact—an imprint of the dinosaur’s skin. That in itself is not rare. There are perhaps a dozen good skin impressions obtained so far, mostly among the Hadrosauridae. But nothing like this. Because it was clear to me that this animal’s skin had some very unusual characteristics not previously suspected in dinosaurs—”

“Señores,” the pilot said, interrupting them, “Juan Fernández Bay is ahead.”

Levine said, “Circle it first, can we?”

Levine looked out the window, his expression intense again, the conversation forgotten. They were flying over jungle that extended up into the hills for miles, as far as they could see. The helicopter banked, circling the beach.

“There it is now,” Guitierrez said, pointing out the window.

“Who’s been here?” Levine said, with a sigh.

“Public Health Service people came out earlier today.”

“Did they do anything?” he said. “They touch it, disturb it in any way?”

“I can’t say,” Guitierrez said.

“The Public Health Service,” Levine repeated, shaking his head. “What do they know? You should never have let them near it, Marty.”

“Hey,” Guitierrez said. “I don’t run this country. I did the best I could. They wanted to destroy it before you even got here. At least I managed to keep it intact until you arrived. Although I don’t know how long they’ll wait.”

“Then we’d better get started,” Levine said. He pressed the button on his mike. “Why are we still circling? We’re losing light. Get down on the beach now. I want to see this thing first-hand.”

He paused a few yards from the creature, and took out his camera. Immediately, the pilot of the helicopter came up alongside him, pushing his hand down. “No permitido.”

“What?”

“I am sorry, señor. No pictures are allowed.”

“Why the hell not?” Levine said. He turned to Guitierrez, who was trotting down the beach toward them. “Marty, why no pictures? This could be an important—”

“No pictures,” the pilot said again, and he pulled the camera out of Levine’s hand.

“Marty, this is crazy.”

“Just go ahead and make your examination,” Guitierrez said, and then he began speaking in Spanish to the pilot, who answered sharply and angrily, waving his hands.

Levine watched a moment, then turned away. The hell with this, he thought. They could argue forever. He hurried forward, breathing through his mouth. The odor became much stronger as he approached it. Although the carcass was large he noticed there were no birds, rats, or other scavengers feeding on it. There were only flies—flies so dense they covered the skin, and obscured the outline of the dead animal.

Even so, it was clear that this had been a substantial creature, roughly the size of a cow or horse before the bloat began to enlarge it further. The dry skin had cracked in the sun and was now peeling upward, exposing the layer of runny, yellow subdermal fat beneath.

Oof, it stunk! Levine winced. He forced himself closer, directing all his attention to the animal.

Although it was the size of a cow, it was clearly not a mammal. The skin was hairless. The original skin color appeared to have been green, with a suggestion of darker striations running through it. The epidermal surface was pebbled in polygonal tubercles of varying sizes, the pattern reminiscent of the skin of a lizard. This texture varied in different parts of the animal, the pebbling larger and less distinct on the underbelly. There were prominent skin folds at the neck, shoulder, and hip joints—again, like a lizard.

But the carcass was large. Levine estimated the animal had originally weighed about a hundred kilograms, roughly two hundred and twenty pounds. No lizards grew that large anywhere in the world, except the Komodo dragons of Indonesia. Varanus komodoensis were nine-foot-long monitor lizards, crocodile-size carnivores that ate goats and pigs, and on occasion human beings as well. But there were no monitor lizards anywhere in the New World. Of course, it was conceivable that this was one of the Iguanidae. Iguanas were found all over South America, and the marine iguanas grew quite large. Even so, this would be a record-size animal.

Levine moved slowly around the carcass, toward the front of the animal. No, he thought, it wasn’t a lizard. The carcass lay on its side, its left rib cage toward the sky. Nearly half of it was buried; the row of protuberances that marked the dorsal spinous processes of the backbone were just a few inches above the sand. The long neck was curved, the head hidden beneath the bulk of the body like a duck’s head under feathers. Levine saw one forelimb, which seemed small and weak. The distal appendage was buried in sand. He would dig that out and have a look at it, but he wanted to take pictures before he disturbed the specimen in situ.

In fact, the more Levine saw of this carcass, the more carefully he thought he should proceed. Because one thing was clear—this was a very rare, and possibly unknown, animal. Levine felt simultaneously excited and cautious. If this discovery was as significant as he was beginning to think it was, then it was essential that it be properly documented.

Up the beach, Guitierrez was still shouting at the pilot, who kept shaking his head stubbornly. These banana-republic bureaucrats, Levine thought. Why shouldn’t he take pictures? It couldn’t harm anything. And it was vital to document the changing state of the creature.

He heard a thumping, and looked up to see a second helicopter circling the bay, its dark shadow sliding across the sand. This helicopter was ambulance-white, with red lettering on the side. In the glare of the setting sun, he couldn’t read it.

He turned back to the carcass, noticing now that the hind leg of the animal was powerfully muscled, very different from the foreleg. It suggested that this creature walked upright, balanced on strong hind legs. Many lizards were known to stand upright, of course, but none so large as this. In point of fact, as Levine looked at the general shape of the carcass, he felt increasingly certain that this was not a lizard.

He worked quickly now, for the light was fading and he had much to do. With every specimen, there were always two major questions to answer, both equally important. First, what was the animal? Second, why had it died?

Standing by the thigh, he saw the epidermis was split open, no doubt from the gaseous subcutaneous buildup. But as Levine looked more closely, he saw that the split was in fact a sharp gash, and that it ran deep through the femorotibialis, exposing red muscle and pale bone beneath. He ignored the stench, and the white maggots that wriggled across the open tissues of the gash, because he realized that—

“Sorry about all this,” Guitierrez said, coming over. “But the pilot just refuses.”

The pilot was nervously following Guitierrez, standing beside him, watching carefully.

“Marty,” Levine said. “I really need to take pictures here.”

“I’m afraid you can’t,” Guitierrez said, with a shrug.

“It’s important, Marty.”

“Sorry. I tried my best.”

Farther down the beach, the white helicopter landed, its whine diminishing. Men in uniforms began getting out.

“Marty. What do you think this animal is?”

“Well, I can only guess,” Guitierrez said. “From the general dimensions I’d call it a previously unidentified iguana. It’s extremely large, of course, and obviously not native to Costa Rica. My guess is this animal came from the Galápagos, or one of the—”

“No, Marty,” Levine said. “It’s not an iguana.”

“Before you say anything more,” Guitierrez said, glancing at the pilot, “I think you ought to know that several previously unknown species of lizard have shown up in this area. Nobody’s quite sure why. Perhaps it’s due to the cutting of the rain forest, or some other reason. But new species are appearing. Several years ago, I began to see unidentified species of—”

“Marty. It’s not a damn lizard.”

Guitierrez blinked his eyes. “What are you saying? Of course it’s a lizard.”

“I don’t think so,” Levine said.

Guitierrez said, “You’re probably just thrown off because of its size. The fact is, here in Costa Rica, we occasionally encounter these aberrant forms—”

“Marty,” Levine said coldly. “I am never thrown off.”

“Well, of course, I didn’t mean that—”

“And I am telling you, this is not a lizard,” Levine said.

“I’m sorry,” Guitierrez said, shaking his head. “But I can’t agree.”

Back at the white helicopter, the men were huddled together, putting on white surgical masks.

“I’m not asking you to agree,” Levine said. He turned back to the carcass. “The diagnosis is settled easily enough, all we need do is excavate the head, or for that matter any of the limbs, for example this thigh here, which I believe—”

He broke off, and leaned closer. He peered at the back of the thigh.

“What is it?” Guitierrez said.

“Give me your knife.”

“Why?” Guitierrez said.

“Just give it to me.”

Guitierrez fished out his pocketknife, put the handle in Levine’s outstretched hand. Levine peered steadily at the carcass. “I think you will find this interesting.”

“What?”

“Right along the posterior dermal line, there is a—”

Suddenly, they heard shouting on the beach, and looked up to see the men from the white helicopter running down the beach toward them. They carried tanks on their backs, and were shouting in Spanish.

“What are they saying?” Levine asked, frowning.

Guitierrez sighed. “They’re saying to get back.”

“Tell them we’re busy,” Levine said, and bent over the carcass again.

But the men kept shouting, and suddenly there was a roaring sound, and Levine looked up to see flamethrowers igniting, big red jets of flame roaring out in the evening light. He ran around the carcass toward the men, shouting, “No! No!”

But the men paid no attention.

He shouted, “No, this is a priceless—”

The first of the uniformed men grabbed Levine, and threw him roughly to the sand.

“What the hell are you doing?” Levine yelled, scrambling to his feet. But even as he said it, he saw it was too late, the first of the flames had reached the carcass, blackening the skin, igniting the pockets of methane with a blue whump! The smoke from the carcass began to rise thickly into the sky.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Levine turned to Guitierrez. “Make them stop it!”

But Guitierrez was not moving, he was staring at the carcass. Consumed by flames, the torso crackled and the fat sputtered, and then as the skin burned away, the black, flat ribs of the skeleton were revealed, and then the whole torso turned, and suddenly the neck of the animal swung up, surrounded by flames, moving as the skin contracted. And inside the flames Levine saw a long pointed snout, and rows of sharp predatory teeth, and hollow eye sockets, the whole thing burning like some medieval dragon rising in flames up into the sky.

“Pretty nice pack,” Guitierrez said. “Where’d you get that, anyway? Looks like a Thorne pack.”

Levine sipped his beer. “It is.”

“Nice,” Guitierrez said, looking at it. “What’ve you got there in the top flap, a satellite phone? And a GPS? Boy, what won’t they think of next. Pretty slick. Must have cost you a—”

“Marty,” Levine said, in an exasperated tone. “Cut the crap. Are you going to tell me, or not?”

“Tell you what?”

“I want to know what the hell’s going on here.”

“Richard, look, I’m sorry if you—”

“No,” Levine said, cutting him off. “That was a very important specimen on that beach, Marty, and it was destroyed. I don’t understand why you let it happen.”

Guitierrez sighed. He looked around at the tourists at the other tables and said, “This has to be in confidence, okay?”

“All right.”

“It’s a big problem here.”

“What is.”

“There have been, uh . . . aberrant forms . . . turning up on the coast every so often. It’s been going on for several years now.”

“‘Aberrant forms?’” Levine repeated, shaking his head in disbelief.

“That’s the official term for these specimens,” Guitierrez said. “No one in the government is willing to be more precise. It started about five years ago. A number of animals were discovered up in the mountains, near a remote agricultural station that was growing test varieties of soy beans.”

“Soy beans,” Levine repeated.

Guitierrez nodded. “Apparently these animals are attracted to beans, and certain grasses. The assumption is that they have a great need for the amino acid lysine in their diets. But nobody is really sure. Perhaps they just have a taste for certain crops—”

“Marty,” Levine said. “I don’t care if they have a taste for beer and pretzels. The only important question is: where did the animals come from?”

“Nobody knows,” Guitierrez said.

Levine let that pass, for the moment. “What happened to those other animals?”

“They were all destroyed. And to my knowledge, no others were found for years afterward. But now it seems to be starting again. In the last year, we have found the remains of four more animals, including the one you saw today.”

“And what was done?”

“The, ah, aberrant forms are always destroyed. Just as you saw. From the beginning, the government’s taken every possible step to make sure nobody finds out about it. A few years back, some North American journalists began reporting there was something wrong on one island, Isla Nublar. Menéndez invited a bunch of journalists down for a special tour of the island—and proceeded to fly them to the wrong island. They never knew the difference. Stuff like that. I mean, the government’s very serious about this.”

“Why?”

“They’re worried.”

“Worried? Why should they be worried about—”

Guitierrez held up his hand, shifted in his chair, moved closer. “Disease, Richard.”

“Disease?”

“Yeah. Costa Rica has one of the best health-care systems in the world,” Guitierrez said. “The epidemiologists have been tracking some weird type of encephalitis that seems to be on the increase, particularly along the coast.”

“Encephalitis? Of what origin? Viral?”

Guitierrez shook his head. “No causative agent has been found.”

“Marty . . .”

“I’m telling you, Richard. Nobody knows. It’s not a virus, because antibody titres don’t go up, and white-cell differentials don’t change. It’s not bacterial, because nothing has ever been cultured. It’s a complete mystery. All the epidemiologists know is that it seems to affect primarily rural farmers: people who are around animals and livestock. And it’s a true encephalitis—splitting headaches, mental confusion, fever, delirium.”

“Mortality?”

“So far it seems to be self-limited, lasts about three weeks. But even so it’s got the government worried. This country is dependent on tourism, Richard. Nobody wants talk of unknown diseases.”

“So they think the encephalitis is related to these, ah, aberrant forms?”

He shrugged. “Lizards carry lots of viral diseases,” Guitierrez said. “They’re a known vector. So it’s not unreasonable, there might be a connection.”

“But you said this isn’t a viral disease.”

“Whatever it is. They think it’s related.”

Levine said, “All the more reason to find out where these lizards are coming from. Surely they must have searched . . .”

“Searched?” Guitierrez said, with a laugh. “Of course they’ve searched. They’ve gone over every square inch of this country, again and again. They’ve sent out dozens of search parties—I’ve led several myself. They’ve done aerial surveys. They’ve had overflights of the jungle. They’ve had overflights of the offshore islands. That in itself is a big job. There are quite a few islands, you know, particularly along the west coast. Hell, they’ve even searched the ones that are privately owned.”

“Are there privately owned islands?” Levine asked.

“A few. Three or four. Like Isla Nublar—it was leased to an American company, InGen, for years.”

“But you said that island was searched . . .”

“Thoroughly searched. Nothing there.”

“And the others?”

“Well, let’s see,” Guitierrez said, ticking them off on his fingers. “There’s Isla Talamanca, on the east coast; they’ve got a Club Med there. There’s Sorna, on the west coast; it’s leased to a German mining company. And there’s Morazan, up north; it’s actually owned by a wealthy Costa Rican family. And there may be another island I’ve forgotten about.”

“And the searches found what?”

“Nothing,” Guitierrez said. “They’ve found nothing at all. So the assumption is that the animals are coming from some location deep in the jungle. And that’s why we haven’t been able to find it so far.”

Levine grunted. “In that case, lots of luck.”

“I know,” Guitierrez said. “Rain forest is an incredibly good environment for concealment. A search party could pass within ten yards of a large animal and never see it. And even the most advanced remote sensing technology doesn’t help much, because there are multiple layers to penetrate—clouds, tree canopy, lower-level flora. There’s just no way around it: almost anything could be hiding in the rain forest. Anyway,” he said, “the government’s frustrated. And, of course, the government is not the only interested party.”

Levine looked up sharply. “Oh?”

“Yes. For some reason, there’s been a lot of interest in these animals.”

“What sort of interest?” Levine said, as casually as he could.

“Last fall, the government issued a permit to a team of botanists from Berkeley to do an aerial survey of the jungle canopy in the central highlands. The survey had been going on for a month when a dispute arose—a bill for aviation fuel, or something like that. Anyway, a bureaucrat in San José called Berkeley to complain. And Berkeley said they’d never heard of this survey team. Meantime, the team fled the country.”

“So nobody knows who they really were?”

“No. Then last winter, a couple of Swiss geologists showed up to collect gas samples from offshore islands, as part of a study, they said, of volcanic activity in Central America. The offshore islands are all volcanic, and most of them are still active to some degree, so it seemed like a reasonable request. But it turned out the ‘geologists’ really worked for an American genetics company called Biosyn, and they were looking for, uh, large animals on the islands.”

“Why would a biotech company be interested?” Levine said. “It makes no sense.”

“Maybe not to you and me,” Guitierrez said, “but Biosyn’s got a particularly unsavory reputation. Their head of research is a guy named Lewis Dodgson.”

“Oh yeah,” Levine said. “I know. He’s the guy who ran that rabies-vaccine test in Chile a few years back. The one where they exposed farmers to rabies but didn’t tell them they were doing it.”

“That’s him. He also started test-marketing a genetically engineered potato in supermarkets without telling anybody they were altered. Gave kids low-grade diarrhea; couple of them ended up in the hospital. After that, the company had to hire George Baselton to fix their image.”

“Seems like everybody hires Baselton,” Levine said.

Guitierrez shrugged. “The big-name university professors consult, these days. It’s part of the deal. And Baselton is Regis Professor of Biology. The company needed him to clean up their mess, because Dodgson has a habit of breaking the law. Dodgson has people on his payroll all around the world. Steals other companies’ research, the whole bit. They say Biosyn’s the only genetics company with more lawyers than scientists.”

“And why were they interested in Costa Rica?” Levine asked.

Guitierrez shrugged. “I don’t know, but the whole attitude toward research has changed, Richard. It’s very noticeable here. Costa Rica has one of the richest ecologies in the world. Half a million species in twelve distinct environmental habitats. Five percent of all the species on the planet are represented here. This country has been a biological research center for years, and I can tell you, things have changed. In the old days, the people who came here were dedicated scientists with a passion to learn about something for its own sake—howler monkeys, or polistine wasps, or the sombrilla plant. These people had chosen their field because they cared about it. They certainly weren’t going to get rich. But now, everything in the biosphere is potentially valuable. Nobody knows where the next drug is coming from, so drug companies fund all sorts of research. Maybe a bird egg has a protein that makes it waterproof. Maybe a spider produces a peptide that inhibits blood clotting. Maybe the waxy surface of a fern contains a painkiller. It happens often enough that attitudes toward research have changed. People aren’t studying the natural world any more, they’re mining it. It’s a looter mentality. Anything new or unknown is automatically of interest, because it might have value. It might be worth a fortune.”

Guitierrez drained his beer. “The world,” he said, “is turned upside down. And the fact is that a lot of people want to know what these aberrant animals represent—and where they come from.”

The loudspeaker called Levine’s flight. Both men stood up from the table. Guitierrez said, “You’ll keep all this to yourself? I mean, what you saw today.”

“To be quite honest,” Levine said, “I don’t know what I saw today. It could have been anything.”

Guitierrez grinned. “Safe flight, Richard.”

“Take care, Marty.”

Directly ahead was the customs desk, travelers lined up to have their passports stamped. He was booked on a night flight to San Francisco, with a long stopover in Mexico City; not many people were queuing up. He probably had time to call his office, and leave word for his secretary, Linda, that he would be on the flight; and perhaps, he thought, he should also call Malcolm. Looking around, he saw a row of phones marked ICT TELEFONOS INTERNATIONAL along the wall to his right, but there were only a few, and all were in use. He had better use the satellite phone in his backpack, he thought, as he swung the pack off his shoulder, and perhaps it would be—

He paused, frowning.

He looked back at the wall.

Four people were using the phones. The first was a blonde woman in shorts and a halter top, bouncing a young sunburned child in her arms as she talked. Next to her stood a bearded man in a safari jacket, who glanced repeatedly at his gold Rolex watch. Then there was a gray-haired, grandmotherly woman talking in Spanish, while her two full-grown sons stood by, nodding emphatically.

And the last person was the helicopter pilot. He had removed his uniform jacket, and was standing in short sleeves and tie. He was turned away, facing the wall, shoulders hunched.

Levine moved closer, and heard the pilot speaking in English. Levine set his pack down and bent over it, pretending to adjust the straps while he listened. The pilot was still turned away from him.

He heard the pilot say, “No, no, Professor. It is not that way. No.” Then there was a pause. “No,” the pilot said. “I am telling to you, no. I am sorry, Professor Baselton, but this is not known. It is an island, but which one . . . We must wait again for more. No, he leaves tonight. No, I think he does not know anything, and no pictures. No. I understand. Adiós.”

Levine ducked his head as the pilot walked briskly toward the LACSA desk at the other end of the airport.

What the hell? he thought.

How did they know it was an island? Levine himself was still not sure of that. And he had been working intensively on these finds, day and night, trying to put it together. Where they had come from. Why it was happening.

He walked around the corner, out of sight, and pulled out the little satellite phone. He dialed it quickly, calling a number in San Francisco.

The call went through, rapidly clicking as it linked with the satellite. It began to ring. There was a beep. An electronic voice said, “Please enter your access code.”

Levine punched in a six-digit number.

There was another beep. The electronic voice said, “Leave your message.”

“I’m calling,” Levine said, “with the results of the trip. Single specimen, not in good shape. Location: BB-17 on your map. That’s far south, which fits all of our hypotheses. I wasn’t able to make a precise identification before they burned the specimen. But my guess is that it was an ornitholestes. As you know, this animal is not on the list—a highly significant finding.”

He glanced around, but no one was near him, no one was paying attention. “Furthermore, the lateral femur was cut in a deep gash. This is extremely disturbing.” He hesitated, not wanting to say too much. “And I am sending back a sample that requires close examination. I also think some other people are interested. Anyway, whatever is going on down here is new, Ian. There haven’t been any specimens for over a year, and now they’re showing up again. Something new is happening. And we don’t understand it at all.”

Or do we? Levine thought. He pressed the disconnect, turned the phone off, and replaced it in the outer pocket of his backpack. Maybe, he thought, we know more than we realize. He looked thoughtfully toward the departure gate. It was time to catch his flight.

James turned off the ignition and twisted the rearview mirror so he could see as he buttoned his shirt collar and pulled up his tie. He glimpsed his face in the mirror—a disheveled, tired man with a two-day stubble of beard. What the hell, he thought. Why shouldn’t he look tired? It was the middle of the fucking night.

Dodgson always scheduled his meetings in the middle of the night, and always at this same damn Marie Callender restaurant. James never understood why; the coffee was awful. But then, there was a lot he didn’t understand.

He picked up the manila envelope, and got out of the car, slamming the door. He headed for the entrance, shaking his head. Dodgson had been paying him five hundred dollars a day for weeks now, to follow a bunch of scientists around. At first, James had assumed it was some sort of industrial espionage. But none of the scientists worked for industry; they held university appointments, in pretty dull fields. Like that paleobotanist Sattler whose specialty was prehistoric pollen grains. James had sat through one of her lectures at Berkeley, and had barely been able to stay awake. Slide after slide of little pale spheres that looked like cotton balls, while she nattered on about polysaccharide bonding angles and the Campanian-Maastrichtian boundary. Jesus, it was boring.

Certainly not worth five hundred dollars a day, he thought. He went inside, blinking in the light, and walked over to the booth. He sat down, nodded to Dodgson and Baselton, and raised his hand to order coffee from the waitress.

Dodgson glared at him. “I haven’t got all night,” he said. “Let’s get started.”

“Right,” James said, lowering his hand. “Fine, sure.” He opened the envelope, began pulling out sheets and photos, handing them across the table to Dodgson as he talked.

“Alan Grant: paleontologist at Montana State. At the moment he’s on leave of absence and is now in Paris, lecturing on the latest dinosaur finds. Apparently he has some new ideas about tyrannosaurs being scavengers, and—”

“Never mind,” Dodgson said. “Go on.”

“Ellen Sattler Reiman,” James said, pushing across a photo. “Botanist, used to be involved with Grant. Now married to a physicist at Berkeley and has a young son and daughter. She lectures half-time at the university. Spends the rest of her time at home, because—”

“Go on, go on.”

“Well. Most of the rest are deceased. Donald Gennaro, lawyer . . . died of dysentery on a business trip. Dennis Nedry, Integrated Computer Systems . . . also deceased. John Hammond, who started International Genetic Technologies . . . died while visiting the company’s research facility in Costa Rica. Hammond had his grandchildren with him at the time; the kids live with their mother back east and—”

“Anybody contact them? Anybody from InGen?”

“No, no contact. The boy’s started college and the girl is in prep school. And InGen filed for Chapter 11 protection after Hammond died. It’s been in the courts ever since. The hard assets are finally being sold off. During the last two weeks, as a matter of fact.”

Baselton spoke for the first time. “Is Site B involved in that sale?”

James looked blank. “Site B?”

“Yes. Has anybody talked to you about Site B?”

“No, I’ve never heard of it before. What is it?”

“If you hear anything about Site B,” Baselton said, “we want to know.”

Sitting beside Baselton in the booth, Dodgson thumbed through the pictures and data sheets, then tossed them aside impatiently. He looked up at James. “What else have you got?”

“That’s all, Dr. Dodgson.”

“That’s all?” Dodgson said. “What about Malcolm? And what about Levine? Are they still friends?”

James consulted his notes. “I’m not sure.”

Baselton frowned. “Not sure?” he said. “What do you mean, you’re not sure?”

“Malcolm met Levine at the Santa Fe Institute,” James said. “They spent time together there, a couple of years ago. But Malcolm hasn’t gone back to Santa Fe recently. He’s taken a visiting lectureship at Berkeley in the biology department. He teaches mathematical models of evolution. And he seems to have lost contact with Levine.”

“They have a falling out?”

“Maybe. I was told they argued about Levine’s expedition.”

“What expedition?” Dodgson said, leaning forward.

“Levine’s been planning some kind of expedition for a year or so. He’s ordered special vehicles from a company called Mobile Field Systems. It’s a small operation in Woodside, run by a guy named Jack Thorne. Thorne outfits Jeeps and trucks for scientists doing field research. Scientists in Africa and Sichuan and Chile all swear by them.”

“Malcolm knows about this expedition?”

“He must. He’s gone to Thorne’s place, occasionally. Every month or so. And of course Levine’s been going there almost every day. That’s how he got thrown in jail.”

“Thrown in jail?” Baselton said.

“Yeah,” James said, glancing at his notes. “Let’s see. February tenth, Levine was arrested for driving a hundred and twenty in a fifteen zone. Right in front of Woodside Junior High. The judge impounded his Ferrari, yanked his license, and gave him community service. Basically ordered him to teach a class at the school.”

Baselton smiled. “Richard Levine teaching junior high. I’d love to see that.”

“He’s been pretty conscientious. Of course he’s spending time in Woodside, anyway, with Thorne. That is, until he left the country.”

“When did he leave the country?” Dodgson said.

“Two days ago. He went to Costa Rica. Short trip, he was due back early this morning.”

“And where is he now?”

“I don’t know. And I’m afraid, uh, it’s going to be hard to find out.”

“Why is that?”

James hesitated, coughed. “Because he was on the passenger manifest of the flight from Costa Rica—but he wasn’t on the plane when it landed. My contact in Costa Rica says he checked out of his hotel in San José before the flight, and never went back. Didn’t take any other flight out of the city. So, uh, for the moment, I’m afraid that Richard Levine has disappeared.”

“Now listen, you stupid son of a bitch,” Dodgson said. “There’s only one thing I want from you now. It’s very simple. Are you listening?”

James swallowed. “I’m listening.”

Dodgson leaned across the table. “Find him,” he said.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Dr. Malcolm, but you have to sign these forms. . . . It’s that sample from Costa Rica.”

Malcolm stood, and walked around the desk. He didn’t use his cane. In recent weeks, he had been working steadily to walk without the cane. He still had occasional pain in his leg, but he was determined to make progress. Even his physical therapist, a perpetually cheery woman named Cindy, had commented on it. “Gee, after all these years, suddenly you’re motivated, Dr. Malcolm,” she had said. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, you know,” Malcolm had said to her. “Can’t rely on a cane forever.”

The truth was rather different. Confronted by Levine’s relentless enthusiasm for the lost-world hypothesis, his excited telephone calls at all hours of the day and night, Malcolm had begun to reconsider his own views. And he had come to believe that it was quite possible—even probable—that extinct animals existed in a remote, previously unsuspected location. Malcolm had his own reasons for thinking so, which he had only hinted at to Levine.

But the possibility of another island location was what led him to walk unaided. He wanted to prepare for a future visit to this island. And so he had begun to make the effort, day after day.

He and Levine had narrowed their search down to a string of islands along the Costa Rican coast, and Levine was as always very intense in his excitement. But to Malcolm it remained hypothetical.

He refused to get excited until there was hard evidence—photographs, or actual tissue samples—to demonstrate the existence of new animals. And so far, Malcolm had seen nothing at all. He was not sure whether he was disappointed or relieved.

But in any case, Levine’s sample had arrived.

The delivery man said, “You have to check the boxes, sir.”

Malcolm looked at the list of questions running down the page, with a check box beside each. Was the specimen alive. Was the specimen cultures of bacteria, fungi, viruses, or protozoa. Was the specimen registered under an established research protocol. Was the specimen contagious. Was the specimen taken from a farm or animal-husbandry site. Was the specimen plant matter, propagative seeds, or bulbs. Was the specimen insect or insect-related. . . .

He checked off “No” to everything.

“And the next page, too, sir,” the delivery man said. He was looking around the office, at the stacks of papers heaped untidily about, the maps on the walls with the colored pins stuck in them. “You do medical research here?”

Malcolm flipped the page, scrawled his signature on the next form. “No.”

“And one more, sir. . . .”

The third form was a release of liability to the carrier. Malcolm signed it as well. The delivery man said, “Have a good day,” and left.

Immediately Malcolm sagged, resting his weight on the edge of the desk. He winced.

“Still hurt?” Beverly said. She took the specimen to the side table, pushed some papers away, and began to unwrap it.

“I’m okay.” He looked over at the cane, resting beside his chair behind the desk. Then he took a breath, and crossed the room, slowly.

Beverly had the wrapping off the package, revealing a small stainless-steel cylinder the size of his fist. A triple-bladed biohazard sign was taped across the screwtop lid. Attached to the cylinder was a second small canister with a metal valve; it contained the refrigerant gas.

Malcolm swung the light over the cylinder, and said, “Let’s see what he was so excited about.” He broke the taped seal and unscrewed the lid. There was a hiss of gas, and a faint white puff of condensation. The exterior of the cylinder frosted over.

Peering in, he saw a plastic baggie, and a sheet of paper. He upended the cylinder, dumping the contents onto the table. The baggie contained a ragged piece of greenish flesh about two inches square, with a small green plastic tag attached to it. He held it up to the light, examined it with a magnifying glass, then set it down again. He looked at the green skin, the pebbled texture.

Maybe, he thought.

Maybe . . .

“Beverly,” he said, “call Elizabeth Gelman, over at the zoo. Tell her I have something I want her to look at. And tell her it’s confidential.”

Beverly nodded, and went out of the room to phone. Alone, Malcolm unrolled the strip of paper that had come with the sample. It was a piece of paper torn from a yellow legal pad. In block printing, it said: