The Lost Island

27

Garza looked on as Weaver, the head DNA tech, leaned over a microscope, peering intently into the eyepiece as he moved the stage this way and that with fussy, tiny movements. Two other techs hovered nearby, watching, various tools at the ready. To Garza, the procedure had all the feel of a surgical operation.

Glinn had vanished after the call from Gideon — in his usual way, without taking leave, saying where he was going, or mentioning when he’d be back. Glinn had always been secretive, but it was getting worse. He used to keep Garza in the loop. He was supposed to be Glinn’s right-hand man, second in command at EES. But now he was beginning to feel like an errand boy.

“Okay,” Weaver murmured, eyes glued to the microscope. “I’ve got the binding edge of the page in view and it looks like there might be some intact follicles.”

All work on the vellum was done at a painstaking, glacial pace; it had taken them most of a day just to prepare for this procedure. A silence settled over the lab as Weaver continued peering into the scope, every now and then adjusting its stage. The minutes ticked by. Garza resisted the urge to glance at his watch.

“Got one that looks good,” said Weaver. “Two, actually. Hand me a probe, a sterile number three forceps, and a strip of PCR tubes.”

The technicians came forward with the requested articles. Garza watched as — with the utmost care — Weaver extracted first one microscopic hair, then a second.

“Both follicles are intact,” he said as he straightened up from the microscope.

“How quickly can you get results?” Garza asked.

“Sterile microsurgery will be required to access the uncontaminated interior of the follicles — with something like this, DNA contamination can be a huge problem. After that, we have to do a PCR on it, and then sequence it. It’s time consuming — and a lot depends on whether there’s still contamination in the samples that has to be teased out.” He seemed to hesitate.

“What is it?” Garza asked.

“I didn’t want to say anything before,” Weaver said. “But now that I’ve actually seen these hair follicles and viewed the pattern of pores under the scope, I’m almost certain.”

“Certain about what?”

“About what kind of, ah, animal this vellum is from.”

“Well?” Garza said. Why was he being so coy?

Weaver licked his lips. “Human.”

For a moment, the lab went silent.

Brock laid down his pen. “You can’t be serious.”

Weaver said nothing.

“I’m sorry, but there must be some mistake,” Brock continued. “There are simply no examples of human skin being used for vellum.”

Garza glanced over at him. “Are you sure?”

“Quite. For monks to flay a human and use his skin for vellum is unthinkable. No Christian of the time would have done that, even to a pagan enemy. That sort of cruelty wasn’t invented until the twentieth century.”

“What about Viking raiders?” Garza asked. “Or other pagan tribes of the time, perhaps? Maybe they made their own vellum from the skin of Christian monks.” He cast a smirk at Brock.

“Absolutely not. The Vikings didn’t read books — they burned books. But more to the point, the desecration of the human body after death was not part of Viking or pagan culture, either. They might rape your wife and burn you alive in your house, but they would never mutilate a corpse.” Brock paused. “If you want my considered opinion, gentlemen, you are grievously in error.”

Weaver looked down at the tiny box of clear plastic that held the two follicles. “Say what you will. I think it’s human.”

“Get those tests started right away,” Garza said.