The Ocean Dark

33

David Boudreau strolled along the brick sidewalk of M Street, a cup of hazelnut coffee in his right hand and the morning edition of The Washington Post in his left. He only read the paper to amuse himself, trying to figure out which reporters were actually clueless and which were actively involved in major cover-ups. He studied the sky, intrigued by the day’s curious weather. Sunlight splashed the sidewalk and shone down the entire length of M Street, but the horizon in every direction revealed clusters of low-slung gray clouds, a pattern of light and dark that covered the entirety of the DC area.

Apropos, he thought.

His cell phone erupted in a snatch of angry music from Flogging Molly — a nod to the Irish heritage he’d inherited from his late father. The music had worn a groove in his brain and he realized it was time to change his ring tone. With a sigh, David tucked the newspaper under his right arm and managed to fish the cell from his pocket right before it could go to voice mail.

“What’s up?” he said, phone pressed to his ear. “I’ve sort of got my hands full.”

“With what? You haven’t been to the office in two days.”

“I’ve been available by phone and e-mail. Working from home.”

He heard the sigh on the other end of the line, heavy and theatrical. But that was Henry Wagner, his titular employer, on a typical day.

“What are you working on, David?” Wagner asked.

“It’s a pet project, General. But I hope you’ll trust me when I say that it falls squarely within our mission parameters.”

“You do that on purpose, don’t you?” Wagner said.

“Do what?”

“‘Mission parameters’? Seriously, kid. The military jargon isn’t funny.”

David bristled. All right, he was riding General Wagner a little, but the man knew how much he hated being called kid. At twenty-four years old, he hardly qualified as a child, and considering he had achieved several advanced degrees while still in his teens, he hadn’t been a kid in a long time.

“General, I use terms like ‘mission parameters’ because I want to make sure I’m understood, and such jargon falls within your comfort zone. If you’d prefer I not use such terms, I’ll do my best to avoid them in the future. Now, to your original question — when things are quiet at the office, I’ve been spending a little time on a pet project of mine which, if it pans out, will absolutely fall under our operational brief.”

“‘If it pans out,’ huh?” Wagner said. “So it’s not pressing then. I’m glad to hear it, because we’ve got a situation I’d like you to look into right away.”

Almost without David noticing it, the sun had hidden behind a bank of clouds, and he shivered now as he paused in front of a brick row house. The whole street had been gentrified ages ago, and remained one of the loveliest in Georgetown. Storefronts were festooned with American flags, shaded by awnings, and marked by antique-scripted signs hanging from wrought iron rods. Non-brick surfaces were painted in dark greens and burgundies and rich creams — only colors that would have been used in Colonial times. People walked their dogs and jogged and pushed baby carriages and actually smiled when they passed each other on the street. In Washington, DC, that was a thing of wonder and beauty.

“What is it?” David asked.

“Something that requires your attention,” Wagner replied.

David paused on the brick sidewalk, wishing he could sip his coffee without dropping the newspaper tucked under his arm. He stepped over to a lamppost to get out of the way of foot traffic.

“I’m listening, General. What, exactly?”

Another heavy sigh. “You’re familiar with the discovery of … Homo floresiensis?”

He said it as if he were reading it from a file, and David knew that was exactly what he was doing.

“The ‘hobbit’ skeleton they found in that limestone cave in Ling Bua. Yes, I’m familiar with it, as I am with every single investigation in Alena’s files. You know that. Three-foot adult female, a separate human species that lived concurrently with what we consider modern humans, as recently as ten thousand years ago. Have they found something else?”

“Mount Kazbek in the Caucasus Mountains, dormant volcano. Ice on the top, hot springs on the bottom. A month ago, a small earthquake opened fissures in the base that revealed an ancient cave system. A number of partial skeletons were found inside that present a lot of similarities to Homo floresiensis.”

David started walking again, aiming for a patch of sunshine ahead. Three blocks farther and he’d be home.

“You’re boring me, General. Anyone can examine those bones—”

“They have horns.”

David held the phone away from his ear and stared at it a second, as though there might be something wrong with it.

“Did you say horns?”

“Vestigial horns, yes. Small pointed protrusions from the skull.”

“Interesting, but I’m not sure why it interests you,” David said. “Where’s the upside for …” He almost said the DOD, but caught himself. The Department of Defense didn’t like their secrets aired on open phone lines. Officially, David worked for the NSF, but he knew where his funding and his projects came from.

“They were cave painters. The paintings indicate that they had some kind of ritualized weapon — there’s obviously an occult component — that could make their enemies … well, the team on-site isn’t sure if ‘melt’ or ‘vanish’ would be a better term, but—”

“You’ve got a team on-site.”

“No,” Wagner said quickly. “There are a couple of U.S. scientists there observing, but I’m talking about the Georgian team. The cave’s on the Georgia side of the mountain, not the Russian side.”

“Uh-huh. Look, have your observers get some hi-res, well-lit shots of all the cave paintings and upload them to the secure FTP. I promise I’ll give them my immediate attention as soon as they arrive, but I haven’t heard a reason yet for me to go to Georgia.”

“Your grandmother—” Wagner began, in protest.

“Is in Croatia, as you well know. And much as she would want to see a little human skull with horns on it, you wouldn’t even have bothered her with this unless you had something more to go on, or she volunteered to go.”

Wagner snorted derisively. “That’s because your grandmother always has something better to do. What’s your excuse, World of Warcraft?”

“Trust me, General. I also have better things to do,” David said, happy to see the flowerpots hanging from the front of the brick row house he shared with Alena come into view. “Now if you don’t mind, my coffee’s getting cold.”

“David—”

He ended the call, silenced the phone, and slid it into his pocket. It was a perfect day for delicious coffee, the morning paper, and a mystery, and he had all three. No way would he let General Wagner pull him away today.