Search [Hardcover]

A nine-thousand-year-old conspiracy. Three families. One secret. The epic race to uncover history’s greatest mystery has begun.

Beneath the sparkling blue water of a remote Pacific atoll, a merciless killer stalks an underwater archaeological dig. His goal: to bring his employer---billionaire industrialist Holden Ironwood---an impossible artifact that proves a lost civilization’s knowledge of astronomy was thousands of years ahead of its time.

At the same time, in the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab in Maryland, haunted young researcher David Weir risks his freedom to identify a handful of people with nothing in common except their nonhuman genes---genes that he shares.

While in the Arctic tundra, a deadly airborne assault on a pipeline crew propels young paleogeologist Jessica MacClary into the innermost circles of her staggeringly wealthy and powerful family as she learns the astonishing secret her ancestors have defended since the beginnings of recorded history.

Now these three strangers on their separate quests to unlock their pasts are unexpectedly driven into violent collision, only to discover that together they hold the key to answering the ultimate question of humanity’s origins---provided the U.S. Air Force doesn’t stop them first. . . .

Acclaimed New York Times bestselling novelists Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens once again bring their unique blend of relentless suspense and cutting-edge science to a page-turning story of adventure that spans the globe and millennia of human history, racing from long-buried ruins in Cornwall and the casinos of Atlantic City to the forgotten caves that protect a shocking revelation that will tear the veil off the true history of humankind.

With a mystery more profound than Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, and scientific speculation more provocative than Michael Crichton’s Next, Search is an adrenaline-fueled, action-packed thriller that goes beyond wild theories of ancient astronauts and sunken empires to suggest a startling new vision of the birth of human civilization.

ONE
“Is that human?”
David Weir was dying, and the reason was on his computer, even though he didn’t understand it. His finger moved reflexively to strike the key that would blank the screen, but he stopped himself. Too late.
“Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know anyone was still here.” He turned, covering his surprise. It was almost ten on a Friday night. Last time he’d looked, all the workstations in the lab’s open office space were empty, computer screens dark. He’d been so lost in his search, he hadn’t heard approaching footsteps—unusual for him. His mother used to say he had better ears than a dog. As a child, he’d been able to detect his father’s pickup make the turn onto their street five blocks away.
“Budget hell.” Colonel Miriam Kowinski hefted the thick green binder she carried. From his one year’s experience as a civilian technician in the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, David knew those two words were as much of an explanation as his boss would be giving him.
The colonel leaned forward to peer more closely at his screen, then frowned. “Mitochondrial DNA. But some of the markers are wrong.”
“It’s a reference sample.” The lie came easily.
“Chimp?”
To the untrained eye, the electrophoresis patterns on his screen would resemble smeared, ghostly photographs of banded worms lined up side by side, some sections dark, some light, with a scattering of small numbers and letters running to either side, spelling out gibberish. Kowinski, though, wasn’t just another army bureaucrat. She was a trained forensic biologist. It would be foolish to underestimate her.
“Closer to human. Neandertal.” David held his breath, gambling that the colonel’s expertise didn’t stretch to extinct hominins.
“Really.”
“Yeah. A twenty-nine-thousand-year-old Neandertal baby. From the Mezmaiskaya fossil.”
“Is this a personal project?”
David knew why she asked. The lab’s primary mission was to identify the remains of American military personnel through DNA analysis, not just for present conflicts, but for wars past. Beyond that, if resources and personnel were available, the lab could use its expertise to aid outside researchers in cases of scientific or historic interest. It could also help other government and law-enforcement agencies carry out drug tests, develop forensic evidence, even determine parentage in child custody cases.
However, “personal projects” were just that—personal and unauthorized. Illegal.
“No, ma’am. It’s part of that new quality assurance protocol I’m developing.”
Colonel Kowinski regarded him impassively. She’d folded her arms over her budget binder, holding it close. Despite the late hour, her olive drab jacket was still buttoned and crisp. Her sleek salt-and-pepper chignon might as well have been molded from plastic, not a hair escaping.
“Go on.”
David couldn’t tell if his supervisor wanted to hear more because she was interested or because she sensed, correctly, that he was lying. Either way, he felt ready. The old saying was true: Imminent death did have a way of concentrating the mind.
“The lab’s been collecting DNA from every recruit since 1992. That’s just over three million samples.”
Kowinski tapped her budget binder with a short, polish-free nail. “I’m aware of the statistics.”
“Well, statistically, there’s always an error rate in sequencing DNA samples to create a gene tic profile.”
The colonel said nothing, and David continued. “Out of three million samples, we can estimate a few thousand of our profiles will be incorrect. Since it’s expensive to repeat the sequencing of all three million to look for just a few flawed results, I’m hoping a mathematical analysis of the profiles in our database will find the errors instead.”
“The Neandertal connection, Mr. Weir. It’s late.”
David pushed on. “We know the mitochondrial DNA in every cell of every human in almost all cases passes directly from mother to child, without sexual recombination with the father’s DNA. So, technically, every person on Earth today can trace their genealogical descent back to a single female who lived in Africa about a hundred and fifty thousand years ago and—”
“Mitochondrial Eve.” Kowinski interrupted to remind him he wasn’t shining a visiting politician.
David instantly jumped ahead to details he hoped would distract her even more from what was actually on his screen. “Okay, so when we compare nine hundred and ninety-four key mtDNA sequences from people around the world, the average number of those sequences that differ between any two people is eight, and the maximum is twenty-four. That’s how closely related every person is—less than a three percent difference.
“MtDNA from Neandertals, though—that differs from modern humans by twenty-two to thirty-six sequences, with an average of twenty-seven.”
He touched the screen’s incriminating image with one finger to draw her attention where he absolutely needed it. At the same time, he tapped the function key that expanded that image, to force the codes beneath it off the screen and out of sight.
He shot a glance at Kowinski, wondering if she’d caught his manipulation of the image.
“That difference indicates the last common ancestor we and the Neandertals shared dates back to maybe four hundred and fifty to five hundred thousand years ago.”
“This helps quality assurance how?”
“It gives us a baseline for identifying improperly processed samples in our database. So I set up a simple comparison program—strictly using the lab’s idle computer time—comparing our samples with this one.”
Kowinski’s expression was unreadable. “Couldn’t you use a set of standardized human sequences just as easily?”
“Oh, I’m using that technique, too. My program compares our samples with a range of ten different datasets. It’s a statistical study more than anything else. The Neandertal sequences just add another range of values to make comparisons with. After a couple of hundred thousand runs, I should be able to cut it down to the two or three sets that consistently give the best results in identifying erroneous results.”
“And you’re only using idle computer time.”
“Yes, ma’am. For now it’s strictly a background program that runs as an adjunct to the lab’s standard quality checks.”
Kowinski’s clear eyes studied him. David tensed, unsure what he’d do if the verdict went against him.
“I don’t suppose you’ve found any Neandertals among our recruits.”
“Only in the marines, ma’am.”
The colonel’s smile was brief but humanizing. “Carry on, Mr. Weir.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
David waited until he had seen the main doors of the lab offices swing closed behind her before he restored the full image on the screen, complete with the identifying codes that ran along the bottom.
If Kowinski had been able to read those codes, and understand them, she’d have realized the DNA they described did not come from Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. She’d have realized why he was working late and alone, and why he’d felt the need to lie to her.
Because the DNA sequence that was on the screen, that carried the gene tic markers of something other than human, was his own. Working swiftly, David copied the eight personnel files from his computer to the small flash drive he had hidden in a U.S. Army promotional key fob. Then he wiped his work history from his hard drive, so that no investigator could ever recover any trace of what he’d done. Or discovered.
Thirty minutes after the colonel, he signed out of the drab, utilitarian armed forces facility. As usual, the guards gave his backpack only a cursory inspection.
In the parking lot, beneath the impersonal gaze of the lab’s exterior security cameras, David walked unhurriedly to his beat-up Jeep and tossed his pack onto the passenger seat, handling his ring of keys casually, as if they weren’t keeping company with a flash drive of files worth at least another ten thousand dollars to him. Just like the last two sets.
He waved to the parking lot guards at the gate and sat back as they shone their flashlights into the Jeep, then opened the barricades for him.
Focused on survival, David pushed the speed limit all the way to Washington, D.C., and his meeting with his buyer that might save his life.
To night, using a computer program roughly similar to the one he’d described to Kowinski, he’d succeeded in identifying a cluster of eight more individuals among the lab’s database of more than three million—proof that there were others like him. So far, though, he’d failed to find the exception to the rule. Those who shared his nonhuman DNA markers had one thing in common: They were younger than twenty-seven or they were dead.
David Weir was twenty-six.
TWO
Nathaniel Merrit was a killer, and underwater he found it easy to practice his craft. His contoured silicone mask kept his vision focused only on what was directly ahead, no distractions. The rhythmic rush of each exhaled breath from the regulator in his mouth reminded him of his daily meditation. Each slow and deliberate kick of his fins made him think of the kata he performed every morning: a ritual ballet of unarmed combat. His arms floated loose at his sides. His knife was sheathed—but not for long.
On the fifth day of this expedition, his two-man crew had found what he searched for, exactly where they had been sent to look on the small southern comma...