The Truth Teller Read online

  Sudden anger lit the doctor’s eyes. “The Italians did not want him! When the hikers found him, they called police on both sides of the border. The Italian carabinieri, thinking the body was yet another climber caught unprepared for the cold, showed no interest. But the Austrian police went out the next afternoon. I myself spoke to Markus Pirpamer, the man who operates the nearest mountain shelter, and he said this body was nothing like the white, waxy, chewed-up corpses he usually recovers from the glacier. He knew it was unique, that it was unusual—”

  Devin held up a restraining hand. “I applaud your righteous indignation, Dr. Altbusser, and I agree with your reasoning, though I disapprove of the rough way they handled the body. The Iceman is a treasure, yet your Austrian police nearly destroyed him.”

  Dr. Hirsch frowned at Devin. “But they did not. And what remains is still priceless, Mr. Sloane. You will not be disappointed.”

  They paused in a gleaming corridor before a locked steel door. Altbusser punched a code into a numeric keypad, the latch clicked, and then Hirsch held the door open while the others filed into the room.

  “When Homo Tyrolensis first arrived here, he resembled a slab of meat that had been in the freezer too long,” Altbusser said, walking toward a glass container upon a rolling table in the center of the room. “We took all possible measures to protect him. Filtered, sterilized air flows through this box. He is a cold mummy, not completely desiccated, so we dare not leave him out long enough for the ice crystals to thaw. After thirty minutes of examination we return him to his freezer chamber, which is maintained at a glacial temperature of twenty-one point two degrees Fahrenheit.”

  With the reverence he might have shown the Ark of the Covenant, Devin stepped toward the box. “The cryogenic chamber is monitored at all times?”

  “The tank has six temperature sensors,” Altbusser replied, following in Devin’s wake, “connected to alarms and portable pagers. If the temperature should rise by even a single degree, one of our people would be alerted and the problem corrected within moments.”

  “How long has he been out?”

  “Only ten minutes. Your pilot radioed from the airport. You have twenty minutes to examine him before the flesh will begin to thaw.”

  Standing alone near the door, Lemuel folded his arms and glanced around him. Aside from the Iceman’s cryogenic coffin, the room appeared to be an ordinary laboratory. A pair of computer monitors blinked from a counter installed along the wall to Lemuel’s right, while a series of stainless-steel doors lined the wall to his left. Styrofoam coffee cups, a newspaper, and stacks of green-striped computer printouts littered a long black table beside the tank.

  The only item of interest in the laboratory was the glass-covered capsule, and the long, rectangular box dominated the room. Though Lemuel couldn’t see inside the tank from where he stood, Devin was clearly enraptured with its contents. Lemuel leaned against the door frame and looked away, not trusting his queasy stomach enough to approach.

  Reaching the box, Devin slowly lifted his arms, then spread his hands upon the glass. His face flushed. “Lemuel, you must see this,” he commanded, his voice echoing in the lab’s vast emptiness.

  With an inward groan, Lemuel pulled himself off the wall, then set his satchel on the floor and joined Devin by the tank. A leathern body lay inside the sealed box, the chilliness of its flesh frosting the glass. After Dr. Altbusser produced a cotton cloth and wiped the exterior, through the clouded aperture Lemuel could see a shrunken body, one arm extended over its head, the other covered by a blanket of surgical gauze. The frozen man’s eyes were open and vacant, his nose pressed flat, one lip bent upward in a snarl. The head was completely bald. Lemuel noted with some surprise that not even an eyelash remained.

  “We found thick strands of wavy brown hair in the ice near the body,” Altbusser was explaining, a ripple of excitement in his voice. “All of it was three and one half inches long, proving that men cut their hair prior to the Bronze Age. We had never suspected such a thing.”

  “His teeth are quite worn, and a broad gap separates the two upper middle incisors,” Hirsch added. “The ice is responsible for the hair loss, the flattened nose and bent lip. You will notice that the shell of the left ear is also folded, leading us to believe that the Iceman fell asleep on his left side. He had to be totally exhausted not to notice that his ear was bent—”

  “Nonsense,” Devin interrupted. “If ice can flatten his nose, it can certainly bend his ear.”

  Altbusser cast his colleague a warning glance, then folded his hands and continued his narration. “In any case, our fellow obviously lay down to sleep in a ravine where he would be sheltered from the winds. But that night he froze to death, and snow covered the body long enough for wind to dehydrate the corpse. As the first snows of that winter hardened into ice, the glacier rose above him.”

  A tremor touched Devin’s mouth as he returned his gaze to the corpse’s face. “I can see pores in his skin! And his eyes—they are intact! The combination of wind and cold was sufficient to preserve even the eyes!”

  “Yes.” A tight smile overtook Altbusser’s stern features. He lifted his elbow and leaned almost casually upon the edge of the tank. “Though he was ravaged by the excavators who had no idea what they had found, the specimen remains in astoundingly stable condition. Though the tank’s sterile atmosphere cannot reverse cellular damage, it has demonstrated remarkable powers of preservation.”

  “The body alternately thawed and froze for several days and nights while the rescue effort was under way,” Hirsch added. “Thirty men with picks and compressors worked to free him. Unfortunately, they tore the clothing from his body and ripped a sizable chunk of flesh from the left hip.”

  Devin’s dark gaze flew up to meet Hirsch’s. “You’re joking.”

  Hirsch lifted a brow. “Afterward, we were horrified by the destruction, but six other corpses had been found in glaciers that summer. No one had any idea this was a Copper Age mummy.”

  Devin pressed his hand to the glass above the Iceman’s face. “It doesn’t matter. All I need for my work is a single cell. I never dreamed I’d be able to look upon an entire body.”

  “In keeping with your request,” Altbusser gestured toward his assistant, “we have prepared this.” From a compartment beneath the cluttered table, Hirsch withdrew a silver container the size of a child’s jewelry box. With a poorly disguised frown, he handed the container to the doctor. Altbusser’s spidery hands seemed to caress the metal box for an instant; then he offered it to Devin.

  Devin’s dark eyes inspected the row of dials above the latches. “The combination?”

  “Nine, nineteen, ninety-one.” Altbusser clasped his hands. “The date Homo Tyrolensis was discovered.”

  Devin lowered the box to the top of the tank, whirled the dials with his thumb, then lifted the lid. A stream of milky vapor poured from the opening.

  Lemuel stepped forward and peered over Devin’s shoulder. A small glass vial rested on a bed of dry ice inside the box. Within the vial Lemuel could see a square bit of leather not much larger than a postage stamp.

  “It is a generous sample.” Altbusser inclined his head in a deep gesture, emphasizing his double chin. “We will have a difficult time explaining the disappearance of such a large amount of flesh.”

  Satisfaction pursed Devin’s mouth as he snapped the box shut. “No, you won’t. The body is torn and mangled in several areas, so one other tear won’t matter. This sample is of no great consequence, gentlemen, and you know it.” His gaze turned again to the ancient body on the table, his eyes glowing with a sheen of purpose. “But it is worth every schilling of the money I shall deposit into your accounts.”

  Altbusser shifted uneasily. “You still have not told us, Mr. Sloane, what you intend to do with the sample.”

  “I will conduct research, Doctor,” Devin answered. Taking charge with quiet assurance, he grasped the silver box’s handle, then thrust it toward Lemuel.

  As the cold metal came to rest in his hands, Lemuel felt an awful premonition brush lightly past him, stirring the air and lifting the hair at the back of his neck.

  While tourists and skiers partied in Innsbruck’s nightclub district, the four men sat in a crowded lounge and debated over drinks. Lemuel kept glancing at his watch in a rather obvious gesture, but Devin seemed not to care that the hour was late and the jet still waited at the airport.

  “How can you give credence to such a fantastic theory?” Altbusser exclaimed, his reserve and tact severely eroded by a succession of double vodkas. “Surely you can’t believe that Homo Tyrolensis was a man more intelligent than you or me!”

  “How do you explain his ax?” Devin countered.

  Altbusser frowned. “His copper ax? It is unremarkable. Men had not yet learned how to blend copper and tin to make bronze.”

  “You are wrong. It is quite remarkable.” Devin tapped a manicured fingernail against the base of his wineglass. “I’ve spoken to others on your team. I know that x-rays of the ax head show bubbles in the copper, proving it was cast, not chiseled. This man and his contemporaries knew how to make a furnace that could reach the melting temperature of copper—a precise 1,981 degrees.” He leaned forward, his eyes glowing. “How many of your students could manage the same feat without modern tools?”

  “Bah!” Altbusser waved Devin’s supposition away. “Someone made a hot fire and got lucky.”

  Devin shook his head. “The Iceman was sophisticated. His ax was cast and hammered to a sharp edge in a manner that would be extremely difficult to replicate even with modern metallurgical knowledge. The ax head was fixed with millimeter precision into a yew haft shaped to provide our Iceman with mechanically ideal ratios of leverage. And what of his other goods? With him he carried a bag of fungus, a natural antibiotic; tools, glue, needles, live coals, ropes, and clothes. He had a wider variety of useful equipment on his person than the German hikers who found him.”

  “Mr. Sloane,” Hirsch protested, smiling, “you cannot seriously suggest that the Iceman’s mental capacities were greater than ours. Evolution dictates that we must grow stronger and more fit as the centuries progress.”

  Lemuel winced slightly, then lowered his gaze and tightened his grip on his coffee cup. Dr. Hirsch had wandered onto a volatile subject, one best left unexplored. Devin Sloane held strong views about the evolution of man, and Lemuel did not particularly want to follow his employer onto yet another philosophical battleground—especially not at 2:44 a.m.

  Too late.

  “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air,” Devin said, his voice calm and utterly reasonable, “and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”

  Altbusser blinked. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “The Bible, the Pentateuch.” The corner of Devin’s mouth dipped in a secretive smile. “Genesis, chapter two, verse nineteen. God brings every creature in the world to the first man, and Adam names them. Every creature, gentlemen.” His long, slender fingers drummed the polished surface of the table. “Could you recall the name of every animal, or even every species? Yet Adam named them all.”

  Altbusser flushed. “Surely you aren’t offering a creation myth as proof of your hypothesis? No rational scientist places his faith in myth, Mr. Sloane.”

  “Faith is irrelevant, Dr. Altbusser. My point is that oral traditions support the view that ancient man was wiser and more intelligent than his contemporary descendants. And for an age, at least, he was certainly longer-lived.”

  Unfazed by the skepticism in the scientists’ eyes, Devin paused to sip from his drink. Lemuel took advantage of the silence to clear his throat and glance pointedly at his watch. “Devin, it’s two forty-five and the jet is waiting—”

  Devin put his drink down as if he hadn’t heard a word Lemuel said. “If you prefer a more concrete example of ancient intelligence, consider the great pyramids of Egypt.” His eyes sparkled with the love of debate as he looked at the bewildered Austrians. “The Egyptians accomplished their construction without wheels or computers. Could you and a research team design and build the pyramids or the hanging gardens of Babylon?”

  Altbusser flashed him a look of disdain. “You can not possibly begin to compare—”

  “The wisdom in Pepi’s instructions to his son could not be improved upon by a contemporary psychotherapist, and yet Pepi wrote three thousand years before Christ,” Devin continued. “At the same time, men began systematic astronomical observations in Egypt, Babylonia, India, and China. Five hundred years later the Egyptians were creating timeless lyric poetry lamenting the age-old quest for the meaning of life. They were also preserving their dead—so well that in 1985 Svante Paabo was able to extract and sequence DNA from a mummy twenty-five hundred years old.”

  “You have misled us, Mr. Sloane.” Hirsch leaned forward, irritation struggling with patience on his pale face. “You led us to believe that you were a financier by trade and a philosopher by avocation, yet we see now that you fancy yourself a scientist. But science and philosophy do not mix; they are two separate disciplines.” One of his dark brows drew downward in a frown. “In the face of contemporary technology and thought, you cannot seriously support the idea that ancient man was superior to contemporary humankind. If that were true, if we are digressing, we have no hope for the future.”

  Devin leaned back against the booth’s upholstery and thrust his hands into his coat. “I would expect an educated twentieth-century man to respond as you have, Doctor. Pharaoh’s wise men might have responded in the same way if someone had suggested that a wiser, more intelligent race might someday follow. But the idea that wiser men have preceded us is not hypothesis; it is the truth.”

  “Sir,” Altbusser said, sputtering. “You are impertinent!”

  “Perhaps,” a thin smile twisted Devin’s lips, “but the essence of science, doctors, is that a man may ask an impertinent question and be well on his way to a pertinent answer. You forget that evolutionary theory flies directly in the face of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics. Scientific law decrees that the overall disorder of most systems will increase. As individuals we age and our bodies break down; despite all our efforts, no one has yet been able to reverse the system of aging. We humans are also deteriorating as a species. According to the immutable laws of science, we must grow more disorganized; we must break down. ”

  Altbusser’s nostrils flared. “Your philosophy dooms the human race to extinction.”

  Devin gave the men a lazy smile. “Quite right—unless we overcome our human predisposition to illness and injury, to entropy itself.”

  “In time, perhaps that will be possible.” Altbusser lifted his drink. “But not in your lifetime or mine, Mr. Sloane.”

  “Perhaps not.” Lemuel felt his stomach tighten when a gleam lit Devin’s eye. “But I’d like to think I can buy the human race another five thousand years. If my plan succeeds, gentleman, I may do just that. With the sample you have given me tonight, I plan to revitalize our genetic stock.”

  An awkward and embarrassed silence stretched across the table, and Lemuel lowered his head into his hand, desperately eager to be away. Devin didn’t usually indulge in such Cinderella talk among mere acquaintances. The two researchers were shocked now, but by morning they would be laughing at the eccentric American billionaire over their coffee cups.

  Altbusser shook the shadow of shock from his face, tossed back his drink, then dropped his glass to the polished table. “Now I know why they say you Americans are crazy,” he said, showing his teeth in an expression of pained tolerance. “Mr. Sloane, obviously you are a charming, rich American who patronizes science the way others sponsor the arts.” Contempt dripped from Altbusser’s voice, and Lemuel wasn’t sure if he heard the scientist or the liquor talking. “But you are not scientifically trained; you have not the faintest idea what you are talking about. These ideas of yours are idiotic, incomprehensible.”

  “If an idea can be framed in words, it can be comprehended.” Devin’s mouth curved in a confident smile. “You may disagree with me, Dr. Altbusser, but if you want to continue your work at my expense, you must humor me. I’m not asking for much.”

  “But now you have what you asked for.” Altbusser’s brows slanted in a frown. “You have had your look at Homo Tyrolensis, and you shall take with you one slice of the Iceman’s flesh. And if the Italians hear that I have surrendered this biological material, I shall deny everything.”

  “There will be no need for denial.” Devin smiled, but his smile held only a shadow of its former warmth.

  Lemuel checked his watch again, then cleared his throat. “It’s nearly three, Devin. The pilot is waiting.”

  “My assistant is right; we must go.” Devin slid toward the edge of the booth, then paused and gave the scientists a benign smile. “It was a pleasure to debate with you, doctors. I’d invite you to visit me in order to continue this discussion, but I’ve a feeling you won’t have time to do much traveling.”

  Lemuel tossed back the remaining dregs of his coffee, then picked up the silver box and his satchel, eager to be away.

  In a lingering silence, the Austrian scientists drove Lemuel and Devin to the airport. “Have the gift ready,” Devin whispered as Lemuel opened the car door.

  Fumbling in the cold, Lemuel pulled the box from the satchel and waited respectfully as Devin said his final good-byes to the inebriated Dr. Altbusser and his assistant.

  “And there is this to thank you,” Devin said, nodding toward the package in Lemuel’s arms. Lemuel stepped forward and handed the wooden box to Dr. Altbusser as Devin continued: “A gift of appreciation for arranging this hasty rendezvous. I am certain you have sacrificed more than a few hours’ sleep to meet with me tonight.”