Search: A Novel of Forbidden History Read Online Free Page B

and recorder, then shoved everything, including the iPod, into a lead-foil bag intended to protect film from X-rays.
    Ironwood padded over to another alcove, this one with a well-appointed kitchen. “Who’s got the files?”
    David held up his keys and drew the end off his army key fob to reveal the flashdrive. “I’ll need a computer.”
    Ironwood opened the refrigerator, waving a hand at J.R., who took the keys from David. J.R.’s attitude said he didn’t like being waved at. “So you have a proposal for me.” Ironwood pulled out a bottle of generic diet cola, filled a cut-glass tumbler, and drained it. “Go.”
    In the few minutes it took David to lay out his idea, Ironwood was back on the sofa, feet up, eyes closed.
    “So what’s it going to cost me?”
    “The computers and peripherals would be the most, maybe a hundred thousand. Another fifty for lab equipment and supplies.”
    “What about millions of DNA samples? Collection costs? Personnel?”
    “All that work’s been done for us. The Genographic Project. Six or seven private genealogical companies. Another dozen universities. The information already exists. We just need to sort through it.”
    Ironwood rubbed his nose, eyes still closed. “Those companies and universities, they just
give
us access to their data?”
    “The universities, yeah, and we—you—can buy most of the rest of it. Everyone trades in information. Last month, I downloaded the published mitochondrial DNA sequence of a Neandertal for free.”
    Ironwood opened one eye to look at him. “I thought it was ‘Neander
thal.
’ ”
    “Six of one. The first specimen was found in 1856 in a valley in Germany, the Neander Thal—spelled
t-h-a-l.
In German, you say
th
like
t,
like thyme in English, but before long, scientists anglicized the pronunciation of the name. Meanwhile, around 1900, the Germans changed a bunch of spelling rules, and
t-h-a-l
became
t-a-l.
Now you see ‘Neandertal’ spelled both ways, but the fashion’s to go back to the German pronunciation.”
    “The fashion.” Ironwood sat up, fully awake. “You ever hear of Charles Fort?”
    David hadn’t, but whatever Ironwood wanted to talk about was fine with him. No one else was going to help him find someone with his markers who lived beyond a twenty-seventh birthday. When, not if, the army discovered his misuse of its resources, the inevitable investigation and delay would literally be fatal for him. It’d be months before anyone took him seriously and even planned to repeat his research.
    Ironwood warmed to his lecture. “Fort was a great man. A scholar. Died in ’32, but he was one of the first to blow the whistle on the scientific establishment. You know the way they gather evidence to support their pet theories, then disregard any findings that contradict those theories. I’m sure you’ve seen that in action, right?”
    David needed this man’s help, but that didn’t mean he had to agree with everything he said. “Sometimes you make a bad measurement, so you want to exclude that from your research.” He shrugged. “Though sometimes the exception does prove the rule.”
    “Exactly!” Ironwood aimed a finger at David as if he held a gun. “How about Richard Feynman? You heard of him?”
    “Sure. Manhattan Project. Quantum physics. Probably one of the top scientists of the twentieth century.”
    “No ‘probably’ about it. He said the same thing about exceptions to the rules.”
    “And that is?”
    “If the rule has an exception that can be proved by observation, then the rule’s wrong.” Ironwood stared hard at David. “These clusters you’ve been selling to my man, you ever think it passing strange that a junior tech in a government lab is the first to come across something as big as this—I mean,
nonhuman
DNA?”
    “Not really.” David had checked the literature, asking himself the same question. “Lots of other workers noted the results, but they—”
    Ironwood didn’t let him finish.