into her features. A Kalashnikov wedged against her side. Hair in disarray, wrists bound. Joanna.
Tears that Ethan struggled to conceal burned like acid across his eyes, and his voice was a rasp as he spoke.
“When? Where?”
“January, near Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip,” Woods replied. “Israel only released this image after considerable diplomatic pressure.”
Ethan looked at the picture for a moment longer, a face he hadn’t seen for three years, then cleared his eyes and throat. He glanced at Jarvis. The old man was watching him hopefully, as was Rachel.
“A paleontologist has gone missing in Israel,” Ethan said as he pocketed the photograph.
Woods looked down at his paperwork.
“Dr. Lucy Morgan had been involved in an excavation for the Hebrew University near a place called Be’er Sheva in the Negev Desert, along with a team of scientists. The team completed its work and returned to Jerusalem but for reasons unknown Lucy remained in the field. Members of the university sounded the alarm after no contact with her for twenty-four hours.”
Apparently sensing Ethan’s change of heart, Jarvis picked up the story.
“Lucy has always complied with standard safety procedures in the past.”
“She found something,” Ethan suggested with a clairvoyant flash.
“That’s the last that was heard of her,” Jarvis said. “We’ve no idea where she went or why.”
“Any news on possible abductors?”
“Nothing,” Selby answered. “Most insurgent groups out there consider foreign hostages a major coup. They should be screaming at the top of their lungs by now.”
“Anything else?”
“Lucy’s research program was involved in the study of …” Woods hesitated. “Mitochondrial deoxy … ribo … nucleic acid.”
Rachel Morgan spoke for the first time. “Mitochondrial DNA. You know, the double helix?”
“There have been some major studies going on out in the Middle East and Africa,” Woods continued, “looking for traces of our earliest ancestors.”
“Why would someone abduct her for that?” Ethan asked.
Woods, Selby, and Jarvis all looked at Rachel.
“My daughter was involved in an off-the-record dig at an excavation site she herself discovered. I only received a single e-mail from her, sent here to the museum and copied to me before she vanished. She also sent the museum a bone fragment from her discovery that the DIA has acquired. During her excavations, Lucy found the remains of a species of humanoid buried in the Negev Desert.”
“So?” Ethan asked.
“It was a species unknown to science.”
The hall seemed oddly silent in the wake of Rachel’s words. Ethan stared blankly at her for a moment before Jarvis spoke.
“Such remains are reputed to have immense financial value,” he said. “We believe that Lucy may have been abducted by groups seeking to sell the fossil on the black market.”
“There’s a black market in bones?” Ethan asked. “But why would they take Lucy too? Surely they could just steal the remains?”
Woods shot Ethan a look.
“Not if they’re politically motivated too. The profits from the sale of such remains could fund weapons and explosives for insurgent groups, and a Western hostage could be used to derail the peace process.”
“It sounds too complex,” Ethan said thoughtfully. “They’d never be able to get the remains out of Israel.”
“We haven’t come to any firm conclusions yet,” Woods cautioned. “Right now our priority is to locate Dr. Morgan and the remains that she discovered, and repatriate them both to the United States.”
“Israel’s position is sensitive,” Jarvis added. “Our embassy in Tel Aviv is doing everything that it can but they don’t want to push Israel too hard. You have friends, Ethan, contacts in Israel and Palestine, people on the ground. You can work without attracting attention.”
Andrew Woods spoke solemnly.
“We can’t conduct an official investigation without arousing suspicion in the Knesset and the media. You’ll need to be discreet.”
Ethan felt something cold creep through his veins.
“Israel doesn’t know what Lucy Morgan found out there,” he said quietly. “And why would you want these remains recovered too? Why not just focus on Lucy?”
Selby winced.
“We would prefer that this entire affair remain secret,” he said stiffly, “if you take my meaning.”
“Just how much support will I actually have?” Ethan asked.
Jarvis’s reply was swift.
“The agency doesn’t consider Lucy’s disappearance a priority,” he said bitterly. “You’ll be able to call me for assistance from the Israeli Defense Force and maybe assets here in the States, but officially the department has no active investigation running there.”
Ethan closed his eyes, running through his mind everything that he had just heard. He opened them and found himself looking down at the photograph of Joanna. If you’ve got nothing, you’ve everything to gain.
“Can you get me into