The Genesis Plague (2010)

father - formerly an industrious carpet retailer - had been carrying business cards in his vest pocket. The name on the card, Zirek Amedi, enabled forensic investigators to match dental records for the partial denture still affixed to the skeleton’s jawbone. The positive identification brought bittersweet closure for the victim’s surviving family members who’d already suffered tremendous loss at the hands of Saddam Hussein.
    ‘You should take a break,’ Jason said to Hazo in a low tone. ‘Have something to eat with the guys.’ He pointed to the cave entrance where Meat, Camel and Jam were blissfully spooning rehydrated beef stroganoff from foil packs.
    Hazo sighed wearily and nodded. Then he went over to join the others.
    ‘Looks to me like another hiding place for evidence of Saddam’s genocide,’ Crawford said.
    ‘No,’ Jason said. The only similarity he saw here was the sheer number of bones. ‘Doesn’t look anything like Saddam’s handiwork.’
    ‘How so?’ Crawford challenged.
    ‘First off, not one of the skulls we’ve seen on that screen shows signs of execution. No bullet holes, fractures—’
    ‘Hey, smart guy, Sarin doesn’t leave its mark on bones,’ Crawford countered smartly.
    Crawford was right. Sarin attacked the nervous system synapses. So once a victim’s soft tissue decomposed, evidence of the toxin would be erased. ‘There aren’t any clothes on those bones. No jewellery, nothing. How do you explain that?’
    ‘Maybe they burned the clothes, Yaeger,’ Crawford said. ‘Maybe they were a bunch of sick perverts who liked playing games with naked Kurds. Does it really matter? And we both know that soldiers have sticky fingers, would have confiscated any jewellery and valuables. For all we know, these bones might have been exhumed from another site and moved here for safekeeping.’
    Jason wasn’t buying the colonel’s argument, but held back a rebuttal. Crawford was clearly determined to see things his way.
    ‘Wait …’ the engineer interjected. ‘Look at this,’ she said.
    Crawford and Jason turned their attention back to the screen.
    ‘See this?’ she said, pointing to something on the wall just to the right of where the bot had entered the cave. ‘Looks similar to the pictures and writing on the wall of the entry tunnel.’
    Jason examined the image. A section of the wall had been hewn flat, then covered in relief images and lines of wedge-shaped text.
    ‘More pictures and scribble,’ Crawford said. ‘Let’s cut the—’
    But the colonel was cut short by a bellowing blast that echoed out from the cave and shook the ground.

39
MISSOURI
    Professor Brooke Thompson stared out the jet’s cabin window at the angular patchwork of docile farmland that blanketed the flat Midwest landscape in squares and circles hued in russet and ochre. The layout repeated itself as far as the eye could see, interrupted only by a random village or a grove of naked trees surrounding a rural home.
    Even here, far from encroaching cities, humankind had dramatically altered the environment to suit its needs and ensure survival. Come spring, the fields would be sowed with plant seeds not native to this land. Over the centuries, America’s hardy varieties of wheat, oats and various other grains had been imported from Europe. And long before those food staples had been transplanted in European soil and selectively bred over millennia, they’d been naturally thriving in the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent - a veritable paradise for early humans.
    Similarly, horses, cows, sheep, chickens and pigs - none of which had been native to the Americas - were brought in by early European settlers. But every one of these domesticated animals and beasts of burden originated from the Middle East.
    The same pattern applied to humans themselves. Over 60,000 years ago, the first hunter-gatherer groups ventured out from North Africa and crossed the land bridge into the Middle East (an exodus across the Sinai long before Moses fled Egypt) to embark on their intercontinental migrations.
    Though she marvelled at how this jet so smoothly cut the air to move her across a continent in mere hours, humans had been moving around the globe for millennia before planes existed - first by foot, then on the backs of animals, then by boats and ships and trains. Technology had quite literally sped things along. Technology had even permitted modern cities, like Las Vegas, to rise up in the heart of a desert.
    All