The inner office was larger than the outer and extended the entire width
of the building. It had shuttered windows overlooking the parking lot in
the back and the town square in the front. The front windows yielded the
impressive view of the new hospital/laboratory complex. From where
Bertram was standing, he could even see Kevin’s laboratory windows.
‘Sit down,’ Siegfried said, without looking up. His voice had a harsh,
guttural quality, with a slight Germanic accent. It was commandingly
authoritarian. He was signing a stack of correspondence. ‘I’ll be
finished in a moment.’
Bertram’s eyes wandered around the cluttered office. It was a place that
never made him feel comfortable. As a veterinarian and moderate
environmentalist, he did not appreciate the decor. Covering the walls
and every available horizontal surface were glassy-eyed, stuffed heads
of animals, many of which were endangered species. There were cats such
as lions, leopards, and cheetahs. There was a bewildering variety of
antelope, more than Bertram knew existed. Several enormous rhino heads
peered blankly down from positions of prominence on the wall behind
Spallek. On top of the bookcase were snakes, including a rearing cobra.
On the floor was an enormous crocodile with its mouth partially ajar to
reveal its fearsome teeth. The table next to Bertram’s chair was an
elephant’s foot topped with a slab of mahogany. In the corners, stood
crossed elephant tusks.
Even more bothersome to Bertram than the stuffed animals were the
skulls. There were three of them on Siegfried’s desk. All three had
their tops sawn off. One had an apparent bullet hole through the temple.
They were used respectively for paper clips, ashtray, and to hold a
large candle. Although the Zone’s electric power was the most reliable
in the entire country, it did go off on rare occasions because of
lightning strikes.
Most people, especially visitors from GenSys, assumed the skulls were
from apes. Bertram knew differently. They were human skulls of people
executed by the Equatoguinean soldiers. All three of the victims had
been convicted of the capital offense of interfering with GenSys
operations. In actuality, they had been caught poaching wild chimps on
the Zone’s designated hundred-square-mile land. Siegfried considered the
area his own private hunting reserve.
Years previously, when Bertram had gently questioned the wisdom of
displaying the skulls, Siegfried had responded by saying that they kept
the native workers on their toes. ‘It’s the kind of communication they
comprehend,’ Siegfried had explained. ‘They understand such symbols.’
Bertram didn’t wonder that they got the message. Especially in a country
which had suffered the atrocities of a diabolically cruel dictator.
Bertram always remembered Kevin’s response to the skulls. Kevin had said
that they reminded him of the deranged character Kurtz in Joseph
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
‘There,’ Siegfried said, pushing the signed papers aside. With his
accent it sounded more like ‘zair.’ ‘What’s on your mind, Bertram? I
hope you don’t have a problem with the new bonobos.’
‘Not at all. The two breeding females are perfect,’ Bertram said. He
eyed the Zone’s site boss. His most obvious physical trait was a
grotesque scar that ran from beneath his left ear, down across his
cheek, and under his nose. Over the years its gradual contraction had
pulled up the corner of Siegfried’s mouth in a perpetual sneer.
Bertram did not technically report to Siegfried. As the chief vet of the
world’s largest primate research and breeding facility, Bertram dealt
directly with a GenSys senior vice president of operations back in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, who had direct access to Taylor Cabot. But on
a day-to-day basis, particularly in relation to the bonobo project, it
was in Bertram’s best interest to maintain a cordial working
relationship with the site boss. The problem was, Siegfried was
short-tempered and difficult to deal with.
He’d started his African career as a white hunter, who, for a price,
could get a client anything he wanted. Such a reputation required a move
from East Africa to West Africa, where game laws were less rigidly
enforced. Siegfried had built up a large organization, and things went
well until some trackers failed him in a crucial situation, resulting in
his being mauled by an enormous bull elephant and the client couple