“I did not fuck up!”
“How did you extract DNA from the sample?” Reno asked.
“In the clean lab, I used a microdrill to come into the side of the sample, so there wouldn’t be a hole in it. I found a closed cell in the cancellous bone, opened it, took out a microscopic bit of tissue—all by the book in a totally sterile environment.”
“Well, it’s contaminated.”
“Son of a bitch. I wassocareful.”
“You gotta realize, Romanski, if this really is a piece of Saint John’s skull, or even if it’s just some random dude, it’s been handled by the grubby fingers of God knows how many priests and worshipers for centuries. You also gotta consider that after someone dies, their remains are invaded by bacteria and other organisms, all of which leave their own DNA. Problem here is that over the centuries, the DNA in this sample has been totally swamped. It’s a hell of a job to tease it back out. It’s not really your fault—what you need is an aDNA lab.”
“A-DNA?”
“Ancient DNA. There are labs that specialize in exactly this: sequencing ancient DNA that’s been heavily contaminated over the centuries.”
“Which ones?”
“Well, CU School of Medicine has an aDNA lab. They’ve been working with Harvard on the paleo-DNA mapping project.”
“So if we brought this sample over to CU, they’d be able to do it?”
“Sure.” Reno grinned. “And the guy who runs the lab’s a good buddy of mine, Greg Strickland. If I called him and asked a favor, I bet he’d do it for free.”
“On the Q.T.? Right away?”
“Sure.” He rubbed his cheek. “I’ll take it to Strickland tomorrow. You’re gonna owe me, boss.”
“Reno, I owe you so many favors, I might as well sign you over the deed to my soul.”
Reno winked and shut down the program and got up from the workstation. “I’ll close up. You go home.”
“Okay, pard.” Romanski gave him a fist bump, shucked the lab gear, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and left.
Whistling cheerfully, Reno went through the process of shutting down the lab. He took a moment to text Dr. Strickland about the DNA sequencing in between tasks. Twenty minutes later, he was done. He went over to the refrigerated safe, punched in his code, and took out the sample. He eyed it in its sealed tube, not much larger than a big pill. Incredible to think it might really be from Saint John the Baptist.
He wondered again why Castillo would go to so much trouble and risk to steal it, just to sequence its genome. A carbon-14 test made more sense: That would have returned the age of the bone and possibly proven it a fraud. But why DNA? What could that prove?
He slid the vial into his pocket. Tomorrow, he’d bring it over to CU School of Medicine and put it in Strickland’s hands.
He let himself out of the building and walked across the parking lot toward his car. At four o’clock in the morning, it was the only one there—the rest of the lot was an empty space dotted with pools of sodium light.
As he pressed the unlock key, his car beeped at him, and the lights flashed. Funny, he thought. In his rush, he must’ve forgotten to lock the car when he arrived at eleven—and no wonder, because he was nervous about what they were doing.
He got in the car and started it. As he moved the transmission into drive, he felt something cold press against the point at the base of his skull. A low, calm voice said, “CBI has something we want, and you are going to get it for us.”
