The Devil's Gospel

By Brian Ullmann

A impossible discovery in Madagascar. A brutal slaying of a team of paleontologists. A set of mysterious bones in a forgotten safety deposit box. Still mourning the loss of his wife, Trevor Austin finds himself piecing together parts of a 150-year-old conspiracy, hunted by a relentless assassin named Genoa bent on keeping the astonishing truth a secret: Darwin was wrong.

From the author of Darwin's Race and The Retriever, comes an adventure story like no other. Blending science and suspense, The Devil's Gospel will appeal to readers of James Rollins, Dan Brown and Michael Crichton.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Ullmann
• Release date: Jun 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476127316

Brian Ullmann

Brian Ullmann is the Assistant Vice President of Marketing for the University of Maryland, his alma mater. He is the author of Darwin's Race, The Retriever and The Devil's Gospel. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Parc National de Mananara-nord

Madagascar

Africa

And the waters teemed with life.

There were hundreds of species, big and small. Thousands of fish. Yellows, blues, greens, purples, varieties of every color imaginable, blended in every combination possible. It was a rainbow of life, cast against a brilliant coral reef in water as clear as glass.

Hiding amidst the orange and yellow marbled brain coral, a tiny pale damselfish hovered. Ordinarily, she would be gliding amidst the reef, careful to keep close to the coral’s crevices, lazily nibbling algae from the stalks. But instead, all of her senses were alert. Her almost translucent fins fluttered nervously as she hovered over a tiny clutch of pale eggs. She had deposited them a day earlier, in a small sandy patch at the base of the brain coral. She had been guarding them ever since, without sleeping, without eating. And she would guard them, with unwavering diligence, for four days – until they hatched and sprung forth into the warm Indian Ocean waters. Despite over twenty-four hours without food, without sleep, the tiny damselfish – no longer than three inches – was on full alert.

Snaking through the tentacles of orange coral, a jet-black Aulostomus maculates lurked.

Better known as a trumpetfish, the predator was shaped like a torpedo, nearly two feet long, lined with spines, with an elongated jaw used for sucking unsuspecting prey into snout. The fish was drifting vertically, concealing itself against the sea rods and pipe-sponges. A master of camouflage, Aulostomus was able to change color, like a chameleon.

Waiting.

The small, overtired damselfish had caught the predator’s eye.

The trumpetfish hid, stalking, as the damselfish drifted gently with the current. Back and forth, the smaller fish would come within a few inches of the concealed snout, then float away again. The two species danced their dance in shallow waters. Overhead, dawn light speckled against the multi-colored coral.

And then the damselfish made a mistake.

It drifted a millimeter too far, perhaps lulled into a fleeting sense of security because she hadn’t slept in over a day. Whatever the reason, it was the moment the trumpetfish had been waiting for.

With a powerful surge, the predator pounced forward, sucking the damselfish into its snout without warning. But the damselfish was not going without a fight – she had young to protect after all. The smaller fish jerked mightily. It was not enough to free herself from the predator’s jaw, but it was enough to induce the trumpetfish to jerk back, rising to the surface.

It was another fatal mistake.

The light-mantled albatross plunge-dived into the water, its wings stiff and cambered and perfectly evolved for sudden descent. The species had the ability to dive more than fifteen meters down, but this time its dive was much shallower. The trumpetfish had no chance. In less than a second, the albatross was back out of the water, a flopping meal held fast by dozens of tiny teeth that lined the bird’s beak.

The bird circled once, then soared up to a stony bluff that rose thirty meters above the water. There, in a cleft mottled with tree roots, the albatross settled into a nest. Chewing the fish, the mother bird regurgitated mouthfuls trumpetfish into the eager mouths of three small hatchlings.

Dr. Charlotte Austin stood atop the bluff, marveling at the scene she had just witnessed. She had always admired the albatross. Their repertoire of behavior involved synchronized performances of various actions such as preening, pointing, calling, bill clacking, staring, and a wonderful combination she was fortunate enough to witness called the sky-call. An individual will dance with many partners, but after a number of years the number of birds an individual will interact with drops, until one partner is chosen and a pair is formed. They then continue to perfect an individual language that will eventually be unique to that one pair. Having established a pair bond that will last for life, however, most of that dance will never be used ever again.

That was, Dr. Austin thought, an example of pure beauty.

The name albatross was derived from an Arabic word al-gattas, meaning the diver, also the root word for the origin of the title of the former prison, Alcatraz – named for the pelicans and other diving seabirds that lived along its rocky coast.

Dr. Austin watched the albatross until it disappeared into the cliffside below, then allowed her gaze to drift back out to the Indian Ocean. The air smelled of salt and fish and dew. She breathed it in deeply.

This was how she started every day in the field. Whether she was collecting fossils in Montana’s Makoshika State Park, or in Morocco’s Sahara, the paleontologist always gave herself ten minutes, just after her morning tea, to breathe in her environment. The natural beauty that surrounded her soothed her, centered her, even inspired her.

The view, in this case, was from a promontory in the Parc National de Mananara-nord, located along the northeast coast of the African island of Madagascar. From her vantage point away from the survey site, Dr. Austin could see the distinctive sandstone formations off a few hundred yards to her right. On her left, were palm-lined grasslands. And looking out almost directly east, she could see a gaping canyon that cut through the bedrock. Beyond the canyon, the warm waters of the Indian Ocean lapped up against the park’s eastern reaches.

The sounds of the survey site behind her nearly broke her reverie. But she wasn’t ready to get to work, not yet. Just a few minutes more.

The world’s fourth-largest island, Madagascar was known by many as the ‘Eighth Continent.’ Madagascar's long isolation from the neighboring continents has resulted in a unique mix of plants and animals, many found nowhere else in the world. Of the ten thousand plants native to Madagascar, ninety percent were found nowhere else in the world. Dr. Austin knelt down in the hard-packed dirt beside a specimen of just such an endemic plant, in this case it was a Pachypodium Rosulatum Gracilius. There were twenty-five known species of Pachypodium in the world; twenty of them found only on Madagascar. Ecologists speculated there were more here to discover.

Biologists from all over the world came to Madagascar to study the native fauna, seventy-five species of lemur found nowhere else on the planet, thirty species of bat, or the astonishing two hundred forty-six species of frogs, the only kind of amphibian found on the entire island. And that’s to say nothing of the endemic species of birds, hundreds of them, with perhaps more to be discovered.

But fauna nor frogs nor the Madagascar Pygmy Kingfisher brought Dr. Austin to Madagascar.

She was after a much bigger prize.

Dr. Austin and a small, committed group of graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Maryland had arrived in Madagascar four weeks earlier, to conduct a joint fossil excavation with the University of Toamasina. It was a massive undertaking, and simply mobilizing nearly two tons of excavation equipment and gear, and establishing the grid for survey site had taken nearly half that time.

Dr. Austin took one last long look at the breathtaking scenery, then turned back to the survey site. Though the sun was only now brushing aside the pink hue and wispy clouds of dawn, the site was already a flurry of activity. A dozen graduate assistants, almost all of them dressed in khaki shorts, loose t-shirts and baseball caps, hovered around the grid. Shovels, buckets, gridline rope, hammers and mallets of all shapes and sizes, cold chisels, and putty knives littered the ground. Everyone carried a soft-bristled paint brush. Buckets were placed everywhere, though they were all empty. But the dig was really just getting started, and everyone’s spirits were high.

The grid had been set up around a thirty-six square foot area. Each grid was three feet square, its perimeter lined with thin rope. Inside the string fence, four graduate students kneeled in the dust beside some protrusions in the ground. Each of them, three females, one male, carefully brushed loose dirt from the protrusions.

Dr. Austin approached one of the assistants. So, how’s our new friend doing this morning? she asked.

Shannon Brown, one of Dr. Austin’s longtime field assistants, looked up and smiled. Still resting, she said.

They had arrived in Madagascar looking for fossil evidence of the ancestors of the modern fossa, a Malagasy carnivore that has evolved in appearance and behavior to like a large cat, but was actually more closely related biologically to the mongoose. Until recently, the fossa had been classified as a cat in felidae, but study of the animal’s DNA clearly showed a lineage from Herpestidae. The discovery of the partial remains of several fossa within the first days of earnest digging were already enough to call the dig a success.

Then, just eight days ago, they had unearthed a massive thigh bone. It was far too large to belong to a fossa. Too large, in fact, to belong to any known living species on Madagascar.

There were only four extinct fauna species on Madagascar. Giant lemurs – with seventeen species dying out since man’s domestication of the island. Giant fossa. Strange creatures called the Malagasy Hippopotamuses. And the awesome Elephant Birds, giant creatures over nine feet tall and weighing nearly half a ton.

Based on a single bone, the team made an admittedly premature guess – the thigh bone belonged to an extinct species of hippopotamus. It was a huge find, one of only a handful of specimens on the Eight Continent.

A day later, lying next to the thigh bone, the group unearthed another clue. The tooth of a carnivore.

The telltale notches in the tooth made the carnivore identification a simple one, even for a first year graduate student. They all knew the notches were used to hold flesh in place to shear apart with cutting ridges of other teeth.

You know what this means? Dr. Austin had asked, holding the nickel-size tooth in her outstretched palm. If they knew, the assistants that had gathered around her stayed quiet. Their wide-eyed glances alternated between the tooth and Dr. Austin’s appraising eyes.

We have just discovered the first carnivore species on Madagascar, she said.

It was big news. It was the type of news that could launch the careers of some of the young assistants and lead to publishing in prestigious journals for Dr. Austin. That night, they had drunk several bottles of cheap African wine in celebration.

They should’ve waited.

The tooth was just the beginning.

Within three days, the team had unearthed several more teeth, a bit of a tail bone and what appeared to be a portion of a jaw. Then Shannon Brown unearthed an almost fully intact rib bone. Then another right beside it. And within a few hours, the team had uncovered the rib cage, in situ.

Based on these discoveries, Dr. Austin had made a few calls stateside to her colleagues in College Park, asking for assistance with the identification of the creature. She even sent a few digital images of remains. Finally, the verdict came back.

It was Panthera palaeosinensis. The oldest species of tiger on earth.

Despite the price of making an international call, Dr. Austin had made one more call. To her husband back in Maryland.

A tiger, she said. Can you believe it?

Trevor Austin was used to his wife’s frantic calls at all hours of the night. Married to a world-traveling paleontologist made you used to lots of odd things. Bones in your living room, for one. A tendency to daydream about naming an extinct species of amphibian – the same way most women dreamed about naming their first child.

Trevor was a fellow professor at the University of Maryland, teaching at the Knight School of Journalism, after a decade of reporting for the Washington Post. He was no expert, but he knew enough about paleontology to know what an important find this was.

A tiger in Madagascar, he said. I can’t believe it. That find will rewrite history as we know it.

I know, I know. It’s so amazing.

I mean it, Charlotte. Just off the top of my head, your little tiger there means we have to rethink the timing of the split of Madagascar from India.

Dr. Austin had already considered that.

In the beginning, the Earth was covered in a massive landmass called Pangaea. Eventually, about 200 million years ago, this super-continent split into Laurasia and Gondwanaland. And later still, around 160 million years ago, Gondwanaland split into several continents, including Africa and the subcontinent of India. Ultimately, 80 million years ago, the island of Madagascar was formed when it broke away from India.

At least, that was the theory.

I’m on the computer now, Trevor was saying, "and I’m looking at the history of Panthera palaeosinensis. Oldest fossilized remains have been dated to two million years ago."

Before humans, Dr. Austin pointed out.

Yes, but way after the island’s split from India. This means that you’ve discovered two things – that a species of tiger lived on Madagascar for tens of millions of years. And, more importantly maybe, that your little find there is another example of convergent evolution.

Holy shit, Dr. Austin breathed.

Convergent evolution was a strange little thing. A biologist would describe it as the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages. But less technically-minded people – and despite a Ph.D. in paleoanthropology, Dr. Austin still didn’t consider herself a typical brainy professor – would put it more simply. Convergent evolution meant that two animals evolved similar characteristics despite being unrelated.

A textbook example is the development of the so-called camera eye of cephalopods like squid and mammals. Their last common ancestor had only a simple photoreceptive spot. The two species diverged in hundreds of ways, yet both developed the complex organ in almost identical ways.

Now Dr. Austin’s tiger could be added to the list of examples of this kind of purely coincidental evolutionary development.

"Your Panthera palaeosinensis there evolved in exactly the same way as the species in Java and India," said Trevor.

Let’s slow it down a bit, honey, she replied, trying to control her own excitement. It would be a mistake to make some assumptions based solely on a few old bones.

Trevor laughed. That’s what you do! You’re a paleontologist for crying out loud!

I love you, Trevor, she said.

I love you too, honey. You sure you don’t want me to come out there to help out? I could ask the Dean for some time.

No, no. Don’t do that. Your work there is important too. Just don’t wait up for me. I may be here a few extra weeks digging this sucker out.

I understand, he said. And I’m proud of you.

That was yesterday, and now Dr. Austin regretted her decision not to invite her husband to Madagascar. She missed him terribly. Though the find was undeniably exciting, she craved the warmth of his body beside her, his strong arms around her waist, his infectious laugh.

Only a few more weeks to go, she told herself, and she shoved the cravings from her brain. She grabbed a paint brush and kneeled down beside Shannon Brown. A dried bone fragment jutted up from the dirt beside them, the distinctive half-moon shape of the ribcage. She blew some dust away, and then began to apply her brush to the base of the fossil.

Almost immediately, she noticed something loosen in the dirt. She poked at it with the brush, gently releasing it from the ground. It was another bone. She grabbed her field journal, and noted the bone’s exact position and orientation.

Grid D4. Right beside the extinct tiger’s ribcage.

She called over to Shannon. Hey, take a look at this.

What is it? the assistant asked, peering down at the bone. Looks like a—

Grab the camera, will you please? I want to send this back to the lab.

Shannon returned quickly, and handed the digital camera to Dr. Austin. She leaned in close, tapped the shutter release to focus, then took the picture. Then she stood.

Don’t let anyone get near this, she told Shannon. I’ll be back.

She hurried back to her tent and sat down at her desk. It was really just a folding table and a folding chair, but it did have a Dell Latitude D531 laptop with a wireless internet connection. She connected the camera to the laptop and quickly copied the photo file to the hard drive. In the process, she named the photo file STRANGEBONE1.

She logged on to the internet and quickly uploaded the image to University of Maryland servers. It took only a few minutes to complete. She looked at her watch. Ten-thirty a.m. That meant it was two-thirty in the morning in College Park. Too early to call her fellow researchers. She thought about calling one of the researchers at the University of Toamasina, but something told her to keep this discovery close to the vest, at least until she heard back from her colleagues stateside.

She tried not to hypothesize at the identification of the odd bone, but couldn’t stop the thoughts swirling inside her head.

It can’t be, she thought. It’s impossible.

A shout broke her reverie.

It was a man’s voice, loud and authoritative. And not in English. She recognized the native tongue of Malagasy. The shouting sounded a lot like orders.

She stood and peered out between her tattered canvas tent flaps. And gasped at what she saw.

A dozen or more dark-skinned men had invaded their camp. They wore bandanas to cover the bottom half of their faces. Most had camouflaged cargo pants and sleeveless shirts. Some wore dark green berets.

All of them, Dr. Austin realized with a shudder, held machine guns.

The men grabbed the graduate assistants roughly and shoved them towards the center of camp. They kicked at the bones, snapping the fragile fossils into brittle pieces. One of the men kicked down the grid wire with a set of thick combat boots.

A thick man wearing dark sunglasses stepped forward. What are you doing here? he asked in English. You are stealing from the people of Madagascar.

From her knees, Shannon stuttered, But we have the permission of your government.

The man laughed. And quickly, the other men joined him.

I hereby find you guilty of stealing priceless artifacts from the people of Madagascar, the man announced with a booming voice. Now, who is in charge of this illegal activity?

Dr. Austin drew in a deep breath, and announced herself. I am Dr. Charlotte Austin, she said, emerging from the tent. I am in charge here.

The man approached her slowly. Dr. Austin noticed a large serrated knife shoved into his the waist of his pants. You say you are in charge?

Yes, we are here under the auspices of a joint paleoanthropologic excavation with the University of Toamasina. Our authorization papers are in my tent. She surprised herself by keeping her voice from cracking. But on the inside, she was scared to death.

You are in charge? the man asked again.

Yes, she said. This time, her voice betrayed her. Her words came out in a quiver.

The man looked about the camp, at the terrified faces of the young researchers. Their eyes darted to Dr. Austin, looking for a way out of this terror.

Not anymore, he said.

With a slight nod of his head, his men brought their machine guns to bear. They aimed the barrels at a half-dozen research assistants. Some, Shannon included, had started to cry.

The man removed his mirrored sunglasses and squinted into the sun. He removed a bandana from his pocket and used it to wipe the lenses. Kill them, he said. And be sure there are no survivors.

And then the men opened fire.

Chapter 2

University of Maryland

College Park, Maryland

The auditorium in the Knight School of Journalism Building on the campus of University of Maryland was only half-filled. From the dais on the stage, Trevor Austin sighed at the poor turnout. The symposium was billed as an insightful roundtable discussion of the day’s current media trends. But only half of the upper-class journalism students had bothered to show, despite the department tagging it as mandatory. It was frustratingly familiar. Today’s J-school students had a very different idea of what comprised journalism.

To the new generation of students who passed through the Knight Building, newspapers and network newscasts were dinosaurs. Even cable news barely registered with them. If it wasn’t posted to a Facebook page, tweeted on Twitter, or linked to YouTube, it wasn’t really news.

Lost in his own bleak vision of his chosen profession, Trevor barely heard his own introduction. He smiled and waved at the polite applause. His fellow panelists included a writer from the Washington Post, an anchor from the local NBC affiliate and a retired editor of the Boston Globe. They weren’t exactly programming for the modern landscape, Trevor sadly realized.

Suddenly, he realized everyone was staring at him.

I’m sorry, he said into a tabletop microphone. Can you please repeat the question?

A female student he vaguely recognized asked, Can you share with the group your philosophy on the role of the media?

Trevor cleared his throat. Sure, good question. I could give a very long-winded explanation of the traditional role of the media. The objective and timely dissemination of people, places and things blah blah blah.

That elicited some laughs from the crowd.

"But journalism is about one thing, really. Truth. That’s our only job. The reporting of the truth. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it’s not so easy. Imagine yourself covering a murder trial. What is the truth there? Is he innocent or guilty? Did he act alone or with an accomplice? If he did it, why did he do it?

"Consider a politician, running for office. Are his claims about his opponent’s record accurate? Is he telling the truth about his own views?

The news media play a vital role in our culture. We are the watchdogs. We are the ones who need to sort through the bull and find the truth at the heart. And communicate to the world why that truth matters.

He shook his head. No easy task to accomplish in a dozen column inches or a ninety-second television report, much less 140 characters.

There was another round of laughter, followed by another question directed at the television anchor. Trevor tuned back out.

Forty-five minutes later, the session broke. Trevor shook the hands of a few students, thanked the moderator and headed back to his small office on the third level of the Knight Building.

Despite tired eyes, he dove right back into his work, a pile of reports by his Journalism 202 students. The exercise had been to file an 800-word report on a local court case. A quick glance showed that most of his students had taken the easy way out – no surprise there – and filed reports from traffic court. Located just two miles from campus in Hyattsville, it was the closest court to school. Nice initiative.

He scanned through the pile, searching for something interesting. He found one from a student named Randy Eaton, entitled, The Monkey Trial: Evolution and Education in a Delaware Court. He set the others aside and began to read.

By the time he finished, he had marked the paper with a ’95,’ taking points only for some minor grammatical issues. He scribbled the words ‘Original’ and ‘Nicely done’ in the margins of the cover page.

Night had fallen. The lone window in his office was impenetrably black. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. One in the morning. Christ, where had the time gone?

He had been at it for ten hours straight, and was now facing twenty-three identical papers about speeding violations. What he should’ve done, what he ordinarily would’ve done, was go home, open a bottle of Argentinean Malbec, cook up some pasta for two, and –

He stopped himself.

There was no need to cook for two. Not anymore.

And that’s why he was still at work, in a disheveled office in the center of the University of Maryland campus. By this time, even R.J. Bentley’s down on the strip would be closing up, sending wobbly students back to their dorms.

And still he did not go home. Could not go home.

Not since—

He shoved the thought from his mind. After all, that’s why he was still here in the Knight Building. That’s why he had pulled a cot into his office. And that’s why he hadn’t been home in days. That’s why he was wearing the same shirt for a fourth straight day.

Professor?

The voice startled Trevor. He spun to find a young man standing there. Baggy jeans, oversized Terps sweatshirt, baseball cap, three-day-old stubble. He carried a backpack over his right shoulder. He looked at the professor with obvious concern.

Joey, Austin said. What are you doing here so late?

Joey Marino was one of Austin’s graduate students. He took a tentative step into the office, looking around as if he had stumbled into a top secret government experiment. I was at Hornbake working on a paper. Saw the light on. You do know what time it is, right?

Yeah, I was just finishing up.

That’s the same shirt you had on yesterday.

Yeah. And I still have twenty-three papers to grade.

Joey looked at the daunting pile. More insightful reporting from traffic court, I’m sure.

Trevor’s shoulders sagged. You’re right. I need to get home. Get a new shirt.

Shave, added Joey helpfully.

I appreciate the concern. Now go home. Get here early tomorrow and look at those papers for me. Maybe the next Woodward is in there somewhere.

Trevor picked up his briefcase from the floor, stuffed some papers inside and pulled it over his shoulder. When he looked up, he saw that Joey was still standing there. Still looking concerned.

What?

The grad assistant took a moment to reply. We miss Dr. Charlotte too, he said.

Charlotte.

The name opened the floodgates, and memories poured through. Trevor thought of that vacation in Costa Rica, where they paddled out to a deserted beach in rented kayaks and spent the afternoon making love in the sand. He thought of the way she always fell asleep on any car trip lasting more than thirty minutes. Of the way she said ‘Catch-21’ instead of ‘Catch-22’. And of the way she looked at him with her turquoise eyes.

But mostly what he thought about was how much he missed her.

She was gone. In a single instant, half a world away, his whole life had been forever changed. And most of the time, Trevor wondered if he would ever recover from the loss. So he did what he could not to think. Not to wonder.

Professor?

For the second time that night, Joey broke Trevor’s reverie. I know you do. Now go on and get home. I expect you back here early tomorrow morning.

Joey turned back to the door, slowly, reluctantly. You’re leaving now too, right? he asked, leadingly.

Yes, I’m right behind you.

Okay. Goodnight, Professor.

Trevor waited for Joey to disappear down the corridor, then closed and locked the door behind him. He headed down the corridor.

There was a man standing at the end of the hallway.

He was wearing dark pants, with a black collared knit shirt under a black blazer. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut close to his scalp. His bearing suggested a military background.

Trevor Austin? the stranger intoned in a deep baritone voice. Professor Trevor Austin?

Yes, I am. Trevor was immediately defensive. The building should’ve been locked at this hour. Maybe he had come in with Joey? And you are?

You are married to Dr. Charlotte Austin, the paleontologist? the man asked.

Was married, yes. And I’m not answering any more questions until you tell just who you are and what you’re doing here.

The man stepped forward. My name is Tobias Black and I was a friend of your wife, he said. And I need you to come with me right now.

Trevor shook his head. Look, Tobias Black. My wife had lots of friends, and I don’t know you. So, if you don’t mind, it’s late, and all I want to do is go home and go to sleep. Whatever you have to talk about can surely wait.

I can appreciate your hesitancy, Black said, his voice booming even as he whispered. But I can assure you that what I have to discuss with you cannot wait. I’m afraid, Professor Austin, that your very life may depend on it.

Chapter 3

Quiet Waters Park

Annapolis, Maryland

Trevor Austin was sitting in his kitchen, absently stirring a cup of coffee. He took a sip. Cold. He dumped it out in the sink and didn’t bother to refresh it. He had lost interest.

This had happened to him before. Huge chunks of time that sometimes seemed to just vanish. Trevor would be doing something – making the bed, shuffling papers at his office, really just about anything – when all of a sudden he would jolt back to reality (though he was fully awake the entire time) hours later.

He knew, of course, why this was happening. Charlotte.

She was everywhere. Memories of his wife infused his life. And once those remembrances cracked open inside his muddled brain, the floodgates opened pretty widely. Her glasses still sitting on her bedside table. The photograph of their trip to Costa Rica on his office desk. A chip in a coffee cup where she had accidentally dropped it, laughing so hard during one of their regular

Reviews for The Devil's Gospel

[Chris Smith · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book needed proofreading and contained an excess of deus ex machina (several times!). A fun read, though, and chock full of compelling evidence for intelligent design. Exposes the falsity of many of the popular evidences for evolution. Not preachy, and presents facts and theories in a manner which allows the reader to decide for themself.