“What worries me the most about this episode with Kevin Marshall is that he must have said something to those women,” Bertram said. “The last thing I want is for them to start thinking the bonobos on the island are using fire. If that gets out, it’s just a matter of time before we have animal-rights zealots coming out of the woodwork. GenSys will shut the program down faster than you can blink your eye.”

“What do you think we should do?” Siegfried asked. “I could arrange to have the three of them just disappear.”

Bertram glanced at Siegfried and shivered. He knew the man was not joking.

“No, that could be worse,” Bertram said. He looked back out through the windshield. “That might stimulate a major State-side investigation. I’m telling you, I think we should dart the bonobos, put them in the cages I brought out there, and bring them in. Sure as hell, they won’t be using fire in the animal center.”

“No, goddamn it!” Siegfried snapped. “The animals stay on the island. If they’re brought in, you won’t be able to keep it a secret. Even if they don’t use fire, we know they’re cunning little bastards from the problems we’ve had during retrievals, and maybe they’ll start doing something else equally as weird. If they do, handlers will start talking. We’ll be in worse shape.”

Bertram sighed and ran a nervous hand through his white hair. Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that Siegfried had a point. Still, he thought it best to bring the animals in, mainly to keep them isolated from each other.

“I’ll be talking to Raymond Lyons tomorrow,” Siegfried said. “I tried to call him earlier. I figured that since Kevin Marshall had already talked to him, we might as well get his opinion about what to do. After all, this whole operation is his creation. He doesn’t want trouble any more than we do.”

“True,” Bertram said.

“Tell me something,” Siegfried said. “If the animals are using fire, how do you think they got it? You still think it was lightning?”

“I’m not sure,” Bertram said. “It could have been lightning. But, then again, they managed to steal a bunch of tools, rope, and other stuff when we had the crew out there constructing the island side of the bridge mechanism. No one even thought about the possibility of theft. I mean, everything was secured in toolboxes. Anyway, they might have gotten matches. Of course, I have no idea how they could have figured out how to use them.”

“You just gave me an idea,” Siegfried said. “Why don’t we tell Kevin and the women there’s been a crew going out to the island over the past week to do some kind of work like cutting trails. We can say that we’ve just found out that they have been starting the fires.”

“Now that’s a damn good idea!” Bertram said. “It makes perfect sense. We’ve even considered putting a bridge over the Rio Diviso.”