James Tabor: The Deep Zone

MDRAB, multiple-drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (Ah-si-NEET-o-bac-ter bough-MAN-ee-eye), is a highly drug-resistant bacterium with yet another personality quirk that makes it inordinately dangerous. ACE may be the “great communicator” of all bacteria, able to pass on immunological mutations with speed that, in evolutionary terms, is lightning fast. When Don Barnard tells Hallie Leland that geneticists discovered, in ACE, the greatest number of genetic mutations ever found in a single organism, he is speaking the truth. They actually did, in 2005.

Antigenic shift, which produces the killer species of ACE, is a recognized evolutionary phenomenon.

Moonmilk is a real extremophile that lives in wild caves. A number of microbiologists believe that subterranean extremophiles are our best hope for developing new strains of antibiotics for use against microbes that, like ACE, are resistant to all existing drugs. Some—notably Dr. Hazel Barton, of Northern Kentucky University—have already synthesized new antibiotics from deep-cave extremophiles.

BARDA does exist and manages Project BioShield, which supports “advanced development of medical countermeasures for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear agents.”

Several supercaves are found in southern Mexico: Huautla and Cheve are two of the most famous. Cueva de Luz is another character in the book, a combination of Cheve, Huautla, and several other such giants. These caves contain all the bizarre horrors described in the book, though no one cave—as far as we know—contains all of them.

Many—perhaps most—native peoples with sophisticated cultures dating back to prehistory truly believe that caves are sentient living beings.

Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are using BADS, the boomerang anti-sniper detection system developed by DARPA. “Gecko Gear” was created by DARPA, which refers to it as Z-Man Tools and continues working in a “thrust area” called BIM, for biologically inspired materials. The DARPA devices are a bit different from those depicted in the book, but both operate on the same principle. While still experimental, the tools are thought to be deployed with certain special operations units today.

Soft robots that use “jamming skin enabled locomotion” to shape-shift and conform perfectly to, say, human hands and feet were developed by a private company called iRobot.

Ethan Ellenberg, my intrepid literary agent, first saw potential in The Deep Zone and worked with me to make it better. My stellar nonfiction editor, Jonathan Jao of Random House, introduced me and the novel to Ballantine’s editorial director of fiction, Mark Tavani. Mark helped transform the novel into the one I had dreamed of publishing for forty years. I am also deeply indebted to publisher Libby McGuire, editor in chief Jennifer Hershey, and deputy publisher Kim Hovey for their vigorous and unwavering support for the novel.

Kelli Fillingim masterfully guided The Deep Zone through the countless refits and refinements that transform a book from raw manuscript to published hardcover. Bonnie Thompson once again proved why she is the copy editor I would not write a book without. There are other worlds across the seas, and for introducing me to them I owe huge thanks to Denise Cronin, Rachel Kind, and everyone in subsidiary rights. And without the invaluable help of everyone in sales and promotion, the novel would have been like a tree falling in the forest. It might have made the most beautiful sound imaginable, but no one would have heard it.

Elizabeth Tabor, Wallis Wheeler, Steven Butler, Sheila Bannister, Tasha Wallis, Lisa Loomis, Damon Tabor, and Jack Tabor all read early drafts of the novel and offered invaluable feedback. My good friend Jim Parker, an expert cave diver and perhaps the smartest and bravest man I’ve ever known, helped me avoid wrong turns in the diving passages.

My mother, Hallie Siple Tabor, contributed half of the heroine’s name. Deputy Chief Joyce Leland of Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, the best supervisor any street cop could pray for, contributed the other half.

JAMES M. TABOR is the internationally award-winning author of Blind Descent and Forever on the Mountain . He was the executive producer for the History Channel special Journey to the Center of the World , after having worked as a Washington, D.C., police officer, a dockmaster, a nightclub manager, a national magazine editor and television personality, a corporate vice president, and a horse wrangler. He is a mountaineer, caver, and master diver. He lives in Vermont, where he is at work on his next novel. Visit him at jamesmtabor.com.

Forever on the Mountain

Blind Descent

The Deep Zone is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by James M. Tabor

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tabor, James M.

The deep zone : a novel / James M. Tabor

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53228-2

I. Title.

PS3620.A258D44 2012

813′.6—dc23

2011040477

www.ballantinebooks.com

Cover art and design: Carlos Beltrán

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