The Chimera Secret (15 page)

‘What’s his story?’ Duran asked.

Ethan again let Lopez lead, hoping it would soften the blow somewhat.

‘Jesse swears that his brother and the ranger were attacked and killed by some kind of animal.’

Duran Wilkes’s gaze remained fixed on Lopez as he nodded slowly.

‘I’m takin’ it that he was smart enough to know a bear when he saw one?’

‘He knew bears,’ Lopez agreed, ‘and he was adamant that it wasn’t a bear, despite the fact that had he said it was he wouldn’t be under so much
suspicion.’

Duran Wilkes’s head dropped for a moment as he examined his own hands, folded before him as he sat on the couch. He sighed softly before speaking.

‘You found the ranger’s body at the scene, but not Cletus’s?’

‘That’s what was strange,’ Ethan said. ‘This animal, whatever it was, killed both of the victims but only took one body with it. More than that, Jesse said that the
creature let him go. You ever hear of a bear doing that?’

Duran glanced at his granddaughter, Mary, and Ethan detected a look of apprehension pass between them.

‘You know something about this?’ Lopez asked them.

Duran Wilkes became even more subdued. It was Mary who spoke, her voice small yet confident, the blood of her hardy frontier-women ancestors still running strong within her.

‘My grandmother disappeared near Fox Creek eight summers ago. Grandpa spent the next three seasons looking for her out in the forests, searched everywhere for her and—’

‘That’s enough, Mary,’ Duran interrupted.

‘No, it’s not,’ she insisted. ‘She disappeared, and the National Guard went up there, found nothing and claimed a bear must have got her.’

‘You don’t think it was a bear,’ Lopez guessed.

‘Harriet, my grandmother,’ Mary replied, ‘carried a Marlin lever-action with .450 caliber rounds with her whenever she went out into the woods. Never even went to the out-house
without it.’

Duran finally spoke.

‘We were all out camping near Fox Creek,’ he said. ‘Harriet went to the river to check on our fishing nets. Couple of minutes later we heard two shots from her carbine. You can
tell the noise from a Marlin that big, foot-and-a-half barrels that kick like all hell. Drop a grizzly flat on its back so fast it’d be dead before it hit the ground.’

‘What happened?’ Lopez asked.

Duran rubbed his forehead with one hand, then ground the points of his fingers into his eyes as he spoke.

‘We found the nets and the Marlin, lying on the shoals. There was blood on the stones, real fresh. Of Harriet, we never saw anything again.’ Duran looked up at Lopez. ‘Whatever
it was that took her, she hit it with both barrels at point-blank range and all it did was leak a bit.’

Ethan waited for a moment before speaking.

‘We’re heading out there,’ he said. ‘We’ve got one suspect facing charges for a murder that we feel certain he did not commit, and we’ve got strong evidence
of something stalking the forests out here that attacks and kills humans regularly enough to be a hazard. We need to take this opportunity to stop it and we need your help, Duran. Anything you can
tell us, anything that you can do, will help.’

Duran Wilkes sighed heavily and then stood from his couch.

‘I’m sorry, but we’re done here.’

‘You sure that’s the right decision?’ Lopez asked. ‘You might even be able to find out what happened to—’

‘We’re done here,’ Duran interrupted. He gestured to the front porch with one stiff movement of his hand.

Ethan felt his shoulders drop, but he could hardly blame the old man. Lopez stood and joined him as Duran followed them to the front door. She turned to look at the old man before they left.

‘Is there anything that you can tell us that might help?’ she asked. ‘You searched for your wife all that time, maybe you figured something out?’

Duran’s rheumy old eyes looked into hers for a long beat before he replied.

‘Don’t climb above the six-thousand-foot line in the mountains,’ he said. ‘There’s something up there, and I wouldn’t wish meeting it face to face upon my
worst enemy.’

The guest house that Ethan and Lopez had checked into was not the most luxurious they had even seen, but it was sufficiently well equipped to afford online access in all of the
rooms. Ethan had wired their spare laptop up to the Internet using a cable, which was more secure than the wireless system, and now Doug Jarvis stared at him from out of the monitor screen.

‘What’s the story so far?’

High-level encryption slowed the laptop’s processor down, meaning that the conversation lagged slightly.

Ethan held up the flash drive in his hand.

‘I’m sending you the contents of this drive right now,’ he said. ‘The files inside allegedly contain evidence of sasquatch living out here in the mountains. According to
the deceased’s mother, whatever is on this caused her son to become extremely paranoid and worried, to the extent that he hid this evidence with his brother-in-law in the hope that it would
come to light should anything happen to him.’

Jarvis appeared unimpressed.

‘Didn’t hide it very well then, did he?’ he replied. ‘And I take it that you’re referring to Randy MacCarthy, a renowned local drop-out and social
recluse?’

‘He was a fantasist and loner,’ Lopez cut in from one side, ‘but he was harmless and not enough of an outcast to have turned weird on anyone. Plus he found enough stuff that
his brother got involved, and everything we have on Cletus says that he was a straight-up guy.’

‘No convictions,’ Ethan agreed, ‘worked hard, married and lived out near the forests. We spoke to his widow. She’s the one who gave us this evidence.’

‘Have you looked at it yet?’ Jarvis asked.

‘It’s encrypted,’ Ethan replied. ‘No way we can get into it here so you’ll have to get your tech-heads onto it.’

Jarvis nodded.

‘There’s not much commercially available encryption that our guys can’t crack within an hour or two. We should have results back by the end of today. What’s your plan
from here?’

Ethan leaned back in his chair as he spoke.

‘Mostly we’re up against dead ends but something’s going on all right. This is the last real avenue of investigation that we can follow up in Riggins.’

‘What about Jesse MacCarthy?’ Jarvis pressed. ‘What did he have to say?’

‘He was pretty shook up by everything,’ Lopez said. ‘The kid’s not much out of his teens and has just seen both of his brothers turn up dead. Whatever he saw out there in
the woods it scared the bejesus out of him and he’s sticking to his story. He’s telling the truth, Doug.’

Jarvis nodded.

‘And it’s that truth that’s going to see him serving twenty to life if we can’t prove that he didn’t kill his brothers.’

‘No way he’s lying,’ Ethan said. ‘He knows he could go down for this but he’s not changing his statement. He’ll be psych’ evaluated and found fit to
stand trial. Prosecution will tear him apart, defense will try for a guilty plea or some other crap, he’ll refuse and he’ll do time.’

‘He doesn’t deserve that,’ Lopez added. ‘He goes down, he won’t last a year inside.’

Jarvis nodded.

‘Then we’d best get you out into the woods.’

‘I was afraid you’d say that,’ Lopez uttered. ‘You didn’t see what was left of Gavin Coltz’s head.’

‘Only way you can keep working on this now is to find Cletus MacCarthy’s remains and hope the coroner can pin the cause of death to the same perpetrator who we think killed Gavin
Coltz,’ Jarvis explained. ‘One anomaly in the cause of Coltz’s death isn’t enough to convince an attorney of Jesse’s innocence, but two will ring enough alarm bells to
halt any prosecution pending further investigation.’

Ethan frowned thoughtfully.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Seems that the law here considers Jesse guilty as hell and isn’t doing anything with the evidence already at hand. Sure, Randy’s
suicide was clearly staged, but Gavin Coltz was killed by something far stronger than a human being. Jesse’s just a kid and not a big one at that. He just couldn’t have decapitated a
man with his bare hands. I know I sure as hell couldn’t and I’m twice his size.’

Jarvis understood immediately.

‘You won’t be going out there alone,’ he assured them. ‘I’ll request an escort to be sent out from Gowen Field. I’ve already got a couple of mission
specialists on stand-by – they’ll join you in Riggins. The troops will meet you at a pre-assigned location outside of the town so we don’t attract any local media
attention.’

‘What kind of specialists?’ Lopez asked.

‘Cryptozoologists,’ Jarvis replied. ‘They’ve both spent years studying sasquatch, including time in the field in Oregon and Washington State. They’re qualified
anthropologists, so they should have experience and knowledge enough to assist you.’

‘And the troops?’ Ethan asked.

‘National Guard,’ Jarvis said. ‘I’ll have to go up top with my cap in my hand to get them deployed.’

‘They’ll need to be tooled up,’ Ethan warned. ‘This thing supposedly shrugged off a direct hit from a .308 slug like it was swatting a fly, and we’ve seen what it
can do when it gets hold of people.’

‘Fine,’ Jarvis agreed. ‘Leave it with me.’

‘What about Jesse?’ Lopez asked. ‘As long as he’s in that cell in town he’s vulnerable to just about anybody who wants a piece of him. Word spreads fast and people
can react without thinking.’

‘Not much I can do for him,’ Jarvis said. ‘But there’s nothing that the sheriff can do either until a trial date is set. They won’t transfer him into a prison
population unless formal charges have been made, which I take it hasn’t happened yet?’

Ethan shook his head. Despite the sheriff’s dismissal of their questions over Jesse’s presumed guilt, he had so far made no formal charges.

‘Good. Let’s get you out there doing what you do best, and in the meantime I’ll see what legal stalling I can create to protect Jesse. I should be able to get him a decent
lawyer. Right now I’ve got to go – been summoned by the high and mighty at the NSA.’

Ethan reached over and switched off the laptop before looking at Lopez over his shoulder.

‘Fancy a hike?’

Lopez’s dark eyes watched his for a moment but they were devoid of humour.

‘You got any idea what you’re doing?’ she asked. ‘I’m all for getting Jesse off the hook but this isn’t a fool’s game, Ethan. If there’s something
out there, we’re headed right into its back yard and all the evidence suggests that really pisses it off.’

Ethan raised an eyebrow.

‘You’re buying into this monster stuff?’

‘You’re not?’

‘Jesse saw something,’ Ethan agreed, ‘but a bear might have hit Gavin Coltz hard enough to take his head off. Heat of the moment, being charged by a wild animal having seen it
smash your brother to death on rocks? I’m just saying chances are it’s a wild animal, although no less dangerous, and that Jesse mistook a bear for something more sinister.’

‘A bear that made a conscious decision to overkill his brother, but then let Jesse go?’ Lopez challenged. ‘Hell, that’s one smart bear you got there, skipper. He
developed a conscience? Regret?’

Ethan stood up, smiling as he fished his cell out of his jacket pocket.

‘I gotta make a call.’

Ethan made his way to the lobby and then outside into the lot. The surrounding mountains were still wreathed in cloud, the horizon between them lit like a sliver of molten metal as the sun sank
into oblivion beyond. Ethan checked behind him to ensure that Lopez had not followed, and then hit a quick-dial and waited. The voice answered on the third ring, sounding like it was outside.

‘
Ethan?
’

‘Hi, Natalie, how’s things?’

Her reply made something instinctive inside of him tense up.

‘
Interesting.
’

The National Security Agency’s facility at Fort Meade could possibly be described as the most classified intelligence building in the entire world. A parking lot for
18,000 vehicles gave some sense of scale to the operations conducted by this most clandestine of agencies. A huge oblong building in the center was coated with mirrored black windows that reflected
the surrounding Maryland hills and likewise shielded its interior from prying eyes, a Pandora’s Box of classified information-gathering so sensitive that it was said that any form of
communication, whether verbal or electronic, could be intercepted and eavesdropped by specialists laboring within.

Doug Jarvis strode into a briefing room on the top floor four minutes late for a meeting, the importance of which had been flagged on his internal mail system as ‘Stellar’ by
Director Mitchell. When he got into the room, he realized why.

Before him sat the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the United States military’s highest-ranking officers and the men responsible for the overall command of the Army, Navy, Air Force and
intelligence community. It wasn’t quite like being summoned by the twelve apostles, but it wasn’t far off either.

Jarvis hesitated before closing the door behind him.

A single spare chair awaited him, which meant that he was the only department head invited to this spectacular display of rank and medals. It was a wonder that the sheer volume of brass
wasn’t showing up on the agency’s spy satellites. Heading the table was DIA Director Abraham Mitchell, flanked by the Director of the National Security Agency, Morris Tyler, and CIA
Director William Steel. The Chiefs of Staff sat alongside each other on each side of the table, and at the far end was the empty chair.

A dense pall of foreboding fell upon Jarvis’s shoulders as Abraham Mitchell’s voice rumbled like an avalanche of boulders toward him.

‘Jarvis, good of you to join us. Please, take a seat.’

Jarvis kept his back straight and his chin held high as he strode with more confidence than he felt and took his place at the end of the table. Mitchell wasted no time in getting down to
business.

‘Your operation has been flagged by the CIA as having flouted a number of pivotal security protocols, during which civilian contracted workers have been exposed to classified projects and
data which, if exposed, could lead to serious repercussions.’ Mitchell glared down the table at him. ‘Why?’