The Chimera Secret (22 page)

‘People have found monsters?’ Lopez asked, prodding the fire with a stick.

‘Sure they have,’ Dana replied. ‘It happens surprisingly often, believe it or not. Scientists working in remote areas on unrelated projects hear about local legends of
creatures out in the wild, so in their spare time they go wandering about looking for them.’

‘Such as?’ Ethan challenged.

‘Well,’ Proctor said, ‘there are two main types: living fossils, animals believed to have been extinct that are later found: and then there are species believed to be the
product of myth that then turn out to be either real or based on real observations of undiscovered species.’

‘Probably the most famous living fossil in history is the coelacanth,’ Dana Ford explained. ‘It’s a large fish, fossils of which had been found fairly regularly dating
back some three hundred and sixty million years. Other, more recent fossils revealed later species some eighty million years old. But nothing had been found dating after the extinction of the
dinosaurs during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, so quite understandably science believed the species to have died out.’

‘Until 1938,’ Proctor said, ‘when one was found swimming happily along off the coast of South Africa. It wasn’t until 1998 that a live specimen was actually caught, off
Indonesia. Point is, these things are quite large and have been present off the East African coast for the past sixty-five million years, yet we’ve only just caught a live specimen. Think
what else could be out there. Seventy-five per cent of our planet is ocean, and the same percentage of that ocean is utterly unknown to us. We have absolutely no idea what’s down
there.’

Ethan shrugged.

‘Finding a fish isn’t exactly going to rock the world, Proctor,’ he said.

Dana Ford smiled faintly and set her mug down at her feet as she wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned forward, her face flickering in the snapping light of the fire.

‘There is a place, out in the Pacific Ocean, west of the southern tip of South America, where in the sixties the United States Navy laid an array of hydrophones to monitor the passing of
Soviet submarines. The network was called SOSUS, an acronym for Sound Surveillance System. The phones lie far below the ocean surface in what’s known as the “deep sound channel”,
where temperature and pressure allow sound waves to keep traveling and not become scattered.’ Dana leaned forward even further, her eyes fixed on Ethan’s. ‘In 1997 the sensors
detected a sound that freaked out just about everybody who ever heard it. The varying frequency of the call bore the hallmark of a marine animal and was confirmed as a biological species by marine
biologists who examined the recording. The call rose rapidly in frequency over a period of one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be detected on multiple sensors.’

Lopez raised an eyebrow. ‘So?’

‘The sensors were more than five thousand kilometres apart,’ Dana replied. ‘The frequency of the sound means that the living creature that made the call would possess a mass
five times greater than that of the blue whale.’

A silence descended around the camp as everybody pictured in their mind’s eye a creature that would dwarf even the largest of the dinosaurs.

‘It’s not the only time it’s happened,’ Proctor confirmed. ‘The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have even given names to the occasional but
disturbing sounds they have detected, calling them things like Train, Whistle, Upsweep and Slow Down. Upsweep turned out to be an undersea volcano. But the 1997 sound was confirmed as biological,
and they named it the Bloop. Likewise, Slow Down was recorded in the same area as the Bloop, lasted for seven minutes and was powerful enough to be detected on sensors two thousand kilometres
apart.’

‘Every other possible cause of the noises has been eliminated,’ Dana continued. ‘Ice floes calving in Antarctica, submarine earthquakes, volcanoes and man-made events. Whatever
made those noises is alive and five times larger than a blue whale, and it’s living in the deep ocean right now.’

Proctor stared into the flames as he spoke.

‘Sailors from around the world have reported tales of huge monsters of the deep for thousands of years. For the most part it was always dismissed as the effects of embellishment and
alcohol, but those same sailors would also speak of rogue waves a hundred feet high that would rear up and swallow vessels whole. Science dismissed those tales too, until an orbiting satellite
detected rogue waves all across the world’s oceans and large vessels started filming their encounters with them.’

Ethan, mesmerised by the tales, looked at Dana.

‘So you’re saying that the Kraken might actually exist?’

‘No,’ Dana smiled. ‘We’re saying that sailors’ tales of a gigantic sea creature able to take down large vessels were born of encounters with something very real.
Dead giant squid have been washed ashore that were sixty feet long, but there is no theoretical limit to the maximum size for a cephalopod.’

Kurt Agry snorted as he leaned back against his bergen and swilled a mouthful of coffee around his mouth.

‘Big fish in the vastness of the ocean is a bit different to a ten-foot-tall ape in the mountains of Idaho,’ he said. ‘People have been looking for sasquatch for decades, yet
nobody has ever found a single bone, let alone solid evidence of its existence.’

Dana Ford rocked her head from side to side as the soldier spoke and then casually wafted his comments aside with a swipe from one hand.

‘Same old story,’ she said. ‘No evidence, so therefore it can’t be true. But have you ever thought about it for a moment, about what people are trying to find out here?
For a start, it’s likely that we’re looking at a fairly small population living in the largest wilderness anywhere on earth.’

‘The USA?’ Lopez asked in surprise. ‘I thought the largest wilderness would be Africa or something.’

‘So do most people,’ Proctor said, ‘but in fact in this country we have the greatest proportion of land classed as wilderness in the world, with most of it entirely unoccupied.
And where we’re sitting, the Gospel Hump Wilderness, is the largest continuous tract of forest in all of North America. That’s more than enough room for a population to live virtually
unobserved for millennia.’

‘A small population would not have enough genetic diversity to survive,’ Lopez pointed out as she warmed her hands near the fire. ‘I’ve read about it. Without enough
variability, breeding becomes impossible and the species goes extinct.’

‘Absolutely true,’ Dana replied. ‘And how many do you need to maintain a healthy population?’

Lopez blinked. ‘I don’t know. A few hundred?’

‘Thirty or so,’ Proctor replied with a smile that was surprisingly bright in the firelight, ‘provided those thirty individuals come from a varied enough pool themselves. There
are probably thirty to forty Amur leopards living out in the snowfields of Siberia. They rarely meet, and breed even less, but they’re considered surprisingly genetically healthy. Large
numbers are not required, just the genetic diversity itself.’

‘No bones or remains have been found,’ Ethan challenged. ‘Odd, if this species of animal has been living here for tens of thousands of years.’

‘How often do people find bear remains?’ Dana replied. ‘Not that often, given the large numbers of bears living out here. In the wild a large carcass can be completely consumed
within five to seven days, even less in warm weather. Carnivorous scavengers break up the larger bones and chunks of flesh, birds and small mammals strip the smaller remains and bacterial action
breaks down the rest. That’s without the tendency of many species to find a hiding place in which to curl up and die, if the moment of their passing is not due to an accident or predation.
They literally find somewhere they won’t be disturbed and die there completely concealed.’

Proctor shrugged in agreement, but gestured to the fire.

‘See this fire,’ he said, the flames glinting off his mug. ‘It was the ability to make and control fire that set us apart from all other species, maybe as long as four million
years ago. The scorch marks of human fires hundreds of thousands of years old can be found all across Africa and Europe, the scars of our ancestors’ struggle for survival in a wilderness
where almost every other creature was a beast, something that could kill you. But in 2003 researchers working in the deep jungles of Indonesia came across probably the closest thing we’ll
ever see to a real
Lost World
.’

Lopez chuckled.

‘You mean they found Doug McClure and some cavemen being chased by giant lizards?’

Dana grinned and raised an eyebrow.

‘Almost. A species known as the Komodo dragon lives there, a two-metre-long lizard with a lethally poisonous bite, that will happily hunt humans and eat them. But that was not what
fascinated them the most.’

‘In a cave,’ Proctor picked up the tale, ‘deep in what has been described as some of the toughest and most remote jungle terrain the team had ever encountered, they found the
remains of a fire that was started by humans a thousand times. Littering the floor of the cave were the bones of creatures consumed thousands of years ago, but there was something special about
them and the humans that consumed their prey: all of them were dwarf species, the humans barely a metre tall when fully grown.’

Kurt Agry burst out laughing. ‘Jesus Christ, was Aragon there too?’

‘
Homo floresiensis
,’ Ethan said, and was rewarded with looks of surprise from the gathered team.

‘Another species of man,’ Lopez added, clearly not wanting to miss out. ‘That was definitely alive just twelve thousand years ago and may survive to the present day in the deep
jungles of Indonesia.’

Dana Ford nodded and smiled at her.

‘It’s good to know that we’re not the only ones who are taking this all seriously, because
Homo floresiensis
wasn’t all they found out there. Just to the north,
and across China, India and Vietnam, they found a species of ape that was the opposite of
floresiensis
: a giant.’

‘A giant?’ Ethan echoed.

‘Gigantopithecus,’ Proctor said, ‘an extinct genus of ape that existed until around one hundred thousand years ago, a species that ancient humans would have encountered. The
fossil record suggests that they were the largest apes that ever lived, standing up to ten feet tall and weighing over a thousand pounds, three times heavier than a gorilla. Big males may have had
an arm span of over twelve feet.’

Lopez stared at Proctor for a moment. ‘Meat-eater?’ she asked cautiously.

‘The species probably inhabited bamboo forests, since its fossils are often found alongside extinct ancestors of the panda,’ Dana replied. ‘It would appear that Gigantopithecus
was mostly a plant-eater, but there’s nothing to suggest it wouldn’t have been omnivorous and capable of consuming meat.’

‘You think that’s what attacked Cletus McCarthy and Gavin Coltz?’ Lopez asked.

‘It’s one of the possible explanations for the suspected existence of sasquatch,’ Proctor explained. ‘The Bering Strait was a land bridge throughout the Ice Ages, which
means that members of the species could easily have crossed into North America. As it was so huge, Gigantopithecus probably had few enemies when fully grown and could have survived the cold
conditions in North America at the time.’ Proctor looked into the flames of the fire. ‘People expect sasquatch to be some kind of human, but a far more logical explanation is a primate
species more closely related to the apes: Gigantopithecus is most closely related to modern orang-utans and closely fits the description of Bigfoot in its appearance and habitat.’

Lieutenant Watson chuckled as he squatted down nearby alongside the fire.

‘Don’t get too comfortable, doc, you’re still outnumbered here. I don’t know what’s swimming about in the ocean or walking about in the mountains, but Kurt’s
right – I doubt there’ll be any weird and wonderful monsters stalking us out here.’

Ethan was about to respond when from somewhere in the inky blackness surrounding the camp a deep, sharp crunch shattered the silence. Then he heard a low, rattling growl so deep it sounded as
though it were underwater. Ethan felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle up as the soldiers leapt to their feet, their rifles in their hands.

‘Cover all points!’

Lieutenant Watson’s command snapped out harsh in the night as he and his men rushed outward from the fire in different directions, scattering to the impenetrable blackness at the edge of
the treeline. Their M-16s glinted wickedly in the darkness as they hurried past.

Kurt Agry keyed his microphone and called urgently down it.

‘Klein, Jenkins, radio check and status.’

The radio clicked once, but nothing verbal came back in response. Kurt cursed and ran low and fast out of the camp toward the perimeter.

‘What was that?’ Lopez asked, shooting a nervous glance at Ethan.

‘Probably a bear,’ Lieutenant Watson replied. ‘Nothing to get too excited about, but stay close to the fire.’

Dana and Proctor were on their feet, their features taut with a volatile fusion of excitement and fear. Ethan glanced at Duran Wilkes and saw that he had not moved and still sat with his mug in
his hands, looking into the fire. Mary was curled up beneath a blanket alongside him.

‘That sounded too damned big for a bear,’ Dana Ford uttered, searching the darkness uselessly with her eyes.

Ethan moved to the edge of the firelight and squatted, deliberately looking into the deepest, darkest bit of forest that he could find in an effort to let his eyes adjust to the night. He had
some sympathy with Kurt Agry’s desire to not have a camp fire – the bright light and heat destroyed the human eye’s ability to see in the dark.

He heard Kurt’s anxious voice float to him from the blackness.

‘You see anything?’

Ethan started to distinguish the soldiers as they fanned out toward the perimeter of the camp, their M-16s aimed in front of them as they edged toward the treeline. Somewhere out there were the
two sentries, concealed in the undergrowth.