Abominable Page 9

  Shelby started with a jerk. Jesus. What the hell. “Again, please.”

  “You saw it.”

  “Yes.” She watched. “Stop it.” The video froze. “I’ll be damned,” she murmured.

  Yesterday her impression had been Goliath had not been affected at all by the laser beam. She’d been wrong. The huge primate had been affected. She sensed an eerie disquiet settle over her unrelated to the early morning hour.

  She glanced at Mendle and he just shrugged uncomfortably.

  “That’s not an illusion?” she asked, returning to the screen.

  “We don’t believe it is.”

  “Run it one more time, please.”

  He did. Shelby stared, trying to tell herself this wasn’t real. But it was.

  Just after the Astor’s last powerful laser shot to the primate’s “dead center” and seconds after the prism effect faded, Goliath had moved.

  His huge right hand had opened, before clenching in a fist again!

  “Who have you showed this to?” Shelby had already watched the last minutes of the video at least ten times. Yet, she still couldn’t believe what she’d witnessed. It was impossible, more impossible than all that physics gibberish about laser reflected pulses. Regardless…

  Goliath had moved!

  A twenty-eight-thousand-year-old ape, locked in some mysterious alien “specimen jar,” had opened his damn hand. Then closed it!

  Mendle refilled both their coffee cups. “Frankly, when the video technician asked me to look at this early this morning, I was skeptical to say the least. I ran it by some of our software tech guys and initially they said it could be the medium—in other words, the light passing through whatever is in that damn thing created a propagation wave that ‘moved’ his fingers.”

  “But his left hand didn’t move—only his right.”

  “That’s why I said we think it’s real, not an illusion.” He stared at the frozen image on the screen. The fingers of the giant’s right hand definitely open in this shot. “The team accompanying the UCO to Elmendorf are aware, as is Astor. In fact, he flew down with the UCO.”

  “Why did you let it leave?” Shelby asked, unable to mask the exasperation in her tone.

  “The C-17 had already taken off. NASA wants this thing in Virginia ASAP.”

  Shelby wanted Reddic to see this. He’d already called about the progress on the skeleton but with Goliath in the news, the fossil bones had suddenly taken back fiddle. “Can I get a copy?”

  Mendle yawned but it looked forced. She’d already guessed his answer before he spoke. “Classified, sorry.”

  “So the military owns Goliath now.”

  “Not Goliath. But the UCO, yes.”

  “And Goliath is in the UCO.”

  “Thus far.”

  “And besides NASA, now SETI is invited to the party.” She slowly shook her head. “They’re really beginning to believe that big ape is an alien. I’ve heard some of the ludicrous statements in the news.”

  “You must admit it is appealing.”

  “To who?”

  The lieutenant attempted a weak grin. “To those selling advertising spots?”

  Shelby stifled her own yawn. This was frustrating. But ever since first arriving at Hangar 13 the other day, could she really have imagined it any other way? She heard herself mutter, “Goliath will end up in Area 51.” Abruptly she asked, “Has John seen this?”

  Mendle shook his head. “No,” adding, “But he will be arriving later this morning. He didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “The recent satellite images show a change in the Little Okpilak offshoot.”

  Shelby met the lieutenant’s gaze. “Where the UCO was discovered.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s going back, isn’t he?”

  “We’re flying him to the base of the glacier first thing tomorrow. Then he’ll hike in for a quick look-see.”

  Shelby thought of the large adult fractured ulna back at her lab. The bone not belonging to the young primate collection. “What change?”

  “The crevasse is no longer there.”

  “It closed?”

  “It’s no longer visible.”

  “Why the urgency? Glaciers change all the time, correct? Recede, advance…” Then she caught on. “It’s because of the UCO.”

  He nodded. “Every angle remotely related to the UCO is being checked out.”

  “The proverbial no stone left unturned.”

  “Exactly.”

  Shelby gazed back at the image on the screen. How large would Goliath’s forearm bone be? Huge. “There’s another skeleton in the Little Okpilak ice sheet,” she said.

  Mendle sat up straight. “Another Goliath?”

  “Maybe…all I have is a length of ulna.” She could see the lieutenant’s wheels turning. Before he could speak, she blurted out, “Let me go to Okpilak. I’m the primate expert. I’ll find it, if it’s there.”

  The wind blowing off the alpine glacier cut under Shelby’s wool-lined Gore-Tex hood, sending lancinating shivers down her spine. Damn, and this was just summer! She refused to even imagine what hiking over the ice five months from now would be like. A few paces ahead John led the trek away from the seven-passenger UH-1 Iroquois chopper, while behind her four airmen and the pilot pulled rear guard. All the military men were armed, she noted. The pilot had put down on the glacier a quarter mile west from where the huge crevasse had opened originally until the frozen conditions nearer the terminus could be evaluated firsthand before deciding whether the ice slab could safely support a three-ton helicopter.

  John continued glancing back and Shelby would nod. I’m fine. Cold but fine.

  John smiled. “In another two hours, it’ll break forty-five.”

  Wonderful. She’d been given a one-afternoon crash course in the use of crampons, ice axes, and a self-arresting ski pole. She hoped she wouldn’t need the last. John had been hesitant about taking her along, but she’d convinced him after promising to do exactly as he said. No questions asked. Safety was the number one priority, everything else followed. Only then did Mendle reveal John was a volunteer member of the Alaskan Search and Rescue Association. The helicopter crew seemed as proficient as John at maneuvering over and around the numerous icy crags and cracks that made up the Okpilak surface. The sky was cloudless and fortunately no precipitation in the forecast. The blue intensity of the ice surprised Shelby.

  John explained, “That blue coloration indicates ice density. More dense means more blue is reflected back,” adding, “Very white ice is less dense with more air bubbles.”

  Shelby followed his steps around a patch of uneven surface. “Blue is safer then.”

  “Generally yes, though the huge crevasse where Mark and I found the UCO was as blue as your Pacific, but much was covered with snow from the previous week’s storm.”

  Behind her, she listened to the airmen converse, mostly about hockey from the tidbits she picked up between wind blasts. One of the airmen she’d been introduced to was a military reporter. She adjusted her backpack issued to her at Eielson—rain gear, bear spray, head lamp, knife, rope, toilet paper (she wasn’t looking forward to having to use that), and extra gloves and cold weather gear. She moved up closer to John. Her thighs burned and she was glad the uphill trudge was shallow. And with the constant wind, much of the snow had been blown away leaving hard ice, making hiking more energy efficient. She couldn’t help marveling at the stark barren beauty. So different from the forested Sierra Nevadas in California.

  John sensed her next her question, glancing at his GPS. “Not much farther, less than fifteen minutes to where the offshoot crevasse had been.”

  Shelby sucked in some cool air. “I wasn’t going to ask.”

  He grinned. “Yes you were.”

  She smiled, seeing her reflection in his sun goggles. “Doing this every day will keep you in shape.”

  “Wish
Mark and I had had the Iroquois on our first hike in. Would have saved us a couple of days.” John’s tone turned more serious. “What did you think of the video?”

  “Wish the UCO was still at Eielson.”

  “Yeah, it was freaky. Do really believe it was a conscious movement or some, I don’t know, weird reflex from the heat of the laser?”

  “But the temperature of the UCO never changed. At least the surface anyway.”

  “True.”

  Shelby still wasn’t a hundred percent sure what the primate’s hand movement indicated and the answer might never be known unless the so-called experts could figure a way into the container. She checked the time. By now the UCO would be readying for takeoff from Elmendorf for NASA in Virginia. All she had now were the bones, and though she was fairly certain in her conviction they were linked to Goliath, her gut intuition cautioned her to maintain an open mind. Finding the owner of the large adult ulna would go a long way in solidifying her hypothesis. She hoped the answer was up ahead on Little Okpilak.

  They made good time and reached the target location on the offshoot at eleven, taking a brief break for hydration and a lunch of energy bars, cheese sticks, and an apple. The high rock ridges rose steeply on both sides with the glacier seemingly filling the gorge below.

  John watched the pilot checking the ice, commenting, “Twenty-eight thousand years ago this might have been ice free and only later did the glacier flow in,” adding, “which would explain the fragments of plant material isolated from the shale and slate we collected.”

  The military pressman asked Shelby, “You believe there is another skeleton, yes?”

  “I do,” she replied, watching for ice fissures. The only ones she’d seen she could easily step over. “I have a large segment of bone that doesn’t match the smaller skeleton.”

  He continued, “There is speculation—in fact, you were quoted—that this could be a species of Gigantopithecus.”

  Shelby smiled. “That’s as good a speculation as any.”

  “I take it you don’t fall into the ‘extraterrestrial’ camp.”

  Briefly, she watched a bald eagle soar high overhead John had pointed out. “That Goliath is an alien being? No, I don’t.”

  The pressman watched her. “Dr. Astor seems to be shifting in his opinion—he now believes the primate might be from outer space.”

  “Dr. Astor has been talking to SETI.”

  “Search for extraterrestrial life forms. They are adamant Goliath be treated as alien until proven otherwise.”

  “I’m sure they’ve noticed a significant increase in funding since the news broke, too.”

  “Dr. Hollister, are you suggesting their motives are financial?” he asked.

  Shelby cautioned herself. No need to start a rift war. “No, I’m just saying we all need to wait before jumping to any conclusions. As far as I’m concerned, nothing is ruled out—earthbound or alien.”

  John seemed puzzled as he meandered north and south across the huge slab of ice, while double-checking his GPS unit.

  Finally he stopped at a point closer to the north rock wall. “Satellites don’t lie.”

  One of the airmen asked, “It was right here?”

  The glaciologist nodded, silently gazing across the ice sheet.

  Shelby shifted her pack and removed her cell phone for more photos. “The crevasse closed completely.” She tried to mask her disappointment. Major excavation would be required now to retrieve any more primate bones.

  John tested the ice before moving across where the huge fissure had been. “Like it was never here. Glad it waited until we removed the UCO, otherwise we’d never have found it or…” looking at Shelby, “the skeleton.” He and the crew broke open their packs and began removing tools to collect core samples. One of the airmen set up a portable sonar unit used to look into the glacier.

  They didn’t get far.

  John answered his radio, nodded grimly, and disconnected. Shelby noticed his immediate frown. “We’re packing up,” he said.

  “We haven’t even begun,” one of the airmen said. “Weather change?” he asked.

  John shook his head. “It’s the C-17 carrying the UCO. They’ve lost all contact with the plane.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is over twenty thousand square miles of remote valleys and untamed rivers and is the single largest wilderness area in the United States. The C-17 Globemaster had just surpassed 31,000 feet when air traffic controllers at both Elmendorf Air Force Base and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport suddenly lost all radar and radio contact with the military cargo plane. No mayday distress calls from the pilots, no reports of trouble—the plane simply vanished.

  Immediate search-and-rescue fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters as well as ground searchers were scrambled and sent to the C-17’s last known coordinates—ten miles south-southeast of Mt. Wrangell over the massive Bagley Icefield, the largest nonpolar ice field in North America. Visibility was excellent and the huge plane or any wreckage should have been easily observed—but nothing. A pair of hikers trekking Miles Glacier had reported hearing a loud sonic boom, though never saw a plane, but this was farther south than the last radar contact. The search moved south.

  Still nothing. The Globemaster, UCO, and Goliath had completely disappeared from the American view but not the world scene. The news was everywhere, the opinions as rampant as they were varied. Astor and everyone else even remotely tied to the story talked. Extraterrestrial, extinct ape, the entire plane, crew, and cargo teleported to a distant world, even a huge government cover-up—the plane was really hidden somewhere in a secret bunker under the Nevada desert.

  Two days later the coverage showed no signs of abating.

  Where was Goliath?

  Like the rest of the nation, Shelby’s thoughts never ventured far before returning to the giant primate and the mysterious container. Someone had leaked two images from the now famous Eielson military video—labeled Argosy Two after the former infamous magazine’s 1968 Bigfoot photos—demonstrating the ape, one with a closed fist and another open. “Goliath lives!” the headlines read.

  Shelby had granted some interviews, declined others, especially those outlets that wished to sensationalize the story. Once her photo was released, the television requests escalated—so did her requests for dates. Reddic joked if she wasn’t careful, she might find herself no longer single.

  She was scheduled to leave Fairbanks in a day or two, her research lab at UCLA beckoning, yet she was resistant to fly south just yet. The story was here, even without the UCO, and once it was found, she didn’t wish to be thousands of miles away. It would be found, she was convinced. Plus, the mysterious large adult primate ulna bone resting on the counter in front of her continued to gnaw at her sense of scientific inquiry. She wanted to get back to Little Okpilak Glacier and find more adult remains where this came from.

  Shelby returned to the flat certified mail envelope a lab tech had just dropped off. She read the address—Reddic’s Center of Primatology, University of California, Los Angeles. Her pulse edged up. The DNA results.

  She’d only started to open it when John knocked on her open door. “What do you have there, more fan mail?” he joked.

  She smiled, tearing the flap tab open. “I’m sure you’ve had your share.”

  Entering, he asked, “Did you see Astor and the president of SETI on the late show last night?”

  “I missed it. Sure it was all about the big hairy alien. Astor sure jumped on the ET bandwagon fast.” She gave him a questioning look that had nothing to do with the celebrity astrophysicist.

  He stood next to her, indicating no. “Nothing. Mendle can’t understand why they can’t pick up the plane’s ELT—emergency locator transmitter.”

  “They go off automatically, correct?”

  “In theory, though for one reason or another they can fail.”

  Watching her
pull some sheets from the envelope, he lifted the large ulna. “Sorry we weren’t given more time on Okpilak.”

  “I’ll get back.” She perused the documents. “The DNA came back from the samples I sent.”

  She felt his eyes on her as she studied the results. It was pretty much what she anticipated, very similar to modern-day gorillas and chimpanzees. Ninety-one percent similar. This wasn’t unexpected as it was generally accepted that all the great apes, including man, had a common ancestor going back ten million years.

  “Any surprises?” John asked.

  Shelby began to shake her head no, but then she reached the last line. “I’ll be damned,” she murmured. She reached for the large bone with one hand and set it beside the child primate skull. “Yes,” she said. “This I didn’t expect.”

  “What?”

  “They are both females.”

  “Both?”

  Shelby nodded. “We have two individuals here, and that’s not all.” She broke into a wide grin. “John, they are related. We have a mother and her daughter!”

  At night the temperatures over the northern Bagley Icefield would dip to the low forties, even in July. The team of snow-kiters had been dropped off near the base of Mt. St. Elias several miles west of the Canadian border. The plan was to use their fifteen-meter Summit kites to fly-surf across the massive three-thousand-foot-thick sheet of ice utilizing the twenty-mile wind gusts. The views proved magnificent as they literally flew over the ice surrounded by the beautiful peaks of the Wrangell Mountains, carefully avoiding crevasses and the all too common columns of ice seracs and boulders protruding precipitously two stories into the air.

  The third day they skimmed over what they thought were pieces of broken bedrock spread out over the smooth ice surface. It hadn’t snowed in a weeks, June and July being the dry months, so they didn’t think it odd until one of them stopped and picked up a piece.

  “This is metal.” The metal field covered several square miles at least.