The Chimera Secret

20

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.’