by Alan Nayes
The rhythmic vibration smoothed out and he sensed all motion come to a stop. He heard activity on the roof overhead and moments later, daylight shined through as fruit dropped to the bed of hay around his feet. He could have reached the daylight easily but chose to remain seated, moving only to swipe the food closer with his huge shackled hands. He would let them believe he had no desire to do more.
The pale pinkish-brown eyes took in everything around him, absorbing far more than the day before. And far more the day before than the day before that. His instinctual thoughts told the giant he was in grave danger, but also now was not the time to act. He ate in silence, stifling the primal urge to stand and roar in defiance. He’d learned the quieter and more still he was, the more he was left alone.
The vibrations below him resumed and the oily scent of diesel wafted in the closed air around him. The smell nauseated the giant but he ate anyway. The temperature was warmer than he was accustomed to, but cooler than it had been. He briefly scratched the mild swelling on his huge left thigh. He’d been poked there with a long stick before moving into this much smaller enclosure, but besides the swelling under the skin, the minor irritation only itched a little. He studied the site a moment longer.
Later he would sleep.
When he awoke he would go back to work on removing the limitations to his wrists and ankles.
Ralston dozed in the passenger seat of the cab. Periodically he would check his phone for any messages—texts or emails—from Ahmen, or monitor the live trailer video feed and then pass the time gazing at the scenery. Mostly rolling hills and green. Green everywhere. Ever since leaving Portland, which they made in decent time, just under fourteen hours, the views had been nondescript except for the iconic images of Mt. St. Helens and Mount Rainier. He had no desire to see either any closer.
He glanced over at the driver. Most of the men appeared similar to him—swarthy, Middle Eastern, but there were a few Caucasians like himself, and an African American, even an Hispanic and an Asian—a veritable United Nations crew. The Middle Easterners spoke in a language he didn’t understand, though each was fluent in English. They dressed the same also—either camouflage chinos and sweatshirts or camouflage jumpsuits. Ralston figured they were Ahmen’s personal mercenaries and actually felt pretty damn safe in their presence. Though the heavy artillery—9mm revolvers and high-powered rifles were kept out of sight, he knew they were all within easy reach should they be required. Goliath had shown no indication in the first fifteen-plus hours of the trip north that any weapons would be necessary. Ahmen’s orders had been strict—no one shoots the ape but him. And get him to Vancouver safely. Ralston assumed an exception would be made if an episode occurred like what happened during the surgical debacle. God, he would never forget watching that white hairy behemoth charging down the corridor for the animal hospital exit, effectively sealing the ape’s fate.
The driver, a muscular stocky man Ralston figured to be in his late twenties, looked over at him checking his phone. “You’re awake.”
Ralston yawned. “This seat is not conducive to a relaxing sleep.” He noticed the driving shifts changed every four hours, coinciding with the giant’s feedings. “How much longer to the border?” he asked. This was where the “trip-up” point would be, if there was going to be one. The Canadian border patrol was more efficient than crossing into Tijuana, Mexico, and though Ahmen had guaranteed no issues, Ralston still worried. He always worried, but he was being paid an ungodly sum to ensure Ahmen got what he wanted. And he planned to do just that—his hefty bonus depended on it.
The driver shrugged, checked the rearview, and said, “An hour if the weather holds.”
Ralston gazed at the darkening sky they were heading directly into. “At least we aren’t dealing with ice and snow,” he muttered.
The driver motioned to the cell phone. “How is our big hairy friend?”
Ralston had been watching the security feed. The huge primate was lying against a bale of hay. He couldn’t see his face, only his backside, but guessed he was sleeping. He’d been doing a lot of that lately. When he wasn’t staring into the camera lens. He tapped an icon and a harsh guttural sound filled the cab. Ralston smiled. “Hear that?”
The driver maintained his eyes on the highway. “I am not deaf.”
“He’s snoring. Didn’t know gorillas snored.”
“He is not a gorilla, Mr. Ralston.”
What, is everyone a primatologist now, he thought cynically. “You are correct. I was using the term generically.”
“Yes, of course.”
Ralston went back to the security feed. Bored, he wound the time stamp back several hours and reran the video. He had to admit everything Ahmen did was state of the art. The wide-angled lens of the security cam mounted near the trailer’s roof showed the entire interior. At no time was the ape out of sight. At about the time they were approaching Portland, Goliath had sat hunched over the only place the trailer wall was not smooth—above the left rear wheel hub. Here a large metal box had been welded to the wall. Ralston guessed it was designed to store tools or merchandise perhaps. It was locked tight but Goliath seemed to be working against it rhythmically, gently swaying forward in repetitious fashion, his massive back to the lens. Ralston couldn’t help but grin. Damn, was the big boy jacking off?
This went on for fifteen minutes more and eventually Ralston grew bored and tapped out of the feed. He’d check again just before they reached the Blaine Border Patrol Station in Washington state.
Rasheed Ahmen parked the Jeep near the edge of the bluff and gazed across the gunmetal gray waters of the Strait of Georgia to mainland British Columbia a half mile away. This narrow point of land was the “bear’s heel,” the highest elevation on Bear Island, and the only place on the island’s seventy-one acres where one could find bats roosting in the shallow caves that pockmarked the rocky heavily forested escarpment. The lights of Vancouver on the opposite shore twinkled like earthbound stars in the deepening overcast. He shut the engine off and listened to the Salish Sea waves crashing into the craggy north shore of the island. Every so often the almost human wail of a harbor seal pup echoed up the escarpment.
Though the rain was only a drizzle, he could tell by the brooding dark clouds the weather promised the island a real drenching later tonight. The temp was a humid sixty-four and with the breeze it felt cooler. He looked downhill behind him. The estate and Primate House peeked above the canopy tops of balsam firs, spruce, cedar, and tamarack—the island’s boreal forest. He sat back and told himself to relax. All was going to plan.
He’d been tempted to ride with the prize primate but too much needed to be done here at home—arranging the private ferry to transfer the ape across the strait and deciding the specifics of the hunt—most important, the location. Plus he had no desire to drive the twenty-plus hours from Los Angeles to Vancouver—his private Learjet was far faster and more comfortable. He guessed by now they would be nearing the Canadian border. He’d furnished Ralston with all the documents so he didn’t think there would be any issues with border patrol. And he’d come to trust the Animal Pals man’s judgment. His prediction that if the stars aligned Ahmen could pull this off had been spot on. The giant’s fate had been sealed when he’d become a man killer. Lions that became man killers were themselves put down, the same for crocs, alligators, and tigers or any large animal—apes should be no different. He considered the million-dollar sum he’d paid to acquire the beast to be cheap.
Already the anticipation bubbled in his blood like an expensive champagne. And the fact that the monster had killed only added to his eagerness to engage, though he had to admit that first live sight of the gargantuan albino primate in Los Angeles had made him reconsider the compound crossbow. Hell, that monkey behemoth was otherworldly gigantic. Over ten and a half feet tall—give me a fucking break! An elephant gun would be more appropriate and safer. But he would be backed by a small army of armed men and chase dogs so what could
go wrong? Besides, though he hadn’t revealed where the hunt would take place, actually he guessed he’d known all along. It was only fitting. Two well-placed bolts from his powerful Barnett Ghost crossbow would end the challenge. The taxidermist would take four months to complete his part of the project. Only then would his Primate House welcome with open arms the world’s rarest ape. He experienced an adrenaline rush just visualizing the final outcome.
Before making the call, Ahmen completed a quick search of his media monitoring sites. As expected once Goliath was no longer in the news, the press had stopped filing every little item about the giant. It helped that the Center’s staff were no longer able to comment. The ape’s whereabouts essentially had become a mystery—only that Goliath had been sold to a private collector sometime during the preceding week. Even the “alien” and “extraterrestrial” tag words were no longer creating a buzz. He did notice the tag word “lawsuit” continued to generate surveillance traffic. This neither concerned him, nor was it unexpected. He surmised all would eventually be settled out of court. By that time, the ape would be posed and regally displayed for Ahmen’s own private enjoyment.
Enough. Ahmen turned the ignition and backed around, facing the estate a quarter mile away. He dialed Ralston’s cell.
The APA man answered on the first ring. “Just leaving Blaine. Raining harder but should hit Vancouver in under an hour.”
Ahmen grinned, inhaling the thick moist scent of the wet conifers. He didn’t ask “No border issues?” because if there had been he would have been contacted immediately. Instead, he instructed, “You’ll meet the ferry at the docks in Vancouver. It’s actually a barge. The entire trailer will be lifted onto the deck and ferried to Bear Island.”
Ralston appeared to read his mind because he went into a concise summary of how the ape had handled the trip. “One word—subdued. And yes, he appears healthy, eating well. But mostly just squats or lies down.”
“No attempts at escaping?”
“None.” The Animal Pals man chuckled. “I have seen him masturbating, I believe.”
“Apes do that?”
“He’s a primate, isn’t he? At least he had the decency to play with himself with his back to the camera.”
Ahmen frowned. The image disgusted him. “He better enjoy himself while he can.” In a way, the news disappointed him—not the masturbating, but the overall vanquished energy level the giant projected. Nothing like the monster he’d seen clips of outside the Copper River tunnel roaring in utter defiance and beating his chest or the Douglas Park escape, and especially the rampage at the Animal Institute as depicted by witnesses. The giant he wanted to put down was the one that tore that astrophysicist’s head clean off, not some subdued masturbating monkey. He wondered facetiously if the monster was thinking of Shelby Hollister when playing with himself. The news made it awfully tempting to just shoot the sonofabitch in the trailer.
Ralston asked, “Any decision on the hunt? The team was thinking rather than transporting him across the Strait, we should continue to where—”
Ahmen cut him off. “Bring him to the island.”
Ralston’s pause indicated the message had been delivered. “Yes sir,” he said.
So the ape hunt would take place on Bear Island.
CHAPTER 33
Shelby read the brief email missive addressed to her from the Anthropology Research Institute in Hong Kong. Though the news was not unexpected, she couldn’t ignore the stab of disappointment. Her Chinese counterparts had been unable to isolate a single segment of fossilized DNA from the only Gigantopithecus remains ever discovered. Meaning there was no way to link the viable DNA results she’d collected from Goliath and the Little Okpilak Glacier primate remains to the only known previous fossils of a Gigantopithecus species—three jaw bones and some teeth discovered in Wuming, China.
Bottom line. She really had no idea what species Goliath and his mate belonged to. True, her initial impression had been a member of the Gigantopithecus genus, but that had been based solely on size.
It was as good an educated guess as any, she supposed. After all, he was gigantic.
Shelby moved the email to her “Goliath” folder and returned to Google search. Three days since the giant’s transfer and Shelby had heard not a word. Not that she’d expected Ahmen or his associate to contact her. Nothing on the Internet either alluding to Goliath—nothing very recent anyway. And her requests for interviews had fallen off a cliff, which was fine—she had a lot of work to do on the Okpilak bones. Still, her thoughts never strayed far from the giant albino primate from Alaska. And with those thoughts, any resentment toward the Center’s management and the attorneys involved in the litigation continued to simmer. She doubted the ill feelings would ever go away. It was unfathomable that they couldn’t have found a home for Goliath—Ahmen didn’t count—though she understood no entity wished to be added to the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ list. And granted, it would have been cruel to maintain the giant in an enclosure too small.
She returned to the long table where the adult female skeleton was spread out in as close to normal anatomic position as possible, considering many bones were missing, most notably the carpals of the wrists and some tarsal and metatarsal bones of the feet as well as some ribs. She made a minor adjustment to the fractured ulna, the one John had actually first pulled from the temporary storage bin back in Fairbanks, and stepped back. She adjusted her digital camera and snapped some photos. Setting the camera aside, she remeasured the pertinent dimensions—height from crown to heel, each extremity, and pelvic and shoulder width. She punched these numbers into an equation to arrive at predicted weight values for the specimen if she were alive.
The numbers adjusted only minimally with the modified measurements. Regardless, they never failed to impress her.
She’d been so busy concentrating she only noticed she was no longer alone when Reddic stepped beside her and read the data aloud. She heard him exhale.
“Wow,” the chairman remarked. “Walking around weight—nine hundred seventy-five pounds. That’s far heavier than the largest lowland male silverback on record.”
Shelby stepped over to the table. “She would have been a sight for sure—close to seven and a half feet tall.” She motioned to the skeleton. “She’s going to make a nice exhibit,” adding, “This one is far more complete than the juvenile. But fortunately most of the juvenile’s missing bones are a right or left and since I have the opposite one, I’ll be able to fabricate suitable plastic epoxy replicas for displaying.”
Reddic nodded approvingly. “What did the child go, weight-wise?”
Shelby frowned. “That’s going to be far more difficult—mostly conjecture—as we have no accepted algorithms for young primate fossils. But an educated guess based on examining the skull sutures and epiphyseal plates of the long bones, I’d estimate her to be around two years old and five feet tall with a weight range of anywhere from a hundred fifty to two hundred fifty pounds.”
Reddic nodded. “That’s assuming the lifespan of this species is comparable to the great apes of today.”
“Of course. But that is all we have to work with.” She remained gazing at the huge skeleton. “For all we know Goliath could have been sixty…or thirty. Or older…or younger. We have plenty of his blood, skin, and hair samples to finish analyzing.”
Reddic pulled up a chair and sat down, watching Shelby. “Great work.”
Shelby could see the topic was about to change so she decided to ask first. “Any new developments?”
His eyes briefly returned to the remains. “As a matter of fact, yes. Per the sales contract, I received word Goliath reached his destination in Canada.”
“That’s it. Nothing else? Is he even alive?”
He shook his head before continuing. “Can’t tell you that only because I don’t know. On the legal front, the Center was notified the mother of the child in Douglas Park is talking settlement. Also, the estates of the two sec
urity guards killed are looking at settlement proposals. Everybody desires a speedy resolution.”
Shelby took this in with a slow nod. She could see he wasn’t finished.
Reddic stood. “Shelby, I know you are disappointed in the way this was handled. But there was no other way. If I’d had fifty acres of land and the funds to build an Arctic landscape in Southern California, I would have. But…” He paused. “Anyway I’ll keep you informed of anything new that comes down the pipeline.”
Guess I’m back in the loop. Too little, too late. Shelby forced a rueful smile. She thanked him, though she remained disappointed she wasn’t made aware Goliath would be leaving a day early. When she was alone again she returned to her computer. But instead of inputting more data, she reached for her cell phone. It would be close to noon in Fairbanks.