“Why was Angkor Kol Ker abandoned?” Dane asked.
Beasley leaned forward in his seat. “Whatever’s going on there now would certainly have been a reason enough to leave then, wouldn’t it? The blockhouse you describe sounds like it was set up to oversee this triangle.”
“How long was Angkor Kol Ker the capitol of the Khmer empire?” Michelet asked.
“I don't know,” Beasley said. “No one does. The only official and agreed upon history we have of the Khmer's starts with the establishment in 802 AD of Angkor Thom. As I've said, they could have been in Angkor Kol Ker for hundreds, if not thousands of years prior to that. And God knows where they were before that.”
Michelet stood up and began pacing. “This is all nonsense. You're talking about events over a thousand years ago,” Michelet said. “What could be in there for a thousand years?”
Beasley smiled, his fat lips revealing crooked teeth. “Have you ever seen old maps? Maps made when men still had to venture out into the unknown, where as far as they knew, no man had been before them?”
Beasley didn't wait for an answer. “There used to be large white spaces on those maps, areas no one knew anything about, or where those who had gone exploring never returned. For lack of anything else to put in those blank spaces, the cartographers would write: 'Here there be monsters.'“
Beasley tapped the map. “Well, I think here there be…” he looked at Dane, “… monsters. If there's any place on the face of the planet where monsters could still be hiding, it would be here, in the middle of the Cambodian jungle, a place that is practically inaccessible.”
“But you don't think there are monsters, do you?” Dane asked.
“I think things can be explained scientifically,” Beasley said. “For years people thought there was a monster in Loch Ness. They even had a photo, or so the supporters of that theory said, but it turns out the photo was a fake. There was no monster.”
“People and planes didn't disappear into Loch Ness,” Freed observed.
“Yes, that is a troubling aspect,” Michelet said.
“I think it might be worthwhile to take the analogy I made a little bit further,” Beasley said. “In ancient days they marked the blank spots on their maps as being filled with monsters and demons. As these areas were explored, what was really there was filled in.” He tapped the map. “Perhaps, all we have here is a natural phenomenon in this area that we do not yet understand.”
“You have to be able to get there to examine it,” Dane said. “So far that plan hasn't worked well for anyone.”
“But just think,” Beasley said. “If we could find Angkor Kol Ker, we might be able to prove the existence of a civilization that predates the commonly accepted start-point for civilization! And, if the Chinese legend is true, that civilization might have even crossed the Pacific and come from somewhere in the Americas or even beyond! That would throw our accepted course of the history of civilization completely in disarray. It opens up all sorts of exciting possibilities.”
Freed leaned forward, ignoring the academic's enthusiasm, and focusing on Dane. “The things you describe, how could they affect an aircraft? Interfere with navigational devices and radio?”
“I don't know,” Dane said. “That beam of light that lifted Flaherty up. That certainly had some power to it. The thing he shot was a monster or some sort of creature, maybe even,” he said glancing at Beasley, “some animal that's remained hidden deep in the jungle all these years, but the other stuff;” Dane paused. “Well, the sphere that got Castle, that was something else. I don't think that was natural but it wasn’t a machine either.”
“I just want to get my daughter out of there,” Michelet said. “All this speculation does us no good.”
“It gives us an idea of what we’re up against in an unprecedented situation,” Freed said.
“But there is perhaps a precedent,” Beasley said. “There is another place on the planet where people and planes and ships disappear and monsters have been reported. I'm sure you've all heard of the Bermuda Triangle.”
“Oh, give me a break,” Freed muttered, finally letting his feelings show and dropping his professional shield.
“Think about it!” Beasley said excitedly. “The Bermuda triangle encompasses water. What if there were something like it on land?”
“What exactly is the Bermuda Triangle?” Dane asked, interested in this new theory.
Beasley shrugged. “No one really knows. But a lot of weird happenings have been documented in the area. The few times in recent memory that people have tried to penetrate this area in Cambodia, weird things have also happened. Plus,” he added, “they're both shaped like triangles.”
“Gentlemen,” Paul Michelet cut in. “Let's stick to what we do know and not go off on tangents.” He looked at the clock on the wall of the cabin. “We will be in Thailand in six hours.”
“You still haven't told us about Angkor Wat,” Dane prompted Beasley, intrigued that there was a relief of one of the things that attacked his team on a temple wall there. It was the first solid proof besides the scar he had that his memory wasn't a combat induced nightmare. It was also a link to sanity in another way: perhaps these creatures of legend had once been real and some of them had survived over the course of the centuries, hidden deep in this forbidden land they were heading towards.
“Angkor Wat is the central temple in the city of Angkor Thom,” Beasley said. “Angkor Thom was the capitol of the known Khmer Empire starting in 802 AD. At that time the Khmer Empire stretched from the Dangrek Mountains in the west to the Cardomon Mountains in the east and south to coast.
“Cambodian legend has it that at one time the entire area was part of the Gulf of Siam, but that a prince fell in love with the daughter of a seven-headed serpent, the Naga King, which I’ve already mentioned. The snake drank all the water to make a place for his daughter to live and thus Cambodia came into being.”
Beasley paused, sensing the disinterest on the part of both Michelet and Freed. “Gentlemen, it is good to remember that much truth is hidden in legend.”
“A seven-headed snake?” Michelet growled. “My only concern is getting my daughter.”
“Go on,” Dane urged.
“All right,” Beasley said. “Just the facts. Besides the mountains surrounding it, the two major geological features of Cambodia are Tonle Sap Lake and the Mekong River. Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. It is connected to the Mekong via the Tonle Sap River. During the rainy season, when the Mekong floods, the river reverses course and flows back into the lake, doubling its size. This phenomenon is most interesting and has led to a massive amount of land, some of which is inside your triangle,” Beasley added, pointedly looking at Michelet, “being flooded for half the year. Tonle Sap, when it floods, comes within a few miles of Angkor Wat. I don't think the positioning of the temple or the city was coincidence.”
Beasley leaned forward. “Water is the key. Not just Tonle Sap and the Mekong, but in the way the Khmer built their cities and temples.” He reached into his leather briefcase and pulled out some imagery. “These are the pictures taken by the space shuttle of Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. Notice the moats. Nowhere else on earth has man put such effort in building such massive structures with water barriers as an integral part.
“The moats separate the sacred world from the outer world in Khmer mythology. Look how the temple of Angkor Wat is completely surrounded.”