“Make sure not to blink,” Holloway said. “We don’t want to miss anything.”
The next hour crept past like the wait in a doctor’s office, becoming more frustrating as more of nothing continued to happen. Aston watched the monitors as instructed, keeping a serious expression on his face for the sake of the camera. Beats dealing with Chang, but that didn’t make the monotony any more bearable. He wasn’t an impatient man by nature, but the futility of the task made it difficult for him to approach the work with the requisite degree of professionalism. Ah well, that’s why you’re getting paid, you whiney dickhead.
Makkonen lounged near the helm, casually interested, but young Gazsi made an exit as soon as possible, disappearing below, his frown deepening to a scowl as he went. Aston wondered what the kid’s problem was.
The motion of the boat and the dull thrumming of the engine ticking over threatened to lull him to sleep, broken only by Holloway’s all too frequent exclamations every time the faintest shadow appeared on the screen. Each time, Laine would reply with a single shake of his head.
“Drone battery is running low,” Joaquin reported via walkie-talkie from the deck. “We’ve got about another ten minutes tops, and half of that needs to be coming back.”
“Push on,” Holloway insisted. “Go as far as you can. Land out there on the shore and we’ll go pick it up.”
“Can’t land it, boss. It’ll damage the camera. But I’ll keep going a little longer.”
“Ollie can chug us along in pursuit a little, maybe?” Aston suggested. “Catch up, buy us a couple more minutes.”
Holloway nodded and Makkonen stood, nudged the engine up a notch and they moved along slowly. The drone flew on, sending back more pictures of featureless lake edges.
Just as Aston was ready to bang his head against the sonar monitor, Laine suddenly barked an order into the tiny mic clipped to his lapel. “Right there, Joaquin. Take her down closer.”
Holloway and Slater hurried to flank Laine, while Dave brought the camera in close. Aston turned away from the monitors before him and craned his neck to see past Slater.
As Joaquin brought the drone down, a dark shape filled the screen. “Focus,” Laine said, and the image resolved into the unmistakable shape of a wallow — and a massive one at that.
The words escaped Aston before he knew it. “Bloody hell. I don’t believe it.”
Chapter 7
It took about ten minutes to maneuver the boat around to the location where the drone had spotted the wallow. Joaquin flew the bright white, four-rotored device back to meet them along the way and skillfully hovered it over the deck before reaching up and plucking it from the air. He checked the camera suspended beneath and smiled to himself. He was clearly an expert with the thing and Aston wondered where, and more importantly, why, the big bodyguard had developed those skills.
As Joaquin took the drone below to plug it in for a recharge, Olli Makkonen leaned out from the cabin, his reddened eyes squinting against the daylight. “I’m not taking her in any closer. It’s deep here, but the shore shallows very quickly. We don’t want to run aground.”
The boat slowed, the engines cut, and a heavy silence blanketed them. The captain wandered to the stern and casually dropped anchor, while Gazsi reappeared to loiter in the bridge. His frown remained, but a nervous energy animated him more than before.
Joaquin emerged again and said, “I’ll ferry you. It’ll take a couple of trips.” He lowered a tin dinghy from one side and clambered down into it. “Go to the dive platform,” he said as he yanked the starter and the dinghy’s tiny outboard fired into buzzing life.
He ferried first Holloway, Slater, and Laine to the lake shore, then came back for Aston, Dave and Carly. Aston helped him drag the small boat up onto the stones and mud while Slater did a piece to camera and Holloway hopped impatiently from foot to foot.
Slater approached them, camera trained on her back. “So, what next?” she asked Aston in her TV voice.
Aston found himself momentarily off guard. “Oh, er, well, I guess…” He drew a deep breath. Pull it together, for Christ’s sake! “The drone spotted the hollow a few yards that way. First thing we do is get a closer look.”
He strode purposefully past Dave, making the cameraman stagger slightly as he hurried back to keep Aston in the shot. He let the others tag behind as he approached the deep, wide indentation. As he reached the edge of it, he paused and shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he muttered.
“Louder, please,” Slater called out.
Aston cleared his throat. Playing to the camera was going to take some getting used to. “This is bigger than anything I’ve seen before,” he said in a firm voice. “Wallows are usually made by large mammals beside bodies of water. They’re used for cooling down, maybe getting a nice coating of mud for temperature regulation and protection from mosquitoes and other biting insects, that sort of thing. I have no real idea why there’s one in this climate. And one this size? It’s staggering.” He turned to Holloway. “Got a tape measure?”
“Most certainly.” The billionaire dug in the many pockets of his khaki pants, eventually found one, and handed it over.
Aston gave the man the loose end and walked around the wallow, paying out tape as he went. “A typical wallow would be at most two or three meters across,” he said as he went about his work. “This one is…” He crouched directly across from Holloway. “Over twelve meters,” he breathed. “That’s bloody insane.”
“How big?” Slater asked.
“Over twelve meters,” Aston snapped, annoyed at the mystery of it. “About forty feet. It makes no sense, something this size.” He paused. “We should consider the possibility that it’s not actually a wallow at all.” He ignored Holloway’s sudden dour expression. “It could be something else.”
“It’s got to be seven feet deep, at least,” Laine said. He sounded almost proud, as if he’d made the thing himself. Maybe he had, Aston mused. And the Finn had switched to using imperial measurements, no doubt to make things easier on the Americans. It rubbed against Aston’s accurate scientific sensibilities, but as Holloway was in charge, it made sense.
“You were absolutely convinced it was a wallow when you first saw the pictures,” Holloway reminded him.
“And I still am.” Aston hated making the admission. “But this goes against every scientific bone in my body. It’s mystifying.”
“So what could make something this size?” Slater asked.
Aston shrugged. “The world’s largest water buffalo? An elephant on freaking steroids?”
“Neither of those things live in Finland, Mister Aston,” Holloway said with a smile.
“I am well aware of that,” Aston said, keenly aware of the camera.
“So what then?” Slater asked again. “For real.”
Aston stood, tossed the tape measure back across the deep indentation. Holloway caught it clumsily and the tape whickered back in. “I have no idea,” Aston said. “I honestly can’t even speculate. And, as a scientist, it would be reckless to do so.”
Dave moved around the area, getting shots from all angles, as Holloway and Laine snapped dozens of stills. Aston had them help him make and record a full set of accurate measurements.
After a half hour of documentation he said, “We have all we’re going to get here. Let’s look further afield.”
Laine led the way, confident in the uncertain environment, and Aston, Slater and Holloway followed in a ragged line. Dave and Carly brought up the rear, capturing everything. Joaquin elected to stay with the dinghy and they left him sitting on a rock, statue-still as though he had been there for decades and would comfortably remain there for centuries more.