The general leaned forward. “Well, go on.”

“Saliva…or something like saliva.” Abrams said slowly.

“Something like saliva, huh?” Decker groaned. “Major, can you please get to it? Was it saliva or not, and what the hell dribbled it onto the arm of our missing Mr Anderson – did they have a dog?”

“No.” Abrams exhaled, knowing his superior officer was already getting fed up with the unexplained phenomena – so was he, for that matter. “Okay, let me lay out what we got back from the labs – the substance is like saliva in that contains sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium chloride, bicarbonate, phosphate, and trace amounts of iodine, plus a truckload of amino acid chains all in a solution of mucopolysaccharides and glyco-pseudo proteins – mucus – exactly as in saliva.”

Decker folded his arms, his face hardening. Abrams continued, picking up the pace. “But the lab boys are stumped as the proteins don’t make sense. They’re biological, but biological straight out of a nightmare – could be mammal, could be reptile, could even be jellyfish with all the mismatch of DNA strands they’ve identified so far…And some don’t match anything in the global genetic libraries.”

“So we have no idea what left these weird traces behind?” Decker asked.

“Maybe we do. VELA picked up movement in a few of its last scans.” Abrams changed the image on the screen again. The new picture showed the massive Syrian sinkhole viewed from about ten thousand feet. He clicked through the images as the satellite drilled down further, and further, until the screen darkened as the VELA magnification dived into the heart of the pit.

“It’s what made us have another look.”

“Survivors?” Decker eyebrows were raised.

“That’s what we thought until we got the IT guys to clean up the images.” Abrams moved through a number of pictures, and the grainy darkness became sharper, more focused.

“Holy shit, what is that? A deformed bear?” Decker craned forward.

There were now three images, side by side, taken over a few seconds. In the first, something large and dark moved towards a human body. In the next, the thing was seen to be dragging the corpse by one leg toward the pit wall. In the final frame, it had vanished – seemingly into the dirt.

Abrams shook his head, eyes fixed on the screen. “We have no idea what that was. But according to the Syrians, who have now ventured into the sinkhole, there were no survivors. However, we have heard via informal channels that this isn’t the entire story: they assumed there were no survivors, because they didn’t find anyone down there – living or dead.”

“Jesus.” Decker exhaled. “So whatever that was, it wasn’t the only one.”

“No, we don’t think so,” Abrams said. “Not if we estimate how quickly the hundreds of bodies were removed.”

“Removed? To where?”

Abrams shrugged.

Decker turned back to the screen. “Well, whatever it was, it was below ground – thank god for that. We can at least contain it.”