Read The Extinction Code for Free Online

days ago, and a missing–persons report was filed by his family in Ohio.’
    ‘You think that MJ–12 took them out too?’ Ethan asked.
    ‘Well, Weisler is on the record as saying that he’d been threatened to say nothing of what happened to Channing, that he feared for his life and that of his family if he had written the report any sooner.’
    ***

V
    ‘Okay, it sounds like MJ–12 are in on this all right,’ Lopez said, ‘death threats and intimidation are their currency. But it doesn’t explain what they wanted with Channing or what he found out there in Montana?’
    Hellerman slipped into a seat as he finished reading the document.
    ‘The reporter claims in his article that what Channing was led to was a Tyrannosaur jaw bone,’ he said. ‘Channing at the time said that it shouldn’t have been there because it was located above the K–T boundary, a sedimentary marker that depicts the impact debris from a massive asteroid that hit the earth sixty five million years ago and rendered the dinosaurs extinct.’
    ‘Everybody knows about that, right?’ Ethan said.
    ‘Sure,’ Hellerman agreed, ‘but back then the science was not as solid. This all happened not long after Jurassic Park came along and half the globe went dinosaur mad, and science got the kind of funding to finally confirm what many had suspected for years. Even now, the discovery of dinosaur remains above the K–T boundary is a rare but always contentious event.’
    ‘You mean it’s still happening?’ Jarvis asked.
    ‘The K–T boundary is not uniform,’ Hellerman explained. ‘Some sections of the formation in Hell Creek mark the boundary as Paleocene in age, not Cretaceous, so the Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary in time does not always coincide exactly with the Hell Creek Formation’s position in the rock.’
    Lopez blinked. ‘Er, and?’
    ‘There have been discoveries of Triceratops fossils supposedly above the K–T boundary,’ Hellerman said. ‘Most explain this away as the fossils being located in areas where the overlying rock formations have dipped, or erosion in the distant past has caused the sedimentary layer to descend compared to other geographical locations. The process is called bioturbation, and is often used by Creationists as supposed evidence that the historical record is false and so on, when in fact it’s not.’
    ‘So what’s the big deal?’ Jarvis asked. ‘Channing finds remains that look like they’re above the K–T boundary but aren’t? Surely that means they’re nothing special?’
    Hellerman shrugged. ‘Something spooked him, because that’s about when he took off. The reporter claims he acted as though he were somehow contaminated.’
    ‘Contaminated?’ Lopez repeated. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
    ‘It doesn’t sound possible,’ Ethan said. ‘Fossils are effectively stone, minerals that have replaced the bones of an animal buried in ancient sediment. They can’t contain anything that could be considered infectious.’
    Hellerman leaned back in the seat and shook his head. ‘That’s not strictly true.’
    ‘You’re kidding?’ Lopez asked. ‘You can catch a cold from dinosaur bones?’
    ‘Not quite, but researchers working in Montana recently identified soft tissue in the remains of an eighty million year old Hadrosaur fossil. They compared proteins extracted from the tissue to modern birds and confirmed that they were actual dinosaur veins, ruling out contamination from other sources such as bacteria. Myosin was the protein found in the tissue, which is also found in the walls of blood vessels.’
    ‘So they got dino–DNA out of a fossil after all?’ Lopez said. ‘Michael Crichton would have been proud.’
    ‘Again, not quite,’ Hellerman cautioned, ‘as red blood cells don’t contain DNA. However, collagen–like tissues have also been found in the bones of a Tyrannosaur, and from those hardier substances genetic material could be recovered. Whether it would be