Mongrel sipped at his tea, then reached over and added another two sugars, stirring the brew with a plastic spoon. He grinned at Carter, showing his missing teeth, and said, ‘I do like a sweet drop.’
‘I can fucking see that. Go on, what happened with the Nex?’
‘He was carrying metal sheaves - encoded. We tried to descramble codes on spot, but they were too complex; we took them back to Spiral HQ after mission and Jam got some top guys on job. Took them fucking
month,
and we got call when we were on other job in New Zealand. When we got back, Jam went into meeting with these guys and afterwards gave us restricted briefing. He said it had gone straight to top within Spiral, and sheaves had been very important find. They had detailed a machine, named the Avelach, which was very, very old.’
‘How old?’
‘About 10,000 years.’
‘That’s before all modern civilisation.’
Mongrel nodded. ‘I know that. That what confuse us all, because machine very, very complex. Too complex to come from such primitive age - unless there been another civilisation hidden from us, or dating techniques not accurate on substances found.’
Carter sipped his brew, staring off into the warm night darkness.
‘Go on.’
Mongrel shrugged. ‘All I know, Jam did some missions alone, and on his final one he said he thought he’d found out location of machine. I asked where it was, he gave me cheeky Jam grin and then headed out here for what appears to be his last Search and Destroy mission with TT and Slater ...’
Carter frowned. ‘He
thought
he’d found it? So he hadn’t
actually
discovered the location?’
Mongrel shook his head, gaze meeting Carter’s. ‘It’s our best shot, old buddy, our best chance. If anybody know where this machine is, it is Jam.’
‘It must be at an old Nex base. After I killed Durell and Feuchter, the Nex had no command structure left; it could be fucking anywhere. Would the normal Nex even understand what the machine was if they had it?’
Mongrel shrugged again.
Carter lay back and closed his eyes, mind working. They sat in silence for a while. Finally, Mongrel said, ‘You very down, Carter. Let Mongrel cheer you up.’
‘No, no ... you’re OK.’
‘No, really, Carter. I have story make you piss pants.’
Carter’s eyes fluttered open. Mongrel had yet another half-pint of tea clasped in his mitt and Carter grinned. ‘If you drink any more tea then
you’
ll
be the one pissing his pants.’
‘A man needs tea when he on stag,’ said Mongrel seriously. ‘Help keep guard awake!’
Carter sighed, and propped himself up on one elbow. He stared at Mongrel, and could feel the malevolence within the huge man: the tension, the violence, the hatred. Mongrel was a psychopath born and bred, a poison-brained fucker of the lowest order, a face-smash-ing bone-pulping kneecap-breaking spine-tearing dirty low-down son of a bitch. Carter loved him, but also hated him.
‘You OK, Carter? You look at me funny.’
‘I’ll live.’ Carter smiled, rubbing at his eyes. Despite his weariness, sleep eluded him.
‘That wasn’t fucking question,’ Mongrel said. ‘Listen, I tell you of my wonderful sexual exploits ...’
‘Well, if you really, really, really must,’ said Carter uncertainly.
‘Har har,’ said Mongrel, beaming. He settled back, resting his huge hands on his knees, his eyes dark and yet filled with an inner humour that Carter had rarely seen in this large killer. Carter smiled softly to himself, realising Mongrel’s ploy. The psychopath was trying to bring him back down to earth, to cheer him up; to take his mind off the violence to come and the horrors that awaited them ...
And to sidetrack him from thoughts of Natasha.
‘I was stationed in Burma, at Pyinmana. We had great NAAFI, run by some of hottest chicks ever to wear sweaty shorts.’
Carter nodded, hooded eyes half-closed, the weariness of the past days creeping up on him. ‘And this is your story of how you bedded all these hot chicks with quirky chat-up lines?’ Carter yawned.
‘Nah,’ chuckled Mongrel heartily. ‘It story of how I end up with worst chick in universe. Imagine this, I’m in for quiet drink with Tequila, tall broad-shouldered red-shaved son of bitch, and me and Tequila minding our business, like we always do, not looking for no trouble or nothing like that ... except for time we threw that man through plate-glass window, yeah, and time Tequila set that woman on fire, but yeah, we minding our own business and Tequila at bar, talking to this fucking hag. I mean, she was
fucking
hag. Bitch-bag of the lowest echelon, har. Tequila comparing tattoos with this bird ... now, I don’t like to labour point, but she was fucking dog, Carter. A fuck-een dog. She was tall, long black hair like rat-diseased barbed wire, big arse like two badly parked Land Rovers. Kara she was called. Hmm ...’ There came a long pause.
Carter rolled his head, easing the tension in his neck. His hand came to rest on his Browning. It was cool and reassuring, battered and yet - perfect. His friend. His comrade in death. His metal lover.
‘Yeah, Kara Red,’ said Mongrel at last.
Carter propped himself up on one elbow again, momentarily intrigued. ‘Red? Strange name?’
‘Nickname,’ grunted Mongrel, pulling out a packet of cigarettes and offering one to Carter. Carter, with a look of pain, waved the weed away and Mongrel laughed a hearty cruel laugh. He lit up, inhaled deeply and winced as smoke stung his eyes. Gravely, he croaked, ‘Kara Red -she’ll take you to bed, and fucking bleed on you.’
Carter cringed. ‘I wish I’d never asked.’
‘That’s nothing to what you’ll soon fucking wish, mate. Right, so Tequila at the bar, pissed out of his shell, comparing his fucking tattoos with this bitch whose face, Carter - fuck me, it was that bad, putting your fist in it would be doing her favour. It was like she was sucking heifer’s arse soaked in vinegar. Like she was being seriously bum-fucked by steroid-pumped Australian donkey. Tequila comparing tattoos—’
‘Is this a long story, Mongrel? I’m pretty tired ...’
‘You’ll like it. I promise you.’
Carter sighed. ‘Go on, then.’ He eyed Mongrel’s cigarette hungrily.
‘I got eighty spare, mate.’
‘I’ve given up. As from now.’
‘Only in body, but not in soul.’
‘Just tell your fucking story before I change my fucking mind and shoot you.’
‘Temper, temper. Tequila comparing tattoos with this death-bitch, they talking about fade and quality of lines and other drunken arsery. I wander over, staggering, sloshing beer down my front like real man should - just as this bitch announce in high-pitched donkey-cackle that she’s got tattoo on her big toe.
“‘Let’s see it,” I say, playing with one of my few remaining broken teeth. This Kara goes through this lengthy rigmarole, kicks off her shoes, peels off her blue and black striped tights - class bird, this - and then peels off her sweat-soaked sock to reveal red rose laid delicately across the skin of her large toe, toenail missing, presumed dead. Me and Tequila, we exchange glances, and it a fucking miracle we didn’t puke our beer back into our glasses and I peers at her through the old beer goggles and says, “Does it
smell
like rose?”
‘This Kara stares back at me, without a hint of humour. “Nah!” she squawks. “It smells like
Stilton
.” We reeled at disgust of situation, and as you imagine, outcome was as you expect.’
Carter chuckled. ‘You shagged her?’
‘Da.’ Mongrel nodded. ‘Nothing wrong with that - when class cheese-bitch offers roll with her Stilton feet, you take it on chin like man and accept it like drunken arse with possibility of no future.’
Carter stared long and hard at Mongrel as the huge ugly ex-squaddie finished his cigarette and immediately lit another, coughing on the blue smoke.
‘We live in different worlds, Mongrel.’
‘It get worse.’
‘How can it fucking possibly get worse?’
Mongrel grinned. Most of his teeth were missing. Carter often wondered how he chewed, but every foodstuff imaginable simply slid into Mongrel’s gaping maw and disappeared without any apparent need for mandibles. Steak never caused him a single problem. Bacon was shredded with ease.
‘Well, I’m shagging this Kara, right, and she really going for it - sweaty arse high in air, me on my back, her tits wobbling like jellies in dark above my face. She pumping me like fucking milking machine and moaning and screeching like mangling of badly meshed tank gears. I thinking I proper king, despite her smell, but then - and this gross even me out, mate - she farts: proper evil-stinking cloud of poisonous mustard gas that engulf fucking room like fucking nuclear winter.’
‘Mongrel, that is
bad.’
‘It get worse,’ Mongrel threatened for the second time.
‘How ... no, no, just finish the story and then I can get my head down.’
‘Har. Well, this Kara Red, she shit all over me.’
A silence followed.
Carter stared hard at Mongrel.
‘Really?’
‘Da.’
‘She, like, shit. All over you?’
‘Da.’
Mongrel beamed, and smoked his cigarette.
‘Did this bother you?’
‘
Kanyechno
. I threw her down stairs.’
‘Is that the end of the story?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Mongrel, you’re a fucking animal - but I concede, Kara Red was, shall we say, a thousand times worse.’
‘She change her name to Kara
Brown
after that. After she got casts taken off her legs. But then, at least it gave her opportunity to air her fucking Edam feet.’
‘Stilton.’
‘Whatever.’
Carter finally managed to catch an hour’s sleep. He awoke groggily, Mongrel passed him another cup of tea, and he resigned himself to a smoke.
‘You see anything?’
‘It’s as dead as a croaked beetle out there.’
They packed up their gear and, several hours before dawn, set out on the KTM LC7 bikes with stealth mode engaged. Carter rode one machine, Mongrel the other. The bikes left the fields and woods leading down from the deserted hilltop and joined up with narrow tarmac tributaries, each side dusted with gravel and loose stone and spreading off into moonlit fields. A river flowed to their left and they cruised along in silence without lights, Mongrel with his M24 gun across his lap and holding onto the KTM with one hand, eyes focused and looking for trouble.
They travelled the dark roads for an hour, only passing a couple of cars - a Mercedes and a Skoda - which they skimmed past in silent dark blurs. Finally, leaving the roads behind, they headed up dirt trails until they finally pulled the bikes off the tracks and rode, standing on foot pegs, over rough ground until they halted the machines on hissing Brembos and killed the hot engines.
They cammed up the KTM stealth machines with ferns and branches. Then Mongrel checked his ECube and they moved off through the gently rustling trees, packs shouldered and M24 sub-machine guns at the ready, proceeding patiently - and with care. As if their lives depended on it.
Which they did.
‘There.’
Carter squinted at the distant cabin and allowed his breathing to ease. He pulled out his Browning and checked the mag for the hundredth time, then flicked free the safety on the carbine.
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You cover me ...’
Carter moved forward, and Mongrel rocked back on his heels, squinting around in the pre-dawn glow. Carter approached the rough-walled cabin warily, weapon ready for action, mind screaming abuse and firing him into a full adrenalin state ... he reached the doorway and dropped to a crouch, glancing back at Mongrel who was covering arcs of fire.
‘You need at least three men for this,’
chastised Kade.
‘You offering your services?’
‘
Well, you know what they say: if the going gets tough
—’
‘Then Kade gets going?’
‘Fuck you, Carter
:’
‘Temper, temper, little man.’
Carter moved warily into the cabin. It was deserted and he moved cautiously through the rooms, but his sharp eyes could see nothing. He was just turning to leave when he saw it - a tiny square of glass missing from the window. An ideal size and position for a—
‘Mindnuke,’
said Kade.
‘Hmm ‘
Carter touched the edges of the hole; they were perfectly smooth and had obviously been sucked by an ECube ready for MNK insertion. And an MNK meant...
Nex.
Carter returned to Mongrel. ‘He was here.’
‘Fucker, I fucking knew it. They should burn those PopBot scouts. They’re a waste of fucking time!’
‘The question is, what happened next?’
‘No other signs?’
Carter scanned the surrounding countryside, and shook his head. ‘No, nothing obvious. Come on, I’m going to have to do some tracking the old-fashioned way ...’
It took Carter an hour to pick up the trail. The sun was rising steadily in the sky, making both men feel uneasy.