Carter pointed. ‘You see it?’
‘See what?’
‘Look closely.’
‘What at?’
Carter sighed. ‘Boot imprint - Spiral issue. They were fucking here all right, and running in that direction.’ Carter pointed with the muzzle of his carbine.
‘Come on.’
‘Wait... slowly, Mongrel. These things take time. And let’s not forget the DemolSquad’s recent fucking disappearance.’
They moved cautiously through the woodland, from tree to tree. Stopping, checking distances, checking other trees and foliage for signs of passing. Occasionally they risked a scan with the ECube, but knew now not to trust the device at all ... it seemed that the Nex were playing their covert games once again and had access to digital superiority.
Carter crouched beside a tree with strange markings in the bark. ‘Something big, heavy and metal hit this.’
‘Like what?’
Carter shrugged, ‘A bike, something like that. I tell you, Mongrel, some bastard has tried hard to cover this up - there should be fucking tracks everywhere. And look - even metal particles have been removed from the trunk.’
‘Could it have been Jam’s bike?’
‘I’m not sure. But it looks like we’re going in the right direction.’
They squatted in a clump of thick bushes where the valley dropped off to one side. They watched for several hours as the sun toiled across the sky. A cooler wind blew from the south but it did little to relieve them of the sweat drenching their thick clothing.
Carter had pointed out the bridge leading over the valley, with rocks clustered at either end. They had spent a good hour watching the small log cabin down in the valley bottom, but had seen no activity at either location.
‘I think we at dead end,’ said Mongrel eventually.
Sweating beneath the bushes, prickled and poked and uncomfortable, Carter pulled free his ECube and activated the tiny black alloy device. Lights flashed in his eyes and audio signals blipped.
‘That’s ... strange.’
‘What?’ Mongrel shuffled closer, smelling of fallen leaves.
‘Neither the bridge nor the cabin appear on the ECube. They’re invisible to the scanners ...’ Carter shook the alloy device.
‘Yeah, that always work for me - four billion dollars’ worth of development technology fail to function so give the little fucker shake. Kicks it up its arse good.’
‘I don’t understand,’ muttered Carter. Then he killed the tiny device and glanced out from their shelter.
‘You want go look?’ asked Mongrel cautiously, staring into the valley, his eyes straining to detect movement.
Carter nodded.
‘I think we wait for nightfall,’ growled Mongrel. ‘I think good idea we sit back, wait, then get closer look without sun bouncing off our guns to give away our position, eh, Carter?
Carter?’
Mongrel turned.
Carter had gone.
‘Fucker!’
Mongrel crawled from beneath the prickling bushes to see Carter gliding towards the rocks shielding the bridge; he dropped down and disappeared. Mongrel eased his own bulk forward, keeping trees and bushes to his right -until he finally stopped in a good spot and glanced all around, nervous now, licking sweat from his lips.
He glanced around for Carter, but could not see the man.
‘Mad fucker,’ he grumbled. ‘Why we not wait for night? You get us both shot!’
And then he saw Carter - underneath the bridge, fastened as if by magnets and moving beneath the thick wooden boards which stretched out between the two horizontal iron H-section supports.
‘What he doing?’
And then Mongrel saw the dull glint of a machine-gun nest - just a hint. It lay concealed among the rocks and he caught a fleeting glimpse of black - a barrel sleeve with drilled holes for cooling during firing. It could be nothing else ... and it was positioned in a brilliant natural defensive location overlooking the only way to cross the valley:
The bridge.
‘What you doing, Carter? You get yourself fucking drilled!’
But Carter was committed and, eyeing the bridge, Mongrel knew that he himself had neither the skill to negotiate the structure in the way that Carter was doing nor the strength to sustain his own body weight for such a lengthy climb.
I need to lose bit of weight. If I survive that long, he added to himself.
Sweat rolled into Carter’s eyes like acid and he blinked as it stung him. He licked his dry lips and found a fresh handhold, moving over another few inches beneath the thick ancient timbers of the bridge.
The temperature beneath the bridge was high, the air humid, stagnant. And he couldn’t reach his water canteen.
Bitch.
Slowly, Carter advanced, his mind switching between images of Natasha lying supine in the hospital bed with tubes emerging from different parts of her body, pictures of the baby on the scan imager - a tiny white blob against a background of glossy black, barely distinguishable as head, torso, arms and legs but miraculous nevertheless -and then to Jam’s smiling, cocky, mischievous face, stub-bled, a dangling loose cigarette, and holding the coordinates for the machine that could save both Carter’s woman and their child.
The wood above him was bleached by the Slovenian sun; it creaked occasionally and tried continually to spit dust into Carter’s upturned face.
He moved on in this inverted crawl, inch by painful inch, boots tucking into crevices, fingers finding holes and gaps, muscles screaming at him.
Don’t blow your position, warned his brain.
But another part of him, the shell inhabited by Kade, wanted to rush in with guns blazing and kill everybody, slaughter them like sheep. But then, what did
he
want? He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for any more ... surely anybody who had covered their tracks so well out in the woods wouldn’t leave Jam’s body or his KTM motorcycle lying casually around?
And then he heard it.
A low engine rumble.
No, he cursed. It can’t fucking be!
But it was: a truck, a big eight-tonne vehicle with heavy off-road tyres and a canvas roof. It approached with a steady growl and a meshing - a thrashing - of gears and Carter worked harder, moved faster, but realised—
He could not beat the truck.
‘Son of a bitch.’
He heard the vehicle drop two gears, its engine pitch increasing on the slight incline before the bridge - and then twin heavy thumps as the front tyres mounted the span. They clattered across the thick wooden beams, and Carter was almost knocked from his perch by the initial crashing impact. He gritted his teeth, tightened his muscles, and prayed ...
The truck’s six rear wheels slammed onto the bridge.
The whole structure started to vibrate.
Badly.
Carter felt a shout welling in his throat as the truck’s wheels bludgeoned the wood and vibrations pulsated through his arms and legs. Dust and dirt poured down into his face, causing him to cough and choke. Spitting, Carter glanced down at the terrible drop beneath him—
The shaking and battering seemed to last for ever.
It pounded him like a piece of metal between a hammer and an anvil.
It felt like a train rolling over his head.
And then it was gone.
Carter choked back a sneeze and cursed, his eyes slits of anger, and then continued his horizontal climb with fingers and arms burning, his Browning digging into his ribs. He finally reached the side and swung himself onto the tiny narrow ledge underneath the bridge, panting. Then, climbing around the iron struts, he pulled himself up a little, peered around, hoisted himself up onto the rocks and leapt into the tiny protected circle of the machine-gun nest.
It was small and circular, sand scattered on the floor. The large T80 Heckler & Koch heavy machine gun sat on a tripod pointing out across the open expanse of bridge and was manned by a—
A merc?
Human.
Carter grinned at the sudden surprised and horrified look on the man’s bearded face. He slammed his fist into the soldier’s nose - twice, three times, splattering blood across the sand and pounding the man into unconsciousness. Carter peered out from the back of the machine-gun nest, grinning fiercely as he saw Nex dismounting neatly from the back of the truck that had tried to dislodge him and send him tumbling into the valley. Grunting, he dragged the tripod across the sand, checked the belt of ammunition, and levelled the T80 out of the back of the machine-gun nest. The Nex had assembled in ranks of eight - twenty-four in all - and they stood to attention with weapons by their sides, their copper eyes focused.
Carter waited, his own eyes bright, picturing Natasha ...
And he remembered the Nex outside the Spiral HQ as the quake pulverised London - murdering the innocent, fleeing Spiral operatives, men and women, without remorse or even a flicker of emotion. To Carter, the situation had looked suspiciously like a trap.
The Nex outside the truck were joined by more of their kind, mixed with a few mercenary soldiers. ‘Sorry, boys,’ muttered Carter, feeling himself go cold and dead inside. You’re fighting on the wrong fucking side ... hope the money tasted good and you spent it well.’
He opened fire.
The T80 roared and bucked beneath his hands as a hail of bullets flew across the narrow stretch of land, mowing down the Nex in a swathe of bloodied flesh.
Some reached for weapons.
Some turned to sprint—
Some leapt.
All were pulped by the onslaught of the heavy machine gun.
Scythed down.
Slaughtered.
Bullets slammed into the rear of the truck, puncturing all six rear tyres in tiny deflating explosions. The vehicle settled slowly down.
Carter released the trigger and his pent-up breath and surveyed the destruction with a cold eye. He heard a moan from the mercenary at his feet, looked down, saw the man struggling with his own SA1000 and palmed his Browning, placing a single shot in the contract soldier’s brains. The merc crumpled back, eyes glassy and staring. Carter sighed and shook his head.
He suddenly felt sick of death. Sick of killing. Sick of slaughter.
‘
Don’t be a pussy,’
said Kade.
‘I’m just tired.’
‘Don’t be so soft -people trying to slot each other in a fun-filled military scenario is what makes a human
human;
it’s what sets us apart from animals ... it’s what makes life so fucking worth living.‘
‘Not for me.’
‘Want to bet?’
Warily, gripping his M24 carbine, Carter stepped away from the machine-gun nest. He could hear the truck’s engine, still idling with a low grumble and spitting exhaust fumes. Boots pounded the bridge behind him and he whirled low - to see Mongrel’s face looming into view. Carter returned to cover the compound in front of him with his weapon.
‘I hear heavy gunfire - what fuck happened?’ Mongrel stumbled to a halt. ‘
Bozhey moy!’
he whispered, surveying the carnage.
Carter lit a cigarette.
‘You kill them all?’
‘Let’s find out.’
Covering opposing arcs of fire, Carter and Mongrel moved warily forward, halting and staring at the compound across which they had stumbled while on Jam’s trail. The buildings were all fashioned from wood, some painted in brown, a couple in dull blue. They were raised on low piles and beneath each hut was a dark and gloomy patch of dead ground. There were ten huts, set out in a semicircle in a natural hollow. Rough vegetation grew between the decrepit old buildings, and many walls had been badly patched with crooked joinery.
‘A good place to defend,’ said Mongrel, his gun pointing from building to building.
Carter nodded, drawing heavily on his cigarette. ‘This is an old Second World War barracks or camp,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen pictures of this place before ...’
‘Used by?’
‘The Nazis.’ Carter smiled bitterly. ‘How fucking fitting.’
They moved through the camp, clearing the buildings one at a time but each knowing instinctively that they were alone. The Nex were not the sort of enemy to set up camp and hide - in battle they were fearless and would not squat in a building waiting to be discovered. They would attack ...
Happy that they were finally alone, Carter moved to the truck while Mongrel moved over and nudged one of the Nex corpses with his boot. ‘By fuck, they stink ...’
‘You think
they
smell bad? You should have tried the TankerRuns,’ said Carter, reaching into the idling truck’s cab and killing the engine. Silence settled across the camp and Carter shivered. ‘A million rotting diseased bodies ... now
that
was a fucking smell. Christ, this place is awful - you can feel it in your bones. It has a
bad,
history.’
‘Yeah. Come on, we need to find out where they took Jam ...’
‘If he’s still alive.’
‘Yeah, if he’s still alive.’
Most of the wooden huts were empty, or had nothing but simple camp beds and the most basic of equipment. One stood out as the obvious HQ and had many locked cabinets and high-tech computer equipment - which appeared out of place against the ancient and rotting surroundings.