‘What is this place?’ asked Mongrel.
‘Durell’s secret hideaway? Who fucking knows? But our tagged helicopter is in that compound and I would bet that Jam and Durell are inside that temple: with the machine.’
‘What’s your plan?’
Carter rubbed at his stubble. ‘I’ll be honest, Mongrel -I’m tired of fighting, and I’m in no fit state to be taking on people like Jam. All I want to do is get the fucking machine and get back to Natasha ...’
‘What about if we disable Jam? Knock him unconscious and take him with us?’
Carter looked into Mongrel’s eyes and saw the pain there. He wanted to say,
Don’t be insane - Jam has been changed into a Nex, he’s fucking dead ... he’s the enemy ... he will try his utmost to kill us, to burn us.
But he could not bring himself to speak the words.
‘What we need to do,’ said Carter carefully, ‘is move in - covert infiltration: steal the Avelach and then get the fuck out, using one of their helicopters. If an opportunity arises then we can take Jam with us.’
Mongrel shook his head. ‘No, that not good enough. And we also have problem with Durell and the earthquakes. He ripping the world apart, Carter. We got to stop him.’
Carter pursed his lips.
‘
You shot that fucker once, through the heart
,’ said Kade softly. His voice whispered through Carter and he felt himself shiver despite the heat of the desert.
‘I thought you’d disappeared - gone off somewhere to shoot more women in the face, you fucking coward.’
‘Tut tut, Carter. You can’t use me to do your dirty work and then criticise me when it’s over. That just isn’t
sportsmanlike.
She would have shot Mongrel in the back of the head - you know it, he knows it, and I fucking know it. And anyway, Carter - shooting pretty blonde bitches is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. ‘
‘What do you want now?’
‘I want nothing more than to offer good advice.‘
‘Such as?’
‘Kill Durell. Then kill Jam. Then kill all the Nex in the whole town. ‘
‘Wonderful,’ muttered Carter sourly. Then he realised that Mongrel was looking at him, head tilted to one side, face a frown within the folds of the black shamag.
‘You OK, Carter?’
‘Yeah, yeah. What do you have in mind?’
‘Well, when we find Avelach I’m thinking we find Durell. Let’s take fucker out,
then
steal machine and drag Jam out to helicopter. I’m sure two men like us can pull quite simple suicide mission.’
Carter shook his head. ‘We do this one step at a time. Carefully. No fucking mad dashes, nothing without us agreeing. Yeah? Or we’ll both end up as minced dog meat.’
Mongrel stared down at the town. Watched the patrols of Nex, amidst the barking of the occasionally excited dogs that ran through the streets. He knew from experience that dogs made covert travel at night quite impossible.
‘I think first we got to get to temple.’
Carter grinned. ‘I’ve got an idea about that.’
With sunset came a respite from the heat. Carter and Mongrel watched the glowing orb sinking slowly over the shimmering horizon, over the distant desert plateau which dropped off in kilometre-long strides towards the far distant Nile.
Carter focused his actions to stop himself fidgeting with frustration. All he could think about was more waiting, more hanging around while Natasha lay dying on a cold hospital slab. He cleaned and oiled both his Browning HiPower and his M24 carbine, checking and reloading their magazines, oiling the moving parts of the weapons. Back in Crete when the Nex killer had been about to shoot him in the face and its gun had suffered a stoppage, he had been made aware once again just how vulnerable life could be - hanging by a thread, awaiting a cruel twist of fate that would swing the pendulum of favour from one combatant to another. The Nex was dead, slowly decomposing next to the body of Mila the sniper. And why? Because his submachine gun had been dirty, or lacked oil, or the bullet had been poorly manufactured.
Mongrel, after quenching his thirst and chewing on dried beef to satisfy his huge deep-bellied hunger, finally followed Carter’s lead and oiled his own weapons. As the sun set and the blue faded from the sky, allowing darkness to cast a veil over the town, the two men found that they were finally ready.
Carter watched a small sand-coloured scorpion scuttle in front of him and pause, seeming to turn and look at him. He aimed his Browning casually - and watched the scorpion scuttle away, its sting held high and proud.
‘You little fucker. No compassion in your insect brain, is there?’
Dogs barked in the distance, and Carter and Mongrel shouldered their packs. Clutching their guns in their hands, they moved off slowly against the now dark skyline.
Their boots trod softly against the rock and sand, along the ridge that dropped towards the main gap leading to the village. Halting some distance away, they saw several Nex standing idly by the roadside. The two Spiral men crept down through the steep rocks until they reached, panting and with sweat-stinging eyes, a narrow back street. It was unlit and had an unpleasant aroma of something rotting.
‘What now?’
Carter gestured, and they moved forward. For six hours he had been watching the Nex patrols and planning a way across the town towards the temple. He had the route imprinted on his cortex.
They halted, carbines at the ready.
As they waited, three Nex drifted past, boots silent on the sand-scattered street, heads scanning left and right. Deep in the shadows Carter and Mongrel held their breath - and once the Nex had passed they moved from one backstreet to the next, hugging the shadows and treading carefully, their eyes alert.
A dog barked, the noise echoing across the town. Another mutt took up the call, and for a few minutes about twenty of the beasts decided to make a nuisance of themselves, their echoing barks reverberating through the town and out into the desert.
‘I understand why they fucking eat ‘em now,’ muttered Mongrel, who had made no pretence of liking Egyptian food, and referred to most foreign dishes placed in front of him as a mishmash of either shredded dog, donkey or camel.
They crept along through the shadows, halting often, listening to the local denizens chattering in Arabic. Small groups of men wearing
galabiyyas
robes in varying colours and styles sat outside some of the houses at small wooden tables, sometimes smoking strong Egyptian tobacco through bubbling hookahs and drinking tiny cups of thick black treacle-like coffee. They kept their voices low. There seemed to be an undercurrent of fear pervading the air.
Finally, Carter called a halt and dropped his pack to the ground. He handed his M24 carbine to Mongrel and rolled his neck as if readying for action.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Wait here.’
‘You said no single-handed heroics! We need know what both up to!’
‘I’m buying us our passage into the temple - unseen.’
Mongrel frowned, then watched Carter draw a long black steel blade from a boot-sheath. Mongrel licked his lips, tasting dried sweat-salt caught in the stubble around his mouth, and watched Carter move towards the end of the narrow darkened backstreet.
Carter crouched between an overflowing bin stinking of old vegetables and a square cardboard box reeking of rancid, pungent dog piss. He waited, eyes almost closed, counting ... and then sensed rather than heard the footsteps of the two Nex guards ...
He uncoiled from his hiding place like a striking cobra, creeping forward without a sound to plunge the long dagger through the eye and into the brain of the lead Nex. Blood gushed, drenching his fist, as his left boot kicked up and out, cannoning into the second Nex’s throat. Carter whirled, pulling out the knife in the same movement and, spinning low, brought the blade up, ramming it into the second Nex’s heart. It fell forward against him, and Carter withdrew the blade, supporting the Nex as blood poured out onto the sand and their stares met for a long horrible moment. Carter waited impatiently until it died in his arms.
Dragging the body back down the alley, Carter damped it behind the bin, then sheathing his dagger he ran and dragged the first Nex corpse back, depositing it next to its companion.
‘Strip them.’
‘You want us to look like the Nex?’
‘Can you think of any better way of sneaking in?’
‘I bloody hope Simmo not arrive.’
‘Yeah.’ Carter grimaced, remembering the incident on die sniper tower. ‘So do I.’
They stripped the Nex bodies of their clothing and pulled themselves into the outfits, finally rolling the thin balaclavas over their faces and turning to check one another.
‘It stinks,’ complained Mongrel.
‘Don’t you ever stop moaning?’
‘And we haven’t got copper eyes! They spot us for sure!’
‘Jesus, Mongrel, we’re not supposed to satisfy intense scrutiny in this Nex gear, just casual glances. We’re going over the fucking roofs until we reach the street - it’s just for the last few feet.’
Moving back out into the alley, Carter swept sand over the blood as best he could. They took the Nex’s weapons, slinging their own carbines over their backs. Then Carter led the way down several more alleys until they came to a low building and Carter leapt up onto a bin, then jumped, hauling himself to the low roof. Mongrel followed, muttering morosely to himself as he heaved his bulk up and scratched his dragging belly against the roof’s rough edges. Then they crouched for a few moments in the darkness, getting their bearings.
Moving along behind the parapet, they climbed to the next building, finding easy handholds in the badly constructed mud-brick breeze-block wall, and then looked out over the main thoroughfare.
Fires flickered, casting long golden shadows.
Occasionally Nex patrols would pass. Carter focused his gaze on the opening to the temple - six steep steps, blown with sand, leading to a dark interior with a ramp. Were there any guards inside?
He took his ECube and stared at the tiny alloy device for a few moments. Digits glittered. Carter bit his lip, frustrated and mistrustful. Could he risk it? Was the new version of the ECube truly undetectable?
Could he trust it?
Carter stowed the tiny device away once more and calmed his breathing, peering into the temple. He took a SniperScope from his pack and lifted it to his eye, flicking it to night-vision mode. The world sprang to life in green and purple. Carter zoomed in on the temple but could see only the ramp rising out of view. He watched for a while but saw no movement.
They moved from roof to roof, slowly, carefully, making sure that they made no noise. They could not afford the hiss of cloth scraping against stone, or the negligent kick of a pebble that would rattle against mud brick. Any such mistake could not only cost them their lives, but the lives of others who relied on them ...
Finally, after further climbing and more of Mongrel’s silent curses - which he threw with mental vitriol at Carter’s back - and sweating like pigs, they reached the edge of the street overlooking the temple.
It reared ahead of them, supported at the base by heavy carved rounded pillars and rising to a single sculpted spire about a metre in diameter whose top rose just above the high cliff wall behind. Carter glanced down at the small black helicopters, and then up and down the street.
They waited, watching the occasional Nex patrol.
‘They seem quite relaxed,’ said Mongrel.
‘Good.’
‘Maybe it a bluff?’
‘Maybe.’
‘What happen then?’
‘Then we’re dead.’
‘Oh.’
A pause. Silence. The stone around them, after baking ail day in the sun, was now releasing the naturally stored heat. Both men were sweating heavily, and the Nex-scented balaclavas did nothing to relieve their sombre mood.
‘You see anything?’
‘No,’ said Carter softly.
‘When we going in?’
‘When you learn to shut the fuck up.’
‘I need to be moving. I’m overheating.’
‘Your body or your brain?’
Mongrel frowned. ‘You not take piss when I on bad mission with you. You listen hard, Carter boy, I not take this sort of—’
‘Shh.’
Mongrel lapsed into silence.
‘Come on.’
They climbed onto the parapet, jumped onto a low ledge, then lowered themselves to the ground. Nothing stirred, no breeze to cool the air, no wind to blow the sand on the street around. Carter and Mongrel strode towards the entrance to the temple with heads held high, weapons in hands and hearts in mouths ... waiting for the shout to halt ... waiting for the blast of bullets that would eat the backs of their skulls ... Their breath coming in short gasps, they jogged up the sand-blown steps and disappeared into the temple’s gaping black maw.
The room had a red sandstone floor, gently grooved from a thousand years of use. The lower sections of the walls were lined with panels of marble and obsidian. Light came from globes in the high vaulted stone roof, and benches on which rested the most advanced computing equipment in the world stood against the walls.