Spiral (28 page)

He watched closely as one of his guard groups exchanged duty. They disappeared into the gloom, moving like ghosts, and he took a long, deep breath, staring up at the vast vaults of the night sky. A cool breeze at last caressed his skin. He rubbed at his beard. He closed his eyes—

But images haunted him.

From a million years ago.

From a different world.

Dark stone walls, damp with water and slime. A voice, crying in the darkness, a woman’s voice, shouting out, the language Austrian, the embedded emotion that of raw terror. He moved down the steps, boots thudding dully on the heavy ancient stone. In addition to his knowledge of where he was, he could
feel
that he was deep underground; could
feel
the weight of earth and stone above him leading up.

A face. Pale and drawn.

‘Feuchter.’

‘Come in, Gol. We’ve been waiting.’

Gol stepped forward. There was a heavy solid
click
as the door closed neatly behind him. He nodded to Durell, who nodded with a
crackling
sound in return - but Gol could not meet the man’s gaze; he felt himself shivering, and he looked instead at Feuchter, forcing himself not to turn and stare at Durell, at his deformities, at his terrible
wounds ...

The images drifted.

Dissipated like smoke.

Gol opened his eyes, stared again at the night sky.

‘What did we do?’ he murmured wearily. ‘What in God’s name did we do?’

Slater stared up at the Boeing Apache AH64A, resplendent in desert camouflage colours, with its squat powerful wings carrying clusters of Hellfire missiles and 70mm rocket groups, flanks scarred and battered from battle encounters, a crack in the windshield and one flat tyre. Slater turned back to Jam, who was leaning against the old van, enjoying a cigarette.

‘You say you can fly this thing?’

Jam nodded.

‘You sure?’

Jam nodded again.

‘It looks a little bit... battered?’

‘Meet
Sally -
apparently Mongrel flew her during the Second Great Gulf War. Took out about thirty-five tanks single-handedly in that baby, and still brought her home for tea and doughnuts.’

‘But...’ said Slater.

‘What?’

‘It’s damaged!’

‘Damaged? Merely superficial.’ Jam smiled through gritted teeth. ‘Anyway, what did you expect? Us to waltz in here and requisition a brand new one? Now, when I give the order, I need you and Nicky to climb in - you see the release for the cockpit there? Good. Climb in - insert this key, turn it twice clockwise and hit the five green buttons on the dash. You got that?’

Slater frowned. ‘I thought you cleared this, Jam? And I thought we were waiting for The Priest?’

‘I did, I did, I cleared it with Mongrel. Those are the keys, and I have the ignition sequences stored up here.’ He tapped his head. Blowing smoke through a cheeky smile, Jam slapped Slater on the back. The huge man did not budge. ‘And as for The Priest? Well, he’s a little bit late and we can’t hang on for the insane fucker.’

‘Late?’ rumbled Slater. ‘Don’t you mean that
we
are early?’

‘Depends on your perspective,’ said Jam. ‘Look, Slater, Spiral are being shafted left, right and centre - we need to find out, and find out fast, what is actually going on. This was the nearest base with access to this sort of technology.’

Slater looked around, his face carrying the weight of guilt. Across the almost deserted airfield other aircraft sat unattended, mainly Cessna single-propeller planes, a few Lear Jets and two clusters of ex-war Apaches like
Sally.
Jeeps hovered in the distance. Activity seemed centred on a huge hangar, originally used during World War II to house fighter planes but now owned by Spiral for its private fleet of air-going traffic.

Slater looked up at the sky. Heavy clouds rolled, and wind whipped at him with the promise of rain.

‘I didn’t know you could fly a helicopter,’ said Slater suspiciously.

‘I am a man of many talents. Where the fuck has Nicky got to? If she’s not quick The Priest might arrive early. And we don’t fucking want
that
.’

Nicky appeared, jogging across the expanse of tarmac. She carried packs and, panting heavily, dropped them at Slater’s feet. ‘They were happy to give me supplies; everything’s in a bit of a panic. Some of the Spiral navigation systems have gone down; the loss of Spiral_H hasn’t helped things either. Once they clocked my ID and ECube - wham bam.’ She smiled, then looked at Slater’s dubious expression. ‘What’s the matter?’

Slater pointed. ‘Did you know this cunt could fly?’

Nicky shook her head. ‘No. So what?’

‘I don’t trust him.’

‘You don’t have to trust him, sweet-pea. Just let him get us out of here; it’s beginning to feel a little threatening, what with those masked fuckers killing our guys and taking out the HQ.’

‘Come on,’ said Jam, dropping the butt of his cigarette. Smoke trailed from his nostrils. He ground the remains of the cigarette under his boot and wrapped his long leather coat around him. ‘Let’s do it.’

Slater and Nicky moved swiftly to the Apache, Slater opened the cockpit door and they climbed in. Jam moved around the war-bruised machine, poking here and there; he kicked away the blocks from under the tyres and climbed up, squeezing into the position of control. He fired up the ignition, then the twin-turbine engine. The engine whined, then roared and Jam smiled like a small child discovering a new toy he thought was lost.

Rain began to fall from the dark broiling skies.

‘I hope he knows what he’s doing,’ said Slater, as the Apache bobbed and the engine noise increased.

‘I’m sure he does,’ smiled Nicky, a touch uncertainly.

‘Here we go! Let’s see what this baby can do. Kamus-5... here we come!’

Out of the gloom, doing perhaps a hundred and twenty m.p.h. across the rugged concrete airfield hammered The Priest’s battered old Volvo; oil smoke plumed like a dragon’s breath from the wide tailpipe, and the car slewed around, wheels locked, skidding to a halt in front of the Apache in a scythe of water.

The Priest stepped free of the car, crossed swiftly to the helicopter with his Bible in one hand, long heavy coat flapping, and climbed up to be greeted by three blank stares.

‘Well done, my children, for convening so early. It is good to see the servants of God so willing to carry out His work.’

‘Yeah,’ said Jam, casting glances at Nicky and Slater. ‘We’re just warming up her engines.’

‘And
are
they warm?’ asked The Priest softly.

‘They are now.’

‘Praise be - then what are we waiting for? Onward, Christians! Let us discover the source of this scourge.’

The Apache, engines roaring with power, lurched up from the airstrip, rotated through two full circles, then shot straight upwards with a caterwaul of engine; it halted, hovering, rotated again through about 270 degrees, then, with its short squat nose dipped, hammered forward into the heavy falling rain.

Jam grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry! I’ll get the hang in a minute—’

‘Or twenty,’ muttered Slater.

‘I fucking
heard that!’

The rotors thumped through the downpour.

Nicky found herself staring out and down at the bleak landscape below. They passed a town, grey and huddled, its roofs slick with water; cars moved warily, like predators hunting through the streets, and occasional shoppers cowered under huge umbrellas. The streets were laid out like some huge brick-walled game, and a feeling of melancholy fell over Nicky as she watched these tiny people in their tiny houses with their tiny lives.

‘I know what you are thinking,’ said Slater.

‘What’s that?’

‘You’re looking at the people - secure in their ignorance, not aware of the world events unfolding around them. They watch the news, believe the media and propaganda - like sheep. They have no real concept of what is really going on, of what the stakes are.’

‘That’s quite profound for you, Slater.’

The huge man smiled, revealing his missing teeth. ‘Slater not think too well sometimes, but he hold a gun well and know what he believe in. You laugh at Slater sometime, but really I is good and I smash the bad men.’

Nicky patted his huge bicep. ‘I know, I know. When we’re laughing, we’re just fucking with you. We love you really; we know you’d give your life for us.’

Slater nodded, a big smile across his face.

The Apache banked, heading towards the coast; below, cliffs sailed into the distance and they were flying low over cold churning grey seas. Jam and The Priest seemed to be arguing.

‘We’re not going lower,’ said Jam through gritted teeth.

‘The wave formations will mask us against radar,’ said The Priest softly, eyes bright with the light of conviction.

‘Yeah, and then drag us down and wrap us in Neptune’s cold fishlike embrace. You can go to fuck, you insane religious bastard.’

‘God will protect us.’

‘God will laugh at us!’

‘You do not know God’s will as I do.’

‘What, so you’re in contact with the man himself?’

‘Let me just say that I have seen the light.’

The Apache dropped closer to the waves; sea spray rattled against the glass and Nicky and Slater stared out warily, watching the churning water, the crests of white foam against the rolling liquid slate-grey.

‘Do you know anything about this Kamus?’ asked Nicky, after long moments of thought.

‘A little,’ said Slater slowly, his eyes hooded. ‘It used to be an operational Spiral base. A military centre, a place from which we could mount operations in middle and eastern Europe.’

‘What happened? Why did they close it?’

‘Several reasons.’ Slater’s voice was cool, his eyes moving to stare out over the sea once more. ‘Things kept going wrong; people started dying. The Kamus is built
into
the side of a mountain, high up on a ridge. There are only two ways to reach the place - by air, or by a single cable car. Kamus was a fortress; almost impregnable. Tunnels inside travel across and
down, deep down
- access shafts, huge stores, research centres - all carved from within the rock. In the end, Kamus-5 was beaten by an enemy - not an external physical enemy, but an internal psychological one.’

‘It was haunted?’ asked Nicky softly.

‘Not haunted, more
cursed.’

Nicky shivered.

Slater continued, his gaze still distant. ‘I remember the last days; the huge transporters leaving the platform; much heavy equipment was abandoned there, they said it was not cost-effective to move. Hah.’

‘What else?’

Slater looked at her. Met her gaze. ‘It was said, those who worked deep within the research centres — something down there turned them mad. There was some kind of massacre, in the living quarters - thirty or so people, including wives, children, all were involved in some kind of shooting. Lots of bad death. Deaths of innocent people.’ Slater rubbed at his temples. ‘It was covered up well. I be honest, Nicky - Slater not really want to go back.’

‘We don’t have much choice.’

‘Only a mad man would set up camp in the Kamus.’

‘Or a fanatic,’ said Nicky sombrely.

Slater nodded.

They remained in silence for the rest of the journey.

Transcript of recent news incident

CodeRed_Z;

unorthodox incident scan 556126

A Russian nuclear-weapons depot was completely deactivated this morning. The deactivation sequence lasted for 180 seconds. Both reactors and fission services were left stranded and without power and cooling.

The reactivation occurred as an automated sequence that left technicians and scientists without answers concerning the nature of this apparent security breach. When reactivation occurred, all passwords and security measures were instigated without authority intervention.

This would suggest either a complex bug in software, or it could hint at hacker/subterrorist involvement.

The Russian Minister for Technology, Sergei Kessolov, was unavailable for comment.>>#

C
arter and Natasha had a simple breakfast of fruit and bread and cheese brought to their room by Marcus, and washed it down with thick black coffee containing lots of sugar. Carter gestured for Marcus to stay, and the large black man sat on the end of the bed, making the aged and rusting springs creak. He poured himself a coffee and grinned over at Carter.

‘They say you a bad boy.’

Carter shrugged. ‘You look quite a bad boy yourself.’

Marcus shook his head, long dreads swaying. ‘I here, man, because I am mathematician and I am good mathematician. I help repair the Spiral mainframe codes.’ He beamed, and sipped at his coffee. ‘I let Gol tell you about that; he may not want me to speak.’

‘And there’s me thinking you were merely a beefy bouncer. Nats, don’t he look like a bouncer?’

Nats nodded, taking a bite of melon. ‘Sorry to stereotype you, but it’s the muscles.’