by Dan Abnett
Then he felt it again, something big, yet as light on its feet as it could be, something stalking through the trees.
Where’s it going to come from? he wondered. Which direction? Which way is the attack coming from?
He turned slowly in the drizzle, rainwater dripping off him, braced, watching every angle.
Then all hell broke loose.
TWELVE
At first, there was thunder, far louder and more concussive than the heavy rotors of the transport helicopter.
The ground began to shake so hard that Cutter thought a major earthquake had begun.
Then a stampede of duck-bill dinosaurs exploded out of the forest. The adults were huge, three-and-a-half-ton creatures, each well over twelve metres long. Juveniles flocked amongst them. They were all running on their hind legs with their bodies down and their thick, dagger-shaped tails held out straight behind them. Mud spatter and divots of loam kicked up under their trampling feet. The creatures were crestless, with long, wide beaks. Beautiful dark stripes dappled down their pale-green hides from the spine ridge.
Cutter stared at them.
There was another sound besides the thunder of their charge, a kind of trumpeting, a riot of explosive blasts that hooted at random like a brass band performing some atonal modern piece. The blasts weren’t simply loud — Cutter could feel the physical shock of them in his diaphragm and his sinuses, as if they were pulses of audible sound mixed with something outside the range of human hearing. They reminded him of the odd, booming notes generated by an emu’s neck sack.
The creatures were calling as they ran. Soft-tissue acoustic sacs in the elaborate nasal openings of their skulls were producing sounds that reached frequencies well inside the infrasonic register. The calls were probably signals of panic and alarm.
Battered by the cacophony, he stumbled backwards and grabbed ahold of a tree trunk for support. He gazed in awe at the sight in front of him. Medyevin and Koshkin followed him, getting clear of the creature’s course.
Sukhenkiy turned and fled.
The herd ploughed on, bolting. Tree trunks splintered and fractured under glancing impacts. Smaller trees were crushed down or uprooted altogether by the thundering giants. The air filled with sap spray and drifting clouds of leaf fragments. There was so much power, so much weight, so much bone and muscle. It was like a dinosaur flash flood, a dinosaur avalanche.
It only took thirty seconds for the creatures to pass by. Cutter estimated about three-dozen creatures, but that was just a guess. The herd cut right across the track and vanished into the forest on the left- hand side, leaving a broad swathe of destroyed vegetation in its wake. Shredded leaves fluttered in the air behind them, along with the fading rumble of their passage and the echo of their odd, hooting calls.
Cutter wiped sap and rainwater from his face and stood blinking. He looked over at Medyevin. The doctor couldn’t hide an excited smile, and Cutter knew just what he was experiencing.
“Duck-bills,” Cutter said. Medyevin nodded eagerly.
“Anatotitans?” Cutter asked.
“I think so, yes,” Medyevin replied.
“A whole herd of them.” Cutter laughed in wonder. “Just incredible.”
“You begin, I think, to appreciate the scale of our situation,” Medyevin said.
Connor and Abby came running up from the vehicles, followed by the soldiers and the older man. The Russians looked stunned, but the other two had excitement written across their faces.
“That was amazing!” Connor yelled.
“I know,” Cutter said, and he grinned.
“That sound they made,” Abby said, her voice incredulous.
“Infrasonic acoustics, I think,” Cutter explained. “You could really feel it.” His racing pulse was beginning to return to normal. He looked around.
“Just before that stampede,” he said, “I think something was circling us.”
“Like what?” Koshkin asked.
“A predator, I’d wager,” Cutter said. “Whatever took out your truck. It may also have been what spooked the Anatotitans.”
“Has it gone?” Koshkin looked around.
“Shall we stay here and find out?” Cutter asked.
“Get back in the vehicles,” Koshkin ordered. Cutter hesitated.
“What about Sukhenkiy?”
Koshkin shrugged.
“He’s a damned fool, and Baba Yaga can have him.”
Forty-five minutes later, the two 4×4s drove down the forest track into the advance camp. Cutter saw a number of huts, canvas prefabs, and tents clustered in the gloomy clearing. Lamps were in use, even though it was long past dawn and the sun was up. The deep shadow of the forest seemed to stain the daylight with a primordial darkness.
Koshkin drew up outside the main tent structure. Gaggles of soldiers regarded them with curiosity, but smartened up when they caught Koshkin’s look. He barked a few orders and some of them hurried away.
“In here,” Koshkin told Cutter. Cutter waited for Abby and Connor to catch up with him and entered the main tent.
It was a canvas longhouse with a walk-board floor. The tent’s large internal space had been divided into separate rooms by canvas walls. They glimpsed a radio room, and a room full of pinboards on which hung charts and enlarged aerial photos. Koshkin led them through into a large workspace where several people in military battledress uniforms were grouped around laptops set out on benches. They turned as Koshkin and Medyevin brought Cutter and his friends in.
One of them was a woman. Her face was youthful and strong, though she had to be in her sixties. The lines there and the bleached steel of her hair appeared to be due to a lifetime spent labouring in the open air, rather than old age. She was wearing puzzle-pattern BDUs that had evidently been intended for a man. Wide turn-ups in the legs and sleeves accommodated her shorter, rounder frame. The men around her were all at least a head taller. Her hair was pinned up in a bun, and she had a pair of bifocal glasses on a cord around her neck.
She lifted the glasses, put them on, and peered at Cutter.
“Hello, Nicky,” she said.
THIRTEEN
“Who is she?” Abby asked.
At Koshkin’s instruction, Abby and Connor had been escorted from the longhouse and taken to the mess tent across the muddy yard. They were placed under the supervision of a skinny young soldier called Vols, who had a smattering of English. Vols was wearing dark, leaf-pattern camouflage and a net-covered helmet, like all the regular army troopers in the camp, and he carried a machine gun over his shoulder. He seemed very serious, and mindful of his duties, and was obviously trying very hard to cultivate a moustache that would make him look more mature.
Connor and Abby trudged across the yard behind him, huddled deep in their outsized, secondhand greatcoats like children playing at dressing up. They kept looking over their shoulders. They could see Cutter back in the main room of the longhouse, through the screen windows. He was still talking to the woman.
“He seems to know her,” Connor said, swatting at a mosquito, then another.
“Or she seems to know him.”
“Yeah.”
“She called him ‘Nicky’,” Abby said. “I mean, he’s not a Nicky. He’s just not a Nicky.”
“We’d never call him Nicky,” Connor agreed.
“We wouldn’t. It’d be wrong. At what point in the past was he ever a Nicky?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“But she called him Nicky like it was perfectly normal.”
“I know. Weird,” Connor said.
Abby glanced at him, her face buried in the collar folds of the giant overcoat. He saw her look.
“Okay, in the grand scheme of everything else that’s happening to us,” he admitted, “not that weird. Not kidnapped by Russian spies weird. Not rendited to Siberia weird. Not stampede of Anatotitans weird.”
Vols brought them to the door of the mess tent, and held it open in a touchingly formal manner.
“I
nto be here,” he told them.
“Inside?” Abby asked.
“Inside, da!” Vols nodded, and then he realised he was smiling too warmly at the blonde girl, and tried to make his face solemn again.
They went inside. There were rows of tables and benches, and a steamy kitchen area at the far end, where two army cooks in whites were clattering pots and talking loudly to each other. The mess tent windows were screened with thick drapes of mosquito netting. Connor had noticed the density of tiny insects fuming the air, especially now they were near a river. He was sure he’d been bitten already. He didn’t care.
He could smell food.
The drug-induced nausea they had all been suffering was slowly being eclipsed by a fearsome appetite.
Small groups of soldiers sat at the tables, eating and chatting. They were off-duty, dressed in T-shirts or unbuttoned jackets. They watched the newcomers enter, as Vols clumsily slung his AK over his right shoulder and took off his helmet and pile undercap as if he were entering church. The undercap had given him comical hat hair. Abby bit her lips so as not to laugh.
“This way is be,” Vols told them, indicating the serving area. The cooks had seen them, and stood waiting with ladles.
“I’m starving,” Abby admitted to Connor.
“Me, too,” Connor said. He smiled and nodded at the watching soldiers.
They were served generous helpings of meat and vegetable stew in broad enamel bowls, along with dark bread, a mug of soup and a mug of strong black coffee from a samovar. They sat at a table with Vols and started to eat.
“It’s tasty,” Abby said as she ate hungrily.
“It’s great,” Connor agreed, his mouth full.
“Be good?” Vols asked.
“It’s very be good,” Connor told him.
Vols wasn’t eating. He had taken out a notebook and started to compose a list as he sat with them.
The other soldiers in the mess tent were still watching them. A trio sitting at the nearest table took particular interest. One of them, a handsome, cocky-looking man with dark hair and blue eyes, tilted his chair back on its back legs and looked at Abby.
“Hello,” he said.
“Mm, hello,” Abby responded through a mouthful of stew.
“How are you doing?” the man asked. His friends were watching him and whispering to one another.
Vols looked up from his list and started to jabber at the man in indignant Russian. The man kept his chair tilted back casually and replied to Vols in dismissive tones.
“Vols does not like me talking to you,” the man told Abby, “but I think people should be being friendly, don’t you?”
“Especially kidnappers,” Connor said, watching the soldier suspiciously and becoming increasingly protective of Abby.
“I’m sorry?” the man asked.
Connor backtracked. The man had turned his attention to him.
“I said she’s eating, actually,” he muttered, slightly less defiantly.
“Leave it, Connor,” Abby whispered.
“Yes, she is eating,” the man agreed, tilting his chair back so far it seemed likely to topple. “The food it is not bad, yes?”
Vols said something else.
“Vols says I am interrupting him,” the man said with a grin. “He is making a list. He has been told to look after you and get you the things — you know — from quartermaster. The things like bedrolls and gloves and toothbrush. He is trying to think of all the things you will need to have. I am Yuri. What is your name?”
“Abby,” Abby said.
“Abby. Abby. Is nice name.”
“And she’s still very much eating,” Connor said, putting his fork down.
“So what is your name?” Yuri asked him.
“Connor,” he said.
“Hello, Connor. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good,” Yuri said. “I am Yuri Torosyan, and I am very happy to meet you. I —”
A command cut him off sharply, and he rocked his chair back onto four legs. A female officer had been dining alone in the corner of the mess tent and now, with her meal finished, she rose and approached the newcomers’ table. She wore a smart field dress uniform, and she was young and extremely beautiful. She spoke quickly and quietly to Yuri Torosyan and his pals, and evidently had sufficient authority to make him return to his food and leave Abby alone.
She turned to look at them, and said a few words to Vols, who nodded obediently.
“I have told Vols that the men should not be allowed to bother you,” she said in clear, slightly accented English.
“It was fine,” Abby replied. “He was harmless.”
“Harmless?” the woman echoed. “Yuri Torosyan is hardly harmless.”
Abby stared up at her.
“He’s quite good-looking, actually. Nice eyes.”
The woman paused. She had slightly slavic features.
“Fraternisation is not recommended,” she said.
“With him?”
“With anybody.”
“Okay,” Abby said, and she bobbed her head.
“Vols will bring you both to medical after your food, so I can make sure you are healthy,” the woman said.
“You’re the doctor?” Connor asked.
“Natacha Antila,” she replied, “advance staff medical supervisor. I have been ordered to make sure you have clean bill of health.”
“That’s very kind,” Connor said, and he smiled broadly.
Antila remained stern.
“When you are repatriated, we will not leave ourselves open to accusations of mistreatment. The record will clearly show that you suffered no abuse before arriving at the camp.”
“Charming,” Abby said.
“And you are no use sick, either,” Antila continued. “Mosquitos carry all sorts of filth in the oblast, and in early summer they are very busy.” She reached out without warning, grabbed Connor’s chin and turned his head to one side. “You’ve been bitten already. Here and here. You need cream for the bites, a shot, and repellant spray.”
“What can I say?” Connor shrugged. “I’m just popular, I guess. Must taste good.”
She let go of his face.
“I will expect you shortly,” she said, and strode out of the tent.
Connor watched her go.
“Natacha,” he murmured, “Natacha, eh?”
“What?” Abby asked.
“I should get rendited more often,” he replied.
She kicked him under the table.
“Ow.”
“Shall we walk?” Rina Suvova asked.
“You look well, Nicky,” she said as they exited the tent, leaving Koshkin and Medyevin behind. “All grown up, not a boy any more. A professor, with students of your own.”
“That’s right,” he agreed.
“It’s good to see you. How long is it? Twenty years?”
“About that,” Cutter replied with a nod. “I’m flattered that you remember me, Professor. It was a long time ago, and I was just an undergrad on a dig that lasted three months.”
“You made an impression,” Suvova said. “An earnest young man with ideas of his own. I knew then you would make a significant contribution to the field of palaeobiology.”
She looked up at him. “Who knew how significant, eh?”
“I’m not sure it’s really palaeobiology if the specimens are alive,” he said.
She laughed and nodded.
“I’ve followed your career with admiration,” Cutter said. “You’ve accomplished some amazing things, Professor Suvova. I was in the audience when you received the Drinker Cope Medal in Ottawa.”
“You were there? For goodness’ sake, why didn’t you say hello?”
“I didn’t think you’d remember me.”
They walked slowly along the camp perimeter towards the river under the gloom of grey conifers and black larches. Clouds of tiny flies milled and swarmed in the patches of thin sunlight. Cutter slapped a mosq
uito that tried to bite him.
“And how is the other young undergraduate from that dig so long ago?” Suvova asked. “I heard you married her.”
“Helen and I are no longer together,” Cutter said.
Suvova nodded thoughtfully. “Ah, Nicky, these things.”
She paused and looked at him.
“I want to apologise, Nicky, for the manner in which you were brought here.”
“You could have asked me, and I’d have come,” he said.
“Sadly, such niceties are not always available when the military takes charge of an operation.”
“So I gather.”
“I’m leader of the scientific group, which gives me some authority, but the state security component means that the government has the last say in everything. Executive orders brought the army in to watch over our work, and it was hard enough working with Markov. Now we have the special advisors.”
“Who’s Markov?” Cutter asked.
“He’s the commanding officer,” she replied. “You’ll meet him soon enough. He’s regular army, a decent sort, but rather old-fashioned. When I took over the leadership of the scientific group ten months ago, he found it quite a challenge to accept a woman in such a role. Then, as the situation grew rapidly more serious, he lacked the political nuance to nursemaid the anxieties of government officials, so we wound up with the special advisors. Koshkin you’ve met. There are two others. They are FSB.”
“What does that mean?” Cutter asked. “I understood that Koshkin was some kind of special forces soldier?”
“Yes, special purposes and operations. The agency he works for is the FSB, which translates as the Federal Security Service, an institution that used to be known by a rather more notorious acronym.”
“KGB?”
“Exactly,” she nodded. “They are men with ugly souls. Expeditors. At once, the best and worst kind of soldiers.”
“They’re in charge now?”
“If it came to it, they could overrule me or Markov. As is so often the case, science keeps its place, and threads a careful path around the wishes of the military and state security. Anyway, the decision was made to bring in outside help. I begged for scientific expertise and assistance. The government was dead set against anybody on the outside finding out what was happening here. Then there was an incident, on Oxford Street, I believe.”
