by Ricky Cooper
'I thought you said this place was a commerce port. This is a damned military base, it's blatantly obvious.'
Fadei shot Kingsley an undisguised glare of hatred as Baker chuckled.
'Like I said, we knew it was here, we just didn't know what “it” was. We could never get a tasked satellite in place soon enough to break through the snow and cloud cover that blankets this place.'
Fadei snorted as he barged past Baker.
'Why do you think we picked it?'
'So what are we looking at on the inside? Also, I just thought I would raise a small point, but where are the containment teams? Your boss told us that we should expect them to be here.'
Fadei glanced around himself as they strode through the steel security gate, Bakers question hanging on his earlobe like a Diamanté pendant ear ring. Fadei pulled his weapon from off his back, setting the stock into the crook of his shoulder as the motorised gate squeaking on the frozen ball bearings was softly winched aside.
'That, my friend, is a very good question.'
Baker cocked an eyebrow at Fadei's choice of words, for at that precise moment they were anything but friends. His rifle came to his shoulder as he slowly began to sense the deep blanket of malice that seemed to seep from the very bowels of the facility.
****
The salt brine tang clung to their throats as they breathed in, the S-10 gas masks they wore, doing little to filter out the pervading scent of the ocean as they quietly entered the building.
Their barrel mounted torches cut through the darkness, the bare, grey concrete walls sucking in the bright white light like a sponge drinking in the light as the darkness closed around them.
The orange tinged pools seemed to disappear into the utilitarian walls of the corridor, as if the building itself was consuming what light and life touched its coarse concrete shell. The darkness was total; nothing could penetrate the ink black wall before them, as the small band of men made their way deeper into the dark inner sanctum.
'I don't like this, Chief.'
Bolton's hushed tones rang in Pottergate's ear as he walked slowly onwards. 'Neither do I; if we don't make contact with the containment teams soon, we are aborting the mission and calling in the Mig's on station in Rogachevo.'
Bolton nodded sharply, walking on several feet before he realised that the motion was pointless. 'Roger that.' Bolton's reply was undercut by the quavering fear that edged his tones, a singular thought running through his mind as he spoke. Although he knew better than to vocalise it, still he couldn't help thinking it all the same. 'I just hope we're still alive to make that call.'
Glancing around him, he tried to discern the state of his surroundings as he carried on moving forward. Baker's breathing rasped in his ears as he drew breath deep into his lungs through the filters of his gas mask. The high impact blast resistant lenses of his apparatus turning the whole corridor into two bisected portholes of darkness while the thick rubberised outer skin blocked out his peripheral vision completely.
His torch cut through the dark in front of him like a knife, the blackness dancing away from his torch beam as the hot white light illuminated all it touched. Sweeping left, he watched as something glinted softly under the lights beam. Moving forward slightly, he played the beam back across in front of him searching for the source of the reflection. 'Shit, Chief, I found one of the containment teams.'
Their bright yellow hazard suits where torn to shreds stained a dirty yellow brown by the their own blood. The stench of decaying flesh was palpable even from several feet and made it all too clear just how long the men had been laying there. Baker played his torch beam over the scene before him, his gaze impassive as he looked upon the butchered remains of the six men. 'Survivors?'
Baker shook his head instinctively as he replied, 'Nope, not here anyway.' Crouching low, Baker listened to Pottergate's stifled curses as he studied their remains before him.
'Something is different here, boss. Come take a butchers.'
Fadei looked at Pottergate, a puzzled expression adorning his features. 'He means I should go and take a look.' The explanation did little to remove the look of sever puzzlement as Pottergate walked away, appearing at Baker's side moments later. Kneeling beside his subordinate, he gazed at the carnage before them. 'Calculated.'
Baker glanced at his commander nodding the gas mask rubbing against his skin as it shifted slightly. 'That's what I thought too; they look almost surgically precise as if these guys were sliced apart. The only thing I can even fathom being this quick and precise is a Katana or a scalpel, but look at the edges of the wounds.' Baker motioned with the tip of his combat knife. Using it as a pointer, he traced it down the edges of the gaping wound in one man's chest. 'The edges aren't clean, they're jagged and misshapen. That tells me that they were torn open, like if you were pulling open a packet or something and the seam didn't tear properly, but I don't know. At the same time its too precise; it doesn't make sense.'
Pottergate's brow furrowed as he studied the corpse before him. 'Well, the only other thing I can think of being able to do the quick precise cuts and leave that sort of edge as well is a saw blade.' Baker nodded, his eyes telling more than words could as he looked back at the dry, shrunken rotting and torn flesh before him. Pottergate stood and stepped back slightly as he scratched at the stubble on his neck. 'There isn't much we can gain from staring at this mess, let's move on and hope we find someone intact enough to provide us with an answer.'
Baker looked at his commander quizzically.
'To what chief.'
Pottergate turned to face Baker as he stood.
'To what the bloody hell is going on in this place.'
7
Moving forwards the team came to a crossroads in the corridor, both sides branching into their own black soulless void. Shaking his head Pottergate studied both options before he made the only choice he had. 'Fadei, you're with me and Baker, the rest of you take the left hand tunnel, radio in every three minutes. If you don't, we'll come and find you. I want to know everything you come across. Even if it doesn't hold any importance whatsoever I want to know about it; understood?'
All three men nodded before turning and disappearing into the black, all consuming maw of the corridor. Pottergate and Baker watched the three men vanish into the blackness a deep sense of dread filling both men as the three soldiers were slowly swallowed whole.
'We have to move now; the main centre of the facility is down this corridor.'
Baker turned and looked at Fadei, 'Shut the hell up we'll go when we're good and ready.'
Fadei opened his mouth to reply but as he did, something moved behind him. A soft, shimmering glint passing across Baker's lenses was his only warning before a two foot long sliver of steel whistled past his head, concrete showering over him as it sunk into the wall inches from the side of his mask covered head. Pottergate spun firing into the blackness. His rifle chattered as he fired burst after burst into the wall of dark before him. Fadei dropped to one knee, blood trickling down his neck, the warm liquid seeping into the tight rubberised seal of his suit. Ignoring the sharp bolts of pain that lanced through his torn skin, he brought his AS VAL to bear and fired off half his magazine in six short bursts.
Objects flew from the darkness, clattering across the walls and sinking into the grey concrete as they skittered over the smooth skin of the walls. A low growl arose out of the darkness, rolling over the three men as they continued to fire blindly into the dark. A pair of yellow orbs seemed to float before them, moving over the contours of the walls, growing ever brighter, looming larger in their vision the closer they crept. Then as if swallowed by something hiding within the dark they vanished. Silence fell like a coffin lid slamming shut on the dead, crushing the three men into the floor under its sudden weight.
'What the fuck was that all about?'
Fadei said nothing as he stood and pulled the metal object free from its confines, turning the piece of cold hardened steel over in his hands as he g
azed at it.
'This is an industrial cutting disk. My grandfather used similar when making parts for tanks in 1938. It would take a lot to make it do this, they are not very light.' Baker stepped closer to the hulking Russian, holding his hands out for the slab-like piece of steel.
Fadei held it out carefully; waiting until he was sure Baker had hold of it before letting go. He watched as its weight made the man before him stagger. 'I told you; they were not light.' His words undercut but the loud clang issuing from the floor as the disk pulled itself free of Bakers grip.
'Boss, what do you make of this?' Bakers words hung in the air, unheeded and unanswered. 'Chief, an answer would be nice.' Again silence ensued as his words fell unanswered. Turning, he cast his torch beam around them looking for Pottergate.
As he swept his beam through the corridor, he found nothing but glinting metal and the cold heavy black of the lightless corridor. 'Damn it, Kingsley, this is Baker you seen the chief?' Static crackled for a second before Kingsley replied.
'No Cherry, ain't seen hide nor hair of him; thought he was with you.'
A cold chill washed over Baker as images of Dimi flashed through his mind. Pushing them aside he marshalled his thoughts and ran through a plan before replying.
'No, he ain't here. We had an unknown contact and he up and vanished. Watch your backs okay. Full three-sixty watch on and move careful all right? I'll try and find him; he's probably gotten turned around in the dark and lost coms.'
Again static danced in his ears before Kingsley replied. 'Roger that, check back in three.'
Baker severed the connection as he turned his attention back to the task at hand. Glancing towards Fadei, he pushed the sense of dread that had been slowly bubbling up back down into the pit of his stomach and spoke. 'Well, it looks like it's just you and me.' Fadei nodded. 'It's Sarajevo all over again.' Baker snorted as he switched out the magazine in his weapon, then shouldering his rifle, he plunged forward without another word.
Four minutes; four minutes was all it took for them to find him. The cold chill seeped through them both as they gazed upon the image before them. Pottergate hung like a butterfly on a pin, shell casings littering the floor, glinting under the slowly swing beam of his torch as it hung from his outstretched arm.
'Why?' Fadei asked, his low whispering voice was the first to break the silence, a small gold cross clutched tightly in his hand as he stared the prostrate form before him.
'It's a message.' Baker murmured as his eyes danced from one point to the next as he looked upon Pottergate's semi mutilated form.
'The insurgents did similar things to any S.A.S bloke they got their mitts on in Iraq. This is a message to us, they own this place and we are the invaders. This, Baker motioned to his commander's ripped and bloodied form. 'Is what awaits all who oppose their ownership.'
Pottergate hung limply his arms spread out pinned in place by thick iron re-bars. The solid lumps of iron stuck through him like a pencil through paper.
Blood pooled amongst the brass casings at what remained of his feet, his uniform hung in tatters; his body or what remained was shredded, the flesh peeled back from his bones like skin off a potato. The steaming coils of his entrails spread out around him in a twisted homage to a halo.
They hung like vines from the ceiling, the thick rubbery lengths of intestine looped around the shattered pendant lights. Limply swinging through the still air like party streamers; blood sliding along their rippled lengths to drip free; falling in swirling orbs into the pool below, the whole scene punctuated by the soft limping drip of blood, the resounding wet echo the only constant in the oversized tomb.
Stepping forward through the brass strewn mire of blood, Baker reached up and gently began to work lose the iron rods, the echoing clang rolling through the room as one by one they hit the floor. Baker glanced up into Pottergate's face, his cooling bronzed skin already beginning to tinge blue as the last vestiges of oxygen left the lifeless shell of a body. 'Sorry sir,' Baker muttered as he locked gazes with the cold dead eyes of the man he had called his friend.
Fadei watched on as Baker gently lowered Pottergate's corpse to the floor falling to one knee as he gently lay Pottergate to rest on the cold, uncaring concrete. He continued to watch, stunned, as Baker began to rifle through the man's pockets, stepping forwards he made to stop him. 'Don't say a word Fadei; I'm only doing as he asked.'
Fadei's forward progression stopped dead, consternation and surprise rising in equal measure. 'How can you be doing as he asked? He is dead!'
Baker laughed a short, sharp, mirthless bark. 'He said, that in the event of his death I was to deliver an envelope to his wife in Guernsey. Despite being his ex-wife, she is his only living relative and as you so kindly pointed out, he is dead. So in short I am doing what he asked of me.'
Fadei nodded. 'Very well, but make sure to take his ammunition as well; you know he no longer needs it.'
Baker was silent for a moment before he stood, slipping a red tinged white envelope into the map pocket of his trousers.
'What do I look like an idiot?'
Fadei glanced at Baker, as he replied.
'Do you want me to answer that?'
8
Bolton moved forwards past Kingsley quickly, dropping to one knee as he moved into position and waited for the others to catch up. He jumped slightly as his ear bead crackled; listening to the voice coming through his blood ran cold. 'King, did you just hear that?'
Kingsley's deep dulcet tones rumbled through Bolton's ears. 'Yeah, I did'
Rawlings stood silent as he gazed through the darkness, a single loan tear rolling down his face behind his gas mask. In his ten years as a soldier, it was the one time he was glad to be wearing it. 'The chief's dead.'
Bolton shook his head at Kingsley's reply. 'How though, the chief was fucking bullet proof.' Kingsley listened to the chatter over his radio before replying.
'Wasn't a bullet that killed him, it was,' Kingsley paused as he struggled to take in just what was being said, 'was something else.'
Slipping left Kingsley's torch flickered across the corner, the warm amber glow of his torch flowing sedately from the mouth of the tunnel as he patiently waited for the others to catch up.
Bolton slid past him and quietly sunk to his knee, rifle pulled tightly to his shoulder as he tracked his torch back and forth slowly across the tunnel, eyes boring into the darkened passage searching for anything, everything, and nothing all at once.
Rawlings trickled in behind Kingsley falling to a knee as he faced back out the tunnel; Bolton motioned over his shoulder with his left hand as he braced his rifle against his shoulder.
Turning quickly Kingsley rapped his knuckles on Rawlings' helmet as he stood; scurrying forth in a semi-crouched run he made it to a safe spot just ahead of the others. His eyes widened as his gazing dark eyes registered what they saw. Slowly his hand crept to his throat, fingers brushing over the rubberised pad of his throat mike.
'Cherry, you there mate? You ain't going to believe what we found.'
Reaching into a pouch on his vest, Fadei produced a small black cylinder and with some semblance of reverence handed the object to Baker. Glancing down at the proffered canister, Baker for a second seemed puzzled for a second as he gazed at the seamless black object.
'I, like you, care for my fellow soldiers Baker. I know for a fact it would haunt you for the rest of your days if you left him here like this. Take it and give him an honourable end. Do not let him end up like my men.'
Baker's eyes snapped back to Fadei's as the Russian finished his sentence, the unspoken question spinning between them like a top at the sudden blossoming mutual respect. Nodding his thanks, Baker took the grenade and pulled the pin. He set the rapidly heating metal cylinder on his commander's chest as he pulled Pottergate's dog tags free and stood back. The bright, heat soaked, flash of the grenade illuminated the two men casting seven foot long shadows across the concrete walls of the hall. A dull hiss issued forth as
the phosphorus ignited and spilled out over Pottergate's bloodied corpse.
The thickening glow of white phosphorus spread out from the grenade like a mist, Pottergate's sallow blue tinged skin began to blister and bubble as the superheated mixture began to slowly consume all it touched. Within the first few seconds deep rents had begun to form in the rapidly charring corpse, the skin shrinking back even as the white phosphorus ate away at it, revealing the still pink flesh beneath. The old soldier's uniform began smoking, bursting into flame as it reached its flashpoint lending a sense of Nordic honour to an untimely end.
Baker stood and stared, the flash resistant lenses of his gas mask shielding his eyes from the vicious glow of the phosphorus.
It was for Baker, the longest ninety seconds of his life as he gazed upon the impromptu funeral pyre of the man who had for the past nine years been the closest thing to a father Baker had ever known. Turning Baker walked deeper into the cavernous hall, his booted feet echoing off the flat surface of the walls. 'What did they do here?'
Fadei was silent for several seconds as he pondered the answer. The soldier in him looking for any way to bridge the slowly deepening gap between him and a man he was indebted to, while the Russian in him was deeply suspicious of the seemingly innocent question. 'Why do you wish to know?'
Baker shrugged, pushing aside the barbed and heavily cautious remark. 'Just curious, I have yet to see anything other than bodies in hazmat suits and razor edged cutting disks. No offices or machinery, and this place is too big to fit any civilian purpose.' Fadei's eyes darted left and right behind the clear reinforced lenses of his respirator as he furiously thought of a plausible answer to give Baker.
Baker's stance said it all, as he watched the pale watery green eyes in front of him. Nodding he sighed and slowly let Fadei off his self made hook. 'This was a testing facility wasn't it?'
Fadei nodded, his booted feet shuffling as he childishly shifted from foot to foot; his pussy footing dance completely at odds with his hulking persona.
