And what else is out there with it?
That was the question he hoped to get an answer to as he opened the door and kicked the stepladder down out of the plane.
“Move out,” he said.
*
There was no sign of the previous day’s fog, and they had a clear view over the runway. There were no bodies, neither Volkov’s nor the pilot’s. There was a red, gory, scrape where Volkov had been dragged off, the streak showing for several yards on the thick grass before the trail got lost in the mire. They found a single paw mark in mud, the telltale lobes of a cat the size of a small car, but there was no other sign of the beast, or the bodies it had obviously carted away.
Let’s hope its hunger is sated, for a while anyway.
The mammoths seemed unperturbed, and were milling around in their fenced-off area, feeding as contentedly as before; if the lion was around, it wasn’t bothering the bigger beasts.
Not when there’s easier prey available.
Banks pushed that thought away; the worst thing he could do was to consider himself vulnerable. The squad was well trained, well armed, and more than a match for any beast, no matter how big. As long as he believed that to be true, then they were the predators here.
“Sarge, Wiggo, watch our backs,” he said. “Cally, you’re with me.”
They headed across the runway at a fast walk, making for the quiet complex.
*
The main reception area was as dark and empty of life as it had been when they’d left so quickly the night before. The first signs of mayhem were only apparent once they entered the area under the domes. The first body they found was one of the young, white-coated scientists who’d shared Banks and Hynd’s table at their meal. Her head sat at an unnatural angle to her shoulders, her belly was open, guts spilling out from under the white coat. She had been thrown more than once against the glass wall of the lion’s cage; the glass itself was smeared with blood, and cracked along its whole length. But the lion’s means of egress had eventually been simpler still. The large patch of the dome leading out to the runway area had been caved in, forced inward from the outside. The lion had definitely escaped, but it was now obvious that it had help. There was no sign of any of the hares; if they had any sense, they’d be staying in their burrows for a while longer yet.
The huge dome of the aviary had also been breached—the cause was equally obvious, as two huge stones lay on the floor surrounded by broken glass and bent steel. Whatever had launched the rocks from outside had to be of prodigious strength for Banks knew just by looking at them that he wouldn’t be able to lift them off the ground, never mind throw them over a distance of many yards. He looked up to the tops of the conifers, but the branches were bare; the thunderbirds had gone to join the lion in freedom.
They found the rest of the young scientists in the corridor to the lab area. They were clustered around the door, their blood, guts, and torn limbs decorating the brilliant white tile with red. It looked like they’d been trying to make an escape but had been caught in the doorway; caught, and slaughtered, as efficiently as if they’d been stripped and dismembered by a butcher’s knives. Banks didn’t have to look too closely to know that there were too few limbs among the carnage for the number of torsos.
Whatever it is, it took a snack to go.
One of the younger Englishmen, Galloway, had lost all his color, and looked unsteady on his feet. Sergeant Hynd put a shoulder under his armpit, and kept him upright.
“Come on, lad,” he said. “Keep your eyes shut if you have too, but I’ve got you. Let’s get through to the lab and cleaner air. We need to find some comms.”
Banks led as they picked their way through the butchery, trying not to step in anything too viscous. But if they were hoping to find cleaner air in the lab, they were to be disappointed.
*
The first thing Banks noted as he led the squad into the large dome was that the wolf cage was on its side, and lying open. His legs went weak, the memory of the big male’s hungry stare still all too clear in his mind, but he saw, without having to move too close, that the cages were empty, and the lab quiet. Like the lion and the thunderbirds, it appeared that the wolves had taken their chance of freedom.
A breeze blew against his cheek, coming from a large breach in the dome over to Banks’ left. And there wasn’t going to be any chance of comms, at least not here. All of the computers, laptops, terminals, anything electrical at all, was piled high in smashed and shattered pieces in the center of the floor, as if someone had been preparing for a bonfire.
At least the wind kept some of the stench away, but not all. Two of the Russian workers that Wiggins had been drinking with earlier lay, face up, on their backs, spread out on the top of the long trestles. They were naked, and had been opened up from crotch to neck by something intent on getting at their innards. Their ribs were torn asunder, gruesome shattered shards of bone poking out of the red, gaping holes that remained.
“This looks ritualistic,” Waterston said.
“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Wiggins said in reply. “It looks like bloody fucking murder to me.” The private turned to Banks. “I’ve never seen a fucking cat, no matter how big, capable of this kind of shite. Have you, Cap?”
It was Galloway that replied.
“I’ve seen its like before,” he said quietly. He was still as white as before, but was standing on his own, and had even moved closer to the bodies on the table, his scientific curiosity overriding his nausea at the sight. “In Africa; a troupe of gorillas caught a chimp; the end result was much the same as this.”
“Fucking gorillas? Don’t talk shite, man,” Wiggins said, and again turned to Banks for confirmation, but Banks didn’t have an answer for him.
But I think I know where to look for one.
- 10 -
The back door of the dome was no longer there; there was only another large hole in the structure, and broken glass, stones, and twisted metal strewn around the area. The third and last of the Russians lay in the courtyard beyond, at the doorway that led into the hill. The door lay open, and looked to have been forced out that way from the inside, huge hinges buckled as if having finally given way under intense pressure. The Russian had got in the way of whatever wanted so badly to escape; he wasn’t just butchered, he was mangled, almost minced in places, torn apart in a frenzy of violence that almost defied belief.
“Aw, wee man,” Wiggins said. “Your vodka was shite, but you didnae deserve this.”
“Nobody deserves this,” Banks replied.
He eyed the dark hole of the doorway. The opening led straight into the hill; there didn’t look to be any light source, and a stench wafted out of the gloom, a thick, almost meaty odor, worse somehow than anything else they’d smelled already.
“Cally, watch the civilians, and get noisy if you need us,” he said. “We’re going in.”
Again, it was Waterston who disagreed.
“We all go,” he said. “You need our insights.”
“I need a drink,” Wiggins replied, but Banks saw the scientists, all three of them, were resolved.
“Okay,” he replied. “But same rules apply; I say run, you run.”
Waterston nodded in reply. Banks switched on the foresight light on his rifle, sprayed the beam ahead of him, and headed into the hill.
*
The stench got even worse. Banks breathed as lightly as he could through his nose, but even then he felt his guts roil and complain. He remembered how, when he was a lad, their old dog had delighted in rolling in wet cowpats. He’d thought that would be the worst thing he’d ever smell. Now he knew better.
His light washed on roughly hewn walls, old workings, done by hand, showing no sign of having been made by machined tools. This passage had been here long before Volkov’s facility had grown up around it.
What the hell was he keeping here in the dark?
The passageway went down at a slight slope, and continued deep into the hil
l, ten paces or more before Banks got a sense of a wider, more open space. His light showed him a circular chamber some five yards across, with a domed ceiling six feet overhead and three more passageways heading off left, right, and ahead.
“Want me to check one out, Cap?” Wiggins said at his side.
“Fuck no,” Banks replied in a low voice. “We all go together, wherever it is we’re going. We don’t know how far into the hill these tunnels go, or what’s in them. Whatever butchered everybody in the facility might be in here with us. So keep it close and tight, and watch each other’s backs.”
He chose the passage that was emitting the strongest odor, and headed straight ahead. The path sloped downward again, deeper still into the hill, but did not go far, and the echoing sound made by their footsteps told Banks that they had once again come to an open area. He swung his light beam around.
This new chamber was larger still, some ten yards in diameter at its widest, and nine feet high at the tallest point. Thin, watery light seeped in from a crevice in the rock, but it was still too dim to make out anything without the use of the sight light. It was—or had been—a sleeping chamber of a kind judging by the mounds of straw, two of them, heaped tight and high. Banks swung the light around again, before a shout from Waterston stopped him.
“Wait. Go back. Put some light on the wall to your left.”
Banks did as requested, and his light picked out something on the rock. At first, he thought it was more blood, more evidence of slaughter. But this was different; it was only when he stepped closer that he realized how different. Crude pictograms daubed the wall, above Bank’s head height, representations of animals that were immediately recognizable despite the crudity of the painting—mammoth and deer, wolf and rhinoceros. To one side, higher still, almost eight feet of the floor, was a single red handprint. It took a couple of seconds for Banks to get the scale—it had five fingers, and an opposable thumb, but it was flatter, broader than a human hand… and at least twice the size.
Galloway pushed past Banks and traced a finger on one of the daubings.
“I’ve seen the like of these before too,” he said. “Not gorillas though, but stone-age peoples. The ones I saw in the French hills were twenty thousand years old or more. But these… these were done in the past couple of days at a guess.”
“What the fuck were they keeping in here?” Wiggins asked, but no one had an answer for him.
*
They searched the rest of the chambers. It didn’t take long. One of the two side passages led to a hole in the floor and the sound of running water somewhere impossibly far below; Banks had seen enough field latrines to recognize one when he smelled it.
The left-hand chamber led to another equally obvious spot—it was a small, domed area, containing only a stone table and the remnants of food—mostly meat, and mostly raw. Although it didn’t smell as earthy as the sleeping area, Banks could only take twenty seconds of it before he backed out, looking for clearer air.
He met Waterston by the buckled steel door. The scientist was pulling something from the hinges: long strands of thick hair.
“So what the fuck is it?” Wiggins said insistently. “Don’t tell me they were keeping fucking huge gorillas. Just don’t tell me.”
“I don’t think they’re gorillas,” Waterston said, and showed everybody the hairs he’d pulled from the torn and twisted metal. They were thicker than human hair, almost wiry. And they were russet colored, almost orange in places.
“So, big fucking ginger gorillas it is then?” Wiggins said. “Or are we talking Orang-Utan here?”
“Gorillas, ginger or otherwise, don’t paint pictures and keep tidy tables,” Galloway said at their back. “And they certainly don’t play flutes. I found this in one of the beds.”
He had a bone in his hands, and they could all see that it had five holes along its length. Galloway put it to his lips, and blew, trilling out a simple tune of two bars. Somewhere out beyond the dome, a mammoth trumpeted in reply then, louder still, something else responded with a roar, a wild cry of longing and pain that echoed around them long after Galloway had dropped the bone from his mouth.
*
“What kind of shite have you got us into this time, Cap,” Wiggins said as all four of the squad reached for their rifles. They stood in a row in front of the busted steel door, with the scientists at their back, all of them tense, waiting for an attack.
None came.
Banks patted his weapon then slung it back over his shoulder.
“Whatever they are, they’re just animals. We’ve got the firepower to put any big fucker we meet down, if they’re daft enough to come close. Let’s just find a way of getting a message out. I want to be well out of here before it gets dark.”
- 11 -
Hynd and McCally took point again as they went back into the facility. Banks was initially just glad to get away from the worst of the smell, although he thought he might hold the memory of it in his nose and throat for a while to come yet. They went back through the ruined doors and into the lab area.
“Are we sure there’s nothing working in here?” he said. This time, he addressed the scientists rather than his own men. Galloway was first to reply.
“Everything’s torn to buggery,” he said, “pardon my French. And you’re right. This wasn’t a lion, or the wolves. Whatever tore the shit out of all the electronics had at least some sense of what they were doing.”
“So, fucking smart giant ginger gorillas?” Wiggins said. “Fucking marvelous.”
“There’s no network in the background somewhere untouched? A Wi-Fi router or some such?”
This time, it was the older scientist, Waterston, who replied.
“I got through on my phone on Wi-Fi from my room just before we ate last night,” he said. “In all the excitement, I’d completely forgotten.”
“Aye,” Wiggins said sarcastically. “It’s no’ as if our lives depend on it or anything important like that.”
Banks gave the private a cuff on the ear.
“If you’re not going to help, shut the fuck up, Wiggo. The smart folk are thinking.”
He turned back to Waterston.
“So there’s Wi-Fi up in the guest areas?”
“There was last night, before all the commotion. Whether there still is…?” Waterston made a see-saw motion with his left hand.
“It’s the only plan I’ve got,” Banks said. “And it looks like there’s no survivors to tell us otherwise. So, upstairs it is. Hynd, Cally?” The other two looked around. “Double time, up to the guest area. And keep your eyes open.”
*
Banks saw all three of the scientists pointedly ignore the carnage and butchery in the corridor out of the labs on this return journey—he didn’t blame them. No man should have to look at the insides of another lying splayed open for all to see in the ultimate invasion of privacy. He’d seen far too much of it himself over the years to judge anyone else for their reaction.
Hynd and McCally went through into the aviary dome first, then came to a sudden halt. Hynd put up a fist in the air. Wiggins and Banks knew well enough to stop and go quiet, but the three scientists had to be stopped with an arm on Waterston’s shoulder, and a finger to his lips.
“Cap, you need to see this,” Hynd said, and motioned him forward.
Banks had been wondering what had happened to Volkov’s body; he’d thought the big lion must have taken it, but now he had a new suspect. The little squat Russian lay on the aviary trestle, ribs splayed like eagle-wings, sightless eyes staring at the treetops high overhead. All of his internal organs had been scooped out, and lay in a wet, red, too-neat pile under the table.
“Something tried to make a fucking canoe out of him,” Hynd said.
Waterston came up to Bank’s shoulder, had one look at the view, then turned away, retching.
“He wasn’t there when we came in,” McCally said, keeping his voice low.
“No, he wasn’t,” Banks replied
. “That means whatever put him there can move quick and quiet—and it might still be in here with us. The plan hasn’t changed though; double time, up to the guestrooms, and try to get a message through. Keep your eyes open, and keep this simple.”
Banks looked up, following the dead Russian’s gaze, only to find himself the object of scrutiny from thirty feet up in the branches. He almost took it for a part of the tree itself at first, for it was russet colored and almost blended with the bark and branches. But the face was paler than the body, and almost hairless in comparison to the shaggy reddish hair that covered the rest of it. Pale blue eyes, like a river on a clear day, stared back at Banks. He only caught a glimpse of head and shoulders before it ducked away into the thicker foliage. It looked human—bulkier, bigger, and definitely hairier, but also, definitely, almost human.
Branches cracked and swayed, and pine needles fell all around them as the beast climbed, going up the tree under the foliage with almost unbelievable speed. Banks remembered to lift his weapon, and tried to take aim, but there was no clear target, and the thing was already way up on the tops.
They got a closer look at it as it left the aviary. Banks tried to gauge size and compare it to the birds he’d seen up there the day before, but surely his calculations, or memory, must be off, for he estimated the beast to be at least eight feet tall. With arms that looked too long to be normal, it leapt up, grabbed one of the metal struts of the dome and swung out of a hole at the very top. It had scampered off and away—running upright, like a man, across the roof before any of them even thought to breathe.
“I knew it,” Wiggins said. “Fucking huge ginger gorillas.”
*
“Move,” Banks said. “It’s buggered off for now, but if it comes back, put a few rounds over its head. It’s probably never seen, or heard, a gun. Here’s hoping it’s enough to put a fright into it.”
Galloway was still staring up at the roof, unable to believe what he’d just seen.
Operation Siberia Page 5
