by Greig Beck
Everyone looked out through the toughened-glass windows.
‘Over here,’ Aimee said at portside, moving so Alex could see. A small mountain was growing out of the jungle a few miles from where the detonation had taken place. It looked like a giant green boil, swelling then starting to split. ‘It’s the gas bed — trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and primitive petrocarbons. The nuke must have ignited it. It’s massive — covers a big part of this country and the next. I doubt we’ll be able to outrun it.’
The mountain burst and a column of orange flame, half a mile wide, shot into the atmosphere. Chunks of jungle — some as big as battleships — sailed into the air, and hung for a second, like enormous tree-covered dirigibles, before falling back to the earth.
This time there would be no little ‘push’. This time they would be smashed.
Aimee couldn’t stop her mouth dropping open. Millions of tons of explosive pressure forced the ignited gas straight up and out of the widening hole. Even at their distance, the occupants of the helicopter had to cover their ears against the deafening cataclysm.
This is what the end of the world will look like, she thought.
* * *
Alex could see the brutal wall of blast pressure rushing towards them.
‘Brace!’ he yelled, and grabbed hold of Aimee.
Casey did the same to Saqueo, and Sam wrapped his arms around some cargo netting on the walls. Thirty-five thousand pounds of flying machine was kicked from the rear so violently that it turned sideways and seemed to skid in midair.
The V22’s multi-directional propellers were computer assisted by gyroscopic sensors that allowed the blades literally to bend and contort, so it could stabilise in everything from a hurricane to a force 8 blast shock wave. Every one of these technological capabilities was tested to its limit by the wall of violently moving air.
In the back of the chopper, there was chaos. Bodies were thrown around like tenpins, and Alex and Casey Franks struggled to protect Aimee and Saqueo as they were all bounced from the floor to the ceiling and around the walls. Alex had one arm wrapped around Aimee’s head and face; the other, he stuck out to ward off flying debris and grab on to anything secure. He’d managed to grasp and hold a seat railing when his head connected with Casey Frank’s left boot. The toughened sole, still caked with black mud, left a perfect imprint across his forehead.
The V22 stabilised as the shock wave passed them by and travelled in a circle away from the huge red wound that had broken open in the Paraguayan landscape. Alex rolled onto his back on the cabin floor, and let Aimee do the same, both of them gasping for air.
‘We’re still alive,’ Aimee said, wincing as she sat up. ‘I guess the entire gas chamber didn’t ignite.’
Saqueo pushed free of Franks’s arms and leapt up to press his face against one of the windows, where he pointed and chattered at the devastation to the jungle, and his home.
Sam rolled his shoulders, grimaced, then reached into his pack behind him and pulled free the heavy journal. He dropped it onto the bench, then relaxed back. ‘Never a dull moment in the HAWCs.’
‘Fucking A-right, Uncle,’ Franks said, while she stretched her back.
She offered her hand to Aimee, who took it and got to her feet. She went over to Saqueo and looked out the window. A curtain of flame and black smoke, many miles wide, rose into the upper atmosphere. She shook her head.
The mega blast had creased and ruptured the landscape for miles in every direction, but instead of the colossal plume blowing into the upper atmosphere, the rapidly expanding gases had lifted the skin of the earth, and then dropped it back to sink hundreds of feet into a massive bowl-shaped crater. The gas bed had collapsed in on itself, and, like a cork being forced back into a bottle, had stopped any more of the primitive fuel being fed to the eruption.
‘The gas bed must have collapsed somehow, or sealed itself before the entire chamber went up. Thank God for that.’
The pilot spoke calmly through their earphones. ‘Just relax now, folks. We’re out over open water, and will be landing on the USS Bataan in … exactly twenty-nine minutes. Cocktails will be served,’ he finished with a chuckle.
Alex smiled and ran his hands up through his hair that was still sticky with sap and debris, and wiped them on his trousers. He knew the Bataan: a Commando-class aircraft carrier — one of the new, smaller and faster carriers the US Navy had in operation. It would be a fast trip home.
He rubbed some grit from his eye. It stung like hell.
FORTY-FOUR
Aimee sat with Sam on the deck of the aircraft carrier. The onboard surgeon had placed him in a spinal brace-chair, and now his bottom half was strapped up with dozens of belts, braces and wires to hold his lower spine as rigid as iron. She thought it looked uncomfortable as hell, but also knew that Sam probably no longer had much sensation below his waist.
He was translating Father Juan de Castillo’s journal for her. Saqueo sat squashed up against Sam’s other side, oohing and ahhing at the detailed drawings. The brittle, yellowed pages revealed the young priest’s hope and joy when they first arrived in the jungle, but later descended into sadness and despair as his companion and mentor, Father Alonso González, was injured, fell sick and then began to change into something strange and unholy.
Sam looked up from his translation as Alex and Casey Franks approached, and Aimee took the opportunity to flick back to a line drawing of a native girl. The artistry was beautiful: the girl’s eyes were almost alive as they stared liquidly back at her. Pressed into the page beside the likeness was a dried flower; its now wrinkled petals had made a blue star-shaped stain on the thick paper. Aimee briefly wondered what had become of the little dark-haired girl.
‘At ease, everyone,’ Alex said. ‘Still a few hours before we get choppered into Key West. Might as well enjoy the downtime. We’re all still very tired.’
He sat down heavily next to Aimee, then lay back, his face turned to the sun, and closed his eyes. Aimee was about to show him the portrait of the girl when she saw how pale he was.
She frowned. ‘Alex? Are you okay?’
He breathed in and out deeply, then sat up slowly. ‘I’ve felt better. I’m so tired, and another headache isn’t helping.’
Aimee gasped and tears sprang into her eyes. ‘No!’ She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him closer. His eyes were streaked with black veins.
‘Get the doctor!’ she screamed to Franks. ‘And get some ice.’
* * *
Jack Hammerson pushed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes, screwing up his face in disbelief, as he listened to Sam Reid’s assessment of Alex Hunter’s condition. Sam had refused the execution order point-blank, and had vowed to kill anyone who tried to carry it out — wheelchair or not. When it finally came down to it, Hammerson felt the same.
He swore again. Alex Hunter, the Arcadian, brought down by something smaller than the eye could see. Bullshit! He opened his eyes. Brought down, but not killed, not yet, he thought.
‘I’m sending a cryo-cylinder,’ he told Sam. ‘You ensure Hunter goes in there ASAP. And you report to me and no one else on this, understand? If anyone asks, you’re transporting Makhdoum’s body. Got that?’
Hammerson lowered his head when he heard Sam’s next report. ‘I see. Have Dr Weir sedated — that’s an order! When she wakes, I’ll speak to her.’ And tell her Alex Hunter is dead, whether he is or not, he thought glumly as he disconnected the call. He hated doing this sort of stuff.
He fell back into his chair and contemplated the situation. The cryo-therapy would lower Alex’s thermal range to minus 150 degrees, putting him — and the Hades Bug — in suspended animation. Any lower and Alex’s cell walls would freeze and then burst. The downside was that when his body was warmed again, his brain would probably be jelly. At present, there were only two paths available for Alex Hunter — both terminal. One: Medical Division would get him — alive or dead — for immediate autopsical analysis. He’d end up in a
hundred different sample jars and test tubes — just little bits floating in formaldehyde. The second path was no better: the bacteria would lie dormant until its host was warmed, and then turn him to mush — an ignoble end for a near invincible warrior.
Alex Hunter needed medical treatment — just not ours, Hammerson thought. He brought his fist to his chin and tapped for a moment. Only two paths unless we engineer a third … He stopped tapping and narrowed his eyes. Right now, Alex needed a guardian angel — one who could get him out of the country and into level-1 medical treatment. He sat still for another few moments, his mind working, then he leapt forward, reached for his comm unit and selected a name from his list of HAWCs. There was a notation beside the name: ‘UA/AAO’; it meant ‘Unauthorised Absence; Armed Approach Only’. A hard case, he thought as he placed a call to the secret number.
‘I have some news,’ he said, the instant it was answered. ‘It concerns Captain Alex Hunter.’ He paused, then spat, ‘I know you know, and I couldn’t give a fireman’s fuck what you think. You want to help Hunter, you get here ASAP.’
He hung up and swivelled his chair to sit staring out through the window. This’ll either work beautifully or get very ugly, he thought with a grim smile as he clasped his large, rough hands across his chest.
FORTY-FIVE
Hammerson switched off the engine of the drab armoured truck and waited as its thirty-kilowatt powerplant whined down to silence. With the window down, he listened for a few seconds, then shouldered open the door and stepped out, placing his hands on his hips as he surveyed his surroundings. Cicadas thrummed in the late morning’s warmth, and the secluded road was like a green tunnel with towering ponderosa pines lining each side of the bitumen. Colonel Jack Hammerson was alone, dressed in plain black combat coveralls, fully armoured and alert.
Contact, he thought, and dropped his hands to his sides, his fingers loose and open.
The transport pulled up a hundred feet down the road. It was a full minute before a figure stepped out, dressed almost exactly like Hammerson. The figure looked slowly left and right, taking in the surrounding woods and the deserted forest road for a few moments, then walked towards him and stopped.
‘Do you have my furniture?’
Hammerson hadn’t expected any warmth or camaraderie from the Mossad agent, even though she had worked with him for over six months, but he was surprised by the look of barely contained fury on her face. He kept his movements to a minimum. In his day, he’d been the most outstanding HAWC in the field; he was a survivor, smart and aggressive. But the woman before him was something else again. She was one of Mossad’s elite Kidon agents, and he had personally enhanced those skills even further with HAWC techniques. A hostile Adira Senesh was pure lethality, something even he knew to be wary of.
‘Yes, I have him,’ he replied, keeping his voice level and his gaze direct. ‘Along with all the information you need about him — his genesis, treatment, the unusual side effects. We’ve also included samples of the treatment compounds. Be advised: if he wakes, he may not be the same person. He may not know you or any of us.’
He looked briefly towards the truck. Alex Hunter had been kept in suspended animation in a special cryo-cylinder. The bacteria had been halted, but not stopped; it was still in his system — and possibly now in his brain. He knew the Israelis would try to eradicate it. They wanted the Arcadian alive; none more so than Adira Senesh.
Hammerson knew Senesh had been placed with them to uncover details of the Arcadian Project, but he’d always suspected that, for her, the mission was a vehicle to keep her near Alex Hunter. He had thwarted that desire throughout her time with the HAWCs. She had requested to work with Alex; he had denied it. She had demanded to go with the team on the Paraguayan mission; also denied. But he hadn’t anticipated that her fury would reach an incendiary level when her sources informed her that Alex had been near fatally injured on the mission. When Hammerson had shared with her the information that the US military wanted to cut their elite soldier up for analysis instead of curing him, her rage had exploded.
Adira’s eyes slid away from him and she turned to her own truck and nodded. From its rear came an electronic whine as a ramp lowered. Two large men jumped from the cabin and walked towards Hammerson’s truck. Without looking at the HAWC commander, they opened the rear door and pulled free the coffin-shaped metal cylinder. A gurney unfolded underneath it to take the weight, and the men pushed it to the rear of their truck. Moments later, Hammerson heard the whine of the ramp closing.
Throughout it all, he’d kept his eyes on Adira. Her hands rested on twin guns strapped in a ‘V’ shape down across her groin. She had well and truly returned to the Mossad fold.
‘Take care of him,’ he said. ‘No one knows he’s still alive.’
The ferocity of her glare stopped him saying any more. Probably shouldn’t try and give advice right now, he thought. He held his breath as he saw her fingers flex, and calculated the odds of winning if she decided to engage. He was armoured, so was she … but she was quicker.
He waited.
Her eyes burned into his. ‘If Alex Hunter dies, it is on your head,’ she said slowly. ‘And I will not forget.’
She turned away without another word.
Jack Hammerson only exhaled once the transport was reversing down the road.
* * *
Adira sat silently in the back of the truck with the steel cylinder. Slowly, she reached out to place a hand on its casing. She could feel the cold emanating through the solid metal.
She had achieved her primary mission of securing the Arcadian data and now she was going home — she should have been elated. But she had failed in her personal objective to keep Alex Hunter safe and that dispirited her. Adira rarely had time for friendships; never really liked or respected anyone enough to allow them to get close to her in any shape or form. Now the one person she had respected, the one person she had ever … what?
She withdrew her hand from the steel and sat staring at the coffin-like container. Her palm still felt cold.
* * *
Hammerson watched a satellite feed of Adira’s truck speeding across the country. He was relieved: the ‘furniture’ had been successfully removed and there had been no firefight. He was out of practice, and going up against Senesh wouldn’t have been a great way to see if he still had his edge. He felt no remorse for what was essentially his act of treason, or for manipulating Captain Senesh or lying to Aimee Weir. He couldn’t have protected Alex from Medical Division. Arcadian’s only chance of survival was to get out of the country and under General Shavit’s secure umbrella in Israel.
He opened his email and selected a small group as recipients of the message he was about to send. They were some of USSTRATCOM’s most senior military people, including the US Vice-President and the head of the Medical Division. He began to type:
MILITARY DEATH NOTIFICATION 121 — EYES ONLY
DECEASED: CAPTAIN ALEX HUNTER
CAUSE OF DEATH: AGGRESSIVE TIER-1 BIOLOGICAL
CONTAMINATION
ACTION: BODY INCINERATED
He looked at the message for a moment, then typed another line underneath:
NOTE: TIER-1 MICROORGANISM SAMPLE OF
HIGH MILITARY VALUE OBTAINED. RECOMMEND
IMMEDIATE STUDY FOR WEAPONISATION
POTENTIAL
Might as well throw them a bone, he thought.
He sent the message, then sat back, closing his eyes and clasping his hands behind his head. The Arcadian had been off the grid for years. There would be no letter of condolence from the President, or notification to the next of kin, his mother, Kathleen Hunter. She had been told years ago that Alex had died in action. There would be no further communication with Aimee Weir either; now she thought him gone too. The man was a ghost.
Hammerson spoke to the ceiling, his voice tinged with grief. ‘You’re free now, Arcadian. Maybe I’ll see you again some day.’
He leaned forward and tapped a few
keys on his computer. A satellite feed of the coast showed a blue dot moving out over the water. The micro-tracker he had planted in Alex’s heel was non-metallic and undetectable without surgery. He was the only person who knew it was there. He smiled.
‘Nope, I know I’ll see you again some day.’
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Many readers ask me about the underlying details in my novels — is the science real or fiction? Where do the situations, equipment, characters or their expertise come from, and just how much of any legend has a basis in fact? So, starting with This Green Hell, I’ve decided to share some of my research. I’m sure you’ll see why it caught my attention.
Saint Roque González (1576–1628); the Martyrs of the River Plate
Roque González de Santa Cruz was born in 1576 and ordained at the age of twenty-two. By thirty-two, he had become a well travelled missionary in South America, converting the natives to Catholicism and settling them in townships. In 1628, González was joined by two young Spanish Jesuits, Alonso Rodriguez and Juan de Castillo. The three men trekked into the jungle of South America and founded a new settlement near the Ijuhi River. Their mission was to bring the local natives together in a single place, so they could be converted to Christianity, and also saving them from becoming labourers for the Portuguese army. Soon, González and Rodriguez moved on to Caaro, in the south of what is now Brazil, leaving Castillo at Ijuhi River. Unfortunately for the priests, the Guarani Indians in the new location resisted being converted and attacked the mission under the leadership of a powerful ‘medicine man’, Nezu. Father González was killed by blows to the head with a tomahawk as he was preparing to hang the new church bell. The new chapel the priests were building was set on fire and the Jesuit’s bodies thrown into the flames. Father Castillo was soon tracked down and also killed; he was savagely beaten and then stoned to death.
