Black Mountain ah-4

by Greig Beck

  ‘But why?’

  Matt looked down at Amanda. Her terror mirrored his own. He knew he’d been letting his fear rule his life. He’s been running from it, but now here was an opportunity to face it. He couldn’t let the horror continue. It had to stop. He drew in a shaky breath.

  ‘Because,’ Matt said slowly. ‘We need to… I…’

  Sarah withdrew her hand from Charles’s. ‘The Dome?’

  Charles nodded. ‘Yeah, the Dome. We need to go up there.’

  * * *

  Markenson exploded with laughter. ‘A fucking big gorilla?’ He clapped his hands together and leaned forward, almost directly into Matt Kearns’s face. ‘That’s what you eggheads think is responsible for the missing people?’ He frowned with clownish puzzlement. ‘Where’s the ship?’

  Kearns looked confused. ‘What ship?’

  ‘The space-fucking-ship, Daffy. Maybe it’s really an a-lee-yan from outta space.’

  Logan banged a large hand on his desk. ‘That’s enough, Markenson.’

  ‘But, Chief, this is a serious investigation,’ Markenson said. ‘And these experts of yours spend days working on it only to tell us we got some sort of big monkey loose in the mountains. I coulda got that sorta advice from one of the drunks down at the Thirsty Bar any Friday night.’ He leaned over Logan’s desk. ‘For the record, I checked with Kringle Brothers a week ago, and guess what? No missing ape. Besides, we were just up there in the mountains ourselves, and we sure didn’t see no fucking big monkey.’

  Kearns looked at his two colleagues and motioned with his head towards Markenson. ‘Any guesses why at his age he’s still only a junior officer?’

  ‘You smartass prick!’ Markenson leaped at Kearns.

  Schroder stepped between them and copped a finger in the eye.

  Logan got to his feet, felt his chair tip backwards. ‘That’s enough!’ he roared. ‘Markenson, you ever go to assault a citizen in front of me again and you’ll be pulling graveyard shifts until you’re fifty. Understand? Go and find something to do, now!’

  Markenson glared at his commanding officer, then pushed open the door. Logan could hear him swearing as he threaded his way through the desks in the outer office.

  ‘I’m assuming he’s not allowed to assault me when he’s not in front of you either, right?’ Kearns said.

  Logan rested his hands on his desk and hung his head for a moment, exhaling wearily. He looked up at the three scientists. ‘You know who runs this office?’

  Schroder jumped in. ‘We’re sorry, Chief; you do.’

  ‘No, son, not even close. The mayor does.’ Logan picked up the notes on the DNA matching that Sarah Sommer had handed him. ‘I got a lot of technical information here I can’t understand, and a tooth that even I can see is older than Moses. I take this to the mayor to get the money for a full-scale search and by next year I’ll be working security out at the mall.’ Logan righted his chair and flopped into it. ‘A Gigantosaurus! Jesus Christ, couldn’t you have at least said it was another lion; or a psycho running around in an ape suit? A psycho we can understand, but a giant ape thing?’

  ‘That’s Gigantopithecus Chief,’ Schroder said, ‘and the evidence is almost irrefutable.’

  ‘Aw, c’mon,’ Logan said, flicking the papers, ‘this is bullshit. Anyone else hada brought me this theory and I’d be kicking their ass six ways to Sunday.’ He looked at Sarah. ‘You go along with this? You’ve seen this irrefutable proof?’

  Schroder reached into his pocket. ‘Actually, Chief, we were just in at —’

  Sarah cut him off with a glare before turning back to Logan. ‘No, Bill, I haven’t seen all the proof yet, but I trust the biology.’

  Logan sat back and exhaled. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah, gentlemen, but it’s not enough. No one but Kearns and Schroder have seen the footprint, my own ME says the forensics are inconclusive, and all you’ve given me is a stack of pages with about a million numbers on them that add up to what you yourself say is fragmented and requires “computer-assisted gene speculation”. I need more proof. I need… I dunno, a witness or something.’

  ‘Chief, there are no real witnesses because they’re either dead or missing or catatonic,’ Kearns said, sounding exasperated. ‘Look, if we’re right, you’ll wish it was a lion loose out there. The print we saw out at the Wilson farm puts this thing at around ten feet tall and about twelve hundred pounds. It’s big and aggressive and —’

  Logan cut in, ‘And freakin’ extinct, according to you. So what’s it doing here now? Where’s it been for the last… what? Million years? Shit, son, where do you hide if you’re ten feet tall?’

  Kearns put a hand to his temple, as if he was in pain. ‘I don’t know, Chief, but the answers are probably up on that mountain. I bet this thing has been here before, or something like it — we know the Indians dealt with something similar thousands of years ago. They left us that message written into the stones — you saw it in Amanda Jordan’s photographs.’

  Logan shook his head. ‘Professor Kearns, it’s getting colder than a witch’s tit up there. If there is something wandering around on the Dome, the cold is gonna kill it. It’ll drop to twenty below come winter.’

  Kearns sorted through the papers on Logan’s desk and pulled out a map with small circles drawn on it. ‘I doubt the cold’s going to kill it. Look at this.’ He pointed to the spot where Amanda Jordan was found, where the cows had gone missing, where the Wilson girl and then Kathleen Hunter had disappeared, then grabbed a pen and drew a connecting line between all of them. ‘Three things leap out at me here, Chief. One, the creature’s making its way down the mountain towards the town. Two, the attacks or abductions are occurring with greater frequency. And three…’ He put his finger on the last circle. ‘It’s almost here.’

  Logan held Kearns’s eyes for a moment before looking down at the zigzag line that ran from the Black Mountain down onto the plains and up to the outskirts of his town. It scared the shit out of him.

  For the first time in his life, he had no idea what he should do next.

  * * *

  Logan could hear Ollie Markenson, who trailed behind him, still grumbling at being chosen as accompanying officer at this time of day — or night, depending on your perspective. Share the pain, he thought. Being woken at four in the morning wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, and usually meant urgent news, bad news, or both.

  Martha Oatson came around the reception desk, her face full of concern. ‘She’s awake, Chief, and semi-lucid. Still in shock, and needs a lot of rest, but you did say to call immediately if there was any change.’

  Logan nodded, but didn’t slow. ‘You did the right thing, Martha. She’s the only witness we’ve got.’ He looked back over his shoulder as he headed for the elevators. ‘She okay to talk? We got a lot of questions for her.’

  Martha clasped her chubby fingers together as she hurried to keep up with him. ‘Yes, but keep it simple, she’s suffering from severe distress. I don’t think she knows what happened to her husband. She’s asking for him. Also, I’m supposed to contact her next of kin to tell them she’s awake but I can’t get onto anyone.’

  ‘Leave that to us, Martha,’ Logan said, standing close to the elevator door to stop the nurse entering with them. ‘She probably knows more than she thinks.’

  When the doors slid closed, Logan turned to Markenson. ‘Get onto the Jordan brothers, Markenson, and inform —’

  ‘Ahh…’ Markenson cut in, pulling a pained face. ‘I was meaning to tell you, Chief. The Jordan brothers were in town just a few days back.’

  Logan frowned. ‘What, all of them. Big Will too? Are they still here?’

  Markenson shrugged. ‘Maybe… I mean, yeah. They were all kitted out… heading up the Black Mountain’s hiking track, I reckon.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Ollie, and you let them go up there? How long ago?’

  Frustration flashed in Markenson’s face. ‘I dunno… three days maybe. Look, Chief, you know the Jordan brothers �
� they’re around two-thirty pounds each. You want to stop those guys doing something, you need a freakin’ riot gun and twenty square feet of cargo netting.’

  Logan exhaled with exasperation. ‘Shit. We’ll worry about them later. Let’s see what Mrs Jordan recollects first.’

  Logan was shocked by the change in Amanda Jordan. The woman looked like a small, stringy bird; the skin of her face was chalky, her hair lank and greasy. Her eyes, red-rimmed, stared down at her hands, which lay palms up on the bed. The room smelled of antiseptic and an animal, ammonia odour that suggested fear and distress.

  Amanda Jordan looked up when she became aware of the two officers. ‘Have you found him?’

  Logan pulled a plastic chair to the bed so he could talk to her eye to eye. Take it slow, keep it non-threatening, he told himself. He didn’t want to increase her stress levels. On the other side of the bed, Markenson stood with his arms folded, looming over the tiny woman. Obviously, he wasn’t reading from the same rule sheet as his boss.

  ‘We’re still looking for your husband, Mrs Jordan,’ Logan said, ‘but we need your help. Anything you remember — about the place, what happened, anything at all, even if you think it’s silly or insignificant, we’d like to hear about it.’

  Her mouth turned down, like a carnival clown’s. ‘He’s still up there then… with it.’

  ‘It?’ Markenson had dropped his folded arms.

  ‘He saved me. He let it get him instead.’ She began to sob loudly.

  Markenson leaned forward. ‘Was it a lion?’

  She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Logan took one of her pale hands in his large paw. ‘Tell us what you saw, Amanda. What’s the it you’re talking about?’

  She opened her red-rimmed eyes and he saw the horror in her stare. ‘The monster.’

  * * *

  In the elevator, Logan looked at his watch: nearly 5 am. It would still be dark for a while yet. He contemplated going home and trying to get another hour’s sleep. But knew that he’d never switch off enough to really rest.

  The monster got him — oh good Christ. This was turning out to be a nightmare, and he was right at the centre of it.

  Logan’s mind turned over. He needed to get a team up there, but still didn’t have anything sane enough to take to the mayor. Perhaps he should listen one more time to those crazy theories Sarah Sommer, Kearns and Schroder had put forward. Then there was the problem of the Jordan brothers out on the peak — he felt a deep fatigue at the thought of trekking up the Dome to find them. Besides, Markenson was right: each of those boys was big enough and bad enough to hold a bull out to piss. They were probably armed to the teeth too. If anyone was going to be all right up there, it was them. Still, should probably close the hiking track for a while, he thought, satisfied there was one activity he could implement right away.

  As the elevator doors slid open in the hospital foyer, he saw Martha standing there waiting for him. She handed him a sign-out sheet. ‘So, next of kin? Be kinda nice for that girl to have some company right now, Chief.’

  ‘Yeah, Markenson’s on it,’ Logan replied. He started for the door, his mind already onto another problem.

  ‘Maybe Sarah Sommer could come back and visit with her in the meantime,’ Martha said.

  Logan froze, then turned. ‘Come back?’

  ‘Yes, Chief — she and a coupla friends from the city came to see Mrs Jordan earlier.’

  Logan groaned. He’d bet good money on what those three amigos were planning to do, or maybe already doing. Jesus Christ in heaven, it’d be like Grand Central Station up on that mountain in another day or two.

  ‘Leave them to me, Martha. Maybe you could ask Mrs Jordan herself if there’s anyone she’d like to see — other than her husband.’

  He headed to the door fast. Markenson had to break into a jog to keep pace. ‘What now, Chief?’

  ‘Well, I’m gonna grab a coffee, have a think, and wait for the sun to come up. You, on the other hand, are gonna break out some cold-terrain equipment for, say, half a dozen officers. Looks like we might have another lion to hunt.’

  NINETEEN

  Benito Juárez Airport, Mexico

  Alex and Adira kept pace with the other disembarking passengers as they headed through the hot and crowded arrivals hall towards the immigration desk. They’d had an exhausting journey via Sudan, Ethiopia, then down the coast of Africa to Johannesburg, South Africa, from where they’d flown to Mexico. Adira’s plan was to get through immigration here at the main airport, then take an internal flight to Nuevo Laredo, which was separated from the American city of Laredo by a stretch of just 100 feet of the Rio Bravo. Then it would be a matter of driving to the small speck on the map that represented the town of Asheville — the name Alex had kept repeating to her.

  Since the introduction of the biometric eye scanners, it had become difficult to infiltrate the US via any of its own ports, which was why she’d chosen Mexico as their entry point. New software made it possible to identify unique corneal reflections, which meant even prosthetics could be detected. Adira guessed both her and Alex’s eye prints would be flagged as soon as they looked into the tiny camera lens. But Benito Juárez was one of the busiest airports in the world, with nearly 30 million passengers annually, so getting lost in the crowd should be relatively easy.

  Adira linked arms with Alex as they joined the line for the immigration desk. Outwardly, they looked like a holidaying couple, intent on fun and relaxation. But inside she felt the rising tension. This was a huge risk; Adira knew how intensive the American surveillance was. Coming in via Mexico might buy them some time, but she didn’t doubt for a moment that if the US Intelligence Services wanted to look into a window anywhere in the world, they could. She also knew that other eyes would be searching for them. By now, her uncle would have discovered she had disappeared with Alex. Sorry, she whispered silently.

  ‘Pasaportes,’ demanded the woman at the desk, her eyes flicking from Adira to Alex.

  Her gaze was unemotional and slightly bored, but Adira knew she’d miss very little. Like most immigration officials, she’d have been trained to assess facial features, eye colour and purported ethnicity before checking what her eyes told her against the information in their passports.

  Those passports were gold-embossed with the South African coat of arms, and the stamps from numerous countries dating back several years showed a young married couple who liked to travel. The passports had all the necessary watermarks, chips and sophisticated dyes required to pass the forensic testing that may be done by immigration in any country. They were authentic, just not really theirs.

  The woman looked at Alex’s personal details, then said in heavily accented Afrikaans, ‘Waarom kom jy aan Mexiko?’ She watched him closely as he replied.

  ‘Om jou land te geniet,’ Alex said, smiling broadly at her. He turned to Adira to include her in the conversation. ‘Sy kan Afrikaan praat.’

  ‘Uitstekend!’ Adira said, stepping forward and beaming at the woman. ‘Dit sal ’n wonderlike vakansie liefling.’

  The official’s gaze remained flat and bored. ‘English?’

  ‘Yes, a little,’ Alex said, sounding disappointed that the conversation in Afrikaans was over.

  The woman grunted and stamped both little green books. ‘Enjoy your holiday, Mr and Mrs Jashub. Next.’ She waved them out of the way, already focused on the next person in line.

  Adira linked her arm through Alex’s again and smiled up at him, her eyebrows arched. ‘You see, Benjamin, a little practice did come in handy, yes?’

  Alex smiled back at her. ‘Clever girl. You’ll make a good spy one day.’

  In another hour, they were on their way.

  * * *

  Salamon and his three agents watched the young couple walk from the international terminal towards the smaller domestic terminal. He had guessed correctly; he would have made the same choice for a covert entry into America. The convoluted path Captain Senesh and t
he American had taken had given Salamon and his team plenty of time to arrive to intercept them.

  In the back seat of their vehicle, one of his men held what looked like a folded towel at his shoulder. A black tube poked out from it, pointing at the couple. They could take both down in an instant.

  ‘They’re about to go undercover,’ the man with the gun said. ‘We’ll lose them.’

  Salamon spoke without turning. ‘Hold.’

  For now, General Shavit had ordered they just be observed; Captain Senesh’s intentions were still unclear.

  The man in the back seat shifted slightly, his face creasing in concentration. A thin cord ran from the black tube to a small plug in his ear. He pulled the plug free and leaned forward to speak to Salamon. ‘Nuevo Laredo.’

  ‘We’ll need to move it to catch them if they’re flying,’ the driver said.

  Salamon shook his head. ‘No, they’re going to cross there. We’ll meet them on the other side.’

  * * *

  Jack Hammerson and Sam Reid sat in the dark watching the recessed screen that covered half the back wall of Hammerson’s office. It was split into several frames, all showing two figures walking quickly towards Benito Juárez’s domestic terminal. Both men wore headset comms linked directly to Major Gerry Harris, who was located in an electronics surveillance factory beneath the Offutt Airforce Base in Nebraska. Harris manned the constellation of orbiting birds that fed a lot of the high-altitude intelligence over the United States mainland and also much of the globe.

  ‘Screw down another fifty,’ Hammerson said, squinting at the images.

  The result made him smile. The man’s baseball cap was pulled down, obscuring most of his face from the steep vertical angle, but Jack Hammerson knew that man, knew his walk, his mannerisms, as if he were his own flesh and blood. Welcome back, son, he thought.

  The woman with him turned her face for just a second and VELA grabbed it. A blurred image appeared in one of the smaller screens to the side; dot points manifested on the facial matrix, joined together, were mapped and enhanced — and a name appeared underneath the photograph in flashing red: Captain Adira Senesh. Next to it: Priority Alert.