The Lucifer Network

by Geoffrey Archer

  The periscope swung away as the watch officer scanned the sea around them. Fishing boats were what Talbot feared most. If there was a danger of being discovered by one inside Croatian territorial waters then he would have to abort.

  Lieutenant Harvey Styles aligned the periscope sight with the Palagra shoreline and cranked up the magnification to check the landing inlet again. The work boat they’d seen leaving a day ago was back at the jetty. They’d expected to spot a second vessel there, belonging to the family who farmed on the island, but there was no sign of it.

  He switched back to wide-angle and focused on the casing again. Drum tight and loaded with their kit, the inflatables were being shoved towards the edge ready for the off. As the control room watched the monitors, two of the men unzipped their dry suits to urinate, their warm flow creating a white arc against the darker background.

  ‘One for the album, sir,’ Styles commented before swinging the scope away for another all-round look.

  Standing next to the captain, a young signaller had been monitoring the VHF from the landing party. Suddenly he began hopping like an electric toy. ‘Signal from Sunray, sir. They’re ready for off.’

  Outside, the night was black, the cloud cover not yet broken. Good SBS weather.

  ‘Fine.’ Talbot stood up. ‘Shut and clip the engine room hatch. Clear the bridge. Officer of the watch, come below, shut and clip the upper lid.’

  A few seconds later his order was acknowledged.

  ‘Bridge cleared. Conning tower upper lid shut and clipped. Engine room hatch shut and clipped.’

  ‘Ship control. Open one and four main vents.’

  ‘One and four main vents open, sir!’

  Air roared from the ballast tanks. On the monitor they saw a blow of spray from the outlet in front of the rudder. Slowly, as the submarine settled, the sea began to wash over the casing. Catching a surge, the SBS launched their wallowing craft into the water and flung themselves on board, yanking the outboards into life. Both Geminis swung their bows away and began to motor.

  As Talbot watched them go he crossed his fingers behind his back.

  ‘God bless,’ he murmured.

  The drum-tight tubes smacked gently against the waves. There was a light wind from the north-west. Sam crouched on the floor of the inflatable, gripping a webbing strap. A holstered Browning pistol pressed heavily against his thigh. The sound from the silenced engine was a burble, which Phipps had assured him would be inaudible from the shore. Above, breaks in the cloud were just beginning to appear, leaking light from the new moon, just enough for him to make out the vague shape of the other boat twenty metres to their left. Arthur Harris sat stiff-backed between two squat marines.

  Willie Phipps lay in the bows of Sam’s boat, a monocular thermal imager on his head that gave him the look of a Cyclops. They were making straight for the harbour. No alternative if they were to get on and off the island fast. With the naked eye Sam could make out little of the shore. He realised they were getting near when the marines cut the engines and began to paddle.

  They rowed a few strokes, then drifted. Rowed a few more, then paused to listen.

  Suddenly a shot rang out. It chilled their blood and flattened them to the neoprene. Then two more. Heavy bangs echoing briefly through the pines that crowned the island. Not the supersonic crack of bullets aimed at them, they realised with relief, but some act of violence being perpetrated in the middle of the island.

  Safety catches clicked. The soldiers scanned the shoreline through the night sights of their MP5s.

  Then came a sound which stopped their breath. A scream, splitting the night – a wail more animal than human. Three more shots followed, silencing it.

  ‘Fuck . . .’ A low expletive from somewhere in the Gemini.

  They drifted, listening and watching, then Phipps ordered them to don respirators and gave the signal to paddle again. In close to the low cliffs, they hugged the shore for the cover it gave them, inching towards the inlet and the jetty. As they closed with it, they saw a wooden landing stage grafted on at the end of the stone pier where the work boat was moored.

  As the marines secured the painters to a ladder and scuttled ashore, Willie Phipps reached back and put a hand on Sam’s arm.

  ‘You and Chief Harris wait in the boats. I want people around me who know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Okay, but not for long,’ Sam cautioned. ‘I’ve a job to do too.’

  ‘I know. We’ll check what the fuck’s going on here and come back for you.’

  With that, the lieutenant joined his men on the jetty. The sky had cleared further, giving enough light for Sam to see a couple of the soldiers conceal themselves amongst the rocks. The rest went with Phipps, heading silently up the stone track that led inland.

  A light swell rolled into the anchorage, causing the rubber boats to nudge against one another. Arthur Harris was just inches away from him.

  ‘What d’you think?’ the CT asked, his voice nasal with nerves beneath the rubber of the respirator. The scream they’d heard had been a woman’s voice.

  ‘Sounds like they’re killing people,’ Sam answered inadequately, trying to stifle a worry that events might prevent Phipps from coming back for him.

  Harris’s breath was coming in short, uneven bursts. ‘I’ve not done this sort of thing before.’

  ‘Everybody’s scared,’ Sam assured him. ‘But these boys know their business. Just do what they tell you.’

  ‘I realise that.’ Harris fell silent again, but Sam could tell there was more. ‘I simply wanted to say that if you see me not reacting right, or doing something stupid, then tell me. Okay?’

  ‘No problem.’

  As the minutes passed, they didn’t speak again. There was no more shooting, but at one point they heard voices, too far away to make out the words or the language. Finally, after an age, Willie Phipps reappeared, his rubber soles moving silently over the stones.

  ‘Quick!’ he hissed, pulling them onto the jetty.

  ‘Tell me,’ Sam growled, frustrated at having been out of the loop.

  ‘This is plague island, by the look of it.’ Phipps kept his voice low as he led them up the hill. ‘Whatever these witches were brewing, they seem to have screwed up. At the old monastery there’s a guy in a respirator removing stuff from the building and stacking it for a bonfire.’

  Sam cursed. ‘We’ve got to stop him, Willie. That’s evidence he’s destroying.’

  Phipps paused and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. Then he pressed the mouthpiece of his respirator close to his ear.

  ‘We can’t stop anybody doing anything, Sam. Understand that. My orders are to stay covert. If these jokers are shutting the place down, that’s fine by NATO. It’ll save the cost of a Tomahawk. Intervention by us, in any way, means a change of rules.’

  ‘Well bloody call London on your satcoms and get them changed,’ Sam snapped, despairing at the thought that proof of Harry Jackman’s connection with Palagra might go up in smoke at any moment.

  ‘I’ve called already . . .’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I called because of what’s going on at the farmhouse,’ Phipps explained, reluctant to elaborate.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘They’re sick bastards,’ he said eventually. ‘Two arseholes with AKs and wearing respirators have shot dead the couple who live there. Two lads, teenagers – could be the couple’s sons – are being forced to dig a pit to bury them in. Fucking animals!’

  They both knew what would happen to the boys when the digging was done.

  ‘We asked Command if we could intervene and the answer was no,’ Phipps added bitterly.

  ‘Remaining undetected matters more than the lives of two Croatians.’

  ‘That’s the implication.’

  Sam swore under his breath. ‘Willie, we’re supposed to be finding out what’s been happening on this rock.’

  ‘Observing what’s happening. That’s the key word.’

  ‘
But if we let them burn the evidence, we’ll never know.’

  ‘I hear what you say. But I’m paid to obey orders. And for as long as you’re with me and my men so are you, Sam.’

  They began to move and Phipps warned that they shouldn’t talk any more. The track narrowed into a natural gully between outcrops of rock. They were getting close.

  Sam decided the MoD’s rule book was going to have to be bypassed. He hung back a little, then pulled Arthur Harris close to him.

  ‘Whatever happens, stick to me like glue, Arthur. I’ll watch your back.’

  The answering grunt from beneath the mask was noncommittal.

  Soon they heard the rumble of a generator up ahead and saw the soft glow of lights. Two more shots rang out, off to their right. They dropped to a crouch, sickened at the thought of two young men slumping forward into the hole they’d dug, their blood mingling with their parents’.

  Arthur Harris tasted vomit in his throat. It was the closest he’d ever come to the act of death. Despite the supportive words from the SIS man, he was far from sure he could handle what was happening here. He’d thought of saying so, down by the boats, but knew that if he’d refused to leave the safety of the harbour, he would never be able to look Navy men in the eyes again. Swallowing for all he was worth, he watched Willie Phipps press a hand to his radio earpiece as a report came in from one of his squad.

  Sam edged forward to where Phipps was crouching.

  ‘They’ve done it, the bastards,’ the marine muttered softly. ‘Killed them. Why? That’s what I want to know.’

  ‘The answer’ll be at the monastery,’ Sam growled, his respirator nudging the other’s ear. ‘On that bonfire.’

  Phipps half turned to him. ‘You bloody stick to the rules, Sam.’

  Sam nodded. He’d stick to them all right. His own. Only one thing mattered to him – learning the secrets of that building before they went up in smoke.

  They moved to the crest of a rise, using trees as cover. The one-time monastery stood fifty paces away, its white walls glowing eerily in the moonlit blackness. It had a pitched, tiled roof and shuttered windows. The upper floor was in darkness, but at ground level, double doors stood open and lights were on inside. From behind the building they heard the sound of breaking wood.

  Phipps led them to some bushes from where they could see into the yard at the back, a space protected from the northerly winds by a high wall. Light spilled from the rear of the house. A bonfire stack had been built of old wooden bed frames. Books, papers and bedding were strewn beneath the timbers, ready to be ignited. But whoever had done it was inside the monastery again.

  They flattened themselves to the ground. Sam sensed other marines were near, but couldn’t see them.

  A man in a respirator emerged from the house, his arms full of cardboard boxes. Tall and thin, he wore a grubby white coat. He tipped the boxes onto the stack, then pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket.

  ‘Willie . . .’ Sam mouthed, desperate to get the marine on his side. ‘Your rules are fucking wrong.’

  The lieutenant didn’t reply at first. Sam could almost hear the clicks of the calculations going on in his brain.

  ‘We can go overt,’ Phipps whispered, as if talking to himself, ‘if something happens that puts our lives in danger . . .’

  Sam swallowed. He’d got the message. It was down to him. He turned to Arthur Harris. ‘Come on, chum. We’ve got work to do.’ He jerked the reluctant translator to his feet. Phipps made no effort to stop him.

  Harris felt a protest rise in his throat, but it stuck somewhere behind his teeth. He stumbled after Sam like a lemming.

  The man in the white coat looked up in horror at their sudden emergence from the darkness. He thrust his spare hand into a pocket as if going for a gun.

  Sam already had the Browning out of its holster and levelled it at his chest.

  ‘Stop!’

  His yell was muffled by the rubber of his respirator. The man saw the pistol and froze.

  ‘Put that flame out! Tell him, Arthur. Translate, for Pete’s sake.’

  Harris tried, but his breathless Russian was inaudible beneath the mask.

  ‘Louder,’ Sam hissed. ‘It’s what you bloody came for, man.’

  Harris filled his lungs and released a stream of invective. But instead of stopping the lab man in his tracks it galvanised him into action. Ignoring the threat of being shot, he tossed the lighted Zippo into the base of the stack then whipped out a VHF handset from his pocket, shouting into it in Russian.

  Seeing that things were about to get dangerously out of hand, Willie Phipps sprang forward, his MP5 pointing like a bee sting. The Russian stared at them, eyes like whirlpools behind the lenses of his mask. Then, suicidally, he began to move towards them, his arms spread wide in an effort to block their advance for long enough for the flames to take hold.

  Phipps swung the gun against the side of the man’s head and felled him. Then Sam threw himself at the fire, pulling away the bed-frame timbers before their ends had a chance to light. He kicked at the papers burning at the base, but it was too late. The blaze had caught.

  ‘Shit!’ He leapt back to prevent his dry suit catching fire.

  Suddenly there was the sharp crack of a bullet by his ear and he flinched. He saw a puff of dust from the monastery wall behind him where it had thwacked into the stucco.

  ‘Down!’ Phipps yelled, swinging round to face the way they’d come. The shot was from beyond where the marines lay hidden. Sam flattened himself next to Arthur Harris as more rounds smacked overhead. Beyond the scrub he could see muzzle flashes in the darkness as two men hurled themselves towards the monastery, firing wildly.

  Phipps opened up with the submachine-gun, prompting a fusillade from the marines in the bushes. The gunmen fell. A couple of the soldiers emerged from cover to check the men were disabled. They stood over the bodies and loosed off rounds to finish them off. Sam sensed their relief at doing what they’d wanted to do at the farmhouse ten minutes before.

  Behind him the bonfire crackled and spat as the flames spread across its base. He heard the ping of glass exploding. Bottles and vials from the lab, he guessed. Vital evidence going up in smoke. He scrambled to his feet to attack it again, pulling whatever he could from the flames. The heat was intense, the blaze now fuelled by bed sheets and blankets. He grabbed a piece of bed frame as a probe, trying to beat out the conflagration, but the heat defeated him.

  ‘Water,’ he murmured, spinning round in the vain hope of seeing a convenient hose. There was nothing, and searching the place would waste precious time. He’d saved what he could from the flames. What mattered now was the information inside the Russian’s head.

  Harris still lay motionless on the ground, his hands over his ears. Sam tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘It’s okay. The war’s over.’

  Harris scrambled to his feet, relieved that he’d survived his baptism of fire.

  ‘Make this fuckwit talk to us, Arthur.’

  Eager to take charge again, Willie Phipps wrenched the Russian’s hands behind his back and secured them with nylon ties. ‘Let’s see what’s inside this creep’s head,’ he snarled, pulling the prisoner to his knees and pressing the gun barrel into the back of his neck. A couple of his soldiers ran past, their belts heavy with grenades. They flattened themselves against the outside wall of the monastery, one each side of the open door, then swung inside, searching with their guns.

  Harris began his questions. The responses were muted. Pretence of ignorance, whines of complaint. The Russian was playing for time.

  ‘You’re getting up my nose, scrote,’ snapped Phipps. He grabbed the man’s respirator, as if to pull it off.

  The Russian writhed and pleaded.

  ‘He’s begging you not to take that off,’ Harris translated.

  ‘You don’t say . . .’

  ‘Says he’ll co-operate.’

  ‘Then he’d better be quick.’

  Harris re
peated his questions, listened to the responses, then probed further. For a couple of minutes the Russian talked, his words now punctuated by gulps of shock.

  ‘There’s a biology lab inside the house,’ Harris confirmed eventually. ‘Set up over a year ago. He says they’ve been experimenting with viruses. Several kinds. Smallpox was the main one.’

  ‘Smallpox?’ Sam interjected. ‘Not rabies?’

  ‘Hasn’t mentioned it,’ said Harris quickly, not wanting to lose the thread of his translation. ‘There were three of them running the lab. All Russians, all ex-VECTOR. Igor Chursin was in charge. His number two was Yuri Akimov – not a name known to me, but it’s likely they’ll have heard of him at Cheltenham. And this fellow’s called Sasha Koslov. He’s the lab assistant. The two men you just shot are Croats. Security guards. The word he used to describe them was pretty contemptuous. Translates roughly as “pond life”.’

  ‘Okay, but what happened here?’ Sam pressed. ‘Why the carnage at the farmhouse?’

  Harris questioned some more. Koslov seemed reluctant to answer.

  ‘He’s muttering something about an escape,’ Harris explained. ‘Being evasive. Doesn’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Tosser!’ growled Willie Phipps, wrapping a big, square hand round the Russian’s filter and wrenching it upwards. The rubber mask separated from the man’s skin with a sweaty, sucking sound. Koslov squirmed and writhed, trying to push his face back into it. His pinioned hands tore uselessly at their ties. He pressed his lips shut and flattened his nostrils, his eyes swelling with the strain of holding his breath.

  ‘Let’s have a look at your miserable, evil little face,’ Sam murmured, twisting the man’s apoplectic visage towards the light of the fire. Broad forehead, Slavic eyes popping from their sockets. Muted squeals from the throat.

  ‘Whasthat you’re saying? Speak up.’ Sam turned to Harris. ‘Smallpox’ll make a terrible mess of his looks before it kills him. Tell him, Arthur. Then ask him about the escape again.’