Also by Michael Byrnes
The Sacred Bones
The Sacred Blood
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2010
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Michael Byrnes 2010
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Michael Byrnes to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-84737-239-0
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85720-237-6
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For Caroline, Vivian, Camille, and Theodore
‘He that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him’
– The Book of Revelation
PROLOGUE
MESOPOTAMIA,
4004 BC
Nightfall was darker now, more ominous, thought Enliatu. The unrelenting cloud cover choked the moonlight to a dull glow and blotted out every celestial light in the heavens. And with the darkness had come great misfortune for his people. It was not that Nahna, the illuminator god of the night sky, purposely hid from the earth. All of it, Enliatu was certain, could be attributed to a malevolent earthly force: the outsider who had mysteriously emerged from the forbidden realm over the eastern mountains; the beautiful woman who was now being marched to her death.
The captive was flanked by eight warriors carrying spears and bitumen torches. Two of the men tightly gripped the ropes fastened to the leather collar cinched around her neck. Her hands were unbound so that she could carry the mysterious clay jar that had been in her possession since her arrival six moons ago. She cradled the vessel as if it were her child.
Her exotic fair skin and gem-like eyes were nothing like those of the dark-coloured tribes that inhabited the known lands. The women of the village were captivated by her. They’d competed to stroke her strange soft hair and smooth skin. To them, the unknown words that she spoke sounded like music, and her scent – sweet and spicy – seemed from another world. They’d prepared for her the finest foods, even braided her hair with beautiful flowers.
The men shared in the seduction, though their attraction was far more feral. Never had they laid eyes upon such an alluring female. As Enliatu had feared, they could not restrain themselves. They had vied for her attention, and her fierce indifference merely intensified the rivalry. Eventually the men agreed surreptitiously to share the prize.
On the third moon the conspirators – led by the two men whom Enliatu had designated to watch over her – crept into the hut where she slept. They covered her mouth, restrained her limbs, stripped away her coverings. Then, in predetermined order, they had their way with her until each man’s carnal appetite had been sated.
The men later confided to Enliatu that she had not fought their advances. There had been no screams, no tears, no struggle. With flaccid repose she had stared at each aggressor with vacant eyes as he defiled her, a thin grimace twisting her soft lips.
By sunrise the first man had fallen ill. First came sweating, then chills and quaking limbs . . . and the blood. So much blood.
All were dead before sunset.
If only the tragedy – the punishment – had stopped with them, lamented Enliatu.
As the procession moved swiftly along the bank of the swollen river, Enliatu noticed that the flood had swallowed the circular granaries up to their rooftops. Soon the mud bricks that formed their walls would soften and dissolve beneath the churning water, the straw roofs carried downstream to rot. Not a trace would remain.
Surely a cleansing was under way. Perhaps the creator, Enlil, was seeking to reclaim mankind itself, for just as men had formed bricks to build dwellings, the gods had moulded men from earthen clay.
The procession broke away from the riverside and disappeared through a line of towering cedars. Beneath the dense forest canopy the torchlight illuminated only the nearest tree trunks against a perfectly black background. Soon the roiling river could no longer be heard. The warriors carried on in silence, while the prisoner began to softly hum a sensual melody. Overhead, the night owls, otherwise passive creatures, screeched in unison as if in response to her call. This caused the men to stop suddenly. They held the torches high and, with terror-filled eyes, searched the darkness with spears at the ready.
‘Il-luk ach tulk!’ Enliatu screamed out in frustration.
The handlers tugged the ropes, choking the prisoner back into submission. When she fell silent once more, the unearthly chorus above abruptly ceased.
The ground rose sharply; the cedars thinned and yielded to the scrubby foothills leading up to the stark, jagged mountains. The procession paused as Enliatu made his way forward to lead them up a scree-covered slope towards a fire pit flickering bright orange. The two boys he had sent ahead in daylight to prepare the site knelt beside the pit, stirring two clay bowls that simmered over the low flames.
The handlers goaded the prisoner ahead.
Keeping a safe distance, Enliatu instructed the boys to confiscate her burden. When they advanced towards her, she pulled the jar close to her breast, screaming wildly as they tried to tug it free. The handlers yanked back on the ropes until veins webbed out over her face and her eyes bulged. Finally the boys stripped the jar from her. She fell limp to the ground, retching.
‘Ul cala,’ Enliatu instructed the older boy. Open it.
The boy was not keen on carrying out the task, for he was certain that the jar itself might contain the woman’s evil spells.
‘Ul cala!’
The boy curled his trembling fingers under the lid, swiftly pulled it away. Immediately the dancing fire glow captured movement deep inside the vessel. He recoiled and stumbled backwards.
Undeterred, Enliatu stepped forward and extended his torch over the opened jar. Upon seeing the hideous form nestled within the jar, he scowled in revulsion.
The warriors exchanged uneasy glances and awaited the elder’s instruction.
It would end here, tonight, Enliatu silently vowed. He instructed the boys on what to do next.
The older boy returned to the fire pit and slid wooden rods through the handles on the simmering clay bowls. Then his partner helped him to lift out the first bowl. Steadying it over the woman’s jar, they decanted the glutinous, steaming liquid – kept pouring until the resin bubbled over the jar’s rim.
The prisoner shrieked in protest.
Again the owls screeched from the dark forest.
Enliatu studied the concentric ripples billowing across the resin’s shimmering surface. The wicked dweller was trying to emerge.
The petrified older boy replaced the lid, held it firmly in place until the thumping within the jar slowed, then ceased. He allowed a long moment to pass before pulling his hands away.
Satisfied, Enliatu turned his attention once more to the prisoner. On hands and knees, she was growling like a wolf, tears cutting hard lines down her
dusty cheeks. Their eyes locked – two stares searing with determination. He was convinced that this was certainly a beast in disguise, a creature of the night.
Through bared teeth she hissed gutturally, spittle dribbling down her chin. All the while she kept her fingers wrapped around her beaded necklace – an object from her native land. Was this how she communicated with the other realm? Enliatu wondered. Regardless, he was certain that she was cursing him, summoning her demon spirits to destroy him.
The time had come.
He signalled to the warriors. They forced her to the ground, face up, and restrained her splayed limbs. The largest warrior came forward, tightly gripping the haft of a formidable axe, its bronze blade glinting orange in the firelight. He crouched beside her, grabbed a fistful of hair at the crown, and yanked her head back to expose the smooth flesh of the neck. A momentary assessment just before he raised the axe high, then brought it down in a precise arc aimed directly above the collar.
The blade split the soft skin and muscle to bring forth a rush of blood that seemed to glow in the firelight. A second fierce chop sank deeper into the gaping muscle to separate vertebrae – the vile blood splashing up, painting the warrior’s face and chest. He delivered two more blows, until the head was cleanly separated.
Grunting with satisfaction, the warrior tossed the axe aside and grabbed the severed head by its soft locks. But his smile vanished when he looked into the glowering eyes that still seemed alive. Even the soft lips remained frozen in a taunting grimace.
Enliatu went to the fire pit. ‘Eck tok micham-ae ful-tha.’ He pointed to the second simmering clay bowl.
Extending the ghastly head away from his body, the warrior dropped it into the boiling resin. Enliatu watched it sink lazily into the opaque sap amidst a swirl of blood – its dead eyes still glaring defiantly, as if to promise that the stranger’s curse had only just begun.
1
NORTHEAST IRAQ
PRESENT DAY
‘I’m empty!’ Jam called over to his unit commander who was four metres away, crouched behind a massive limestone boulder.
Keeping his right eye pressed to the rifle scope, Sergeant Jason Yaeger reached into his goatskin rucksack, pulled out a fresh magazine, and smoothly tossed it to Jam. Hot metal intermingled with the discharge gases blowing downwind from the muzzle vent on Jam’s rifle. ‘Slow it down or you’re going to lock it up!’ Precisely the reason Jam had earned his nickname, he thought.
Jam ejected the spent clip, snapped in the new one.
The unit’s mishmash of Russian weapons, scrounged from a wandering Afghani arms dealer, gave each man’s rifle a unique report that helped Jason to roughly keep a count on expended rounds. Jam was heavy on the trigger of his Cold-War-era AK-74 – more pull than squeeze. The others in the unit were far more judicious with their shots.
Though the ten remaining Arab militants had superior numbers and a high-ground advantage, the art of the kill was heavily weighted in favour of Jason’s seasoned team. The dwindling ammo supply, however, couldn’t have come at a worse time. If the bad guys were to call for backup, Jason’s unit could be attacked from the rear in the open flatlands leading to the foothills. Worse yet, the enemy might slip through the nearby crevasse and head deeper into the Zagros Mountains – a rebel’s paradise filled with caves and labyrinthine, rugged passes.
Over the border and into Iran.
He whistled to Jam, made a sweeping hand motion that sent him scrambling up the hill and to the right. He fought the urge to scratch at the prickly heat beneath his scruffy beard, which, along with contact lenses that transformed his hazel eyes to muddy brown, a deep tan that could be the envy of George Hamilton, an unflattering galabiya robe, vest, and loose-fit pants combo, a keffiyeh headwrap with agal rope circlet, and sandals – had respectably passed him off as a Bedouin nomad. The other unit members had donned similar dress.
It took less than a two-count before a red-and-white chequered keffiyeh popped up over the rock pile, a Kalashnikov semi-automatic sweeping into view an instant later. Sliding his index finger off the trigger guard while matching crosshairs to chequers, Jason squeezed off three successive shots that would’ve left a perfect dime grouping on a bullseye. Through the scope he saw a pink mist and red blobs spit out behind the headscarf.
He adjusted the remaining target tally downward: nine.
Ducking from sight, he grabbed his rucksack and scrambled away just as a pomegranate-shaped grenade arced over the boulder, landed in the sand and popped. A ten-metre uphill dash brought him to a rocky hillock covered in scrubby brush. More automatic gunfire burst in his direction as he dived for cover.
While the militants screamed back and forth to one another in Arabic – not Kurdish? – Jason brought out his Vectronix binoculars and scanned the two enemy positions. The device’s laser automatically calculated GPS coordinates while recording live images on to its micro-sized hard drive.
Dipping beneath the hillock, he flipped open a laminated field map to verify the correct kill box on the grid. From his vest pocket he fished a sat-com that looked nearly identical to a civilian cell phone. He placed a call to the airbase at Camp Eagle’s Nest, north of Kirkuk. A barely perceptible delay followed by a tiny digital chirp confirmed that the transmission was being securely encrypted, just before the command operator responded with the first authentication question: ‘Word of the day?’
He pressed the transmitter button. ‘Cadillac.’
Chirp. Delay.
‘Colour?’
Chirp. Delay.
‘Magenta.’
Chirp. Delay.
‘Number?’
Chirp. Delay.
‘One-fifty-two.’
Pause. Chirp.
‘How can I help, Google?’
Even under fire, Jason had to smile. He’d earned his new nickname a few months ago, after joining the boys at the air-base for a drink-while-you-think version of Trivial Pursuit. Jason had circled the game board and filled his pie wheel without ever cracking open a beer. The other players weren’t as fortunate, but maybe that was their intention. Obtuse facts – ‘things no self-respecting 29-year-old should know’ – were Jason’s forte. What he wouldn’t do to have that beer right now . . .
‘We’re low on ammo. Copy,’ Jason reported loudly over the persistent rat-a-tat-tat-tat in the background. ‘Nine militants pinned down. Some light artillery. Need a gunship ASAP.’ He provided the operator with the kill box and INS coordinates. ‘Have the pilot call me on approach.’
‘Roger. I’ll have Candyman there in four minutes.’
Noting the time on his no-frills wristwatch, he slid the sat-com back into his vest and mopped the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve.
He needed to make sure that the others weren’t too close to the intended strike zones.
First he glanced over to Jam, who was now a good fifteen metres further up the slope, curled up in a gulch, cursing at his weapon’s stuck slide bolt. Vulnerable, but he was adequately covered.
Along the roadway at the hill’s base, Camel was still dug in behind a felled, bullet-riddled Arabian one-humper. For the past few months, former marine sniper Tyler Hathcock had shared a strange – at times, disturbing – bond with the beast, which, coupled with his preferred cigarette brand, helped to inspire his nickname. Earlier, Camel had used the beast as a decoy by riding it bareback down the narrow roadway to block the approaching enemy convoy. When the ambush began, he’d been trapped in the open. So he’d dismounted, shot his humped buddy through the ear and used it as a surprisingly effective shield.
Crazy bastard.
Not far from Camel’s position, he spotted Dennis Coombs – dubbed ‘Meat’ for his imposing stature that was pure Oklahoma farm boy muscle – still pinned down behind the severely strafed Toyota pickup that had been the convoy’s lead vehicle. In the driver’s seat was the slumped body of an Arab male, back of the head blown open, brain matter and gore smeared throughout the cabin, compliments of Jas
on’s opening three rounds delivered from fifty metres to the mark’s left eye.
Behind the Toyota were three more trucks left abandoned by the enemy. Eight dead Arabs littered the ground around them. Bobbing in and out of view over the hood of the second truck was the red turban marking Jason’s last man, Hazo. The 42-year-old Kurd acted as the unit’s eyes and ears: translator, facilitator, go-to man. Hazo was simultaneously their best asset and worst liability, since, like most Kurdish Christians, he refused to handle a weapon. All brain, no brawn – but a helluva a nice guy. Jason guessed that Hazo was in the fetal position reciting a few novenas. If he didn’t move, he’d be perfectly safe.
Jason low-crawled further up the rise. When he peeked up to survey the enemy again, he didn’t like what he saw. Behind a formidable rock pile, three white-turbaned Arabs had unpacked a long polyethylene case they’d hauled out from the Toyota before taking off for the hills on foot. The sand-coloured weapon they were now assembling had a long fat tube with Soviet markings. A fourth man wearing a black keffiyeh was readying its first mortar shell.
‘Damn.’
Jason used his binoculars to scout the airspace above the western plain, until he found the black bird twelve klicks out over the horizon, closing in fast. Two minutes away, he guessed. He’d need to buy some time before the guys with the rocket launcher got busy.
He positioned himself behind a natural V in the rock. Not the best sight line and only the targets’ headscarves were visible . . . but he’d make it work. With the stock of his SVD sniper rifle nestled comfortably on his right shoulder, Jason stared through the scope and took aim at the black keffiyeh. Then he sprang up slightly until the target’s angular, bearded face panned into view.
Pop-pop-pop.
The rounds hit home and pink mist confirmed the kill.
The mortar fumbled out from the dead man’s hand, rolled out of view. The three white turbans retreated from his crosshairs as they scrambled to recover it. Jason sank back below the ridge. The sat-com vibrated in his vest pocket. He pulled it out and hit the receiver.
The Genesis Plague Page 1
