by Greig Beck
Alex kept his expression unreadable as he listened. He knew that if he asked Rocky Lagudi or Adira for their take on events, he’d get a different version, but then they hadn’t been out at point. In Alex’s experience, an effective ambush meant maintaining maximum concealment to allow the point man to walk his team into the prime killing zone, then to open the box and rain hell on them all. Why kill one when you could kill the lot? Alex knew that about ambushes, and O’Riordan should have too.
‘Bad luck, was it? Listen, soldier, you were at point – that means accepting the most exposed position in a combat military formation. You’re the lead man, the spearhead, the one advancing the unit through hostile or unsecured territory. The one with a need for constant and extreme operational alertness. I can’t know what happened for sure, but every time someone says “It’s not my fault”, it just makes me look at them harder. Says to me they think they’ve got nothing to learn.’
‘For Chrissake, I was lookin’ out,’ said Irish angrily, ‘I was alert, I was doin’ my fuckin’ job. Those mooks just came outta the dirt. I’m only here ’cause I reacted quickly. I know how to look out for myself and for the fuckin’ team as well. No one ever looked out for me, and I reckon no one ever -’
Alex felt a moment of anger wash across him and he punched the ground in front of the redheaded HAWC so hard that sand fell from the cliff face down onto O’Riordan’s head. The man’s intransigence was beginning to infuriate him, but he forced himself to push down the anger. He knew Irish might not have been solely to blame. Bottom line – it was because Alex was miles away, incapacitated, that they had walked into the ambush. If Alex hadn’t been flat on his back, Hex might still be alive.
Alex sat back against the wall and closed his eyes. ‘You know, Lieutenant, every single time I’m out in the field I learn something new. Use what happened to Hex as part of your education and next time you may avoid the ambush – for yourself or for all of us.’
Alex had faith in every HAWC that Hammerson sent him. They were the best of the best, the highest-trained soldiers on the planet, but they were still human and that meant they would make mistakes. In this business, mistakes didn’t mean a pay cut, demotion or a dressing-down from the boss; they meant death, and for Hex it had been a painful one.
All those men torn up under the Antarctic ice, and now Hex. I can’t lose anymore, Alex thought. Gotta complete the mission and get everyone through this time.
He opened his eyes and looked across at O’Riordan. Irish still had a pained look on his face, but he nodded and held out his hand. Alex, surprised, grasped it and shook it.
‘Nah, I want some of the hard tack. Looks okay.’
Alex laughed briefly and handed O’Riordan some of the dried beef, then pointed with his thumb to the cave mouth. ‘We’re probably going to need to punch through into the underground laboratory – without so much as waking a mouse. Think you can do it?’
O’Riordan pushed the beef into one side of his mouth and gave Alex a half-smile. ‘Walk in the park, Captain.’ He picked up a piece of loose rock and rubbed it with his thumb. ‘This entire mountain is Doran granite, felsic crystalline type. Very hard but very brittle. I can design a shaped symmetrical implosion assembly usin’ RDX cyclonite. It’ll give you about 400 kilobars of nearly noiseless blast pressure exerted on a rock wall of your choice – it’ll just crumble away to dust in front of us. Wake a mouse? Shit, I won’t even wake the ghosts.’
Alex was unsure whether he had crossed any bridges with his new HAWC but was satisfied with the man’s expertise and confidence. ‘Good man. I hope you decide to stay with us after we get home.’
Alex looked out over the darkened valley; sunrise was gaining on them. They needed to be well inside the cave system before daylight. Better check in with the big guy, he thought.
He walked a few paces away from O’Riordan, pressed a few buttons on his comm set and pushed it back into his pocket. Electronic pips and squeaks sounded in his helmet speaker as the signal bounced around the local networks and passed through numerous coders and firewalls before the gravelly voice of his commanding officer came on the line.
‘Go ahead, Arcadian,’ Hammerson said curtly.
The devices were meant to be field secure, but both men knew not to stay on the line too long or to give identifiable information.
‘We’re at insertion point,’ Alex said. ‘Expect full entry within two hours on “Go” order. Expect hostile reception. Good guys are one down and two with minor dents.’
There was silence for a second and then Hammerson said, ‘You are “Go” for entry.’
Alex should have signed off but was still concerned about his ability to execute the breadth of the order. ‘Order clarity?’ he asked.
‘Orders unchanged. Obtain “black” technology and await orders for extraction. Do not allow blue doves to obtain technology under any circumstances. Destruction only if retrieval impossible. Repeat: retrieval is priority. Orders are from highest authority. Proceed. Out.’ The line went dead.
Highest authority? Why are they looking over my shoulder? Alex wondered.
He was heading back to the cave mouth when he stopped – something didn’t feel right. There was danger, but he couldn’t tell from what or where. Must be the cave that’s still got me spooked, he thought. He turned slowly on the spot. The sensation of danger remained, but now it was coming from behind him. He ignored it and walked slowly back to O’Riordan.
THIRTY-FOUR
Thunder, as though from a thousand storms, was all around him as he floated in space. He was looking down at Earth. As he watched, a black canker appeared on the yellow desert of the Middle East and spread rapidly. Land mass, rivers, mountains fell into it and still it continued to grow. The continents started to slide across their crustal shelves, and the mighty oceans began to pour into the dark vortex. The black hole was free.
Even from his great height, he could hear the billions of voices screaming.
Zach sat up quickly, and shook his head to clear away the image. He wiped his forehead and eyes with his sleeve – both perspiration and tears streaked his face.
‘No, no, no…’ he said softly. ‘It’s not real. It must never be real.’
Adira sat up and rubbed her face with her hands. She had lain down and closed her eyes, but had been unable to sleep or even relax. She could feel her body humming in anticipation – she would fight soon, she could feel it.
She glanced over at Zach. His face was shiny with moisture; it looked like tears. ‘What is it?’ she asked, but he waved the question away.
She shrugged, undid her pack and opened a couple of small silver-foil packages of food. There were no luxuries in the field, just water, chocolate, hard tack, vitamin and mineral supplements – minimal weight, no cooking and no debris to leave behind. Breakfast was fuel, nothing more.
With a faint glow just picking out the distant line of the horizon, it was time to enter the cave. Adira had been in Middle Eastern caves before – every one of them was known and well used. This land was ancient and civilisations had been living in and around these caves for thousands of years. She knew they couldn’t expect to have the place entirely to themselves; she just hoped the climb to the cave mouth discouraged the local villagers from visiting too often.
Lagudi was down on his knees sweeping the ground at the entrance to the cave to remove their footprints, while the others were rechecking their equipment. They wouldn’t switch on torches until they were well inside the cave system so that no light leaked out from its depths.
Inside, Adira could feel the weight of the ages pressing down on her in the blackness. A slight cool breeze drifted past, tickling her nose with its dusty dryness. She spoke softly in the dark: ‘An old cave, but they’re all old in this province. Depending on the geology, they could be hundreds of thousands or millions of years old. Some -’
‘Some can be wet, some can be cold and frozen, or dry as dust. They’re all old, they’re all different and they
’re all dangerous. I’ve spent some time in caves before. Let’s go.’
Alex was unusually abrupt and Adira wondered what had happened to him in a cave that had affected him so deeply.
About one hundred feet into the cave, Alex turned on his torch. In quick succession the HAWCs, Adira and Zach turned on their own flashlights. They were walking in complete silence, and would continue to unless Alex spoke first or they needed to warn of danger.
The cave was large – about fifty feet in diameter – and as powdery dry underfoot as the desert they had just come from. Their waving torches illuminated a fine mist of dust motes dancing in the light beams.
‘Yoish! Look at this.’ It was Zachariah, breaking the rule of command. They followed his light beam across a massive relief carved into the wall. Soldiers in battle, armies with chariots and nostril-flaring horses were shown in beautiful detail. The scenes changed as they moved along, showing subjects paying homage to a king – infantrymen with great swords saluting him; unarmed people paying tribute. There were also scenes of torture: enemy soldiers having their limbs hacked off, eyes gouged or tongues ripped out or being torn apart between muscled oxen.
‘The reign of the great Sassanid King Shapur,’ Adira said. ‘We met him out the front. This looks like his victory over the Roman Army under the General Glauxus. He captured the Roman general and sent his head back to Rome stuffed with snakes as a warning to the emperor to stay out of Persia – and the Romans did for another hundred years. As I said, he brought peace to the land; I just didn’t say how.’
‘Yeah, I see now where those Takavaran freaks get their pedigree from.’ O’Riordan was holding his torch up to a Sassanian soldier pulling out another warrior’s eyes with a long curved hook.
‘This was, and unfortunately still is, a very brutal land, Lieutenant. That is why we Mossad agents are rarely taken hostage. Death is preferable to an evening with the Takavaran.’
Adira joined Alex, who was shining his torch on some raised characters low down on the stone relief. ‘Don’t ask,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. These symbols, language, or whatever predate everything else in the Middle East, and are found deep in many of the caves in these parts. Legend has it that they were left as a record by some race that arrived by sea at the dawn of time. Unfortunately, no one has ever drawn out their meaning. The local people believe they are the words of angels.’
Alex traced the raised petroglyphs with his fingers. ‘I’ve seen these before, and I know a professor who would love to spend a few hours with them. He turned his head slightly and spoke over his shoulder. ‘Uncle, anything yet?’
Sam Reid consulted a device that looked like a complicated flashlight with a small flat screen on its upper surface. Zach was hovering at his shoulder, obviously attracted by a new piece of technology. ‘Portable ground-penetrating radar,’ Sam explained. ‘The technical design’s similar to a diver’s imaging sonar system, but it’s modified to use geophysical radar pulses to scan through hard surfaces. It’s a bit like reflection seismology except that it uses a combination of acoustic and electromagnetic energy – different densities, different colours. Simple really.’
Zach looked impressed. ‘Swiss?’
Sam grinned. ‘Nope, Sam Reid GPR special. It’s my modification. Maybe I’ll swap you for your miniature Geiger some day.’
He checked the device again then reported to Alex. ‘Nothing yet, boss, just solid stone.’
‘Keep at it, soldier,’ Alex said. ‘Find me that door.’
They continued on into the dark, dry cave.
The creature halted and rose up again on its pointed rear legs. The fan-like protuberance extended almost delicately from between its mandibles and waved gently in the direction of the small animals – their trail was becoming stronger.
Hunger gnawed at its gut. Its liquid diet meant food was ingested and assimilated quickly, and it needed constant nourishment to sustain its powerful body. It was developing a preference for the fluids in the tiny beings that inhabited this strange place.
The creature dropped to the ground and vented several tight foul-smelling packets from its abdomen, each resembling a large black egg. It was excreting waste to make room in its long, complicated gut. It was preparing to feed.
Hammerson gripped the slim white phone in his oversized fist and delivered his message in his usual economical fashion. ‘Unit has achieved target proximity. Expected retrieval of “black” technology in twenty-four hours.’
He listened for a few seconds to the voice on the line, then nodded. ‘I agree, sir, it’s too dangerous to leave in less moderate hands. Either we’ll own it, or no one will.’
His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I don’t agree, sir. The Arcadian will succeed. There’ll be no need for a heavy strike.’
The major placed his other hand on his forehead, then ran the fingers up through his iron-grey crew cut. ‘Yes, sir. Roger that.’
Fuck it. He banged the handset into the cradle so hard that a chip of plastic flew off it.
He turned his computer screen around and looked at the live satellite images of the Iranian night-time desert. He flicked between light-enhanced and thermal imaging, easily picking up his team from their SFPDA signatures. He could confirm they were at their destination, and the scattered non-friendlies didn’t seem to be making any movement towards their position. Godspeed, son, he thought.
He flicked through a time sequence over a five-minute period, speeded up so it looked a little like a darkened movie with red dots signifying body heat. Strange. Something to their south looked to be closing in on them, but it gave off no residual heat. Hammerson switched to the light-enhanced pictures and zoomed in on the high-resolution image.
‘Holy shit, what the hell is that?’
A nine-foot-long creature was snaking towards Alex’s position. He reached for his keyboard and began typing furiously. He needed to warn his HAWCs they were about to receive some company – identification unknown, assume hostile.
Hammerson pressed send. His message would be immediately bounced off the high-speed communication satellites and delivered in real time to Alex’s SFPDA. A small, amber circle turned on his screen as the message was delivered. He waited for it to turn green, signifying the message had been received. It continued to turn, and turn… then stopped and went red. A message appeared below the red circle: Destination device out of communication radius.
‘Shit – they’ve gone in.’
Hammerson stood up so quickly his chair crashed back against the wall. A dozen options raced through his head, and each was rejected just as quickly. He could do nothing but wait. God, how he hated to wait.
THIRTY-FIVE
Ahmad Al Janaddi buzzed around the command room shouting instructions into various microphones and snapping at any technicians not quick enough to get out of his way. The president’s helicopter was only about an hour out and there was a risk they wouldn’t be ready to conduct a complete test in his presence. That would be a humiliating experience, and one the president would not forgive quickly.
Moshaddam had ordered the scientist to present an overview of the devastating potential of the sphere, and then he wished to witness another run, with the inclusion of an additional lead capsule. Al Janaddi wondered who the lucky person would be this time. He shuddered at the thought of what had happened to the last poor soul who had entered one of those capsules – perhaps he was now at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, or even deeper – at the very core of the Earth. Achhh, it is a terrible waste of life, he thought, and also a distraction. Here he was harnessing one of the greatest energy sources known to the universe, and the president wanted to play at human experiments.
Al Janaddi sighed and leaned on his knuckles on the desk. He had achieved the equivalent of splitting the atom yet it seemed to mean so little. In any other country, he thought. Why was I not born in any other country?
The creature halted at the base of the steep incline below the mouth of the cave. The large flat carapace
plates on its back were a greasy, mottled green in the dawn sun. Sensory hairs running over its head bristled as it tested its surroundings for danger or prey.
The stone giant standing at the mouth of the cave was discarded as a threat. Even though its form was menacing, it gave off no life energy. The creature’s complex arthropodic eyes could see the warmth emanating from the pebbles O’Riordan had tossed from his sentry position and blurred footprints in the sand. Though the sand had been wiped clear, residual thermal energy remained just below the surface and presented a glowing pathway for the creature to follow all the way into the cave.
It shot into the opening at a startling speed, staying close to the ground as if it were inhaling the scent of the prey it followed.
‘Bingo,’ said Sam. ‘I’ve got various densities thinning into a large hollow, which stretches hundreds of feet in all directions. Deeper in, I also read multiple alloy signatures in a plated structure – that’s got to be metal sheeting, man-made. Here’s your door, boss. Irish, do your thing.’ Sam turned off the GPR, fitted it snugly into a pouch on his suit and nodded to O’Riordan.
The redheaded HAWC withdrew a long Ka-Bar blade and knelt up against the wall, closed his eyes and placed his ear to the cold, dry stone. He gave the rock a single tap with the knife’s steel pommel. Satisfied, he stood up and resheathed the blade. ‘’Bout a foot of crystalline granite. Gimme six minutes.’
Alex took off his pack and the KBELT and laid them on the ground. ‘You got three,’ he said, and nodded to the others to take a brief rest too.
O’Riordan gave a grim smile. ‘Thought you’d say that. Three it is.’
He removed his pack, withdrew several small tubes and canisters and placed them carefully on the cave floor. From one the size of a toothpaste tube he squeezed a two-foot ‘X’ on the wall. He turned and looked at Adira with a blank stare while he waited for the explosive to dry. She rested her hands on the butt of each of her guns and smiled. O’Riordan shrugged, turned back to the explosive and stuck a small metal spike into the centre of the ‘X’. He fiddled with some pin-sized dials on the spike, then lifted a canister from the ground and sprayed the wall. Pillows of foam grew to cover the entire two-foot section of the wall he’d been working on. He repacked, stood up and turned to the team.
