by Adam Baker
A shrivelled scalp. Skin like leather. Mummified fingers dug into sleeper ballast.
‘Jesus,’ muttered Toon. ‘This whole desert is an ocean of bone. Anyone comes out here gets eaten up.’
Lucy rolled the corpse. The body was a dried husk. Empty eye sockets. Rictus grin.
‘Miserable place to croak,’ she said.
‘Does it make a difference?’ asked Jabril. ‘When the time comes?’
‘I want to die in a bed,’ said Toon. ‘I want the last thing I see to be a smiling face. I don’t want to die screaming in the dark.’
Lucy searched the man’s pockets.
‘Give me some light.’
Toon stood over her with a torch.
She found a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Sobranie. Premium Russian. She found a cheap lighter.
‘No phone. No wallet.’
She took a black automatic pistol from the dead man’s jacket pocket.
‘Makarov.’
She ejected a cartridge. She held it in the beam of the flashlight and examined the stamp.
7.62
9X39US
‘That’s a Spetsnaz round. Russian black ops. US. “Umenshennaya Skorost”. Low velocity. Silenced for wetwork. Sure you don’t know anything about this, Jabril? Looks like we’re not the first bunch of contractors to make the trip.’
‘No.’
‘My gut is telling me to turn tail right now. What’s a Tier One Muscovite doing out here? This guy is a long way from home.’
Toon crouched by the cadaver.
‘A dead Russian doesn’t bother me.’
‘No?’
‘I’m more concerned about the thing he was running from.’ Toon examined the Makarov pistol. He examined the corpse. ‘Look at his hands. See those tattoos? This goon has been through the fucking gulags. You know what these Russian mobsters are like. Hardcore. Meanest motherfuckers on God’s green earth. So why was he running in terror?’
‘Fuck it,’ said Lucy. She got to her feet. ‘We’re badder than anything we are likely to meet. Let’s keep going.’
A pinprick of daylight in the far distance. Lucy switched off her flashlight and blinked. A glimmer like a distant star.
‘Have we reached the end of the tunnel?’ asked Amanda.
‘Feels like we’ve been walking forever,’ said Toon. ‘There better be gold at the end of this fucking rainbow, Jabril. Don’t put me through this for nothing.’
They kept walking. The tunnel mouth. Dazzling light.
‘This is it, said Jabril. ‘Our destination. We’ve reached the valley.’
They walked out of darkness into fierce sunlight. Cool tunnel air suddenly replaced by intense oven heat.
They shielded their eyes from the sudden glare.
Voss lazed in the doorway of Talon. He pulled down the brim of his cap and lay the shotgun across his lap.
Gaunt and Raphael sat in the doorway of Bad Moon. They had stripped out of Nomex flight suits and dressed in camo gear. They sipped lukewarm bottled water.
‘Reckon he’s sleeping?’ asked Gaunt.
‘No. He’s wide awake. He’s watching us. Been watching the whole time.’
Gaunt fanned himself with his boonie hat. He dabbed sweat from his face with a handkerchief.
Raphael swilled and spat.
‘The man is a stone killer,’ said Raphael. ‘I can see it in his face. See that shotgun? See that big-ass knife? He’s a farm boy. Used to gutting. Used to slaughter. Butcher you up real good. Wouldn’t think twice.’
‘He won’t be a problem,’ said Gaunt. ‘Just have to pick our moment.’
‘You okay with this? You were in the corps. But did you ever whack a guy? Do it up close and for real?’
‘Don’t worry about me. My hand is steady.’
‘So how do you want to work this?’
‘Might as well wait for them to find the gold,’ said Gaunt. ‘Do the grunt work. Locate the truck and crack it open. Then we hit them fast. Don’t give them time to react.’
‘How do you know Koell won’t pull the same shit soon as we get back to Baghdad? Pop a cap in our ass soon as we deliver the goods?’
‘He jumped us once. I’m not going to let him jump us again. Next time we meet, he’ll be the fuck with a gun pressed to his balls.’
‘Damn,’ said Lucy.
Toon crossed himself.
‘The Valley of Tears,’ said Jabril.
A natural amphitheatre a mile wide. A bowl, like a vast lunar crater. An alien landscape. Wind had shaped the sandstone outcrops of the high valley walls into sinister ossiferous lips and knuckles.
A squat citadel dominated the valley floor.
Stillness and sun-blasted silence.
‘What the fuck are we looking at? A fortress?’
‘A necropolis. A sacred city dedicated to the worship of the dead.’
High ramparts surrounded a maze of temple precincts. Forecourts, toppled colonnades and crumbled cloisters. At the centre of the labyrinth of half-tumbled masonry stood a huge, pillared edifice resembling the Parthenon. The entrance to the temple complex was a breach in the perimeter wall flanked by two high guard towers.
‘What’s that big building at the centre?’
‘Some say it is the Temple of Marduk. A powerful Babylonian deity. God of gods. Creator of the universe.’
‘How old is this place?’
‘The temple might have been built in the reign of the Akkadian kings five thousand years ago.’
‘How come I’ve never seen pictures of this place?’ asked Lucy.
‘This desert has been a war zone since time began. It doesn’t attract many tourists. Maybe one day there will be toilets and a gift shop. Somehow I doubt it. Something about this place. Something oppressive. People will always stay away.’
‘So where’s the bullion?’
Jabril pointed towards the citadel. The hulks of innumerable military supply vehicles lay in front of the temple gateway. Trucks, Jeeps, APCs and civilian sedans. They were smashed and carbonised, buckled and burned black.
‘The bank truck was part of that convoy.’
Lucy refocused her binoculars.
‘Got to be two, three acres of scrap. Burned to a fucking crisp. What the hell happened?’
‘As I told you. The battalion was ordered to return to Baghdad and join the fight against the Americans. Some officers were anxious to obey. Patriots and party zealots. Others were less eager to die for a lost cause. They wanted to wait out the war. And they wanted the gold. They intended to sit by their radios, wait until they heard news of surrender and armistice, then emerge from the canyon. They could each return to their families rich men. There was a mutiny. People quickly took sides. Some swore to honour their oath of allegiance. Some tore up their party cards and stamped them in the dust. A civil war ensued.’
‘Looks like those trucks got hit by fucking napalm. Sure there wasn’t an air strike?’
‘The gun battle must have punctured fuel tanks and ignited gasoline. Tight-packed vehicles engulfed by a violent firestorm. Don’t worry. The gold will be safe inside the cash truck. Protected from the flames by thick armour plate.’
Lucy slung her rifle over her shoulder.
‘All right, then. Let’s go get rich.’
TOP SECRET SPECIAL HANDLING NO FORM
Central Intelligence Agency
Directorate of Operations, Near East Division
Doc ID: 575JD5
Page 01/1
08/23/05
MEMORANDUM TO: Project Lead, D.Ops
SUBJECT: Spektr
Colonel,
We have received word that the incursion team have reached the SPEKTR site. The advance party entered Valley 403 at 15:00.
11th Recon Squad will provide Predator over-watch of the valley. We have eyes-on-target until nightfall. We should shortly have our first site assessment from our man on the ground.
I appreciate your concerns with regard to the possible spread of infection.
Steps have been taken to ensure the virus does not escape the contamination zone. We are currently liaising with Technical Services and our flight crew at the clandestine logistics base in Sharjah. I am confident we have sufficient assets on standby to initiate the CLEANSWEEP protocol should radical containment measures be required.
I shall keep you fully informed, as per your orders.
R. Koell
Field Officer
CA Special Proj, Baghdad Station
The Temple
The valley floor. Fierce sunlight. A wide basin like a lunar crater. Heat rippled from the rocks. The citadel rose out of shimmering mirage distortion, like an island city at the centre of a lake.
Lucy, Huang and Toon walked towards the citadel. Each footfall kicked up a plume of dust.
‘Might as well wave a fucking flag,’ said Toon.
‘Doing okay?’ asked Lucy.
Toon dripped sweat. He looked exhausted.
‘Fucking peachy.’
‘Smile,’ said Huang. ‘We could be kiss-my-ass rich by sundown.’
‘Let’s spend our last working day like professionals,’ said Lucy. ‘Thorough sweep of the ruins before we start messing with the convoy.’
They walked in the shadow of the high, buttressed perimeter wall. Lucy stroked the massive blocks with a gloved hand. She hit the pressel switch of her radio.
‘Jabril. You there?’
‘I can hear you.’
‘Where did they get the stone to build this place?’
‘The only archaeological survey of this site was done in eighteen ninety-one by a German Assyriologist called HV Hilprecht. There’s a chapter in his Exploration of Bible Lands. The temple is granite. If it had been constructed from local limestone, it would have crumbled to powder centuries ago. Hilprecht says the stones were quarried five hundred miles south near Jalibah. It’s hard to comprehend the time and manpower involved.’
They stood at the threshold of the dead city, dwarfed by twin guard towers. They surveyed the column of vehicles parked in front of the towers, buckled and black like junkyard scrap.
‘Better ignore the trucks for now,’ said Lucy. ‘We’re probably alone out here, but let’s not get sloppy. Full sweep of the citadel. Then we look for the gold.’
Lucy turned to Toon.
‘Get up high. Give us some coverage, all right?’
‘Sure, boss.’
Toon approached one of the gate towers. An arched doorway. Stone steps. He adjusted his grip on the SAW. He crept inside, and was swallowed by shadow.
Lucy and Huang contemplated the compound ahead of them. An extinct city. Flagstone courtyards. Tumbled pillars. Roofless buildings. A labyrinth of jumbled masonry, dusted in sand.
A long, ramped processional causeway led to the facade of the main temple structure. A wide gateway flanked by monstrous bull colossi.
‘This is some spooky shit,’ muttered Huang.
Amanda and Jabril climbed the steep valley wall. Amanda jumped from boulder to boulder. Jabril scrambled across scree, wheezing for breath.
They found a ledge.
Jabril released the Velcro straps of his body armour and pulled it over his head. He wiped sweat from his brow.
Amanda swigged from her canteen. She adjusted her TASC earpiece. She sat cross-legged. She pulled a long plastic Hardigg case from her backpack. Lid sticker: ‘Silent souls inflict 308 holes.’ She flipped latches. A disassembled Remington M40, lying in a foam bed. A sleek, simple, bolt-action rifle with a scope.
She snapped and screwed each component together in a series of quick, precise movements. Receiver. Barrel. Scope. Bipod.
‘Do you enjoy killing?’ asked Jabril.
‘I’m a professional.’
Amanda slotted match-grade Winchester bullets into a five-round magazine, and slapped it home. She unfolded a vinyl mat. She lay prone, tipped back her hat, and positioned the rifle.
She put the butt to her shoulder and pressed her cheek to the fibreglass stock. She uncapped the dayscope. She focused eight hundred yards distant on the far valley wall. Crosshairs centred on a small stone resting on top of a boulder.
‘Be advised, firing for centre.’
‘Ten-four.’
She fired. Puff of rock dust. Missed by a foot.
She re-calibrated the Leupold scope. She fired. Off by two inches.
Minor realignment. She fired. The little stone exploded in a shower of rock shards.
‘Can I ask you something?’ said Jabril.
‘Sure.’
‘You and Lucy. The rings on your fingers.’
‘You Arabs think the West is one big orgy. Everyone getting laid but you.’
‘I don’t mean to judge.’
She shifted position and adjusted focus. She surveyed the citadel. She watched through the sniper scope as Lucy and Huang entered the precincts. She kept her crosshairs centred on the dirt between them. Lucy looked resolute. Huang looked jumpy.
Lucy’s voice:
‘How’s it going, Mandy?’
‘Don’t worry. I got you.’
Toon took a Maglite from his pocket. The beam lit ancient steps worn treacherously smooth. The tight spiral passage amplified his laboured breathing. He had to squeeze and crouch. He battled claustrophobia.
He emerged into sunlight. The guard tower was capped by a stone platform surrounded by a high rampart.
He unclipped his backpack and laid out three boxes of link ammunition.
He snapped open the SAW bipod. He checked a two-hundred-round chain was clipped firmly into the receiver.
He pulled the towel from his neck and dabbed sweat from his face. He sipped from his canteen. He examined the stone slab beneath his weapon. A crude daemonic face etched in stone. He looked around. The rampart walls were inscribed with strange glyphs. Each stone block etched with runes and symbols. The floor of the platform was a giant cosmological chart. Deep grooves plotted astral orbits. The sun. The moon. Five planets. Earth at the centre.
He suppressed a shiver as he contemplated the awful antiquity of the building. Robed priests and acolytes must have stood on this platform and chanted in veneration of their tyrannical god.
‘Was this some kind of fucking death cult?’
Jabril’s voice:
‘Hilprecht attributes the temple to the worship of Marduk. But Marduk was a benevolent creator god. Whatever devotional rites took place here seem dedicated to an older, darker deity. Hieroglyphs throughout the complex show scenes from an imminent apocalypse, and demonstrate a preoccupation with the movement of the planets, specifically Jupiter.’
Lucy’s voice:
‘You got to remember, they didn’t have TV.’
Lucy and Huang explored the ruined necropolis. A succession of courtyards filled with tumbled blocks of rubble. Broken arches. Toppled colonnades.
‘Place is a fucking maze,’ murmured Huang.
Empty storerooms. Lucy switched on the barrel lamp of her rifle and scanned darkened interiors. Sand-choked doorways. Stone debris. Empty wall niches.
She checked dusty flagstones for signs of recent disturbance. She examined each entrance, looking for the needle-fine gossamer thread of a monofilament tripwire.
Kandahar. A whitewashed farmhouse. Home to a known bomb maker. Paid informants suggested the man kept a stockpile of old tank shells buried under his chicken coop. He gave local kids 1.5v batteries and improvised firing circuits. Twenty dollars a pop to lay IEDs along the nearby airport highway. Three of Lucy’s Special Recon platoon were killed when a pressure-plate mine reduced their Snatch to whirling shrapnel in a millisecond pulse of white light.
‘Got to watch ourselves, all right?’ said Lucy’s commanding officer. ‘This guy’s a fanatic. He knows, sooner or later, he is going to get taken down. He’ll lay on a surprise, take a bunch of us with him, if he can.’
They kicked in the door. The guy was eating dinner. He was sitting at his table, spoon in hand. Lucy shot him in the face and he nodded head-firs
t into his stew.
She pulled back a curtain door. A side room. She saw rugs and cushions.
A wad of papers in the middle of the floor. Possible intel. Lucy moved to enter room but the CO shouted ‘Stop.’
She moved aside. The CO took a can of party shop Silly String from a mag pouch. He shook it. He sprayed. The can spat webs of yellow foam string at head height. The string drifted to the floor. A single tendril hung suspended at knee level. They crouched. Fine fishing line stretched taut across the doorway.
‘Shit,’ said Lucy.
‘Everyone out,’ shouted the CO.
They retreated two hundred yards into a poppy field and fired a couple of shoulder-launched LASM rockets into the farmhouse. Walls collapsed and a series of secondary explosions reduced the place to dust.
Lucy and Huang picked their way across a rubble-strewn chamber. Sunlight shafted through a hole in the domed roof.
‘Any idea what these buildings used to be?’
Jabril’s voice:
‘Part of the temple economy. Storerooms, perhaps. Built to contain grain, dried fruits, spices. There are no settlements or farms nearby. This was not a self-sustaining community. Someone with god-like authority picked this site, ordered the construction of a temple out here in the hinterland and kept it supplied with food and water. Despite the arid location, there are ceremonial pools, baths and fountains within the complex. A demonstration of unimaginable wealth and power.
‘Can you picture how this site must have looked, thousands of years ago? Elaborate frescos painted on every wall. Rugs, silks, brass, perfumes. Yet the citadel is too remote to be erected for earthly prestige. It is a secret priest city. Lifelong home of soothsayers and astrologers. They would chant their incantations and sacrifice ritual offerings. They would study forbidden texts, transcribe opium dreams, dance themselves to a delirium. This was a serious place. A power-house of daemonic energy. The inner sanctum of the temple approached with the same trepidation as the plutonium core of a nuclear reactor. A great warlord wanted to draw down the power of the gods and blast his foes. When armies met on the sand he wanted his cavalry to sweep through barbarian ranks and lay them waste like a cyclone. Maybe he got his wish. Who knows?’
