by Greig Beck
The moon glowed above as they broke into another clearing. In the silvery light, Francisco could make out an enormous banyan tree and a stone building enfolded in its heavy embrace. As he and the other men were dragged up the steps and into the darkness, he smelled the charnel-house odour from inside. His body convulsed in one last desperate act of resistance and he began to yell and struggle.
The procession stopped and the priest looked back at him briefly, gave his needle-sharp smile and licked his lips. Then the movement started again, the column of writhing flesh dragged into the stone building.
Francisco wailed as they entered the pitch darkness. There would be no rescue, no merciful angels coming to save him because he had spent his life aiding his fellow humans. No, he would come to his end in a foul-smelling dungeon at the hands of an evil that was too horrible to contemplate.
Francisco finally remembered the gun still at his hip. He pulled it free and placed the barrel in his mouth. As he felt himself being tipped into a dark, acrid cavity in the floor, his last thought was that he was being pulled down into the very depths of hell.
He pulled the trigger.
THIRTEEN
Aimee sat in her cabin staring at the mobile phone and computer on her desk. Both were useless as communication devices now that the uplink to the satellite had been destroyed.
Things were unravelling quickly and she wished Francisco and Alfraedo would return. She almost hoped they hadn’t managed to find the saboteurs; there was enough tension in the camp without having to look after prisoners as well.
She switched off the lantern in her cabin and peered through the thin curtains out to the clearing. A few shapes moved about, some ambling, some darting. In the dark, the jungle itself seemed closer, thicker, more menacing and malevolent. She shuddered and dropped the curtain.
She undressed, dragged a damp T-shirt over her head and lay down on the rumpled bed. Things will be better in the morning. They always look better in the morning, she thought. She closed her eyes. A bead of perspiration tickled her temple as it ran from her forehead, her feet itched, and the still air felt like warm syrup as she dragged it into her lungs. She put one arm behind her head and immediately smelled her own sour body odour. Nice, she thought as she exhaled noisily through compressed lips.
Dawn wasn’t far away, but sleep wouldn’t come. There was something nagging at her, whispering to her in the dark, just out of focus, refusing to become clear to her fatigued mind. Aimee groaned as she pulled herself up and swung her legs over the side of her bed. She rubbed her face, and sat in silence for a few minutes holding her head. She grabbed her canteen from the table top and sipped loudly – the water tasted like plastic. She wished she had a metal container – they always made the water seem cooler. But you couldn’t use metal in the jungle; it rusted, everything rusted. The germ of a thought bloomed in her tired mind.
She stood up and felt in the darkness for her computer. She hesitated a moment at the thought of using up its remaining battery power, then shrugged and switched it on, going immediately to her results for the bacterial DNA match. She had found close approximations to a number of microbial forms with many genus similarities, but her strange bug was stubbornly eluding that final step towards identification.
The effect the microbe had on living tissue was extraordinary and frightening. She had never heard of that level of biocorrosion in anything other than…Corrosion…Her fingers leapt across the keyboard as she pursued the thought. She dived into old research papers and mining notes – and found it. Her eyes flew over the notes as she read furiously. Just last decade, there had been a serious pipe failure on the North Slope of Alaska. It transpired that microscopic organisms were eating through the toughened pipes, leading to leakage and finally total failure. Could it be…?
She skimmed down the pages looking for clues. She knew that the microorganisms she had been looking for, responsible for converting carbon to natural gas, were anaerobes – they did their job without oxygen or light, which was how they could function so deep below the earth. The biochemistry of their metabolisms was extraordinary and, by their very nature, they were carbon hungry. In simple terms, they ate carbons – that was how they instigated methanogenesis.
Aimee sat back for a second, before switching her screen images to the sample data from the infected men. Holy shit. She sat back again, placing both hands on her slick forehead. Of course, of course, of course. The bacteria ate carbon, all carbon. It was just doing what it existed to do – and had turned out to be very good at it. Carbon was the fourth-most abundant element in the universe and was present in all known life forms – including the human body, where it was the second-most abundant element after oxygen.
‘Oh God, no.’ Aimee pushed her hair back wearily. ‘It’s fucking eating us.’
Clavicula occultus – her ‘hidden key’ to the world’s energy problem – wasn’t just converting prehistoric carbon into oil as she’d assumed; it was also consuming the carbon it found in the human body and literally converting it to something else. Maybe even something that may become petroleum in a few hundred thousand years.
Aimee looked up at the ceiling and the golden halo of light thrown by the lantern. She felt heavy, drained of all energy. The depth of the oil and gas chamber meant the microbes had been imprisoned, locked away from the upper world of light and air. The mile-thick barrier had been the human race’s first line of defence. Perhaps, while we’ve been looking for them, they’ve just been patiently waiting for us.
She crushed her eyes shut for a moment, then said softly, ‘What have I let loose upon the world?’
She needed to speak to someone but the phone on her desk was useless. Shit! Anger welled up inside her, then dissipated to leave a small knot of fear and frustration deep in her belly. She thought of Alex Hunter – he had once been her antidote to fear or loneliness. She needed him right now – his advice, and his strength.
Once again, her last days with him came back to her. She was the one who’d decided it would be best for both of them if he gave up being in the Special Forces; settled down, became more normal. At first she’d asked him, then, towards the end, she had demanded it, and had taken his refusal as him choosing the HAWCs over her. She hadn’t even had the courage to say her final farewell in person. She could still remember every detail: the floral notepaper, the blue ink, the words: You’ve made your choice, and it’s a bad one. I think it’s best if I don’t see you again…Goodbye forever, Alex.
She looked back up to the halo of light and spoke softly. ‘I wish I’d never said that.’
‘I can’t reach Aimee.’
Jack Hammerson took the call from Alfred Beadman just after four in the morning. The normally urbane and relaxed chairman of GBR was in a state of high agitation. Hammerson rubbed his face with his free hand, feeling the stubble on his chin, and let the man speak on, allowing himself time to ease into full wakefulness.
‘Now there’s a quarantine order. The Paraguayan government has issued a no-go directive over that whole area of the jungle and they won’t say why. Something’s wrong, Jack, Aimee needs help. Is Captain Hunter down there yet?’ Beadman was breathing like a marathon runner.
‘Yes, Alfred, we know about the Q-order.’ Hammerson kept his voice calm, hoping to influence the older man. ‘Surprised us a bit, and did slow us up by a day or so, but we’ve made secondary plans and expect to be there by first light tomorrow. Now, when did she go offline?’
‘I don’t know exactly. She was supposed to call me about 10 pm. When I didn’t hear from her, I tried her phone, then her voice over internet link, then email, then even the site manager’s number – nothing’s getting through. Seems their satellite link is broken; and then when I called the government official in charge of mining and energy, he told me about the quarantine order. Would the quarantine order necessitate a blackout? Why? Jack, do you think you can use one of your satellites to check on her? I know you can zoom right in these days.’
H
ammerson sighed. Why did people think he had some sort of satellite joystick in his top drawer that he could use to swing around a multi-billion-dollar piece of orbiting telemetry at a moment’s notice? Still, he couldn’t get angry with Beadman for trying all avenues. He knew that Aimee was like a daughter to him.
‘Alfred, satellites are almost useless for vision down there – too much green for us to see anything clearly. But I know where the HAWCs are, and I think you know what Alex is like – he’ll find her, no matter where she is. He and his team are less than a day from making contact. We all just have to be patient. I’ll call you as soon as I get any further information. Now get some sleep. Good night, Alfred.’
Hammerson heard the chairman splutter a bit more, but hung up anyway. There wasn’t anything further he could share with him. He looked at the clock: 4:14 am. He’d give it a few hours then get another field update. Wouldn’t hurt to have Alex and the team punch it up another level.
Adira Senesh slowly pulled the tiny receiver from her ear. Her hand shook slightly and her eyes burned as she considered the implications of the conversation she’d just overheard between her superior officer and the chairman of the company that Aimee Weir worked for.
She spoke softly in Hebrew, cursing Jack Hammerson for holding her back from accompanying Alex Hunter on the mission, and for refusing to keep her informed of his operational status.
As a Mossad Kidon agent, Adira had believed she was the best in the world – until she had worked with Captain Alex Hunter on a recent mission in the Middle East. He had saved her life several times in the space of a few days; he had fought with her and for her, and he had kept her safe. She had vowed to do the same for him – and she would do the same for him. She always repaid her debts.
Her mind worked furiously on ways to join the mission – but each option was discarded as being impractical or seen as treason. She cursed again; someone would pay dearly if Alex was killed. She gritted her teeth and lifted her arm; a small dagger appeared in her hand and she brought it down on the desk top with enough force to embed it several inches into the hard wood.
FOURTEEN
Alex had slept little during the night. His mind had refused to shut down, and he didn’t know whether the images he’d seen were the result of an overactive imagination, or whether he was receiving some sort of forewarning about Aimee’s current predicament. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to ignore the throbbing in his head.
He realised Garmadia had slowed and was closely watching Saqueo and Chaco. Both boys were moving ahead cautiously, peering left and right into the jungle.
‘Why are we slowing?’ Alex asked.
Garmadia motioned with his head. ‘These are animal trails we are following, Captain Hunter. There are no people here, no tracks or paths. We could be the first people to walk along here in many years, and we need to be cautious as it is the beginning of the wet season. This area is honeycombed with subsurface limestone caves. The more water that passes below us, the more chance there is of a new cave opening up. The caves can be very deep and can swallow a platoon whole.’
More caves and underground lakes, thought Alex. Just great.
Up ahead, Saqueo yelped in surprise as a small striped pig belted from the undergrowth, shot between his legs, then slipped back through the vines and fern fronds. Chaco leapt after it, pulling a small blade from his belt and shouting excitedly to Saqueo who yelled something angrily in response. After a second of indecision, the older boy ran off in pursuit of his brother, leaving Alex and the team stranded on the narrow trail.
Alex heard the boars before they broke from the jungle.
Razorbacks, he thought, marvelling at their size. Wild boars were only introduced to South America in the early twentieth century, but already their population had flourished. There were stories of full-grown male boars weighing up to 800 pounds. The larger of these two was more like 600 pounds, but a terrifying sight nonetheless, with long yellow tusks curving up either side of a long blunt head, and a coarse coat that looked as though it was fashioned from wooden spikes and splinters. Alex thought it looked more like a hair-covered rhino standing in the gloom of the undergrowth.
Maria pulled Michael behind the HAWCs, whose hands immediately went to their sidearms. Time seemed to stop for a few seconds as the elite soldiers and two wild animals contemplated their next moves.
A squeal from deeper in the jungle pulled the massive animals’ heads in the direction the baby boar had bolted. Both leapt into the forest, bulldozing a path in their haste to reach their off-spring. Alex dropped his pack and sprinted after them. He knew the damage these beasts could do to a man, let alone to the two boys in their path.
He caught up to the female quickly, his long powerful legs easily keeping pace with her. Her head reached the top of his thigh and Alex watched her powerful shoulder and neck muscles bunch as she knocked undergrowth out of her way. The male was still hundreds of feet in front, and the more dangerous of the two, but Alex decided he could reduce the threat by dealing with them one at a time.
He really didn’t want to kill either animal for protecting its young, so he lifted his arm up high and brought his armoured fist down on the flat forehead of the charging animal. The ceramic plates of his gloves, coupled with his enormous power, felled the animal immediately. Its 340-pound body brought down a small tree before it slid to a halt.
As Alex increased his speed, he heard Saqueo’s voice yelling frantically and saw the boy sitting high in a tree. He slowed long enough to guess at Saqueo’s meaning – he was screaming and pointing down the path. Alex could hear the massive male boar smashing the undergrowth out if its way up ahead – it must have been almost upon the smaller boy.
Alex leapt forward as he heard a shrill scream.
In another few paces he broke into a clearing that was totally free of any vegetation. The sunlight boiled through to the ground, creating a low mist over the bare, and strangely dry, earth. He spotted the boy – Chaco stood at the centre of the clearing – and the boar had already commenced its charge. The outcome was going to be catastrophic for the youth.
Alex knew he couldn’t make it to Chaco, but he could make it to the animal. He lowered his shoulder, increased his speed and headed on a collision course with a creature made of material a lot tougher than human flesh. Chaco screamed, and Alex heard another yell that he realised came from his own throat as he collided with the boar. The thud of the impact and its shock wave made the boy sit down hard. The boar must have sensed Alex’s approach for it had managed to turn its head just enough to get a tusk into his upper arm; blood spurted onto the ground at Chaco’s feet. But the beast had taken the full force of Alex’s weight, which, combined with his velocity, was sufficient to roll it into the thick ferns, where it lay still.
Alex got to one knee and placed his hand over his torn arm. It hurt like hell, but nothing was broken. It was the pain returning to his head that concerned him more.
He lifted the boy to his feet. ‘Are you all right?’
Chaco quickly wiped tears from his dirty face, and looked from Alex to the still hindquarters of the giant boar, then back at Alex. His eyes were wide in disbelief and his face broke into a smile. Saqueo was yelling to them from the edge of the clearing, his jubilant chant blocking out the sounds of the jungle all around them. ‘El capitán Hunter es Super—’
The boy’s words turned to a scream. Alex felt the ground tremble and turned quickly, but there was no time to avoid the boar’s charge. Recovered, it raced towards them, its small red eyes filled with a murderous rage.
Alex only had time to pull Chaco behind him and hold up an arm, hand out flat.
The impact was like an explosion – then the ground gave way and they were falling – Alex, Chaco and 600 pounds of furious mammal plunging through a thin crust of limestone into a shallow pool of water thirty feet below.
As Alex hit the water, he remembered Garmadia’s warning about the caves: they can swallow whole platoons. No wo
nder nothing is growing here, he thought.
Unfortunately, Alex wasn’t the first to his feet. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs and tossed him through the air to smash against the slick wall of the large, bowl-shaped crater. He heard the boar squeal in rage, the sound eardrumshattering within the small cave, then came Chaco’s voice calling his name.
Alex groaned in pain. A melon-sized piece of stone fell from the ceiling to splash into the water beside him, and he glanced up at the hole above. They had come through at a weak point, but the whole canopy could only have been a few feet thick. He knew the entire roof of the cave was in danger of shaking loose, and any loud noises could result in them being buried alive under tons of stone.
The boar was gouging the shallow water with its head, throwing up plumes of liquid as it worked itself into an even greater rage.
Chaco had climbed onto the base of a stalagmite and was trying to shinny up the slippery stone as he would a tree trunk. For every foot of the water-smoothed stone he climbed, he slid back down the same amount. He yelped in frustration and the beast turned its head, trying to locate the sound. When it found Chaco, it charged.
Alex reached into the water and retrieved a fist-sized rock to throw at the maddened creature. It bounced off its shoulder and thudded into the wall, where it exploded, causing dust and smaller fragments of stone to rain down on them from the ceiling. Alex reached for his gun, then had second thoughts. He couldn’t chance the discharge echo bringing down the entire roof. Instead, he pulled out his longest Ka-Bar blade; the lasersharpened black steel a deadly tusk of his own.
By now Chaco had managed to climb about six feet above the water and was hanging on grimly. The boar tried to climb the base of the stalagmite, its blunt mouth open and showing rows of dog-like canines at the front and flattened yellow crushing molars deeper in. Alex knew what it wanted: wild boars were omnivores and meat made up a large part of their diet.
