Spiral

by Andy Remic

  SPIRAL

  ANDY REMIC

  SPIRAL Book 1

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 9780748133697

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2003 Andy Remic

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  This book is dedicated with love to my wife Sonia,

  our liccle baby boy, Joseph, and my mother and

  father – Sarah and Nikolas.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you to Jake Crowley for his comradeship, cycling adventures and essential and eternal proof reading; to Dorothy Lumley, my agent, for her belief and kindness – right from the beginning; to Simon Kavanagh, for his insight, need for perfection, and for working me like a bitch – even when I was sulking; and to my wife, Sonia, for her encouragement and understanding over the years. I owe you all many beers!

  My personal thanks also go to Justin Sullivan of New Model Army, Zak Tell of Clawfinger, and Derek W. Dick (Fish), for kind permission to quote their lyrics in this novel. Very much appreciated.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue Reduction

  PART ONE

  THE SEARCH FOR AN UNREAL GOD

  Chapter 1 Alone

  Chapter 2 Infil

  Chapter 3 Black & White

  Chapter 4 State of Play

  Chapter 5 Jam

  Chapter 6 Tag

  Chapter 7 Deep Red

  Chapter 8 Mobile

  Chapter 9 Spiral Q

  Chapter 10 Flight

  Chapter 11 Gol

  Chapter 12 Nex

  Chapter 13 Africa

  Chapter 14 The Calm

  Chapter 15 Battle

  PART TWO

  TO LOOK OUT WITH COPPER EYES

  Chapter 16 Mission

  Chapter 17 QIII

  Chapter 18 Sniper

  Chapter 19 Detonation

  Chapter 20 Schema

  Chapter 21 LA

  Chapter 22 The Dark Side of the Soul

  Chapter 23 The Kamus

  Chapter 24 The Skein

  Chapter 25 Mortal Coil

  Chapter 26 Deep

  Epilogue Paradise

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  REDUCTION

  Demol14: Bolivia

  The ancient house sat astride the cliff’s rugged shoulders. Sections of rendering had fallen away into the tangled vegetation far below, revealing thick stone slabs underneath: toothless gaps - the dark smile of an old bearded gunrunner, the oblivion kiss of a whisky-drunk Brazilian whore. The house was four storeys tall and had almost been reclaimed by the jungle; this ornate Churrigueresque fortress had been smashed and peppered for centuries by tropical elements intent on a gradual stripping away of its baroque stone carvings.

  Something - a shadow - slid from the jungle. A figure shrouded by darkness, protected by the night and its moon-suffocating clouds. It climbed easily, fluidly up cliff and carved stone and landed lightly on the walkway’s tiles, mosaics that shone dully in what little light penetrated the gloom.

  The figure emerged from the shadows and moved lightly across the tiles. Then it paused, listening, a static outline against the night, before sliding again into darkness and vanishing: a ghost; mist; a grey dream.

  A deep oppressive silence filled the corridor, at one end of which squatted a riveted steel door, the single portal for the protected sanctum.

  Seated, two heavy-set bearded guards, deeply tanned, their hair grease-smeared and lank, were armed with 9mm Glocks and shoulder-slung AK47s. They were playing cards across a small unvarnished table by the warm light of an oil-burning lantern, their brutal scarred features softened by the amber glow, a bottle of cheap vodka their only shared release from the boredom of duty.

  There was a soft clatter, muffled, from back along the shadowed corridor and the two men’s bloodshot gazes met over the smeared bottle. One man, the larger of the two, removed the bedraggled hand-rolled cigarette from his lips and discarded it in an overflowing ashtray knife-cut from a beer can.

  ‘Your turn, hombre.’

  The smaller of the two men shook his head. ‘It’ll be a fucking monkey again. They climb in, looking for food.’

  ‘Not up here. They don’t like the climate - or the bullets. Go on, you dirty drunken mestizo, go check who’s there.’ He grinned, baring crooked coffee-stained teeth. ‘Anyway, we’re safe. If they’d got this far they would have triggered the alarms. And there are the special men in there with the hombre himself,’ he sneered. ‘We have nothing to fear.’

  Cursing, the other man stood and checked his pistol and AK. The magazines were both full and he flicked the safety off. ‘I used to enjoy shooting fucking monkeys,’ he muttered, and, with his bloodworm eyes as alert as they could ever be in the gloom, dissolved from the friendly perimeter glow of the lamp.

  The other Bolivian guard sat, shuffling the cards with the expert hands of a man practised in sentry duty. His eyes shifted left to the digital display on the wall, its plastic casing and LED warnings out of place against the smoke-stained plaster. It registered zero. Nothing. No intruder. No worries. But the fancy electronics made him uneasy. He was a guard trained with traditional weapons: guns and bullets. He did not rate so called hi-tech gadgets...

  There was a distant sound - almost inaudible. Like—

  A hiss.

  The seated man frowned, his brow furrowed, his eyes moving from the LED display to the gloom of the corridor. ‘Kaltzon, you there, my man?’ His words echoed, lonely, a stark contrast with the soft backdrop noise of distant buzzing insects.

  He got to his feet and placed the Glock on the table, making a soft clack; with his AK switched to automatic he moved with a smooth military precision that indicated a history of violence. Despite his sleazy appearance, sobriety and stark professionalism kicked in; he crept forward, close to the wall, suddenly alert, all senses buzzing with a sudden rush of adrenalin. He reached the corridor junction and glanced tentatively to the right, gun muzzle tracing an imaginary arc of fire. The half-open distant patio doors showed only a beam of faint moonlight breaking briefly through the clouds and spilling over the veranda. There was no sign of Kaltzon.

  The guard turned back - and was slammed off his feet, flung against the wall, a bolt of black steel protruding from his forehead. His AK47 clattered deafeningly on the floor tiles. Blood sprayed down his chin, ruining his cheap Hawaiian shirt. His eyes, open and lifeless, stared at the ceiling as his left leg twitched, while a long string of saliva and blood pooled from his slack jaws and formed a slowly growing viscous puddle on the floor.

  Demol14: an elite combat squad, supremely proficient and lethally effective in the violent twin worlds of protection and destruction. This was to be an easy gig. Protection: close quarters, waiting for one of Spiral’s many top-class analysts to arrive in order to verify certain documents carried - stolen - by Sacha Bora.

  Bora, Cuban-born, lately of Los Angeles, USA, and before that involved with some nefarious desert activity in Southern Rub al’Khali. He was a man with a unique profession. In the corner of the fortified sleeping quarters sat a pilot’s case containing the tools of his trade. The leather was of finest hide, imported from North Africa
and handcrafted to a very individual and precise design: the case had been created for the sole purpose of smuggling. Bora’s payload was a sheaf of encoded metal documents that, he knew, Spiral would pay well to get their hands on.

  The safe room in this lonely fortress had been designed, appropriately enough, first and foremost for the safety of its occupants. The two windows were shuttered with a high-grade steel that was unusual and expensive in this part of the world. The walls were stone, two feet thick, the ceiling and floors solid concrete, the door heavy steel in a frame of the same metal and controlled by digital locks.

  The occupant, obviously, was paranoid.

  Sacha Bora slept on his back, snoring, a sweat-stained silk pillow beneath his long greasy black hair. The sheets had been thrown free due to the oppressive heat seeping in from the jungle and an air-con unit clattered softly in a corner of the room - its casing armoured, the machinery itself painfully inefficient.

  A click sounded. Sacha’s eyes flickered open, drops of sweat beading on his lashes.

  He stared at the ceiling for a while, his breathing even. Then he scanned the room, glad that he was no longer subject to the palpitations that had recently haunted him. Outside sat his two most trusted guards, and the three members of Demol14 were there in the room with him, awaiting Spiral’s expert analyst and the money that she would bring with her. Bora relaxed a little more as he watched the DemolSquad; they were rated among the finest and Sacha Bora had had dealings with them on several occasions over the last four years. They were good. No, he thought, they were the best.

  Jax was cleaning his S687 shotgun, while Dazna sat with her head resting against the wall as she rubbed at her eyes. Evoss, huge Evoss, was on his feet by the shuttered window. The big man tilted his head sideways, and there was a cracking sound of released tension as his neck vertebrae realigned.

  From outside there came a distant muffled roar of engines struggling up the rough mountain roads. Jax and Dazna exchanged meaningful glances. ‘What is it?’ said Sacha Bora, suddenly - crazily - nervous. He sat up in bed, staring at where his own personal - and concealed -shotgun nestled under an ornately carved wooden chest: the last line in protection should Demol14 and the guards outside fail.

  Evoss moved towards him, black-clad, menacing and yet, to Bora, reassuring. He pumped his own shotgun to load it and grinned through a mouthful of broken teeth.

  ‘Don’t worry, Bora,’ he rumbled. ‘We are here. You’ll be fine.’ He reached out to pat Bora’s sweat-streaked arm.

  A whine cut through the air. There was a metallic clack.

  The digital locks failed.

  The security door smashed open.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ came a soft voice.

  The figure was of average height and build and dressed in a single-piece dark grey body-hugging garment. The face was hidden by a tight grey balaclava that revealed only the eyes, which were copper, bright and soft.

  The voice was lilting, almost beautiful, nearly female but - not quite.

  And the grey-clad figure carried no visible weapon.

  Everybody froze...

  ‘Who the fuck—’

  ‘Demol14, I am here to kill you.’

  The figure moved with awesome speed as the three members of the Demolition Squad opened fire. Rounds screamed across the room as the grey-clad figure leaped into the air, somersaulted, twisted, and connected, booted feet first, with the huge bulk of Evoss. The big man fell, and a small gleaming knife had appeared in his chest before he crashed to the ground.

  The grey-masked figure looked up - a quick, insectlike motion.

  Evoss’s gun was lifted gently from the floor.

  ‘You bastard!’ hissed Dazna, her pretty mouth open in shock. She charged, her gun spitting fire, bullet casings ejecting, but the grey figure was—

  Gone.

  The gun muzzle caressed Dazna’s temple gently. There was a whump whump whump as three stray bullets ate plaster before Jax got his weapon trained on the grey-clad figure from across the room. But too late—

  ‘No,’ Jax mouthed silently.

  The grey intruder squeezed the pistol trigger and, even as Dazna’s brains were mushrooming from the side of her head, kicked off from her falling corpse, curled into a ball, somehow avoiding the screaming 7.62mm rounds from Jax’s weapon, hit the ground and rolled towards a low wooden chest. From nowhere a shotgun appeared and there was a heavy bass boom. Jax was plucked from his feet and blown across the room. He left a huge smear of blood against the plaster, then toppled onto his face and lay unmoving.

  Suddenly everything was still, awesomely silent. The flickering damaged light illuminated the kneeling, hunched figure of Sacha Bora. He looked up slowly, glanced around, and let out a long-drawn shuddering sigh. He understood: understood that he was lucky to be alive, understood that he was lucky not to be a corpse sprawling beside the three broken carcasses on the floor.

  The grey-clad figure was standing with the shotgun in his - her? - hands.

  ‘I ... you came just in time,’ wheezed Sacha Bora through cracked lips.

  The figure said nothing. It made no move - no sound.

  Sacha squirmed uncomfortably as trickles of sweat crawled down his face and body.

  ‘I can’t believe you killed three members of a DemolSquad,’ he croaked. The figure did not move: it made no physical or oral response. ‘How did you move so fucking fast? And are you here for what I think you’re here for? I’ve got it - don’t worry, it’s safe, I was bringing it to... him.’

  The shotgun’s barrel swung up and with twin snarls smashed Sacha Bora across the room and into a twisted heap in the corner. There was a clatter as the shotgun fell to the ground and lay in a pool of blood. Soft black boots left crimson imprints across the floor while footsteps pounded down the corridor towards the scene of carnage. Men’s voices were snarling, shouting orders. The grey-clad assassin threw a switch and the room’s shutters began their clattering ascent.

  The figure approached the finely carved leather case, hurled aside in the recent confusion. Hands moved swiftly, revealing a further concealed section below the secret compartment. There was a glint as a sheaf of metal sheets was withdrawn and stowed away inside the tight grey clothing.

  The assassin leaped up onto the balcony and glanced down at the jungle far below. Fresh morning sunlight bathed the scene and for a few moments the copper eyes seemed to glow like molten metal.

  And then the figure was gone, leaving only bloody footprints on the parapet.

  There was a distant rattle of machine-gun fire.

  The guards who had been examining the room and the four corpses exchanged worried glances.

  ‘How did he open the digital locks? I thought they were foolproof. A billion fucking combinations or something.’

  ‘Hey, look here.’

  They lumbered towards the gaping window, saw the footprints in congealed blood and glanced down into the sprawling jungle...

  Within the damp, dripping cellar deep beneath and within the clifftop house, something barely visible dropped to a crouch. There was a scrape - of metal on stone. Then a single red light came on, glowing faintly, an omen of death and destruction.

  The bomb detonated.

  Fire and hell-fury screamed white-hot through the building, wrenching it apart with the force of unleashed chemical savagery.

  In the jungle below, there was a pattering of pebbles, followed by heavy thuds as chunks of stone and plaster described their individual arcs through the foliage and tropical morning mist.

  Black smoke rolled up towards the sky, blocking out the newly risen sun.

  Demol77: United Kingdom

  The wind howled violently across the North Sea’s heaving, beating waves towards a dark rearing metal structure, unlit and unloved, pounded and abused by the elements.

  The oil rig was old, a cast-off from one of the world’s largest petroleum companies. The rusting machinery no longer drilled and pumped, the derrick wa
s a tangle of fused rusting steel being gradually eaten away by sea spray, and the huge engines no longer thundered and beat with life. The rig was a cast-off - discarded, abused, raped, bled, drawn, fucked and forgotten.

  The rig was a steel ghost, deserted.

  Almost...

  A figure glided out into the blackness from some pit in the bowels of the machine, wearing a tight-fitting black garment and a rolled-up balaclava. Gloved hands grasped a rusting rail and the man lifted his face, gasping as the wind rocked him, pulled him into a tight embrace and promised him—

  Death.

  He grinned, revelling in the violent wild-ride feeling, pulled out a cigarette and shouldered his Sterling submachine gun as he searched for his Zippo.

  ‘You’ll never light that out here.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Pulling free the lighter, he cupped the cigarette in a valiant attempt to defeat the gale. Miraculously, the cigarette glowed, a bright spark against the gloom. Smoke plumed around the man’s face and he inhaled, closing his eyes and enjoying the nicotine rush.

  ‘Scott, this is a fucking shite gig, man.’

  Scott merely nodded, turning his back on the wide-shouldered man with the pock-marked complexion and staring out into the black churning waters. ‘Get us some coffee, eh, lad? And check on our Chechen friend while you’re at it.’

  Grumbling, the big man - newly recruited to Demol77 - thudded his way down the riveted iron steps and into the stairwell below.

  Scott took his time enjoying the cigarette, gazing out over the rolling waves that hid the Skene Fields. He wondered idly what it would be like, working on a rig, living off the black gold from deep beneath the surface. His mind drifted; he pictured blueprints - of the rig, the seabed pipelines, the outrigged tankers - and thought about the locations of the huge mooring anchors, pontoons and columns that kept this piece of shit squatting like a drunkard in a gutter.