by Andy Lucas
'No. I figured that it was only a matter of time before they smelled me out and dug their own tunnel in to get me. They made no attempt at caution when they left. I heard them crashing into the forest for several minutes until the noise faded away. It was my only chance,' she added. 'I knew they were nowhere near me at that moment so I crawled out and headed into the forest.'
'You had a death wish?'
'The safest place to be was high up off the ground so I set about climbing the first tree that had a low enough bough for me to jump up on. I only needed to go a few feet into the forest to find one; a big old spruce. I have always loved climbing and the thought of those creatures returning spurred me on, I can tell you. I made it right to the very top; at least sixty feet off the ground, before I stopped. The branches were so thin up there that I knew they would not be able to follow, even if they tried.'
She had spent those days in the tree, unable to escape any further down the trail. From her lofty perch she had managed her second telephone call to Sarah, where they had shared the details and hatched a brief plan before the phone died.
'Climbing down took guts,' he said admiringly. 'Coming back up the trail, into the lion's den, so to speak, took even more.'
'Unless we're together, neither of us is getting rescued,' she brushed off his compliment lightly. 'Self-interest, nothing more.'
Pace did not strictly believe her. In the solitude, together with the head torch now switched off to conserve its batteries, they sensed each other's presence in the darkness.
'Now, tell me why you helped Josephine Roche rob Deborah of her chances of becoming a mother? You're not a monster but what you did was monstrous.' He felt her stiffen next to him. 'Help me to understand because, quite frankly, I don't.'
'Have you ever heard of Gesunde Welt?' Pace said he hadn't. 'They are a huge German company, specialising in providing medical personnel and services to war-ravaged countries and existing war zones. They are hugely respected internationally, in the same way that the McEntire Corporation is.'
'Is this relevant?'
'We are in the same business, James. I know exactly what the McEntire Corporation does to protect the United Kingdom because it the same thing that Gesunde Welt does for Germany. Unaccountable, unknown, working in the real shadows. I was ordered to get close to Josephine so I was dangled her way, as a broke, easily-corruptible surgeon. They knew she was on the look out for one. It was a perfect match.'
Stunned at the revelation, Pace took a moment to absorb her words. McEntire had told him, months before, that most of the major countries in the world had a similar operation to their own. These forces worked beyond the reach of their own governments and often co-operated to ensure global security; increasingly so with rise of fundamentalist terrorism and extremists with no qualms about using any weapons of mass destruction they were able to get their twisted hands on.
'You were ordered to perform the surgery on Deborah?'
'Yes. I had to gain Josephine's confidence. I tried delaying it for as long as I could and I even stopped Deborah being beaten, or mistreated, by the guards. I invented an infection but, in the end, Josephine began to get suspicious so I had no choice but to operate. If it helps,' she dropped her tones to a solemn whisper, 'I regretted it at the time and I still feel guilty about it. But,' her voice strengthened, 'there is no room for sentiment in our world, James. I'm sure you've had to do things you'd rather not have, working for Doyle McEntire. I know you've had to kill, more than once.'
Pace wanted to be angry with her but the wind had been neatly expunged from his emotional sails. Everything was falling into place, hitting him squarely in the eyes, thought after stunning thought.
'Of course,' he started. 'The German company, your accent. This is about Scorpion and Dark Tide, isn't it? German involvement in stealing the formula. The U-Boat we found? The attempted hijacking of the K-19? Lost gold?'
'Let's just say, my people needed somebody close to ARC and I was the one chosen. For what it's worth, I'm sorry it had to happen.'
Any further discussion was brought to an abrupt end by the sound of something banging hard against the corrugated roof above their heads. It sounded like metal on metal, which had Shilan springing to her feet in an instant, flicking the head torch back on and flooding the tiny room with brilliance. The noise clanged again; once, twice.
Stepping into the footholds she had kicked into the wooden walls a few days earlier, she gave the corner of the roof a hard shove, hoping that she would not see the jaws of a predator waiting for her. What she saw, happily, was the end of a rope ladder. The last metal rung was knocking against the roof, in time to the movement of a light wind.
'It's time to leave,' she told Pace quickly. Jumping down, she helped him to his feet and steadied him as he found his balance. Weak from infection and inaction, his legs would have collapsed beneath him if she had not held him underneath his armpits.
'What's the plan?'
'I don't know,' she admitted. 'Someone is dangling a rope ladder right on top of us. All I need to do is shove this roof clear a bit and we can be pulled up.'
Pace knew he was ill but he still could not understand why his ears were failing him so badly. There was no noise of a helicopter engine, which should have been roaring overhead but, then again, there was no rotor downblast either. He was confused.
Shilan had also noticed the same problems but focused all her efforts on saving their lives. She knew that the Yeti would not be very far away so they would have to move fast.
Pulling as hard as she could, she succeeded in dragging the roof away from the corner until there was just enough space for the ladder to drop through. Reaching up, she gripped the bottom rung firmly and tugged it down inside the hut. Whoever was controlling it from above played out some slack in response to her pulling.
'I can't climb so I will just have to hang on. You should go up first. Get to safety while you can.'
'I'm not leaving you again,' she vowed, 'so don't expect me to. I promised Sarah that I'd come back for you and keep you alive, if I could. Now,' she kissed him affectionately on his forehead, 'I think we should both climb aboard and see what happens next.'
'You sentimental fool,' he responded softly. 'Come on, let's go.'
Pace planted his feet on the bottom rung and intertwined his arms around the twin ropes, higher up. Shilan stepped up onto the rung above his feet, roughly putting their heads at the same height. She gripped a higher rung with both hands.
Almost immediately, with a jolt that almost threw them both clear, the rope ladder began to retract, far faster than they'd expected. Exploding through the small hole, scraping more skin off his back but hanging on tightly, Pace bore the brunt of the collision while Shilan popped through without a scratch.
Then they were careening wildly around in the dark, snow-filled air. A fine sleet was falling, although the wind remained fairly light. Sleet dropped all around them as the rope ladder spun crazily, lifting them with a sense of sudden urgency.
They were dangling about twenty feet above the roof when the Yeti arrived, growling and snarling, flinging themselves powerfully into the night sky in an attempt to prevent their prey escaping.
Their legs were so strong that the leaps carried them high into the air; well within grabbing distance with their huge arms. In their frenzied haste, however, the only thing that saved the humans hanging on for dear life to the rope ladder, was the creatures' poor timing. All three arrived below them simultaneously and all leaped at the flying ladder together. Two of them crashed into each other in mid-air leaving only one to come anywhere near them.
The claws, extended and lethal, missed the bottom rung by barely millimetres. Fortunately, this Yeti had sprung at them from the shaky footing of the corrugated roof, which limited the effectiveness of its jump. Then, it was gone, and the ladder continued to retract into the sky.
More determined to hang on than ever before, with the three monsters circling like hungry sharks below their spinning feet, Pace
took a moment to look up. What he saw flooded him with a mixture of realisation, hope and relief. Shilan shot her gaze upwards a moment later but her expression formed into one of puzzlement.
Pace recognised the huge circular habitat, hanging below a huge, doughnut-shaped gas envelope. He saw the rope ladder leading up to a fixed platform at the base of the habitat, where a hastily rigged winch had been bolted. Even in the snow and darkness, he caught glimpses of concerned, friendly faces peering down at them both over the side.
Sarah had not only brought the cavalry, he grinned, she had brought their home along too. With powerful motors set at points all around the circumference of the circular airship; all solar powered from special photovoltaic material stretched over the entire surface of the gas envelope, he knew it could be flown. He'd done it himself once before, albeit in the jungle. You simply tapped co-ordinates into the computer and it flew wherever you wanted it to. With a fully pressurised habitat disc and an operational ceiling that he knew went well above sixty thousand feet, he had almost forgotten it had been designed as a covert base. They simply used it as their home.
Sarah had not forgotten, nor had she failed to remember that the skin of the habitat and envelope, aside form draining energy from sunlight, was also coated with a highly secret film that deflected radar waves perfectly. She had gambled that, flying at maximum altitude, they would be able to cross as many national borders as they needed to without drawing any unwanted attention or, more importantly, any surface-to-air missiles.
As the rope ladder drew them closer to the platform, and the prowling beasts below were finally lost in the darkness, Pace's heart lurched. Leaning out dangerously over the lip of the platform, he was suddenly staring up into Sarah's face.
Then they were there. Several hands grasped his forearms and he was pulled up onto the platform in a single, painful movement. Shilan was next, stretching up her hands expectantly, her own sense of relief palpable.
But then, horrifically, a hand grasped her own at the same moment that her eyes locked upon the saviour leaning down to help her up. Mutual recognition was instant. Shilan and Deborah were trapped together in a frozen moment which neither had expected.
'You!' cried Deborah, shocked. Then she instantly let go of Shilan's hand, either by design or surprise. As Shilan began to fall, other hands managed to grab hold of her, hauling her up until she stood, on shaky legs, on the platform. Pace was sitting down nearby, with Sarah fawning over him, concern filling her expression and tears flooding down her cheeks as she saw just how badly injured he was.
'Throw her over the side!' snapped Deborah, suddenly furious. 'She's the one who did this to me!' Dramatically, Deborah lifted up the thick woollen jumper she wore, exposing the ugly scars of the surgery. 'Let them have her!'
Shocked and appalled, Thatcher, Stacey and Charlene stood frozen, as if deciding what to do.
'Nobody's throwing her anywhere,' commanded Pace, pulling himself to his feet, ignoring the terrible burning and tearing sensation in his stitches as he did so. 'She's with us now and you all need to understand a few things before you judge her.'
'James?' Sarah was incredulous. 'This is the doctor who cut out her womb?' Pace nodded, wiping tears from her face with a filthy hand. 'How can you defend her? How did she end up here? I don't understand.'
Sarah had not asked Shilan her name when they had spoken. With the phone battery already fading, they'd used every second to make their hurried plans.
'Give me five minutes,' interrupted Shilan. 'If you still want to throw me over the side after that, I'll understand.'
Sarah fixed her with a cold stare. 'Your story better be good. Don't think we won't feed you to those things otherwise.'
'Fair enough.'
In the end, it took fifteen minutes before her story was through; all relayed on the sleet-blown platform. An hour afterwards, Shilan, Thatcher, Deborah, Stacey and Charlene were all sitting in the habitat's lounge, drinking hot chocolate together, after Shilan had first made good use of the base's medical equipment to treat Pace's legs.
The awkward silence, broken only by the gentle sounds of slurping and blowing, allowed everyone time to reflect. Pace lay sedated shot full of morphine and penicillin, in his bed, watched over by a fretful Sarah.
As the habitat started lazily climbing up past the towering peaks, heading on a carefully programmed course that would bring it into Chinese airspace within a few hours; hopefully to retrieve Hammond, Rachel and Barbara, the occupants knew that this particular adventure had only just began. More questions remained unanswered than they cared to think about but they knew none of them would rest until all the pieces came together.
As soon as Pace was better, they would risk their very lives to finally unravel the mysteries of the Yeti, Chinese secret nuclear research, ARC involvement and the legend of the Blood Gurkha.
Leaving Bruk far below, and behind, the McEntire team licked their wounds and began to make plans.
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...continue the adventure now!
