Operation: Sahara

by William Meikle

  Davies had a love-hate relationship with dark nights. They had been few and far between in his youth, when neon lit the tower blocks and street lighting ruled the city. He actively had to seek out pockets of shadow to hide himself away from his tormentors, of which there had been several. Once he got older, he grew to appreciate the solitude and peace to be found under a blanket of stars but out here in a desert night he felt more like the scared kid from Easterhouse than any searcher of serenity, and he hated it for reminding him.

  Back then he'd have been tucked away in a dark corner, listening for pursuit. His ears still served him as well as they did then and although most wouldn't have taken note of it, Davies knew that a tumble of sand and gravel behind him meant trouble. He turned and aimed his weapon down the slope, controlling a desperate urge to let off a few rounds. More sand and gravel moved, accompanied by a soft scraping, almost like metal on rock, no more than ten yards away.

  He peered into the shadows, trying to discern any moving patches of deeper darkness, looking for a man-shaped target, but all he saw were the squat, rounded forms of the scattered rocks. The next time the scraping sound came he had to swivel to his left to be facing it, but there was still no discernible target, although there was now a definite tang of vinegar in the air.

  He let out two soft whistles to signal Wiggo, the next man above him, that there was trouble. The sergeant was at his back only seconds later.

  "There's something here, Sarge," he whispered. "I think we're being followed."

  "Let's light him up, give him something to think about," Wiggo said. "Lights on in three… one, two…"

  The pair of them switched on their gun lights, both aiming at almost the same spot. All they lit up was what looked like a smooth black domed boulder more than six feet in length and three in height. Before they could take a shot, the boulder grew short stocky legs and scurried away, moving at speed into the deeper shadows leaving behind a spatter of loose sand and the scraping, almost metallic sound.

  "Rocks that can run away? Will wonders never fucking cease?" Wiggo said. "You go on ahead of me, lad, I'll watch your back."

  As Davies turned back to the hill the high droning sound returned, coming from the direction in which the 'rock' had scurried. It was answered by a chorus of drones from above, then once again the night fell silent.

  Even with Wiggo behind and below him Davies felt the darkness at his back, pressing on his shoulders, an almost physical weight. Some neon and street lighting would suit him just fine about now.

  They climbed with no further incident for several more hours. The thin cloud dispersed and the sky filled with twinkling light, enough to show them the trail and to cast deeper shadows in the clefts and fissures around them. Davies looked up; they were almost at the mouth of a huge ravine that towered high above, about twenty minutes more climbing at a guess. He looked forward to some respite. All of them were breathing heavily, and their pace had slowed considerably from earlier. Davies knew he had a couple of hours left in the tank but after that he'd be fit for nothing until they had some down time to recuperate. He could only hope that whatever was tracking them would allow them that luxury.

  Twenty minutes later his guess was proved right when the captain brought them to a halt where the track widened and a vast ravine opened up before them. Higher up was still cast deep in shadow, but Davies got the impression of regular shapes, straight lines and high towers.

  "We're nearly there," the captain said. "I believe that's our 'white city' ahead… a bit further than it looks, maybe half an hour more. There're no lights I can see, no sign of a camp, but if it is indeed a city, they might be inside a building somewhere. We all know we're not alone on this hill, but whatever's on our tail, they're as wary of us as we are of them."

  "I wouldnae bet my shirt on that, Cap," Wiggo said.

  "Nor me," the captain admitted. "But we've got this far without a firefight. Let's hope we can keep it that way."

  He allowed them a smoke break. Davies joined Wilkins to stand on the ledge and look back out over the desert. Far off to the east the sky had started to lighten to signal dawn's approach. That was still an hour or more away, but it looked like the captain had got his sums right; they would be entering the lost city with the coming of dawn at their back.

  Half an hour later the first true rays of dawn struck the crescent outer wall of a huge city. The wall stretched across forty yards of the valley floor and was half as high as that again, with only a single high arched passage, a near twenty-foot high semi-circle, as entry. Behind that sat a city of high turrets and crenulated balconies that marched away up the canyon, the turrets gaining height until the tallest of them were level with the highest walls at the top of the canyon which Davies estimated to be another thousand feet or so above. It reminded Davies of some of the fantasy cities in modern movies, and although he knew, historically, it shouldn't be here, it nonetheless also looked perfectly natural in its setting, as if it had always belonged there.

  It was built of blocks ten, twelve feet or more square, aligned so seamlessly it was difficult to see where they were joined. The outer surface of the crescent wall was covered, ground to as high as they could see, with fine miniature carvings that at first glance seemed to depict scenes of battles of antiquity although whether they might be Roman, Greek or even older was beyond Davies' education to determine. The whole thing gave an impression of solidity, of ages past that had been endured and survived. It also, to Davies at least, gave off a feeling of emptiness like an immense, perfectly preserved mausoleum. His gut told him that there was nobody alive here for them to find.

  The captain led them across the open valley in front of the great wall, a flat, featureless plain that looked to have been purposefully flattened and levelled in some distant past. Davies saw more of the scratches and grooves here, a great many of them. He looked for a blood trail or any evidence that the people from the encampment from the oasis had been brought this way, but there was only bare rock and sand.

  They stopped just inside the wide entranceway. Daylight hadn't yet reached the city beyond which still lay in darkness and shadow. The entranceway was an arch set into the wall and was more than twelve feet thick.

  "We're all knackered," the captain said. "So let's rest up here for an hour before heading into the city. If anybody was waiting for rescue, they'd be watching and they'd have seen us coming; I think we're alone here. But we need rest before we start exploring. Wiggo, you watch the valley side, I'll watch the city side, Wilkins and Davies, get a brew on, I'm parched."

  Making a pot of coffee did a lot to ground Davies back in reality, something he realized he was sorely in need of after the climb in the dark to this lost city of an ancient race.

  It's just like Wiggo said. Indiana Jones shite. All we're missing is a bunch of Nazis.

  He was getting the stove set up when he noticed several copper-colored things in the sand at his feet. He bent, brushed some dirt aside, and then realized what it was he was looking at. And once he'd spotted one of them, he looked around and saw that the whole area was covered in them.

  "Sarge?" he said, calling Wiggo over. "Are these what I think they are?" He took a handful in his palm to show them. "They're spent British .303 rifle cartridges, aren't they? From the old Lee Enfields? Boer War vintage or thereabouts?"

  "Aye," Wiggo said after a long look. "It looks like the Cap's Victorian squad story is true enough. They were here, and got into a firefight too by the looks of things. But what the hell were they shooting at?"

  "I'm guessing we'll find out soon enough," the captain said from Davies' other side. "Let's not go looking for more trouble than we can afford. How's that coffee coming along?"

  After coffee and a smoke Davies felt almost rested and ready. The captain seemed to agree.

  "Okay, lads. Let's find our lost lambs if we can. Stay close and stay alert, we don't yet know what we might be up against here."

  -Banks-

  Banks led the squad alo
ng the short corridor and inside the entranceway to the city itself. More scratches and gouges covered all the ground he could see in the dim light.

  Ancient sconces hung on the walls, but they wouldn't need them; the sun was at their backs now, and providing more than enough illumination to show the entrance to a wide left-hand corridor; Banks remembered the Victorian tale and led them through. As he expected, it opened out into some kind of temple, a large hall with a high vaulted rock roof curving far overhead supported by twin rows of giant columns that stretched back against the cliff, narrowing where the box canyon into which it was built came to a point.

  At the far end some thirty yards and more away, stood a tall, monstrous statue of a giant beetle. It was carved of a single slab of black stone that seemed to swallow all light but it was what was laid out beneath it that got Banks' attention.

  They had found their lost lambs, and more besides by the look of it.

  A score of bodies, or what was left of them, lay at the statue's base, laid out in what appeared to be ritualistic fashion, their rib cages burst open and spread, their insides hollowed out and organs removed. Where clothing could be determined, those nearest the door were in modern dress, those nearest the statue wore faded red serge tunics and the remnants of kilts. Banks counted the more recent ones; there were ten, no more, no less.

  There was nobody alive here to be rescued.

  Banks forced himself to undertake the gruesome task of an inspection of the bodies. The ones clad in the red serge were obviously the mortal remains of the Victorian squad. The more recent could only be the people he'd been sent to look for. From the state of the corpses, they'd all been dead for some time; any blood spilled was long since congealed and dry and the bodies were starting to take on the desiccated look of corpses left out in the sert air.

  "What the fuck happened here, Cap?" Wiggo said at his side.

  Banks didn't answer at first. He stood away from the dead and looked around the chamber. Off to his left, at the foot of a long flight of stone steps, lay a tumbled mound of discarded clothing, rucksacks, satchels, cameras and laptops, all mingled with rusted Lee-Enfield rifles, British Army issue sabers, empty ammunition boxes and a forlorn set of broken bagpipes.

  "Put one of the lads on guard at the door. The rest of us will sift through the pile. Maybe there's something in that lot that'll tell us."

  A search through the pile did not yield much that they did not already know; the research team had obviously split into two groups, six had come here, four stayed at the oasis but, by some means as yet unknown, all ten had ended up eviscerated and laid out in front of the black stone idol. Banks set Wiggins to work on the laptops and cameras in the hope of more info then Wiggo and he turned their attention to the remnants of the Victorian squad's expedition. There was not a lot left to show of them; old bones, used cartridges and rusted weapons. Somehow the bagpipes were the worst, broken and discarded, the airbag rotted in the desert air, a symbol of everything that had gone wrong for them.

  "And yet," Banks said softly, "somebody got away."

  "How do you make that out, Cap?" Wiggo said.

  "Yon old journal entries we found. Somebody wrote them, and they weren't found here, were they? The camel came from the oasis group, not the group that came up into the hills; you'd never get yon beast up that track we climbed in the night."

  "So how come the story's news to us? Surely, kenning auld sodgers, somebody would have passed it on over a drink? It would have made it into legend."

  "Not unless the man who wrote it never intended for it to be read," Banks said.

  Their search through the detritus of old lives was interrupted by a shout from Wilkins.

  "I might have something here, Sarge."

  They walked over to where the private was crouched over one of the laptops. The casing was battered and cracked but the screen had remained intact and Wilkins had got it working. He showed them a series of photographs; the most recent showed a grinning team of six standing in front of the main entrance gate to the city.

  "There's a couple of emails back and forward to the oasis camp too," Wilkins said. "The latest is nearly a week ago. After that, nowt from either end."

  "No Mayday calls from either?"

  "Nope. Zilch."

  "Anything else?"

  "Only this," Wilkins said. "It looks like a scanned version of that journal you were telling us about. And you'll want to read the rest of it. I had a quick fly through it. It's relevant."

  Wilkins showed Banks how the document reader's page up and down function worked and left him and Wiggo to read while he joined Davies in the doorway.

  Banks found the point where the earlier pages had stopped and went on from there. Soon, both he and Wiggo were lost, captured in the old soldier's tale.

  -THEN-

  I peered up to the steps behind the statue, it seemed that I felt fresher air in my face as I did so, but the sound wasn't coming from there, it was coming from outside, out in the valley. And it was most definitely getting louder.

  Benson and Hynd had started shooting before I reached the archway. I saw what they were firing at as I reached their position.

  Their target was as black as that statue inside, not quite as large, being only eight feet from tail to pincers, but it was the biggest bloody beetle I ever hoped to see. And it seemed to be very much alive. Moonlight glinted off one pincer that looked as sharp as any razor as it came forward across the valley floor, heading straight for the temple entrance.

  "Well don't just stand there, lads," I said to Benson and Hynd. "Shoot the bloody thing again."

  Hynd fired, his shot ricocheted off the carapace and left no sign of a wound, and the oncoming beetle did not slow.

  "What do you think we've been trying to do, Sarge?" Benson replied, firing another shot that did nothing to stop the approaching beast. By this time the rest of the squad had arrived in the archway entrance. I didn't even have to give the order, they lined up and sent shot after shot at the beetle which finally faltered under the onslaught after two of its front legs were blown out from under it. It collapsed in the dirt, still not dead until I ordered one last volley put into it for good measure. Finally it stopped twitching. In the dark it looked like no more than just another large rock on the ground.

  The valley echoed with the shots then fell still and quiet, but not for long. The whine I'd heard earlier, the one that had alerted me to trouble in the first place, started up again, a drone that came from everywhere and nowhere at once, filling the night air with a hum that seemed to set my very bones vibrating inside me.

  "What the hell is this shite, Sarge?" Mac said beside me.

  "I don't know, lad," I replied. "But get back inside the passage, no sense in making ourselves any bigger targets than we need to."

  The squad complied, and just in time as the rocks on the verges of the valley floor started to rise up and creep forward, not rocks at all, but more of the huge black beetles, a great many more, scores of them, all coming our way.

  We used the tables from inside the temple as makeshift barricades, getting them up just in time as the valley floor filled up with crawling beetles, varying in size from little more than a foot across to monsters more than ten feet in length and as tall as a man at the height of their domed shells. At first they scarcely seemed interested in us at all. They fed on the one we'd just killed, stripping it to pieces in seconds. When I saw how expertly a large beetle sliced the dead one open with its pincers, I knew exactly what had happened to poor Jennings, and I remembered.

  We had found his body inside the temple.

  There might be more of these things at our back.

  I sent Hynd and Benson to keep an eye on the inside and give them a chance of a break and a smoke while the rest of us lined up against the makeshift barricade. Several of the men needed fresh ammo; I sent Mac to fetch a box from the donkey.

  That was all it took. Mac went over toward the beast, the donkey brayed in response, the sound ca
rrying clear across the valley floor, and every one of the beetles outside suddenly took note of our presence. The humming drone rose to a higher pitched whine and now that we were close enough I saw that it was caused by the beasts rubbing their back legs together so fast that they seemed little more than a blur. The sound was eerily spectral, the only thing I had heard that was remotely similar was a wolf pack in the Afghan hills, but this was worse, it felt unnatural, against any law of nature with which I was familiar, setting my teeth on edge and bone of my skull to buzzing.

  I had little time to dwell on it however. I was still checking my revolver to ensure I was fully loaded when the beasts attacked our defenses. Fortunately, the squad remembered their drills and waited for my order. I let the beasts approach to some thirty yards distance, then gave the command.

  "Aim for the legs. Open fire."

  The first volley didn't stop them all, but enough went down to cause a feeding frenzy among the rest as they quickly forgot about us at the sudden availability of something else to eat. A second volley added more carnage to their feast. But I saw little sense in continually feeding what was, after all, our enemy. I ordered the squad to stop firing, the two volleys had already filled the air with the tang of powder and smoke, and my ears rang for long seconds afterward but when things cleared, I still heard the drone, the high whine of the beetles. And although we had indeed felled a dozen or more of their kind, the valley floor still swarmed with them.

  But for the moment at least, they seemed to have lost all interest in us again, being fully intent on dismembering and devouring their kith and kin.

  "What the bloody hell are those things, Sarge?" Mac asked. He'd already put down his rifle and was lighting up a smoke. I hadn't ordered a stand down, then again, neither had the lieutenant, and it was his job more than mine. I looked around for the officer; he hadn't fired a shot, but was standing, some yards back in the corridor near the donkey and was clearly in a blue funk.