by Greig Beck
The third team, his team, would approach the mill manager’s house where Sara Stenson resided. She’d be taken and then persuaded to sign the contracts. If needed, Carter’s severed head would be used as a little more incentive.
Tushino grinned as he gave out final orders. He’d love to be the one delivering the death stroke to Carter, but taking him alive was deemed too dangerous. However, it would be enough reward to be able to look into his cold, dead eyes.
The men busied themselves checking ammunition, explosives, and weaponry, and then stood ready.
Tushino nodded to the freezing forest. “Go.”
The group shouldered rifles and trekked off in amongst the trees. They’d march together for most of the way and then split up when they were a few hundred yards out. They all had GPS trackers and had plotted their routes well before they even boarded the trucks.
Tushino hoped his teams caught Carter Stenson out by himself. But he wondered whether the local Russians at the mill would be prepared to fight for him, and therefore die for him. He doubted it. At the setting of the sun, he was a foreigner, and they owed him nothing.
In another 20 minutes, the group split up—his team of eight would approach the mill compound from the rear and head directly to the large main mill manager’s house.
The other two eight-strong teams would surround the site and move into ambush positions. Their orders were simple: no negotiation, no taking hostages, but shoot to kill. They were to take no chances.
Tushino grinned at the thought of being able to slap the signed contracts down on Gennardy Zyuganov’s large oak table—deal done, he would say.
The great ogre would grunt, but nod, acknowledging that Tushino got the job done. Maybe he’d get a promotion; maybe he’d become Zyuganov’s right-hand man in Moscow. The opportunities and rewards were near limitless.
In another few seconds, Tushino began to smell wood smoke drifting through the forest. Bulukov, his team leader, started to go into a crouching walk and half-turned to wave the men to quietness—they were getting near.
It took them another 10 minutes to get to the high tree line at the rear of the compound. Tushino straightened behind a trunk and looked down on the encampment.
He’d been here before, but now the entire scene was coated in white. Snow was thick on the ground and building roofs and the freezing temperatures kept it in a powdery form—except where it was trodden into furrows back and forth between buildings and also the huge warehouse-sized mill house at the lakefront.
In the darkness, the lake itself was now an endless plain of nothingness, and without seeing where the wharf ended, it would have been impossible to know where the land ended and the mighty iced-over lake began.
Bulukov came in close to him after doing a quick reconnoiter and pointed to the largest house closest to them. The other men crowded around.
“Manager’s house. No rear door, front only; lower ground windows on all sides, not shuttered. But no sign it is occupied right now.”
Tushino nodded. “She must be in there somewhere.” The front door could be seen from the compound, so the windows it was. “We break into three groups and enter via back and both side windows all at once—there will be nowhere to go.” He checked his watch. “Our other teams should nearly be in position. We enter in… 20 minutes, from… now.”
“Mark,” Bulukov said and calibrated his own watch. The other men did the same. He split them up into three-three-two teams, circled a finger in the air, and then the three groups began to creep through the heavy snow.
With minutes to spare, they were at the windows and each one was easily opened by sliding the blade of a knife in to open the latch. They waited, counting down the seconds. They needed to time it right, and go in fast. An open window in winter dropped the temperature in a house in seconds and was an immediate telltale of an intrusion.
Tushino waited at the tree line with a small pair of binoculars to his eyes. He would follow a few seconds after they breached the house. He expected to be let in the front door —he couldn’t wait to witness the look on the American bitch’s face when he walked in.
He saw his teams in place and took a quick glance around the compound. The heavy trees ringing the huge compound grounds gave no indication of where his other two teams were, but he knew that there were over a dozen men lying in ambush and waiting for Carter Stenson to make an appearance.
He grinned and checked his watch—seconds to go. So far, everything was going to plan.
“Wait.” Bulukov’s word froze Tushino and the teams. “Someone’s coming… yes, the woman.”
Tushino’s grin split his face. “Perfect,” he breathed out.
****
Igor Stavros, leader of Tushino’s left-flank team, moved his group along the tree line, maneuvering them into place. He had just minutes until he was to be ready.
He would place his best shooters out in front, and as soon as the American was spotted, they were to take him down—headshots preferable, but as long as he went to the ground, then the killing shot could come later. The only stipulation was not to obliterate the face.
He lifted his own gun, bringing the scope to his eye, and ran it along the far line of trees—he could just make out the other team in behind their own set of snow-patterned trunks. He grinned, his white teeth showing behind the bushy, black mustache. He was going to enjoy this.
Stavros then moved his perspective to the house and saw the third team’s men at the side windows and knew they would also be around the back. All was good, and all teams were in place.
“Hey.”
Stavros frowned and turned at the call from one of his group.
“Look.”
He followed where his man was pointing and could make out the solitary figure standing in the snow, watching them—naked.
CHAPTER 41
Anna went in through the door to the mill house’s large entry area where the cage was set up. The group crowded around the video feed screen, watching so they could zoom in and out. All except Sara and Carter, who stayed at the door, observing her through the glass panel set into it.
“This is a mistake,” Sara whispered.
“Yep.” Carter had his gun in his hand and stared into the room with such intensity his head ached. The blacklights illuminated the thing to make it seem a phosphorescent apparition, and its horrifying physical characteristics weren’t softened by the ghostly halo.
He remembered what Mikhail had said about it being so different to them that it may never be possible to communicate. He thought that about it as well. Carter had fought adversaries that thought different than him. He had looked different and his values, customs, and language were strange and unusual, and in some cases repugnant, to other peoples of the world. But they were still people.
So what of a truly alien species? It might not even recognize us as thinking entities. Humans never gave a second thought to the ants on the pavement, or worried about the deep thoughts of barnyard hens.
Mikhail came and joined them, sharing the window. Carter turned to him. The older scientist nodded.
“I know, I know, you both disagree with me letting her in there.”
“No, it’s not your fault.” Sara continued to watch the room. “If we really wanted to stop her, we could have.”
Carter’s lips pressed into a line for a moment. “So what do you think?”
The Russian scientist shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. But in a few minutes, we will know more. And Anna is being very brave; scientists like her who are prepared to take mortal risks advance human knowledge. I admire her.”
Carter just grunted.
“Look,” Sara urged.
As Anna entered the room, the being moved unnaturally fast back into the belly of the wolf. The skin flaps on the stomach closed and the animal seemed to reinflate. The wolf’s head then swung toward her. The eyes that were like milk now had a slight darkening behind them.
“It’s using the eyes,” Mikha
il said. “Its own eye stalks must travel up into the animal’s cranium.”
“Biological periscopes,” Carter said softly and felt his stomach roil at the thought.
Anna dropped her pillow onto the ground about five feet from the cage and sat down cross-legged on its center.
“Anna.” She pointed at her chest. “I’m called Anna.”
She placed her bags and other items beside her, and first drew out a small whiteboard and pen. She drew a shape and turned it around. Carter opened the door a crack so they could hear.
“Square,” she said.
She then erased it and drew a circle, and repeated the show and naming. She then drew some simple mathematics symbols and calculations. The opaque eyes of the wolf stared and it remained as still as a statue.
Anna then pulled out a flashlight and began to flash it into the wolf’s eyes. So far, there was no sign that anything was registering. She brought out a small radio, turned it to a Russian music channel, and played something with lyrical guitar solos. Once again, the wolf only stared.
Carter sighed. “For all we know, the thing is deaf.”
Mikhail nodded. “For all we know, it has senses that we cannot even imagine.” He looked at Carter. “For all we know, it sees in four dimensions, or in some spectrum we can’t even envisage. Or perhaps it is simply pulling the thoughts from her mind.”
“Better not do that with me; it won’t like what it sees.” Carter turned back to the small window.
Anna stopped for a moment and grabbed her crossed legs with her hands and just stared back. Carter could hear her talking softly but couldn’t make out the words. The wolf seemed to sit back, and then almost imperceptibly at first, the skin flaps of its stomach opened and the creature eased out. It was just by a few inches at first, and then a few of the long spindly legs came, followed by its soft but segmented body.
“Oh my God, she did it,” Sara breathed out.
“This is extraordinary.” Mikhail quickly turned. “Stefan, are we…?”
The young man nodded. “Recording, yes.”
“Phew.” Mikhail turned back to the window. “They’ll be analyzing this film for generations.”
“Depends on what comes next,” Carter said softly. “Hey.”
“What?” Mikhail turned.
Carter nodded to the room. “Something else is happening.”
The pair of men stared. The thing was fully outside of the wolf whose body once again collapsed like an empty sack. Now, its size could be properly judged as it approached the bars closest to Anna. It was roughly two and a half feet in length and two feet high, although most of that height was the long legs, about six on each side, and stilt-like with multiple joints.
The body reminded Carter of a long, pale, loaf of bread and there were definite segments, but the way it moved didn’t give off an impression of a shell or carapace, more like softened leather, like that of a spider.
The two eyes on long, thread-like stalks were never still. One remained trained on Anna, while the other turned one way then the other, constantly on the lookout, maybe for ambush attacks… or an opening to escape.
“What’s it doing?” Carter asked.
The creature moved back and forth in front of Anna, as though pacing. Its eyes never left her, as she turned her head, following it.
“I don’t know.” Mikhail’s brow furrowed, but then his eyebrows rose. “Unless… unless it’s watching her watch it.”
“Maybe it’s surprised that Anna can even see it.” Sara turned to Carter.
“You might be right; maybe its invisibility was one of its defenses, now stripped away,” Carter said.
“It might not like being seen,” Mikhail responded.
“Good; it’s worthwhile showing them that we have the technology to even things up —we’re not just another dumb creature that makes up part of their clothing inventory.”
The creature then paced around the entire outside of the cage, even around behind the wolf. It stopped from time to time to survey the surroundings beyond the cage. It then slowly came back to Anna and became motionless.
From the front end, what Carter assumed was the face, and from in between the bloom of writhing, tiny tentacles, extended a long, flat thread. It snaked toward Anna.
Carter began to open the door, but Mikhail put his hand on his arm. “Wait.”
The thread extended further but reached toward Anna’s writing pad. It stopped and hung in the air several feet short. It tried again from a different angle but again found the pad and pen too far from its reach.
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Carter shook his head.
“It wants the writing equipment.” Mikhail grinned and clasped his fingers together as if shaking his own hands in congratulations. “She’s done it; it understands and wants to talk to her.”
Anna turned to them, her brows up as if asking the question. Mikhail didn’t hesitate and nodded, making hand-it-over gestures.
Anna picked up the pad and when the thing was at the closest point to her, she held it out. The creature stopped.
There was an instant when the small woman was sitting before the strange being, and it had frozen with both its bulbous eyes on the swaying stalks now fixed on her. Eyes met eyes and the human and alien creature seemed to share a moment that even Carter found astounding.
Anna smiled and spoke softly to it. It seemed to crane forward and the long, flat, ribbon-like tongue gently eased out about two feet, but still wasn’t close enough, and it withdrew.
Ann left her pillow and got up on her knees to crawl forward a little more and held it out again, this time only a few feet from the bars of the cage.
“Come on, here it is, take it,” she said softly through her smile. “Talk to us…”
The ribbon-like tongue shot out and curled around her wrist. Anna screamed, and Mikhail yelled something in Russian. The woman’s eyes were wide and she looked like she was receiving an electric shock as the thing braced its spindly legs.
She began to be reeled in; it should have been impossible, as even though Anna was a small woman, she still undoubtedly outweighed the creature by more than two to one. But slowly and surely, she was being pulled closer.
The room full of people behind Carter erupted in yells and horror.
“Fuck it.” Carter dragged the door open and brought up his gun. The creature let Anna go, but the tongue shot out faster and longer than anyone expected. This time, it didn’t strike at Anna, but at the blacklights, smashing each one with lightning speed.
With the lights out, the creature vanished beyond their visual spectrum. Then to Carter’s horror, the single bar the thing had been investigating earlier fell outwards with a crash.
“It’s fucking out,” he yelled with his gun up.
Mikhail yelled for the portable UV lights, and Nikolay responded, lifting one of the small handhelds and running into the room. Mitch and Red, who also had their guns up, and Yuri, who held a crowbar, quickly followed him. Stefan waited at the open door, watching nervously. Sara stood just behind him.
Nikolay held up the light and for one brief moment, the thing was illuminated, out and standing right beside Anna. But before Carter or Mitch could get a single round off, it went for Nikolay and smashed his portable blacklight.
“Shut the door,” Carter yelled… too late.
As Stefan blinked and hesitated for just a few valuable seconds, the young man’s eyes widened as a red line went from his groin to his left shoulder. Then he simply fell in half.
The creature’s tongue was obviously used for more than grasping things as Stefan was surgically cut from between his legs to just beside his neck. Blood splashed as his body opened like a flower and then collapsed on either side of the doorway… wedging it open.
“Fuck!” Carter yelled and rose, leaving Anna with Mikhail and Nikolay as he raced to the open doorway. “Sara!” he yelled.
Sara stood with her hands over her face, drenched in Stefan’s blood. Carter gra
bbed her and she lowered her hands.
“It killed him,” she said softly and looked down at Stefan’s mutilated body. Her jaw set. “Get it.”
Carter nodded once, and he and Mitch went after it.
Yuri and Red went to follow but Carter yelled over his shoulder for the pair to stay on guard with the scientists.
“Blacklight.” Mikhail got to his feet.
“Bring it,” Carter said as he and Mitch were already outside the door.
CHAPTER 42
The thing was easy to track, as there were bloody, skittering, knitting needle-like prints leading down the corridor, but so far, the main cargo entrance chamber doors to outside remained closed.
“It’s still in here,” Mitch said, swinging the barrel of his gun one way then the other.
“Yep.” Carter crab-walked toward the external doors, planning on putting himself between them and the outside. The tiny blood tracks had vanished, and Carter wished he had body armor.
Mikhail came to the door and held up the handheld blacklight, and both ex-Special Forces soldiers moved to have their backs to the walls, holding their guns on the expanse of the room, ready to take a shot.
After a moment of Mikhail waving it around, there was no sign, and both men became aware of how fast the temperature was dropping in the outer room. Then Carter looked up and saw why.
“Stand easy. Look.” He nodded to the roof. “It’s out.”
There was a small, skylight-type window high above them that was now broken.
“Sonofabitch. So it can climb as well,” Mitch said. “Or maybe it can fly like I said ages ago.” He turned to glare at Mikhail. “Finished communicating with that fucker yet?”
Mikhail lowered the light. “It outsmarted us. It got out of the cage and past all of us.”
“No shit. This thing is no dumb animal. To it, we’re the dumb animals.” Carter sighed and lowered his gun. “And now we know how it opens up its victims. It performs a little do-it-yourself surgery with a built-in scalpel.”
Mikhail reached to switch off the blacklight.
