Project - 16 (15 page)

“
Has anyone ever told you you're mighty annoying in a
morning?”

“
No.”

“
You are.”

“
Thanks.”

An hour later and we were moving again, heading on towards
the first of the bunkers and we were making good time. The morning
broke into a glorious display of reds, golds and blues as it began
to take shape in the sky. We marched on until noon, stopping only
to drink and eat a little before carrying on, hoping to reach the
bunker in time to investigate it. I didn't believe it would be the
one and we'd be that lucky, but I wanted to feel like we were
making some kind of progress.

Evening came and we found ourselves laying up for the night,
short by about eight miles or so with little point in carrying on.
The light had failed us and we settled in for another cold nights
sleep. Riley attempted to argue me out of the hammock but I was
having none of it.

“
Come on,” she pleaded. “Just let me have it for one
night.”

“
Nope,” I replied.

“
Fucking bastard.”

I laughed until she retreated inside her tent with her
headlamp still on, choosing to read rather than rush to sleep. We'd
chosen not to have a fire and instead used the stoves and Riley had
a pot of water on the boil for a cup of tea. When it was bubbling
away she slunk back out up to her waist, poured the water and
pulled herself back inside without saying a word.

“
Man, it's so warm in here I'm sweating,” she said.
“NOT.”

In the morning I got up a bit earlier and set her stove
boiling. She was snoring softly and I made a cup of coffee from
some grounds I had in my pack, making it the US way and tapping on
her tent door when it was ready. She woke up with a start, pulled
on the zip and stuck her head out. She was wearing her woolly hat
and scarf with just her eyes and nose visible.

“
Yes?” she said. “May I help you?”

“
Coffee.”

“
Thanks.” She took the cup and went back inside. “You're not
forgiven, you know?”

“
I know.”

“
Lying there in your fucking hammock like a King while your
subjects freeze to death.”

“
You sound pretty alive to me,” I said.

“
Barely.”

I began packing up my rig and made myself a cup whilst I
waited for her to get out of her frozen cocoon. The mornings were
getting cold now, really cold and I hoped we'd avoid the snow. The
last few winters had been a nightmare with some of the worst snow
storms I'd seen in my life. If we were to face the same, or even
worse this year then our mission might be over before it started.
We couldn't stay out in freezing temperatures for any length of
time, not with the kit we were carrying and it looked like Riley
wasn't happy with British weather as it stood.

Eventually we were on our way again and after a couple of
hours we arrived at a fenced off piece of land hidden away on the
other side of a reservoir that we'd had to circle around. It'd be
the only bunker that hadn't been constructed near any built-up area
given that it was the oldest one - the others having been hastily
thrown up towards the end of the Syrian conflict and just before
the Panic.

“
It looks abandoned,” said Riley. “I'll run up that hill there
and take a closer look. You might as well wait here.”

“
Will do,” I replied, setting my pack down. She left hers
there and took her digital binoculars from the side pouch where she
kept them. Then she jogged up to the top of a steep rise to the
west and disappeared into the woodland.

The place did in fact look empty and the galvanised
chain-link fence appeared untouched. The front gate was still
padlocked and hadn't been tampered with. The ground in front of it
was thick with growth that hadn't been trampled by man or vehicle
for a long time. All in all the chances of this place being the one
were looking pretty slim.

I crouched down and began searching the area, looking for
anything that might give me a clue either way. I found nothing, no
bent grass blades, no footprints other than my own, nothing. I
examined the lock and it was rusted shut and hadn't been moved for
years.

“
Nothing,” said Riley as she found me. “Not a damn thing.
Anything at your end?”

“
Nope. This lock is fine, the fence looks untouched and
nothing has been on this road for a long while.”

“
Might be best to look inside anyway,” she suggested. “Who
knows?”

“
I suppose we can, but not for too long. If the NSU just
happen to be playing the same game they might just stumble on us in
there.”

“
True enough.” She put the binoculars away and searched in her
pack, producing two small boxes which she opened in front of me.
“Radios.”

“
Will they work in there?” I asked.

“
They should do. Probably best if you go in whilst I settle up
there and keep an eye on things. What do you think?”

“
I think I got the shitty end of the stick,” I
protested.

“
Well, I could go in but if the NSU show up what are you going
to do? They aren't deer.”

I thought about it for a moment. “That's a fair point. Okay,
your plan will do.”

“
Good. Keep in touch. I'll be up there with the
rifle.”

With that she began working on the padlock with some tools,
twisting it, spraying it and eventually cracking it open with a
quick, sharp squeal. I opened the gate and she closed it behind me,
replacing the lock but not engaging it.

“
Just in case,” she said. “Good luck.”

There was about a half-mile's walk to the concrete entrance
of the bunker and on either side of the broken tarmac road were
stone huts and class rooms which must have been part of the
original purpose of the compound. I walked slowly, scanning the
ground and looking for any sign that wasn't my own. There were a
few small animal tracks, some droppings, but nothing out of the
ordinary for a place this old. The air was thick with a musty,
earthy smell and as I got nearer to some of the crumbling buildings
I noticed old papers and wrappings that had blown around,
eventually becoming trapped between gutters and railings. Some were
over thirty years old.

“
Can you hear me okay?” came Riley's voice over the radio. It
was quite clear and had very little interference in it.

“
Yeah, I hear you,” I replied, carrying on towards the main
complex that was sign posted with fading plastic notices bolted to
the walls here and there.

“
Anything?” she asked.

“
Nothing. Just signs of animals, nothing serious. I think
we're wasting our time.”

“
Probably,” she replied. “You never know, you might find some
loot.”

“
Yeah, that would be swell.”

I examined the steel doors mounted on the outside of a
sloping grey concrete building no bigger than any of the classrooms
I'd seen. It's importance was glaringly obvious though - the doors
were marked with top-level clearance-only signs and the card reader
still glowed with power.

“
The doors are still active,” I said, rather puzzled. “I
thought they'd have long since run down by now.”

“
Some of them are meant to last for fifty years or so,” said
Riley. “Some run on solar.”

The lights coming from the card reader were all green and so
I tried the door, pressing the main switch. There was a whirring
somewhere behind it, then a grinding noise as the two doors parted
in the middle. I instinctively took a step back, poised to defend
myself for reasons that were beyond me. What was I expecting to
come out?

“
Was that you?” she asked.

“
Yeah. The doors are working. I'm going inside.”

“
Be careful.”

I found my head torch and fitted it in place, turning it to
the brightest beam setting. I shone it down the long corridor that
seemed to go downwards slightly until it reached a room at the end.
I went in, but before going too far I found a large rock outside
and jammed it between the two doors in case it decided to close on
me.

The room at the end of the hallway was in fact an open lift,
fully lit and decorated with simple pastel colours that hadn't
faded nor lost any of their life. I stuck my head inside, noticing
that there was only one button to press.

“
There's a lift,” I said. “I'm taking it down. It looks to be
in working order.”

“
Okay, just keep me informed. It's all quiet out
here.”

I stepped into the lift and pressed the button. The doors
closed almost silently and there was a sudden drop downwards as the
little box lurched into life. A speaker above my head attempted to
play music but it came out as a squealing mess.

After a few moments the lift stopped. The doors opened and
another hallway, wider than the entrance, opened up before me and
overhead lights flickered into life. There was the smell of age and
dust and at once I noticed the stench of decay. It was clawing its
way to me as I stepped out of the lift and looked
around.

“
What do you see?” asked Riley.

“
Death,” I replied. “And it looks like he's clocking up some
serious overtime.”

Beyond the nice carpeted floors and behind a glass partition
were piles of the dead, strangely preserved perhaps by the lack of
air in the place, but dead none the less. They were all in a
twisted state of despair and the glass was scratched by the many
fingernails that had tried to claw their way through it to the
lift.

I dropped my pack into the elevator doorway to stop it
closing on me and walked slowly over to the wall of dead, taking in
each and every terror-etched face, every frozen scream of horror
and panic. The partition must have been some kind of defence, maybe
to lock in a contagion or something, or perhaps to keep one out.
Either way it'd doomed those trapped on the other side of it, say
fifty or so souls, all dead either from being crushed or from
suffocation. The air must have failed pretty quickly for some
reason, perhaps starting the panic in the first place.

“
What's happening, Miller?” she asked.

“
Not a lot,” I replied. I looked around for anything else of
interest but there was nothing. There was only a single control for
the glass partition and it was behind an emergency glass screen. I
was tempted to press it, to release the dead from their transparent
prison, but I didn't. There could have been some deadly virus
behind there and I would release it, no doubt killing myself and
Riley in the process. Or maybe not. Perhaps this had been done on
purpose. Murder. I'd never know now. “I'm coming back
up.”

I took the lift back to the surface and hurried to breathe in
some fresh air, closing both the lift door and the main steel doors
behind me. I walked towards the gates, sucking air into my lungs to
try and get the stench out of my nose but it wasn't for
moving.

I thought at first that Riley had come down to meet me at the
gate because there was a shape stood near the woodland a few
hundred yards from there. When I got nearer I realised that it
wasn't Riley at all. It was a man, tall and gaunt with a bald head
and he was carrying a rifle in the crook of his right
arm.

“
Riley, wait for me to contact you. I’ve got to check
something out,” I said.

“
What are you on about?”

“
Just trust me. Wait there.”

I began walking slowly towards the man who didn't so much as
move an inch until I was within talking distance. I turned off the
radio and put the earpiece in my pocket.

“
It's been a long time, brother,” said the man in broad
Russian.

“
You gave me a heart attack, Piotr,” I said in the same
tongue. “You could've been shot.”

“
By her? Pah, I doubt it. She's good, I'll give you that, but
blonde hair tends to stand out in the woods. Even here.”

I offered my hand and we shook, leaning forward to embrace.
Piotr was one of my Father's closest friends and we'd met often. He
was a tracker from the cold north of Russia and had often been
tasked with a similar job to ours - hunting and recovering missing
persons in England who'd fled from Russia, though in his case more
often than not they were escaped criminals. My Dad had helped him
in the past and they'd become good friends, exchanging advice and
tips and the occasional bottle of vodka.

“
How long has it been? Eight, maybe nine years?” I
asked.

“
Easily. NSU have had me scouring the taiga looking for an
escaped prisoner these last three years. They call this winter
here? Ha, try Siberia my friend.”

“
It's not cold enough yet,” I replied, glad to see a familiar
face. “We actually managed snow last year. It's a little weird
actually.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
The weather is changing, Piotr. I can't put my finger on it
but I’ve never seen such cold in this country before. You haven't
heard of anything going on, have you?”