Warhead (35 page)

Suddenly, without warning, the stones shifted again, this time in a deluge of dust, and his legs pulled free. There was a delicious momentary sensation of freedom, then Jam fell—and heard the suddenly accelerating rumble of the avalanche of rocks above him, raining down towards his tumbling body.

Jam cannoned into the slope in the complete darkness, pain crashing through him as he struck its surface. Curled up tight, he rolled down the slope with the crushed castle chasing him into the darkness—

I will be buried alive once more, he thought.

The stone slope was steep and jagged. Jam tumbled down it helplessly. Behind him, the avalanche roared in pursuit. Finally he struck a ledge and became airborne—uncurling, he stretched in flight, then cannoned into a wall and fell to the ground, stunned, mouth open and drooling blood and saliva, all breath hammered from his frame.

The roaring sound followed him. Jam waited for the castle to crush him and stamp out his life. But it never happened. There was no impact. And gradually the noise subsided and stone dust filled the air, choking Jam who covered his battered face with his arms in a feeble attempt to filter it out.

Rolling onto his armoured knees, he began to crawl until he was away from the immediate cloud of choking dust. He felt water pooled in a hollow beneath him. He sank to his belly and lay, body heaving as he lapped at the stale, strange-tasting water like a dog. Then he sank down, his face pressing into the slow-moving inch-deep stream, and closed his eyes. A sleep of exhaustion overcame him and it felt as if it would last a thousand years. But as he sank into oblivion he realised one thing: somewhere the stream would lead from under the mountain ... would lead
outside
and to freedom ...

let us () out

fucking () prisoners () make us free

make() us free

we see you () see you

we see your () pain () we take it

() take your pain

welcome us like mother and father and brood ()()() in mind allow us free we need free we cannot lie trapped () in world () bright world bright sky metal () taste metal taste water feel good feel need need to move need to live need to kill.

There came tiny clicks, like the scraping of cockroach chitin. Jam’s eyes opened in the darkness which slowly brightened to mere gloom. It had been five years, five long years—and yet the entombment seemed like only yesterday. A nightmare nestling in his skull and taking every opportunity to break free.

He breathed, moving fluidly to a seated position, and slowly became aware of the vibrations around him: the howl of engines, the thumping of rotors, the sound of voices in the cockpit. Jam looked to the right, triangular head gleaming black and oiled, slitted copper eyes glancing out over the mountains and the snow.

‘I am here,’ came the rumble of his alien ScorpNex voice.

Carter was half asleep, seated beside the burner. To one side he could hear Mongrel and The Priest discussing the location of the SP_1 Plot on the south-west coast of Greenland where they could pick up a fast boat—a Viper ZX—and head out into the North Atlantic to the Submarine Graveyard. He could see Roxi through his drooping eyelids, playing with Joe beside another burner which cast its eerie glow over them. Carter watched them for a while, feeling warm inside: Roxi and Joe had bonded fine, and this could only bode well for the future. If, indeed, any of them had a future ...

A cool breeze blew through the cavern. Carter glanced up and idly watched an enormous figure lumber in. He blinked, suddenly fully awake as the hackles rose on the back of his neck in a primal reaction. Then he stood and moved slowly across the rocky floor. He halted, a few feet away from Jam.

They stared at one another for a long time.

Around them came the clicks of weapons being cocked. Jam’s physical appearance did nothing to soothe the fears of the men and women present. He was Nex, through and through. But, worse, he looked—inevitably—like what he was: a ScorpNex—a deadly, violent rarity.

Sonia J was dressed now in fresh black combats and a thick grey jumper; her hair swept under a tight thermal hat but she was shivering. She stood beside Jam, her gaze moving over to Carter and her head tilting as she tried to read his stance.

‘How you doing, fucker?’ said Carter, eventually.

Jam gave a deep-throated chuckle and moved closer, body swaying, head dropping until it was only inches from Carter’s face. ‘I am not dead yet,’ he said.

Carter reached out, hand pausing for a moment in mid-air before gently descending to touch Jam’s thick black armoured skin. His fingers left tiny smears in the oiled surface as they moved down the side of his friend’s head and their gazes locked. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Sometimes, Carter. Sometimes. You look well.’

Carter withdrew his hand, and shuddered involuntarily. ‘I wish I could say the same for you. I ... I need to thank you. For that moment, in Austria, on the battlements.’

‘You would have done the same for me, if you could have,’ said Jam, his twisted voice thick with emotion.

Mongrel stumbled in, holding two huge mugs of steaming tea. He glanced around, then focused on Carter and the huge ScorpNex figure of Jam. Without breaking stride, without flinching, he marched up to them, handed Carter a mug, looked Jam up and down, then peered into the slitted copper eyes and said, ‘Welcome back, dickhead. We thought you’d never fucking arrive. You want a cuppa?’

Carter laughed then, and some unseen tension, some ghost of ancient violence was exorcised. Jam settled down onto the stone floor.

‘I will try my best to drink it,’ said Jam, his words slow and slurred. ‘After all your sweet tea is a legend throughout the ranks of Spiral. I believe one squaddie referred to it as the tar-shit of the devil?’

‘Yeah, yeah, well—you still have six sugars? Of course you do. I see your change into Nex monster not done anything for your fat fucking pot-belly.’

Jam stared at Mongrel’s own huge expanse of overhanging gut.
‘My
pot-belly?’ he growled.

Mongrel patted his own girth with a grin. ‘Hey, I just say you were fat—I not say nothing about my own wobbling stomach. Now, you want this tar-shit tea, or what?’

It was thirty minutes later. The Priest, and the Spiral and REBS members present, had all been briefed and were ready to set off from their hideout in the Scottish mountains.

‘And the Lord will guide us, my friends,’ intoned The Priest to his captive audience. ‘He will guide us in our search for the ultimate truth, for collective wisdom, and in the final triumphant bringing down of the infidels.’

Mongrel nudged Carter. ‘Is he on drugs, you think?’

‘He might be mad,’ said Carter, ‘but he gets the fucking job done, I’ll have to hand it to him. No other fucker could organise the DemolSquads and REBS in such a short time. He has, shall we say, a God-given talent.’

Five minutes later, Carter was kneeling on the ground beside his son, Joseph. The boy was hugging his father tightly, tears on his cheeks, and Carter looked up into the face of Roxi who stood only a few feet to one side, a gentle smile on her lips. ‘Roxi will look after you.’

‘I know,’ said Joe, his voice hardly more than a whisper. ‘Please be careful, daddy. The Nex are bad people. The Nex will try to shoot you! It frightens me.’

‘You just look after yourself—and I want you to do me a favour.’

‘Yes?’ Red-rimmed eyes stared into Carter’s own. The gaze melted his bitterness.

‘I want
you
to look after Roxi. I want you to make sure she comes to no harm. She is a very great friend of mine ... can you do this for me? Can you protect her?’

Joe puffed out his chest. ‘I will look after her,’ he said proudly, glancing over at the Spiral woman and smiling broadly. ‘Where will we go, Roxi? Shall we stay here?’

‘No, we will go somewhere warmer,’ said Roxi softly. She moved over and placed her hand against Joe’s soft hair. ‘Come on, up you get. Your father has a job to do.’

Joe nodded and stood up. Carter gave him one final kiss. Then he glanced at Roxi and a silent understanding passed between them.

Look after him if I don’t return.
It didn’t need to be spoken out loud.

Carter hoisted his pack, and with a grumbling Mongrel in tow moved towards the cavern’s exit. Jam, Sonia J, Baze and Oz had already departed, heading for the K-Labs and a meeting with the white-coats who had created EDEN.

‘Wait.’ Carter halted, just beside the entrance to the short tunnel. A freezing wind poured in, filled with needles of ice. Carter turned as Roxi fell into his arms and looked up into his eyes.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ groaned Mongrel. ‘This not time for getting all horny, people! We on mission! Come on, get tongues down throats and out again so we can head out, by God!’

Carter and Roxi grinned at one another, then kissed. ‘You told Joe you would be careful.’

Carter nodded, and he could see her eyes searching his face. His hand lifted, fingers stroking the soft skin of her cheek. ‘I’m coming back, Rox. Believe me, I have a lot to live for.’

‘Hey, Mongrel?’

‘Hn?’

‘You look after Carter, you hear? If you come back without him then you’ll have me to answer to.’

Mongrel grunted something rude, and wandered out into the cold fresh night air. Roxi kissed Carter again, a full long kiss. ‘Another life, remember?’ she said, voice husky, scent strong.

‘I hear you.’ He turned her around, then slapped her backside. ‘Go on, you mischievous minx. Get in there and get cooking.’

‘Get cook— Now, you wait one minute ...’

But Carter was gone. Roxi stared at the exit for a full minute, the cold mountain breeze rustling through her dark hair. Then Joe nestled against her side and she dropped to a crouch beside him. ‘Come on, let’s get our stuff together, little man. We’re out of here.’

The Comanche hammered through the darkness, through the heart of the storm. It fell from the mountains and within minutes was howling low over the Atlantic, which rolled dark and restless beneath it.

The cockpit of the Comanche was cosy, a cocoon of warmth. Mongrel, ensconced in his HIDSS, was making little conversation as he concentrated on piloting the war machine through the blizzard.

Carter leaned back, eyes half closed. His mind whirled with memories of recent events, but he forced himself into a state of calmness. Mission, he thought. Find Justus—old Justus, a gun-runner and trader in information from back in Kenya during Carter’s Spiral days. Find Justus—if he still lived—and then locate the programmers who had helped to turn the dream of the EC Warhead into a reality ... and into a viable weapon that Spiral and the REBS could use against Durell. All in forty-eight hours.

I just
love
a fair timescale, Carter thought bitterly.

He dozed for a while. He dreamed of Natasha and Joe, playing together in the surf outside his new home in Cyprus; they would have been happy there together, he realised. They would have been content. A family.

‘You shouldn’t be
so
nostalgic
,’ said Kade, his voice a hoarse whisper.

‘Hey, long time no mind-fucking,’ snapped Carter within the confines of his own skull. ‘What’s kept your nose out of the shit pie for so long?’

‘
I’ve been busy.
‘

‘Doing what?’

‘Ducking and diving. A dark demon’s got to eat. You know how it is, Carter.
‘

‘I’m pretty sure I don’t.’

Carter shook himself and drank a long soothing draught of water from his canteen before passing the black bottle forward for Mongrel. Mongrel slurped, losing half the precious liquid down his tattered grime-stained T-shirt. ‘Hey, is good that Spiral and REBS is all one big happy family, no? Just shame we on brink of an extermination.’ Mongrel turned sideways and flicked up his visor. His gaze fixed on Carter with concern. ‘But I just hope this mission not be wild-goose chase. If Justus dead, we well and truly fucked.’

‘From what The Priest was saying—and from our past intel—the Nex only take prisoners to the Submarine Graveyard for one purpose. Torture.’

‘Aye, lad, and a man can only last so long against that sort of abuse under the knife. They’ve had him for a week now ... a long time to survive without your balls. Mongrel only worry that if Justus still alive, what sort of shape we find him in?’

‘Let’s concentrate on our infiltration first. You got the SP_1 Plot coordinates locked?’

‘ETA one hour.’

‘Then let’s get this thing done, then.’

The sky was blue and clear as Mongrel negotiated the rugged coastline to the south-west of Greenland. They flew over jagged brown mountain ranges through which fjords cut arcing sweeps, their waters a cold slate blue and peppered with majestic chunks of glacial ice. The Comanche thrummed over a tiny fishing village, with dirt roads and a simple grey-stone church. The bay was littered with compact fishing vessels and the few people who were out tending the colourful boats looked up, shading their eyes as the Comanche whined low overhead and banked,

‘ETA one minute.’

‘You’re getting good at this.’

‘Yeah,’ snapped Mongrel. ‘Was steep learning curve fighting Nex, that for damned sure.’