Operation Syria

by William Meikle

  “Watch yon hole up in the corner, lad. Anything tries to come through, blow it to buggery.”

  Wiggins brought in the camp stove and coffeepot.

  “And get a brew on, there’s a good lad,” Banks added.

  Maggie had returned with Wiggins and was now sitting alongside the other woman with an arm around Kim’s shoulders, neither of them speaking. Banks only got a nod of thanks when he passed ‘round a smoke for her, Wiggins, and himself.

  “Chin up,” he said to her. “Just a few more hours.”

  Maggie didn’t reply but it brought a sob from Kim, and led to a fresh burst of weeping.

  “Let her cry,” Banks said softly. “This is a good sign.”

  Maggie rose and walked with Banks when he returned to the main doorway. Once there, they smoked in silence for a while before she spoke.

  “How do you cope with it?” she said. “The death, I mean. There’s Kim, frazzled and strung out, catatonic, Reynolds and White gone, the rest of the team taking the mystery tour down river and me living on smoke, yet you and your men aren’t affected.”

  “Oh, we’re affected all right,” Banks said. “I promise you that. But the training tells us to put that away while there’s a job to be done. If it’s not helping, it’s not helpful. But believe me, we’re affected. With me, it comes mostly on dark quiet nights, at three in the morning. That’s when my dead come back to haunt me, that’s when the training means bugger all.”

  “What helps?”

  He showed her his cigarette.

  “These and booze. Plenty of booze.”

  She must have seen the truth of it in his eyes, for she went quiet at that and when she finished her smoke she left without another word.

  *

  It remained quiet until around midday. Banks did his best to keep it that way, making sure the men rotated around at regular intervals to stop boredom leading to slackness. They drank coffee, smoked, and kept guard, watching the alleyways and rooftops.

  For a while, Banks dared to hope that the firefight in the alleyway had been brutal enough to scare the beasts off from another attack. But after the sun passed its highest point and the shadows stretched across the courtyard, Banks caught a glimpse of movement on the rooftop directly opposite them. One of the dog-sized spiders crawled below a parapet, only its round back showing. Another followed in its wake, then more until there were a dozen or more gathered along a stretch of roof.

  One finally showed itself, raising up half the body. A pair of front legs came up, waving, as if tasting the air. Banks studied the beast through his rifle sight, the first chance he’d been given to take time in studying their attackers. As a boy, he’d studied a variety of insects up close under both magnifying glass and microscope and this had the same look to it, of something too large to be real yet so fascinating he couldn’t look away.

  The front end looked oval, slightly flattened, with a pair of black, sharp fangs around the mouth, which was little more than a moist tube. He remembered from those childhood investigations that arachnids had no way of chewing food; they like to pierce with the fangs and suck at the juices. The fangs of this one dripped wetly with the same venom that had raged through White, and there was a cluster of a dozen red eyes sat above that, all of which stared back down the scope at him. As if it sensed it was being watched, the sharp fangs clattered together, the rat-tat-tat of its call echoing across the roofs, to be answered by a persistent drumbeat that came from all around, scores, perhaps hundreds of spiders, all calling out in unison.

  Banks’ mouth went dry as he lowered his weapon and shakily lit a fresh smoke.

  They’ve got us surrounded. We’re under siege.

  - 12 -

  Kim started talking around noon. At first, it was only to ask for water, then, as if a tap had been turned on in her throat, a torrent of words, about the dig, the mosaic, fragments of history about the city, worries about her parents and home and complaints of hunger. It came out as a long mixed-up stream.

  “Are there any sandwiches? The Persians didn’t have sandwiches. Oh, they had bread and they might have put meat or cheeses in it but it wasn’t a sandwich. They broke the Roman’s siege easily enough, I wonder where they got the stone to make the mosaic? Maybe they dug it out the ground and that’s why there are so many tunnels. My mum will be worried sick.”

  There most obviously wasn’t any mention of what had happened to Reynolds.

  Maggie didn’t push it and let her ramble. But something Kim said about the siege of the town when under Roman occupation got her thinking.

  “Tunnels, you said?”

  Kim perked up, as if eager to answer something that meant she didn’t have to remember anything problematic.

  “Yes. It’s a warren under the town. And there is a multitude of storerooms and mine workings. The underpinnings of this place are supposedly riddled with them. It’s how Shapur the First and the Persian army got in and ended the Roman era here. We haven’t seen them yet. We can’t leave without seeing them.”

  It wasn’t archaeology that concerned Maggie; it was the thought of dark places, deep places, spaces where a horde of spiders might spin and sleep, contented for decades, centuries, until disturbed.

  “Do you know how to access these tunnels and workings?” she asked.

  “Nobody has been in them for more than a hundred years,” Kim replied. “But on the last major expedition, there was an entrance discovered via the synagogue on the west-hand side of the main square. That’s how the Victorian explorers got in and…”

  Kim kept rambling, off in details of finds that now resided in museums across Europe, down to who had collected them, who had catalogued them, and where each piece could now be seen on display. It was an impressive feat of mental agility and one Maggie didn’t know the woman had possessed until now.

  But she’s not talking about Reynolds.

  Maggie knew that a voluble rush like this one would probably lead to a hard crash and sooner rather than later. She resolved that she would be close by when it happened. Kim was going to need a friend to get her up again.

  *

  When Kim finally stopped talking it came suddenly, mid-sentence, and Maggie was surprised to see that the other woman had fallen asleep sitting upright against the wall.

  Wiggins had come off watch and was preparing a fresh pot of coffee. He looked over and smiled.

  “Let her sleep,” he said quietly. “It’ll keep her from fretting.”

  Maggie pried herself carefully away from Kim and went over to where Wiggins sat, taking a smoke when he offered.

  “How’s things outside?” she asked.

  “Much the same. They’ve let us know they’re there, on the roofs. We watch them and they watch us and as long as neither of us makes a move, we’re all happy that it stays that way.”

  “And what about when we need to make a move?”

  “That’s hours away yet. The captain will have a plan by then.”

  She heard the confidence in the statement.

  “What’s it like, to have that much faith in someone who holds your life in his hands?”

  Wiggins laughed.

  “We don’t think about it like that. He’s in charge, we do what he says, and we trust him to be right, more often than not. It’s how the system works.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she replied. “But I’ve always taken care of myself and now I’ve got you lot looking out for me, I feel like a spare wheel around here. It’s got me all itchy and worried and I’m not usually like this.”

  “Don’t worry, lass. The cap’s definitely right more often than not. He has got us out of some tight spots before. This might seem like a nightmare to you but I could tell you stories that would turn your hair white. It’s who we are. It’s what we do.”

  “But it’s not all smooth talk and plain sailing, is it? You lose people too, right? Not everybody always makes it?” Now it was her turn to see that she’d struck a nerve as Wiggins’ smile
vanished and a heavy sadness showed in his eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound harsh.”

  “No, you’re okay, you weren’t to know,” Wiggins replied. “I lost a pal on the last mission. The wound’s raw. But I meant what I said. The captain will die first rather than let harm come to you. So would I for that matter. As I said, it’s what we do and why we do it.”

  *

  When Wiggins left to ferry coffee to the others on watch, Maggie sat thinking about what he’d said. Davies was standing in the doorway, watching the hole in the high corner.

  “Did you hear any of that?”

  “Aye. And he’s right. I’m new to the squad but I see the strength in the older lags. They signed up to serve. It was different for me. I just wanted to get out of Easterhouse.”

  “I don’t blame you there,” Maggie said, remembering the seedy, tired tower blocks she’d seen on a brief visit with an old boyfriend some years before.

  She got a laugh in reply.

  “God’s own country, so they say. Skinny lads like me can get into all sorts of bother on a big estate like that, especially when they’re seen as different, not really Scottish. I was constantly getting told to ‘go back home’ and I’m sure you know all the names I used to get. Being called Joshua didn’t help much either, not in Glasgow. I don’t have much of a family, there’s only my old ma and me. So I became a Joe and found myself a home, made myself one. These lads here are my family. Trust the corporal. Trust the captain. Trust the squad. We’ll get you back to your home.”

  Maggie took a long drag at her cigarette and waved it at the private.

  “If the cancer sticks don’t get me first. Getting me smoking again isn’t doing much to keep me alive.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Davies replied, smiling. “It’s giving you something to do, something else to think about. That’s kind of the point and why so many of us do it.”

  *

  After she finished the smoke and reminded herself not to take another one from any of the men for a while, she wanted some fresher air in her lungs so headed back out to the main doorway. The younger men, Brock and Wilkins, were watching the two rooms in the corridor, with the three officers, all of them smoking, standing at the main doorway at the entrance. She told Captain Banks what Kim had said about the tunnels.

  He listened intently.

  “So there might be a way out without going through the streets?”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking,” Maggie replied. “I was thinking more in the sense that there might be a spider lair down there.”

  “Aye, there’s that too,” Banks replied. “But an underground escape route might be exactly what we need later. Do either of you know how to get down there?”

  “I think Kim does,” she replied. “But whether she’ll talk about it again is fifty-fifty at best. She’s a bit shook up.”

  “We’re all a bit strung out. Try to get some rest. When it comes time to go, we’ll be moving fast.”

  Maggie motioned out over the courtyard.

  “Anything going on?”

  He pointed her to the rooftops, where for the first time she saw the rounded backs of spiders showing above the parapets.

  “Two dozen at our best count. But no more of the big buggers like the one back in the alley.”

  “Maybe that was the only one?”

  She saw in his eyes that he believed that as little as she did.

  “Wiggins tells me you found a depiction of them, in a Roman mosaic?”

  Maggie nodded and told Banks about the find. Again, he listened intently before replying.

  “And it shows them coming out of a cave in the hill? More tunnels? The more I hear of this, the more I think it might be our best bet for a furtive exit. See if you can get Kim to tell us how we might manage it? Please?”

  - 13 -

  After the woman left the doorway, Banks sent Wiggins to check on the younger privates.

  “See how they’re holding up, Wiggo. And remind them to conserve ammo. No shooting unless I order it.”

  “Will do, Cap,” Wiggins replied. “Do you think there’s anything to yon story about tunnels? Could we slip away unnoticed?”

  “Only if we’re lucky. And that’s not been working too well for us this trip so far.”

  “What we need is a fucking huge rolled up newspaper. The fuckers would never ken what hit them.”

  “Do you have one up your arse?” Hynd said. “No? Then stop talking bollocks and see to your men. The captain gave you an order. Fuck off and obey it, there’s a good corporal.”

  Wiggins smiled and gave a sarcastic salute but left in a hurry.

  The sarge lit another smoke from the butt of the last but Banks refused one when it was offered and went back to keeping a close watch on the roof. If Maggie was right and these things had a lair in underground tunnels, it didn’t prevent them being out and about for long periods in blazing sunshine.

  Which might mean the tunnels are our best bet. If the beasties are up here, they’re not down in the dark.

  The information had given something that had been in short supply in the past few hours: hope.

  *

  It remained quiet for another twenty minutes and Banks was starting to think they might make it through to dusk without a shooting match. Then he saw a shadow move out of the corner of his eye and turned, looking east across the courtyard. A spider as big as the one they’d killed in the alley to the north, a creature the size of a small car, climbed slowly down off the roof and began to weave a web across one of the three alley entrances off the yard.

  His first instinct was to shoot it but he fought down the urge.

  “Cap?” Hynd said quietly at his side. “Do we take the fucker out?”

  “We can’t afford to get into a firefight. It’s too long until our pickup. If we provoke them and they decide to attack, we don’t have the firepower to hold them off for long enough.”

  “And what if they cover all our escape routes with the buggering web?”

  “Then we’ll have to find another escape route,” Banks replied. “But as long as it’s spinning its pretty patterns, it’s not over here trying to eat our faces. So we leave it be, let it get on with whatever the fuck it’s doing.”

  “Setting a trap is what it’s fucking doing,” Hynd replied but didn’t push it, merely went back to sucking at his cigarette.

  Over the next hour, they watched as the huge spider filled all three of the visible alleyways with a thick tangle of webbing, gray walls that Banks knew from earlier experience could be cut through but not without a lot of hard work and time they might not have.

  “Sarge,” he said, thinking out loud. “Do you think that web stuff burns?”

  “Well, I remember as a lad putting a lighter to a spider’s nest in my auld granddad’s hut and it went up like a rocket, so I’m thinking, aye, it’ll burn.”

  “My thoughts too. We’re going to need some fuel to get us out of here. Go tell Wiggo to stop making coffee. We have to conserve what’s left in those wee gas tanks.”

  *

  They swapped watch shifts mid-afternoon, with Wiggins and Brock taking the door, Wilkins and Davies watching the windows of the rooms inside, and Banks and Hynd taking the chance to get some hot field rations inside them in the main chamber.

  Banks also took the opportunity for the first time to have a good look at the mosaic in the dug-out section of the floor. Seen anywhere else, it might have been taken as a remarkable feat of imagination but Banks had now seen the spiders and was pretty sure the artist responsible for the mosaic had been working from real life experience. The attention to detail was equally remarkable and despite it being worked in tiny pieces of polished stone, it was possible to make out fine details of weapons and armor on the soldiers attacking the spider in the center. But something else caught his attention, activity around the opening in the hillside that was the origin of the spiders.

  “Can you map this against the current topograph
y of the town?” he asked and Maggie rose from beside Kim to join him.

  “Given how the skyline is depicted, we think the cave is outside the main wall, somewhere on the north side of the escarpment, facing the river. Why do you ask?”

  He pointed at a group of three men, not armed but pouring something from barrels down into the cavern mouth.

  “What’s this, do you think?”

  “Kim thought it might be hot oil, or maybe tar?”

  “Aye, that’s what it looks like to me too. There’s nowt in the historical record about spiders, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Which means these folk that made the mosaic succeeded in getting them under control, maybe even wiping them out for a while. It wasn’t big beasties that drove the Roman’s out, was it?”

  “Nope, it was Persians, at least that’s what everything in the historical record says.”

  “And these Persians didn’t mention spiders either?”

  “Not as far as we know.”

  “Then they can be stopped. And if the Romans could do it with the limited tech they had back then, I’m sure we can do even better.”

  He allowed himself a smile. He was starting to develop a plan.

  *

  Banks was pondering some ideas when his thought processes were interrupted by a shout from out in the hall. It came from Wilkins.

  “Sir, you need to see this.”

  Banks followed the shout through to where Wilkins stood guard at the window.

  The body of the dead man, White, had been propped, sitting in a corner of the smallest room several hours previously. Only now it wasn’t so much a body as a collapsed sack of skin that looked to be held together only by the clothing. His head had dropped forward onto his chest, which was a blessing; given what the rest of him looked like, his face would have been too terrible to behold. From a not-too-close inspection, Banks believed that every bone in the man’s body had turned liquid, remolding his internal structure to little more than an amorphous blob. He remembered the spider’s sucking mouth and realized what they were built to suck. He had to fight down a sudden gag reflex.