Sub-Sahara

by Ethan Arkwright

  Beyond the table, there were three bodies sprawled at the far end of the container. They were covered in flash burns over large parts of their bodies. He spun around to check behind him; there was a woman lying over the threshold of the doorway exiting that side of the room.

  He recognised her from the pictures in his file—Rebecca Grainger.

  The rest of the team started to come through the hatch.

  ‘Attend to those burn victims first,’ he told Harcourt and Sansom. ‘Then secure the rest of the place. I can’t smell anything, but open all windows.’

  He moved to Grainger and checked her pulse.

  ‘She’s alive over here,’ he said.

  ‘Same with these,’ Harcourt called back.

  Cavill checked to see if she had obvious external injuries and repositioned her in the recovery position. Evron had opened all the windows, and they could feel the fresh air on their faces.

  ‘Are they just unconscious?’ Cavill asked.

  ‘Looks that way,’ Harcourt said as he stabilised each of the burn victims with supplies from his medical kit. ‘Either succumbed to a gas or knocked out by a blast, would be my guess.’

  Sansom stood up from helping Harcourt and stepped over the bodies to look through the doorway into the adjoining container.

  ‘My God…’

  Cavill and Evron rushed over, bringing their rifles up to bear.

  They didn’t need them. There were three more bodies in the next container. From head to toe, their flesh was blackened and charred.

  ‘Looks like an explosion in that room that no one survived,’ Evron said. ‘And the blast came through here, took these three out, and still caught Grainger in the door at far end over there.’

  ‘Is that the entrance to the pyramid?’ Sansom asked, pointing into the next room.

  The three dead burn victims were arranged at the base of a huge steel door that was connected by a steel corridor though the exterior of the container into the pyramid itself.

  The door was open.

  Beyond it was darkness.

  ‘I hope this didn’t come out of that hole,’ Sansom said.

  ‘We don’t deal in hope,’ Cavill said. ‘Only facts. Guard this door for now. Once Harcourt has finished with these people, I want you two to search this whole container complex. Count up what or who else is here. Don’t go into the pyramid itself yet. We need a full team for that.’

  ‘Got it,’ Sansom said.

  A low moan was heard behind them.

  They turned to see Rebecca Grainger moving on the ground. She rolled over and tried to raise herself. Cavill and Harcourt raced over to her and helped her sit up against the wall.

  ‘Rebecca, can you hear me?’ Cavill asked.

  ‘Wha…’ Rebecca slurred. ‘What happened?’

  ‘My name is James Cavill. I was sent by Sir Henry Stratton to help you. Can you tell me what happened here?’

  ‘Noise. Strange noise. Smell. Everyone crazy.’

  ‘Was it an explosion? Have any other armed forces been here? What caused this?’

  ‘We sent a team…into pyramid…three people,’ Rebecca said, her head lolling left and right. ‘Lost radio contact. Must be dead. The smell, all crazy.’

  Her eyes glazed over, and her head slumped forward.

  ‘Not making any sense,’ Cavill said. ‘Get her stabilised so she can come around some more.’

  Harcourt nodded and got to work. Cavill turned to see the Professor setting up his laptop and equipment on the table.

  ‘We can use this room as HQ,’ Cavill said. ‘Get our network running and patched into the outside world ASAP.’

  ‘Already on it,’ Evron replied. He had developed a technology package for just such a mission. He would set up a wireless local area network that would allow everyone on the team to communicate via Bluetooth through the network hub, which also communicated via satellite to the base back home and to Christian Bramwell at GCHQ. The Bluetooth had a range of five hundred metres to keep the team in contact via their earpieces before it switched to more traditional radio frequencies.

  ‘Drone radar is up,’ Evron said.

  Cavill walked over. ‘Let’s take look. Last thing we need now is someone else turning up. We’re badly exposed.’

  Cavill and Evron scrutinised the screen. They did not notice that Kate Edwards, Chris Watkins, and Matt Hayden had come in with the rest of the team but had stayed silent. The three civilians moved to take care of the three burn victims, who had been stabilised. With Sansom guarding the door to the next room and watching to see if anything else came out of the dark hole, Harcourt taking care of Rebecca Grainger, and Cavill and Evron looking at the laptop data, no one noticed them stroking the hair of the burn victims and muttering smooth encouragements. They also didn’t notice them surreptitiously start to go through the victims’ pockets, looking for something.

  ‘Done,’ Harcourt called out from the far end of the room.

  Everybody turned to look at him. Kate and Matt’s hands were quickly snatched from victims’ pockets.

  ‘She’ll be okay,’ Harcourt said. ‘Probably just needs another twenty minutes for the shock to subside.’

  ‘Good,’ Cavill said. ‘You and Sansom get on the full sweep of this place.’

  Harcourt joined Sansom at the door. They checked their weapons and stepped through together, keeping their weapons aimed at the dark entrance hole to the pyramid as they navigated past it and the charred remains of the three archaeologists, heading for the next container.

  Cavill glanced at Edwards and Hayden; they were still comforting the burn victims. He went back to looking at the battlefield information with the Professor.

  Evron cocked his head as if listening. Cavill noticed it too. There was a noise from the other side of the entrance hatch. A scratching—as if someone was walking below it. But it was so soft that they wondered if they were imagining it.

  ‘Don’t move, or I’ll drop you where you are.’

  They looked up to see Jerry Cornell in the entry hatch with his rifle pointed in their direction.

  Chapter 18

  ‘Jerry? What the hell is this?’ Cavill said. Cornell’s rifle appeared to be aimed at his legs.

  ‘Step aside, James. I need a clear shot here.’

  Cavill took a step to his right to see where Cornell was really aiming. It was at the two scientists and Matt Hayden. They all looked frozen in shock.

  ‘Popped my head up and saw those three going through the pockets of those injured over there.’

  ‘Really,’ Cavill said. He pulled his pistol out and covered the three civilians with it.

  Cornell placed his rifle to the side and came up into the room before coming over with his weapon still aimed at their heads.

  Schalk van der Westhuizen from the team followed Jerry up through the hatch. Jerry kept coming forward until he put the barrel of his rifle against the head of Matt Hayden. He pushed the barrel so Matt’s head tilted to one side. Cavill moved and did the same with Kate Edwards. Evron moved in and copied the move on Chris Watkins. Van der Westhuizen covered all of them with his assault rifle.

  ‘What did I tell you before about the Caretaker, here, putting a bullet through your head? If you’re endangering our team, any one of us will do it without a second thought. That time has now come. You’ve got three seconds to speak. One…’

  Kate Edwards started shaking.

  ‘Two…’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Kate said. ‘It’s all about this energy source. If the readings are correct, there’s currently nothing else like it. The first to get it and understand it…if it’s anything in the top three theories of what we think it may be, well, it would change the world.’

  ‘So pretty much everyone will do anything to get it,’ Cavill said. ‘Sir Henry was pretty clear on that. Although we didn’t expect it from the other people he employed. You three working together?’

  ‘No,’ Watkins said. ‘I started it. Looking in their poc
kets for any notes they’d made. There was a look of understanding between us, and then a race started to get through all their possessions the fastest.’

  ‘I’ve never met these people before,’ Hayden said. ‘I was just looking for something that might explain what was going on. Thought I was helping.’

  ‘I’m genuinely here to help,’ Kate said. ‘I can’t get in and out of here without you. We should’ve asked if it was okay to check them for any notes they’d made already.’

  ‘Or a map on how to navigate through the pyramid, maybe?’ Cavill said.

  None of them answered.

  ‘Okay,’ Cavill said, stepping back and lowering his weapon. The other soldiers followed suit.

  ‘Schalk, get over here and guard them. Stay with them at all times until we can get our away team going into the pyramid.’

  Schalk moved over and stood over them with his rifle ready.

  Cavill, Evron, and Cornell moved back to the central table to finish setting up their HQ. Every few minutes, one of them would glance at the three civilians. They weren’t moving at all under the watchful eye of Van der Westhuizen. The soldiers continued their work.

  A few minutes later, Sansom and Harcourt entered the container by the door where Rebecca Grainger was recuperating.

  ‘You’ve done a full circuit of the two levels of containers?’ Cavill asked, looking up.

  ‘Yes,’ Harcourt said. ‘There’s nobody else here. We sketched it out as we went.’ They walked over and laid two pieces of paper on the central table for all to see.

  ‘All the containers on each level are connected by steel gangways at right angles, going around the pyramid. Each door can be locked or unlocked from either side. Generally, it looks like the lower area was more the working space.’ He pointed at the door they had just come through. ‘The two containers on the south side on this level are both kitted out as science labs. This room, then, looks like the science offices before you get into the pyramid access room through there.’ He pointed at the room next to them with the large silver door and charred bodies. ‘Through the access room on the north side is one container with four large generators, which looked like it powered the place, then on into a storage unit, then you are through to another storage unit, and then a workshop on the other side.’

  ‘Anybody else been through recently?’ Cavill asked.

  ‘No,’ Sansom said. ‘Everything has a layer of dust a few decades old. Nothing looks disturbed except the two containers adjoining this one.’

  ‘So it looks like the archaeologists only made it that far before something happened to them?’ Evron asked.

  ‘Looks that way,’ Sansom said.

  ‘Upstairs looked more like it was set up for living and admin,’ Harcourt said. ‘There’s a radio room and an empty armoury in the containers above us. Water and fuel tanks to the north, connected to an ablution block. That goes through to sleeping and kitchen areas. Then on the south side—get this—there’s an officer’s mess.’

  Everybody looked surprised.

  ‘A dining table, leather high-back chairs, proper old school officer’s privilege. That’s connected to the final container, which was admin offices.’

  ‘Looks like they were setting up to be here for a while,’ Cavill said. ‘Any clues as to who the hell they were?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harcourt said. ‘It gets weirder. All the technology is from the fifties, but the admin offices are full of papers with Nazi insignia on them.’

  ‘Nazis?’ Cornell said. ‘You’re shitting me, right?’

  ‘Nope,’ Sansom said as he dropped a yellowed notebook on the table. There was a large swastika emblazoned on the cover.

  Everybody stared at the book. Cornell let out a long, slow whistle. ‘I’ll be damned. Nazis,’ he said.

  ‘How did Nazis get here in the fifties?’ Cavill asked. ‘How does all this gel?’

  ‘Looks like they left in a hurry, though,’ Sansom said. ‘Didn’t even take any of their notes with them.’

  ‘Any clues in them as to what the hell this was all about?’ Cornell asked.

  ‘Probably,’ Sansom said. ‘It’s all in German. I don’t speak German.’

  ‘No,’ Cavill said. ‘But he does.’

  Everybody turned to see him pointing at Matt Hayden.

  ‘Saw it in his file,’ Cavill said. ‘Mr. Fix It, here, speaks six languages, one of them being German.’

  He picked up the notebook and threw it at Hayden, who caught it into his chest.

  ‘Maybe Sir Henry knew more than he was letting on when he made me take you,’ Cavill said to Hayden. ‘Either way, you’re going to earn your money now. Start translating that and then the notes in the admin offices. I want to know how a bunch of neo-Nazi pricks set this all up and what happened to them.’

  ‘Hey,’ said a new voice in the room.

  All heads whipped towards the door to the science labs. Rebecca Grainger was awake and trying to stand up. Cavill rushed over and helped her walk to a chair at the central table.

  ‘Feeling better?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, very much so. What happened? Who are you?’ Grainger replied.

  ‘You might have missed it before, so I’ll repeat. I’m James Cavill, and my team has been sent by Sir Henry Stratton to help you. My job is to get you and the energy source in this pyramid out of here before less friendly people turn up. We don’t have a lot of time. Rebecca, what happened to your team when you got here?’

  ‘Everything was okay when we got in here. Three of the team wanted to go straight into the pyramid through the door over there. The metal door looks like it’s off a huge vault, but it swung open easily enough. Three of us went in; we kept in contact over radio. Then everything went a little crazy. They started yelling over the radio like they were being attacked, and then the radio cut off. There was a funny smell coming out of the hole, and I can’t remember after that.’

  Cavill turned and made hand signals to Sansom and Harcourt that ordered them to cover the entrance hole to the pyramid with their weapons. They both acknowledged and left the room without a word.

  ‘Do you remember some kind of explosion?’ Cavill asked, turning back to Grainger. ‘Something that generated a lot of heat?’

  ‘No, there was the smell. I remember that, then I was over there on the floor, and all of you were suddenly here.’

  ‘Rebecca,’ Cavill said. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that three of your team are dead in the room by the entrance to the pyramid. We have three more here who are alive but unconscious with burn wounds.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Rebecca said, looking around the room in panic. Her eyes finally focussed on the three bandaged and medicated people in the corner. ‘Dave, Phil…’ she cried as she tried to stand to go to them.

  Cavill caught her as she wavered and helped her gently back into the chair.

  ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘They’re going to be okay. We need to identify them to know who we’re missing.’

  ‘The men are Phil Cranmer and Dave Harper. The other one is Tina Hagley.’

  Cavill shot a glance at Gil Evron, who was already typing the names into his laptop and doing background checks to find out who they were and with whom they could be affiliated.

  ‘There’s something else I need to tell you,’ Rebecca said.

  ‘Go on,’ Cavill said.

  ‘Everyone started acting strangely the moment we entered the city. I’ve worked with these people for a long time. Within ten minutes, most of them were acting out of character.’

  ‘How so?’ Cavill asked.

  ‘Being aggressive, everyone trying to contact different people on satellite phones or get access to them. At least two fights broke out. The noises coming from the team in the pyramid…part of me wondered if they were fighting amongst themselves. I wondered if it was something in this place having this effect on us. A lot of weird stuff happened before I blacked out.’

  Cavill stood fully erect. ‘We only deal in facts,’ he said. ‘Do you h
ave any log books, diary entries, or did you find anything to explain these containers and the pyramid? There was nothing on your colleagues.’ He looked across at Edwards and Watkins again.

  ‘No,’ Grainger said. ‘No, there wasn’t time. It all happened just as I described it. I don’t remember anything else.’

  Chapter 19

  Sansom and Harcourt approached the black entrance to the pyramid slowly, assault rifles pointed at the darkness. Sansom cracked a couple of Cyalume sticks and threw them into the void. The light illuminated a wall two metres from the entrance and a wall blocking the right-hand side.

  ‘Looks like the passage heads left,’ Harcourt said. He stuck his head and weapon inside the entrance and had a look around. ‘Yes, it goes left and then takes a sharp right in about three metres. I can’t see beyond that.’

  A cold breeze came through the passage and made them both shiver.

  ‘What the hell’s down there?’ Sansom said. ‘Could be all kinds of traps to stop looters.’

  ‘Yeah, or maybe some mythical beast, like a Minotaur. We won’t know till we get down there.’

  Harcourt stepped back from the entrance. ‘Best wait till the away team is fully kitted up and it’s decided who’s in it.’

  They both relaxed slightly. It was the first opportunity to do so since they had left the plane.

  ‘Is he really as good as his reputation?’ Sansom asked. Harcourt turned to look at him with a smile. Sansom was the newest member of the team and had been recruited from the UK Special Reconnaissance Unit on recommendation. He was one of the few members of the team who did not have a personal history with their leader.

  ‘James?’ Harcourt said. ‘Oh yes. I was quite happy in the SAS, and when I got the call from him, I resigned the same day.’ He turned to look at Sansom fully. ‘He’s the real deal. You’ll make a difference here. He’s saved my life more than once. I’d willingly die for him, but he’s so good it would never come to that.’