“Okay, point taken. So what about number two?”
“Number two, whatever killed Ngana’bta tore off both his legs before he could escape into the tunnel.”
“And you think that one of these ugly little bastards might have been to blame?”
Callum shrugged. “In the legend, Ngana’bta is sent to hunt the mythical Tansu Taibaa, and he never returns. Ngana’bta was supposed to be mythical as well, and against all the odds he’s turned out to be real. So why not Tansu Taibaa?”
Peterson leant back in his chair and scratched a hand through his sideburns. “I can see where you’re coming from, McJones. But it all sounds just a little far-fetched.”
“Of course it sounds far-fetched,” Callum retorted. “In fact it sounds bloody ludicrous even to me. The whole thing does. But just look.” He pointed back towards the creature. “You said it yourself. What’s that if it isn’t a lizard bird? Personally I don’t believe in coincidences, especially ones on this scale.”
His words hung in the air as all three of them stared at the creature. It was craning its neck forward, straining to assault the pincer at the base of its tail.
“I don’t know,” Peterson said at last. “You talk a good case, McJones. Sure looks like a goddamn oversized marine iguana with feathers.” He swivelled his chair around. “So anyway, what? This Tansu whateymajig just up and attack you?”
Without taking their eyes off the struggling creature, Callum and Darya took him through what had happened that morning, from the moment Darya had first spotted the three youngsters, to the Centaur’s arrival on the scene. As the story unfolded, Peterson’s eyes widened with undisguised awe. “So let me get this straight, you actually killed one of these things?”
“I guess so,” Callum replied. Confronted with the full horror of the creature, he hardly believed it himself. “I promise you it was more luck than judgement.”
Peterson laughed out loud and slapped a hand across his thigh. “Bullshit! When a monster like that’s got you by the tail and you take him out underwater with… with a camping tool, that’s nothing but sheer ball-busting heroics. I don’t care whether he’s a Tansey whatey, a rooster on steroids or what. You’re a goddamn hero, McJones!”
Callum felt a hand stroke at the back of his arm. He turned to see Darya staring up at him.
“You are hero, solnishko,” she said. “You are very brave.”
“Dan’s the real hero. If he hadn’t turned up when he did, we’d both be dead for sure.”
“I won’t argue with you on that one,” Peterson replied. “But you folks sure were lucky. It’s unusual for me to be out in her so early.”
“Why today is different?” Darya asked. But before Peterson could answer she shouted, “Look!”
Outside the creature was no longer struggling. Instead it lay motionless, its body starting to go limp. “He is dying, you must please let him go now!”
“Let him go?” Peterson exclaimed. “Are you crazy? That thing just tried to make mincemeat out of the both of you.”
“Yes, but it is living creature. He does not try to eat us for fun – he just does not know better.” She grabbed on to Callum’s forearm. “Please tell him. We are not in danger from him anymore.”
Callum took another look at the creature. By now its head was dangling down, while its other limbs twitched pathetically against its flanks. For a moment it reminded him of a strung-up chicken, albeit an enormous one, waiting to be plucked. Then his eyes passed over the mass of twisted teeth lowering towards its chest, and the razor-like claws still clenching on the ends of its hands and feet. He could feel her grip tighten around his arm. “I’m sorry, but I agree with Dan. I think letting that thing go would be a very bad idea.”
Her face tightened with betrayal. Before either of them could stop her, she lunged for the Centaur’s arm controls with both hands.
“Forget killing him, you’ll rip the sorry son of a bitch in half!” Peterson shouted, grabbing onto her arms and attempting to prise them away.
“What does this matter?” she replied. “You want him to die anyway, so at least it is quick this way. We must let him go. That is why we are different!”
“But you’ll damage the goddamn controls. Do you have any idea how much this thing costs? I shouldn’t be using it to save ungrateful Russkies in the first damn place.” Unable to loosen her grip, he turned to Callum. “Little help here, McJones?”
Callum lowered his hands gently onto Darya’s shoulders and spoke as calmly as he could manage. “If we let this thing go it could hurt other people. There could be other members of the team on Harmsworth right now. They could be hurt. Killed. Please, Darya.”
Her face softened at his words and gradually the muscles in her arms began to relax.
Peterson slowly removed his hands from hers and sat back. “You gonna listen to the man?”
Darya said nothing in reply. Then she pulled back suddenly on one of the levers, causing the left pincer to release. “But I cannot let him die!”
The creature’s head careered down into the water. Before Peterson could lunge back in and secure her other hand, she had released the second pincer, freeing the creature’s lower half.
There was silence in the cabin as all three of them held their breath, watching the inert body bobbing up and down below the Centaur’s nose.
“Already dead,” Darya said in a sorrowful voice.
Peterson shoved her hands away from the controls. “Good thing too! What the hell are you thinking, Lebedev? You don’t get to commandeer million-dollar equipment just because you’ve got a conscience needs calibrating.”
“I am sorry,” she replied, “but I cannot see animals in pain.”
“What about us? We’re animals. Can you see us in pain? Because that’s what you’d’ve seen if that thing wasn’t dead and it’d decided to rip on through the hull.”
Callum noticed the tears welling up in Darya’s eyes. “Come on, Dan, she could’ve died just now, she’s obviously not thinking straight, that’s all. Besides, it’s dead, so no harm done.”
“Oh, it’s dead, is it?” Peterson replied. He nodded towards the creature. “Not any definition of dead I ever heard of.”
Callum looked back just in time to see the creature’s tail disappear beneath the water.
“Sneaky little critter was playing possum all along,” Peterson shouted. He quickly reclaimed the controls and directed one of the arms down into the water in pursuit. There was a clunk as he brought the pincers together below the surface. Then the three of them watched as he toggled the lever, causing it to retract once more.
Peterson rocked heavily back in his chair. “Damn it!”
Out in front, water dripped rhythmically from the tips of the empty pincer.
He turned to Darya. “You better hope those things don’t hold a grudge!”
3
What remained of the Kamov lay on its side, twisted and glinting in the sunlight.
“Three hundred million rubles’ worth of military hardware,” Marchenko observed, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Enhanced military hardware,” corrected Koikov.
The two men stood shoulder to shoulder, staring into the burnt-out hulk. Like the other members of the search and rescue team, their faces were stained grey with the thick smoke that had flooded into the cabin after it had crashed into the Svayataya plateau.
“Did you speak to Lungkaju?”
Marchenko nodded. “He says the tail clipped something on take-off. Whatever it was took out the drive shaft and sent us spinning.”
“So he lost control.”
“It was an emergency take-off, Starshyna. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t even have attempted it.”
Koikov pursed his lips. Deep down, he knew Marchenko was right. With the hideous screeching of the creatures close behind them, the team had fled the
cave to find the world outside still cloaked in mist. Visibility had been next to nothing and the shared sense of terror amongst the men had resulted in a chaotic scene as they’d scrambled for the aircraft. So as much as he wanted to, Koikov couldn’t bring himself to blame Lungkaju for the fucked-up evacuation. Ultimately, the responsibility lay with him.
The two men continued surveying the remains of the Kamov’s fuselage in silence. It was buried into marshy ground only metres from the Svayataya precipice. The landing skids lay crumpled a good distance away, and window glass and scraps of metal debris littered the surrounding moss. It was a miracle everybody had made it out alive; even Lungkaju’s wolf had escaped uninjured despite being thrown across the cabin and narrowly avoiding Koikov’s head.
Koikov looked over at Marchenko. The sergeant’s brow was furrowed and his eyes were swollen with the events of the last few hours. “Where the hell are those things?” he asked. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”
“They’re too smart to come at us now,” Koikov replied, lighting a papirosa. “Either they’ve never seen humans before and they’re scared, or else they’ve seen humans before and they’re scared.” He spat on the floor. “They knew they could get the drop on us inside that cave. Yudina found that out, God rest him. So did Semyonov and his guide. But out here, in the daylight, they’re not so sure.” He paused to take a long drag. “At least not yet.”
Marchenko snorted. “You make them sound educated.”
“How long have you been on this shithole, Marchenko?”
“A couple of months.”
“Not jerking off in your cabin. I mean actually out here, on the island.”
“Seven or eight hours, Starshyna.”
“And are you not finding this place an education?”
“Of course, but—”
“But nothing. Whatever those things are, I’m guessing they’ve been here a lot longer than seven or eight hours. What they don’t know about this island probably isn’t worth knowing, and that’s all the education they need.”
Marchenko looked hard into Koikov’s face. “You respect them.”
Koikov’s gut reaction was to answer, Anything that’s got the balls to take me on deserves respect! But he couldn’t bring himself to be so flippant with a man that had helped to save his life. “If you’d been as up close and personal with these things as I have, Sergeant, you’d respect them too.”
Marchenko was uncharacteristically quiet. It could have been the tail end of shock or exhaustion. But Koikov had operated with him many times before and, as a rule, nothing but the threat of outright apocalypse would’ve shut him up. “What’s on your mind, Marchenko?”
Keeping his eyes on the wreckage, he replied, “It wasn’t a bear that attacked Dolgonosov, was it, Starshyna? Or Sharova. It was one of those things.”
Koikov took another drag on his papirosa and exhaled the thick grey smoke through his nostrils. His mind moved reflexively to the sight of the fleeing polar bear. It had been innocent. Nothing had been more certain. But Koikov had been in shock. He had lost two men to something he didn’t understand, something he couldn’t even bring himself to believe. Major Rabinovich had wanted answers. Mr Volkov had wanted answers. Everybody had wanted answers. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, a rogue polar bear had been the only plausible explanation, and Koikov had hunted one down, squeezed the trigger and hoped that it would all just go away.
“Yes, it was,” he said at last.
The confirmation seemed to stun Marchenko. “You knew about them and you didn’t think to warn us?”
Koikov snorted and turned away. Whether the man had helped save his life or not, he didn’t know a thing about it.
“You brought us here, me, Gergiev and the others, on that ridiculous bear hunt, and then again to find Einstein, and at no point did you think to point out that there was a horde of bloodthirsty fucking animals!” His voice reached a crescendo. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“Watch your tone, Marchenko.”
“It’s not my tone you should be worried about. It’s my neck. It’s all of our necks, because they’re on the block thanks to you. Yudina and Einstein are dead because of you. Why the fuck didn’t you say anything before?”
“I hardly believed it myself for one thing!”
“That’s no excuse.”
Koikov turned and squared up to him. His extra height cast a shadow over Marchenko’s face, but the sergeant stood firm, his narrow features set into a scowl of disbelief. “And what do you think would’ve happened if I had said something? Do you think Rabinovich would’ve patted me on the head and said, ‘Oh, well in that case we’ll just have to keep you and the boys all safe here on the boat – why not take the afternoon off?’ No, for a start he’d’ve had me sectioned. Then he’d’ve sent the rest of you back out here anyway.”
“How can you say that about the major? He’s already sent the reinforcements we requested this morning, and if he’d known before that there was this kind of threat—”
“Because it’s not the major who’s in charge,” Koikov spat. “It’s G&S. The company is in charge. Rabinovich is just a puppet out here, you know that as well as I do. And the company doesn’t give a shit about the likes of me and you. It gives a shit about money. There’s so much of it riding on this island that the rest of us could disappear one by one without explanation and they’d still go ahead and build their gas plant.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I would’ve believed you, Starshyna. And I’m willing to bet the others would as well.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t gamble,” Koikov retorted. He turned and walked the short distance from the site of the wreckage to the edge of the cliff.
“That’s exactly what you’ve done.”
Koikov pretended he didn’t hear. During impact, the Kamov’s swash plate had snapped, allowing the primary rotor to detach and cartwheel off the side. As he peered over the edge of fissured stone, he could see the surf pounding the cruciform blades into the rocks below. The sound of a million gulls nesting along the cliff-face rushed upwards and filled his ears, and the breeze brought him the cool, salty tang of the ocean.
Marchenko arrived at his side. “We’re lucky that isn’t us down there.”
Koikov took a last drag on his papirosa and flicked the end over the edge. “Are we?”
There was no reply.
“What’s the situation with the others?” Koikov asked.
“Still no sign of any movement. I’ve got every man surrounding the cave, just as you ordered. Including the reinforcements from the Albanov, that’s sixty eyes, twenty-eight rifles and two RPGs pointed at one hole in the earth. So much as an ant pokes its head out and it’s World War Three.”
“Perfect,” Koikov said. “Go and make it twenty-nine rifles.”
“Are we really just gonna sit around like this and wait for something to happen?”
“No, Sergeant, we’re getting the fuck out of here. I spoke to Major Rabinovich again and he’s sending the remaining Kamov back over to start the evacuation. It’ll be here any minute, but until then I want every rifle, including yours, trained on that cave. I’m not taking any chances.”
4
Gergiev slid his leg across the scree and booted Khabensky in the ankle. “Hey, Khabensky.”
Khabensky turned his tiny little pin-head from the cave and stared at him. “Gergiev, you prick, keep your voice down!”
The call had gone out just after 05:00 that Koikov’s team needed help. Yudina had been killed, and the whole team, along with a small arsenal of weapons, were being sent over to the island on some kind of killer bear hunt.
“You don’t believe this shit, do you?”
“What shit?”
“That there’s some kind of psycho creature living in this cave.”
“No, I think it’s fucking crazy,�
� Khabensky said. “But what’s new?”
Since arriving on the island, all thirty or so men had spent the entire time in the same position, lying prone on the jagged, ball-chafing rock, rifles shouldered and trained on the mouth of the cave. It wouldn’t have been such an ache if they’d had some proper intel. But so far all they knew was that Koikov reckoned creatures of one kind or another were holed up inside. Rumours of what the creatures actually were had stretched from an unnaturally large bear to a flock of killer birds to a colony of dragons! As far as Gergiev was concerned, the whole thing was crazy with a capital C.
“You want to hear something else weird?”
“You’re really a woman?”
“Fuck you!” Khabensky tore up a tuft of moss and flung it in Gergiev’s face. “No, I was down on R-Deck a couple of days ago.”
Gergiev’s eyebrows rose and he scanned around for anyone listening. R-Deck was where the G&S technicians carried out the research, testing and technical prep that underpinned the entire project; from assessing the quality of gas samples, to working out the optimum locations for the wellheads, to designing the plant itself. The industrial sensitivity of the activity taking place on R-Deck, and the mind-blowing sums of money riding on it, meant that access was highly restricted. Under no circumstances, Major Rabinovich, flanked by numerous company officials, had told them, was anybody to enter R-Deck unless expressly ordered to do so. “Shit, Khabensky! What the fuck were you thinking? Rabinovich—”
“Yeah, yeah, I could have been discharged, banged up, whatever. I had the same lecture.”
Gergiev tossed the clod of moss back at Khabensky and it struck him in the shoulder. “You were fucking lucky. Any one of those researchers could’ve raised the alarm.”
“That’s the thing.” Khabensky dropped his voice. “There were no researchers.”
“No researchers?”
He shook his head. “I got lost. You know what it’s like on that ship. It’s like a fucking maze, that’s how I ended up on R-Deck in the first place. Anyway, when I realised where I was I couldn’t help snooping in one of the labs.”
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