Before long they were all sweating and covered with smears of dirt. The going was tough. There were no natural paths and lots of heather and bracken to hinder their progress.
The Priest led the way, and Alix dropped back to walk with Lola as they fought their way over the rough terrain.
“Do you know what that mad bastard has in mind when we get to the base of that mountain?” Alix said quietly.
“Well, he’s not the most talkative. But I’m sure he will let us know soon enough. I think we need to wait until we’ve had a good look around; see exactly what’s going on up that mountain.”
“What’s up that mountain is certain death, if we’re not extremely careful. The last time I was here, I was part of an SAS squad, wetnursing Kirill and his nerds. I didn’t like this place then, and I like it even less now.” Alix said matter-of-factly.
Lola said nothing.
Eventually theycame across a pathway; heavily overgrown, a man made trail just wide enough for two people side by side. They were able to walk more easily now, aware of their destination as darkness started to creep up through the valley and an eerie ambient blackness fell across the earth. As total night fell like a shroud, they emerged into a small clearing at the base of the sheer jagged rock that appeared to go all the way to heaven. The Priest motioned them to stop and they all dropped to a sudden crouch. A silenced Beretta appeared in his hand and Alix crept up to kneel beside him. “What is it?”
“I heard something.”
Alix palmed his Glock 9mm, complete with silencer, and squinted into the gloom.
They waited for an indefinable amount of time, kneeling there in the gently falling snow. Up ahead there was a slight bend in the trail, sparsely wooded; beyond the turn squatted the old wicker basket landing platform.
Alix closed his eyes, focusing on the sounds and smells all around him, the fresh ozone heightened by the clean crisp mountain air. After five minutes of concentration, he was just about to give up. The Priest and Lola just behind him. They moved forward cautiously, halting, constantly checking their surroundings in the gloom - eyes fixed, ears alert.
As they rounded the bend they came across the snow covered landing platform with the large eight man wicker basket, similar to those used for hot-air ballooning, resting alongside a small run-down building. Its timber structure, decaying from years of neglect and nonuse. A thick steel wire connecting the basket to the winch-house far above. The door to the building was firmly closed against the tenbelow temperature outside.
The wind howled mournfully through the valley, a light glowed within the timber building, glimpsed through shrouded windows.
Sentries, signalled Alix. Two.
The Priest and Lola both nodded.
You both wait here, Alix signalled, and again the Priest and Lola nodded.
Alix moved towards the door, keeping low and being careful not to make any sound. He stood up, back against the damp wood. From inside, he could hear low voices, the accents Far Eastern, possibly North Korean by the sound of it, complaining about the drafty old building being colder inside than it was out. Where were the SAS, then? He thought to himself with a grim smile. And what were communist soldiers from a closed state, doing in the Highlands of Scotland?
He moved cautiously around to the side of the building and from this new vantage point, he could see the two soldiers sitting opposite each other in front of a small two-bar electric fire. Alix heard the whine of heavy rotors, and glimpsed up to see the flashing red landing lights of a military Chinook helicopter.
He remained perfectly still, his eyes now fully adjusted to the gloom. The religious man’s source had been right. There was definitely something strange going on here.
There was a noise from inside, the sound of boots on timber, Alix turned, facing the door - which suddenly burst open to reveal one of the uniformed men, stocky build and heavily muscled like a Rottweiler. He was smoking a cigarette that dangled from between his lips and a lethal looking Daewoo K7 9mm silenced SMG slung from his shoulder. He was squinting - and his eyes opened wide as he saw Alix’s smiling face.
Alix’s fist connected with a crack, and the Korean guard was punched backwards to land heavily on the frozen earth in front of the timber building, knocking him unconscious as his head grazed the smooth surface of the concealed rock. As the second guard appeared in the doorway, Alix instantly brought up the silenced barrel of the Glock, so that it was level with the man’s face. He stood perfectly still, Daewoo K7 9mm SMG in his hand at his side, not sure what to do next, all the time thinking to himself - can I kill this son-of-a-bitch, before he kills me...
“Don’t even think about it, sonny,” growled Alix as the young man looked at him, then down at the K7. The guard made his choice went to bring the K7’s barrel up, and the Glock spatin Alix’s grip; the guard was flung back inside the building, sprawling out on his back in the middle of the small room. Blood spattered up across the walls, and from the obliterated skull, blood and brain matter oozed out to mix with the grime and dust on the wooden floor, pooling around the man’s head. Alix cursed.
The Priest stood up, Lola followed, and they both walked over to Alix, who was now standing over the unconscious first guard. Alix kicked him sharply in the kidneys, making him gasp with the pain, as he moved past to the guard lying on the floor inside. Alix checked the dead guard and then stepped back outside; Lola had grabbed hold of the living guard and had dragged him up into a sitting position, and was shaking him by the shoulders.
“How many of you are there?”Lola spoke to the semi-conscious man in fluent Korean.
The man shook his head, a mouth as narrow as a pencil line.
“What are North Korean soldiers doing here,” said Lola. “And what the hell are they really guarding?”
“What do you think about the cable, I suppose it’s likely to be shot to hell; not many people know about this access to the facility, and less reason to guard it. I think though, that these two Herberts were down here because you never know...
“Why not use Assassins?” Lola said looking around.
“Be thankful they’re not,” said the Priest, adding. “But these two intrigue me. Why are there North Korean soldiers in Scotland? And how many more of them are there, because they didn’t walk here on their own.”
“These fuckers are packing Daewoo K7 9mm silenced submachine guns. The thing about this particular SMG; is that it fires a subsonic 9mm cartridge, and utilizes a simple blow-back system, has three firing modes, single shot - a 3-round burst and fully automatic. In the auto mode it has a cyclicrate of fire of 1150 rounds per minute. And that scrawny bugger was definitely going to cut me in half with his. Good thing he didn’t get the chance. Stupid young man.”
The Priest was standing between the basket and the building, looking up at the very distant winch-house above. “Kill the light inside,” he said softly, and dropped his rucksack onto the timber floor. He pulled free night-vision binoculars and peered up through the snow filled expanse.
“There’s movement up there, helicopters coming and going.”
“What are they up to?”
“Can’t tell from down here, angle’s all wrong and this snow isn’t helping either,” said the Priest. “Even as we speak two more Chinooks have landed and taken off again. So it must be something important to risk manoeuvring large helicopters around these mountains in such bad weather. The top of this mountain is very busy for a Government research and development facility, I’d say.”
“So what now?”
“We need to get closer.”
“This basket hasn’t moved for quite some time,” said Alix slowly.
“I doubt it would be safe, even if there was power still piped into the winch-house, which is highly unlikely. What are you thinking?”
“I need to get closer,” said the Priest. “I will go up the wire.”
“That would make you more insane than me.” said Alix softly.
“You forget, Alix. The Lord wil
l protect me.”
“Really...”
“He has done okay so far, as I’m still alive.”
Alix ran his hand through his wet hair, and then peered up at the swaying cable running straight up the side of the mountain and into
- nothing - total darkness. “I will, of course, have to come with you,” he said without enthusiasm.
“That will not be necessary, Alix.” Said the Priest.
“Excuse me, Priest.” growled Alix softly. “We haven’t come to this God forsaken place to sit on the side-line. We’re here to find out who and what has totally obliterated Scorpion, and is fucking around with a potentially devastating global computer virus; I can’t let yougo alone.”
Alix smiled, and then walked back to Lola. Spoke to her for a moment, before walking back to the basket and stared upwards. Alix knew from his time here that this area of the facility was virtually invisible to the prying eye.
“That’s an awfully long way to climb,” said Lola, coming to stand beside him.
“Yeah, so I see. Grab your pack, if you’re coming.”
The Priest stepped forward. From his own pack he took out a small metallic device; he checked it over and inspected the clamping mechanism.
“You brought one of those new climb assist gizmos with you?” The Priest nodded, and pulled out two more of the tiny devices, handing one each to Alix and Lola. He then picked up one of the Daewoo K7 sub-machine gun, unclipped the magazine and checked that it was fully loaded, and then slung the lethal weapon across his shoulder. Alix did the same and then went over to stand beside Lola who was checking over her Heckler & Koch MP5. A moment later and the Priest was attaching the small climb-assist device to the base of the thick cable just above the wicker basket.
“How convinced are you, that these are the bad guys?” Lola asked the Priest.
He gave her a sideways glance and nodded “On a scale of one to ten, I would say ten and a half. If it transpires, as I think it will; then this facility is now under the control of those other than professor Kirill, and that they are planning, according to intelligence reports, what will almost certainly be a global computer Armageddon. This place makes an ideal base for that sort of operation - mostly because it is so easily defended. Anyone who knew about the SAS Stage School facility would know that much of the equipment that was left behind could easily be utilised, even with a modicum of military expertise.”
“Well, we’ll soon be finding out,” said Alix. He pulled a black balaclava over his wet face, and the others did likewise; now, all in black and carrying the K7 silenced SMGs and regulation issue Glock pistols, the three of them looked truly terrifying.
“Lola, you stay down here. Keep your comm. open at all times, and yourself out of sight. We’ll be banking on you to make surethat we don’t get any nasty surprises at the back door.” The Priest said. Lola nodded and immediately moved off to her position inside the timber building.
The Priest was checking the mountain for any activity through his night-vision binoculars. He was agitated, annoyed at what he was viewing. “There’s far too much activity up there, two more helicopters have just left, and one more has just landed. It would appear that we’ve chosen a busy time to visit, but it would account for our approach run not being questioned. They obviously assumed that we were just another in-bound.”
“Good,” said Alix. “This means that they’ll be too busy to see us coming.”
“Maybe,” the Priest said looking through the binoculars again. “We’ll just have to go see, won’t we?”
Alix smiled grimly from behind the black mask. “Now you’re talking my language. Let’s go do the Lord’s work.”
“Alix, you’re now talking my language. The Lord will surely show us the way.”
The Priest slipped the looped strap of the climb-assist unit around his wrist. Made a last minute adjustment and ensured that the device was tightly locked around the winch cable. He looked briefly at Alix, and then pushed the tiny button to activate the servos, motors whirred, and the next moment he was lifted up into the air, as the device pulled itself up the thick winch cable.
The wind howled, snow had turned to sleet, lashing down in torrential proportions. Alix stepped up to the basket, attached his own device to the winch wire with a click. Its servos whirred as it settled into place around the thick cable and a tiny red light flashed, then went out. Alix slipped the looped strap around his wrist and looked up into the darkness and the storm. The cable was slapping around in the gusting wind, he swallowed hard, braced himself, and a moment later he was on his way up the wire towards the winchhouse. The Priest was gone, swallowed up by the total blackness. As he neared his destination, he looked down. Deep below, falling away into nothingness, was a valley of snow covered rocks, a place where nothing lived, nothing survived. Ever...
It would be a long, long fall... followed by a gravity induced death.
Alix breathed deeply. He spotted the Priest up above him, he was just below the winch-house, about to go inside through the trap door. He nodded back at Alix, had his Glock 9mm pistol in his hand as he disappeared up through and into the timber building.
Alix waited a moment before moving again, waited for the sound of gun shots but only the howling wind was there with him, buffeting his watering eyes as he soared up into the winch-house.
* * * Kirill came awake suddenly, cursing the wounds that he had received during his recent visit to his home in Cornwall. Dillon would pay for not dying, as planned. His time would come, as sure as there was fire in hell. He scowled as he ran a hand through his hair and sighed softly. He got out of bed, stood up, stretched his arms up above his head, and then headed for the wet-room. He could smell himself, his own body stink from a restless, sweaty, sleep.
Kirill hated feeling dirty. Hated the thought that his body had produced such a sour odour. The comm buzzed. Kirill halted, caught between the need to wash the stink from his skin and the need to answer the internal comm; he knew that it would be important. It had to be important, for someone to invade his personal time. A lot of bad stuff was currently going down. “Damn.” He walked back to his office space, reached his desk, and pushed the comm button. “Yes?”
Outside, beyond the false environment of his apartment and the cam-link images of the highland landscape, the extreme weather from the previous evening had blown itself out, and the sun was rising over the mountain range. Golden light danced across the distant snowcapped peaks, wind lifted fresh powder snow in waves, rolling down the sheer slopesto fade away through the cloud base. But on this sourtasting morning the incredible and magical sight of dawn delivered via high-definition optics did little to calm Kirill’s sense of foreboding.
“Ezra is dead.”
“Good. What about Dillon and the girl?”
“Dillon and the girl are another problem.”
“So the Assassins failed to terminate them?”
“I’m afraid it is much worse than that; Dillon is now much
more informed, has now experienced the Assassins on two separate occasions - and survived. Most disturbing of all, is that I think he has discovered what the missing link is. That it is required to complete the Chimera Programme.”
“Does he know that I am still alive?”
“It is a possibility,” said Ramus softly.
“I want that bastard dead,” said Kirill. “And I want him dead right
now!” Kirill’s voice had suddenly risen to become almost hysterical. He stood, sweating profusely, his heart pounding in his chest, hands slippery against the polished quartz top of his desk.
“Calm yourself,” said Ramus, his voice low.
“I’ll calm myself when Dillon is well and truly dead,” hissed
Kirill.
“Now, now you are forgetting yourself,” whispered Ramus, his
voice easy, like a razor sharp blade cutting through soft skin tissue. Kirill paused then; he caught the sinister undercurrent of danger
in Ramus’ voice.
You did not fuck with Ramus.
He curbed his tongue. He closed his eyes for a brief moment,
and then said, forcing his voice back into its more usual urbane tone
which completely contradicted his present lack of civility. “What
I mean to point out, is that Dillon has proved himself to be an
extremely capable adversary - an extremely dangerous and well trained
individual. He has outsmarted and out-paced both the Assassins and
ourselves all the way to Santorini and beyond. If he knows that I am
alive then he may come to find me. You didn’t see him in Cornwall,
Ramus; I have never seen a man move so fast - kill so many. It was like
being in a bad dream with no way out. It was terrifying.”
“Kirill, your priority now is to move quickly towards the
completion of Chimera. Nothing else is important. We have twentyfour hours, and then we start the process. Mr Dillon is my problem
and I can assure you that I do not intend to fuck about with this man.
Terrifying or not.” The heavy sarcasm could not be missed. Kirill paused. Some of his earlier composure had returned and
he cursed himself; he had displayed weakness. And to Ramus of all
people... But Kirill could still remember Dillon’s white hot bullet
drilling into his body, a manoeuvre so fast he had seen nothing: merely
wondered why the hell he was lying on his back with blackness quickly
descending upon him...
“Twenty-four hours? When Ezra jumped over that cliff to his
certain death on Santorini. He took with him the last piece to the
Chimera jigsaw puzzle. The programme is ninety-five percent ready.
And that is where it is likely to remain - short of a miracle. Operative
but not fully effective...”
“Your people will just have to work harder, then. Won’t they?”
There it was again, that razor edge to Ramus’ words; the implicit
Chimera Code (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) Page 29