Asura

by R P L Johnson

  Inside, the resemblance to an expensive camera or gun case continued. The bottom tray of the case was filled with foam padding, cut to shape around various objects, some that he did not recognise, others that were chillingly familiar. It was a bomb, of that he was certain. All the key elements were there: a battery connected to an electrical relay, a radio receiver and a charge. Spiral, plastic coated wires connected the components. All that was missing was a timer with a big red LED display and the device would have been a Hollywood-perfect prop.

  Although Rose was certain of the device's purpose, in all his years in the Royal Engineers disposing of enemy ordinance and improvised explosive devices he had never seen a bomb like this one. There was no detonator that he could see. The wires from the electrical relay disappeared into a silver, cylindrical object about the size and shape of a small thermos flask. The detonator and charge were probably self-contained within that casing, but if they were, it was an expensive, custom job. Rose knew better than to touch the cylinder. Although it obviously was pretty robust--after all, it had survived a plane crash, numerous firefights and most recently a two hundred foot swan dive into the rifer, there was no telling what kind of anti-tamper triggers might be contained within its shiny surface. There were some markings on the cylinder-smudged scrawls with an engineer's wax pencil-but they gave no clue as to its contents.

  Rose shone the torch beam on an unusual marking at one end of the cylinder, partly hidden by the foam padding. He'd nearly missed it as it was engraved into the casing itself and almost invisible until the light caught it just right. It was roughly tri-foil in shape, with three fans radiating off a central hub circle with the inscribed letter ‘M’.

  It reminded Rose of the radiation and biohazard symbols although it was neither of those. It was something new.

  Apart from the silver cylinder, the device didn’t look particularly sophisticated. The other parts were typically East European copies of American hardware—cheap but reliable and available from any of a dozen ex-communist block arms dealers. The twelve volt battery could have been bought at K-Mart. Rose considered disconnecting it, but without his tools he had no way of telling if the silver cylinder was drawing current. Would disconnecting the power supply make the device safe, or cause it to blow?

  He considered leaving the device behind—he didn’t relish the idea of walking around with a bomb strapped to his back, particularly when the trigger was in the hands of Millicent Carver. Any second now she could decide that her mission was a lost cause and unleash whatever currently lay dormant within the inscrutable silver cylinder.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to discard what could be their only bargaining chip. That’s assuming I ever get out of this mountain, he thought wryly.

  He quickly tended the wound in his side, taping the ragged edges together with butterfly sutures from his first aid kit and dousing it with disinfectant. He emptied out whatever weight he could, keeping only the minimum of climbing gear, and stuffed the aluminium case back inside his pack.

  Campbell and the others had talked about a steaming, geothermally heated lake. It was as good a goal as any. Shouldering his pack and hefting the reassuring weight of the Indian’s pistol, Rose set out along the river.

  He waded through the knee-deep water. The strong current tugged at his legs, but he moved cautiously with one hand on the tunnel wall to his left. He had followed the beach for about fifty feet before the underground river meandered through a tight series of turns and disappeared into a channel about the same size as a London Underground tunnel back home. Fortunately, although there was no longer any bank, the channel itself varied in depth, from a few feet at the edge to a swift-flowing deep core.

  Rose stuck to the shallows. It was tempting to try and float along the river, it certainly would have speeded his progress but to what? After barely surviving one fall, he was wary of subterranean waterfalls, or being carried right through a nest of those creatures, or any number of a hundred other unpleasant fates that could await him downstream.

  He had seen no sign of the creatures since leaving the bar of alluvial gravel and its cargo of corpses. His view was limited to a few square yards immediately ahead of him. The rest of the river’s course was lost in the roaring blackness.

  There was a noise up ahead: a screech. Rose immediately froze. He flicked off his torch and waited. There were other noises: muffled and indistinct but definitely not human. There were creatures ahead.

  He advanced slowly, feeling his way along the tunnel wall and letting the river cover the noise of his splashing. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he noticed light as well as sound coming from ahead. The river surged around a bend. Whatever lay in wait for him was around there. He advanced with his pistol raised to find—nothing. The tunnel and the raging river continued but there was no sign of any creatures.

  He followed the light. It grew stronger towards one side of the tunnel and eventually he came to a narrow rock chimney leading away from the river.

  Another inhuman screech. Now he could identify its source. It was coming from the rock chimney.

  At least now I know which way not to go, he thought. He skirted the rocky crevice as best he could, edging out into the deeper, faster-flowing water.

  Suddenly he lost his footing. His legs were pulled out from under him by the raging current and he found himself flying down the river.

  His journey was short. The river surged over a natural weir and Rose tumbled with the white water into a deep, still pool. He couldn’t touch the bottom; the pool seemed to go down forever. Treading water, he made his way around its circumference. It was about thirty feet wide and enclosed by steep walls that reached up into the darkness above. There was no sign of where the constant influx of water disappeared to. The level never rose higher than a couple of feet below the natural, smooth-eroded weir.

  There was no way out.

  ◆◆◆

  McCarthy turned to Tej who sat, desolate, in the well of the boat. ‘There’s nothing you could have done,’ she assured him. Tej stared at her blankly.

  They took turns on the oars, even Garret lending a hand, paddling almost across the entire lake until they were within a dozen yards of the shore. Campbell made ready to jump in and haul the boat up the bank when suddenly a volley of rifle shots cracked across the water, splashing in front of the little boats prow. Campbell quickly swung his rifle up to his shoulder but was too late. Millicent Carver stepped out from behind a boulder, her rifle already raised and aimed straight at his head.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that of I were you,’ she warned. Behind her, the remaining men of the Indian SSB platoon backed up her inferred threat with twelve guns.

  The others stopped paddling as they saw the Indian soldiers. They had no cover, and nowhere to run except back the way they had come into the midst of those creatures.

  They were literally dead in the water.

  CHAPTER 29

  Carver drove her fist into Campbell’s face. The big Scot was on his knees, stripped to the waist and zip-tied at wrist and ankle. His upper body was scored with cuts from his own knife that now hung from Carver’s belt. His nose was crushed and bloody, both eyes were quickly swelling shut and she had only just begun. This was just foreplay—a gentle caress to warm the skin before the horrors to come.

  ‘Where is it, Campbell?’

  Campbell spat blood at her feet. ‘Where’s what?’

  Carver struck him again. The survivors’ meagre possessions were strewn across the gravel, but there was no sign of Carver’s case. The survivors themselves were huddled together under the watchful eye of Major Naik and his men. Tej and Marinucci were trussed up like Campbell, but the others were free for now. Across the steaming lake the howls of the Nagas echoed like the souls of the dead across the River Styx.

  ‘I thought you were smarter than that, Campbell,’ Carver continued. ‘You know I’m not going to fuck around. You’ve got one chance to tell me where my case is, and after that I’m go
ing to start cutting myself some steaks from that big Aberdeen Angus carcass of yours.’

  She drew the Busse. ‘I’ll ask one more time. Where is my fucking case?’

  Without waiting for an answer she pressed the blade against Campbell’s bulging shoulder.

  ‘For Christ’s sake he doesn’t know,’ McCarthy blurted. Her face was a mass of tear-stained grime but her eyes burned with hatred. ‘Rose had it, and now he’s gone.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Campbell shouted, but it was too late.

  A grim smile spread across Carver’s lips. She bent down and whispered in Campbell’s ear. ‘You shouldn’t have told them. Now let’s have some fun.’

  Campbell lunged at her, but Carver neatly side-stepped his clumsy body check and one of the Indian soldiers wasted no time in beating him back down to the ground.

  ‘So, Ms McCarthy, you know our little secret too. I hope for your sake your pain threshold is as high as your friend’s.’

  Carver grabbed McCarthy by a fistful of hair and hauled her to the ground next to Campbell. She knelt in the small of McCarthy’s back and stabbed the big knife into the ground right in front of the terrified woman’s wild eyes. McCarthy screamed.

  ‘Now we’re going to start again,’ Carver explained in a chilling, rational tone. ‘Now I know a pretty young thing like you doesn’t have to worry about her weight, but I’m going to introduce you to the best weight loss program you’ve ever heard of. For every lie, every wrong answer, every attempt to avoid the question I will cut a kilo of flesh from your body. Do you understand?’

  McCarthy was sobbing in terror and frustration. ‘Yes,’ she cried.

  ‘That’s a good start. Now, tell me, where is Captain Rose?’

  ‘He fell,’ McCarthy gibbered, her eyes never leaving the gleaming blade thrust into the ground in front of her eyes. ‘He fell into the ravine.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ Carver shouted.

  ‘It’s true! I swear.’

  ‘You’re lying... We tracked the signal here!’

  She grabbed the knife and stepped up. ‘Hold her,’ she ordered.

  ‘I swear,’ McCarthy pleaded. ‘We saw him fall!’

  Carver smiled; she was going to enjoy this. She ran a gloved thumb along the Busse’s blade but then stopped.

  With a sound like stretching bone, one of the blue portals in the wall above them began to open. A black circle appeared at its centre and dilated until the blue barrier material was reduced to a foot-wide halo around a circular opening about six feet across.

  Silence descended on the Lake Cavern. Even the howls of the Nagas across the lake had disappeared.

  ‘Fall back,’ Carver ordered. Her voice was little more than a hissed whisper as if she feared breaking the fragile calm.

  Suddenly other portals began to open. The whole cavern wall creaked like grinding teeth as a dozen separate doorways appeared and a swarm of Nagas flowed out.

  ‘Run!’ Carver shouted. The SSB commandos were already falling back. Carver grabbed McCarthy by the hair and dragged her to her feet. Leaving Campbell struggling in vain against his tough, plastic bonds, Carver forced the prisoners back away from the tide of monsters.

  High on the wall the Asura stood framed in one of the openings. It bellowed a command and the horde of Nagas stopped their scramble down the cavern wall. They hung there, clinging on with iron-hard claws like a roost of giant bats waiting for the order to swoop.

  ‘Keep moving!’ Carver shouted and pushed McCarthy roughly in the back. Ahead of her the others scrambled along as best they could with their bound hands. They barely kept pace with their captors.

  Just then, Hadeeqa stumbled and fell to the ground. Khamas immediately knelt beside his daughter but a nearby guard dragged him to his feet. Khamas head-butted him squarely in the nose.

  The guard staggered backwards and raised his rifle, ready to blast Khamas into oblivion. A shot rang out, but it was the guard, not Khamas, that fell dead.

  Jon Rose emerged from the lake, dripping wet and with his pistol raised. A curl of smoke drifted upwards from the barrel. He had been crouching in the shallows for several minutes, watching Campbell’s interrogation with horror but forcing himself to stay his hand: waiting for the right moment to strike. But he couldn’t let Khamas die.

  As soon as Carver saw him she unleashed a volley of shots, but they went wide as McCarthy barrelled into her. The two women fell to the ground in a rolling brawl.

  At the same time, a bellow echoed across the cavern. Rose looked up to see the Asura pointing its staff straight at him. Instantly, the Nagas screeched in response and swarmed down the wall.

  Campbell saw Rose in the shallows and heard the screech of the Nagas. The swarm of creatures surged towards him. Whatever hope he had was instantly crushed. He would be torn to pieces, and there was nothing either he or Rose or any of the others could do about it.

  McCarthy got her hands around Carver’s throat as the two rolled. Some part of her knew that this was the end. If she ran, Carver would shoot her down in a second. If she managed to strangle Carver she would have only a few seconds to savour her victory before the Nagas tore her to shreds. Rolling over on top of Carver, she pushed down on her throat with all her bodyweight and squeezed.

  Khamas knelt by the body of his dead captor. The man’s rifle was fitted with a bayonet and it took only a second for Khamas to slice through the plastic zip ties that bound his wrists. He grabbed the rifle and turned to defend himself, but the rest of the Indians were still fleeing away from the Nagas. They didn’t care about him or the rest of their prisoners.

  Major Naik reached the mouth of the tunnel that led back to the surface of the glacier. It was only a couple of yards wide. He was confident that his men could hold it against an army of those creatures. He quickly ordered his men into position and looked down at the scene below. The Nagas raced towards a lone figure at the water’s edge. Carver fought with one of the prisoners while the others were scattered across the rocky plain.

  He remembered the trigger that Carver carried. If she lost her fight, they would all be blown to Hell.

  ‘Koshie!’ the Major barked. ‘Jam that damn signal!’

  The signalman frantically scanned frequencies, searching for the link between trigger and bomb. By the sweat dripping from his brow, the task was not going well.

  The Major judged the distance between Carver and the Nagas. The monsters would be on her in seconds. He had to do something.

  He tossed a pair of binoculars to his Sergeant.

  ‘Kumar, you’re sighting for me,’ he ordered.

  The Major lay down and steadied his forearm against the ground. He sighted along the barrel and pulled the trigger.

  McCarthy almost had her. She could feel Carver’s struggles weakening as she bore down on the woman’s throat will all her strength. Suddenly the ground at her side exploded. Chips of rock dug into her leg and she screamed, instinctively flinging herself to the side. Carver immediately heaved and flung McCarthy off-balance. McCarthy tumbled onto her back, cracking her head against the rocky cavern floor. Her hand fell against something smooth and cold: the discarded Busse knife. She grabbed it and jumped to her feet, ready to finish Carver off, but she had disappeared.

  Campbell could feel the blood flowing down his cut wrists as he strained to free himself. The blood slickened his palms but the ties were too tight. Short of losing a thumb, there was no way he was getting free. The first of the Nagas was almost upon him. This was it: he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.

  From his vantage point at the tunnel mouth the Major watched the horde of Nagas roll over the helpless SAS soldier. From a similar position, high on the wall opposite him the Asura gazed down across the rocky lake shore. They were like two ancient generals surveying the field of battle from opposing hills.

  He had bought Carver some time, but the devious woman was still in danger. In other circumstances he would have taken pleasure in watching the woman get torn limb from l
imb, but the consequences of her death were unthinkable. If any of them were to live through that day, Carver would have to be saved.

  The Major looked down at the army of Nagas. There were perhaps forty of the vile creatures. The moved as one in a swarming mass without strategy or discipline. No more than animals. His men were outnumbered four to one.

  ‘Fix bayonets!’ he ordered. Casting a glance towards the Asura, he led his men into battle.

  Campbell couldn’t believe he was still alive. The Nagas swarmed over him. He was caught under a stampede and rolled along under a barrage of kicks and stompings. Claws raked his flesh as they passed, but none of the creatures stopped to finish him off. He rolled into a ball and covered his head, certain that at any time one of the creatures would take a second to tear out his throat, but the coup de grace never came. The tide of monsters rolled over him and surged onwards towards Rose. Their single-minded intensity left no room for any thoughts other than obeying their master.

  Eventually the fusillade of tramping blows left him and he rolled painfully to his knees. The bloody slices from Carver’s interrogation had been repeated a score of times by the Nagas’ claws but he was alive.

  He saw Rebecca McCarthy racing towards him with the others at her side. Khamas, Hadeeqa, Tej and Garrett: they were all there except for Frank Marinucci. McCarthy quickly sliced through Campbell’s bonds while the other grabbed what weapons they could.

  Frank Marinucci raced towards the water’s edge. He could see Campbell out of the corner of his eye. The big Scot looked like he’d just been spat out the back end of a wood chipper, but he’d survive.

  The Nagas surged across the shore. It was obvious that they were making a bee line for Rose, and Marinucci had a hunch why. His friend was doomed unless Marinucci could do something about it and fast.