by Greig Beck
Caresche stepped forward quickly and stared into the darkness. He coughed. The chamber must have been sealed for many long centuries, and the air smelled of damp, decay, and something that reminded him of fish putrefying at the high-tide line on a beach.
The archeologist glanced at his watch, its face large on his slim wrist. He lifted his head to listen – there was a constant dripping and a few gasps from dying fish, but no shouts or sirens, and the chamber’s lights remained off.
Janus Caresche grinned. ‘All mine’, he said to the dark hole before him.
He reached into his backpack for a small hammer and metal spike. This time, if he came to another barrier, he’d go through it. He slid the tools into his belt, took one last look around, and started down the black stone steps into a stygian darkness.
He counted the steps as he descended, finishing at one hundred – the centum, an important number in ancient Rome. The twin beams from his flashlight and headlamp barely illuminated the large vault-like room. The ground and walls ran with moisture and dripping mosses.
Caresche kneeled and wiped his hand across the floor – polished mica, still shining like glass after all the centuries. Behind the slime, the walls were covered in beautiful mosaics made from abalone shell, more mica, and semi-precious stone shards, showing images of serpents, faces screwed up in agony, or night-time scenes with chalk-like figures shielding their eyes. In one, a large figure sat in an ox-drawn cart with a covering concealing its head. The detail of every mosaic was exquisite, and even now, centuries later, the faces seemed to take on life in the light of his beam.
Every few panels showed a large staring face, like a ghastly death mask, its eyes orbs of metal. Lifting his light, Caresche saw the metal was silver, and he knew that it would once have been polished to a mirror-like sheen. Viewers of the panels would have seen themselves reflected back in all the silver eyes.
He held out his arms. ‘All shall bathe in the gaze of the Gorgos.’
He grinned and threw his head back, then frowned. He lifted his flashlight to the vaulted roof. In trompe l’oeil style, which created an almost 3D effect, the magnificent painted ceiling depicted a noonday sun, soft clouds and birds flying across a blue sky. Someone had gone to great trouble to ensure this room would forever seem bathed in perpetual sunlight.
Caresche lowered his light toward an ornate doorway. He immediately recognized the design – a Roman triumphal arch, used to signify victory over an enemy, or even over death. A wall had been erected across the arch, sealing it. He placed a hand on the brickwork – typical Roman fire-hardened clay. Strong, but the mortar would be weakened by nearly a millennium of moisture.
He wedged the sharp metal spike between two bricks and struck it with the hammer. The hammer clanged and bounced back, causing minimal damage to the wall but jarring his shoulder.
‘Fuck you too,’ he said, and replaced the spike.
This time he swung hard, and the bricks separated. It took him another ten minutes to remove the first brick, but from there, most came out like old teeth from loose gums. He kicked at the last few blocks, which crumbled inwards.
Janus Caresche flicked sweat from his face, placed a hand over his mouth and nose, and stepped inside. ‘Oof.’ It stank … of something unidentifiable.
The space was small, no more than twenty feet around, and plain by Roman standards. It seemed to be a fortified storeroom, which he had expected for something Emperor Constantine had wanted to keep hidden away.
There was a single object in the center of the room – a huge urn of age-darkened bronze, as tall as he was. It reminded him of the pots whalers used in the 1800s for rendering whale blubber down to oil. He walked slowly around it, flicking his light up and down its sides. It stood on three ornate clawed feet, its sides adorned with horrible faces crowned with what looked like writhing snakes. There was writing on the vessel and on the walls nearby – a strange script he didn’t recognize, even though he spoke and understood a dozen languages.
He rapped against it with a knuckle; the sound was deep and hollow.
‘Bonjour, beautiful. Anybody home?’
He smiled and was about to step back when he froze. What was that? A sound? He put his ear to the urn – listening, waiting. Nothing.
He snorted softly and shook his head. ‘Let’s get this done.’
He ran a hand along the top to feel a manhole-sized lid held in place by huge clasps and chains. Caresche had seen many Roman chests and many ornate locks in his time, but this was a first – probably purpose built. The signs were good: it was a significant strongbox with plenty of locks and a lot of chains, and to someone like him, that meant whatever was inside was of enormous value.
Payday, he thought as he placed the metal spike against one of the bronze clasps. He tapped it once with the hammer for alignment, then raised the hammer high and swung down hard.
The first lock broke away.
CHAPTER 2
Twenty miles north of Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland, USA
Medical officer Lieutenant Alan Marshal groaned under another onslaught from his immediate superior, Captain Robert Graham. He kept his hands tight on the wheel, hunkered down in the driver’s seat, and let the man vent. He knew Graham was a man under pressure, and besides, the guy had a temper like Satan himself.
Graham headed up the Alpha Soldier Research Unit at Fort Detrick’s Medical Command Installation; its goal to create physically and mentally superior soldiers for the US military. Graham had had only one real success in nearly five years – Alex Hunter, their first subject trialed on the experimental Arcadian treatment.
Hunter was brought to them following a catastrophic battlefield trauma, more dead than alive. The treatment wasn’t expected to do more than deliver some cerebral stimulation for enhanced cognizance and muscular mobility. After all, the man was little more than a vegetable. But Alex Hunter had recovered – with massively increased strength and abilities. No one had ever seen anything like him – and they’d let him simply walk away.
Neither Marshal nor Graham had realized at the time that Hunter was a biochemical fluke, an aberration. Since then, countless Arcadian test subjects had been mutilated and destroyed, often by their own hands. Graham’s recent batch had proved to be little more than brutal automatons with a metabolism that cannibalized their own morphology: they melted down as their internal core temperatures burned through their flesh and sanity.
Marshal had to hand it to Graham for persistence – he never gave up. He always had something new to try, and was constantly on the verge of a breakthrough. Marshal knew if it were up to him, he would have tapped the mat ages ago.
He sucked in a deep breath and looked at the dashboard clock: only 10pm in another fourteen-hour shift. You certainly didn’t join the ASRU for the social life.
‘How?’ Graham said angrily, his frustration still simmering.
‘Huh?’ Marshal half-turned. ‘How what?’
‘How does Hunter’s system provide the thermoregulation necessary to balance the huge rises in core temperature? What extra factor does he use or possess? What was different about him?’
Marshal groaned. Here we go again – more self-flagellation. ‘Bob, we’ve been over the treatment notes countless time. There was nothing –’
‘We missed something – we must have. Was there some sort of impurity or contamination? Something already in his system that interacted with the compounds?’ Graham shook his head and folded his arms tight across his chest.
Marshal chanced another look at the clock, counting down the minutes until he could get his boss home … and bring himself some peace and quiet. He decided to steer Graham back to the science; that always seemed to refocus him.
‘Well, we know that the human body’s thermal output is primarily generated in the liver, brain, and heart, and also in the contraction of skeletal muscles. So perhaps he –’
‘Bullshit, Marshal. I don’t believe it has anything to do with his body. The preopti
c area of the anterior hypothalamus manages thermoregulation. It’s his brain, it’s always been his goddamn unique beautiful fucking brain.’
Marshal sighed, and glanced at the clock again. The run through Cunningham Falls State Park took about ten minutes, and the winding road through the darkened forest with the headlights lighting the road lines and little else was almost hypnotic. At least Graham’s bellyaching served to keep Marshal awake, even if it did make the drive seem to go on forever.
‘What’s that?’ Graham leaned forward and put his hands on the dashboard.
Marshal slowed. ‘Someone hurt, is it? Or had an accident?’
He flicked on his high beams. Immediately the figure of a man hunched over a bicycle was lit up like an actor on a floodlit stage. The man kept his back to them, fiddling with the bike. He lifted one arm and waved, but didn’t turn.
‘For Chrissakes, can’t he do that by the side of the road? We could have run him over.’ Graham wound down his window as Marshal pulled the car up about twenty feet from the crouching man. ‘Can you move, please?’
The man ignored him and continued to tinker.
Graham pulled his head in. ‘Drive around him.’
Marshal shook his head and pointed to the side of the road. There was a high embankment on one side and a steep drop into the forest on the other. ‘It’s too steep, we’ll roll. Besides, he could be hurt.’
‘Doesn’t look hurt.’ Graham leaned out the window again. ‘Excuse me, sir, are you hurt? Do you need help?’
The man nodded but still didn’t turn.
Marshal sensed Graham looking across at him, but he kept staring straight ahead. It was cold out, he was tired, and knew nothing about fixing pushbikes. He really hoped Graham didn’t order him to get out and help.
‘Fuck it. Times like this I hate being a doctor,’ Graham said, and pushed the door open. He paused to look back into the car. ‘Keep the motor running. I’ll see if we can’t get this guy out of the way. Maybe we can call the local police to come and give him a lift.’ He paused again. ‘If we give him a lift, you drop me home first.’
Marshal watched Graham saunter toward the man, who didn’t stop working on his task or acknowledge the approaching doctor in any way. Arrogant prick, Marshal thought.
Graham reached the man and bent forward over his shoulder to see what he was working on. At last there was a reaction – the man turned and began to rise. One large arm shot out like a striking snake and a huge hand wrapped around Graham’s bicep. The cyclist rose to his full height, and seemed to unfold. Marshal’s eyes widened. Captain Graham was a tall man, standing six feet, but this ogre towered over him by at least another eight inches, and was more than twice as wide. The man’s dark beard glinted in the car’s headlights, and Marshal caught a reflection from one of his eyes. Marshal knew prosthetics and recognized it as glass.
The big man pulled Graham close, said something, then shook him violently as if to get an answer. Graham nodded meekly, keeping his shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow. He got it. The giant swung a huge fist into Graham’s face, knocking his head backward on his neck and causing him to drop to the ground unconscious.
Marshal was momentarily frozen with disbelief and shock, then he leaped from the car. ‘Hey!’
He regretted the action instantly. He wasn’t armed, and the man outweighed him by more than 150 pounds. Further, a small black pistol magically appeared in the big man’s hand.
Marshal dived and rolled as bullets started flying toward him, then got to his feet and sprinted back down the dark road. He was picking up speed until a mule-kick to his shoulder threw him forward onto the pavement. He immediately got to his feet and ran again. The devil himself couldn’t have stopped him now.
He kept running, and didn’t stop, even when he heard his car start up and drive away.
*
Hammerson read the report again, his eyes lingering over the physical description of Marshal’s assailant: large frame, bearded, possible glass or synthetic eye. He had no doubt it was Uli Borshov, one of Russia’s most effective assassins and the man who had originally put Alex Hunter into a coma. He shook his head in disbelief, his lips pulled back, teeth clamped together in fury, and slammed the report down on his desk.
‘How the hell did that big bastard get into my front yard?’ He rubbed his forehead hard, breathing deep. ‘And how does someone the size of a grizzly bear stay under the radar?’
Seated beside him at the desk was an enormous man in black military fatigues. He shrugged, and stood up smoothly, accompanied by the small whine of electronics. ‘He’s good – we knew that. The guy’s ex-Spetsnaz and a psychopath. If anyone can get inside our tent and stay invisible, he can.’
Hammerson leaned back in his chair and assessed First Lieutenant Samuel Reid. The big HAWC soldier’s arms and shoulders bulged, and the knuckles of his hands where he gripped the seat arms were raised and callused, testament to years of brutal action. The big man looked fit – the benefit of the extensive upper-body physical work needed to compensate for his legs being useless. A recent mission had ended with Sam shattering his L1 and L2 spinal plates, and worse, severing the cord. Hammerson had needed Sam back in action – and Sam had wanted it double. Advancements in bionics and battlefield armor had moved to field-test phase, so six months ago Hammerson had authorized Sam for a trial of the new MECH suit – or part of it. The Military Exoskeleton Combat Harness was designed as the next-generation heavy-combat armor. On Sam, the half-body synaptic electronics were a molded framework built onto, and into, his body. A metal bracing belt fit around his waist, comprising a power pack and supportive base for the banded ribbing up the back, which then dropped additional struts down each side of his waist, hips and thighs to attach to the hyper-alloy-composite exoskeleton framework covering his legs and feet. It was light, flexible and a hundred times tougher than steel. The bands weren’t just fastened to the outside of Sam’s body; electrodes had been surgically inserted directly into his muscle mass – in effect, moving and working his muscles exactly as before his accident. It was still Sam’s brain sending the signals, but they were now relayed via the computer’s fiber optics instead of his broken spinal cord, and the MECH’s exoskeleton provided the support his own bone mass couldn’t.
‘A psychopath, but a damned clever one,’ Hammerson said slowly. ‘There are too many coincidences – the Arcadian shows up back home, and then the assassin who left him for dead in Chechnya reappears from the other side of the world and either kidnaps or kills Captain Robert Graham, the doctor who originally saved Hunter’s life.’ He shook his head. ‘Coincidences? Bullshit!’
Sam leaned forward over the desk. ‘Sir, Graham’s Arcadian program couldn’t remain a military secret forever. It was already compromised by the Israelis; it’s not surprising that Russia, China, North Korea, and every other nation with an enhanced weapons division are suddenly taking an interest.’
Hammerson ran one large hand through his iron-gray crew cut. He was the person who had sent Alex Hunter, near death, to the Israelis, hoping they could revive him after he’d been infected by the Hades virus. They had, but it had cost the young HAWC his memory, and even now it was unclear exactly what had been rebuilt or rewired in the man’s brain. But Sam was right: the genie was out of the bottle, and getting it back in would be impossible.
‘Well, looks to me like some asshole decided to leapfrog the hard yards on R&D and go straight to the source – steal the creator.’ Hammerson exhaled long and slow. ‘Fuck it. We dropped the ball.’
Hammerson picked up the phone and called through to the US military’s electronics surveillance factory beneath the Offutt Airforce Base in Nebraska. He was after Major Gerry Harris, a friend and the man responsible for coordinating the constellation of orbiting birds that fed back high-altitude intelligence from over the United States mainland, and also much of the globe. Harris and his team had been immediately set to work to find Captain Graham or Uli Borshov.
‘Gerr
y – anything?’
‘Sorry, Jack, nada. It’s as if the pair of them just walked off into thin air. I’ve got every bird in a favorable orbit looking down over every shoulder. We’re peeking out of every ATM, CCTV, traffic camera and surveillance scanner on or off the grid, and there’s absolutely nothing.’
Hammerson growled. ‘Christ. Okay, put the recognition programs into overdrive – I want Captain Graham found, all of him. I know Borshov – that monster won’t go to ground. He knows we’ll eventually find him, so he’ll be on the move somehow, and fast. He’s got to be trying to get back to Russia.’
Hammerson looked at his watch. It’d been ten hours. Graham was probably already out of the country by now, sealed in a wooden crate and on his way to the Kremlin’s deep interrogation rooms. Hammerson shook his head and rubbed a knuckle against his brow. He’d had his differences with the sonofabitch – a lot of them – but he wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
He knew Graham would give up the Arcadian program, and he didn’t blame the man. Advanced physical, chemical, and psychological torture meant everyone talked in the end … or died. The only upside was, the man’s work wasn’t so much a success as an ongoing concept. Still, it belonged to the US, and Hammerson didn’t take fondly to people taking his stuff.
‘Gerry, put some extra eyes on it. This is a priority.’
‘Don’t worry, Jack, I’ll find them. Harris out.’
Jack Hammerson sat back again, and turned to the large picture on the wall beside his desk. It was a black and white photograph of a granite-jawed man in full dress uniform. Arthur ‘Bull’ Simons had been one of the first commanders of the US Rangers, and Hammerson’s first mentor. Hammerson read the inscription on the small brass plate on the lower rim of the frame: Go hard or go home.
Sam cleared his throat. ‘There’s one more thing to consider, sir. Borshov might have another target. Some unfinished business with Alex Hunter.’