by Greig Beck
City of Uşak, interior Aegean region, Turkey
The Uşak rug bazaar was one of the largest in the country, with buyers coming from neighboring provinces to select the best, which they would sell internationally at greatly inflated prices. Before dawn, hundreds of sellers crossed the Lydian Cilandiras Bridge over the Banaz Stream, to compete for space in the bazaar and for the buyers’ attention. It was still dark, but soon the sun would rise, and the cacophony of hawkers’ voices, haggling traders, and playing children would turn the park-like grassland into a riotous circus of sound and color.
Halim watched his mother and grandmother unroll a pair of enormous rugs, their best. Pressure was on all of them to sell their wares early and then be off home. There was death about, a grotesque illness sweeping the countryside. The whispers hinted that the army had collected the bodies of the afflicted, and whole families, whole towns had been wiped out. The newspapers had urged people to stay indoors. A djinn, his grandmother had whispered knowingly. Other old women had picked up the word, and made the sign of the evil eye over their faces, so the devil would not see them this day.
Halim’s mother held his shoulders tight and stared into his face as she laid down the law to him: he was to stay close to her or his grandmother. Halim hummed and drew on the ground with a stick, watching his mother smooth the rug’s edges, and then work with a fine pick to adjust any thread that dared to lift its head above its brothers. He knew why she paid the rug such fussy attention – it took many months to weave, dye, and then dry, but a single sale could deliver enough money to keep the family comfortable for the next half-year.
Bored, Halim said he was going to have to pee, and headed off to the tree line. Once out of sight, he changed course and instead made for the bridge. His mother would scold him if she knew, and his father would more than likely thrash him for disobeying her. But this time of year, snakes, frogs, salamanders, and all sorts of wonderful creatures came out to bask in the day’s warmth. If he could catch one, it would keep him amused for the entire day.
He leaned over the side of the bridge, and waved at his dark reflection. He had the stream to himself, save for several large dragonflies, about a thousand chirruping crickets, and a few small birds warbling in the trees hanging over the water. There was a chill on the back of his neck – cold, but not unpleasant. Halim had collected a handful of stones, and now he dropped them one at a time into the cool swirling water, causing a few minnows to dart out of the reed banks to investigate, before vanishing in flashes of silver and green. He hummed tunelessly in the pre-dawn. He knew if they didn’t make a sale early, they would be there all day and long into the warm evening, before grandfather came with the truck to carry the three of them back home for a late supper. Until then, it was dry flatbread with pickle jam – luckily, he liked pickle jam.
As he watched the water, chin on his hand, the air misted and became cooler – like smoke lazily drifting across the stream surface to dull its sparkle. He looked skyward, expecting to see clouds pulling across the sky – which would be a tragedy for his mother, and all the rug sellers. Three hundred and sixty-four days a year they prayed for rain, but on the day the rugs were unfurled in all their brilliant dyed glory, they prayed for it to be dry. Today there were no clouds, just the same thin mist drifting in from the east. He squinted; it seemed thickest down the road, as if his grandfather’s truck was backing up, blowing exhaust fumes. But there was no truck, no noise, and even the birds and crickets had grown quiet.
Halim angled his head, his face creasing as he concentrated. In the center of the rolling mist, something was taking form, rising up, solidifying, a dark center appearing as if the cloud was denser at its core. The shape was tall, moving toward him, but gliding rather than walking. He grimaced, rooted to the spot. Something about the dark mass instilled dread in the pit of his stomach.
‘Hello?’ His voice was weak, betraying his nervousness. Speak like a man, his father would have said. Halim regretted wandering away from his mother and grandmother. He had the urge to turn and flee, and not stop until he was hugging his mother. But he couldn’t move.
The mist began to clear, and just as the form became a figure, something warned him to look away. He spun, crushed his eyes shut, and placed his hands over his face. He leaned far out over the bridge, holding his breath while he waited. He could feel it now, freezing cold on his back, every hair on his body standing erect, his skin prickly with goose bumps. There was no sound; it was like he had stuffed cotton in his ears, the air muffled and silent around him.
He couldn’t take it any longer and opened his eyes, looking down into the stream. He saw himself in the water, and looming up behind him, something so monstrous, so horrible and terrifying, that he immediately voided his bladder into his trousers. He felt bile in his throat and an explosion of pain behind his eyes. The warmth down his legs unlocked his stricken throat and he found his voice, screaming so long and loud he thought he would never stop.
He did, when consciousness left him.
When he awoke, his head hurt, and there was a needle-like pain behind both eyes. His senses slowly returned – he felt the sun hot on his face; he heard the stream slipping by underneath the bridge, crickets singing, dragonflies zooming about, their iridescent wings and green eyes like tiny jewels.
Halim had never owned a wristwatch, but the sun was well above the horizon – hours must have passed. His mother would skin him alive. He got to his feet, staggered a few steps, then began to run, back along the path, through the trees and into the bazaar. But instead of the swirling dust, riot of color, and noise of hundreds of people haggling, fighting or laughing, there was nothing. A silence so total, he had to rub his ear to make sure he hadn’t been struck deaf.
‘Mama? Nana?’
People everywhere, but all so still. Some were lying down, others were kneeling or sitting, many with hands thrown up trying to shield their faces. Halim saw that all were a ghastly white, even their eyes were the bleached blankness of dry sand.
He found the small square of ground marked out by the beautiful reds and blues of the rug dyes his family preferred. Mama was there, sitting crosslegged, one arm out, the other hand over her face. Nana was kneeling, tiny as always, her hand in front of her face, warding off the evil eye. It hadn’t worked.
‘Mama?’ He touched her – she was as hard as stone.
He nudged his grandmother, and she toppled over, her body remaining in its pose, stiff and unbending.
Halim crouched next to his mother and edged in under her outstretched arm. ‘I’m sorry, Mama. I fell asleep. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
His head ached terribly as he leaned against her, feeling the hardness under her clothes. The familiar feel and smell of her, of her warmth, perfume, and love, was gone. A tear rolled from his cheek, to splash onto her leg. It dried quickly on the stone.
*
‘One survivor.’ Kemel Baykal leaned forward on his knuckles, hearing them crack against the wooden desktop. ‘One fucking survivor, and over 2000 dead.’ He spat the word distastefully. ‘Turned into stone, who knows how, by something we can’t see and can’t find.’
‘The Land Forces have been mobilized,’ began the soldier who had brought the report.
‘No.’ Baykal shook his head. ‘No, have them stand down. We could just be sending thousands more to the same fate. Find it, tell me what or who it is, and what weapon it’s using. Then we can send forces to engage it.’ The big commander walked to a window and stared out at the Special Forces training grounds. ‘We must know our enemy first.’
He returned to his desk and picked up the cup of coffee sitting there. ‘How many helicopters have we in the air?’
‘Eighty-two, sir. Also seventeen spotter planes, but as yet they have found nothing.’
Baykal took a sip of the thick, dark liquid. ‘Three hundred thousand square miles of country, and we have under 100 sets of eyes in the air looking for it.’ He turned back to the window. ‘It covered 170 mile
s in a single day. We thought they, it, was on foot, but it’s moving too fast.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘That is, unless we now have two of these … things wandering our countryside. And the attacks are getting larger.’ His jaw clenched, the words hissing out between his teeth. ‘What is it?’
The soldier stayed mute.
Baykal bared his teeth. ‘What is it? What is killing us?’ He threw his cup across the room, and it shattered on the wall. An explosion of dark coffee ran slowly to the carpet. He rubbed his forehead with one large hand, then, as if remembering he wasn’t alone, looked up. ‘Dismissed.’ He turned away, then spun back. ‘Wait. I want Doctor Layla Ayhan to attend to the survivor. Tell her I’ll join her when the boy is able to speak. I need answers, quickly … any answers.’
The soldier closed the door as he exited. Kemel Baykal sat down heavily at his desk, his fingers drumming its surface for many minutes.
CHAPTER 13
‘James Caresche, Janus Caresche, Janus Carew, Janus Caruthers … the list goes on,’ Sam Reid said. ‘This guy is, was, unreal – he had multiple aliases, and properties all across Europe, Asia, and even in Australia. He was worth millions, and all of it secreted away via shell corporations in tax havens from Switzerland to the Caymans.’
Sam zoomed in one after the other on images from the satellite feed of Caresche’s properties, which were projected onto the giant screen on Jack Hammerson’s office wall.
Hammerson pointed to several open doors, showing glimpses of scattered items inside. ‘Looks like most have been turned over. I’m thinking the Turks are running down their leads pretty quickly.’
Sam switched to view communications cables from the Turkish Ministry of Finance. ‘Well, well, looks like they haven’t managed to pry open his private banking information yet. They’re applying to the BIS in Switzerland for an overriding emergency authority based on a national threat. So far the Swiss are dragging their heels.’ Sam laughed softly. ‘Ah, bless those Swiss.’
‘Excellent. Which accounts are they after?’ Hammerson rubbed his hands together.
‘Got a list, sir – long- and short-term investments. We’ll need a bit more firepower to crack them open.’
Sam moved aside, and Hammerson sat down and commenced typing long strings of characters into MUSE. He placed his hand on the screen for its whorls, indentations, and scars to be recognized by the system’s security. The screen went blank for a few seconds before welcoming him into the most powerful and intuitive search engine in the world.
‘Okay, now, let’s have a look at any recent deposits into Mr. Caresche’s accounts, then track them back to their source.’
In twenty minutes, Hammerson had traced multiple enormous cash and securities deposits to shell organizations originating in the Seychelles, then transferred from Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of England, all the way back to Italy, to a small company called Jupiter Import-Export, rolled up into a massive conglomerate owned by local billionaire Gianfranco Ruffino Monti.
Sam whistled as MUSE organized the data on the screen. ‘Shipping, warehousing, construction, movie production. Wow, this is serious money. And Monti’s rumored to hold one of the largest private collections of Asian and Middle Eastern art and antiquities in the world. Hmm, and what do you know? Italy’s FBI equivalent has a permanent watch on the guy for drugs and arms smuggling. Seems if there’s money in it, then Mr. Monti is also into it.’ Sam straightened. ‘This is our guy – right profile, and could probably buy and sell whatever was in that vault a thousand times over.’
Hammerson pulled up the surveillance information from the local police and Interpol files, and came up with a primary residence – a castle on the northern shore of Lake Como in Italy.
Sam looked impressed. ‘Fit for a king … and with his own private security.’
Hammerson grunted. ‘Private army more like it. I recognize some of those Italian security names – they’re soldiers of fortune and ex-paratroopers.’ He sat back and folded his arms. ‘Well, Mr. Monti has something we need. I think we should pay him a visit, find out if he can assist us.’ Hammerson reached for the phone. ‘And time for the prodigal son to earn his pay.’
He dialed. The call was answered immediately.
‘Alex, we have a project. Time to get you some new HAWC kit,’ Hammerson said. ‘You’re officially out of retirement, Arcadian.’ He disconnected and turned to Sam. ‘Pick him up, collect the team, and get in there – today.’
Sam got to his feet with a small whine of electronics. ‘You got it.’
‘One more thing – put Alex in harm’s way. I want him to remember what he was good at.’
*
USSTRATCOM Research and Development – Weapons Division
‘Colonel Hammerson has provided the authorization, but I didn’t catch the name,’ said the scientist, Walter Gray, who was accompanying Alex down the long white corridor several levels below the USSTRATCOM base.
Alex ignored the man, his mind on the work he’d been doing with Alan Marshal in the Alpha Soldier Research Unit. His memory, so long like a moth-eaten rug, was now almost fully intact. The neural pathways were still there; seemed they just needed a little chemical kickstart. But the more doors Alex opened in his mind, the more he became aware of the presence lurking there. He referred to it as the Other One, and Marshal now did the same. The young scientist had told him that they would eventually be able to eradicate the psychological shadow, but for now they would manage it. Alex just hoped the Other One didn’t turn out to be stronger than he was, and eradicate him first.
Gray’s voice rose as he talked faster, nervously, pointing to different sealed doors as they passed: laser technology, biologicals, handguns, rifles, combat body armor, sensory enhancement. Alex nodded, but stayed silent. He knew all these weapons intimately; it was his team – former team – that had trialed them in the field. He had already opted for active camouflage – micro-panels capable of altering their appearance, color and reflective properties, enabling the soldiers wearing it to blend into their surroundings. It was something he’d used before and knew it was invaluable for an incursion that required stealth.
Alex decided it was time to stop Gray talking. ‘Give me two HK CTs with variant triggers and a nitride finish. Throw in some frequency shifters while you’re at it … and leave off the over-rails – I won’t need a scope.’
Gray smiled, raising his eyebrows. ‘Good choices … and will you –’
‘Long and short Ka-Bar, tanto edge,’ Alex said. ‘Also, the usual HAWC field kit.’
‘Excellent.’
Alex found he remembered the powerful weapons with absolute clarity. The Heckler & Koch USP45CT pistol, his favorite, was a smooth matte-black sidearm made of a molded polymer with recoil reduction and a hostile-environment nitride finish. The variant trigger made it lightning quick, and the upgraded frequency shifting didn’t so much muffle the sound as shift it beyond the range of human hearing. The knives – the Ka-Bar with its distinctive chisel-shaped head and black laser-honed blade – were scalpel-sharp, and thick enough to be both lethal weapon and field tool. He’d used them many times, on all sorts of materials – flesh and armor.
Alex became aware that Gray was talking again. He blinked and listened as the man pointed to the sensory-enhancement section.
‘For night-time incursions we have some new pupil-lenses that will –’
‘No, thanks, I have my own,’ Alex said.
Gray snorted. ‘Well, I doubt very much they’ll be as good as –’
‘No.’
Alex kept walking until he came abreast of the next room – combat body armor. He turned and raised his eyebrows.
Gray caught up. ‘Ahh, you’ve come at the right time. We’ve just completed testing on some new plating that is literally out of this world. One of Colonel Hammerson’s former operatives brought in a biological sample of some creature’s carapace – toughest thing we’ve ever seen – sea creature we think. We analyzed its
chemical and amino acid components and then simply grew it ourselves. It’s light, harder than the toughest metals – about nine-point-five on the Mohs scale – and surprisingly easy to work with. We can grow it into any shape we need in a matter of hours.’
Gray pushed a stud, and the door slid back into the wall. The dark room lit up the moment the pair entered as sensors picked up their movement. The small space turned out to be about as small as a warehouse, complete with a single-lane firing range. At its end was a target dummy kitted out in mottled gray body armor, which looked heavily scarred from repeated direct hits.
Alex exhaled, eyes narrowing. The last time he had seen that mottled armor plating in place it was during a little jaunt to an Iranian nuclear facility, when some naive scientists opened up a black hole that allowed a chitinous-shelled nightmare to come through. The scientists all ended up dead – mostly as food for the creature.
Gray handed Alex a sample of the armor – it was light and tough, like a combination of ceramic and compressed chalk. Alex tried to break or bend it, but couldn’t. The piece he had retrieved all those years ago had been a shell fragment blown from a living creature. However, the piece he held was square, polished, and round-edged. The white coats had been busy.
Gray took it from him and held it up. ‘We can grow it to mold to any body size or shape. We can even build it directly into the active camouflage suit – you won’t even know it’s there … until you get shot at point-blank range, and are able to get straight back onto your feet.’
Alex nodded. ‘What can it stop?’
‘All small arms – even a .357. Most rifles, unless they have armor-piercing or uranium-tipped projectiles.’
‘Good. Make it happen,’ Alex said.
Gray grabbed him by the arm. ‘We can do it right now … step up on here.’
‘Here’ was a small circular platform, with a console nearby. Alex did as requested, and Gray stood behind the console, his eyes moving from Alex to the controls.