by Greig Beck
He replayed the images from the new Persona satellite, a massive 14,000-pound bird with optical subsystems based on the Korsch-type telescope. Its reach and clarity was matched only by the Americans’ VELA series. Borshov had been jolted by the sight of the man standing on the front verandah of the Italian villa. A flash grenade had gone off at his feet, but he’d remained upright, as solid as rock, untroubled by the heat and percussion.
‘So, all old friends back in the field again,’ Borshov said aloud. ‘Maybe I will pay you a visit when this mission over.’
Borshov was about to replay the images again, when a fresh piece of information came from his headquarters. He clicked his fingers to get the attention of one of his men. ‘Get the truck ready,’ he ordered.
He waved over another of the tall, fearsome-looking Spetsnaz soldiers. The man motioned with his chin to the screen. ‘We have a fix on the target?’
Borshov snapped the screen shut and stood. ‘Yes. Not sure where exactly, but we have a direction. We need to get closer. Put ourselves in front of it.’ He waved a hand around the room. ‘Burn everything. We move in five minutes.’
CHAPTER 18
Bill Watkins, a USSTRATCOM technician, watched the multiple monitors displaying Manisa Province, specifically around the outskirts of the small town of Kula. Four of the pipes had landed along a route bordered by volcanic outcrops that looked like gnarled and burned tree trunks, hence the name for the area of the burning lands. One of the pipes had hit solid rock and failed to embed, but the other three were active. The technician slowly rotated the small lens in each, watching up and down the old trade route. He checked the local time and frowned; it was early evening after a cloudless day, yet a fog had started to blow down the rock and dirt roadway.
‘Heads-up, got a fog bank coming in over spike 1. I’m gonna go to thermal,’ Watkins said over his shoulder to his colleague, who was chewing a drinking straw and watching another spread of pipes further down the trade route.
The straw-chewer shook his head. ‘Doubt it. That area has about five percent moisture in the air. More likely it’s a truck exhaust. Seen some of the things they drive? I think they burn hay.’
Watkins snorted. ‘Maybe, but it’s getting thicker … Hang on, I think there’s something inside it.’
He increased the camera’s magnification and fiddled with the resolution.
‘So, was I right?’ his colleague asked. ‘Was it a truck?’
‘No … I think it’s …’ Watkins shrieked as pain exploded between his eyes. He projectile-vomited a cement-like substance onto his control panel, then fell back out of his chair, clawing at his eyes. ‘Jesus, help me!’
The other technician kneeled beside him. No one saw the surveillance screens white out one after the other as the dark shape passed by.
*
Hammerson looked at the figure on the bed; his head was bandaged, he had a drip in each arm, and tubes ran from his throat and nose. He’d been placed in an induced coma to allow the gross swelling of his brain to subside.
Hammerson turned to Major Gerry Harris who was standing silently next to him. ‘So, the effects can be telegraphed via electronic media, though they’re diluted. That means we can record it, but if we look at it with the naked eye it’ll fuck up our internal organs and go blind. That about sum it up?’
‘Yep. Strangest thing we’ve ever seen. Impossible really.’
‘Impossible.’ Hammerson gritted his teeth. ‘Give me something. A theory for Chrissakes.’
Harris shrugged. ‘Okay, try this. Basically, light rays first enter the eye through a transparent layer called the cornea, which translates them into electrical signals and sends them to the back of the brain. It’s the brain that really does the seeing – the eye is just the window; the brain is the workshop.’ He exhaled. ‘Some sort of ray, biological vector or chemical substance is coming in through that window and destroying the workshop. Then, given enough time, the entire body.’ Harris rubbed his chin. ‘You know, I’ve heard of some sophisticated cyber viruses that can induce epileptic fits or render you unconscious. But this is way beyond anything I’ve experienced.’
Hammerson grunted. ‘So we got nothing.’
Harris’ mouth turned down as he looked at the figure surrounded by hissing and beeping equipment. ‘Watkins is alive, just. Seems the camera feed, or the distance, or something we just don’t know about, diluted the full effects. But yes, seems we still need to work out a way to view it safely.’
‘I need to know what we’re dealing with. Can the image be cleaned up?’
‘Well, if it can be partially filtered, then we just need to work out what defrays the effect and then amplify it. Unfortunately we won’t know how effective it is until someone tests it.’ He looked up at Hammerson. ‘Going to need some volunteers.’
Hammerson grimaced. ‘Now there’s a crappy job. Leave it with me. And call me the minute you’ve got something … anything.’
*
Five miles north-east of Salihli, Turkey
Commander Kemel Baykal’s stomach roiled. He had organized his men in five twenty-man squads in the low hills surrounding the Izmir–Ankara highway. They were several hundred feet apart on each side of the shimmering roadway in one long killing zone, ready to face down whatever was coming. His men were the best of the best, and would fight to the death – Baykal too. But that wasn’t what troubled him right now.
He cursed his own stupidity for allowing Layla Ayhan to accompany them. Though she’d had experience with the victims and her insights were better than anyone else’s, this was no place for a civilian. He’d given in to her, allowing her damned persuasive powers to override his training and common sense. Which head is doing the thinking for you these days? he wondered as he turned to look at her.
Layla gave him a small salute from under a camouflage net. She had set up a small mobile laboratory and field hospital, and was ready to treat the sick and gather samples. He smiled at her – she was so beautiful. Her advice would be valuable.
He looked back toward the city of Salihli. It had been evacuated: 200,000 people dragged or pushed from their homes within a few hours in an emergency order. There were no lights in the windows, even though the sun was sinking now behind the city’s buildings. Baykal lifted his powerful field glasses to look over the dark city before scanning the featureless tarmac of the highway. The broad road had been laid over an ancient caravan trail that pre-dated the Persian Empire. In the distance, the road curled out of the slopes of the Bozdag Mountain chain along the southern alluvial plains of the Gediz River. It was the pass between these huge folds in the flat landscape he focused on now.
‘Still nothing on the satellite, Keysari?’ he asked his captain, who was hunched over a small laptop.
The man shook his head. ‘Nothing, sir. Unfortunately we do not have the resolution to pick up something smaller than a large truck.’
Baykal cursed softly. ‘Go to flat radar.’
He wished he’d cajoled Jack Hammerson into letting him make use of the Americans’ more powerful satellite feeds – their orbiting bird could see inside someone’s ear if the they ordered it.
Baykal looked at his Special Forces soldiers camouflaged among the rocks. They were armed with RPGs with both fragmentation and thermobaric rounds, light and heavy machine guns, and just about anything else they could bring in for a rapid deployment scenario. The soldiers he had chosen were battle-hardened veterans with combat experience in the constant brutal skirmishes that took place along Turkey’s border – tough, professional, and lethal.
As the sun dipped to become a golden line on the horizon, something began to take form in the distance. Baykal raised the glasses to his eyes again. What looked like a dust cloud with a dark nucleus was moving down beside the road.
‘There,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ Layla was kneeling up under the camouflage net.
Baykal waved her back. ‘Stay down.’
Keysari’s hands
moved frantically over his keyboard. ‘Just got something on radar horizon, sir. Twenty miles out and coming fast. Solid object … slowing, slowing … Doppler says it’s down to five miles per hour now.’ He looked up. ‘Has it spotted us?’
Baykal narrowed his eyes. The Russian RPG-7s had an effective killing range of about 500 feet, but his men were skilled with the weapon and could hit a target at twice that range.
He stood, the glasses still to his eyes. ‘Doesn’t matter; it’ll just be coming within range of the advance squad. Inform Kirmizi team I want a fragmentation barrage – on my count.’
Keysari spoke into the radio, relaying Baykal’s instructions.
‘Three, two, one … fire.’
There was a thump of ignition and several three-foot darts raced away from the rocks, clouds of blue-gray smoke trailing behind them. Each almost immediately reached an initial speed of 300 feet per second, but by the time the explosive spears reached their target they were traveling at around 600 feet per second. The miniature missiles all struck the dark nucleus within the swirling mist cloud within the same second, their orange plumes lighting the highway momentarily. Then came the primary blast, which threw out rooster-tails of burning debris followed by a powerful supersonic shock wave that scattered thousands of lethal fragments in all directions.
Baykal began to smile. ‘Very good. Direct hits.’
He was lowering the glasses when Keysari said softly, ‘I have contact – movement coming out of the cloud. Moving toward us at five miles per hour.’
‘What?’ Baykal’s jaw clenched. ‘Must be armored. Give me a thermo volley. Let’s see how good its armor is against a thermobaric warhead and 1000 degrees of hell.’
Once again Keysari counted down, and half a dozen of the high-speed darts flew out from the rocks. In seconds they had crossed the several hundred feet to their target and detonated. This time the warheads contained an explosive that reacted with the surrounding air to generate an intense high-temperature explosion. The blast wave was significantly longer and more destructive than the conventional fragmentation explosive. A plume thirty feet in diameter lit the landscape. Baykal crushed his eyes shut against the intense white light and waited for the small motes of stars on his retinas to clear. When he opened them, he held his breath … and then the eerie body of mist moved on.
‘Shikran!’ Baykal’s curse rolled down the slope. ‘That thing cannot be allowed to enter the town. Order the squads to advance laying down a field of fire – armor-piercing rounds. Create a wall of steel. I want that accursed thing in a hundred pieces.’
Kirmizi team scurried forward and then took cover, again and again, firing with unerring aim into the center of the mist on the dark highway. The ten Kommandos created an arc around the cloud and fired continuously into its center, until the sound of their gunfire became a continuous roar.
Baykal changed the light spectrum of his field glasses to dark enhancement and saw the green phosphorescent images of his men surrounding the mass on the highway. He switched again to thermal and his men flared red and the road turned orange, the residual heat from the day still leaking into the atmosphere. But the swirling mist with the dark form at its center was as cold and dead as a fish … or reptile.
A breeze blew up from behind them and the cloud thinned momentarily. Kirmizi squad had continued their advance and were now within a hundred feet of their target as its dark center was revealed. Baykal, still using the thermal spectrum, was too far away to see clearly, but he saw his men’s reactions. His lips drew back in a combination of disgust and horror as his Kirmizi team stopped firing and instead grabbed at their throats or eyes. As he watched, the warm red glow of their bodies changed to the cold blue of stone.
‘Ach. The Prophet protect us.’ He shook his head, gulping. ‘They . . . they saw it, they saw it … and then they turned to stone.’ He spun to Keysari. ‘Have the squads cover their eyes. They must not look at it. We will direct their fire. Switch to tracers so we can monitor the trajectory of the rounds. Quickly, quickly.’
The other teams were within striking distance of the cloud as Keysari sent the communication burst. For many, it was too late. The huge spectral figure left the swirling mist behind and glided toward them. They froze, turning to gray cold stone – new warrior statues in an ancient land.
At the rear, some soldiers fell back, having received Keysari’s communication. They pulled strips of material from their uniform or their packs and wrapped it around their heads. Two men advanced, guns up. Baykal watched them through his thermal lens, and spoke quietly and clearly to Keysari, who relayed the information to the men.
‘Advance – target directly ahead – fifty paces. Target moving – angle twenty degrees to left flank – target slowing.’
Keysari frowned as he listened in on the microphone attached to one of the two men. ‘Commander Baykal, I can hear … I think … it’s weeping.’
Baykal’s jaw set hard for a moment. ‘Good, we have hurt it. Proceed.’
Keysari concentrated. ‘Five degree adjustment left. Target now twenty paces … ten paces … engage, engage.’
The men fired, their bullets causing flaring orange trails in Baykal’s vision as they flew the few feet into the being before them. At first Baykal had thought the thing was some kind of chemical cloud or a biological weapon, but now he saw how wrong he was. The thing dwarfed his men – at least seven feet tall – and had what looked like an overly large head. The rounds entered its core, but didn’t stop it, or even slow it.
Keysari’s voice rose in panic as he blurted more instructions to the men. ‘Closing to two feet, right in front of you, hurry, fire, fire.’
Baykal turned to him. ‘Pull them back.’
It was too late. One man threw down his weapon and ripped the mask from his face. Immediately, he threw his hands up before his eyes and froze. The second man lifted a long dark blade from his belt and hacked back and forth; he must have felt the huge presence looming over him, Baykal thought. He watched in horror, and screamed again, ‘Pull … them … back!’
The man with the blade was lifted high in the air as though he weighed nothing. A sudden jerk and he was ripped in two, his legs flung one way, his spurting torso the other.
The thing moved quickly now, grabbing another concealed man and tearing away the cloth that bound his eyes. He froze, and was thrown to the ground to shatter into a dozen fragments.
‘It knows. It knows it must make them see it.’ Keysari’s voice was little more than a squeak as more men met the same fate.
As the thing drew closer to his position, Baykal dropped his glasses before he too caught a glimpse of the being’s true form. Beside him, Keysari was gagging.
Baykal roared his final instruction. ‘I said, pull … them … fucking … back!’
Keysari slumped, turning his face to the sky. ’There’s no one left to pull back. It’s coming for us.’
Baykal looked over at Layla. Her eyes were wide. All he could do was mouth a single word – sorry. She nodded, and started to pack up her things.
‘Quickly, send a communication to Colonel Jack Hammerson,’ Baykal ordered Keysari. ‘Tell him what has happened. Tell him they must not look at it. Anyone who has looked at it has died – turned to stone.‘ He turned away. ‘It is his turn now.’
Keysari sent the communication, and then threw himself flat, sighting along his rifle and firing at will.
Baykal drew his sidearm and looked to Layla. ‘You need to go.’
She came to him, ignoring the sounds of gunfire. Her face was wet with tears. She was trying to look brave, but Baykal could see her bottom lip trembled as she spoke. ‘It’s too late.’
Baykal nodded, and she reached up to hold his face in both her hands. ‘I always wanted to give you this.’ She kissed him hard on the mouth.
He folded her into his arms. Give me one more day, he wished.
He felt needle-like coldness on the back of his neck, and heard Keysari stop firing. He turned
to see a grayness creeping along Keysari’s body, and the mist rising up over the rocky ledge. In his arms, Layla said a single word – ‘oh’ – and then he felt her stiffen. He looked down to see her large beautiful eyes mist over, and her body become hard stone in his arms.
It was only then that Commander Kemel Baykal gave up. He turned to look.
*
Jack Hammerson sank down in his seat. On the large wall-screen was an unbelievable image of two figures, like a classical sculpture – a man shielding a woman from some kind of attack, his large arms embracing her, the woman’s face just visible under one of his arms, both frozen in a lovers’ embrace for eternity.
Hammerson rubbed his face, and then shook his head. His jaws clenched, building pressure, until his fist came down on the desk so hard several items flew to the floor. ‘No, fucking dammit, no!’
He pushed his chair back, got to his feet and paced with one large hand pressing his temples. He turned back to the screen and sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Kemel.’
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at the spilled coffee. The phone buzzed on his desk – the secure line. He grabbed the phone up. ‘Hammerson.’