King Solomon's Curse

by Andy McDermott

  ‘Mommy? Daddy?’ Macy asked a moment later. ‘Where are you?’

  She sounded terrified, on the verge of tears. ‘Macy!’ Eddie shouted through his own window. ‘It’s okay, love, we’re here. We’re coming to get you.’

  ‘Did he hurt you?’ demanded Nina.

  ‘He . . . no?’ came the reply, tremulous enough that it was obvious Brice was intimidating her. Eddie clenched his fists.

  ‘There,’ said Brice. ‘She’s alive. Whether she remains so is now entirely up to you, Chase. Peter, drive up to the car park. Once you’re here, Chase and his wife will come inside. I’ll tell them what to do from then.’

  Alderley drove through the gate, making another phone call as he brought the car down a long driveway. ‘Alderley here. Brice still appears to be on-site, with his hostage. We’re going in. Wait for my signal before making any move, though. Remember, the hostage is a child.’

  They soon reached a small car park by the building, the bushes surrounding it the tallest vegetation in the compound. An awning stood out above a set of security doors – which were open. ‘Well, here we are,’ said Alderley awkwardly as he stopped outside the entrance. ‘Look, whatever happens, we’ll get Brice and make him pay for what he’s done. So try not to be the last two people he kills, okay?’

  ‘You’re goddamn right we will,’ said Nina.

  ‘And, Chase?’

  The Yorkshireman smiled slightly. ‘Back to being formal, are we? Just a one-night stand?’

  ‘Very funny. But here.’ The SIS officer took a handgun from his jacket and passed it to him. ‘I know that some people in London want Brice taken alive so they can turn him over to the Americans as a sacrificial offering. But if you get the opportunity to save yourself as well as your daughter . . . don’t hesitate to take it.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t,’ Eddie assured him. He quickly checked the gun, then slipped it into a pocket before opening the door. Nina followed him to the entrance. ‘Just be ready to get Macy out of here, okay?’

  ‘I will,’ said Alderley. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thank you, Peter,’ said Nina as she and Eddie entered. ‘For everything.’

  Her first sight of the Funhouse’s interior revealed a disappointingly mundane reception area, which apart from the preponderance of security cameras could have been that of a hospital or government office. A glass-fronted cubicle adjoined the front doors. The man inside would normally have controlled access to the building – but now he was slumped in his seat with a bullet wound to his face, ghastly crimson rivulets on the wall behind him. The feet of another dead man poked out from a doorway. ‘Shit,’ muttered Eddie, raising the gun. Brice could be anywhere . . .

  The agent’s voice echoed from ceiling speakers. ‘Ah, Chase. Welcome back to the Funhouse!’

  Eddie snapped his gun between all the exits, but there was no sign of movement. ‘Where’s Macy?’ Nina demanded.

  ‘She’s fine. She’s just chilling.’

  Eddie glared at the nearest camera. ‘Where?’

  ‘Inside the test zone, of course. I thought I’d give you a second chance. If you rescue her, you win.’

  ‘I thought you wanted an exchange? Me for her!’

  ‘Oh, I still want you dead, Chase. But if you want your daughter back, you’ll have to work for it. I’d recommend that you start straight away – you don’t want to leave her in there for too long. Go through the red door ahead of you, then turn right and enter the first room you come to. See you soon.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Nina asked as the speaker cut out.

  ‘We’ve got to go in,’ Eddie replied, even knowing they would be walking into a trap. ‘I have to, anyway. You should stay here.’

  ‘I’m not leaving Macy, and I’m not leaving you,’ she said firmly. ‘Besides, you don’t know what’s in there. You might need an extra set of eyes.’

  He didn’t bother arguing; not only would it be futile, but they couldn’t waste any time. ‘Okay. Then stick close.’ He went to the red door, Nina following.

  Beyond was a bland white-painted corridor. Another camera silently observed them. Both directions looked equally unassuming, but Eddie went right as instructed to reach a door a short distance away. He gestured for Nina to hold back, then readied the gun and warily opened the door.

  The space beyond was a changing room with benches, clothes hooks and banks of metal lockers. He realised he had been there before. ‘This is where I got ready for the test,’ he said, crossing to the only other exit.

  ‘What’s through there?’ said Nina.

  ‘Could be anything. I had an Iraqi village; Alderley said his was a submarine.’ He yanked the door open and pointed his gun through it. A short grey-walled passage led to another door, this one metal.

  ‘He’s still watching us,’ she warned, seeing another camera covering the exit tilt to track them. ‘He probably isn’t with Macy, then. He must be in a control room somewhere.’

  ‘Maybe, but I don’t know where it is, and we don’t have time to go looking for it.’ He reached the door, leaning closer to listen for any noises beyond it – and twitched in surprise as his ear touched the metal.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s cold. Really cold.’

  ‘And Macy’s in there,’ Nina said in alarm.

  ‘“She’s just chilling” – that fucker! Shit puns are my department! Okay, stay back.’ He threw open the door—

  A freezing blizzard hit them.

  43

  Eddie overcame his surprise and squinted into the swirling snow, searching for targets in the semi-darkness. Nobody there – but disorientingly, it seemed as if he were back outside. The Funhouse had been upgraded since his test. The ‘Iraqi village’ had been an obvious fake, painted wooden flats mounted on scaffolding acting as buildings and sand sprinkled over a concrete floor the extent of the illusion of desert.

  This, though, required no imagination to be convincing. ‘Damn!’ said Nina. ‘I didn’t know MI6 had a holodeck!’

  They had entered a simulated winter, the temperature low enough to make their breath steam. Before them stood a military facility, bleakly functional concrete structures surrounding a tall central control tower. The blowing snow disguised for a moment the true nature of the gloomy twilight ‘sky’; the high ceiling was hung with large sheets of a thin gauze, diffusing the glow of an expansive lighting rig concealed above. A glance at the chamber’s outer walls, on which were projected images of a mountainous Arctic coastline, revealed that the blizzard was being blasted in through vents. The room was huge, at least two hundred feet along each side.

  Eddie had no time to be impressed. ‘Come on,’ he snapped, running to the nearest building. Nina followed his footprints across the newly lain snow. He peered around the corner. The heart of the fake facility was illuminated by stark floodlights. He saw Cyrillic lettering on one wall. The room had been configured as a Russian military base, MI6’s priorities little changed since the Cold War. ‘Macy!’ he shouted. ‘Macy, can you hear me?’

  No reply, but the snow blowers’ constant drone masked other sounds. ‘If she’s in here, she’ll be freezing!’ said Nina, peering in concern through a window. The interior was unlit, but enough light came through from the other side to show that it was furnished. ‘Macy!’ Still no answer.

  ‘We’ll have to search,’ said Eddie. He cautiously started down the structure’s side wall. More of the imitation facility’s set dressing came into view ahead. Stacks of barrels and crates, a couple of Russian jeeps, even a truck—

  And an armed man beside it.

  Eddie retreated sharply, pushing the startled Nina back, then crouched and peeked out. The man was a Russian soldier, wearing a heavy winter camouflage coat and a dark fur hat. He had an AK-74M rifle in his hands, and was slowly turning to survey the scene . . .

  The Yorkshireman relaxed.
‘It’s just a dummy,’ he said.

  ‘But he was moving,’ said Nina, still alarmed.

  ‘They had ’em when I was here last. Some are on tracks so it looks like they’re patrolling.’ He stepped back out, spotting other dummies positioned around the heart of the base. ‘Macy! Macy, it’s Daddy! If you can hear—’

  The soldier pivoted, the rifle locking on to him.

  He grabbed Nina and dived – as the AK spat fire.

  Shattered plaster exploded from the wall behind them as bullets ripped into it. Eddie rolled, snapping up his gun and firing at the dummy. The first two shots hit its body – but punched straight through the hollow plastic. He immediately switched targets, aiming instead for the rifle. Metal cracked against metal, the AK clattering to the ground with one of the fake figure’s hands still clenching the grip.

  Eddie fixed his gun upon another dummy under a floodlight, but it was facing away from them, unmoving. ‘You all right?’ he asked Nina.

  ‘Yeah, just a minor heart attack,’ she replied. ‘Jeez!’

  A malevolent chuckle sounded over hidden loudspeakers, Brice’s voice rolling around the frigid test area. ‘Oh, sorry. Did I forget to mention that this is a live-fire scenario?’ he said as the couple scuttled to the cover of a pallet of barrels. ‘All the guards have motion sensors and will fire at anything that triggers them. Some of them move along pre-set paths – and others I can control directly. Like . . . this one.’

  The soldier that had been looking away jerked into motion, swinging around—

  Nina and Eddie hurled themselves in opposite directions as another AK-74 blazed to life, the empty barrels jolting under the barrage. The Yorkshireman returned fire, his first two shots again uselessly hitting the dummy – but the third knocked the rifle from the animatronic dummy’s hands.

  ‘Poor showing, Chase,’ the unseen Brice said mockingly. ‘All you ever had going for you was your aim, and now you’re losing even that. And you really should be careful where you shoot. Your daughter could be behind any one of these walls.’

  ‘So could you,’ said Eddie. He looked for more dummies nearby, seeing none, then hurried to the first he had shot. Its motion sensors were still active, a mechanism clicking inside the stump of its arm as it tried to fire a weapon that was no longer there. He pocketed Alderley’s pistol, then picked up the fallen Kalashnikov and made a rapid magazine check. Just under half its thirty rounds remained. He pulled the plastic hand from the grip. ‘Fuck off, Thing,’ he said, tossing it away.

  Nina scurried to the truck and hunched against its front wheel. The cold was beginning to bite through her light clothing. ‘Eddie, we’ve got to find Macy before she freezes!’

  ‘Top of my to-do list!’ he replied. ‘Macy!’

  He strained to listen over the fans. Nothing – but Nina, her hearing less damaged by years of close exposure to explosions and gunfire, caught a faint cry. ‘Eddie, I can hear her!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘That way.’ She pointed towards the centre of the huge room.

  The tower stood above everything else, its roof only feet below the overhanging scrims. The top floor was illuminated. ‘She’s in there,’ Eddie realised.

  ‘Great, it’s probably surrounded by those dummies!’

  He went to the truck’s rear and surveyed the scene beyond. Nina was right; an imitation soldier stood guard at the building’s door.

  The ground floor extended beyond the tower’s base, however. ‘There might be another way in round the back,’ he said. ‘Go back the way we came and we’ll run around the edge of the room. Careful, though. I wouldn’t put it past that twat to have stuck a couple of Russkiebots around a corner to catch us out.’

  ‘You’re getting colder, Chase,’ boomed Brice as the couple retraced their steps. ‘And so’s your daughter.’

  ‘We’re coming, Macy!’ Nina shouted. ‘Just hold on, lovely! We’re coming!’

  They ran through the artificial blizzard around the chamber’s perimeter. Eddie checked each gap between the buildings before passing. He spotted a couple of dummies, but all were near the middle of the ersatz base. ‘Okay,’ he finally said, ‘the other side of the tower should be down here. We’ll see if there’s another door—’

  He halted abruptly just short of the corner as he saw a shadow on the snow, cast by one of the floodlights. ‘He did put another guard here,’ he muttered. ‘He knew I’d come this way.’

  ‘But does he know that you know that he knew?’ Nina asked. ‘Because if he did, he might have put another one where he expects you to go instead!’

  Eddie shook his head. ‘Brice thinks I’m an idiot. All the same . . .’ There was a door into the building, but rather than go to it, he instead peered through a nearby window, then used his rifle butt to smash the glass. ‘Clear inside,’ he reported, sliding through. ‘Wait here till I shout.’

  Nina crouched outside as he picked his way through the dark room to an exit. He opened the door a crack. No guards in sight – but he was still on full alert. Brice was somewhere nearby, and he was sure he wouldn’t be satisfied with killing him by remote control.

  But nothing moved except snowflakes. He glanced at the ground. No footprints. No breath steaming in doorways or windows either. He readied himself, then rushed out and whipped around the corner.

  There was indeed one of the animatronic soldiers beside the building, gun pointing towards the perimeter. He ran up behind it, expecting it to turn – but it remained still as he tackled it. The gun went off, motion sensors triggered by the fall. A few rounds blew holes in the chamber’s outer wall, splinters bursting from the projection of the wilderness, then the firing stopped as the figure’s arms broke off at their shoulders.

  Eddie rolled off the downed dummy and brought up his own gun in case Brice had prepared an ambush, but the spy still did not make a personal appearance. ‘Nina, it’s clear.’

  His wife jogged to him. ‘Funny, I was expecting him to make some dumb-ass quip.’

  ‘I’m not missing them,’ he said as he led the way to the central building. ‘Huh. Now I realise why people get so pissed off when I make ’em.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You’re way better at the God-awful puns than he is.’

  They reached the door. ‘Okay,’ said Eddie, deadly serious once more, ‘if he’s set up a trap, it’ll be here. Let me check first.’ He carefully opened the door. The room beyond was a mock-up of a communications centre, lights glowing on various Soviet-styled consoles. They provided enough illumination to reveal a doorway into the tower’s base.

  No guards. He edged inside and warily crossed to the opening. A flight of stairs beyond led upwards. ‘Macy?’

  ‘Daddy!’ The fearful cry came from above. ‘Daddy, help! Where are you?’

  ‘I’m here, love, I’m here!’ he called back, fighting against every instinct to charge up the stairs. ‘I’m coming – but I need you to tell me if there’s anyone else there.’

  ‘Is the bad man with you?’ Nina added as she followed him.

  ‘No, he went! There are only the big doll-men here. Mommy, I’m scared – and I’m cold, I’m really cold!’

  ‘We’re almost there, honey!’ she said, gripping Eddie’s arm in fear and frustration. ‘These doll-men, where are they?’

  ‘They’re all around me, four of them! He said if I stayed in the middle of them, I’d be okay, but I’m so cold. I want to go home . . .’ She started crying.

  ‘We’ll be there as soon as we can! Just hold on and don’t move, okay?’

  ‘She’s surrounded,’ Eddie growled. ‘They’ll be covering the top of the stairs.’

  ‘So how are we going to get to her?’

  ‘If Brice is controlling ’em he’ll only shoot at us, but if they’re on motion sensors they’ll fire at anything moving. If I can stay out of sight on the stairs and hold something up t
o make ’em use all their ammo . . .’ He moved through the doorway—

  Something tugged at his ankle.

  The faint ping of a spring being released as the tripwire tugged out a hand grenade’s pin was followed by a clatter of metal – the safety lever popping free to trigger its fuse . . .

  He grabbed Nina and ran back. ‘Macy, cover your ears!’ he bellowed. They wouldn’t reach the door in time; all they could do was dive behind the consoles—

  They hit the floor as the grenade exploded.

  The blast shredded walls and shattered windows. Consoles toppled, chairs sent flying like tumbleweed. Eddie yelled as something stabbed into the back of his leg. Ears ringing, he groped to find a six-inch shard of wood jutting from his calf. ‘Shit, shit!’ he gasped, tugging it out.

  Nina sat up. ‘Macy!’ she cried, looking towards the doorway – and finding it was no longer there. The explosion had not only ripped apart the wooden interior wall, but blown a hole in the building itself – and in the floodlit glare now cutting through the smoke, she saw that the bottom of the stairs had also been destroyed. ‘Macy, can you hear me? Macy!’

  ‘Mommy!’ her daughter wailed from above. ‘Mommy, I’m scared, I’m scared!’

  ‘Just stay there, honey, please! We’ll be there as soon as we can!’ She looked back at Eddie to see him grimacing as he stood. ‘Oh my God, are you hurt?’

  ‘Shrapnel in the leg,’ he said through his teeth. ‘I’m okay – won’t be sprinting anywhere, though.’ He took a couple of pained steps, then saw the remains of the stairs. ‘Buggeration!’

  ‘How’re we going to get up to her?’ Nina asked.

  ‘Might have to climb up outside.’ Eddie retrieved his gun and limped to the hole in the outer wall, checking that no more dummies were lurking nearby before stepping out into the snow. The explosion had revealed that the ‘concrete’ building was nothing more than a thin skim of painted plaster over plywood panels, like a film set—

  A set. That was all the Funhouse was, an elaborate set. Everything was fake: the buildings, the snow, the sky, even the wilderness projected on the outer walls . . .