This Green Hell

by Greig Beck

  Alex rubbed his forehead hard. He had underestimated the exchange – an amateurish and near suicidal mistake for any soldier to make, let alone a HAWC leader. As soon as he’d touched the priest’s flesh he had sensed something strange. A human physical presence … and then something no longer human. And the thing hiding in his mouth – a parasite?

  Alex felt Sam and Garmadia watching him as he paced. He could hear them talking. Sam held Mak’s gauntlet in his hands; other than some bloodstains, it was all that remained of the soldier. Alex swore at the green wall of the jungle.

  A light rain started to fall and he looked up into it, letting it cool his face and calm his anger. He knew that in this region it could rain for days on end – any tracks would be obliterated. It was still hours before sunrise. They’d need some rest.

  ‘Lieutenant Reid, Captain Garmadia.’

  Sam strode over, Garmadia following behind. Alex saw Garmadia looking at the line of puncture wounds in his leg; perhaps he was noticing that they hadn’t bled.

  He held out his hand for the gauntlet and studied it for a few seconds before looking up at the two men. ‘Get some sleep.’ He saw Sam about to argue and cut him off. ‘That’s an order. I’ll take the rest of the watch. At 0600 we’re going to find Mak’s body and bring him back.’ He pulled the gauntlet onto his free arm and said softly, ‘Along with the priest’s head.’

  Michael was hot and thirsty, and had a headache that felt like a small ball of fire in the centre of his brain. He had been looking through the microscope for an hour and his vision was starting to blur. He sat back to rub his temples. ‘My God, my head is killing me. I’ve just about had enough of this place. When do we get to go home?’

  Maria was filling two syringes with a clear fluid. She looked up at her son briefly before bending back to her task. ‘What’s that, darling? Home? We could all do with getting out of here. Don’t worry – everything will be fine soon.’

  She set down the second syringe very carefully.

  ‘How is she?’ Alex asked Aimee.

  Franks’s unconscious figure lay on the low bunk in Aimee’s cabin. In the opposite corner of the room, Chaco and Saqueo sat huddled together, long ago having given up the struggle to sleep. Both boys watched Alex – Saqueo with curiosity, Chaco with distrust.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Aimee said. ‘If I hadn’t sedated her, she’d be up and trying to resume duties. I put a temporary balloon stent into her windpipe to re-dilate it, and I’ve removed the tube and stitched the wound. It’ll hurt like hell for a few days, and she won’t be able to manage solid foods, but at least she can breathe easily now. She was very lucky.’

  Alex kneeled down beside the sleeping HAWC and tilted her head. Her entire neck was bathed in dark iodine, even though the wound itself was tiny. But Alex wasn’t interested in the field tracheotomy – he’d seen plenty before; instead, he examined the large bruises all around her throat. He remembered the immense strength of the man, or thing, that he’d fought. Not a man, he’d told Sam. But what then? he wondered.

  Aimee kneeled down beside him and placed her hand on his arm. ‘I saw him, Alex – González – he looked like he was trying to bite you. I think he’s gone insane. I’m scared for all the men he’s taken. There’s a rare condition called porphyria that can affect sufferers in different ways. In acute cases, the symptoms are sensitivity to sunlight, muscle- and bone-lengthening, especially around the skull and teeth, and, in the extreme cases, psychopathic behaviour. There are medical records linking the condition to the original legends of werewolves and vampires. You know, we’ve never seen González during the day.’

  ‘Porphyria … vampires?’ Alex continued to stare at the marks on his HAWC’s neck. He knew that madness, and some drugs, could give a person almost superhuman strength, but he had felt something else lurking within the man. The tiny grey tendril that had extruded from the strange mouth to … what? Taste his flesh? He shuddered and looked at the cracked ceramic plating on his right glove. The priest should have been dead after his first strike. Not a man, he thought again.

  ‘We’re going out tomorrow to find the priest and bring all your men back,’ he told Aimee. ‘I’ll need you to—’

  ‘Good. I’m coming with you.’ Aimee stood up and folded her arms.

  Oh, great, he thought. ‘Okay, but get some rest. Sam and I are leaving at about 0700 hours. I’ll call in for you then.’

  Aimee’s eyes went diamond hard. ‘Like crap you will. You’ll leave earlier than that and leave me behind. I know you Alex. I’m coming and that’s that. You’ll have to tie me up to make me stay here.’ She paused, perhaps thinking she shouldn’t have mentioned that idea. ‘Look, I can show you where we found the Green Berets’ bodies,’ she went on. ‘And besides, you know I’ll just follow you anyway.’

  Alex thought for a few seconds; he believed her – she would follow them. He stood and tilted his head back with resignation. ‘0600, be ready.’

  Aimee stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. ‘See, that wasn’t so hard now, was it, Captain Hunter?’

  Alex smiled. ‘You win this time, Miss Pushy, but I reserve the right to take you up on that offer to tie you up if you get us into trouble.’

  Aimee smiled and her blue eyes seemed to darken. ‘Get me home first.’

  Alex needed to call Hammerson; the satellite would be in a transmission intersect now and he had to meet its sweep window. There would be no rest for him after that; he’d stand watch until it was time to depart. His body was on fire with energy, and sleep would not come, or be needed, for days.

  He scanned the surrounding wall of dense vegetation and tried to feel for the presence of González. There was nothing. The jungle was loud with the sounds of the night – which was good. It was when the creatures shut down that he needed to worry.

  He had one last stop to make before the contact with Hammerson. At the door of the Vargises’ laboratory cabin, he took a disposable face mask off a hook and pulled it over his face. He paused for one last look around the smoke-filled clearing. The rain was still falling, and he was glad for the frond mat that Tomás and the men had laid down.

  He knocked and pushed open the door. The two scientists were still in their bio-hazard gear. Maria greeted him, but returned immediately to the microscope. She looked tired and her normally perfect hair was in slight disarray.

  Michael sat back in his chair and gave Alex a weak smile. He looked pale, Alex thought; too pale.

  ‘Progress?’ He didn’t have time for pleasantries; events were moving too fast for politeness or politics.

  There was silence for a few moments, then Maria pushed her chair back and ran her hands over her hair. ‘The bacteria is immune to significant heat, and moves far too rapidly for a natural immunological response. We’re not even close to a vaccine. We need a full-sized lab and about a month.’

  ‘Is there anything we can use?’ Alex asked.

  Maria shrugged. ‘There are no more infections, so we figure it’s spread by insect vectors – the smoke and DDT did their job. And the men in the isolation cabin are all dead and … gone.’ She went back to looking through her microscope.

  Alex felt a small ball of annoyance in his gut. He inhaled slowly, calming himself.

  ‘I think cold slows it down,’ Michael said. ‘Maybe at low enough temperatures, it could even kill it.’ His voice sounded phlegmy.

  ‘That’s something – how can we use it?’

  Maria looked up. ‘We can’t. The temperatures needed to terminate the bacteria would also explode human cell walls. You’d die about the same time as the Hades Bug did.’

  Michael coughed and Maria looked across at him, as if really noticing him for the first time. ‘Michael?’

  Alex stared hard at the man, using his enhanced senses to pick up the poison in his system. ‘He’s sick … infected.’

  ‘What? No!’ Maria jumped to her feet so fast her chair toppled over backwards. She moved quickly to Michael and tore off her glove, i
ntending to place her hand on his forehead.

  Alex grabbed her wrist. Close up, he could see the dark veins in the young man’s eyes.

  Michael held up his hands to ward Maria off. ‘Forget it; I’ll be dead in a day.’ He dropped his head into his hands for a moment, then sat up, sniffing back tears. ‘I knew it wasn’t just fatigue, but I hoped …’ He looked miserably at his mother. ‘I don’t want to end up like the men in the cabin. Can you give me something … so I just go to sleep?’

  Maria turned to Alex. ‘How are the generators holding up?’

  Alex realised what she was thinking. ‘Sedate him,’ he said.

  ‘No, please,’ Michael said. ‘There’s no cure – just kill me.’ He went to get to his feet, but Alex put one hand on his shoulder.

  Maria had filled a syringe from a small amber bottle; now she plunged it into Michael’s arm. In a few seconds, he was slumped back in his chair. Alex wrapped him in a sheet from one of the cots, lifted him like he weighed nothing, and took him to what had once been the camp’s mess cabin. Nestled between a coffee machine and a soda machine was an ice chest. Alex used one hand to lift the lid and shoved the unconscious scientist in among the ice. As Michael’s body settled, Alex sensed the deadly bacteria coursing through the young man’s system; he doubted he’d make it.

  Maria stood staring down at her son for many minutes. Alex could hear her saying something under her breath; Greek, he assumed. Finally, she turned to him with a look of weariness on her face. ‘Twenty-four hours and there’ll be a solution. I guarantee it.’

  As the rain continued, puddles formed beneath the mat of fronds covering the campsite. The dried black stains moistened, then thickened. After another hour of the soaking rain, the black shapes were able to slide across the wet ground to find each other.

  The viscous puddles became pools. Living pools.

  A hungry mewling swelled the air, inaudible to human ears.

  A tall cassocked figure lurked just beyond the foliage surrounding the camp, its head moving in time to the ultrasonic chorus.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Hammerson listened to Alex’s update with growing alarm. ‘Lieutenant Makhdoum dead, and Franks down. And by some insane priest with super-fucking-powers who doesn’t exist in anyone’s records? Jesus Christ, Alex!’ He got to his feet and began pacing his office.

  ‘That’s not all.’ Alex’s tone brought Hammerson to a sudden halt. ‘The CDC don’t believe they can control the necrotising bacteria. It’s one hundred per cent lethal. Maria Vargis’s son is now infected.’

  ‘One hundred per cent lethality – that bad, huh?’ Might need some different people down there to take a look-see at that little baby. ‘Is it contained?’

  ‘Yes, for now. Maria Vargis believes it was being spread by insect vectors, which have been eradicated in the area. Its rapid rate of infection means the hosts don’t live long enough to be good carriers.’

  Hammerson nodded. ‘Good. Secure the site, Arcadian; we need that drilling operation back online. As for that priest responsible for Mak’s death and our missing GBs, find him and terminate him. I’m sure God will forgive us later.’

  ‘We’ll catch up with him tomorrow, I guarantee it.’ Alex paused for a second. ‘Jack, one more thing: what do you know of a Protocol 9?’

  Hammerson frowned. ‘Say again, Arcadian.’

  ‘Maria Vargis mentioned a secured set of international instructions – protocols, she called them – for dealing with unexpected or unusual encounters. Apparently, Protocol 9 relates to global life-threatening microorganisms. One minute Vargis is saying this is a terminal outbreak and there’s no way she can control it, and in the next she’s telling me she’ll have a solution in twenty-four hours. It doesn’t make sense. I reckon she’s not telling me everything.’ There was another silence before Alex said, ‘Did you know about these protocols, Jack?’

  Hammerson tapped his chin with one large, gnarled fist. ‘No, but I don’t like the sound of it. I’ll get back to you. Over, Arcadian.’

  Hammerson replaced the phone, sat down and switched on his computer. After entering his passwords, he selected an option on the secured military intranet that showed no identifying text or numbers, just three coloured boxes. He chose the first. The screen went black and stayed that way. To anyone else, it would have seemed a technological error or unfinished code-corridor. However, to Hammerson and a few others with special operational clearance, it was a sign that the system was waiting for the next step.

  Hammerson pressed his palm against the screen. A red line traced the shape of his hand, then disappeared. After a few more seconds, two words appeared on the screen: ASK MUSE. He typed in UN Security Council, then Protocol 9, and waited.

  He could have got the information he needed by calling in a favour from any number of generals, but that would have taken time and he was an impatient man. Besides, the Military Universal Search Engine didn’t just rely on the United States’ vast warehouses of data; it accessed just about every other site on the planet too. Decades ago, the US military’s strategy and logistics division had forecast that the first strike of any modern war would come from a computer lab. Everything in the world was computerised now, from televisions to the most sophisticated defence systems; and with such complex software came vulnerabilities that could be exploited in either offensive or counteroffensive attacks. The US military was spending billions of dollars protecting itself from external hackers while itself diving into foreign networks and data warehouses.

  After another few seconds, an eyes-only document entitled ‘The Protocols’ appeared on the screen. There were ten of them –Ten Commandments for the modern age, thought Hammerson, as he opened the document and paged down to Protocol 9. His coffee cup stopped midair on its way to his lips when he came to a paragraph in the ‘Recommended Actions’ section. He scrolled down and quickly read the words under ‘Terminal Outbreaks’.

  ‘Oh shit, she wouldn’t.’

  He downloaded the entire document and reached for the phone. He needed to swivel a communication satellite, now.

  Despite Sam’s difficulty in drawing meaning from the ornate script that filled the heavy fibrous pages of the journal, he was enjoying its beauty. The cursive style was a relic of a time when penmanship had been lifted to an art form; each letter was perfect in its slope and precision. The outside leaves of the book were damp, but the inside leaves were surprisingly dry, indicating it had been only recently been dropped to the moist jungle floor. Each page was dated, and the year was 1617 – in the year of the Holy Father, Pope Paul V, as the chronicler, a young Jesuit by the name of Father Juan de Castillo, put it.

  Sam moved quickly through the early section, which was concerned with the voyage to the Southern American continent, then through its primitive towns and on into the deep jungle. From here, the almost clinical descriptions leapt to colourful life, with accompanying illustrations. Sam smiled as he felt the priest’s excitement and good humour. Pictures crowded nearly every page now: the local Indians cooking, clearing ground, children playing; another Jesuit drawn from behind, holding an outdoor mass, his arms held wide.

  Sam turned another page and frowned. Here, the text described the new church’s bell tower, and a drawing of a smiling man polishing a large bell covered half the page. Sam recognised the broad shoulders, the square beard with the grey at the jaw-line. It was the priest, their priest: Father Alonso González.

  He looked again at the date at the top of the page: 1617 – nearly 400 years ago. Impossible.

  But so was a non-military trained man taking out two HAWCs and nearly doing the same to Alex Hunter.

  Sam snapped the book shut and looked at his wristwatch: 0530. No sleep after all. He headed for the door.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Alex prowled the camp, stopping from time to time at the edge of the jungle to reach out with his senses, trying to get an impression of anything lurking and watching from behind the dark green curtain. His head throbbed with a
dull pain as he pushed his awareness out as far as he could. He could feel something there, but, strangely, it was all around him rather than in one specific location. And it felt like González, but … He focused harder and got the sense of some kind of living essence, big and getting bigger, like a massive life form stirring or waking. He shook his head as the pain threatened to overwhelm him. There was too much life out there in the jungle to pull out individual details easily.

  In less than an hour, he, Sam, Captain Garmadia and Aimee would track down the priest, and this time they wouldn’t underestimate him. Alex ached to get within reach of the killer of his HAWC. He had lost too many good men and women in battles above and below ground to let one be taken so cheaply.

  He noticed that Maria’s laboratory light was still on, and drifted over to peer in the window. The CDC woman sat at her desk unmoving. Laid out before her were two syringes. Maybe she developed a vaccine after all, he thought. He looked again and thought, Perhaps not. Misery filled the room like a dark cloud.

  He backed away from the window and saw a light come on in Aimee’s cabin. Before he got to the door, it was pulled open and a fully kitted Casey Franks stepped out. She had been sharing Aimee’s quarters so Aimee could change her bandages.

  Boss, she managed to breathe.

  The bandage at her throat was still a little discoloured, and purple bruising stretched from the base of one ear to the other. She looked as fit as ever though, her arms bulging with power, and her eyes carried a restless energy.

  Alex nodded to her. ‘We’re going after the priest and the missing men. You’ll cover base camp until we return. Need anything?’

  ‘Sir, I’m fit for duty. I can …’ Her words were barely audible, and Alex knew they must have hurt.