by Andy Remic
‘What’s happening?’ said Maria.
‘Bad shit,’ said Carter with a snarl. ‘How the fuck did they infiltrate Special Forces? Either big money is changing hands, or something is at play here. Something I don’t understand.’
‘Where is my uncle?’
‘I think we have a hostage situation. There are six of them ...’ Jesmar’s words came to him again. Was it a setup? Something was too neat - too mechanical.
Like grappling with a disjointed puzzle, Carter’s brain wrestled with the implications.
‘Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. Out of the house.’
The comm vibrated. ‘Yeah?’
‘This is Snell. Three of our snipers are dead. Where’s Jesmar?’
‘Dead,’ said Carter. ‘There are at least six assassins in here. I’ve killed two. Fuck knows how many more there are. What do you suggest?’
‘Where are you?’
‘Yellow, sector 18 near the rear porch.’
‘Is Maria with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come out, the rest of us are here. We need to get Maria away.’
‘We’ll come to the inside door and await your escort. Out.’
Carter logged off the comm; he looked at Maria. ‘We are in big trouble. You need to follow my every order if you want both of us to survive. Understand?’
‘Hmm?’
Carter held her arms and shook her, hard. ‘You understand girl?’
‘Yes, yes. Ow, you’re hurting.’
Carter released his grip. ‘This is what we will do. They think we’re coming out of the back; they don’t realise that I killed Jesmar. I—’
There was a sound. Carter moved smoothly to the door and opened it - fast, the Browning’s deadly eye moving, focusing—
‘Shit,’ hissed Carter, removing his finger from the trigger.
Count Feuchter had been beaten. Blood dripped from his broken nose and his smashed lips. He tottered forward, the stench of alcohol surrounding him like a perverse perfume. Carter helped him into the room and checked the corridor; he could see the door sensor flickering and he checked his ECube once more. He activated a function: anybody else entering the kitchen would trigger the silent alarm.
‘Uncle!’ Maria ran to Feuchter, hugged him, helped him to sit down as he grunted with pain. His blood dripped on the floor as he stared in horror at the imploded face of Jesmar.
‘You killed him?’
‘He turned out to be less than honest.’
Carter, the Browning still in his grip, crouched in front of Feuchter. ‘What’s happening out there?’
‘There are six of them. They have herded the guests together. They have sent me to negotiate with you ...’
‘Me? But they think—’
Carter halted. The only way they could know that Hans Jesmar was dead was if they had access to the comm network; that meant the whole of the German Special Forces protection squad were in on the assassination. But why wait until the party? Why not just take out Maria with a sniper’s bullet?
The alarm sounded, the comm vibrating.
Carter moved swiftly to the doorway; his Browning peered around the door and sent a warning shot through the door leading from the kitchen to the corridor. There was no return fire and no more movement.
Carter turned.
Feuchter, still down on the floor - but now on his knees - held a gun pointing straight at Carter. Carter’s stare met that of the older man. There was no emotion in his eyes - just the hardness that Carter had previously witnessed. The hardness of cold steel. The hardness of a killer.
‘What do you want?’ said Carter softly.
‘You fucked it all up,’ hissed Feuchter in a spray of spittle and blood. ‘Drop your weapon - now!’
Carter glanced at Maria; and something had changed, a change that plucked Carter’s heart in its iron grasp and crushed him without mercy. Maria’s tears had dried. She was standing, a small silver gun in her hands. The gun was pointing at him.
‘I don’t understand,’ growled Carter. ‘I thought you were Spiral?’
‘I said drop your fucking weapon!’ screamed Feuchter, the pain of his beating lacing his words with an edge of panic.
Something went cold, and dead, in Carter’s soul.
Maria smiled at him. She gave a little shrug.
‘Don’t act so surprised, Carter. It’s not as if you’re one of the family.’
Carter knew then: knew that he would die. There were two targets, both bearing guns and he could not possibly drop them both in the blink of an eye... He would die, in that stinking cramped mouldy storage room at the back of a bastard’s country castle. Murdered and betrayed by... by who? And for what? What game was being played here? And who was the real target?
‘You,’ whispered Kade in a voice of cemetery stone. ‘Come on, Carter, it’ll be just like old times ... just like the Battle of Cairo7... let me take them ...’
Feuchter had staggered to his feet. His fingers dabbed at his lip and came away flecked with blood. He waved his Glock, his face an animal snarl. ‘I said drop your fucking weapon now!’
Carter began to stoop, as if to place his Browning on the ground.
‘Let me,‘ soothed Kade, his voice hypnotic in Carter’s fevered mind. Carter blinked in lazy-time slow-motion as the world descended from colour into a mercury downward spiral...
Do it, he thought sourly.
And, slowly, Kade opened his eyes.
CHAPTER 3
BLACK & WHITE
The panoramic scene was colourless, bleached, a picture in black and white. He smiled at the blood-smeared Feuchter; the Browning felt good in his hand, stocky, reassuring, an old friend, a returned lover, a part of his body and essence and soul. It was held low as he stooped, at an angle. All it took was a twitch—
Kade flicked his wrist - faster than thought - and pulled the trigger.
Feuchter was blown backwards, folding in half with a grunt of expelled air, and he slumped, sprawling to the ground with a look of sudden horror on his face. He dropped his gun. He looked down to where his hands clutched a widening patch of red at his belly. Kade, in the same movement, spun on his heel, the Browning flashing up sideways and, again, he pulled the trigger - the bullet smashed into Maria’s shoulder, spinning her back to rebound from the wall. She hit the ground hard, moaning, saliva drooling to the cold stone, her small pretty gun forgotten. ‘Never trust a fucking woman,’ snarled Kade, and moved forward to kneel swiftly beside Feuchter.
‘It takes a long time to die from a stomach wound,’ he growled. ‘And I believe it hurts. A lot.’ He pulled back his gun and smashed the butt into Feuchter’s face, hammering the already broken nose. Feuchter screamed - and another three heavy blows silenced him, reducing his scream to a gurgle.
Kade moved to the door. He flicked rapidly through the channels on the ECube - and confusion wrenched his face as he realised it was dead. No scans. No location motions. Nothing...
Kade searched the open archive of Carter’s mind - it took the blink of an eye - then, opening the door, he ran across the kitchen, vaulting the stainless-steel worktop and towards a low serving hatch. He pushed his way into the hole, kicked through the thin boards below, and allowed himself to drop—
Machine-gun fire sounded above.
Kade landed softly and looked around. The cellar. He moved past various cars covered with protective sheets. He halted, looking sideways at a gleaming red motorbike - a Ducati 1296 SPS MkV - the colour registering in Kade’s vision as a bright shade of grey. Then he ran forward to the ramp and the wide wooden doors leading from the cellar. He peered through the crack into the darkness. Kade palmed Carter’s ECube, rotated it gently and as if by magic a hint of a glow emanated from the hub. On the surface grooves Kade traced a pattern and a pin spat from the core of the ECube. Reaching down, he slid the pin into the lock and within a few seconds there was a click. Silently, he eased open the heavy door a fraction—
Running ba
ck to the bike, he kicked it free of its stand. He used the butt of the Browning to smash a hole in the top fairing, then reached through and felt for the ignition wiring. A few cuts. A few twists to bypass the immobiliser. Kade grinned and gunned the engine, clutch in, kick down to first, screw the throttle up to 13,000 revs—
Kade ducked his head and popped the clutch.
The Ducati wheelied up the ramp and smashed through the doors. Machine guns turned on Kade as the motorcycle shot like a bullet down the gravel drive, 221 b.h.p. kicking the bike up the arse with the Browning thumping in Kade’s left hand. Skidding around the fountain, Kade blew a man’s chest open with the slam of three bullets. He dropped a gear and the back wheel spun gravel, dug into dirt and shot him down the drive’s straight and away from the figures who ran from Schwalenberg’s main entrance with their machine guns blazing.
Bullets screamed past Kade’s head and he ducked even lower over the broad tank as the machine hit 224 m.p.h. He clung to the bike like a limpet, an incredible grin hijacking his face, the Browning forgotten in the joy and concentration of controlling this screaming insanity engine as the needle flickered on the redline.
Behind him, a swathe of perhaps twenty black-masked figures swarmed forward, then suddenly halted. Copper eyes watched the Ducati disappear to a red blip. Men were shouting - they jumped into cars and the black-clad assassins leaped apart as the vehicles roared past in pursuit.
On the Ducati, Kade was screaming and laughing in glee, face upturned into the wind, the bike howling between his legs. Hearing the roar of cars behind made him laugh even louder as the motorcycle smashed down an unlit lane surrounded by thick woodland. He suddenly slowed, front end diving low under harsh braking, and flicked off the machine’s lights with his thumb as the Ducati’s engine throttled back and the rev needle flickered as he kicked down a couple of gears—
The roaring of car engines approached at speed. The Browning boomed in Kade’s hand as he emptied a full clip into the windscreen of the lead vehicle. The BMW veered right and hammered into a tree: a figure was flung, a pulped carcass, through the windscreen and Kade screwed the Ducati’s throttle once more and watched the rev counter dance. The front wheel lifted and Kade clamped himself to the fuel tank; as he hit 100 m.p.h. again he flicked on the lights and leaned low into a right-hand bend as the front wheel finally touched down, and his knee skimmed the rough tarmac an instant before the foot-peg showered the ground with sparks. Opening the throttle more, his grin broadened and the chase was forgotten as the Ducati was pushed to the twitching 240 m.p.h.+ limits of the screaming motor’s ability.
‘I just fucking love bikes,’ whispered Kade into the howl of the wind.
Far behind, forgotten, Castle Schwalenberg blazed briefly with a glowing bud of explosion; fire roared, ate, consumed - billowed up into the night sky, causing Kade to lock the Ducati’s wheels and weave in a long skid, finally to halt and look back with an intense frown.
The HighJ explosives roared up into the night, a purple blossom opening to receive the moonlight.
Kade put his head down, opened the throttle to full and redlined the bike down the road, leaving a streak of burned rubber. He disappeared into the blackness of the German forest.
Carter sat in the woods, listening to the gurgling of a small waterfall that tumbled into a circular rock basin. Huge rings surrounded his eyes and nearby, badly disguised, was the scraped, bashed, scratched and mud-coated Ducati under a pile of branches and leaves.
Carter wearily toyed with the ECube. Blue digits flickered under his gentle caress. He activated the emergency homer, and felt the ECube vibrate a little as the powerful transmitter gave out short bursts.
Resting his head back against the grassy embankment, Carter felt the sounds of running water having a soothing effect on his soul. But too many questions jostled his brain - too many memories haunted his past.
It was obvious now. It had been a set-up. For him.
Carter shivered; somebody had wanted him dead, somebody had wanted him dead real fast. But why the elaborate protection scam? Of course - to separate him from Spiral... to get him out there on his own. If he was supporting German Special Forces then he would not be consigned to a DemolSquad ...
And Maria—
Carter shook his head. She had fooled him; and now she was wounded, with a bullet in her shoulder, possibly dead and buried, and all for what? To kill him?
Feuchter and Maria. They were both Spiral ... and they had both tried to kill him. And it would seem that some of the German Special Forces had been in on the betrayal ... and the final explosion. What the fuck had happened there? What the fuck had been going down?
After Kade had taken control of him, events were nothing but a dull dream, without colour, and the— hell, he thought, say the word. The possession left a bad taste in Carter’s mouth, whisky piss of the worst blend. Kade’s joy left a sour feeling in his belly, and Kade’s fury left an empty void in his soul.
Carter stared at the small white flower in his fingers. It had withered a little since Maria Balashev had given it to him in the garden. Kade had said to him, ‘You lied.’ For once Kade had been right and Carter cursed the demon in his soul.
‘I have never lost a protection.’
A lie of reassurance. Oh, the comedy of the situation! He had been protecting his own would-be assassin... and now? Was she dead? Lying with Feuchter in the cold grave of their ancestors?
‘I should have killed them.’
‘I still can’t believe you shot her,’ said Carter softly.
‘Yeah, I’m going fucking soft, or something, I should have placed the bullet in her fucking face. Never leave an enemy behind - it’s your fault, Carter, you poison my blood, you weaken my resolve, you piss in my mind...’
‘I poison... get the fuck out of my brain, Kade.’
Carter felt Kade depart; his arrogance, hatred and anger a bleak red streak at the back of his mind, burning, but dissipating as the dark twin left him to his own sour thoughts.
Carter threw the dead flower aside and stood, stretching his back and rolling his neck, which cracked with a release of tension.
Why hadn’t they killed him earlier?
Carter pondered. Maybe the explosion had been intended - not just for him, but for the guests as well? But something had gone wrong and Carter had fucked it all up, and so it had been left to Feuchter and Maria to finish off the kill. Maybe.
Carter spun the ECube in his palm, then sent the report to Spiral.
What the fuck, he thought. Let them figure it out! Maybe they could discover what had happened to the ECube as well...
A low drone reached his ears, pounding over the forest.
Carter waited patiently as the Comanche leaped into view, spun around low over the trees and touched down. The whump whump of the rotors sent branches and trees swaying and Carter ran to the cockpit and the serious face of Langan.
‘Hurry up,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got company.’
‘Company?’
Langan nodded as Carter ascended and belted himself into the cockpit. ‘Put on the spare HIDSS ‘cos I might need your help. Whatever the fuck you’ve been up to down here, you’ve certainly stirred up a hornets’ nest. Ever used a holographic Bi-Ocular FOV in a real-time combat situation?’
‘What?’
‘Just get in.’
The Comanche RAH-66 twin LHTec engines screamed and the attack helicopter launched into the fast-approaching darkness.
CHAPTER 4
STATE OF PLAY
The Russian Ballistic Missile Submarine 941 Typhoon Class, Moscow 16, thrummed through the dark waters 130° and a hundred miles south of the Gelz Ice Shelf. Slowly, the seven-bladed perch propellers spun down and the vessel sat squat and dark in the dim cool glow, immobile, predatory and frightening in its bulky, matt black presence.
Juri Kolgar, Captain First Rank of the 19th Submarine Division, drummed his fingers on the desk and stared at the readings on the screen before him. He
glanced up at Seaman Bharzova and the worried expression on the young man’s neatly shaved face. Kolgar smiled warmly, and dismissed the man.
For the past four months the Russians had been working with Spiral in an attempt to quash a new internal problem - a spate of mass rioting that had been brought on due to a Mafia-peddled designer drug, which had taken the poverty-stricken working classes by the balls and sent them spinning down the cobbled road to narcotic Hell. This drug, Lemon Vodka as it had been nicknamed, had made the Mafia-led clans even more rich and powerful, but was costing the government dear -financially, politically and, of course, socially. Spiral had been called in as a last resort to try and help stamp out the illegal importing of Lemon Vodka.
A day earlier, the Moscow 16 had been tracking an unnamed surface vessel that was under suspicion of drug trafficking; the vessel was the size of a battleship, of unknown origins, and had been making slow progress to the north-east, close to Russia’s Arctic coast.
Now, however, the vessel had gone.
Kolgar had sent out Tykes, tiny aquatic machine scouts no larger than a tennis ball. A hundred had surged from the sub, humming quietly and darkly into the deep cold waters in search of the mysterious vessel that had - impossibly - evaded their most high-tech searches.
Now they were playing the waiting game.
Kolgar sighed, opened the drawer to his right and looked longingly at the bottle of crystal-clear liquid nestling within. He shook his head, rubbed a hand over the bristles on his chin, and closed the drawer again.
Standing, he left the room and walked slowly to the Control Centre, which was situated above the batteries where energy from the 2x600 mwt nuclear reactors were stored in order to give the huge craft its propulsion.
Seamen snapped to attention as Kolgar entered. He saluted his men, and took his seat on the bridge. ‘Anything on the sonar?’