Spiral

by Andy Remic

  Foam and flames burst into the sky, hot spray geysering upwards.

  Bullets zipped past Carter, and he launched the Comanche down and under Feuchter’s machine. He banked the helicopter so that it was flying on its side and fumbled at his belt, dragging free the wire that he had last used back at the Beverly Hills Hilton. He fired it up above him, attaching it to the underside of Feuchter’s helicopter as more bullets flew towards him and a spark ignited the stream of aviation fuel trailing from the Comanche in a deadly umbilical to the devastating spark—

  Carter felt himself tugged free.

  The wind lashed at his dangling body.

  The Comanche veered off, trailing a line of fire that quickly caught up with the war machine. Blazing bright, it careered out of control, and suddenly flipped and hammered into the waves, blossoming into a final bright bioom of fire and metal as Feuchter’s ‘copter flashed overhead.

  Carter swung helplessly for a few moments. He was buffeted wildly, and swinging, turning, he saw that the other helicopters were still pursuing. Wind lashed at him, and ice rain. The pursuers opened fire.

  Carter yelped as bullets roared around him, zipping past his unprotected flesh.

  He reached up, grasping the enemy helicopter’s landing rails. With a Herculean effort he dragged himself up, spun for a moment, and planted his boots on the rail, detaching his umbilical wire as he did so.

  He appeared, suddenly, beside Feuchter.

  Carter saw Feuchter mouth something. The helicopter veered left, banking sharply in panic. Carter smashed, helpless for a moment, against the door, his head hitting the glass and cracking its surface; he dragged the Browning up and placed the muzzle against the cockpit canopy. Even through the wind’s noise he heard the tiny clack of metal against the window.

  Feuchter heard it too.

  He turned, staring hard at Carter.

  His eyes glittered cold; his mouth was a grim sour line.

  ‘Fuck,’ screamed Carter through gritted teeth, the word snatched away instantly by the wind as his hair whipped wildly around his head, ‘you.’ He pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed through the canopy towards Feuchter’s face. It drove through his top teeth and his palate and into the base of his skull. Feuchter slumped backwards, releasing the helicopter’s controls as his brain erupted from the back of his head in a shower, splattering against the seat and covering Natasha in gore.

  She gasped.

  The helicopter lurched and flipped suddenly sideways.

  For an instant she met Carter’s shocked gaze. Then he was gone, lost in the darkness, lost in the ice rain, lost in the infinite blackness of the cold night storm.

  Natasha grabbed the helicopter’s controls, impeded by her tape-bound wrists. Feuchter flopped around beside her as she managed to steady the aircraft.

  They were close to the fast-sinking cruiser. It was sliding beneath the bubbling super-heated waters, settling below the waves like some dying dinosaur.

  Natasha suddenly became aware of her aerial entourage and banked the helicopter around in a wide circle, her two protective escorts following suit. Then she suddenly spun the aircraft and opened fire with the onboard heavy machine guns.

  The two Nex-piloted vehicles evaded the bullets... and collided. In a sudden tangle of metal and twisting screeching engines, they plummeted towards the sea in a ball of fire.

  Natasha smiled; she tried to calm her pounding heart but failed.

  She steered the helicopter low over the sea, searching for Carter. Again and again she flew passes, her heart sinking, despair flooding through her. The helicopters that she had destroyed had sunk slowly beneath the cold waves.

  Spinning the helicopter around once more, she watched as the battling DemolSquads, buoyed by the victory of seeing the cruiser - and its heavy guns - sunk, stormed through the skies, raining hot death on the remaining Nex.

  The rain and ice continued to lash down.

  Before very long, it was all over.

  And a wounded group of heroes limped home.

  CHAPTER 26

  DEEP

  Carter fell, and as he hit the icy waters all semblance of sanity was crushed from him in an instant as the freezing sea chilled him to the bone. Deep under he went, his Browning gone in an instant, bright white stars of pain forced into his numbed brain and body. He gasped, breathing in water. He spluttered, and realised that possibly, down in the depths of this polar black ice ocean—

  ‘You might drown.’

  ‘Leave me be.’

  ‘I should have warned you: you should have waited another three seconds so the positions of the rotors and stick didn’t combine to flip the helicopter. Then you wouldn’t be here ... drowning.’

  ‘What do I have to do to be rid of you, fucker?’

  ‘You have to die,’ whispered Kade.

  All force of will flooded from Carter. But then fire burned bright in his mind and he reached, slowing his descent into this awesome abyss, and struck out, fighting his way up, up, up, bubbles bursting from his tortured lungs. He broke through the surface, sucking in a huge huge gulp of precious cold air. His breath streamed like dragon smoke. He realised that he was screaming.

  Opening his eyes, Carter breathed deeply and saw the helicopter banking sharply. Machine guns roared and the other two Nex helicopters smashed and merged together, their rotors folding directly above him as Carter’s grimace of madness dropped from his face—

  ‘You’re fucking shitting me...’

  The twisted helicopters fell.

  Carter dived, kicking with all his might, diving down and down, and the cold was forgotten in this sudden desperate race to get beneath the surface. Dimly he heard the impact - a dull whoosh - and his surroundings were illuminated by the burning helicopters descending above him through the cold waves, ignited fuel a torch lighting his way to a deep dark dominion named Death.

  Kicking with all his might, Carter fought his way down: he risked a glance behind - above - and they were there, two glowing machines held in a metal mesh embrace.

  He could see a Nex, struggling to fight free of the wreckage. But it was trapped.

  The helicopters sank closer to Carter, who kicked to get out of their way.

  Sorrow swamped him; he could faintly hear the Nex screaming.

  The glow disappeared. Lungs burning, Carter kicked for the surface once more. The cold was numbing him to the point of death. He felt tingling all over his skin; he could not feel his hands and feet and face.

  He burst free. Breathed deeply.

  Debris littered the sea now. He glanced around.

  Distantly, he saw the helicopter battle ending. More Nex were sent hurtling to their deaths and Carter felt sick deep down to his core. He watched idly as the cruiser finally succumbed to the cold dark waters.

  Carter trod water.

  And he knew that he had nowhere to go.

  No way of saving himself.

  Would they come looking for him? Or would the bastards think he was dead? Would they leave him to freeze slowly to death, alone with his memories for his last fleeting moments of life—?

  There are worse ways to die, he decided sombrely.

  But then, there are better ways.

  He kept moving but he could not feel his arms or legs now; only the trunk of his body retained some heat. The pain had gone; all his pain had gone, numbed by the freezing waters.

  How long will it take? he mused.

  Minutes?

  Seconds?

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  Carter turned around; there was a small black boat. A man peered down at him, goggles pushed up on his head, a cheeky smile on his broad face. Jam winked.

  ‘We saw you take a dive. Thought you might need a ride,’ rumbled Slater.

  Carter grinned. ‘Was that your firework display?’

  ‘Nuke in a suitcase,’ said Jam with a laugh. ‘Low radiation yield - quite eco-friendly, when you think about it.’

  The two men reache
d down and dragged Carter into their little boat, which bobbed alarmingly. ‘You’ll have to hug him, share your body heat,’ said Jam, firing up the engine and heading out into the darkness.

  ‘I’m not fucking hugging him. I’m not a poof!’

  Jam rolled his eyes. ‘Slater, look at the man! He’ll die of hypothermia! Now, I’m not casting aspersions on your sexuality, but you really need to get him warm.’ He stared hard at Carter who was shivering uncontrollably, eyes closed, pain his mistress. ‘In fact, I think this is going to be a threesome if we don’t want the fucker dead.’

  They both gathered round Carter, and as the boat sped through the dark waves under the storm-filled heavens, they huddled close to him and waited for the dawn to come.

  A cold late-autumn wind blew the brown and yellow leaves down the road, swirling them up into the air, decorating the tarmac with those symbols of summer’s death and winter’s impending onslaught. The gleaming black Mercedes sped through the wind-scattered leaves, turned left at the bottom of the street and headed out towards the deserted docks.

  It was early. Five a.m. and not yet light.

  The Mercedes stopped, engine ticking over, tendrils of smoke trailing from its exhaust; one of the rear doors opened and Carter - a bruised and battered Carter, missing a front tooth but cleaned and bandaged up and whole again - stepped onto the rough concrete and breathed deeply of the nectar that was the morning air. He limped slowly across the dockside, panting and wincing in pain as his broken sternum pierced his thoughts, and halted, staring down into the black, lapping water. He pulled free a packet of cigarettes, freed one from its paper cage with a heavily bandaged hand, and lit the weed.

  Smoke plumed above the water and Carter sighed.

  He turned at the sound of another car; the Range Rover cruised past the parked Mercedes and approached Carter where he stood beside the sea wall.

  A cold wind blew as the Range Rover cut its engine.

  Carter glanced in at the group of large men. One of the doors opened and a figure stepped out; it was a man Carter had never met before, and yet Carter instinctively recognised him as Spiral; he was tall, and broad, and quite old. His grey hair was short, his eyes bright and pale. A neatly trimmed moustache and a long overcoat gave him something of the look of a gangster.

  ‘Mr Carter.’

  Carter shook the man’s leather-gloved hand.

  Carter nodded, drawing deep on his cigarette. ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said the man. ‘Come, walk with me.’

  They walked along the edge of the docks, the wind blowing beneath their collars and making coat tails flap. An occasional seagull cried overhead as it swept low, searching for food.

  ‘You know who I am?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘That is probably for the best. But it has come to my attention that after your recent... exploits, shall we say, you have come to know rather a lot of things about Spiral that maybe you shouldn’t. And yet we cannot forget your sterling service - albeit unknowingly - in leading us to the filth of the Nex, and in your destruction of the traitors known as Feuchter and Durell.’

  ‘I appreciate that, sir.’

  The man stopped and gazed deeply into Carter’s eyes.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. And then Carter saw it: the Browning 9mm. In the man’s gloved hands.

  Carter swallowed hard.

  The man smiled.

  ‘Here, this is yours. It was recovered when they dived for Durell’s body. A miracle, don’t you think?’

  Carter took the gun. It was marked; scratched; old and worn. It had character.

  ‘A miracle. Yeah.’ He laughed then, staring out over the water. ‘Did they find him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ Carter scratched thoughtfully at his brow. ‘Look, sir, you can be assured of my loyalty concerning the things that I have discovered. I was maybe just a little pissed off at the beginning, because I thought that Spiral was trying to kill me at the start of these ... shall we say, adventures. It would appear that I was mistaken.’ Carter’s voice had turned somewhat cool. His eyes glittered and his mouth tightened into a grim line.

  The man nodded. ‘Information is power, Carter. Look what too much information did for Feuchter and Durell. You cannot tell everybody everything; as DemolSquads you are only tiny cogs in the machine, only small players in the whole game. That happy pair of our enemies nearly brought Spiral down because of information: their knowledge; their complete understanding; the things that they shouldn’t have known.’

  Carter rubbed wearily at his eyes. ‘Even if they had brought us down, others would have taken our place.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Carter nodded. He threw his cigarette butt into the sea. The black cold waves took the glowing tip and it disappeared from view. The wind howled softly; Carter shivered, remembering his thoughts of drowning in those distant ice-laden waters.

  ‘I have some questions...’ said Carter.

  The man held up his gloved hand. He shook his head in the negative, just once.

  ‘Maybe another time.’

  Carter smiled sardonically. ‘You mean another time as in never?’

  ‘It is for your own protection,’ said the man. He smiled then, but it was an uncertain smile, a smile without a trace of humour - a smile on a face not used to the expression. ‘I want you to remember, Carter, that our soldiers are never expendable.’ He lit a cigarette. Held it delicately.

  Carter met the tall man’s gaze: grey eyes, hooded and masking a thousand emotions. Their stares locked for a long time. Carter held the man’s cool look. Without another word, he turned and strolled leisurely down the dockside, admiring the dark expanse of churning sea. He climbed into the Range Rover which started its engine, turned, and was gone.

  Carter turned back, staring out over the distant black waves. He shivered, pulling his coat tighter around his shoulders.

  ‘Arse-kisser,’ said Kade.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing back?’

  ‘I was lonely. I missed your company.’

  ‘You’re a fucking worm, Kade, and I am cursed with your presence.’

  ‘You’d be lost without me,’ said Kade softly.

  ‘Why? What fucking possible help could you give me?’

  ‘You’re touchy today. Maybe you just need more time to think through our relationship.’

  ‘What relationship is this? You driving me insane?’

  ‘Lighten up, Carter: y‘know, our relationship - me getting to kill people on your behalf when you need a little encouragement. That sort of brotherly deal thing? You scratch my back—’

  ‘And you put a knife in mine?’

  Kade laughed softly. ‘Here, listen ...I...I...I apologise. For sulking with you. There. I’ve said it.’

  ‘That was big of you.’

  ‘You motherfu— No, no, you are right. I’ll leave you. Let you gather your mental composure.’

  ‘Better leave me for a while; say, a thousand years?’

  Carter lit another cigarette. He heard the footsteps approaching and he did not turn. Natasha stood beside him, staring out at the sea and the distant buoys. Then she looked up at him. ‘You all right?’

  He nodded.

  ‘They fire you?’

  ‘No. Not yet. I think they’ll probably want a few more psychological tests and medical reports. Then, if I’m real lucky, a desk job.’

  Natasha took his hand; their fingers entwined and squeezed.

  ‘You’re a lucky man,’ she said. ‘Lucky to be alive.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Carter, grinning. ‘Lucky is my middle fucking name.’

  ‘Come on; the others are waiting. We have a party to go to.’

  ‘Those other stinking curs? And at five o’clock in the morning?’

  ‘Well, it’s the tail end of a party. You know what Slater and Jam will be like. They’ll still be pissed...’

  Carter nodded. ‘I’m game,’ he yawned. ‘Unless ...’

&
nbsp; ‘Yes?’

  Their gazes met.

  ‘I thought you were injured?’ smiled Natasha.

  ‘I’m not that injured. I still have, shall we say, various functioning parts.’

  ‘I’m sure you have. Your place or mine?’

  ‘Mine,’ said Carter. ‘I’ve got to pick up Sam.’

  ‘He OK?’

  ‘Great,’ said Carter. ‘Well fed on assassin, apparently. Made a right mess of the corpses in the woods; went back for a midnight feast when he was let out, the dirty dumb fat mutt.’

  ‘That is one sick dog.’

  ‘Hey - I suppose to his eyes it was fresh meat. Fair game. He was only thinking of his belly. Like the rest of us men. Listen, you go and wait in the car. I would like a moment alone.’

  Natasha nodded. ‘Sure.’

  She moved away, and Carter stood staring out at the dark rolling sea. Waves crested with foam lined the horizon. The cold breeze reminded him of the coming winter.

  From the pocket of his coat he removed a small object: a silver disk. It rested against Carter’s cold skin and he stared at it for a while, wondering at the secrets it held. The riddle of how to rebuild the QIII. The code and data required to replicate events now done ...

  ‘You’re better off dead,’ he muttered.

  Reaching back, he threw the silver disk as far out into the sea as he could. There was a tiny splash. The last copy of the QIII schematics sank without a trace in the dark waters.

  Carter smiled softly.

  ‘It is finally over,’ he breathed. He walked back towards the Mercedes and climbed into the warmth of the plush heated interior. The gleaming vehicle turned with a crackle of tyres on concrete and headed smoothly for the network of UK motorways - leaving behind nothing but bitter exhaust fumes and the promise of an oncoming cold winter.