by Andy Lucas
With the storm now abated, his acute hearing detected the faintest shifting of heavy, clawed feet to the left side of the cave lip, inching closer. The beast was summoning its courage to attack.
Leaving his bedding in a pile at the rear of the cave, Joshi slid as far over to the wall as he could, kneeling up into a well-practised military shooting position. Checking that the safety catch was off, he raised the assault rifle to his shoulder and sighted over the top of the integral SUSAT sight. He could not look through it at this range because the magnification would have made it too awkward.
The years he had spent training with the monks had honed his physical speed and attuned him mentally, in a way that few human beings were able to do. This heightened awareness had then been developed by time on the battlefield. Lightning fast, he was confident he could put several shots into a charging beast and still have the speed to elude it, even with his gammy knee. He would then move in with his Kukri to finish it off.
Silence fell as the movement outside the cave ceased. Perhaps sensing the calm, preparedness from its quarry, the creature grew unsettled. Its own sixth sense suddenly warned it away from the cave and within seconds, it was gone, loping away down the steep snow banks as nimbly as a mountain goat, vanishing into the clear, frigid night.
Joshi was not complacent. He heard the beast leave but waited, gun sighted, for a full ten minutes more before his own senses told him that the danger had truly passed.
The rest of the night crawled by slowly but, finally, dawn broke and he was able to cautiously approach the cave mouth to look for clues. His soul was relaxed and his senses calm, telling him that the creature was now far away and allowing him to put down the gun for the first time in hours before stepping out into the fresh air.
Outside the cave, the snow on the left side was heavily trampled and scraped. The imprints were humanoid, and huge, with large claw indentations at the tips of the toes. Joshi had no doubt about what had been standing outside. He had heard the legends all of his life and the monks had often told him tales of the Blood Gurkhas; fearsome warrior monks sent out from a secret monastery, for a thousand years, to fight titanic battles with the devils and keep them away from human settlements.
He never learned if the monastery still existed, just that there had been no Blood Gurkhas for centuries. Once satisfied that the Yeti were too few to be a threat, the last warrior monks had simply melted away into the mountains, to be forgotten in time.
The only other thing he remembered from the stories, growing up with the monks, was of the prophesy; that at a time of great peril, when the beasts rose up to march against mankind again, the Blood Gurkhas would return.
This put Joshi in a quandary. This was the first time he had ever encountered a Bun Manchi and he had been fortunate enough to survive. He knew his duty was to his people, and to the monks, but he disliked the feeling of dread that now filled him.
The day he closed the door of the monastery behind him, he had vowed never to return. Now, as if the monks were calling him home, Joshi's mind was in turmoil as he packed up his few belongings and made his way back towards the truck.
Two days later, after making sure that he spent a last comfortable night at home, and caught up with his friends on the computer, Joshi packed for a trek that he never thought he would again have to make.
Taking a final look around at his home, brushing aside the sense that he would never see it again, he set off on a gruelling, three-week hike, determined to speak to the monks who had raised him.
Did they know the creatures were alive and well? Did they understand that people's lives were in danger, especially with the recent explosion of tourism to Nepal?
This failed monk needed to return home, bearing information to the people that might be able to help. Joshi also knew fate was dealing him cards that would draw death towards him as surely as scavengers were drawn to carrion.
6
There was nothing to be gained from waiting in the medical facility, or remaining camped out in McEntire’s office. Pace knew it was not going to get them any closer to finding Josephine Roche and wreaking vengeance for her act of barbarism.
With both father and daughter now in a stable condition, albeit still constrained within medically-induced comas, he had returned home and now stood at the kitchen counter, watching the microwave count down to zero. Moments later, a shrill ping told him that his frozen meal was ready.
Lifting the steaming plate of chicken curry and rice out of the microwave, he settled himself down onto a nearby bar stool and absently stirred the food around with a fork, his mind a thousand miles away. Pace found the aroma of the curry tempting enough but he lacked the interest to eat properly; sampling barely half a dozen forkfuls before sliding the plate away and running his hands tiredly through his short, dark hair. His piercing blue eyes were now red and sore from lack of sleep but beneath the puffiness, a determined anger lurked.
Moving into the observation ring, he walked around to the small ladder leading up to the control room corridor and was soon seated on one of the large sofas, Jack Daniels in hand. He had run through the events of the past few days countless times in his head already and he felt physically too weary to do so again. Pace just wanted Sarah to recover and have her back by his side but the doctors had made it clear that she would be under their care for at least a fortnight before they would be able to consider releasing her. Then there was the problem of who actually attacked her, and if they had any standing orders to finish the job if she survived the Scorpion infection.
The day was aging into early evening and Pace watched the rain hammer on the polycarbonate dome that encapsulated the control room. If he looked directly up, he could see the sky through the empty hole in the centre of the doughnut-shaped gas envelope. Today it had been raining intermittently since dawn but now it began to lash down with venom, running in a thousand rivulets down the curved, transparent surface. The sound of the drumming soothed his soul as he sipped at the familiar, fiery bourbon in his glass.
He knew what he had to do. For two weeks, he could not help Sarah or Doyle. In Doyle’s temporary absence, and with Sarah also incapacitated, Baker had assumed command of the entire McEntire Organisation, on the basis of a long-standing arrangement between the two men. Baker only directed the covert side of the business, preferring to leave the running of the legitimate businesses to the McEntire Organisation’s highly accomplished international management structure.
He had only left Hammond a few hours previously. Now, feeling a little guilty in case his friend was still resting, he dialled his number. The encrypted satellite phone was answered on the second ring.
‘James, what’s up? Is Sarah okay?’ asked the voice worriedly.
‘No change,’ replied Pace. ‘Sorry to ring you, Max. I haven’t been able to sleep. I just keep chewing over this nightmare and I can’t leave it alone.’
‘Why should you?’ growled the bald, adventuring accountant on the other end of the line. ‘We need to nail this bitch to the wall as soon as we track her down.’
‘That’s just it. I can’t wait around. I need to be out there, actively searching. I want to mobilise all of our assets to find her.’
‘Satellites? Electronic snooping? Human intelligence? Banks? Finance? We can set a multitude of dogs on her trail but Baker is already doing all those things, you know that.’ Hammond wasn’t sure what more Pace wanted.
Since slogging through the Antarctic recently, overcoming nightmarish dangers together, and both surviving, their friendship was tighter than ever. Although Pace had only been with the McEntire Corporation for a year, after becoming involved with the ill-fated Race Amazon project, his skills and tenacity had quickly become invaluable. Hammond trusted him with his life.
Pace felt the same way and together they now made a formidable, reliable and lethal team.
‘I want to take a look at ARC’s South American complex,’ Pace explained quickly.
‘The one we haven’t b
een able to get inside yet? Their most highly secure site?’ Hammond found himself grinning. ‘You want us to play spies again and take a sniff around their Uruguayan facility, I take it?’
‘Exactly,’ agreed Pace determinedly. ‘I know the government of Uruguay has thrown a protective shield around the place. God knows, ARC has been bankrolling some of their highest politicians for years now,’ he spat, ‘but I know we could get in there. Maybe we can find a clue to what went on there with Scorpion and Dark Tide, you know,’ he paused, ‘to fill in any blanks.’
‘And there’s always the missing gold shipment that should have been there, let alone the one that we never found down in the Antarctic.’ Hammond was already sold on the idea. ‘Maybe they sailed it all away to Uruguay.’
‘Along with dozens of British scientists that we never found either,’ said Pace evenly. ‘We still don’t know why the only bodies we found were the crew of a century-old German U-Boat, do we? It was a British base, after all.’
‘A secret weapon’s installation,’ corrected Hammond lightly. His tone grew sombre. ‘Baker probably won’t agree to put us in harm’s way at the moment. He is going to need his best people around him to make sure the attack on Sarah was an isolated incident. If there’s a chance of getting hold of Josephine Roche, he wouldn’t hesitate, but allowing us to swan off to our likely deaths in South America without a good reason is going to be hard for him to swallow.’
Pace knew as much but he was determined to finish what he had started. He had always planned to convince Doyle McEntire of the need to recce the ARC facility in Uruguay. There would doubtless be another of the old covert British science laboratories and a stockpile of gold had been funding ARC’s expansion for years. Maybe, just maybe, there was another load of gold still to be discovered; perhaps spirited away from the Antarctic base just before the Germans landed in their U-Boat? More importantly, maybe the heavily-secured site was hiding Josephine Roche.
‘The other bases are in our hands and ARC is being thoroughly scrutinised,’ he began slowly. ‘Their only remaining dark site is that harbour facility, now protected by government forces. If Josephine has any safe haven left, you know it's going to be there.’
‘You think we’ll find her holed up there?’ asked Hammond. ‘She is extremely wealthy. There are many places in the world that would welcome her cash.’
Pace nodded in agreement. ‘But none that she runs already, and knows well. It would be the safest place for her, at least temporarily. With most of her money frozen, she won't have the spare cash to throw massive bribes around at the moment,' he reasoned.
Hammond knew his friend was probably right but he had been involved in the covert shadowlands, in which the McEntire Corporation operated, for far longer and he was painfully aware that their quarry could be anywhere in the world.
‘I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm,’ he said softly, ‘but we might not find her. It is the obvious place to look for her but she is in no doubt now about our reach.’
‘Maybe that’s another reason for her to be there,’ Pace argued gently. ‘Either way, we need to get in there and find out what’s going on. Finding her, or a trace of her whereabouts, would be a bonus.’
‘Perhaps Baker could apply some pressure on the Uruguayan government, to let us have an official look around?’
They both knew that any official visit would take lengthy negotiations and would only be authorised after any incriminating evidence had been moved. Hammond knew it was a pointless idea too but he felt he needed to air it.
‘You don’t believe that will work, any more than I do,’ Pace smiled. ‘Stop stalling. Are we going or not?’
‘What do you think?’ Hammond smiled back. ‘All we have to do is find a way of getting to South America, with all our equipment, without our own organisation getting wind of what we’re up to.’
‘You know that won’t happen either,’ frowned Pace. ‘Baker knows I won’t stick around and do nothing. He will be expecting me, or us, to do something but I don't think he will try and stop us.’
'Hopefully, not,' Hammond agreed. Baker had his hands full trying the head up the McEntire Corporation. He was also a tough, ruthless soldier who understood the need for action. ‘As long as we don’t make a fuss, he will probably turn a blind eye, just for a few days.’
‘We have to find her. We owe it to Deborah to get back what was stolen,’ Pace spat with sudden venom, eyes flaring brightly. Deborah Miles was one of the newest recruits to throw her hand in with the McEntire Corporation’s dark side. An ambitious journalist, she had fallen foul of Josephine Roche while investigating the ARC desalination facility on the Namibian coast.
‘Agreed,’ Hammond nodded softly. He had been sickened by the barbaric treatment that Deborah had suffered at Josephine’s hands; the evil indignity of having her reproductive organs stolen and transplanted into Josephine’s body, completing the monster’s final transformation from male to female.
‘But we’re going to need some support to get in there. Any ideas who, or what? You know almost as much as Baker about the McEntire set up globally. Who can we call on for help once we get to Uruguay?’
‘Let me worry about that,’ Hammond said, brushing off the problems facing them with apparent distain. ‘I will need a few hours to make the arrangements.’
‘Good. I am ready to go now,’ replied Pace. ‘When you’ve waved your magic wand and set everything up, come and pick me up and we can get started.’
He clearly had no intention of returning to see Sarah one last time before they left and Hammond understood why. What could he do, after all? Nothing.
It took slightly longer than he anticipated and dawn was beginning to caress a cerise-tinged horizon the following day by the time the two men drove up a shadowy lane, adjacent to a small airfield at Stapleford Abbotts, in the heart of the Essex countryside. Thick hedgerows lined the winding road, shielding the grass airstrip from their view until they reached one of the entrance gates, obligingly standing wide open for them. Pace was driving his Landrover Defender and wasted no time swinging off the road and driving across the grass, following Hammond’s gesturing hand from the passenger seat.
‘Head over to that low building over there,’ Hammond muttered. ‘Kill your lights and take us around to the rear.’
‘That looks like a small hangar,’ said Pace. ‘I assume that’s where we trade wheels for wings?’
Hammond nodded, lost in thought. ‘The doors should be open. Drive straight in. Our contact will be inside, waiting for us.’
‘Probably be Baker,’ Pace smiled wanly.
The airfield was deserted at such an early hour and the long lines of parked light aircraft gave an eerie sensation of a moment that had been frozen in time. No breath of wind stirred the windsock, hanging limply on its white flagpole nearby, as the car eased around the corner of the building and drifted through open double doors, easing to a stop. Pace killed the engine and they both got out of the car.
Inside, several familiar shapes were discernible in the gloom. In the centre of the low building sat the sleek form of one of the McEntire Corporation’s fast Falcon jets. Moving out from the tail, stepping towards them, appeared two friendly faces. Pace recognised them as McEntire’s personal pilots. Both experienced ex-military fliers, on permanent loan from the RAF, Ramsay and Norton had not hesitated when Hammond called them.
‘Welcome gentlemen,’ smiled Ramsay. ‘Are you ready for our executive service?’
‘Is there champagne?’ shot back Hammond. ‘This is going to be a long flight.’
‘Already on ice,’ promised Norton lightly. ‘Get aboard please. We need to be out of here before sunrise. The fewer people that know we were even here, the better.’
‘Are we expecting anyone to try and stop us?’ asked Pace. The grins he received as a reply told him that nobody was going to challenge them as long as they didn’t make their actions obvious.
The plane was the same one that Hammond had cau
ght a ride back in from the Falklands, a few weeks earlier. Plush tan leather seats and cream carpet enveloped Pace and Hammond as the two pilots disappeared into the cockpit. Keeping the lights switched off, the whine of the jet engines eased higher and they were soon trundling out of the open doors at the opposite end of the hangar and lining up on the hard, grassy landing strip.
Not hesitating, Ramsay poured on the power and the small, dart-shaped executive jet roared into the sky, attacking it at a steep angle, turning west as it climbed. The plane settled at its cruising altitude of 39,000 feet within a couple of minutes.
In reality, it was too early for alcohol so Pace and Hammond instead opted for a hot cup of coffee and a cereal bar. Hammond did the honours, expertly working an inbuilt coffee machine in the luxurious aircraft’s tiny galley. The coffee was welcome and strong.
Above a delicate carpet of rolling pink clouds, with a weak sunrise now bathing the Falcon, they were alone in the sky as Ramsay set the most direct course; straight across the Atlantic, well away from the commercial airways.
With many hours to kill, Pace suddenly found his shoulders sinking further into his comfortable leather armchair-style seat, overcome with weariness. Draining his coffee and only managing a couple of bites of his cereal bar, he suddenly found it hard to keep his eyes open. Hammond was having the same problem.
‘You look terrible,’ Hammond quipped, finishing his own drink with a couple of burning swallows. ‘I think it’s a good time to grab some sleep.’
Pace did not reply. His eyes were already closing as he succumbed to sleep, barely managing an acknowledging nod. Just as tired, Hammond found sleep more elusive, as his uncooperative mind replayed images and thoughts related to everything that had happened over the past few days. They were heading into trouble again but it was all part of their job. The only difference this time was that they would be going in alone; without the immediate back-up of the McEntire Corporation.