by Andy Lucas
The banter died, with the matter finally resolved permanently, and they headed on up the trail once more.
Bruk, as it turned out, was exactly where the GPS unit said it would be. The trail rose around a couple of ridges before opening out onto a wide, flat expanse of snow. The clearing was the size of a football field, still encircled by trees, but they could have been forgiven for not realising that a village lay before them. Nearly a century of accumulated snow and ice, aided and abetted by regular landslides and mud flows, had virtually buried all the buildings up to, and over in some cases, their single-storey roof structures
It was really only the main village hall; a two-storey construction, strangely resembling a small Roman villa, with the two storeys of the main building surrounded by a narrow, single storey outer perimeter, that was still obvious to see, its centre rising from the snow like a shipwreck survivor desperately trying to keep his head above the water. Only the roof was visible on the single storey rim, which was the same for most of the surrounding houses; they were simply snatches of roofing, appearing to lie flat on the ground.
If Hill had not known there were at least twenty buildings in the area, they would have thought it was only one, with the other rooves appearing to be junk sitting on the snowy ground. Luckily, Hill had a rudimentary drawing, showing the layout of Bruk, penned by one of the villagers who had escaped to safety lower down. Originally drawn for a newspaper, it had later been purchased by a collector, in Canada, who donated it to a local university upon his death. Before setting out, Hill had managed to track down the university, where one of his fellow academics had happily scanned it and emailed it over to him.
Printed, and laminated, this was the document that he hurriedly now dug around for inside his backpack; unceremoniously throwing it off his back and down onto the snow.
The excitement on his face was clear to see, even in the thickening darkness. Using the whiteness of the snow to light their way for as long as possible, they had managed to reach Bruk without resorting to putting on their head torches.
Pace knew, oddly, that this was the time they were most in danger. Relieved to have arrived at their destination; distracted from their surroundings by a mixture of relief and triumphalism, he was determined to stay on his guard.
Leaving Hill to mutter agitatedly to himself, Pace slowly took off his own pack, kneeling down beside it without ever putting down the rifle. Apart from Hill's mumblings, off to his left, he could not hear any sound coming from the dark forest all around them. He strained his ears to their limits, waiting. Nothing.
Pace had learned, often the hard way, to listen to his sixth sense when it warned him of impending trouble. It was this ethereal power, rather than his more tangible senses, that kept itching a warning at the back of his mind. Something's out there. It is watching you.
Keeping his right hand firmly on the Mauser, Pace used his left hand to lift the flap on his pack and feel around inside, never stopping to look down at it. His head continued to traverse from side to side, looking and listening. Finally, his fingers stumbled across the first item he was searching for; his head torch. Secured to an elasticated headband, he managed to pull it over his white hood and settle it on to the skin of his forehead. Not clicking it on yet, his hand returned to the pack and pulled out a slim, black Maglite Solitaire torch.
Only eighty-one millimetres in length and weighing just twenty-four grams, it was tiny. Aside from being made to the exacting standards of the company; being both water and shock resistant, it had the additional benefit of retaining the same diameter along its entire length i.e. it lacked the bulbous end to its casing that most torches, including others in the Maglite series, possessed. This made it the perfect torch to secure to the Mauser's barrel.
The little torch was sitting inside a clear, plastic bag, along with several plastic cable ties and a small pair of scissors. Quickly, Pace set the torch against the outside of the rifle's barrel and fixed it firmly in place using three cable ties, spaced evenly every 2 millimetres, cutting each excess tie off with the scissors. Much tougher than tape, Pace knew it would stay in place even if things got rough and he had to use the Mauser, and its fitted bayonet, as a spear.
Happier, he stood up and moved over to where Hill had just finished putting on his own head torch. Ignoring Pace's approach, he clicked on the small light and was rewarded by an instant flood of LED light flooding the laminated paper.
'I was about to say, we should get the lights on,' said Pace belatedly. If anything was out there, watching them, Hill's head torch now made them stand out like a beacon in the darkness.
Seeing no point in delaying switching on his own head torch, Pace then swiftly twisted the end of the Maglite, which exploded into life with fantastic power. Thirty seven lumens of light, from such a tiny torch, was truly impressive. Sweeping the Mauser around, brought up to his shoulder, the light easily covered the distance across the snow, lighting up the thick treeline all around them. It was far more powerful than Pace expected, which was a good thing. 'What's the plan now?' he shot at Hill.
'The only building that isn't completely covered is the main hall,' Hill stated the obvious. 'It would make the sensible place to make camp for tonight. At first light, we will be able to explore the village properly.'
Pace agreed. 'Why don't we do that now?' he suggested. 'I don't like the silence. It's almost too quiet now. I am the suspicious type and I think the sooner we are safely behind a few walls, the better.'
'I am surprised at you, James,' chided Hill slowly. 'A few trees and a bit of darkness and you're overcome by superstition.'
'Not superstition, common sense,' Pace shot back. 'Most predators hunt at night, or at least they're more active after sunset. There are plenty of animals in these forests that could pose a danger to us.' His nerves were beginning to jangle more loudly. Get inside. Get inside. 'Let's just find a way into that building and set up camp,' he ordered flatly.
If Hill was annoyed by the command, he had no time to show it. Pace smartly headed across the clearing, walking around the rooves of the buried buildings to avoid the risk of slipping. It was only when he drew nearer to them that he realised, in utter amazement, that his preconceptions about the village were very wrong. He had envisaged wooden-framed, temple-styled buildings, with steeply-pitched, thatched rooves like the ones he'd seen on some long since forgettable documentary. Sweeping the ground with the powerful light from the barrel-mounted Maglite, the distinctive reddish brown of rusting metal stared back up at him; the familiar repeated undulations a genuine shock to behold.
'Corrugated iron?' He said it to himself, quietly.
'Oh yes, very likely. Originally it would have been wood or thatch but the British brought corrugated iron over not long after it was invented, some time in the early eighteen hundreds, I believe. Most of the villages would have traded goods to get hold of such a strong roofing material.' Hill thought the question was meant for him as he stepped up from behind Pace, not eager to be caught out alone in the dark without the security of Pace's Mauser, whatever he'd said.
Pace's mind began to wrestle with the idea and he had to physically shake his head to stop the train of thought dead in its tracks. Now was not the time.
The main hall had four large windows in its upper storey; set in the centre of each of its four walls. With the entire lower floor buried, these all now sat at waist height. Pace could not tell if they had any glass in them because each window wore a heavy pair of closed wooden shutters.
Slatted, whatever paint had originally adorned them had long since faded, with just the odd fleck of dark colour still visible under the intense light of Hill's head torch and the Maglite. The wood was swollen and rotted although, as they walked quickly around its perimeter, each set of shutters was in situ. Pace felt they would probably fall apart as soon as anyone laid hands on them.
Hill stepped over to one of the windows and pulled firmly at the shutters. They did not crumble but the simple, wooden latch fell o
ff at the gentle tuck, allowing him to pull them open fully. In fiction, or a horror film, they would have squeaked open on eerily disquieting, metal hinges but not so with these. The hinges were a simple wooden peg design. They moved stiffly but without any sound.
This, in turn, allowed Pace's ears to prick at the distant sound of a footfall somewhere over to the trees on their right. Instantly turning, rifle at the ready, the Maglite blazed a path across the snow but lit up only empty white and knotted tree trunks.
'Get moving,' he said urgently. 'There's definitely something out there and it's getting restless. Come on!'
Hill had not heard the noise himself; engrossed as he was in opening shutters that had not seen human hands for over a century but he recognised danger in Pace's tone. His own torch beam cut inside the darkness beyond the shutters. No glass, just a dark, empty room, wooden-floored. He did not wait to have a closer inspection from outside; they could do that when they were safely within the building's walls.
Slipping off his backpack, he tossed it in through the window, hoisted one leg over the sill, and vanished inside. Pace backed up slowly to the window, ever watchful, trigger finger ready. His own pack was also too large for him to keep on, and get through the space, but Hill did not need him to ask for help. No sooner had he backed up to the window than the professor was reaching out, pulling it from his shoulders himself. Pace was grateful for the man's help, timing the movement of the shoulder straps down over his arms so that he could shift the rifle from hand to hand; keeping a hold of it. Suddenly free from it, he sat down on the sill and dimply dropped backwards, into the room, landing softly on the two backpacks Hill had left there.
Rolling back up quickly, he brought the Mauser to his shoulder just in time to see Hill reach his arms through the window to take a hold of the open shutters, intending to close them.
He never succeeded.
To Pace's horror, as Hill leaned slightly outwards; fingers reaching for the shutter edges, something grabbed his arms from outside and yanked him bodily through the window with a thunderous snarl that was so loud it shook the room and stunned Pace's senses, crashing painfully inside his ears. It happened so fast that Hill did not even have time to scream.
Recovering his senses, Pace lunged for the window, determined to help his companion. It was only two steps away; it took less than a second to get there, yet when he reached it, there was no sign of Hill. Not pausing to think, Pace threw himself back outside, hitting the snow perfectly on one shoulder and rolling up into a smooth, shooter's crouch. The rifle blurred to his shoulder, its cutting light beam scything the darkness all around.
Subconsciously he noted the huge footprints in the snow all around the window, as well as the vivid red of several fresh blood pools but it was the blood-curdling shriek of terror that finally drew his gaze to the right spot. Turning towards the sound instinctively, Pace was just in time to see the huge bulk of something just arriving at the treeline, dragging a screaming, terrified Hill behind it. Light brown in colour; it was more human in gait than ape-like, but appeared to be three or four times the size of the largest silverback gorilla Pace had ever seen in a zoo. Massively long arms, heavily furred and tipped with powerful hands, were the thickness of small tree trunks.
Pace could not see the creature's face, only the back of its head; slightly stooped forwards as it strode purposefully into the shadow of the trees. Without even pausing for conscious thought, the Mauser was centred on the huge back and Pace fired off a single round. He should have hit it but the creature gave no sign before it was gone, and Hill along with it.
If Pace had taken time to think about it, or had been a lesser man perhaps, he would have stopped and written Hill off for dead, which he probably would very soon be. But James was not someone who'd ever given up a comrade on the battlefield.
Against all reason, a fierce anger and determination exploded inside him as he set off, pounding hard across the snow, following the trail of prints and blood splatter, spurred on by the distant shrieks of the archaeologist. When he reached the tree line, he did not even pause for a breath but headed straight inside, his Maglite biting deeply beneath the canopy. The trail was easy to follow; broken boughs, prints and blood.
'Hold on, Professor!' he bellowed, realising it was a futile gesture. 'I'm coming for you!'
The hunt was on.
23
The Sledgeways had proven themselves to be a Godsend, allowing Hammond and Rachel to cover the vast majority of the distance needed without any effort on their part. Performing flawlessly, the little machines carried them across ice fields, over hills and through mountain-edged valleys with ease. On more than one occasion, though the riders were totally oblivious to the fact, the vehicles' lightweight construction and speed had allowed them to coast over snow-encrusted crevasses so fast that the weak snow bridges had no time to collapse beneath them.
The final three miles were very different. The terrain had increasingly become a mixture of snow and exposed granite until, as they made their final approach to the lower slopes where the mine shaft was situated, they could not afford to risk riding any further. If they damaged the Sledgeways now, getting back in time for the agreed rendezvous would be impossible.
Under cover of darkness, they had covered the Sledgeways with a white sheet similar to the one Pace had used to conceal the Lynx, logging the exact position into the handheld GPS unit that Rachel was using, then made the final approach on foot.
In between the rocks, the snow was surprisingly deep and it made for slow going. They could not afford to use any torches. Luckily, the skies above had cleared again after a brief flurry. Thick clouds still scudded above them, a thousand feet above them, but a gorgeous moon made enough appearances to reflect off the snow, giving them more than enough light to navigate by.
On their ride, moving over the terrain closely enough to hear each other speak, Hammond and Rachel had discussed their options in great detail.
They had programmed the co-ordinates of the mine head into the GPS unit. Their satellite recce, surprisingly easy to obtain given that they were taken over China, stood as testament to the number of low-orbiting, covert satellites the McEntire Corporation had access to.
The head of the silver mine, allegedly wound up decades before, still retained a single gear housing; a non-descript, low-level building with a flat roof and few windows. Bolted together from reinforced concrete slabs, in an unflattering shade of grey, the building sat alone in the foothills of the Himalayas. This had allowed the old miners to dig horizontally into the mountains rather than having to burrow vertically down into the earth.
No useable road existed any longer, linking the mine to civilisation, but its remnants remained. Cracked, broken and washed away by years of eroding meltwater every spring, it was navigable by a heavy truck or a really robust four-wheel drive jeep.
Their intelligence told them that it was never used. Anyone travelling to the mine came in by military helicopter; even the dozens of scientific staff that they knew were working in there.
'What do we think they're doing there?' Rachel asked Hammond as they were flying through a snow-filled valley. 'Why did they send someone like Barbara? The Janitor is meant to deal with internal risks. I should know,' she smiled ruefully, involuntarily touching her scarf-wrapped throat. 'This doesn't look like an internal problem.'
'Barbara is known to very few people, even within the covert side of the Corporation. The few that do know about her history are even more wary of crossing her. She was a very able operative before she became Doyle's hatchet woman. He must have had a reason to assign her personally to this operation but I confess, I have no idea what it is.'
'Do you think she's even alive?' Slewing the Sledgeway around a protruding rock, Rachel steered her machine back next to Hammond's so she could hear his reply.
'She has been in many scrapes before and her skills are frightening to see. I think that overpowering her would take a small army, if it's even possible.'
'That doesn't answer the question.'
Hammond steered around several jagged rocks himself, returning to her a few seconds later. 'I think stopping her without having to kill her would be virtually impossible.'
Rachel knew he was probably right and that they were heading into danger to try and rescue someone who was already dead. But Barbara had believed in her enough to save her life and force McEntire to give her another chance. Rachel felt a fierce sense of obligation to her.
The heavy blizzards of winter had layered the lower passes and valleys with thick snow. As they curved around a couple of lower peaks, circling around to the ridge from which Barbara had been surveying the mine, a freezing darkness descended to cover their approach. The wind whipped snow and ice with stinging ferociously into their eyes as they rode their Sledgeways , reminding Hammond of the storms in the Antarctic that had nearly cost Pace and himself their lives.
The Sledgeways had been fitted with a powerful single headlamp, which they switched on so they could keep moving. They slowed their speed a little to make sure they saw any rocks in good time. The snow had been unusually heavy this year, so far, and most of them were well buried. They ran the risk of being spotted, moving with their lights on, but the weather closed in so badly as the evening aged that visibility dropped to less than ten metres, even with the headlamps on full.
They had stopped about two hundred metres from where the GPS told them they would find Barbara's camp and secured the vehicles. The storm had risen to a gale by then, making the final stage of the journey on foot. Leaning heavily into the teeth of the wind, they trudged onwards, struggling their way up a steep incline that tipped them both over a couple of times each and constantly snatched the breath from their lungs.
It took ten minutes to reach the campsite but they would have walked right past it if they had not been looking out for it.