by Andy Lucas
The white tent had been shredded by bullets and hung in tatters from a couple of pegs that had originally held it down to the snow. Torn and ragged, the material flapped in the agitated embrace of the wind. A few belongings lay scattered around outside, most half buried in fresh snow. Hammond recognised a couple of food packs and a coil of climbing rope but that was it.
All traces of what had happened to Barbara had been buried by the storm. A couple of darker patches of snow, when Hammond dug down with his gloved hands, turned up the unmistakeable colour of spilled blood.
'She did not give up easily, it seems.' Rachel had to virtually shout directly into Hammond's ear before he heard her. He nodded, pointing down the opposite slope with his fist, in the direction he knew the mine building lay.
'No sense in waiting around here,' he shouted. 'If she's alive, they've taken her. Let's go down and take a look around while this bloody awful weather is still around to help us.'
'Agreed. I'll go first. I've got the mine co-ordinates loaded into the GPS already. Wouldn't want to get lost in this blizzard,' she decided.
'Okay,' Hammond bellowed. 'Let's go.'
The going, downhill, was easier and the blocked shape of the gear building soon materialised out of the stormy darkness. There was no perimeter fence; one was not needed out in the wilds of the mountains and they were within touching distance before too long.
Walking around the perimeter, they found only a single entrance. Devoid of a handle, the flush-fitting door looked out of place set into the battered, pitted concrete. There was no mechanism of any sort visible.
'How do we get inside?' Rachel asked the obvious question.
Hammond cast a closer, scrutinising look over the door until he spotted it. Barely noticeable, clearly designed only to be released from the inside, a tiny service panel could just be made out on the right of the door frame. Pulling off his gloves he felt around with rapidly freezing finger tips until he wandered across the pressure plate, flipping the cover open to reveal a coded keypad.
'Shame we don't know the code,' she stated. 'How are your lock-picking skills?'
'Not great. Yours?'
'Stand back and let a master work,' she boasted lightly. She had very recently taken a refresher course in electronic locks and recognised the panel as a Dumas type X-23. Like any lock, it had a failsafe that could be triggered with the correct sequence of numbers and symbols. With an almost photographic memory, she delved inside her mind for a moment and retrieved the override sequence, slipping off her own gloves to quickly tap it into the keypad. Obediently, the door hummed and clicked open, inwards.
The security team, all clad in dark grey battle fatigues, was settling in for another long, boring night when the door sprang open and the two unexpected visitors stepped inside, out of the raging blizzard.
Ten men were permanently posted in the building, which was stripped bare except for a simple seating area, kitchen and bathroom. Over in the far wall, some thirty metres from the entrance door, an elevator appeared to be the only thing they were actually guarding.
Hammond and Rachel were lucky. The shift had only been changed a few minutes before. If they'd tried opening the door any sooner, there would have been twenty heavily armed guards to overcome. As it was, ten semi-automatic rifles versus two handguns did not offer great odds.
Fortunately, new to the shift, the guards had not yet sorted out who was going to do what. Instead they had all descended into the kitchen area to make tea, grumbling loudly in Chinese about their outgoing colleagues and the mess they'd left behind them.
Neither Hammond nor Rachel spoke Chinese but they seized upon the moment to snatch the advantage.
Screaming for the guards to freeze, which was such a universal word that Hammond knew they'd understand, he and Rachel ran towards the kitchen, keeping their hastily pulled automatic pistols aimed unwaveringly at the stunned men.
Caught off guard, only three still had their rifles slung over their shoulders and none of them had a gun anywhere near ready to fire. Faced with the muzzles of the pistols, in the hands of clearly professional shooters, nine of the guards did the sensible thing and simply raised their hands in surrender.
One guard; younger and more impetuous than the rest, wore an old-fashioned western holster instead of the modern military equivalent of his colleagues. An equally antique, replica Colt .45 Peacemaker, sat in the holster. A lover of American cowboy movies since his teens; with an almost fanatical passion for Gary Cooper, his bosses had humoured him and allowed him to wear the gun belt. Seeing himself as a skilled, quick-draw gunfighter, the man had practised his draw religiously for years and was lightning fast.
His hand moved in a blur but he was no match for Rachel, who already had a bead on him with her Sig Sauer P226. Before the Peacemaker lifted clear of its holster, she put a single bullet in between his eyes, dropping him like a stone and spraying a mixture of grey brain matter, bone splinters and blood across the kitchen wall behind.
As the sound of the shot faded, the remaining guards were left in no doubt that surrendering had been the wisest move.
None of them resisted when Rachel used clear hand signals to instruct them to strip down to their underwear. One at a time, using sections of Barbara's rope that Hammond had seen fit to recover from the snow and bring with them, they cut off sections with Hammond's survival knife and bound each man's hands behind his back. Once bound tightly, the same process was applied to their ankles before, one by one, Hammond and Rachel dragged them all into the small bathroom.
It was barely large enough to take them all but it did, with a few heaves and shoves. Closing the heavy door on the jumble of bound humanity, Hammond found a wooden kitchen chair and jammed it up underneath the door handle, effectively sealing them all inside.
Fifteen minutes had passed since they had entered the building and, suddenly, they had a few minutes to breathe and think clearly again.
There was a single security panel set against the wall near to the elevator doors. All the lights were green and the small viewing screen was switched off. It was unlikely that anyone would check in with the mine team too soon but they needed to find Barbara quickly.
'The elevator is the only way out so this must be how we get inside,' Rachel observed. 'Although what we're going to find is a mystery.'
'The main man here is a chap named Chang-Lei Kwon. He is an expert in nuclear technology, with a specialism in space research and nuclear fusion. My guess is that this old mine has been developed into some kind of nuclear testing facility, buried deeply within the mountains.'
'It would make sense and cause less harm if there was a meltdown, or accident,' reasoned Rachel.
'Especially if you burrow far enough away so that you actually conduct your experiments in another country,' Hammond suggested, pulling off his hood and unzipping his snowsuit. Rachel had already done the same.
'Sneaky but brilliant,' said Rachel.
'Talking of sneaking, let's see where this lift takes us, shall we?'
Leaving the guards' heavier weaponry behind, favouring the speed of handguns at close quarters, Rachel pressed the call button and was rewarded by the rapid arrival of a large, empty car. Stepping inside, there was only one button to press, which Rachel again activated. The doors slid closed and the lift began to drop.
Twelve floors later, the doors opened and they stepped out into the station area, sweeping their guns from side to side until it became clear they were all alone.
The train was not there, just the maglev lines. The station was as quiet as the grave.
'Now what?'
'I guess we wait for a train, hijack it and then catch a lift into the heart of the mountain, guns blazing,' smiled Hammond.
'What do you think the service is like down here?' she quipped sarcastically.
'Oh, knowing the Chinese, I'd say they'll be sticklers for a timetable. I don't think we will have to wait too long.'
Great,' she grumbled. 'I hate waiting.'
They sat down with their backs against the wall; one either side of the elevator doors. Just in case any of the guards managed to break free and came down for a firefight, they decided, it was the best place to wait.
For Hammond, his thoughts quickly turned to Pace again, wondering how his friend was faring with that fool Hill and his crazy need to disprove the existence of the Abominable Snowman.'
'Yeti,' he mumbled to himself, beneath his breath, 'How stupid can you get.'
24
The hunt lasted barely three minutes in the end. Chasing after Hill, and his abductor, was fairly easy going beneath the solid canopy of evergreens. There was very little snow underfoot and the snow that had managed to filter its way past the thick ceiling of needles remained powdery.
The creature's route was not difficult to follow either; a fresh, three-foot wide trail created by brute strength smashing through low branches, splintering them off and littering them on the ground. Intent on flight, with all need for stealth now gone, it was the noise of his target that was the simplest to trace; the sounds of the destruction it was making up ahead rudely disturbing the peace of a Himalayan night.
Twisting and turning amongst the thick tree trunks as it moved, the trail did not afford Pace a clear line of sight, though the Mauser was held ready at waist height as he moved. Regular blood puddles also served to mark his way, pock-marking the trail every few feet.
Pace's determination to catch up with Hill, and to save him, had nothing to do with liking the man. They had developed a tolerable relationship; nowhere near anything that could be called friendship. Spurred on by a mixture of shock, determination and anger, Pace's overriding motivation was that he felt nobody deserved to die this way, not if he could do anything to stop it.
The chase ceased after Pace judged he'd travelled about half a mile into the forest. The agitated sounds of the creature, still forging its way through the undergrowth up ahead of him, remained steady but, suddenly, he found himself looking down into the face of Professor Hill. Discarded at the point it had been physically torn from away from the neck of his body, the human head lay in the middle of the trail, atop a scarlet snow pool, eyes fixed open and staring up at Pace with a final expression of sheer terror.
He had seen so much death in his life that he stopped moving immediately and regarded the scene with an almost dispassionate eye. With any hope of saving Hill now gone, Pace realised there was no point continuing. Trying to hunt down the creature, purely for revenge, at night in the middle of its own habitat, was too risky without the chance of saving a life. The game had changed.
Pace also suddenly realised that the noises up ahead of him had ceased. Heart pounding, breath coming in measured clouds in the sub-zero temperature, that could only mean two things. Either it was too far away now to hear, which was unlikely, or it had stopped. Perhaps it was preparing to devour Hill's corpse or, Pace swallowed drily, maybe it had dumped him in the snow to eat later and was making its way back down the trail to grab tomorrow's breakfast.
Him.
Pace figured he had only been a minute behind his target, which did not leave him much time if, in fact, Hill's killer was now on its way back in his direction. Turning smartly on his heels, casting a final, sad look down as the disembodied head, he set off back the way he had just come at speed. The going was just as easy and he poured on every ounce of speed that he could safely muster. He did not stop, even once, to check his rear; reaching the tree line and still not stopping as he charged out across the village clearing. Heading directly back towards the wide open window that beckoned him to safety; shutters now caught in a slight breeze and banging softly against the decaying plaster wall, he dived through as soon as he reached it, managing a less graceful landing this time, banging his shoulder hard on the wooden floor and succeeding in floundering on to his stomach unceremoniously rather than rolling up into a ready, shooting position.
Scrambling up, spinning around to face the open window, Pace brought up the Mauser and aimed at the window. Half expecting to see a set of slavering, blood-dripping jaws framed against the night sky, he felt a wave of relief wash over him to see only an empty patch of dark sky beyond its glassless rectangle. The powerful Maglite shone a beam outside, and slightly up into the sky, appearing like a searchlight tickling the underbelly of the thick cloud cover.
Pushing aside any feelings of success, he stepped up quickly to the window, the wickedly sharp two-feet of bayonet leading the way. He had no intention of leaning blindly out to grab the shutters like the unfortunate, newly-deceased Professor Hill. Bathed in torchlight, the entire area outside the window showed itself to be clear and quiet. The only sign of the tumultuous recent events was the churned up snow from many footprints and the splashes of Hill's blood leading away across the open ground to the point he had been dragged inside the trees.
The torch easily reached the tree line and Pace lifted the rifle to his shoulder, sighting carefully along its fixed, iron sights; aiming at the entry point in the trees. If the creature had followed him, it would be right inside those trees, watching, he knew.
Pace fired three careful shots directly into the trees where the creature had vanished. The powerful bullets ran straight and true. There was no grunt or cry from an animal being struck but the shots rang out with painful volume in the still of the night, echoing and amplifying off the surrounding mountains impressively.
Slipping the gun over his shoulder, on its strap, Pace gripped the edges of the rotting shutters and swiftly drew them back inwards, closing them. They had been secured by a small wooden bar that now lay splintered on the wooden floor, so Pace used a small shovel, recovered from Hill's discarded backpack, as its replacement. It slipped down between the wooden block brackets perfectly, locking them tightly. He knew that a single smash from a strong arm, or paw, would destroy them but it kept out the rising wind and felt safer.
Still using the Maglite on the Mauser 98 to guide his way, Pace then conducted a very fast recce of the entire building, needing to know that he was definitely alone within its walls and that other local wildlife were not already calling it their home.
It was completely empty. Not a stick of furniture, rug or discarded item of clothing was to be seen. A communal building in its day, the design was painfully simple. A large, single room made up the ground floor which was mirrored exactly on the upper level. A steep flight of stairs joined the two levels, fixed against one wall; devoid of bannisters or a handrail. The floors were of wooden planks, worn smooth from years of foot traffic but now coated with a fine layer of dust.
The lower level wore the same number of windows as the upstairs, their shutters all tightly closed. Pace was not worried about anything getting in through them because the whole floor was buried under snow and ice. He was relieved to see no sign of animal use. The closed shutters of the building had kept everything at bay, until now.
Rather than test his weight on the stairs, Pace was able to flash the rifle around and see every inch of the downstairs room. Assured that the only risk lay in something accessing the building through the four, first-floor windows, he moved himself, and both backpacks, to the very centre of the room, creating as much distance as possible from each shuttered window.
Finally, ears straining hard but hearing no sound aside from the increasingly moan of a rising wind outside, Pace took stock of his situation. With adrenaline levels dropping in his bloodstream, the enormity of the last thirty minutes came crashing down on top of him.
Hill had come here with the express intention of debunking the myth of the Yeti, or Bun Manchi. Now he was dead and the myth was very much alive. Pace could hardly believe what his own eyes had seen so he took a breath to replay the memories while they were fresh. Had he really seen a Yeti? What actually had he seen?
He had not seen it up close, true, but when he had fired at its back, he had been able to gain a solid look at it before the creature had crashed into the tree line, dragging the unfortunate archaeologist b
ehind it. The reality, though he struggled with it, was that the Yeti was very real. Far larger than most science fiction films had ever shown it to be, it must have stood well over ten feet tall and weighed in excess of 1000 pounds. More importantly, it was willing to attack humans, just as the villagers who had once used the buildings all around him had maintained.
Pulling his satellite phone from his backpack, Pace dialled Baker's number and waited. Within a couple of seconds, the other end clicked and the familiar voice came on.
'James, good to hear from you,' said Baker. 'How are things going with your ghost hunting?'
'As badly as they could,' Pace replied quickly. 'Professor Hill is dead.'
Baker did not question the statement's accuracy at all. 'How?'
'A Yeti just dragged him out of the window in the main hall in Bruk, where we were setting up camp for the night. I followed it into the forest, hoping to get a shot and save him but then it tore off his head and left it for me to find.'
'I see.' Baker had always harboured a belief that many of the world's mythical beasts actually still existed. He also trusted Pace implicitly. 'I'm sorry to hear that,' he said, meaning it. He had no other words for such a bizarre revelation. 'Are you okay? What's your next move?'
Pace had not even given any thought yet to what to do next, other than survive the night. He said as much to Baker. 'I am safe from the elements in here,' he explained, 'but the window shutters are rotten and offer no protection if that thing decides it wants dessert. I have my rifle, which should be powerful enough to take it down as long as I can get off three or four shots but I need to see it coming first.'
'Stay awake tonight and move back down to the helicopter at first light?' Baker guessed.
'It's the only thing I can do. There is no point me sticking around up here. I'm not a scientist and Hill is gone. Hopefully, in daylight, I can get back to the Lynx and hold up there until it's time to go and pick up Max and Miss Crown. Have you heard from them?'