Once again, the hypnotic singsong of Gautier’s traditional melodies, now mingling with the drone of the engines, brought an end to the suffering of the day. Majestic cloud formations weightlessly glided past the windows, tempestuously rising high into the blue sky above them.
Inside the cabin, heads soon bobbed as adrenaline gave way to exhaustion, and reality merged with the images projected by a restless, uneasy sleep. Tom stretched in the confines of the cockpit and watched as patches of ground far below passed between the clouds. Somewhere down there, ahead of them, were Julie and Anna. It would be a few hours at most now. Frowning, he retrieved a wrinkled photograph from his wallet. He wanted to imagine the welcome, and yet, as hard as he tried, he could not remember their faces. Kissing their image, he held it close to his chest. ‘Ah, that’s better.’
Nadia cast a confused look and lifted one side of the large pilot’s headphones.
“Maybe one day, you will understand.” Tom smiled.
“Maybe.” Nadia shrugged.
She tapped on the instruments and leaned forward, taking a peek across the plane’s nose at the ground below, before pointing at the second set of headphones by his side. Tom put them over his ears and leaned back, enjoying their noise-cancelling properties.
“Next stop Nairobi?” Tom asked, with his eyes closed.
She pointed through an opening in the clouds at something in the expanse before them and pressed the microphone button.
“No. Not Nairobi. Hell.”
✽✽✽
Somewhere above them, a gunmetal grey object slid through the sky. Breaking through and then disappearing again in the dense thunderheads of Cumulonimbus cloud rising high into the ether, effortlessly slowing down and accelerating seemingly at random, it mirrored the plane's movements with robotic precision.
“Heading?” The CO’s emotionless voice once again squawked over the line.
“Bearing 140 degrees, South Southeast. Bound for November Bravo Oscar, I would say, Sir.” The operator inspected the instrument panel’s readouts and compared them to the map display in the monitor’s small PiP window.
“Any change in orders, Sir?” He had been watching the blinking dot along with its owner for the better part of a week. It was high time for action.
“Track and trace, Lieutenant. Track. And. Trace.” He, too, wanted nothing more than to finally rid himself of the tedious task. Others, now deployed along the coast of Mombasa, were readying for the fight. A real fight, with real odds and against multiple enemies. Not playing nanny for some corporate dipsticks wanting their stuff back. But his hands were tied. They would need to wait it out.
“Besides, if they really do head for Nairobi, the problem might solve itself before long.”
“What do you mean, Sir?” The operator wasn’t following.
He had been sitting, sleeping, and doing just about everything else in a shipping container in the middle of the desert for almost a month now.
“Lieutenant, if what I hear is true, then Nairobi will gobble them up so fast they won’t even see it coming. “
“What have you heard, Sir?” The operator pulled back on the stick, and the drone gained altitude, now scanning the airspace ahead of the Caravan.
“Never mind, Lieutenant. Never mind.” A swish momentarily filled the operator’s headphones, then the CO went off-air. ‘He will find out soon enough.’
The operator flicked a switch and took full control of the drone. ‘Let’s see if the time has come.’ Changing its course slightly, he increased speed and directed it South, before banking and turning eastward towards Nairobi’s western suburbs.
Clouds grew denser with each minute, and he lowered altitude just enough for the camera to provide a good enough image through the hazy dome of smog above the city. Incongruous like a network of varicose veins, the first roads cut through lush forests of Ngong Hills, before giving way to highways and bypasses and eventually the built-up areas of Karen and the rest of Nairobi’s western suburbs.
“I’ll be damned.” The operator leaned in close, scrutinizing every detail of the video stream.
Shaking his head, he switched on the thermal display and conducted a second flyover. “I’ll be damned.”
He returned the system to auto-pilot and stared blankly at the screen. Almost midday. Too late to get to Djibouti in time for Turkish airlines. It would have to be tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. He would call in sick. Something serious. Something that would require a visit to the Expeditionary Medical Facility. ‘Only 3 miles to the airport from there.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Yes, perfectly doable.’
CHAPTER 29
“Your Excellency, Sir, you are signing our death warrant with this.” The man’s comb-over had come undone. Strands of hair lopsidedly flapped in the breeze of an electric fan.
The room was hot. Stinking, even. No air-conditioning, no phone lines, no antennas. The expansive colonial-era house in an undisclosed location of Nairobi was deliberately kept unassuming. It was where meetings like this always took place.
“What do you know about death warrants?” The man at the end of the long mahogany table hardly looked up from the paper.
He brushed something off his lapel, then straightened the presidential pin.
“Our field research is at a critical stage!” Another man, next to the comb-over, wiped beads of sweat from his forehead.
His polo shirt bore a pharmaceutical logo. Large stains had formed in its armpits.
“I had your guarantee. Your guarantee that it would not come here.” The man at the end of the table held out a tumbler, and a nervous underling poured amber liquid from a decanter.
“The Congo was a mistake.” A third man replied without emotion.
Heavyset, with his feet up on the table, he was chewing on the stump of a cigar.
“Nairobi was a mistake.” The man at the end of the table pounded his fist on the hard surface.
His red, watery eyes belied an icy glare.
“It’s not too late. We can fix it. All we need is…” Comb-over’s reply was cut short.
The man at the end of the table raised his hand in warning.
“You mean, all you want. Let’s choose our words carefully.”
“Sir,” the man in the polo shirt interjected. “I think I speak for all of us when I say we all want the same thing. But we need you to reconsider destroying the only thing that can possibly stop this crisis in its track.”
“I don’t react well to ultimatums.” The man closed the folder with papers and looked around the group with contempt. “And you may call me Your Excellency.”
“Will you at least give these folks time to pull out their assets?” Spittle accumulated in the corner of the heavy-set man’s mouth as he chewed on his cigar.
There was a knock on the door. Bodyguards ushered in another underling, who handed a note to the man at the end of the table. The man raised his eyebrows. The underling did not wait for a reply. He left in a hurry.
“We are out of time.” The man threw the note on the table.
Polo-shirt man reached across and grabbed it.
“Jesus.”
“What is it?” Cigar-man asked, too lazy to sit up.
“It’s here.” Polo-shirt tossed the note to comb-over.
The room fell silent.
Comb-over straightened in his chair and wiped wayward strands of hair back into position.
“I am wanted in HQ.” He shifted nervously and closed his briefcase.
“EUPHARM’s shareholders will go nuts.” Polo shirt-man now addressed the man chewing a cigar.
“There was always a Plan B.” Cigar-man stretched casually and rolled his eyes.
“When can you be ready?” The man at the end of the table asked.
He received another top-up from the decanter.
“A week, maybe less. Assets are already in transit.” Cigar-man looked up at the ceiling, calculating.
“You do your part, and I’ll do mine. We both do ours.” The man
at the end of the table raised his glass, and cigar-man retorted with a hinted salute.
“Can somebody please tell me what is going on here?” Polo-shirt man huffed.
He did not like being left out of the conversation.
“The US government honours its deals. That’s all you need to know.” Cigar-man nodded confidently.
“Then, Plan B it is.” The man at the end of the table re-opened the folder of papers and flicked to a certain page.
“Which one of your people was it who said ‘Give me Liberty, or give me Death’?”
Cigar-man thought about the answer for a moment.
“Patrick Henry, 1775.”
“I guess this time we’ll have it both ways.”
The man at the end of the table signed the document and scowled. “Burn it. Burn it all.”
But Cigar-man was already halfway out the door.
More dead hemisphere
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Read on for an excerpt from the next chapter of the series...
DEAD HEMISPHERE - KERES RISING
“A shiver crept up his spine as temperatures dropped in the early morning hours. He looked at his watch. 2.00 am. He had been sitting, lost in his dreams for more than an hour.
‘Way to go, night watchman!’ He admonished himself, grabbed the flashlight by his feet, and smiled.
The big green plastic thing had worked for his very first shift only, then it had run out of batteries. Much like the rest of the equipment officially available at his post, and not unlike most other companies, items were purchased, but to fulfil contract requirements and maintenance or upkeep were alien terms in an industry where margins where paper-thin and competition was nothing less than cut-throat.
Holding it up to his ear, he shook it and listened to something rattle around inside. He frowned. Lest he wanted to risk a failed spot check, he would still have to lug it around with him on his rounds. There was always someone waiting in the wings to take his spot; a fact the grimy night supervisor never missed an opportunity to mention. He sighed and strolled over to the guard box, the start of his every round. The metal door creaked as he leaned in to retrieve the small RFID reader used to scan the various patrol points around the compound.
He stopped. The door had never creaked before. He reached for the handle. Another creak. He felt a chill. The noise had not come from the door. Standing perfectly still, he listened into the night. There it was again. A faint screech. Metal on metal. He felt his ears tense, and his nails dig into the palm of his hand as his grip tightened around the light. The noise had come from somewhere outside the main entrance. Quietly cursing the broken equipment, he inched towards the sliding gate, searching the impenetrable dark beyond for movement. There. A faint lumbering shadow, centre of the road outside. Then another. Stomach in knots, he was now close enough to the gate to touch it. Just off to the left, something brushed past the metal struts, sending a vibration through the metal.
Whoever was out there was playing games. Standing in the faint yellow glow of the guard hut’s desk lamp, he suddenly felt weak. Exposed. ‘Fight or flight.’
“Hello?” He anxiously called out into the black with as much authority as he could muster.
But there was no response. Instead, barely visible, the shadows roused by the sound of his voice, now all seemed to flock together. The collective shuffle of feet drifted across the barrier. They were coming closer. Standing on his toes, he held onto the gate and stared into the black.
“Whoever you are. I am calling the Police!”
His head swam, his gut feeling urging him to run. And yet somehow, he found himself unable to move. Mesmerized. His shriek cut through the night as a sudden bolt of searing pain shot up his arm.
‘Machete!’ Blood ran down his forearm and soaked the sleeve, the warmth of its trickle sending him close to panic. He tried to pull away, but instead, something pulled him in even further, digging deeper into the fleshy part of his hand. His face already pressed into the bars of the gate, he struggled against the vice-like grip on his forearm. Summoning all his strength, he braced his legs against the gate and pushed back as hard as he could.
The sudden release caught him off guard. Clutching his arm, he landed hard on his back. Gasping for air, he held up his hand into the faint light from the guard hut. His eyes filled with horror. Whatever had let him go had not done so without taking something with it. Bare flesh and white bone glistened as more blood seeped through the gaping wound, drenching his uniform and covering the ground in dark pools.
Outside the gate, the night erupted in wails of sorrow, unlike anything he had ever heard before.
‘What animals are these?’ Skin crawling and patches of cold sweat soaking through his shirt, he pushed himself further away from the gate with shaky legs.
The question was answered almost immediately. Ashen and emaciated, the grotesque remnants of what once had been the face of a living person pushed through the gap in the bars where moments before his hands had been. Fresh streaks of bright red smeared across its features, leathery lips pulled back into a ghoulish grin, flesh still clung to the jagged edges of its broken teeth as they gnashed in seething fury. This was no prowler, no criminal, no crazed Mungiki member. This was something far more outlandish, wicked, hellish, even.
Black-bluish spittle and blood dripped from its lacerated jaw as its hands shot forward, twisted fingers stretching in his direction to no avail. Scrambling to his feet, he turned and ran. Away from the evil and into the relative safety of the building. Stumbling down the ramp into the unlit cavern of the underground parking garage, he could hear more creatures joining in, as a dozen hands began to shake the gate behind him.
He shivered. From fear or blood loss, it was hard to tell. Embracing the stream of heated air, he rested against the wall next to an HVAC outlet. With little to no ambient light, his hand almost looked normal, but the throbbing pain all the way to his shoulder told him otherwise.
He slowly pulled his arm out of the sleeve and winced. A first aid kit, or what his employer considered one, was still back in the guard hut. The guard hut next to the gate where ghouls were vying for his flesh. They had gotten a piece of him already. No matter what, he was not about to afford them another opportunity. Wrapping the jacket as tightly around the wound as he could, he was pleased when blood no longer soaked through the material. The bleeding had stopped. Contending with the worsening pain would be another matter. He closed his eyes and grimaced, then shifted away from the vent.
He was sweating profusely now. The air suddenly seemed hotter than it had been moments ago. ‘Rest for a moment,’ he decided, ‘then form some kind of a plan.’
His mind eased. Rest. It was all he needed for all to be Ok again. An irresistible heaviness overcame every part of his body, and he welcomed it. Listening to the rhythmic woosh of his own breathing, his mind faded into a dreamlike state, to a very unfamiliar place.
He heard neither the screams nor the gunshots of the short-lived commotion outside the gate. The handful of creatures still reaching through the bars for their elusive prey barely paid attention to the olive-green truck or the soldiers it spewed forth in the morning haze created by a thousand Jikos and cooking fires.
Clean-up was as swift as their dispatch, casually executed by men accustomed to dispensing violence on a much grander scale. The gate itself likewise offered little resistance. A well-placed shot into the intruder-proof padlock and the yard gave up its bounty of high-end vehicles, now theirs for the taking.
It was the moist stink of a growling German shepherd’s breath that had him return to the present. His vision struggling to adjust, and the dog snarling at his face mere inches away, he straightened himself against the wall.
“We have a live one down here!” The soldier standing over him fought to contain the rage-filled animal.
The hand of
another extended, but then quickly withdrew as their find raised his bandaged hand.
“You were bit?” The soldier barked.
“I think that’s what that was, yes. But I am alright now.”
He wasn’t lying. As much as he had felt feverish a few hours earlier, the reprieve had worked wonders, and apart from the dark veins extending from beneath the improvised bandage all the way up his arm, he felt just about fine.
“How long ago?” The soldier ignored his attempts at getting to his feet and instead took a step back.
“I don’t know. Maybe 2.15 am? I lost track of time. But I am fine now. Really.”
The two soldiers looked at him with cold calculation, then turned away and talked to each other in hushed tones. He felt nervous. There was something about their demeanour he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something dark. Something menacing.
After a few moments, they turned back around. The first soldier finally withdrew the dog and started walking back up the garage ramp into the broad daylight of the entrance. It was then that it happened. For a split second, fleeting, almost missable, the soldiers exchanged a solemn nod. His heart sank, and fear again tore at his insides with icy fingers. They had made up their mind.
“Am I Ok to leave now?” His voice trembled as the second soldier turned his attention back towards him. “I would really like to go home. You know, to get cleaned up, see my wife and all that.” He attempted a weak smile.
“Of course. If you are feeling Ok, then you are free to go.” The soldier cocked his head, stepped aside, and smiled a smile somewhere between mercy and contempt.
He felt confused. A moment ago, the threat had been palpable, and by all accounts, his fate sealed. Now, this soldier who mere minutes earlier had been ready to set the dog on him, smiled, and offered to let him leave.
The Virophage Chronicles (Book 1): Dead Hemisphere Page 33