Carrion Virus (Book 2): The Athena Protocol (11 page)

“Your father’s legacy is why you’re alive. And this is something that we shall explore in due course. You understand there is no going back from this. You are on the inside. Should you even consider breaking that trust, people within our group will have you destroyed in the most painful and prolonged fashion imaginable.” Crispin pulled his sleeve back to reveal a golden watch. “In fact, our last loose end will be taken care of in a few hours. Then we’ll be ready to move forward. In time, Ryan, you’ll come to understand what we do. Why The Owls of Athena do what they do. This has been a good conversation.”

Crispin dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “We shall have another tomorrow. If you will excuse me.” He stood. “You have free run of this floor. Entertain yourself as best you can. Do not try to leave. That is unacceptable at this point in time.”

Chapter Five

Desert

The convoy’s journey to the airfield was unpleasant, the heat so oppressive. Brutus’s team was heading into an abnormal situation. All the training in the world, military or otherwise, could not prepare them for what was to come. The airfield itself was little more than a clearing in the desert, a square of flattened sand with high-banked, dune walls. A few Cold War-era military tents rippled in the breeze. On the central landing pad, an aging Mi-17 Russian helicopter waited, the silver chassis darkened by rust. Ry Watson stepped out of the helicopter, wiped his hands on a rag.

“It’s been a long time, Ry.” Brutus stuck out his hand and they shook.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here. When they mentioned your name, I thought it was a mistake.”

“Got to make a living.” Brutus pulled a cigar free from his pocket and stuck it into his mouth. “Does that thing fly? Looks like it’s seen better days.”

“Don’t let the rust fool you. I had her up this morning. She’ll get us to where we need to go so long as the weather stays like this. When do we leave?”

“As soon as possible. There’s three of our team waiting in the field. Things are moving fast,” said Brutus.

Watson held up a hand. “I don’t need to know the details. I’m here to fly you in and out, that’s all. There’s some crazy shit going on right now. The less I know the better.”

There was wisdom to what Ry Watson said. He was a pilot of above-average skill, proficient in flying a variety of aircraft. He never feared breaking a law or two if it meant making a tidy sum. Drug shipment, gun running, covert ops. Watson had done it all, and he possessed a hefty streak of self-preservation and knew to distance himself from whatever was going on.

“You armed?”

“Out here you’ve got to be.” Watson pulled his sunglasses from his head, and onto his nose, then hiked a thumb toward the cockpit. An AK-47 rested in the pilot’s chair. “I’ve been told that we’ll be unhindered in our flight today.”

Brutus nodded, padding down his tac vest for a light. “So long as we keep to our course and schedule, yes.”

The rest of the men unpacked the vehicles, making ready to load their gear and weapons into the aircraft.

“Tell me the plan again.”

Brutus finally found his lighter, lit his cigar and blew out a thick puff of smoke. “You fly us out there, we disembark. Two days in the field and you return and fly us back here. We go our separate ways. You get paid to fly.”

Watson nodded. “Gear up. We leave in thirty.”

***

The helicopter swept over the Eastern Desert, low and fast. Brutus and his men sat on both sides of the cargo hold, containers and supplies strapped down between them. He leaned back, stretched out his legs and rested them on the cargo. He shifted his AK-47, making sure the barrel pointed down. The vibration of the great engine rattled his bones. Nobody attempted to talk, the noise too great.

A sullen mood descended on the group. The men suspected this mission was something outside the realms of their experience. Brutus remained tight-lipped. Of anyone he probably had the most experience with the infected. He would never let his men face them underprepared, but he certainly would not put the fear of God into them. If only they were more like me, he thought. Fear was a condition Brutus strove to eliminate from his being. The infected scared him to begin with, up until the point he discovered they could be killed. More dangerous than a normal person, resilient to pain and injury but they still went down with a bullet to the head, or a knife to the throat. If it can be killed, there was nothing to fear.

Ry Watson’s voice crackled through his headset. “ETA ten minutes.”

Andor Toth’s pockets must be deep indeed, Brutus thought. They flew over an area of The Sinai. Egyptian security forces fought an Islamic insurgency there. It would be heavily patrolled and monitored, yet the aircraft passed unmolested, unchallenged.

The helicopter shuddered, slowed and began a controlled descent. The men inside were rocked as if enduring a storm on a ship. Brutus clung to his seat, knuckles white. It felt as though the helicopter would rip itself apart. It hit the ground, bounced, struck terra firma once more before coming to a standstill. The engine powered down.

Ry Watson popped his head through from the cockpit. “We’ve arrived.”

Stepping from the cargo hold felt like marching onto an alien planet. Wind whipped sand and dust about in a frantic cyclone. Brutus pulled his shemagh up over his mouth and nose. His companions did likewise. The nature of Brutus’s work often took him to places he would describe as a shithole, and here in Egypt, was one of those.

“Stay with the helicopter, Ry.” Brutus patted the side of the aircraft. “Keep her ready to get us out of here ASAP.”

Ry nodded and retreated up the ramp. The last of Brutus’s team jumped from the chopper, carrying weapons and equipment. They were travelling light, packing only essentials for survival in the desert. Nobody grumbled or complained. The job was the focus.

Brutus checked his watch. Ash Gibbons was late. Ash Gibbons, Roy Smart and Craig Muir all kept station near their target, observing the village, unseen and silent watchers.

The ramp of the helicopter closed with a final bang. For a moment, Brutus envied the simplicity of Ry’s part in the job.

A single figure appeared through the wall of sand. Ash Gibbons. He pulled his own shemagh down, shouting to be heard. “Storm’s coming.”

“Tell us something we don’t know,” shouted Niall Campbell.

“We need to make it to camp soon. The storm’ll keep us pinned down in an hour or two.”

“How long to camp?”

“Ten klicks.”

They set off, the pace hampered by the strong winds and poor visibility. Snow or sand, Brutus hated them both. He pulled his shemagh back into place, his baseball cap low, and held his AK-47 at the ready.

The trek was hard going, feet sank into the soft sand, and visibility was reduced to almost nothing. At one point, they were forced to scramble up a dune on hands and knees. There was no path to follow. They were completely reliant on the guiding skills of Ash Gibbons who led without reservation.

***

Camp site was well chosen. You could have stood a few metres away, and if unaware, would miss it completely. The wind was thunderous. Brutus knew the target village was close, close enough for two men to observe comings and goings without risk of detection.

The camp was little more than a collection of tents, pitched to provide maximum protection, nestled in the protective shallow of a wadi, and obscured from sight by sandbank parapets.

Ash pointed to one of the tents, and Brutus gave him the thumbs up. Brutus unzipped the canvass, stooped low, and threw his pack to the back of the tent. Daniel Ziaber followed close after, and closed the flap, zipping the storm outside. He spat sand from his mouth.

“What do we do now?”

Brutus removed his boots and outer layers. He stretched out, laying his AK-47 on his chest. The storm battered the canvass with little pause. The storm would get worse before subsiding. Once night came the temperature would drop and the situation would become uncomfortable. Roy Smart and Craig Muir were outside somewhere, keeping watch on the village and making sure the camp was secure. They would be more than uncomfortable, but they would keep everyone safe.

“Get some sleep while you can, Daniel.” The wind howled a call of promised rage to come. “I doubt we’ll be getting much through the night.”

***

Brutus was right. The night took its toll. Tents collapsed, and outside, temperatures froze anything that stood still. When Brutus emerged from his tent, it was as if the camp had been swallowed by the desert. New piles of sand hid parts of the camp.

A hundred metres out of the wadi, Ash Gibbons peered through binoculars, a dusty baseball cap sitting backward on his head. His beard was longer than Brutus’s and was ruddy-blond in colour matching his ponytail. Brutus rested his rifle on its sling.

“Good morning,” said Brutus.

Ash dropped the binoculars from his eyes.

Ash was always the first to laugh, the first to joke, never took any situation too seriously in a superficial way. But his typical humour seemed to be missing that day.

“Everything okay?”

Red eyes flashed at Brutus. “I need to check on Craig and Roy. You should probably come, too.”

“How far?”

Ash pointed forward. “Fifteen minutes or so.”

The rest of the team stirred, escaping the confines of the tents, stamping cold feet, clapping cold hands. Brutus did not have to tell them how to conduct themselves. They grabbed shovels and began to attack the build-up of sand.

Brutus followed Ash in silence, up dunes and down steep slopes. The morning was starting to warm with the rising of the sun. For that Brutus was glad. The light brought life back into his cold body.

Rising from an unseen location was the target village. They reached a small dugout on the cusp of a dune. A small canvass-cover sheltered the trench from the elements. A figure, clad in a desert ghillie suit, lay in the trench, an M40 sniper rifle next to him. He watched the village beyond with a telescopic lens.

Craig appeared from behind. Brutus had his rifle in his hands before he realised the sudden appearance was friend not foe.

Roy turned, slipping down into the recess and waved to the two new arrivals. Both men looked exhausted. Nights spent in the desert and in the storm would do that to a person.

Roy waved the two men down to a crouch. Brutus followed Craig and Ash into the dugout, sinking into the sand. Brutus pulled out his canteen, sipped some water, swished it around his mouth and spat it out.

“What’s the report?” asked Brutus.

“The outbreak occurred five days ago,” said Roy. “From what we can tell the population has almost universally fallen ill. Stage two infection should progress to stage three in the next twenty-four hours. As of this morning, there’s little movement about the village. Those that tried to leave or arrive have been taken care of.”

Craig drew a finger across his neck, then went back to chewing on a fat biscuit.

“Good. We can wrap up here in a few days then. Get back, get paid and go our separate ways.”

Craig and Roy knew more details than the others, as their role in the operation dictated. No doubt when Brutus’s group came together things would be discussed. It was the nature of operators in their downtime. It annoyed Brutus more than a little that he did not know the full details of the overall plan. He spent so many years following the orders of others that he stopped questioning the reasons behind them. Back at the safe house in Cairo he had several-hundred-thousand reasons not to ask questions. Lately, he felt the need to know more. He could puzzle the pieces and come to a rough conclusion. Together with that kid, Ryan, they orchestrated the outbreak in Aberdeen on a population that was so underprepared for such an event it could not be halted. Now, they unleashed the virus on a smaller community, in a more isolated setting. All data was to be documented on film. This grand endeavour was nothing more than testing the effectiveness of the virus. Whether or not it was in preparation for another deliberate outbreak or to show its potency to entice a curious buyer, it did not matter to Brutus. The Carrion Virus, as far as Brutus was concerned was an artificial construction, a bio-weapon in its infancy. The powers that be would end the lives of thousands, but now, the uncertainty of the plans ahead troubled him. Brutus was not comfortable with guesses.

***

The whole day and night, and through to the next morning had been spent in preparation. They all knew what was coming. The first infected appeared a few hours from sunrise, staggering out of bounds of the village. Brutus granted permission for it to be taken out. Roy, a marksman of considerable experience brought it down with a silent shot from his rifle. It was the first of many that would have to die.

Ash led the group through the sand maze to the observation post. The village itself was small, less than a hundred buildings, set a short distance from a water source. A relatively new road bisected the place, but with the storm there was little traffic to or from. It was a sight that was chosen well. Even the weather seemed in conspiracy with Toth and the plan makers.

Brutus knelt, drawing a rough diagram of the village from memory in the sand. “We’ll keep this simple. Sweep and clear, two teams, from both sides and meet in the middle. Once they hear gunfire, they’ll charge. Don’t think of this like anything you’ve gone through before. The infected don’t possess fear of any sort. They won’t stop if you point a gun at them. They’re relentless, more dangerous than they look, and can survive wounds that would cripple anyone else. Don’t think too much, just bring them down. Roy and Craig will watch our arses and make sure none of them sneak out and around. We do this right, we walk away job done. Let’s get to it.”

That was the best he could attempt at a warning. Brutus knew that once the chaos erupted it would do more than his words ever could. Nothing was questioned.