Dark Rising (18 page)

The creature stopped its slow, insidious movement through the sand. Small glands in its head sensed the slight radiation pulse that had leaked out of the containment sphere facility, and it remembered the same feeling just before it was wrenched from its home.

It raised itself up; sand falling from its armoured plating. Its unearthly vision allowed it to see electromagnetic and X-ray waves travelling across the ionosphere. Its fan-like protuberances waved in the air, scooping molecules from the atmosphere to sample and taste. It could detect the heavy radioactive particles and was drawn to their source – the Jamshid II laboratory.

It reared up on its four powerful hind legs, each bristled point digging into the crusted sand, and called again to its own kind across the desert floor. It held immobile for a few seconds – as before, there was no reply.

The sun glinted off the waxy, mottled shell as it drew in the sensations of this new world. The armoured exoskeletal plates had been compacted together to preserve precious fluids within its body, and its bullet-shaped head was drawn back into the bulbous hump across what could pass for shoulders.

As two black chitin-covered eyes extended on the end of eyestalks, the plates opened out, and its upper body flared open briefly to dislodge more particles of the annoying dry sand. The creature flexed, and the open carapace revealed an underbelly that carried two enormous curved claws – each covered in rows of teeth and ending in a blackened talon. Below these lethal daggers were row upon row of numerous smaller thoracic limbs that slowly undulated. A slight clicking could be heard from the sharp tips whenever they struck each other in their wave-like twitching. Further in, greasy flaps and tendrils hung, coiled and furled amongst the rows of dark green armoured tiles. The carapace shuddered, and then closed across the thing’s hellish appendages.

The fan-like tongue flicked out again and its head swayed slightly as more of the radioactive particles bathed its sensory organs, and it turned to face the direction they were coming from – perhaps there was a way back to its home.

It dropped to the sand and sped towards Arak and the sphere chamber.

TWENTY-SIX

H
ammerson read the information brief quickly. Another radiation pulse – weaker, but still heavy gamma and little else. This one again from the small city of Arak at the foot of the Markazi Mountains. Whatever they were doing there certainly wasn’t finished.

Hammerson pressed the button on his phone. ‘Annie, get me Major Harris at Space Strat. Then put a secure call through to Moss-1 for me.’

Right now he needed two things: some thermal images from around Arak to get an idea of what Alex was walking into; and to speak to his old friend General Meir Shavit. Mossad needed to be kept in the loop.

Hammerson would trade what he had with the Israelis because he needed to know what they were thinking and what they were planning. The constant radiation emissions coming from central Iran would be worrying the hell out of them. He could only keep them on a leash for so long before they decided to take matters into their own hands. He needed to give his team time to secure the technology before the general decided that the best way to deal with the problem was to incinerate everything.

Hammerson knew that most of the Middle Eastern countries tolerated, distrusted or downright hated each other. But nothing would unite them quicker than an attack from Israel, and somehow it always ended up being America’s fault.
Life was a lot simpler when they just burned our flags
, he thought as the call was put through to his desk phone.

The HAWCs and their Israeli companions leapt onto the slowing train just outside of Shiraz. The dilapidated diesel locomotive was returning to northern Iran with oil refinery equipment and supplies for one of the new drill platforms at Babol on the Caspian Sea. There were no passengers and the train was unguarded, so the HAWCs found it easy to enter the packed cargo carriage without being detected. From time to time they would open the door a crack for fresh air and to check their surroundings, but that was all – the bone-chilling wind that blew in off the mountains discouraged any sightseeing. Sam managed to track their progress on his GPS unit and called out their speed and position every few hours.

Even in the bitter cold of the unheated car, they rested. Until they reached Kashan, the fate of their mission rested with the train driver and good luck. Alex knew that if the bodies of the Takavaran weren’t discovered at Persepolis, they still held the element of surprise. From what they’d seen so far, they’d need it.

In the corner of the carriage, a tiny mouse scurried up to a crate and started to gnaw at the wood. In no time it had opened a hole the size of a fingertip and squeezed through, returning a few seconds later with what looked like a coffee bean. Alex smiled.
Just a tiny opening – that’s all we’ll need too
, he thought.

Adira woke from a light doze and half-opened her eyes. She sat with her back against a crate and her arms folded on bent knees; she lifted her head slightly to rest her chin on the arch made by her arms. Dawn light was beginning to squeeze through cracks in the carriage walls and she could make out the form of Alex Hunter sitting opposite her, his large frame striped with the morning’s early glow. She smiled as she watched him try to feed a little grey mouse something he had found on the floor. She went to look away, but found her eyes kept being drawn back to the man – so she gave up and studied him.

He was handsome, but she knew plenty of good-looking men. He was dangerous, but also honourable – and right now he just looked so . . . normal. It was impossible to think that he was part of some secret American experiment. But she had seen him do things that were not possible. What was the Arcadian? What would happen to Alex Hunter if she betrayed him to General Shavit, to the Mossad hierarchy?

She took a breath, then exhaled quietly through her nose.
Why this one?
she thought, and smiled again as she saw him whisper something to the small creature at his feet.

Alex felt a bead of perspiration run down the side of his face. As the sun climbed higher, and the Zagros Mountains fell far behind, the temperature had risen rapidly in the carriage. What had been a freezing wooden box as they passed through the mountains had quickly becoming a foul-smelling roaster.

The HAWCs were relieved when Sam called their position as being just ten miles out from Kashan. Rocky pulled open the door and filled their carriage with sweet-smelling, dry desert air. Adira leaned out of the car, looking up and down the track, and called for them to get ready. The train slowed from its top speed of around sixty miles per hour down to thirty to negotiate a bend – ‘Jump!’ Adira yelled. One by one, like parachutists leaving a plane, they leapt and rolled into the hard-packed soil. At twenty miles per hour, there were no comfortable landings.

Sam took charge of Zach, forcing the young man to roll with him so he didn’t break any bones on the landing. They all stayed low to the ground until the train was several miles away, then got to their feet. In the distance, they could see the train heading for a small city nestled among clumped wild date palms and tall trees – a small haven of green in the dry sepia and brown of the desert.

‘Kashan is one of the small oasis cities,’ Adira said. ‘A peaceful place of gardens and poets, and we have good people there.’ She turned away from the verdant town setting and nodded west. ‘That’s where we need to go. About sixty miles to Arak – ten to twelve hours on foot.’

Alex surveyed their position and the parched land to the west. There was no road, no path. It was just after 1100 hours and the day was cloudless and dry. Thankfully, the temperature was fairly mild for around here – only one hundred degrees.
A walk in the park
, he thought.

‘We’ll do it in eight. Let’s go.’ He led them out in a trot.

*

They had been moving fast for nearly five hours when Alex called a rest break. They would stop for forty minutes – ten minutes for food and then fifteen minutes of rest each – one team on, one team off. Hex, Irish, Rocky and Adira rested first, then Alex, Sam and Zach. Alex saw Zach pass out instantly, but he let the young scientist sleep; he couldn’t imagine what Zach’s body must feel like after all the exertion. A few miles back he had seen Adira help him with his pack – he would allow it this time only. Even Alex’s supercharged body needed to repair itself. He ate some dried beef and then slept. For fifteen minutes the world went away.

His body rested, but his mind worked – dark memories slithering up from its depths. Beneath his eyelids his eyes moved back and forth, searching, hunting, trying to see in the murky darkness of a cave. The creature had him again, its tentacle was wrapping around his body, its curved, razor-sharp talons were embedding themselves into his back and neck.

Alex woke with a roar that caused all the HAWCs to draw their weapons and crouch in defensive positions. Adira had both her Baraks drawn and aimed towards Alex. The snake fell from his neck and started to slide away into the desert.

Adira leapt at it and put her boot on its neck, then reached down to pick it up. ‘
Yaarsh
. . . did it bite you? This is a saw-scaled viper – deadly.’

Alex had taken his helmet off to rest and also unzipped the collar of his suit. He reached up and felt his neck – his hand came away spotted with blood. Perhaps the pulsing of an artery had attracted the snake, or maybe it was just pissed off in the heat. Alex felt his head start to throb with a deep ache that made his eyes hurt.

‘Yeah, it got me,’ he said. ‘What type of venom?’

Sam kneeled beside Alex, opening his upper eyelid to peer at the white around the pupil.

Adira drew one of her knives and pressed the back of the snake’s head, forcing its mouth open. She used the knife to bring out its fangs and pushed upwards. Venom should have squirted from the extended fangs. Nothing came.

‘
Shishza!
It’s dry,’ she said. ‘You must have got a full dose. This is one of the Middle East’s deadliest snakes – proteolytic venom, haemotoxic; painful and deadly. If the bite was on a limb, rapid amputation would be recommended. You need antivenene and about several pints of blood in a field transfusion.’ She jammed her blade roughly back into its sheath and squeezed the snake’s neck in her fist.

Alex pressed his thumbs into his eyelids and shook his head. ‘A week on the beach would be nice too. Don’t worry, I think I missed the full dose. I’ll be okay, but I’ll need to rest up a bit. Hex, you take your team out immediately and we’ll catch up on the way. You know what to do.’

Hex nodded. There would be no questioning the decision – the boss’s orders were always followed. Rocky and Irish kitted up and prepared to leave.

Adira looked at the snake and said something in Hebrew. She changed her grip, twirled the short body once around her head and then used the momentum to flick it bullwhip-style. The viper’s head exploded off its body in a spray of scales and blood, leaving Adira holding a writhing pipe of snake flesh, which she flung out into the desert.

She looked down at Alex almost angrily and said, ‘
Lehitra’ ot
, Alex Hunter. I hope I will see you again.’ She turned away, her fists balled, still muttering to herself.

Alex knew they didn’t have any antivenene, and they certainly didn’t have the time or equipment for even the roughest field transfusion. He also knew he had received a full dose of the poison – he could feel it in his system. He had to trust his body to combat the venom by itself, but for that he needed to sleep.

He spoke to Sam quietly. ‘You need to knock me out for two hours while I rest. I’ll be okay – you know that, Uncle.’

Sam nodded and knelt down beside him, turning Alex’s head to look at the small wounds on his neck. ‘Two hours, huh? Sixty milligrams of benzodiazepine should do it. Anticonvulsant and muscle relaxant. I can put you out for around that long – the rest is up to you. But, ah, I heard Ms Senesh – she did say amputation was an option. Might be quicker – it is only your head we’re talking about, after all.’

Alex chuckled. ‘Just keep an eye out for more snakes, will you, or next time I’ll make you suck the poison out.’

Sam gave Alex the sedative, and he lay down with his head and shoulders in the shade of a small spiky bush. He sucked in an enormous breath and closed his eyes. In a minute he was breathing deeply.

Sam noticed that the veins around the snake bite on Alex’s neck bulged like fat worms fighting under his skin, and the bite itself was weeping clear liquid.
There’s a war going on in there
, he thought. Sam was one of the few people in the world who knew what the Arcadian was capable of. He had seen Alex perform feats that had left elite soldiers gaping. For most, the Arcadian was a Special Forces myth, but to a few – a handful of scientists, the most senior brass in USSTRATCOM, the Hammer and Sam – he was a miracle.

Sam caught up with Adira as she was heading out with Hex’s team. ‘Ms Senesh – that snake . . . What’s Captain Hunter in for?’

Adira looked over at Alex’s sleeping form. ‘Without treatment . . . if he’s lucky, some swelling, pain, maybe blindness and some loss of motor functions. Then he’ll probably go into a coma and die. If he’s unlucky, he’ll bleed out internally and die in great agony. This type of viper has killed many of our soldiers on desert missions; they’re active day and night, aggressive and deadly. Captain Hunter’s strong, but I don’t think you’ll be catching up with us anytime soon, Sam Reid. I can get him to Tel Aviv in a day – just say the word.’

Sam shook his head slowly. Adira narrowed her eyes and shrugged. ‘
Behatzlacha
, Sam Reid.’ She looked once again at Alex. ‘Was . . . is he the Arcadian?’

This time it was Sam’s turn to shrug. ‘Good luck yourself.’

Adira nodded and turned away, then paused as the response to her Hebrew comment registered with her. She gave Sam a fleeting smile, then joined Hex and the Red team.