Quake (53 page)

Lights glittered in Durell’s eyes.

‘Do you think they are dead?’

Durell glanced at Jam, at the twisted jaws that had straightened a little since he had last examined his subject, allowing Jam’s speech more of a human quality. ‘Nobody has ever survived that chamber.’

The helicopter spun through the darkness, following the plateau as it fell away from the Red Sea Mountains. Away from the town the pilot dropped them closer towards the rock and sand, and without lights they spun like a black bullet through the night.

‘When will we begin the Domination?’ asked Jam quietly. The Nex’s huge triangular head tilted to look at Durell and Durell found himself shivering at the look in the slitted eyes of the creature he had ... created.

‘Mace tells me that all Foundation Stones are in place. He tells me that the World Investigation Committee is playing games with us, stalling for time and I believe they will never give in ... I believe they will not relinquish control. I thought some of the weaker states might have folded without a real fight - but I feel our demonstrations are still being viewed as natural events. I will give them something more to play with. I will smash their armies, I will crush their navies and air forces. I will bring down every fucking government building in every fucking city of the world. And only then will I seek to negotiate. Only then will I seek to talk about peace. Once again I find myself surrounded by weakness and indecision, the very factors that will topple Spiral and world governments from their heights of abused power!’

‘And we will orchestrate this from Austria?’ asked Jam
softly.

‘It can be the only place.’ Durell smiled from the darkness of his robes.

The Priest climbed up into the helicopter, and Heneghan t
urned,
meeting his gaze from behind the HIDSS.

‘Code Black?’ she whispered, her eyes haunted by the rush of fear.

‘Code Black,’ rumbled The Priest with a great melancholy in his voice.

The Comanche’s twin LHTecs howled as Heneghan hurled the machine into the night sky, cutting through the rain and sleet that pounded against the fuselage of the war machine.

The Priest settled back, lips pursed together, gold-flecked brown eyes narrowing as he considered the mission to come.

It was very simple.

To the point:

Hunt down Carter and stop him. By any means necessary.

‘Why did you do this to me, you foolish old bugger?’ rambled The Priest to himself. ‘Why did you force me into this path of unrighteousness? I do not want this ... I do not want to see you die.’

Because he knew.

Knew in his heart and in his soul.

Carter would not cease with his mission to save Natasha ...

He would never stop.

And he would condemn them all—

The only way to ‘stop’ Carter would be to kill him.

‘Damn you,’ muttered The Priest darkly, hand on his small Bible, which was of little true comfort now as they howled through the dark night’s rain and sleet.

Mongrel followed Carter into the chamber, stooping a little beneath the rough red sandstone archway. The lower section of the walls were lined with panels of dark marble containing veins of some mineral that glittered softly. All around the room were benches on which sophisticated computing equipment lay. Carter’s head swung back and forth, his eyes narrowed, his M24 clasped tight.

‘This place is
old
,’ said Mongrel. ‘I do not like it here.’

‘Is there anywhere you
do
like?’

Mongrel thought deeply, nodding to himself. ‘Brothels,’ he announced after a few moments.

Carter moved forward, to a large rectangular black screen. The surface of the screen seemed to ripple as Carter reached out and touched it. Lights danced gently around his fingertips and it made a soft lulling sound.

‘Kebab shops.’

Carter moved his hand, and with a shock realised that the screen obeyed the same movements as an ECube. Of course — Durell was ex-Spiral. The betrayer. His technology was based on Spiral technology. His computing equipment was a bastardised deviant version of all that Spiral used ... only warped, twisted and perverted.

‘Porn museums.’

‘Mongrel,
shut up
.’

Carter traced patterns with his hand and the screen sprang into life. He scrolled through intricate interwoven data, strands coiled with DNA. His eyes searched and he became lost in the digital world.
The chamber no longer existed, this temple in Egypt no longer existed ... Mongrel pacing the room, keeping a lookout - none of it seemed real as he sunk into the data and felt himself
absorbed ...

After a few moments, Carter disengaged.

‘You find anything?’

‘Oh,’ said Carter softly.

Mongrel stared at Carter’s face. It was ashen.

‘Now I understand,’ he whispered.

‘Is it bad?’

Carter nodded. ‘It’s fucking bad, all right. We have to tell Spiral. We have to stop Durell.’

‘Is it the earthquakes?’

‘It is worse than earthquakes,’ whispered Carter, turning away and grasping his machine carbine tightly. ‘If Durell makes a wrong move in this game he’s playing, he could destroy the world.’

‘You mean take over the world, right?’ growled Mongrel.

‘No.’ Carter shook his head. ‘If Durell fucks up, he’ll take us all out with him. Every single living creature on the planet. Have you got that ECube booted up yet?’

‘It’s flickering between states of stupidity and unreliability. I think the Nex may have compromised the network.’

‘Give it to me. We have to tell Spiral - and tell them
now.’

Simmo halted the HTank and breathed deeply, staring down at the tiny DigitalMap on the tank’s ECube-linked scanners. Crushed under the wide heavy tracks, trees and other jungle vegetation creaked softly and Simmo could feel sweat running down his head, stinging the cuts to both the crown of his skull and lesser wounds on his face from the pounding he’d had from Kattenheim. Beneath him cold matrix engines hissed.

They know
, said a small voice in his head.

They know you are coming.

Kattenheim has warned them ...

The LVA depot deep in the Colombian jungle was a large one; it was perhaps five times the size of the one back in Slovenia and one of the largest finds reported by Spiral men across the globe. Hence, logically to Simmo, it had to be the one he personally came to investigate - and destroy. Twenty-four huge tankers containing fuel squatted in the darkness and Simmo’s scouts had reported back that there were at least fifty enemy tanks, grey-tracked Nex TK79s supported by another twenty or so six-wheeled Can-trucks.

Simmo’s TankSquad itself sported only thirty Spiral SP57s armed with twin 135mm M512 smoothbore cannons, firing HEAT-X2 combat rounds, and triple heavy-calibre machine guns. They would need the element of surprise to win this one ... and in Simmo’s mind they had been guaranteed that simple necessity before Kattenheim’s escape.

Now they would have to make the best of a shit situation.

‘I should have let the guys shoot him,’ Simmo muttered.

‘You OK, boss?’ rumbled Oz, his mission co-op.

‘Hmm. I is thinking the plateau is nice and wide, hard to protect at front - this why they have so many tanks and trucks. We need to hit them - fast and
now
.’

‘Frontal assault?’

‘Poor tactic but we have little option. I will take HTank in from behind, down the gulleys and through perimeter fence when you engage. Send message to Rogowski - synchronise for five minutes.’

‘Will do,’ growled Oz.

Simmo lifted the hatch and poked his head up into the night. A deep dense blackness surrounded him and he felt sweat dribbling under his shirt and down inside the legs of his urban combats.

Parrots shrieked somewhere in the jungle, followed by the chatter of squabbling monkeys. Insects buzzed. Simmo squinted, staring off into the darkness. On the scanners below, he could see the SP57 tanks moving smoothing into position, their twin cannons looking ominous in the gloom.

‘You think they know we’re here?’

‘Maybe,’ said Simmo. ‘They not move on scanners. ECube reports no engines starting, no activity whatsoever.’

‘If this attack is not a surprise, we’re fucked, Sarge.’

‘You think Sarge not know that?’

‘Sorry, Sarge.’

‘Is all right, lad.’

The valley was a wide scoop from the Colombian jungle, with steep walls climbing from the basin’s base in an insane flurry of tangled trees, flailing creepers, nature-ravaged trunks, ferns and climbers, all competing for life and light. Trees tumbled across trees in great cataracts of spewing vegetation. Ferns mated with creepers, snaking over and around and through huge hardwood mahoganies and oaks. The whole basin was an insanity of jungle through which a wide road had been scythed, leading to the Colombian LVA depot at its heart, and bordered by a natural rough-sawn mahogany barricade at the rear - a huge impassable arc of titanic trunks.

Rain started to fall from heavy clouds swirling in dark hues. It increased quickly to a tropical downpour and Simmo lifted his face, revelling in the large warm droplets which filled him with a sudden vigour - a feeling of youth and indestructibility.

He glanced down at the scanners and watched his TankSquads moving into place through the rain and wet vegetation. Once a time had been agreed the men kept radio comm and ECube silence.

‘Still nothing,’ came the voice of Oz. ‘Looks like you were wrong about Kattenheim.’

‘Don’t be too sure.’

Simmo clambered back down and took the controls; he liked being at the controls, he liked to be
in
control. He revved the HTank quietly, engines hissing and cold matrix fumes blowing from exhaust ports in the darkness, then activated the CamCloak. There was a tiny hum. He grinned through his own personal pain.

Easing the HTank forward, he drove it carefully through the thick jungle. Tracks crushed trees and vegetation - and with each sound Simmo winced, hoping to God that his intel was correct and there were no scouts or enemy lookouts nearby.

The huge HTank slowed as it reached the precipice of the valley wall in front of him. Trees scattered off into a treacherously steep black abyss - and distantly he could see bright halogen-II lights through the torrential downpour, illuminating the hive of activity that was the massive LVA depot. He peered at the vid. The tangle of fallen, twisted trees were like dark black emaciated limbs and the strings of creepers were like shrivelled muscles stretched across black pitted bone.

Simmo shivered.

The tracks crunched to a halt, matrix engines hissing.

‘Here we go, then,’ he whispered.

In an inverted V formation, the SP57 tanks crept forward, two at the point of the advance, then a considerable distance break with most of the remaining tanks following. Tracks crunched and crushed their way noisily through the foliage. The two lead SP57s halted, engines rumbling, and their turrets began a smooth traverse as the tanks readied for a sudden high-speed assault—

From nowhere, the darkness to either side of the lead Spiral tanks suddenly became alive with unexpected explosions and flashes of tank cannon fire. Twin combat rounds flew from the darkness and struck with precision timing, crushing the two lead Spiral tanks from either side and lifting them, suddenly blazing with HighJ purple fire, spinning high into the air where metal disintegrated and dripped flowing in a liquid stream to the forest floor far below.

Rogowski, in the second row of tanks behind this sudden onslaught, froze for a moment as realisation struck him like a brick. There were TK79s camouflaged in the jungle to either side of the trail ... the Spiral TankSquad had rumbled into an ambush.

Simmo had been right...

They had been compromised.

And, thankfully, they had sent the two lead tanks in on REMOTE - as bait, for the enemy to make the first strike and expose their positions. This would give Simmo justification for attacking without specific orders.

It would have been a trap—

Without Simmo’s simple but effective battle strategy.

Suddenly, the night lit up like day as tanks camouflaged with jungle vegetation surged forward and pounded shells into the formation of Spiral tanks, which returned heavy-metal fire as the battle exploded in an onslaught of violence. Engines screamed and tracks ploughed towards the centre of the LVA camp as the Spiral heavy armour roared ahead in a sudden planned attack—

Spiral tank turrets whirled.

Shells spat at savagely close quarters.

Tanks, both Spiral and Nex, caught fire and burned with hellish flames.

Noise ruled.

Noise and fire and destruction ...

A TK79 was hit, skidding along under the impact, tilting and then collapsing onto one side as it slid through the mud, bulky chassis and heavy tracks crushing five workers to the accompaniment of screams and the snaps of broken bodies. It struck a huge spherical storage tank of LVA fuel. A million gallons of LVA washed out over the trail—