Quake (55 page)

Machine-gun fire erupted and Carter slammed the controls to the right. The helicopter flipped to one side, diving towards the city below with a wail of engines as Durell’s machine closed on them at high speed, gun barrels blazing fire and rounds slamming into the hijacked chopper.

Carter spun the machine, flipping it down almost to street level and then slamming along, people cowering beneath him as he wrestled with the controls. Durell’s machine followed closely, machine guns blazing as bullets chewed up the street and sent civilians to their deaths in showers of fine blood mist. Carter dragged the chopper back up into the sky, narrowly missing a shabby tower block.

Mongrel glanced out of the cockpit.

‘They close, Carter.’

Carter growled something obscene and the helicopter dipped again, thrumming low towards street level and the closely packed structures. Durell’s machine followed as Carter tried to shake them, weaving between buildings, spinning through the narrow streets, thousands of faces staring skywards in wonder and fear as machine guns fired once more and a bullet ricocheted from the stolen ‘copter’s rotors—

‘Carter!’ yelled Mongrel.

Carter slammed the helicopter to the right, whirling tightly around a minaret and heading for a densely packed group of crumbling suburban apartment blocks sporting neon roof signs for Coke and SmashVID. Dipping lower, die helicopter raced through the streets, buildings tightly packed to either side, Durell’s howling machine close behind.

More machine-gun fire followed.

‘This is getting tiresome,’ growled Carter, spinning the helicopter in a tight bank down a side street. Engines >creamed, the whole helicopter vibrated and the landing struts scraped a shower of concrete dust from an already tottering wall.

Durell’s machine pursued.

Carter slammed the helicopter left, then right. They powered away from the cluster of apartment blocks as the following heavy machine-gun fire chased them relentlessly.

The sun was rising higher in the sky.

Light bathed Carter’s face, blinding him for a split second.

Guns blasted.

‘Machine-gun fire over Egypt,’
sighed Kade. ‘
Now that
is
a beautiful sight. A Wonder of the World, no less.
‘

Carter found his way back into the maze of three- and four-storey apartments. Activity seemed almost to have ceased on the ground below as people abandoned their cars and took shelter wherever they could.

More bullets slammed into the back of the stolen helicopter and Carter cursed, Kade screaming inside his head, unable to shake the pilot of Durell’s helicopter. Panic washed over him in a wave but he forced his body to relax and grow calm - and tried to think.

He slammed the machine to the left, dipping low, landing struts almost clipping the roofs of the cars lining the street bumper to bumper. Men and women ran for cover, hands raised futilely for protection. Some cowered in doorways as the screaming engines smashed over their heads.

Bullets chewed a wall to Carter’s right.

He started to lift the helicopter, but realised that something was wrong as Mongrel shouted, ‘We’ve got a fucking fire.’

‘Jump!’ Carter yelled.

The helicopter started to wobble furiously in its trajectory and Carter realised with horror that he could no longer control the wounded beast. Below, people were running, screaming and sprinting for cover. Mongrel’s stare met Carter’s and Mongrel stepped to the doorway as a building loomed close. Powered by instinct and without a second to think, he leapt.

Mongrel fell through the air, arms flailing wildly, and hit a concrete roof hard. It slammed into his face and body and he rolled madly for what seemed an age, his gun cutting into his ribs, until he slammed to a halt against a yellow-painted parapet, crushing a plant pot between himself and the wall. Shards of pottery speared his flesh like terracotta knives.

Mongrel tried to breathe—

But could not.

He levered himself up and saw the helicopter connect with an apartment block. It seemed to fold in upon itself, rotors bending at right angles as the machine compacted with a shriek of tortured metal and then—

Then it exploded.

A huge wave of fire erupted upwards and outwards, and Mongrel blinked at the sudden gaping hole in the apartment block. Black smoke rolled up. The flaming helicopter carcass shifted and then dropped from the hole that it had smashed for itself in the concrete wall and hit the ground, crushing eight people.

Hearing their screams as they burned, Mongrel staggered to his feet and scanned the sudden chaos below. People were swarming everywhere. Car horns were honking, men were shouting, women crying, and Mongrel searched in vain for Carter as pain stabbed him from a thousand sources and he tried hard just to breathe ...

Where are you, Carter?

But he could not see his friend.

‘Fuck.’

Suddenly, horrified at his vulnerability, Mongrel ducked and glanced up at the sky. But Durell’s helicopter had gone. He glanced back down at the chaos and saw a few snarling men pointing his way.

Mongrel frowned.

Bullets ate a line along the parapet.

‘What?’ he wailed down at the gun-wielding Egyptians. ‘It was a fucking accident!’

More bullets nearly took his head off.

‘You fuckers.’ He returned fire, then ran for it, head low, towards an adjoining roof. He leapt, missed the parapet, and fell a single storey, landing heavily on a folding table stacked with bottles of beer. Glass smashed all around him.

People started shouting, their voices harsh.

Bullets crackled from various handguns.

Stinking of cheap Egyptian beer, Mongrel put his tufted head down and ran for his life.

C
arter was being attacked from all sides. Sandstone blocks came out of the darkness and hammered him against the desert. People were screaming - and he realised that it wasn’t people but an engine, howling through the centre of his brain. He felt himself falling, wind rushing through his hair as a blood-red insanity screamed through him. He gasped and the heat rushed up. Pain smashed through his body and he lay, panting, listening to the sounds of his own ragged breathing. He felt the horrifying warmth of blood running slowly over his flesh. And then screams, and chanting, words recited over and over again in an Arab dialect that he thought he understood, in words that he should have known. But his understanding fled him. The chanting reverberated around his skull. And then he felt boots and sandals kicking him and he curled into a ball in the sand. Single gunshots rang out, then the rattle of automatic gunfire -and the physical blows suddenly stopped.

Carter opened his eyes warily.

He could see a sandstone wall, smeared with beautiful curving red swirls of Arabic graffiti. And he could see sand and feel the heat. And smell the camels.

More voices shouted.

In the distance, there came the roar of an explosion. People screamed. Carter could smell burning flesh. He sank into a state of unconsciousness and he thankfully allowed the blackness to take him. He remembered no more.

We need to tell Spiral. About the Foundation Stones - and about the LVA and how it all links in with Durell and his fucking QuakeHub ...

Well - you’re no fucking good like this.

What has happened? Where am I?

Open your fucking eyes and you’ll find out.

I don’t want to open my eyes. I am afraid of what I might see.

Your worst fucking nightmare, my friend. You remember them kicking you? The mob kicking you? They remember you, Carter, remember your face ... from before. They know who you are, they know the things you did, the children you slaughtered ...

Children? Where am I Kade?

You are in Egypt, Carter. And you are a prisoner.

Oh my God ...

Yes, Carter, your worst nightmare ... you remember? Me and Egypt - well, I will teach that fucker a lesson it shall never, ever forget...

Oh no, Kade, I remember the last time I let you loose in Egypt-

So
do I,
gloated Kade.

Carter fought.

He fought for a long time. But too much had happened – he had lost a lot of blood, taken too many beatings at the hands of men
and Nex intent on his murder. His fears and frustrations for Natasha had put him in a prison of his own horror and weakness.

Carter folded.

Folded like damp newspaper.

And Kade took control.

Kade opened his eyes.

The scene, as ever, glistened in glorious black and white. Kade tilted his head, felt the smash of pain hammer through his body and with a silent snarl of contempt hurled it away. The bruises and bumps, the cuts and grazes, the cracked ribs, the fractured knuckle, the stapled gunshot wound in his back, the loss of skin and the impacts from the KTM crash, the battering from the helicopter crash — were as nothing, merely ant stings to an elephant. Kade surveyed his grey-spectrum surroundings.

He was in a cell made of light grey sandstone. Bars ran from floor to ceiling, and without moving his head Kade could see a broad rough-timber desk on which a fan whirred softly, stirring a sheaf of papers held down at one corner by a makeshift paperweight. A gun.

Kade’s stare fastened on the weapon.

It was Carter’s Browning. And he could see that the magazine was still in place, the safety catch off. Kade smiled, a flickering of his lips - a dark expression, something that should never be seen on the face of a mortal.

Kade watched a man moving around what he assumed was an office. He shifted his head slightly, took in the row of perhaps fifteen cells, some occupied, most empty. The other cell occupants - separated from Kade by floor-to-ceiling barriers of bars - looked bedraggled, worn, poor and ill. Kade wrinkled his nose in distaste.

Fucking criminal scum, he thought.

Kade watched the policeman shuffling papers, then turning in response to a call and shouting a reply in Arabic. Kade shifted gear in his brain and tuned in.

Shut up, or you’ll get another beating
, the Egyptian policeman had said.

Kade pushed himself up on one elbow, hearing a broken rib click. Despite his stealth, the policeman heard him and turned, smiling humourlessly. He had very black hair, quite shaggy, and bushy eyebrows. He also had a moustache that drooped over his top lip and down to the line of his jaw. His eyes were dark and Kade noted how lithely he moved. Like an athlete. A
warrior.

‘Ah, the bad man awakes.’

Kade said nothing.

‘Oh, it was such joy when you were delivered to us. God punished you, my friend. He brought you back to us for repayment.’

The Egyptian moved closer to the bars and Kade stood smoothly, stretching with an almost feline grace, arching his back. Kade leant his head left, then right.

The Egyptian placed his hands on his hips and grinned at Kade. It was a savage grin. ‘Do you remember? Do you remember the things you did here, English man?’

‘You have the wrong guy,’ said Kade smoothly. ‘I am a citizen of the United Kingdom and I demand to see a representative of my country immediately.’

‘Well, I am Abdul Hassaq, and I
know
you, I
know
the things you did here. I was a member of one of the many teams who helped to clear away the bodies. I was involved in the search for you after the burned children were scraped from the streets. I do not forget. I am not stupid. And you will
die.
Now, I suggest that you sit down and make your peace with God, if that is possible. He will judge you for your crimes, and deny you your rights - by all that is holy.’

‘No, no, my good man, you really have made a most grievous mistake. A case of mistaken identity, in fact. I am a journalist here to investigate the recent earthquakes and seismic activity in different parts of the globe. Jonathan Swift is my name, a graduate of Oxford, ha ha ...’

Kade clasped the bars. His knuckles were white. He smiled and his eyes held pure dark evil. His gaze danced from the Egyptian policeman’s face to his clothing to his belt, and then to the gleaming smooth leather holster that held his
gun.

Kade slipped free the MercG from his pocket and spun the mercury garrotte to activate it. The liquid metal thread flashed in two powerful horizontal swipes and Kade stepped back, watching as four thick metal bars rambled and clanged to the stone floor. The Egyptian’s expression turned from righteous contemplation to sudden and acute horror.

The policeman froze for an instant, and Kade leapt through the neatly sliced hole in the bars as the man grabbed at the holstered pistol at his hip and aimed it. Kade lashed the MercG like a whip - which sliced vertically down the weapon’s barrel, continuing on to cut the policeman’s hand in two as far as the wrist. There was a clatter as the two parts of the weapon hit the ground in a shower of bubbling crimson. The Egyptian was staring in disbelief at his pumping appendage even as Kade whirled and, in a continuation of the same movement, placed the MercG through the Egyptian’s neck with the precision of a Samurai swordsman.