Chasing The Dawn (Luke Temple - Book 2) (Luke Temple Series) (42 page)

Using his knife he cut off a range of small green shoots from a suitable tree, gripped a solid branch and began rocking with all his weight, eventually snapping the branch free. Next, he rummaged in his bag and pulled out the coils of rope. He untied the bungee cord that held them all together and they dropped to the floor. Using the bungee cord he secured the green shoots to the end of the snapped branch, forming a brush-like device.

Snow is like jungle: you will always leave a trace of movement. In snow you only have imprint and ground trace, no noise. Good operatives look to minimise this; great operatives look to use this.

Luke threw the rope into the bag, which he held diagonally across his chest. He picked up the branch and set off in the opposite direction to the valley, making sure each step made a definitive imprint in the fresh snow. After about 200 metres he stopped by a gnarled, dead tree. He secured the branch behind his back with the bungee cord, allowing the end with the green shoots to brush the floor behind him.

Luke then turned back west and began the slow walk back to the road, making sure to stay away from the nice fresh footprints he had laid down. This time the branch brushed the snow gently behind him, pulling the powder along. Luke stopped and checked; it was having the desired effect, covering up the obvious outlines of his footprints and leaving instead a drift-like pattern that would blend nicely into the landscape.

Reaching the road, Luke passed the car and headed down into the sloping valley, beginning his cross-country yomp. He knew that at some point law enforcement would locate the car and he wanted to try and confuse his pursuers. He was hoping they would spot his tracks heading east and then disappearing into nothing. He would drop the branch once he was deep enough into the valley. If they didn’t pick up his tail immediately from the road they wouldn’t venture in his direction.

It was clear that there was now a major manhunt for him. Luke couldn’t be certain whether Beltrano had leaked information leading to him, or if the Carabinieri had joined the dots themselves. Teramo was a small place for the chaos that had been happening over the last week … Luke assumed a bit of both.

He was now approaching L’Aquila from a direction that people wouldn’t expect … across the Gran Sasso on foot. He estimated he was no more than eight to ten kilometres away from L’Aquila, but his chosen path would be long, and no doubt treacherous at points. But it was the most effective way to approach undetected.

Objectives: find an inlet, use it as an entry point, locate the laboratory, disarm the experiment, extract Chung Su.

It all sounded so easy, but there were a thousand different variants that could bring everything crashing down. The enemy was a complete unknown entity, both in numbers and sophistication. All Luke knew was that they would be heavily armed; he had already witnessed that. The other two areas that worried him were locating a ventilation entry point, and then how long the shafts were compared to the ropes he had. What he was hoping for was that the shafts would descend in stages, and at angles, allowing him to unhook and reattach at certain points.

Hope …
it was a word that grated on Luke. Group 9 operatives didn’t like dealing with hope. But he couldn’t deny that he had little else, other than the voice inside that told him it was a plan worth following. His biggest weapon would be surprise.

Assured now that he had covered his tracks well enough, Luke detached the branch from the cord, and tossed the snow-capped green shoots and thick branch in different directions. Tucking the bungee back into the dry-bag, he resumed his yomp.

It was approaching mid-afternoon, but the temperature had not moved since the morning. The snow had a way of softening exterior noise so Luke made sure to stop every few hundred metres to listen and absorb his surroundings.

His mind turned to Chung Su. The thought of watching Beltrano snatch her raised more anger than he had expected. Somehow she had got herself caught up in a series of events that were only ever going to end in disaster. Luke was no fool, he knew that she had been manipulated by the North Korean state. They had force-fed her doctrine and then used her ability for a corrupt ideology.

As Luke strode across the white field, he realised that his determination to reach the underground laboratory was due in no small part to a desire to ensure Chung Su’s safety. He had seen in her eyes in the hotel room that her disastrous time in Teramo had begun to wake her from her coma. She could now see the world for what it was … a tangle of politics, violence and complexities. These were elements that dictator states never recognised. Such states put everything in simple terms for their people, a single view, and if an intelligent woman such as Chung Su could get caught up in such an ideology then it was proof of its power. Luke existed only to combat such dark forces, to protect the interests of a continent … was that any different to a dictator state? He did not dwell on it. He never wanted to waste mental energy on analysing his place in the world. He had his role and all he could do was execute things to the best of his ability. He hoped Chung Su still lived but the reality was she would probably be interrogated and then killed. Beltrano had proved that killing was not something he found difficult.

Keep on point, Luke, keep the mind looking forward.

He rolled his shoulders and bent against the cold. He felt the pang of rage rise, it flushed adrenaline through his system and he knew that he would be ready for whatever lay before him.

“Don’t move.”

The man on Chung Su’s left spoke English but with a heavy accent. The man on her right secured her legs to the chair with strong plastic ties. She could feel the sharp edges digging into her flesh, and it took only one attempt to move to dissuade her from moving her legs any further.

She had been taken to a room that was larger and warmer. Directly in front of her was a giant television screen suspended on the wall. It was switched off and its black screen reflected the reds and blues from the array of electrical desks and monitoring equipment that lined the three other walls. She scanned the dials and output screens and a haunting feeling of familiarity crept over her. The ceiling was grated to let the heat rise and dissipate and the wires and cables that crisscrossed the room were messy but she knew the room was purely about function.

The two men turned on their heels and she heard the door open behind her; feet shuffled out, and then it slammed shut. Silence. Chung Su let out a long breath.

“I find it amusing in many ways …”

The voice made Chung Su jump. Slowly walking around the outside of the room, running his hand over the equipment, Beltrano appeared in front of her.

“In the short period of time I have been aware of you … and your friend
Robert
for that matter … I cannot help but recognise the similarities between us all. Certainly you and I …”

Chung Su was disgusted. “We are not similar … you are a killer!”

Beltrano stopped and raised his head to the ceiling. “You are quite right, but it’s simply semantics. I am merely a few steps further down the path. Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to judge.”

“I would never kill …” Chung Su stopped. The image of the dead man she had shot on the road leading back into Teramo haunted her, as did the shock that she had pulled the trigger.

Beltrano chuckled. “I think we know that is not quite true, Miss Chung. But in this instance I am not talking about isolated cases. I am talking about chasing the same ends.”

Chung Su said nothing.

“You say you wouldn’t kill, but yet you worked for an ideal that would bring nothing but destruction to millions. You worked toward the same thing we do. You no longer wanted to be sidelined by a small percentage of the world, you wanted to achieve the impossible, to
control
the impossible, bend it, manipulate it, harness it.”

Beltrano turned to face her.

“And do not pretend that you were not willing to sacrifice everything for it …”

“I am not like you” was all Chung Su could muster.

Beltrano loomed over her. “Oh, but you are, you are.” His tone was now menacing. “You do not need to pretend to me … I can see who you are.”

She forced herself to steady her breathing
. You must not show fear, you are stronger than that, remain strong.
The concept of fighting fear had always been abstract; a doctrine that was force-fed and eaten without any real concept of what true fear was.

Beltrano stepped closer and his look of menace faded, replaced by a slant-eyed curiosity. He studied her face like a lion eyeing its prey. After several moments his face broke into a smile. “Poor naive child. They fed you stinking lies and you ate them up as nutrition. I was told you were a very intelligent lady, Miss Chung.” He laughed again, shaking his head. Chung Su felt a wave of shame in the face of his laughter. “There is but one power, God’s power! In the name of Allah and Iran we have sacrificed much to reach this point. God has guided us and that is why it us who are now stood on the edge of the world looking down. Death is a price that must be paid, both by us and the infidels! I make no apologies for it. But you … you are a big cog in the death machine of your state, and for what? A higher power?” he spat the words. “No, no, no! You may have wrapped yourself in that, but it is merely a blanket in the face of a hurricane … your esteemed leader, your beloved state wanted this power for nothing other than to further their own ends, a selfish lust! You were used.”

“And how are you any different!?” Chung Su surprised even herself with the power of her response. But it was not anger in the face of Beltrano’s rhetoric; it was an explosion of shame. Chung Su’s mind found an unexpected clarity; she was stood in her tiny garden with her grandfather when she was a child, staring up at the stars, full of wonder, full of hope. Her whole life had clung to the one constant, the knowledge that she was achieving great things. She wanted to scream at the naivety on which she had based her life … but nothing came out.

Beltrano smirked. “We are different in one way, Miss Chung … we succeeded. You were still scrabbling around in the dirt whilst we were wandering amongst the stars. Be under no illusion that this is not just a scientific advancement; it changes humanity as we know it, in literal terms, not in some abstract theory, but in real practical solidity.”

‘What? What is it that you have done? Tell me.’ Chung Su had nothing left, she still did not know what they had truly accomplished. Fatigue and exhaustion consumed her. Everything felt so helpless. “Why don’t you just kill me now …?”

Beltrano stood, staring down on her. He did not answer immediately; instead he rolled his neck. He let out a sigh and turned away. “I would have very much liked to have killed you back in Teramo. However, one has to remain in control.”

The door to the room opened slowly. Chung Su tried to strain her neck to see who had entered but it was no use. The door closed gently. Beltrano looked past Chung Su to the visitor, and then without looking at her he continued: “You are alive because someone in their wisdom feels there is still much to learn from you. Although I suspect that it is you who will do the learning, Miss Chung.” He raised his eyebrows at the newcomer. “There is someone who has requested your presence …” He glowered back down at Chung Su. “And you will show some respect; you are about to meet the man who achieved what God could not.”

A tingle ran down her back, the animal instinct that tells you someone is behind you. The person took two slow steps forward. Chung Su was waiting for something, a blow, a slap, a whisper … anything.

Nothing came. The person took a step to the side.
Another step … another step … another step
. She could now just make out a shape as she twisted her head to the side.
Another step … another step … another step
.

Then finally as if emerging from the shadows the person stepped into full view. Chung Su felt a painful rush of air leave her lungs, the shock stealing her breath. Her mouth dropped open; her eyes refused to believe what stood in front of her. Her logical, mathematical brain could not comprehend the image.

Dear God … but it can’t be.

Luke spat out the excess saliva rolling around his mouth. The muscles in his cheeks were tight from the cold; he took long drawn-out breaths.

He judged from the position of the sun that the time was approaching 3 p.m. The thick snow-filled clouds had passed, keeping their load intact. Luke had moved down through the valley unobstructed, and in the past hour he had reached a steep tree-lined ridge that led down from the Gran Sasso onto the outskirts of L’Aquila.

Adrenaline pumped through Luke’s veins. He was now coming close to the site. He had to assume that the area would have security. It was impossible to ascertain how far-reaching Beltrano’s influence had become, but he could tell he was a man of experience. He was a sleeper who had to have lain dormant for many years, silently working his way up the Carabinieri chain, organising his pieces. The young Carabinieri had stated before his death that Beltrano had been responsible for getting the Iranians into the country; therefore Luke was expecting a force in place …
right under everyone’s noses.
Beltrano had performed brilliantly and it was hard not to respect him.

As he rounded the peak of a small hill, Luke finally saw what he had been searching for. Below, about 300 metres in front was the large, cylindrical, metal tunnel that he had watched open for Beltrano. Luke hit the deck, feeling the snow press against his chest as he surveyed his surroundings. At first the area looked as it had the night before; the dirt road was lightly covered in snow and it didn’t seem to carry any sign of fresh tracks. There was no other movement. Keeping his chest to the ground, Luke crawled down the hill, moving slowly and keeping his ears open.

He came to a stop. To his right there stood a grey building. It was too small to be a house, and it had a wire fence running around its perimeter. He watched it for a long time, looking for any sign of life, but all seemed quiet.