Poor Jam, thought Carter sadly.
When had he realised?
Thought he was taking out a few rogue remainders - a few specimens left over from the war of a year ago. When in fact he was stumbling headlong and blind into a whole fucking battalion!
And they had captured him.
Beat him. And ...
Murdered him?
Carter could think of no other fate that might await his friend. But then, Nicky said that the Spiral mainframes had picked up signals from Jam’s ThumbNail_Map -many hours after his disappearance and apparent ECube PB. Which meant that they had not killed him - at least, not straight away - and he had managed somehow to escape ... for a little while at least. Or maybe he was free now and they were chasing ghosts?
What now?
Carter’s mouth was a grim line in the darkness.
If the enemy had him, then Jam’s future did not look rosy.
As they walked, Carter’s eyes scanning left and right for signs of danger, ears alert for any slight change that could signal the presence of an enemy, he found a part of his mind drifting, wandering. He was focused on his journey, but a part of him fell back to remembering the old days—
Reading in the sun, wearing shorts and T-shirt, and Natasha running outside with a bucket of water to drench him to the bone ... Carter chasing her, screaming and threatening, with Samson barking around their feet, almost tripping them in the long grass, Carter lifting her in his arms and then dropping her into the dirty green water of the dog’s paddling pool amidst the shed dog hairs as she squealed with indignation and disgust...
Wandering hand in hand on a distant foreign beach, toes curling in the sand, laying out a rug and unpacking their impromptu and hastily purchased lunch. They had eaten, drunk beer, lain in the sun until the tide had crept in and the waves had splashed their dozing bodies . .
‘Here.’
Carter halted and they dropped to their bellies, peering up the incline to the ridge above them that was scattered with conifers and sycamores. ‘You sure there are no lookouts?’
‘No.’ Mila’s face looked bleached in the moonlight. ‘This is the place I have always come to watch - and learn. I have been here maybe ten times. I have never been seen.’
‘You two wait there,’ Carter ordered her and Mongrel.
He dropped his pack to the ground and eased himself forward cautiously up the slope, inch by inch, careful and precise in his movements. At the top the ground levelled off between the trees and Carter waited patiently, allowing his eyes to adjust to the moonlight falling between the branches and leaves. Then he eased forward, M24 carbine held loosely and Browning secure at his hip.
He saw the ghost night-glow of perimeter halogen lamps.
And then the world opened up in front of him ...
The Kataja Quarry was huge, a mammoth circular depression between high steep red rock walls tumbled with vegetation and rock scree. The rock walls fell away to a massive flat basin, again littered with rocks and scrub rushes, with the odd pine standing forlorn and isolated. To one side squatted six large barracks, each capable of housing perhaps a hundred men - or Nex - and built from rough-sawn timber. They looked relatively new. All the windows were blacked out, but Carter could just about distinguish a few chinks of light round the edges of the blackout curtains. Beside the barracks stood a smaller building, obviously some sort of operational HQ. On the corrugated roof were sophisticated satellite scanners and transmitters. This Op HQ too looked newly built.
Away from the barracks stood a set of buildings, made from corrugated galvanised steel, which were obviously older. These buildings hunkered beside the huge black gleaming LVA pump which even now was quietly thudding and churning, pumping the new fuel into five gigantic container tanks - each at least forty metres in diameter and painted a dull matt black. Near the barracks stood a couple of grey tracked tanks, their engines
off,
and perhaps fifteen large six-wheeled trucks like those Carter had seen back at the old camp. They were obviously used for troop transport.
Carter scanned the quarry.
‘Quite an operation you’ve got here, fellas,’ he muttered, and shuffled himself around to get a better look.
The Kataja Quarry was fed by a single wide road. Four more tanks served as heavy protection, and two tall timber guard towers stood bleak against the night with two snipers posed in each of them. Two more towers were positioned towards the back of the quarry, each tower again sporting two snipers. And then Carter saw them - almost perfectly camouflaged beside the four rough-timber sniper-towers:
SM-7 surface-to-air missiles.
Deployed from Mini-SM7.8 Blocks in III/IV and IVa configurations, the SM-7s were much more compact and discreet SAM weapons than had been used in earlier wars. They employed electronic countermeasures in the form of mono-pulse send/receivers for semi-active III-TR radar terminal guidance and inertial midcourse guidance. Launched from the SM7.8VLS Vertical Launching Systems the SM-7s were perfect for both low- and high-altitude threat interceptions and had almost total success rates even if target aircraft employed electronic countermeasures such as the ECM-6, Lockheed 52s and Sikorsky 2212 ASAMs.
‘Shit. There goes a fucking air strike.’
Carter waited patiently, watching, counting, observing.
The ground area was policed by Nex, heavily armed with sub-machine guns and pistols. They patrolled in teams of four, and there were at least eight teams operational - which meant a minimum of thirty-two Nex on the ground, eight operational snipers, and six T76 tanks which Carter had to assume were armed and ready for action. And all that backed up by serious SAM support and God only knew how many Nex in the barracks.
‘A lot of firepower,’
said Kade.
‘The game’s getting bigger.’
‘
You think Jam is in there?’
‘He could be. This is where they took him, and the bodies of Slater and TT. If we don’t go in this is where our trail stops. This would be our dead end ... and the death of Natasha and my child.’
Kade did not reply.
Slowly, Carter eased back and rejoined Mongrel and Mila.
‘Big?’ Mongrel asked.
‘Fucking huge,’ said Carter softly. ‘Four-man Nex patrols, snipers in watchtowers, and tanks.’
‘I hate tanks,’ rumbled Mongrel.
‘What I don’t understand is why so many Nex are there. They suddenly protecting the LVA? Mila, have there always been this many soldiers based here?’
‘No. Originally it was quite small camp, when they first start mining. Only in last few weeks have they brought in so many more men ... these Nex. Now whole area is deserted; they frighten everybody away, and even police keep away.’
‘Greasy backhanders,’ said Mongrel.
‘Maybe.’
‘What’s your plan?’
Carter smiled, meeting Mongrel’s fearsome gaze. ‘Quite simple. You and Mila wait here, I go in alone. I’ll find out if Jam is being held there.’
‘No.’
‘What the fuck do you mean, “no”?’
‘I brought you in on this, Carter. I go in to see if Jam is there. He’s part of my team, I am responsible for him getting caught... I should have been there.’
‘What?’ sneered Carter. ‘You think if you’d been present it would have made a difference? Use your brain, man - all it would mean is that I’d be here alone looking for four dead bodies instead of three.’
‘Or not here at all,’ growled Mongrel.
‘Listen, I know how you feel, Mongrel - but look at the facts. You’re a demolitions expert - that I’ll grant you. If this place needed blowing up, I’d be happy to let you waltz in with your HighJ and get the job done. But fm good at covert; in fact, I am the fucking best. And you know it.’
Their gazes locked.
‘You know it, Mongrel. I’ll be in and out in one hour.’
‘Let me come with you, Carter. It too dangerous.’
Carter shook his head. ‘No, no, my friend. You have your new companion to babysit. After all, you can’t say we really know her. What if this is a set-up? A trap.’ The word tasted bad on his tongue.
‘She not one of them, Carter.’
‘Prove it.’
‘I know it. In here.’ The huge man put his fist to his heart.
‘You know fuck all, Mongrel. The only way you come with me is if we put a bullet in her skull. Are you willing to do that? Then stop your fucking whining ... you came to me in the hospital when Natasha was dying because you needed fucking help - and yeah, I’ve got my own motivations but you came to me for a reason: because I get the fucking job done. Now leave me to do it.’
‘What you want me do?’
‘Looking at the fucking defences, I’d say an air attack is out of the question. Bastards have learned from past mistakes, eh, Mongrel? Our only option would be heavy tank back-up to take out this Nex
army -
and the other main problem is the single road in and out. It channels an attack ... but then, that will only be a problem if I bubble it.’
‘I think Spiral need to know about this place now. They can form their own conclusions.’
‘OK. You send out a WB as I head in. Call in some choppers and tanks in case the game goes a little pear-shaped. I’m going in now while we still have the cover of darkness ...’
‘Why not wait for back-up?’
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this place ... and there’s no time like the present. Time is running out. I need that machine ...
Natasha
needs that machine. Or –‘ Carter’s eyes went hard ‘I - won’t be held responsible for my actions ...’
Mongrel watched Carter disappear into the night, fading like a ghost in a bad dream. He wore his balaclava once more, and had armed himself with some serious weaponry.
Mongrel sat with his back against a tree, M24 across his lap as he hurriedly composed his digital report for Spiral and sent it on in the form of a WarBurst. Highest priority. Straight to the top.
Mongrel smiled grimly to himself.
‘Will he be all right?’ said Mila softly, blonde hair blowing in the gentle breeze.
‘Yeah, Carter is the best,’ said Mongrel.
‘Shall we keep watch?’
‘We will have to be careful.’
‘I’ve been watching these people for months and I’ve never been caught. I am careful, and I am invisible.’
‘Carter spotted you - up on that slope.’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘He is good. How you say, a killer? A psychopath?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ said Mongrel.
‘I would,’ said Mila. ‘I see it in his eyes. He is a little insane, I think.’
‘In this world,
Iyubimya,
I think we all are.’
Carter crouched in the darkness at the edge of the quarry, senses alert and ready for anything. He clipped free his Sp_drag - nicknamed a Skimmer or Parasite Skimmer -and connected it to a rock. Tiny drills ate into the stone and secured the device. Taking a deep breath of humid night air, Carter stepped off the rim and into the Kataja Quarry.
Below, halogen lights glowed.
Trucks were coming and going, engines revving in the floodlit rock arena. The LVA pump worked effortlessly, ceaselessly, and he could imagine the thick pumping of the rich fluid into the huge containers - ready for refinement and distribution around the world ...
Focus.
Jam ... location?
The obvious. Op HQ.
Carter’s boots trod the almost vertical wall with infinite care; a single loose rock, a single trickle of stone and he could be highlighted, sighted by a sniper - and pop. Dog meat. Carter took his time. He had another three hours of darkness ... there was no immediate rush.
Squatting on a large protrusion of rock, Carter waited, wire coiled behind him and giving him a life-umbilical to the rocky mother wall. He watched the Nex patrols again, his sharp eyes noting their movements, their efficiency and yet their - complacency? Or was it arrogance?
Carter grinned. He’d given a few arrogant Nex presents that they would never forget.
Moving off once more, he eased his way down the wall and imprinted on his brain a map of the layout of the military installations and buildings and the Nexes’ patterns of patrol. As he reached ground level, touching down softly, he flicked a tiny switch and the Sp_drag released from its hold on the rock and wound itself slowly together, allowing Carter to stow the device away in his belt.
He crouched, calming his breathing.
He palmed his Browning and secured the M24 carbine tight across his back. He screwed the Browning’s silencer into place and remembered the last time he had used the mod - back in Switzerland when it had almost got him killed. Now he needed its stealth ...
Carter eased his way through the bushes and rocks and halted, watching the patrolling Nex. They worked well -tight units with heavy firepower.
Carter focused on the Op HQ. The door opened and three men stepped out, moving across the flat hard-packed ground to the group of corrugated rusting buildings beside the LVA pump. He chewed his lip, listening to their conversation ... but got no clues about whether Jam was present, a prisoner, dead or had been shipped away to some distant location.