Gora Lyavochorr, rebel mountain stronghold, present day.
“Evie,” was all Cross could say.
I watched the man. He reached for his lightweight pocket. From it, he took a crumpled piece of paper and carefully unfolded it to read. As he did so, the words flashed up in
my
mind as clear as day:
Nate, it
is
S.A.L.B.Y, but I think a variant. Please be careful. Tomorrow is already here, and yesterday is already confined to the past. Yet the past remains imprinted, and today brings me one day closer to you. I love you. Evie XXX
A million scenarios must have raced through his mind in that moment. I thought of my own wife—
ex-wife—
back home.
What would she be doing right now?
Tending to the kids, probably.
Nathan paced back and forth, a rage inside him building with every step. I somehow managed to sense it, to feel it. There was something about him I still couldn’t fathom, a connection in some way, ever present whenever he was close. From the other soldier, nothing but the persona he portrayed to the world.
“Stewey, we have to go. We have to get them out. Evie— Lieutenant Shepherd and Dr Fitzgerald, we have to go get them,” Nathan pressed.
“Woah! Just a minute there, Sergeant. We’re two men, remember? They have a force big enough to defend that installation and I’d wager it’s gotten bigger since we left. Preparation and planning prevents piss-poor performance! You do recall that from way back when, yes?” Stewall stated.
The small, stocky Scot had a subtle way with words—if you liked your words with the subtlety of house bricks, that was. I almost smiled but managed to hold it in. Not the right time for such outward reactions. Nathan spun round upon his friend, and superior, his eyes ablaze with a fire I’d not seen since the boiler-suited man came at me from the mist.
That’s it!
The penny dropped almost as much as my jaw. Barbie looked at me with a lopsided, quizzical face.
“What’s going on in there? You look like you just solved the missing link theory?” She smiled.
“Funny. I just figured something out, maybe. I could be wrong, but I think Cross there is like us. Infected,” I whispered.
“You mean you feel what I feel from him? That … something?”
“Yes. It’s like an undetectable scent, a pheromone or an inclination. I can’t explain it, but I just
know
that he is, or at the very least was, similar to you and I,” I stated, boldly.
“Do you two want to share?” Stewall called towards me.
I jumped as he interrupted the clandestine conversation between us.
“What? Um, no. Sorry,” I babbled.
“If you have an idea, spit it out, Simon,” he pushed.
“No … I, really … we weren’t talking about … What if we all went?” I mean, to get your people out. What if we all went?” I said again.
“He means
all
of us,” Viktor smiled.
Nathan stopped in his tracks. He stared at me with darkened blue eyes, his hands fisted as if he were about to take my head off. “You would do that? You would risk your life to save someone who ultimately made you what you are now?” he asked matter-of-factly.
I had to admit, his unabashed outburst took me off guard, but yes, I understood where the man came from.
“This Evie, your partner?” I asked. “She created the original virus, right? She created what’s inside us,” I pointed to Barbie who stood transfixed by the turn of conversation.
“Yes,” Cross acknowledged.
“Sooo if she created it, she also created an anti-viral to treat it, yes?” I grew more confident with my words. “And if she did that, she can cure us,” I finished triumphantly.
“Bravo, Simon,” Viktor smiled and clapped, slowly. “That’s lateral thinking. I like that. However, this plan requires the additional support of myself, and my men.” Viktor held up his hand to ward off the dual protests from myself and Nathan.
“Easy, boys. I’m in. Dr Shepherd and her entourage have significant worth to us all. As Staff Sergeant Stewall said, this will require planning, lots of planning. Word just came in of over two thousand extra troops deployed to the Murmansk base. I’ll need every specialist operative that I have and every rebel soldier too,” Viktor finished.
“You think we can do this?” Nathan queried, his rage replaced by flickers of hope.
“I think we can.” Viktor smiled. “I’ll need a few hours to gather my men, sort out the finer workings of an assault on the port, and assemble equipment. My men are scattered far and wide, I’ll send the helicopter to pick up the more distant cells.
“In the meantime, my men have orders to prep for battle. You have the full use of facilities here, gentlemen, and Barbie, naturally. There is a secure radio link for you to get in touch with whom you may need to. Make no mistake, if rebel forces, aided by British soldiers storm a major Federation port, it will not be taken lightly, I can assure you,” Viktor concluded.
Stewall’s grin got wider the more Viktor spoke. I could imagine it splitting his face clean in two, had the Russian not come to an end in time. For the second time, Cross came to me and extended his hand. For the second time, it was the barest of shakes that day.
“We will protect you, Sir,” he announced, formally.
To be fair, that was more of a hip-hop street brush than a shake.
My mind argued.
I didn’t dwell upon it, though his words seemed to be just a little too paranoiac for me.
“Well, reckon that just about reams out the arse of it,” Stewall smiled, in his inimitable boyish style. “I’ll go make a phone call or two.”
Barbie chuckled at the quip, and I couldn’t help but smile in the moment.
*****
For the next few hours, the camp became a beehive of activity. Soldiers, in various states of dress, packed, checked, assembled, and loaded equipment into the various armoured units of the base. The helicopter took off and landed multiple times, ferrying the various elite forces of Viktor’s private rebel army and guard back into the base from their respective outposts. In all, there must have been five hundred of us.
Still at least five to one on the battlefield, by my calculations.
On the plus side, if my limited knowledge of armed forces personnel was anything to go by, the men and women that came off the helicopter from each sortie looked tough. All dressed in black and well kitted out, these were the elite of the elite—highly trained individuals on Seuchencko’s payroll. Some of them stuck together in small packets and some were loners, evidently with a very specific set of skills which Viktor himself had identified and nurtured.
Nathan Cross stuck to my side like a rash after that meeting. He was never out of my sight, and I was never out of his watchful stare. I had to admire the man, one of dedication to his words. I thought about his Evie and the kind of woman she might be. I imagined someone a little bit wayward in her thoughts, to create such a dangerous element in the world. She would be creative, perhaps. A logician, forthright maybe, with little tolerance for idiots—highly intelligent and somewhat daunting to the average man. Cross wasn’t an average man; of that, I felt certain.
Barbie stayed close to Petrov, her young flame. They made a nice couple, I thought. What would become of them after this was all over, I had no idea. They came from different worlds, different countries too. Their respective smiles gave away the feelings they had for each other, a small seed of attraction given opportunity to life.
My father used to write poetry to my mother, to lift her when she felt the weight of the world—
the blossoming love before me served as a reminder that the world turned on, no matter what may be thrown at it.
If you thought half as much of your wife when you were together, you’d still have her, idiot!
the voices jeered.
Viktor’s daughter, Janishka, had shied away from Cross and Stewall. It wasn’t an outright action, nothing dramatic, but I’d picked up on it through the course of our meetings with her father. Why it registered then I don’t know, nor did I feel the significance of it. I saw recognition in her beautiful face, the barest of subdued reactions as the men were brought to the camp. The feeling came again at her discreet exit midway through the first meeting. The soldiers were clearly overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the base to have noticed, but I did. Maybe it was my own overthinking mind. What with all that was going on, her father would have placed significant tasks upon her slender shoulders.
Did you place demands? Is that what happened, idiot?
My inner voice taunted.
“Shut up!” I yelled, with my hands on either side of my pounding head.
“Sir? Are you all right?” Nathan asked.
“What? Oh, yes … it’s fine. A memory from the past is all,” I reassured.
“May I ask you something personal, sir?” Nathan queried.
“Of course. How can I help you, Sergeant Cross?”
“Do you hear voices? I mean, can you hear sounds that aren’t there? Do you feel a presence, a guidance that you can’t touch?” Cross began. The back of his hand wiped across his forehead as he spoke. “I mean, towards me and Barbara?” he finished.
His last addition to the question confirmed my original hypothesis. Now it was as clear as day to me. I could feel him and Barbie so much more than I could ordinary people. While the feeling from Cross was inhibited, restrained to a degree, it was evident.
“You were infected with the original strain, weren’t you?” I quizzed.
He nodded, his eyes now locked onto mine. He knew that I knew. He knew that I could feel him, just as he could feel me.
“What happened to you?” I pushed, eager to get the full story to vindicate my theory.
“I went to save someone, a woman, different from the other infected. I was bitten by a deadhead.”
“Deadhead?” I smiled.
“Oh, it’s just a name that stuck for the infected. There were thousands of them, unable to speak or make any rational communication. They were wild, not like you or Barbie. Animals. Savage without regard for life. I almost died, so they tell me. Your children, Tom, and Holly, it was them, they helped to create an antidote. I was the first to be given it, but I think some elements of the virus will remain in me forever. It’s the voices, you see. They call me when I get worked up. I can hear them goading me, taunting me about my own past. Do you get that too? Please tell me you do,” he practically pleaded.
“I do.” I nodded, my hand instinctively placed upon the man’s shoulder.
He smiled then, a weight visibly lifted from him.
“I thought I was going crazy or something. Evie doesn’t know of this. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.” Nathan confided. “You still love her, don’t you? Your ex-wife, Charley, I mean,” he asked out of the blue.
“The day I met her, quite randomly out in the street, she took my soul. For weeks we flirted, she was the first girl I’d ever plucked the courage up to give my number to. Long brown hair, a figure to make a man dream, and a smile which could lift the devil himself through the gates of hades.
“She taught me to sign. Together we shared not only touch, but symbols too. Within hours of being in her company, I could see my unborn children in her deep brown eyes. That was it for me, all or nothing,” I recalled. “It’s surreal, but I can feel you, your emotions, and intent even. Don’t ask me to explain how, and Barbie is much stronger, but I do feel you,” I added, steering the conversation away from my memories.
“Yes, that too.” Nathan nodded. “I sat for four hours building a matchstick boat,” he said, randomly.
“Okay.” I smiled, not sure where he was going with this.
“My grandfather, he used to build us toys. When we were kids, he would spend hours, days, building models from old wood, matchsticks if he had to. They were amazing, detailed, and precisely to scale. He did it for years before he passed away. His father was a carpenter and joiner.”
The revelation took me back to something Barbie mentioned as we stood, shivering like a couple of drowned rats, on the shores of Murmansk, what seemed like an eternity ago. “It seems I could always swim, but I never learnt when I was little. I was terrified of the water. Always.” she’d said.
My brain processed the comparisons from past to present and kicked around the new information from Cross. I’d known instantly the composition of the rock into which the rebel base was built, right down to the chemical breakdowns of the layering. I knew of the structure too, its potential weaknesses and load-bearing points, just by looking at it, though that information I hadn’t shared. My father was an architect; he would have known about composites, natural stone, and structural weakness.
“Sir? Are you still with me? Can you hear voices?” Nathan asked.
“Um, no. No voices. I was just thinking. It’s probably nothing. Come on, let’s go and find Staff Sergeant Stewall and Barbie, see how they are getting along. I could use a bite to eat too, come to think of it,” I urged.
Russian Federation Base, Port of Murmansk, present day.
“How’s he doing?” Evie asked.
“Well, I’ve managed to stop the bleeding, strap the knee, and stabilise him for now. He needs surgery as soon as possible. What about the other wounds, anything serious?” Charles replied.
“Fracture to his upper left temple, his eye will be closed for a good while until the swelling subsides. Cuts and bruising to the back of his head too. They really went to town on him.”
Gladstone returned, a curious expression on his face. “I’ve found the hatch. I took a quick recce too, figured I’d scout as far as I could, see what guards there are. There’s a tropospheric communications relay truck parked up close by, VHF signal enabled, if I can use the tops of the containers to get to it unseen, we may be able to send a message for help,” he smiled.
“Tropo-
what?”
Evie queried.
“They’re complex, Ma’am. It’s basically a four tonne mobile phone, which uses tropospheric radio transmission. Extremely high altitude.”
“Good job, Gladstone. Jolly good job.” Charles mock-punched his shoulder.
“Okay, what about the guards coming back for another round?” Evie queried.
“We have one gurney, let’s make it look as though someone else is here, laid out. We’ll pack it and cover it in the shape of a body, we can fill out a bio-suit. If we cover it over, from a distance it’ll look pretty convincing. The guards don’t seem to be that switched on,” Gladstone offered.
It was a basic plan, not entirely fool proof, though options were limited, given the equipment available.
“Okay, that will have to do. It’s risky for us all, but we have few options right now. Gladstone, you get going, try for the comms truck. We need to get a signal to Cross and Stewall at the very least. If you have time, update Tenerife too, but don’t get caught, Gladstone,” Charles instructed.
“Gene. My name’s Gene, just in case,” Gladstone smiled.
“Gene, take this. It’s the only semblance of a weapon we have, but it might prove useful. Good luck.” Evie handed the operative a scalpel fitted with a small plastic blade sheath.
Gladstone made haste towards the hatch as Doctors Shepherd and Fitzgerald turned their attentions towards the array of bottled chemicals found in a storage cabinet.
“Let’s see if we can give them a little fireworks show. What do you say, Dr Shepherd?” Charles smiled.
Evie winked. “I am partial to a cocktail or two, when the time calls for them, Dr Fitzgerald.”
They set to work to find any remaining glass vials, beakers, and plastic containers.
*****
Gladstone lay low on the top of the metal lab container. The forced air ventilation fans provided cover to aid his progress. On his stomach, he pulled himself forwards until he could go no farther. He peered over the edge of the container, a matter of feet from those held captive inside, yet separated by steel. One guard paced back and forth between the containers, evidently a sentry assigned to the radio comms truck, visible from his position. Gladstone timed the movements of the guard, his breathing subdued as he observed. After a few minutes, he calculated that the route the guard took would allow him around thirty seconds to drop from the roof of the container. If he could make the leading corner, he could take the guard by surprise. Ideally, he didn’t want to leave a body or a missing guard that would arouse suspicion. Perhaps a game of hide-and-go-seek would suffice.
The guard reappeared and shuffled his feet as he lit a cigarette right below Gladstone. Exhaled smoke from the cigarette wafted upwards, the aroma of the tobacco not unpleasant, despite the operative’s forced absence of such an addiction. Gladstone began to count as the guard rounded the corner of the opposite container. Once out of sight, he swung silently over the edge and held by his fingertips for a second, before his feet hit the ground.
The steel containers offered no cover, only straight corridors. If he were to be spotted, there would be no quick escape route. He remained close to the container wall, his back pressed into the steel as he followed the path of the guard to the corner. The scalpel blade, highly polished, served as a mirror with which to see what lay beyond the turn. He crouched, unsheathed the blade, and angled it to reflect the passage. All clear. The guard must have turned already. Good, he thought. Ever alert, Gladstone rounded the corner, the rear of the communications truck now within sight, the antennae mast fully erect.
His movements were slow, deliberate. Great care needed to be taken as he approached, to minimise noise in case the vehicle was occupied, though these trucks were usually used to relay communications from outposts or external bases—at least, that was the gamble.
A quick inspection revealed his luck was in. No one inside the truck. The guard would be approaching again shortly, though the cover provided by the vehicle would suffice to see him undetected. Crouched behind the rear wheel, the fuel tanks and batteries masked his presence as the sentry shuffled past, a cloud of blue-grey smoke in his wake. Gladstone allowed precious seconds for the guard to make his turn and then pulled himself up and over the tailgate of the truck. The thick canvas cover afforded stealth, but also limited light inside. Familiar with the series of switches, dials, and selectors, Gladstone adjusted the frequency of the radio array. An external power supply fed into the vehicle to charge the batteries for use, but also allowed static, mains powered operation.
Though many years from his training days, the layout was familiar. This kit was pretty dated, compared to the more modern satellite communications technology in use today. With the frequency set, Gladstone transmitted a series of quick codes, which had been drilled into him from the minute he’d signed the Official Secrets Act. The coding, specific to his particular unit, would be deciphered at its destination. Next, he tuned into the radio frequency of the scanner given to Sergeant Cross.
Tobacco smoke filtered through the draped, rear flap, as good as an announcement of imminent arrival to Gladstone. He ducked low, the darkness providing a shroud of secrecy, until the sentry had once again shuffled past.
*****
From the myriad of bottled chemicals, Doctors Shepherd and Fitzgerald began to make small, effective devices. Certain substances when mixed together varied in the degree of reaction from clouds of vapour to powerful explosions.
“What’s on the menu?” Charles asked.
“Well, we have a couple of smoke generators here,”—Evie pointed to three glass beakers, each with a small glass vial inside. The vial held a blue tinged substance and was itself immersed in clear liquid—“but here
...
these are my favourites, they’re the ones that go bang.” She smiled, pointing towards a stand of long test tubes. Each had a fuse of rolled cloth protruding from the top.
“I’d forgotten how much fun this could be. Did you ever foam out the med school toilets?” Charles chuckled. “I remember my first term as if it was yesterday. We, I say we, it was my idea, we took a little hydrogen peroxide and a small amount of sodium iodide. Add to that, standard liquid soap, any will do. In the toilet cubicle, we emptied one of them of water and replaced it with the equally clear hydrogen peroxide. In the header tank, we stopped it refilling and added a liberal amount of the Sodium, mixed with the liquid soap. Then, it was just a case of wait for a victim to use the toilet and flush it. Enter a toilet block full of billions of bubbles. Charles shook his head and smiled, “Oh, I see you’ve made Molotov cocktails. They take their name from an ex-soviet foreign minister you know, yes, Vyancheslav Molotov. Created originally by the Finns as a poor man’s incendiary weapon, the name was an insult towards the minister who signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Nazis in August 1939.”
“Well, you’re just full of little snippets today, aren’t you, Fitz?” Evie giggled.
“Yes, I digress, sorry. What’s in the test tubes?”
“Oh, they won’t see this coming. It’s ethanol, excuse the pun. It’s one of the few chemicals which burns perfectly invisible to the naked eye. Sure, what it burns will glow, but alight on its own and aside from the heat, you’d never know it was fire.” Evie motioned to the test tubes lined up on Charles’s desk. “What goodies do you have there?”
Charles stood next to an impressive stand of test tubes, each sealed and oddly containing several wrapped servings of powdered sugar suspended above a quantity of clear liquid. He smiled, his left eyebrow raised slightly.
“Fitz! What have you done? Come on, do tell.”
“I’ve made us some portable glow sticks, as well as smoke and heat generators, by the use of potassium chlorate, a little sulphuric acid, and, of course, sugar. To be more precise, it’s called a Redox Reaction. Give them a little shake and stand well back as the sugar oxidizes at a rapid rate of knots. The more sugar and acid, the bigger the show.” Charles emphasised, arcing his arms.
“My, my! You are getting creative. Do we have hydrofluoric acid?” Evie questioned.
“I believe so, yes. Not much, though. Enough to make a hole in one of these walls if we’re careful. It’s in the plastic container there, at the back. Protective gear with that one, it takes no prisoners,” Charles warned. “We also have a few shots of tranquiliser, presumably in case we got the chance to capture any of the infected. I’ve measured out syringes ready to go.”
“Excellent. Right, I’ll go check on Portman, see how he’s doing. With luck, Gladstone made it undetected to send a message, and we’ll hash up a plan to get the hell out of here when he gets back,” Evie stated.
“What if he’s caught, or the comms truck doesn’t work? We didn’t think of that, did we?”
“Well, if he is, all the more reason for us to keep these little beauties of sight. They could be our only chance to get out of here, or, at the very least, take as many of them out with us as we can,” Evie concluded.
“Agreed.” Charles stored their respective creations out of sight, just in case anyone should enter unexpectedly.
In the examination room, Portman lay peacefully. Evie checked the readings, and observations confirmed a steady pulse. Machines monitored his heartbeat and Evie checked Portman’s blood pressure, which remained stable. The medication given to him would allow his body time to heal from the trauma it had sustained.