‘And what if he kills me?’
If he kills
us,’
corrected Kade. ‘Then the secret will go to both of our graves.’
‘Maybe I won’t go in search of Durell. Maybe I will head for the mountains, seek to avoid the EDEN poison. There will be places, remote pockets of the Earth where the toxin will not reach. I could survive. I could live.’
‘No,’ said Kade, dark-eyed stare fixed on Carter. ‘You go after Durell. Because, if you take out Durell, then you can control the QIV processor. And if you control the QIV processor, you control the Warhead. Ergo, you can still halt this madness; this abomination.’
‘Halt it? I thought you would
revel
in it!’
Kade laughed then, a hollow sound like snapping bones, or the crush of cockroach shells under heavy boots. He tilted his head, observing Carter. ‘What use to me is a world without victims?’ said Kade gently. ‘What use a world without murder? You think I wish to live in a beautiful Nex society where everybody is a blend of everyone else? Fuck that. I thrive on death, Carter. I live to fight. I live to kill. Get me to Durell and I will show you something you have never before witnessed.’ Kade’s voice was cold. Chilling. ‘Get me there, Carter, and I will show you something
new.’
‘Something new?’
Kade smiled with neat piranha teeth. ‘We will kill Durell together,’ he said.
Mongrel’s Apache hammered low and hard under the hot baking sun, armoured rotors thumping, Mongrel’s frown a perfect expression of annoyance. After the SP_Plot pickup in South Africa, Mongrel had drawn the short straw in his choice of aerial alternatives: the Apache. It looked very much the worse for wear, displaying battered panels, scorch marks, the stains of four different kinds of disruptive-pattern paintwork and at least fifty different bullet holes in varying calibres. (Mongrel’s words had been something along the lines of ‘You expect me to fly
that
heap of shite?
Bozhey moy!’)
But in fact the war machine was so far giving him sterling service. It had seen him cut swiftly up the western coast of Africa, the South Atlantic Ocean glittering sometimes in the distance as he crossed Namibia on his newly arranged and coordinate-locked meeting with The Priest.
The message had been a short but sweet ECube transmission from that old, mad, but ultimately religious nutcase, The Priest, delivered in his usual style and with perfect timing, considering the recent split of the Spiral group. It read:
CLASSIFIED Stacs 100836410/ ENCRYPTED SIU
SEND: PRIEST, THE, SIU23446
REC: MONGREL, THE, SIU 42880
MONGREL. WARHEAD BEYOND REACH.
I AM ASSEMBLING DEMOLSQUADS.
LAST MINUTE ASSAULT PLANNED ON DNS.
NEED TO MEET; CHECKING YOUR CO-ORDS ...
SUGGEST ANGOLA 176.534.343.444
MAY THE LORD PROTECT YOU. AMEN.
Carter must have contacted The Priest, Mongrel nought. Told him our plans, and The Priest was already in the process of gathering the DemolSquads together. That was good: the direction and organisation of the Squads would in itself save them a lot of time—and with Durell’s accelerating machinations, time was something they desperately needed. They had only hours before the EDEN rockets fell ...
Sunlight glimmered through the cockpit and Mongrel banked, checking his coordinate listings. He saw the Comanche far below, rotors turning idly, on a high red-dust plateau overlooking a massive series of rocky undulations falling in massive steps towards the deep blue of the glittering ocean.
‘Ha! Found you, you religious donkey.’ Mongrel slowed his speed, and guided the Apache to touch down gently, huge swirls of red dust dancing up around the war machine.
Mongrel jumped out and saw The Priest in his grey robes at the edge of the plateau, staring out to sea. Mongrel strode forward, sub-machine gun in one hand, and they exchanged a swift greeting.
‘The world crumbling,’ said Mongrel. ‘How many Squads have you gathered?’
The Priest gave a huge sigh—He stared down, a Bible in one hand, rosary beads clacking softly against his huge hairy chest. ‘Our numbers are severely depleted, my brother. The Lord is not smiling any longer. I fear Durell has stolen his crown and will rain down plagues on us at any moment. Our men number in the mere thousands, and our technology is wearing thin. Our stores are almost empty, ammunition is becoming more and more scarce—and Mongrel—’ He looked up then, his large gold-flecked brown eyes gazing at his old comrade, his old brother in war. ‘I am beginning to fear for my sanity.’
‘How many groups assembling?’
‘With a combination of REB and Spiral manpower, we have assembled nearly two hundred DemolSquads. But these are the last of our resources, the last of our men. Each Squad has been given specific coordinates, specific targets in the back-up of what we thought would be the EC Warhead aggressive strikes. But we can still hit Durell—we can hit him hard and, with the protection of the Lord, we can cause him great damage. If we are blessed, my child, then maybe we may gain a lucky victory. Maybe we can slow him down enough to postpone his commencement of EDEN.’
Mongrel frowned, moving away from The Priest. He stood by the edge of the plateau, red dust staining his boots, and stared at the distant ocean, taking deep breaths of salt air. It felt good in his lungs. He decided that if he ever got through this mess alive—if he survived the coming battle with the Nex and the one after that with his cancer—he would renounce his former life of brothels and kebab shops, and take Carter’s lead: he would head for the mountains. They had stolen his heart. He could marry, settle down, raise ugly little bastard offspring.
‘When did Carter contact you?’ said Mongrel.
‘He did not.’
‘Then—how do you know about Warhead?’
The Priest’s voice suddenly boomed out, rich and deep, his hands gesturing wildly through the air. ‘I myself have seen the ungodly in great power, and flourishing like a green bay-tree! Yes, Mongrel, the ungodly! But... For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and yet loses his own soul? What will a man give in exchange for his soul?’ The Priest nodded to himself, piously. ‘My friend, the journey has been long and perilous. The path is filled with weeds on which our sandals tread. Our boots are trampling the names of the ungodly into the bloodied soil of this righteous land!’
Mongrel looked sideways at The Priest.
Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
It did not fit. It no longer clicked neatly into place.
How could he have known the Warhead was off course? Not obeying its own set of rules? How could the religious freak have known such things? But then, he was TacSquad. The Head of Spiral’s Secret Police. His information network was legendary.
Mongrel relaxed a little, went to turn, but The Priest’s arm shot out and with it came the dark eye of the Glock.
Mongrel froze. ‘What game this?’
‘No game.’ The Priest spoke softly, his voice low, his eyes flashing with a dangerous glint. Mongrel swallowed, aware of his own sub-machine gun with its safety catch off, and his finger already nestling against the trigger.
‘What you
doing,
religious fruitbat?’
The Priest spoke, terribly slowly this time, his stare locked on Mongrel. ‘He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities! All we sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as the sheep before her shearers—he is dumb.’
The Glock barked, a single bullet smashing into Mongrel’s chest and pitching the huge squaddie, flailing in shock, onto his back. To Mongrel, it felt as if somebody had struck him with a sledgehammer. He lay in the dirt, racked with searing agony, and felt a shadow pass slowly over him, blocking out the last rays of the sun.
Mongrel’s arm came up holding his automatic weapon, but The Priest’s sandal slapped down hard, pinning his wrist to the ground. Mongrel stared up at the bearded face, snarling with rage, lifeblood staining his clothing, pain gnawing at him. ‘Why, you fucker? Why?’
The Priest just gave a little shake of his head. ‘Death comes to all men,’ he said sombrely. Then he lifted the Glock, took careful aim, and put another five bullets into Mongrel’s twitching, thrashing body.
The Priest stared hard at Mongrel for a while as the giant man’s frame slowly settled against the desert plateau ground and his blood flowed free. The heaving of his chest finally stilled. Then The Priest stooped, rosary beads rattling, and, grunting, hoisted Mongrel’s huge body up over his head with supernatural strength. He stood, blood dripping in tiny splatters into the red dust, a titanic robed figure silhouetted in crimson as the sun sank behind the horizon.
The Priest heaved Mongrel’s corpse over the cliff. Took a step back, wiped his blood-smeared hands on his grey robes, picked up his Bible, then moved slowly back towards the Comanche, stooping as if he carried the weight of the world across his sagging shoulders.
‘Is it done?’ came a soft female voice from inside the blood-red shadows of the combat aircraft.
‘It is done, although I did not relish the deed.’
‘Where next?’
The Priest looked up, eyes glinting like pools of molten metal in the deep red sunshine of a dying world. There was anger there. And hatred. But worst of all, there was an insane determination to do what he had to do—no matter what the cost.
‘We must kill them all,’ he whispered.
After the drop-off at the SP_Plot in South Africa, Sonia and Constanza were flown north by Mrs Sheep. Carter and Mongrel had given both women a quick lesson in piloting in case of emergencies; neither of the men trusted Mrs Sheep’s combat skills.
An ECube transmission had informed them that there was a Sentinel Corporation tower in Morocco with HIVE Media broadcasting facilities, just outside the city of Casablanca. They arranged to meet a large squad of REBS and Spiral men on the outskirts of the city. This would be the firepower. Sonia J had merely to provide the computing capabilities.
During the journey, Constanza used remote hacking tools to find out as much as she could about the HIVE Media computer systems. All media was directed through a central series of mainframes located in New York, but each individual Sentinel Corporation unit had extremely powerful remote capabilities and its own discrete servers.
Constanza was sure she could hack the systems. She was positive that she could get Sonia a transmission signal on a global scale—and failing that? Well, there were sure to be many big Spiral and REB men with big guns.
Much of the journey was spent in silence, the two women attempting to regain their strength after their recent adventures and traumas. Sonia J was weary, while Constanza too was exhausted, yet elated; in Mongrel she had found somebody with whom she had
clicked
, despite his rugged and eccentric appearance.
‘Do you know Mongrel well?’ Constanza asked after a while.
‘I have spent a few hours in his company,’ said Sonia carefully, throwing a quick glance towards the other woman. ‘Why do you ask?’
Constanza squirmed uneasily. ‘I just wondered what your opinion of the man was. What do you think of him?’
‘He’s big,’ said Sonia slowly. ‘Big, hairy, a bit brutal, if you want my honest opinion. And yet—’
‘Yes?’
Sonia looked at Constanza then, and saw it. Here was a psychological conundrum, a massively complex character about whom she knew nothing. What had Carter said in his sardonic response? Queen of the Cannibals? What strength of character had it taken for that woman to push herself to the limits of her morality, to clinically manage her emotions—just to say alive? She had not just survived by her wits, but in a bizarre way actually prospered through her quick thinking and initiative. But a little part of Sonia whispered, in the darkest recesses of her mind: still, to eat
human flesh
?
Sonia shivered.
She chose her words with care. ‘Mongrel is an incredibly strong and grounded character. He is the sort of man who is eternally loyal to a friend. With Mongrel, there is no letting a friendship slide. He is the sort of man who would protect you, who would die for you. And there isn’t much more you can ask than that.’
Constanza returned to the infiltration of HIVE Media computing systems. Sonia helped her for a little while—she was OK with the base systems—but soon the technicalities went far beyond her computing expertise. She left the hacking to Constanza, who busily wrote her own tiny subroutines in Turbo C+3 and inserted them as Trojans and Worms into HIVE’s own code.
‘You want to go to war?’ muttered the ex-programmer of the EC Warhead. ‘Well, I’ll give you a binary one.’
The Comanche flew in low over the red rock mountains of Morocco, banking and finally landing in a surge of rotor-swept dust on the outskirts of Casablanca. In the distance, Sonia could make out the thousands of buildings of the city, a huge swathe of white interspersed with sandstone and the occasional high block. Above this traditional roofscape rose the glass and alloy needle of the Sentinel Corporation tower. Modest in comparison with its counterparts in NYC, London and Paris, it nevertheless dominated the low skyline, windows glinting under broiling sunlight.