Operation: Siberia

- 21 -

They surprised it at a meal. It sat, hunched over another of the snow hares, its snout and front paws looking blood-black in the light of Wiggins’ sight light as it played across the beast’s head and flanks. In the gloom, and with the faint green glow hanging everywhere, it looked even larger than before, and almost spectral. When it turned its gaze on them, Banks felt it in his soul, and felt his knees go weak again.

And before the squad even had time to fully react to this new arrival, howls of fury echoed in the dome behind them, and the slap of large, naked, feet on concrete carried in the still of the night.

“A rock and a fucking hard place, right enough,” Hynd muttered.

The cave lion lay between them and the staircase that Banks had been heading for. They might be able to put it down before the Alma arrived, but seeing the size of it, Banks knew that the chances were only fifty-fifty at best.

“Plan B,” he said softly, keeping his voice to a low monotone that wouldn’t startle the beast. “We make for the Lear Jet. At least that’s defensible if it comes to it.”

He sidled to his left, and the team followed quickly, all staying in a tight unit with Galloway in the middle. The lion watched their every move, but as yet showed no sign of being concerned. That abruptly changed when another howl of rage, closer now, came through from the domed complex. The lion’s head came up, its ears pricked, and it dropped a lump of meat, already forgotten, between its paws as it rose, its attention fully on the doorway as three large adult Alma came through at a run.

Banks moved fast, leading the squad around the wall of the room. The Alma saw him, and roared again. The lion roared back at them, and attacked.

The reception area was suddenly full of noise—roaring and snarling, wails of pain and howls of fury. Teeth bit, claws tore, and everything was a blurred tumble of ginger alma and gray cat in a rolling maul across the floor.

The way to the staircase was clear for now, but Banks made a split second decision against it, and headed for the main door out to the runway. Blood sprayed, sending a hot mist in the air, but the fury of the fight was so intense it was hard to tell which of the animals had taken an injury.

And I’m not going to hang about to check.

He led the team out into the fog.

Almost immediately, all sound from the raging battle in reception area was muffled, and within three paces, the noise was almost deadened completely. The fog felt thick, wet against their cheeks, glowing softly green but impenetrable; their lights scarcely illuminated anything beyond arm’s length.

Banks pointed his weapon down to light the ground at his feet and walked quickly in a straight line, only stopping when he hit the edge of the tarmac and the start of the boggy ground. Then he followed the edge of the runway, heading northwest, knowing that they’d reach the Lear Jet before anything else.

The fuselage loomed ahead of him seconds later, but when he reached the doorway, his heart sank. The Alma had got here first. The door was gone, pulled off its hinges and thrown God knows where. Inside the plane was a ruin of torn upholstery, scattered luggage, and smeared shite.

“Sarge, you and Wiggo check the hold,” Banks said. “If our kit bags are still there, fetch them. We’re going to need all the help we can get from here on in.”

Galloway stood at Banks’ shoulder. The scientist looked pale, his eyes sunken in dark shadows, and his pallor was gray and waxy.

“How’s the ankle holding up?” Banks asked.

“It isn’t,” Galloway said. “But I can keep up, for now. I don’t know for how long though.”

I don’t either.

Banks didn’t say it. He’d lost two of his three charges already; he wasn’t about to lose the third, wounded or not.

I’ll carry him if I have to.

Hynd and Wiggins came back into view through the fog, each carrying a kit bag.

“Got everything we could salvage, Cap,” Hynd said. “It’s not much.”

“It’s better than nothing, so I’ll take it.”

He gathered the squad around him.

“We can’t go back into the complex; it’s not secure. And we’re not going anywhere far in this fog. But the angry beasties are fighting each other right now, and we can only hope it stays that way. So my plan’s simple; we head out onto the moor, find a hole, and stay in it until the sun comes up. It’s going to be cold, it’s going to be wet…”

“But still better than a maneuver on Rannoch Moor in January,” McCally added, and Banks nodded.

“Aye. Anything’s better than that. So, you all know the drill. Single file, don’t lose sight of the man in front or the man behind you, and follow me until I say stop. Anything that’s not us comes out of the fog, shoot it. Got it?”

Without waiting for a reply, he walked off the tarmac and onto the boggy tundra.

Banks wasn’t entirely sure he’d made the right decision; maybe he should have tried for the stairs while the lion and Alma were fighting, and maybe they might be holed up safe in a larder or cellar by now. But his gut told him that this current plan was the lesser of two evils, and it was his gut that had kept them alive so far on this trip; he had to trust it now.

Within a few paces, they reached a wide gap in the enclosure fencing, where metal poles as thick as Banks’ arm had been torn from the ground and bent at almost right angles before being tossed aside. They went through, deeper into the fog. Banks tried to maintain a compass in his head, looking for reference points that might help him retrace his steps if required, but the fog was thicker here, and there was just his light showing him his boots and the mire below him.

Every footstep in the boggy ground was like wading in thick treacle that threatened to pull off his boots at any second. Galloway with his bad ankle must be in agony already, and Banks knew they weren’t going to make it far. But after several minutes, he smelled a stronger stench than anything else they’d encountered, and his gut feeling told him he’d been brought to the right place when they descended into a hollow, and the smell got stronger still.

“Bloody hell, Cap,” Wiggins said quietly. “It smells like shite here.”

“That’s because it is shite,” Banks replied. “Mammoth shite at a guess, and plenty of it.”

“Then let’s get the flock out of here before I spew,” Wiggins replied.

“Nope, get settled, we’re staying put. I’ve seen it in Africa; they use elephant shite, smeared on the houses to keep predators away. And it works.”

“Aye,” Wiggins said. “The lad next door to me in Glasgow used to use dog’s shite to keep his mother-in-law away. That worked too. But I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now.”

“Tough,” Banks said. “Just think yourself lucky I don’t order you to roll in it—although it might come to that yet.”

The hollow was little more than an eight-feet-wide, four-feet-deep cavity in the tundra. The bottom was damp, but not any more than the rest of the moorland. Large clumps of darker material, accumulated dung of the mammoth herd, lined the bottom, and some of the walls.

“Cozy,” Hynd said laconically.

“We’ve slept in worse places though,” McCally added.

“And with smellier women too,” Wiggins replied. “Remember Brenda in Belfast?”

“Stow it, lads,” Banks said quietly. “We’re supposed to be hiding, remember?”

Galloway had already sat down in the bottom of the hollow ignoring the cold damp that must already be seeping through his clothes in order to check on the bandages at his ankle. The scientist looked up at Banks and smiled wanly.

“I’ll live—I hope. But I won’t be walking any farther for a while.”

“With any luck, you won’t have to,” Banks replied. “Now, quiet lads, and lights out. Take a sector each, and don’t shoot unless you really need to. Get settled as much as you can. We’ve got a long wait ‘til morning.”

By Banks’ reckoning, the quadrant he’d chosen to stand watch over was the one that faced directly back to the complex, but he saw nothing but fog, still glowing faintly green where the aurora seeped through from above. There was a slight breeze wafting the fog to and fro, sending it swirling at times, but there was no sound now, and nothing to see. If he turned to his left or right, he could just about make out the darker shadows of the other men, Wiggins and Hynd, but when facing forward, it felt like he was lost, alone, in the green glow.

The lack of anything to concentrate on, anything to look at or listen to, meant that it was a struggle to maintain focus. His mind kept slipping away to earlier events of the night, of poor Waterston being squeezed to death, of the mayhem in the cave mouth, of the flight in the dark through the domes, and the bloody battle between lion and Alma. He wondered whether one side had prevailed over the other, and hoped that both sides had taken enough damage to keep them quiet, until morning at least.

That hope was dashed when he heard a distinct, and loud, sniff coming out of the fog, only feet in front of him.