Operation: Siberia

- 3 -

They got their answer after the scientists had their breakfast. The small stout Russian, now divested of his fur and showing off a Saville Row suit that would cost more than Banks made in a year, climbed up on top of the long bar to address them. He clapped his hands, twice, calling for silence, and waited until all eyes were on him before starting to speak.

“Fifteen years ago, the ground you stand on now was an icy bog of tundra and melting permafrost, an ancient river valley and raised beach long abandoned by humans as being too inhospitable for life. Yuri Gregorov was the only person in a forty-mile circle, a hunter from the closest village to the north, having ventured to the limit of his range in what passes for summer here, in search of beaver pelts. He thought he had struck lucky when he saw crows fighting over a carcass, but when he shooed them away, he found, not a fresh kill, but an ancient one. The ginger hair did not belong to any animal Yuri was familiar with, but he pried the pelt out of the thawing ice and took it home with him.

“It was almost winter again before anyone took serious note of Yuri’s find, but word finally came to me of a great wonder, for the pelt was of a young mammoth, almost perfectly preserved, even including some intact internal organs. I had to have it, and I used every ounce of my persuasion and leverage with the powers that be to be allowed free agency in its use.

“That next summer, our work here started in earnest. The scientists here know of my enthusiasms in this area; I may have become rich on the spoils of the Russian shipping fleet, but I like to think of myself as a philanthropist. I have been instrumental in saving populations of several endangered species in these wilds, and there are still tigers in the forests in the south that owe their existence to my diligence. But as soon as I saw the mammoth pelt, I knew—there could be something even more magnificent in my future.

“Over the intervening years, I have made use of that pelt—you have seen the results of that for yourself. But there are other, even greater wonders that have emerged, or been brought forth, from the frozen plain, and I, and my team here, have been busy.

“It is the results of these endeavors that you have been brought here to witness. You should think yourselves most fortunate, my friends, for you will see things that none apart from my own people have yet seen; you will be the first, and you will take my vision to the world.”

Banks was struggling with a sudden idea that he had been dropped into a Bond movie by accident, for that self-same speech could just as easily come from any of the incarnations of Ernst Blofeld. He was still smiling inwardly at the thought when Volkov clapped his hands again.

“And look, the elements have heard me, and even they bend to my will.”

Everybody in the room turned at the same time to look out of the large picture window. Nobody spoke, all struck dumb by the scene as the fog slowly rolled away, revealing new vistas, new wonders, as it cleared.

The mammoth they had seen earlier was still standing in the same spot just past the runway and the parked Lear jet, but now they could see where the answering chorus of bellows had arisen. The beast was only one of a large flock, a score and more of sizes ranging from full adult male to three that looked to have only recently been born. The beasts, ranging in color from almost ginger to a dark, muddy brown, were spread out in a fenced-off, wide, marshy area stretching away from them to where the fog rolled off over a distant shoreline.

That was the view to their right. To their left, there were two other large penned enclosures, also in marshland, although this time stretching and rising up in a slope to a tall, almost sheer, set of slate-gray cliffs towering several miles away, and half that again high. The nearer of the two enclosures, which butted up close to the edge of the end of the runway in front of the buildings, contained an even larger herd of animals, and although these weren’t as large, their sheer number made them impressive. They were deer, shaggy like the red stags on Scottish hillsides, but twice as tall, with a span of antlers wider than a man. Banks had seen their like before, but only in recreations in museums; giant elk, such as had walked the marshes of Britain, herding again here, several hundred of them, in the marshy tundra. Once again, they ranged in color, darker than the mammoths, more red but less ginger, and they came in a variety of sizes and ages. Banks was so rapt in his attention that he almost didn’t take note of the occupants of the third pen.

At first, he took them for hairy black cattle, for these were smaller than the mammoth, smaller than the elk, but he saw that they still must be almost six-feet tall, and almost barrel-like. It was only when he saw the single, curved, horns on their snouts that he realized he was looking at another beast rescued from the past. These were wooly rhinoceros, only a handful of them in comparison to the larger herd of elk, and spread out over a much bigger area of marsh. He counted a dozen, although he knew there could be more in dips and hollows of the undulating ground.

Wiggins broke the silence.

“Aye, very nice I’m sure. But they’re a bit bloody boring, just standing about there, bollocks-deep in mucky water. And the fucking stink alone is going to keep the punters away. What’s the big selling point? Do they do tricks?”

If Volkov took umbrage, he didn’t show it.

“This vista represents a pinnacle of human scientific achievement,” he said. “I do not expect the common man to recognize the beauty of it. But do not fret. There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Come, let me show them to you.”

Volkov led the party—three scientists, Banks’ team, and three of the Russian workers bringing up the rear. They went down the staircase to the main foyer, then headed left, and through a wide double door that led straight into an open, concrete-floored area under the high glass domes they’d seen outside.

It was warmer here, but not stiflingly so. The vegetation in the domes wasn’t lush and tropical as Banks had been expecting, but was mainly spindly conifers, rough gorse and shrubs, and more of the thick matted grass that made up the moorland outside. Each separate dome contained a cage, delineated by inches-thick glass that lay in a curve between the concrete walkway and whatever was kept within. Volkov led them to the first such area on the left.

They stood with their noses to the glass, looking down into a sunken area of grassland. At the back of the cage, the ground rose up in a slope where it was piled against the outer wall of the dome. The slope was more like dry, bare earth than grass, and was punctuated with a series of holes—burrows by the look of them.

“Badgers?” Hynd said at Banks’ right. “Looks like a sett we had out the back of the school when I was a lad.”

“No, not badgers,” Volkov replied, and at the same time, a gray-faced beast looked out of one of the burrows, then hopped out fully onto the slope. At first, Banks thought it to be one of the large South American rodents—Coypu or Capybara maybe. Then he saw the hind legs, and the shaggy, almost white, fur. It was a mountain hare, and he’d seen their like before on remote Scottish hillsides. But he’d never seen one this size; it was as large as a good-sized dog. He was still marveling at it when two, three, half a dozen more of them emerged from different burrows, hopped down the slope and began to feed on the thin grasses and mosses of the boggy ground directly under the watchers’ gaze.

“We’ve found partial pelts of these all through the melting permafrost of the delta,” Volkov said. “And working with them has enabled us to perfect the techniques we are then able to apply to the larger fauna. It does mean that we have managed to breed rather a large number of these hares, for they are as fecund as your British rabbits. As such, we have had to find a use for them.”

He nodded, and one of the large Russian workers moved away to the next dome in the line away from them. Whatever they kept in that one preferred more foliage, more cover, for the conifers were tightly backed in a thick copse, and the dome was dominated by a profusion of huge boulders, some as big as a small bus, scattered willy-nilly all over the boggy ground. The Russian went to a touch-screen panel embedded in the glass, and keyed in a four number passcode that sent a singsong tone ringing in the empty space. Then there came a screech, and they saw a sliding barrier open up to a foot high between the hares’ cage and the one beyond.

At first, the hares took no notice, but as the extent of their feeding spread, they moved, slowly but surely, toward where the open barrier gave them access to more luscious ground beyond. One of the smaller, probably younger, hares hopped under the barrier and began feeding on the grasses on the other side.

“Aye, very nice,” Wiggins said, his sarcasm coming through loud and clear, but if he was about to add anything to his statement, it died in his throat. Something huge came out of the conifer copse, so fast that Banks hardly had time to register its presence before it leapt, an impossible bound, ten yards or more across open ground, to land almost on top of the hare. The crunch of the hare’s bones breaking was loud even through the glass, and a mist of blood spray hung in the air for a second while the watchers gaped at the predator as it started to eat.

“Tell me that’s not a fucking saber-toothed tiger,” Wiggins whispered.

Volkov laughed.

“That’s not a Smilodon,” he said. “Although I would dearly love one, the source materials we need to have a specimen of our own to study have not yet turned up.”

The huge beast was making short work of the hare. The rest of the hares had already disappeared back into their burrows, and when Volkov gave another nod, the Russian worker entered a code in the keypad and the barrier between the cages slid down to block off access.

Banks couldn’t take his eyes off this new beast. It must have been nearly nine feet in length from nose to its hind legs, and a long, swishing, bushy tail added more length again to that. The head was enormous, and when it lifted its snout and looked Banks in the eye, he knew what he was looking at, despite the fact that the shaggy fur along the flanks was almost silver, and barred with darker gray stripes. The almost black mane was the giveaway.

“It’s a fucking huge lion.”