Operation: Siberia

- 9 -

There were no more alarms until dawn streaked the sky and showed in the plane’s windows, but any thought Banks had of sleep had gone with the appearance of the big cat. He remembered only too well the efficiency with which it had dispatched the hare; and now that it was out of the cage, Banks wasn’t about to let his guard down, even by an inch.

Wiggins had no such qualms, and was asleep again almost as soon as they’d closed the cockpit door after the lion’s appearance, but he was the only one. The three scientists gathered among the debris around the buffet table, attempting to salvage what they could from the spillage. McCally managed to rustle up coffee for everybody, and Banks endured a continuous litany of theories and questions from the scientists.

“Look,” he said after a time, “I only know what you know. Somehow, the big cat got out and is on the loose. Whether that’s what caused the alarm, and whether that was what got Volkov, I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a lion that got into the cockpit and tore out the wiring—unless Volkov was programming the beasties for smarts as well as bulk?”

Waterston went white at that, then shook his head.

“No,” the scientist said. “This is something else, I agree. And I’m coming round to your way of thinking—I think this is in Galloway’s domain. But we won’t know until we go and look.”

Banks shook his head.

“Too risky,” he said. “You’re all staying here with Cally and Wiggo. The sarge and I will head over to the complex and see what’s what; see if we can find some way to get a message out.”

“That’s not going to work,” the scientist replied. “And you know it. You don’t know what to look for, in the first place. And in the second, we came here to investigate, and I’m bloody well going to do so.”

“I suppose shooting him isn’t an option?” Hynd said with a laugh, and Banks managed a smile.

“Don’t tempt me.”

But he saw that the scientist would not be swayed.

“Okay then, if one goes, we all go. But you do what I say, when I say. If I say run, you leg it. I’m guessing the big cat is going to prefer to be outside in the wild rather than back anywhere near the cages; but we can’t take anything for granted. Our first, our main, objective is to get rescued, so we find a phone, or an internet connection; anything we can. Only after that will I consider any other investigations. Agreed?”

Waterston didn’t look happy, but it was Banks’ turn to be obdurate, and he was just as good, if not better, at that than the professor.

They finally woke Wiggins at dawn, and they all had coffee, and what scraps of food had been salvaged, before Banks got them organized to head out.

“Leave our kit bags here,” he said. “We’re going in fast and light, and if we get separated at all, this is home base; it’s probably the safest spot, even despite the big hole in the front window.”

The scientists looked pale, terrified even, but the younger two seemed determined to follow Waterston’s lead, and Banks had to admit that the prof had a point—the boffins would spot anything out of the ordinary long before any of Banks’ team.

“Ready?” he asked. By this time, full daylight showed in the windows. Banks had checked out both sides of the plane; there were mammoths out the left-hand windows, and a quiet, seemingly dead, complex out the right side. There was no sign of the big cat, but it was definitely out there somewhere, he had no illusions about that.

And what else is out there with it?

That was the question he hoped to get an answer to as he opened the door and kicked the stepladder down out of the plane.

“Move out,” he said.

There was no sign of the previous day’s fog, and they had a clear view over the runway. There were no bodies, neither Volkov’s nor the pilot’s. There was a red, gory, scrape where Volkov had been dragged off, the streak showing for several yards on the thick grass before the trail got lost in the mire. They found a single paw mark in mud, the telltale lobes of a cat the size of a small car, but there was no other sign of the beast, or the bodies it had obviously carted away.

Let’s hope its hunger is sated, for a while anyway.

The mammoths seemed unperturbed, and were milling around in their fenced-off area, feeding as contentedly as before; if the lion was around, it wasn’t bothering the bigger beasts.

Not when there’s easier prey available.

Banks pushed that thought away; the worst thing he could do was to consider himself vulnerable. The squad was well trained, well armed, and more than a match for any beast, no matter how big. As long as he believed that to be true, then they were the predators here.

“Sarge, Wiggo, watch our backs,” he said. “Cally, you’re with me.”

They headed across the runway at a fast walk, making for the quiet complex.

The main reception area was as dark and empty of life as it had been when they’d left so quickly the night before. The first signs of mayhem were only apparent once they entered the area under the domes. The first body they found was one of the young, white-coated scientists who’d shared Banks and Hynd’s table at their meal. Her head sat at an unnatural angle to her shoulders, her belly was open, guts spilling out from under the white coat. She had been thrown more than once against the glass wall of the lion’s cage; the glass itself was smeared with blood, and cracked along its whole length. But the lion’s means of egress had eventually been simpler still. The large patch of the dome leading out to the runway area had been caved in, forced inward from the outside. The lion had definitely escaped, but it was now obvious that it had help. There was no sign of any of the hares; if they had any sense, they’d be staying in their burrows for a while longer yet.

The huge dome of the aviary had also been breached—the cause was equally obvious, as two huge stones lay on the floor surrounded by broken glass and bent steel. Whatever had launched the rocks from outside had to be of prodigious strength for Banks knew just by looking at them that he wouldn’t be able to lift them off the ground, never mind throw them over a distance of many yards. He looked up to the tops of the conifers, but the branches were bare; the thunderbirds had gone to join the lion in freedom.

They found the rest of the young scientists in the corridor to the lab area. They were clustered around the door, their blood, guts, and torn limbs decorating the brilliant white tile with red. It looked like they’d been trying to make an escape but had been caught in the doorway; caught, and slaughtered, as efficiently as if they’d been stripped and dismembered by a butcher’s knives. Banks didn’t have to look too closely to know that there were too few limbs among the carnage for the number of torsos.

Whatever it is, it took a snack to go.

One of the younger Englishmen, Galloway, had lost all his color, and looked unsteady on his feet. Sergeant Hynd put a shoulder under his armpit, and kept him upright.

“Come on, lad,” he said. “Keep your eyes shut if you have too, but I’ve got you. Let’s get through to the lab and cleaner air. We need to find some comms.”

Banks led as they picked their way through the butchery, trying not to step in anything too viscous. But if they were hoping to find cleaner air in the lab, they were to be disappointed.

The first thing Banks noted as he led the squad into the large dome was that the wolf cage was on its side, and lying open. His legs went weak, the memory of the big male’s hungry stare still all too clear in his mind, but he saw, without having to move too close, that the cages were empty, and the lab quiet. Like the lion and the thunderbirds, it appeared that the wolves had taken their chance of freedom.

A breeze blew against his cheek, coming from a large breach in the dome over to Banks’ left. And there wasn’t going to be any chance of comms, at least not here. All of the computers, laptops, terminals, anything electrical at all, was piled high in smashed and shattered pieces in the center of the floor, as if someone had been preparing for a bonfire.

At least the wind kept some of the stench away, but not all. Two of the Russian workers that Wiggins had been drinking with earlier lay, face up, on their backs, spread out on the top of the long trestles. They were naked, and had been opened up from crotch to neck by something intent on getting at their innards. Their ribs were torn asunder, gruesome shattered shards of bone poking out of the red, gaping holes that remained.

“This looks ritualistic,” Waterston said.

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Wiggins said in reply. “It looks like bloody fucking murder to me.” The private turned to Banks. “I’ve never seen a fucking cat, no matter how big, capable of this kind of shite. Have you, Cap?”

It was Galloway that replied.

“I’ve seen its like before,” he said quietly. He was still as white as before, but was standing on his own, and had even moved closer to the bodies on the table, his scientific curiosity overriding his nausea at the sight. “In Africa; a troupe of gorillas caught a chimp; the end result was much the same as this.”

“Fucking gorillas? Don’t talk shite, man,” Wiggins said, and again turned to Banks for confirmation, but Banks didn’t have an answer for him.

But I think I know where to look for one.