Frost cocked her head.
‘Hear that?’
‘Best if you shut up a while. I’m done talking.’
‘No. Seriously. Listen.’
Faint footfalls. Boots on metal.
‘Something’s walking the port wing.’
Brief pause.
Heavy footsteps above them.
‘It’s climbed the fuselage,’ whispered Frost. ‘It’s on the roof.’
They both slowly got to their feet and looked up at support spars, cable conduits and escape hatches, trying to project their vision through the superstructure like X-ray.
Footfalls directly above their heads. Shuffle and scuff. The thing on the roof had come to a standstill.
‘It’s right above us.’
Hancock instinctively raised his pistol and trained it at the roof.
‘What the fuck?’ he murmured.
‘Pinback,’ whispered Frost. ‘Heaviest of the bunch. Got to be Pinback.’
Hancock adjusted his grip on the pistol, like he intended to shoot.
‘Don’t. Wait for a clear shot.’
‘What do you think it’s doing?’ he murmured.
‘Messing with our heads. Trying to spook us out.’
Bootsteps moved towards the front of the plane.
Hancock edged towards the pilot seat, swinging the pistol back and forth, trying to keep Frost covered and trying to position himself in case Pinback dropped through a vacant ejection hatch.
The footsteps reversed direction. They slowly retraced their path, walked overhead and aft towards the rear of the aircraft. Bootfall reverberation diminished to silence.
‘Think he’ll be back?’ he asked, attention still fixed on the roof.
Frost grabbed the pistol with bound hands and pushed it aside. Gunshot. Spark and ricocheted whine. The bullet exited the plane leaving a neat, smoking hole in the fuselage.
Vicious headbutt. Hancock staggered backwards snorting blood.
He tried to take aim. Frost knocked his weapon aside, balled her bound fists and delivered a double rabbit punch to his shattered nose. He yelled with pain. He kicked. She twisted and evaded the flailing boot.
They fell to the floor and wrestled for the Beretta. Frost drove her elbow into the bandage covering his rotted, vacant socket. Bubbling pus and blood. He screamed. He convulsed and released his grip on the pistol.
Frost jammed the smoking weapon against his temple. He recoiled from the hot gun barrel. A faint circle and a trace of the front sight, branded on his skin.
‘Don’t move. Do. Not. Fucking. Move.’
She got to her feet. They glared at each other, both panting, both catching their breath.
‘Empty your pockets.’
He reluctantly tossed spare mags.
‘And the knives.’
Her K-Bar was tucked behind the webbing of his chest rig. He pulled it free and tossed it clattering on the floor.
‘And the other one.’
He pulled a lock knife from his pocket and threw it at her feet.
‘Sit on your hands.’
He sat cross-legged on his hands.
She picked up her knife, reversed the blade and cut her wrist restraints.
‘Over there.’
She gestured to the wall stanchion. He shifted position, as if he were about to stand.
‘No, stay down.’
He crawled to the wall. He sat, resigned, as she bound his wrists to the fuselage frame.
She lowered herself to the floor. She uncapped Hancock’s canteen and drank deep.
He used his sleeve to wipe blood from his nose and upper lip. He stared at Frost, beaming cold hate.
She stretched, massaged her injured leg.
Hancock opened his mouth like he was about to speak, but Frost suddenly froze and mimed hush.
Footsteps on the lower deck. Someone moving around in the cabin beneath them.
They stared at the trunk blocking the hatchway to the compartment below. They listened to the muffled clump of boots, the clatter of equipment and survival gear thrown aside.
‘Shoot,’ said Hancock. He spat blood onto the deck plate beside him. ‘Pull the box aside. Do it quick. Put a bullet in the top of the fuck’s head.’
Frost looked towards the hatchway. She listened as the lower cabin got ransacked.
‘Think it knows we’re here?’ asked Hancock.
‘Of course.’
She slid across the floor to the trunk. She gripped the sides of the box, prepped to push it aside, then changed her mind.
‘Hey,’ she shouted. ‘Hear me down there?’
Sounds from below abruptly ceased.
‘Pinback? Is that you?’
‘Bitch, you’re going to get us killed,’ murmured Hancock.
‘Pinback. Daniel Pinback. Do you remember your own name?’
Long pause.
‘Think, Daniel. Think back. Reach deep. Your wife. Michelle. Remember Michelle? The plans you made. The house you were going to build.’
Crash from down below. Tools kicked by stumbling feet. Pinback resumed his search of the plane.
Frost barked a bunch of take-off commands:
‘Engine four start. Spooling. Increase thrust.’
Sudden silence.
‘Yeah. You remember how to pilot a plane well enough. The very last thing you would forget.’
No sound.
‘Pinback? You still there?’
No sound.
She ejected the mag from the pistol. Couple of rounds left. She loaded a fresh clip.
She slowly pushed the trunk aside and shone a flashlight down the ladderwell.
The lower cabin was empty. A couple of lockers torn open. Tools strewn across the deck.
Frost sat on the lip of the hatchway and contemplated the detritus.
‘What were you doing down there, Pinback?’ she murmured. ‘What was on your mind?’
41
Sunrise.
Noble and Trenchman walked through the ruined compound.
Absolute devastation. Not a building or vehicle untouched.
A couple of smouldering SUVs. Melted plastic trim sent up black smoke.
‘Site Apache,’ said Trenchman. ‘CIA oversight. Been here three months.’
Scattered shell casings. Fragments of rotor blade. An exploded kerosene drum, sides peeled back like the petals of a steel flower.
‘Jesus.’
Trenchman shrugged.
‘I wasn’t here when it happened, but I heard them screaming for help over the radio. Infected broke out of their pens. Things got apocalyptic.’
Noble kicked the dirt. Enamel white shards. He crouched. Scattered teeth.
‘So how many people died out here? In total?’
‘A bunch.’
‘Where are the bodies? Who cleaned up?’
‘Handful of survivors.’
‘You’ve checked the place out? Done a thorough search? Anything to scavenge?’
‘Not a whole lot.’
‘So what’s the story?’ asked Noble. ‘What was going on out here?’
‘Do you really need me to spell it out?’ Trenchman gestured to the freight container cells. ‘Seems pretty self-evident. They were a bunch of CDC specialists out here studying the virus. Bunch of guys from Fort Detrick. They needed test subjects. They got convicts trucked in from Lovelock and Ely. Kept them penned, fed and watered, while they waited to go under the knife.’
‘Humans? Used as labs rats?’
‘Murderers. Rapists. Pederasts.’
‘But people.’
‘Barely. In a fucked-up world, this was one of the easier decisions.’
‘Kept them like cattle.’
‘Look around. Agency guys didn’t live much better. Human race hanging in the balance. It was tough for everyone. Nobody relished what they were doing. Death stink and merciless heat. All the docs, all the guards, sitting around guzzling Tequila. Cork high and bottle deep, all day long.’
‘How many guys did they kill?’