‘But now we have Spektr. This is our chance to observe the pathology of this illness first-hand.’
‘Will Hassim die? Can he be saved?’
‘There is nothing I can do for him.’
‘He’s my friend. He’s a good man.’
‘The virus is already replicating in his bloodstream, attacking sheath-fibres in his brain and spinal column. The process is irreversible.’
‘Dear God.’
‘I’m sorry. But he’s not your friend any more. He is Test Subject Number One.’
Battalion
Huang wandered through the temple precincts, gun in hand, looking for a good place to die.
The moon was eclipsed by cloud. The night wind brought a rising sandstorm. He took a Maglite from his pocket and switched full-beam.
Movement up ahead. One of Jabril’s undead legion sliding along a temple wall. Spines and tumours erupting from rotting flesh. The mutant creature ignored Huang and kept walking.
I’m not a target, thought Huang. They know I’m infected. They know I’m one of them. Must be the smell. They sniff out fresh meat. I have taken on their signature stench of disease and death.
He found shelter. Some kind of subsidiary chapel built against the high perimeter wall. The little chamber was intact. The walls and roof had withstood squalling desert cyclones for countless aeons.
His flashlight lit a small dais with a scorpion chiselled on the front. An altar dedicated to a minor god.
He reclined on the step. He switched off his torch and sat in darkness. He listened to the mournful whisper of the breeze outside.
Huang always knew he would die young. A gut conviction, ever since he was a kid. He carried a tarot deck in his backpack. Each time he shuffled, he drew the death card.
He always pictured a soldier’s homecoming. Sent back to Greenville, Michigan, in a coffin. Unloaded from a C-17 Globemaster, folded flag and dress-blue photograph on the lid. White-gloved reservists firing a blank fusillade as his casket got lowered into the ground.
He held the Glock. He stroked the rough polymer grip with his thumb. His whole life — boyhood, adolescence, college and army years — concluding in this godforsaken necropolis, miles from home. His body would not be discovered for decades, possibly centuries. Nothing but a pile of dried bones picked over by men from some science-fiction future, so augmented by cybernetics and gene manipulation they were no longer homo-sapien. They would see rotted teeth plugged with amalgam, an old break in his leg crudely pinned with titanium screws. They would think him impossibly primitive, some kind of troglodyte.
Or maybe his body would never be discovered. His bones would crumble to dust. He would merge with the desert. Meld with an ocean of silica.
He arched his back. Sudden indescribable pain as if his spine were white-hot metal. The disease, the strange parasite boring into his central nervous system.
He crouched on all fours in the dark. He ran his hands over the flagstones, trying to find his flashlight, trying to find his gun. He sobbed. He wept blood. He shook his head, tried to clear his thoughts.
‘My name is… My name is…’
He couldn’t remember his name. Mind slipping away.
A last, random memory:
The sweet smell of cut grass.
Huang crawled towards the chamber doorway. He hauled himself to his feet. Scudding cloud. Brief moonlight.
The thing that used to be Huang roared into the rising storm.
‘Did you hear that?’ asked Voss. He stood at the temple entrance, staring into swirling sand.
‘What?’
‘Sounded like a scream.’
‘Man or a woman?’
‘Not sure.’
Lucy pressed transmit.
‘Mandy? Mandy, can you hear me?’
No response.
‘I heard something a couple of minutes ago,’ said Voss. ‘Over the comms. Sounded like her voice. I couldn’t make out words. The signal was breaking up. Might be atmospherics.’
Flickering light. The remaining arcs were dying. Softening to an amber glow as the batteries ran dry.
‘What about the gold?’ asked Voss.
‘Hide it, I guess.’
‘Where?’
‘Let’s ask Jabril.’
Lucy crouched next to the extinct campfire.
‘Hey. Jabril. You know a lot about this place. Where should we hide the gold?’
‘Just leave. Forget the gold. Take all the water you can carry and walk out of this valley. Right now.’
‘Two of my boys died today. I won’t let it be for nothing.’
Jabril sighed.
‘There’s a crypt beneath this temple. A deep catacomb.’
‘Where’s the entrance?’
‘There are steps out there, among the ruins.’
‘I don’t want to head outside with those fucks running around.’
‘I heard a rumour there was a second entrance. Here, in the temple.’
‘Yeah?’
‘A slab by the altar. I’m not sure which one.’
Lucy and Voss walked across the vast hall to the altar. Lucy crouched and brushed sand from granite flagstones. One of the slabs had been etched with astrological symbols. Constellations. Planet and stars.
Lucy stood and stamped her boot. Hollow thud.
‘Bingo,’ said Voss.
‘Maybe Jabril is right,’ she said. ‘We should just grab our shit and go.’
‘I’m not leaving the gold,’ said Voss. ‘It’s ours. We earned it. We stash it and come back with fresh choppers. We don’t leave it out in the open so the next fuck that wanders through this valley can fill his pockets.’
They fetched a tyre iron from the truck.
They crouched. They hammered the crowbar between flagstones and levered the granite slab from its bed. They strained to push the slab aside. Grind of heavy stone.
Lucy shone her barrel light into the dark aperture. Ancient steps descended into subterranean darkness.
A vaulted catacomb. Grotesque hieroglyphs. Pillars and archways.
‘Doubt anyone will go looking down there, among the bones.’
Voss carried a box of gold from the armoured truck. He set it down on the flagstones and flipped the lid. He pawed through the jewellery. He selected a gold signet ring and twisted it on to his finger.
He held out a silver watch. The face was ringed with diamonds.
‘Rolex.’
Lucy shook her head.
‘I don’t want a souvenir. I just want to get out of this fucking hell-hole.’
Voss clipped the watch to her wrist.
‘We might as well get something out of the trip, right?’
Footfalls. Something scrambling up the crypt steps.
Lucy stood over the crypt entrance and trained her barrel light down into the subterranean gloom.
Amanda, dazzled, shielding her eyes from the beam.
‘Mandy. You okay?’
Amanda scrambled clear of the crypt. She dropped to her knees and tried to slide the heavy lid across to seal the crypt entrance.
‘Help me, for God’s sake.’