Gunshot. Shattered jaw.
The magazine ran dry. She slapped a fresh clip of .308 into the receiver. She folded a fresh stick of gum into her mouth.
‘Enemy left. Bunch massing by that archway,’ she said.
‘Save your ammo,’ said Voss. ‘Let me deal with it.’
Voss set aside his smoking shotgun. He slung the strap of the SAW over his shoulder and locked a fresh belt of ammunition into the receiver.
‘Give me some light.’
Amanda threw cyalumes into the darkness beyond the temple entrance. The scattered sticks glowed ectoplasmic blue.
Six soldiers lumbering out of the dust storm into the pool of strange, chemical light.
Voss braced his legs, gripped the heavy machine gun and shot from the hip. Jack-hammer roar. Muzzle-flame. Two hundred rounds per minute. Cartridge cases cascaded from the weapon, chimed and skittered across the flagstones. His arms trembled as he fought to control the machine gun.
The soldiers were torn open. Legs scythed at the knee. Arms torn from their sockets. Smashed ribs. Fractured spines. They were thrown backwards by the impact of heavy calibre rounds.
Two of the soldiers tried to struggle to their feet. Their olive uniforms were bullet-scorched and burning. A fresh sweep of the gun. Heads smashed open. Skull shards. Pulped brain tissue. They fell dead and twitching.
Lucy ignored the muzzle-roar and gun smoke. She shook out daypacks and grabbed stuff they would need for their journey across the desert.
She decanted mineral water into canteens and Camelbaks. She ripped open MRE pouches. She tossed plastic meal pots. She kept dried fruit.
She divided the remaining ammunition. She checked her pockets, made sure she had her map and compass.
‘Everybody suit up,’ she said. ‘We’ll lay suppressing fire with the SAW, then make a break for it. You too, Jabril. You’re coming with us. No argument. I’m going to get you home.’
She offered Jabril a pistol.
He smiled and shook his head.
‘I’ll make a deal with you all.’
‘Talk later, all right? Your old pals have sniffed out fresh meat. If we stay here much longer we’ll get overrun.’
Jabril pointed to the metal trunk lying in the quad trailer, half hidden by Toon’s flak jacket.
‘Let me have the missile case. The documents. The virus. Give them to me, and I will show you a way home.’
Voss let rip another stream of machine-gun fire.
‘There’s a way out of here?’ shouted Lucy.
‘The freight train. We used it to haul Spektr. It’s still here. Maybe you can get it started. Ride it across the desert.’
‘Where is it?’
‘I’ll show you. In return for the case. Give me the missile, and I will get you home alive.
Containment One
Gaunt tied a scarf round his face. He adjusted sand goggles and turned up the collar of his leather jacket.
He was halfway across the valley floor.
He leant into the storm. Sand particles blurred like torrential rain.
He trained his flashlight on the dial of his compass. He struggled onward, alone in the dark.
He found rails half hidden in dirt. He followed them, stumbling over sand-dusted sleepers.
He entered a narrow ravine. Rough, sandstone walls. He felt the sudden change in air pressure. Wind funnelled through the tight fissure. The cyclone risen to a jet-scream.
His jacket whipped around him. He zipped it closed. He hugged the valley wall for guidance and support.
A split in the rock. A natural declivity. He hid from the storm.
A brief respite. He sat in the sand. He sipped from his canteen. Half empty. About a litre of water left.
He took the sat phone from his backpack. Flickering digits. The unit scanned wavebands, trying to acquire a signal. Nothing. Too deep in the ravine. No line-of-sight.
He packed the comms gear, knocked back Dexedrine, and stepped out into the storm. Sand particles stung his cheeks, his hands.
He followed the rails. He felt like he had walked for miles.
The track abruptly terminated in a jumble of wooden beams and sacking. He surveyed the obstruction by flashlight. A blocked tunnel. High and wide.
He pulled planks aside. He rolled an empty oil drum. He shone his flashlight into the cave mouth and let his eyes adjusted to the dark.
A ragged tunnel blasted through bedrock. Wooden props at twenty-foot intervals. Railroad track receded into shadow.
He walked inside. Wind noise dropped to a low moan. He pulled down his scarf, unzipped his jacket and took off his sand goggles. He shook dust from his ears.
Twin railroad track. His boots crunched on shingle. Footfalls echoed from the high tunnel walls.
The passageway was cold as a meat locker. Skin-prickle chill. His breath fogged the air in front of him.
A glint up ahead. A scintillating, multifaceted jewel, like a giant arachnid eye. The lens glass of a hooded lamp high on the snout of a massive diesel locomotive.
A plough-blade welded to the front of the motor house. Gaunt grabbed handrails and hauled himself up onto the nose platform of the locomotive.
He used a narrow walkway to shuffle the length of the engine. Rust-streaked service panels and intake fans. A wide engine/alternator compartment. He leant over the railing and inspected wheels, pistons and brake shoes. The vehicle seemed to be intact.
He reached the cab. The slide door was locked. He rubbed dust from the glass and shone his flashlight inside. The control panels were undamaged.
A body on the floor of the cab. He could see a boot, a spent cartridge, a mummified hand holding a pistol.
He ran his hand over bodywork. Rock dust. He looked up. A web of cracks in the sandstone roof. Heavy wooden props straining to hold back imminent tunnel collapse.
Gaunt climbed from the cab. He shone his torch further down the passage. The locomotive had been unhitched from wagons and coupled to two ornate Pullman carriages that had clearly been housed in the tunnel for decades. Wood panels. Cream livery. Dust and blistered lacquer.
He climbed a door ladder and shone his flashlight through glass fogged with dust.
An office. Brass light fixtures. Exquisite marquetry panels. A grand desk. High-backed Queen Anne chairs. Furniture centred on a heroic portrait of Saddam in full generalissimo braids.
The second carriage was a dining car.
Gaunt jumped from the coach and walked deeper into the rail tunnel. He walked past box cars, ore wagons, flatbed trucks.
He approached the cavern. The beam of his flashlight was too weak to penetrate the vast space. He could make out the curve of rock walls. The depths of the cavern were lost in shadow.
The grit-crunch of his footfalls echoed round the cave.
He glimpsed the opaque plastic of the containment dome. Something white inside. Something huge.
He kept walking.
His flashlight lit the riveted silver hulls of the lab containers.
Four metal bio-medical units. Gleaming chrome, like old-time Airstream trailers. They were lined in a row, nose to tail. Bolted together to form a single, long hermetic environment.
A mobile bio-weapons lab. Swiss made. Shipped from Europe. Dispatched to the valley the moment Koell stroked the Spektr heat tiles, and saw for himself that the vehicle was solid and real.
The lab docked at Qatar. Each unit loaded onto a flatbed railcar and draped with tarp. The lab was towed across Syria surfing a wave of bribe money. US dollars clearing the route, switching every junction, turning every light green. A tight brick of currency changed hands at a border checkpoint. Guards pulled barriers aside and let the locomotive pass unrecorded into Iraq’s Western Desert.
Gaunt examined the lab door. He stroked metal. A steel hatch, like the bulkhead door of a ship.