Gorgon: An Alex Hunter Novel (8 page)

Doctor Layla Ayhan pushed the long curved needle in through the flesh of the young boy’s tricep and lifted it out the other side of the vicious gash. She tugged and the skin came together like the mouth of a purse being pulled closed. She repeated the zippering stitch a few more times, felt the flesh around the wound, as if testing for ripeness, and then gave it a quick swab of alcohol. She stood back to survey her work.

‘Looks good … and you’ll have a nice scar to frighten the girls.’ She smiled and pulled off her gloves.

The boy bobbed his head and grinned back, trying to pull the skin on his arm around to see her work.

‘
Ack
.’ She batted his hand away from the wound.

The pager vibrated on her hip, making her jump. The electronic relic was only ever called by her mother and some select close friends. She lifted the small black box from her belt to read the brief message that scrolled across its miniature screen:
PRIORITY – BAYKAL – COMING IN AT LOADING BAY – 5 MINS.

She raised an eyebrow as she tapped the box against her chin for a moment.
What are you bringing me that is so important and secretive you have to use the back door of my hospital, Kemel?

She pushed some loose hair back behind her ear, turned to the boy and lifted him off the gurney. ‘Out,’ she said with a smile, and pushed him into the arms of his mother, who looked far less impressed by the wound than he was.

Layla quickly tidied her combined office and laboratory, sweeping coffee cups and food wrappers into a wastepaper basket. She went to an old wooden cupboard that doubled as a filing cabinet and pulled open the door, quickly checking her face in a small mirror on its inside. Satisfied, she shut the door, and was straightening her clothes when there was a knock on the door and it was immediately being pushed open.

Kemel Baykal stared at her for a second or two, his bushy moustache turned up at the corners with the hint of a smile, then gave a little bow. The large Special Forces commander was twice as fearsome as any man Layla knew, but in her presence he always seemed to revert to the stumbling schoolboy. She liked that.

Baykal stepped to the side to allow two soldiers to push a covered gurney into the room. He dismissed them and turned to her, his face serious.

‘A puzzle, Doctor … and an urgent one, I’m afraid.’

He flipped back the sheet, and the question forming on her lips was immediately cut off.

She approached slowly. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘Far from it,’ Baykal responded softly.

She walked the length of the gurney, her hand hovering over the figure. She reached into her pocket to retrieve some rubber gloves, pulled them on, and touched the corpse. It was rock-hard.

‘Impossible. This is not real.’

Baykal stared down at the figure. ‘I agree it is impossible. And I wish it wasn’t real. But this was one of my men, and I think there will be others.’ He looked up, his eyes tormented. ‘Layla, help us understand it.’

She pressed the man’s cheek. Powder drifted down onto the gurney. She noticed some fragments had broken away, and went to her bench to gather a spare slide and a scalpel. She used the blade to scrape the debris onto the slide, and took it back to her bench where a large microscope stood waiting. She flicked on a light at its base and placed her eye over the lens.

‘Where did this occur?’ She adjusted the microscope’s resolution, then lifted her head to look once again at the strange remains on the gurney. ‘
How
did it occur?’

Baykal was leaning against the wall, his arms folded, his face dark with concentration. He blinked at the sound of her voice.

‘The Basilica Cistern – something happened to him in a newly discovered deep vault. Been sealed for centuries, we think.’

She peered into the microscope again, using the tip of one finger to fractionally move the slide to examine different aspects of the sample.

‘Cell structures, blood vessels, muscle striation, bone – it’s all there. If I hadn’t seen this myself, I would never have believed it. Full ossification . . . amazing.’ She stood up and turned to the SFC commander. ‘When did this happen – I mean, over what period of time?’

Baykal used his shoulders to push off the wall. ‘Just a few hours ago … and it took only minutes.’ He blinked, remembering. ‘I saw it happen myself.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Hours ago?’ She leaned back from the scope. ‘Impossible.’ Layla moved quickly to the gurney, where she pulled back more of the sheet. The body lay among fragments of stone and mounds of gray dust. ‘Simply amazing.’ She picked up one of the fragments with her gloved hand and rolled it between thumb and forefinger.

Baykal sighed. ‘It’s impossible, I know. But trust me, I saw it. He must have become infected or contaminated by something.’ His eyes widened. ‘In the deepest pit, there was a huge bronze urn. It had just been opened. It was empty when we got there, but we had the feeling there had been something in it.’

Layla turned to him. ‘You think something came out of it?’

Baykal shook his head. ‘Came out, taken out, I don’t know, nothing is making sense. But could there have been something contagious in there?’

Layla wiped a finger along the body’s upper arm and lifted it to her face. ‘It’s degrading, becoming even more ossified to the point of losing its chemical cohesion – turning into powder. Soon it’ll be gone.’

Baykal grunted. ‘Perhaps to the same place where all the other bodies went. Well, is it? Contagious?’

She rubbed her thumb and finger together, and the smooth dust floated away. ‘Contagious? I don’t see how – there are no living cells anywhere in the matrix, neither internally nor externally. There is absolutely nothing living here – it’s as sterile as can be. So, no – no vectors, no transferable fluids, no biological residues, nothing.’ She looked down at the frozen face of the soldier. ‘Whatever caused this, it switched on very quickly, and then just . . . switched off again.’

She pulled more of the sheet back. ‘What is his clothing made from?’

Baykal frowned momentarily. ‘Flame-retardant wool.’

She nodded. ‘But not the belt – that’s nylon mesh, right?’

He nodded.

She reached out to the stone hand. ‘There’s a ring on his finger.’ The digit snapped off in her hand and she held it up. ‘See, still gold. But everything else with a biological base, the flesh, bone, clothing, was . . . infected.’ She pushed a strand of hair back off her face. ‘That might not be the right word –
afflicted
might be better.’

‘Afflicted, infected.’ He shrugged. ‘By what?’

Layla walked to a bookshelf, and reached up to select a couple of monstrous tomes that made her strain with the effort. Baykal rushed over to take them from her. She pointed to the table, and he set them down. She immediately began to flick through the first volume’s thousands of pages. She slowed her search, and ran a finger down one of the columns.

‘It is near impossible,’ she said, ‘and it’s certainly rare. But something like this has been documented before – just never on this scale or acting with such aggressive rapidity.’

Baykal pointed to the gurney. ‘This has happened before? When?’

She was reading down the page, her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Hmm
,
well, not exactly like this, but … here …’ She waved him over, and started to read. ‘Okay, here we go. There are actually several conditions that can cause flesh to solidify, or ossify, as it’s termed.’ She looked at the gurney. ‘Nothing as complete as that …’

Baykal leaned over her shoulder. ‘Please, tell me everything. Anything might be helpful right now.’

She saw the worry on his face. It was one of his men lying there, and more were still missing. The odds were they had met the same fate.

‘Well, there is a disease called scleroderma,’ she said, ‘which means “hard skin”. It’s characterized by a thickening of the epidermis. However, the real damage is done under the surface of the skin, where the immune system destroys the small blood vessels through the creation of excessive collagen. The patient ends up with thick and tight leathery skin that feels like it’s burning. Supposed to be very painful.’

Baykal’s mouth turned down. ‘Yes, his face . . . it certainly looked painful. But isn’t collagen the stuff they inject into Hollywood stars’ lips?’

She laughed, but stopped quickly when she saw his question was genuine. ‘No, not quite. Eventually the build-up of the leathery, fibrous connective tissue destroys the lungs, heart, gastrointestinal tract, kidneys, muscles, just about everything. Pretty horrible.’

Baykal motioned to the gurney, his voice a little louder. ‘But this isn’t just the skin becoming leathery – look at him.’

‘I know, I know.’ Layla quickly flipped through some more pages of the medical tome, running her finger down a dense column of information. ‘This is more what I was thinking of. Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.’ She looked up at Baykal. ‘Stone man syndrome. Maybe . . . possibly . . .’

Baykal leaned closer, trying to see over her shoulder. ‘Right now, possibly will do. Tell me about it.’

‘It’s very, very rare, and was described as early as 2000 BC by the early Greeks, although there are cases documented all over the world. Basically, the body starts to over-produce calcium, which causes unnecessary changes to the skeletal structure, turning the skeleton into a series of bony plates.’ She frowned as she read down the page. ‘Hmm, and not only the skeleton – eventually all the organs succumb. You can cut away the affected tissue or bone, but it simply repairs itself – not with connective tissue, but with more bone.’

She pushed the book nearer so he could see.

Baykal read the text aloud. ‘An American, Harry Raymond Eastlack, began to develop calcium build-up in his system at ten years of age. By the time he died, his body had completely ossified. He could just move his lips to speak, but everything else was as hard as stone.’ He frowned. ‘Yes, but …’

‘But the process usually takes several years,’ Layla finished. ‘You say this happened to your man in just a few hours?’

Baykal looked up at her slowly. ‘No – while we watched – in minutes.’ He sighed. ‘He just stopped moving, then dried up – turned to rock and dust.’

Layla frowned and went back to the microscope. ‘No, not dried up, of that I am sure. The cells are still hydrated. This body was not desiccated, it was just …’ she sighed. ‘I don’t know, it’s as if its life force was extracted, leaving nothing living behind. I bet if I had an electron microscope I’d see that even the bacteria on his skin and in his gut is ossified as well.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t think I have many answers for you. Sorry.’

He smiled. ‘Actually I’ve learned a lot. But I’ve also learned there is a lot more we don’t know. More work to do.’ He made a small bow. ‘As always, you are amazing, Dr. Ayhan. Ah, I almost forget. Can you get this analyzed?’ He pulled a small bottle from his pocket, and shook it before handing it to her.

‘Sure.’ She held it up, peering at it closely. ‘Looks like old fish scales … very old. The cisterns have carp – some quite large.’ She looked back at the bottle. ‘I might be wrong, and we won’t know for sure until we get it analyzed.’ She reached into a drawer to pull out a padded envelope, wrote an address on the outside, dropped the sample inside and sealed it. ‘‘I’ll send this to a friend at the museum. He’ll identify it. But it’s your job to find out how it got there.’ She placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ll figure it out, Kemel. You always do.’

He reached up to place his hand over hers, just as his phone jangled in his pocket. He made a guttural sound in his throat and pointed at her chest. ‘Don’t go away.’

He put the phone to his ear and turned his back on her, lowering his voice. ‘All of them?’ He closed his eyes, and Layla could see his teeth grinding behind his cheeks. He disconnected, but remained staring out of the large window over the city rooftops.

‘What is it?’ Layla came up behind him.

‘It has happened again.’

‘Another stone man? In the Palace Cisterns?’

He shook his head, turning slowly. ‘No, many miles away … and this time an entire army base. All dead … all turned to stone.’

She froze. ‘What? But …’

Baykal headed for the door. ‘I’ll be back – we still need to talk.’

Layla grabbed her coat. ‘We’ll talk on the way – I have to see this myself.’

President Vladimir Volkov read the single page of briefing notes. He could have spent an hour in a full briefing with his security chiefs, but he preferred the information summarized and delivered immediately – especially when it was of this nature. Though Russia had some of the most sophisticated electronic surveillance in the world, Volkov found that lowly paid people in all areas of office, in any city on the globe, were quite happy to sell out their country for the right price. Technology was expensive – people were cheap.

He dropped the page and looked up, his almost colorless eyes fixing on the general standing rod-straight before him. The man was staring straight ahead, but Volkov knew he was aware of the scrutiny. He saw the man’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, and a small bead of perspiration ran down the side of his face.

Volkov laid his hands flat on the desk and spoke slowly. ‘A Turkish Special Forces team disappears while engaging with a force or forces unknown. A platoon of eighty soldiers in Polatli is totally wiped out, without a single enemy body being recovered – again, by a force or forces unknown. General Zhirinovsky, your thoughts?’

The man swallowed again. ‘The Turks either have no idea what caused the deaths and disappearances, or they have succeeded in keeping it a secret.’

One of Volkov’s hands curled into a fist. ‘Is that so? I know of the Turkish Special Forces Komandos – pretty tough guys. And taking out a force of eighty standard military, some with battle experience – also, not easy. To do all that without leaving behind a single fallen soldier of your own forces? I’m not sure even we could achieve that sort of surgical precision.’ He shook his head. ‘No, that requires something special, something we have never seen before.’ He grinned, his eyes unblinking. ‘Perhaps, like a new weapon.’

Zhirinovsky finally looked at Volkov. ‘You think a testing ground? Possible. We know the Chinese are trialing magnetic pulse devices, and the Americans have new microwave technology. Perhaps someone is experimenting with something else … in the field.’

Volkov nodded slowly. ‘Yes, my friend, and I can smell it – something new and fantastic; powerful, unique, and unstoppable.’ His pale gaze bored into the senior-ranking soldier. ‘General, listen carefully. I don’t care who has it now, but if it is a new weapon, I want to know more.’

Zhirinovsky saluted and stood to even more erect attention. ‘Yes, my President. We will find it, and obtain it. We will not fail you.’

Volkov smiled, showing a row of small sharp teeth. ‘I know you won’t. I want a small force, one that will get in and out quickly and quietly, without a trace. I want someone who will not deviate from the mission, and will not be stopped.’ His smile widened, showing even more teeth. ‘Send Uli Borshov.’

*

The massive torpedo-shaped vessel breached the surface near the exact center of the Bering Sea. The
Yeltsin
’s 13,000-ton displacement and 390-foot length made for an impressive sight as the giant metal fish exploded out of the freezing gray water to cut the surface at twenty knots, down from its full attack speed of thirty-five. There would be no turbulence or acoustic signal, as the pressurized fourth-generation nuclear reactor gave the single muscular shaft enormous but near silent power.

The Severodvinsk submarine was one of Russia’s new attack-class submersibles, and one of the fastest in the world. Its multi-billion-ruble technologies and array of air, surface, and deep-water armaments made it a conflict-theater game-changer. But it also had other non-lethal uses – the submarine’s advanced silencing technology made it ideal for close runs inside a country’s territorial waters for surveillance, or covert pickups of special cargo … like Uli Borshov and his package.

The
Yeltsin
had been ordered to breach the surface once again when it was in international waters and well clear of the Alaskan bay where the assassin had boarded. The captain had cursed; even though they were near invisible, the American satellites could still pick up their vapor trails – changes to temperature and radiation given out as minuscule emissions. However, their guest was to receive an incoming call from Command; and refusal to obey orders would mean the captain’s next ship would probably be a fishing trawler.

Alone in the conning tower, Borshov lit one of his stinking cigars and exhaled the smoke into the freezing, salty wind, waiting patiently for the call to arrive. The large man towered over and intimidated the crew, and he knew they were as glad as he was that he’d separated himself from them, even briefly. Borshov was descended from the Bogatyrs, an ancient race of warriors from the Volga Region of central Russia. They were known for their great strength, ferocity and mercilessness in battle – traits that were in demand for the jobs he was called upon to do.

He stretched and stood upright. At six eight, around 300 pounds and as wide as a doorframe, Borshov didn’t enjoy traveling in a submerged coffin. He would have made the entire journey back to Russia topside if given the choice, no matter how bitterly cold it was. He had felt suffocated and compressed within the steel confines of the submarine’s metal walls. If ever he were captured, he would kill himself rather than be incarcerated in a small cage for the rest of his life. Borshov hated confined spaces – a little psychological tic he had picked up during a mission below the Antarctic ice, where he had spent days in caves under miles of rock, some so thin that each inch forward had to be fought for, slid under, or squeezed through.

Borshov pulled the draw cords on his hood, tightening it around his face to protect his nose and cheeks, and slitted his single good eye against the icy wind. He was tired and had been traveling for many days without sleep. There had been speeding vans, a relay of ultra-fast helicopters up the coast of Canada, and then out along the lonely cliffs up to Alaska’s western coast. From there he and his package had been ferried out to the center of the deep, dark, cold Alaskan bay to be picked up by the
Yeltsin
.

As ordered, Borshov had captured Captain Robert Graham, the American military scientist, and now had him alive and secured in the hold. That should have been the end of his mission and involvement, but when the man was drugged he had babbled about his work with the Alpha Soldier Research Unit at Fort Detrick’s Medical Command Installation. Borshov’s curiosity was pricked, and had exploded when Graham mentioned the experimental Arcadian treatment. He knew that name, knew what it referred to.

He had questioned the man further. Graham was not a brave soldier, and Borshov had only needed to break a single finger before the man started to unload his secrets. It had turned out that he was the man responsible for rescuing Alex Hunter and literally bringing him back from the grave. It was his treatment that had made Hunter stronger and faster than before. Now Borshov understood the value of this man to his command. Perhaps he would one day benefit from this Arcadian treatment. And if he had that power, even for a day, he would crush the life from the HAWC who had cost him an eye and left him buried beneath miles of rock and ice in the Antarctic.

The call came through. The big man dragged on his cigar and listened – an entire Turkish Special Forces team had been decimated, followed by a regular army base – eighty soldiers. Borshov grunted; regular military he couldn’t give a shit about, but he knew of the SFC – they were well trained. Not the best, not like the American HAWCs, but certainly hard to kill. Taking down a whole squad would have been difficult.

He puffed and nodded as he listened. A biological or chemical weapon was suspected. The few bodies that had been retrieved had been taken away for analysis, and details of the killer or killers had been suppressed. Borshov was intrigued. Turkey had been involved in several political skirmishes – their relationship with Israel was fraying due to a surge of Islamic political power in their own country; and there was trouble with Greece over ownership of the disputed Aegean Sea. In addition, there were ongoing tensions with China over its occupation of East Turkistan. But these battles were fought in closed-door meetings by old men in suits. They were not likely to generate a military response, or even an incisive covert attack. Someone or something else was in play.

Borshov blew more smoke, his mind plotting scenarios. Could it have been a weapon test? Possible; after all, Russia had been using Chechnya to field-test new weapons for decades. Borshov gripped the phone tighter, his knuckles becoming locked from the cold. He knew what was coming. If there was a formidable new weapon in existence, especially one so close to the motherland, Russia wanted it.

Borshov flicked the damp stub of his cigar into the thrashing water, and concentrated on the instructions issued by the dispassionate senior official. Captain Graham would be handed over to the Security Division, Borshov’s role as minder over. He would be met on the water by a Mi-26 transport helicopter 
–
 a massive, long-range machine that could travel 1000 miles without refueling. He would be dropped in Poronaysk on the Russian east coast, for further travel by jet and then truck across the continent to Turkey. A team of his choice, fully equipped, would be waiting for him at the border. They must be in Istanbul within forty-eight hours.

 ‘Retrieve or destroy the weapon.’ The official’s voice was mechanical, almost artificial.

Borshov grunted.

‘Classification:
vse deystviya vlasti
– other priorities subsumed.’

Borshov grunted again.

‘All actions authorized.’ The line went dead.

All actions authorized.
Borshov smiled.
Good.
He headed back down into the steel coffin to retrieve his things.

*

Borshov and his team crossed the Black Sea around two in the morning, coming ashore at Kumkoy. The weather was cool, but compared to where Borshov had just come from it was paradise. He had stripped down to a T-shirt, his huge arms bulging from the sleeves and covered in homemade tattoos that were gang badges earned in prison farms during his youth. Black grizzled hair bushed up at his collar from both his chest and back, and a protruding gut told more of an interest in power lifting than of overeating. He stretched his back and inhaled the Turkish air.

A covered truck met them, and Borshov stood aside and allowed his team to climb into the rear. As he took his own seat, he looked them over. Each of the six men he had selected were brutal-looking, icy-eyed, and gave up little in conversation, even to each other. They were his hand-picked Spetsnaz: the most efficient marksmen, electronics experts, explosives, unarmed combat specialists, and lethal assassins in the whole of Russia. If not for Borshov, these men would be roaming the underworld as muscle for crime gangs, or jailed for their psychopathic tendencies.

Borshov was larger and more formidable than any of them. A boxer in a former life, and a criminal who developed a talent for killing, he’d come to the attention of the Russian Security apparatus. He had risen in the ranks of the Spetsnaz, and eventually been withdrawn from standard duty to undertake international off-the-book missions. Quite simply, Borshov got the job done – if sometimes messily.

The truck eased to a halt to avoid the loud hiss of its pneumatic brakes. Each man jumped down into central Istanbul’s pre-dawn light, holding a duffel bag of equipment. More would be waiting for them at the apartment – everything they could possibly need for sleeping rough or carrying out an armed assault on a fortified building.

Borshov retreated into the shadows as a delivery van whizzed past. It was still a few hours before the city’s population would rise, and the more invisible they were, the more efficient and potentially less bloody their mission would be. He already knew they were only a few blocks back from the Basilica’s deep cisterns. The streets were modern and paved, and decades-old multistory apartment blocks dominated the landscape. The new entrance to the cisterns was an unassuming flat-roofed building; it could easily be missed except for the police cordon and floodlights. Borshov knew there were dozens of other less well-known entrances, all less heavily fortified. He’d also been informed that a low-ranking police officer who had been operating one of the surveillance cameras would speak to them … at a price.

At the safe house, Borshov and his team went straight to work, setting up satellite technology and computer equipment. His first task was to question their informant, and he called up the man’s image, address, and background data.

‘This man, he is here,’ he briefed two of his men, pointing to a split screen image that showed a young smiling face, street map and number. ‘Bring him to me.’

The agents looked at the data, then spun and disappeared into the darkness.

The big Russian looked at his watch – just a few more things to prepare before his guest arrived. He hummed as he went about his tasks. Well-placed informants, especially those in police or security bodies, were highly regarded for their access to sensitive, high-value data. They were paid handsomely, and sometimes remained on foreign payrolls for decades. However, they could also procrastinate, be expensive, and worse, be time wasters if they thought it might drive up their price during negotiations. Borshov didn’t care about the money; it wasn’t his. But time … that was a commodity that was far more valuable to him.

Borshov had his orders –
all actions authorized
. There would be no wasting of time on this mission; he’d make that very clear upfront.