Instinct (2010) (35 page)

When Madison finally reached the top of the slope, he found Jacobs and Mills looking around the hatch in confusion.

Taj was gone.

‘Jesus, I’m never going to get used to those light bombs,’ said Garrett, blinking hard.

‘Me neither,’ said Carter. ‘Do you think it did any good?’

Garrett was on her way back to the hole, knocking into tables as her eyes readjusted from the searing white.

‘Only if they heard the noise it makes before it goes off. Otherwise, they’re trapped in a jungle of giant insects AND they’re blind. But thanks for the idea, Takeshi. At least we gave them half a chance.’

Leaning in, she shouted for Webster, but there was no reply. That didn’t stop her yelling his name over and over.

Gradually, the others were getting their sight back. The soldiers all knew that
Keep your eyes shut as tight as you can
was really good advice. But the scientists had never experienced it, so they just put their hands over their eyes and got a nasty shock when the light made short work of the cover from their eyelids.

‘Don’t move,’ Carter advised Mike, who had just fallen over a table and landed face-first on a human skull. ‘If you can’t see, just leave it a while. It’ll get better eventually.’

‘That’s reassuring,’ mumbled Mike, rubbing his jaw.

George bent down to where Garrett was still shouting into the hole. ‘Is there anything we can do to help out?’

‘Sure. Shout for the major somewhere else. You can shout for the lady or the kid if it makes you feel better. We’ll give it five minutes, then we’re on our own, looking for an escape route.’

At a loss for anything else to do, the scientists were now calling down to Level Two. Bishop, Mike and George were bent down at the edge of the space created by the explosion, while Susan and Takeshi were at the cockroach hole.

Carter walked over to Wainhouse.

‘That light bomb’s gonna give us a little time. We should check out the blast hole, see if there’s any way on to the stairs from the next floor down.’

‘Sure thing,’ Wainhouse said.

Carter kicked a few burning lumps of termite nest into the hole then watched with Wainhouse to see how far they would fall and whether or not they would illuminate anything.

The fiery boulders arced downwards through Level Two and on into Level Three, where they landed with a
phlumph
on the white leaves. The fire stayed on the top of the stalks and branches, as if they were the stiff bristles of a broom, then the foliage moved aside and let the brown chunk fall further amongst it. The bigger leaves seemed to envelop the flames and snuff them out.

‘Did I just imagine that?’ said Carter.

‘Hey, this place is full of crazier shit than I’ve ever seen. That’s
tame
,’ said Wainhouse.

At the wall, the termite nest continued through the floor to Level Two. Carter edged closer to it, taking care to test the floor before giving it his full weight. He reached into a firm-looking nest hole and pulled down hard. It crumbled a little but felt safe enough. Moving his body round, he rammed his boots into more holes and climbed out over the sheer drop to Levels Two and Three.

One toehold broke away, but he was secure enough in the other three that it caused just a flutter of distraction. He then took the bolt gun from his belt, aimed it into the nest above his head and pulled the trigger.

A small
ptttwww
was barely audible above Garrett’s shouting as a steel expansion bolt drove deep into the nest, creating an anchor for the rope.

Carter attached his grips then jumped backwards and dropped down towards Level Two. Looking around, he saw leaves behind and below him, and more nest in front.

‘Got nothing here so far. Moving down.’

He slid further until he reached the solid ground of the level below. Balancing his toes on the outcrop of the destroyed floor, he peered into the darkness behind what remained of the nest. A glint of chrome told him all he needed to know.

‘I got the stairs!’ he called. ‘It looks like there’s still some nest around it but we should be able to get through.’

‘You want me to come down?’ asked Wainhouse. By
now the other scientists had gathered round to watch Carter’s progress.

‘Just hang on while I … what the hell –?’

He felt a scratching over his trousers, followed by the sensation of something about the weight of a mouse, then more of these. He looked down, ready to fire, but saw only a few beetles, nowhere near the size of the insects they had encountered so far. There was no need to use his weapons, but he didn’t want them to climb any further, so he kicked out his foot.

The beetles responded by holding still and gripping his trousers with all six tarsal claws.

‘Get … the … hell … off …’ Carter muttered, shaking his legs.

‘What you got down there?’ called George.

‘Some kind of beetles. They’re not big, but I can’t get ’em off and they’re crawling up my pants.’

‘Hey, make sure they don’t get any higher. I think they like dark, sweaty places.’ Wainhouse laughed.

‘Ha ha. So where’s your mom’s ass when I need it?’

‘Just bat ’em off.’

‘I’m trying … just … can’t reach.’

‘Wait a second and they’ll crawl up to you,
then
bat ’em off,’ said Mike.

Carter stopped struggling and let them move further up his legs. They were quick and soon gripped the bottom of his flak jacket. He took a swipe and sent one spinning to the level below like a downed fighter plane. Another six were dispatched in the same way, and he was free of them all.

‘OK – you done?’ asked Wainhouse.

‘Yeah … but there’s … my hand is feeling kind of warm, like … Ow! Ow! God … damn!’

‘What is it, Carter?’

‘My hand, it’s burning up like hell. Shiiiiit!’

‘You’d better get up here now, man. I don’t want you having to climb that rope with one hand …’

‘Yeah, yeah, me neither.
Aaaarrfuckkkaar!
’

Now Garrett was at Wainhouse’s side. ‘Quick smart, Carter!’

‘I can’t … Mother
fucker
!’ The pain was like forked lightning inside his fingers.

‘We’ve got to get him up,’ Garrett said, pulling Wainhouse round to where they could get hold of the rope. ‘Hang on there, Carter.’

With a great effort, they drew the rope up the side of the nest. As Carter neared, she could see his hand clearly: a mess of ugly white blisters growing so fast they looked like boiling milk.

Garrett grabbed the back of his belt and wrenched him on to the floor of Level One. His eyelids were barely apart.

‘Don’t touch it,’ he wheezed.

‘Nerds, get over here! Now!’ Garrett shouted.

Taking care to keep Carter’s hand away from their skin, Wainhouse and Garrett carried him to a table where the four scientists were gathering to help.

‘What was it?’ asked Mike.

‘Uh! Uh! It was like a beetle. Jesus Christ!’ Carter gasped.

‘Blister beetle,’ said Mike. The others agreed.

‘What’s that? Is that bad?’

‘Difficult to say without seeing how big it was. Maybe it had been bred to be more toxic, because I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s a reaction to a poison called cantharidin. You can die if you ingest it but that’s pretty rare for humans.’

‘What can we do for him?’

‘There’s no known antidote.’

‘No known fuckin’ antidote? What’s that mean?’ asked Garrett.

‘It … uh … means there’s no cure for …’

‘I know what the fuck “no antidote” means. I want to know what it means for Carter.’

‘I … I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know … You don’t know … Well, that’s just fuckin’ great. Meanwhile, Carter’s hand is a bag of pus. Remind me again, what the fuck are we dragging you geeks along for?’

‘Calcium works on horses,’ said Susan quickly.

‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’ asked Garrett.

‘We don’t have any calcium.’

‘But there’s smashed labs all over this fucking place! Let’s start looking!’

Takeshi, Susan, Mike and George searched the floor around them. Bishop didn’t even move.

‘Jesus! Split the fuck up!’

Garrett had raised her voice so loud they all shot off like they’d backed into a cattle prod.

‘We won’t have long before the bugs recover from the light, so hurry up.’

‘Carter, how you doin’?’ He was veering close to unconsciousness.

‘Garrett?’

‘Speak to me, man.’ She held his good hand.

‘Garrett …’ The lids were drooping over his shining eyes. When they shut completely, Carter’s whole body went limp.

‘Oh shit. Is he dead?’ asked Wainhouse.

Garrett tore open Carter’s shirt and listened for a heartbeat. ‘Got a faint one, but it’s all over the place. Fuck! This we do not fucking need! Stay with us, buddy.’

Carter could not hear Garrett. His body was trying desperately to fight the poison that was flowing through him.

Garrett looked around at the fires burning across Level One. They reminded her of the checkpoints she’d crossed in Iraq. You drove up to them in your jeep, and they’d put anything in your way to make you stop: Iraqis dressed in US uniforms, roadblocks of burnt-out cars, even kids pretending to play. But the orders never changed: you just drove through, because if you didn’t they’d shoot you where you stopped. It was a no-win situation, because you didn’t want to kill a kid, but you didn’t want to die either. Whatever happened, you were going to lose.

MEROS had always been heading this way, and she had been given a front-row seat for the whole show.

Now there was no Webster, no way to Level Two, no stairs to climb and a warehouse full of deformed super-insects to contend with. The final curtain couldn’t be far away.

‘Garrett? Are we ever going to get out of here?’ asked Wainhouse.

She didn’t even look up.

Tobias Paine was driving down Rhode Island Avenue towards Jonathan Stern’s Foxhall Road estate. He hated coming here, because it reminded him how much further he had to go. Despite attending the Spence School and Yale, his family’s money was not quite old enough for him to truly belong in the upper echelons.

Jonathan, on the other hand, had the right education, family and accent to ensure that his passage to the top of government was inevitable. Back at Yale he’d have been one of the boys who made sure Tobias was spoken to with civility but excluded from the invitation to summer in Hyannis Port.

He turned his BMW 850csi into Jonathan’s drive and eased up to the door. It was opened by Jonathan’s butler, Harold, who showed Tobias upstairs.

‘Toby.’ Jonathan Stern welcomed his friend with a firm handshake.

‘Great to see you, Jon. How you doing?’

‘Never better. G&T?’

‘Maybe not. Got the car outside.’

Jonathan looked out of the drawing-room window and made a barely audible noise to indicate his disdain at Tobias’s arriviste choice of automobile.

‘Well,’ he said, turning back to face his guest, ‘it sounds like you might be in a spot of bother, so I’ll dispense with the chat about the Redskins, and Charlotte and the kids, except to say we’re still on for dinner at Marcel’s Thursday week.’

‘I appreciate that, Jon.’

‘So I understand you need a little favour. How long’s it been since the last one? Six years?’

‘Something like that; since the battalion went missing in Grenada. That could have been a bit embarrassing.’

‘Indeed. Well, no one’s going to find
them
in a hurry.’ They shared the kind of smile that suggested they were referring to a time when they’d skipped out on a bar tab, then sat down on Jonathan’s matching cherry-leather wingbacks.

Tobias got straight to the point. ‘Jonathan, I’m afraid it’s MEROS.’

‘Shame,’ Jonathan tutted. ‘The bughouse has proven very useful over the years. Those Saudis will certainly think twice before lowering their oil prices again.’

‘Indeed. Well, unfortunately, for reasons I won’t waste your time on, the wasps are out in the compound. All fallback methods have been exhausted so I’m afraid I’m here to ask you to approve a remote nuke.’

Jonathan raised his eyebrows in such a way as to suggest that he was only really doing it for effect.

Tobias continued. ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. I’ve already tried sending the bomb from here but the comms link is down and I can’t get the signal through.’

‘I understand, but a nuke’s a pretty big ask, Toby. Can you give me anything else?’

‘Not much. There were a few people still alive down there when I made the call. Not sure the grunts I spoke to were keen to follow department protocol, you know, just in case it meant them deep-sixing their friends.’

‘So there has also been a security breach?’

‘I wouldn’t call it that exactly. But if we can get the bomb on the way sooner rather than later, then the people I spoke to will not be able to escape and tell tales that might be awkward for us.’

‘Thank heaven for small mercies. So … ?’

‘So I just need a four twenty-seven to override the approved system and call on an independent strike from the nearest airbase.’

‘Mmmmm … Well, much as I’d like to help, I’m afraid things aren’t quite as simple as they used to be. You know how it is: post 9-11, they’re keeping a pretty beady eye on any off-piste activities, especially those that involve a thermonuclear explosion.’

‘But surely you can …’

‘Oh,
I
can still do whatever I want. It’s just that I can only pull my gun out of its holster so many times before the bullets run out. Do you see what I’m saying? So the question is, why should I do it this time?’

‘You know we’ve got a zero-tolerance escape policy on MEROS.’

‘Indeed, but I also know you could fill in the appropriate paperwork and ask General Klein through the proper channels.’

Tobias smiled nervously. ‘You’re kidding, right?’ Jonathan’s expression did not change. ‘MEROS isn’t even on Klein’s radar. If I have to explain to him about giant bugs and expendable civilians, he’s going to make me jump through hoops then ask a whole bunch of questions we’d both rather he didn’t.’