Instinct (2010) (6 page)
Using the rear-view mirror, he looked at Laura, squashed up against the side window. She was staring at nothing, overcome by too many different thoughts to be able to concentrate on any one of them. They often reacted like this, and Major Webster could not honestly say it surprised him.
They had followed the usual stages of the procedure: Laura had informed anyone who knew about Andrew’s disappearance that he was indeed alive and well and had come home late after visiting his dad’s grave. He had miscalculated the fare home, which had meant walking several miles, getting lost on the way and of course he was incredibly sorry and thought that
his mum had known that was what he was doing. The story had holes in it that could easily accommodate Major Webster’s Land Rover but the people who heard it were tired and relieved and wouldn’t think to ask questions until the next day. Laura also told them that she and Andrew would be taking a short break and that she would be back in touch soon. Again, not like her, but by the time her actions were questioned, she would not be available to provide any answers.
The roads they were driving on became smaller and scrappier until they were using all the Land Rover’s torque and horsepower to negotiate a steep dirt track closely flanked by birch trees. Five minutes later, they came to a juddering stop. In the darkness, Laura could just make out a wide strip of tarmac that disappeared into the gloomy distance. There was a hut on one side of it with a corrugated iron roof, and it was here that Webster parked the car.
Laura looked out through the other windows for some clue as to what this place was and why they might have come here, but before she had a chance to speculate, a row of lights illuminated the centre of the tarmac and she heard the unmistakable sound of an approaching airplane.
At first she thought there must be a small airport nearby, but as the noise grew louder, finally pounding her ears with an overpowering scream, she realized it was meant for them. It touched down at the other end of the runway before taxiing in their direction.
It came to a halt just in front of the Land Rover, the
cargo ramp lowering a few feet from its front bumper. At the sound of metal on concrete Major Webster drove up the black steel incline and into the rear of the Spartan. The ramp started to rise before he had even applied the brakes, and they were manoeuvring towards the other end of the runway before he’d switched the engine off. Madison turned the plane around and within seconds they were speeding over the line of lights and back into the air.
As they gained altitude Laura followed the lead of Webster and Carter and got out of the car. The inside of the plane was like nothing she had seen before. It was off-white, with jutting beams of metal that stretched across the ceiling. Webbing and cargo jutted and curved in and out of dark recesses, and the far end was stacked with a dozen crates, leaving only a small gap between them for access to the cockpit. Behind the boxes the seats were set out in rows, like in a passenger plane. (The Spartan’s original layout of a basic bench along each side had left the team exhausted and burning with cramp, so Webster had arranged for the interior to be refitted for a little extra comfort.)
To Laura’s further unease, five of the ten seats were occupied by soldiers. Looking at them in the anonymity of their camouflage, she was trying hard but failing to think of a good situation that involved seven military personnel and an airplane. There was a seat on its own near the back that had a view of the dark nothing outside, so she slid into it and resumed her position, squashed up against the window.
None of the other soldiers acknowledged her, giving her no more than a second’s glance as they turned to greet Carter and Webster. She was surprised to see that at least two of them were female, although it was hard to distinguish in the low fluorescent light, covered as they were with half-grapefruit headphones that made them all look alike. Andrew still infused her every thought, but against tough competition: the sensory and conceptual overload she had to process made her feel like she was underwater, straining to make her way to the surface.
An hour into the flight, Laura had no idea where they were. Even if she had paid attention since take-off, flying at night with nothing to help give her bearings meant she could be anywhere an hour’s plane ride from Norfolk. Did that mean France, or Denmark? Ireland, or the Atlantic Ocean?
At two hours, she felt the engines winding down and the forward movement slowing. They seemed to be landing, so she looked out of the window for any clues to where they were and where they might be holding Andrew. She had imagined him in some US Airforce base in a desert somewhere, waiting for her in a cell, a plaintive expression on his smooth, soft face.
Only the immediate area was visible, and it was little different from the runway they had taken off from. A man on the ground attached a fuel pump to the side of the plane, they waited ten minutes, the man detached the pump and they were airborne again.
Shit
. When was she going to see Andrew? Major
Webster took a glance back towards her. He caught her eye and tried an encouraging smile. The disdain in her face made him think he should try a bit harder, so he went to sit in the row in front of her.
In order to be heard by Laura but no one else, Webster had to half-yell behind his hand. ‘I’m sorry to say this again, but you’re going to have to trust us. We’ve got one more stop before we get to our destination, and I’ll tell you now, Andrew is not there. We’d have sent you straight to Venezuela, but the need to find you coincided with one of our operations, so there was no one free to escort you to MEROS. That means you’re going to see what we do first, which will take about an hour, then it’s going to be another twelve hours back to where Andrew is. Is that OK? Is it better now you know?’ Laura nodded quickly to get him to leave her alone then went back to staring out of the window.
Eight hours into the flight, Laura was aching all over. The seats were way below economy class, and she had to keep shifting around on the thin foam cushion to stop her buttocks going numb. One of the soldiers had brought her some revolting food: a weird plastic cake called a Twinkie and some tough sandwiches, curled up at the ends like rotten lino, which she was led to believe contained chicken salad but were actually filled with some kind of regurgitated beige mush. Everyone else happily guzzled Coke, a substance Laura could not stand, so she was given some mineral water that used to be cold and fizzy but now tasted like it had been siphoned from the bath of a flatulent pensioner.
For the second time the engines slowed and she felt the lurch in her stomach as they lost altitude. Was this just another refuelling? She could tell immediately it was not; the soldiers were far more active than on any of the other descents, unpacking and strapping on equipment and clothing ready for whatever was about to happen.
It was another dark landing on another remote runway. This time the terrain was featureless, with nothing but blank, flat land as far as the eye could see.
The soldiers collected their gear, dumped it together on the tarmac and got to work unloading the cargo.
Webster beckoned Laura over. ‘We’re just changing vehicles. The next destination is our last, but the terrain requires a helicopter.’
‘Where are we?’ asked Laura.
‘Put this on.’ He handed her a dark-green army jacket. ‘The desert gets cold at night.’
They walked down the steps at the side of the plane and over to the landing pad where the Chinook CH-47 sat ready for take-off. Two of the soldiers were moving the larger crates with forklift trucks to speed up the transfer, while the others carried the rest of the equipment across by hand.
Within half an hour of landing, they had taken up their positions on the helicopter. Madison engaged the ignition and the quiet instantly turned to a deafening thunder as the blades of the chopper thwumped into life.
Laura had never been in a helicopter, so the journey, sweeping low across the plains then soaring up over the mountains, became yet another new and unwelcome assault on her senses. It was dark outside and she was disorientated as the Chinook lurched at sharp angles over jagged peaks then plunged through the turbulence of valleys.
After an hour, the slowing blades and loss of altitude finally signalled their arrival.
Major Webster barked a command through the intercom: ‘Approaching target. Approaching target.
Prepare for full engagement and containment, T minus twenty minutes and counting.’
Laura peered out of the window and watched as the helicopter circled a small, flat plain in the foothills of a mountain range that faded into the moonlight behind it.
The soldiers, already indistinct, were now rendered anonymous by night-vision goggles that obscured most of their faces. Seven of them jumped on to the rocky terrain, taking various camouflaged trunks and boxes with them. Although it was alien to Laura, the soldiers moved without thought, as if this were as familiar as brushing their teeth. Not a second was wasted in mistakes or confusion as the equipment was unloaded and laid out in its proper place across the rocks and sand.
Webster waited until all the crates had been carried out before approaching Laura. ‘I’m sorry about this,’ he frowned above the whine of the slowing blades, ‘but we need to make sure you are completely safe, so you’re going to stick close by me and I’m not going to let you out of my sight. If you are in any way thinking of escaping, I should just tell you that we are in North-eastern Afghanistan, at least a hundred miles from civilization, and that’s the kind of civilization that has little time for an English-speaking white woman.’ He smiled, trying to puncture the blackmail of his last sentence.
‘I know this has been tough on you, but I promise everything will become clear very soon.’ He gave Laura a set of night-vision goggles, strapping his own over his forehead. ‘Come on.’
They stepped down on to the plain in time to see the final preparations of the soldiers. Although Laura had no problem recognizing a gun, she had never seen anything like the weaponry being set up around her. One piece of equipment resembled a black metallic umbrella with blue lasers where the spokes would be; another consisted of a whirring disc at the end of a funnel which emitted a harsh, grinding drone whenever the trigger was pressed. Covering the entire area was a dense green fog that seeped from a device resembling a portable generator crossed with a Star Wars droid.
Once every crate had been opened and its contents removed, the froth of activity reduced to a simmer. One of the soldiers was making a few adjustments to some of the smaller devices, but the others had stopped moving with any real purpose and were now looking to Major Webster for further instructions. Seeing this, he strode towards them, his voice ringing out clear and sharp like a trumpet solo.
‘OK, people, we have a tight homing of A-22s and A-24s. Recon has indicated that they have killed at least one human beyond the identified target, so be prepared for a greater degree of aggression. Mills and Garrett, take the light and ripple at point; Carter and Jacobs, gas; Van Arenn and Wainhouse, support and clean-up. One more thing: you may have noticed we are carrying a civilian. This is Dr Laura Trent. She is a genetic entomologist, the best in her field, and this is her introduction to what we do. Van Arenn, we’re going to need a live, unharmed specimen.’ He paused to see if there was any doubt in
the eyes of his troops. Satisfied that they were prepared and confident, he gave a quick shout. ‘All right. Let’s go.’
Laura watched as two men she assumed to be Mills and Garrett primed their weapons and jogged steadily upwards, the foothills steepening into mountains beneath their feet. The other soldiers followed, masked head to foot in further protective clothing.
The mystery continued. Although Laura now knew her presence there had something to do with her expertise in insect genetics, her thoughts raced to think of what it was that connected the military with entomology. Were they wiping out crops to destroy supplies to terrorists? Had they introduced a host to breed out a beneficial species of parasite? Maybe they were tracking swarm patterns to see if they were registering any human interaction. Despite her situation, Laura couldn’t help but feel a rush of excitement. She was being let in on a new and apparently secret aspect of her life’s interest, and she wanted to know why.
Webster took her to the base of the path that led up to the caves then indicated that they should stop and wait at a small dip in the rocks where they would be sheltered from the wind. He offered Laura a coffee from his flask, which she declined with a wordless shake of her head.
Two hundred feet above them, the rest of the soldiers were approaching the target area. Mills looked ahead then changed focus to check the eye-mounted distance indicator that gave a more accurate idea of where the quarry lay. As they inched forward, Garrett
stopped and raised her hand, halting the patrol. Amid the buffeting swoosh of the wind, they all listened for the familiar dense hum that signalled the beginning of the real work. They looked at each other, giving eerie, faceless nods to confirm what Garrett had heard.
Mills moved ahead until he came to the mouth of the cave. Checking the distance one more time, he looked back at Garrett and beckoned her forward. She removed a plastic casing from her belt and opened it to reveal a chrome ovoid with a black indentation at one end. Pressing this, she twisted the top 180 degrees, took one more look at Mills then placed it into a dark, round receptacle at the end of a brushed-steel tube. Sliding back a panel from the rear of the tube, she revealed a trigger, aimed for the centre of the cave and fired.
There was no loud bang, only a dense electronic drawl, as if the tiny beep of a digital watch had been stretched and amplified a thousand times. The ovoid shot into the depths of the cave like a cannonball, and the soldiers immediately retreated down the cave path, shut their eyes tight and turned away. The explosion of light that followed was so bright it illuminated Laura and Webster. The major barely acknowledged the eruption of bleaching white, but Laura jumped as if the mountain were about to collapse. Then the light disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the landscape unchanged.
