Burning Angels (20 page)

Jaeger could understand the animals’ desperation and rage, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be anywhere around when it was unleashed upon the enemy.

As he instinctively checked over his shoulder, searching for Narov, he realised with a shock that she wasn’t there any more. He came to a juddering halt. He spun around, spotting her bent over the form of a hyena, trying to drag it off the path.

‘GET MOVING!’ Jaeger screamed. ‘MOVE IT! NOW!’

Narov’s only response was to redouble her efforts with the dead weight of the corpse. Jaeger hesitated for just an instant, and then he was back beside her, hands gripping the animal’s once-powerful shoulders as together they heaved it into the crevasse at the side of the path.

Barely had they done so when the lead elephant was upon them. Jaeger was hit with a wall of sound that seemed to turn his innards to jelly as the elephant trumpeted its earth-shattering rage. Seconds later, tusks stabbed inwards, trapping the pair of them on the narrowest part of the rock shelf.

Jaeger dragged Narov back into the crook, where the cave roof met the inner edge of the shelf. Jammed against the thick webs and the needle-sharp crystals, they shaded their torches with their hands, lying motionless in the dirt.

Any movement would attract the bull elephant’s wrath. But if they stayed still and silent in the darkness, they might just survive the carnage that was being unleashed.

The massive bull speared the first of the hyenas, lifting it up on its tusks and flinging it bodily into the waters of the lake.

The power of the animal was simply fearsome.

One by one the hyena bodies were picked up and hurled into the lake. When the shelf was clear of corpses, the lead elephant seemed to calm a little. Jaeger watched, both fascinated and fearful, as the massive animal used the soft, flat end of its trunk to check what had happened.

He could see the huge nostrils dilating as they sucked in the scent. Every smell would tell a story. Hyena blood. To the elephant, that was good. But it was also intermingled with a scent that would be alien to the animal: cordite fumes. A smog of smoke from the pistol fire hung thick in the cool air of the cave.

The elephant appeared perplexed:
what smell was this?

The trunk reached deeper. Jaeger could see its moist pink end groping towards him. That trunk – as thick as a tree, and capable of lifting 250 kilos – could snake around a thigh or torso and rip them out of there in a flash, dashing them to pieces against the rock wall.

For an instant Jaeger considered going on the offensive. The elephant’s head was no more than ten feet away: an easy shot. He could see its eyes clearly now, the long, fine eyelashes catching in the light thrown off by his torch.

Weirdly, he felt as if the animal could see right through him, even as its trunk reached out to make first contact with his skin. There was something just so human – so humane – about its gaze.

Jaeger abandoned all thoughts of opening fire. Even if he could bring himself to do so, which he doubted, he knew a 9mm subsonic round would never pierce a bull elephant’s skull.

He abandoned himself to the elephant’s caress.

As the trunk made contact with the skin of his arm, he froze. It was so gentle, it felt as if a faint breeze was rippling his arm hairs. He heard the snuffling as the elephant sucked in his scent.

What could it smell, Jaeger wondered? He hoped to hell that the elephant dung had done the trick. But was there also an underlying human scent that the animal would still detect? Surely, there had to be?

Gradually the familiar smell of its own species seemed to calm the big bull. A few more caresses and sniffs, and the trunk moved on. Jaeger was using the bulk of his body to shield Narov, so the elephant was only able to take a few perfunctory sniffs at her.

Seemingly satisfied, the animal turned to its next task: herding its offspring through the bloodied mess that was all that remained of the hyenas. But before it moved away, Jaeger caught a glimpse in its eyes; those ancient, deep, all-seeing eyes.

It was as if the elephant knew. He knew what he had encountered here. But he had decided to let them live. Jaeger was convinced of it.

The elephant moved away to where the young ones were clustered on the rock shelf in fear and uncertainty. It used its trunk to settle and comfort them, before nudging those at the front to get moving again.

Jaeger and Narov grabbed the chance to clamber to their feet and scuttle onwards, ahead of the baby elephants, and towards safety.

Or so they thought.

39

They ran on, moving at a fast jog along the path.

The rock shelf broadened out into a flat expanse, where the lake came to a natural end. It was here that the rest of the herd had gathered. From the juddering thud of their tusks as they made gouging contact with the rock walls, this was also clearly the site of their salt mine.

This was what they had come for.

Jaeger crouched down in the cover of the cave wall. He needed a moment to catch his breath, and to try to get his pulse under control. He pulled out a water bottle and drank deep.

He waved it in the direction of the path they’d just taken. ‘What’s with moving the corpse? The hyena? It didn’t matter where it fell – dead’s still dead.’

‘Those baby elephants – they would not cross a path blocked by a dead hyena. I was trying to clear a way.’

‘Yeah, but twenty tons of daddy elephant was incoming to do the job properly.’

Narov shrugged. ‘I know that now, but . . . The elephant is my favourite animal. I could never leave the young ones trapped.’ She eyed Jaeger. ‘And in any case, daddy elephant did not so much as harm a hair on your head, did he?’

Jaeger rolled his eyes in exasperation. What was there to say?

Narov had a magical, almost childlike way with animals. Jaeger had realised as much during their expedition into the Amazon. At times she acted almost as if she had a closer relationship with animals than she did with her fellow humans; as if she understood them far better than her own species.

It didn’t seem to matter what kind of animals, either. Venomous spiders, spine-crushing snakes, carnivorous fish – sometimes all she seemed to care about were the non-humans on this earth. God’s creatures all of them, great or small. And when she had to kill an animal to protect her fellow operators – as now with the hyenas – she was haunted by regrets.

Jaeger drained the bottle and thrust it back into his pack. As he tightened the shoulder straps and prepared to move again, the light of his torch caught momentarily on something lying far below them.

Nature rarely follows straight, angular lines of design or construction, such as humans tend to favour. In nature, they are anathema. It was that – that blocky anomaly; that noticeable, unnatural difference – that had caught Jaeger’s eye.

A river drained into the lake from deeper inside the cave. Just before the point where it did so, there was a bottleneck. A natural constriction.

And on the near side of that narrow point stood a building.

It looked more like a Second World War shelter – like part of the Falkenhagen bunker – than it did a generator housing or a pumping station. But set that close to the water, Jaeger was certain that was what it had to be.

They crept down to the water’s edge. With his ear pressed close to the concrete, Jaeger could hear a faint, rhythmic whir coming from the interior and knew for certain what lay inside.

This was a hydropower unit, sited where the water was funnelled swift and powerful through the choke point. Part of the river ran into the building via a duct, and inside would lie a rotor blade – the modern form of the ancient water wheel. The thrust of the current would spin the blade, which would in turn drive an electricity generator. The building’s massive construction was to safeguard the mechanics from being crushed by a curious herd of elephants.

All of Jaeger’s scepticism had evaporated in an instant. There was something beneath this mountain all right, something hidden way deep; something man-made that required electricity.

He jabbed a finger further into the darkness. ‘We trace the cable. It’ll lead us to whatever needs the power. And this far beneath the mountain—’

‘Any laboratory has need of electricity,’ Narov cut in. ‘It’s here! We are close.’

Jaeger’s eyes blazed. ‘Come on – let’s go!’

They moved forward at a fast pace, tracing the cable deeper in. Encased in a steel sarcophagus to safeguard it from any harm, it snaked far into the bowels of the mountain. Step by step, they were closing in on their target.

The cable terminated at a wall.

The massive structure cut across the entire breadth of the cave. It was several metres high – taller than the biggest elephant. Jaeger didn’t doubt that was why it had been placed here: to stop the herds from penetrating any further.

Where the wall met the river, there were sluices in the structure that allowed the water to gush through. He figured there would be further turbines set within those, the downstream unit being a backup power source.

They paused in the cold shadow of the wall. Jaeger was gripped by a grim determination. The mountain was about to yield its secrets, whatever they might be.

Soon now.

He eyed the structure. It was a vertical sheet of smooth reinforced concrete.

It was the border; but the border to what?

What might lie beyond it?

Who
might lie beyond it, even? An image of Ruth and Luke – chained and caged – flashed through his mind.

Always forward. Keep moving.
It had been a mantra with Jaeger when he had served with the Royal Marines.
In a fight, close the distance
. He’d kept it at the forefront of his mind in the hunt to find his family, just as he did now.

He scanned with his eyes for handholds. There were few, if any. It was all but unclimbable. Unless . . .

He moved across to the side; to where the man-made wall met the natural cave wall. Sure enough, here was a line of weakness. Where the smooth structure butted up against the sharp crystals and bony outcrops, it might just be scalable. He could see where whoever had built the wall had smashed off some of the outcrops during construction.

They’d done so randomly, as those outcrops had got in their way, leaving just enough to offer handholds and footholds.

‘This wasn’t built to stop people,’ Jaeger whispered, as he mapped out the route of the climb in his head. ‘It’s here to stop salt-hungry elephants from going any further. To protect whatever lies on the far side.’

‘Whatever is there that requires electricity,’ Narov hissed, her eyes gleaming. ‘We are close now. So close.’

Jaeger shrugged off his rucksack and dropped it at his feet. ‘I’ll go first. Tie on the packs once I’m up, and I’ll haul them over. You bring up the rear.’

‘Got it. After all, you are – how do you say? – the rock jock.’

Ever since Jaeger was a kid, rock-climbing had been his thing. At school, in response to a bet from a fellow pupil, he’d scaled the bell tower, free-climbing – so using no ropes at all. In the SAS, he’d served in Mountain Troop – the one that specialised in all aspects of mountain warfare. And during their recent Amazon expedition, he’d pulled off several perilous ascents and descents.

In short, if there was something to be climbed, he was the one to attempt it.

It took several tries, but by tying a rock on to the end of the climbing rope, Jaeger was able to hurl it up and snag one of the highest of the bony outcrops. With it looped over that, he had an anchor point of sorts; he could begin the climb with a reasonable degree of safety.

He stripped down to the bare minimum, stuffing all extraneous gear – even his pistol – into his pack. Reaching up with his left hand, he closed his fingers around a knobby outcrop. Was it the fossilised jawbone of an ancient giant hyena? Right now, Jaeger didn’t particularly care.

His feet made contact with similar nodules, as he used the prehistoric remains embedded in the cave wall to haul himself up the first few metres. He grabbed the rope and dragged himself up to the next solid handhold.

The rope held fast, and he was making good progress.

All he cared about now was reaching the apex of that wall, and discovering what it had been built here to safeguard – and to hide.

40

Jaeger groped for the lip of the upper surface. His fingers wriggled their way on to it, and with burning shoulder muscles he hauled his body upwards, using first his stomach and then his knees to worm his way on to the high point.

He lay there for several seconds, his breath coming in sharp, heaving gasps. The wall was broad and flat on top, testament to the massive effort that had gone into its construction. As he had suspected, it hadn’t been placed here to stop humans. There wasn’t so much as a coil of razor wire atop it. No one had been expected to arrive here uninvited and with the intent of scaling it – that much was clear.

Whoever had built this barrier – and Jaeger didn’t doubt any more that Kammler was somehow responsible – they had never imagined that this place would be discovered. They had clearly believed it to be undetectable, and thus secure.

Jaeger risked a peek over the far side. The twin beams of his head torch reflected back at him from a completely still, black, mirror-like surface. There was a second lake concealed behind the wall, one set within a vast circular cave gallery.

The entire space appeared to be utterly deserted, but it wasn’t that which drew a gasp of astonishment from Jaeger.

Set way out in the centre of the water was a simply fantastical sight. Floating on the lake’s mirror surface was an apparition that was shockingly unexpected, yet strangely familiar all at the same time.

Jaeger tried to keep control of his emotions and his excitement; his pulse was off the scale right now.

He unhooked the rope from where it had snagged itself precariously and secured it properly around a small pinnacle, before lowering one end to Narov. She attached the first pack and he hauled it up, repeating the process with the second. Then Narov scaled the barrier, as Jaeger acted as her belay point, his legs straddling the wall.