Hunters: A Trilogy (26 page)

His friend had a very simple answer to that question. ‘I wonder if George will mind,’ Ken asked, pointing his rifle at the side window of Mike’s Spear.

Mike looked at him with a grin, but the expression soon left his face when he saw the evil glint in Ken’s eye. He only had time to say: ‘Shoot your own bloody Spear, you frigging lunatic!’ before Ken fired three rounds in quick succession at the thick glass of the passenger window.

The muzzle-blast was deafening as it crashed into the warm, morning air.

Mike jumped back in a reflex action to the expected spray of broken glass, or possible ricochet. Either way, he needn’t have bothered. All three bullets entered the glass very much like a flat pebble, having been thrown high into the air, would enter the calm waters of a village pond. As the stone slices into the silent surface of the pond, all that can be heard is a soft, bubbling,
bloop
noise. With a slight shimmer on the surface of the glass, the undamaged bullet-heads popped back out and landed on the ground below. The little thuds that the lumps of lead made as they landed, seemed to be a hundred times louder than the noise of the shots.

Ken shook his head and shrugged, saying: ‘I guess we can bin the body-armour then, unless we have to go on foot…’

Mike glared at him. ‘You’re a crazy old bastard!’ he exclaimed. ‘What would we have done if the rounds had shattered the window and gone straight through, eh, what then, smart arse?’

Ken glanced at him. ‘Packed all of the stuff into my Spear, set fire to yours, and then set a course for home,’ he growled. ‘Fuck Red, fuck the Light Maker, and most of all – fuck George!’ The glint in his eyes made sure that Mike knew he wasn’t joking.

‘Jesus Christ, Kenny! Am I glad that you’re on my side, or what? You’re a frigging lunatic!’ Mike said, incredulously. Then, returning to their current situation, the reality, he grinned at Ken and said, ‘Right, let’s try and find out where Red and his boys are, shall we?’ He jumped into the driver’s side of his Spear and Ken slid into the passenger seat.

Once the machine was started, Mike touched the screen and they saw that a small, white beacon had started shining right in the centre of its weird blue glow. It was away from all the other digital information and shone more brightly than the other symbols on display.

Mike said, ‘There he is – all we have to do is follow that little dot and it’ll take us straight to him. Then we can kick his arse, get the device and go home!’

It all sounded pretty simple to Ken, very simple apart from the last bit, the bit about going home...With those thoughts still fresh in his mind, he slid out of Mike’s vehicle and went to sit in his own chariot. Sure enough, as soon as the Spear started, the white circle appeared on its screen. Ken gunned the engine and waited for the beast to warm up. Flicking through his controls, he soon located the symbol that showed where Red was, he double clicked the white dot so that it shone permanently on his display.

He guessed that Red and his motley crew were in the region of the Kajaki dam; it looked about right – westerly in direction and the best part of a four-hour drive away. It was mainly the amount of water being shown on his display that led Ken to the conclusion; he stared at the display for a while, letting the thoughts run through his head as he did so.

‘That must be the sign of a large dam,’ he thought, feeling for sure that he was right. ‘Hell, it doesn’t really matter as the Spears will just take us straight there anyway. It’s gonna be like some high-tech bloodhound, even if the roads are clear we shouldn’t need to navigate…’ He shook his head at the stupid thought. ‘Of course they’ll be clear, what is it that you’re expecting, rush-hour traffic jams?’

He knew there would still be plenty of debris to negotiate and that the condition of the roads would be an unknown factor until they went out there. They had been in a bad enough condition before all of this had started. Once before – in another life – he’d driven up there and the trip had taken two days of hard slog, all the bridges had been down and the roads were mostly impassable, and then there had been the Taliban. Ken sat there and remembered those days for a while, it had been a long time ago, he knew, but somehow it still felt as though it had been only yesterday.

He shook his head and turned his thoughts to more pressing matters.

He and Mike would simply have to wait and see what this particular trip brought them. There was the obvious problem of their quarry, the device may well be in some cave or another – that’s what George had said – but, what was to say there wasn’t going to be a stay-behind-party waiting for them. ‘Yes, a little ambush, just to set us back...because if Red knows that we’re the only two chasers, well, if he has any sense then he’ll probably come and find us first – that’s what I’d be doing!’ He let the options pass through his mind whilst he fiddled with the screen’s controls.

Ken wondered if Red actually did know they were coming, the guy seemed to be pretty smart, and after all, he’d managed to outwit George and his gang. Still, Ken knew that he and Mike had the Spears and he was also confident in his own abilities and in those of his friend, too. ‘Yeah, we can give a good account of ourselves if we have to, that’s for sure!’ he thought. He felt a lift in his spirits, mainly, he supposed, due to being back on terra firma, back doing what he had always done best. This space-age, other-worldly shit gave him the creeps.

‘Right then, are we ready, big guy?’ Mike’s words came crystal clear over the internal speaker in Ken’s Spear. ‘How do we get out of here?’

His friend’s voice was filled with energy and Ken knew that the journey was calling him, like some far off temptress beckoning Mike with her irresistible charm.
‘Come and save the Light Maker, Michael. Come and save the world, it’s your destiny…’
Ken pushed the thoughts away, looked at his screen and then, somewhat hesitantly, replied: ‘Yeah, let’s do it, I reckon we try the back gate, there was a lot of debris lying around last time I was here and we might have to use the Pusher quite a lot, but let’s give it a go anyway, shall we?’

The Pusher radiated a type of energy that, not unlike the opposite magnets he had felt in the picture, used some kind of unseen force to shove objects out of the way. They hadn’t tried it yet, but George had assured them that not many things would stand in their way. As he looked at his controls, trying to remember where the button for the Pusher was, Ken heard Mike’s voice leap into his cab once more.

‘Well, there ain’t any debris now – check it out, my man!’

Ken had been so preoccupied with the weapons, the Spear and all the other weird objects and happenings that he had not even looked around. Now, as he did so, he saw that the road upon which they sat was indeed clear of all obstacles. All the flotsam of the storm was gone and everywhere he looked was covered in greenery: trees, grass, flowers and weeds, they were all flourishing. It was fantastic, and to his eyes this emaciated country had never looked so good. Ken was hardly able to wait and see what the outside world looked like.

‘Roger that!’ he said. ‘Christ, old George doesn’t mess about does he? We’ll try the main gate then, Okay?’ Ken gunned the engine, laughing as he heard Mike’s sarcastic reply.

‘Yeah, lead on, cowboy!’ Then, and with a final ‘Yeehaaaw!’ from the Australian, the two men rolled out of ‘Dodge City’, Kandahar.

Driving one of the Spears was a complete joy, it was like having a tank that rode upon air, even the biggest bumps were suppressed and the feeling of power the engine gave was immense. It was with some difficulty that they tried to restrain themselves and their right boots. The field of view through the windshield was excellent and it was amazing how quickly they became used to the heads up display – the flashing digits instantly feeding any information the driver, or Rider, wished for. Mike’s words rang true, and it wasn’t long before Ken merely had to think of something and there it would be, glowing blue information at the touch of a thought.

They hurtled through the main gate and out into the world, or what was left of it. The roads toward the city were littered with every imaginable type of debris left over from the storm. ‘George’s housekeeper didn’t do such a good job after all, huh?’ Mike’s dry tones bought a wry smile to Ken’s face as he twisted and turned the Spear through the melee in front of his vehicle.

The going was slow, slower than even he had imagined. Twice he had to use the Pusher button to barge his way through. The unseen force that the device dispensed shoved the jack-knifed petrol tanker to one side. With a screech of protesting tyres, the large obstacle slid awkwardly out of Ken’s way. It was as though some gigantic invisible winch had been attached to the truck and the tanker almost seemed to drag itself out of their path.

The second time he used the Pusher was against a pile of ancient yellow Toyota taxis. They were piled high between the buildings and their bizarre resting place was blocking the street. It was as though they had been washed there upon the bow of some enormous wave. The Pusher made short work of their defiant blockade, sending the taxis tumbling downward with a crash before gently flipping the rusty cars to one side in an effortless display of invisible power. Ken had the distinct impression that the Pusher was yawning; he almost heard its thoughts. ‘Perhaps you should give me something that’s a bit of a challenge, yes?’ The way it so easily dispensed with the blockades was impressive, to say the least.

After a while longer spent playing dodgems, the two Spears broke into the outskirts of Kandahar, and although there was still plenty of devastation apparent, it was now more thinly spread. So, with less to circumnavigate, their progress speeded up slightly. Out of his side window, Ken saw the rooftops of various buildings in the distance, most had some form of damage and a lot of them had collapsed altogether. All the mud walls that used to line the route had disintegrated, their demise allowing vast amounts of human litter to be blown hither and thither. There was garbage everywhere, it had always been a filthy place anyway, but now the walls had gone there were six-foot-high piles of the stuff all over the place. Little dust devils, rubbish devils, spun their way between one pile of garbage and the next.

However, the smell of smoke and faeces, which normally filled the air, was strangely absent. Ken figured it was either the length of time everyone had been gone, or more likely the air conditioning system on his Spear that prevented the smell from assuming its normal place in the general order of things. Either way, the rank odour was now lacking and that suited him just fine. He thought about the dream, about the scenes where he’d seen the unbelievable things his kind had done, and were going to do, to this planet. The thoughts made him wonder.

‘Perhaps this situation really is for the better after all?’

The notion chilled him with its clarity.

There was obvious evidence of plant growth everywhere. The further they travelled from the built-up area, the more prominent it became. It was unlike any Afghanistan he had ever seen, the greenery multiplied by the mile and Ken felt certain they were in another country, or perhaps even on another planet...

He and Mike passed various witticisms back and forth as they travelled along. Humour is the life-blood of any soldier’s normal day, the constant banter and piss-taking helps to keep the morale high and ensures that people stay on their toes. Any mistakes, professional or personal, are severely punished. Legends have been born from such tales. The two men were masters at the game and played it endlessly as they made progress toward their quarry, their ponytailed prey – Red.

After some two hours they cleared the city altogether and turned onto the main highway, or what was left of it. The tarmac had only ever had a tenuous grip – even before the storm arrived, the roads had always been littered with pot holes and cracks, huge lumps appearing in their surfaces overnight, the bitumen seemingly disintegrating of its own accord. It was a mess and had made Ken laugh at the billions of dollars the West had poured into the road-building projects. Corruption, insurgency, and plain old shoddy workmanship would ensure this place stayed in the Dark Ages for a long time yet. He wondered what the tax-payers would think if they ever saw how much of their money was being wasted.

It had been bad a long time before the storm arrived and had a say about things, but now, in the post-storm era, there was hardly a yard of tarmacadam to be seen anywhere, great swirls of it lay in piles along the route. Large chunks littered the road, leaving gaping pot-holes in their wake, dangerously sagging dips teetered on the verge of destruction and one carelessly-placed wheel would cause an immediate collapse into the hidden voids underneath. The place was a mess and nothing like a highway at all. The two Spears coped with it easily whilst all the time the bright dash of the Light Maker’s location blinked on their screens, its mesmerising glow keeping the two friends focused and heading in the correct direction.

After having a lunch break, during which Ken scanned the surrounding area with his amazing glasses, they continued their journey with Mike leading. Both men successfully negotiating the rough terrain without problem, the Spears never missing a beat, no flashing warning lights, no overheating, and, most importantly, no flat tyres – the only thing they had to contend with was perfect, rhythmic power.

Ken enjoyed following in Mike’s wheel tracks, it was also easier than leading, he let the lead vehicle pick the route whilst spending more time looking at the surroundings. The transformation to the countryside was something else, there was plant life springing forth from every nook and cranny. It filled his heart with pleasure for he knew this awful land had reaped the sowing it had so long cried out for. It made him happy. ‘Who needs mankind around here, huh?’ he asked the hawk as he watched it wheeling high above his transparent roof. Ken imagined he heard the bird’s shrieked reply.

Before long it was time to change direction as the flashing beacon was now starting to edge toward the right side of their monitors. They turned off the main highway and headed toward their destination, keeping the beacon in the centre of their screens. The route took the men more northwards than before. It was possible to follow the Helmand River as it would have most likely led them straight to their destination, but that route was too obvious. If they were going to run into an ambush, then along the river banks would be the most likely place. So, following their instincts, they opted for the more mountainous route, which, although certainly more time-consuming, definitely gave them a chance of finding better cover, should they get into trouble.