Hunters: A Trilogy (3 page)

The airfield was massive, its perimeter covering a least a couple of square miles. From the air the place looked like an intoxicated spider had been busy. A giant web of makeshift buildings, shipping containers, portacabins, and hundreds upon hundreds of tents in all shapes and sizes littered the place. Huge hangars, sprawling fuel stations, busy kitchens and prefabricated shopping areas lay spread in organised chaos. A maze of dusty roads and endless gravel tracks tethered the whole lot together in a crazy weave. All of it was covered in dust.

Every few minutes overworked helicopters whirled across the airbase, the thudding ‘Wocka-Wocka’ of their spinning rotors easily being drowned out by the incoming thunder of the cargo planes that took off and landed morning, noon and night. It was, however, the explosive howl of the fighter jets that completely dominated the endless noise war. They always took off in pairs, the wingman about fifteen seconds behind his leader, the ground vibrating as they hurtled into the dirty sky with a deafening scream. One of Ken’s American friends had once said: ‘You know what that noise is, buddy? That noise is the sound of freedom, my friend – the sound of freedom!’ The irony of that particular comment still made Ken think, even to this day. With a wry smile, he climbed into his vehicle and inserted the ignition key.

It was already hot at this early hour, endless streams of traffic had picked up their daily momentum and begun to bustle across the base. Heavily-laden military transport trucks, open-topped Land Rovers bristling with machine guns, dozens of American Humvees and convoys of light armoured vehicles scurried amongst the ubiquitous herd of Toyotas, their movements only adding to the dust that rose into the tepid air.

‘Where in God’s name do all these bloody people go every day?’ Ken muttered. He shrugged at the thought and looked at the sky again, letting the Land Cruiser meander through the dust, glancing up through its cracked windscreen as he headed for the bunker. The brown haze had already started to hang above the base like a filthy net-curtain. Half of him did actually hope for a storm, but a proper storm, one with a lot of rain in it. ‘Yeah, a good downpour to wash some of this crap away – that would be great!’ The thought was an appealing one.

Rumbling to a halt besides a half-buried shipping container, he killed the engine and stepped out of the dirty blue Toyota into the heat. Walking over to the container, he waved nonchalantly at the sentry who watched him from the guard tower over to his left. The American infantryman raised his hand in a lazy return salute. They were used to seeing Ken as he was there two or three times a day, every day. Anyway, the sentries were more interested in what was happening on the outside of the wire where the insurgents still caused havoc whenever the fancy took them.

There was a rocket or mortar attack almost every other day, but it was a numbers game and the base was so large that a person would have to be pretty unlucky to be hit. Ken figured it would be one of those ‘shit happens’ moments if he did get hit and didn’t let the thought stop him from going about his daily business. As he started to go down the stairs, Ken paused and shot another look into the horizon behind the airbase, into the far distance where he saw the dust rising again. The storm still brewed and he felt it thickening the air, the sensation pressing down on his mind,

‘Yep, this is gonna be another big one, that’s for sure!’ he thought. The sensation stayed with him as he walked down the stairs to the bunker and reached for his keys – the last really big storm had been during his first year working in this lousy place.

‘That was bloody years ago and I’m still here, I must be out of my tiny little mind!’ He grinned ruefully at the thought as he fumbled with the Chubb padlock.

Once unlocked, he pulled the heavy steel door open, took one last glance at the threatening sky, and then stooped his six foot, broad-shouldered frame into the bunker. It was a long, steel affair that they’d made from an old shipping container, he and Mike placing the steel box into a large hole they had excavated in the unyielding Afghan earth.

There were racks and shelves all around the inside of the container, each one stacked neatly with boxes of crystals and cables. There were also a variety of cameras and lenses, plus a collection of other specialist equipment that his company, K&M Electricals, dealt in. It had taken him and Mike two years of hard work to build up the business and now they were starting to reap the rewards.

Ken’s job today was to install some of his fish-eyed cameras onto the Predator Drones for the Americans. The cameras were the latest, most technically-advanced pieces of equipment that only a handful of people worldwide had access to. If the clients were happy with the results of today’s test, then the deal was going to pay handsomely in the very near future.

He set to the task and opened a box before removing one of the bubble-wrapped cameras. Carefully laying out all the associated parts in a neat row, Ken placed the instruction booklet on the end of the shelf and turned the black camera-mount over in his large hands – some of the wiring confused him, and supposing he might need Mike’s advice after all, he fished out his mobile phone and pushed the speed dial. The slight clicking noise in his ear told the story of an unavailable signal; it was normality in this place and one they all simply became used to working around. He turned back to the camera and tried to figure out what the diagram meant. As he worked, Ken thought of their business and of how much he and Mike had achieved...

They’d met each other whilst doing security work in Iraq and had hit it off immediately, sharing the same sense of humour and a burning intolerance of fools. Both of them had been career soldiers, who at the end of their time in the military, gradually began to find it difficult to make ends meet in civvy-street. And so, like many others before them, they’d ended up working in the security industry. Both of them had spent time serving in the Special Forces of their respective armies: Ken doing years of footslogging, whilst Mike had been heavily involved with electronic warfare.

Eventually, after the disaster in Pakistan, they had ended up working in southern Afghanistan; it was a contract that proved to be their final venture in the security industry. For it was whilst they were down there – in the death trap of Helmand Province – that the two men had decided to do something for themselves.

Mike was a wizard with all things electronic and mechanical; he’d studied for some degree or another, too. Ken didn’t know what field, exactly, all he did know was that Mike only had to raise an eyebrow in the direction of a malfunctioning machine, and the bloody thing just seemed to fix itself. Ken knew how to sell and how to do the figures, so between them they had gradually built up a reliable supply-chain of specialised, electronic equipment. It wasn’t long before their reputation spread and they had wangled their way onto the airbase. They’d been through a lot together and had busted their arses to get this going. Then, before they knew it, things had started to become very sweet indeed; in fact, they were so busy these days that Ken had even started turning some work away.

Returning to the present, he tried ringing Mike again, there was still no signal. It was the poor network in this bloody place, plus the military guys used a lot of jamming and other electrical equipment, which took to playing havoc with the phones. In disgust, Ken dumped the Nokia on the shelf and turned back to the table to gather some more of the cameras and tools he would need later in the day.

With an increase in its velocity, the outside wind seemed to take on a more menacing intent; he looked up in surprise as the heavy door to the container rattled alarmingly. Remembering he had left the window open in the Land Cruiser, Ken placed his tools back on the shelf and ran outside, bounding up the steps, desert boots clattering on the steel as he rushed into the swirling dust. Reaching the Toyota, he turned the ignition on and activated the electric window. When it had ground upwards to a halt, he pocketed the keys, slammed the door shut and then turned to face the storm.

To his amazement he saw that a large cloud of red dust had already started to cover the far corner of the base. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and tried to see how far away the storm was coming from. Sometimes they were just a few hundred yards deep and passed within minutes – he hoped that would be the case this time. However, by the looks of things, this storm was anything but that, his disbelieving gaze saw that the cloud of dust appeared to be at least a mile long and several hundred feet high.

‘Jesus, that’s massive,’ he said, shaking his head in astonishment.

The speed with which the storm was approaching was unbelievable. Ken only had time to see a stray satellite dish being hurled skywards before he turned on his heels and sprinted for cover. With his vision blurring in the vibration of the storm’s power, eyes blinking against the swirling dust, he raced down the steps to the bunker. Just as he was dragging the door open there was a sudden flash of lightning, the unexpected strobe of white light flickered several times, vividly illuminating his surroundings. As he staggered and looked up from the stairwell, his eyes were filled with the horrifying sight of the storm – it was right on top of him! A wall of debris loomed above, he felt his ears popping and another flash of brilliant light filled his vision.

‘Lightning in a dust storm, what the hell?’

The last thought he had, before slamming the door shut, was an almost surreal one. For some reason the dust had felt different: the colour had a weird depth, a shimmer, and it...His own thoughts began to whirl.

‘It’s red, definitely red, but it has a...a green tinge. Green dust, what the hell is going on?’ Blinking away that crazy dust, along with his equally crazy thoughts, Ken leaned forcefully against the door and rotated the steel locking arms downwards.

There must have been twenty tonnes of earth on top of the bunker and yet he still felt the storm. It was as though he was being compressed, his ears popped again and the container hummed with a high-speed vibration. As it emanated through the steel, the strange sensation seemed to chisel its way into his skull. He grimaced, temples lancing with pain. Ken made sure the door was locked properly and then stood there for a while, listening to the strange moaning noise outside.

‘That is
some
storm, man!’ he thought, almost in disbelief.

As he turned toward the back of the container, there was a sudden loud bang accompanied by the sound of screeching metal, both coming from somewhere very close outside. Then the lights exploded in a shower of glass and fluorescent dust. The container was plunged into darkness, Ken jumped in shock at the unexpected sound; half-blinded and somewhat disorientated he turned and walked right into one of the shelves.

This time the flash of light which burst in his head had nothing to do with any strange lightning. No, this was a jab of white-hot pain, a teeth-grinding flare of agony caused by the sharp corner of the metal shelf as it sliced into his right cheek. He cursed in the darkness as the pain lanced through his face.

‘Shit!’ The stickiness of hot blood running down his cheek angered him. ‘Bloody hell, what a frigging idiot, that’s
just
what I needed!’ Cursing, he gritted his teeth and gently rubbed his face. The shattered bulbs had covered him in splinters; Ken felt them, glass needles pricking his face and head. This was the first time he’d seen light bulbs exploding and he guessed that maybe it had been a power surge from the generator, or something...

‘This is crazy!’ he said, and reached for the torch on his belt.

After rotating the head, in order to switch it on, he began using the narrow beam of light to see through the gloom. There was glass everywhere, those bulbs hadn’t simply exploded, they’d nearly vaporised, tiny glass fragments lay on every surface and a fine, powdery haze remained suspended in the still air of the bunker’s interior. Making his way to the rear of the container, Ken took a bottle of water from the stack leaning against the back wall. He took the water and turned around to pick up his phone. Just as he was in the process of undoing the bottle’s cap, he noticed the booklet sitting on the shelf, the instructions for the cameras. Something was not quite right with it. It was dark and yet he quite clearly saw it – the booklet was glowing. He edged through the darkness towards the shelf, torchlight struggling to penetrate the gloom of dust and smoke.

‘Smoke…!’ The paper began to smoulder. ‘What the fuck is going on?’ he whispered, reaching over to swat the pamphlet with his left hand – it flew off the shelf and burst into flames. Ken jumped on it, stamping out the fire, thoughts going crazy. He looked up at the shelf, eyes darting in disbelief.

Then the heat smothered him – unbearable heat, oven-hot, filled the container. Things started to explode, camera lenses made loud ‘chinking’ noises as their lenses burst. The shelf sagged, cheap metal legs surrendering without a fight to the blast of rising temperature. Then everything started catching fire all around him: paper, plastic folders, pens, his clothes. Ken’s shirt and trousers started to heat up. He felt his face crisping, hair beginning to shrivel.

‘Shit, shit – Shit!’ he shouted, diving towards the back of the container and knocking the sagging shelf over in his haste. It flopped to one side and the equipment started to avalanche away, making expensive smashing noises as it piled onto the floor below. Ken disregarded the sounds and hurriedly started cracking open bottles of water, pouring the contents over his head and shoulders, dousing his sleeves and trouser legs. He grabbed an old cloth and soaked it thoroughly before clasping it to his face.

‘I need to get out of here, right now!’ he thought, and turned to scramble his way to the door, trampling and sliding across the carnage. ‘Fuck!’ he cried out, in anger and pain, dropping the red-hot torch. ‘What the…?’ Its slim metal body hit the floor, Ken heard the lens popping.

The light went out.

Then his clasp knife started burning his thigh; he felt the heat through his hip pocket. Ken doused his trousers again and lowered himself down out of the rising heat. Crouching in the smoke-filled darkness, dripping wet cloth held to his face, he looked at the door. Any thoughts of bursting out and escaping to freedom left his mind in an instant. The door was glowing, red light flooding between the cracks. Not just red, a kaleidoscope of colours, blasting their way through the gaps around its ill-fitting sides. Bright reds, glowing whites and shimmering greens, all of them appeared to be hot, blisteringly hot.