Warhead (44 page)

Mongrel sipped at his brew. ‘Carter, lad, this not boiling!’

‘Water boils at lower temperatures in higher altitudes.’

‘It does?’

‘Yeah. It’s the elevation—lower air pressure reduces the boiling point of a liquid. Look, just drink it. We’ve got a fucking job to do and time’s starting to run out, so lay off whining about your tea. We’re down to thirty hours—by The Priest’s calculations, at any rate.’

‘And he is mad one.’

‘Fucking amen to that.’

Carter started his bike, wheelspun against loose stones, and shot off across the undulating rocky plateau in a burst of engine fumes. Mongrel fired up his own machine, checked that his tacky plastic shades were still in place, pulled his woolly hat tight over his ears, then followed Carter at a more sedate pace as he adjusted himself to the bike’s idiosyncratic riding position. The cold wind blasted Carter’s face as he led Mongrel down across the plateau, then followed a dried-up stream bed which led down towards the bottom of a steep-sided rocky valley. Mountains reared all around the two Spiral agents.

The two men hit the valley bottom and cruised for a while, swerving to avoid huge boulders and sudden drops in the rocky ground. The valley swept south and the bikes powered along, tyres thudding over rocks, engines growling quietly beneath the two riders as cold air found annoying little places to creep behind clothing and nip at exposed flesh, chilling bare skin to an almost instant blue.

After an hour they halted, breath steaming as they rubbed at their freezing flesh. Mongrel peeled off his gloves and rubbed his hands together vigorously. ‘By God, Carter, I wish we could have flown in using Comanche.’

‘I agree. Much easier. Bikes are just great in warm sunshine; but out here? You’d have to be insane.’ They sorted through their kit, pulling on yet more clothing, including wind-proofs and neoprene face masks. Carter glanced over at Mongrel, who looked like an alien behind the black mask—only his eyes showing as glittering orbs.

He is destined to die, thought Carter suddenly. The cancer is eating through him, even as we speak. And yet he is still willing to give his life for Spiral, for his friends, still trying to save the world. A great flood of sorrow filled Carter then. A great wash of emotion that brought tears to his eyes. Even if they were successful, even if they halted the machinations of Durell—well, Mongrel was still dead fucking meat. A walking, talking corpse.

‘You want a story?’ Mongrel grinned. ‘It help take your mind off cold! And you know how good Mongrel story is. They legend! Even late Simmo would sit and enjoy cup of Horlicks and listen to tale of Fat Chick Night!’

‘Fat Chick Night?’

‘Yeah, Fat Chick Night, tale of angst and woe, which centre around sexual promise of thirteen fat—’

‘Maybe later.’

‘Yes. Later: guaranteed,’ Mongrel promised. Or threatened.

Carter fired up his bike and set off on a surge of power, leaving streaks of melted rubber on the rock. Mongrel followed close, weaving through the grey landscape and uttering a plethora of moans behind his neoprene mask.

Behind them, hidden in the rocks, cold black eyes in a disease-torn face watched them go.

The two men had found a narrow trail leading west of Rutog, with a mountain range hugging their left shoulders and steep water-eroded slopes dropping steeply to their right. The slopes were the results of landslides during the rainy season, and Carter kept a close eye on the trail for any signs of the sort of irregularity lethal to a biker—especially where a three-hundred-metre drop was concerned.

The trail started to climb, and both men had to work their close-ratio KTM machines hard as constant obstacles appeared on the trail: boulders and scatters of loose stones falling away into oblivion; huge humped spines of rock that necessitated careful balance as tyres slipped and then chewed for grip; curious rock pedestals with large dips between each circular head, a formation that had both Carter and Mongrel cursing as their bikes slid and lurched, tyres spinning and engine-cages clanging. The only way to negotiate the formation successfully was to lift the front wheel over the dip, then slam on the front brake and kick the rear of the bike around onto the circular rocky platform. As the formation gave way to a normal trail, both men were dripping sweat which chilled their bodies.

Carter halted, fumes pluming from his bike’s stealth exhausts. Mongrel pulled up beside him with a tiny squeal from his tortured Brembos.

‘What is it?’ His voice was muffled behind his neoprene mask.

‘Take a look for yourself.’

Mongrel squinted behind his cheap sunglasses. His mouth made chewing motions beneath his mask and he flexed his cramping fingers, which were aching from the constant battle with the KTM and the cold,

‘SAM site?’

‘Must be one of Spiral’s rogue systems.’

‘You want to take a look?’

‘Yeah. Something’s bothering me.’

They eased their bikes closer, sub-machine guns resting on handlebars as they came close to the launching block. The alloy was grey, perfectly camouflaged. As they pulled their bikes to a halt Carter could just make out the dark grey lettering when he looked up along the wall of rock to the projection where the huge weapon squatted.

‘It’s Spiral, all right. SAM-7. Standard Mini SAM7.8 Block in a IVa configuration. You can see the vanes for the semi-active III-TR radar terminal guidance and inertial mid-course guidance systems.’

‘Is it active?’

‘Give me your ECube.’

Mongrel passed it over. Carter pulled free his glove, then traced a delicate pattern on the tiny alloy device. A sliver slid free of the housing and Carter saw digits flicker briefly across the blue screen as he integrated. There came a sudden whine of gears, and above them the block whirled in a rush of movement. Carter stared at Mongrel, then closed the ECube. ‘Justus was right. They’re primed, no question, and still working autonomously after all this time.’

‘Didn’t you just control it?’

‘For about one second—then it kicked me violently out of the system. It disconnected the ECube.’ Carter gave a death’s-head grin. ‘It shouldn’t be able to do that.’

‘At least we know we justified on bikes, and not wasting time busting our balls on rocky saddles!’

‘But more importantly than that, now we know that some fucked-up AI has taken control of a Spiral SAM network. That should be an impossibility. Justus said the AI was based on the same technology as the developing Quantell processors from the same era—and that just gives me the fucking creeps. Makes me think of Nex intervention. Makes me think that Justus’s story was based on a misunderstanding; maybe it’s not true that the Nex didn’t conquer this army of the insane because they couldn’t — I find that a hard premise to swallow anyway. Maybe the Nex
allowed
the army its existence for a reason and the SAM sites are their guardian angels—protectors against air attack by a stronger force.’

‘You have a sick mind, Carter, my friend.’

‘I’m just the way society carved me,’ he said.

The Tibetan trails and occasional roads were a nightmare of rock and dust. The cold was constant, seeping, draining. Carter had once heard Tibet referred to as ‘The Cold Desert’ and he found the description extremely fitting. It really did remind him of the desert—vast open expanses of undulating rock: a desert of stone. And all encompassed by the looming mountains. Carter smiled inwardly: the ever-present mountains were enough to give a man paranoia. Surrounded by such colossal peaks, how could one
not
believe in a god?

Darkness started to fall, draining the brightness from the sky. And with the failing light came the falling temperature as the stone surroundings sucked the heat from the world.

Soon the KTMs had slowed down, headlights cutting slices of yellow from the intense darkness. After several hours Mongrel flashed his lights at Carter and they pulled to the side of the trail with a crunch of tyres on loose stone. They were perched on the side of a mountain, a series of stepped valleys falling away in the darkness below them and lit by an eerie dim wash of blue-white starlight. The mountains around them were ink black, towering, jagged, chilling.

‘I freezing tits off here, Carter. I die if I not get some heat.’

Carter nodded, killed his bike’s engine, kicked down the bike’s stand and eased his cramped and freeze-locked limbs from the saddle. He listened to the clicking of the engine as it cooled rapidly, his nose twitching at the scent of hot oil. Then he squatted by the side of the trail with his H&K slung over his back, face shadowed by the neoprene mask.

Within minutes they had a pan filled with water, and after another couple of minutes both were pouring hot tea down their throats.

‘This a cold, desolate place,’ said Mongrel over the green glow of the J-block, heating a second pan of water. He shivered. ‘A man like me not tuned in to such desolate culture. How, for example, do they live without kebabs?’ He sounded genuinely horrified. ‘How, for example, can they live without titty bars? There only so much fun you can have with yak.’

‘It’s a case of the old different cultures, different customs,’ said Carter. ‘And believe me, Mongrel, you are a whole different culture, all on your own. You are your own universe of misunderstanding. Will you be fit to continue after drinking a gallon of tea?’

‘You can feel that pressure of the clock, eh, Carter?’

‘Yeah, I feel like we’re fucking about in the mountains on a couple of desert racers while the rest of Spiral and the REBS do all the real work; I’ve got a horrible feeling we’re on a wild-goose chase. Somebody is playing games with us, and we haven’t got a copy of the rule book.’

‘One more brew. Then the Mongrel feel ready for another session of freezing hours in saddle. Hey, you want to hear about Fat Chick—’

‘No.’

Mongrel tilted his head to one side. ‘In this light, Carter, I swear you have look of eagles about you. You are truly man to walk the mountains with!’

‘Fine words, Dog. Get the tea made and drunk, and let’s haul our arses out of here. I’ve got a creeping feeling we’re being watched.’

‘Pah! Just overactive magination.’

‘You mean
i
magination?’

‘Yeah. Sorry. I think this old dog suffering from serious case of altitude sickness,’ Mongrel muttered, scowling. ‘Obably.’

During the night it was so cold that the water froze in their canteens, and the bikes’ brake-discs became coated in a layer of slick ice. The KTMs’ gearboxes worked only intermittently, and their tyres were crusted with crushed white rime.

Dawn saw Carter and Mongrel dropping from the mountains past what they at first suspected was a deserted temple, a huge red-walled building built into the side of a mountain on huge steps of smooth carved stone. The beautifully crafted roofs were sloped and curved up suddenly at their edges, gilded and topped with golden statues facing in towards one another; the walls were wooden, the many tiny square windows edged in white and gold lace. The distant sounds of wind chimes echoed hauntingly from the red temple, and colourful banners snapped in the wind, crackling between tall fire-blackened wooden poles.

The two Spiral men cruised past at a modest speed, eyes searching the parallel layout of windows and decorated panelled doorways for any sign of occupancy. Suddenly, a single shot rang out, a crashing retort that boomed through the mountains. Carter saw a puff of stone dust kicked up near his front wheel and he slammed open the throttle, the word
sniper
racing through his brain. Mongrel needed no further persuasion, and the two men thundered down the narrow stone trail, suspensions hammering, tyres thumping and thudding through ruts, and over rocks. Another two shots followed and then they rounded a bend, a bulging rock face covering their back trail—and cutting them off from the gunman.

Carter slammed on his brakes and slithered to a halt on iced rims. He glanced back. ‘You OK?’

‘Yes. So, a friendly people, then?’

‘It would appear that way.’

They quickly checked the bikes, then rode off down the narrow trail, both men cursing themselves. They had been lulled into a false sense of security, hypnotised by the harsh and savage beauty of the spectacular landscape and the apparent desolation. Whoever had taken those potshots had brought the two Spiral men back into a brutal reality; they knew now that they were in hostile territory. Now they rode with sub-machine guns cocked, safety catches off and a round in the breech.

Another hour saw them stopping at a near-deserted village due to Mongrel complaining of HAS—High-Altitude Sickness. He had called a halt twice to vomit beside the trail, and complained of headaches and a persistent feeling of nausea. For Mongrel, the whole world was spinning like a kaleidoscopic top.

Carter had brought Diamox from the SP_Plot stores, but the small grey tablets seemed to do little to relieve Mongrel’s symptoms—despite the bold claims on the packaging. And this natural break slowed their average speed right down, increasing Carter’s sense of frustration.

The village was little more than a collection of wooden buildings painted in a mixture of white and red square panels. It was surrounded by a plain of tough coarse grass, and its central feature was a pile of stones supporting a gold idol atop an intricately carved wooden pole.