Operation Norway (S-Squad Book 7) Read online

  Despite his gloves and heavy-duty boots, Banks couldn’t feel either hands or feet. Ice crystals formed on the inside of his snow goggles, obscuring his sight further. He fell into a rhythm, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, one step at a time, down what felt like an endless trail lost in a whiteout of wind and snow. The tree line was merely a darker looming shadow up an incline to their left and he knew, although he couldn’t see it, that the small river ran down a slope somewhere to his right. He focussed on staying inside that track.

  He lost all sense of time. He knew he needed to stay alert; whatever had attacked them was still out there somewhere in the storm. But pulling the litter needed all of his effort and soon he was so weary all he could do was keep his head down and trudge.

  He only stopped when he walked into Davies who had come to a halt ahead of him.

  They had reached the foot of the valley and were faced with a long, exposed walk across a featureless plateau. There was no sign of their trail ahead of them; the snow had rendered everything into a flat whiteness.

  - 9 -

  They stopped only long enough to check on Wilkins—they got another thumbs-up although the lad looked gray in the face, his eyes sunken deep in their sockets. They switched pulling duty. Davies and Hynd took over the litter. Banks took the opportunity to light up a cigarette; the smoke felt warm in his throat and chest and he was welcome of it. If there had been any sign of shelter, he might have stopped and got Wiggins to break out the camp stove for coffee. But there was only the plateau, with not even a large enough bush to huddle behind.

  And besides, that fucker might be right behind us for all we know.

  He looked out into the snow, hoping for the sight of a landmark, a reminder of the paths they’d taken to get here, but visibility, although improving, was still little more than ten yards in any direction. He knew the wind was coming mainly from the north and that they needed to head west so he made a turn slightly right of where he was facing. The snow whipped into the side of his head now, spattering against the outer fabric of his hood. Hynd and Davies were going to be pulling the litter into a crosswind coming straight at them across the flat terrain.

  But it can’t be helped. The situation is what it is and the sooner we get across this, the sooner we’ll get back to some warmth.

  He led the squad out onto the plateau.

  *

  Walking was easier now that he wasn’t pulling Wilkins along behind him but the earlier effort had taken its toll and he felt weary down to his bones. He tried to pick a point twenty yards ahead of him, keeping the wind coming from his right and hoping that they were going in as straight a line as possible. At one point, he retrieved the sat phone from his pocket, hoping to check the GPS…and that’s when he found that it hadn’t survived his rough treatment in the earlier attack. Something had got jumbled in its works; the power refused to come on, giving him only a dark, blank screen. He had no time to stop and fiddle with it; that would have to wait until they got back to sea level and shelter. If he couldn’t get it working, they were going to be reliant on the supply vessel skipper getting concerned and sending somebody looking for them; Banks knew that wasn’t a given.

  But worrying about it now isn’t going to get me anywhere.

  They trudged on through the storm.

  *

  He judged they must be almost halfway across the plateau when they came across tracks running from his right and across the front of their chosen route. They’d only recently been made, just beginning to fill with snow; large, eighteen-inch-long footprints, spatulate with no visible toes and pressed deeply down as if they’d been made with great weight.

  The fucker’s got in front of us.

  Banks had them up their speed to almost a trot and now he wasn’t looking straight ahead but tracking his gaze from side to side. The range of his vision still wasn’t much more than ten yards and he knew if an attack came, they’d get little warning.

  When it came, it came, not from in front but from behind, and their first indication was a startled yell from young Wilkins and the rat-a-tat of three shots as the private fired at something to the rear. Hynd and Davies reacted immediately, dropping their hold on the litter and Banks and Wiggins joined them in wheeling, weapons already raised, as a huge lumbering figure came out of the snow.

  They got their first clear look at it even as they pumped a rapid volley, three shots each, into it, shots that sent it turning away with a roar that was soon lost along with it in the snow. Banks was left with the impression of something nearly ten feet tall, almost gorilla-like—barrel-chested and heavy-bellied, with short legs and wide, muscled shoulders. But instead of black or silver hair, the thing was gray and grainy, almost rock-like, what passed for skin riven with lighter-colored fissures.

  “What’s this now, the fucking Incredible Hulk?” Hynd said as the ringing in their ears from the shooting started to fade.

  “Wrong comic, Sarge,” Wiggins replied. “We’re in Fantastic Four territory here; it’s the fucking Thing.”

  “Whatever the fuck it is, we know we can keep it at bay,” Banks said, peering in the direction where the thing had gone and seeing only more snow. “So eyes peeled and move out, lads. We need to be somewhere we can defend.”

  Hynd and Wiggins took up the litter this time and Banks and Davies ploughed the road, all of them fully alert now, the adrenaline from the attack masking their tiredness as they headed as fast as they could muster for the clifftop and their path down to shelter.

  *

  They found the path more by luck than judgement only twenty feet to the left of where they ended up at the cliff edge. Banks used his rifle light to check ahead; there were no fresh tracks on the trail but just looking at it made him weak at the knees. Although it had a gentle gradient in the main, there had been steep portions in places coming up, especially at tight corners, and now it was covered with more fresh snow. It was still blowing a gale and they were going to have to get the injured Wilkins safely down without the litter and the private on it careering off and away down to the harbor far below.

  And that’s even before we worry about the fucking rock gorilla at our back.

  “Easy does it on the way down, lads,” he said. “There’s coffee and a dram waiting for us down there. Let’s make sure we all get there in one piece.”

  They took it slowly. Where they were able, all four of them took a corner of the litter but at some corners the trail was only wide enough for single file and those spots they took even slower still. The wind threatened to toss them off the path at every exposed point and twice they had to hug the cliff face and get Wilkins up on his feet to negotiate particularly sharp, windswept corners. On the second of these, a gust of wind caught the private, setting him off balance and by instinct he put his weight on the broken leg.

  His wail of pain was answered by a roar, like clashing rocks, from high above them.

  Banks turned to the others.

  “Sarge, Davies, get Wilkins down off this fucking cliff ASAP. See what you can do to make one of yon huts defensible for the rest of the night. Wiggo, you’re with me. We’ll hold here, give the others time to get down.”

  It was only a minute before Banks and Wiggins were alone on the track, the others having become lost to sight in the storm. The angry roar came again from above them.

  “I think somebody needs a Snickers,” Wiggins said.

  “It’s a boot up the arse he’s needing,” Banks replied. He pushed in his earplugs and Wiggins followed suit then Banks knelt on the path, with Wiggins standing above him, both aiming up the trail towards the clifftop.

  *

  “Will it come?” Wiggins said.

  “We pissed it off. It’ll come,” Banks said and as if in reply, the huge gray figure came down the trail at a run towards them.

  Wiggins shouted, even as Banks was taking aim.

  “Stop. Why don’t you just fucking stop.”

  To their amazement the thing c
ame to a halt, standing still in the wind some ten feet up the slope above them. Banks saw that its eyes were little more than deep black pits in a craggy face but there was nothing unrecognizable about the way it cocked its head to one side, listening. Wiggins didn’t waste any time, putting three shots into its face as Banks put three in its belly. They didn’t to do any discernible damage, although Banks thought he saw something slough off the body where his bullets struck it.

  And there was also no mistaking the look the thing gave as it roared again and wheeled away at speed, heading away into the storm; it was a look of confusion—that and betrayal.

  *

  They waited for several minutes but there was no sign that the thing might return.

  “Cover me, Wiggo,” Banks said. “I think I saw something.”

  He went back up the slope to where the beast had been standing. There, in a hollow made by its giant footprint, he found a lump of tissue the size of his thumb. One end of it felt hard, like cold stone but the other end was soft and when he touched it, the fingers of his glove came away bloody.

  He showed Wiggins his fingertips and the corporal smiled grimly.

  “Well, at least it bleeds. That’s a start.”

  - 10 -

  They waited on the path for five minutes, both to ensure the beast wouldn’t return and to give the others below time to find shelter and make it safe. Wiggins even relaxed enough to have a cigarette but Banks couldn’t bring himself to drop his guard; the memory of being tossed aside like a discarded coffee cup was still large in his mind—it would be a while yet before he got over the wound to his dignity.

  But after a while, with the wind showing no sign of getting any less—or any warmer—he called time on their vigil.

  “Let’s go, Wiggo. With any luck, the sarge will have a brew on.”

  They descended quickly to the shore and neither of them gave a look to the ruined hut and the strewn body parts, now almost obscured again in snow. The lights were on in the hut where they’d spent the night before and they found Davies working on Wilkins and Hynd getting a fire going in the grate. There was already a pot of water boiling up on the camp stove.

  Banks’ first thought wasn’t for heat but for the wounded man. He went quickly to Davies’ side, initially dismayed to see that Wilkins was unconscious. Davies put him right.

  “I put him out, Cap,” the private said. “We found enough sedatives in yon lab next door to keep him pain-free all the way home; I think that’s for the best.” He showed Banks several tall jars filled with a milky fluid. “An opiate of some kind. Which one I’m not sure, but it’s strong stuff.”

  “Talking of strong stuff,” Wiggins said as he got some coffee going on the stove. “What was that all about out there, Cap? If I’d known it was going to obey me, I’d have told it to fuck off. Why did it stop?”

  Banks didn’t have an answer for that. He put a hand in his pocket and took out the sat phone. His fingers touched the old journal that was still sitting inside his jacket.

  “I don’t know, Wiggo. But maybe the answer’s in this book. In the meantime,” he said, tossing the phone to the corporal, “see if you can get this bugger of a thing working, will you? Yon supply boat skipper’s expecting a call in the morning. I’d hate to disappoint him.”

  Hynd had got the fire going and had now set up guard by the door. He banged on the wall beside the doorway.

  “This is the strongest of the huts, Cap,” the sergeant said. “But seeing as how our boy survived a shitload of C4 and a cave falling on his head, I don’t ken what good it’s going to do us.”

  Banks removed the lump of tissue from his pocket and showed it to Hynd.

  “It bleeds. As Wiggo said, that’s a start. We might have bought ourselves some time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Coffee and a fag for one thing,” Banks replied and took the journal from out of his pocket. “And a look for some answers in here for another.”

  *

  Wiggins dispensed coffee and smokes and slowly they all felt some warmth creep back into their bones. Wilkins was still out for the count but they put him down close to the fire, ensuring he’d stay warm. Wiggins set to fiddling—dismantling—the sat phone and Banks took the chance of a quiet moment to do a rapid search of the journal for more clues.

  The bulk of the part he hadn’t already read was more of the writer’s misgivings as to the nature of their experiment and details of the scientists’ increasing frustration at not being able to control the thing they’d made. The very last entry was a longer one. Banks lit himself another smoke and started reading.

  *

  Jan 15th 1951

  We buried Johnson today, a naval funeral out in the fjord—there was precious little left of him to do the right thing with after McCallum had finished eating. Jensen had the temerity to try to condone the act of brutal barbarism.

  “It’s in his nature,” the scientist said, as if McCallum’s nature is not now merely that which we have endowed him with. Jensen tried to fob me off with some old drivel about racial memory being embedded in the specimens we took from the cave up in the high valley. He says that the process has created a chemical soup in what passes for McCallum’s brain these days and that drives only his most base instincts, but I will have none of it. I know exactly what it is we have wrought here between these cold cliffs.

  We have created a monster and I for one will have to live with that for as long as God gives me breath. If this is the future of warfare, I am glad I will be too old—or too dead—to have any further part of it.

  I wish now that I had listened to Johnson when he came to me all those months ago to ask for McCallum’s termination.

  “It would be for the best if we used all the sedative we have at our disposal in one fell swoop,” he said.

  “On what grounds?” I had asked.

  “For mercy’s sake,” had been the simple reply.

  And at that, Johnson took me that very hour to the brick and iron cage to see what we had made together. Even then, more than six long months ago, Private McCallum was a painful thing to look upon, being gray and riddled with pink fissures that wept blood and fluid with every movement. He had become a thing not fully rock yet not entirely man, a thing that moaned and wailed most piteously day and night when not sedated.

  I had to naysay Johnson and I refused to countenance any slowdown of the work at that time. Back then, in the height of summer and with glowing testimonials from Jensen to pass on to my superiors in London and Edinburgh, I still thought the experiment, if not entirely moral, was yet a minor success. Yes, Jensen was having difficulties controlling the thing—I can no longer think of it as a man worthy of the name—it continued to resist all form of discipline, whether it be in pain or in removal of food for long periods. It refused to comply with even the simplest commands and its very intransigence threatened to negate any goodwill the results so far had brought us from the people who pay the bills—and my salary.

  The orders that came through in the late autumn suggested that the matter was dragging out too long and that our budget might not be forthcoming for the following year if more encouraging results could not be achieved. I knew exactly what they meant by ‘encouraging’—they required the final product of what we did here to be obedient to a fault, with no questions, no complaints. They wanted an attack dog they could send into battle with no qualms, one that would put the fear of God into the enemy. They did not expect it to have put the fear of God into those of us tasked with creating it.

  Jensen, for his part, took the new orders to heart and began a stricter regime of discipline, treating his patient more like a prisoner with no rights, no privileges. When discipline, drugs, beatings, and electric shocks failed to inspire obedience, Jensen turned to his last resort.

  From October to the start of the new year, he starved it. Johnson came to me several times over that period, once again pleading for mercy for the man.

  “That’s no man,” Jense
n had said when I passed Johnson’s qualms on. “Not anymore.”

  “If not man, then what?” I asked.

  “He is what we made him, a product of the materials from the cave samples; he is one with his building blocks—he is a mountain troll and he is the very last of his kind. He is a legend.”

  In passing, I would like to state here for the record that I doubt whether Jensen is fully sane. The pressure of work, the long hours, and a constant proximity to the beast has unhinged him in some fundamental fashion that is hard to pin down but perfectly obvious to anyone who knows the man. My recommendation is that once we are done, he be placed on administrative leave and in no way should be allowed access to any of the materials we have gathered here.

  As for his statement of McCallum being ‘the last of his kind’; I knew, of course, that if our experiment were eventually proved to be a success, then the poor creature in our cell would not be the last of anything, merely the first of a new army. And having seen far too much of one war already, I was not keen to see another, particularly one fought with beasts such as this.

  But, mindful of my salary, my position, God help me, my reputation, I’m afraid I let it drag on far too long. My main reason, the only thing I have to plead with, is that Jensen finally got some results, although it did not come from the starvation or any other deprivation.

  It is the simplest things that you neglect to consider.

  Jensen was with his ‘patient’ administrating a sedative when the thing woke unexpectedly and threatened to crush the scientist’s windpipe with a single hand. Sergeant Wicks was in the room standing guard at the time and his training and instincts led him to call out an order.