Adam Baker - Juggernaut

Page 01/1

08/22/05

MEMORANDUM TO:Project Lead, D.Ops

SUBJECT:Spektr

Colonel,

11th Recon confirm their Predator drone has been launched and has entered the Western Desert. We should resume eyes-on-target surveillance of Valley 403 within the hour.

We will re-establish contact with our man at the SPEKTR site shortly, and seek confirmation that the virus package has been acquired.

If our man is unable to provide assurance that the package has been retrieved, if Predator surveillance reveals further evidence of hostile activity within the contamination zone, we may be forced to accept that re-activation of the SPEKTR site will not be possible.

Our assets at Sharjah continue their preparations. We have received clearance for over-flight from QTAC. The plane has been registered as a shipment of urgent medical supplies. The SUNRAY device is loaded and ready to deploy.

The aircrew are on standby. They are prepared to initiate CLEANSWEEP on my command.

Lucy returned to the train.

She shuffled along the narrow locomotive walkway. She opened service panels with a large hex key.

The train was a diesel/electric hybrid. A massive turbo-charged V-12 powering an adjacent generator the size of a Volkswagen.

She shone her flashlight round the tight engine compartment. Cables and pipe-work intact. No obvious signs of damage.

She vaulted the walkway rail and jumped down to the track. She shone her barrel light beneath the locomotive. Leaf springs. Brake shoes. Traction motors. No leaks, no damage.

She grasped grab-irons and hauled herself back up to the walkway. She returned to the cab. She sat in the driver’s seat: a leather bar-stool patched with duct tape.

A small brass plaque screwed to the console.

Montreal Locomotive Works.

The engine had, in a previous life, been owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway.

She looked over the console once more and tried to decipher the controls. Dials. Switches. A red brake handle. A directional selector. An eight-speed throttle. None of the controls would respond.

She paced the cab and examined wall boxes. High-voltage warning zags. Locked. She hammered them open with her rifle stock.

She cranked a lever to On. She flicked banks of breaker switches, turned every light green.

The cabin overhead bulb lit up. The filament emitted a weak, flickering glow like candle flame.

She tried the ignition. A jolt ran through the locomotive, a cough like the engine engaged but immediately cut out.

A winking red light.

Lucy snatched keys from a wall hook and jumped from the cab.

Jabril wiped dust from the washstand mirror. He was stripped to the waist.

He poured a bottle of mineral water into a tin bowl. He unzipped a wash bag. He stripped naked and soaped himself down. He rubbed shampoo into his hair until it frothed, then emptied the basin over his head.

He towelled himself dry with his army jacket and threw it in the corner.

He tested the battery of an electric shaver. He scoured away grey stubble. He combed. He dabbed cologne onto his neck.

He buttoned a pristine white shirt. He turned up his collar, draped a black silk tie round his neck and tied the knot one-handed. He shrugged on his suit, tied shoes and tucked a silk handkerchief into the breast pocket.

White linen. In a dirt-poor country where most people were a couple of generations clear of camel-trading Bedouin, his white suit screamed status. A guy who spent his life behind a desk. A guy who gave orders. A guy that didn’t break sweat. He could walk down any street. Nobody would mess with him.

He took another Turkish cigarette from his gold case and lit it with the click of his lighter. He checked the magazine of his compact Makarov pistol and tucked it in his waistband.

He pulled a second Louis Vuitton suitcase from beneath his cot and flipped latches.

Blocks wrapped in wax paper. PE4-A, Portuguese high-grade plastic explosive.

A box of detonators.

Hundred-metre rolls of twin-flex phone cable.

He unwrapped a slab of explosive. He slapped it against the washstand mirror, kneaded it against the glass. He mashed a detonator into the clay and spliced cable.

He backed out of the room and down the corridor, spooling cable as he walked.

A storeroom.

He kicked open the rough wooden door. Document boxes.

Jabril kicked over the boxes. Forms and files. Digital video tape and CDs. Hard disks and flash drives.

Paper spilled across the floor. Records of terminal trials: observation notes, temperature graphs, X-rays.

Black and white photographs showed a series of anguished, naked men tied to the necropsy table, and the frame-by-frame progress of infection.

Jabril slapped a patty of explosive against a ceiling beam and ran cable.

There were jerry cans in the corner of the room. He uncapped a can and pushed it over. Gasoline gulped from the nozzle and soaked paper.

He backed out the room, running command wire.

The holding pens. Two freight containers sitting at the end of a tunnel. The container doors had been removed and replaced by welded bars. Crude jail cells.

Jabril instinctively covered his mouth and nose with the hooked stump of his arm. The tunnel used to smell of faeces. Most soldiers wouldn’t approach the place unless they were ordered to pull sentry duty. If they were forced to stand guard, they would plug their noses with toilet tissue sprayed with deodorant. Some of the prisoners lost bowel control each time a removal team arrived to extract a fresh victim. The men would huddle in shadows at the back of the container. They would piss and soil themselves.

Jabril would make the selection. The team would drag the semi-conscious man clear while his companions were kept at bay with Taser batons.

The inmate would be marched to the cavern labs, thrashing as he saw the zinc table and nylon restraints waiting to receive him.

‘ Cameras running. ’

A lab tech would tightened wrist, ankle and chest straps, tug buckles and checked for slack.

‘ He’s secure. Go ahead. ’

That long, despairing shriek as the prisoner lifted his head, watched a needle prick the skin of his forearm and deliver its lethal load.

Jabril had spent his working life in Baghdad instigating torture and executions. He would work his way through a prisoner list as he sipped his mid-morning coffee. Part of the daily routine, like glancing through the sheaf of anonymous denunciations that arrived by mail each morning.

He leafed through intelligence reports and circled names. His subordinates understood the code. A cross meant arrest and detainment. A circle meant interrogation. A red tick meant death. He didn’t have to give a direct order. The words never passed his lips. He didn’t have to hear the screams. He didn’t have to smell the sweat, piss and blood of the torture cells.

But the Spektr project gave him the direct power of life and death. He stood in front of the prisoner pens every couple of days, surveyed the snivelling men and made his choice. He would point out his chosen victim, watch them cower from his pointed finger like he was aiming a gun. It was intoxicating. God-like potency. A heart-galloping thrill, like illicit sex.

Jabril stood by the bars and stared into the dark cave-mouth of the empty freight containers. He could still hear the ghost-screams, feel the old flutter of excitement.

He set the suitcase down. He popped latches. He slapped explosive against timber wall props and pushed detonators into the putty. He twisted together frayed copper strands and ran cable.