Black Mountain

SEVEN

Alex groaned and sat up, holding his head. The pain was like a blast furnace in his skull. Within the agonised fire, a whirlwind of images flashed across his consciousness — people, places, things monstrous and alien. There was a giant bearded man pointing a gun at his face. With a shaking hand, Alex touched a small scar above his eye.

He rocked back and forth for a few minutes until the pain became bearable: a vice instead of a hot spike. The images faded and he rubbed his face. After another moment, he felt able to open his eyes. He remembered being in a laboratory, and feeling like he was drowning. A foul liquid in his nose, mouth and lungs — a dream perhaps. He flexed his hands and turned them over. There were scars on his forearms and running up his biceps. It looked like skin had been removed or carved out.

‘What happened?’

His voice sounded strange to his ears. He blinked a few times and waited for the dizziness to settle.

He looked around. The room was small and sparsely furnished — the bed he was sitting on, a chair, a chest of drawers with a bowl of fruit on top. No windows. There was a small bathroom containing a few toiletries; again, no window.

Alex went to the chest and pulled open the top drawer. There was clothing inside, all new. He lifted a pair of slacks and let them unfold at his side to gauge their length. Satisfied, he pulled them on, and followed with a T-shirt. The smell of the fruit made him hungry. He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten anything. Grabbing a green apple, he lifted it to his mouth, then paused and closed his eyes for a second. The smell reminded him of something. He tried to concentrate, but as soon as he pressed for the answer, the furnace swung open again.

He groaned as the pain intensified, and staggered back to the bed, sitting down heavily. Once again the faces swirled around him, like silent ghosts demanding to be acknowledged. There came a young woman, attractive and dark-haired, with blue eyes that changed colour as he watched. Next was an older man, square-headed and brutal-looking, then a woman, older, her face… comforting somehow. There was a large dog beside her and she called to it, said its name. He strained to hear, but the words were muted.

The pain intensified, and he felt a warm wetness on his top lip that ran quickly down to his chin. Blood, running from his nose. He let the images go and tried to relax his mind. The pain immediately eased.

Alex took off his T-shirt and held it to his face, waiting for the flow to subside. He pulled it away and noticed the dark blood was thick with black oily streaks. ‘Nice.’ He flung the shirt into the bathroom and got to his feet.

After showering, and finishing off most of the fruit, he decided to check out his surroundings in more detail. He reached for the door handle; the round, metal knob was cool to the touch and only turned a fraction before stopping — locked. He frowned; there was no key or locking mechanism on his side. Jammed?

He squeezed the knob and tried again. The handle squealed in protest, then came off in his hand. Huh? He held up the steel ball. It was dented and compressed from where he’d gripped it. The part that had attached to the door was twisted as though it had been wrung in an industrial press. He dropped the handle to the floor and pushed at the door — still locked. Now he was trapped, and there was no door handle.

‘What the hell?’

His neck prickled. He whipped around, feeling a presence behind him. The room remained silent and empty, but as he was about to turn back he noticed a tiny black dot on the ceiling, no bigger than a match-head. It could have been a housefly, or a spot missed by the painters, but he focused on it and saw it clearly for what it was — a small glass lens.

He gritted his teeth, anger starting to build. ‘Fuck you. I’m leaving.’

He took a step back, preparing to kick the centre of the door, when the lock rattled and the door opened.

Alex took a step back. ‘You.’

Adira walked into the room, leaving the door open. Alex looked from her to the open door.

She smiled. ‘You’re not a prisoner, Alex, you never were. It was locked to ensure you didn’t stumble around in a strange place while you were recovering. You’ve been very sick.’

‘Alex.’ He tested the name. It sounded familiar. ‘I can’t remember…’

Adira ignored his question; instead, she walked around him, nodding. Physically, he looked as if he’d never been sick, let alone spent six months in an induced low-temperature suspended animation to halt the progress of a killer, necrotising bacteria that was trying to ingest his body.

She smiled at him. ‘You were injured, but now you’re fine.’

‘I know you, don’t I? I think…’ He grimaced. ‘It hurts when I try to remember things.’

She nodded, fixing a concerned look on her face. It seemed any memory of his ordeal, his early life, even of his time in the Special Forces, had been erased.

Might not be a bad thing, she thought.

She spoke as if reciting a prepared script. ‘I’m with the hospital. You were injured, and you’ve been in a coma. Be patient; the memories will come back slowly. Your name is Alex Horowitz, and for now all you need to know is you’re back amongst friends.’ She reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Very good friends.’

She held his eyes. ‘You’ve come back to me — to us — and no one and nothing else matters for now. Okay, Alex?’

He stared back at her, then seemed to give up. ‘Nothing else matters,’ he repeated.

Adira sat motionless, waiting for the general to get to the point. Her uncle had summoned her, undoubtedly to discuss Alex Hunter. She could see the Project Golem folder on his desk, open at the surgical biopsy section. He had obviously meant it to be seen.

She drew in a deep breath through her nose. The smell of cigarettes, aftershave and old leather was familiar and comforting. Still, today she was nervous. Captain Adira Senesh, member of Mossad’s elite Metsada unit, had crawled through claustrophobic terrorist tunnels, fought hand to hand with some of the most dangerous killers in the world, and seen things of abject brutality and horror, but at this moment in General Shavit’s office, her tension was acute as she waited to hear whether she would be allowed to continue with the project. She loved her uncle dearly, but if he tried to remove her, there’d be trouble… and she’d make it.

The general’s voice came from his lips like the warm smoke of his cigarette. ‘Everything has a price, Addy. Stealing Captain Hunter from the Americans, secreting him here in these facilities — there is more than a financial cost, there are political costs: the cost of putting the entire population of Israel at risk of contamination; the cost of embarrassing our remaining American supporters; and the cost to both our careers.’

She heard a slow wheezing intake of breath and then an exhalation like a sigh. ‘Addy, did you really think we went through all this just because you felt you needed to repay some sort of personal debt? Or liked the colour of the captain’s eyes?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘The Arcadian genesis is a puzzle, and we need our puzzles solved, Addy.’

Adira’s burning anger at Weisz for taking samples from Alex had dissipated. Now she just felt confused and disappointed.

‘Weisz said he was cutting him up. You know that was never the deal — you promised he would be looked after. We agreed that we’d seek answers from the man, if that was possible, not just from his biology.’ She sat forward. ‘No one is going to be cutting the answers out of him. I swear this to you: the next person who touches him…’ She left the threat hanging.

The general sighed and shifted in his deep leather chair. Adira felt her foot begin to tap the floor, still at the mercy of her nerves. She saw her uncle’s eyes slide from her jumping foot to her face.

‘My child, does he even know you?’ he asked gently. ‘The real you? We know the infection reached his brain. Believe it or not, I worry about your safety — you know what the Arcadian records said about his mental stability. He could tear you in half before he even realised he had done it.’

‘No, never. He saw me… and he knew me.’ She looked at her wrist, circled by a band of bruises.

More slow wheezing as the general watched her face for a few seconds. ‘Maybe, Addy, and maybe not. But we need the secrets he holds — you’ve always known that. The Hades bacterium forced our hand, but it also brought him back to us. We must make use of the opportunity while we have it. How long until the American military discovers he is here? For now, they think he is dead, but we know Colonel Hammerson wasn’t authorised to deliver Hunter’s body to you, or to let you take him from the country. This is the age of technology, Addy — nothing, and no one, can stay hidden for long.

‘Yes, I promised only to question Hunter, but how could that happen while he was frozen? If he will not talk to us, his cells will — I must have my answers.’ The general leaned further back into the chair and his eyes closed. ‘I’m sorry, Addy, but the bill is coming in and it must be paid.’

Adira got to her feet and paced to one side of the room, spun and returned. She stood beside his chair, not facing him, talking just as much to herself as to him.

‘I’ll get your answers. I can get him to talk — I’m the only one he would trust, and I know what he is capable of. The real secrets are in his head, not just in his flesh.’

She paused and waited. There was silence. She heard her uncle’s heavy body shift against leather but didn’t wait for his reply.

‘Besides, no one is touching him until I say. Or you know what I will do to them.’

A coughing sound morphed into a dry laugh. ‘Only you would dare to challenge me in my own office,’ General Shavit said. ‘You are truly your mother’s daughter, Captain Senesh. And if I agree, and let you run the debrief, how will that benefit me?’

She finally turned to face him, going down on one knee beside his chair. ‘You know what he can do. If he chooses to resist you, there is no one who can stand up to him. You’d have to kill him, and then the secrets in his mind are gone forever. But he will talk to me — he trusts me. I can get your answers, and get them quickly.’ She gripped his forearm. ‘Give me six months.’

Shavit patted her hand, and after a few more seconds nodded his assent. ‘I want a daily report on his progress; and he must report weekly to the Mo’ach Centre for medical testing. You have sixty days only — this is not negotiable.’

She started to protest, but he held one hand up in front of her face.

‘In sixty days, we begin our own testing. If you cannot solve the puzzle in two months, you never will.’ He got to his feet, still holding her hand. ‘You will own this responsibility. Do you understand what I am saying, Captain?’

‘Yes, yes, agreed. Thank you, Uncle.’

He nodded again, and led her back to her chair. ‘Now finish your tea, and tell me all about Beirut.’

That was too easy, Adira thought, as she pushed out through the doors of the nondescript building and inhaled the scents of the street. There was a hint of citrus on the air; she liked it. Tel Aviv was small, but modern and centralised — a pool of highrises, expensive shops and perfect streetscapes surrounded by parkland, gentrified neighbourhoods and beautiful beaches. She was part of the only real democracy in the entire Middle East and it made her proud. It is a jewel worth protecting, she thought, as she went lightly down the steps. She knew her uncle was just as determined to understand Alex Hunter as she was — they just had differing ideas on how to go about it. In addition, she cared only about Alex. Her uncle wanted a thousand like him.

Adira chewed her lip as she walked quickly. She hoped her uncle had agreed so readily to her request because he had confidence in her. But her time was limited, and Alex’s memory loss presented her with a dilemma — there were some things she wanted and needed him to remember, but there were other memories she didn’t want him to recover at all. She had no idea whether his full memory would seep back in time, or whether he would be forever a clean slate. The latter presented an opportunity to implant a whole new mosaic of memories, to create an entire matrix of suggestions — ones she wanted him to have. The trick was for her to get enough information from him to satisfy the general and her objectives, but not to open him up so much that she could lose him back to the Americans.

She hurried down the street, feeling the bite of the afternoon heat on her neck. She would take him out of the city, she decided. Somewhere comfortable and relaxing — she knew the perfect place. She smiled. In a week or two, she bet she could coax the answers from him. Her smile broadened; she hadn’t felt like this in years.