Burning Angels

69

At Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta Airport, a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft was in the process of being loaded. A forklift raised crate after crate marked with the KRP logo and slotted them into the hold.

When fully loaded, this flight would be routed to the east coast of the USA, to Washington’s Dulles airport. America imported some 17,000 primates every year, for the purposes of medical testing. Over the years, KRP had grabbed a good chunk of that market.

Another KRP flight was scheduled to fly to Beijing, a third to Sydney, a fourth to Rio de Janeiro… Within a matter of forty-eight hours, all those flights should have landed and the evil would be complete.

And in that, Hank Kammler had just received an unexpected boost, although he wasn’t to know it.

After the British, Kammler hated the Russians almost as much. It was on the Eastern Front, mired in snowy wastes, that Hitler’s mighty Wehrmacht – his war machine – had finally ground to a halt. The Russian Red Army had played a pivotal role in its subsequent defeat.

Accordingly, Moscow was Kammler’s second key target, after London. A 747 cargo aircraft had recently touched down at the city’s Vnukovo airport. Even now, Sergei Kalenko, Vnukovo’s quarantine officer, was busy overseeing the transfer of the caged primates to the nearby pens.

But this was Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where everything was somewhat negotiable. Kalenko had directed that a few dozen cages – containing thirty-six vervet monkeys – should be stacked to one side.

Centrium – Russia’s largest pharmaceutical testing company – had run out of animals for an ongoing drugs trial. Each day’s delay was costing the company some $50,000. Money – bribes – talked in Russia, and accordingly Kalenko wasn’t about to object to a few dozen of his charges evading quarantine. He figured the risk was negligible. After all, KRP had never once sent an unhealthy shipment, and he didn’t expect them to have done so now.

Quickly the cages were loaded on to the rear of a flatbed truck and sheeted over with a dull green canvas. That done, Kalenko pocketed a large wad of cash and the vehicle sped away into the frost-kissed Moscow night.

He watched the truck’s red tail lights disappear before reaching into the voluminous pocket of his overcoat. Like many airport workers, Kalenko took the occasional nip of vodka to ward off the mind-numbing cold. He treated himself to an extra large gulp now, to celebrate his lucky windfall.

The heater in the Centrium truck cab was on the blink. All day, the man at the wheel had been likewise fighting off the icy chill, and mostly via the bottle. As he headed towards Centrium’s vast facility, he swung the vehicle into the first of a series of bleak suburbs that lay on the south-eastern fringes of the city.

The truck hit a patch of black ice. The driver’s reactions – numbed by the alcohol – were a fraction too slow. It took only an instant, but suddenly the vehicle had skidded off the highway and tumbled down a snowy bank, the canvas ripping open and throwing its load across the ground.

Primates screamed and cackled in fear and rage. The door of the cab had been thrown open at a crazed angle by the impact. The bloodied and dazed form of the driver stumbled out, collapsing in the snow.

The door to the first of the cages was pushed ajar by a terrified hand. Small but powerful fingers tested the strange coat of glistening cold – this alien whiteness. The confused animal sensed freedom – or a freedom of sorts – but could it really walk on this frozen surface?

Up above, vehicles drew to a halt. Faces peered over the incline. Seeing what had happened, some decided to film it on their mobile phones, but one or two actually made the effort to help. As they skidded down the icy bank, the monkeys heard them coming.

It was now or never.

The first broke free from its cage, scattering a cloud of powdery snow in its wake as it made a dash for the nearest shadows. Other cages had likewise burst open, and those animals followed the first monkey’s lead.

By the time the dazed driver had managed to do a body count, he was twelve primates down. A dozen vervet monkeys had escaped into the snowbound streets of this Moscow suburb – cold, hungry and frightened. There was no way the driver could raise the alarm. He’d broken strict quarantine laws. He, Kalenko and Centrium would be in the shit if the cops were alerted.

The monkeys would have to fend for themselves.

The truck happened to have deposited the primates on a road running along the Moskva river. Forming themselves into a makeshift troop, they gathered on the riverbank, huddling together for warmth.

An old woman was hurrying along the riverside. She spied the monkeys and, fearing she was seeing things, started to run. As she skidded on the icy surface and tumbled, the fresh bread stuffed in her shopping bag was strewn across the path. The famished monkeys were upon it in a flash. The woman – dazed and confused – tried to beat them off with her gloved hands.

A vervet snarled. The woman didn’t heed the warning. It struck with its canines, ripping through her gloves and raking a bloodied track across the upper surface of her hand. The woman screamed, monkey saliva mixed with the thick red blood dripping from her wound.

At a cry from the troop’s self-proclaimed leader, the vervets grabbed what bread they could and set off into the busy night – running, climbing and hunting for more food.

A few hundred yards along the river, an after-school club was coming to an end. Moscow kids were learning Sambo, a Soviet-era martial art originally perfected by the KGB but now increasingly popular with the mainstream.

The monkeys were drawn to the noise and the warmth. After a moment’s hesitation, the leader took the troop through an open window. A blow heater propelled currents of hot air into the hall, where the youths were busy with their final bouts of the evening.

One of the monkeys sneezed. Tiny droplets were propelled into the atmosphere, and were wafted with the heat into the hall. Sweaty, panting fighters breathed hard, gasping for air.

Across a city of some eleven million unsuspecting souls, the evil was spreading.