Dark Rising

FORTY-SIX

Five… four… three… two… one… a red light turned green. The hissing stopped. Zach dropped his hands from his face and looked embarrassed.

Sam turned to Adira and Zach and said, ‘Get behind us.’

‘Not a chance.’ Adira had her gun up and her eyes burned with a focused intensity.

Zach also had his gun drawn, but he stood a little behind Lagudi. He saw the HAWC cross himself once and suck in a deep breath.

The door slid open.

‘Kadima!’ Adira screamed – an ancient Hebrew battle cry that made the giant Urakher waiting for them on the other side of the door bellow in anger. She pushed past Rocky and Sam and dived to the floor, firing as she went.

Lagudi and Sam were through just as fast, fanning left and right. Zach jammed a knife into the door rail to stop it from closing, then followed Adira, wriggling on his stomach towards a hiding place under the table.

The four Urakher had obviously been expecting this, Al Janaddi thought. That was why they were wearing the protective vests. The man with Al Janaddi placed his huge hand behind the scientist’s neck and hissed into his ear, ‘Start the Event now, little man, or you will die.’

The other three Urakher came forward in a solid wall of flesh, providing cover for their companion and Al Janaddi. They fired at the intruders with a skill that told of many years of training. The gunfire was frighteningly loud in the small room, and the dull smacking of bullets impacting against the Americans’ armour and the Urakhers’ reinforced vests sounded like heavy rain on a canvas sail. If the Urakher felt the pain of the impacts, they gave no sign.

The HAWCs and Adira each picked a target and engaged it with a volley of bullets. They quickly found that, for large men, these soldiers moved quickly and were without fear. Adira spotted the star and crescent tattoo on the temple of one of the men and couldn’t suppress a shudder of fear and revulsion. Achhh, Urakher – the warrior dead – she hadn’t thought they still existed. They were madmen, known for their fearlessness in battle and their total disdain for their own or any other life. In all her time in Metsada, Adira had never heard of one being killed.

The technicians and scientists in the room dived to cower beneath tables or anywhere they could find refuge. One of the technicians ducked under the table next to Zach, who just looked at him with raised eyebrows and shrugged.

Lagudi had closed the gap on his man and was now in range of a pair of gigantic arms with fists the size of bricks. The Urakher seized Lagudi’s gun hand and brought his elbow around towards the HAWC’s chin, expecting to connect in a bone-shattering strike. Lagudi blocked the powerful thrust, recognising the martial arts strike. ‘Not bad, but now you’re playing in my sandpit, asshole.’ He released his gun and brought a flat-handed strike up under his opponent’s chin. The Urakher’s head snapped back, but instead of the rewarding sound of cartilage and bone snapping, Lagudi saw the man’s head immediately come back down. There was no pain or anger in those black eyes – just a calmness that the muscular little HAWC found unsettling.

Adira had managed to put a bullet in the thigh and upper arm of her opponent, but he kept coming forward. She didn’t want to get within reach of those hands – the fanatical giant could literally tear her arms off. She fired again and rolled to keep a little distance between herself and the black-clad titan. But eventually she would be backed into a corner or would run out of ammunition – and she knew there would be no time for a reload.

She heard a booming sound coming from outside the closed entry door to the security chamber that led into the lab. Just then Sam Reid came hurtling across the room at about head height, only to smash into a wall and crumple to the ground. This is not going well, she thought.

The booming sound came again.

We need more time, Adira thought, and then 250 pounds of muscle wrapped in Kevlar landed on top of her. Dafook! Caught, she thought. Time’s up – make it count.

The security door was thick and made of a condensed alloy especially toughened to resist bullets and heat. Alex could hear the sound of gunfire and mayhem through the steel, and could feel pain being registered. There was a battle going on in there – his HAWCs against an unknown number of highly trained opponents – and he needed to be part of it.

The number pad and its code were inaccessible to him, so he withdrew his two remaining spiders and placed them together in one corner of the door, setting them for five seconds. He ran a few feet around the curve of the corridor. The explosion blew tiles off the ceiling and floor above and around the door, but the security alloy held. It was burnt and abraded but not even cracked.

‘Shit!’ Alex yelled, and punched the door. He kicked out at it, and then punched it again and again. The booming clangs of his blows became just as loud as the explosives he had used and with each one Alex’s anger built. More steroids and more adrenalin flushed into his system, natural stimulants mixing with the unique chemical compounds introduced in a laboratory on the other side of the world, until his entire body almost hummed with unnatural strength.

Alex struck the door with a two-fisted overhead blow and was rewarded by a large dent in its centre. Too long, he thought. His fists bled, but the pain in his hands was nothing compared to the agonised red screaming in his head. It was becoming hard to think clearly. He withdrew O’Riordan’s Ka-Bar blade and assessed the best place to strike. It was going to be futile, but rage was now beginning to cloud his logic. He backed up a step, lifted the blade high and launched himself at the door.

*

The Urakher standing guard over Al Janaddi watched closely as the scientist initiated the Judgment Event. He spoke quietly into his ear: ‘Turn on the microphone to the capsule.’

The scientist complied, then tried to squirm out of the giant hand that was crushing his neck. The Urakher squeezed a little harder and gazed reverently through the window at the lead capsule. ‘We have begun the program, my Mahdi, O Allah be praised,’ he said.

From the capsule came the response: ‘Allahu Akbar, faithful one, I will intercede for you, your family and all your ancestors.’

Incredibly, Al Janaddi heard singing through the speaker. It was the Adhan, the call to prayer – the first song heard by a Muslim newborn, the first song sung in a school or new home, the song for a new beginning. The president’s voice was as haunting as it was melodious. It was said that the more powerful the voice, the more powerful the prayer.

In the sphere room, a low horn sounded and the lights began to dim.