Gorgon

CHAPTER 11

Colonel Jack Hammerson made notes as he watched the VELA satellite images of Uli Borshov and his men jumping from the truck and entering a small apartment in Istanbul. Hammerson was familiar with the way the men moved, their kit, and the size of each individual — a Spec Ops strike force, he thought. Could Graham be in there with them? He pondered the question for a few moments, then dropped the pen and folded his arms. Unlikely.

‘Well, something’s going down’, he said aloud to the empty office.

Hammerson knew that if Borshov had abducted an American scientist one day, and then turned up in goddamn Turkey within thirty hours, there had to be a connection. The guy had been under a rock for two years, and now he was all over the place.

He tapped his chin with one callused knuckle, thinking. Where’s Graham then? Offloaded somewhere? If Borshov had stayed on US soil, he’d have made a run at Alex Hunter. Instead he’d been rerouted — which meant a higher priority had arisen. Hammerson reached across to a pile of string-tied folders on the corner of his desk, and sorted through them until he found the one he was looking for. An entire Turkish SFC squad had recently been reclassified as inactive — code for taken out. Seeing it had happened within their own borders, he hadn’t given it too much attention. This time he read further, until he found the location … just a few blocks from where Borshov was dug in now. In this game, there was no such thing as coincidence.

He read the intel about the blackout cordon around the Basilica Cistern, and bodies being removed in contamination bags. He also read about the strange indecipherable script within the newly discovered caverns. The intel report was detailed, but Hammerson also had another information source — MUSE, the trillion-dollar Military Universal Search Engine that was a lot more technologically accurate and invasive.

He dropped the folder — he needed to take it down another layer. He reached for the phone and dialed through to Gerry Harris.

‘Gerry, it’s Jack. Good work on the Borshov images, but it invites a truckload more questions.’

‘Yeah, I figured that,’ Harris said. ‘And still no sign of Captain Graham. We’re keeping eyes on them 24/7.’

‘There’s something else. What the hell is that big bastard doing in Istanbul?’ Hammerson stared at the image of Borshov in the darkened street. ‘This is getting weird. See if there’s anything else in the Askeri Komandos’ or Special Forces Command’s secure databases. Look at the interaction site in those chambers below the ground — I want to see it all.’

‘When?’

‘Now … I’ll wait,’ Hammerson said.

‘Give me ten — I’ll do it myself.’

Jack Hammerson could imagine multiple keyboards and screens being attacked furiously, and knew his wizard of a technical officer would be slipping under, around or punching straight through firewalls, data silos, and directory mazes to dive deep into databases on the other side of the world. He’d be using MUSE, probably the world’s most powerful penetration technology.

While Hammerson waited, he turned to his large window overlooking the training grounds at the USSTRATCOM base, and let his mind sift through the facts. Borshov had been acting alone when he was in the States, but something was important enough for the Russian high command to rush him and a team to Istanbul. Hammerson’s mind worked to connect dots — real or imaginary. At least Alex and Aimee are safe from Borshov for the time being, he thought.

Harris came back on the line. ‘Jack, got something.’

‘Go, Gerry.’

‘Okay, managed to pull a few interesting things from the Turkish Special Forces’ database. At the Basilica Cistern, the site where the operatives were taken down, they’ve recovered a backpack from the upper chambers, and now have a suspect in a robbery or act of terrorism. Unclear which they’re trying to hang on him, but they want him, bad — name’s Janus Caresche. I’ve also grabbed an informal autopsy report on one of the recovered Spec Ops agents. And as icing on the cake, I’ve got images of the writing or symbols they found in the deeper tunnels. You can read the notes yourself — some are in English — but the gist is that these catacombs seem newly discovered. Not even the Turks knew they existed until a few days ago.’ Harris exhaled. ‘And, Jack, they found something … well, not sure what, but it’s some pretty weird shit. Sending through to you now. Anything else, you know where to find me. Good luck.’

‘Thanks, Gerry.’

Hammerson hung up, and almost immediately his computer pinged with an incoming message from the technical officer. He opened the files, spreading them on his screen. He found the name of the suspect and copied it into MUSE; it immediately returned both a public and private profile of the man. Hammerson sat back and folded his arms. The man that stared back at him was young, confident and good-looking, with slightly olive skin and a healthy jawline. His public bio had him as an antiquities dealer and archeological detective; his unofficial bio said black-market antiquities thief, and persona non grata in several European countries.

Hammerson flicked to the next file, the autopsy report on the SFC agent, and read what he could of the mixed English — Turkish notes. He dragged the images up onto the screen, and leaned forward. ‘What the fuck?’

One image showed what looked like several broken statues; however, the details were too perfect, and close-ups of the facial areas showed imperfections like scars and raised moles. There were even individual strands of hair. The more he looked at them, the more they seemed like a person made from something like plaster. As he stared, a thought started to form. He grabbed the image of the statue onto the screen and rotated it slightly. Then he moved Janus Caresche’s image next to it, increasing the size so it matched the other image.

He sat back. ‘You gotta be shitting me.’

The images matched, right down to the small mole on Caresche’s lip.

‘What the hell happened in there?’

He exhaled and reached forward to enlarge Caresche’s face. There was pain etched into the frozen features, and even what could be a tear on one cheek.

‘Poor bastard.’ Hammerson clicked his teeth. ‘I don’t think they’re going to find you at home, are they, Mr. Caresche?’ He folded his arms. ‘What did you discover down there?’

Hammerson continued to stare at the image. He knew down in their own R&D labs they were working on pulse weapons to pulverize bones, or microwave devices that could cook internal organs hard but leave the outer skin intact. But this … this defied belief.

He quickly read through the attached data. The man had been super-calcified — turned to stone — source, initiator, method, promotion, all unknown. The next few pictures were a montage of the strange writing newly scratched into the cavern walls. It was indecipherable to him, but a mystery to the Turkish experts as well. Notes beside the images offered suggestions: Zoroastrian, Sumerian, proto-Greek … nonsense?

Hammerson steepled his fingers, and spoke to the screen. ‘So, Mr. Caresche opened up a new level in the Basilica Cistern catacombs and found something that turned him and an entire Special Ops team to rock. Then vanished.’

He read the last few lines of the local police notes: It is on the move. Atsubay Kemel Baykal has assumed control and is commanding the search. Police are now under SFC sequestration orders.

Good, Hammerson thought. He knew Baykal. And now Borshov is in the mix.

He drummed his fingers on the desk, letting his mind work. New weapon? But why test it in such an obscure place? He drummed some more. Unless it was biological or chemical and needed an enclosed environment for testing. Aum Shinrikyo had used the Tokyo subway for its sarin gas attack. Maybe Caresche was after the tourists as test subjects and the SFC team just got in the way.

His fingers stopped and he frowned. Something was bugging him. He looked back at the notes. That was it … the police notes, the way they’d phrased those last lines: they’d written ‘it’ was on the move, not him or her or them.

Hammerson sat forward again. ‘And you want it, don’t you, Borshov? You son of a bitch.’

He exhaled angrily. Look out, Kemel — shark in your pond.

He looked back at the picture of the calcified body and narrowed his eyes. ‘What did you find down there, Mr. Caresche?’

Hammerson waited for the call to be routed through several different filters and code scramblers before Turkish Commander Kemel Baykal finally picked it up. He smiled as he heard the familiar deep voice’s heavily accented English.

‘Colonel Jack — I thought you were dead years ago. Perhaps you are, and this is a call from hell.’

Hammerson laughed. ‘Hell would send me straight back. Besides, only the good die young, you know that, Kemel.’

A snort. ‘Perhaps that is why I too am still here.’ There was a pause. ‘So, long time without speaking, and then you call me out of the air. What is it that brings us to your attention, Colonel Jack?’

Hammerson gripped the phone and glanced at the frozen images of the corpses on his computer screen. ‘You have a problem, Kemel … a bigger one than you realize. We know about the deaths of your soldiers, and the inscription in the cisterns. And we know a Russian Spetsnaz squad has moved into your neighborhood. There’s a gathering storm, and it’s forming up around you, my friend.’

There was a grunt on the line. ‘I cannot discuss this.’ Then a sigh. ‘Spetsnaz … here? I won’t ask how you know all this, but the investigation is ongoing. We have good leads, and we are sure we will make an arrest soon.’

‘Janus Caresche? Forget it; he’s dead. They’re all dead.’

‘No formal identification of the bodies has been —’

‘No. Look at the faces, Kemel.’ Hammerson knew the soldier on the other end of the line needed facts, not more theories. ‘Kemel, your chief suspect is standing right there, and he’s a block of stone.’

There was silence for a moment, and Hammerson heard Baykal’s bulk shifting in a leather chair. The words, when they came, were slow, as though fatigue had attached lead weights to every syllable.

‘This is a lot worse than you think, my friend. My superiors think there may be foreign forces involved in the … attacks. Now would not be a good time for me to be running to the Americans. The West is always a suspect. Leave it alone for now, my friend. I think we must deal with this on our own.’

The call disconnected.

‘Ah, shit!’ Hammerson hung up, and stared again at the images. ‘We’ll see.’

‘Sir.’

Hammerson turned to the hulking man standing at attention in the doorway and waved him in. ‘At ease.’

Sam Reid joined him in front of the computer screen. Hammerson hoped that one day the military’s regeneration work would give Sam back his own mobility. But for now, he could do anything he could before … with the additional bonus of being able to run at fifty miles per hour and kick a hole in a metal door.

‘MECH framework okay?’ Hammerson asked.

‘I forget it’s there most times.’ Sam grinned. ‘Unless I try and jump for something and end up ten feet in the air.’

Hammerson nodded. ‘Good, because we got work to do.’

‘Still no sign of Graham?’ Sam asked.

‘Not yet, but Borshov has just turned up with a bunch of heavy-hitters in Istanbul. His time of arrival, and the place, coincides with a local Spec Ops team mysteriously being taken out. Might be a new weapon — and might be Uli Borshov has dropped in to acquire it.’ Hammerson sat back. ‘We need to know what’s going on — firsthand.’

Sam pressed his large knuckles down on the desk and frowned. ‘Borshov the beast is in Turkey?’

Hammerson pulled up the VELA images of the Russian assassin in the Istanbul street. Even though it was dark, the bearded face and his size was unmistakable. Hammerson smiled without humor. ‘Like I said: we got work to do.’

Sam nodded. ‘Oh yeah, count me in.’

‘Knew you’d say that.’ Hammerson pulled up another screen. ‘Now take a look at this.’

Hammerson flicked through the range of images that Captain Gerry Harris had just sent through to him.

Sam read quickly. ‘Zoroastrian, Sumerian, proto-Greek … they’re all long-dead languages, or languages that have evolved into something linguistically different. I can read a few of the words, and some of it certainly looks like Greek, but I don’t recognize all of it … maybe it is nonsense.’

Hammerson sat back with crossed arms. ‘Maybe, but I don’t think so. The Turks are stumped. You know, if we can decipher some of this, we’ve got something to offer the Turkish Special Forces … something to trade.’ He looked at the big HAWC. ‘So who do we know who could possibly read this, hmm? Who’s helped us in the past, and I’m sure would be just dying to come and give us a hand again?’

Sam smiled. ‘Why, young Professor Matthew Kearns.’

Hammerson pointed a finger at him, gun-like. ‘Bingo. So let’s get him in here.’