Operation: Loch Ness

- 11 -

Wiggins turned to the colonel, his face full of fury.

“Cally deserved better than that,” he said. “We had it under control.”

“Stow it, Private,” Banks said, stopping Wiggins before he got himself a spell in the brig, or worse.

The colonel had hardly noticed in any case. His gaze was fixed on the carnage in the road. Bodies, and body parts, lay strewn everywhere they looked. Only quiet moans and weeping in the darkness showed that anyone was still alive.

“Get this cleaned up,” the superior officer said. “And not a fucking word of this gets out tonight. If it does, we’re all going to jail for a very long time.”

If any of the crews had been going out live, that was going to become a moot point very quickly, but Banks kept his mouth shut. The colonel must be under enormous political pressure on this one, and it just got a lot worse.

The rest of the night was a blur of medics and ambulances, blood and gore and body bags. The final count was 30 dead and 20 more wounded, four of those critical. Banks organized getting the tents back up where it was possible. Two of them became makeshift field hospitals, the colonel purloined another small one for his own use, and they were able, after a time, to get power to the portable kitchen in the mess and at least get hot tea and coffee distributed. He’d been in disaster zones or the aftermath of battles before, and this had the same feel of living on fumes and the strung-out after-effects of an adrenaline rush.

Coffee and a smoke helped, but he was still on edge, expecting the beast to return to try to finish them at any moment. He’d posted as many guards as he could afford all around the site, watching both the road and the loch.

Closing the door after the horse has bolted.

The colonel was in his tent on a radio to the top brass for more than an hour, and when he finally emerged, he looked older and more tired than Banks had ever seen him.

“Do you have a cigarette, Cap?” were his first words, ones that Banks would have bet long odds against, but he handed over a smoke, had one for himself, and had to light the colonel’s for him, for the officer’s hands trembled too much to use the lighter.

“Well, John,” his superior said. “This is a clusterfuck and a half. I think I’m going to be relieved of duty as soon as they can get somebody up from Edinburgh, probably before dawn. So I have one last order for you.”

“Anything you say, sir.”

“Purloin whatever you think you’ll need, get the fuck out of here, and find and kill that fucking thing. Like your private said, your corporal deserves better. So, fuck off before somebody gets here that won’t let you off the leash. And that’s an order.”

Banks went in search of Hynd and Wiggins. He found them, not in the mess tent as he’d expected, but on the exit to the north road, standing at the back of an ambulance, having a smoke with the little ginger-haired Seton.

“We were on our way to Inverness, and I’d just woken up when the emergency call came through,” the older man said, “so I made them turn right ‘round and come back so as not to waste any time.”

“How are the ribs?”

Seton showed them the stiff back brace he wore around his torso.

“This keeps everything from sliding about, and the morphine hasn’t completely worn off yet. I’m up and shuffling and I can still enjoy a smoke. At my age, that’s all a man can expect anyway.”

“Sorry we fucked up your boat, wee man,” Wiggins said.

“It wasn’t mine, and it was insured. And I’m sorry about your friend,” Seton said. “When we get a chance, I’ll swing for some good scotch for us all to send him off properly.”

“First things first,” Banks said. He quickly relayed what the colonel had told him, then sent Hynd and Wiggins off on a scavenger hunt to see what could be found that would be of use.

“As for you, auld man,” he said turning back to Seton, “you had better get in the back of this ambulance and get up to road to Inverness.”

“Nope,” Seton replied. “I’m staying right here. And if you’re going after the monster again, I’m coming with you.”

“Aye,” Banks said, failing to keep the sarcasm out of his reply, “because that worked out so well for all of us the last time. We don’t need you, no offence, but Wiggo has got your wee USB drive for the chant, and the sarge has the command part down pat.”

“Ah, but there’s more to it than that. And I know something you don’t.”

“Okay, I’ll bite, tell me.”

Seton smiled broadly.

“It’ll have gone to ground to lick its wounds. And I think I know where to find it.”

Short of beating it out of him, Banks knew there was no way Seton was going to divulge the information unless he got a guarantee to be taken along.

“Just promise I’ll be going with you, and I’ll tell you,” Seton said, still smiling.

“All I have to do is go down to the shore and play your chant through a laptop,” Banks said. “It’ll come.”

“That depends how bad it’s wounded,” Seton replied, then mimicked Banks’ sarcasm, “And besides, that worked out so well for you earlier.”

“You got me there, I’ll admit it,” Banks said. “But if I agree, there will be rules. Strict ones, such as no voodoo bullshit, no surprises, and no fucking stupid heroics. Got it?”

“Oh yes,” Seton said. “Besides, fucking stupid heroics is your department. Thanks for saving me back there when the boat got taken down. I don’t remember any of it, but your sergeant brought me up to speed.”

“I figured we needed somebody to blame,” Banks replied, and smiled thinly. *

“So, spill it, wee man,” Wiggins said. “Where are we going?”

Wiggins sat behind the wheel of a black SUV, with Banks in the passenger seat and Hynd and Seton in the back. The storage space at the back of the vehicle was full of three rucksacks, and the purpose-built gun racks had rifles, handguns, and stun grenades stowed. Wiggo had even managed to procure four sets of night-vision goggles and headsets, although by the time they were getting ready to depart, it was only an hour or so shy of dawn, and they’d had to make breakfast a hasty one before setting off.

Seton took his time replying.

“Come on, you old fart,” Wiggins said, “you’re enjoying this too much.”

“You’re right,” Seton replied. “I realized when I woke up in the ambulance how good it is just to be alive. But if you insist, we need to go back around the loch — I assume you will be waved through the barriers. We need to go back to Crowley’s house.”

“There was nowt there but a burnt-out ruin,” Hynd said.

Banks was looking in the rear mirror and saw Seton’s wry smile.

“You auld bastard, you were up to something out there when we found you, weren’t you?”

Seton nodded.

“I already told you, I was looking for some clues. What I didn’t tell you was that I’d already found some, years ago when I first started to get interested.”

“Tell us on the way,” Banks said, seeing three Army trucks and a car coming the other way down the road. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the colonel’s replacement, and I’ve already been told to fuck off once tonight. Wiggo, take us out.”

“I got interested in the beast in the late ‘60s,” Seton started. “I was just a young research student, and I was called up to these parts from Edinburgh by my Professor, who was working in the area. I met him in the bar at Foyers

“In the course of an alcohol-fueled evening, I discovered several things; my professor, normally of sound mind and judgement, was chasing a legend of a beast in the loch and needed my help in the matter. So here I was, investigating. Or rather, here I was, enjoying the finest hospitality Scotland could offer that evening, it being already too dark to venture out on the water. And I’m afraid I enjoyed it rather too much.

“I woke in the morning with a hangover befitting the amount of Scotch I had consumed the night before. Even a hearty breakfast failed to put me back on an even keel, and I was seriously considering returning to bed. So I was not best pleased when the prof, full of good humor and looking none the worse for wear, bellowed across the dining room.

“‘Come on, Seton. Don’t hang around. The boat’s ready,’ he said.

“The boat turned out to be a small two-man affair, with no motor, just a pair of oars. I had one look at it, then turned away.

“‘In that case, I shall row,’ he said, and all but manhandled me into the boat. He dropped a bag into the bottom beside me. It clinked, glass against glass as he cast off, climbed down into the boat and within seconds was taking us away from the jetty out onto the loch. Luckily for my somewhat delicate disposition, the water proved to be almost flat calm, and after several minutes, I even felt bold enough to light up a smoke. The prof downed oars and joined me. We sat still in quiet water a hundred yards off the shore.

“After we had finished our smokes, the prof reached for the bag in the bottom of the boat. Once again, glass clinked. He smiled and drew out some sampling jars, each with a long stretch of attached fishing line.

“He showed me the trick to operating the jars, giving them a quick tug when at the required depth to close the cunningly constructed valve at the top.

“He stood up. The small boat rocked alarmingly, but he merely laughed, and set to work, dropping the bottles over the side and letting them sink to their required depths. He sang, his voice carrying high and clear across the water.

“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest—

“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

“Out on the loch, something answered. A loud splash behind me dashed nearly caused me to jump out of the boat. By the time I looked ‘round, there was only a large expanding circle of ripples, some 20 yards away.

“The prof pulled his bottles in without taking any samples, dropped them unceremoniously in the bottom of the boat, and took to the oars like a man possessed, turning us in a circle until the prow pointed straight at where the splash had been.

“In only a handful of pulls on the oars, he brought us directly over the spot. The loch was once again flat calm all around us, but he had been taken by the thrill of the hunt and was not ready to give up on his quarry just yet.

“He sang again.

“Drink and the devil had done for the rest—

“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

“But this time there was no answer, just a gentle lapping of wavelets on the side of the boat. We sat there for long minutes. Nothing moved on the water. Eventually, he started to deploy the sample jars again. He sang as he did so, sea shanties, nonsense songs, music-hall favorites, all at the top of his voice. Nothing answered.

“He sat down and lit up another cheroot.

“‘It was right here,’ he said. ‘We almost saw it.’

“We spent the best part of the morning out on the boat. At some point, I realized that my hangover had finally passed, and I felt able to help him out with the sampling. We pulled up almost a score of bottles filled with, what looked to my eyes, muddy water, but the prof pronounced himself pleased with the results.

“‘I shall have these sent to Edinburgh,’ he said. ‘There’s a chap waiting for them who’ll have the results back to us in two to three days.’

“‘Results? What are you expecting to find?’

“‘Something. Anything.’

“He took to the oars and started heading back to the hotel’s jetty. Almost as soon he had the boat turned around, there was another loud splash behind me. I saw the prof’s gaze switch to a point over my shoulder, and watched the color drain from his face. But by the time I turned, all I saw was another spreading circle of ripples.

He took to the oars again, rowing for the shore as fast as he was able.

“‘We should have brought the whisky,’ was all he said as I helped him tie up at the jetty.”

“So there you have the start of it all,” Seton said. “Can I have a smoke before the next part?”

Banks passed his smokes around and opened his window to let the fug out as they all lit up.

“Okay, auld man, I get that you had your own wee close encounter, but how is it relevant?”

“The relevance is in where I was when I heard those splashes. We were offshore, directly in front of Crowley’s old house. I didn’t know its history then, but it didn’t take me long to find out. The fact that the beast seemed to respond to singing, and that the prof had seen something so monstrous to him that he never talked about again, were enough data points for me to start what would turn into a 50-year investigation.”

“Okay, I get that,” Banks said. “But just because you saw, or rather heard, it near the house doesn’t mean it lives there. We’ve been seeing it all up and down the bloody loch. What makes the house different?”

“Geology,” Seton replied, then went quiet as he puffed at his smoke before continuing. “I spent the longest time wondering where a beast as big as that being reported might hide itself, and I stumbled upon the answer by accident while speaking to a visiting geologist in an Inverness bar.

“The rocks around here are riddled with caves and passageways. There’s even talk that the beast comes and goes through a long tunnel that leads all the way out into the Moray Firth, and that’s why it’s not often seen, because it only comes here for a special purpose.”

“And what might that be?” Banks asked.

“Damned if I know,” Seton replied. “But after hearing about the geology, I paid a small fortune for a set of sonar readings, not of the loch like every other Nessie researcher has ever done, but of the surrounding countryside. There’s a huge cavernous space no more than 30 yards below the manor house. That’s where it’ll be. It will go home to lick its wounds, I’m sure of it.”

“So you don’t actually ken anything at all,” Wiggins said. “This is all just another bullshit theory?”

“It’s a theory, yes, but one based on observed evidence and facts, not bullshit,” Seton said. “And there’s one other thing.”

“What’s that?” Banks said.

“Before you found me at the house, I had the dubious pleasure of stumbling around in a field on the far side of the property, and stepping in several very large mounds of fresh dung.”

Banks didn’t think a great deal of the older man’s theory.

But we’ve got little else to go on.

“Okay, Wiggo,” he said. “Keep heading for the house, we’ll have a shufti around there.”

They got through a checkpoint south of Foyers when Banks pulled rank on the young corporal at the barrier, and 10 minutes later pulled up at the foot of Boleskine House driveway just as the sun was coming up.