Operation: Siberia

- 17 -

McCally and Hynd stood at the external door, weapons raised. Hynd raised an eyebrow when he saw the three dead wolves.

“You didn’t get the big guy?”

Wiggins answered first.

“Naw, he’s a smart fucker that one, and legged it. But I think he’s got a hard-on for the cap, so he’ll be back.”

Banks looked to McCally.

“How’s Galloway’s ankle?”

“The prof’s helping him clean it. I don’t think it’s as bad as it looked—a lot of blood, but not too deep. I’ll see to the bandaging right now, now that I ken you’re both okay.”

Banks nodded, then turned to Hynd.

“Our job is to secure yon cave for a while, maybe all night. Let’s see if we can get the door back on its hinges and able to be shut?”

“We’re hunkering down?”

“Unless you’ve got a smarter idea? It’s going to be hours—at least—before they can get anybody else here, and there’ll be some debate about whether they should even bother, you know that.”

Hynd nodded, but Wiggins was not happy.

“What do you mean by that?”

“We’re Special Forces, lad, or had you forgotten? We’re supposed to get ourselves out of tight spots, not shout for the cavalry when things get a wee bit ropey. The colonel might decide to leave us to our own devices for a while and see how we get on.”

“How will we know?”

“We won’t. That’s the fun bit.”

“I’ve had more fun with the sarge’s wife,” Wiggins muttered, but none of them laughed this time.

Banks had a last look around the lab before turning away. A wind had got up, whistling through the broken glass of the dome. Discarded paperwork tumbled in the draft, and glassware rattled, but nothing else stirred. The big female wolf lay with her muzzle against the body of her cubs, blood pooled in a wide circle around them, and it was not satisfaction that Banks felt as he turned toward the cave in the hill.

It was disgust.

The metal door was so large and cumbersome that it took all three of them to heave it upright into the frame, and Banks and Wiggins had to put their backs to it to hold it in place while Hynd worked on the hinges and lock.

“Will it hold?” Banks asked when Hynd announced the job was done.

“Put it this way, Cap,” the sarge said. “It’ll shut. But if one of yon big orange buggers has a good heave on it, I can’t promise it’ll stay that way.”

“Fair enough,” Banks replied. “But if it keeps lions and wolves out, at least it’s good for something.”

All three of them went through into the cave. The door shut with a satisfying click as they drew it closed.

“Wait a minute, Cap,” Wiggins said. “Won’t we suffocate?”

“The hairy orange guys managed while being locked in,” Banks said. “I think we’ll be fine.”

They moved inside, and found the others in the central chamber. McCally had set his rifle light to shine on where Galloway sat with his back to the wall while the corporal bandaged up his ankle. The scientist smiled thinly, but looked pale and tired, and close to dismay.

“We got your man put away in a safe place,” Wiggins said to him. “Yon beasties won’t be bothering him—or us.”

Galloway perked up a bit at that.

“Thank you. I felt bad leaving him there like that.”

“Aye, you and me both, sir. But as the cap said earlier, he’s one of us, and we don’t leave anybody behind.”

Waterston was sitting against the opposite wall of the chamber.

“That shooting… you got the wolves?”

“Most of them,” Banks replied, but didn’t elaborate. He turned to his men. “We need to take stock. We’ve got water, something to eat, and ammo. I need to know if we have anywhere we can set a fire in here without needing to open the door, but Galloway’s Alma survived in here without extra heating, so we should be fine in either case. I could murder a mug of coffee though.”

McCally smiled as he stood from tending Galloway’s wound.

“Way ahead of you there, Cap. We’ve got a wee stove, a kettle, and some cups, as well as some of the coffee from the plane. One strong brew, coming right up.”

They quickly discovered that the Alma sleeping area was the best-ventilated chamber in the structure, and were able to get a fire going using the bedding material and some dry wood they were able to forage from around the outside of the door. The smoke from the fire hung overhead and could be tasted at the back of the throat, but it seemed to be escaping slowly through the small crevasses in the roof, and it also did much to mask the enduring musky stench left by the Alma. A little smoke inhalation was a small price to pay.

“There’s chairs, tables and stuff in the lab that’ll burn nicely, Cap,” Wiggins said. “I’ll go fetch some of it if you want?”

“Nope, we’ve got enough for one night. And I don’t intend being here any longer than that, one way or the other,” Banks replied. “Besides, yon big dog is just waiting for us to make a mistake like that. I’m not going to give it the satisfaction.”

Within half an hour, they had a fire going, coffee brewed, and they were all eating dry meat and hard biscuits. It wasn’t much.

But it’s better than the alternative.

Banks put Wiggins and McCally on first watch at the front door.

“Shoot first, ask questions later, okay?”

McCally nodded and led Wiggins away. Five minutes later, the smell of cigarette smoke wafted through the chamber. Banks began to relax for the first time in many hours.

Galloway had fallen asleep on the far side of the fire. Hynd went out to join the other lads for a smoke, so Banks went over to where Waterston was studying the pictures on the wall, which seemed to achieve a primitive form of animation under the flickering firelight.

“So, prof, do you still believe your man’s theory that these hairy beasties are locals, that Volkov didn’t make them, but found them?”

“I do,” Waterston replied. “Even more so now I have looked at these daubings properly.”

“It’s hard to credit such things could have survived here over such a vast stretch of time,” Banks said.

“Vast? Nonsense, man, it’s but a blink in the eye of eternity. Let me explain it to you the way I do to students who can’t wrap their heads around it.”

The man took out his wallet, and showed Banks a photograph he kept in it. Banks had to tilt it to get a good look in the flickering light and shadow. It showed an old woman in a backyard, holding a barely toddling child’s hand.

“That’s me, in nineteen-sixty,” the prof said. “And that’s my great-grandmother with me. She was born in eighteen eighty. That’s nearly a hundred and forty years in one touch. Now imagine her as a baby, holding her great grandmother’s hand and take that back another eighty years. Two touches of hands, and we’re two centuries away, already back at the start of the nineteenth century. Can you imagine the generations, holding hands, backward into time? Can you see them, Captain?”

Banks nodded. He could picture it all in his mind’s eye, a chain, his family, reaching back with each other into the gloom of the misty past.

“I have a similar photograph of my own, but it’s great-granddad for me though. So, I see your point. Less than a hundred generations gets us back to the Pre-Roman Britain Era, does it not? I’d never thought it so close.”

Waterston nodded in response.

“Add just another couple of hundred generations, and we’re back here in the times of the mammoths, and whatever people originally hunted them across this tundra. The odds of them surviving across time to now don’t seem so steep, do they, Captain?”

“No, you’re right, they don’t.”

“And does it, perhaps, make you think of them as more human, more like relatives than mere mute beasts?”

“You haven’t met some of my relatives,” Banks said with a smile. “But I get your point.”

“I hope you do, Captain,” Waterston said quietly, “for I have a favor to ask. I’d like you to avoid killing them, if that’s at all possible.”

“Even after they killed your friend?”

Waterston nodded.

“I’m not convinced that was intentional,” he said.

“I am,” Banks replied, but the prof was insistent

“This small population could well be the last remaining remnants of the species,” he said. “We have a responsibility to protect them.”

“And I have a responsibility to protect you,” Banks replied.

“I’ll gladly relieve you of that burden of you’ll promise the Alma will come to no harm.”

“Unfortunately, that is not a favor you have the authority to grant to me,” Banks replied. “But I promise not to kill the Alma without undue cause. That’s the best I can do, for now.”

“Then it will have to do,” Waterston replied, and went back to studying the paintings on the walls.

Galloway still slept, fitfully, by the fire. Banks left the scientists and walked through to the central chamber, then followed the dim light down the corridor to the main door, where the three men of his squad were gathered having a smoke.

“All quiet, Cap,” McCally said. “No sign of the hairy beasties.”

“The prof says there less like beasts, more like cousins,” Banks replied.

“Aye, well, I’m still not shagging one,” Wiggins replied.

The laughter rang loud in the narrow corridor… and was joined by an answering whuff from the other side of the outer door.