Operation: Yukon

- 12 -

I didn’t get my wish; the track twisted up the slope in a series of turns, some of them so sharp I was going at little faster than walking speed as I took them. I heard excited barking even above the rattle of the machine; the wolves were at my back and not too far off at that. I pushed the throttle a bit farther. We bounced and jarred our way along a track that I wasn’t sure was headed anywhere in dark shadow under overhanging pines. Light ahead got my hopes up but we emerged as if out of a bottle into another clearing in a dip. There were no buildings in this one, but there was something there; another wolf, larger by far than any I’d yet seen, grayer at the flanks, wider in the maw and somehow angrier in the eyes. It sat on its haunches, tensed, then launched into a leap straight at me. I threw the Skidoo sidewards, tried to get my weapon raised but I knew it was a lost hope. All I could do was tense, duck and wait for the beastie’s weight to drive me down into the snow.

It never reached me. There was a flurry of moving branches, falling snow and something else came out of the forest, a huge gray thing that stood upright on two legs but had a maw of teeth as big and impressive as the wolf’s. It grabbed the wolf by the tail while it was still in the air and swung it, like an athlete tossing a hammer, off and away to fly into the trees. The wolf came back just as quick, howling in rage. As I tugged the Skidoo round onto the straight line, the wolf, having forgotten us, was launching itself directly at the Alma which stood, bellowing rage in the center of the clearing as if spoiling for a battle. It looked like it was going to get one but by that time the Skidoo had got traction in the snow again and I wasn’t in the mood to hang around for the title fight. I left them in my wake, a rolling, roaring frenzy of limbs and teeth and talons. A red mist of blood flew in the clearing behind me but I was quickly lost under the trees again and couldn’t even guess at a possible victor.

Only a minute later we burst through and over a slight rise to look over the forecourt of the research center, and thirty seconds after that I brought the Skidoo to a halt by the door of the hut.

“We made it,” I shouted and turned to Watkins. He was never going to congratulate me; the man lay slumped in the rear seat and it didn’t take a doctor to tell me that he was dead.

Everyone else was gathered again in the main room of the cabin. The door to the vault lay open and the odor of the Alma below wafted upstairs but a smoke and a coffee did much for my wellbeing as I made my report to the cap.

“So the Alma and the wolves were fighting?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said, “and it wasn’t a friendly scrap. I don’t think we have to worry about them ganging up against us.”

“And you just saw the one Alma?”

I nodded.

“Any idea how many there are?”

The cap shook his head.

“Watkins hinted about ‘escapes’ but didn’t say how many. We have to assume there are more of these buggers out there.”

As for Watkins himself, we had him in a body bag stored in one of the other huts; he could stay there forever as far as I was concerned; the bastard had almost got me killed along with him and he’d buggered off before we could get the whole story out of him. Now we were here with caged Alma below us, more of their kind in the forests around us and the remains of a wolf pack out there with them. Our orders to ‘sanitise’ weren’t going to be simple to implement.

Besides Watkins’ death there had been another surprise waiting for me back at the cabin; our new corporal had come out of his funk. He still refused to look us in the eye but he cornered me as I was finishing my coffee and spoke softly so that only he and I could hear.

“I’ve let you down. I’ve let you all down. I’m bloody sorry, Sarge.”

I couldn’t quite find it in myself to forgive him right then but I couldn’t give him a bollocking either; that would have been like kicking an already injured puppy. Instead I stayed quiet and let him talk. He didn’t say anything I didn’t either know or guess, but it appeared to do him some good to get it out him. Long story short, the wolves had shaken something loose inside him that had previously tethered him to reality, and I knew that feeling well myself, from my first operation in Antarctica onwards; I couldn’t really fault him for being a human being.

“Try and hold it together for a wee while, lad,” I said. “It’s all any of us can do. We’ll have a longer chat over a beer or six when we get home. Just keep your head down and your eyes open, be ready to jump when I say so. Okay?”

He smiled wanly.

“Whatever you say, Sarge.”

He went to stand with Wilko at the doorway looking out but again couldn’t look either of us in the eye. He wasn’t all the way back, might never make it, but he was no longer dead weight so I took that as an improvement.

Davies was leaned over the table. I saw that he was working on the black boxes we’d dug out of the wolf’s spine. There was the distinctive sound of duct tape being ripped from a roll.

“Yo, McGyver, anything doing?” I asked.

He turned and smiled.

“Getting there, Sarge. A couple of hours and we’ll have a wee shock for them again.”

I left him to it; it kept him out of mischief but I wasn’t sure we were going to get the time he needed.

I rejoined the cap to find him arguing with the sheriff and caught from the gist that it was about the beasts down in the basement.

“We should put them down,” she said.

“Like dogs? Just like that? You’ve seen them. They’re almost human.”

“That’s what bothers me,” Sheriff Sue replied. “Just looking at them makes me sick to my stomach. Besides, I thought your job was to ‘sanitise’? That’s just a polite way of saying what I said, isn’t it?”

I butted in.

“She’s right, Cap, and we both know it.”

“Knowing it and doing it are two different things,” he said, turning to me. “Do you want to go down there and put three rounds into the pregnant one? I know I don’t.”

“I’ll do it,” the sheriff said and before we could stop her she made for the vault door and headed down the steps. She moved fast and although we were at her heels, she still would have had enough time to get the job done. Instead we found her standing in the center of the chamber, her rifle pointing at the pregnant female who was awake and looking right at her. When the sheriff turned, she had tears in her eyes.

“You’re right,” she said, little more than a whisper. “Saying and doing are two different things.”

As I led the sheriff back to the stairs, I saw that the two big males had stood to watch us again. Their eyes looked as sad as those of the sheriff and I imagined I felt their gaze boring into my back as we left.

“We need a cunning plan,” the cap said once we were all together back up top.

“We need a squad of veterinarians,” the sheriff said. “But first things first. I might not have been able to shoot that pitiful thing downstairs, but I’ve got no trouble taking out a fucking wolf. Let’s deal with them first and worry about the rest later.”

“I reckon we’ve got the pack numbers thinned right down,” the cap agreed. “But we need to get them all together; we can’t be chasing them all over these hills.”

“They seem keen on chasing us though, Cap,” I said. “They came after the Skidoo like dogs after an ice-cream van. Maybe all we need to be is bait.”

It had been almost a throwaway remark of mine, but he took it seriously.

“Bait and trap might work. We need somewhere we can funnel them in and surround them, get them all in one place and wipe them all out at the same time. Any ideas?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m new here myself,” the sheriff answered. But I was thinking about the sunken bowl where the garage sat, and I was seeing something in my mind’s eye.

“We can arrange the trucks side-on in the forecourt of the main block,” I said. “And use the building as a third wall. With guns on top of each truck and at the building main door we’ll have a custom-built shooting gallery.”

“A gauntlet,” the sheriff said. “I like it.”

“Me too,” the cap added. “But we still need bait. Something fast and loud.”

“I can handle that, sir,” a voice said at the doorway. “Get the trucks ready, I’ll be back in five.”

I turned in time to see Jennings leave the cabin. By the time I reached the door he was on the Skidoo. By the time I stepped down off the steps he had it running and my fingers gripped air instead of his jacket as the machine rattled off, gaining speed.