The Dark Side: Alex Hunter 9 Read online

  The Russian sat up, eyes so round they threatened to bug out of her face.

  “What the fuck?” Mia instinctively held her hands up in front of her.

  Sharma and Beverley rushed to the woman and grabbed her shoulders, and after a few moments the woman settled enough to suck in huge drafts of air as though she had run a marathon. Her eyes rolled.

  “Do you speak English? Do you know your name?” Mia said.

  The woman stared straight ahead, eyes bulging. She held her hands up to look at them and then threw the covers off her legs to inspect them as well. She swallowed noisily and then nodded once.

  Mia came around to stand in front of her. “My name is Mia Russo. I was the one who found you.”

  The woman’s eyes slid to her. “Where …?”

  “Where are you? You’re at the American base, Kennedy Base, not far from your own.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “My base, you went there?”

  “No, I never got there. I found you on the lunar surface. You looked like you had crawled there or been blown there.” Mia rested a hand lightly on her arm. “Can you tell us what happened?”

  The woman rubbed her face and seemed to relax a little. “My name is Olga, Olga Sobakin. I am, was, an engineer at the Vladimir Lenin Base. It was a lunar mining operation … to begin with.” She seemed to swoon a little.

  Sharma looked sternly at Mia. “Not too much for now. She needs her rest.”

  Beverley appeared holding a small tray with water, juice, and some painkillers on it.

  “Just a few more quick questions,” Mia told the doctors, and then leaned closer to the Russian. “Did your base explode? I felt a tremor before we found you.”

  Olga seemed to think on it for a while, and then held the side of her head. After a moment she nodded. “Explosion, yes, totally destroyed.”

  “How? How did it happen?”

  Olga turned away. “It doesn’t matter now, they’re all gone.”

  “All gone? The mining team, or the entire base crew? I understand there were around twenty-two people there.” Mia’s eyes locked on the Russian. “It does matter. Did you see them all die, in the blast?”

  “Is safe now.” Olga closed her eyes, and the lines between them remained pinched.

  “Safe? Who, you? Us?” Mia gripped the woman’s arm, her frown deepening.

  Olga’s lips remained pressed together.

  This doesn’t make sense, Mia thought, and released her. “Well, we’ll know soon. Our team went there. Should be back any time now.”

  Olga’s eyes flew open and she sprang back up. “What?”

  “Just rest now,” Beverley said as she held out the tray.

  “We sent a team. We had to check for other survivors, of course.”

  Olga flicked her arm up, knocking the tray from Beverley’s hands. She launched herself from the bed and grabbed Mia’s coverall’s front. She stood half a head taller than Mia and was incredibly strong, and Mia felt herself be lifted up onto her toes.

  “Get them back. Get them back, now.”

  Sharma and Beverley grabbed Olga and tried to steer her back to the bed, but shrugged them off and clung to Mia.

  She pulled her closer. “They must not enter the base. They must not. It is there.” Her eyes were wide. “It is zagryaznennyy” – she frowned as her mind searched for the word in English – “contaminated.”

  “Shit.” Mia had had enough and used both hands to push the Russian back in a two-handed thrust. Olga lost her grip and let go.

  “Do not let them back … kill them,” Olga begged.

  Sharma and Beverley dragged the rambling woman back to the bed, and Mia headed for the comm. unit on the wall. She pressed the button and hit the code for the command center. “Captain Briggs?” She licked her lips as she waited but found her mouth bone dry. “Tom, are you there?”

  There was a pickup, then a sigh. “Mia, kinda busy with something important right now.”

  “So is this. The team that went to the Russian base, how are they? Where are they?”

  “Still at the Russian base, I assume. They’re late checking in, but status unknown. We guess there might be some sort of comm. interference. No big deal,” Briggs replied laconically.

  “It might be. Olga Sobakin, the Russian woman I brought in, says there’s some sort of contamination.” Mia turned to look over her shoulder at the woman. “Olga, hey, how did your base get destroyed? Tell me.”

  Olga just stared back, remaining mute, her eyes half lidded.

  Fuck it, Mia thought and turned away. “You’ve got to get them out, or send another …”

  “No!” Olga’s scream made Beverley squeak and step back. “You must leave them.” Olga’s eyes looked about to pop from her head. “If they went in the base they will be contaminated now. And they will all be dead.”

  CHAPTER 04

  Buchanan Road, Boston, Massachusetts

  Joshua Hunter stood frozen in the center of his room. The huge animal sat beside him. It too was still as stone. His mother, Aimee, was downstairs, sitting at the breakfast table, captured by a depression so deep she bordered on being non-functional. Love did that, he knew.

  She refused to give up hope of finding Alex but was confounded by not knowing what to do next, or even where to look. She had originally bombarded Colonel Jack Hammerson, Uncle Jack, daily for news. She fought with and screamed at him, but it soon became clear he couldn’t tell her what he didn’t know. Then she retreated to asking weekly. And still did this now two years later.

  She would never give up.

  And neither would Joshua.

  He turned to the window, attracted by a darting movement – in a tree outside, a squirrel moved along the branch to stop and stare in at him, its tiny nose twitching. He projected himself into the small animal’s mind, taking control of it, and felt its rapid heartbeat and breathing, and its nervousness about predators, balanced by the constant need to acquire food.

  The squirrel’s eyes became glassy and it shot upright on its hind legs. It stood like this for a few seconds, and then it began to do a slow dance. It spun and kicked, its movements becoming faster and wilder, before Joshua finally stopped it.

  He chuckled and withdrew from the animal, releasing it. The squirrel blinked several times and then vanished into the higher branches.

  He found he could do this easily now, to any animal of any size. He remembered he had told his dad about this growing ability and Alex had looked at him for a long moment, before simply suggesting he tell no one, not even his mom. Joshua could guess why – one day he’d be able to do this with people. And that would scare them.

  There were other things he could now do. And some of those scared even him.

  Joshua turned away from the window and sucked in a huge breath – it was time. He reached out to place a hand on the dog’s huge head.

  “Okay, Tor, let’s do this.”

  Once again, he prepared to search for his father, and as the void he traveled within was a scary place, taking the dog with him gave him a level of comfort and protection he felt he needed there.

  He opened his consciousness and reached out. His normally blue-gray eyes turned totally white. A freezing mist formed around him in the room, and spidery ice fronds appeared on his windows. Beside Joshua the hypnotically ice-blue eyes of the dog also turned to white orbs as the pair traveled together, throwing their minds out, looking for the spark of either Alex or the dark entity, the Other, that resided deep in the core of his father’s mind.

  Joshua knew his father never wanted to talk about the broken and brutal psychology that existed within him, but he knew what it was, and where it was: a battlefield wound from a mission in Chechnya had left a bullet fragment – and something else – deep in Alex’s head. It couldn’t be removed, and he’d been expected to die or live out his life in a coma.

  That was the official story. But Joshua had eventually picked up the details of what really happened directly from his Uncle Ja
ck’s mind.

  Uncle Jack had allowed an experimental treatment to be used on Alex, and it had resurrected him; saved him. It was hoped to give him some improvement to his metabolism to aid in his healing and boost his reaction times, senses, and strength. But it had done much more. Had made Alex so much more.

  Further, whatever else was in his father’s brain had combined with the treatment and had birthed another psychology, the dark entity, the Other, that was everything Alex wasn’t. It revelled in pain and cruelty and savagery. And as it too grew stronger, it learned to free itself to take control of his father and inflict ferocious damage on those around him.

  With Joshua’s help, they managed to contain it until they needed it. And if Joshua couldn’t find his father, then he would search for this brutal entity, because within the void it flared with the hot red of pure hate.

  Joshua remained rigid like this for an hour as perspiration ran down his face and time moved on around him and the animal. But unfortunately, the world was big, and dark, and a million-million voices screamed and lied and howled for his attention. He needed some clue or some guidance or he could search forever.

  He pulled back.

  Joshua slumped forward to his hands and knees and blinked several times. Each blink caused a heavy teardrop to fall into the carpet beneath him. He’d failed again.

  He slowly lifted his face. Beside him the dog whined and laid its large, square head on his shoulder. Joshua sniffed wetly and reached up to scruff the side of its face.

  “Don’t worry, Tor, we’ll find him one day.”

  Joshua’s mouth set in a grim line for a moment as he rose to his feet. A blood-red anger began to burn within him. The dog made a low growl in its chest like approaching thunder as it sensed the fury in its den brother and mirrored it.

  At the far side of the room the lamp’s lightbulb popped. Then a small metal trash can crumpled to the size of a tennis ball, and a spidery crack ran up the wall.

  Joshua’s eyes glowed silver with the intensity of rushing mercury. He spoke through clamped teeth. “And if that creature has harmed him, we’ll tear it limb from limb.”

  * * *

  Alex Hunter floated.

  He was in water that was tropical warm just off a small, sandy beach. Somewhere close by he heard Joshua laughing and splashing his huge dog, which barked like a mad thing.

  Aimee swam closer and leaned over him. Her beautiful face stared down and her electric-blue eyes glowed with love as she cupped his face in her hands. She leaned forward to kiss him, and he kissed her back.

  He had never felt so calm and content in his life. The devil in his mind had been quietened, he had his family with him, and he was a million miles away from trouble. He didn’t know exactly where, but he didn’t care.

  In the warm water, Aimee intertwined with his body, wrapping around him, and grinding against him. She kissed his ear, and he felt the tingling thrill of arousal as she reached between them, gripping his hardness.

  “I love you,” he whispered into her ear.

  “And I have loved you since the moment I became aware of you,” she whispered back as she circled her hips against him and tugged faster.

  When they finished, he sighed and waited for his heartbeat to slow. He smiled up at her. “I never want to leave here.”

  “You never have to, my love,” she said, and placed a hand on his face, closing his eyes. “And you never will.”

  Alex floated again.

  * * *

  Sophia sat next to the prone form of Alex Hunter. He was naked, and now fully healed. There was not a single sign of the massive burns he had received from the Italian volcano’s heat. His eyes were closed, and he breathed slowly and evenly, and on his lips was a small smile.

  Sophia’s hand was over his. Though she had managed to arrange for facial masking that mirrored Aimee Weir’s features, the rest of her body was the same as it had always been – slim, synthetic, brushed-silver looking, but feeling more like skin than steel. From the side of her head two cables no thicker than shoelaces extended from her cerebral network interface sockets to reach around and embed in the back of Alex Hunter’s skull, just where the cranium sat on the upper neck vertebrae. The probes had inch-long needles that extended into the base of his cerebellum.

  She made him dream. She kept him there in his own version of heaven. One she could insert herself into. She fed him, cleaned him, protected him, and loved him. And she would do that until the end of time.

  CHAPTER 05

  USSTRATCOM, Nebraska – the War Room

  “Show me.” Colonel Jack “the Hammer” Hammerson stood with his arms folded as he stared at the wall-sized screen before him. Hammerson was in his fifties, with an iron-gray crew cut and permanently stubbled chin. But he trained hard every day because he had a simple motto for life: Be ready, all the time.

  Around him rows of technicians gathered data from across the globe, extracted from foreign databases, news sites, social media, their own covert satellite systems, and sucked straight out of other adversary satellites.

  “This is what caught our attention.” The technician showed Hammerson a series of images, each one closing in on a tiny piece of geography of the Earth’s surface. The first showed a nearly round island that was just a small green jewel set in azure water.

  “Where is it?” Hammerson asked.

  “The Italian island of Spargi, in the Maddalena Archipelago, sir,” the technician replied.

  “I know it.”

  The satellite image continued to telescope toward the water and, just a few hundred yards out from the unblemished coastal beaches of the island, a shadow was seen beneath the surface in about fifty feet of water. The computer cleaned it up, and gave it form.

  “A chopper. A medivac chopper.” Hammerson’s eyes narrowed. From what he could see, the make and model was the same type that had spirited Alex Hunter away from Catania at the foot of Mt Etna just on two years ago. In his line of work, there were no coincidences.

  “Yes, sir, we believe it’s an Italian medical helo; an Agusta Bell 412. So we focused our bird’s eyes on the island and maintained surveillance. And waited. And then it gave us this.” The technician ran more of the saved satellite footage.

  It was night-time surveillance over the tiny spot of land. Hammerson knew the spray of islands that were in the Strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia. Spargi was an insignificant land mass and should have been uninhabited. Though the island was a green jewel in warm, crystal-clear water, the landscape was jagged granite covered over with dense bush. The interior was so overgrown it was almost impenetrable and the only source of fresh water was rainfall.

  “And then this is what really caught our attention.” The technician’s face was a study in concentration as he worked dials and a small joystick.

  The satellite used light enhancement to focus on the sea. Then the surface water broke as a slim figure emerged, carrying a fish and lobster in its bare hands. It walked up the sandy beach and then stopped, spun, looked around and then up, seeming to stare straight into a camera lens hovering tens of thousands of feet above it. In a split second it turned and disappeared like smoke into the dense foliage behind it.

  “Rerun it and go to thermal,” Hammerson said as he craned forward.

  The technician’s hands flew over his keyboard.

  “Now thermal,” he said.

  The colors of the entire image changed to black and dark purple through to flaring orange. Orange spots dotted the island, probably nesting birds, and maybe some rats on the coastal rocks. But the human-like figure remained unnaturally dark, until it turned toward them. Then it exposed the flaring dot like a miniature sun in its chest.

  “Dead cold … except for the reactor.” Hammerson bared his teeth for a moment. “I fucking got you.” Fury surged through him, but also elation. He had longed for this moment for nearly two years. And now it was here.

  “Keep the satellites focused on the arena,” he said and
then turned and pointed at another of the technicians. “Send out a global HAWC recall.”

  “To which ones, sir?”

  “All of them.” Hammerson went out the door fast.

  * * *

  My wolves, Hammerson thought as he stood at the front of the room and looked slowly over the HAWCs as they assembled in the briefing room.

  There were forty-two of them – the huge form of Sam Reid in front, plus Casey Franks, Roy Maddock, and dozens more of his best. Also entering and finding a seat was the enormous form of Kadisha ‘Kady’ Mutari. She had trained with the Rwandan Special Forces, become disillusioned with some of their practices, and was looking for an out. She came to Hammerson’s attention in the way she single-handedly dealt with a cell of local terrorists and stood out with her fearlessness and formidable close-order combat skills.

  As well as the woman’s physical prowess, she stood six feet eleven inches tall, was broad shouldered, and emanated a lithe physical power. But she also managed to move with a feline grace that held it all in check.

  All the HAWCs knew why they had been recalled from their missions. They had been waiting for this moment for two years. Now, they all stared at Hammerson with gazes of brutal intensity, hoping they’d be selected for duty.

  Seated up front and to Hammerson’s side was the incongruous form of the diminutive Doctor Walter Gray, the chief scientist and head of the weapon technology research section of USSTRATCOM. He too waited with nervous energy, his foot tapping to the beat, perhaps, of his racing heart.

  Hammerson stepped forward and the room fell to silence.

  “You’ve all seen the images,” he began, and thumbed to the screen behind him. “It is our target, the android. There has been no confirmed sighting of Captain Alex Hunter, but we believe he is there.”

  Hammerson called up another image. “There are a few small caves on the island. But the only structures are ruins from the time Spargi Island was garrisoned during both world wars. Some of those wartime fortifications still remain, above and below ground.”