It was snowing again. Not heavily, just enough to obscure the advance.
In his snow hole, Henri Clément packed the last of his kit. The Commando Hubert members had been ordered to new positions, with instructions to target the timber wheelhouse.
Already Henri’s mouth was watering. He savoured fine violence in the same way he savoured fine wine. Around him the forest teemed with silent killers. Nearly a thousand special forces, ground troops from five different countries, were converging on the monastery, on skis, in Arctic camouflage, and from all points of the compass.
At Kluge airbase, a twenty minutes’ flight south, airborne troops were being assembled, supplied, drilled and briefed.
Finn headed for the airlock.
Dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu.
They had parked the Vitalis high in the arterial system, in as narrow a place as they could get into and still turn the craft around. Already an indistinct whale song vibrated through the hull – sounds filtering into the brain, from the outside world, through Kaparis’s ear.
Exactly where Finn was heading.
Before they blew up the craft and killed Kaparis, or disabled him, or whatever it took to stop him getting away, Finn wanted to say goodbye and let him know who was about to pull the trigger. Carla and Nico had been reluctant to go along with this part of the plan, but both knew, with Finn and Kaparis, it was no longer rational. It was personal.
Nico checked the guideline comms link console and activated it. “It’s live to the bridge. It says there’s four hundred metres of tether on the drum, just enough to get you to the ear.”
“Don’t let go of it!” insisted Carla, helping him on with a new tank of gas. “And make sure you come back! We haven’t come this far just to lose you to a bit of name calling.”
Finn unhooked the lock bar on one of the airlocks.
“I promise. I just want to get close enough to deliver a personal message.”
He still couldn’t get over Carla at this scale. She looked doubtful.
“Carla! I’ll be OK.”
He locked on the helmet, checked the regulator and the scoot, then closed the airlock door. The blood-side valve opened and in a moment the chamber was flooded with warm plasma.
He opened the door into the hold. It was spooky in the dim light, the framework of empty cable racks like a skeleton. He pushed himself through the liquid to the reels of communication lines, the umbilical tethers. Line #1 was already gone, so he attached Line #2 to his belt.
“OK, I’m on. Open it up.”
“Got it,” replied Carla from the bridge.
With a whirr, the great hold doors began to open. Red light appeared and blood cells poured in. By the time the doors were fully open, he was already outside and balancing in the bloodstream on the scoot. He swerved round so that they could see him from the bridge.
“Take the third blood vessel, the narrowest one,” said Nico over the comms line, pointing out an opening in the artery wall. “Follow it all the way down and you should reach the hard labyrinth in the inner ear. Good luck.”
With a final wave, Finn switched on the light attached to his helmet, angled the scoot and powered through the blood flow into the vessel. In the hold, the umbilical tether unspooled from its reel, whizzing round as it played out its line.
And an unseen figure swam past into the open airlock …
With an effort of will, Kaparis sat himself up on the operating table, swiping off the high-end medical equipment attached to him.
He felt magnificent. Heywood draped a silk dressing gown over his shoulders. “Sir, the escape vehicle is ready,” he reported.
Kaparis looked over at Hudson. He would still need the boy as a hostage until he was certain.
“Good. Bring the boy. And bring something to pick up signals from the Vitalis.”
The Siguri had not picked up any definite sign of attack from the G&T yet, but Kaparis expected that if they had the guts, which he very much doubted, Allenby and King would attack at dawn.
“Prepare the Siguri and every Tyro for the assault. The Master expects every man to fight to the death, to the very last drop of blood.”
“And the Carriers, Master?”
The Carriers had been locked in the library all night after the two dangling spies had been found. Clearly there had been resistance bubbling under the surface of all that apparent obedience. He had no doubt who would be behind it: their blind king, the one they called Primo.
“Burn the library down at the first sign of attack. And let them know their fate beforehand so they will have some time to regret their treachery. It will fuel their screams.”
“And Santiago, Master?” asked the Siguri chief.
Kaparis looked at the cowering wretch. It was a life hardly worth the kill – and yet … No, he had an idea. They were fond of him, the Carriers.
“Take him up to the library and kill him. Make the Primo pull the trigger.”
Santiago wailed and Heywood gasped – “Bravo!” His Master was back to his best.
“To the Polaris!” Kaparis ordered.
In the anterior tympanic artery in Kaparis’s brain, Finn sashayed like a snowboarder down the twisting blood vessel on the scoot. The further he went, the more the walls closed in, the louder the whale song became.
Nico’s idea was that, if Finn could reach the bony labyrinth of the inner ear, he could make direct contact with it with his helmet, and it would act as a sound box, so the whale song vibrations would make sense. If so, he should be able to shout back and be heard too.
The artery suddenly split into several smaller tributaries and Finn had to take his pick and crawl up towards what he hoped would be bone.
“It’s tight now. I’m crawling along,” he reported.
“Keep going until you reach a white membrane. It should be covering the bone,” replied Nico.
And just as she said it, Finn saw the membrane up ahead, shining like ice.
“Got it.”
His body was almost plugging the narrow vessel now, the blood cells having to wriggle past.
“OK, I’m there. I can feel something, slight vibrations …”
He dragged himself forward a few last inches and touched his helmet to the bone, and sound instantly exploded through his head, clear as day.
But it wasn’t from the outside. It was over the comms:
“ARRRRGGH! HE’S BACK!”
Screams in his helmet. Nothing but screams and struggle.
“Carla! Carla, what’s happening?”
Finn heard one last blow, then … a familiar manic cackle …
Kaparis twitched, stopped. He could hear something … something deep in the itch of his innermost ear. Screaming?
“Pan?” said Kaparis, as if recognising a long-lost son.
There was a last strangled yelp and the itch was gone.
Finn scrambled madly backwards, back down the blood vessel, back towards the craft.
Not Pan … not with Carla and Nico in the Vitalis … surely not …
TCH-KASH! An electronic whiplash smacked up the comms line and exploded in his ears, followed by sharp pain as the line attached to his belt suddenly tightened and yanked him immediately down – down at tremendous speed – down, crashing fast against the tight tide of blood, Finn on the spinning, twisting, powering end of the line.
He SLAM-SLAMMED off the arterial walls, trying to stop, wanting to scream as he cut through the blood flow, the jellyfish red cells pummelling his torso – dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu – dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu – blood blood blood – thumping and roaring as he SLAMMED round another arterial junction.
The new vessel he entered was wider, the pressure intense but not as violent.
Finn took a moment to draw breath, nailing the obvious – Pan was back.
He must have hidden. Must have attacked Carla and Nico. Must have taken the Vitalis, dragging Finn along now like a distant water-skier …
Then there was a change …
Dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu …
The blood still thumped and roared, but he was no longer being dragged along. He seemed to be stable in the flow. The Vitalis must have stopped. Anchored?
Get back to the ship, Finn thought. Get back now.
The scoot was dragging at his left ankle, useless in such a strong flow. He reached down and flipped the clasp and it went spinning off into the darkness. He grabbed the guide line in front of him instead and began to pull himself up it, hand over hand, over and over, faster and faster.
He had to do it. He had to reach the Vitalis.
Kaparis staggered forward on his own two feet and reached the Polaris escape vehicle.
Heywood was waiting, and had thoughtfully mixed him his favourite cocktail.
“Heywood, you are the truest servant any man could find.” Kaparis angled the straw round to take a sip and suddenly felt soaringly relieved and pleased with himself. He was moving again, and he had cracked Boldklub, and he always so loved a daring escape.
And what a future to escape to! He had solved Ethan Drake’s Time = Place conundrum.
There was so much to be done in the seven cities, the seven wells.22
He was helped into the payload bay of the Polaris and a harness was brought down over his head. Heywood would take the seat opposite. Then Hudson was dragged into the escape vehicle by two Siguri and crammed into the small space on the payload-bay floor.
“Ow! Is that really necessary?” he asked.
A blistering white-gold sun crested the horizon, mighty engines roared, and a fleet of aircraft banked left as they approached the target area.
A fleet capable of unleashing half an army.
Within the C-130 Hercules command aircraft, Al and Commander King watched screens that showed the magnificent and forbidding Monastery of Mount St Demetrius of Thessaloniki, as seen from a dozen different angles by the forces on the ground.
All that those forces ranged against it were waiting for now was the final order.
Journey time to target was seven minutes.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” demanded General Jackman on screen.
Commander King looked across at Al as he buckled himself into a parachute harness.
“A sign,” answered Al. And King knew what he meant. The troops, the technology and the weaponry at their disposal were of the highest calibre. And yet they were about to make a desperate gamble. They needed something more. They needed to believe in their own luck.
“Sir! The dome!” a technician called, and there it was.
The great dome was beginning to split in two.