Department 19: Zero Hour (43 page)

She doesn’t look like that at you, Tim,
he thought.
Whatever happened in Nevada, whatever the two of you aren’t telling me, she doesn’t smile at you like that.

Jamie quickened his step, trying as far as possible to keep to a straight line, to stay on the heading that Tim Albertsson had chosen. He had absolutely zero faith in the American’s directions, but nor did he have any better ideas of his own. And if nothing else, the next time they arrived at a clearing or an obstacle they had already encountered, it would give him great satisfaction to be able to say that he had simply been doing as he was told.

As Jamie trudged forward through the permanent gloom, his squad mates fell quiet, and the silence beneath the towering canopy crowded in, unnatural and unnerving. The forest should have been alive with noise, home to a cacophony of chirping and buzzing and the scuttling of the hundreds and thousands of animals that should have been living on its floor and in its trees and undergrowth.

But there was nothing.

It was as still and silent as a mausoleum.

Dead,
Jamie thought, and shivered.
It’s dead in here.

Jamie had been on point for almost two hours when they found it.

He had led them through mile after mile of endless, indistinguishable forest, stepping carefully round deadfalls and over thick patches of brush, the kind that could easily be hiding two rows of metal teeth, hungrily awaiting a carelessly placed foot.

Nothing was different. Nothing changed.

Tim Albertsson continued to stubbornly insist they were going in the right direction, but Jamie and the rest of the squad knew full well that he was only saying so for his own benefit; the NS9 Special Operator’s map had long since ceased to correspond to the terrain they were walking through, and their GPS locators had lost signal at the same time as their consoles and radios.

Jamie stepped carefully across a narrow stream, the meandering water as devoid of life as the rest of the Teleorman Forest, and was waiting for the rest of the squad to join him when Larissa whispered his name in his ear, startling him. His girlfriend was capable of moving with utter silence, a trait that, while regularly useful, never ceased to be unnerving.

“Christ,” he said, turning to face her. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. What the—”

“There’s something up ahead,” she said, her face pale, the corners of her eyes glowing red. “Something bad.”

Jamie froze. “What is it?” he asked.

Larissa shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s the air, something about the way it feels. Like it’s wrong.”

“All right,” he said. “Is it safe?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I think so. It feels old, like it’s been used up. But I don’t know.”

“What’s going on?” asked Tim Albertsson. He had crossed the stream and was frowning at them.

“Something ahead,” said Larissa. “Sir.”

Albertsson narrowed his eyes. “Alive?”

“No,” said Larissa. “I don’t think so. Not any more, sir.”

“Let’s see it then,” said Albertsson. He pushed between them and strode forward. Larissa shook her head and leapt back into the air, leaving Jamie to take a moment to ensure his temper was at least largely under control before following his squad leader.

It had once been a stone circle, that much was still clear.

The remains of the stones themselves were visible, peering out from beneath the moss and weeds that had claimed them over time. Jamie couldn’t tell how tall they had been, or whether they had been inscribed or carved or arranged; they were now little more than twelve mounds of grey and green. They were not, however, what was occupying the minds of the six Operators.

The space between them was a wide, perfect circle of dark brown earth, devoid of even the tiniest sign of life; not so much as a single green shoot or animal track spoilt the flat surface. Around its perimeter, the forest continued, climbing up and away in every direction.

But inside the circle there was nothing.

Beyond the stones and the return of the dark green gloom stood a tight ring of trees. Jamie stared up at the narrow, seemingly even spaces between their trunks, at the point high overhead where their uppermost branches almost met, and thought they might be some variety of oak; it was difficult for him to be sure, as every one of the trees was dead.

Their trunks were twisted and gnarled, spindly columns of black and grey that jutted up towards the sky. They looked as though they had been burned, but if so, the fire had been remarkably localised; there were no other dead trees visible beyond the ring of oaks, no smaller trees younger than their neighbours.

Larissa stood beside Jamie, the expression on her face tight and uneasy, as Tim and the others turned slowly at the centre of the circle, taking it in.

“It smells wrong,” she said, her voice low. “This whole place. There’s something that I almost recognise, something I know I should be able to identify, and then something else, something
deeper
. I don’t like it, Jamie.”

Jamie nodded in agreement; he didn’t like this place either. A circle of stones was unsettling enough, even though they now lay in ruins. He had paid attention in history in the days when he had still gone to school, and he understood what stone circles had once meant: solstices and seasons and rituals.

Sacrifices.

Blood.

The empty patch of ground was somehow worse, however; it seemed unnatural, almost artificial, as though it shouldn’t exist. But he was standing in the middle of it.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Tim Albertsson. “What the hell is this? What was done here?”

Petrov shook his head. “Nothing good,” he said.

Damn right,
thought Jamie.
Larissa’s right, this place is bad. You can feel it.

“There’s nothing here,” said Van Orel. “Let’s keep moving, eh?”

Albertsson nodded, with apparent reluctance; he seemed momentarily unwilling to leave the circle with its mysteries unsolved. But after a second or two, he nodded again, more firmly, and stepped off the bare earth.

“Let’s move,” he said. “Petrov, you’re on point.”

The Russian nodded, and strode across to join the Special Operator on the green of the forest floor, Engel and Van Orel close behind him. Jamie was about to do likewise when Larissa growled at his side.

“What is it?” he asked, although he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to be standing in the circle any more; he didn’t like the feel of the soft earth beneath his boots, the dead oaks crowding over him, their branches like skeletal fingers.

“I knew I recognised it,” said Larissa. “I was trying to place something less normal. I can’t believe it took me so long.” She crouched down, scooped up a handful of the brown earth with her gloved hand, and held it beneath her nose. “Salt,” she said, shaking her head. “This whole place smells of salt.”

“Salt?” said Jamie. “Why salt?”

“People salted the earth where bad things happened,” said Engel, from beyond the edge of the circle. Her eyes were wide. “So nothing could ever grow again. It was done to places that were considered unholy.”

Fingers of ice danced their way up Jamie’s spine.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, trying to force calm that he didn’t feel into his voice.

He walked across the circle, hoping his legs were not visibly trembling. Larissa dropped the earth, brushed her glove clean against the thigh of her uniform with a look of disgust on her face, then floated into the air and joined the rest of the squad.

Jamie was suddenly incredibly aware that he was the only Operator still standing inside the stone circle, and it took all the composure he had left not to break into a run. His mind played cruel games with him as he walked; it showed him the earth rising into a huge brown hand that pulled him down, showed the oaks closing in on him, creating an impenetrable wall of dead wood that trapped him forever in this old,
deep
place.

He was two metres from the edge of the circle when something hissed loudly from the base of the tree in front of him.

Jamie stopped dead, as still as a statue.

“What the hell was that?” asked Van Orel, his hand going instantly to the butt of his Glock.

Larissa growled, her eyes reddening as she looked at her boyfriend.

“Get away from the tree,” said Jamie, his voice low and tight. “All of you. Now.”

The squad members frowned, but Jamie’s voice was full of the authority of conviction, and they did as he said; they backed away from the old tree in both directions, moving round the edge of the circle, until they could see what Jamie could see.

The snake slithered up out of a wide hole at the base of the tree and down on to the bare earth without making a sound. Its body was dark brown, covered in looping patterns of black. Its triangular head swept left and right above the ground, as though it was searching for something. Then its black eyes locked on Jamie, and it hissed again.

“Oh Jesus,” said Engel.

“Shut up,” said Jamie, his voice low.

“That doesn’t belong—”

“Shut up,” growled Jamie, his gaze fixed on the snake.

Its head hung motionless above the ground, but the rest of it was still coiling out of the tree, seemingly without end; two metres, then three, possibly even four. It hissed again, its mouth yawning open, its forked tongue darting out, its fangs clearly visible.

Jamie’s heart pounded in his chest; he was forcing himself not to panic, to breathe, to think, for God’s sake,
think
. He knew absolutely nothing about snakes; he had never needed to know anything about them, or given any thought to the idea that a day might come when he would. All he could think to do was stay still, and not turn his back on it.

“Don’t move,” said Larissa. “I’m coming to get you.”

Jamie nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his girlfriend rise silently into the air and circle round behind him. The snake flicked its head in her direction, then slid silently forward over the salted ground, closing the distance between them to barely a metre, hissing steadily.

Striking distance,
thought Jamie.

Larissa floated down behind him. He could hear her breathing, deep and steady, and a second later he felt hands slide under his armpits.

“On three,” she whispered. “One.”

The snake arched its back, raising its head further off the ground.

“Two.”

It hissed, louder than ever, its long body vibrating.

“Three!”

Larissa hurtled up and back, hauling Jamie into the air. For a terrible moment, her gloved hands slipped across the smooth material of his uniform, and he felt sure she was going to drop him. Then she tightened her grip, her fingers digging roughly into the soft flesh beneath his arms, and he cried out in pain.

The snake struck, its head turned to the side, its mouth wide and full of fangs. The razor-sharp points closed where his legs had been, on nothing. The snake heaved itself forward, its mouth opening again, but Jamie was beyond its reach as Larissa carried him out of the circle and set him down beside the rest of the squad. The six Operators watched the furious, thrashing snake, their eyes wide with shock.

“Grass snakes,” said Engel, her voice low. “Small vipers. They’re all that should be here.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Van Orel. “I’ve seen boomslangs and Cape cobras. I even saw a green mamba once. But I’ve never seen anything like that. Never.”

“Me neither,” said Albertsson, quietly. “We had rattlers where I grew up, but they stayed out of your way. That thing went straight for you.”

“I know,” said Jamie, feeling his heart slowly begin to decelerate. “I saw.”

In the centre of the circle, the snake had ceased to thrash. It had stopped hissing, but its head was low to the ground and darting in every direction, as though searching for new prey. After a minute or so, it began to slide back into the hole it had emerged from, its body gliding across the ground with an eerie lack of sound.

Jamie watched it disappear, then turned to Larissa, who was staring at the circle of newly churned-up earth with a look of profound unease on her face.

“Thank you,” he said, and kissed her delicately on the cheek.

Larissa smiled. “For what?”

“For saving me,” said Jamie.

Larissa’s smile widened. “It’s what I do,” she said.

Petrov took point as the squad moved out again, heading further into the forest. Jamie watched Larissa rise back into the air, trying not to think about what would have happened to him if she had not been there to lift him from harm’s way; it was too chilling a prospect to allow himself to dwell upon.

And at the northern edge of the circle they left behind, long covered by dirt and moss, long stripped of the power it had possessed, lay a stone which had once existed in both this place and another, a cruel garden of statues and stars and evil that spanned dimensions.

It was the stone altar upon which the long, bloody chain of events that had eventually led the six Operators into the darkness of the forest had been set into motion, but it was now old, and forgotten.

Major Simmons moved, looping an arm round Matt’s neck from behind and pressing the Glock hard against his temple. Instantly, acting on pure instinct, the rest of the Operators drew their pistols and pointed them at their commanding officer.