Burning Angels

Finding this place so deserted was utterly eerie; chilling. And Jaeger felt cruelly cheated. Against all odds they’d found Kammler’s lair. But Kammler — and his people — had flown the nest before justice and retribution could be visited upon them.

But mostly Jaeger felt tortured by the emptiness — the lack of life — where it hit him most personally: there was no sign of Ruth and Luke anywhere.

He stepped forward, and the last man in closed the door behind him. It was a precaution to prevent contamination spreading from one room to another.

As the door clicked shut, Jaeger heard a sharp, deafening hiss. It had come from just above the door frame, and it had sounded like a truck letting off its air brakes. Like a compressed-air explosion.

At the same instant he felt a wave of tiny pinpricks pierce his skin. His head and neck seemed fine, protected as they were by the thick rubber of the FM54 mask, and the tough filter unit seemed to have shielded his back.

But his legs and arms were on fire.

He glanced down at his suit. The tiny puncture holes were clearly visible. He’d been hit by some kind of booby-trapped device, which had pierced the fabric of the Trellchem. He had to presume the rest of the team were likewise hit.

‘Tape up!’ he screamed. ‘Tape up vents! Every man help the other!’

In a flurry of near-panic, he turned to Raff and began ripping off lengths of gaffer tape to seal up the tiny holes torn in the big Maori’s suit. Once he was finished, Raff did the same for him.

Jaeger had kept monitoring his suit pressure the entire time. It had remained positive — the filter pack automatically blowing in clean air, which would have kept flowing out through the tears in the fabric. That outward pressure should have kept any contamination at bay.

‘Sitrep,’ Jaeger demanded.

One by one his team reported in. All their suits were compromised, but they had been resealed effectively. Positive air pressure seemed to have been maintained by all, thanks to their powered-air units.

But still Jaeger could feel a tingling sensation where whatever it was that had been blasted through his suit had cut into his skin. He didn’t doubt that it was time to get out of there. They had to head back to the wet decon line at the beach and do a damage inspection.

He was just about to issue the order when the utterly unexpected happened.

There was a faint hum, and the electric power came to life in the complex, bathing the lab in blinding halogen light. At one end of the room a giant flat-screen terminal flickered into life, and a figure appeared on what had to be some kind of live link.

It was unmistakable.

Hank Kammler.

‘Gentlemen, leaving so soon?’ His voice echoed around the laboratory, as he spread his arms in an expansive gesture. ‘Welcome… welcome to my world. Before you do anything rash, let me explain. That was a compressed air bomb. It fired tiny glass pellets. No explosives. You will feel a slight tingling on your skin. That is where the pellets cut into you. The human skin is a great barrier to infection: one of the best. But not when it is punctured.

‘The lack of any explosives means the agent — the dry virus — remained unharmed and viable. As the glass entered your skin — driven in there by four-hundred-bar pressure — it carried the inert agent with it. In short, you have all been infected, and I don’t think I need to tell you with what type of pathogen.’

Kammler laughed. ‘Congratulations. You are some of my first victims. Now, I’d like you to fully appreciate your delicious predicament. You might decide it best to remain trapped on this island. You see, if you go out into the world, you will be mass murderers. You are infected. Already, you are plague bombs. So you might argue that you have no option but to stay and die, and to that end you will find the premises well stocked with food.

‘Of course, the Gottvirus has already been released,’ Kammler continued. ‘Or should I say unleashed. Even now it is making its way into the four corners of the world. So alternatively, you can help me. The more carriers the merrier, as it were. You can opt to go out into the world and help spread the virus. The choice is yours. But just for a moment, make yourselves comfortable while I tell you a story.’

Wherever Kammler was speaking from, he was seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. ‘Once upon a time, two SS scientists found a frozen corpse. She was perfectly preserved, even down to her long golden hair. My father, SS General Hans Kammler, gave her a name, that of an ancient Nordic god: Var, the Beloved. Var was the five-thousand-year-old ancestor of the Aryan people. Sadly, she had fallen ill before she died. She had been infected by a mystery pathogen.