Arcadian Genesis

was the thermal monitor of the cylinder — it had already climbed to room temperature.

Khamid turned back to the door and opened it a crack, checking the corridor. He only needed to dash a hundred paces to the service elevator that would take him down to the car park. He often went home for lunch, so passing through security at this time of day would not be unusual. He gambled on Millinov taking his time with Volkov, as usual, wanting to drag out his brilliant accomplishments for as long as he could. By the time the scientist returned, Khamid would be miles away. He adjusted the crushing weight on his back.

This is for my family, he thought as he darted from the door, running hunched over to the elevator.

In the few seconds after he was gone, the temperature went up another few degrees, and a bead of moisture appeared on one of the globes within the strange, coffin-like object.

CHAPTER 4

Alex Hunter sat in the rear of the black stealth chopper and cleared his mind. The swift, sixty-five-foot machine carried a modified rotor design that suppressed the distinctive percussive noise. To anyone below, it would have been indistinguishable from a breeze in the Chechen treetops. They came in fast, low and lethally silent — a ghost ship with deadly cargo.

Alex pulled on his gloves — night black and woven through with enough armor plating and Kevlar thread to allow a man to punch a hole through a door. The gloves were made from the same fabric as his suit, which changed from black to gunmetal gray before his eyes. They now matched the helicopter’s cabin. He flexed his hand — it was termed active camouflage, the latest adaptive technology that allowed objects to blend into their surroundings by use of micro-panels capable of altering their appearance, color and reflective properties. The suit didn’t provide great thermal concealment, but if they were in snow, they’d appear white, in trees, green… and in amongst the freezing Chechen countryside or urban zones, it would move, change and dapple to provide as much camouflage as necessary.

He sat back, his fist starting a slow beat on his knee. He loved this part: everything was locked and loaded, and you were committed — everything out of your hands now — buckled up and waiting for the fun to start.

Like the suit he wore, his team’s profile was also invisible. They were HAWCs — the real best of the best — Hotzone All-Forces Warfare Commandos. Above average physically and mentally, each one had years of field experience. There were no pictures of them, no glowing articles in the press, no medals pinned on their chests by a corpulent senator. Their group existed more as a break-glass strategy, buried somewhere in a secure military database.

HAWCs didn’t volunteer or apply for the job; they were chosen. Each man and woman had a unique psychology that totally disregarded the physical self or even acknowledged a sense of mortality. In another field they may have been sent for psychoanalysis or discharged, but in the HAWCs they were prepped and then launched.

Each HAWC with him in the chopper was multiskilled, and usually with certain specializations — explosives, electronics, sniper skills, knife-work. When an imperative mission was deemed politically, militarily or plain humanly impossible, they went in.

Like Alex Hunter, everyone who sat with him in the chopper had been drawn from the Rangers, Green Berets, SEALs or DELTA Force. Alex had been a HAWC now for three years, and he was a damned good one.

This mission team, called Valkeryn, had a thirst for adrenalin only extreme combat could satisfy. Their missions were top secret, and no friend, family member — not even his girl, Angie — could ever know about them.

Former girl. The dark and brutal world he inhabited had never touched her, and never would. But he missed her — when he closed his eyes, he could still feel the strands of her long brown hair, carrying the scent of green apples.

Focus, Romeo! He could hear the old warhorse’s voice in his head: Hammerson. Alex could imagine the Major now — crew cut and jutting jaw — staring into his face with an expression hard enough to crack granite. The man seemed to have a knack of zeroing in on him personally. Always checking he was fully briefed, had the latest kit or training. He’d probably resent it, if he thought the Hammer was ever wrong.

On this mission, Bronson was at point. Alex knew he would be given his own team soon… probably next mission. He knew his stuff; he’d done his time. He guessed that was why the Hammer was staying on his case: simple preparation — stress-testing the machine.

He could deal with it. He could deal with anything. In the HAWCs they had one clear rule — we are right, and they are wrong. It simplified a lot of things up front.

A single red light went on in the darkened cabin — seven minutes out. There were three lights. The next one would tell them they were two minutes out. The third meant it was time for the HAWCs to fly.

He ran his hands quickly over his suit, checking everything was secured and in place as his mind ran over the mission brief one more time.

Dropping in for takeaway was how Hammerson put it. They’d drop in, retrieve a double package — a man and an object — simple. Just a small thing about a heavy Russian military presence, and that they could expect the Federal Security Services, the successor to the KGB, to have deployed numerous death squads of Spetsnaz GRU to make things interesting.

Alex got to his feet, pulled his rifle from the rack and slung it over his shoulder. For this mission, he and most of the team had chosen a Colt ACR, basically a heavily modified M16A2. He liked its weight, optical sighting and hydraulic buffering system to remove recoil — it was tough, reliable and accurate. He reached around and pulled hard on the short barrel — secure — it needed to be. When they left the chopper, it would be traveling at speed. You didn’t step out, or shimmy down a rope; you dove and rolled. The big bird just kept on going.

He smiled. The Russian ground forces were basically underpaid, enthusiastic young men, most with very old weaponry. The HAWCs would avoid them and only engage if absolutely necessary. After all, it was like shooting fish in a barrel, a waste of good ammunition. But the GRU, they were different; they were good — hi-tech psychopaths.

Good, he thought. Nothing like a real fight… and he liked to fight. Alex looked at the team. They all did.

Glancing down along the line of men and women in camouflage uniforms, tight against physiques that looked as if they had been cut from some sort of dark indestructible stone, he saw the same self-confidence, bordering on arrogance, on all their faces.

‘Get off me.’ It was Johnson, older than Alex by a few years, and ex-Delta Force. He’d been dozing, and woke to find a cigarette sticking from his ear. His heavy lidded eyes couldn’t hide a formidable intellect, and his bull-like neck suggested all the power needed to back it up. He screwed up the cigarette and tossed it back at the man next to him.

Jack Kolchek laughed out loud. ‘Oh yeah, blame me… peace offering?’ He grinned and offered Johnson the same brand of cigarette. He batted it away, and Kolchek shrugged, tucking them in his pocket. He was a former SEAL like Alex, and the funniest man he had ever met. The guy could make you laugh even when the bullets were flying.

Next was Samantha ‘Sam’ Stozer, who was shaking her head, but trying hard not to smile. She was ex-British SAS and attractive in a brutal sort of way — blonde hair pulled back tight against her head, clear eyes and a flattened nose she always promised to get fixed one day.

To the rear an enormous man was on his knees with his back turned, head bowed and his hands pressed together. Bruda, built like a human bulldozer with fists that looked like they were designed for tearing apart artillery, rivet by rivet. He had the pleasure of carrying the AA12 rotating shotgun. The squat weapon was a Gatling machine gun that fired shotgun shells — it could push out three hundred twelve-gauge rounds per minute. Bruda liked to call the big gun his front-door key. It opened doors, all right. It also cleared rooms, and would obliterate a squad of bad guys in an instant.

Bruda was the only HAWC Alex had known to wear his heart on his sleeve — in a manner of speaking. Before any mission, he would draw a crucifix in blackout paint on his chest. Then, on his knees with eyes closed, he would