“Tell me about the people in the cells,” he said. “What did they seem like to you?”
“You haven’t seen the footage?”
King had. They all had. But the image was shaky, and the woman would be the first to say that it felt ten times worse for real. People always did in a crisis. “I have,” he said. “But how did it feel?”
She shuddered. “Like hell,” she said quietly. “The smell, fetid and inhumane. Like they had become beasts. Caged beasts, uncared for and abused.”
“You had a helmet on, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you could smell through that?”
She thought about if for a moment. There was a particle filter fitted. Could she really have smelled the cells, or was it her imagination? She shrugged. “I’m sure I could,” she said.
King scribbled underneath the two Mexican’s. He would research particle filters. He had worn an NBC suit once, couldn’t remember if he could smell with it fitted over his head and face or not. He looked at her, hesitated for a moment then said, “I don’t really want to use the word, but…”
“Zombies?” she asked. “Yes. Like the living hell of the walking dead. Like those horror movies and shows. The worst parts. It’s all I’ve been able to think about since.”
King thought about it. He wondered whether Ramsay had been right about Britain and America wanting such a weapon as this hideous virus. But it didn’t take much thinking about. He already knew the answer.
“I can’t really get my head around the fantastical nature of it,” he said. He was a man who had dealt with the cold, hard truth of death. People died. They died in all manners. Some brave, some sobbing, all with the same outcome. Organic matter devoid of life. They died, rotted, the end. He did not believe in an afterlife, in ghosts or the paranormal. He certainly didn’t see the walking dead. But he reminded himself that this virus created symptoms. These people would die all the same. There would be no beheading, not destruction of the brain. They were not already dead, merely people rendered in an enhanced comatose-state. Their primal instincts searching only for food. Everything else was secondary. People infected with this would be sick. Nothing more sinister. Still, he never thought he’d see the like. “What about the animals?”
She shuddered. “They were just angry,” she said. “And the gorilla just wanted to attack me. It was obvious. But it severed its hand getting out of its tether, didn’t seem to feel the pain or realise what had happened.”
King said nothing, but he knew that the fact that the creature had not felt pain was significant. If the people infected with the virus felt no pain, then they would not be easily destroyed, and certainly not effectively restrained to be treated. Perhaps there was some stock in the fantastical version after all.
“So, who’s hunting you?”
“My guess is the security guards.”
“My colleague killed one when he met you. So, three more?”
“I imagine. There were four full-time guards on that shift. More off shift and more on leave.”
“And you feel in good health?”
“I do,” she lied. “Never better.”
64
Rashid had dressed in his thermal snowsuit and walked the perimeter of the hotel. The ice hotel took up a substantial area, being a single-story construction. Against any attack, this was the weak spot. The grenade blast had destroyed the roof of two rooms and blown out the glass doors to the room occupied by the unfortunate couple. Now boarded with planks to stop the cold penetrating the main body of the hotel, the deserted structure would be easy for attackers to breach and get through. Any attack would be won or lost in the lobby.
He made mental notes as he walked the area. During his time with the SAS he had worked on close protection and security advance details for visiting dignitaries. He knew how to order and write a threat assessment, and he knew how to approach a target from an attacker’s perspective as well. Which was why he was having the most uneasy feeling that the building was nigh-impossible to defend.
The rifle was slung over his shoulder in a ski bag he had found in the utility room where snowsuits for the guests and the hotel’s equipment was stored for guests who did not have their own. Since the departure of the guests on the coach, the hotel had taken on a deserted feel and walking down the corridors was akin to a scene from The Shining. Rashid felt more comfortable with the rifle and knew that the team of mercenaries would not be far away. They were likely out there, watching the hotel and making plans of their own.
The hotel sat atop the man-made mountain on a flat piece of ground fringed with pines and firs on the south and west sides. To the north was plain and dropped to the steepest edge. This was predominantly ski slope all the way to the bottom where it levelled out and then dropped further down a natural valley. Two runs of chair lifts serviced the slope with a short traverse mid slope between lifts. To the east and running all the way through south and west the access road meandered up the mountain in a series of S-bends. Rashid had travelled in and out on the snowmobile and the route had been well maintained and kept clear of snow by maintenance, who used a Caterpillar truck that ran on tracks. This was the vehicle that towed in supplies, most likely in the early hours while the
