The Kielder Experiment (Book 2): The Alaska Strain Read online

  The conversation had been a jumble of awkward gap filling as Peter desperately tried to remember interesting anecdotes about his time at the zoo, but his dislike of flying, combined with his unease about talking to an attractive woman twenty years his junior, and the concern he would wander into past, very much classified, projects, predisposed him to failure, and the conversation died twenty minutes later. The remainder of the flight was spent with the woman drinking a number of inflight bottles of wine, and him feigning sleep. His intention had been to use the flight as a working commute but, after the revelation that Rachel was an investigative journalist, his laptop and notes remained zipped in his case for the entire journey.

  After making his way through customs, and collecting his bags, he steps through the automatic doors and out into the crisp Alaskan sunshine. A sharp wind cuts through the polyester mix of his V-neck jumper and he immediately returns to the relative warmth of the arrivals lounge, and retrieves his coat from his baggage, before stepping back outside. He checks his mobile and re-reads the text from Marta; a private plane has been arranged to take him to the as yet unnamed island where the International Institute for Bio-Tech Advancement has been set up, and he is to wait for a chauffeur to take him there. During the flight, the fact that he had yet to be informed of the institute’s address, other than that it was somewhere off the Kodiak Archipelago, had caused him a modicum of disquiet - why the need for secrecy Marta? - but he had pushed away the thoughts, reasoned with himself that even the Lego factory had metal shutters that eased down to protect their Research and Development department from industrial espionage, and focused on thinking through his next research paper. Marta had promised that his research would be published in any journal he desired, and he smiles as he recollects her words that a professorship wasn’t out of the question.

  As the plane had flown over the tips of the Aleutian Mountain Range, and the investigative journalist beside him had snorted in her sleep, the empty bottles on her open lap tray clinking as they rolled, he had allowed his imagination to carry him to an auditorium full of men and women in evening attire, cameramen focusing on his figure at the central lectern. The Royal Society’s Darwin Medal held in his hand, he thanked his colleagues for their support during his research, as well as his doting wife, a stalwart behind the scenes, without whom none of it would have been possible. The fact that Peter didn’t have a wife, had never been married, didn’t mar the enjoyment of the moment - who knew what the future held? - and he basked in the imaginary glow before the pain of readjusting pressure as the plane began its descent hit his inner ear.

  As Peter waits beneath the awning, his mobile beeps. The text reads; ‘Flight cancelled. Room booked at Karluk River Hotel. A taxi will take you to the airfield tomorrow. Dr. Katarina Petrov.’

  “Katarina!” he blurts as he reads the screen. The disquiet he’d felt earlier mushrooms to full-blown anxiety, but in the next moment he is pushed to the wall as the door behind him opens and a stream of people barge past. His phone drops to the floor and, as he bends to retrieve it, a hand grasps it. Rachel from the plane. For a second, he scans her face, checking that she hasn’t read the screen whilst simultaneously berating himself for being so paranoid. She hands it back to him without a glance at the screen. Offers him a smile. “Are you okay? You look a little ... distressed.”

  Peter eyes her, quickly hiding his distrust. “No, no!” He replies with a disarming smile, and his best ‘I’m a professional and I can cope with this’ voice. “Plans have changed. That’s all. I was expecting a lift to catch my next flight, but it has been cancelled. I’m to make my way to the Karluk River-”

  “Karluk River Hotel? Me too!” The woman beams from beneath an oversized plum-coloured beanie. Her chin is invisible beneath an orange scarf knitted with the thickest wool Peter has ever seen. Bundled in an oversized ski-jacket, and pulling a huge suitcase, her face is flushed and her eyes are a little blood-shot. She seems to be overheating, although Peter is sure the redness of her cheeks is a product of the four mini bottles of wine and one gin and tonic imbibed during their flight.

  He returns a guarded, “Oh.”

  “We can share a taxi.” She replies with a large smile, and points to the taxi that has pulled up alongside them. In the car she complains of ‘sweating like a pig’ before unzipping her jacket. The sweet aroma of her overpowering perfume, mingles with the scent of alcohol, and rises like a warm fug between them.

  ***

  Both in heavily padded jackets, hats, and scarves, the space inside the taxi is claustrophobic and cloying. Adding to that, Peter seems nervous, and Rachel’s are now on edge. Any efforts to engage the man in conversation fail; his responses are stilted, and he appears distracted. In an effort to distract herself from the awkwardness between them, she shifts her gaze to the town. After several minutes of non-descript shops and buildings, she notices a poster for a missing woman, and is surprised when another for a second woman quickly follows. Both women look very similar; young, with pale skin, and long, blonde hair.

  “Odd,” she mutters wiping at the glass as her breath fogs it.

  When a third appears, she sits up in her seat. This woman has dark hair and is certainly not as attractive as the previous two. For there to be a third woman shown as missing in such a relatively small town as Kodiak surely must be unusual. Did Kodiak have a serial killer?

  “What’s going on here?”

  Peter turns to her with a confused frown. “Where?”

  “I’ve just seen a third poster for a third missing woman!”

  “Oh,” is his lacklustre response and he returns to staring out of his own window.

  “Hookers.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Sex workers, Ma’am.” The taxi-driver explains. “The girls on the posters were hookers.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yup.”

  “What do you think happened to them?”

  “Well ... we had a fella a few years back, an out-of-towner who was sweet-talking girls into his car then taking them out into the woods ...”

  “And?”

  “I don’t like to say, not to a lady, but when they found them girls, they’d been hurt real bad. They never did catch him.”

  “So, you think he’s back?”

  “Yup.”

  “How do you know he was an ‘out-of-towner’?”

  “Don’t like to think it was a local boy. It’s a tight community around here.”

  “Right. But often the killer is known to their victims,” Rachel replies.

  The man flashes narrowed eyes at Rachel then returns to focussing on the road. “Like I said, he was an out-of-towner.”

  “Right.”

  The remainder of the journey is spent in silence, and Rachel is relieved when, a few minutes later, the taxi pulls up beside the hotel. The driver removes her cases from the boot, along with Peter’s, waits for a tip, then disappears without a word.

  “I think I upset him.”

  After Peter’s disinterested response of ‘Hmm’ Rachel books into the hotel, making no further effort to engage him in conversation, and closes her bedroom door with relief, and an exhausted sigh.

  The room is surprisingly warm, and comfortable. A honey-coloured pine wardrobe stands against one wall, and a large sleigh-style bed dominates the room. A sheepskin rug sits at its foot and a pair of heavy, woollen curtains hangs at the triple-glazed windows. A large bowl of pot-pourri sits on the dresser beneath a mirror, and the room carries an odour of cinnamon and orange zest without the unpleasant chemical undertones of air-freshener.

  Rapidly overheating in the stuffy bedroom, Rachel removes the layers of coat, hat, gloves, and scarf, then fills the small kettle placed on the dressing table. Two cups with saucers, and a wicker basket of packets of tea, coffee and biscuits sits at its side. Thumbing through them Rachel pulls out a packet of hot chocolate and, unable to get the posters of the missing women out of her mind, powers up her laptop whilst the kettle boi
ls, and eats one of the packets of biscuits as she waits.

  She searches through the local newspaper’s online paper and locates articles about two of the missing girls. Their disappearances are spaced three weeks apart. There is no mention of any other missing women in either article. A search through the local police’s social media accounts presents her with similar information, although on their Facebook feed she locates three posts regarding the missing girls. Each confirms that the women went missing during the early hours of the morning, and that two were prostitutes. Although there is no mention that the third woman was a prostitute there is a reference to a history of drug-taking. Apart from the initial post confirming the disappearance of the three women, there are no further posts, presumably because the investigations are ongoing. She takes a sip of chocolate, hisses as the hot liquid burns her lips, then berates herself for getting off track. Christopher Miller’s disappearance is what she needs to concentrate on. She returns to the local police’s Facebook feed, searching for posts that date to the period when he would have been at the wilderness lodge on Volkolak island. As with the women, there is one post proclaiming his disappearance, but unlike the women, there is another reporting the finding of his upturned motorboat at sea. There is no mention of Volkolak island.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Katarina copies the last of the readings across to Max’s file, adding yet another day’s worth of vital signs to make two-hundred-and-seventeen. She turns with a glance to the delivery panel where tranquillizer darts are administered if necessary, and decides, despite Kendrick’s warnings, to have a final ‘conversation’ with Max; the observations, she reasons, will be useful information for the project. With the file open on the ‘Daily Observations’ folder and its sub-division ‘Behavioural Observations’, she retrieves the remote control from her desk and clicks the button marked ‘1’. She squeezes the black plastic box between her fingers as the doors inside the suite of rooms, she can’t bring herself to refer to them as ‘the cells’ anymore, open. She taps her keyboard, bringing up the live feed from inside the suite, watching as Max uncurls from his corner, and waits as the second door slides open. Light shines in the room from the strip lights secreted along ceiling and floor edging, and he shields his eyes. A gleam of red shines at his fingers. Katarina presses the switch to dim the lights and unlocks the heavy plate, sliding it to reveal the delivery panel. Here she removes the next level of security, a thick door of reinforced glass. Max stands on the other side, his eyes staring straight into her own. She stares back, her heart breaking with pity.

  “Oh, Max.” She strokes his fingers as they hook around the wire mesh. He makes a pitying whine, and she’s reminded of her old dog Buster; made lame by an accident, the pain in his legs after they healed would make him weep in a similar way. She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a piece of chocolate, one she had saved from her small ration last night as she’d watched Bridesmaids, the version dubbed with Ukrainian subtitles, for the seventh time. She offers Max the strip of chocolate, following the gesture with, “It is from my penultimate bar. There is no more after this. We have to wait another three months for new supplies.” She smiles as he sniffs at her hand. “I have requested a whole box next time.” He stares at her hand. “Take it. Is good. Ukrainian chocolate, from town where I live as child.” She takes another small chunk from her pocket, and bites into it. “See! Is for eating.”

  Max takes the chocolate, and puts it into his own mouth. Silently, she shouts ‘Yes!’ If he is copying her, then perhaps, as she suspects, there is more of Max left than just the instinct driven monster that he appears to be. Perhaps, given the recent changes in behaviour, his brain is healing. Not for the first time, her thoughts turn to a cure. She gives the room a furtive glance. Stupid! No one is here. No one can read inside Katarina’s head. She returns to her desk and enters the notes about Max’s behaviour in the file and the thought strikes her that perhaps if Max performs as Marta wants, and does sire a ... litter – some children - then perhaps, just maybe, she can be convinced to find a cure for him. Max whines, demanding her attention and she ‘saves’ the information and returns to the open delivery panel. She doesn’t notice the missing security mesh.

  There is no sign of Max.

  She steps closer, “Max!” she croons. “Did you like the chocolate?” She listens, but hears nothing. Perhaps he has gone back to his room? She takes another step to the open panel, peering more closely into the darkened room. “Max, don’t you want to talk to me anymore?”

  She pulls the remote from her pocket, and clicks the button to raise the level of brightness inside the room. Strips of light, set securely within the corners of the room behind reinforced glass, brighten, and the bare panels of the container’s reinforced walls come into view. The room appears empty. “Max!” she calls. She waits. He doesn’t appear. Disappointed, she says, “Okay, I am going now. Is late. I go home. I see you tomorrow morninkkkh!” Steel fingers grip her oesophagus, pulling her head, and then an arm, through the panel. As red eyes stare into her own, and pain explodes through her arm, she clicks at the buttons on the control, desperately searching for the button that will stop Max in his tracks. Instead the glass door begins to slide shut, narrowing the space she has been pulled through. With a mighty punch, Max shatters the rolling glass and, with teeth bared, saliva drooling onto her cheek, he bites down onto her shoulder. Razor-sharp fangs scrape her clavicle. As she writhes in agony, arm dislocating, shoes kicking against the wall, he relaxes his grip, allowing her to slide back. Teeth still sunk into her shoulder, he squeezes his arm through the gap and takes the controls from her hand. As she slips to the floor, the infection already slipping into her bloodstream, a mechanical whirring fills the room and the outer doors to the container open. Max steps out into the laboratory and, in one, massive bound, steps beside Katarina. In the next second, he hauls her over his shoulder.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  As Peter hauls his suitcase down the hotel’s steps, a second taxi pulls up along the kerb. He lets the case bump down each step then wheels it to the first taxi. He opens the door, and bends to speak to the driver.

  “Sorry, sir, but this taxi is booked for a lady; Miss Bonds.”

  With an embarrassed ‘oh’, and a silent groan, he shuts the door; these coincidences were becoming tiresome.

  As the car pulls away, so does Rachel’s car and, as it follows them through the streets, he realises she is making her way to the exact same destination as himself; the airstrip where he is to catch the flight to the institute. Katarina’s text message had been followed by one several hours later, giving him the time and location of the flight, and informing him that a taxi had been arranged. He’d replied with a ‘Thank you!’ and ‘Looking forward to seeing you again.’ She’d replied with a juvenile smiley-face emoji that had made him smile; apart from the gut-wrenching memories that thoughts of Katarina aroused within him, he was genuinely looking forward to seeing her, as well as questioning her about exactly what she was doing on the project. Her expertise was in animal behaviour, not reproduction. Disquiet sits as a queasy squall in his belly, but he dismisses it as worry about the flight, and forces himself to focus on a problem with his current research project he has yet to satisfactorily solve; it is a pointless exercise, once at the Institute the project will pale into insignificance in relation to his new role and the projects outlined by Marta.

  As they reach the airfield’s gates, Peter twists to watch Rachel’s car follow them through. “Damn!” he mutters aloud before he has a chance to hold his tongue.

  “Sorry, sir? Did you say something?”

  “No, no, just remembered something I’ve forgotten.”

  “Do you need me to turn around? I can take you back to the hotel.”

  “No, no. It’s fine.” He checks around the airfield with its solitary hangar. A small plane sits on the runway. “Is this it?”

  “It sure is, sir.” The car pulls up to a door with peeling paint, Rachel’s taxi fo
llows, followed by another car, hauling a trailer. ‘Mackee Airways. Est. 2006’ is painted on a bubbling sign. The weather-worn face of a copper bearded man with piercing blue eyes and a crop of thick red hair appears at the door’s glass panel then swings the door open.

  “Looks like you’ve got a full deck, Mackee.”

  “Aye. I’m popular today!” He scans the tarmac, stepping out from the office.

  The man’s broad Scottish brogue, on the edge of Kodiak island, southwest Alaska, is like a slap in the face to Peter. Peter’s gut drops at his next words.

  “They all going to Volkolak then?”

  “Aye.”

  “Volkolak?”

  The bearded Scot turns to Peter, “Aye, that’s where the plane’s going, with you on it, Mister ...”

  “Peter Marston.”

  “Aye, that makes sense.” He turns to the woman. “And you must be Rachel.” He turns to the third man. “And you must be Jean-Luc.”

  “That is correct,” the man replies with a heavy French accent.

  “But not Picard.”

  The man sighs. “Non! My surname is Macron.”

  “No relation to the Macron.”

  A heavy frown leaves furrows in his brow. “Non!” he spits, then mutters, ‘Imbecile’ beneath his breath.

  The Scot laughs. “Nae worry, lad.”

  Confused, Peter helps the driver to remove his case from the boot and joins the others as Mackee organises their luggage and then the large box that sits inside the Frenchman’s trailer. The metal box bears more than a passing resemblance to a coffin, but at each end round holes have been drilled through the metal, giving further evidence of its construction; a wooden box encased in metal. As the box passes, Peter notes the locking mechanisms along the sides, and reads the sticker placed just below the handle. In very small print, it reads, ‘Titan Blane Technologies’. On top of the box is another, much larger sticker that reads, ‘This Way Up’ and ‘Fragile. Handle with Care’.