Burial Ground

III

2:28 p.m.

They ate and lounged at the edge of the rainforest until the torrent waned to a patter. The river had risen nearly to the banks, but the amount of debris had diminished substantially. Large branches and broken trunks still sped downstream, although in nowhere near the same numbers as before, and the current had slowed just enough to provide suitable notice to dodge them. There were sections where the limbs had tangled to form impromptu barricades, which were fairly easily skirted. All in all, they had only lost two and a half hours, and were again making excellent time. Barring any further delays, they should reach their point of debarkation shortly after nightfall.

And from there the real trek would begin.

Merritt hunkered down in the boat with his poncho over his head, using the man in front of him as a screen from the brunt of the rain, now more of a blowing mist then an actual storm. At first, listening to the birdman naming every species of avian that poked its beak out of the trees had amused him, but over the last three hours it had grown monotonous, and he currently enjoyed fantasies of casting the man over the side in hopes he might have the opportunity to identify the various species of crocodilians and carnivorous fish. Merritt shifted in his seat to get some feeling back into his rear end. His knees bumped the birdman's back, silencing his Latin recitation between genus and species. He couldn't hide his grin.

What was he doing here anyway? He had allowed himself to be bullied and bought, neither of which sat well with him. While the old man hadn't come right out and said that he would go directly to the Army with news of his whereabouts, the threat had certainly been implied. There was more to it than that, though. He had lied. The money would be a godsend and would buy him several more years of anonymity, but that wasn't the true reason he had agreed to come along either, if he were being completely honest with himself.

He peered over the birdman's shoulder toward the lead boat. His eyes immediately settled on Sam's back. She turned to look at the forest and he studied her profile. What was it about her? It wasn't as though she had shown any interest in him. In fact, quite the opposite. She hadn't missed an opportunity to be condescending, and her personality was really quite maddening, but there was simply something about her...something more than just her outward beauty that drew him inexorably to her. Of course, he could justify his presence here in any number of ways, but truth be told, he was here because he had sensed the aura of danger surrounding them. He imagined rolling over the body he had found by the river, only instead of Gearhardt's son's face, he saw Sam's, her wide blue eyes reminiscent of another pair already scarred into his soul, and quickly chased the image away. He couldn't allow that to happen to her. That was the reason he now sat in this boat, shivering and stinking like a wet dog, listening to the litany of scientific names for random birds, staring at a woman whose skin crawled at the thought of him.

And he couldn't have been more content.

Perhaps he would find his decision a poor one, yet for the first time in years, he felt like himself again. Even the sensation of the cool rain on his skin was invigorating.

He shifted again and prodded his right knee into the birdman's kidney. Just for fun.

Sam turned around and caught him looking. He offered a guilty smile and averted his gaze. Even soaked to the bone and wrapped in an unflattering poncho, she was positively stunning.

He tilted his face to the sky and reveled in the caress of the elements. The clouds had settled into the upper canopy and clung to the leaves like smoke...billowing from the mouth of the dark tunnel. The red rock blackened in the aftermath of the explosion. They enter the charnel cloud single file. The man in front of him is swallowed by the smoke, and a moment later, so is he. Detail resolves from the murk. Bodies. Everywhere. His breathing grows rapid, echoing inside his mask, but it still isn't enough to drown out the sounds of wailing and sobbing. Cooked skin, split away from weeping burns. Flames burning from charcoaled skin.

The pitiful screams of the dying.

Then the gunfire.

A crawling man, crying and shaking. The barrel of an automatic rifle against his temple. An explosion of blood and gray matter. The thump of the body against the stone floor.

A woman. Lying on her back. Bleeding. Burning. She opens her startlingly blue eyes and whimpers. Extends a trembling hand through the smoke. Beseeching help, relief from the pain, compassion. She finds only the smoldering steel eye of darkness thrust into her face.

A gloved hand grabs the rifle and jerks it aside. Before he can question whose hand has stayed the woman's execution, he feels the heat in his palm, and sights down the barrel of his Heckler & Koch HK416 at the surprised face of his friend and brother behind the plastic shield of the rebreathing mask.

The man's eyes widen behind the dim reflection of flames.

"There!" the birdman said. He pointed up at a high branch where an ugly bald bird perched. The sagging pink skin on its head reminded Merritt of an old man's, the body too large and fat with slick black feathers. It had a white ring around its neck and a floppy fin of flesh between its eyes. A swarm of flies buzzed around the mangled remains of what once might have been a capybara on the shore below it. "Vultur gryphus. The Andean condor."

The condor spread its wings as wide as a grown man's embrace and dropped to the ground. Wings still fanned, it half-walked, half-hopped toward the carcass. Its movements were fascinating. It raised the first toe of each foot high, bearing its weight on its outer digits, and held its neck and stiff tail feathers parallel to the ground. When it reached the remains, it flapped its wings to stir the flies and speared the meat with its sharp beak. It was a hideous sight. The bird ducked in, ripped away straps of dead flesh, and raised its head to choke them down its gullet.

There was one thing for which to be thankful, Merritt supposed. At least if something happened to them in the jungle, they would be long gone before having to confront such a horrible monster up close and personally.