Burial Ground

XI

11:58 p.m.

Tasker would have had a harder time tracking a herd of stampeding elephants for as cautious as his prey had been. Perhaps the appearance of the natives had thrown them off his scent. They had known they were being followed, but he didn't think they suspected they were being tailed by two separate factions. And now they had their hands full with the Indians, as he imagined he soon would as well. Their trackers had been trailing his men and him, too. He rarely saw them, but their presence was impossible to miss. Now, he could either wait for them to spring their trap, or he could go on the offensive. He reveled in the prospect of the latter. Only time would tell.

The expedition party's trail had led directly to the stone fortification. There had been no signs to suggest they had veered off in either direction, which could only mean one thing. They had passed through the wall and into whatever was on the other side, and they wouldn't have been allowed to do so without an escort. He didn't feel like calling out for the natives to show themselves in order to chaperone them through the city walls, so they were just going to have to go around.

His men were staggered a quarter mile apart and concealed in the jungle so they could study the fortress and the lay of the land. Based on the way the mountains rose steeply to the northwest beyond the walls, he could only assume they would be better served by taking the southernmost route around, but in this game, there was no room for assumptions.

Torches surrounded the fortress in iron chimneys built onto the tops of tall stone columns. They burned so brightly that they had to be fueled by something more than mere wood. A chemical of some kind perhaps? The fierce flames turned night to day in a fifteen-foot-wide stretch that allowed them to clearly reconnoiter the perimeter, but would expose them too soon if they attempted to approach from the jungle.

Another fifteen minutes had passed. It was time for his men to report in. They had watched the fortifications long enough. It was time to make their move.

"Northern front, all clear," McMasters whispered through his earpiece.

"No sign of movement here, either," Reubens said. He was positioned at the northwestern edge of the fortress, where the monolithic manmade wall met with the chiseled limestone mountainside. Earlier he had reported that there was no way around on that side, and none of them had been able to identify the entrance to what they assumed to be a village from the distance. The wall appeared impassable, yet somehow the others had crossed through it at the point where their tracks ended. Surely he and his men would be able to pick up their trail again wherever they exited on the other side. If they had even been allowed to leave.

Tasker waited for Jones to call in his status.

The far cry of a circling hawk broke the silence.

A minute passed.

"Jones," he whispered into his microphone.

He peeled apart the layers of static, but gleaned nothing.

Jones had been dispatched along the southern bank of the wall to the left of where Tasker now crouched behind a termite-infested log, from which an abundance of epiphytes bloomed. He had yet to miss a check-in. Something was wrong. A dozen different scenarios played through Tasker's mind, the most likely of which was that Jones had stumbled upon the natives and had been forced to bed down in radio silence. Then again, he could always have come under attack now that they were separated.

Tasker hadn't heard the chatter of gunfire, though, and no Marine could be so easily ambushed. Not without getting off at least a single shot in his defense.

"Jones," he whispered one last time. Still no reply. This wasn't good. He gave the command. "Close rank."

Tasker held perfectly still while he waited, listening for any sound to betray the approach of hostiles and watching the vine-draped stone wall for the slightest movement. Again, the only thing he heard was that same avian skree, farther away this time. Another bird answered from higher up in the mountains beyond the fortress.

Five more minutes ticked interminably past.

Crunching in the underbrush to his right.

Tasker spun and leveled his assault rifle at the shadow of a man as it emerged from the forest. His finger tightened on the trigger. He was a breath away from firing when McMasters's features resolved from the darkness. Reubens stepped out from the trees a moment later. Even with their night vision goggles and the infrared flashlight beams affixed to the apparatuses, they flinched when Tasker rose from beneath the drape of moss and vines.

He nodded to them, then inclined his head in the direction he had sent Jones.

They followed the face of the wall from the anonymity of the jungle until they reached the corner, then paralleled the southwestern fortification toward the point where it met with the sheer cliff that served as the western aspect of the fortress. So far there had been no sign of passage, and nothing to indicate a struggle.

He held up his fist and they paused. Minus the crackle of the detritus underfoot, he could faintly discern screams coming from somewhere ahead. Not human screams, but deeper, shriller, almost equine.

As they listened, the cries abated, and they were again swaddled in silence.

"Jones," he whispered. "State your position."

The only response was the unnerving buzz of static.

Tasker was getting angry now. If Jones had turned yellow and decided to make a break for it, he would hunt him down like a dog and teach him a lesson about desertion. The coward's death would be slow and excruciating.

He appraised the remaining men, who showed no outward signs of derision. Good.

Lowering his fist, they continued through the forest until the buzz of static intensified. Tasker lowered the volume, but the noise persevered from somewhere ahead.

Black flies. He had grown intimately familiar with their telltale noise. He would have recognized it anywhere.

The sound grew louder as they skirted a trunk the size of an overpass pylon and slipped through a thicket of spear-leafed saplings. He smelled the focus of the insects' attention and raised his rifle. Easing forward in his shooter's stance, he passed from the trees into a cluster of knee-high ferns growing in the lee of a Brazil nut tree. Moisture from the bushes soaked into his pants, still lukewarm despite the fact that it had been hours since the last rainfall. The swarm of flies swirled like snow in front of him and crawled in shades of green over the leaves and groundcover. A drop of fluid pattered his shoulder. He looked up in time to see another fall from the corner of his eye.

"Jones?" he whispered. His own voice echoed back at him from the ground to his right.

Another drop fell onto the back of his trigger hand. He brought it to his lips and dabbed it with his tongue.

Blood.

"Fan out," he whispered.

Tasker glanced from the canopy to the tree trunks and then to the shrubs as he inched forward, shoving the ferns aside with his feet so he could see the ground. The cracked lens of an infrared light was partially buried in the dirt. Two steps later, he found the remainder of Jones's helmet, turtle-shelled from a sharp impact.

"Jesus Christ," Reubens whispered.

Tasker was about to ask what the man had found when his question was answered. A broken section of skull rested at his feet, still shimmering with fresh blood. The scalp and hair were still attached, alive with crawling black bodies.

They had been separated for less than an hour and Jones had last checked in no more than twenty-five minutes ago. What could have done this in that amount of time? More importantly, what could have overwhelmed the soldier so suddenly that he hadn't had time to squeeze the trigger?

There was no doubt in his mind that Jones had been attacked by the same animals that had ripped apart the three men they had found earlier. A lone individual couldn't massacre and consume a human being so quickly. There had to be several of them out here in the jungle with them, lurking somewhere in the shadows.

He turned toward a clattering sound to his left. McMasters lifted Jones's rifle from the bushes.

The soldier pressed the barrel to his bare cheek and shook his head to confirm what Tasker already knew.

It was cold.

Tasker resumed his search. His left foot met resistance. He knelt, one eye on the forest, the other on the ground as he shoved aside a mess of wet branches. His hand closed around what felt like a sharply broken branch the thickness of the grip of a baseball bat. He evaluated it in shades of green and black. Bifid spinous processes, segments of bone interspersed with cartilaginous discs. A cervical spine. He flung it aside and stood, wiping his hands on his pants.

"God. Is that a hand?" Reubens whispered. "No amount of money is worth...this."

"Your share has already nearly doubled," Tasker said. "We're talking about several million dollars here."

Reubens didn't respond. He simply nudged the severed hand with the toe of his boot.

"You could always turn back," Tasker said. Reubens glanced up. Tasker read the look of hope on the man's face. "Sure. No hard feelings. McMasters and I would be happy to absorb your share. I just don't know if I would want to be wandering around alone in this jungle right now, do you?"

Reubens hesitated before he replied, appearing to reach a firm decision. He jut forth his chin. "No, sir."

Tasker made no attempt to hide his smug expression. He owned these men.

There was nothing they could do for Jones now.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he whispered.

"What could have done this?" McMasters asked.

"The fuck if I know," Tasker said. "But from here on out, we stay together. If anything moves, blast it to kingdom come."