The Traiteur's Ring

by Jeffrey Wilson

  “The victory will be great as the powerful One with the black blood possesses a man who is very evil in his own right,” the Elder continued. If he sensed Ben’s rebuff of his assessment of his weapons, he at least politely ignored it. “The One with the black blood is incarnate with the leader of the men your people fight.”

  “What do I need to defeat him?” Ben asked. He thought of the powerful voice he had sensed – the vibration in his head had felt like his skull might explode.

  “You will know,” the Elder said.

  Ben realized he was pretty friggin’ sick of that answer. He knew there was no point in asking for more and sat silently for a moment.

  “And then?” he asked. “When this is over, I need to come back for Jewel. I need to bring her home.” He realized this had always been a part of the mission for him.

  He looked up and realized he now sat alone.

  She is already home. You know this. She is a part of the living jungle. She cannot be a part of your other world, Ben. You know this. Just as you know she will forever be a part of your heart.

  Ben realized he had known this all along. He lay down then, already asleep.

  Ben thought for a moment about Christy. He thought of her alone at home and of their child inside her. He wondered if she knew about their son yet. She had suspected before he had even left. He wondered if she knew for certain yet.

  Ben sent a quick heart message out to his wife and then forced his mind back to the task at hand. He needed to finish his mission to have any hope of getting home to her – of ever meeting his son. Even if he had to make the ultimate sacrifice to complete this mission, he had to succeed. He had to make sure his family would be safe and his child could grow up free from the horror he thought would come with the demon he had seen in his mind.

  He closed his eyes (he knew they were already closed, of course) and felt himself lying flat in the comfortable nest, his arms around Jewel. He let his mind drift from thoughts of demons and dark ones and into a warm blanket of hope for his family.

  * * *

  They had not been told to stand down – a surprise that Reed still couldn’t quite believe – but they were directed to sweep only their immediate area again and then wait for more intel from a predator pass. Reed now sat hunched over his laptop and looked at the information they had gained from that pass. With a few clicks of the mouse pad he actually looked for himself at the real time thermal imaging data from the unmanned aircraft that circled above them even now.

  “So, nothing in our area?” Chris asked as he leaned over Reed and looked at the lap top screen. They had all hoped they would see the yellow-red man shaped glow of Ben hidden nearby in a fallen tree or ditch he had converted into a hide.

  “No,” Reed said in response to the rhetorical question. “But he has to be there, right?” He pointed at the cluster of thermal images less than two kilometers from their position as he tapped his finger on the mouse pad to make the image widen and pan out. “There are no other human-looking hits for over twenty kilometers. He can’t have gone that far – not even close.”

  He left the thought that Ben might be dead unspoken. But even if so, his killers couldn’t have traveled that distance either. Whether they found Ben the answers to their questions could only be found in the cluster of thermal images one-point-eight kilometers northwest of them. He turned and looked at the boss and raised his eyebrows. Chris nodded.

  “We’ll wait a minute to see if they give us orders, but then we head off towards that group,” he said. “We can keep radio com if they need us after that.”

  Reed liked that answer. They all knew that time would run out quickly – if they had any left at all. A text box blinked on in the middle of his screen, obstructing the predator feed. Reed smiled.

  “Chris,” he called after the officer who had started to walk away towards the other two remaining members of Viper Team. “You’ll like this,” he said.

  Chris leaned over and read over Reed’s shoulder. Then, he slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Fuckin’ A,” he said. “Tell them we’ll be there and pack up.” Chris turned and walked briskly over to Lash and Auger. “Movin’ out, guys,” he said.

  Reed typed a short reply and verified the landing zone, or LZ, and rally points. Then, he quickly packed up his gear and flung his pack onto his back. He re-slung his rifle and joined the team and together they moved out towards the northwest.

  Chapter 44

  Christy had fallen into a restless sleep. She didn’t know if the nausea and malaise she felt were related to her pregnancy, her worry about her husband, or both. Either way, the decision to call in sick had not been a tough one – she felt pretty certain that if she hit the road to make sales calls she would be kneeling beside her car in her business suit, barfing on the shoulder of the road in less than an hour. She had not called in sick a single time in four and half years, and her call to her district manager had been met with real concern.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Steve had asked. “Is Ben okay?”

  “Everything is fine,” she had reassured him. “Just got the damn flu or something.”

  She lay now on their bed – on top of the covers instead of under them as she couldn’t quite stand to be really in the bed without him right now. She had covered herself with a worn blanket from the linen closet and left her robe on. Every time she woke from her fitful sleep – it felt like every few minutes, but she refused to keep looking at the clock – her mind went first to Ben and then to the positive test she had placed in her drawer.

  She had decided she would wrap the test kit as a gift (as gross as that kind of sounded – she had peed on it for goodness sake) and give it to Ben when he got home. She felt stupid for being so wracked with worry just because she had tried to squeeze a thought out to her husband across eight thousand miles of space and he had not answered. She might have come to believe in these sorts of things when it came to Ben, but did her faith in it carry enough weight to literally worry herself sick? Even if her beliefs were true, she had no idea if she could send little thought notes to him just because she thought she could receive them.

  She tossed over on her other side and tried to get comfortable and then let out a little, “whoa,” at the wave of nausea that came after. This had to be the pregnancy. She gripped the covers until the churning feeling subsided.

  Lord, please tell me I don’t have nine months of this.

  She rode out the nausea with her stomach contents where they belonged, and not on the rug beside the bed, and let out a soft sigh. Christy sat up slowly and waited for another wave to hit her, but it never came. Relieved, she headed towards the stairs. She had read somewhere that crackers and flat ginger ale could help with pregnancy upheaval. She knew they didn’t have ginger ale in the house, but surely she could dig up some crackers – stale or not. Maybe she would make some warm tea. She was half way down the steps when his voice came to her.

  I love you, Christy. I love you, and I’m okay. Soon, I’ll come home to you, I promise – home to you and our son.

  Like before, the voice sounded so clear and so real she felt Ben stood right behind her and even turned a little to look over her shoulder. Then, the tears came, and she slid down onto the steps, pulling her robe around her legs. She sobbed with both worry and happiness.

  Ben was okay. Not only that but he knew – he knew about their baby. About their son? She touched her belly, and for some reason that felt right. She decided she believed – she believed she heard her husband’s voice, and she believed he might be right about the sex of their baby. She started to laugh – or at least mix in some laughter with her tears. Then, another wave of nausea swept over her.

  I love you, too, Ben. Come home to me, baby. Come home soon.

  She pulled herself to her feet, stood still a moment until the wave passed, and then headed downstairs on her quest for soothing sustenance.

  Ben was okay. He was okay, he knew about the baby, and they were going to ha
ve a little boy. All the sickness in the world couldn’t steal away her joy of that moment.

  Chapter 45

  Ben thought of the Elder as he checked the additional magazines for his rifle. He had stripped his gear to almost nothing, and his vest felt strangely light as he pulled it back on. He left his radio, his night vision goggles, and various other electronic equipment in a pile with his spare gloves, extra batteries, signaling mechanism and a variety of lights. No damn wonder he felt so light.

  He slipped his additional magazines into pouches on his vest, checked that similar magazines for the pistol on his hip were in place, and then picked up his rifle and slipped his arm through the harness. He tossed his helmet into the refuse pile and turned, looking at the two villagers who waited patiently.

  The contrast struck him first as worrisome, then as funny, and he found it hard to stifle a laugh. The two warriors were basically naked except for skins that covered them from waist to knees and the grey cloth tied around their arms. Each held long, thick staffs – like oversized walking sticks – and nothing else. Ben thought maybe he was laughing not at them but at himself. He had been told – and wanted to believe – that all he needed was inside him – that he was the Rougarou. He believed that.

  I sure as shit wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.

  He couldn’t quite take the leap of faith needed to set out without his rifle and handgun, however. He also had a couple of grenades. If that was just a security blanket, then so be it. Ben chambered a round in his rifle and turned to his two warriors.

  “Alright, guys, let’s hit it. This op has a green light.”

  The two smiled at him and looked at each other. He knew they had no clue what he said.

  We will go now. We must find the powerful One with the black blood. Do you know where the ruins are?

  Both looked at him quizzically. Ben thought them another message where he tried to describe the ruins he had seen in his head, the ancient structure that seemed to be swallowed by the jungle. The warrior on his left, the one he knew from before – from the massacre and the base – suddenly nodded.

  I know where the ancient place is. It is a sacred place of those long ago from a time before the dark ones. I can lead us there.

  “Great,” Ben said. Then he gestured ahead towards the edge of their small encampment. “You have point.”

  Lead on. We should move swiftly but must be quiet. Surprise will be a great friend to us. I expect many bad people to be waiting for us.

  Ben looked again at the two nearly naked men and felt a wave of doubt and fear. He felt a tug at his sleeve and looked down.

  Jewel reached up at him with both arms in the universal “pick me up” signal. He smiled and scooped her up. As he did, he thought about his unborn son and wife back in Virginia.

  He knew there was no turning back. He had to finish this and find his way home. He kissed Jewel’s cheek, and she grabbed at his ear.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said and prayed a moment that he told the truth.

  Then, he followed the two barefoot villagers westward into the jungle.

  * * *

  Reed stayed low and quiet, listening to the thump-thump of the lone Blackhawk helicopter fade rapidly as it headed to a staging area he hoped was fairly close. He had a feeling when they were ready to leave they might be in a bit of a hurry. God, how he hated the daylight. Without the cover of night he felt a hell of a lot more like a target than a hunter. After a few minutes of silence – during which he diligently scanned his sector and saw nothing – he heard Chris’s voice in his headset.

  “Ghost – Viper – are you clear?”

  A moment went by during which he assumed Ghost team checked in on their own frequency, and then he heard “Ghost secure – where ya at, Viper?”

  Reed and his teammates rose slowly and then watched as the five members of Ghost team seemed to materialize out of nowhere and stood hip-deep in the jungle grass.

  God, I love being a SEAL.

  His brief revelry disappeared when he realized how many times he had heard Ben whisper that to him over the years. He tightened his jaw. They would find him – he had become sure of that for some reason. And not dead, either – Ben was alive. His brain told him he just felt the power of hope and denial that he may have lost his best friend, but there was something very real in the feeling that Ben was okay.

  And nearby.

  It was just the kind of thing he would have ridiculed Ben mercilessly for, but the sense Ben was nearby felt tremendously powerful – and very real. Maybe there was something to that Cajun bullshit. He didn’t know, but he knew as sure as he stood there that Ben was okay.

  The nine of them huddled up like a football team and came together with a quick battle plan. They couldn’t possibly tell from the thermal imaging just who clustered together a kilometer away. It could be a dozen Al Qaeda fighters or just a small camp of hunters or villagers like they had met on their last deployment.

  “We can’t just kick in the door and come in all balls to the wall is the point,” Chris said. The leader of Ghost – Curt Malloy, Reed remembered from somewhere – nodded. “We’ll set up a perimeter and then take a quiet look. Even if Ben is there, they may just be helping him for all we know. We need to be careful, and I don’t want to hurt any good guys. No collateral damage, okay?”

  Both teams nodded agreement, but Reed suspected the thought of not hurting innocents might be a little more personal to Viper Team. Wasn’t that guilt what got them into this fucking mess?

  They briefed a plan that would put Lash and a sniper from Ghost – a Senior Chief whose name Reed didn’t know – into high positions where they could pick off anything they didn’t like and watch the team’s back. They would then surround the camp, see what the hell was there, and improvise based on what they found.

  Pretty loose plan, but flexibility was the key to their world.

  Reed found it hard to concentrate on his sweep of the jungle as they moved quietly, but quickly, towards the cluster of glowing humans from the thermal imaging and cursed himself repeatedly for his inattention. His mind drifted continually to Ben and then to Christy, his new little sister back at home. He absolutely had to bring Ben back to her. He knew that time was very much against them. If Ben was severely wounded, then he could be bleeding to death as they moved through the jungle towards the objective. If he wasn’t wounded then he must be either dead or captured – both very bad.

  He may not be in this fucking village at all. He could be dead in the bushes back where we came from, and we just never saw him.

  Reed’s training and operational experience both told him the chances of Ben being recovered alive were nearly non-existent, but his heart still insisted he could feel him out there somewhere and that he was okay – at least for now.

  He took up his position at the ten o’clock point of the circle they had made around the village and watched through his binoculars as he waited for a call from Chris. What he saw filled him with a glimmer of hope. The small camp looked to be a miniature version of the village they had encountered on the last deployment – the start of it all, he realized. The villagers, mostly women and a few children and an old man, milled about casually and tended to the business of the day – stirring cook pots and caring for the little ones. Reed wiped away sweat that threatened to dribble into his eyes. The sun had brought with it heat and the muggy air felt stifling.

  He saw no sign whatsoever of Ben.

  “Ghost – Viper,” Chris said in his ear.

  “Ghost,” came Master Chief Malloy’s short reply.

  “Looks quiet. No obvious hostiles. I want to move in with four of us from four corners. Sniper cover and then four in reserve. Peaceful search. That okay with you?”

  “Perfect,” came the SEAL team leader’s response.

  That sounded right to Reed. He realized he desperately needed to go, but resisted the overwhelming urge to radio his request to the boss. He had violated communications operational secu
rity enough for one day when he called out Ben’s name over the air. Instead, he waited and bit his lip.

  “Viper Five – Lead – you and me on my call. Slow and peaceful.”

  “Five,” he acknowledged with relief.

  I’m coming, Ben. Hang in there, buddy. If you’re here, I’ll find you.

  “Ghost Three and Four – lead – you join them,” came Malloy’s voice.

  “Three.”

  “Four.”

  On the go signal, Reed rose slowly and walked into the clearing. He kept both of his hands on his rifle grips, but pointed it at the ground rather than up at the ready as they normally would. He watched as his three fellow SEALs entered the camp from three other corners.

  Yeah – we don’t look at all fucking scary. Just four peaceful tourists in full combat gear.

  After only a moment, the first villager noticed them – a woman who held a toddler on her lap – and she called out to the others. With some relief, Reed saw that she smiled and then waved at him. He raised an awkward wave, and then re-gripped his M-4 rifle. The toddler struggled out of the woman’s lap and started a teetering run towards Chris, but the woman snatched her back up.

  “Gah, Deh, Eh,” the girl said and for a moment he thought it might be the little girl from the village slaughter. He quickly dismissed the thought as ridiculous. Kids all looked the same to him anyway, he realized.

  The villagers began to congregate together and moved slowly towards the center of the clearing which the SEALs converged on. Chris raised a hand in a sort of greeting and looked to be trying his best to smile. Then, he pointed at Reed and one of the Ghost team members, pointed to his own eyes with two fingers and then at the two low huts at the periphery of the clearing – an order for them to search the huts. Reed nodded and headed toward the first thatched shack. Chris keyed his mike.