He was moving on when a shrill scream sounded from the far side of the undamaged trailer. It was followed by the deep bellow of the animal they had heard on the way up. Before the commandos could make a move, the threat loomed into view, its cumbersome footfalls sending tremors through the earth beneath them.
It was a rhinoceros. A hulking, fourteen-foot, five-ton mammal of incredible fury. Its thick hide, which hung like armored plates upon its massive frame, was dusty black in color. Jamal instantly recalled the National Geographic special that he had watched on television a few nights ago. The beast was the spitting image of the one featured on that program—the same size, same height, and same surly disposition. It even had the same single horn jutting from its snout. The only difference was the squirming soldier that was impaled on the gray spike of curved bone.
They watched in horror as their fellow mercenary, a German named Strauss, hung from the shaft of the great horn, which protruded from the center of his abdomen. His screaming had given way to a choking gurgle as blood filled his throat and spewed from his open mouth. He stared into the stunned eyes of his comrades and silently pleaded for deliverance. A bearded Afghan named Bhadajahn read the boundless agony in his expression and raised his rifle, putting a merciful round between the German’s eyes.
The rhino bellowed as the man on its horn grew limp in death. Its dark eyes narrowed in anger and it flung its head wildly, dislodging the soldier’s body. Strauss hit the side of the trailer and slid to the ground in a motionless heap, leaving a bloody smear down the metal wall.
Blue Team began to fire, aiming their weapons and cutting loose. The storm of slugs did not penetrate their target, however. They only ricocheted or flattened against the black hide of the rampaging rhino. The beast thundered onward, trampling soldiers underfoot or flinging them aside with a toss of its powerful head. A few others endured the torment of Strauss, too slow to dodge the gray spike of the nose horn.
Soon, only Jamal and a merc named Cameron remained amid a twisted tangle of broken and bloody humanity. “Hey, you ugly bastard!” yelled Cameron. “Turn around…I’ve got a freaking surprise for you!” He lowered his M-16 at hip level and aimed the tube of the M-203 grenade launcher that was mounted underneath.
The dark rhino wheeled around swiftly, then charged, snorting and bellowing like hell on four legs. Cameron triggered the launcher, sending a 40mm shell racing to meet the five-ton behemoth. When the grenade hit the beast dead center, both mercenaries thought the conflict was over. The grenade detonated on impact, engulfing the rhino in a brilliant burst of fire and concussion. Then, a second later, the black beast was galloping from the heart of the explosion, seemingly untouched by flame or shrapnel. Cameron was so startled that he froze on the spot, presenting an irresistible target. The rhino lowered its massive head and hooked the soldier with its horn, tossing him into midair. Cameron spun limply into the forest, traveling a distance of fifty feet, until he struck the trunk of a large oak, shattering his spine. Motionless, the man slumped to the ground in a broken heap, a look of utter surprise forever etched on his face.
During this fatal attack, Jamal had moved to a higher vantage point. He climbed to the roof of the third trailer and watched as the rhino turned its attention back to him. He was the last survivor of Blue Team, but he knew that he might very well join his commandos in defeat if he didn’t call in some reinforcements. He unclipped the walkie-talkie and was about to call up Hendrix when the rhino spotted him on top of the trailer and charged. It hit the wall broadside, rocking the trailer on its foundation. Jamal lost his balance and lost hold of the radio. It left his hand and tumbled to the ground below, where it was promptly stomped to smithereens by the angry rhino.
Again the fear of childhood trauma threatened to overcome the Rhodesian. When he was seven years old, he and some friends had been playing in the grasslands when a solitary rhino approached them and charged. The other boys had escaped, but he had been trapped in the top of a scrubby tree. He had cowered there for nearly an hour while the rhino circled, snorting and tossing its spiked head. Eventually, a few men from the village arrived and drove the pesky rhino away.
Stranded atop the trailer, Jamal felt like that treed boy once again. He watched as the rhino circled the mobile home, sometimes charging and slamming the side, causing the trailer to pitch and toss, but never with enough force to roll the structure onto its side. Jamal knew that help would be late in coming, if it came at all, and he realized that his survival depended solely on his own strength. He broke from the childish terror and stood there boldly, sending a steady shower of 9mm slugs down upon the rhino. When the Uzi’s magazine gave out, he slapped in another and continued firing. The gunfire had as much deadly effect as throwing rice at a wedding. The commando then resorted to explosives. He tossed one grenade after another, but like the projectile from Cameron’s launcher, they seemed only to peeve the dark giant even more.
Jamal watched as the black rhino ran to the far edge of the clearing, then turned and charged at full speed. He had no doubt whatsoever that the rhino would succeed at overturning the trailer this time. He prepared to leap and run for cover, but a strange thing happened during the animal’s thunderous charge. A loud crackling filled the air, sounding much like the decorative rattles the tribal medicine men used during their dance rituals in the African village of his youth. He watched in bewilderment as the rhino seemed to grow flaccid and melt before his eyes, flattening into a wide, black pool of gelatinous matter. The black mass shimmered across the ruins of the campsite, flowing like quicksilver over twisted debris and the bodies of Blue Team. Then it disappeared from view as it reached the trailer. Jamal ran to the edge and peered over the side just as the shadow squeezed through the open door of the trailer.
The Rhodesian listened as the sound of crackling grew louder and then faded into silence. He strained his ears and heard the faint sound of footsteps creaking on the inner floor of the trailer. He was an experienced enough tracker to distinguish the footfalls of a human being from that of a common animal, and that was certainly what he heard echoing from within. His mind wanted to rebel against the bizarre truth of what he had just witnessed, but he decided to ponder the irrationality of the spectacle later. Now he must defend his life and avenge the deaths of his murdered team.
Carefully, Jamal climbed from the trailer and stood at the far end, his back against the wall. He breathed deeply, preparing himself for the inevitable confrontation. He slipped a fresh magazine into the Uzi and snapped the bolt, priming it for combat. It was more an involuntary action than one of confidence. He had already witnessed the creature’s invulnerability to both gunfire and explosives, but it must have a weak spot like any other living thing. He recalled the dark, liquid eyes of the rhinoceros and knew that the tender orbs were the monster’s Achilles’ heel. If he could hit one of the creature’s eyes with a bullet, he was sure that the shot would penetrate its armored defenses and reach the brain beyond.
Jamal slowly entered the open door of the trailer. The interior was cramped and choked with dark shadows. Only a few rays of stray sunlight filtered through the small, curtained windows. He took a step forward, searching for movement within the darkness. It came a moment later at the end of the trailer’s narrow hallway. Something tall and dark stood there, watching him. He could see the faint twinkle of pitch black eyes regarding him contemptuously.
“Come out and show yourself,” demanded Jamal. “I want to see the face of the demon I am about to slay.”
Low laughter echoed through the trailer, sending a cold chill down the mercenary’s spine. Then his adversary stepped into view, flashing a great gray smile bristling with cold malice.
Jamal’s mind reeled with the impossibility of what stood before him. It was a Zulu warrior. The black man was dressed in the traditional fur and feather garb of the most bloodthirsty and ruthless fighting tribe on the Dark Continent. He wore the ceremonial war bonnet and breast plate of a Zulu chieftain, and his weapons include
d a primitive oval shield and an iron-tipped spear garnished with carved ivory and colorful beadwork—the Iklwa, as the tribesmen called it.
The mercenary was shocked by the lanky African who confronted him, for he had just read an article on the warriors of Natal in Khiem’s copy of Soldier of Fortune earlier that morning. The Zulu who now strolled down the hallway toward him was a dark duplicate of the photographs that had graced the article, right down to the gray and black Zebra skin pattern of the massive shield.
Jamal squeezed back on the trigger of the Uzi as the warrior began to advance toward him. He aimed for the Zulu’s head and the ebony eyes in the pits of his skull. But the warrior only laughed, thwarting Jamal’s intentions by raising the oval shield and deflecting the burst of gunfire. A couple of slugs ricocheted back at the commando, hitting him in the shoulder and thigh. Jamal stumbled backward as the warrior attacked, raising the Iklwa overhead. The long spear seemed to be fused with the warrior’s fist, as if it were a physical part of his body and not just a lifeless implement of destruction.
The mercenary discarded the Uzi and drew his Gurkha knife. He flung it with panic-driven muscles. It struck the Zulu across the forehead with enough force to split the skull of a normal man. But the thing that came for him was not a form of mortal flesh and bone. The heavy blade bounced off the warrior’s brow with a metallic clang, leaving no visible mark.
Then the Zulu was upon him, arm striking out. Jamal screamed as the point of the spear penetrated his ribcage, slicing cleanly through his left lung and emerging from the muscle of his back. He was lifted off his feet and carried backward, impaled on the shaft of the Iklwa. The point of the spear drove deeply into the trailer wall and Jamal found himself dangling there, his weight settling downward, ripping the wound even wider. He coughed and sputtered on the blood and tissue of his damaged lung, and stared at the leering black face of the Zulu. Then the spear was abruptly withdrawn from both the wall and his body, dumping his agony-wracked form onto the cluttered floor of the trailer.
As the life ebbed from his wounded body, Desmond Jamal stared up with dying eyes as the dark warrior before him began to lose shape once again. The skeleton of the Zulu seemed to fold in on itself and the flesh melt into a dark pool, the same as the rhino. The seething sludge bubbled and whirled, growing much smaller in size and mass. When its metamorphosis was complete, it had taken the form of a black raven. The dark bird eyed him cruelly, a sinister smile creeping along the edges of its gray bill. Then it winged its way through the open doorway and vanished over the tree tops, heading for the eastern side of Pale Dove Mountain.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Daniel Lopez cursed venomously in Spanish as he picked his way through a dense tangle of razor-thorned thicket. He wasn’t the only one cussing up a storm. The other members of Green Team came up with quite a few inventive and colorful expletives as sharp briers snagged and pulled at them, ripping camouflaged fatigues and exposed skin.
The going had been easy during the start of the journey up the eastern face of Pale Dove Mountain. The forest had been heavy in places, but they had made good progress. Now, when only twenty minutes separated them from their planned rendezvous with the others atop the rocky peak, they found themselves trudging through a hazardous labyrinth of wicked thistle and prickly blackberry bramble.
Lopez thought of the explosions that had echoed from the far side of the mountain and the lack of response he had received from both Khiem and Jamal on his walkie-talkie. The only team leader he could raise on the radio was Frag Hendrix, and the commander seemed just as concerned and perplexed about the break in communication as he was.
The Nicaraguan took a pair of binoculars and studied the terrain above the choking thicket. The bramble gave way to bare stone five hundred feet farther on. In fact, his point man, Mentz, should have emerged from the thicket by now. He was surprised to see no sign of the man waiting for them on the boulders above.
Lopez was about to summon Mentz on the radio when a burst of automatic fire erupted from the underbrush ahead. He struggled through the brier patch, catching quick glimpses of his other men as they, too, rushed toward the location of the excitement. Lopez was crashing through a thick wall of cocklebur when he nearly ran head first into Ferguson, a young soldier that hailed from the Arkansas Ozarks. The mercenary tore through the thicket as if the devil himself was in hot pursuit.
“What’s wrong, Ferguson?” he asked, stopping the frightened man. “What went on up there?” He was shocked by the pale cast of the man’s face and the wild look in his eyes. Ferguson had less combat experience than the rest of Hendrix’s outfit, but he was a tough man and not one subject to hysterics. Therefore, it was disturbing to see the soldier shaken to the point of going AWOL.
“It’s Mentz,” he gasped, shaking his head. “He’s dead.”
“What happened to him?” Lopez demanded grimly. “Did you see what killed him?”
Ferguson swallowed dryly, an expression of confusion creasing his face. “It was a badger. A freaking badger wasted Mentz.”
The creature that Ferguson mentioned flashed into Lopez’s mind and he nearly laughed at the absurdity of it. A badger was a small woodland animal that looked like a cross between a skunk and a fat groundhog. They were feisty and ferocious little mammals, but they weren’t dangerous enough to seriously injure a grown man, let alone kill one.
“Just catch your breath and tell us what you found,” Lopez told him. The rest of Green Team had heard Ferguson’s frantic race through the thicket and they now converged on the cocklebur patch to find out what was going on.
Ferguson breathed deeply, trying to steady himself. “I was about fifty yards behind Mentz, when I heard a big commotion up ahead. There was this weird crackling noise and then a low snarling. I pushed through the underbrush and found Mentz lying there in the middle of a small clearing. He was covered with blood and it looked like his throat had been ripped clean out.”
“And this badger,” urged Lopez. “Where does it fit in?”
“It was crouched on top of Mentz’s chest, grinning at me with a mouthful of ragged meat…meat from Mentz’s throat!” Ferguson shuddered at the memory and then went on. “It was sort of strange-looking for a badger. Pitch black with dark gray stripes down its back. And it had the beadiest little black eyes I’ve ever seen on an animal. Well, I let loose with my AK-47, planning to blow the ugly critter away, but the bullets glanced right off him. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw. I emptied a whole banana clip into the little bastard, but it shrugged off those rounds like they were no more than raindrops. I reckon that’s when I lost it and got the hell out of there.”
“Take us to where you found Mentz,” Lopez told the soldier.
Moments later they were standing around the clearing in question. Mentz was nowhere to be seen, but there were signs that confirmed Ferguson’s wild story. Mentz’s beret lay in the center of the clearing, along with his radio and canteen. And there was a large amount of blood splattered across the ground, along with a number of skid marks across the bare earth, leading deep into the heart of the thorny thicket.
“Looks like something dragged the poor guy off,” said Gillotti, a big Italian who sported a sawed-down riot gun.
Lopez looked to Ferguson. “Are you sure what you saw was a badger?”
“Sure it was!” claimed the young commando. “I know a badger when I see one.”
Abruptly, a stirring in the underbrush drew their attention, as well as their guns. A brittle crackling sounded ahead of them, then a peal of hearty laughter. “Badgers!” scoffed a booming voice with a heavy Spanish accent. “We don’t need no stinking badgers!”
Before they could react, the wall of thorny bramble parted and something dark and dangerous burst into the clearing, something that made the members of Green Team doubt their sanity for a maddening moment.
It was a Mexican bandito on an ebony stallion. The man was dressed entirely in black, from his high-peaked sombrero to his gray-
spurred boots. His ghastly gray face sported a bushy black mustache and a coarse growth of stubble, as well as cruel eyes as dark as chips of raw coal. Twin bandoleers of gray cartridges crossed the outlaw’s broad chest, like props straight out of an old B-western. But there was nothing quaint or nostalgic about the weapons the bandito carried. One gray hand clutched Mentz’s Armalite assault rifle, while the other held his 9mm Beretta.
“Die, you filthy gringos!” whooped the dark bandit, leveling his weapons and firing into the midst of Green Team. A couple of mercs fell immediately, a deadly pattern of .223 slugs stitching across their chests.
The others broke from their inactivity and ripped loose. Bullets swarmed like angry bees through the clearing, engulfing the bandito and his raging steed. The horse reared, but not with fear. It bucked wildly, gray hooves flashing. A hoof struck Ferguson in the crown of the head, caving in his skull as if it were an empty eggshell. Two more dropped beneath the deadly hooves, while others bit the dust under the bandito’s steady gunfire.
Gillotti stepped forward with a war cry, firing his twelve-gauge point blank into the chest of the dark stallion. The murderous steed ignored the buckshot and kept right on coming. Gillotti continued to pump and fire, his Italian temper reaching its peak as the horse drew nearer. The black lips of the stallion curled back, exposing jagged gray fangs in a grimace of pure ferocity. Its long head flashed out, jerking the smoking shotgun from Gillotti’s grasp and flinging it into the thicket. Then it turned back to the big commando, its sharp teeth closing around the strong column of his neck and decapitating him with a single, savage bite.
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