by James Hilton
The dog stared back at her.
“Jeez, you look like you’ve been in the wars, too.”
The mangy canine had little fur left on its body. A long, ragged scar decorated one side of its body, and what looked like an old gunshot wound had left a neat hole punched through one of its ears.
“Go on, now. Get along. Scat.”
The dog stared back without moving an inch. Ghost flicked her fingers several times. “Scat!”
She cast a wary glance over her shoulder. The compound remained quiet. Squatting, she picked up a small stone. The dog stared back as she feigned a throwing action. “Get along.”
The bedraggled canine turned its head, looking away from her.
With a huff of annoyance, she pelted the dog on the rump with the pebble. “Beat it, you’ve no business here.”
Despite the blow, the dog stared directly at her again. Then, slowly, it turned on bony legs and lifted its muzzle as if sniffing the air.
She tightened her jaw. There, a hundred yards or so away, at least three men were moving through the trees. Moving slow and silent. Moving like hunters, like killers. Her hand moved to her pistol again as she crouched at the side of the tree. Her eyes flicked from the approaching men to the mutt.
The dog was gone.
28
Danny moved diagonally, not fully crouching but stepping with care, scanning the ground ahead for twigs or branches that might snap underfoot and betray their approach. Clay followed in Danny’s footprints.
Ahead of them, Jak pointed twice at a cluster of rocks. He sat down as Danny drew level. Jak’s voice was barely above a whisper. “The camp is straight ahead. You can’t miss it.”
“You waitin’ here?” asked Clay, looming over him.
Jak gave a little smile. “I have guided the warriors to the gateway. It is up to the brothers themselves whether they enter the underworld and are victorious in the challenges ahead.”
“So, you’re waitin’ here, then?”
Danny leaned on the rock next to Jak. “We owe you one. You saved us a lot of time yomping around the jungle. We need to get close to the camp now, decide the best way to go in.”
“Good luck. I hope you find the kids you’re looking for. The underworld can be a treacherous place. Nothing is as it seems. Trust your hearts and be true to your cause.”
“We’re hardly gonna stop off for ice cream on the way,” grunted Clay.
“The hero twins of old faced trials of fire, water, combat and cunning. You must be ready for anything if you are both to succeed.”
Danny patted Jak on the shoulder. “Fire-water, combat and cunning. You just described a Gunn family wedding. Sleep easy, Jak, it’s the yahoos in that camp that are in for a rude awakening. Clay and I will be taking Celine and her friends home. That’s what we came to do, and we’re not leaving without her.”
Jak gave a single nod. “I will find you both again before you leave.”
Danny returned the nod then began silently picking his way towards the camp. Clay followed close behind.
After ten seconds, Danny glanced back over his shoulder. Jak was already gone.
Moving with practised stealth, both brothers dropped to a crouch at the side of a wide tangle of tree roots. Ahead, the terrain sloped downward to reveal the camp. As Jak had told them, a chain-link fence formed the perimeter, and beyond that they could see the buildings that made up the complex.
Danny shifted his weight to one side as Clay slowly pointed his blade to the left of the house. Clay’s voice was a whisper. “Looks like a goddamned prison yard. My money’s on those buildings on the left. You see how those blocks are linked to each other? You could walk a prisoner from one end to the other without them seeing the light of day.”
“I see them,” replied Danny.
“So whaddya think?”
“We’ve no way of knowing how many men are keeping them captive, how many we’d be up against. I think we go in on stealth mode, then bring the boom hard and fast if we need to.”
“If they’ve hurt Celine…”
“Don’t worry, big bro, there’ll be time for payback later. Let’s focus on finding out if she’s there. Then get her and her friends out in one piece. That’s our primary objective.”
Clay nodded.
“You hunker down here while I circle the camp. I just want to see if there’s an easy way in. No good kicking in the front door if the back door’s been left open.”
“Roger that.” Clay reached for his walkie-talkie. “Comms on. Give me two minutes to scan, see if I pick up any chatter.”
Danny remained motionless as Clay worked his way through the full twenty-two channels on the handset. All remained silent.
“Go. We’re back on channel three.”
Danny left his backpack propped against the tree next to Clay. Adopting an almost simian crouch, he moved from tree to tree using the tangled roots and foliage as natural cover. It took a full seventy minutes before he again dropped to one knee next to Clay.
“No anti-personnel measures at the fence, no spikes, razor wire or electrics. At the rear of the house there’s a full-size generator, so we can take out their power easy enough. Also, there’s a big open pen back there too. They’ve got about a dozen pigs, big ones. Ugly bastards.”
“What about breaching? I’d be happy to kick down the front door if there’s no risk to Celine.”
“I’d give good odds that if she’s here, she’s locked inside one of those huts. I’m sure you’re right: that’s a prison block. That needs to be our first target. We break in as quiet as we can, find Celine and her friends, and get them out alive. Depending on how things go, we can boost one of those vehicles to the side of the house and burn some rubber back to the real world.”
“Well, I’m ready to go,” said Clay through clenched teeth.
“Clay…”
“She’s in there. I can feel it. If the goddamned cops in this backwater country had done their jobs, they could have found this place as quick as we did.”
Danny hoped that they would indeed find Celine alive inside. His right hand touched the Glock 17 tucked into his waistband, snug at the small of his back. The second pistol weighed heavy in his thigh cargo pocket. Shooting even a single round would rouse the whole camp. He drew his knife from his hip pocket, pushing on the small thumb stud so that the blade opened silently.
He’d taken only a couple of steps towards the camp when three men emerged from the front of the house. Danny dropped to one knee again and knew Clay had done the same without looking back. Two of the men carried crossbows, while another hefted a hunting rifle fitted with a scope. None of them looked Mexican. The tallest had stark white hair. The other two were smaller, one with a shaved head, the other thickset and covered in tattoos. The man with the white hair said something into a radio handset and moments later the door to the “prison huts” opened. Another two men stepped into the sunlight, a young woman held between them.
Danny heard the grunt of anguish from Clay. The woman was petite with shoulder-length black hair. Celine?
The men thrust her towards White-Hair. For a moment, her face turned towards the treeline.
Not Celine.
She was dressed only in a bloodstained T-shirt and panties. Her movements were erratic, her limbs jerking in random directions, her head bobbing like a hungry seabird. White-Hair stepped close to her, handed his crossbow to the tattooed man, then pulled a syringe from one of the utility pouches on his belt. Without warning, he jabbed the needle into the young woman’s shoulder. The effect was almost instantaneous. She sprang away with a howl.
One of the men jogged over to the main gates and pulled them open.
White-Hair made a show of looking at his watch. He spoke just loud enough for the brothers to hear. “You have two minutes.”
The woman looked back at the huts, then at the open gate. She took a few faltering steps before breaking into a headlong sprint.
She was lost from Danny’s s
ight in seconds.
The five men shared a brief laugh, then started after her.
Danny shot a look over his shoulder. The pale scars on Clay’s face stood out in stark contrast against his flushed skin. He moved inches in the direction of the fleeing woman. He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white. “Damn it, we came for Celine!”
Danny held his icy gaze for a moment longer. The single word Clay spat was one he would never repeat in church.
29
The white-haired man, Ulrich Weiss, smiled as he jogged after the girl, listening to her crashing through the undergrowth. She had only two more uses.
First: The hunt.
Second: Pig feed.
The guest had paid extra to play the game. Master Ezeret had granted the man’s desire, for a price. Everything had its price. Inside the compound, anything was made possible. Master Ezeret was correct in his teachings: enlightened men would pay almost any tithe to indulge in those darkest, forbidden desires.
Civilisation was a gossamer veil, a fragile illusion. He had seen such things many times. In the wars he had fought in, women and children had been raped and disfigured by men in the most brutal forms. Why? Because it could be done. He knew what truly lay in the savage hearts of men. Murder, lust, unbridled cruelty to those who dared oppose. Yet the darkness did not repulse him. No, he had embraced the crimson path. Master Ezeret had shown him the way.
The guest’s shaven head glistened with perspiration, a smile spreading across his rubbery features. “Are you enjoying yourself, Mr Hull?”
Hull nodded vigorously. “But what if we lose her?” gasped Hull. “What if she gets away?”
“She won’t. She’s thirty metres to our left. She’s hiding behind one of those trees.”
Hull’s eyes followed the direction of Ulrich’s index finger. “I don’t see her.”
“You don’t need to. I know where she is. I can hear her every step, her every whimper.”
“But I will get to shoot her, right? That’s what I paid for.”
Ulrich gave a single curt nod. “Yes, of course.”
Hull’s grin stretched his jowls like a rubber mask.
“Better if you nock so you’re ready,” said Ulrich.
“Nock?”
Ulrich ran a hand through his white hair. “Arm your crossbow. Pull back the string and nock a bolt to the latch point.”
“Oh, like you showed me earlier,” said Hull with another grin. Like they were two buddies about to shoot tin cans from a wall rather than commit cold-blooded murder.
“Like I showed you earlier,” agreed Ulrich. “Let’s move.”
The group paused. Hull, sucking in a great lungful of air, placed his foot in the cocking stirrup and pulled back on the string until it clicked into place. He fitted a twenty-inch bolt, which, Ulrich knew, had an expanding broad-head tip. “Ready!”
Ulrich pointed to the tree to his left. “Let’s shoot some pink meat.”
With Weiss leading the way, all five men set off at a run. His heavily tattooed second-in-command, Ramon, and the other men from the compound fanned out into a loose skirmish line as they kept pace with Ulrich. Hull stayed close.
A flash of arms and legs darted between two trees directly ahead of their path.
“There she is!” yelled Hull, the excitement in his voice unmistakable. He lifted the Excalibur crossbow to his shoulder but the woman was already gone.
The men fanned out in a wider formation, their eyes scouring the trees ahead. Another flash of motion. The back of a sweat-stained T-shirt. Matted hair swinging wildly as she ran. The crossbow discharged with a snap and the bolt cut through the air. “Shit! I missed her.”
The young woman gave a startled yelp as she looked back at her pursuers, her eyes white and stark against her dirt-smeared features. She dodged away at an angle from her previous path.
Ulrich looked at Hull. “You want me to clip her wings, slow her down a little so you can take the trophy shot?”
Hull was trying to reload his weapon faster than he was capable, his hands fumbling with the next bolt. “Yes, slow her down, goddamnit. That little cow is fast on her feet for someone who looked almost dead half an hour ago.”
Ulrich gave a brief smile. “That’s the juice I gave her at the gate. Liquid barbies. It’ll be starting to wear off now.”
As if on cue, the young woman lurched back into view, vomit flying from her mouth in a wild spray.
“And the comedown is a bitch!” Ulrich shouldered his weapon with practised ease, unhurried. Snugging the stock with the side of his clean-shaven chin, he squeezed the trigger and his bolt flew free. The carbon arrow shaft caught the woman just below the right buttock, the point springing out six inches from the front of her thigh. She went down with a scream of surprised agony. Thick tree roots gouged their way into the ground to her right, a wide cenote to her left. Gasping, she rolled onto her side, away from the precipitous edge of the cenote.
The men closed on her like a pack of ravenous wolves. Hull aimed his weapon at the fallen woman.
“Please!” she cried. “Don’t!”
Taking a step closer, Hull looked at Ulrich as if unsure what to do next. His mouth worked but the words didn’t come out.
Ulrich smiled and tilted his head in encouragement. “Go on, then.”
“I… I don’t want her to die straight away.”
“Shoot her in the arms or legs, then; she’ll last longer that way,” replied Ulrich. Beside him, Ramon nodded in agreement.
Hull adjusted his aim, tracking the young woman as she pulled herself backwards, the bloodied bolt still protruding from the ruined muscle of her leg. He ran the tip of his tongue across his lips, then pulled the trigger. The bolt cut through her raised right hand as if it were made of nothing more solid than paper. The bolt continued its path, sinking into the base of the tree behind her. The woman emitted a harsh series of gasps, her eyes wide, fixed on her ruined hand.
“Whoa!” Hull exclaimed with apparent joy. “Did you see that? Oh, shit. Look at the hole right through her hand.”
“Nice shot,” laughed Ulrich.
Hull was nocking another bolt when something large and primeval burst from the trees behind him.
Ulrich staggered back in shock as Hull’s head sprang from his shoulders with an abrupt spray of blood. The headless corpse dropped to the ground, landing on top of the fallen crossbow. Within a second, the curved tip of a huge knife burst through Ramon’s chest, its bloody tip pointing to the sky. Ramon emitted a single simian grunt as he arched up onto his toes.
The stock of the crossbow flew to Ulrich’s shoulder as the monster behind Ramon stood up to his full height. The left side of his face carried deep scars, which stood out in bold contrast against his tanned skin. His bared teeth and ferocious stare sent a chill scuttling down Ulrich’s spine.
The man with the rifle, Jason, turned, his mouth opened in a silent grimace, his weapon raised. Then a smaller man combat-rolled into the small clearing, and whipped out his hands so fast they were a blur. Ulrich stared in disbelief as three mortal wounds began to pump bright red blood. The second man had slashed a deep cut into Jason’s inner thigh, thrust several times into his ribs and finished by ramming his blade through his throat. Jason staggered a few steps, then dropped to his knees, a Rorschach of blood on the ground below him.
Ulrich swung his crossbow to the new target, but the smaller man was already on the move even as Jason was bleeding out. His aim faltered as the scar-faced man slung a huge arm around Ramon’s waist and, growling, stepped him bodily forward, using him as a shield. The blade still protruded from Ramon’s chest.
“Scheisse!” Ulrich had only one chance with the crossbow. The big guy would be on him in seconds.
A brief gurgling rattle pulled his attention back. The smaller man had slashed his blade across the throat of the last man from the compound. He clutched his neck, unable to halt the crimson waterfall. The smaller man darted behind the body too, shielding hi
mself.
His men had been disappearing for a while, usually without trace—though sometimes a body part would be found on the road to the compound. These must be the killers.
Ulrich sensed he was moments away from death, and smiled. He would take as many scalps as possible before he fell. He turned his crossbow back to the injured woman and pulled the trigger. The bolt struck home deep into the centre of her chest. She slumped to the ground. A single red bubble formed at her lips, then popped without a sound.
The monster with the scars let out a cry of rage.
Ulrich dropped his crossbow and drew his pistol instead, a P7. He raised the compact Heckler & Koch and snapped off four rapid shots, two at the monster and two at the wiry little bastard.
He would not go down without a fight.
* * *
Clay felt two rounds slam into the body of the man he was holding up as a shield, but nothing lethal burrowed into his own flesh.
White-Hair continued to walk backwards, pistol raised. He held his pistol like someone who had practised for many hours on a range, popping neat holes through paper targets. He returned Clay’s baleful stare. “Who are you?”
“The man that’s gonna end it for you.” Clay stalked forward, glaring over the dead man’s shoulder.
“You think so?”
“This ain’t my first rodeo.”
“Nor mine!”
White-Hair tossed something underhand onto the ground at Clay’s feet.
Danny shouted a warning. “Grenade!”
Then the world turned inside out.
A mind-numbing flash.
Can’t breathe.
Pain.
Can’t breathe.
The brief sensation of falling… then darkness.
30
Ghost had watched the three men approach the camp, moving like jungle cats. The old man, a local if his looks were anything to go by, exchanged a few words then moved off into the jungle like a disembodied shadow.
She had lain as still as a corpse, barely ten feet from where the two men observed the compound below. Listening to the guarded whispers of the two men, she decided the big guy was a fellow American, a southerner too, by his accent. The other she wasn’t sure of, Irish maybe? His accent sounded funny, his words like splinters of glass to her ears.