With no other direction available to them, they set out along the path.
They hadn’t gone far when a faint whispering reached their ears.
“Hear that?” Olsen asked, unnerved.
“It’s just the wind,” Cade replied absently, but then stopped.
The wind wasn’t blowing.
He turned in a slow circle, looking for movement, hoping to catch sight of something moving toward them through the vegetation.
“Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
Olsen shook his head. He was glancing around as well, one hand on the hilt of his sword.
Out of the corner of his eye, Cade saw motion and he spun in that direction. He was just in time to see a lengthy piece of vine slide out across the path ahead of them. As if sensing his scrutiny, it suddenly went limp. If he hadn’t been looking right at it, Cade would have convinced himself that it had only been a trick of the light.
But he had been looking.
And it hadn’t been the light.
“Cover me,” he said softly.
Olsen stepped closer, sword drawn, while Cade drew an emergency flare from the cargo pocket of his utilities and, with a flick of one hand, activated it.
The flare blazed to life, its flame a strange mix of white and grey rather than the usual red. From previous travels Cade knew the flame would make him sick to his stomach if he stared at it too long so he avoided looking at it, turning his attention instead to the vegetation lining the path.
Once it was lit, he held the flare in one hand and drew his sword with the other. Striding forward, he thrust the flame at the vine that had flopped across their path.
Faster than a striking snake, the vine whipped itself back into the dense foliage behind it. One minute it was there, the next it was not.
Olsen gaped at Cade. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?”
The Knight Commander shook his head. “Afraid not. I’d say that’s a pretty good indication we should stick to the path, wouldn’t you?”
Following his example, Olsen lit a flare of his own and the two of them continued on their journey, moving down the path. A little later they reached the wider road. It ran perpendicular to their current direction and from the tracks beneath their feet it was clear that the traffic had been moving to the left only.
They had come to find out who or what was using the portal, Cade followed the tracks.
Ruined buildings could now be seen beneath the vegetation on either side of the road and, putting two and two together, Cade understood just what had happened to the “neighborhood” around the church. This was a mirror image of the reality that existed on the other side of the Veil, except in this case, the vegetation had grown abnormally large and had developed a sentience of its own. It had swallowed the town whole, smothering it beneath a sea of creeping vines.
Everything but the road.
Someone was keeping it open.
But for what?
As they walked the whispering followed them, slowly growing in volume. When it grew too loud Cade would brandish the flare and the vines would settle down again, but they didn’t stay silent for long. It took the two men twenty minutes and three flares a piece to reach the end of the growth. Both were happy to leave it behind. With only five more flares between them, they were going to have to be more conservative on the way back.
Ahead of them rose a series of rugged hills covered with a dense growth of forest. The road continued up and over them, passing through the trees. Both men were leery about entering the woods, but they discovered that the trees were just ordinary. Whatever had animated the vegetation in the valley behind them had apparently been restricted to that area, much to their relief.
As they climbed higher, they began to see the ruins of buildings here and there among the trees. Curiosity eventually got the better of them and they began making occasional detours to check out particularly interesting locales. More often than not there wasn’t much left, just a series of walls open to the sky above, and the occasional piece of furniture that had survived the ravages of the elements and whatever denizens of the Beyond that made the forest their home.
During one such stop, Olsen froze suddenly and raised his hand for silence.
“Listen!” Olsen whispered.
Cade did so and from the ridgeline came the muted sounds of activity, though they were too far away to assess what it might be.
They left the ruins behind and climbed up the lee side of the ridge as quietly as possible. As they drew close to the rim, they got down on their bellies and crawled. At the top they carefully peered over the edge.
Below them, spread out across the valley floor, was a large encampment spread out amongst more ruins like those they had just left behind. Cade counted thirty tents, each one with round sides and a sloping roof, similar to a Mongolian yurt. They appeared easy to set up and take down and probably didn’t require too much effort to transport. A large structure could also be seen in the center of the camp, consisting of several tents strung together, their rectangular styles in sharp contrast to the circular ones around them. Figures moved about the camp, but they were too far away to be seen clearly.
Olsen was prepared. He pulled a pair of mini-binoculars from the cargo pouch on his pants and took a long look through them. Without a word, he passed them to Cade.
From the expression on Olsen’s face, Cade knew it couldn’t be good.
He took a look for himself.
The camp was full of Chiang Shih.
They were making preparations for something. From the size and number of the boxes and crates that were being moved about the camp, it was clearly a major undertaking.
Cade knew that the Chiang Shih were typically solitary creatures and it took either a strong militant commander or the promise of lush hunting grounds to bring even a handful of them together as a group. To assemble a force of this size, the prize must be particularly attractive.
Like the entire city of Boston.
“There has to be a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred of them down there,” Olsen whispered.
But Cade barely heard him. His attention had been caught by a familiar face and he shifted position, doing what he could to keep the individual in sight while focusing the binoculars for a better look.
Olsen noticed Cade’s change in intensity.
“What is it?”
Cade didn’t answer, not yet, wanting to be sure before he said anything, but then he finally had the glasses focused the way he wanted and there was no question about the individual’s identity.
Bishop.
He handed the glasses back to his companion.
“About ten yards in front of that main structure and a couple feet to the left.”
“What? I don’t see…son-of-a-bitch!” He looked at Cade. “There he is.”
Cade nodded. What he would have done for an operational sniper rifle at that point.
He caught Olsen’s eye and with a nod of his head indicated that they should get going. Olsen silently agreed and the two men made their way back off the ridge and moved away from the Chiang Shih encampment.
When they were out of earshot, they spent a few minutes discussing the situation. It seemed obvious that the road continued around the ridge and passed through the center of the town that the Chiang Shih had claimed as their own. If they used the ruins they’d just left behind as a staging area and had enough reinforcements, they might be able to get into position for a strike at the camp without being seen, though a lot would depend on good timing and a healthy dose of luck.
Either way, it was clear that they had to get back to the other side of the Veil and inform the Order of what they had seen. The decision as to what to do about the Chiang Shih would be made by others higher in the Order’s hierarchy and for that both men were grateful, but they didn’t fool themselves into thinking they wouldn’t be part of the solution.
There was a fight coming and Echo was bound to be at the vanguard of it.
&
nbsp; It was time to get back and warn the others of what they had seen. With a last glance toward the ridgeline and the threat that lay just beyond, Cade turned and headed back down through the woods toward the road with Olsen at his heels.
*** ***
After the men had left, a shadow detached itself from a nearby tree and stood upright. It had been hard pressed not to feed on the life force that had been so tantalizingly close, but the warlord had been clear on what would happen to any that did so.
Knowing they were here was enough. The warlord would offer a generous reward when he heard the news.
Thrilled by its good fortune, the shadow moved to the nearest patch of darkness and disappeared within.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Immediately upon their return Cade sent out a request for a meeting with the North American Preceptor, Willem Johansson, and the Seneschal of the Order, Jacob MacIntyre.
Second only to the Grand Master, the Seneschal ran the Order’s day-to-day operations and was the true power behind the throne. Cade, and by extension Echo itself, worked directly for the Seneschal, circumventing the usual hierarchy where the local special ops team reported to their home Preceptor. While he didn’t need to include Johansson, the operation Cade was about to request was on his turf and Cade was trying to play nice by including the Preceptor in his notification of pending action. The Seneschal would listen to Johansson input, but Cade knew MacIntrye would ultimately choose to follow Cade’s advice, and so having the other man involved couldn’t hurt anything.
It took about an hour to make the necessary arrangements in Scotland and to set up the equipment Cade needed in his hotel room in Boston. He sent the rest of his team out to get a bite to eat, powered up his laptop, made sure the camera was working properly, and then dialed out.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in a secure room in the ancestral castle Rosslyn, a young acolyte accepted the connection. A moment later Cade’s screen split into two separate video streams. The first was his own, showing how he appeared to the people on the other end. The second was the answering stream from the Seneschal’s office and Jacob’s ruddy face soon filled half of the screen.
“Do you have any idea what time it is over here, Knight Commander?” MacIntyre asked gruffly, though not without kindness.
The question stumped Cade for a moment, for he hadn’t even considered the issue before this. He did some quick calculations in his head. If it were just after seven p.m., and Scotland was roughly seven hours ahead of the east coast of the US, then it would be…about two a.m. there.
“My apologies Seneschal, but I felt this couldn’t wait.”
“Well, at least you’ve got the grace to appear embarrassed,” MacIntyre said humorously, when Cade appeared anything but. “What is so important that you had to drag an old man from his sleep?”
Cade paused. “Is Preceptor Johansson with us?” he asked. He didn’t want to repeat the information.
His screen split again and the Preceptor’s face appeared in the new window. “I’m right here, Knight Commander. I, too, trust that this is important?”
Pompous prick, Cade thought, but kept his face calm and non-threatening. One day that man will get his…”I assure you both that it is.” Cade went on to detail the events of the past few days, bringing them two men up to speed with regard to the request for help from Father Martin, their arrival in Boston only to find that Father Martin had been murdered, and their subsequent discovery of the room and its secret portal deep beneath the church.
He left out just how they’d found the secret entrance to the room or what they’d done to activate the portal. While the Seneschal knew about his particular talents, Cade didn’t like giving fuel to the perception that he was a heretic.
“I am assuming you investigated the area on the other side of this portal?” asked the Seneschal.
“Yes, sir,” Cade replied and couldn’t help but grin inwardly at the surprised expression on Preceptor Johansson’s face at his revelation of prior action.
“And?” prompted the Seneschal.
“We discovered a large force of Chiang Shih assembled nearby and a good degree of traffic from their base to the portal itself. Evidence suggests that they are planning to launch an assault on the Greater Boston area, similar to the attempt that was made back in 2003.”
“What ’evidence’ are you talking about?” asked the Preceptor. Cade couldn’t tell if the man’s annoyance was directed at him or at the Shadows for daring to think they could come into territory he considered his personal fiefdom.
Cade let a hint of condescension creep into his tone, in case it was the former. “The Shadows are not, by nature, cooperative creatures. It takes an extremely powerful war leader to make them band together for even the best of reasons. Expanding their territory would be at the top of that list.”
“Why couldn’t they simply be expanding into the Beyond?”
Cade laughed; he couldn’t help it. “If you’d ever seen the Beyond, Preceptor, you wouldn’t need to ask that question. There isn’t a more barren place I can think of and there certainly isn’t anything to sustain them there.” He turned to face the Seneschal again. “No, the only reason they are there at all is to make use of that portal to strike where we least expect it.”
“What do you suggest we do?”
“Assemble a force big enough to take them on and do it quickly,” Cade replied without hesitation.
The Seneschal gave that some thought. “I agree with you that a Chiang Shih gathering of that size is a definite threat, but I don’t understand why we have to face them in open combat. Why not simply shut down the portal?”
Cade had been expecting that line of questioning and he didn’t hesitate to address it. “With all due respect, sir, leaving a force of that size combat ready is not a good idea. We don’t have any understanding of how the gate came to be or what will be necessary to close it permanently. Destroying the building might do the trick, but then again it might not. And what’s to keep them from simply relocating and trying again? We wouldn’t have any idea where they were. How would we stop them then? Our best move is to eliminate the effectiveness of the fighting force entirely, assuring we won’t have to worry about them again in the future.”
And ending the problem of Bishop once and for all, he added silently. Cade had purposely not mentioned him. He considered Bishop’s involvement to be a personal matter, something he’d left unresolved and which he intended to handle at the first opportunity.
The Preceptor had a sour expression on his face, but Cade ignored it. The Seneschal controlled the Order’s fighting units and he was the one Cade had to convince.
MacIntyre conferred with someone off-screen for a few moments and then addressed Cade.
“Unfortunately, our teams are scattered to hell and back right now. Assembling a force powerful enough to take on the Chiang Shih will require some time. Delta is still dealing with that mess in Greenland and Charlie is on furlough. Alpha and Baker can’t be taken off their current assignments. Which means we need Echo to keep the enemy off balance long enough to buy us the time we need to bring men in from the field. Can you do that?”
Cade nodded. “With your permission, I’ll take a small raiding party back across the Veil and begin harassing their camp. Standard guerilla warfare hit-and-run tactics. The resulting confusion should be enough to disrupt their timetable and give us the time we need to assemble our own forces to face them head on.”
“And the portal?”
“I’ll leave a squad or two in reserve at the church. The portal is small and the room is also. The enemy will only be able to bring a few soldiers across at a time. We should be able to hold them off until help arrives.”
The Seneschal inclined his head in that way that Cade knew meant he was thinking things over. Cade waited patiently, trying not to look too anxious. His gut told him that acting quickly and decisively was the best way of dealing with this. If they waited too long, things would certainly get
out of hand.
When the Seneschal finally gave him permission to carry out his plan, Cade made sure to keep the smile of satisfaction from his face.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cade was waiting outside when First and Second Squad arrived. He had them park the SUVs behind the church in the rear parking lot and helped them carry the equipment in through the storage room. Riley and Olsen were already suited up, so they took lights downstairs while the rest of the men assembled in the sanctuary and quickly donned the equipment needed for the mission ahead of them.
A set of dark ceramic body armor, blessed by the Holy Father, went on first, followed by a black jumpsuit of flame-retardant material. Normally each man would carry an HK Mark 23 .45 caliber handgun in a shoulder holster, but these were discarded today in favor of their combat knives and swords. The former were worn in either wrist or ankles sheaths and the swords were worn in specially designed scabbards across each team member’s backs, the hilts readily accessible over one shoulder or the other. Lightweight Kevlar tactical helmets with built-in communications gear, including video and audio recording devices, went on last.
When they were ready, Cade passed through the ranks, inspecting each man, joking with them, offering a word of encouragement here and there when he felt it was needed. When he was finished they filed into the pews for the benediction and communion offering.
It was Cade’s intention to take one additional squad besides the men in the command unit. That was it. Eight men total. No vehicles, no extra troops, nothing to limit their speed or reaction time. Their intent was to harass the enemy and for that speed was crucial. Cade had no intention of getting into a long, drawn-out battle if it could be avoided. In fact, he would do everything in his power to be sure it didn’t happen.
First and Second Squads drew straws to see who would go and who would stay. Second lost and so Cade ordered them into a defensive position around the portal with orders to shoot anything that came through that wasn’t a part of the Order.
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