Blood Lines (ncis)

by Mel Odom

  “Yes. And if we are favored by fate, his partner as well. I have heard Gant has cause to hate your Sergeant McHenry very much.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are counting on that.”

  Will nodded.

  “That is very risky business,” Phan said.

  “I can’t think of another way to do it. Given the circumstances, I can’t make any promises about the health and well-being of your soldiers.”

  “I would not ask you for that promise. Working together in this instance will be a privilege.”

  “I feel the same way,” Will said.

  “Still, what we do even with each other’s assistance will be a very dangerous thing.”

  “Your men will be in radio contact with you?”

  “Always.”

  “Then it will be less dangerous than if we were to do this thing by ourselves.”

  Phan gazed at Will with new understanding. “You knew something like this would be done?”

  “I wouldn’t let anybody wander around in my backyard unescorted,” Will replied. “Whether I let them know or not. I appreciate you letting me know.”

  “You could have asked for assistance.”

  “I could have,” Will admitted, “but I think it was probably easier for you to suggest to your superior that you be allowed to keep an eye on us. Maybe plant guides within our ranks. That way you’re in control, on the surface, rather than providing a service.”

  “I did ask them for permission to spy on you,” Phan said with a small smile. “They readily agreed since it seemed we’d be fooling you. Those men take such… clandestine action for granted and think they are very clever. They are years from the battlefields. But I thought that you would suspect something was amiss.”

  “That’s why you made the offer directly.”

  Phan grinned. “So we understand each other.”

  “Entirely,” Will agreed.

  ›› Nine Klicks Outside Qui Nhon, Binh Dinh Province

  ›› Socialist Republic of Vietnam

  ›› 1407 Hours (Local Time Zone)

  Soaked in sweat from the heat and humidity that filled the jungle around him, Shel marched resolutely. It felt good to be doing something other than staying in hospitals or being one step behind Victor Gant.

  Of course, Shel knew he was about forty years behind at present, but at least he felt he was gaining on something. In fact, he felt more hopeful about things than he had in a long time. He attributed a lot of that to the fact that he had at last slept on the long flight to Vietnam. But he often thought about his prayer in El Paso. In fact, he thought about it enough that he was praying every morning and every evening. Something about that felt right as well.

  The team had spent three days in the field so far. Estrella had gridded the area that McGovern, the paraplegic who had been with Victor Gant’s fire team, had indicated.

  Even though he’d wondered if McGovern had lied to them, Shel couldn’t help but remain somewhat hopeful. Hinton’s body had to be out in the brush somewhere, but Shel also knew they could be miles from it. Or they might never find it.

  Please, God, he thought. Don’t let that be the case. He knew his daddy needed some kind of closure. So did he.

  Shel carried an M4 assault rifle in one hand and a GPS compass in his left. Vines and brush pulled at his combat boots and BDUs, not really slowing him down. A few feet away, Estrella walked her own line of the grid.

  He noticed that she looked worse for the wear, and Shel realized he’d been pushing the pace. He felt guilty about that. Remy was about the only member of the team who could keep up with Shel over time.

  The historical remains handler working Shel’s grid was a civilian, a young woman with red hair and a large, female German shepherd. So far her dog and Max had gotten along fine.

  Although Max was cross-trained for search and rescue, his primary training was to find live victims. Locating old graves was specialty work, and the dogs dedicated to that couldn’t be trained to search for live or wounded people. The dog handler had mostly kept to herself, and neither she nor her animal had shirked a bit as they’d worked the grids Estrella had laid out.

  “Water break,” Shel called out when he reached the top of the latest incline. He squatted in the shade of a towering tree but kept a clear field of view on both sides of the incline.

  “Thank goodness,” Estrella said. She leaned against a tree and drank water from the built-in bladder in her LCE pack. The load-carrying equipment came with a two-liter bladder for storing water that also served to cool the soldier’s body.

  “Easy,” Shel called as she continued drinking. “You don’t want to make yourself sick out here.”

  Estrella eased off of the water and wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. But she didn’t cap the plastic straw that was built into the bladder.

  She looked at Shel and shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  Shel grinned. “The few and the proud,” he told her.

  “Please,” Estrella said, rolling her eyes in mock disbelief. She looked back the way they’d come. “We’ve actually done a lot of work.”

  “I know,” Shel replied. “We’re making good time.” He tried to remain positive though his impatience was getting higher every day.

  But the truth was they were walking the gridlines faster than they’d believed possible. The men Captain Phan had put with them had actually helped speed up the process by restructuring the gridline search party method to push people into motion faster.

  Max ranged the countryside, constantly on point, and remained close even though he wandered away till he was out of sight on several occasions. Shel never worried. One whistle and the dog would be at his side.

  Although he’d watched, Shel had never seen Captain Phan’s men in the outer perimeter. The idea of being a stalking horse hadn’t set too well with Shel. If someone who was constantly keeping an eye on a developing situation came in close enough to alter the outcome of a potential encounter, that person could also be too close to leave events unmarked by their presence.

  A stalking horse worked best against predators driven by instinct, not thoughts. He didn’t want the Vietnamese army to scare Victor Gant away. Then Shel realized that the presence of the army might enhance Victor Gant’s desire to attack his enemies. It would be a real coup. If he could pull it off.

  Shel became aware that Estrella was talking to him. He focused on her. “Sorry.”

  “I was wondering how your father is doing,” she repeated.

  “Fine,” Shel replied. “I talked to Don this morning. Daddy’s almost strong enough to deal with the pacemaker.”

  “That’s good.”

  It wasn’t, though. Not really. As his daddy had told Don, the only reason Tyrel McHenry had agreed to the pacemaker was because he figured he owed somebody prison time, or a death, for killing PFC Dennis Hinton.

  In all probability, his daddy was giving up. Shel had never seen his daddy give up on anything.

  Except living his life for his wife and kids. That sober thought rocked him.

  “All right,” Estrella said, interrupting his dark thoughts. “If you’re ready, I am.”

  Shel nodded and rose to his feet. He took a fresh reading with his GPS, signaled the dog handler, then started walking again. They were staying close to the road for the first sweep. If they didn’t find anything, they would go deeper into the jungle.

  What they were looking for was a man-size depression in the ground. After forty years, all the flesh would have sloughed away from Hinton’s corpse. When he’d been buried, his body had been one size. But after time and nature had stripped his flesh, his body would have been another size, and the dirt on top of his mortal remains would have sunk. Most old graves were found through visual searches.

  If the approximate location was known.

  And they had the dogs. It was something to hope for.

  Shel glanced toward the horizon and saw the black clouds that had
been forming to the east were now more vigorous. They were also on a direct approach. The storm would be upon them soon.

  59

  ›› Nine Klicks Outside Qui Nhon, Binh Dinh Province

  ›› Socialist Republic of Vietnam

  ›› 1658 Hours (Local Time Zone)

  “What do you think they’re looking for?”

  At first, Victor Gant ignored Fat Mike’s question. They sat under a thick copse of brush on a hillside over a half klick from where the Marine who had killed Bobby Lee was searching. Victor held the high-power field glasses carefully so that the sun wouldn’t ever reflect from the lenses. There was less and less chance of that happening as the cloud cover from the approaching storm became more complete.

  Finally Victor lowered the field glasses and stared at the figures in the distance. Without the lenses, he could barely make out the people searching the land.

  “This far out in the brush, there’s only one thing they’re looking for,” Victor said.

  “That kid’s body?” Fat Mike asked.

  “Did we bury anybody else out here?”

  Fat Mike looked like he was thinking about that. There had been a number of bodies back in those days. And that wasn’t even counting Charlie and the Kit Carsons they’d left lying where they’d dropped them.

  “Did we?” Fat Mike asked finally.

  “No.”

  Fat Mike snorted. “They’re not going to find that grave.” He cursed. “As long as it’s been, I don’t think I could find it now.”

  “They brought those dogs for a reason.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to track us.”

  “No.” Victor put the field glasses in the protective case on his hip.

  “Do they have grave dogs?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Fat Mike said. “There’s probably so many people buried out there, they’ll never find Hinton.” He glanced at the darkening sky. “Not only that, but the storm that’s coming is gonna be a toad strangler. The ground we’re standing on is gonna turn to muck.”

  Victor watched in silence.

  “You know,” Fat Mike said, “I was thinking that if we had a Barrett rifle, something with some serious range, you could settle that Marine’s hash and be done with this before they could ever find you. We could fade the heat and be gone before they could catch us. None of them know this jungle like we do.”

  “No,” Tran said. The slightly built Vietnamese crime lord sat farther back and up the hill. His hair was cut short and was mostly gray these days, which amused Victor. “If you attack, even from this distance, the local soldiers will hunt us down. And I don’t believe we could escape them before they closed in.”

  Victor silently agreed with the assessment. He’d noticed the quiet way Tran had been watchful about the NCIS team’s search. As always, Tran didn’t miss much. Most people didn’t get that because Tran was tight-lipped and didn’t speak until he had something he was willing to talk about. Outside of himself, Tran was the most vicious and dangerous man Victor knew.

  He looked over at Tran. “I don’t want to drag this thing out. We know where their base camp is. They’re staying out here.”

  Tran looked at him. Both wisdom and wariness showed on his friend and business partner’s features.

  “I want to take care of this tonight,” Victor told him. “I don’t know how long they’re going to be here or what they’re going to find, but I don’t want to wait, and I sure don’t want them dragging anything out of the ground that’s better off staying buried.”

  “All right,” Tran said. “We do this tonight.” His eyes locked on Victor’s. “Then you are done with this thing, Victor. Your son would have wanted you to live, and you have wasted enough time with this. You and I, we have a business to run that requires our attention. We have lost some ground in the United States.”

  Anger roiled up inside Victor, but he didn’t say anything. Tran was probably the only man on the face of the planet who could speak to him so bluntly. They’d shared danger for so long that Victor respected the man. More than that, Victor knew without a doubt that Tran would kill him if he started endangering his drug operation.

  Thunder rumbled across the sky.

  “We may get an early start,” Victor said, “if this storm rolls in within the next hour.”

  ›› 1823 Hours (Local Time Zone)

  Rain spattered against the broad leaves of the trees. Will thought it sounded like he was surrounded by footsteps. His nerves jangled because he wasn’t used to being in enclosed places like the jungle. The only enclosed environment he’d dealt with had been aboard ship. But there he could always go up on deck and feel the world open up around him.

  Rainwater collected on the ground. It was the rainy season, and the earth was already saturated. Pools formed first; then they began tiny rivulets that gathered more volume and became miniature streams.

  The historical remains dog ahead of them suddenly took on renewed energy. The animal hardly ever lifted its head from the ground as it became a flesh-and-blood vacuum cleaner for scents.

  Rain wouldn’t hamper the dog. The water actually reactivated the smells trapped within the earth, making them sharper and stronger and more easily detected.

  Mud clumped to Will’s boots and made his feet feel like they weighed a hundred pounds apiece. Walking became a physical toll, and that was without the constant threat of slipping.

  “Sir,” the handler called.

  Will tore his gaze away from searching the trees to keep watch and glanced at the young man working the dog.

  The dog had stopped moving forward and was zigzagging through the trees. The sensitive nose never lifted from the ground.

  “I think Rusty’s found something, sir.” The handler was a young man with a forthright manner and a shy smile. His name was Neal and he’d been working with the historical remains dog program for eight years. He wasn’t chatty, preferring to get his job done, but he seemed to express himself enough for people to get to know and trust him.

  Will stood in the rain. Although his rain poncho had a hood, he didn’t pull it up because it would have restricted his hearing and his vision.

  “I’d like to give him some time,” Neal said. “Let him sort through everything. Kind of a confidence vote. He’s been working hard today.”

  “All right,” Will told the handler.

  The dog kept wandering around through the nearby jungle, but the outside journeys grew smaller and smaller. Finally, a few minutes later, the dog chose a patch of muddy earth between two towering trees and lay down.

  “He’s found something,” Neal said excitedly. “That’s his signal.”

  Will walked forward and studied the ground. When he squatted and looked across the lay of the land, he saw where an irregular oval had filled up with water where the dog lay.

  The oval was definitely man-size.

  “Let’s close it in,” Will said to Maggie. She stood twenty feet away. “See if we’ve got anything. If we don’t, we make camp. We’re losing the sun anyway.”

  ›› 1856 Hours (Local Time Zone)

  Although the night hadn’t yet arrived, they were working by lantern light in the thick copse of trees. Shel used one of the trenching tools they’d brought. Will used the other.

  Nita stood at the prospective graveside. Although Will had wanted her to stay at the base because of her pregnancy, she hadn’t agreed. She’d told him that she’d been praying about the situation and felt she needed to be on hand. Besides, as the team’s medical examiner, her testimony about the recovery of the body-or bodies-was important.

  Shel was glad she had stayed with the rest of the team. There was safety in numbers, and they could better protect her with them than if she was off somewhere else.

  As he worked, Shel’s muscles warmed. Even with the storm, the air remained muggy. When the fabric of his shirt kept slowing his efforts, he’d taken the shirt and Kevlar vest off. He’d seen Will glance a
t him and expected that Will might tell him to put them back on, but he didn’t.

  “It won’t be too deep.” Neal squatted beside his dog. “Rusty got a good hit, so you can expect to find something within three or four feet at the most.”

  Shel kept turning dirt that was just short of qualifying as oozing mud. Every shovelful felt heavier, but he only worked harder.

  He thought of the forty years that his daddy had lived with the guilt of accidentally killing a man-a fellow soldier-and burying his body so the family wouldn’t know. Of that same forty years when Tyrel McHenry had been mentally prepared to go to military prison for the rest of his life or to be executed. Of all the years that Shel had grown up not understanding why his daddy hadn’t taken any real interest in him.

  Pain shivered through Shel’s heart. All those years of misunderstandings and arguments and hurt feelings hadn’t been because of him. Or his daddy. If the situation had been reversed, if Shel had accidentally killed a fellow soldier during a firefight-and such things happened-he honestly didn’t know how he would deal with it. Or if he’d be able to live with himself.

  And that was now, when he had nearly twenty years of experience behind him.

  How could anyone expect a fresh-faced kid away from his home country to handle something like that? More than that, Tyrel had been drunk and been led by Victor Gant. Nothing good could have come of that.

  Nothing good did come of it, Shel reminded himself.

  Then his shovel pressed against something hard.

  Shel got down on his knees and searched for the object with his fingers. The falling rain pooled in the bottom of the excavation. Several times before, he and Will had been forced to saw through tree roots that had grown through the area. This felt different, not as big, not as solid.

  His fingers uncovered something round. Hope swelled in his heart.

  “Nita,” Shel called, trying to keep his voice calm. “I need more light here.”

  Nita moved immediately and brought the light to bear.

  As Shel brushed away the mud and grit, the object became very clear. It was a human skull.