Unless they had another submarine waiting for them, this was where she remained; a sitting duck with nowhere to go but six feet under.
The moon was out and Han had no trouble beaching the boat in the soft turf. Then, as the observer observed, the four men from Philadelphia picked up the inflatable boat and lifted it to the tree line. They wouldn’t be spotted prematurely.
The main problem with the mission—the only difficulty at all, in fact—was that, though the insertion had to be done by night to avoid being spotted, the actual hit was going to have to wait until morning. The resort consisted of a dozen identical cabins and this was probably the only hotel in the world which didn’t have its reservation system online. Apparently, you arrived and chose the cabin you liked from the ones available.
That meant that they either had to identify the quarry beforehand or risk discovery while bumbling about in the dark.
He’d dismissed Crazy Eddie’s suggestion that they just kill everyone until they happened to find the right cabin. No need to make unnecessary enemies… and even less to make unnecessary headlines. His superiors wouldn’t like that at all.
“Did you see something, boss?” Mike Zhen asked.
“Where?”
“Behind us, something breaking through the water.”
“No,” Harold replied. “It was probably a dolphin or something. We’re not here to watch dolphins.”
They moved slowly along the beach, just outside the tree line, inching towards the resort. Even in the moonlight, they weren’t used to doing their work in the wilderness. Harold stumbled over a root and barely caught himself before hitting the ground.
He laughed at himself. He was a city boy, not some kind of jungle commando. Unlike so many people in Philadelphia’s underworld, Harold didn’t see himself as a freedom fighter against the ills of a system that had mistreated him, but simply as what he was: a man who followed a family tradition reaching back as many generations as he knew. His branch of the Triads wasn’t something built in the past decade, it was an integral part of the community, and it supplied services that might otherwise be lacking…
His clients were no longer immigrants just off the boat. That was his grandmother’s generation. They were integrated into the fabric of American society. Some had assimilated fully, even taking spouses that weren’t Chinese. Some spoke no language but English.
Nevertheless, even the most Americanized came to Harold when they needed a special service that couldn’t be bought from Amazon, grateful to find discretion and understanding. His business was built on trust, not the ability to field a militia in a jungle.
Even Crazy Eddie and his watermelon cleaver had gratifyingly little work to do. Violence was bad for business, and bloody headlines were bad for careers.
So this mission was way outside the usual parameters, nothing at all like what they were used to.
The group’s approach was less than elegant, but he wanted to get a feel for the place while the moon was still out. It would help them the following day.
Something darted out of the foliage. Small and sleek, it was hard to see what it was, even in the moonlight.
“Watch out,” Eddie said. The warning was just in time. Harold rolled to the side and felt air rush over him.
Limey was less fortunate. The animal that missed Harold slammed straight into his stomach, and he let the air out with a loud grunt.
“Everyone get over here,” Harold commanded. “Turn on your flashlights.”
The lights, like the Zodiac, were military-grade and the animals disappeared without Harold ever managing to get a look at them. He bent over Limey. “You okay?”
Limey held a hand over his stomach. “I’ll live. I got a deep gouge, but nothing too serious.” He pulled himself to his feet. “What the hell was that?”
“Damned if I know,” Harold replied. “But it seems to be afraid of the light. Can you walk?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s get moving, then.”
As they headed off in the direction they’d been moving, Harold stole a glance at the observer. Was the man impressed that they’d persevere? Disgusted at the fact that a mere animal encounter had almost wrecked everything and thinking that they were all a bunch of bumbling amateurs? His face made it impossible to tell.
One thing was for certain. With the beams of their lights burning through the jungle, no one looking this way would ever miss them.
Crazy Eddie walked over, close enough to whisper without the rest of them overhearing.
“They’re still in the forest,” Eddie said.
“Who?”
“Those critters. And there are hundreds of them.”
Harold shone his light where Eddie had indicated. “I don’t see anything.”
“Trust me, they’re around.”
With that, he pulled his watermelon chopper, a flat, straight blade, out of his specially tailored scabbard and took point again.
Harold swallowed. “Keep moving,” he told his team.
Chapter 8
Akane led him by the hand into the woods beside their cabin, but Sked knew her too well to expect this was a romantic assignation. She was a strictly indoorsy kind of woman, although she wouldn’t care if “indoors” meant the bathroom of a rave club full of sweaty people, as long as there was a roof over her head.
A bug-filled jungle would not be her style, no matter how fragrant the wind or romantic the chirping of the nocturnal creatures. Ever.
When she led him to the fence that divided the resort from the rest of the island, illuminated along its length by strong floodlights, he wasn’t in the least bit surprised or disappointed. The night was still young… and besides, he was curious as to what she thought she was doing.
“What do you think?” she said.
“I already told you what I think. I think the fence is a smart move, considering that there are aggressive natives and genetically modified dinosaurs on the other side.”
“It doesn’t raise any suspicions?”
He scratched his head. “Not really. Should it?”
“Think for a second. How was that woman attacked?”
“With an arrow.” He grinned at her and waited. This was where Akane was mistress of all: figuring angles. She might be rash, irresponsible and prone to taking other people’s stuff without asking, but up until the point where the theft was discovered and the victim sent well-equipped thugs after her, Akane was utterly brilliant. Underestimating the consequences of her plans had never stood in the way of setting them successfully in motion.
“And do you think that fence would stop an arrow? Of course not. So why aren’t the pygmies or whatever is out there shooting the guests full of holes and reclaiming their land? I mean the presence of the fence indicates that this area no longer belongs to them, right?”
“I guess…” Sked snapped his fingers. “Maybe it’s to keep the guests inside so the natives can live in peace.”
“Probably. But do you think you need that kind of a fence to keep the Colonel’s wife in here?” She peered up at it. “Hell, I don’t know if you could climb that one.”
“I can do it, but I’d need to be seriously motivated. If I had the choice, I’d rather swim along the seaside and go around it.”
“And the natives have boats. And the resort has a jet ski.”
“Not anymore.”
“Don’t be a smartass.” She looked back at the fence. “So why the hell is it here, and, since it’s not to protect the guests or, really keep them inside, who put it here?” She pointed to the rear section of the resort. The fenced resort area extended five hundred meters into the forest—they’d walked the perimeter of the fence—but there were no paths through there, and no apparent reason for the enormous area. Maybe the developers were speculating on increasing the number of cottages as the resort got more popular… but that would mean that the beach between the fences would become overcrowded. It didn’t seem to make sense that anyone would fence in such a huge area
for not useful reason. “Don’t you wonder about the heart of darkness behind us? The resort isn’t using the land, so what’s in that jungle?”
Before Sked could answer, a gunshot sounded in the trees beyond the fence. Then another, and running footsteps could be heard coming their way. Sked raised an eyebrow and the pair hid behind a tree to see what would come out of the woods.
“Over there,” Akane whispered. She pointed to the fence a hundred meters away, close to the shore. “People.”
Three men ran desperately in the direction of the resort. The leader hit the fence head-on and fell back. The remaining two shone their flashlights into the darkness. One of them fired.
“Save your ammo until we can see them,” the other one shouted.
Akane and Sked raced along the path that bordered the fence on the inside of the trees. Seconds later they were twenty meters from the men.
“What do we do?”
“Those guys are Chinese,” Akane replied. “And look at those tattoos. They’re here for us.”
“What are they shooting at?”
As if in answer to his question, several small dinosaurs walked into the illuminated fringe between the trees and the fence. They looked exactly the way the Marine woman who’d come in with the big group had said they did, which corroborated the story the guy from the first boat had told. Seeing them in the flesh made little difference other than to remind him just how small they were.
It didn’t matter though. These were obviously pack hunters, and the guys at the fence would run out of bullets long before the dinosaurs ran out of pack.
“I’ve got an idea. Stay here.” Sked pulled the cap he used for being out in the sun from his pocket and fit it low over his forehead. Then he approached the men at a jog.
“What are you doing?” he asked in English, trying to imitate the Mumbai accent of the folks who ran the resort.
One of the men turned to look at him, eyes wide. “We need to get inside. Where are the gates?”
“No gates on this wall. Too dangerous. Someone might leave it open and let the cannibals in.”
Sked personally didn’t believe the woman’s story about the islanders being cannibals; she’d probably been too scared to see clearly, Marine or no Marine. But it was way too good a story not to use in the current situation.
“Who are you?” the guy asked.
“I’m Jocko, and it’s my night on perimeter duty. If you want in, you’ll need to climb.”
“We can’t. Those things will grab us if we do. We already tried, further that way… which is why there’s only three of us left.”
“I can help you there,” Sked replied. “Can you get your guns over the fence? If you can, I’ll cover you as you climb.”
The man seemed to be about to argue, then shrugged and turned to his companion. He took a moment to heave the gun, underhand, in a high arc that flew precisely into Sked’s waiting hands.
“Throw the other two over,” Sked said. “I don’t want to run out of bullets at a bad time.”
Another man followed suit and when Sked raised an eyebrow, the first man simply shrugged. “Eddie doesn’t believe in guns.”
Sked suppressed his shudder as he watched the glint of the floodlights off the straight blade of the watermelon chopper the third guy held up for his perusal. He’d lived in Asia much too long not to know the kind of damage the Triads regularly did with those.
“All right. Climb. I’ll cover you.”
The men did and, as soon as they turned their backs, some of the bolder animals proved that they’d been telling the truth. They charged immediately.
Sked wasn’t an Olympic-quality marksman, but he was pretty good. He got the leader of the pack in the breastbone and was relieved to see it fall over. He’d been afraid that these bastards would be impervious to bullets. Either because of thick leather covering or enormous bones, but it appeared that they could be hit.
The second shot was less successful, as the dinosaur he hit only stumbled and got back up.
He would have preferred to take head shots at the things, but he didn’t dare: he’d read somewhere that dinosaurs had thick skulls shielding tiny brains. Besides, the heads were smaller than the bodies, and in the uncertain light and with all the bobbing and weaving the monsters were doing, he was pretty sure he’d miss if he tried.
So he blasted another one in the chest. This one fell over and stayed down.
Meanwhile, the three Triad killers had climbed about six feet up the wall. Sked suspected there was an alarm sounding somewhere in the resort, and that a guard would be around to see what was happening, probably quite soon. Sked preferred to disappear before those men arrived.
Convinced that the dinosaurs couldn’t climb using those ridiculous arms, Sked let the next one arrive at the fence. It tried to climb using its hind legs and a combination of arms and mouth, but it was a hopeless proposition. It fell back and glared at Sked.
He shot it in the head, just to see what would happen.
It fell back but, only a couple of seconds later, it got back up, shaking its head angrily. It was missing an eye and the bullet had carved a gash along the grey-brown skin, but the thing stood there looking angry and a little confused. Sked moved back from the fence a bit to give the men a little room, but that beady black eye followed him, as if trying to memorize the one it blamed for causing it so much pain.
Akane materialized beside him and took the second gun. When the Triad men finished their arduous climb—they turned to find both weapons trained on them. Six eyes immediately focused on Akane.
“You,” spat the one who’d been talking to Sked earlier.
“Hands up,” Akane said. When they complied, she continued. “How do you want it? In the head?” She brought the gun up. “In the chest?” Akane brought it down a bit and then continued. She smiled. “I think I’ll shoot you in the nuts, just to watch you bleed out knowing you’ll die as less than a man.”
“Stop it,” Sked said. “No one is shooting anyone. Not yet.” He eyed their three captives. “Not unless you do something stupid.”
The look the three guys gave him made the dinosaur look downright friendly.
“Now,” Sked said. “You guys don’t sound like you’re from Shanghai, so maybe we can understand each other. I assume you know who we are?” The one who’d been talking, the leader, nodded. “And we know why you’re here.”
Sked’s original plan had been to keep them busy until resort security showed up and then hand them over to someone who owned cable ties before disappearing back out into the great wide world, hopefully better hidden than they’d managed this time around.
“Now, we don’t want to be killed, and I assume you don’t want to die, either.”
“Not particularly, but it probably wouldn’t make much difference,” the Triad man said. “If you shoot us now, you’re probably going to save us a good deal of grief.”
“What?”
“We lost our observer,” the leader replied. “The guy Beijing sent over to see that the hit was carried out correctly got torn to pieces by those things back there. If you hadn’t been there, or if we’d screwed up the killing, it would have been bad for our careers, but not fatal. This? We’re dead men walking. So if you put one between each of our eyes, at least it will be a quick death. Even if that bitch shoots me in the nuts, I figure I still come out ahead.”
“Just say the word, motherfucker,” Akane said.
Sked smiled. “You heard her. And if you did your research, you know she’ll do it, too. Your call.”
The man sighed. “Dammit. What do you want?”
“First off, tell Eddie to drop his chopper. I really don’t want to have to worry about that any more than I have to. That’s right, kick it over here.” He bent to pick the watermelon knife off the floor and hefted it. Vicious thing; no wonder the Triads loved them. Then he turned back to the leader. “You know who I am but I haven’t had the pleasure. Why don’t we start with introductions?”
>
“I’m Harold, he’s Mike and you’ve already met Eddie.”
“You don’t sound Chinese.”
“We’re from Philly.”
Sked chuckled. “Wasn’t expecting that one. Now, the only reason I haven’t let Akane here shoot you is that we have a bit of a situation.”
“You mean apart from your dinosaur infestation?”
“That’s part of it, of course. But it gets worse. We think there might actually be cannibals on this island. Or at least natives who don’t like us much. As you can tell by that fence, the truce between the natives and the resort is a bit iffy. We think it’s breaking down.” He paused. “Also, some of the people back at the hotel think there’s some kind of monster in the water, but I just think they drank too much punch during the resort bingo night.”
“I saw something, too,” the guy named Mike said. “Behind us, in the water. It was big, but not big enough to catch our Zodiac.”
Sked’s interest surged. “You have a Zodiac? How big?”
Harold glared at Mike but, after Sked waved the gun encouragingly, he replied. “Six-man unit. So eight people at a pinch. Nine if the extras are kids.” He shrugged. “The guy who sold it to me said we could load it up with whatever we could fit onto it and it wouldn’t sink or slow the boat down too much. Not sure if that’s true.”
“Pretty much,” Sked replied. “Those things are awesome. It’s a real one, I assume, not some second-rate knockoff for the wannabe warrior trade?”
“The real thing.”
“Good. Because we need to get as many people as we can off this island, and we just don’t have the boats we need to do it right now. How far from here did you leave it?”
“A couple hundred yards.”
“Good.” Sked waved the gun. “I need you guys to march back to the resort. Stay where I can see you. You already saw that I can shoot this thing. I don’t want to shoot anyone, but if you run, I can probably hit you before you take five steps. Akane tends to aim for the head if she can’t shoot you in the balls.”
The three men nodded glumly and trudged in the indicated direction. Once away from the fence, Sked breathed easier. He’d played dumb with Akane earlier, drawing her out to see what she was thinking, but he agreed with her 100%. The fence just didn’t work for him as a protection for the resort, either. Her idea that there was something in the empty jungle behind the hotel area was probably the right one.
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