by Jacob Hammes
More bangs started filling the air and Marcus knew this was his time to escape. He patted the men on the shoulders and wished them well before darting off through the trees as low as he could. He wasn’t twenty steps into the foliage before he heard the men nearest to him start taking lives.
None of the UOD team members were lying dead beneath the high trees yet, which made Marcus happy. He could see where rounds had impacted trees and something much larger had scorched a streak through the foliage. His hopes climbed with every step back toward his semi-hidden trucks. He tried to remember he wasn’t out of the worst of the journey until he was on a plane back to the United States, but that didn’t stop him from grinning ear-to-ear.
The trucks that they had come in on were still parked as they had been, halfway off the road and into the thick bushes. He found them quickly, running as he had been. A quick scan of the area told him that there were no guards, or rebels, or teammates nearby. Another good sign was that most of the equipment was still intact, just as it had been when the team had left it.
Marcus chanced a quick look around to make sure he wasn’t being followed before opening the truck and diving in. There inside was a radio, laying quietly as it had been since the team had taken off. Thankfully, it had remained both in the vehicle and in the off position, conserving energy and ensuring the battery was fully charged.
The sound of gunfire in the distance was partially drowned out inside the vehicle, leaving his ears open for other sounds. One sound he had not anticipated immediately caught his ears. Somewhere back down the road toward the village, a vehicle was making its way toward him.
Marcus cursed his luck and snatched one of the weapons he had. The pistol would offer little defense against a truckload of armed-to-the-teeth rebels, but he wasn’t about to lie down and die.
A noisy vehicle rounded the corner, flying quickly as if the men inside were being pursued. Marcus hoped the men were being chased and would soon be captured, yet he didn’t intend on being involved in any way. Instead, he hid low in the cab of his truck and waited for the vehicle to pass him by. With just his eyes over the dashboard, there was no way anyone driving that quickly would notice him.
The dying light reflected first off the windshield before it bounced quickly over the spectacles of the blond man inside. Marcus felt a sudden confusion overtake him at the sight of someone he had spent the better part of the last two days with. There was no mistaking the smirk of the man driving the big truck at breakneck speeds.
Either Stewart, the supposedly dead man who had brought them to this village, had an identical twin, or the dead man was not dead after all.
Ignoring the voice inside of him that said others might be following close behind meant he was taking a chance. The fact that others might escape their methodically planned ambush was negligible. Marcus started the truck and flipped it around in hot pursuit of the man he thought he had seen, knowing now that Stewart held all the answers.
An eerie feeling followed the truck. For just a moment, Marcus blinked the sunlight from his eyes as he tried to determine what it was. A sudden shadow consumed the land before him, turning everything a deep shade of red.
Marcus couldn’t quell the fear he felt, ripping at his insides. For a brief moment, he wanted to run and hide, cower at the red-tinted cloud.
Then he knew—one of those boxes were being used in the town behind him. He cursed, confident he could do nothing about such a turn of events. Without a second thought, Marcus decided the only thing he could do was to help his friends.
He floored the pedal and exited whatever influence he had been under in a matter of very short seconds.
The first bump in the road he went over flipped the radio up into the air and onto the dashboard. Marcus steered himself into the center of the road and grabbed the radio, all the while pushing the pedal as far into the floorboards as it would go. His reckless driving was doing nothing to catch up to the man he was pursuing—Stewart had much more time invested in the area.
As an afterthought, Marcus flipped the radio on and listened to what might be transpiring with his colleagues. It had been hours since he had made any contact whatsoever. Perhaps his team and the high flying spy plane might be able to help him in his efforts to stop Stewart.
“This is agent Marcus,” he announced, pressing the radio up to his mouth. “Anyone out there?”
“Marcus?” Phillip’s voice was like honey after so long without contact. “Damn it’s good to hear from you. We saw you fall down into some hole and figured you were dead. I guess we can blame what’s going on in the town on you. Were you part of this insurgency?”
“Me?” Marcus questioned playfully. “Never. Listen, I need some help. I’m pursuing a guy that looks strangely like our tour guide Stewart. He’s making good time on me and I was wondering if you can get me a shortcut.”
“No can do,” Gregory’s booming voice came across the radio. “You’ve got four teammates that need a ride—one is in pretty bad condition. Whoever you’re pursuing or think you’re pursuing has to wait. Got it?”
Marcus heard the worry in the man who seemed as unshakable as a mountain. He immediately pulled his foot off the accelerator and slowed his pursuit, knowing full well this might be the only opportunity he ever got to catch the traitor Stewart. The questions swirling through his head would have to wait, which made him a very grumpy man.
“Where am I going?”
“You’re almost there, actually,” Gregory said, calming down significantly. “The group is up ahead on your left. I’m sure they’ve been tracking this conversation and will rendezvous with you as you come up the road. Pick them up and get out of that goddamn country as quick as you can. Make sure to tell Henry to hang in there for me.”
“Henry?” Marcus muttered. “What happened to Henry?”
“He nearly drowned,” Cynthia yelled, cutting in between the two and their banter. “He was swept halfway down the river and he almost didn’t make it. It was dumb luck that we got to him as quickly as we did and managed to save him.”
“The old bastard isn’t dead?”
“I didn’t say he died,” Cynthia retorted. “I said he nearly drowned.”
“Is he breathing okay?”
“Yes,” Cynthia said, relieved. “He’s breathing, but Stephen has him over his shoulders and he has no choice with all the bouncing he’s doing up there.”
Marcus laughed, relieved all of them had made it out alive. Though they weren’t out of the woods yet, he had a good feeling that they would make it out of the country as a team of live individuals. It would only be the first leg in their journey, he figured, seeing as how they had not been able to investigate the box or the unique gems in this area of the world. Now he fully intended to track down the once-dead Stewart to give him the beating of a lifetime, not to mention his supposed employer Lambert.
Lambert would be as concerned as Marcus, he was sure. After all, the old man had helped them save a woman from being slaughtered and deterred what could have been the end of the world. Though there was no definitive proof that anything outside of the cave they had been in might have been affected, Marcus was a firm believer they had saved a large amount of the population.
The three men and one woman emerged from the forest ahead like wet cats running from a dog. Marcus slammed on the brakes and skidded sideways so that he didn’t run them over. The mix of emotions ranging from happiness to frustration overtook him and he was immediately out of the vehicle. There was no time for congratulations though. Being the trained expert that Marcus was, he took up a position covering his friends with a small carbine while they got inside.
Henry looked bad. He was pale and coughing loudly. Their clothing was ripped and wet and despite the warm air and the long hike Cynthia looked like she might be cold. David piled into the truck without saying a word and Cynthia jumped in the passenger seat. Henry and Stephen would have to sit in the bed of the truck, seeing as how Henry would need to lie down anyway.<
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Stephen plopped Henry down with ease and turned on Marcus immediately. Without an explanation, he grabbed Marcus and gave him a bear hug that came as an unexpected surprise. Never in his career had Marcus been embraced by Stephen like this. It felt good.
“We’re getting the fuck outta here,” Stephen said. “I heard what you said about Stewart, too. If he’s not dead, he’s going to be soon.”
“I agree,” Marcus said, catching Henry’s eye. Between coughing fits, he looked up and smiled. The older man even had enough in him to wink before Marcus broke free and jumped in the cab of their ride out of the jungle.
Chapter 13
Henry was much worse off than he had led everyone to believe. His arm was obviously hurt, thanks in part to one of the guards being too rough and because he had tried so hard to get loose. He had gulped a lot of water down his throat, meaning he was coughing and vomiting most of it back up. On top of that, he had a concussion that made everything he said rather confusing. Marcus was sincerely hoping he had not suffered a stroke.
They made it across the country and back to the airport by morning, stopping as few times as they possibly could. Luckily the truck had enough gasoline to get it where it needed to go and with the help of map overlays from Washington D.C., they were able to sidestep every village in between.
The airport was close, but the private jet that the UOD kept on retainer was primed and waiting for them. They hopped aboard with the help of some very friendly locals, some of which stared a little too long at Cynthia and her ripped clothing. She didn’t bother with shyness anymore, especially in front of the team. Once the doors were closed, she ripped her clothes off along with the rest of the team and changed into something much more comfortable—clean civilian attire.
Henry tried his hardest to stay awake, but the trip had been long and hard and his head was starting to throb painfully. He fell asleep before the wheels were off the ground and no one blamed him for it. Even with his twisted wrist cradled to his chest, he seemed to be comfortable enough to sleep through the entire flight.
“We made it.” Marcus grinned as he addressed the members of his team. The fog of utter exhaustion hung heavily over his vision.
“Mostly,” Stephen said in his thick Irish accent. “Where’d that Stewart guy get to? Last I saw him, he had been blown full of holes. I distinctly remember him falling face first into the rocks.”
“That’s a good question,” Marcus groaned.
“Are you sure it was him?” Cynthia said. Her bare feet were kicked up high against the window and her chair was reclining nearly all the way back. She rubbed incessantly at her gloved hand and forearm.
“I didn’t stop to check his I.D.,” Marcus said sarcastically. “But I am willing to bet a month’s wages and my bonus that it was him.”
The four individuals traded skeptical looks with one another, contemplating just what the implications would mean. There was no logical reason for Stewart to fake his own death and nearly kill Marcus unless the men that had occupied the village belonged to him. That would mean far more than a man who wanted to take over a mining operation. It would mean he was partially responsible for everything that had been going on since the beginning of this case.
The mobile teleconference platform started chiming, alerting the team that someone back in D.C. wanted to have a word with them. Marcus already knew who it would be. Gregory didn’t sleep—ever. He also didn’t care whether other people slept. The most important thing to him was that a case was closed, as it had been since he joined the military so many years ago.
“Pucker your ass,” Marcus said before hitting the accept call icon on the large television. His eyes were instantly surprised by that of a very attractive Brenda. Her beaming smile told Marcus she was happier to see Stephen than he was to have accepted the call.
“I would greatly appreciate it if you could stop almost being killed,” she said to the group as a whole, though everyone knew it rang especially true for Stephen.
“You’d rather me just die?” Stephen retorted. “Maybe I can arrange that.”
“It would be better than constantly worrying about whether or not you are going to die. At least this way I’d have some reassurance.”
“Just be happy you sat this one out.” Stephen smiled. His bright teeth shone especially well against the extra grime and dirt his face had picked up. “What’s the news back stateside? Have you guys found the girl yet?”
“No,” Brenda said, being careful not to let on that she knew something. “We do have a pretty solid lead, though. I’m going to be headed out in just a few hours, as a matter of fact. Police up north are investigating a murder that took place this afternoon. It might be something important.”
“How so?” Marcus was all ears. He had nearly forgotten about the girl and the kidnappers who had taken her. In fact, he didn’t really want to think about the young woman. Instead, he would rather try and wrap his head around a certain Stewart character and his part in the case.
“Well,” Phillip slid in from the side of the screen and pushed Brenda away. “The man who reported the murder claimed he was attacked by some demonic entity. He didn’t realize he had stabbed his best bud in the stomach until police showed up on the scene a few hours later. He’s being held on a pretty steep bail and his friend is as dead as dead can be.”
“So you’re assuming the hallucinations are the same as the ones caused by the box instead of a quarrel between friends, or a bad acid trip?” David was lounging back in his seat, but he was listening just as intently as everyone else. Marcus was happy David’s regular shyness was starting to lift around the members of his team.
“Not assuming,” Brenda said. “We measured a large spike of electricity being drawn into an old abandoned sawmill there. Local police say that there were definitely some visitors to the area, but they were gone long before they showed up.”
“So what are you going to investigate?” Marcus asked seriously. “Why go out of your way to talk to anyone about this when you already know all the details?”
“I want that witness,” Gregory said from a separate view screen. “If he’s been affected by that machine, I want to know about it. I want to know what he was doing up there, where he was going, and what it felt like when he thought he was defending himself against some monster-demon-thing.”
“So you can’t call him?” Marcus hated sending one employee alone for anything, even if it was just to investigate a witness.
“I’m an intel analyst,” Brenda said flatly. “It’s what I’m best at. I’ll be interrogating the witness, or murderer. If he’s innocent, we don’t want him rotting in jail for the rest of his miserable life.”
“Good point,” Marcus said. “Just be safe.”
“I will be safe—we’ve got a few police officers that will be following me around. Besides, it’s only a stateside job in a jail cell.”
“Anything else new?” Stephen inched forward in his seat.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Brenda said, pulling the analyst, Sheila, into the screen. After a brief introduction and a lot of muttering, the team was filled in on all the gaps they had missed while nearly being killed in Nigeria.
“So you’re telling me that Lambert, our old pal,” Marcus said sarcastically, “knows a guy who bought the patent to a machine that does exactly the same thing as this machine back in the fifties?”
“Close enough,” Sheila said. “But that’s just the start. I’ve also uncovered some other, possibly coincidental news you should know about. It turns out the man who purchased the patent died of somewhat natural causes in the seventies. Upon reading the autopsy reports, I saw that he had strange, pre-aged intestines.”
“Much like our mystery man from the yacht that sailed in,” Brenda added. “Now that the analysts have a torch to light the way, they’ve been very busy. We’ve found some more anomalies as well.”
“This strange intestinal anomaly has been reported since World War 2,” Sheila sai
d, cutting in. “It’s more common than you think. There have been dozens of cases throughout the world of men and women dying early, from seemingly curable sicknesses. Once they’ve been autopsied, they end up having these bizarre deformities.
“I would say it’s enough to consider a pattern.”
Marcus rolled the ideas around his head. There had been similarly strange intestinal issues since World War II, and somehow they seemed linked to the creation of the machine. Though there seemed to be no evidence that directly correlated the two, Marcus knew better than to blame something so serious on coincidence.
He wondered briefly whether the machine could be used as a recreational drug. Perhaps, like a fine scotch, one simply had to become accustomed to the anomaly before enjoying it. He couldn’t imagine anyone enjoying that, but then again he couldn’t really imagine anyone enjoying a bad acid trip.
He decided to test it out against all the other idea that might be floating through everyone else’s heads.
“So a few drug users have died over the course of a few decades?”
“Not necessarily,” Sheila said. “We’ve done extensive toxicology reports on the dead guy we found in the yacht. He is, for all intents and purposes, clean of anything harmful.”
“Maybe this thing is the drug?” he said, gauging what the others would think. No one seemed particularly convinced, though it did provoke thought.
Marcus was truly stumped. He couldn’t correlate the men who had died from these mysterious causes, but knew that something might relate them in the future. He decided to brush it off and move on.
“So do you think the girl is related to the others?” Stephen beat Marcus to the question. “You think this might be some hereditary trait?”