Deteriorating cars and trucks punctuated the green landscape like bizarre mod-art sculptures; derelict hulks left split and twisted by ancient blasts now set on tireless rims, washed in licks of fading soot and growing long feathers of rust.
A welcome sight broke into view during one of Top's infrequent rest breaks. A sprawling freshwater pond, sweet and inviting, loomed dead ahead.
But while everyone uncorked empty canteens and gladly started for its soothing crystal brilliance, Top barred their advance.
"Stay back, people. Let it be."
The group came up short, questioning both the command and the oasis beyond with a zombielike silence. Top's order held.
"I know it's there," he declared. "Just stay back."
Baker flatly disregarded the admonition and stomped forward. When Top snagged him by a sleeve, he yanked away.
"I know springwater when I see it, Whiskers. And that stuff's crystal clear!"
The old-timer nodded. "For good reason, Slick. Look it over. You see any minnows or water bugs? How come there's no frogs or cattails at the shore?"
"Who knows? Mebbe it's too cold."
"More like too dead."
Top pointed his carbine at an irregular stream of fat, lazy bubbles tumbling at the surface, farther out.
"Those ripples aren't springwater coming up. They're gas: monoxide, methane—worse."
Baker sniffed suspiciously. "I don't smell nuthin'."
"You won't. That's what makes it more dangerous. The water filters it."
"So, what is it?" asked Trennt.
"Sinkhole. Not unusual for them to follow a fault line, like the one we're on now. When the ground caves, everything around slides in and gets buried. Most just stay empty craters. But sometimes they clog and fill with floodwater. The stuff below rots and gasses off, sterilizes the water above with poison.
"Drinking that would boil your guts out. But even worse can happen if the bottom plug gets stirred up and breaks loose. All that bad air can fart out, ASAP, and smother everything downwind. There's no warning smell to let you know it's coming. Get caught too close and you'd die on your feet. We'll find safer, dirty water to refill the canteens. Right now just take five and look the other way."
Another hour's travel brought the first up-close warning of trespass: a clutch of weathered human skulls impaled on a corroded steel rod. Sun-bleached cheeks bore obscene red tears from the rusted spikes driven through each eye socket and their crusty brain vaults carried the deep, jagged, hack marks of scalp hunters. The group passed the grisly totem in silence.
The old Marine led them ever deeper, a proficient machine, confidently tracking a path through the dense bush. But the first day waned with no sign of the jet. Night was spent crammed together, fending off mosquito hordes in a tense and sleepless camp.
CHAPTER 23
Travel began anew at first light, more hours of fighting difficult terrain unsure of what or who might wait. Then, at midafternoon, a tick of something unnatural rattled Top's instincts. The old worminess crawled over his neck that said contact was near.
He motioned the rest to stay put and stretched his point slot to draw off any awaiting ambush fire. But there wasn't any. So he continued alone, homing in on the sensation.
Experience refined it to a smell, then reduced and isolated that further, to a new crispness in the muggy forest air. Finally, Top recognized it as the scent of freshly crushed plant matter.
Ahead dangled a large spider web. In it glistened bits of shredded lime confetti. Beyond, random clumps of whole leaves lay draped atop ground level foliage and the dense canopy was ruffled. Still further, bold spears of sunlight jabbed randomly through the top cover at stark, wide angles.
Then dead ahead sat a broad and nearly vertical sheet of metal.
* * *
An hour had passed when Baker spied the approaching rustle of brush. He drew a bead on the motion with his weapon, holding back only when a harsh whisper sounded.
"Marine coming in!"
Top broke into sight. Carbine low in hand, he nodded vigorously, face flushed and tight with excitement.
"Found her!"
Everyone clustered about as he gasped between long, heaving breaths.
"She's straight on. A few klicks out."
Trennt squeezed the old-timer's shoulder.
"Good work, Top. Any signs of life?"
"Not from where I was. Just a tail section sticking up like a church steeple. And dead quiet, man. Watched her for a good ten minutes. Not a sound. But she does look to be in one piece."
The nuke was waiting as described. Its vertical stabilizer rested only a few degrees off center, smeared green with minced leaves and cabled in thick loops of severed vines, but upright and suggesting an intact airframe.
Trennt felt galvanized in its presence. A dreadful molasses of anticipation filled his chest as he issued orders.
"Top, you circle left. Baker, go right. I'll wait five, then take it straight in."
Allowing a few minutes for his flank men to advance, Trennt scrutinized the miracle craft. Even from this distance, its flying days were obviously over. She sat buried like an undignified sow in her eighth mile trench. But random swatches of still-shiny paint gave the forlorn notion of a child's best Christmas toy, misused and abandoned long before its time.
Her leading wing edges were battered and flattened. Smashed from their scything descent, the engine intakes were choked with drying mud and leaves. All her running lights were dead, the cockpit glass, a shattered opaque web.
A thin twist of green propellant steamed lazily off the still-warm engine. The air about her hung low with a hot stink of scorched oil and charred metal. But aside from the random metallic clinks of cooling engine parts, she sat wrapped in a haze of disquiet.
Trennt agonized during the delay. When he could no longer contain himself, he started cautiously ahead. Yet, in the span of only a few steps, he was overwhelmed with a new sense of urgency, flooded with a dumb need to know. After all this time, reaching the plane had become something he could no longer restrain himself from. Disregarding all his reconnoitering experience, he charged recklessly ahead.
"Cap, wait!" cautioned Top, dangerously breaking silence from the side.
"Jimbo, no!" joined Baker from the other.
But there was no stopping him. Trennt drove on and lunged through the twisted arch of a missing cabin door.
"Kosinski! You there?"
Only dead silence answered from the buckled and mud-crammed interior. The plane's hollow belly had acted as a plow, scraping up all the slimy earth it could manage to jam inside. In that dirt Trennt saw the reason for all their warnings.
Footprints.
Heavy steps thumped up outside. Baker slammed back-first into the fuselage. Still guarding outward, he caught his breath, scolding over a shoulder at the same time.
"Jimbo, why didn't y'all wait! There's been . . ."
Trennt finished from within. " . . . someone here already."
Top ducked under a wing. Irritated with Trennt's recklessness, he spoke only to Baker.
"You get him squared away. I'll pull security on the roof."
The old-timer shouldered his SKS and in a second was deftly poised atop a rent wing. Baker entered the buckled fuselage, himself uncommonly flustered.
"Jimbo, I ain't never seen yah do somethin' that careless before! Me, mebbe, yeah. But never you. And the worst place ever!"
Trennt only gazed vacantly about, unconcerned with his actions.
"No one." He mumbled as though in a daze. "Nothing. Maybe Kosinski walked off hurt somewhere. We need to find him."
"Shoot, Pard. There wasn't no pilot left on this here crate." The gunman fired a quick, dismissing glance about the wreck. "Well, that tears it then, Jimbo. Let's get on outta here while we still got our scalps."
The shooter spun on his heels and went back outside with the others. But Trennt remained. He emerged long minutes later, spent and dazed. Glancing at each f
ace, he sought out his scout, perched silently above.
"What do you think, Top?"
Still miffed with his breach of security, the old-timer eyed Trennt sternly.
"I think we're really deep inside some tribe's backyard. Either a scout or hunting party happened by this before us. Tracks say they're on foot. Probably headed out to join back up with their main body, somewhere."
"How far ahead?"
"Hour, maybe."
"What else?"
"They look to be traveling loose and sloppy. So the gooners aren't expecting anyone this far inside their turf. That's big time in our favor. If we boogie right now, we can blow this pop stand with no hassle."
Trennt persisted. "How many?"
Like an oracle, Top gazed down, reading his thoughts.
"Ten, fifteen. Bad news is they got a couple dogs."
Trennt looked through the treetops. The sun was starting its nightward slide.
"I've come too far, Top. I've got to know for sure. You and the others wait down the trail or start back. I'll take it from here on my own."
Silent until now, Geri spoke up from the fringes.
"It's two days back, any way we look at it. I say wait here, until you do know."
Wayne nodded in accord, Baker didn't reply. Top went with the group decision, but he offered a final caution: "One last thing. Anybody notice the birds? Flocks been moving inland since we got here. Same with the game—all sounding to our east. It's not the time of year for anything to migrate. They know something's going down."
Baker clicked the safety back on his weapon, and squinted up at the old man. "You still talkin' quake?"
Top looked back. "Yeah, Slick, I am."
Even that possibility wouldn't put Trennt off. He snatched up Top's VDM specs and started out.
* * *
It was a tough hike. Trying to scout the gooners before dark meant a strenuous double-time pace. With his automatic shotgun carried at port arms, Trennt was breathing deeply after the first half mile. His slack mouth mechanically sucked at the thick air, choking down waves of suicidal gnats in raw gulps, fighting to ignore overheated muscles that throbbed and burned.
Near dusk Trennt broke into a clearing and came upon the hard-packed earth of a speed trail. He dropped to a knee, scouting the pathway. Sharp gouges and recent blood spatters were mixed with footprints and evidence of an animal kill. They also joined the cleated tire marks of at least two trucks.
Trennt raised his eyes at the buzz of overhead cicadas. Beyond, the turquoise heavens were thickening to an early bruise. For the first time in years, he felt a little boy's fear of the dark loosen deep within him. He swallowed hard, and, with the night goggles snugged in place, continued.
* * *
Traces of wood smoke were in the air . . . and voices. He heard them faintly, approaching the cola stained waters of a wide shallow stream.
Trennt sank to a crouch and crept the last yards through thick clutches of tall concealing reeds. It was dark enough now to hide his movements. But his mouth was full of bitter metal as he closed the final meters.
Top's estimate was right on the mark. Trennt counted fourteen gooners in the clearing. They looked to be a mix of Anglos and Hispanics, tattooed up and hard-core savage. Thankfully, no women or children were among their number.
The campsite appeared to be a familiar gathering point. As Trennt watched, a few members nimbly butchered a young boar. Others stoked the beginnings of a roasting fire. All were armed with machetes, guns and hand blades of varied nature.
The pile of miscellaneous loot sitting heaped at midcamp suggested the group to be a routine scavenging party. In its stack Trennt saw everything from scrounged cookware to pioneer tools. Also, there were tan-colored seat cushions and assorted trimwork from the plane—stuff destined to be creature comforts and gift trinkets.
A bolt of recognition flashed hot through him. There, among the spoils, was a familiar box: the same one he'd set inside the cockpit just moments before the passpod drop. All those rough air miles and it had somehow stayed aboard. He wondered if Kosinski might have preserved it in some selfless maneuver, which had ended up costing his own life.
Trennt's pulse heightened as a warrior, possibly the leader, walked over to open and examine the box. Another man happened by and the pair casually regarded the wire rack of stainless steel tubes suspended inside.
Each removed and evaluated one of the bullet shapes, before pressing the side detents and exposing the straw-colored glass ampoules held within. They raised the vials to the firelight, shook, and examined them. Deciding the fluid was of no immediate significance, they disregarded the box and walked off to check on the butchering.
Already Trennt could smell faint wisps of pot smoke in the air and some of the warriors appeared to pass about jugs of homemade hootch. No one seemed concerned with security tonight.
Then he saw the reason for the camp's nonchalance: dogs—huge, burr-covered monsters. Scar-faced and mangy, they presented the biggest obstacle to a camp incursion and his own most immediate danger.
From his spot in the reeds, Trennt counted three of the grim brutes. As he watched, they roughly competed for castoff hunks of raw boar fat and bones. Even so, one paused, suddenly drawing a bead right on the spot where Trennt hid.
The beast stared with bone-chilling, murderous yellow eyes. Its lips slowly curled, as if considering a charge. But a new scramble for a slab of freshly discarded gristle distracted the mutt and, before he might reconsider, Trennt slowly backed away.
CHAPTER 24
"Quarter loads," declared Baker, shining a light at Trennt's diagram in the dirt. "Quick 'n' quiet. With the silencer, hardly a peep."
"It'd only take one pooch to hear you and have the whole camp up," cautioned Top.
Baker shook his head definitively.
"Uh-uh. Them dogs'll be all together and near the carcass. Camp dogs're always hungry. When they get a rare chance to gorge themselves, they sleep like babies. Won't matter no how. They'll all be down before anyone can blink an eye. Guaranteed."
"Either way," interjected Trennt, "come morning they'll know we've been there. So we've got to move fast and hard as soon as we take the first step."
Baker glanced back to the diagram. "Gonna come upstream?"
"Best way. Enough water flow to mask our movement. Firm sandy bottom, barely shin-deep. Plenty of cattails to hide in." Trennt added more lines to the dirt.
"About fifty yards out it curves off to a straightaway. There, we'll set trip flares. If we're being chased, we'll hit them first and light up the area behind for Top, who'll be waiting with cover, further up here. As soon as the flares light, we dive off to the side and let him sweep the stream with suppressing fire."
The old timer rapped a thumbnail thoughtfully against his nose. "If you saw only two trucks, then it's got to be some kind of rendezvous spot for a still bigger group on its way."
Trennt had just one question. "Can we pull it off?"
The old Marine nodded judiciously. "Rock on."
* * *
They came in the early morning hours. Top took up station on the rise just around a sweeping bend from the camp. He matted down a good rest in the straw grass and clicked a 30-round banana clip in his SKS. Three other clips were set beside. The pair of noncombatants were left in his charge and safely tucked in behind him.
Top watched Baker happily assemble his two-piece sniper rifle, attach the long silencer, and quietly chamber subsonic .308-caliber rounds.
"Okay, homicide. Show us your stuff."
Baker's eyes twinkled as he and Trennt worked swipes of creek bottom mud over their faces. He put Top's night goggles on and started out in the lead. Clicking the safety off his S-12, Trennt tugged a loop of the gunman's pistol belt.
"Don't get carried away," he advised.
Baker's mud-streaked face parted to a brilliant white span of even, square teeth.
"Aw, Jimbo, quiet as a church mouse. Scout's honor."
Once they'd disappeared, Top gauged his field of fire. He swept his rifle sights back and forth between the dim reed tops, then began prepping a couple of Baker's frag grenades.
Behind him Geri suddenly called in a harsh wheeze.
"Wayne! Where're you going? Wayne!"
Top was stunned to see the man already well away, briskly trailing after the sappers.
"Rookie!" he added hoarsely. "Get back here!"
But the man continued and Geri got to her own feet, ready to start after him. Top took her arm and shook his head.
"Let him go. Just hope he don't blow things."
* * *
Baker and Trennt followed the streambed as planned. At its bend, Baker stood guard while Trennt paused to set out a pair of trip-wire flares. They then made for the camp itself.
The air still carried a maddening scent of roasted meat. But the area was graveyard quiet. The cook fire had burned down to a smoldering night light's glow, with the barbecued hog all but a memory. Gorged on wild pork, stoked with herb and jungle hootch, the gooners slept on.
As Baker had declared, the dogs were as complacent as their masters. Glutted on scraps, they were sleeping off their good fortune in a heap near the butchering site.
Trennt nestled low against the wide stump of a rotten elm. He nervously clenched the rubberized grips of his weapon, while Baker wormed through a clump of cattails another fifty feet upstream.
In a couple of minutes, Trennt saw the first hound buck in its sleep. A second rose groggily, going down likewise a split second later. The third came fully awake, drew breath to bark, but never got the chance. In under four seconds Baker had neutralized the camp's early warning system.
The sniper climbed from the stream bank. Cautiously slinging the long gun upside down across his back, he replaced it with his S-12, raised a thumbs-up to his partner, and motioned ahead.
They entered the camp ninety degrees to each other, automatic shotguns again held tight and hip high; charged with a staggered mix of explosive shells and 10-gauge shot.
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