“How do you know that?” Wally asked.
“The instrument panel. That’s what it said just before I got dumped here.”
“Wow. You remember that?”
“Yeah,” Cam said, shrugging. “And if we travel for five minutes in the chopper at one hundred twenty, that would only be about ten miles.”
“Through the jungle,” Siena pointed out.
“I didn’t say they were easy miles.”
“And when we get there? Then what?” Zara asked.
“I don’t know. I’m working on it.” It seemed to placate them. After his impressive analysis of the location, they cut him some slack on his lack of further planning. They would have time to think about it while they traveled. Cam was grateful. He didn’t have all of the answers. I’m a wingman, not a leader, like Ari, he thought. Pilot had even said so when he was recruited.
Zara pointed at Siena. “How come you haven’t tried walking out before?”
“The jungle sucks,” she said. “I don’t care how many enlightening programs they show on the eco channel, it’s dangerous, dirty, and creepy, with vicious animals and bugs the size of your hand. Even the plants will grab, cut, and poison you.”
“Not a nature buff, I see,” Zara said.
“Besides, we could wander around out here lost until we died.”
“We can’t go back,” Cam said. “Now would be a good time to tell us why you didn’t hike out of here. Obviously, you stuck around for a reason.”
“I wanted to go by boat. It seemed a better option.”
“Why is that better than through the jungle?”
Siena looked indignant, but she finally rolled her eyes and explained.
“Look, I had to wade across a river, and I heard this splash. I got spooked, so I backed out and went up a tree. I stayed up there for like twenty minutes, until I thought I was being stupid and came down. But when I put one foot on the ground, this huge alligator lunged out of the water. If I hadn’t still been enhanced, it probably would have eaten me. I spent the entire night in that tree.”
She looked embarrassed. But anyone would have been frightened, Cam thought. Then he remembered his bladder’s reaction when he’d thought he was being eaten by a shark. Her expression had the same shame in it, maybe more. She shit herself, he realized.
“They don’t have alligators here,” Cam said, trying to turn the discussion clinical. “It must have been a caiman.”
Wally laughed. “Those little things they have at the aquarium?”
“Caimans are in the alligator family. They can get big.”
“How big?” Wally demanded.
“I don’t know,” Siena said, irritated. “Big enough. Bigger than me. And I was in the water with the damned thing.”
“Nine to fourteen feet,” Cam said. “But they can reach sixteen.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” Wally said, shaking his head.
“I’m detail oriented, I guess. I remember that tidbit from one of those nature programs Siena doesn’t care about.”
“So you got scared?” Zara said to Siena. “That’s why you stuck around camp?”
“Yeah, I got scared. Okay? Don’t you? It doesn’t matter now anyway. I didn’t get a boat.”
“No,” Cam said. “We didn’t. So we move on. Just tell us when we get to the river where you met your reptilian friend.”
The group started off again, measuring its progress through the thick jungle understory in yards instead of miles. They still needed to put more distance between themselves and the compound before they could stop for a real rest. Cam listened for the thump of helicopter blades. He didn’t hear them, but they avoided open spaces just in case and worked their way through Siena’s hated patches of thorny brush with only her machete to blaze a trail for them. It made the going even slower.
Finally, they ascended a small rise from which they could see several hundred yards behind them and parked themselves beside a stream, exhausted. At least Cam was exhausted, and from the look of it, Siena was too. His enhanced teammates seemed to catch their breaths quickly, and they waited dutifully for Cam and Siena to rest.
“Cam,” Siena said privately, “I’ve got some more bad news that needs to be dealt with immediately, now that we have a moment.”
“Great. Just when everything was looking so cheery.” Cam steeled himself. “Go ahead.”
“They’re tracking us.”
“That’s not news.”
“No. I mean they’re really tracking us. By satellite.”
“But we’ve been staying under the canopy.”
“They implanted GPS devices in my team. I’m willing to bet they did it with you too.”
“Implanted?”
“Subcutaneous. You know what that means?”
“Under the skin.”
“Did they insert anything into you during your medical checks?”
Cam shook his head, but his hand drifted up to his rump where he’d taken the monstrous shot. There was still a vague lump there that he’d thought was just scar tissue. He began to get a queasy feeling.
“Zara,” he asked, “did the doctors implant anything during your medical visits?”
She looked at him quizzically, but her hand immediately went to her own immaculate rump.
“No need to answer that,” Cam said, and he turned back to talk to Siena alone again. “So they know exactly where we are?”
“Probably. And which direction we’re going, and who is left. It’s the way they kept track of us in TS-8.”
“Lovely. How are we supposed to—?”
“They need to be removed,” she interrupted, and she pulled up her sleeve to show him a hideously ragged white and red scar on her shoulder. “You’re lucky,” she said. “I didn’t have a knife.”
Cam didn’t want to imagine what she’d used to get it out. He drew his butcher knife. It would work, but Zara carried one too, and hers was sharper. “How big? The size of a watch battery?”
“Smaller. Mine was BB-sized.”
“You’re sure about this. I don’t want to slice into Wally’s butt and be wrong.”
“I’m not sure about anything. But we should cut somebody and find out.”
Cam glanced about for likely candidates, someone who wouldn’t complain about getting their butt cut open, especially if nothing was found. Not Zara. Not Donnie. Definitely not Wally. And Siena no longer had a GPS in her. When his team stared back at him, his choice became clear.
“I’ll do it,” he finally said to Siena. “Use Zara’s knife, but you do it. I don’t want her carving me up. And don’t go deep enough to hit muscle. I have to be able to walk.”
Siena shook her head. “I almost passed out when I tore myself up. I’m not doing it again.”
Cam grimaced. “Zara then?”
“Afraid so.”
He called them all together and explained the situation. They were serious and didn’t laugh, as he’d thought they might. They were all nervous that they would find something in his rump and that they’d be next. Worse, that more men were coming with guns and knew exactly where they were.
Cam knelt and lowered his pants while Zara stood behind him with the knife. He asked her to try to pinch it out first. It didn’t work, but when she felt around she did confirm that something solid was imbedded in his flesh. She split open the skin with a quick incision.
“Ugh! Warn me, eh?”
“I didn’t want you to clench.”
“That’s gonna leave a mark,” Wally said, but no one laughed.
“Pity,” Zara added, shamelessly examining him. “It’s such a cute butt.”
Cam grimaced as he felt her fingers groping. Then she gave him a swat. “Done!”
She held up the object she’d removed. It was a flat disk the circumference of a pencil lead, smaller around than a BB and made of metal and plastic—obviously a computer chip. It had tiny sharp hooks jutting from its surface to keep it in place. “One injectable tracking device,
” she announced.
Cam blew his long hair out of his eyes, concerned. “This means we have to hurry,” he said. “Line up, everyone.”
Zara did the duty. She’d already done it once, and there was no time to waste arguing. Soon everyone from the team was bleeding, and Cam had four chips in his hand.
“Should we smash them?” Wally asked.
“No,” Cam said. “We should use them.”
“How?”
“Bring me a stick of wood,” he said. “We’ll attach them to it and toss the wood in a stream. The water will take them downstream. They’ll think we’re following the river.”
Zara shook her head. “Back to where we came from? The stream empties in the bay near the compound. That won’t slow them for long. We should go back to the sinkhole and dump them all in there. They’ll think we committed mass suicide.”
“Like Jim Jones,” Cam mumbled to himself.
“It would take them days to fish out bodies that aren’t there.”
“Too risky,” Cam said. “They already found us there once, and Tegan’s tracker is still taking them there. Plus we’d be giving up the small lead we have on them.”
A bird squawked loudly at them from above, sending them all scrambling for cover. “Shut up, bird!” Wally barked, and he threw a chunk of rotten wood up at it.
Cam considered the bird. Its white wings and body contrasted dramatically with its black head, and webbed feet that looked like they’d rather be in the water clung to a branch. A smallish beak belied its big voice. Some type of gull, Cam thought—a South American cousin to the sort that frequented the docks back home on Bellingham Bay and fought for scraps behind the waterfront restaurants.
“Siena,” Cam said, “do we have any food in the pack a sea gull might like?”
CAM’S PLAYLIST
34. FLY
by The Dread
35. TELL ON YOU
by Drummer Boy
36. MIGHTY MIGHTY
by Hydroplane
“Catch that updraft. Flyyy…”
Minutes later, the gull flew off with four tracking devices in its belly. Cam didn’t simply bury the computer chips in a cracker. When the gull fluttered down to the food, he’d had Zara leap on it. She squatted a few feet from the bait, and then launched herself like a trapdoor spider, grabbing the gull by one foot with a single hand. She was so lightning fast and precise that Cam was relieved he’d never have to fight his way past her on a beach again. After the bird was secured, he’d stuffed the tiny chips into its mouth one by one and followed them with a nibble of cracker to make sure they went down. Then they had chased the madly squawking thing off.
It would serve. Gulls moved about. It wouldn’t remain in the trees for long. In fact, it had likely only made a quick stop at the river on its way to or from the coast or the sinkhole. Cam couldn’t smile—their circumstance was too perilous—but the image of men in boats circling a sea gull with guns drawn made him want to.
Afterward, they hiked for an hour more, setting out at a forty-five-degree angle from their previous path, in case someone was mapping the direction of their progress. Cam’s enhanced teammates continued to pace themselves for him and Siena. He was grateful for that. The jungle terrain was alternately easier and more difficult, depending upon the density of the understory. Once, they sent Wally up a tree to see how far he could see. He saw the ocean behind them, but only green ahead. Siena recognized the area. It was the farthest she’d come on her own. The dull brown river that horrified her crept through the trees, ignoring its banks. They walked with it, but soon it was all around them. Cam could see the tension in her expression. She jumped at every sound, and kept her lower lip pinched firmly between her teeth.
They were navigating a low swampy area when Donnie dropped back to slog through the knee-deep water alongside him.
“Cam, I have something to say,” he mumbled, which was notable, because Donnie had said almost nothing since Owen had gotten shot, the same way he’d shut up for a time after Ari had been named team leader for mission one.
“Sure,” Cam said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s my assignment? I feel useless.”
“We don’t have assignments.”
“I think we should. Not that it’s my decision. You’re leader now. I concede that.”
“I’m not your leader. You don’t need to concede anything.”
“But I was so wrong about it all. I don’t even trust my own instincts anymore.” He grabbed Cam by the shoulders in a way that might have been horribly aggressive but was more likely a product of not realizing how much his strength had increased. Cam winced—it was like having each arm caught in a five-fingered vise.
“Oww,” he said evenly.
Donnie let go and took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m lost here, Cam,” he said. “I need you to tell me what to do.”
“We’re all lost, Donnie. But every one of us signed up for this. We were all wrong together. We bought into it.” Cam surprised himself by speaking slowly and gently. He felt like he was talking Donnie off a ledge. “We still don’t even know what this is, right? Were those pirates really pirates? Who was the politician we framed? All we know is that somehow things got royally screwed up.”
Donnie stared blankly. “So what do I do?”
Cam sighed. “Security,” he said finally. “You’re my muscle.”
Just then, Wally splashed through the mud toward them. “We’re still being followed!”
Cam whipped around. “Where?”
“Maybe one hundred yards back. Solo dude.”
“How do you know? I can’t see twenty feet.”
“I heard him crashing through the brush. Listen.”
Everyone froze and listened, their concentration absolute. Donnie and Zara exchanged a look. They heard it too. Cam strained. He heard nothing. Siena couldn’t confirm it either. But Cam didn’t doubt the senses of his enhanced teammates.
“You can tell for sure it’s just one guy?” Cam asked the group.
“Yep,” Zara answered. Donnie nodded too.
“Gun?”
“No way to know,” Donnie said. “We need to assume so.” Having squared his role with Cam, Donnie fell into soldier mode. Ari was right, Cam thought. The guy was an a-hole, but he was someone you wanted on your team in a fight.
“Should we move along?” Wally asked.
Cam held his fist up for silence, studying their surroundings. “Maybe we can use this guy,” he said. “I want to know more about what’s going on. I say we jump him. All in?”
They nodded. Cam took the pack from Siena and passed out darts. “Just one, and only if he’s armed. Don’t stick him twice.” He shot Zara a look. She frowned, but it was clear she got the message.
A kapok loomed in the river, large enough for their purposes. Cam doffed his pack and stashed it among the roots that poked above the water, hiding it just enough that it would be noticed, but not so much that it looked like it was meant to be seen. He sent Wally up. There were few low-hanging branches, but Wally was able to shimmy up using infrequent handholds. At times, he hauled himself upward with one arm or even leaped from one hold to the next. There was a crook in the branches fifteen feet up where he ducked out of the line of sight, but he left a shoe tantalizingly exposed. The rest of them took up positions along the shore fifteen feet away. It would be a long dart throw. He assigned Donnie to take the first shot. Then they waited.
The man crept through the water, wary, no more than five feet from where Zara knelt, still as a statue. Cam had chosen the ruse well. The kapok demanded attention as soon as it came into view, and the corner of the pack caught the man’s eye—a symmetrical, artificial object so out of place in a natural world. Wally shifted, making a faint scraping sound as a final enticement, and the man bit entirely. He kept his eyes up and eased past Zara without a glance. Had Cam known he would pass so close, he’d have given Za
ra the shot. Donnie was farther away. But the orders were already set.
This man was older than the last, with thinning hair. Like the first tracker, he didn’t grab for his radio. To talk would make noise, and he had the drop on Wally if he remained quiet. He knew they were dangerous—as the other had said, they’d proven as much at the beach—and he clung to his gun.
Cam wondered about the drowning man’s fate—a man could only tread water fully clothed for so long before he sank. This pursuer was too close behind them to have stopped to pull him out. He’d either missed his comrade or had seen him but not helped. Either thought was grim.
The hunter took aim, but shooting Wally in the foot didn’t seem to satisfy him. He waited for Wally to move, standing among grasses so high they obscured him almost entirely. Cam could see Donnie’s frustrated expression. His throw was iffy. But patience was not his greatest attribute. He took the shot. His arm whipped forward, and the dart flew. Its delicate flight clipped the grass, tilting its shaft. The tip hit the man’s arm at an angle and barely pierced the thick fabric of his heavy shirt. He looked down, startled, like a picnicker who’d been stung by a hornet. The dart hung in the material for a moment, then dropped to the forest floor, its load only partially discharged.
The barrel of the gun drooped, then fell from his limp arm and splashed into the mud, but he didn’t go down. Zara cocked her dart to her ear.
“No!” Cam shouted. “No second dart!” He couldn’t be sure another wouldn’t kill the man.
The man took off running, thrashing through the water. He was hindered by the loss of use of one arm and thrown off-balance.
“Get his radio!” Cam yelled.
Zara caught him easily, before he could reach for his radio with his working arm. She threw herself around his neck and rode him to the ground like a rodeo steer. The man had a knife, but no chance to pull it, and Zara was already beating him senseless when Cam arrived to stop her.
“Enough! We need him conscious.”
Siena brought the rope, and they tied him. Then Cam sat with him. He was balding and had narrow eyes. Caucasian, but his tan told Cam he’d been in the area for some time. His khaki shirt was new. The rifle was a Bushmaster AR-15, something Wally recognized and quickly claimed. Cam had heard of it. It looked military, but the AR-15 was one of the most common civilian assault rifles in the United States. Something easily purchased through any gun store. In fact, it was the type of gun used by a famous Washington, D.C., serial murderer to snipe innocent people.
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