The Terminals

by Royce Scott Buckingham

  Cam lifted their beaten captive’s chin. “We have some questions,” he said.

  CAM’S PLAYLIST

  35. TELL ON YOU

  by Drummer Boy

  36. MIGHTY MIGHTY

  by Hydroplane

  37. LACE UP

  by Game Day

  “I’m the one who is gonna tell on you.”

  Cam helped the man into a sitting position. “Let’s start with a name. I know you’ll probably make one up, but it gives me something to call you besides asshole.”

  “Gary,” the man offered.

  “All right, Gary. I need you to tell me some things. You know we’re serious, right?”

  The man who called himself Gary felt his head where Zara had slammed it into the muck repeatedly. “I’ll talk. Just keep her away from me.”

  “Should have thought of that before you came after us!” Wally snapped at him.

  “Who sent you?” Donnie growled.

  “And why are you trying to kill us?!” Zara interrupted.

  “I’m just getting paid. That’s all. I’ve got no animosity toward you.”

  Wally pointed the rifle between his eyes. “Yeah? Well, how do you like me now?!”

  Cam put a hand up to ease the barrel of the gun away, and he motioned his teammates back.

  “How many more of you are on our tail?” he asked in a calm voice, though he didn’t feel any calmer than the rest of them.

  “Just me and the one you put in the killing jar. But I expect he’s dead by now.”

  “You didn’t help him? Good god, why?”

  “I didn’t know him. I get paid to find you, not help the competition. If I stopped to fish him out, I might have lost you.”

  Cam was shaken. He hadn’t meant to kill the man.

  Zara stepped in. “There were eight, plus Pilot and Ward. Four are out, by my count. I know you’ve been in radio contact. Where are the rest of them?”

  “Back in the boats. Probably gone by now.”

  “Stay here,” Cam said, and he pushed the bound man into the mud like a turtle on its back. “We need to discuss what to do with you.”

  The team gathered a few yards away, just out of earshot.

  “He’s lying,” Zara said. “No English-speaking guy gets hired off the street and flown to South America. If they wanted thugs, they could have hired some local dirtbags.”

  “I agree,” Siena said. “Thugs don’t use the word ‘animosity.’”

  “He’s with the organization.”

  Cam nodded. Ranuel the teenage pirate had been hired off the street. Gary was no Ranuel.

  “We should off him,” Zara said.

  Cam frowned. “Are we killing now?” he asked. “Did we switch from good kids to executioners when I wasn’t looking?”

  “Being a good girl hasn’t really worked out for me.” Zara stroked the edge of her knife with a thumb.

  “So are we like them?”

  Donnie shook his head. “We’re faster and stronger.”

  “That’s right, we’re better,” Cam said. He didn’t want to argue with his teammates, but his voice carried a tone of challenge. Killing should never be the first choice, he thought. Then again, what if it’s the only choice?

  Siena spoke. “We’ve gotten exactly nothing useful from this guy. He’s delayed us for ten minutes. They might be tracking him. And if we let him go, they’ll just put another gun in his hands and he’ll come after us again.”

  Cam frowned and blew his long, wispy hair out of his eyes in frustration. It was too long, he thought absently. Siena was right, of course, as she always was. But she hadn’t proposed the death penalty. She’d left the decision to him, their team leader.

  “All right,” Cam said. “I have an idea.…”

  * * *

  The black caiman sunned itself on the far bank. It was, perhaps, even larger than Siena had claimed—ten to fifteen feet by Cam’s rough and admittedly amateur estimate. The Amazon jungle’s top predator made no attempt to hide. Indeed, it appeared to be dozing confidently, its massive tail dipped in the river as though feeling for disturbances in the water. The wide, slow bend where Siena had first seen the massive creature provided a natural home, and, as Cam had guessed, the caiman had seen no reason to leave it.

  Gary lay facedown in the dirt, tied up with Siena’s rope, his head on the shore and his legs submerged in the shallows up to his thighs. Cam spoke to him from farther up on the bank.

  “Do you know what a black caiman is?” Cam asked.

  Gary strained to lift his head from the dirt and nodded.

  “Good,” Cam said, “because not everyone does. Wally thought they were those miniature reptiles at the zoo. But they’re not only found at the zoo. And they’re not really miniature, are they?”

  Gary didn’t answer—he was too busy trying to pull his feet out of the water.

  “I read somewhere that one of mankind’s greatest fears is getting eaten alive by another animal,” Cam continued. “It’s instinctual. Visceral. Goes back to our caveman days. It’s in our blood, so to speak. Is that one of your fears, Gary?”

  Gary lay silent. Cam could see him thinking, but it was difficult to read his emotion. Concern? Fright? Anger? Some of each?

  “If you’re not scared, we can simply leave you here on the shore. They’ll find you eventually, assuming they care more about you than you cared about your teammate. Unless, of course, the local wildlife takes an interest in you first.”

  The questioning was taking too long. They’d already wasted time tying him up. Cam had hoped it would be worth it, but he couldn’t wait much longer. He motioned Zara forward. She drew her knife and sliced a rent in Gary’s pants while Cam talked.

  “You know how, in the movies, the hero always tricks his captors by delaying them while help comes. Well, you’re not a hero, Gary, and this isn’t the movies.”

  Another shallow slash from Zara’s knife and Gary began to leak blood into the river.

  Cam spoke loudly to Siena. “Do caimans smell blood in the water?”

  Siena shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “She doesn’t know, Gary.”

  Gary squirmed. “I work security for them, okay?”

  Cam and Siena looked at each other.

  “Pull me out. I’ll talk.”

  “You’re talking fine from there. Keep going. What is security?”

  “We’re brought in if the experiments abscond.”

  We’re the “experiments,” Cam thought. It was an ugly word to use for real human beings.

  “What’s ‘abscond’?” Wally asked.

  “Run away,” Siena said.

  “Are there other security personnel following us now?” Cam said.

  Gary spat mud out of his mouth. “They think you’re working your way back to the ocean, for some reason.”

  “The bird,” Zara whispered into Cam’s ear.

  “Are they tracking you, Gary?”

  “No. But they know generally where I am. I told them I was following a fresh lead. You left a pretty obvious trail.”

  “What were they doing last time you checked in?”

  “Still looking for you. And scrubbing the site.”

  “Scrubbing?”

  “Making sure there is no evidence that you were there.”

  “Why did they turn on us?”

  “They said you turned on them.”

  “Why are you supposed to kill us?”

  “They didn’t tell me why!”

  Gary’s tacit admission that he was assigned to scrub them—to kill and not capture them—made Cam’s heart skip a beat. It also made him angry. Cam kicked at the water, splashing in the shallows.

  “Not helpful, Gary! Did they say anything at all? Go ahead, I’m listening. So is the caiman, maybe.”

  Gary had to squirm to rotate so that he could see the reptile. It remained motionless on the shore, so still it could have been dead, but Gary did not look reassured. He took a deep breath.

&n
bsp; “I heard a guy say somebody was gonna blow the operation. Reveal it, or something like that.”

  Jules, Cam thought. Good old bigmouth Jules. Either her e-mail to her sister or her appearance in Scotland had set something off.

  There was a splash upriver behind Gary.

  He yelped and twisted. “What was that?!”

  Wally chuckled to himself and picked up another rock.

  “Pull me out!” Gary pleaded.

  “What happens to us now?”

  He twisted in his bonds, looking for the caiman. “Is it in the water?”

  “Calm down. That’s your flight instinct interrupting our productive conversation. Ward taught us to ignore that. You can too. I only have a few more questions.” Cam had to cross his arms to show he wasn’t about to let him up yet. “What happens to us, Gary?”

  He hesitated, but answered. “It’s a total program scrap.”

  Eyes flitted among the team members. Cam exchanged a grim look with each of them in turn, Siena first, and then the others. “They” were the program. And “scrap” didn’t need to be defined. They’d been written off like a bad investment. “Sold and taken as a tax loss,” Cam’s dad might have said.

  “Let me up,” Gary pleaded, squirming to see what was behind him. “I’ve told you the truth. Leave me tied if you have to, but get me out of the water!”

  “One more question, Gary. Where is the medical center?”

  Gary stopped thrashing. He stared at Cam. When he didn’t answer, Wally hurled his second rock, thumping the caiman in the haunch. It stirred, its huge eyes blinking open.

  “I’d like an answer, Gary.”

  The splash was bigger this time. Gary wrenched himself sideways and spun. By the time he turned, the shoreline was empty, a large smear in the mud the only evidence that the caiman had ever rested on the far bank.

  “Oh god…”

  Cam waited. Gary pulled up his legs. But his feet were still in the water. They quivered from the effort, making telltale rings in the slow river.

  “We’re going there with or without your help,” Cam said.

  The caiman’s wake appeared on the surface of the water ten yards away, a rippled V pointing directly at Gary’s dangling feet.

  “I’ll help you!” Gary insisted.

  “I asked for the location.”

  Gary spluttered, trying to talk faster than his mouth could form words, searching for the right thing to say, anything that might save him.

  “It’s close. Maybe two miles. I don’t know a path, but it’s southwest. I’ve got a compass in my shirt pocket, and—”

  The caiman exploded from the water. But Donnie was ready. As it surfaced, he leaped forward and yanked Gary away from its snapping jaws. It might have chased them up the bank, but Wally ran in from the side and set one foot on its head, leaping from it like a springboard.

  “Yee-haw!” Wally yelled. He landed and spun, dancing out of the path of the angry reptile’s mouth and clapping his hands in a juvenile taunt. “Here caimy, caimy!”

  Cam shook his head. The monstrous animal was tracking Wally’s ridiculous dance. It was stupid and dangerous, but there was no controlling Wally, and it allowed Donnie the chance to drag Gary into the trees. Donnie managed it with one hand, his incredible strength on full display.

  Cam plucked Gary’s compass from his pocket. “Southwest of here two miles, you say?”

  Zara didn’t look convinced. “He knows where we’re going now. If they find him, he’ll tell them where we are.”

  “No, I won’t,” Gary said.

  “Shut up,” Zara said. “We can’t leave him here alive now, Cam.”

  Cam felt his stomach turn, and he wanted to smack his own head. She was right. They gathered away from Gary again, even Wally, who had led the caiman on a merry chase before tossing a few more rocks at its head to drive it back into the water.

  A good leader listens to his team, Cam thought.

  “I’m taking suggestions on what to do with Gary. We’re not going to have another unilateral decision, like we did at the sinkhole.” He didn’t look at Zara, but they all knew he meant her. She didn’t need to be called out.

  Zara spoke first. “If you want a consensus, let’s just vote.”

  “Leave him on the bank for the caiman,” Wally said.

  “That’s cruel,” Cam pointed out.

  “Circle of life, man. A caiman’s gotta eat.”

  “We can put him in a tree,” Siena said. “They might find him eventually.”

  “Might not.”

  “Donnie?” Cam asked

  “Whatever your order is, I’ll carry it out.”

  “I want your input. I’ve got two for leaving him tied and alive and two for … not.”

  Donnie’s jaw and fists were clenched, and he breathed heavily. When he spoke, it was with ferocious conviction. “Like I said, my vote is whatever yours is, Cam.”

  The TS was giving Donnie frightening focus. Everything about him was intense—his stares, his speech, even his small movements.

  “All right then.”

  Cam spoke to Gary as his stronger teammates hung him by his armpits in a tree, out of reach of the caiman.

  “We’re leaving you here.”

  “I won’t tell them where you’re going,” Gary promised.

  “No, you won’t.” Cam drew a dart and plunged it into Gary’s thigh. It would knock him out for several hours, more than they’d need, Cam hoped.

  Zara poked his body to ensure that he was unconscious. “With the partial dose he already had, that might kill him,” she said.

  “Might not,” Cam replied.

  CAM’S PLAYLIST

  36. MIGHTY MIGHTY

  by Hydroplane

  37. LACE UP

  by Game Day

  38. LET YOU GO

  by Raven Dark

  “We’re young, strong, and burn half as long.

  Whoaaa, mighty, mighty!”

  They surveyed the clear-cut field from a nearby rise. The trees ended abruptly at the south end, where space for two buildings had been carved from the dense jungle. It looked like a missing piece from a forest jigsaw puzzle. The buildings were a mishmash of corrugated metal and vertical planks, some of which were water-stained a dark hue at the bottom and crumbling, obviously rotten. The roofs were dense thatch.

  “They’re shacks,” Wally said.

  “Pretty big for shacks,” Zara observed.

  “Maybe they’re old farm buildings. Slaughterhouses or something?”

  “In the middle of a swamp?”

  Cam studied the grounds. “No roads in or out.”

  Siena pointed. “That outbuilding has modern electrical lines running from it. Generator, I’ll bet. Just like the bunker.”

  Cam studied the grounds for a time, scanning for … “There it is!” he said, pointing to a gravel pathway. “Do you remember the crunching when we walked in for our doctor visits?” Cam remembered it well. They’d been herded blindfolded from the helicopter to the examination rooms. Touch and sound were enhanced when sight was not handy to gather information.

  Zara directed their attention to an open space where the ground was flat, bare, and worn. “Helicopter pad?” she suggested.

  Donnie stared. “And there’s stucco beneath the planks.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “You can see it between the cracks.”

  “I can’t.” Cam let out a chuckle.

  “What are you laughing at?” Donnie said.

  Cam realized that it was the first time he’d laughed at being inferior. “I’m just feeling like a blind man with a Seeing Eye dog.”

  “Anyone see communications equipment?” Siena asked.

  “There can’t be phone lines out here, but there are trees tall enough to be cell towers.”

  “Guards?”

  “None visible.”

  “Cameras…?”

  They circled the complex. The more they examined it and the closer they a
pproached, the more obvious it became that it was a modern facility in disguise. It seemed primarily meant to fool anyone who might fly over.

  “What good is it to go in there when there’s no transportation out?” Donnie asked.

  Siena supplied multiple answers. “Phone. Radio. Internet. Map to the nearest village.”

  “And diagnostic information,” Cam said. “The results of all those tests we’ve been taking.”

  “You’re drawn to it,” Zara said.

  “Like a fly to the flame,” Wally said.

  “I think that’s a moth,” Zara said. “Something else attracts flies.”

  “You know what I mean,” he snorted.

  “I think this qualifies either way,” Cam said. “There’s some serious bullshit going on in there.”

  “I don’t see any extra activity,” Siena said. “They don’t know we’re here. But we’ve only got a couple of hours until ‘Gary’ wakes up and tells them where we went, assuming they find him.”

  Zara shook her head. “We should have fed him to the caiman.”

  * * *

  They assumed cameras and made their approach away from the front and rear doors. Wally handed the rifle off to Zara and went solo, flattening against the side of the building and scanning for hidden lenses. Soon he was peeking around the corner at the front entry. He signaled that he’d spotted two cameras, one each at the front and rear entrances—the minimum necessary to cover the facility. He scurried back to the group, sprinting across the open ground and then army-crawling unnecessarily through the brush.

  “There is a guard,” he panted, and he took his gun back from Zara.

  “Where?”

  “Alcove by the front door. On a smoke break.”

  Cam wrinkled his brow. “Take him out? Or do we avoid the risk he’ll raise the alarm and move on?”

  “We came this far,” Wally said.

  Siena nodded. So did Donnie.

  Zara shrugged. “You know my vote.”