Savage (Jack Sigler / Chess Team)

by Jeremy Robinson

  The next to last man out held no allegiance to her or to Velle. Gerard Okoa stepped down from the open hatch and looked at the wrecked camp in dismay. He had said very little during his captivity, which pleased Favreau. Between Velle and Marrs, she’d had her fill of impotent men blustering about not getting the respect they deserved.

  She looked past the interim president to the last man off the helicopter, the leader of the Hearts team. “Find a nice safe corner to hide Mr. Okoa. He still has an important part to play.”

  As Ace Hearts moved off, she instructed the rest of her men to procure a boat, then went back aboard the Mil to finish her own preparations.

  She knelt beside the olive-drab canvas pack that covered the RA-115 and opened its flap, revealing the smooth metal housing of the bomb. It was connected to the helicopter’s electrical system to maintain the quality of its fission core, but its battery backup was fully charged. If it became necessary to deploy the bomb in the lake, it would be fully operational. In its present configuration, however, it would not operate as needed. For the one-kiloton-yield device to ignite the submerged gas deposits, it would have to be at the bottom of the lake. The problem was the signal from the dead-man switch, which had served her so well, would not reach through the four hundred odd yards of water in between.

  As she delved into the device’s electronic guts, her satellite phone rang. She glanced over at the caller ID display and saw that it was the phone she’d given to Lance Marrs. She picked up.

  “Bon jour, Senator.”

  Marrs did not bother with salutations. “Let me talk to General Velle.”

  “Whatever you have to say, you may say it to me. We both know that the General is not the one you need to be negotiating with.”

  A growl came over the line. “All right, damn it. Look, you’ve got us up against a wall here. We can’t just give in. Our position has always been that we don’t negotiate with terrorists—”

  “Please, Senator. We both know that is not true.”

  “Yes, we both know, but Joe Public doesn’t, and we have to keep it that way. People are going to ask why we decided to support an illegal military dictatorship over the legitimate democratically elected president, and we can’t very well tell them that it’s because you are threatening to nuke the natural gas reserves, can we?”

  Favreau sighed, though in truth, she had anticipated this. “What if President Okoa signed an order, granting General Velle emergency powers?”

  “It’s shaky. When Mulamba shows up, that emergency order won’t be worth spit.”

  “Senator, I don’t think you fully appreciate the situation. I have given you an ultimatum. Convince your colleagues to do what must be done. I assure you, any political embarrassment will be minor compared to what you will suffer if you fail.”

  Favreau ended the call, and stared at the phone for a moment, wondering whether Marrs believed that she would follow through on her threat. It was doubtful that he did. His experience in politics had probably convinced him that no one ever kept their promises, and that threats and ultimatums were almost always a bluff.

  Marrs struck her as the sort of man who was foolish enough to think that she was bluffing. As she went back to work on the bomb, she found herself hoping that she would get the chance to show him just how wrong he was.

  King studied the military camp, tagging targets and assessing the weaknesses in the perimeter. The enemy forces were clearly not expecting an attack, but what they lacked in discipline, they made up for in sheer numbers. There were more than a hundred of them, and he had just six Republican Guard soldiers.

  He recalled something Queen had said. We’re a team. That’s how we win.

  She had known as well as he that situations like this sometimes required them to operate independent of each other, but even separated by vast distances, they were still a team, still working together like the pieces on a chessboard to execute the winning strategy. Right now, though, the team—his team, the Chess Team—was exactly what he needed. When the five of them were together, they were unstoppable.

  He willed his thoughts back into the moment.

  Crescent II had rendezvoused with the patrol boat on the river, much to the astonishment of the soldiers and crew who wondered aloud if the dark boomerang-shaped craft was Kongamato come to destroy them. In a way, he supposed it was true. The stealth plane had shuttled them to a battlefield where the odds of survival were extremely low. If they did survive, they would certainly have one hell of a story to tell.

  Crescent had delivered them to a jungle clearing about twelve miles from Lake Kivu, as close as they could get without being detected. A thermal sweep of the area had revealed the location of several rebel patrols. The stealth plane had stayed on station, conducting high-altitude reconnaissance to guide King’s team around enemy forces, until they were within sight of the camp, but it had since been forced to break off for refueling. King had debated waiting for the plane to return to provide surveillance, and if necessary close-air support and a quick exfil, but he had ultimately decided there was nothing to be gained by waiting.

  He studied the camp a few moments longer, then outlined his plan to the rest of the team. It was a quick, brutal plan, and if it worked, he would find himself face-to-face with Favreau and her backpack nuke.

  She had asked what he was willing to sacrifice to win, and now he had his answer.

  He was about to give the order to move out when Deep Blue’s voice filled his head.

  And gave him hope.

  46

  Below

  With a bone-shaking jolt, Bishop slammed into the cavern floor amid a flurry of claws and jaws. He felt a flash of something that might have been pain, but his nearly overloaded neurons could no longer distinguish one sensation from another. The strange vegetation that grew right up to the base of the cliff had cushioned his fall, but something hard and heavy had slammed into him. It was his M240; its sling, frayed by the onslaught, had come apart during the fall, and turned his best weapon into a gravity powered projectile. More raptors tumbled down from the ledge. A few actually appeared to be running down the nearly vertical cliff face in defiance of gravity. They landed all around and atop him, and scurried away.

  A part of his brain knew the creatures weren’t interested in attacking him, but only in fleeing from the noise and death in the adjoining cavern. That voice of reason however was very hard to hear over the roar of the primal rage beast that Bishop had fought to control every moment of his life. The raptors’ talons had done more than tear his flesh. They had almost completely severed the part of him that was human.

  Almost.

  He rose to his feet with a howl and started swinging. His fists encountered only empty air. The surviving raptors had all fled out across the cavern floor. He turned, gazing up at the ledge to see if more were coming. There weren’t any more raptors, but something else was coming out of the tunnel, or more precisely, someone. The searching rebels had followed the stampede into the passage. The leader of the small band spotted him and raised his Kalashnikov.

  The beast inside urged him to scale the cliff, brave a storm of lead and tear the attackers apart. The human told him to run, not out of fear, but to protect his friends. If he ran, the rebels wouldn’t be looking for the others.

  He ran.

  As he turned away, he glimpsed Knight and Felice, two prone figures barely visible in the recess high above. He shook his head, hoping that Knight would understand. Don’t fire at them, you’ll give away your position. Stay hidden; I’ll be fine.

  A thud somewhere off to his left, and a rifle report a millisecond later. The shot went wide, missing Bishop, but if the gunman knew anything about how to use his rifle, he’d be able to correct his aim. Or he might just get off a lucky shot.

  Bishop zigged left for a few steps then right, then left again. Bullets chased him across the plain, but as he increased the distance, the shots became less frequent and less accurate. A few raptors ran along with him, as i
f hunting him, and perhaps that was exactly what they were trying to do, but he made no attempt to discourage them. If the rebels believed that the dinosaurs had finished him off, maybe it would clear the way for the others to escape. He didn’t dare stop, not yet.

  As he ran, putting one foot in front of the other in an almost mechanical rhythm, he felt the rage finally begin to subside. There was still a lot of pain. His anger had anaesthetized him to much of it, and now it was returning with a vengeance. His entire body throbbed with each step. But he didn’t stop.

  The velociraptors had finally scattered, and he thought he had seen the last of them. He wasn’t overly concerned about the creatures. They were dangerous, but didn’t exhibit the hyper-intelligent pack hunter behavior that had mischaracterized their appearance in dinosaur movies. Without a mass attack, they would never be able to take him down. Right now, dinosaurs were the least of his—

  “What the hell?”

  There was something on the horizon, something that didn’t belong in a cave deep beneath the Earth’s surface, especially not when that cave was a time capsule sealed up for more than sixty-five million years. But there it was: a wall of some kind. As he got closer, he saw that the wall was only the beginning. Beyond it lay an entire city.

  A noise like an avalanche rumbled out of the ruins. Before he could even begin to process this latest sensory input, Rook ran out of the city gates.

  Rook?

  Queen came out behind Rook, bumped into him and nearly fell. They saw Bishop and froze in their tracks.

  Queen?

  I’m hallucinating, he thought. It’s the only explanation.

  Then a dinosaur the size of a city bus appeared behind them both.

  Please let me be hallucinating.

  The Carcharodontosaurus charged. So did Bishop.

  Queen felt one of his hands close on her shoulder, then she was hurtling through the air. Rook was swept away in the opposite direction, leaving nothing between the enormous predator and the last person Queen expected to find in the underworld.

  The dinosaur snapped its head forward, jaws agape, but Bishop was faster. He broke to the right, avoiding the bite, and as he slipped past, he lowered his shoulder and bulldozed into the monster’s left rear leg.

  It should have been about as effective as tackling an oak tree, but Bishop’s timing was uncannily perfect. He slammed into the dinosaur’s foot just as it was rising, and his momentum swept the mighty limb back just enough to trip it up. With its head still lowered, the Carcharodontosaurus did an ungainly face-plant, which twisted into an uncontrollable sideways roll that shook the cavern floor.

  “Bishop?” Rook was crouched, the spearhead gripped in his right hand. He grinned like a maniac. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to drop in without calling first? What if we’d been—”

  The dinosaur’s roar cut him off, and suddenly it was back on its feet and coming around for another attack. Bishop was also poised for action. His face was drawn into a bestial snarl, and despite the fact that the monster towered above him, there wasn’t a hint of fear in his eyes.

  Even Bishop could not hope to defeat such a beast, but his resolve was inspirational. Bishop wasn’t alone, after all. Queen scrambled back to her feet and began waving her arms. “Hey, asshole. Over here.”

  The dinosaur paused, swiveling its gigantic head so that one of its fist-sized black eyes stared at her.

  “Shit!” Rook yelled, also waving his arms to distract it. He began jumping up and down. “That was a really dumb idea, babe. No, you stupid gecko, this way! Tasty treat, right here!”

  The head tilted in the other direction, and for the first time, the monster seemed to realize that it had found prey that behaved very differently than its usual fare. For just an instant, Queen wondered if they might be able to frustrate it into simply giving up.

  Bishop, however, opted for the less subtle approach. He charged again.

  With its side-facing eyes, the dinosaur didn’t see his approach. Not that it mattered. Bishop launched himself at its snout, gripping one of its nostril ridges in his hand, and swung himself up onto its head. The Carcharodontosaurus barely seemed to notice. With a flick of its head, it flung Bishop away. Amazingly, Bishop landed cat-like on his feet, and whirled around for another charge.

  “Great plan!” Rook shouted, still waving his arms. “We’ll piss it off until it drops dead from terminal irritation.”

  Bishop ignored the comment. He ran at the creature again, and once more, the dinosaur with its attention divided between the two shouting figures to either side, did not appear to notice his approach. Bishop got in close and ducked past its stubby forearms, crouching beneath it.

  Rook understood immediately and flung the spearhead in Bishop’s direction. Bishop caught the stone flake out of the air, and in a single smooth motion, oriented its sharp tip upward and drove it into the monster’s exposed belly.

  The dinosaur let out a deafening shriek and leaped back, thrusting down with its tail for added propulsion. Its entire ponderous mass lifted so high into the air that Queen wondered if it was going to take flight. Instead, it landed with an earth-shaking thump, several yards behind where it had been, its full attention now fixed on the annoying little creature that had just bitten it. Queen saw that Bishop’s hands were coated in fresh blood, but empty. The spearhead remained buried in the dinosaur’s soft tissue.

  This is hopeless, Queen thought. “Back to the city,” she called. “We can lose it in there.”

  It was the only plan that had a chance of working. They could lose themselves in the streets or hide in buildings made of sterner stuff than the little stone shed where they had first sought refuge. They might even be able to find more weapons. But she didn’t move and neither did Rook. It was all for one and one for all. If Bishop refused to flee, then they weren’t going anywhere, and Bishop, unfortunately, seemed to have lost the ability to understand English.

  The Carcharodontosaurus gave another screech and leaped again, this time to the side, thrashing its tail violently, as if to swat at an annoying insect. Huge drops of blood splattered the ground where it had been, but as it landed, Queen saw that it was bleeding from two wounds: the gash in its belly, and some kind of puncture on its torso, just behind its foreleg.

  It yelped again, and there was an eruption of blood from its snout. Then, a series of red blossoms sprang up on its right flank and the monster went into a frenzy. Even Bishop yielded ground as the dinosaur started rolling, flinging gobs of blood, as it scratched the air and whipped its tail to drive off whatever was attacking it. Over its agonized shrieks, Queen heard a loud, mechanical sound, similar to the noise she and Rook had heard just before encountering the creature.

  The sound of gunfire.

  The dinosaur abruptly leapt up and ran for the city gates.

  Queen dropped flat when she’d recognized the noise for what it was, but when no further shots came, she got back to her feet. Rook was already up and heading toward Bishop, who hadn’t really moved much at all. The big man just stood there, his chest heaving from exertion, his arms trembling as though he thought the fight might resume at any instant, his eyes…

  His eyes were blood red with primal fury.

  “Bish?”

  He blinked, and as if by magic, his eyes were normal again. The red had simply been blood trickling down from a gash in his forehead.

  There was movement in the periphery of Queen’s vision, just beyond Bishop, and when she turned her head to look, her glasses immediately tagged three figures—one with green, and two more in yellow. A name and several lines of information appeared in one corner of the display. The facial recognition software had recognized Felice Carter, an American scientist, formerly with a now defunct bio-tech firm called Nexus, which was itself a division of Manifold…

  Queen felt a slight chill at the name and stopped reading, peering instead at the other two figures. One of them was a small wizened-looking African man, lugging, almost d
ragging, an enormous M240B machine gun that Queen knew belonged to Bishop. The other man wasn’t African, but looked Asian, though it was difficult to tell, since most of his face was obscured by a veritable mummy-wrap of bandages that completely covered one eye. He wore camouflage BDUs and carried a long rifle—

  “Knight!” Rook exclaimed, running toward the approaching trio. “Man, you look like I feel.”

  Queen gasped. Of course it was Knight. The bandages must have fooled the facial recognition software, she thought. Oh God, what happened to him?

  She ran after Rook. It was only when she reached the little group and threw her arms around Knight in a hug that made him wince, that she realized Bishop still hadn’t moved.

  47

  Felice stared at the display on her computer, amazed at the story it told. At first, it had all seemed unbelievable. These four relentless soldiers finding each other in a cave deep beneath the Congo rain forest seemed unlikely, but now that she studied the map of Queen’s and Rook’s journey, from the shores of distant Lake Natron, everything made sense. Joseph Mulamba had, without realizing it, set them all on the path to this reunion.

  Fearing that the wounded Carcharodontosaurus might recover his courage and come after them once more, the group had postponed all discussion until they reached the relative safety of the recess atop the landslide, the vantage point from which Felice, Knight and David had watched Bishop’s mad dash across the cavern floor. The rebel fighters had taken a few potshots from the shelter of the passage, before losing interest and heading back to the surface, leaving the others free to follow Bishop, which had turned out to be a fortuitous decision.