They had several other leaders over the past few months. Men that HQ thought could replace Brandt. All had failed in some manner of another. Too aggressive. Not aggressive enough. Too friendly. Too stand offish. Had it really been these men’s fault or was the team just not ready to accept another leader?
Davidson feared it was the latter.
Did it matter though? They had a mission to carry out. Bring home the Vice President’s step-daughter alive and well.
And Davidson planned to do just that.
* * *
Stark stared at the screen, studying the camp where the girl was being held. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It looked like your usual pirate camp. Muddy roads, broken down sheds, skinny dogs running loose.
He’d done an analysis of every spectrum he could think of. As far as he could tell, the camp only had six guards and one prisoner. Unless the pirates had found away to hide men in a different dimension, they did not seem ready to take on Davidson and the rest.
Granted Stark didn’t have a lot of experience with pirates, but this seemed all wrong. They were usually the “go down with all guns blazing” kind of terrorists.
Lopez was worried. Prenner was worried. Davidson was worried. Which made Stark worried.
“Just make it your damned screensaver and spare me,” Stark’s mother stated from his right.
Most guys would be embarrassed that they lived with their mothers or that they worked with their moms, but they didn’t have Stark’s mother. She rocked. Like for real.
She was an anti-establishment hippie yet oddly made your breakfast, 50’s style mother who now turned her considerable skills to working for the government. She could now legally hack into all the sites she used to hack for fun and very, very illegally.
The woman knew her way around a keyboard. Anonymous envied her.
But she was opinionated. Like really opinionated. Like writing to the editors at the New York Times at least once a week kind of opinionated.
And right now she was super opinionated about the flow of pictures running on one of the screens. They were the stills from Bunny’s photo shoot.
The redhead had shined as a super model, but had anyone ever doubted it?
Her pictures were amazing. Sexy yet vulnerable. Coy yet sophisticated. She was everything a super model should be and more. She could not only take beautiful pictures, but also tag a couple dozen pirates for a sting operation.
Stark picked his favorite out of the bunch, which was hard to do, there were so many good ones and changed it to his desktop picture. The photo he picked was the one where her head was turned slightly to the side and the sun was glistening off her red locks. It was perfection incarnate.
What was Davidson waiting for to cement his claim on her? A declaration from the President to ask Bunny out? If Stark had the opportunity, he wouldn’t wait months, futzing around, doing the am I in or am I out dance with her. As a matter of fact if Bunny ever landed stateside for more than two minutes, he was going to take his chance. Screw the “brother” code or whatever that was. Davison had his chance. Now it was Stark’s.
“Pirate camp,” his mother stated.
Right. Back to work.
* * *
Bunny trudged up yet another hill. It was hot, but damn, humidity really was what killed you. Okay, so super modeling might be the better gig. It usually didn’t require you to climb through forests in 100 degree heat and 100 percent humidity.
And they were out of the sun. Bunny could only imagine what it would feel like out on the plains. Instead coniferous trees towered overhead. This was like no African jungle she’d seen before. There were no thick leaved bushes and high canopy. This forest seemed more like a South eastern American forest.
Despite slicking down her hair with enough product to choke an elephant, Bunny could feel small tendrils of hair frizzing around her face. She knew on a covert mission your hair shouldn’t be a concern, but sue her. She’d just come off a fashion shoot so every time she caught sight out of the corner of her eye, a wispy red strand, she cringed. Humidity was not her friend.
Sweat ran down her body like she was a waterfall. Her clothes weren’t sticking to her, because that would require a part of her body to be dry. She was sopping with a layer of sheen that didn’t allow her tee-shirt to cling to her body. Not that anyone in this group would notice. Not even Davidson.
Part of that wasn’t his fault though. He’d run up ahead to find his perch before they arrived. Run. Bunny didn’t know how he could do it. She was panting at a walk.
And trying to stay quiet. It wasn’t an easy task. The forest was eerie quiet. Not the usual sounds of birds and insects. No predators tracking their trail. It was as if the forest had been emptied of all life.
Levont closed his fist. Bunny wasn’t new to this. She stopped silently as the rest of the men came to a halt as well. This was about the third time they had stopped. Each time though had been the same. No one was around.
“These are the coordinates you gave us, right?” Lopez whispered harshly into his mic.
“Yes, and again, the guards have melted into the forest,” Stark stated. “I can only find two men plus the leader at the camp. You, in theory, have a straight shot into the camp.”
Lopez turned to the pirate captain. “Did you call ahead and discharge your men?”
The captain shook his head. “I told you this would be easy.” When Lopez frowned at him, the captain chuckled. “You shall see.”
Bunny wasn’t all that fond of amused, cryptic pirate captains. Lopez in the end shrugged it off. “Move us out.”
Levont headed deeper into the jungle, following an old, rutted game trail. Well, at the least there had been life here once. That gave Bunny some hope.
They had assumed they would need to sneak their way in then fight their way out. This waltzing into the camp had never been the plan. Even to Bunny it felt foreign and dangerous. Funny how flying bullets felt more comfortable now than a quiet forest.
Levont held up his fist again, but this time, Bunny could see why. There was a clearing up ahead and the camp lay not far off. She could see the outline of thrown together shanty buildings and a large burned out campfire in the middle of the camp. No one else was visible.
Where were the guards? The sentries? Pirate camps were known for their tight security. Normally you couldn’t mount a rescue op out of one of their camps without air support and at least twenty men. Which was why they had baited the trap for the captain. They had thought to leverage their way to success, although now it looked like they didn’t need the captain at all.
A rail thin dog barked a warning. Normally that could spell a disaster for the mission, however no one, not even the other dogs lounging around the camp seemed to care.
“Stark,” Lopez barked into his mic. “Where are the remaining three?”
“Well, make that two,” Stark replied in Bunny’s ear piece. “And they both seem to be in the shed with Liza.
Lopez grabbed the pirate captain and shoved the captain forward. “Get them to come out and lay down their weapons.”
“I’m telling you, they will hand the girl over for asking.”
“Just do it,” Lopez grunted.
* * *
Davidson watched the captain of the pirates step out into the clearing. All looked quiet. Too quiet. On his run in and climb up, he hadn’t encountered a single living creature. Not a one. Not a bird, mosquito or snake. Nothing.
Seldom did Davidson get creeped out, but this was unnatural. Forget the lack of soldiers. It was the complete lack of forest noise that was worrying Davidson. Animals were acutely aware of impending danger. You would see this ahead of a fire or monsoon. The animals booking it out of an area long before the danger.
But where was the natural disaster?
Davidson did not want to find out.
The pirate captain walked to the edge of the burnt out fire and shouted something in Somali. Levont would be monitoring the situation. He was
the African linguist specialist. Stark would also be recording everything and running it through his New Babylon translation program.
Within moments two dark guards came out of the shed with a young Caucasian girl. They were practically carrying the girl. She didn’t seem injured so much as weak.
Even more odd, the two men were the ones shaking.
Then Liza’s mouth opened and an ear shattering screech came out of her petite lips. The sound was blood-curdling. A sound that should never come from a human’s throat.
The two last guards dropped the girl and ran off into the forest. Davidson tracked them until they were out of handgun range.
He swung his scope back to focus on the girl who lay crumpled on the ground. Her lips moved, but Davidson couldn’t tell what she was saying.
“Stark are you getting that?” Davidson asked.
“Trying, but can’t track what language she is speaking in,” the tech explained.
Davidson gripped his rifle tighter. This was not how this was supposed to go.
Not at all.
CHAPTER 2
“Careful, check your back,” Lopez said as the men inched their way out into the camp. Stark assured them that there weren’t any more pirates in the camp, but no one was taking that as Gospel.
The men spread out into a fan pattern flanking the girl before they approached. Bunny snuck along behind Lopez. The downed girl seemed feverish, her cheeks a bright flaming red against her otherwise alabaster skin. Her eyes were rolled back into her head and her body twitched at uneven intervals.
Her lips moved rapidly, however barely any breath passed through them. The other men did a quick recon of the buildings to make sure no other men were lingering behind.
“I told you. She is bad meequo. You can have her,” the captain said. “Hopefully if she is returned, it will lift the curse.”
The Somali pirate started to walk away into the forest but Lopez grabbed the captain by the sleeve.
“Whoa. What the hell did you do to her?”
The captain jerked out of Lopez’s grip. “What did we do to her? What did she do to us?”
The man pointed to one of the depressed dogs lying near the fire pit. “After the girl arrived that bitch gave birth to two-headed snakes.”
Lopez looked askance, but the captain continued, “And one of the men, against my orders tried to press himself upon her. Before he could even try to find pleasure his member fell off. Off.”
Stark looked to his mother who shrugged. Weird stuff happened in the jungle but that seemed pretty extreme. Was this a wives’ tail in the making?
The captain strode off toward the forest with a wave of his hand. “She is your problem now.”
Bunny watched as Lopez brought his gun up to aim, then dropped the muzzle back down again. He turned to Bunny. “Do you have any clue?”
Bunny shook her head. “None, but she looks like she needs some medical treatment.”
Stark watched as Lopez nodded as he swung his rifle off his shoulder and jerked his pack off of his back and opened it.
Lopez had the most medical training of the bunch so he was the one to kneel next to Liza.
He put the back of his hand against her forehead. “She’s burning up. Let’s get her inside.”
Bunny grabbed a foot as the other men lifted her up, taking her into the relative shade of the small shed. This thing really had been thrown together with two nails and a roll of duct tape.
“Hook her up to the telemetry unit,” Stark said. “I’ve got a doctor from Tufts waiting for the readings.”
Even though in theory Lopez was the trained medic, Bunny had been the most trained on this new remote medical equipment. While Lopez put an IV line into the girl’s vein, Bunny grabbed the small telemetry unit from his pack. The thing was no larger than her wallet and the wires that came out were micro-fiber optic cables. The fitting weren’t those huge metal buttons anymore. Instead the contact points were two millimeter thin plastic patches.
Stark was pretty proud. He’d helped develop the streamlined, combat ready unit.
* * *
Bunny’s hands shook as she hooked several leads to the girl’s temples, then at the base of her skull, then moved onto the cardiac points. She scanned the rest of the room trying to quiet her agitated nerves.
Levont was hunched over his equipment, generating a Wi-Fi hot spot in the middle of the jungle off of his satellite phone. Prenner was busy guarding the door. He had the door to the shed open with his foot and scanned the camp with the precision of a robot.
Bunny was glad that all of them were on her side. Were on this poor girl’s side. Was the girl epileptic? Dehydrated? Traumatized? A little of all three?
“Got it,” Bunny stated. “You getting it, Stark?”
“Forwarding it to Tufts,” Stark replied. “I’m sure the doc is going to have a thousand questions though. These readings are all over the place.”
Bunny wasn’t surprised. The girl looked all over the place. Liza’s were rolling back in her head, then would snap forward, pupils dilated to the point her eyes seemed black.
An exorcist moment if ever there was one.
* * *
Davidson cocked his ear, listening to the chatter from inside the shed and the crosstalk from Stark and the doctor. The upshot seemed to be that no one knew what in the heck was wrong with Liza.
Lopez was pressing for authorization to move her, but the doctor was digging in her heels, not wanting the girl to be moved until they had a better handle on her condition. If it was a head injury, which it easily could have been during her capture, they could make her worse, or even kill her.
The team was in a bind. They really needed to get out of Somali, like now. Yet they really needed Liza alive. Not quite a successful mission if they lost their package.
Davidson could see Prenner’s profile in the door, constantly scanning the kill zone. Just because the pirates left, didn’t mean they wouldn’t come back. Maybe a special ops team would bring more coin than an unconscious girl.
Davidson went back to his own routine. He was looking for approaching pirates, of course, however Davidson was more interested in the wildlife returning. He’d love to see a camel, ostrich or heck, even a bat. It would mean whatever imminent danger the animals had felt was over.
But nothing. His heat seeking scope was showing only a wide range of light green and yellows. The temp was so high there weren’t any blues to be found. But no oranges as well. Just a sea of trees.
They couldn’t let down their guard. Not while the animals were gone.
Perhaps the pirate captain had been right. Maybe the girl did have some bad mojo.
* * *
Stark scanned the readings as they flowed in. The values had eliminated grand mal seizures and a heart attack. Liza seemed to be in some quasi fugue state. Half in and half out of consciousness. Some drugs could induce the state as could trauma. Lopez had drawn blood and stored it in a cold pack in his equipment.
This was one of those mysteries that might have to be solved stateside.
Something else was bugging Stark though. It was the girl’s language. He should be able to translate it, darn it. He was the man. Okay, maybe not in most things like sports or shooting or cooking, but certainly in this. If it was a language spoken by man, or even a dead language, his hand-crafted program should pick it up.
“Glossolalia,” his mother stated.
Stark loved his mother dearly, perhaps by some society’s standards, too much, but he hated it when she did this. The width and breadth of her vocabulary was insane. The woman was a thesaurus incarnate.
Rapidly Stark typed the word into Google. “Speaking in tongues.”
“Of course,” Stark sighed. Of course his mother figured it out before he did.
“She’s in a state of religious fervor,” his mother explained. “It is the only thing that fits her EEG.”
“Hang on, let me get a second opinion,” the doctor from Tufts said then cl
icked off the line.
“Guys did you hear that?” he asked.
“Really? This is what you are going for?” Lopez responded. “Speaking in tongues? We’re supposed to run with that?”
His mother straightened in her chair. “Young man, it would behoove you to know that religious fervor is a documented scientific state, confirmed by EEGs and MRIs. During these states, the speech part of the brain is not activated. What is coming out of these people’s mouths are not conscious thoughts.”
“Ya, call and talk to my mom about the holy spirit some time, but I need to know if I can move the girl already,” Lopez stated. The corporal wasn’t too into theory. He liked actionable information. Which wasn’t exactly Stark’s mom’s specialty.
The doctor clicked back in, “From this limited information I cannot confirm or deny the glossolalia.”
“Doc,” Lopez demanded. “Can I move her or not?”
There was a long intake of breath. Doctors were notorious for not being the most adventuresome. Would she take a risk and give the order knowing if the girl died the blowback would hit her square in the face, from the Vice President no less.
“Keep her in a neck brace and on 100mls of LRS per hour during transport, then get her to a full medical facility with an MRI ASAP.”
“Good enough for me,” Lopez said then gave a string of orders to the rest of the men.
“Stark?” Bunny asked. He came to full alert. It had been a while since Bunny had spoken to him specifically.
“At your service.”
“Could you look into Liza’s history?” Bunny asked. “Has she ever been in a state like this before or had any other signs of mental illness?”
Stark gave his mother a look to keep her from correcting Bunny. Glossolalia nor religious fervor was considered mental illness. He did not want Bunny called on the carpet. His mother waved him off, going back to her work which right now included monitoring the pirates retreat. As long as they had them on satellite, they might as well find out where the nearest camp was, then pass the information onto the African Union for later action.
Bull's Eye Sniper Chronicles Collection (The Second Cycle of the Betrayed Series) Page 5