He stopped to look up at the men riding toward him and lifted his hand in a formal greeting. The figure on the back of the motorcycle extended his arm as the motorcycle flashed past. A moment later Chen Wa’s head bounced to the ground, his body crumpling next to it a second later.
Watching the machines racing toward the village, Wei ran to the front room windows that faced out toward the square, reaching them in time to hear the agonized scream of a woman standing in front of the health clinic next to the body of her husband.
More motorcycles arrived in the square, most of them driving people ahead of them who had been on the streets. It all seemed so unearthly. None of the motorcycles was making the slightest sound. For a moment she wondered if she might have gone deaf. Then more screaming broke out on the other side of the village followed by the staccato rhythm of a machine gun.
As if in a choreographed ballet, the men on the back of the motorcycles dismounted and began running to surround the village square, herding the people they met into the village meeting hall.
Other men armed with machine guns began storming into every building, cottage, and hut, quickly reemerging with the occupants. Small groups of sobbing women and children followed the first wave of people into the meeting hall.
One of the invaders turned from the crowd and began running toward the front door of her cottage. Racing back into the kitchen, Wei dropped through the hole in the floor and covered the opening with the removable wooden floor panel.
Moments later, she heard the soldier storming through the cottage, slamming doors and searching each room. She heard glass smashing in the kitchen above her and then silence.
Crawling to the end of the root cellar, she looked through the small opening at the edge of the crawl space beneath the house. It gave her a view of the center of the square, the village school, health clinic, and meeting hall. She could see more villagers being beaten and shoved toward the meeting hall.
One of the invaders shouted out that the search was complete. As a cordon of them stood silently guarding the square, four of the men wearing the space suits walked slowly toward the meeting hall. Each appeared to have a short metallic hose in his hand connected to a gleaming silver canister on his back.
The first one remained at the front entrance and the others disappeared around the sides of the building. As Wei watched in horror, the man aimed his hose at the front wall of the building and it was suddenly engulfed in fire.
She could hear the people inside the hall beginning to shriek in terror. The man with the metallic hose continued to spread raging fire everywhere he pointed it. Within seconds the whole wall of the building was aflame. The agonized screams grew even louder.
As she watched, a window was smashed open from inside the hall and something dropped through the opening to the ground. Wei saw that it was a child wearing a white cotton dress. She stood still for a moment as the flames consumed the wall behind her. Then she started running away from the fire toward the line of men.
It was Me Lei, the little girl Wei had entrusted to mend the leg of the injured mallard. As she drew closer to the ranks of the invaders, she stopped and began to cry. One of them smiled and beckoned her forward. Timidly, she walked toward him. Laughing, he waved his sword and lopped off her head. He stared down at it for a moment and then kicked it like a football across the square.
The continuing screams from the meeting hall were drowned out by the rumbling of a powerful engine. The noise became a deafening roar. Through the opening in the crawl space, Lei watched four earthmovers rolling toward the square on their massive treads, leveling every house and building in their path and driving the smashed debris into a huge pile.
When one of them swerved to flatten the village health clinic, she recognized the blue crest on its yellow driver’s cab. It was the emblem of the Dong Hao Chemical Corporation.
Beyond the bulldozers nothing was left standing. It was as if the thousand-year-old village had never been. Now she could hear other machines grinding loudly from the area behind her own cottage. As she watched the men with the hoses set fire to the huge mounds of debris, she called out, “God save me, Ancient One. Please spare me to bear witness.”
Her voice was lost in the din of the machines. Moments later, she heard a crashing roar as the walls of her cottage disintegrated above her. Lying next to the ancient stone walls of the root cellar, she felt a searing pain in her back and legs and then total darkness.
“I wish they would fight back just once,” said Colonel Wong as he and General Li boarded the command helicopter.
“Why do you say that?” demanded Li.
“It would seem more honorable . . . less like . . .”
“Less like what?” shouted Li. “Like butchering a herd of pigs?”
“Forgive me, General . . . I just meant—”
“You are not cut out for this task,” interrupted Li. “I will so inform my father.”
FIVE
14 May
Caribbean Coast
Dangriga, Belize
Steven Macaulay came up out of the dream to the moaning wail of a rising wind. It rattled the shutters and drove fine particles of sand through the open bedroom window to gently prickle his face and upper body. The air was hot and humid.
Without opening his eyes, he contemplated his latest hangover. It was a thing of beauty. His head felt like a bowling bowl rolling down a wooden staircase. But it hadn’t blotted out the dream. Rum only went so far.
It was always the same one. The Lexy dream. Alexandra Vaughan. Her face invaded his hangover with astonishing clarity, moving right past his defenses, the only woman who mattered, the woman who had left him. After nearly a year, it was still too close, too raw. It was the finality of it all.
Opening his eyes, he sat up slowly in the bed and glanced through the window. The fronds on the royal palms along the beach were thrashing wildly back and forth in the wind. Macaulay figured the gusts to be about twenty miles an hour, and that was in the sheltered part of the harbor.
He remembered it was his day off and that he wouldn’t be flying today. Frank Jessup had the duty. Macaulay was on standby. It didn’t matter anyway. With a wind like this one, the old Grumman Goose couldn’t be trusted to get passengers in the air, much less land safely on the water. The wealthy tourists who had flown into Dangriga that morning would have to wait for their rides out to the resorts on the emerald belt of offshore islands.
Trudging into the bathroom, he stood under the shower a full ten minutes, letting the cold water massage his scalp and body. Toweling off, he put on his khaki cargo shorts and faded tennis sneakers. It was his regular uniform in the tropical heat along the Belize coast.
Knowing what would cure the hangover, he headed straight over to Lana’s Retreat. Set back from the beach and protected by a dense stand of Caribbean pines, it was a thatch-covered chikee hut built on a foundation of coquina rock.
Lana’s was a favorite drinking spot of locals and tourists, many of whom just came to ogle her. Under the cascade of naturally blond hair, she had the face of a Texas angel and her skin was a rich golden brown. Barefoot, she was wearing a cream-colored shift that came down to her thighs and accentuated her breasts, thin waist, and dancer’s hips.
“Morning special,” said Macaulay with a pained grin.
It was her signature hangover cure, a sixteen-ounce tumbler filled with vodka and juice she blended from root vegetables, spinach, fresh parsley, horseradish, and tomatoes. The good earth.
“You sure you don’t want coffee?” she said in her slow drawl.
Lana had arrived in Dangriga on a vacation visit ten years earlier and fallen in love with the coastal scene. She had paid cash for the chikee bar and never gone back to the States. Frank Jessup had once told Macaulay that she had been one of the highest-priced call girls in Manhattan and was now frigid when it came to men. Of course, she might
just have been frigid toward Frank, who portrayed himself as a dedicated family man while continuing to sample the local talent.
While she put together his drink, Lana glanced at the network of pencil-thin scars on Macaulay’s forehead and neck that remained livid against his deeply tanned body. There were deep weather wrinkles around his sad blue eyes. She wondered when he had last eaten.
“I’m taking a break in a little while, Steve,” she said. “Want to join me for lunch?”
“Can’t,” he said. “Have a lot to do today.”
His plan was to drink himself back into a semistupor and sleep the rest of the day. She looked at him wistfully and walked down the bar to serve the other customers. In truth, she didn’t understand why she was so drawn to him. New York had nearly cured her of men.
There was something different about him. The fact that he had the same tall, rugged good looks of a young Gregory Peck was only part of it. There was an air of nobility about him, as if he had once been somebody or done something important. He had those sad blue eyes. And there was the dangerous side. One night at the bar, a hulking Russian tourist tried to force one of the local girls to go with him. Macaulay had put him in the hospital.
A week after he took over the job as backup pilot for the Hurdnut Air Charter Services, she made her play. He had gotten so drunk that night that he needed help getting back to his tiny beach cottage. After removing his clothes and putting him to bed, she had taken off her dress and joined him under the covers.
It hadn’t worked out as she had planned. When she felt him stirring in the morning, she slid in close and kissed him, at the same time gently exploring his lower body with her skillful fingers. Giving physical pleasure had been her greatest talent and she felt him immediately rise to the occasion.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” she whispered.
Opening his eyes, he grinned up at her.
“Thanks,” he said almost shyly, “but this probably isn’t a good idea.”
When she kissed him again, he slowly pulled away from her and sat up.
“It would be better if you pitched in,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his back to her.
“About what?”
“I’m just not looking for this right now,” he said.
It might have been awkward except for the fact that she had slept with hundreds of men and had seen it all. He certainly wasn’t gay. It was more probable he hadn’t gotten over something. Or someone.
“See you later, amigo,” she had said.
From then on they were just good friends.
Macaulay was on his third hangover cure before the pain began to recede from behind his eyes. By then, the wind was clocking a solid thirty miles an hour and all flights had been canceled at Dangriga Airport. The bar began to fill up.
He was feeling the warmth of the alcohol in his stomach when the image of Lexy’s face came roaring back into his mind. He could even hear the cadence of her voice. He wondered how she might have changed in the last year, if she was with another man. The bleak emptiness of his own life stretched into the future. He closed his eyes and pounded his fist down on the bar. When he opened them again, Carlos was standing there.
“Why you be mad, Steef?” he said.
“I’m not mad.”
Carlos was their airplane mechanic on the Grumman Goose. He was illiterate when it came to words, but when it came to engines, he was a modern Shakespeare. Sparrow-chested with a gaunt, handsome face, Carlos was probably in his early forties, although he didn’t know for sure.
“You sure be look mad,” said Carlos. “You not be happy, that’s for sure, Steef.”
“Happiness is overrated,” said Macaulay before ordering a glass of straight rum.
Carlos had grown up in the interior to a mother who was descended from the ancient Mayans. His father had been a Puerto Rican named Carlos who had arrived in Belize with a hotel construction crew. By the time the resort was finished, the girl was pregnant and Carlos was gone. She had named the boy after him.
Carlos took in the new barmaid. She was deeply endowed.
“He be something, no, Steef?” he said, his voice raspy from his constant smoking.
In addition to his fractured English, Carlos always got his pronouns wrong.
“You be right about that,” answered Macaulay, “he be something all right.”
Two hours later, Macaulay was stumbling back along the lane to his cottage, his face peppered by the wind-driven beach sand. Before passing out on his bed, he had one final thought. Sooner or later a man hit bottom, he realized. He might have finally made it.
• • •
“Wake up, Boss. You gotta wake up.”
The voice finally penetrated. He opened his eyes to see Carlos hovering over the bed and shaking his shoulder. It was dark outside and he could smell rain coming.
“Tom she be need to see you at the office, Boss,” said Carlos. “It be important.”
Tom Hurdnut was the owner of the air charter service.
“What time is it?” asked Macaulay.
“Jess pass four.”
So the sky was only storm dark. He had slept most of the day.
Macaulay climbed off the bed, ran water in the basin, and quickly washed his face. He glanced in the mirror long enough to see that he was a mess, his thick salt-and-pepper hair matted on one side, his dull eyes completely bloodshot. He smelled of stale rum.
Together they walked over to the corporate headquarters of Hurdnut Air Charter Services, which consisted of two second-story rooms over a large wooden boathouse at the edge of the harbor.
The rain began coming as they arrived. Climbing the stairs, Macaulay looked across at the mooring of their Grumman Goose seaplane. Even in the most sheltered part of the harbor, the plane was bobbing back and forth like a hobby horse.
Tom Hurdnut was on the phone at his desk when they stepped into the office. Across the room, Frank Jessup stood nervously in his starched white pilot’s uniform in front of the windows facing the beach. Macaulay could hear voices on the radio transceiver in the other room. There was a stammer of scrambled static noise and someone at sea began sending a mayday signal.
Hurdnut shook his head and hung up the phone.
“So here it is,” he said, running his hand through his thinning gray hair. “Two tourists . . . a young American couple . . . went camping last week on one of the uninhabited islands out past Columbus Cay. Frank flew them out there. Two days ago, the wife was bitten by a yellow-jaw tommygoff.”
“A what?” asked Macaulay as he poured himself coffee from the chipped enamel pot.
“Crazy name,” said Hurdnut. “It’s the most dangerous snake down here . . . also called the fer-de-lance . . . and unlike most snakes, it’s aggressive and its venom is deadly. The husband couldn’t get his handheld radio to work until about an hour ago. He said his wife has gone into a coma. I just got off with the doctor at the clinic. He said she needs a dose of antidote soon or she won’t make it.”
“What about the Belize Coast Guard and their vaunted search-and-rescue boats?” said Jessup, his tone angry. “We can’t fly the Goose in this.”
“I called their forward operating base at Calabash Cay. They’re clocking fifteen-foot seas in the Atlantic, and the island is twenty miles out,” said Hurdnut. “All they have available is one of their Boston Whalers. It wouldn’t make it in time.”
Macaulay listened to the growing intensity of the rain drumming on the roof. Through the rear window, he watched a huge palm frond separate itself from one of the trees along the beach and sail across the lagoon.
“Well, Frank, you’re right,” said Macaulay. “It’s fair to say that the flight would be a bit hairy.”
“Hairy?” shouted Jessup. “You can’t make me fly in this . . . it’s a suicide run . . . the Goose can’t even
take off in these seas. I have a family. I won’t do it.”
Apart from the sound of the rain and wind, there was silence.
“Hell, I’ll go,” said Macaulay.
Jessup took in his physical condition.
“Look at him, Tom,” he said. “He’s drunk.”
“Just hungover, Frank,” said Macaulay. “You ought to try rum more often. Maybe it would give you some guts.”
“Are you all right to fly, Steve?” asked Hurdnut.
Macaulay thought about it. Yes, he could fly. Whether he was hungover or sober, it was the one thing he could still do well. The Goose might not have been his old F-16, but those days were gone long ago along with the intoxicating thrill of leading his men in battle.
“You’ll never get her in the air,” said Jessup.
“You be shut the fuck up,” said Carlos with a menacing glare.
Jessup turned and walked slowly to the door. Shoving it open, he went out without another word. The wind slammed the door shut behind him
“You won’t have to land out there,” said Hurdnut. “We’re in radio contact with the husband. We have his GPS coordinates. It’ll be dark by the time you get there and he’ll signal you his exact position with a Maglite. All you have to do is drop the package.”
“Yeah,” said Macaulay as the lights in the office fluttered for a few seconds and went out.
The outer door swung open and a heavyset, dark-skinned man wearing a white lab jacket came into the room. He was carrying what looked like a plastic DVD case.
“Is that it, Doctor?” asked Tom Hurdnut.
The man nodded and handed him the case.
“There are two doses in there in case there is a problem with the first injection,” said the doctor.
Hurdnut weighed it in his hand.
“Needs to be heavier,” he said. “We’ll insulate it with plastic and strap it to a brick with orange reflective tape. Steve, you’ll just need to come in low and drop it as close as you can to the base of the Maglite beam.”
The Bone Hunters Page 6