“She’s going to get you all killed,” Pawn Two said. “If you can’t protect her, she has no business out here.”
“Who said we can’t protect her?” It was Rook. The muzzle of his .50-caliber Desert Eagle hovered an inch from the back of Pawn Two’s skull. One shot would make her head simply cease to exist.
King stepped forward. “Pawn Two. If you do not remove your knife—”
With a quick twist the knife was removed from Sara’s throat and sheathed in Pawn Two’s sleeve. Sara scrambled away and turned to face her attacker. If she hadn’t nearly been killed by the woman, she would have found her almost comical. She was dressed in black, like they were, but wore a mask over her face like some kind of ninja. And she wasn’t imposing at all. Her five-foot height was balanced by a spindly build. She looked like an overgrown ant, but her gleaming green eyes revealed her to be a praying mantis.
As the Chess Team took up positions around her, keeping their weapons trained on all parts of her body, Pawn Two removed her hood. Her oval eyes squinted when she smiled. “Consider it an object lesson.”
“You could have been killed,” King said.
“And she would have been,” Pawn Two said, motioning to Sara. “If she hadn’t warned you, it would have been you with the knife to your throat.”
Not only did King not have the time or energy to have this discussion, but he also knew she was right. Sara was a liability. But he had no choice. She was the mission.
The woman finished tying her spaghetti-straight black hair in a ponytail and extended her hand to Sara. “They’ll keep calling me Pawn Two, I’m sure, but you can call me Somi, short for Sommalina. Sommalina Syha. Sorry about the neck.”
Sara took her hand and was pulled to her feet. The woman was a mystery. Not only was she small, exotic, and dangerous (not in that order) but she was also charming. She walked to a tree, reached around, and picked up a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun. Its dual design allowed the shooter to fire both single pump-action shots and gas-powered automatic shots of up to four rounds a second.
Rook raised an eyebrow. “That’s all you got?”
“Born and raised in the jungle. This is all I need, G.I. Joe.”
“Just call me Gung Ho,” Rook said.
Somi smiled and started off into the forest.
“What’s the hurry?” Queen said, her voice cut with tension and distrust.
Somi paused and looked at each of them. “I’ve been following you since you touched down. One of the two factions you found fighting has been following you as well. The others were Khmer Rouge remnants defending their turf. They stayed put.”
King tensed. This was bad news. Why would someone follow them?
“Well, that’s just shitabulous,” Rook said. “How many men are we talking about here?”
Somi shrugged.
“You don’t know?” Rook said.
“It was dark.”
“Then how do you know they’re following us?”
Somi put her hand on Rook’s mouth. It appeared more an act of seduction than of covering his voice, but the effect was the same. Rook held his breath.
“Listen to the wind,” Somi said.
They listened. All of them. And each heard nothing but Somi’s lingering sarcasm. But in the still silence of the jungle, Sara felt them as her senses turned the distant shuffle of feet through leaves and the odors of men caught on the wind into a physical sensation. She couldn’t hear them. But she could feel them like a gentle tickle on her skin.
Strange, she thought. In the city, her senses were so overwhelmed that she rarely fully understood the world. She just focused on her destination and moved, doing her best to ignore her senses. But in this natural setting she seemed to be more aware of what she felt. She spoke without thinking. “They’re coming from the southeast.”
Sara blinked and looked at the others. They were all staring at her as though she had two heads. “What?”
“I was joking,” Somi said.
“But you said—”
Somi held up a small PDA. “Motion sensors. I spent all day yesterday lining the game trails with them.”
King squinted. Twice now Sara had warned him of danger long before he knew it was coming. In the reed field she may very well have saved his life. He turned to Somi. “Is she right?”
Somi was already looking at the PDA, her lips pursed, her forehead crisscrossed with confusion. “Dead on.”
Bishop walked up to the group, leaving the tree he’d been leaning on throughout the interchange. “We better go.” He turned and began ascending the foothill. Queen and Knight followed.
“No more object lessons,” King said to Somi.
She nodded. “The next lesson you get won’t be from me, and it won’t be an object lesson.”
She said it with such confidence, King realized she knew more than she’d revealed. “Pawn, stay with the others. We’ll bring up the rear.”
Sara nodded slowly. Her muscles, tight with tension, fought against her as she moved. The introduction to Somi had been so unnerving that it had exhausted her. The caffeine seemed to be wearing off already. She remembered King’s reprimand and pushed against the pain in her legs. The mission would be completed, no matter the cost to their bodies or psyches. They just had to succeed and survive. She left with Rook, moving fast to catch up with the others.
When the group was out of earshot, King turned to Somi. “Who are they? Who is following us?”
“I wasn’t sure at first, but after last night’s battle ended I had a chance to inspect the dead men’s uniforms. VPLA. The Death Volunteers,” Somi said with a frown. “Vietnamese special forces.”
ELEVEN
SEVEN SETS OF lungs heaved wet air in and out as the newly expanded Chess Team ran for their lives. King hadn’t made the decision to run lightly. He knew the team was tired. He knew several preferred to stand their ground. But that wasn’t their mission. If they could get in and out without facing the VPLA hot on their heels, so much the better. They posed a direct threat to his mission: to protect Pawn One.
Sara.
It was highly unlikely that even the Chess Team could protect her against such overwhelming odds, even if they themselves survived. So his only option was run like a bastard and stay ahead.
For Sara, a mixture of caffeine and adrenaline reawakened her muscles and kept her moving at a pace she’d never have believed possible. She knew if they stopped, she’d never get started again. But she didn’t think King would give her a chance to stop. The man was a machine. He hadn’t told her why they were hauling ass up the steep grades of the Annamite foothills, but she recognized a twinge of fear in his voice when he gave the order to run. And in that fear she saw a twinkle of hope. His fear gave her confidence. She didn’t know if he feared for his life or simply feared failing the mission, but his trepidation let her know that he wasn’t cocky to a fault. He knew when to fight and knew when to run.
Only she hoped the running would end soon.
It did. Thirty minutes later, after running four miles and ascending eight hundred feet, they broke out of the jungle’s shadow and into a clearing. The late-day sun beat down on them, making them squint, but it also freed them from the moisture of the jungle and clouds of mosquitoes.
“We can stop here,” Somi said between gulps of air. Even the stealthy jungle veteran was out of breath. “Anh Dung is a half mile to the north, through the field.”
“Anh Dung?” Sara asked.
Somi nodded. “Our target, yes.”
“I thought it was in Vietnam?”
“There are no ‘Welcome to Vietnam’ signs in the bush,” Somi said, shaking her head with a sarcastic smile. “Or on the roads, for that matter.”
“We’ve been in Vietnam for about an hour,” King said. “We’re almost there.”
Sara felt rejuvenated. This nightmare was nearly half over. “Then we need to keep moving,” Sara said. This drew odd looks from the exhausted team. “We’re not going to be able to
walk in there, say ‘Aha! Here’s the cure!’ and walk out again. I don’t know how long this will take.”
King took a deep breath and nodded.
“You’re sure?” Somi asked. “You’re not going to be able to think well if you’re exhausted.”
Sara took a drink of water, screwed the cap back on, and wiped her mouth. “We don’t want to be caught, do we? No more object lessons.”
King grinned. Sara was more resilient than he expected. He turned to Somi. “Do you have any more motion sensors?”
“A few,” Somi said.
“I want them placed at the most likely entry points to this field. If they’re still following us, I want to know about it before they’re knocking on our front door. Rook, you’re with Pawn Two. Knight, Queen, I want trip wires set wherever there isn’t a motion sensor. Make them loud. Bishop, you’re with me. We need to sweep a clean path through this field.”
Rook handed Sara her backpack. “You’ll be needing this.”
Sara took the pack and slung it on her back. The weight of the world seemed to land on her shoulders, not only because of the pack’s thirty-pound load, but because the instruments it contained, combined with her mind, were all that stood between the human race and extinction.
The team split up without another word. Somi, Rook, Knight, and Queen headed back into the sultry jungle without complaint and disappeared into the darkness. Bishop slung his FN over his back and then quickly assembled a portable metal detector. He began sweeping the device back and forth as he entered the tall brown grass.
King motioned for Sara to follow and she did. He brought up the rear, his M4 ever at the ready.
Tension racked King’s back. The mission was turning into a disaster and it seemed the seven of them, six really, would have to hold off a superior force long enough for Sara to finish her job, however long that might take.
King watched Sara as she walked in front of him, keeping in tight formation behind Bishop, only pausing when Bishop stuck small orange flags in the ground, marking the location of land mines, which turned out to be an easy job as the locals had already marked the mines with stones. Though from the height and withered condition of the field, it was clear they still avoided its deadly soil. She seemed to be comforted by the wall Bishop’s large body created, or perhaps she was simply hiding from the sun in his shadow. She seemed to avoid direct sunlight whenever possible. But she had come a long way from the distractible woman he’d met at Fort Bragg. Hell, they’d landed in a war zone and she had actually warned him of danger.
He didn’t know what to call it. A sixth sense? Women’s intuition?
King watched as Sara turned her head from side to side, her nostrils flaring, as she walked through the field in Bishop’s wake. She was smelling the air . . . like a dog. Exactly like a dog. Three quick sniffs. Turn. Three more sniffs. She winced, held her hand to her nose in a classic “I have a headache” gesture, shook it off and kept sniffing. When he passed through the area that caused her apparent pain, something fragrant tickled his nose, but just for a moment. The subtle odor was a hint of something. Maybe a flower. But she’d reacted to it strongly.
She continued on like this for a minute, then her breaths became deeper. But the only thing King could smell was the—Wait. There was something. Hidden behind the odor of dry grass. Barely perceptible, it hid from his mind, making it impossible to identify. If he hadn’t been paying attention to Sara’s sniffing he’d have never noticed it.
He breathed deep through his nose, seeking to capture the smell like a perfumer studying a new scent. Nothing.
Sara turned to King. “You smell it, too?”
“I only noticed it because I saw you smelling the air. But it’s faint. I can’t I.D. it.”
“But it’s so strong.” A shiver ran through Sara’s body and King noticed. She was freaked out. Spooked. Something she smelled had her on edge, which meant she recognized it.
“Bishop, you smell anything?” King asked.
Bishop shook his head no.
“Pawn,” King said. “What do you smell?”
It was the question that Sara dreaded from the moment she first picked up the odor, when the breeze shifted south and brought the new scent along for the ride. She’d experienced it several times before, always associated with being called to the scene of an outbreak. The smell of the dead and the dying drifted with the air and always assaulted her nostrils long before she saw the lines of bodies. She wept for the dead then, knowing that simple and cheap inoculations would have saved countless lives, but now . . . now she had to find a cure for a totally new disease before someone decided to commit worldwide genocide. They might not intend to, but every outbreak of the new Brugada strain could mean the end of the human race. There would be no weeping for the source of the smell on this trip. There was no time.
Sara answered the question with a whisper. “People, but they’re dead.”
Sara stumbled and looked down. A mound of dirt was hidden in the grass, six feet long, two wide.
King noticed it. “A grave.”
“There’s more up here,” Bishop said. “A lot more.”
King and Sara entered a clearing cut into the grass field. Twenty unmarked graves filled the space. Dry soil covered them, powdery and untouched by rain. Short grass surrounded each grave. The graveyard was new. Twenty people had been buried there in the last week.
A breeze bristled the tall grass surrounding the graveyard, flowing from the north, from the village, and brought a fresh wave of stench. The stench wasn’t from the graveyard. And the others smelled it now, too. King grimaced and lofted his M4. “Let’s go.”
With Bishop in the lead, they reentered the grass and headed for the odor’s source.
TWELVE
Anh Dung—Vietnam
SARA GAGGED AS she exited the tall grass and entered the village proper. The odor of decaying human flesh had been filtered by grass, but here in the open, the stench overpowered the senses—hypersensitive or not. Sara covered her nose with her arm, working hard not to retch.
Bishop scrunched his nose in revolt, but said nothing and kept his weapon at the ready. King held his breath, removed his backpack, and dug inside. He removed three surgical masks and passed them out. After putting on his own, he said, “They’re not perfect, but they’ll help.”
With the smell partly blocked, they turned their attention to the village. Fifteen huts standing upon two-foot stilts lined the small dirt path that wound down the middle of the small village. They were simple, yet effective. The stilts protected from the monsoon floods. The thatch roofs, made from tightly coiled reeds, kept the rains at bay. And the wooden plank walls held each structure firmly together while providing some protection from the elements. But they weren’t designed to survive an attack. Sara could picture what the village must have looked like, but now it was in shambles.
Walls had been torn apart. Roofs had crumbled or burned. The village looked like a howitzer had used it for target practice. But the structural damage to the village paled in comparison to the devastation wrought upon its occupants. Bodies were strewn throughout the village. Hanging out of doorways. Twisted over rocks. Lying in mud. Most of the dead had gaping wounds, exposing marbled flesh, glints of white bone, and skin torn like weak fabric. They’d been slaughtered. And not one body was seen outside the village. Whatever force had struck the village came so fast that not one villager had a chance to run.
“Brugada didn’t do this,” Sara said.
“I’d say so,” King said as he approached a woman’s headless body crumpled against a hut. Her head was in her lap, stained brown with blood. A swarm of flies dispersed at his approach, forming a wary, buzzing cloud above. He knelt down next to the woman. Her eyes were white and moving. Maggots. He looked at her neck. The skin, muscles, and veins were stretched and jagged. Her head had been torn off, not cut. King shot up, M4 at the ready.
With Bishop keeping watch in all directions, King went about quickly inspect
ing bodies. Some had been pummeled to death. Heads and chests bore indentations the size of his fist. Others had been torn apart, limbs removed, jaws snapped wide open, heads crushed. After inspecting the sixth victim he headed for the path. Footprints of all sizes had been pressed into the damp earth. King knelt and ran his hand through his hair, which was messier than usual thanks to the humidity.
Sara stood next to him, unsettled by the carnage. “What happened here?”
“Doesn’t make sense,” King said, his voice nearly a whisper.
Sara realized he was spooked.
King pointed to the last body he’d inspected. She looked at it. A young woman, perhaps still in her teens, lay gutted. Her organs displayed next to her in the short grass. Her face a petrified mask of horror. Sara looked away quickly. She’d only seen a flash of the carnage, but it was more than enough.
“You need to see it for yourself,” King said. “Look again. At her chest.”
Sara brought her eyes back up and looked at the girl, avoiding the trail of intestines hanging from the cavity below her ribs. On her chest were four lacerations stretching from shoulder to ribs. She’d been mauled by something. Some kind of animal.
“And her head, at the temple,” King instructed.
Sara looked. Two thick puncture wounds had been gouged in the side of her head where something large had bitten down.
“A tiger?” she said. Vietnam had as few as two hundred tigers left. The species was on the brink of extinction. But she couldn’t think of any other possibility.
“Tigers are man-eaters, but not like this.”
Sara’s thoughts drifted to the Noah’s Ark theory of the Anna-mites; to the large mammals still being discovered in the Asian wilderness and the external pressures placed on the region during the Vietnam War. “Maybe the tigers in the Annamites are different? Hyperevolved.”
He waited for the explanation.
“When species are as isolated as they are here, they tend to evolve differently. In places like Australia, where evolution took its own path over millions of years, we see a totally unique group of mammal species.”
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