Before they could see it clearly, the form turned and walked away. The torchlight faded in the tunnel.
When it was no longer visible, and the chamber descended once again into darkness, Rook switched on his flashlight and dashed to Knight’s side.
A wreath of light hung on Knight’s body. His protective flak jacket had been removed. Tatters of black fabric dangled from his shredded fatigues. The small screen of the outbreak monitor on his wrist had been shattered, though the device still functioned. Wounds cut across his chest. Yet his body, his limbs, seemed mostly hale. As Bishop arrived, Rook lowered his light, illuminating Knight’s face.
Rook stepped back and covered his mouth. Not so much from the sight of Knight’s limp body, but more to remind himself not to shout a string of curses. What little of Knight’s face wasn’t caked in blood was pale. Rook leaned forward. It wasn’t his skin that was pale, it was dust. He’d been dragged through the forest and caves, and dust had clung to his face. Rook reached up to check for a pulse, but Knight confirmed his physical state before Rook’s hand reached his throat.
He coughed.
Knight was alive!
Rook dropped the flashlight and fell to his knees. He placed one hand under Knight’s blood-soaked head and the other under his back. Bishop reached up and cut the rope binding Knight’s ankles. In a flurry of motion, not caring who heard, Rook kicked the bones at their feet away until a small clearing had been formed. He gently placed Knight on the floor. “Hang on, buddy.”
Bones clattered behind Rook as Somi stumbled over for a look. She paused, supporting her weight on the wall, the knife wound stabbing pain into her body with every breath. “Keep quiet.”
Rook glared at her.
“They’ll come back,” she said.
Rook stood while Bishop began inspecting Knight’s wounds. “Look, lady. I don’t give a damn about how you might do things out here in the magic forest. We take care of our own.”
Somi pursed her lips and nodded. She’d never worked with Delta operators before, but she could see they had different standards when it came to living—and dying. She found it . . . inspiring. Thinking about her betrayal, she winced inwardly. Her loyalty to the VPLA had never faltered before.
But she had experienced firsthand how Trung rewarded loyalty. These men were different. They had earned her respect. Her goal now was to escape these tunnels and then disappear. Let Trung think her dead. Vengeance would be easier that way. For now, Rook and Bishop were her allies. She watched from her spot on the wall as Rook rejoined Bishop over their half-dead comrade.
“Can you hear me, Knight?” Bishop said, his voice nearly a whisper. “Knight . . .”
Knight’s eyes blinked and then opened.
“Bish . . . Rook . . .” Knight reached out and took Rook’s arm. Knight’s words were slurred and wet as he spoke with tired lips. He glanced around the cave. “So much for pearly gates.”
“You little death-cheating bastard,” Rook said with a grin. “What, it’s not enough to cheat at Go Fish? You have to cheat death, too?”
Knight chuckled, then winced. “Broken ribs. Sprained ankle, too. Maybe broken. Concussion for sure. Got something to drink?”
Bishop and Rook helped Knight sit up. He took painkillers from his pocket, popped them in his mouth, and drank from Rook’s canteen. “I caught a few glimpses of the caves,” he said between drinks. “They’re huge. Tunnels everywhere.”
Bishop leaned in close. “Knight. What are they?”
Knight closed his eyes.
“Knight?”
“I’m . . . thinking,” Knight said. His eyes opened. “They’re not . . . human.”
“Apes?” Rook said.
Knight shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “Too intelligent. Cunning. But they’re apelike in some ways.”
Knight winced as pain throbbed in his chest. He fought past it and continued. “Fur like orangutans. Muscles like silverback gorillas. They’re not apes, but they’re not human. They’re something else. Something . . . ancient. You can see it in their eyes.”
Knight coughed, spit a blood-red glob from his mouth, and sighed. He rolled his head toward Rook. “We need to get out of here.” He nodded toward the cave tunnel where they’d watched the creature exit. “That way.”
“We can’t fight them,” Somi said.
“Not a chance,” Knight said. “But the tunnels are wide and I saw daylight a few times. We can make it.”
Rook nodded. “We can’t stay here and wait for someone to get hungry for Korean.” He turned his flashlight to the wall covered in upside-down cadavers. “Any ideas?”
“Yeah,” said Somi. She reached up with her good arm and grabbed hold of one of the body’s pant legs. She jumped up with a quick pull, placed her foot on the body’s crotch, and pushed off. She landed on her uninjured side in front of the tunnel where Knight had been lowered from. She grunted and then looked at the three surprised Delta operators. “We do what he said. We get out. Now.”
TWENTY-SIX
THE BACKYARD HELD green grass and four flower gardens. Yet in dire contrast to this lush beauty stood two warriors. Each held a bow and arrow, notched, aimed, and drawn. Both let fly. The first, belonging to the girl, struck the target dead center. The second flew off to the side, ricocheting off a stone and striking the wooden fence that enclosed the yard. “Nice shot, Siggy.”
“Kiss my ass, Jules,” the young man countered.
At sixteen Jack Sigler spent more time on a skateboard than anything else. School had long since become unimportant, and family . . . well, they were family. But when his sister asked if he’d like to shoot some arrows in the backyard, he couldn’t pass it up, even if it meant spending time with his dork of a sister.
A bookworm to the core, Julie had a secret side she let out only when their parents were away. Bows and arrows, throwing knives, library books on the military. He figured she was working on some kind of paper, but she’d been doing it for a while. Not that he cared enough to figure out what she was up to. He just wanted to shoot some arrows. He knew their parents would put the kibosh on the activity if they ever found out, so he kept his mouth shut. In fact, he guessed the invitation to shoot with Julie was more of a bribe than an attempt at brother-sister bonding.
“Just keep your left arm straight and look down the shaft.”
Jack took aim again and let the arrow fly. This time Julie just watched. The arrow skimmed off the top of the target and buried into the fence.
“Hold your breath before you shoot again.”
“You got it, Master Yoda.”
“I don’t care if you’re a crappy shot,” Julie said with a smile. “I just don’t want Dad to find the fence chewed to shreds.”
Jack took aim again. He found the target with his eyes and be-grudgingly held his breath. Adjusting slightly, he felt a sense of peace for a moment. Just a moment. And in that fraction of time, he enjoyed being with his sister. He let go of the wire and felt it slap against his bare arm. “Son of a bitch!”
Jack dropped the bow and held his arm. He expected to see a deep gash when he lifted his hand away but found only a wide red mark where the wire had hit his skin and slid across his arm. Insignificant compared to many of his skateboarding injuries, the red welt embarrassed him more than it stung. He stormed toward the house.
“Jack,” Julie called, her voice full of humor.
“Leave me alone,” he shouted back.
“But look!”
It wasn’t the reply he expected. He looked over his shoulder and paused. His arrow sat in the center of the target, next to his sister’s.
“You see,” Julie said. “Big sisters are good for something.”
The faintest of smiles crept onto Jack’s hardened face. “Yeah, guess so.”
He rejoined her on the improvised archery range, and for the rest of the week while his parents were on vacation, he and Julie forged a temporary truce. By the end of the week his aim was keen. Things went back t
o normal with the return of their parents, but it had been one of the first times in his life he appreciated his sister. He remembered her with fondness.
She gave him strength.
He needed it now.
The memory faded, replaced by seizing pain. Trained to reduce the agony of torture by escaping from the body and entering the often parodied “happy place,” King turned to his sister for help.
It didn’t work.
King’s involuntary scream ripped through the tent’s thin green fabric and met a wall of trees and foliage that muffled the noise and sent the sound waves back to the earth where they were absorbed and silenced. No one outside of the small VPLA camp would hear his anguish. Bound tight, hands over head, to a tall stake stretching toward the tent’s ceiling, King could do nothing to ease the pain. Not much could.
Eight hundred thousand volts of electricity coursing into a human body tended to have that effect. That the general was placing the stun gun against King’s temple increased the agony tenfold. A three- to five-second charge could bring a man to his knees, causing loss of muscle control and disorientation. King had received eight separate jolts in the past three minutes . . . to the side of his head, his chest, and the back of his neck. All from a handheld, battery-operated stun gun any jerk could pick up on eBay for minimal cash. Cheap, affordable torture.
With deep breaths, King fought to regain control of his spasming muscles. Hot sweat poured down his shirtless chest and back. They’d stripped him from the waist up and confiscated his outbreak meter before binding him to the stake. The carved muscles beneath his skin bounced to an unheard rhythm, slowing after a few seconds. The port-wine stain reaching up his back glistened deep purple. After his muscles stopped twitching madly, the tight pain subsided. But it would be ten minutes before full control returned. And Trung would be back before then. He fell forward. With his hands bound above his head, his weight pulled his arms back at a painful angle. Having no strength left he could do nothing to right himself.
King had been trained in withstanding torture. To keep his mouth shut under duress. To die if need be. And he knew he would. The problem with his training was that it didn’t cover this scenario, because he wasn’t being asked any questions. Trung was like a kid with a magnifying glass over a hill of ants. The smile on his face confirmed it. He was enjoying himself.
“You got a hard-on yet?” Queen noticed, too. She was strapped to a stake next to King’s, also shirtless, her breasts exposed, her six-pack abs even more impressive than King’s. Like King, her outbreak meter had been taken, no doubt being inspected in another tent. Her chin and clavicle were stained red from blood. But it was not her own. The man who’d removed her clothing attempted to fondle her breasts. She nearly took his nose clean off with her teeth.
Trung had the undisciplined man shot for his actions. Their torture began shortly after.
Not a word had been spoken since.
Other than King’s screams the only sound in the tent was Sara’s weeping. She’d been tied to a chair. Her clothes remained on. Her body untouched. As King used what little energy that remained to look up and meet Sara’s trembling eyes, he realized the torture was not meant to loosen his or Queen’s tongues. Intimidation was the goal, and it was directed at Sara.
After finishing with King and Queen they would turn their attention to her. She would tell them anything they needed to save herself . . . and if not that, then to spare King and Queen any more pain. King’s cheeks twitched.
It would work.
Trung walked around Queen with the stun gun, flicking it off and on. A blue arc of electricity pulsed across two metal prongs, buzzing like a giant angry wasp.
Hardly intimidated, Queen flashed him a smile, her lips still encrusted with the dried blood of Trung’s dead man. She’d been shocked, the same as King, but had not screamed. With nothing more than a grunt, she’d endured the electric torture. He’d shocked her head, her breasts, her armpits and stomach. But she didn’t give in.
All her life, her expression of pain had always been delayed . . . and violent, like her father’s. If she stubbed a toe, she remained silent until the pain dissipated. Then she put her fist through the wall. If that hurt, she did it again, and again, until she couldn’t feel the pain anymore. She stored pain like a battery and only unleashed it when ready. Trung’s stun gun had filled her battery long ago. She just needed an outlet to free the charge.
The glare in Trung’s eyes said he wouldn’t give up. He clicked the stun gun off and dropped it onto a table that had been tied together from tree branches. He turned to the guard at the door and spoke briefly. The man nodded and exited quickly.
Trung paced, a grin ever-present on his face.
Things were going to go from bad to worse.
Sara’s shaky voice broke the silence of the waiting torturer and the tortured. “S-sir. If you need my help. I’ll do whatever you need. You don’t need to—”
“You would have done whatever I needed you to long ago,” Trung said without breaking stride. “But I am not finished here.” He glanced at Queen.
She met his eyes, fearless.
Trung grinned. “You are too eager for pain. It is not fitting for a woman of your . . .” He looked her up and down. “. . . form. Of course, beauty fades. Or can be remade. Perhaps you will lose your fight after you’ve lost your allure?”
The guard returned holding a long metal rod and a torch. The tip of the rod was hidden inside the flame. Trung undid his shirt and opened it up over his chest, revealing a brand in the shape of a star. A skull grinned evilly at its core. The symbol of the VPLA Death Volunteers.
“We all have them,” Trung said. “Only yours will be much more visible.”
Trung reached out and took the brand from the guard. King lifted his head. Sara gasped. Queen’s eyes twitched with rage. But she didn’t shrink back.
The glowing yellow star-and-skull brand rose up in front of Trung’s face. He inched forward holding it out straight. “Try not to move,” he said. “We want it to look nice.”
Outside the tent, men flinched at the sound of a bestial growl that emerged from the tent. It rose in volume and then turned into a roar, louder than any they’d heard before and more horrible than the ones they’d been hearing in the nighttime jungle. Like the ocean being forced through a three-inch hole, a volume of rage had been unleashed through Queen’s open mouth. The thick canopy, endless trees, and distance of miles could not hold it back.
Every living thing in the area heard the primal cry.
But Queen did not move. Her eyes remained fixed on Trung’s while the brand singed her skin, scorching a symbol that would never fade. When Trung removed the brand and stepped back, fear filled his eyes. He’d never met such a warrior. Like a tiger, she was to be respected . . . and feared. And now she bore the Death Volunteer symbol where everyone would see it. She could have been a goddess. He bowed to her, then exited, giving his men orders to shoot her when morning arrived.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ROOK LOCKED ARMS with Bishop up above and scrambled out of the pit, joining Somi and Knight. While Knight lay with his back against the wall, the others squatted in front of the entrance to the tunnel through which Knight’s captor had exited. They gazed into the dark tunnel. No sign of light. No sounds of movement. The smell of death never left the chamber. They’d almost grown accustomed to it.
Rook looked at his watch, its Day-Glo feature casting his face in a faint green light. 10 P.M. “Maybe they’re sleeping.”
Bishop nodded. “Let’s hope so.”
Looking at his watch, Rook’s eyes moved to the outbreak meter strapped next to it. The small screen displayed three bars, green, yellow . . . and orange. He held it up for the others to see. “We need to get a move on.” He motioned to Somi’s knife wound. “How’s that feeling?”
She sneered. “Like I got stabbed in the chest, you prick.” Then she grinned. Despite the pain in her chest, it was clear to her that she would survive the
wound, and she was feeling some of her normal feistiness returning.
“Ahh, quit your whining,” Knight said. “At least you can walk.” Knight spit some more blood. His feistiness was all for show.
Bishop inspected the tunnel. Like the one they’d come through it was marked with an intricate symbol. Yet something was different about the tunnel. Bishop got on his hands and knees and moved forward. As the tunnel closed in around him, he realized the difference. This tunnel was smaller, perhaps three feet tall and nearly as wide. It would be tight, but not too tight. He turned to Somi. “There are symbols marking the entrances to the tunnels. Do you recognize the script?”
He moved aside and directed his flashlight toward the symbol, allowing her to get a clear view. She moved closer and ran her fingers over the symbol’s swooping and crisscrossing lines. “It’s not Vietnamese.”
Of that much she was sure. Before her father’s death, Somi had been in love with the region’s history, and had planned to become a historian. Trung changed all that, but she used her training, both in Asia and the United States, as an excuse to pursue her passion. Knowledge was power. History repeated. Those were the justifications. But she knew she couldn’t always be a spy and hoped to retire to a quiet museum someday. Not only was her knowledge of the region’s history expansive, but as a CIA double agent in Asia, she was expected to speak and read multiple languages, making her knowledge of various scripts above average. But what she saw here defied logic.
“Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese. All were derived from Chinese. The oldest Chinese writing goes back to the Shang Dynasty, 1500 B.C. Archaic Chinese. But this looks . . . older.”
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