First, this was some kind of backwoods tribe.
Second, they must have been fathered by a Vietnam vet who stayed behind and taught them English. That or some Vietcong who learned the language and stayed in the bush after the war ended.
Third, now was the time to strike. She knew there were only two of them present and the others were far ahead.
It was the perfect time to unleash some of that anger stored in her internal batteries—quietly. No need to attract the others’ attention.
Her strike came like a cobra’s. She snapped straight up, shot her hands out, and twisted. The man carrying her managed a “Huh?” before his neck snapped. Big and strong as he was, his bones were still breakable. Queen fell to her feet as the man carrying her slumped to the forest floor. She jerked the hood off of her head and saw a wide mouth ready to scream a warning. She lunged and cupped her hands over the mouth, pinning the smaller body against a tree.
Then Queen hesitated. Beneath a heavy brow, the eyes staring back into hers were young . . . wide, childlike, and fearful. But the face . . . Though feminine, only the eyes, nose, mouth, and upper cheeks lacked hair. Queen frowned. What the hell? This was no doubt a child. A little girl. But she looked like a red-haired version of the X-Men’s Beast on a bad hair day.
She fought like him, too.
The girl knocked Queen’s arms away, then leaped into the air. She took hold of the tree above her and flipped upside down against it. She clung there, looking down at the stunned Queen like a rabid squirrel. The reddish hair that covered her face and head covered portions of her body as well. A long V of hair tapered from her shoulders toward her waist, where a tied rag hung like a loincloth. Her thighs were nearly hairless, but her calves and feet were coated in fur, as were her forearms and triceps. Her biceps and upper torso were lightly covered in hair as well. Her chest, which seemed too ample for a young girl, was clothed in a rag similar to the one tied around her waist. Primal, but modest. She looked more cavegirl than ape . . . or human.
The girl growled and pounced. She landed on Queen’s chest with a surprising weight that knocked her off her feet. The girl jumped away from Queen just after the two hit the ground.
Queen lay still on the forest floor, watching as the ferocious child scaled the trees, leaping from one to the next, and finally disappeared from view high in the canopy.
Quick to her feet, Queen ran, knowing the girl would return with others. She would have liked to inspect the dead male, but couldn’t risk getting caught again. She followed a diagonal course in the same general direction as the girl. She wouldn’t leave King and Pawn behind. Circling around toward the enemy would give her a chance to follow, but would also confuse those trying to track her. They might not expect her to give chase, especially when even the little girl could have killed her. Surprise had allowed her to kill the larger male. She had to be sure surprise remained on her side.
A loud hooting filled the forest. The others were returning.
Queen caught a glimpse of five large males moving through the trees faster than she could run on land. She ducked behind a fallen palm and watched, afraid to move lest she be heard. The five males’ vocalizations reached a crescendo when they discovered their dead counterpart. If Queen were caught again, they would do much more than knock her out. The inhuman shouts continued as the five pounded down the path, back the way they’d come.
Queen smiled. They might be stronger, faster, and more agile than her, but they weren’t the smartest primates in the jungle. Of course, she had no idea how long they would follow the path before realizing Queen had not taken it. They might not be strategists, but they weren’t exactly dopes, either. They could talk, after all.
Not eager to test their IQs, Queen watched the five males vanish into the jungle, then set out after the others. What had started as a noble mission to save the world from some new bioweapon had descended into a dirty fight for survival. First Delta versus VPLA Death Volunteers. Now man versus beast.
THIRTY-SEVEN
KNIGHT DREAMED OF his mother, calling him in for lunch, and then woke to silence. He had slept through the wailing calls of the Nguoi Rung, through the echoed reports of Rook’s powerful handgun, through the gruesome death suffered by Somi, and lastly, through the shouts issued in Rook’s direction from Red, in plain English. Had he heard any of this he might have not lingered upon waking. And as a result he would not have made the mistake that carried him deeper into the ancient layers built by inhuman hands.
He sat on the bed of bones and rubbed his head. Though his slumber had been sound, his body ached after lying on a bed of knobby limbs. He stretched his back, breathed deep, stretching his battered rib cage. Relief came as a pop in his sternum signified a realignment—of what he couldn’t tell, but he felt better.
In the darkness created by the bone structure, he had a clear view of the space outside. He could see the wall of the cavern, glowing green, and the skeletal structures at its base. The view was just a sliver of the interior, but the cavern’s light was steady. He looked for movement. A shifting shadow. A flicker of light. Anything that would betray the presence of somebody, or something, waiting for him. He slowed his breathing so that he could no longer hear his own breath, and listened.
He saw nothing.
Heard nothing.
Then stood.
His ankle throbbed, sending him back down onto the bone bed, which rattled under the sudden return of weight.
Knight froze, watching and listening again. When no one approached he was even more sure that he was alone. In the quiet cavern his rattling bed would have been like an alarm bell. Or dinner bell.
Leaning over, he took hold of a conjoined radius and ulna that made up a decorative pattern running the length of the bed and yanked them free. He then separated them from each other with a quick pull. Though the bones were solid, the tissue holding them together turned to powder in his hands. Using duct tape kept in his cargo pants he lashed the forearm bones to the sides of his wounded foot and lower leg.
Not exactly a gel cast, Knight thought, but it will have to do.
He stood with a grunt, but the pain was bearable. The makeshift splint would serve its purpose, to help take the weight off the ankle and distribute it to his calf. Limping, he moved to the doorway and took a peek outside. Nothing but the emerald sheen of ancient bones.
He slid silently from the doorway and rounded the side of the building that had provided his refuge. He peeked around the corner and saw a long, straight passage, what could only really be called a street, stretching straight away for a distance that looked greater than several football fields. Both sides of the street were lined by more buildings ranging in size and intricacy. There was no way to know the original purpose of the place, but the design, the craftsmanship, that went into each building was impressive, if not hauntingly beautiful.
After a quick listen, Knight whisked across the street, to the far side, where buildings rose up into the bone-covered stone wall. He hoped to find a tunnel that would take him out of this place and into the bright yellow light of day. Hell, even the dull filtered light of the jungle’s canopy-covered day would be an improvement. Even the humidity and heat of the jungle, which could not be found in the cool, dry caves, held greater appeal than the necropolis. It was the air that bothered him. He could feel the dusty air clogging his nose, dust created by the bones and bodies that were left to rot in this cave. He was breathing the dead.
Doing his best to stay in the shadows, Knight moved as swiftly as possible on his injured leg, but the glowing green moss that covered every external surface filled the cavern with ambient light. If one of the creatures that lived in this cave happened to look in his direction, he would stand out like a black meteorite on an arctic ice shelf.
So it was, when he heard the steady slap of broad bare feet approaching from a side corridor, he ducked into the first dark tunnel he found. Before disappearing into the darkness he removed a bandanna from his pocket and wiped s
everal bones clean of their green moss. He pocketed the glowing rag and moved away from the necropolis.
When the footfalls came closer he had no choice but to follow the tunnel. It ran straight for fifty feet, and as Knight covered the distance he hoped to find it turning upward, but it didn’t. It descended, deeper into the mountain. Deeper into the lair of the Nguoi Rung.
THIRTY-EIGHT
WAVES OF HEAT caressed Sara’s body. She still couldn’t see, but she knew from the dry warmth and the occasional pop that she was sitting in front of a fire. The cold stone against her hands, which were tied tight behind her back, coupled with the occasional echoed voice, revealed she was in a cave. She tried to focus on her other senses, her odd senses, but something about the enclosed space and constant heat of the fire kept her from “feeling” anything more than her immediate surroundings.
She couldn’t even tell if King was with her. She had sensed a struggle behind them when they were still on the path and wondered if Queen had escaped. A group of their captors gave chase to something, but there was no way to really know what had happened. Queen might have escaped, but Sara held out little hope that she could make it far, never mind return to free them.
“Sara, you there?”
A wave of emotion, both joy and dread, swept through Sara. “King,” she said, his name infused in a sigh of relief. “You’re alive.”
“Given my current condition and the pain in my head, I’m starting to wish I wasn’t.”
“Are you injured?”
“Nothing that won’t heal, but they’ve got me hog-tied upside down. Don’t suppose you managed your loose-rope trick again?”
Sara fought with her bindings but quickly gave up. “Not a chance.”
King sighed. This mission had been one humiliation after another. Landing in a battlefield. Sara’s abduction. Being captured and tortured by the VPLA. And now, after rescuing Sara, they had been captured again.
The question nagging him was who had captured them. He couldn’t remember a thing up until a minute ago when he woke to a pounding headache. At least they were still together. Or were they? “Queen?”
“She’s not with us,” Sara said. “I think she escaped.”
King didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. They’d already been separated from Knight, Rook, and Bishop. The team found strength together. Each represented a part of the whole. King the head, cunning and cool. Bishop and Rook the arms, strong and steady. Knight and Queen the legs, mobile and deadly. Still, with Queen on the loose, a rescue attempt would be no doubt forthcoming—if she was still alive.
Sara waited for an answer, but King remained silent. She couldn’t handle the silence. Not now. With her senses shut down and her vision blocked, his voice helped ground her. But what to ask him? She knew so little about him. His childhood? Did he have a family? A girlfriend? The man was hardly an open book. “King,” she said, “why do you do what you do?”
“What do you mean?” King asked, hoping she wasn’t planning on a long conversation. His head pounded with every utterance.
“Delta. Most kids want to be a fireman or paleontologist or . . .”
“Or a doctor,” King said.
“Yeah, or a doctor.”
“I wanted to be a farmer. Corn. I loved corn on the cob. Wanted to eat it all the time.”
“So what happened?”
“Other than becoming a teenager, discovering girls had boobs, and deciding a skateboard was better for me than vegetables?” As King’s attention turned inward, the pulsing pain in his head ebbed.
“That’s hardly far from normal. What made you . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Into a soldier?”
“I guess.”
“My sister.”
“Must have been some awful teasing.” Sara managed to smile beneath her hood. The idea of anyone teasing King to some kind of breaking point seemed impossible. Like trying to freeze the ocean’s tide or stop the rotation of the planet. The man had deep, strong roots. Her impression of him being an over-casual grunt had been replaced by a deep respect for the man. His easygoing demeanor hid a calculating, efficient soldier. But he was more than that. After all he’d seen and done, King still had a heart. And a heart like that, one that could endure through the worst horrors the world had to offer, and keep on beating . . . keep on caring . . . that heart belonged to a man worth getting to know better.
“Julie, my sister. We hated each other for a while. I suppose most siblings do at one time or another. Then things changed. We got older and closer. Then she left for the air force. Wanted to be a fighter pilot.”
“Did she make it?”
“Yeah. She was amazing.”
Sara waited for King to continue. She doubted he opened up like this to anyone, probably not even to the Chess Team, and didn’t want to pressure him. Maybe the blood in his head made him loopy. Or maybe the connection she felt growing between them was mutual. But she couldn’t take the silence anymore. “And?”
“She crashed.”
Sara kicked herself for pushing it, but then King continued.
“It was a training accident. She never did see combat. I enlisted that year. A tribute to her, I suppose. Pretty dumb, looking back at it now. Turns out I was good with a gun.”
“And a knife.”
King chuckled, then grunted as pain jolted through his blood-filled skull. “And a knife. Of course, everything changed when Deep Blue . . .”
King fell silent.
“What is it?”
“Deep Blue sat this mission out.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure anymore . . .” King faded into his thoughts, putting pieces together. Why wouldn’t Deep Blue take part in a mission? Death or severe injury. His identity had been kept a secret, so he was most likely a man with a position of power. A busy man. Another mission? What could be more important than theirs, and if so, why hide that from the team? And that had never stopped him before. Brugada. The word came to King in a flash. It had something to do with Brugada. Had to. Before his mind could finish the puzzle, his concentration faded with Sara’s voice.
“King . . .” Sara sensed movement to her side. The new arrival was close enough to feel despite the fire. “Someone’s here.”
“You’re quite perceptive,” said a friendly sounding male voice. It wasn’t Bishop, Rook, or Knight. The hood came off her head and all at once she could see. The fire, five feet away, blazed brightly. She squinted and tried to see the man standing above her. But her blurry vision couldn’t make out the details of his backlit form.
King felt himself lifted up and then placed gently on the stone floor of the cave. Then his hood came away as well. King blinked as his eyes adjusted to the flickering light. He could see Sara across the cave, squinting. A fire danced between them. And to his right, a man squatted. King looked at the man’s spectacled eyes. They were electric blue and friendly. Then he glanced down and noticed the man was clothed in only a loincloth. A spectacled, hairy, not-so-handsome Tarzan.
Great, King thought.
The man smiled. “Sorry for your discomfort. My name is Dr. Anthony Weston.”
THIRTY-NINE
WET.
It seemed the whole world was wet.
The bark of the trees felt slick to the touch. The earth underfoot sank with each step. And the air, once breathed, coated the lungs with a viscous layer of sludge. The jungle felt like this all the time, but Rook had only just taken notice. As fatigue and despair set in, the wetness closed in around him. Rage filled his body like never before. His team . . . his friends . . . were missing or dead. All of them. He might see some of them soon, he thought, in the halls of Valhalla, or wherever warriors went to when they died. They’d all be there. Whether his passing would result from violence or simply succumbing to the elements, he wasn’t sure.
He struggled to escape from his wet and clingy clothing. The tight, waterlogged fabric slowed him down, made him clumsy and noisy. He slid out of his
heavy flak jacket. There wouldn’t be any bullets flying from the group he hunted now. His shirt went next, peeling off him like the skin off a rotisserie chicken. Shirtless now, his taut, white skin breathed and his body relaxed. He removed the outbreak monitor from his wrist. The gentle glow of its digital screen, no longer covered by his sleeve, would give away his position. He noted the orange level and pocketed the device.
After a quick peek over the semicircle of exposed tree roots he had been hiding behind, he lay down on a muddy patch of earth and wallowed in the mud like a great white pig. From his blond hair to his boots, the dark, wet earth covered him. Satisfied with his handiwork, Rook stood and leaned against the tree. While not a perfect camouflage, the dark gray coloration more closely matched the jungle floor than his jet-black uniform. With so many people . . . so many things . . . against him, stealth would be key. He smiled for a moment, remembering the scene in Predator when Arnold Schwarzenegger covered his body in mud to escape the heat-sensing sight of the alien hunter. “Up there . . . in them trees,” he quoted one of his favorite lines with a whisper, “I see you.” The movie had been one of many teenage favorites that inspired his trip to the army recruiter. Arnold had it lucky. Just one alien to fight. Rook had a whole tribe of bona fide Neanderthals.
Rook tossed his removed clothing into the mud and stomped it down with his bare feet, creating a wet slurping sound as the ooze held on to his foot. With the clothing—and its scent—hidden, he was ready to go.
Then a sound stopped him cold. The barely perceptible scrape of tree bark. Something approached from behind.
With a roar, Rook spun around and caught the attacker midleap. The dark form roared back, feminine and savage.
Lucy, he thought.
Rook brought a roundhouse around and caught the beast in the side of the head, which brought about a satisfying grunt. But before he could follow up, a knee crushed into his crotch. A fist to his sternum followed it and sent him onto his back in the mud. Lucy wasted no time, pouncing from above and pounding his gut with a savage punch.
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