As always, he wasn’t doing it to impress others, or to curry favor with his superiors, but in order to fulfill his own personal mantra that had been instilled in him by his mom – to become the very best version of himself that he could possibly be. And it was because of his mom that he had met Thorne, a good-looking guy with a ready smile, flawless caramel-colored skin, and what his mom would undoubtedly have labeled “cheekbones to die for.”
Because of his “shaming” and his subsequent need to better himself, Scott hadn’t become as tight with some of the other guys in his team as they had become with each other. For that reason he had been sitting alone in the mess on the day that Thorne had happened along. Freshly showered after a run, a plate of grilled chicken and greens in front of him, he had taken out the photo of his mom that he kept in a plastic wallet in his breast pocket, and contemplated it for a moment, as he did most days.
“That your sweetheart?”
The voice came from behind him. Scott turned to see a good-looking black kid, holding a tray containing a steaming plate of food and a mug of coffee.
The question had not been meant facetiously. His mom was maybe thirty in the photo and was laughing into the camera, her long hair, gleaming like gold in the sun, swirling around her face.
Scott half-smiled. “No,” he said. “It’s my mom.”
The kid’s face fell. “Oh, hey man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothing.”
“No, no, it’s okay. This is an old photograph.” He hesitated. “She died.”
“Oh, wow. Tough break. Sorry, man. Again.”
“It was a long time ago, but… y’know.”
“Sure. Hey, look, I’ll leave you alone. Sorry to intrude.”
“You don’t have to go.” Scott nodded at the bench seat beside him. “Be my guest. Unless you’d rather be with your buddies?”
“Here is fine.” The kid put his tray down and slid into the seat beside Scott. “Devlin, right?”
“That’s right. Scott.”
“Thorne. Marcus.” The kid put out his hand and Scott shook it. “Nice to meet you, man. I mean… well… y’know.”
“Nice to meet you too. Properly, I mean.”
It took Scott less than two minutes to decide one important thing about Marcus Thorne, and that was that he liked him a lot. Marcus was an easy guy to talk to, and although he wasn’t exactly naïve, he was, unlike some of the guys Scott had encountered in his military career, smart, refreshingly open and instantly friendly. For all the brothers-in-arms camaraderie that existed in the military, army guys, until you got to know them well, often wore their masculinity like a shield, or even brandished it like a weapon. But not Marcus. He was clearly confident enough without feeling as though he had to put it out there on display.
By the time lunch was over, Scott had discovered that Marcus was from Jacksonville, that he came from a close-knit family (consisting of his dad, Fraser, a railroad mechanic; his mom, Marian, a nurse; and his two younger sisters, Lavonne and Taleisha) and that he had started his military career at the Mayport Army Base in his hometown.
“You got any pictures of your family?” Scott asked him.
“No, but I got one of my sweetheart. You wanna see?”
“Sure.”
Marcus took a photograph from his wallet and showed it to Scott. “That there’s Devon,” he said proudly.
Scott saw a thin-faced girl with mischievous eyes and a smile as wide as Marcus’s own. “Pretty girl.”
“Not just pretty,” said Marcus, “she’s beautiful. Inside and out. We gonna get married someday. You got a sweetheart, Scott?”
The question caught him off-guard. For all that he had an easygoing nature, Scott had always been something of an island. His mom’s death had caused him to grow a hard shell around himself, and his four hellish years with his Uncle Tommy had caused that shell to grow thicker and harder still.
“No,” he said, and tried to smile. “Afraid of commitment, I guess.”
Marcus glanced at him, and Scott realized in that moment how his new friend had a knack of instantly assessing a situation, of reading between the lines. With an easy smile, Marcus said softly, “In that case, next time I go home on leave, you’re coming with me and I’m introducing you to some of Devon’s friends. Jacksonville is so blessed with pretty girls you can hardly move for tripping over ’em.”
Scott laughed. “I may just take you up on that.”
Over the following weeks it became apparent to Scott that Marcus’s intuition not only made him a good human being, it made him a good soldier too. He was unflustered, brave, and he always made the correct decisions in the field. Scott loved working in a two-man team with Marcus, because he knew he could rely on him in tight situations to do the right thing. It would be foolish to say he felt safe when Marcus was around, because safety was never a guarantee in their job, but he was at least secure in the knowledge that if he did ever go down, it would not be due to stupidity or lack of foresight.
Over the half-dozen or so missions that the team had now undertaken since LA, they had formed into a tight-knit and efficient unit. They each had their own particular skills, and they each had one another’s backs, though as was inevitable within any group of two-dozen individuals, they didn’t do absolutely everything together. During their downtime in Hangar 12, a vast military installation, which provided living accommodation for a variety of military and government groups, squadrons, units and organizations (and which Scott and his friends referred to, only half-jokingly, as “Black Ops Central”), they tended to split off into smaller “buddy units,” which, although fluid, remained reasonably consistent. Along with himself and Marcus, the two other guys who made up their unofficial “buddy unit” were Jason Flynn and Daniel Lau.
Flynn and Lau entered the Chinook together and took seats opposite their comrades. Flynn grinned and flippantly tapped the rim of his helmet with his forefinger, whereas Lau, the quietest and most somber of the quartet – except when he was drunk, upon which he became a giggling loon – contented himself with a simple nod of acknowledgement.
Once everyone was aboard, Sarge climbed in to join them, his vast bulk for a moment blotting out the light pouring in through the door at the tail of the aircraft. As soon as he had sat down, Flynn leaned forward.
“Where to this time, Sarge?”
Sarge regarded him with a deadpan expression. “South.”
“Well, don’t that open up a whole buffet of possibilities?” said Flynn, who with his blond hair and fresh complexion looked like a clean-cut, all-American college boy, but whose accent was pure Louisiana.
Sarge’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll be briefed along with everyone else once we’re up in the air, Private.”
Scott and Marcus grinned as Flynn sank back in his seat, suitably cowed. “Yes, sir.”
As it turned out, their mission was like most other missions they had so far been assigned – removal and cleanup in an area of dense jungle where drug cartel activity had been getting out of hand.
Referring to the maps that each man had been issued with along with their rations, ammunition and medical kit, Sarge said, “North of the river you will see several red X marks. These marks indicate where recent fighting has occurred. If this was simply a case of cartel guys blowing one another off the face of the Earth, it would not be our concern. In fact, we would send each side a greetings card from the US government wishing them luck, along with some extra bullets to ensure they do the job properly. Unfortunately, as is invariably the case, this gang-related in-fighting has resulted in a great many civilian casualties. Some have been hostages, mostly women and children, who were being held by the cartels to ensure the loyalty and cooperation of the local population, and others have been innocent bystanders, caught in the crossfire during gun battles in the more densely populated local areas. This jungle area here is where we believe the majority of the drugs are being grown and processed. Our job is to eradicate any drug farms or factories we may find, seize any p
rocessed stock, and capture or kill anyone who offers resistance. It goes without saying that we are on the wrong side of the border here, and should not, therefore, expect additional help from the US government. To all intents and purposes we are invisible – except to those we have come here to stop, who would be only too happy to make us disappear for good. So be vigilant, be alert, but do not be reckless. This is an extremely active zone, and if somebody shoots at you, then shoot back, but do so with the utmost thought and economy. If things get too hot in there, withdraw and reconsider. I want no heroics. Our main aim today is to do our job as quickly and efficiently as possible, and to return home with all our bits and pieces intact and in full working order.”
It was a variation on the speech he had heard Sarge give several times now, and as they flew in low over miles of heavy jungle foliage, Scott couldn’t help but wonder whether his job would always be like this. “Mundane” was the wrong word to use for an occupation in which you faced the genuine prospect of death on a regular basis, and yet compared to that first assignment in LA all those months ago, these subsequent operations had lacked that air of intrigue and mystery that had so piqued his interest in the job in the first place.
As the Chinook touched down in a rare clearing among the thick foliage, and Scott prepared himself to face the sweltering heat of yet another Mexican jungle, he thought back, not for the first time, to the glimpse he’d had all those months ago of that severed forearm in the metal gauntlet, and to the luminous green fluid that had been leaking from it. With each subsequent day that passed, that strange encounter seemed more like a dream, or like something he’d once imagined or read about in a storybook. He wondered whether he would ever see anything like that again, or whether it would forever remain that most frustrating of things, a mystery without a solution.
* * *
Dutch Schaefer heard the chopper approaching, but he couldn’t see it through the thick canopy of trees overhead. From the sound, he was pretty sure it was a Chinook, which probably meant some black ops team had been sent in on a cleanup mission due to the recent escalation in drug cartel activity.
He sighed. Whoever had instigated that mission did not know the full story here. The arrival of a bunch of armed grunts might bring the Hunters out into the open – if they were still here, that was – but Dutch did not like the idea of his fellow countrymen, and no doubt young, inexperienced ones at that, being picked off as prey by an opponent they were utterly unprepared to face.
He wished he could warn them, wished he could pull rank and order them to climb straight back into the vehicle that had brought them here and head home, but to do so would only jeopardize his own mission. Besides, he had his priorities here, and to put it bluntly, the presence of a cleanup team was nothing but a minor irritation, as indeed were the drug cartels themselves.
Working with the OWLF, albeit in an unofficial capacity, still did not sit easily with him, but at least his missions were funded now; at least he had access to various resources and support networks that had previously been denied him; and at least he knew that whatever he could salvage from the Hunters’ killing grounds was being analyzed and assessed by experts in the hope that ultimately it would further humanity’s chance of victory against their alien aggressors.
He also consoled himself with the thought that if he did have to work for the US government, then at least he had chosen the right side. The corridors of power were complex and numerous, and there had been whispers recently of another organization springing up within the government that was pursuing similar aims to the OWLF, albeit in a more aggressive and ruthless manner. Dutch knew little more than that, aside from the fact that his contact, Garber, had advised him that he and his team might need to up their game if they wished to steal a march on their new rivals.
Dutch heard the engines of the Chinook change timbre, and knew that the chopper was landing. And from the sounds of it, it was no more than three or four klicks away.
Good luck, boys, he thought, you’ll need it.
He resumed his careful and meticulous route through the trees, senses alert for the slightest sound or movement.
If there were Hunters in this jungle, as he had been led to believe, they were hiding well.
* * *
“Drug factories are like zits,” Flynn said. “Soon as you squeeze one, another pops up somewhere else.”
“They’re full of pus too,” Lau said.
Flynn frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Pus. Poison.” Lau rolled his eyes. “I’m saying the cartel guys are no better than the pus that comes out of a zit.”
Flynn’s face cleared. “Ohhh, I got ya. I thought you meant the drugs were like pus. ’Cos that’s poison too, right?”
“Hush, you two,” Marcus said.
Flynn looked affronted. “We were just whispering.”
“No whispering. No sound at all from now on. Just signals. Okay?”
Flynn shrugged, but nodded. Lau nodded too. It wasn’t that they were bad soldiers; it was just that Flynn, in particular, had a tendency to let his mouth run away with him.
Scott, who was on point, glanced back and Marcus gave him the “OK” sign. So far all had been quiet, but to Scott it felt like an ominous quiet. There were barely even any birds chattering overhead, which was unusual in the jungle.
The team had been split into six groups of four, each of which had been assigned a different quadrant to investigate. Scott’s group had been given one of the denser patches, the foliage thick and full of potential hiding places. The top corner of their section, as viewed on the map, contained one of the red X’s, where fighting between rival cartel groups had occurred. They were making their way toward that now, Scott checking both the map and the compass every few steps to ensure they were heading in the right direction.
It was hot, and though they had all been trained to blot out physical discomforts like extreme heat or cold, it was harder to ignore the debilitating effect of other physical processes, such as sweat that trickled into your eyes, stinging and blurring your vision. For that reason progress was slow. Whenever anyone wanted to stop, he would hold up a hand and the others would halt without question. But that was okay. There was nothing worse than rushing, nothing worse than being anything other than cautious and meticulous. Impatience cost lives; lack of focus cost lives. In a hostile environment, where the enemy knew the terrain better than you did, training was all important, and the cornerstones of that training were vigilance, clear-headedness, forward thinking and the preservation of the lives of yourselves, your colleagues, and whoever you were here to help and protect.
Fifteen minutes later, during which time they had been wading through waist-high grasses, their rifles held across their chests to reduce the noise of their passage, they emerged at the edge of a scrubby clearing dotted with clumps of cacti. On the far side, where the jungle began to thicken again, Scott caught a glimpse of what looked like the dark, flat side of a building half-concealed by trees. Immediately he halted, crouched down, and gestured to the others to find cover. When they had done so, he used hand signals to indicate they should approach the building in a pincer movement. They all nodded to let him know they understood.
Glancing at Marcus, and receiving a nod in response, Scott moved forward. With Marcus shadowing him, he slipped from bush to bush and tree to tree as he skirted the clearing, focusing not just on the building he was heading toward, but on what was around, behind, and even above them.
If there were cartel members about, they seemed completely unaware of Scott and his team – unless they were crouching in ambush. There had been no sounds of gunfire from elsewhere in the jungle, which was a good sign, as it indicated that none of the other groups within earshot had encountered any hostile resistance either.
A few minutes later Scott and Marcus came to a halt close to the left-hand corner of the building, using a tree with drooping branches for cover. Now came the risky part of the operation, though if they kept their hea
ds the risks would be calculated ones, and their decisions would be based on judgment rather than luck.
Taking up positions on either side of the tree, Scott and Marcus assessed the route ahead, looking for potential pitfalls and booby traps, and then they began to move. They moved swiftly, silently, and without hesitation, Scott checking each aspect of the building as it came into sight, whilst at the same time keeping a watch on the jungle, which pressed in on all sides.
The building was squat, functional, composed of little more than corrugated aluminum sheets that had been bolted together and painted green and brown in a half-hearted attempt at camouflage. It looked like a storage facility of some kind, though Scott didn’t want to presume. For all he knew it could provide temporary accommodation for cartel guys on guard duty, or it could even be a place for them to shelter from the heat and the rain. There could be a dozen heavily armed guys in there right now, playing poker, dozing, shooting the shit.
If there were, though, they were staying quiet. Neither Scott nor Marcus heard a sound as they skirted the left-hand side of the building, looking for access. Off to his right, Scott had already seen Flynn and Lau break cover and move silently up the right-hand side of the building. Good. Unless one couple found a door, they would meet round the front; otherwise, whichever of them it was who found it would sit tight and wait for the other couple to circle the building and join them.
Heading toward the corner that led to the front of the building, Scott saw uninterrupted sunlight streaming onto the ground beyond it. He also saw a patch of dusty earth grooved with tire tracks where vehicles had come and gone. Edging right up to the corner, he saw a dirt track leading away from the building, and a black 4x4 parked on it, grayed with dust, the reflective glass in its windows making it impossible to tell whether it was occupied or not. Scott ducked back round the corner and conveyed his instructions to Marcus with the barest of whispers. Marcus would take the front of the building and Scott would take the car. If Flynn and Lau had assessed the situation, they would echo Scott and Marcus’s actions, coming from the other direction the instant that Scott made his move.
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