Burial Ground (18 page)

Santos turned toward the source.

He didn't even have time to scream.

11:33 p.m.

"You have to see this," McMasters said.

The words snapped Tasker from his slumber.
He was instantly awake.

"What is it?" he asked, donning his
camouflaged jacket and slipping out through the seam in the
mosquito netting over his hammock.

McMasters had already climbed out of the
tent and into a small gap they had created between their tents,
over which a blind of leafy branches had been constructed. Tasker
followed, and found the other four men bickering in whispers. They
wouldn't have roused him if it hadn't been important.

Their muddy faces were stained by the weak
blue glow of the beacon on the monitor of the tracking device.
McMasters looked up at him as he sat, then passed him the handheld
unit.

"At twenty-two twenty-three, the beacon
began to move at a rate of somewhere in the neighborhood of five
miles an hour."

"Why would they break camp in the middle of
the night?" Tasker asked, thinking aloud.

"We're not sure, but here's the kicker. They
weren't traveling deeper into the jungle. They were heading
straight back toward us."

"What do you mean 'were'?"

"The beacon's movement subsided at exactly
twenty-three fifteen," McMasters said. "And it hasn't moved
since."

"Not at all?"

"No, sir."

"That doesn't make any sense." Tasker paused
while he tried to work it out in his head. His men had surely been
trying to do the same, and when they hadn't reached a consensus,
the only alternative they had seen was to wake him. "What could
have spurred flight in the middle of the night, and why would they
have stopped so abruptly? They sacrificed nearly half a day's
progress."

And then it hit him.

The sudden and rapid movement. The stasis of
the beacon for almost an hour now.

"Saddle up men," he said. "We break camp in
fifteen minutes. Full night vision. We're running hot."

There was a moment of hesitation.

"They've discovered the tracking device,"
Tasker snapped. He shot a glance at McMasters, who seethed under
the accusation. "Once they found it, they relocated it as quickly
as possible, hoping to throw us off their scent. They're probably
already moving out while we're wasting our time sitting here
debating it."

Tasker looked at each of his men in turn.
McMasters, Telford, Reubens, and Jones: four identical dark-eyed,
mud-crusted interchangeable grunts. How dare they not immediately
respond to a direct order.

"Move!" he snapped. "Now!"

This time the men leapt up from where they
sat. Within ten minutes, all supplies were packed and all gear
stowed. They hit the path in double-time with the awkward lenses
strapped tightly across their foreheads. The darkness brightened in
subtle shades of green and gray. Snaking roots cast uneven shadows
across the path, making the ground appear to rise and fall in
waves. Severed vines dangled to either side from where they'd been
hacked away during the previous day.

McMasters fell back from the lead when the
trail widened and spoke softly so that only Tasker could hear.

"What are the rules of engagement?"

"You are not to directly engage the targets
until I give the order. We need them to lead us to the prize first.
For now, this is old fashioned recon. We wait and watch. And once
they've led us to the treasure, we wipe them off the face of the
planet."

McMasters gave a sharp nod and jogged back
to the point.

Tasker was furious that their surveillance
had been discovered. He had thought McMasters the most skilled of
his men, but apparently he had been wrong. Their prey had found the
tracking device within twenty-four hours of its placement, which
was entirely unacceptable. Now, like rabbits, they were running. As
always though, Tasker was prepared for this contingency. The night
vision goggles would still allow them to track their quarry, and
they would be able to do so under the cover of night. Everything
would still go according to plan. All this setback had cost them
was sleep. Still, they were better rested and in better shape than
those they pursued, who had barely slept either of the past two
nights, and had surely exhausted themselves creating this path that
he and his men could now traverse at more than ten times the speed
with which it had been forged. They would reach the location of the
tracking device shortly after sunrise, and by the time the sun set
again, they would be within striking distance.

Movement from his right caught his eye. For
a fraction of a second he could have sworn he'd seen the blur of a
running man off in the jungle. It must have only been an illusion
created by the random alignment of branches and leaves. They were
professional soldiers. They would have known if anyone had even
tried to get within a hundred yards of them.

He returned his focus to the path ahead, and
the fortune that awaited them.

Andes Mountains, Peru

October 28
^th

7:19 a.m. PET

The backpack was crumpled in the middle of
the path amid the mess of its dumped contents. Crimson dots
spotlighted the jumble from the thin beams of the rising sun that
managed to reach through the interwoven branches. The world around
them hummed as though with an electrical current. Mosquitoes
swarmed over the bushes to either side of the path in greater
numbers than he had ever seen in one location in his life. They
covered the leaves and filled the air in roiling clouds.

He knelt beside the overturned rucksack. His
men surrounded him, automatic rifles pointed into the infested
jungle at the four points of the compass. The tracking device was
still in the bottom of the outer left pouch where McMasters had
pinned it into the lining by the single metal prong. It showed no
signs of tampering or manipulation. He moved on to the former
contents of the bag, and sifted through long- and short-sleeved
shirts, jeans, cargo pants, socks, boxers, and a host of other
personal items: toothbrush and toothpaste, eye drops, a small
medical kit, and prescriptions for Ambien, BuSpar, and Xanax. The
foil punch-cards intrigued him. A sleep aid, an anti-psychotic, and
an anti-anxiety/anti-depressant. Whoever the bag belonged to
appeared to be a real nut job. He turned over a windbreaker and a
spider the size of his hand raised its forelegs at him.

"Christ." He drew his hunting knife and
impaled the creature through the thorax, pinning it to the earth.
While its legs squirmed and twitched, he evaluated the sections of
soil beneath it and between the proliferation of roots and weeds.
There. Two distinct sets of footprints, both bare. Interesting.

Tasker yanked the blade from the spider's
back, wiped it on his fatigues, and shoved it back into its sheath.
He stood again and surveyed the chaos as a whole. Several feet to
the west of the path, the groundcover was flattened and uprooted.
Beyond were more partial footprints, spaced far enough apart to
confirm what they already knew. The men had been running. The one
carrying the pack must have tripped and fallen, spilling everything
out of his backpack. So why hadn't he repacked his belongings and
continued onward? Even an expensive digital camera remained
facedown in the dirt.

He turned his attention to the swirling
masses of mosquitoes. Now he needed to determine what happened to
the men whose footprints terminated right here.

The smell of violated flesh and spilled
blood reminded him of the scent of the bodies he had pulled out of
the rubble in the aftermath of a market bombing in Baghdad during
Desert Storm. It was all around him, which made it impossible to
pinpoint the source. Fortunately, he didn't have to look very far.
He pushed through a spear-leafed bush tangled with vines that
reached the ground from the branches of the ceiba tree above it,
and immediately saw the remains through the swarming insects and
the carpet of them on the ground. The bones were shattered and
spread out over an area ten feet square. A disarticulated foot
rested closest to him, skin black, capped with the severed tendons
that attached to the stub of the ankle. There was a portion of a
knee here, a section of spine there. A broken ribcage crawling with
bloated black flies and mosquitoes alike. He skirted the carnage
until he reached what was left of the cranium. The crown had been
broken to leave just the bowl of the occipital portion of the
skull, which was alive with bugs feeding on the residual vessels in
the membranous lining. The upper row of teeth was still attached,
minus the four in the very front. The conglomeration of bones that
formed the bridge of the nose and the orbits was splintered and
fragmented. Tatters of clothing were draped over the surrounding
branches like garlands. He looked up to see flies fighting over the
droplets of blood that had dried on the undersides of the broad
leaves in the lower canopy.

Tasker whistled in admiration. Whoever
attacked this man had absolutely obliterated him.

Crouching, he studied the mud despite the
protests of the startled insects. There wasn't a single discernible
human footprint, only a handful of faint impressions that barely
compressed the earth. They resembled the imprints of a camel's
hooves, only much lighter and with a wider splay. Whoever did this
had done an exceptional job of covering their tracks.

"There's another one over here," Telford
called from somewhere off to his right.

Tasker rose and fought his way through the
snarls of vegetation. Telford hovered over what was left of the
body, nervously swinging his rifle from side to side as he watched
the forest. The area was similarly littered with bones and ripped
clothing.

"This ain't right, man," Telford said. "I
can't think of anything that could have possibly done this.
Anything."

Beads of sweat drew lines through the mask
of mud on Telford's face. The whites of his eyes stood out like
beacons. He freed one hand from the weapon and pulled the golden
cross out from beneath his shirt so that it dangled over his
fatigues.

"Grow some balls, soldier. This is neither
the time nor the place for cowardice."

Telford opened his mouth to object, but
thought better of it. The expression on his face spoke volumes,
though.

"I found a third," Reubens shouted from
behind them and across the path.

Tasker quickly appraised the ground. There
were more prints like the ones he had discovered at the first site,
but still no human, or even feline, tracks.

He burst from the jungle, crossed the path,
and shoved deeper into the forest, following a series of broken
branches and torn vines until he came upon Reubens and McMasters,
who stood near the base of a tree with wild, angled roots, several
of which had been broken. The ground behind them was carved with
eight parallel marks in sets of four. He guessed the man had been
hiding in the cage of roots before whoever attacked him broke
through and dragged him out into the open while his fingers carved
uselessly at the earth. The rest of the scene was the same as the
previous two: a scattering of bones in no decipherable pattern,
congealing blood over the entire area upon which nearly every
insect in the country had been attracted to feast.

Tasker glanced at his watch. 7:31 a.m.. All
of this had happened just over eight hours ago. Even more
disturbing was the prospect that whoever had attacked with such
speed and savagery could still be nearby even now.

The dour expressions on the faces of his
comrades reflected the fact that they were probably considering
that notion as well.

There was nothing more for them to do or see
here. They needed to keep moving. His preliminary assessment had
been wrong. These men hadn't discovered the tracking device in the
backpack, nor had they been trying to relocate it to throw off
their pursuit. If he had to wager a guess, Tasker would have said
these men were fleeing from something, attempting to return to
their boats and civilization. But what had they seen that could
have startled them so badly that they had felt it necessary to run
away in the middle of the night?

Tasker had a flash of memory, of what he
thought might have been a man in the forest beside him several
hours ago. Perhaps he had dismissed the notion too quickly, but
could any number of men have done...this?

He didn't have to order his troops to move
out. By the time he turned back toward the path, they had already
fallen in behind him. Their breathing grew rapid, and he could
almost smell their fear even over the reek of death.

When they reached the overturned backpack,
Jones and Telford were waiting. Telford rubbed his golden cross
between his thumb and forefinger. He took a deep breath and faced
Tasker. He was unable to hold eye contact. His gaze darted from one
side of the forest to the other like a cornered mouse.

"With all due respect, First Sergeant
Tasker," he blurted, voice quavering, "I will be relinquishing my
rank and returning to Pomacochas."

Telford stood there, chest puffed out,
shaking in his boots.

"With all due respect,
Lance
Corporal
," Tasker said. "I can't allow you to do that." He
paced a circle around the terrified man, who suddenly looked like a
scared little boy playing soldier in his backyard. "You do remember
that our little sojourn here wasn't exactly sanctioned, don't
you?"

Telford swallowed hard. His Adam's apple
rose and fell, but he could only muster a meek nod.

"So you see," Tasker continued, "if we were
to allow you to tuck tail and run, you could put the rest of us in
a rather untenable position, and for what? Hmm?" He paced another
slow circle around the man. "Or maybe I'm being too hard on you.
You won't talk to anyone, will you?"