The Traveler (45 page)

“That was just a little bit beyond probing our defenses. What in the hell was that all about?” Henri asked as he ejected his magazine, checked the loads, and then popped it back in.

“At West Point they discussed the Viet Cong tactic of attacking a spot to cover the real objective, and they didn't care how many they sacrificed to do it.”

“Well, they had a goal, all right, and if they knew what they were doing they couldn't have hurt us more, buckos.” Jenks cursed as he slammed the empty Styrofoam box back into the trailer. “That smart-ass chicken just made off with our power coupling, and they even managed to cut our tethers to the signal balloons.”

“And this means what?” Henri asked, afraid of the answer.

“It means, Froggy, we're screwed as far as getting home goes or even signaling Everett that friends are here. As I said, truly screwed.”

Jack cursed and then reexamined the perimeter with his field glasses. He knew then that they had to go hunting in a land where they could quickly become the hunted.

“If they stole that thing with the intention of coming back for the doorway, tell Compton that I quit. First Russians and now buzzards with an attitude and smarts.”

“For once, Master Chief, I am in total agreement,” Farbeaux said angrily as he glared at Collins, who would more than likely succeed in getting him killed after all.

“That just makes my day, Froggy. I'm so happy to have you onboard my way of thinking.”

Henri ignored Jenks, who was showing his fear and frustration.

“Big, crazed chickens and Frenchmen—what's next, a friggin' asteroid?”

At that moment the trees to the south were illuminated with a bright flash of brilliantly colored light and then the jungle and dense tree canopy where the team had originally shifted to erupted in flame and noise.

It wasn't an asteroid.

*   *   *

The pain was almost merciful as it caused such a shock to their systems that they lost consciousness. The last sensation Ryan felt was his hold on Sarah's belt as she was ripped away from him with a force that made his strong grip seem like a child's. The noise was ear-shattering and the light blinding. The electricity popped through their bodies as if firecrackers were being set off in their very bone marrow.

Jason felt the impact as the large group was ejected from the doorway. All sound, light, and sensation had vanished and all felt as near death as any had ever felt.

Sarah was the first to shake off the effects of the displacement. She felt herself smoldering but for the life of her she didn't know what it was she was supposed to do about it. The heat started on her arm and was slowly working its way up. She knew her eyes were open because she had the sensation of her lids moving up and down. She heard a loud pop from very far away. Then another.

“Oh, crap!” came the voice Sarah immediately recognized as Will Mendenhall's. Because of the heat and the pain in her arm her eyes finally cleared and then opened. That was when she saw Will with blood on his face as he started slapping at her. At first she was shocked by his actions until she felt the heat and pain on her arm lessen to the point that she regained some of her lost composure and senses. Suddenly she heard more loud popping noises. Sarah rolled over in time to see Anya and Ryan as they seemed to be wrestling with someone. Finally, as Mendenhall lifted her to her feet, she saw that they had removed a weapon from a severely burned man on the ground. The pistol Jason held was still smoking. Sarah again looked at the man who must have been spasming and firing his pistol off through pure instinct. The Russian stopped moving as his smoking corpse settled and finally gave in to death.

“My God,” McIntire mumbled aloud. She looked around at the men that were slowly picking themselves off a semi-darkened ground. Fires were everywhere and the screams of shocked travelers filled the air. Several of the Russians were clearly dead.

Virginia Pollock was magically standing in front of Sarah. Virginia quickly snatched at the blood streaming from her own nose as she leaned over and checked Sarah's arm. She tore away the burned sleeve and then nodded. “Nothing too bad,” she said as she looked around nervously. Her features suddenly sank.

“I'll have … that if … you don't mind,” came the voice of Alexi Doshnikov.

Sarah cleared her eyes once more and saw the Russian holding the large Colt Peacemaker to Jason's head.

“Glad to see you made it, Ivan,” he said as Doshnikov angrily pushed Ryan toward his four companions.

The mobster quickly removed his smoldering greatcoat and tossed it on the ground. He gave himself a quick health and welfare check and saw that other than being a little singed and having a broken nose from where he had rolled into a rather large tree, he would survive. He was shaking and was having a hard time regaining his senses beyond the ability to keep the American from gaining a weapon. He looked at several of his men as they were in various states of wakefulness. Then he saw others that would never awaken again. He counted five of these that lay smoldering and burning on the ground. He realized then that these were his people who had been on the periphery of the doorway, closer to the lasers and the centrifugal heat caused by the spinning collider as they passed through. Unlike the survivors who had been in the center of the room. This was cause and effect no one, not even Virginia or Xavier Morales, had foreseen as a consequence of the dimensional burp.

“Oh, man, that's something you don't see every day,” Mendenhall said as he tried to brace Sarah for the sight.

Fifteen feet away Joshua Jodle was half in and half out of a large tree. He had phased into this existence in entirely the wrong place. His hand was still holding the aluminum case that had all of Doshnikov's plans and dreams. As a shocked group watched on, the case slowly slipped from the dead man's fingers.

A stunned Doshnikov turned and faced Sarah, Jason, Anya, Will, and Virginia and was amazed they had basically made it through unscathed. In his childish mind he thought it extremely unfair that this was the case. Even as they all stood in a semicircle the earth shook so violently that they almost lost their footing. The earthquake subsided and then the world became silent once more.

“What have you done?” he asked as he gestured for his men to cover the Americans.

“You wanted a trip through our little dream maker, and you got one,” Ryan said, not being able to stop the smile from coming. He disliked most Russians out of habit.

“Tell them to turn it back on, immediately,” he said with spittle flying from his lips.

Now Jason wasn't so sure he should have been antagonizing the man. He looked a little unstable to say the least. The Colt was shaking in his hands.

A loud crack and a flaming branch came down and the Russian shot it twice before he realized it wasn't a threat outside of the flames. He nervously looked at Ryan, the man who was his antagonist since he had seen him that very afternoon. Ryan was to blame for this, Doshnikov didn't know how, but he was sure of it.

“As soon as you tell me how to go about that, Chief, but in case you haven't noticed, you're not exactly in Kansas anymore.”

Again Doshnikov looked around and saw a burning primordial forest he had only seen in museum dioramas. He was finding it extremely hard to draw a breath. No, that wasn't quite right, he thought. He was drawing too much. He had to place his free hand on a smoldering tree to steady himself as his head spun as if drunk.

“The effect you are feeling is over-oxygenated air. You're used to smog, particulates. This is a clean, unmolested environment, with the exception of volcanic fallout … exhilarating, isn't it?” Virginia said as she nodded at Ryan that now would be a good time to leave these people before they regained all of their senses. Then she lost hope as she felt the pure oxygen effects also. She clung on to Sarah, who was down to a knee. Ryan was about to say something when he too became dizzy. To his horror he saw the Russian and most of his men straighten from their own discomfort and start shaking their heads. It seemed they were recovering far faster than he thought they would.

“I think … I will start with … the small woman … first,” Doshnikov said as he took a menacing step toward the five. “Then we … will see if the mutual … cooperation we had earlier … returns. I want that … doorway turned back on!” He screamed the last two words. He raised the Colt revolver toward a kneeling Sarah McIntire.

Jason was just getting ready to move his shaky body in front of Sarah's when the scene was shattered. First came the roar and then the scream of men as a blur of orange, black, white, and gray burst through the flames of the trees and into the midst of the Russians.

Virginia's eyes widened and Mendenhall nearly lost the contents of his bladder when they saw what had sprung at them from the unsettled jungle and burning forest. The saber-toothed cat was at least a thousand pounds of bustling muscle and sinew. The eight-inch incisors were snapping at the men who were so shocked none of them made any move to fend off the giant lionlike beast. The scream of the animal was horrifying to say the least. The claws of the saber-tooth swung and caught the first Russian across the chest area, ripping his still beating heart from his body along with a section of breastplate and ribs. Doshnikov regained his senses first and fired two shots into the cat but that only increased its fear and hatred of the men it had cornered. It hunched its back and sprang at the next man in line.

Before Ryan really knew what he was doing, he picked McIntire up and started pushing the other four away from the scene just as more shots rang out from the Russians, who were fast recovering from their shock after they had just witnessed their companion being eviscerated.

They heard another shot, then another as they ran for the jungle undergrowth, but the still-burning fires made their silhouettes stand out and Jason feared that made them excellent targets. Then to cement his opinion he felt the bullet fly just past his right ear and slam into a giant fern plant as they finally made it to the undergrowth.

Behind them the cat screamed and men died before silence once more filled the world.

*   *   *

Jack used the binoculars but the thickening ash made viewing the four miles difficult. He lowered them just as the sound of distant gunfire came to his ears. That distinctive sound made even Jenks stop his cursing over the power coupling's loss—momentarily.

“Carl?” Charlie asked with hope lacing his question.

“No, that was more than one brand of weapon. I counted no less than three different calibers,” Jack said as he looked over at Henri for his opinion. The Frenchman just nodded his concurrence. Collins raised the glasses once more. “Master Chief, we were going to conserve the batteries on the two drones until we had the doorway up and running, but I think now is the time to get them in the air. We need eyes out there.”

“Well, I hate to be the stick in the damn mud here but we have another very serious concern,” Jenks said, drawing the attention of the others. “Unless we track that damn chicken-lizard down we're going to be sending out change-of-address cards to the post office. Now what do you suppose we do about that?”

Jack shook his head as he looked over to the master chief. “Well, I guess we have to go and get it back, don't we, you grumpy old bastard?”

“When was the last time you tracked one of those Velocipedes?”

“Actually it's called a Velociraptor, there is a distinct—”

The look coming from all three of his companions shut Charlie up.

“This will be my first raptor hunt, Master Chief,” Jack said as he tossed Jenks the binoculars he had been using. He caught the glasses and then almost dropped them. “Now, do you think you and Charlie can get those two drones up and then arm the laser defense system and possibly keep those damn things from stealing any more of our toys?”

Jenks didn't respond with anything other than a huff.

“Actually, I don't think there was a devious attempt to thwart us,” Charlie said. “I mean they are smarter than any animal in the fossil records, even their direct ancestors, but they are still animals.”

“Come on, Doc, what in the hell are you saying?” Jack asked as he retrieved a field pack and then tossed it to Farbeaux, who was listening to Ellenshaw.

“I mean to say that I believe the raptor stole the coupling because it was shiny. The stainless-steel housing had to look awful tempting to the animal. They are after all part of the avian family, or so the theory goes anyway. So I think this one acted just like a raven, or crow, it likes bright shiny things.”

“So?” Henri asked as he changed out the magazine on his M-4.

“I am saying that if you are to track them, keep in mind that they will act like an animal at first, don't give them time to think things out. It's like telling Pete Golding a riddle, at first he will be stumped, but give him time to think and you're had.”

Collins looked from Ellenshaw to Farbeaux. The poor doc hadn't even realized that he had invoked Pete Golding's name. It was as if Pete hadn't died in Chato's Crawl. Jack lowered his eyes as he concentrated on situating his own field pack.

“Just water, Henri, we'll travel light.”

“That's fine with me as I would rather eat bugs than that MRE disaster you Americans are so proud of.”

“Before this little foray is over you may be wishing for some of that crap. Ready?” Jack asked as he slung the M-4 over his shoulder and gathered his scopes and night vision equipment.

“Remind me again why you insisted on bringing me out of your president's forced retirement of my services?”

“Because you're expendable, and for the decidedly more important fact that you owe
me,
not the president. After all, you're no longer a wanted man in the United States,” Jack said while producing his only smile of the day.