When a wailing cry drifted in on the night air, Verhoven put his mug down and grabbed a walkie-talkie. “What do you see?”
“Well, open your damn eyes,” he said, “because you’re missing something.”
Danielle had heard enough. “I’m waking the camp.”
There was no need. Stirred by the chanting, the other members of the team were already in motion, peering out of their tents or making their way to spots beside the fire, near her and Verhoven.
Polaski was one of the first to reach her. “What is that?”
“Sounds like a cat in heat,” Devers said.
The porters gathered together. McCarter and Susan arrived by the fire with Hawker right behind them.
Danielle stepped nearer to Devers. “Is that the Chollokwan?”
He did not reply immediately, seeming startled by the echoing voice.
“Of course it is,” Verhoven replied.
She wanted confirmation. “Come on, yes or no?”
“I think it is,” Devers said. “It sounds like their language but …”
As Devers strained to listen, Hawker stepped past, taking a seat on a wooden crate. “Time to see if this plan of yours works.”
The plan was simple: they’d create a secure area at the center of the camp in case of attack. The area was ringed with smoke canisters and a group of tripods holding metal halide flood lamps, like those used in the Olympic stadiums.
If they faced a daylight raid, the smoke canisters would pump out thick volumes of dark smoke, obscuring the group in seconds from any onrushing attackers. But the smoke would not interfere with the infrared scopes attached to Verhoven’s rifles and they could fire at will from this hidden spot.
If the attack came at night, like the one that seemed imminent, the floodlights would do the same thing, blinding anyone and anything that came at them, while the NRI team disappeared into the dark void at the center, firing out of it if necessary.
Danielle scanned the clearing. For now they were alone.
“Anything on the screen?” Verhoven asked.
Danielle looked at the laptop. “Not yet,” she said. “They must be too far out.”
As he spoke, the laptop began to beep softly. Targets popped up on the screen: little red dots on a field of gray, some to the south and a few more on the west side.
Verhoven picked up his radio. “Fall back. No need getting all strung out if we’re going to have ourselves a tussle.”
Verhoven calmly unslung the rifle on his shoulder. “It’s going to be an interesting night,” he said. He sounded more aggravated than concerned, like a man being forced to perform a chore he’d put off far too long.
Danielle looked his way. “We’d better get out the extra rifles,” she said.
Verhoven tossed a key to one of the porters. “Move quick, now.”
The rifles were in a long crate near Verhoven’s tent, but as a precaution the box was locked. It would take the man a minute to reach it and retrieve the rifles inside.
As he dashed off, the voices came around again, louder this time, a chant of several joined together. “This isn’t good,” Polaski said. “I really don’t see how this can be good.”
“What are they saying?” Danielle asked.
“It’s hard to tell,” Devers said. The voices rose, then fell away, then rose again. “It’s almost a song of some kind, not really a—”
A second native voice interrupted Devers, breaking in over the top of the chorus with a shout from the western edge. It was quickly answered by one from the east and then one from the north and finally the south.
Danielle turned in each direction, looking for the source of the cries even as they died away, replaced once again by the low, rhythmic chanting.
Polaski mumbled something unintelligible at this latest development and McCarter put his hand on Susan’s shoulder, glancing around.
“What do they want?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Civilians in danger, exactly the situation Danielle had hoped to avoid. She turned to Devers. “What the hell are they saying?”
“It’s hard to make out.”
“Come on,” she snapped. “You’re useless right now.”
“It’s not that easy,” Devers insisted. “Their language isn’t like ours, it’s not completely linear.” He strained to hear. “They’re calling on the spirits,” he said. “Asking them to wipe the forest clean of the plague and infestation that we’ve brought to it. Or maybe
Verhoven laughed. “Of course we are.” He racked the slide on his rifle and stepped forward. “Well, they’d better bring more than spirits if they want to get rid of us.”
As the wave of chanting grew again, Danielle had the distinct impression of a situation spinning out of control. She was afraid the Chollokwan would attack en masse, and almost as afraid that Verhoven wanted them to, just to prove what he could do.
She glanced at Hawker. He seemed unconcerned, almost amused. He shook his head calmly, his eyes suggesting there wouldn’t be trouble, that it was all bravado, just Verhoven and the natives puffing themselves up in some kind of pissing contest.
She turned back to the trees, hoping he was right, and just then, the chanting stopped.
As the silence lingered she turned to Devers. “Now what?”
He shook his head.
A moment later Verhoven’s men rejoined the group and he directed them to cover the points on the compass with the expedition’s members gathered between them.
Danielle feared that four armed men would not be enough. She stared into the darkness searching for the burly porter who’d gone to get the extra rifles. She couldn’t see him and she wondered what could be taking him so long. “Should we hit the lights?”
“Not yet,” Verhoven said.
New shouts issued from the trees as the gathering of red dots on the computer screen grew and the chirping alarm continued unabated.
“Look out!” Polaski shouted.
Everyone ducked as an object trailing flames hurtled through the dark sky toward them. It fell short, bouncing and skipping oddly across the ground, some type of bololike device burning at both ends. The dry grasses lit around it, just as more flames arced into the sky.
“Everybody down,” Verhoven said.
The trails of fire swung through the air in strange wobbling paths, two balls of flame orbiting each other on a piece of twine. They crashed and sparked. Ten, then twenty, then more, one after another in bunches, hailing down from all directions.
Susan began kicking sand toward the licks of fire that came closest. McCarter joined her, but the thin weedy grasses quickly burned to embers and there was no real danger.
Just then, the porter returned, awkwardly carrying four rifles and a box of loaded clips.
Verhoven grabbed them.
“Pass them out,” Danielle ordered. The chanting voices around them had taken on a different sound, darker and more ominous, curling around the clearing as one voice after another repeated a single word.
From the look on his face, Devers recognized the word, but this time he didn’t translate it. That was a bad sign.
