Slowly, he lowered his binoculars and fought the lump wedged in his throat. Kinkaid had seen enough. To make sure, he’d have to move closer. He wanted to believe the vultures were feeding on another dead animal, but he knew the truth.
Animals didn’t wear black cloth.
CHAPTER 14
Southeast Cuba
Sierra Maestra Mountain Range
Afternoon
Excessive rains from the storm had caused the river in the gorge to overflow its banks. Kinkaid kept his eyes alert for any signs of danger as he headed for the far side of the canyon. Water looked knee deep on the fringes. He kept to the outer edge of the river and navigated the uneven marshy terrain.
He found it hard not to stare at the body lying under the trees ahead, covered with the feeding vultures that had claimed it. Normally, the birds fly high to spot their prey and circle above it. Nature’s own cleanup crew. But the dreary dirty-looking predators were done flying and were now on the ravenous and greedy phase of their existence. Kinkaid gripped his assault rifle and made steady progress as he stuck to the shadows under the trees.
When he got close, the mounting drone of flies buzzed in a mind-numbing blur, white noise to a grotesque nightmare. Vultures covered the body with flapping wings in a feeding frenzy, brazenly feasting on decaying flesh with their bloodied razor-sharp beaks. The stench made it hard for him to breathe, especially with the muggy heat.
Kinkaid saw a black garment under the claws of the large birds, and his mind launched into images of Sister Kate wearing her nun’s habit. Memories of the day they’d first met at the hospital raced through his mind. And even though those days were still a blur, he would never forget Kate. He clenched his jaw and fought the rage that welled inside him. None of this should have happened to her. It had been tempting to shoot his rifle at the scavengers, a release for his anger.
He couldn’t do that. Not here. Not in hostile territory, with other lives at risk.
He crept closer and waved his arms, but the vultures had staked their claim and ignored his approach. He had to swing at them with the butt end of his rifle and kick a couple off before he saw the dead body. The vultures bounded away in lumbering and awkward hops. The birds stayed on the ground, only yards from the body, ready to pounce on the decaying corpse after he’d lost interest.
Kinkaid covered his mouth and nose with his arm and stared down at the beheaded body of a man dressed in a bloodied tuxedo. A swarm of large flies hovered over the corpse, and maggots writhed through shredded skin, adding the finishing touches to a nightmarish ordeal he wouldn’t forget. He forced his gaze off the body and searched the ground nearby. The severed head was nowhere to be found, perhaps carried off by other predators.
He’d been relieved that it wasn’t Kate and didn’t want to think about how that reflected on him. The reality of the horrifying death this man had endured brought a rush of guilt and the powerless feeling that he’d laid this at Kate’s door and been unable to rescue her.
He’d found one body. Would hers be rotting somewhere else…in a spot he might never find?
An overwhelming wave of nausea hit him, the result of the horror at his feet and a heady mix of antibiotics with too little food and too much heat. And he felt the fever under his skin. At this rate, the infection had an edge and would take him down. He had to keep moving.
Kinkaid wanted to bury the man, but the damage had been done. In an hour or two there would be nothing left except bones picked clean. There was nothing more he could do except look for ID. He winced in pain as he dropped to one knee to pat down the man’s pockets. He found nothing on the body that would identify him. The man’s shoes were gone and his belt, watch, and wallet were missing. His killers had stripped his body, the final degradation. He hoped they’d waited until after he’d been murdered, but he doubted it. Any man who would kill like this had no soul and no sense of morality. Only a solo cuff link remained on the corpse, picked at by the vultures until it reflected in the dappled sun filtering through the trees.
It was the glint of light he had seen earlier.
Kinkaid turned away from the body and shifted his focus. Now it was time to help the living, and he hoped he wouldn’t be too late. He circled the location of the dismembered corpse in a slow and methodical fashion, making a full 360-degree circuit to pick up any tracks leading away from the carcass. The storm made it almost impossible. Eventually, he found a recognizable boot print—a partial—one he’d seen near the beach in Haiti. The print had been sheltered from rain damage by the thick canopy of trees and hardened in the dried clay soil. He’d found the trail of the hostages again. And trampled grasses gave the direction he would go.
Before he headed out, he looked over his shoulder to see that the vultures had reclaimed their prize. An overzealous flutter of wings and snapping beaks reestablished their pecking order as they got back to the business of survival, leaving Kinkaid with a stark reminder of his own mortality. With the infection ravaging his body, he was living on borrowed time. If he died here, no one would know…and few would care. He could drop dead in the middle of nowhere, his body becoming nothing more than a host for maggot larvae and fast food for the ugliest bird on the planet.
Clutching his assault rifle, he followed the tracks with a renewed sense of purpose and drive. His sliver of hope was only tainted by the fact that he was alone again. If he didn’t find Kate and the hostages soon, Alexa and her team would be too far away to matter.
Joselyne ate with dirty fingers from a filthy bowl, scooping grainy mush into her mouth. Her eyes watched the men near the campfire, her lips hovering over the bowl as she ate. The food smelled bad, but she was too hungry to care. Her stomach grumbled and ached. She had to go again. Not more than twenty minutes ago, before the men gave them food, she had raced into the woods to potty. Two men with rifles followed her and watched as she squatted.
When they heard the embarrassing noises she made, they laughed and pointed at her. She didn’t have to understand their language to know what they were saying. Without being able to clean up, she smelled bad from the thick brown dribble down her legs. She’d gotten some on her torn dress. After she came back and crawled under the tarp to hide, the rest of the kids had moved away and kept their distance.
All of the hostages looked scared. It wasn’t just the other children…or her.
Their camp had been moved. After the storm, they had been forced to hike again. Only this time, they hadn’t walked all day. Things were different. This time they joined another group of armed men who lived in a small village in the hills. And she saw they knew each other. None of these men seemed surprised that they were being held captive.
Being in a village, she hoped they would get better treatment. That didn’t happen. They were forced to camp outside like before, herded to the outskirts of the village like goats. From under the tarp, she watched the armed men mix with the others. They ate cooked food that smelled better, and they laughed as if they were on holiday.
She hated them for taking her away from her family, her father.
At first she prayed like she’d been taught at school, but after a while she gave up. Maybe God didn’t hear her prayers anymore, not after the men killed Sister Kate. She felt an ache deep inside when she pictured the face of the nun. Picturing her dead hurt as bad as the day her mother died.
And the sick man was gone, too, the one who had been shot. She remembered seeing the light of the camera on the night of the storm. And the next day, she saw the armed men do something she didn’t understand until later. That was when she knew what they had done to the wounded man. They had done the same to the brave nun.
Thinking about Sister Kate and the man who’d been shot made her belly ache. And she was scared all the time now. The bad men kept looking at her. The way they looked at her made her feel dirty. She avoided their eyes,
