'Then we need to divide the area into quadrants,' Colton whispered. 'We can safely rule out the lake. Morton, you head southeast along the shoreline and work your way back into the forest. Webber, you and Sorenson strike off to the east and then split up. One of you go north, the other south. I'll follow the bank to the northwest and search the surrounding area. We meet back here in thirty minutes. Any questions?'
'Are we going to arm ourselves from the crate?' Webber asked.
'Not until it's absolutely necessary. We don't want to panic the civilians. We still need them focused to reach our goal.' Colton paused to gauge their reactions. They seemed momentarily appeased by his plan. 'All right then. You have your orders.' He held up his wristwatch. 'On my mark.' The other three similarly raised their watches, and synchronized the time in unison.
Colton turned and strode through the camp and along the shoreline. He fished his communications gear out of his pocket and plugged the earpiece into his left ear. The rotten smell accosted him from the jungle to his right. He wasn't especially looking forward to revisiting the clearing filled with festering carcasses, but someone had to do it, and none of the other men had objected when he assigned it to himself. He didn't blame them in the slightest.
After another hundred yards, he ducked out of the moonlight and into the darkness beneath the canopy. He could barely see a thing, even with his penlight, which he held against the barrel of his pistol in a two-handed grip as he pressed back the shadows in slow sweeps. There was no reason to be leading with his weapon, but it provided a measure of comfort. He wasn't the kind of man prone to allowing himself to be spooked. After a decade as a SEAL, he had seen men die in just about every possible way, and he had survived with little more than cuts and contusions. Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq. He had done things he chose not to remember and things he would never forget. And since then, he had handled more of these private expeditions than he could count. From the Nile basin and the deserts of Africa to the polar ice caps and the thousands of feet of water beneath the Seven Seas to the smallest of uncharted islands and war-torn Third World nations. And through them all, his gut had never felt like it did now.
The jungle dictated his wending course, turning him this way and that, around massive trunks and through screens of shrubbery. Mosquitoes sang around his head in the absence of birdsong and the chatter of monkeys. Now that he truly thought about it, with the exception of the stinging cloud that escorted him through the foliage and the din of flies off to his right, there didn't seem to be any animals in the vicinity. That observation did little to settle his rising unease.
He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes had already passed. Time to start working back toward the camp.
Veering back to the south, he wound through a maze of trees and vines, ducking, climbing, crawling. The drone of flies grew louder with each step. He must be closer to the clearing than he thought, or perhaps the forest had steered him toward it. Either way, it meant that his navigational instincts were off, which unsettled him even more. As he closed in on the buzzing sound, he realized that his instincts hadn't failed him. The trees were all wrong. Even coming in from the opposite direction, he would have recognized them.
He willed his heart rate to slow, and softened his tread on the damp leaves and kindling. The darkness shifted through the branches of a ceiba tree ahead. He raised his flashlight beam toward the gaps between the leaves. Thousands of bloated flies roiled and buzzed beyond. The smell wasn't as atrocious as it had been in the clearing they had stumbled upon earlier, but it wasn't a naturally recurring scent either. It was the damp reek of the inside of something never meant to be opened, tainted by the scents of freshly chopped meat and bowels.
Colton eased through the branches and steeled himself against the sight. Arcs of black blood covered a cluster of tree trunks. Several heliconia bushes had been ripped from the disheveled ground and shredded amid tatters of clothing. He identified the rifle in the dirt first, for it was the one object not covered with insects. An FN- SCAR-L/ Mk. 16. Disarticulated remains were spread through the underbrush, seething with black flies. Even the backpack was covered with insects trying to draw blood from the fabric.
Breathing fast, he retreated from what was left of Rippeth, and hurried back toward the lake. The unobstructed shore would be the fastest route back to camp.
He pressed the transmitter button on his communications device and prepared to speak into the microphone, and then thought better of it. What would happen if he called for backup? The other men would come running, but what would be the consequences to the expedition if they found their brother-in-arms butchered in such a ghastly fashion? He had to determine how to proceed very carefully. They couldn't afford to scrap their plans now. Too much money had been advanced, too many man-hours expended. And he would not tolerate failure, especially with the potential payoff being so enormous. This one mission could provide him with enough cash to finance a luxurious retirement.
But the first order of business was saving his own skin. Lord only knew what kind of creatures could butcher a heavily-armed soldier without allowing him to squeeze off a shot. That SCAR fired six-hundred rounds per minute. A gentle tap of the trigger, just the slightest application of pressure, would have easily expelled several rounds. And he hadn't heard a single report.
He stumbled out of the trees and nearly fell into the lake before regaining his balance and sprinting through the mud toward the camp. Webber and Sorenson were already waiting beside the fire, watching him approach. Morton appeared from the far side of the tents at the same time.
Colton slowed his pace and struggled to regain his composure. He slid his pistol back under his waistband and clenched his hands into fists, willing his heart to slow. How was he going to handle this?
'Report,' he said, and sat on the log they had rolled over beside the campfire.
'No sign of Rippeth,' Sorenson said.
'Not a single fresh track,' Webber added.
'Nothing in the jungle,' Morton said. 'And the path has too many sets of footprints already to tell if there was a recent set headed in the opposite direction.'
Colton studied their faces. They appeared less certain that their comrade hadn't abandoned them now.
He thought of how savagely Rippeth had been torn apart. Even if he did say something, would it guarantee their safe return to Pomacochas? Rippeth had been alone, perhaps an eighth of a mile from anyone else. Whatever attacked him had chosen to isolate him in the bush rather than in the camp itself, where even more prey slept unaware. Perhaps safety was in numbers. If that was the case, then what would sharing the details change?
'I think we need to face the grim truth,' Colton said. 'Rippeth deserted us, and we must proceed. With or without him.'
II
The mood when Galen awakened was somber. One of the men, who no longer maintained the pretense of simple hired excavation help, had abandoned them during the night. The man with the dragon tattoo on his neck had made him uncomfortable, but he looked like the kind of man one would want to have beside him when one's life was on the line. Those that remained were grumpy and impatient. Their red eyes and the bags beneath them suggested that the previous night hadn't been remotely restful. They didn't chat amongst themselves as usual, and pressed the group harder to reach its goal, which contributed to Galen's overall sour disposition. After being awakened well before the designated hour and forced to pack at an absurd rate, the morning had started out poorly. Add the fact that he'd been denied even the comfort of a single cup of coffee filled with floating grounds, and the day was already shot.
They had passed around the far shore of the lake under the light of the moon, and witnessed the sunrise as a weak dilution of the shadows beneath the canopy as they continued to the west into the jungle. Where the bottom of the valley met the steep slope of a mountain, they had encountered a thin path that switchbacked up toward the low-lying clouds. It was barely wide enough to scale single-file, and seemed to only service whatever animals used it to reach the lake from the high country. Often it grew steep enough that they were forced to crawl, using the roots that poked out of the hillside for leverage. At those points, it took four men to haul the crate of sensing equipment.
He was amazed that so many trees could grow so densely on the nearly vertical hillside, especially where the side of the path occasionally turned into a pitfall over the treetops far below. Such moments granted stunning views
