Burial Ground (44 page)

He heard more thrashing in the bushes. The
forest was playing tricks with the acoustics. It almost sounded
like the noises originated behind him.

Bursting through the thicket, he nearly
slammed into McMasters, who knelt over the bloody mess of what had
once been a short Hispanic man.

McMasters looked up at him. The black paint
on his face glistened with the fresh application of blood, and it
appeared as though a large chunk of his ear had been cut off. No.
It had been bitten off, just above the conch. He held his left arm
tightly against his chest, a guarding posture that suggested either
a broken rib or a dislocated shoulder.

Rage boiled inside of Tasker. He wanted to
lash out at McMasters, but now was not the time.

Voices echoed through the forest. It
wouldn't be long before they initiated the search for their
unresponsive patrolmen.

The swift death he would have granted his
subordinate was no longer in the offering. For his carelessness,
Tasker promised himself that he would prolong McMasters's suffering
and subject him to unendurable agony.

He shoved McMasters ahead of him into a wall
of saplings and around the ruins of a hut.

Speed was of the essence.

Behind him, the forest came to life with
threshing sounds, as though the trees themselves were being torn
apart.

10:06 p.m.

Colton called for his men again, but there
was still no answer. How long had it been? A minute? Five?

Sorenson looked over at him expectantly,
awaiting his orders. His eyes were wide with fear, yet he would do
whatever was required of him.

Colton had to decide their course of action
right now. He was out of time.

Shrubs rustled at the edge of sight against
the jungle, bowing violently in sections. They were out there, and
they no longer tried to hide their numbers. He couldn't see them,
but with the way the underbrush shook, there had to be dozens of
them. Either that or they were fast. Really fast.

"Morton and Webber are dead," Colton finally
said.

"Don't you at least want me to try to---?"

"They're dead, soldier. Tell me you have any
doubt."

Sorenson opened his mouth to object, then
let it fall slowly closed. His jaw muscles bulged several times and
his eyes narrowed to slits before he finally found his voice. "What
are your orders?"

"Hold your post. Nothing gets past us. If
anything moves, you send it right back to hell. Clear?"

"Crystal."

"What's going on?" Merritt asked from behind
him.

"Can you still handle a rifle?" Colton
asked.

"What happened to the other---?"

"Can you still handle a goddamn rifle or
not?" Colton snapped.

"They're gone, aren't they?" Sam asked.
Colton could hear the tears in the woman's voice, but he had
neither the time nor the patience to coddle her.

"Get in the back of the chamber. Don't come
anywhere near this doorway again until I signal that everything is
safe." He reached back and shoved her into the room. "Merritt. I
need to know right now if you can---"

"Where are they?" Merritt asked.

Good. He hadn't frozen up.

"In the bottom of the crate under the GPR.
Arm yourself and take up position between the doorway and the
others. If anything manages to get through us, you're the last line
of defense. And you'd better make every shot count."

If Merritt said something else, Colton
didn't hear it. He focused on the lighted patch in front of him as
he swept the barrel of his rifle across the tree line and listened
for any sound to betray his adversary's intent. The sheeting rain
tore through the glow and pounded the already muddy ground.
Torchlight reflected from the expanding puddles and lit the front
halves of the tall trees, throwing blankets of shadow behind them.
A flash of lightning shimmered on the wet leaves before darkness
again advanced with the rumble of thunder.

10:12 p.m.

Tasker led McMasters around the western edge
of the clearing, careful not to stray into the light. The sentries
hadn't split up as he had assumed they would, but that didn't faze
him in the slightest. He adjusted his plan on the fly as he always
did, and in the process of doing so, was struck by a bolt of
inspiration. Rather than just killing two birds with one stone, he
could kill all of them every bit as easily. It wouldn't be nearly
as much fun as cornering those cowering inside the stone dwelling
and executing them in front of each other, but in one swift stroke,
the deed would be done and they would have the ruins all to
themselves.

Bushes rustled behind him and something
splashed in a puddle off in the jungle to his left. Their stalkers
were growing more bold by the minute. Fortunately, his masterful
solution ought to serve the dual purpose of scaring them off as
well.

It was the most perfect plan ever devised.
Too bad there would be no one left to share in his triumph when all
was said and done, and he was staring out over the Caribbean from
the balcony of his private villa.

He paused when they reached the back side of
the palatial structure and signaled for McMasters to do the same.
Other than the clamor of the rain and the stealthy movement in the
trees, he heard nothing, no sign that their ruse had been
detected.

With a nod, he guided McMasters over the
mounds of rubble that had nearly been reclaimed by the earth to
form a rugged hillside from which trees of all shapes and sizes
grew. Had he not seen it from the front, he might never have
suspected that anything manmade resided under his feet. Silently,
they worked their way through the overgrowth until the light from
the torches blazed from beyond the next row of trees, and then
lowered themselves to their bellies and scuttled toward the
edge.

Tasker locked stares with McMasters and
pushed himself up just high enough to peer over the precipice.
While he couldn't see the guards directly underneath him from that
vantage point, at least he could confirm that neither of them had
wandered away from their posts far enough that they could clearly
see the jungle growing on the roof above them.

He eased back to his stomach, pressed his
index finger to his lips, and craned his head to listen.

Faint voices drifted up from below. He
couldn't make out their words, but he didn't have to either.

He turned back to McMasters and gave a
single nod.

McMasters licked his lips and rolled over
onto his back. He reached into the front pocket of his jacket,
removed the object as they had discussed, and turned back over
again. Holding it tightly in his fist, he pulled the pin with his
opposite hand.

The grenade would shred the sentries and
undoubtedly collapse the entire ancient structure.

They just needed to make sure that they
weren't on top of it when it fell.

Bushes shivered to Tasker's right.

They weren't alone.

McMasters shoved himself to all fours,
staying as low as he could, and crawled toward the edge. With the
grenade in his right hand, he leaned out over the unsuspecting men
below.

Colton watched the branches across the
clearing slowly tremble back into place. Again, the forest fell
deathly still.

"Where are they?" Sorenson whispered. "I
can't see a blasted thing."

Colton could feel them all around him. The
weight of unseen eyes made his skin crawl.

The creatures were smart, too smart to
blindly charge out into the light. But they weren't passively
waiting out there for their prey to make the first move either.
They were the hunters, and the darkness was their ally. Colton
sensed them surrounding the clearing, just out of sight in the
protective embrace of the shrubs and shadows.

The noose was tightening, and soon---

He felt a gentle tap on his right shoulder
and leapt away from the wall before the pebble that had fallen from
the lip above him even hit the ground. Twisting in midair, he
raised his weapon toward the roof of the building and squeezed the
trigger.

Automatic gunfire chattered.

McMasters was thrown away from the edge and
into the air. Geysers of blood trailed him as he flopped
backward.

Tasker watched the arm holding the grenade
go limp and the hand relax. The grenade tumbled through the
underbrush toward the dark side of the building.

McMasters's body formed a rainbow arch,
frozen in time by the strobe of a lightning strike. Dark shapes
lunged out of the shrubs and attacked him in midair with a flurry
of claws and teeth. Clothes tore and skin parted. A rain of blood
patterned the mud, but Tasker only felt it spatter his legs as he
propelled himself diagonally to his right. He barely managed to get
his legs underneath him in time to launch himself over the front
corner of the structure.

Light flashed behind him. With a clap of
manmade thunder, the concussive blast hurled him out over the
nothingness in a fiery cloud of shrapnel.

10:18 p.m.

There was a muffled
whump
behind Sam.
The ground shook and knocked her to her knees. Smoke and dust
blasted through the gaps in the rock barricades to either side of
her, filling the room with a chalky haze. She screamed, but
couldn't even hear her own voice over what sounded like a freight
train bearing down on her. The stones in the ceiling cracked and
debris rained down. Rocks tumbled away from the barricades and
fissures raced through the support columns, one of which buckled
sideways and collapsed.

The entire building was coming down.

Merritt grabbed her hand and pulled her back
to her feet. The rifle in his free hand clanked against the
incendiary grenades he had clipped to his hip and the spare
magazine he had jammed into his pocket.

"Get out of there!" Colton shouted from the
doorway. "Now!"

She glanced back at Galen and Leo. They both
struggled to stand on the shaking floor.

"Come on!" she shouted, jerking Leo to his
feet. He latched onto Galen's arm and dragged him away from the
rear wall.

From the edges of her peripheral vision, she
saw that enough of the rubble had fallen from the barricades to
create dark gaps toward the top, through which clouds of dust
funneled. Dark shapes twisted and thrashed in an effort to force
their way through.

Something struck her shoulder from above and
drove her to the ground, wrenching her hand from Merritt's. She
cried out and grabbed at the searing pain. More and more of the
stone ceiling cracked away and fell around her.

A shadow passed through the swirling dust,
grabbed her around the torso, and hauled her to her feet.

"Hurry!" Merritt shouted directly into her
ear. He half-carried, half-dragged her through the collapsing
chamber and into the night air, where the dust diffused into a
golden fog. She couldn't even see the forest twenty feet away.

Merritt dropped her to her hands and knees
in the mud. She coughed and retched into a fern before finding the
strength to stand. Her legs trembled. Or was it the earth
itself?

She turned toward the building. Shadows
raced in her direction through the haze. She saw the vague outline
of the trees above the roofline as they fell, canting sideways and
toppling on the plummeting stones. A massive expulsion of dust
billowed from the jumbled ruins.

"What's happening?" she screamed.

"There's no time," Colton snapped. "We're
too exposed here. We have to find a more defensible position."

"Is everyone accounted for?" Merritt
asked.

"I count six," Sorenson said. "Time to
move."

"Who's that over there?" Leo asked. He
pointed toward where a human shape was sprawled facedown in the
mire a few yards away.

"I don't know," Colton said. The
skree
of a hawk pierced the night from the jungle to their
left. It was quickly answered by another on the opposite side of
the destroyed ruins. "But we're not sticking around long enough to
find out. He can rot for all I care."

"They want us to run," Galen whispered.
"Like field mice."

"I'll take the lead. Sorenson, you cover our
asses. The rest of you, keep close together and stay right behind
me."

"Where are we going?" Merritt asked.

"I can only think of one place where we'll
have any chance of defending ourselves."

"Jesus," Merritt whispered.

"Move out," Colton said, and struck off to
the west at a jog.

Sam hurried to catch up with him. Another
shrill avian cry echoed through the darkness.

She turned toward the sound.

Even through the rain and dust, she could
clearly see the undergrowth rustle in the wake of something that
crashed through the brush in the same direction they were
headed.

10:22 p.m.

Leo struggled to maintain his balance on the
sloppy ground as they ran through a gamut of trees and stone ruins
toward the sheer face of the mountain, the indifferent goliath that
ruled the village from behind the storm clouds. The horrible
shrieking sounds were all around them now. To either side of the
path, dark forms hurtled through the jungle, slashing through the
foliage.

Colton fired sporadic bursts ahead of them,
while Sorenson did the same behind. Merritt shot at the shadows
surrounding them.

They were all going to die. The reality of
that thought cut through the fear and panic with dread certainty.
They were all going to die, and it was his fault. The blame fell
squarely on his shoulders. He had lied to them from the start in
order to gain their assistance. Of course, he could never have
imagined the truth in his wildest dreams, but it was his deception
that had damned them. He had needed to know what happened to
Hunter, for he had simply been unable to accept the loss of his
son. The pain had been too great, the anger a physical entity
trying to claw its way out through his skin from the inside. Maybe
there had been a part of him that lusted after the fortune in gold
as well. It was high time he admitted it. Dedicating its extraction
to his son's legacy sounded altruistic and noble, but it had always
been about the money in that regard, hadn't it? He needed something
tangible to hold, something of great value, since he knew he would
never again hold the son that in life had always taken a back seat
to his global conquests. Only after the discovery of Hunter's body
did he truly realize the extent of his failure as a father. There
would never be an opportunity to apologize to his son for dragging
him all around the world instead of allowing him a normal
childhood, to tell him how pleased he was with his accomplishments,
how proud he was of the man that Hunter had become.