Plague

by Matt James

  “Absolutely,” Mo had said, climbing into Logan’s second-hand jeep after just meeting him. Eventually, Mo had recommended two more Kenyans, Saami and Pandu, join them. He trusted them with his life and Logan needed the men. But soon, Logan came to trust the men too. Neither one were pilots, like Mo, but were in fact, expert trackers.

  Now hunched over a computer, Logan ran through a series of photos coming in from Fitz and Jan in the field. They were running recon in the area after a local tribesman reported seeing two trucks speeding through the plains earlier in the morning.

  Logan looked up from the computer, scanning the inside of the Bullpen’s command center, thinking.

  Inside the circular high-tech building were three levels of the best that money could buy. That was the other thing Logan provided with his skills. Several unnamed multi-million-dollar conservationist companies heard of his exploits when he took over and wanted to help.

  Through anonymous donations, adding up to the low millions, Logan built the Bullpen, named after the African bull elephant, or more specifically, Irwin.

  Irwin was born the day Logan left the army and he saw it as good luck. He named him after his favorite celebrity growing up, the Aussie icon, the Crocodile Hunter. The love and respect Steve Irwin gave the animals and people of the various countries he traversed had always stuck with Logan. After hearing of Steve’s unfortunate death while scuba diving, a piece of every Aussie died, Logan included. It was in his honor that he named the real king of the Serengeti.

  “Logan?” asked a voice from behind. Logan knew it was CJ, especially since she was the only woman on the team.

  “Hmm?” he mumbled, finishing up the slide of photos. They showed two sets of fresh tracks heading out to part of the plains that a lot of things, both human and animal, didn’t venture. It was a random dead zone in the otherwise full-of-life park.

  “You ready?”

  He turned and found CJ dressed for war. She had on the standard SDF attire. She wore a snug fitting tan BDU, Battle Dress Uniform, complete with Kevlar vest. Stitched into the left breast was their logo, a simple African bull elephant head, its eyes blazing red. Logan made the logo and wanted it to instill a deep fear in anyone who opposed it. CJ recommended the eye color. She said, “It looks more menacing like that.”

  Her strawberry-blonde hair flowed in layers over her shoulders accenting her sharp green eyes—a family trait. A lot of the Reeds had those same green eyes, including Logan. If she wasn’t in her early forties—and his sister—Logan may have appreciated the way the uniform fit her. He was never embarrassed thinking of his sister as a beautiful woman.

  CJ barely looked to be in her mid-thirties let alone forty-two. Logan looked older than her and he was, in truth, four years younger. They both had good genes. Their parents were proof. Kenneth and Judy Reed were currently in their late-sixties but could pass for people ten years younger. Their father still had a full head of hair, with only the hint of graying around the temples, whereas Logan had the sign of aging in his beard.

  CJ said the graying made him look dignified.

  Logan thought it made him look old.

  The biggest difference with his and CJ’s gear was that she didn’t carry an assault rifle or shotgun. She wasn’t a soldier and, quite frankly, was a terrible shot. She did, however, carry their standard issue sidearm, a Glock 23 .40 caliber pistol. They all did. It was the most durable weapon on the market and could withstand the sand and everyday grime of the African plains better than any of the weapons they tested and subsequently carried.

  Of which, he thought, thinking about the handgun. She’s a great shot. CJ always had jittery hands growing up, and couldn’t aim a rifle for shit because of it. But a pistol? She could hit a gnat’s ass.

  “Coming along?” Logan asked, grabbing his custom-made FN SCAR assault rifle from the weapon’s rack. He would have preferred his M82 though. He had two of them sitting in the primary weapon’s rack, just in case, but he hadn’t needed either in some time. He very rarely needed to hit a target from long range anymore, moving or otherwise, since they acquired Kipanga. They could get up close and personal very, very quickly now.

  CJ smiled. “You know I am.” She then drew her weapon, checking it over like he had taught her. “I’ve been meaning to have Mo take me around for a sweep of the area. Might as well kill two birds and come with.”

  “Could be dangerous,” Logan said.

  “I seriously doubt that,” CJ said, snorting out a laugh and grinning from ear-to-ear, laying it on thick. “You guys are just too good for that.”

  Never turning away from praise, Logan just shrugged. “True enough.”

  He checked over his beloved CQC, Close Quarters Combat rifle, slapping in a fresh mag. Then, like a warrior on the battlefield, Logan grabbed three extra, slipping them into their assigned pockets on his vest.

  He looked up into CJ’s weary face. She didn’t like it when he went all Rambo and overkilled the ammo. But Logan just smiled his perfected shit-eating-grin.

  “Let’s go have some fun.”

  4

  Kipanga soared northeast, away from the setting sun, towards Fitz and Jan’s signal. It would take nearly thirty minutes by air to reach the two SDF troops, so there was time to kill.

  Logan sat up front with Mo scanning the surrounding land, lost in thought. He remembered riding around this very expanse of land with Charlie Whitten, his predecessor, while he gave him his first tour of the surrounding area.

  “The Serengeti is 12,000 square miles of protected land,” the South African said, motioning to the general landscape with one hand while steering the rusted Jeep with the other. “It sustains over seventy large mammals and five hundred bird species—give or take a couple. And that’s not even counting all the other little critters crawling or slithering around out here. I doubt there has ever been a true census ever taken, at least, not in the last thirty-plus years since I’ve been here. It would be almost impossible to do.”

  Logan just sat in the front passenger seat, marveling at the sight. Off to his right was a herd of wildebeest. There had to be a couple hundred of them—maybe more. They moved like a school of fish, bobbing and weaving through an invisible current, moving as one.

  The two men had also passed a family of African bush elephants twenty minutes ago. They were along their left side and about three hundred yards off. Charlie mentioned that the larger animals were used to him and his men buzzing around and didn’t mind their presence. Unless they got too close, that is.

  Note to self, Logan thought. Don’t sneak up on a six-ton bull and his mates. The Jeep barely weighed a third of that.

  “The Loxodonta africana is currently the largest land animal in the world and is loved and respected by everyone who lives and works in this part of the world. Even the poachers,” Charlie had said when passing the herd. “But they love them for far different reasons.”

  Ivory smuggling was still a lucrative business venture in these parts and fetched a price of nearly six hundred American dollars per pound. There was literally no other job that paid as well.

  Logan shifted his weight in Kipanga’s reupholstered co-pilots seat, clearly uncomfortable with the thought of all the killing and maiming the elephant population had gone through. Unfortunately, most of it had happened in the last few decades. The economy had taken a dump worldwide and work was tough everywhere, especially in Africa.

  Bullets were still relatively affordable, though. He knew if the cost of ammo were to skyrocket one day it would put everyone out of business. Even his men would find it hard to justify the use of the ammunition. So, would the poachers.

  Either way, his park’s kill rate had been cut in half since he developed the SDF, but there were still deaths, most they never knew about. Generally, they would find the body of a dead creature, baking in the sun, long dead, its bones picked clean by the various scavengers populating the area. The Serengeti was just too big to fully protect.

  Even with their
poaching rates dropping significantly, the death toll of the African elephant, as a whole, continued to decrease. He didn’t care how, but Logan was damn sure going to make the bastards hunting them down work for it. It’s why he called in a favor and had Kipanga delivered.

  It happened overnight. Two Blackhawks arrived and only one left. There were no ‘hellos’ and no ‘thank yous,’ just the delivery of their saving grace. It had taken a lot of work, but they had their new ride and it immediately paid dividends. A rusted-out truck couldn’t flee the scene anymore. Not easily, anyway.

  He and CJ, along with the Kenyans, Mo, Saami, and Pandu, flew at full speed towards Fitz and Jan’s last reported location, weapons hot and ready to go. They left Kel, Adnan, and Dada back at the Bullpen to watch over things.

  Kel was Mo’s right-hand-man with base security and preferred to stay put if he could, especially when Mo had to do his pilot thing. Kel had a strong heart…but a weak stomach. Dada was very laid back and would do whatever was asked of him. He was truly the utility man of the team. He had talents sprinkled into everything but excelled at mechanics and general repair. He’d become the unofficial handyman of the team a few years back, and loved it.

  And then there was Adnan… He was what you would call the “nerd” of the group. He was the SDF I.T. guru and basically hated going outside in the heat. He preferred the control room on the third floor or the server room/bomb shelter at basement level. Air conditioning and electronics were his true loves. Heat and dirt… Well, let’s just say, he despised them as much as the poachers.

  Regardless, their home was in good hands, Logan thought. He had triple checked everyone’s backgrounds and personally interviewed each of them twice, looking for inconsistencies. “Military paranoia at its finest,” he had said when CJ asked him about his hiring process.

  Plus, he wanted to do the people who financed them the due diligence to make sure he weeded out the crazies and put together the best-of-the-best. He had one consistent theme with his recruits. Conservation. Everyone in the SDF was a nut when it came to protecting the various species that called the Serengeti home.

  “Mentally stable nutjobs?” Fitz asked, laughing. “Like us?” Logan actually smiled a little at that whenever he thought of it. Like us.

  Logan also laughed inwardly at the notion that he was probably the least passionate about conservation, but that was a good thing to him. He really did love and respect the animals here, so if he found people who loved them more than him…

  The newest member of the Serengeti Defense Force was Jan Gruber, a German. Yan, as it’s pronounced, was actually a recommendation by Fitz. He had met the man a few years back, before joining Logan in Africa. Jan was on holiday in Australia right when Fitz retired from active service and the two of them randomly met in a local dive bar. Apparently, the big man loved the opera and was fulfilling something on his bucket list, seeing the shell-shaped Sydney Opera House.

  Jan was in his mid-forties at the time and he himself recently retired from the German Army. The two men instantly bonded and stayed in touch, even after Fitz left for Africa. Now fifty, Jan was built like a tank and was easily the most physically gifted of the team. Even at his age, Jan could out lift and outrun anyone in the SDF. He was even a relative of the legendary World War Two Nazi General, Erwin Rommel.

  The first thing he told Logan when he was interviewed was that he had never and would never believe in anything his great-uncle represented. He did, however, respect the man’s might in the field.

  “As did his enemies,” Logan said.

  “You know your history, Herr Reed,” Jan said, smiling.

  “Yes, I do,” Logan replied. “And it’s Logan.”

  “Ten minutes out,” Mo said through the soundproof headphones. “Get ready to drop in five.”

  Logan sat up, fully back into reality, and began to sweat. What on Earth was there out here for these two to call in reinforcements? He turned and looked back into the body of the aircraft, finding CJ’s worried eyes. Apparently, she felt the same thing. I guess we’re about to find out…

  Unbuckling his seatbelt, Logan climbed in back with the rest of his team. He clipped onto the support bar above his head, attaching a heavy-duty carabiner clip to his waist via a custom rappelling harness. They didn’t land Kipanga, not without clearing the area first. They would then throw a line from the aircraft to the ground below and rappel from thirty feet up. Only when the area was secure would they call in Mo. Losing the chopper was not an option, so they took these calls with the thought that the hawk could get destroyed or stolen, leaving them to rot in the African sun.

  Or get eaten by something at night…

  5

  “Go, go, go!” Logan yelled as the two side doors flew open. Immediately after the first GO was shouted, rappelling lines were cast out into the night sky, followed by leaping bodies. Logan and CJ, one after the other, jumped from the left side door, as the Kenyans, Saami and Pandu, leaped from the right side.

  Logan and Saami landed first, disengaged their lines, and fanned out, weapons up and ready. CJ and Pandu joined them, having just arrived and unclipped. Mo then pulled up on the collective, banking the Blackhawk off to the south where it would wait, circling five hundred feet up, waiting for Logan’s all clear.

  They were still a mile out and would hoof it the rest of the way there. Seeing nothing, Logan slowly stood from his crouch, finger hovering over the trigger of his SCAR, ready for anything. The others stood, following their leader. He then took a step north, towards their rendezvous point with their people in the field.

  “Okay,” Logan whispered. “Go green and move out.”

  As one, all four of them flipped down their night vision devices and went green. The world around them instantly bloomed to life, causing the surrounding landscape to glow in various shades of green. After adjusting to the new color spectrum, they all broke out into a sprint, something that was made more bearable as the minutes went by. The sun had fully set halfway into their helicopter ride, making their run a little more tolerable. The ground was still hot as hell, but it would slowly cool as the night wore on.

  Ten minutes later, they arrived at a large kopje. Kopjes, pronounced koppies, as they were pronounced, were large rock formations found mostly in southern Africa. The Serengeti was technically in the southern region of the continent, but at its northern end in Tanzania.

  Logan stopped as an out-of-place, but familiar, bird call sounded over the airways. Then, he saw it. Parked at the base of the thirty-foot kopje was a Land Rover belonging to Fitz and Jan.

  As Logan’s team moved in, two men stepped out from behind a large bush to the right of the flat black vehicle. They were dressed identically to him and the others, also sporting similar night vision gear.

  He stopped, getting right to the point. “What’s the situation?”

  “Ugly, mate,” Fitz said in his usual casual demeanor. “It’s on the other side of the rocks.” He motioned to the three-story tall pile.

  “What is?” CJ asked, stepping forward.

  “The bodies,” Jan said in his thick German accent. “It is not for the faint of heart.”

  “Wait,” Logan said, “I’m confused. There aren’t any poachers? No one alive?”

  Both Fitz and Jan shook their heads, which perplexed Logan even more. Why sound the alarm with everyone gone or dead?

  “So why are we here?” CJ asked, obviously on the same thought waves as Logan.

  The two men looked at each other and shrugged. “Honestly,” Fitz replied, “I’m completely in the dark on what to do here—no pun intended. Some of the bodies look fresh. Some don’t.”

  Logan just nodded. He didn’t expect his men to know what to do in every circumstance. That was his job. He trained his mind and body to handle every situation that could be thrown at him. Well, he thought, almost all of ’em. They did the right thing calling it in.

  “Was it an execution?” Logan asked as Jan turned, leading them around the right s
ide of the large kopje, shotgun wedged tightly to his broad shoulder.

  “No,” the big man said. “It is a burial of some kind. Looks like they were working for quite a while.”

  “So—” Logan started to ask.

  “Look, mate,” Fitz interrupted. “Just have a look for yourself and tell us what you think it is. I personally have no bloody clue.”

  What the hell could have gotten two former soldiers so spooked out here? Logan thought, scanning the terrain.

  As they rounded the last of the boulders, the scene came into full view. It was definitely a pit of some kind—maybe thirty-by-thirty and another ten deep.

  Logan cautiously and quietly walked up to the edge of the pit and stopped. What the…

  He had no idea what to make of it. Inside was a mass grave, but it wasn’t animals or people… It was both. Multiple species were represented here, some missing limbs. Some their heads.

  “CJ,” Logan said quietly, still trying to take it all in.

  He could hear the crunch of her boots as she approached. “Oh, God.”

  Logan glanced through his night vision goggles at his sister, seeing a gloved hand to her mouth. He wasn’t sure if she was just reacting to the sight, or actually trying to hold back her vomit.

  Probably both, he thought.

  “What do we have?” he asked, trying to get down to business. He knew what some of them were down there, but she was truly the expert. The Ph.D. after her name said as much.

  “Well,” she said, calming her nerves, “we have Loxodonta africana—the African elephant. There are also Panthera leo and Panthera pardus—the lion and the leopard. I also see a few Crocuta crocuta—the spotted hyena. Plus, a couple of different genus of gazelle and of course…those blokes there.”

  Logan looked down, following the outstretched arm of his sister. She pointed below their feet, at the base of the animal pile where the five fresh bodies lay.