by Mel Odom
60
›› Eleven Klicks Outside Qui Nhon, Binh Dinh Province
›› Socialist Republic of Vietnam
›› 1903 Hours (Local Time Zone)
“Everybody out of the grave,” Nita ordered.
Shel stared at the prize he’d found. It was definitely a human skull, and there was definitely a bullet hole beneath the right eye socket.
It remained to be seen who was buried there, though. With the fleshless state the skull was in, Shel knew it had to have been in the grave for years.
Reluctantly he clambered from the three-foot grave. “Rainwater’s filling it up quick,” he said.
“We can cover the grave.” Nita handed him the lantern as she crawled down into the grave with his help. “If need be, we can pump it out tomorrow to finish the reclamation.”
Out of habit, not liking standing in dangerous territory without a weapon in hand, Shel took up his M4. He canted the assault rifle against his hip and watched Nita set to work. He leaned in and adjusted the angle of the lantern.
“I need a bucket,” Nita said.
Will passed one down.
Slowly and carefully, Nita scooped handfuls of mud from around the skull and threw them into the bucket.
“Dump everything we extract from this point on into the trash bins we brought,” she directed. “We’re going to have to go through all of it for evidence.”
Shel knew that all of the team was aware of that, but Nita was thorough. He waited impatiently as Nita filled the bucket a half-dozen times and Will emptied it. The rain washed the skull cleaner with each passing moment. Nita continued unearthing the body.
All the flesh was gone, carried away by nature’s disposal system of beetles and other insects, as well as broken down by the chemical processes within the body.
Estrella stood nearby and ran video of the recovery. Maggie stood near her with an M4 canted on her hip. The two men Phan had sent gazed implacably into the grave. If the sight of the skeleton or the rain bothered them, it didn’t show.
A moment later, Nita uncovered the stainless steel dog tags that had been on the body. She used a penflash to read them.
“PFC Dennis Hinton,” she said, looking up at Shel. “I’ll have to make a comparison of the skeleton to his medical and dental records to confirm that.”
“There’s no reason to believe anyone else was buried there,” Will said softly.
Relief and sadness passed through Shel at the same time. If they hadn’t found the body, there was a chance the military might have dismissed charges against his daddy. But now that the body had been found-
“We’ve got visitors,” Remy stated quietly over the radio headsets they all wore.
The announcement jacked Shel’s adrenaline. He leaned down easily and picked up the Kevlar combat vest. He shrugged into it without looking away from the grave, as if he were just putting it on.
“Skyview,” Will said calmly, “do you copy?”
“Skyview copies,” Director Larkin replied over the frequency. “Stand by for computer link.”
Before leaving the United States, Will had set up a combat-ready computer support team at the NCIS headquarters in Camp Lejeune. Linked to a geosynchronous satellite over the area, the team was able to scan down and provide information on the site. The satellite’s scanners were powerful enough to pick out individual movement by heat signature.
“Standing by,” Will said. Then, raising his voice slightly, he said, “Lights out and regroup.”
As one, every member of the team switched their lanterns off and shifted.
The trap had been set. Now it was time to see who the true predators and prey were going to be.
›› 1909 Hours (Local Time Zone)
Victor Gant knew immediately that something had gone wrong when all the lights at the gravesite extinguished. Somehow, the NCIS group had become aware that they were being stalked.
Prior to the darkness settling over the scene, all the people present had been clearly defined in the bright white electric glow of the lanterns. They’d stood out against the darkness of the trees, shining in the silver rain.
Now they were gone.
Victor glanced to the side. The light had poisoned his eyesight. Black suns dawned in his gaze. His direct vision was dead in the darkness, but he still maintained some of his peripheral vision. Looking directly at something in the darkness was next to impossible anyway.
“They made us,” Fat Mike whispered from Victor’s left.
“You just now gettin’ that particular newsflash, Fat Mike?” Victor growled irritably.
Fat Mike cursed. Then he calmed himself. “We outnumber them, and we know the jungle. They don’t stand a chance.”
Victor wondered about that, though. The NCIS agents had moved too easily, and they’d known exactly what they were going to do. For the lights to be out, someone had to have seen them creeping through the brush.
Fat Mike started to get up.
Victor grabbed the man’s arm and yanked him back. “Stay down,” he hissed. “They’ve got a sniper in the brush.”
“What makes you-?”
“Someone saw us. How else would they know we were here?”
Fat Mike cursed again. “Doesn’t mean he’s a sniper.”
“Go ahead and get up,” Victor told him. “You let me know how that works out for you.”
“I believe I’ll just sit here a spell,” Fat Mike said.
Victor grinned.
“Why are you grinning?” Fat Mike asked.
“It’s always more fun when the people you’re hunting know you’re coming.”
A strong voice rang out. “Victor Gant. This is NCIS Commander Will Coburn. Throw down your weapons and give yourself up.”
Victor peered through the darkness. His night vision was starting to return. “That’s funny,” he yelled back. “I was about to offer you the same deal.” He tried to pin the location of the voice.
“This is the only offer you’re going to get,” Coburn said.
“Well, I got to give it to you,” Victor said. “You sound awfully convinced for a man who’s about to die.”
One of Victor’s men suddenly stood up about twenty yards away. Victor started to yell at the man to get down; then he noticed how the man was holding his neck. The man turned suddenly, showing black fluid running between his fingers. Then the sound of a rifle shot rolled over Victor’s position.
Another man next to the first man suddenly jerked and lay sprawled. Another rifle report sounded.
“Sniper,” Fat Mike breathed. He kicked his feet and jammed his back up against the nearest tree.
“You think?” Victor demanded harshly. In the space of a drawn breath and he was down two men. Whoever the sniper was, the man was good.
Moving slowly, careful to keep the tree between himself and the unmarked grave, Victor hefted the M14 he carried as his lead weapon. He’d never liked the M16 and had never carried one throughout his career in Vietnam.
“Cover me,” Victor told Fat Mike.
Immediately, Fat Mike popped out with his M60 machine gun and fired downhill into the grave area. The sudden roar cannonaded between the hills.
Victor sprinted to the two dead men and face-planted on the ground. A bullet zipped by over his head.
“Take cover,” Victor yelled.
Fat Mike pulled back in behind the trees, but now the other men opened fire. Assault weapons on full-auto lit up the night.
Victor grabbed the M79 grenade launcher one of the dead men had been carrying, checked to make sure it was loaded and ready, then rolled onto his belly and looked down the stubby barrel at the bowl depression.
Sporadic return fire lit up the darkness around the grave area.
Calmly Victor ignored that. The guy he was looking for-the sniper-would be shooting with measured deliberation, not just shucking rounds and hoping to hit something.
The wet earth beneath Victor seemed to suck him down, like it was calling to
him. His elbows threatened to slide out from under him as he scanned the ranks of his enemies. Then he found the sniper. He was certain of it. The man fired calmly and steadily.
Smiling to himself, cursing the unknown man’s parentage, Victor took up trigger slack on the M79, then pulled it through. A 40 mm grenade thumped from the abbreviated launch tube. Years of practice had taught Victor that the grenade would travel in a parabola, at first breaking free of gravity, then getting pulled back into it.
Victor was too experienced to stick around and see the results of his handiwork. The grenade traveled relatively slowly. Just as he rolled back to cover, a bullet chopped a small tree in half right beside his head.
Downhill, the grenade hit and exploded. The bright flash of light tore through the wooded landscape and ripped away the night for a heartbeat.
Once more under cover, Victor broke the M79 open and loaded another grenade. This time he rolled back to the other side, once more framing himself on his elbows as he took aim.
The grenade round left flames draped through the trees and brush. Evidently the launcher had been loaded with an incendiary high-explosive grenade. The flames helped reveal the area.
Victor scanned the countryside quickly, knowing full well that he might be equally exposed in the flames. He swept the trees, not seeing anything. Then his subconscious pulled his attention back to his left.
There in the shadows, Victor saw the big Marine. Shel McHenry had leaned into the tree with enough skill that he looked like-at first glance-just another layer of bark.
Victor took aim, then sensed with an animal’s instinct that Shel McHenry had also spotted him. Victor pulled the trigger more quickly than he wanted to, and he wasn’t certain of the shot. It didn’t matter.
In the next instant, the grenade exploded in midair as Victor rolled for cover. The concussive force shivered through the trees and raked the grass. For a moment Victor forgot about being wet and muddy and was just thankful to still be alive.
Evidently Shel McHenry’s bullet had, fortuitously, struck the grenade and set it off prematurely. That also meant the Marine had had Victor in his sights long enough to put a bullet in him. They’d both gotten lucky on that score.
Victor pulled the M14 to his shoulder and clambered to his feet. He abandoned the M79 as he awaited Shel McHenry’s next onslaught.
But it didn’t come.
Cautiously Victor peered out around the trees with one eye. Only a true sharpshooter could have picked him off in the night.
Flames burned in the trees around the grave. Ropes of fire dropped to the ground and fought against the drumming rain brought in by the season. There were no other lights, but every now and again lightning would strobe the sky.
Victor thought he detected movement.
Then he was certain because he saw someone easing through the brush and headed away from him. Whoever it was wasn’t going to have much luck, though. Victor had brought enough men to circle the area and cover every inch of landscape.
A bullet ripped across the tree trunk less than an inch from Victor’s eye. Splinters stabbed his face. He pulled his head back and raised the radio he carried to his lips.
“Close in,” he directed. “They’re pulling back, heading toward the west. Don’t let them get away. And I’ll give a reward to the man that brings me the head of that Marine before we get out of here tonight.”
Then he stayed low and moved through the darkness of the night. He and the shadows were old friends, and it was time to introduce Shel McHenry to how dangerous the darkness could be.
61
›› Eleven Klicks Outside Qui Nhon, Binh Dinh Province
›› Socialist Republic of Vietnam
›› 1917 Hours (Local Time Zone)
Shel abandoned his spot and cursed the luck that had put the grenade in his way. Just for a moment there, he’d had Victor Gant perfectly framed in his rifle’s sights. If the grenade hadn’t intercepted the bullet’s path, he was certain he would have shot the man.
The explosion of the grenade had temporarily robbed Shel of his night vision. He blinked against the exploding black spots that Swiss cheesed his sight.
Bullets hammered the trees and brush. The drone of the rain made it hard to hear them slapping branches and leaves, but experience made it easier for him to pick out the deadly noises.
Despite the steady rain, flames stubbornly clung to the trees and the ground near Remy’s position. The grenade had come awfully close to scoring a direct hit. Remy was injured, but Shel didn’t know how bad it was. The SEAL was still mobile and still death on wheels because he’d accounted for two more men downed. Larkin and the support techs using satellite imagery had confirmed that.
“Shel,” Will called over the earpiece.
“Here,” Shel responded.
“Pull back.”
“On my way.” Shel started forward. Max fell into position beside him.
Will was leading the others to high ground in a desperate attempt to get out of the dangerous trap that had whirled up in the low area as Gant and his men closed in on them. According to Larkin’s observation, the path of least resistance lay in the direction Will and the others were headed.
“Skyview,” Shel said.
“Here,” the calm voice replied.
“Did you mark the position that grenade launcher came from?”
“Affirmative.”
“Did you find the guy who used it?”
“Yes.”
Shel grinned a little at that as bullets dug divots out of the muddy ground around him. “Good. Mark that one as Victor Gant.”
“Confirm visual?”
“Roger visual,” Shel replied. He ducked beneath a sudden spray of bullets that knocked leaves from the tree branches overhead. A branch fell directly in front of him. “I laid both eyes on him.”
“Skyview has located and designated the target.”
“Good. Keep him tagged. Then see if you can’t figure a way to get me back there to him.” Shel didn’t intend to quit the battlefield if at all possible without at least taking a run at securing Victor Gant.
›› 1920 Hours (Local Time Zone)
Maggie Foley moved through the darkness with Berettas in both fists. Despite her lack of military service, she was a trained combat marksman with a pistol. She had spent hours on the ranges, working with Shel and other military trainers who specialized in handgun maneuvers.
She stayed low as she took the point. Will and Estrella covered Nita as they came up the hill.
“Maggie,” the calm voice of Skyview said over her earpiece, “two targets are to your left.”
Without breaking stride, Maggie used her peripheral vision to search for the two gunners the satellite team had spotted in the brush. She trusted the tech support staff to keep all the players separated so she would neither receive nor give “friendly” fire that wasn’t.
One of the men shifted a little to bring his assault rifle up. Maggie aimed at him off the point, not truly sighting at all, and hit him with at least two of the three bullets she fired. The second man got off two rounds of his own. One of them slammed into Maggie’s vest and knocked the wind out of her, but the other went wide.
Staggered, Maggie regrouped and fired again, aiming for the man’s center mass. He went down as well. She trotted over to the two men and checked them, noting that neither of them would be getting up again.
She felt bad about that. Killing for her was always hard, but it was often necessary in her chosen field. She turned back to face the route she’d been given to follow.
“Clear,” Maggie said. The pressure gripping her chest from the blunt force trauma finally eased and she was able to draw a full breath.
“Skyview acknowledges the clear,” the coordinator said. “You are clean and green at the moment.”
Maggie kept going, wondering where Captain Phan and his men were.
›› 1923 Hours (Local Time Zone)
Remy lay in the grass behind a smal
l outcrop of rock and ignored the pain in his right side. He didn’t think he’d taken a bullet, but he had been hit by some shrapnel, and he knew he was leaking blood. The flow wasn’t enough to be dangerous or debilitating. He’d been there before.
“Skyview, find me targets,” Remy said calmly as he lined himself up behind the M24 sniper rifle he was using as his lead weapon.
“Targets coming,” the support guy said. “Confirm three. East of your position. One hundred twenty yards out and closing in staggered jumps.”
Remy kept both eyes open as he swung the rifle toward that section of the target area. He didn’t focus on anything in particular. Instead he tried to look through his targets, allowing his peripheral vision to track the movements his normal eyesight couldn’t see in the darkness.
The men were fleeting shadows. In the night, he couldn’t tell if they were American or Vietnamese. He supposed it didn’t matter. Either way, they worked for Victor Gant.
He passed up the lead runner as they came in a flying wedge-a point and two wings. If the two men in front saw the lead man go down, they’d go to cover. So he aimed at the man farthest back first, knowing that he could at least have the second shot in the air before the two men heard the sharp crack of the sniper weapon.
He squeezed the trigger, rode out the recoil, and locked on the second man back. By the time he squeezed the trigger, the sound was just reaching the two men. The lead man went down, but the other man behind him spun and sprawled before he could go to ground or find shelter.
The lead gunner took cover behind a tree, but he didn’t like where he was and tried to get up and run. Remy squeezed the trigger again. The man crumpled and remained still.
Remy fed more rounds into the sniper rifle and growled, “Skyview, find me targets.”
›› 1925 Hours (Local Time Zone)
“Will,” Larkin said.
“Yes.” Will walked slack behind Estrella and Nita. He kept his eyes open and moving. He carried the M4 in his hands like he’d been carrying it all his life. Hours on the practice fields at NCIS had helped him feel like the assault rifle was a part of him.
“I’m patching you through to Captain Phan,” Larkin said.
