The Last Operation (The Remnants of War Series, Book 1)

by Patrick Astre

  Years later, as he tried to write his memories of that moment, in a comfortable condominium, the accoutrements of a modern world sprawled around him, it would seem impossible that she could know who he was, so swiftly and accurately. But in that time and place, it felt natural, the way things should be.

  Daniels heard a sighting deep within and realized he had been holding his breath. He nodded his head slowly, not daring to speak and break the moment, destroy the magic that enfolded them in that room.

  "You are the warrior," whispered Taloona.

  Daniels didn't move, didn't have to. She was like his personal book of revelations. Her other hand came up and traced the outline of his temple and ear.

  "You are troubled and there is sorrow in you. It should not be. You have done what you must," she continued.

  Her words went directly to Daniels' heart carrying a wealth of meaning. A wave of melancholy poured over him. It had been there for a decade, dormant yet disturbing like the tip of a hidden iceberg. He felt the grief of so many tragic deaths he had failed to prevent, unable to help. He sensed the impact of the violence he'd inflicted. But another presence also lurked there, the malevolent presence of the evil yet to be faced. It was out there still, a hulking, continuing viciousness.

  "Trust your spirit."

  Just three words, carrying all the meaning in the world from this mystical woman-child, this priestess of a primitive wilderness. Daniels felt a sensation of reprieve, perhaps some sort of justification as a wetness rolled down his cheek.

  After a while Daniels and Spirit Wolf left the cabin and stepped outside. Nothing more was said, there was no need, all meaning had been conveyed. It was close to noon and a White Ibis swooped down in a flashing circle before settling in a patch of sawgrass. They sat on a log next to the entrance of the hut, under a solitary spreading oak as insects hummed and danced around them. Taloona remained in the cabin. It was just Spirit Wolf and Daniels. Neither had a thought for the huge Diamondback that was surely no more than a few feet away, invisible under the footings of the cabin. They understood its nature, its purpose.

  Spirit Wolf looked at Daniels, reading the questions in his eyes.

  "Once in a people's generation," said Spirit Wolf, "there comes a person that is more than a person—someone who has the Gift, the Third Eye, a true Seer. Such a one is Taloona. If a man is fortunate, perhaps he may encounter this person once in a lifetime. If a man is worthy, deserving, he may connect with that person."

  Daniels nodded slowly. He'd felt that connection. Her presence had relieved a dark burden from his soul, the burden of so many deaths that had strewn his path like toadstools after a spring rain. Their souls seemed all around him in an invisible whirlwind. All the way back to the innocents in Kuwait and Africa, to his betrayed comrades in Mexico and that young Sergeant who had died so suddenly and violently just last night. He knew he had to keep trying. There was an overwhelming sense of purpose to keep after the evil that stood rooted to this very day.

  Trust your spirit.

  "How is Taloona associated to what is going on now?" Daniels asked.

  "Nothing is ever as it seems."

  Daniels didn't understand, at least not now. Perhaps in the future he would figure it out. He knew that's all the Indian would say for now.

  Spirit Wolf handed Daniels a small black leather book with silver chains wrapped around it. It was a set of GI dog tags. He recognized the leather book, a soldier's diary. Thousands were sold in Post Exchanges on US military bases throughout the world. He read the dog tag: Jonathan B. Kolb, followed by his Army number. He opened the diary of Jonathan B. Kolb.

  Chapter 27

  Daniels thumbed through the first half of the soldier's diary that Altoona had given him. Deeno had brought the soldier to Altoona but even she couldn't save him.

  The diary was pretty much average for a soldier except that Jonathan B. Kolb liked to write in it almost every day. Daniels read through the young soldier's tribulations, his fears and triumph as he underwent rigorous basic training. The pride and accomplishment shone through as he progressed into AIT, Advanced Infantry Training and the trials of Airborne Jump School. How well Daniels knew that road! A triumphant entry followed graduation and leave: Accepted top of his class into Ranger School. A diligent hard working dedicated young man. Jonathan B. Kolb, thought Daniel, I'd be proud to have you in my squad any old day. Entry after entry followed as he graduated and was assigned to an elite Special Operations Group. The next entries seemed to leap out of the pages, a timeless voice, a story that needed closure.

  April 24:YES YES YES!!! First combat assignment. Called into CO's office. Opportunity to volunteer for special operation. Top Secret clearance came in handy. CIA type, or maybe CID, definitely spook type. Will be tracking someone in jungle. Don't know where for now, but going to Fort Benning for special briefing.

  April 26:It's scary. I don't feel right about it. I'm not even supposed to write this down or talk to anyone about this. But hell, it doesn't feel right. We're tracking down a soldier. An officer who is supposed to have stolen a biological agent that makes him into a sort of superman.

  April 29: Just finished major briefing. Holy shit! It's like some weird science fiction story. This guy is supposed to have hijacked a helicopter at Benning and parachuted himself into the Everglades. He's supposed to have developed some kind of superpowers because of the stuff he stole. We're tracking him with a special laptop device. There're three of us. We were picked because of our jungle warfare training. Except there's one thing that bothers me: None of us are married or have any family, it's almost as if they picked us because it doesn't matter if we don't come back.

  May 3: First night in the bush. Classic small unit ambush except we're in the middle of the Everglades, there're only three of us and it's in Florida for chrissakes. How come they just don't call out a whole lot of people. Why all the hush-hush? Oh well, ours not to question, ours to do or die. Hopefully do!

  We found him, pinned him on the laptop locator. Moving out before first light tomorrow morning. Dawn ambush. Supposed to kill him. That CIA type with the black mole on his cheek said it's an urgent matter of National Security.

  Now the character of the diary changed. The handwriting became a scrawl, difficult to read, smudged with mud and blood, as if the writer fell under tremendous duress, straining to record everything while his faculties were still intact.

  May 5-Everything is turned upside down. My two buddies are dead. Still can't believe it. Don and Tyrrell dead. I know I'm not going to last much longer, I can feel the poison spreading in my body. I can't blame John, not really, even though he did all this, it's not his fault. He tried best he could. If only I could have known. I must record this so someone, somehow can figure out the truth, can bring all this to light.

  We closed in at dawn. According to the laptop finder we were on top of him. Whoever talked about the "thrill of the hunt" is full of shit. Maybe they were hunting something defenseless, I don't know, but I can say one thing; we were scared. This guy, or whatever he is, has to be the most dangerous creature on the planet. Like I said, we were on top of him but none of us could see shit even though it was starting to get bright.

  Don was the first to die. It happened so quickly we just couldn't react. No training can prepare you for this. He must have buried himself in the rotting mud between the cypress stands. As we passed he shot right out of the ground, there was some kind of weapon, something so sharp and fast it took Don's head off. One minute we're walking, triangle formation, I had the point, the next moment Don's head rolls at my feet, his corpse is falling with jets of blood pumping out of the neck. Tyrell was swinging his rifle when the target lunged at him. It wasn't any kind of normal lunge. He seemed to fly, like an impossible twenty five foot jump from a standstill. Its arm was straight, extended into some kind of spear. It went through Tyrell. I saw it come out of his back. I can't say how long it took me to react. It couldn't have been more than a second or two. It happened t
hat fast. But I fired a burst at the same time it threw some sort of spear, something that seemed to have been part of its arm. It went into my right side. It burnt like fire, like live coals were jammed into my body. It must have been that venom, the stuff I can feel now. I dropped my weapon. I was paralyzed.

  It walked over to me. I wasn't frightened anymore. I knew I was dead, sure as I know I won't see another sunrise. It was a man, a true giant, seven feet tall. He wore the remains of shredded fatigues and was like no man I ever saw. It was as if God took a man and gave him attributes and the natural weapons of animal predators. Big with muscles glistening under a skin covered with leathery scales. The hands were human but the fingers had claws, hideous knife-like claws on long forearms. The bone actually protruded through the flesh and they were sharp like a honed ax head. There was blood on one where it had loped off poor Don's head. On either side of the forearms, growing out of the elbows, were long sharp barbs. When he flicked his arm at me the barb flew off like an expertly thrown knife. Now it was embedded in my side. He was like a strange and dangerous monster, something out of a Hollywood nightmare flick.

  He got real close and I waited to die. I wasn't scared anymore. I just prayed it would be quick. He squatted next to me. His face was distorted but his expression was strangely remorseful. I know that sounds real weird. How can I say he was remorseful when he had killed two men in the blink of an eye, but that's what I felt. Also we had been trying to kill him. That was our mission.

  He picked me up effortlessly, like I was a sack of feathers. He was gentle and I felt nothing as he pulled the long ugly barb from my side. He carried me to the end of the Cypress stand, to the water and a boat tied to a submerged log. There was a young man waiting in the boat. There was something strange about the young man. He was like one of those Mongoloids. I always thought they would be retarded, unable to function, but not this one. They both tried to help me. I asked for my diary and they handed it to me. The giant held me up, he continuously muttered, "I'm sorry, oh God, I'm so sorry, I can't control it." I'm in the boat now and as I write this, I don't know where they are taking me or what they plan to do. I feel everything slip away, I feel the poison throughout my system, my fingers are numb, I have to put down the pen.

  At that point the writing became unreadable and finally stops in a jagged line. Daniels placed the diary and dog tags in the wide pocket of his jungle fatigue pants and turned to Spirit Wolf.

  "How did Taloona get this?"

  Spirit Wolf looked far away, off to the distant horizon of a mangrove bog. Daniels waited until he was ready and the words came to him.

  "They were trying to save the young soldier's life. The one who killed him has had something unnatural done to him. Something dark that is struggling to control him, and that something will eventually win. It takes over when he is threatened its more deadly than even the big crocodiles. The young soldier was dead by the time they reached Taloona's cabin."

  Daniels feared the answer to his next question. Subconsciously, he already knew the answer—had known the moment he read the description in the dead soldier's diary.

  "The diary talks of someone else running the boat. Another man. A young mongoloid man."

  Spirit Wolf turned, the eyes impassive, locking with Daniels.

  "It is Deeno."

  Richard Daniels felt like he was on the edge of an abyss, teetering over a dark pit while something slithered in the darkness far below.

  Chapter 28

  Deeno's story:

  He was born in Miami, on the outskirts of Little Havana, in a neighborhood described as "changing." It rained heavily the day he came into the world, early in the morning of December 8th. He was given the name Dean Labianca after his mother's latest boyfriend, but he never really knew his mother. She was usually off with one or another man, whichever could best support her daily habit. She died of an overdose when Deeno was six.

  He was raised by the woman he called "Grammy" his mother would have abandoned him sooner or later anyway. The Down -Syndrome just made it happen a lot faster, in fact, she left him almost immediately, quick as she could after dropping the baby off at the apartment where her mother, Marjorie Drosso, lived.

  It seemed as if Marjorie Drosso's life was a continuous heartache. Her husband had been a good man, caring for his young family, working hard at various construction sites until one day two police officers showed up at her door to tell her he'd died in an accident. A large piece of steel fell off a crane and killed John Drosso as he hoisted bricks for a building he would never see.

  He'd left a small life insurance policy. The settlement from his employer's insurance company and the small life insurance would not make them wealthy, but it was enough. Marjorie Drosso thought it would be sufficient to raise her daughter properly and safely.

  She was wrong.

  She wasn't wrong about the money, that would have been enough. She'd been wrong about her daughter's character. As the girl matured she fell into the clutches of the Miami drug culture. Perhaps that wasn't exactly accurate—she embraced it willingly. As her mother watched helplessly, the girl's life turn into an endless series of seedy men and episodes of wild drug abuses.

  Deeno was four when Marjorie Drosso made her final decision. She'd cared for the boy all along and found it was not as difficult as the children's welfare agencies had told her. She didn't believe the Down Syndrome was as advanced as they said. She also thought they didn't care very much either way as long as they could get their forms filled in all the right places and their reports turned in on time.

  The boy had the Asian eye folds and at four he only started to speak, but she knew with her heart, with all her conviction, that the boy was special. There was a spark in his eyes and she felt a gentle spirit in all his actions.

  He also seemed to have some special relation with animals.

  Her neighbor had a large pit bull. The dog was attack trained. Dangerous and unapproachable, the animal had a bite powerful enough to crush a grown man's leg bone to splinters. He kept the dog on a long chain during the day and brought him in at night. The owner would often tell her how dangerous the dog was.

  "Marjorie," he would say to her, "I could care less if some dirt bag breaks in my apartment one night. It's that much dog food I'll save. I'll watch the scumbag get eaten alive and laugh."

  Marjorie didn't like the man. She thought he was crude and usually avoided him and never ventured near the fenced little courtyard where the pit bull was chained.

  Early one morning as Marjorie went into her yard to take in the wash, her heart leaped and the pit of her stomach seemed to fall away in a wave of fear. Somehow, impossibly, the little boy had gotten into her neighbor's yard. He was just a few feet away from the thick body of the pit bull, well within reach of the animal's restraining chain.

  Marjorie's heart roiled wildly as she took in the details in horror filled seconds. The studded collar around the powerful thick neck, the squat head with the bowl shaped jaws. Her heart stopped as the animal lunged at the small boy.

  A scream tore out of Marjorie's throat as the dog reached the boy in less than one agonizing second. Still screaming, she tore into the gate and suddenly stopped. Her eyes open wide, she watched what she firmly believed was the first real miracle she would ever witness.

  Deeno stood very still, both arms open wide. The big dog reached the boy and stopped, gently inserting the powerful head between the boy's small hands and arms. A long pink tongue darted out between the fangs and nuzzled the boy's face. Deeno giggled and closed his arms about the dog's head. Tail wagging and head rubbing on Deeno's chest, the dog sat, content. When Marjorie started to go in the yard, the dog looked up and moved toward her with a deep warning growl.

  She retreated.

  Every day the boy would spend an hour or two with the pit bull. Marjorie felt an undercurrent of something mystical, a uniqueness that she knew instinctively she could never truly understand. She began to notice other things: cats seemed to come
directly to him—even the wild unapproachable strays. She saw how Deeno looked at the world with open curiosity. She began to understand that her grandson's mind worked in side steps to what everyone considered normal. While he lacked in what the doctors called "standard" intelligence, there were other traits, other intelligences functioning for Deeno on alternative planes.

  Marjorie Drosso spoke to the social workers often. She visited the large white and red brick building where Deeno would live if institutionalized, and every second she hated the word and the idea it conveyed. She visited the facilities and it's sterile rooms: cafeterias with stainless steel furniture and bored matrons, playrooms with plastic toys. Everything everywhere seemed made up, cold and artificial. She walked out of the building and never looked back.

  The next day she gave a lawyer a down payment to begin custodial proceedings. Ten months later, Marjorie Drosso became Deeno's legal guardian.

  Eight years passed in a blink. As Deeno's twelfth birthday approached, the doctors told Marjorie Drosso she was dying. This was not news to her. She'd felt it in the reactions of her body, in the weight loss and the sudden unexplained pains. She had done all she could to safeguard her grandson. She was not rich, but still had managed to accumulate some money. Between the savings, the house, almost paid up now, and her life insurance policy, there would be a couple of hundred thousand going into Deeno's trust fund at her death. She'd spoken at length to her sister Loretta who lived on the outskirts of Everglades City. Loretta had agreed to become Deeno's custodian.

  She didn't know about Duke and Loretta was careful never to talk about him, especially when she found out about the trust fund.

  Loretta drove to Miami in Duke's second car, an ancient Rambler with more rust spots then fender paint, its rear bumper black from the clouds of oily smoke belching out of the tailpipe. She arrived the day Marjorie died. Loretta was surprised that the boy didn't go into crying fits. She was actually relieved since she didn't want to spend the next couple of days putting on a show of grief for the lawyers as she signed all the papers.