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

by Patrick Astre

  Deeno bustled about in the two-room cabin. He lit the propane single burner stove and put a pot of water to boil. The cabin was immaculate, the furniture homemade from the natural materials of the great wetlands. A small TV was on a bamboo table with a wire attached to a shoebox-sized generator. The rabbit ears would only get two stations, just enough for the Mayberry RFD and Gomer Pyle reruns and occasional Saturday morning cartoons. That's all Deeno wanted. Two cats slept on the bed in the other room and a third lay curled up with a basset hound. All were oblivious to the raging thunder outside.

  Pictures festooned the walls of the cabin: a smiling woman, Grammy, and a gnarled white haired man, Ol'Donny Murtagh. The old man had died two years ago. He'd built the cabin for Deeno because he knew that Deeno would never stay in the house without him. Deeno belonged deep in the Everglades. He'd become a piece of it, part of its wild nature and spirit.

  Deeno took some dried flowers and wrapped them in a fine mesh cotton cloth. He placed the cloth in the boiling water and the sweet scent of wild Chamomile and herbs soon filled the cabin. He poured two cups and sat at the table with Daniels.

  They sipped the tea, inhaling its deep fragrance. Deeno knew everything that grew in the Everglades. He could find every tasty sweet herb and plant. Daniels had often thought that Deeno would make a unique chef although the image of him bustling about to prepare natural dishes for whining retirees nauseated him. No, thought Daniels for the thousandth time, there is no better place for Deeno than right here.

  "Uncle Richard, why did those men take me away? Did Deeno do something bad?"

  "I don't know why they took you away, but I know you didn't do anything bad."

  "They were nice to me but I wanted to go home. One of them gave me ice-cream—twice." Deeno's face split into a wide smile as he opened his shirt.

  "Look, look, one of the men took me into a room and gave me this."

  Deeno pulled up a thick St Christopher medal on a narrow chain and held it out for Daniels to see.

  "Very nice," Daniels said, "but we have to know why they took you away."

  Daniels looked into Deeno's gray-blue pupils. He had eyes that never held a trace of guile. They were the mirrors reflecting Deeno's innocent soul. The child-mind locked in the adult body was incapable of deceit or hidden meaning.

  "Deeno, have you found anything unusual, anything different when you were fishing?"

  The storm was passing and the rain died down to a drizzle. Daniels voice softened to not much more than a whisper. Deeno didn't reply.

  "Something like a man, but not like a man," added Daniels.

  A flash of an expression flew across Deeno's face, painful as a burn. His eyes glittered and a salty drop rolled down one cheek. He closed his eyes and nodded his head up and down. Daniels reached across, covered one of his hands and squeezed, a gentle message of trust.

  "They want to hurt him Uncle Richard. I don't know why. Maybe because he's different, like me. He didn't mean to hurt those men, he tried to run but they chased him, they cornered him like the hounds with a rabbit, but then he can't help himself, he gets real mean and does bad things to those men, but he can't help it, they want to hurt him and that's what happens when people want to hurt him, he does bad things and he can't help it, but Deeno's not afraid of him because Deeno knows him and he would never hurt Deeno."

  "Deeno I promise you I'm going to try and help him. But I need to know more about him. I want you to tell me from the beginning. How did you meet this man?"

  "I was all the way up past the two Boulder Islands, not too far from the big ocean. The water is saltier up there and it's real good for the crabs. Mister Julien at the fish store said he needed lots of Blue Claws. I was there at the wide channel setting the traps when I felt him."

  "You felt him, you didn't see him?"

  "You know sometimes, how I feel things, Uncle Richard, well I didn't see him but I feel him there, somewhere. He was watching Deeno, but it was okay, it wasn't the bad feeling like when a big alligator or snake is near, I can feel that too, but I can feel it's bad. It wasn't like that, it was like when I feel the Otters or the Raccoons, I can't see them but I can feel them, there in the water or the trees, it feels nice. This was like that, someone that felt nice."

  Daniels had seen those "feelings" in the young man before. His ties to the wilderness were uncanny, supernatural, thought Daniels. Deeno had sensed the presence of something that for all the cunning and deadly power it had demonstrated while hunted, conveyed a sense of benevolence to him.

  "What happened when you felt him? Did you see him also?"

  "Not right away, I talk to him first."

  "You talked to him?"

  "Yeah," said Deeno, "I say, it's okay to come out because Deeno knows you're out there. If you come out and talk to Deeno, I give you one of my chocolate bars. And I did too Uncle Richard. I had Nestle Crunch, lots of them."

  Daniels smiled at the image. Nestle Crunch.

  "So what happened? Did he come out of where he was hiding?"

  "He came out of the water. He was under that deep part where the fig vines make a big bush that hangs over the water. He comes up real slow, like he don't want to scare Deeno, but Deeno's not scared because I know he won't hurt me. So I say Deeno's not scared. I know you're scary looking, like those monsters in the TV cartoons sometimes. But I'm not scared. You can come closer and talk to Deeno. You have to come closer for the chocolate bar. I give him one of my Nestle Crunch and he eats it then we talked for a long time."

  "Tell me what he said Deeno, tell me as much as you can remember."

  "He tells me a lot Uncle Richard, he talks to me a long time, but I don't understand a lot he tells me. He says he's something called a Bio, he says he let some people do things to him that made him the way he is. He said it was supposed to turn out different but they wanted him to do some bad things so he ran away. Now they want to hurt him, the ones who made him that way. Why would they want to do that?"

  "It's hard to know why sometimes Deeno. Some people just do bad things."

  "Mean things? Like Duke when I was little?"

  "Yeah, like Duke, something like that, but maybe worse."

  In Deeno's world Duke was the ultimate bad thing. He'd been a small boy and had never forgotten his brush with the ill-tempered brute that passed for his guardian.

  Deeno frowned as he tried to fathom how something or someone could be meaner then Duke. If Uncle Richard said it, then it must be so. His mind could not grasp the amount of evil needed to achieve that degree of meanness. The constant life and death struggles of the Everglades violent and implacable, but not mean, never mean. Deeno knew that the Alligators and the other predators killed because they had to eat. If they weren't hungry they would leave the prey alone.

  "Then he asked if Deeno could help him. I said sure. I could feel he was sad, he was worst sad then anyone Deeno ever seen. I said don't be sad, Deeno will help you. I think he smiled and I felt good. Then he told Deeno that there was a soldier with him who was hurt real bad and he asked Deeno if there was someone who could help the soldier. I say Taloona. Taloona makes everybody better. Taloona is Deeno's friend. It's getting dark now and I tell him he's lucky he found Deeno because Deeno is the only one who can find Taloona's cabin in the dark. We go to the other side of the island where his soldier friend is and we put him in the boat. The soldier is hurt real bad, not bleeding anymore but sick with poison from the wounds. Then we go. It takes a long time to get there cause you can't go too fast in the dark and Deeno talk to the man, not his soldier friend because he's real sick, so sick he can't talk, but the other man, his name is John and he tells Deeno he's a soldier too, but he's a Bio. I don't understand what a Bio is, I know what a soldier is but not a Bio. Do you know what a Bio is Uncle Richard?"

  "I think so Deeno. I think it's when they do something to a soldier to make him much stronger, makes them able to adapt, sort of like the Alligators and the Blue Claw Crabs are adapted to where they are."
/>   Deeno frowned and was silent for a few moments as he tried to assimilate the new information.

  "But it's not good for them. The soldiers I mean. That's what John told Deeno. He said it's going to kill him soon. Deeno feel very sad when John told him that."

  "I know Deeno. I feel sad too. That's why I want to help him. But if I'm going to help him, I need you to help me. That's why I want you to tell me what he said."

  "Deeno don't remember much more than that, Uncle Richard... Wait, wait, he told Deeno they were trying to, cont... cont..."

  "Control him?"

  "That's it Uncle Richard," said Deeno, his face lighting up again, "He said if they did control him it would be very bad for everybody."

  "What happened then Deeno?"

  "It took a long time to get to Taloona's cabin. It was daylight and Deeno was very tired. John, he's the Bio, carried the hurt soldier inside. Taloona was waiting for us. She always knows when somebody's coming. She took the sick soldier's things from John, then she touched his face. She wasn't scared of John, she knows, like Deeno knows that it don't matter if he looks scary. I want to help John. I feel sad for him."

  "I think we can help him Deeno. Can you take me to him?"

  Deeno lowered his head, the eyes downcast as he pushed his empty cup back and forth.

  "Deeno?"

  "John said I should never tell anyone where he is. He said I should never tell anyone I can find him." Richard Daniels placed his hand under Deeno's chin and raised his head.

  "The only ones who can help him are you and me. Nobody else, and you can't do it by yourself."

  "Can you help him Uncle Richard? John said nobody could help him."

  "Maybe he's right. I don't know. But maybe I can. I'll try hard as I can. That's all anybody can do, and maybe I will be able to help. At least he'll know he's not alone."

  Chapter 37

  Early morning thunderstorms passed, leaving behind the smell of wet vegetation in the drizzly air. With the departing winds came hordes of insects, mosquitoes and tiny gnats that seemed to penetrate every inch of exposed skin. Richard and Deeno rubbed on insect repellent before leaving in the Catamaran.

  They headed out, away from the village and the mainland, south toward the open waters of the Gulf. They passed the Dwarf Cypress, and the live-oak jungle with royal palms high overhead like huge beacons across the salt flats. Just before the Two Boulders Islands, they turned into a South West channel with deeper and clearer water. The channel would eventually turn into an estuary for the ocean waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

  A low wake from the shallow draft Catamaran created undulating ripples that splashed the shores like miniature ocean waves, sending fiddler crabs scurrying among the muddy roots and sandy open spots.

  They continued on, the Catamaran engine hummed a steady growl as they passed over both deep and shallow waters until they reached the mangrove-stained watercourses, heavy with mud on their banks and stinking with vegetable rot and salt reek and the ever-moving seawater that ebbed and flowed with the tides from the Gulf.

  It was almost dark when Deeno signaled to stop.

  "He's not far Uncle Richard. I can feel him. Let's stop and tie the boat. He'll come tonight."

  Daniels flexed his hands and unconsciously patted the .45 at his waist. He felt its woeful inadequacy after the encounter of the previous night. My God, he thought, had it really been only two nights. The power of that man or creature or whatever it had become, was unimaginable. He felt vulnerable, helpless before the strength and speed he had witnessed. But then the other night, they were seeking to capture it.

  Trust Your Spirit

  They tied the boat to a protruding Red Mangrove branch. The muddy bank was yellow with decaying fallen leaves. As the light faded, Daniels thought about the dream, Spirit Wolf's dream, his friend's warning to him.

  I dreamed you were lying among the roots of the Red Mangrove. The water was shallow and muddy and red with blood. The dark man hovered over you with his gun.

  The sky cleared and the evening stayed warm and humid. A bright three quarter moon came out sending shafts of pale light like muted candles among the slender trunks of the mangroves. Something splashed along the nearby banks as the night filled with the cacophony of insects, frogs and nocturnal creatures.

  Daniels lit a propane camp stove and heated a meal of Dinty-Moore beef stew, Deeno's favorite. They could do nothing but wait. Daniels hoped the man would show, but felt nagging disquiet. Nothing had prepared him for this quasi-supernatural experience laden with the mysticism of the Everglades. The moon had traveled most of the sky when they both fell asleep on the cushioned benches of the Catamaran.

  * * *

  Daniels awoke instantly. He'd always been able to do this, coming up out of a deep sleep instantly. He guessed a part of the sub-conscious stays alert, takes in the environment and wakes you when something is not right, a primeval warrior's instinct. He sat up slowly in the boat with only the faintest rustling of noise. The moon had vanished and it was close to dawn. A few stars remained visible against a backdrop tinged by hints of lightness in the east. The mangrove stands of the island were dark and impenetrable like the inside of a tunnel at midnight.

  He felt something different, strange and out of place. A presence lurked out there, close. Then he realized what had awakened him: the silence. A sudden stillness of the jungle when the big predators are hunting in the night and the elements seem to hold their breath.

  The Everglades are never silent on the stillest of night, not at any time. Now, on the edge of dawn, the quiet was a palpable force, something you felt like a burst of wind on your face. Daniels looked over at Deeno who slept with occasional soft snoring sounds. He covered him with a light plastic blanket, more against the insects then any lack of warmth. Deeno let out a hushed groan and turned on his side.

  When he was sure the young man would not awaken, Daniels stepped outside the Catamaran. His bare feet squished in the ground, the mud like soft and warm primordial soup. He carried no light. Somehow it seemed wrong to break the moment with beams of artificial light. He knew how absurd this would sound if he ever tried to write it down. But at this moment, the feeling of the atmosphere, the unnatural stillness and quiet of the great swamp, the overwhelming sense of the presence of something different, never encountered before, drove every movement he made.

  Perhaps he should have been afraid or cautious. He didn't even have the 45. Leaving it on the boat had seemed right somehow. He didn't feel a sense of danger or the lurking feel of malevolence that raised invisible hackles on his defensive senses.

  He'd only taken a few steps, barely ten feet in the dark overhanging Mangroves when he saw it. The sight wasn't clear, more like a shadow that stood out darker then the surrounding darkness. He felt it's aura, it's presence more by perception or perhaps a message of primitive intuition.

  Daniels took a step forward in the hushed night. He held his arms out straight, palms outward, the universal posture of one who is unarmed.

  "Who are you?" Daniels whispered. "Are you the one Deeno calls John?"

  He waited. The jungle surrounding them seemed to hold its breath. When the answer came, the voice held the sound of grinding alien tones, the humanity far away and struggling to retain control. Rough and coarse like a mixture of grinding machine and animal tones, yet hushed at the same time. It seemed to Daniels as if the speaker struggled to make the human speech through vocal chords that were no longer human.

  Chapter 38

  Daniels stood, his feet sinking in the brackish mud as he waited for the reply from the hulking creature facing him.

  "Yes. You are the one the boy calls his uncle," came the reply from the dark Indigo outline.

  "That is correct. I am Richard Daniels."

  "You are one of those who hunted me two nights ago."

  "I was told you were a menace to life. We were trying to capture you alive."

  "Alive is not how they want me. Things are not always as the
y seem, are they?"

  No they aren't. They never are, thought Richard Daniels.

  As the sky lightened, He could pick out a few more details. The massive form facing him became more distinct from the rest of the shadows in the Mangrove stand. Daniels realized the sheer size of it. About seven feet tall and bulky like a massive gorilla with features that seemed unnatural, out of place even though it was still too dark to make out the details. Daniels now understood that the man, undoubtedly it was a man, could see in the dark. With the mutations, he had evolved night vision.

  "No things are often not what they seem," replied Daniels. "I was told you were part of an experiment to develop a bio-engineered soldier, a sort of super soldier. I was told you were berserk and had to be stopped."

  "The bio-engineering part is true," said the man, "In order for a lie to be really effective, it must have an element of truth. I was the first successful part of a program called BEE: Biological Engineered Enhancement. I was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, when word came down they were looking at a select group of men. They sought volunteers among us to participate in a program to develop a new type of soldier. Warriors for the millennium they told us, new soldiers for a new kind of world. I volunteered. I went through a battery of tests. Cell Types, DNA, Microbiological, you name it they did it. In the end only five of us qualified. But that's all they needed."

  Daniels listened in silence as he spoke. He could feel the struggle of the man to control his vocal cords. It carried on the alien sound waves from whatever mutation his throat had endured. The night was rapidly disappearing, replaced by a dim glow from the East, the first rays of the sun would soon be breaking and in the burgeoning light, Daniels began to make out the details of the bio-enhanced soldier named John. The horror of it held a savage fascination. It was a view of nature run wild, like thousands of years of evolution piled together like so much cordwood.