As she sat down on a large rock worn smooth over a millennium worth of river water running over it, she saw that the guard had been set around the camp for the first of many shifts. They didn’t care about her as she watched most of them as they in turn watched the surrounding woods. They were still on edge after the demonstration of noise had ceased about an hour before. The beating of wood on wood had set everyone’s nerves on edge and the men didn’t mind the reassuring feel of the large caliber weapons each of them held as they watched the darkness envelop the camp.
As Lynn nervously tasted the concoction of red sugar beets and beef, she saw Sagli and the freshly washed and cleaned Deonovich as they stood at the river’s edge. They were talking with one of the technicians from the tent that held the lab and mechanical equipment she had seen earlier. Sagli seemed to be doing most of the talking. The ponytailed Russian was gesturing at the far shore of the Stikine, indicating with his hand certain areas she could not see from her place at the fire. She made a face when the beets and meat touched her tongue and then she placed the plate beside her and watched the animated exchange.
Sagli turned and saw her twenty yards away, and then pointed at the smaller Russian technician and then at Deonovich. Both of them turned abruptly and started for the tent brimming with electronic equipment. She noticed that both of the men had shoulder holsters as they passed by her. Deonovich glared at the small American woman and then growled something she couldn’t understand as he eventually disappeared into the tent followed by the smaller man.
“We have possibly located something across the river by electronic means.”
Lynn turned as the sound of Sagli’s voice surprised her. He was standing by the fire looking down at her, but not really looking at her at all. The man was a thinker, and that was when she realized that all of her field reports were not quite telling her the truth; Sagli didn’t really have a true partner in Deonovich, he was the man in charge and the other was just his lackey. To her, that could mean some sort of an advantage she could utilize down the road—but how? She didn’t know just yet.
“Then why don’t you wade across the river and get what you came for?” she asked, watching the man for his reaction.
When he didn’t answer, she knew she had touched a nerve, one that he was trying to hide from her, for what reason she didn’t know. Instead of answering the American’s enquiry, he lowered his hands from the warming fire and then faced her.
“These woods,” he said, gesturing around him to the dark tree line and even the flowing river, “what do you know of their history?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Sagli, I’m an American, and this”—she mocked him by gesturing around her, just as he had—“is Canada. I’m a city girl by nature.”
Sagli actually looked disappointed that Lynn had not only mocked him, she had also not answered his question. He actually had the look of a man surprised that she hated his guts. He just looked at the fire and acted as though he was warming his hands on a not-so-cold night.
“My men, men who served with me in Georgia and Afghanistan, Spetsnaz all of them, are acting like schoolgirls. The noises emanating from the forest has them”—he finally looked at her as he searched for the right word—“on edge.”
Lynn wanted to smile at the killer that stood nervously over the fire, but she thought mocking him again would be a dangerous proposition at best. So she looked toward the river instead.
“I suspect that it may be elk, or deer, maybe it’s some kind of mating signal, you know, striking their antlers against trees, deadfalls, things like that. Look, I’m not up to date on Animal Planet; I’ve been a little busy with work and all.”
“It does no good to mock me. And in case you haven’t noticed, Ms. Simpson, you are sitting here in camp with us, and whatever is making that noise is growing close to you, as well as to me and my men.”
Sagli abruptly turned and started walking toward the technical tent to join his so-called partner. As he disappeared inside, Lynn actually heard a call of an elk somewhere far to the north of them. A far different noise from what she had led the Russian to believe as she did know the difference between what an elk and deer sound like in the woods, and whatever that strange noise was that was plaguing the inner thoughts of everyone in camp. She knew that nothing she had ever read about in all of her education made the noises they had heard earlier. She was also aware that Sagli had been right—the sounds were drawing nearer every time they heard them.
For the first time since her abduction, Lynn wasn’t so sure that having Russian commandos standing guard around her wasn’t so bad after all.
SOUTH OF THE RUSSIAN BASE CAMP
As soon as they had brought the boat up and out of the water and staked it to the beach after their sixty-five-mile trip up the river, they set up a small fireless camp with no tents, Charlie Ellenshaw wandered off into the surrounding woods, necessitating that Everett go out to find him and admonish the curious side of the crazed professor for being careless.
As for Henri Farbeaux, the Frenchman tossed his sleeping bag onto the ground underneath a large tree, and then sat and watched the others. He placed his hands behind his head and watched Collins most of all. When Jack caught him looking, Henri didn’t shy away, he just smiled that knowing smile of his.
“I don’t know why you tolerate that man,” Punchy said as Jack walked by. “The damn French, you can’t trust them.”
“Come on, Punchy, you’re in charge of the only French-speaking province on the North American continent. Don’t tell me Quebec and France still has their problems?” Collins looked from Alexander toward the reclining Farbeaux, who watched the two with interest.
“They have always treated not only Quebec as an ugly little sister, but the whole of Canada. They constantly interfere with our inner workings and still have one of the largest intelligence infrastructures outside of Moscow, and for what? To watch little Quebec?”
“Take it easy, old buddy. I didn’t think you were that passionate about the ills of your relationship with France.”
Alexander didn’t say anything else, he just tossed his sleeping bag on the ground and with a last look at the Frenchman, sat down and started removing his boots.
Collins reluctantly looked away from Punchy and his sudden outburst, and looked at Henri. The man wasn’t smiling, he didn’t even move. Jack knew the Frenchman had heard the exchange between him and Alexander, but instead of joining the small debate, he just turned over and closed his eyes. Jack then threw his own unrolled sleeping bag down on the ground not far from the anchored and beached boat. Everett soon approached him with one of the Russian AK-47s slung around his shoulder.
“What are our orders for tomorrow, Jack?” Carl asked.
“I want to head upriver about an hour before sunrise, if that map and Charlie and the old woman’s guesswork is accurate at all, we’ll pull into shore around 0930 and we’ll hoof it from there.”
“And what makes you think they haven’t heard us coming already?” Mendenhall asked, stepping up to the two men out of the darkness.
“Because we haven’t been ambushed yet—with these killers, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill us all if they knew we were close.”
Mendenhall nodded his head and bowed to Jack’s and Carl’s experience in the field because between the two of them they had more combat and black operations experience than any two men in the country. He turned and went over and unslung his weapon, gently laid it down, and then he followed suit. His eyes were heavy and he knew that tomorrow there would be absolutely no rest.
Charlie Ellenshaw had watched the exchange between Collins, Everett, and Mendenhall and he waited until after Will had settled in to lean over Mendenhall to get his attention. Will had already closed his eyes without unzipping his sleeping bag.
“They wouldn’t attack us in the dark, would they?” Charlie asked, startling the lieutenant.
“Jesus, Doc, don’t do that!” Mendenhall said as he rolled over.
> “Well, they wouldn’t, would they?”
“Doc, if they knew we were here, yes, they would hit us in the dark. This isn’t the old westerns you saw on television. Regardless of what you’ve heard, Indians, and Russians commandos, do attack at night.”
Charlie looked around at the deep woods surrounding their small landing spot. “That’s a comforting thought.” As he settled into his sleeping bag, the stillness of the night calmed him. There were no beating of sticks against trees, a sound that had kept him terrified and intrigued since 1968. But for now the only sound was that of the light wind as it passed through the upper reaches of the trees.
“I take it we’re not going to eat this evening?” Charlie asked, once more drawing the ire of Mendenhall.
Will removed his bush hat and then glanced over at the professor. “No, Doc, we’re running a cold camp tonight, no hot grub, we’ll eat some MREs in the morning when we hit the river again.”
“Lovely” was all Charlie said as he lay down. “Lieutenant?”
“Good God, Doc, what is it?” Will asked opening his tired eyes for the third time since laying down. “I have the guard in just three hours.”
“Oh . . . uh . . . I just wanted to say good night.”
Will shook his head in the dark, feeling somewhat bad for snapping at the old professor. He knew he was just a little excited, and maybe even scared of being in these woods again. And after the story Ellenshaw told them, Will couldn’t really blame him for reaching out. He smiled to himself and relaxed.
“Good night, Doc. Don’t forget to take off your glasses before you go to sleep.”
As Charlie lay down once more he stared at the mass of stars in the sky above. He knew that the others in the Group considered him a nerd, a man more prone to wet himself in a bad situation than to assist, but he knew things to be different for himself. He was far more excited about being back than men like Will Mendenhall would ever believe. He talked through his excitement just to calm the feelings he had about the Stikine and its wildlife.
As he lay on his sleeping bag, he looked over at the now still Mendenhall. He really liked Will, but he knew the lieutenant saw him as an old fool who filled his days with dreams of long-dead monsters and crazy ideas, but Charlie knew himself to be quite sufficient in the field, even though everyone thought him a lab rat. As he thought these things he slowly reached under his sleeping bag and made sure the safety was on the old-fashioned Smith & Wesson .38. Then he felt for the six-inch switchblade knife he always carried for luck. As he felt the two weapons he smiled; no, the old lab rat knew he could take care of himself when called upon—after all, he had been north of the Stikine before, and he knew it may take nerves of steel to face what’s waiting for them across the river.
RUSSIAN BASE CAMP
As the rest of the force lay down in their tents, the few technicians still working had set up a powerful metal detector just a few feet from the water’s edge. They made sure the connections were made and then they sighted the conical-shaped stand at a spot they had determined would show the best results. Two of the first shift guards watched them from a distance. There were at least fifteen men on watch around the camp.
“Do you think they have an idea where the gold is already?” one of them asked his shift partner.
The larger of the two Spetsnaz watched the technicians return to the largest of all the tents. “It’s not the gold I would like to get my hands on, but the sister to that diamond the bosses have, that’s what I would like to see.”
The smaller guard was a late addition to the team, a man who had just received his discharge from the red army and one of the only men there that wasn’t a true old-camp Spetsnaz. He looked at the tall man beside him, as if he were sizing him up. Then he looked around the camp and picked out six other teams of guards as they walked a perimeter. They were far enough away from their river position not to hear their voices.
“How deep do you think the river is at the point right across from us?” the man asked, watching the Spetsnaz for a reaction.
“Too deep to cross you fool, and don’t think I don’t know what it is you are thinking.” He looked down at the man with steely blue eyes. “Even if you made it across, the boss would gut you and leave you for the wolves when you returned.”
The small man turned away and saw the American woman who had chosen to sleep outside of her tent. She lay by the dwindling fire and he couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep. Then he turned back to look at the taller man.
“The boss wouldn’t know if one of us stayed behind while the other had a look-see. I could be across and back in half an hour, with nobody suspecting I had even crossed.”
“You fool, you don’t even know what it is you’re looking for. You could step right on something over there and not know it. Besides,” the man looked across the river, “don’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?” the small weasel of a man asked.
“I don’t know. It’s like when I was stationed in Afghanistan the last months of the war. I was a kid back then, but I remember I used to gaze into the mountains and know my killers were there.” He looked back at the small man. “I get that same feeling looking out there, across the river. And I’ll ask you this, we are being led by men who have taken on the new Russian government and beat them at every turn, so why are these very same men who are not afraid of anything, keeping south of the river. If what we seek is on the other side, why not camp there?”
The man didn’t say anything. He just glanced over at the tent that held Sagli and Deonovich, and watched the line guard stationed at the front of their large enclosure.
“Because they know something we don’t, my friend—they sense danger just as I do and they would prefer not to face whatever it is in the darkness. They are old-guard KGB and they know danger when they smell it.”
The small man made a grunting sound and then shrugged his shoulders as if the explanation hadn’t fazed him one bit.
“I think you Spetsnaz have been brainwashed to the point of paranoia. That story is proof that they just want to keep you in the dark about how much gold is really over there.”
The tall commando just shook his head, and then turned and continued walking his post along the river.
The small man was regular army, one of only six others the team had been forced to take when others had been stopped and questioned coming into Canada. The Spetsnaz liked to joke about the regular army, saying “they didn’t have the sense God gave to geese.”
As the guard watched the far shore past the luminous passing of the river in the moonlight, he saw something that made him lean down and try to focus upon. It looked as if one of the trees had moved. He caught shadow moving against shadow, and that movement was betrayed by the bright moon as it shone down upon the far northern bank of the Stikine.
The man thought about calling his guard partner back over to inform him that someone had braved the river and crossed, and were now more than likely searching for the gold, just as they should be. However, something held him back as he glared into the night. He quickly unsnapped the small pouch on his belt and removed the night-vision goggles and placed them over his eyes. The movement on the far shore had ceased. The darkness was still there beside one of the larger trees in the distant tree line and it hadn’t moved since he froze and watched it. In the green filtered ambient light of the goggles, he could tell whatever it was it was huge, standing at least nine feet beside the tree. The guard raised the goggles and then shook his head and rubbed his eyes. When he focused the ambient light goggles again on the same spot on the far bank, the shadow he had been watching seemed to have blended in with the tree—or trees, as now he didn’t see any discernable difference in any of the shadows as one bled into the other.
The guard knew that the Spetsnaz had tried to fool him with a spook story on how their bosses were frightened of the dark across the river, but he knew better. There was something over there all right, but it had nothing to do with spooks and go
blins. There was gold, and what was the harm in finding out, especially if no one knew?
The guard smiled as he looked around and then caught up with his partner. After their shift was over, he would make his excuse to wander away to do his private latrine business, and then investigate on his own the far shore—danger be damned.
Twenty minutes later, the guard had waded across the same exact spot in the river that Professor Ellenshaw had crossed in 1968. The man turned just before exiting the water and watched the camp across the river. No alarm had been sounded as the change of watch was going about its business. The man smirked at the expertise of the old-guard Spetsnaz. They may have been good once, but those days were long past.
The man made his way out of the river and watched the woods. They were silent and unmoving. With the moon almost down, the ominous shadows had vanished and with it, the nervousness he had felt before crossing the Stikine.
As he made his way up the rocky slope, his foot struck something that sounded like metal. He stopped and reached for the object. He stayed on one knee and rolled the piece of black aluminum around in his hand. He was curious as to its misshapen state as he rose. At that split second of realization that he was no longer alone on the shore of the river, the guard slowly looked up. Instead of seeing the faint outline of the forest ahead, he saw nothing but blackness blocking his view. As his head continued to move upward, he dropped the aluminum he had been looking at and it tumbled to the rocks. As his eyes rose to the sky, he whimpered in his throat when he saw the eyes looking down at him.
Primeval: An Event Group Thriller Page 28
