“You tell me just what in the hell that is?” Will said shining his light on a large lump next to the skeletal remains of the uniformed soldier he had pulled free. He was taking deep breaths in an attempt to get his fear under control. The white coat was in tatters and through the swirling dust they could see a skull that was horribly malformed. The teeth in the grinning skull were long and crooked. But what had frightened Will so much were the thick, long, and beastly looking arm bones that were exposed through the torn and aged white coat. The eye sockets of the remains were overly large and the mouth that held the long, sharp teeth was the same.
“Whoa,” Everett said, conscious to the fact of keeping his voice low. He held his light on the scene as Collins bent low to inspect Will’s find.
Jack could make out the remains of a beard, the course hair of which was lying next to the skull. There were bits and pieces of it still clinging to the lower jaw line of the remains. All in all Collins had only seen something like this a few other times and that was because they had remains such as these in the vaults deep inside the Event Group compound in Nevada. They were nearly matching the skeletal remains of what is known as Neanderthal Man. Only this skeleton was much larger than the small specimens the Group had inside the vaults. He moved his light to the remains of the uniformed skeleton.
“Jack, are you seeing what I see?” Everett said as Will stepped up and joined them, adding his light to theirs.
Indeed Jack was seeing the large teeth marks on the remains of the much smaller skeleton. Through the ragged and aged blouse of the soldier, both arms had been snapped in two and the teeth marks upon the bone were evident.
“I don’t think a cave-in can explain that,” Collins said as he duckwalked forward and then pulled the upper torso of the remains free of the dirt and sand. He saw something shiny in the flashlight’s beam. “Look at this,” he said as he raised the collar so Will and Carl could see. There was a U.S. button on the left collar and on the epaulet was the emblem Jack recognized immediately. It was a shield with the upper half of a rearing horse. The walking bear on top of the shield gave the unit its identity: “The 8th Cavalry regiment.”
“Then I guess the report from Pete was accurate enough,” Everett said, his eyes not moving from the large bite indentations in the bone of the hundred-year-old remains.
Jack noticed something in the collapsed debris and reached out and picked it up. It was a large chunk of old concrete. He lifted it to his nose and smelled. He then tossed the small piece to Everett who did the same.
“Dynamite, or something close to it,” Carl said as he found others near the two bodies. As he examined the piece of concrete, he noticed a strap of some kind poking from the remains of the rubble. He dropped the scorched remains of old flooring and reached down and tugged on the strap. He saw that the old piece of coarse material was starting to rip away so he went to his knees and dug out not only the strap, but a cracked and weathered saddlebag. He saw the U.S. marking on the double bag and then opened it up, shining his flashlight inside. His eyes widened as he saw the gleaming, glistening objects inside. Carl stepped away from Jack and Mendenhall and toward the far wall of the old laboratory. He sat the bag down easily and then stepped away.
“What is it?” Collins asked as he noticed the careful way Carl handled the old saddlebag.
“Oh, about twenty sticks of old dynamite, with enough nitroglycerine sweating out of it to blow this room to bits.”
“That’s the nice thing about dynamite; it only gets better with age.”
“What do you make of these, Colonel?” Mendenhall said as he stepped over to several of the undamaged wooden barrels. He bent over and with his gloved hand started to pick up some of the fallen contents, but before he could Jack reached out and stayed his hand. Collins just shook his head. “They look like dried flowers,” he said and then saw Jack’s eyes as he took in barrel upon barrel of the same foul-smelling and fermenting dry goods. Mendenhall was suddenly glad the colonel had stopped him from touching the contents.
“Jack, this stuff, it looks like poppies, but not anything I have ever seen before,” Everett said as he examined more of the sealed barrels.
“Maybe Guzman is producing heroin down here,” Will offered.
“Not unless his great grandfather was down here making it.” Jack straightened and looked around the large room, only half of which they could see due to the cave-in. His light illuminated a hundred glass jars on shelves that had survived the eruption. Then he moved the light to a small table with many steel syringes upon its top. He was about to comment when there was a loud noise that came through the floorboards from above. Heavy boots of more than just a few men had entered the basement above them.
“I will ask one last time. Who you work for? My contacts at your front company, Texaco, say they have never heard of you.”
Jack tried to trace the voice but ran into the thickest part of the cave-in. He tracked the sound with his Beretta aimed but knew he could blindly shoot up through the floorboards.
“Then you leave me no choice. I will leave my brother Eduardo here to ask again. He will not be as polite.”
All three men below the voices heard the men above turn and again vanish up what must have been a set of stairs.
“I have looked forward to this since we took you this afternoon,” the deeper voice said as the sound of keys was heard through the cracks in the wood flooring.
“You’re the son of a bitch that shot my friend at the excavation site.”
Jack closed his eyes as he heard the female voice. Everett patted Collins on the shoulder and nodded his head. Sarah was alive. The smile immediately left Carl’s face when they heard the keys enter the lock.
“Sí, I shot your friends, just as I am going to start shooting everyone in this cell, starting with the girls you seemed destined to protect.” The creaking of the cell door opening was heard, and Jack’s face became a set piece of rage just as the screams came from women they could not see.
Jack heard a slap and a grunt and he assumed Sarah had just been struck. Then he heard, “Ah, ever the hero, señor.” They all heard a thud and then a loud grunt.
“Stop it!” came Sarah’s voice.
“That’s the bastard that killed Udall and shot Ryan,” Mendenhall hissed.
“Quiet Lieutenant,” Everett hissed.
Will stormed off to the far wall where the glass jars of liquid and some of the powders were stored. He felt like striking out and slapping all of them onto the floor.
Collins knew he had to chance it. He holstered his nine millimeter, raised the M-14 carbine, and aimed it at the old wood flooring above, ready to cut his way through. Everett reached out and placed an old rickety stool beneath the spot where Jack was about to make a brand-new doorway.
“No,” Will said almost not loud enough to stop them.
Collins angrily lowered the weapon and then pointed to a section of the flooring above the stored jars on the shelving against the far wall. Somehow they had missed that area in their recent search. As they looked, Mendenhall was pointing at a spot that had two missing planks in the flooring. Jack closed his eyes, thankful that Will had found what he had. He nodded. He and Everett went over to the spot and looked up. They could see the ceiling on the floor above. There were no obstacles blocking their sight. They had a way in, and it was far enough away from the cell above to give them the advantage.
“Okay, we move before this asshole’s friends return. I need a boost,” Collins said looking at Everett, who looked down, not wanting to meet Jack’s eyes.
“Will is the better shot, Jack.” Everett looked from the colonel to the younger lieutenant.
“Besides, that pig shot my friend,” Mendenhall said as he reached out and took Jack’s nine millimeter out of its holster. He handed over his MP-5 and then made sure he had a round chambered in the Beretta. He also twisted on the large suppressor at the barrel’s tip to make sure it hadn’t worked its way loose since they entered the culv
ert.
Collins nodded his head as he realized that in the past five years Mendenhall had surpassed him and Everett both at the gun range. The lieutenant was now the best shot he had ever trained.
“Don’t you miss,” Everett said before Jack could. “Or don’t come back,” said Jack, trying to get Will to relax.
Mendenhall dipped his head and then took a deep breath. “I’ve counted three hanging light fixtures through the cracks in the flooring. Do you think you old guys can take them out through an inch of wood?”
The two men didn’t respond but did give Will a dirty look.
“Good. I’ll wait until it’s dark before I take that slimy prick out.”
Everett bent to one knee and cupped his hands together. “If you fuck this up, I’ll be the first to tell Ryan you missed the guy who shot him.”
After Will nodded his head, he took a few more breaths and then stepped into the hands of the captain. Then he was up and through the empty space where the planks were missing. Everett quickly scrambled away after making sure Mendenhall didn’t have to beat a hasty retreat.
“I figure you take out the light here. I’ll get the one closest to the cell, and then we meet to take out the middle one. The darkness should give Will the time and advantage he needs.”
“Right,” Everett said as he raised his M-14 at the gap between the planks above. “Jack, what about the girls in the cell?”
“Everyone goes home tonight.”
Carl nodded his head and then took up his station as Jack moved to the closest spot he could get, standing right over the hundred-year-old corpses. He looked down at the strange malformed shape of the white-coated man, and he too took his breaths and then aimed as best he could, knowing it would take more than one shot to douse the light above. Just as he aimed he heard more screams from above.
Collins gave Everett the nod he was waiting for, and a moment later all hell broke loose at Perdition Hacienda.
* * *
The brother of Juan Guzman kicked Farbeaux as hard as he could when the Frenchman had once more tried to trip him up. Sarah lashed out with her hand and that was when the man hit her across the bridge of the nose with his automatic, eliciting a round of screams from the teenage girls cowering against the wall inside the cell. The man smiled and then easily reached out and plucked a young Mexican girl up by her black hair. Sarah swiped blood away from her broken nose and tried to clear her eyes of the tears that had formed. Farbeaux was actually trying to stand and had made it to one knee when the dark eyes of his soon-to-be killer turned and smiled at his feeble attempt. He aimed the automatic at Henri as the struggling girl in his other hand kicked and screamed.
“Goodbye señor,” he said just as the flooring beneath their feet erupted in a loud splintering sound. Wood chips flew in all directions as six rounds penetrated the floor beneath them. The light only a few feet away exploded as the heavy rounds found their mark at just the same moment the light farther down the corridor was hit from below.
As the man’s eyes widened, he saw Sarah out of the corner of his peripheral vision dive on top of Farbeaux, shielding him with her own body. The man quickly took aim as the third and middle light blew up as more than fifteen high-velocity rounds smashed through the wood. The cell area went completely black with the exception of the weak lighting farther down the long corridor.
As Guzman’s brother aimed his weapon just as the lights were extinguished, Sarah just knew she was about to feel several of the animal’s bullets slam into her back as she covered the Frenchman. Instead, she felt and heard a whizzing sound and at the same moment a loud clacking noise. She felt the wetness strike her body from above and she heard the girl her would-be killer was holding scream again. There was a loud thump and as Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting emanating from down the hallway, she saw the body of Guzman’s brother fall in front of her and Farbeaux. He still had the girl’s hair gripped in his right hand. Sarah saw the top of the man’s head was now gone.
She heard a noise not far from the cell and then the hastily whispered words. “Clear!” Sarah felt like yelling when she saw the dark shape take form as the man advanced toward the cell. She could see the outline of the shape and a reflection of light on glass and then she knew who it was.
“Will,” she said as she unceremoniously pushed Henri aside and ran to the cell door.
“Hey, what’s up?” Mendenhall said as she started working the key that was still dangling from the lock. “Uh, would you mind telling your young friend there she can stop screaming for the moment? There’s still plenty to do tonight, so she’ll probably have chances to scream all she wants,” Mendenhall said as the cell door creaked open.
“God,” she said as she took Will into her arms and hugged him tightly. “It’s good to see you. How in the hell did you find me, and how did you get in?”
Mendenhall pushed her back a step and raised the ambient-light goggles. “Well, the colonel was so pissed that you stood him and his mother up, he came personally to kick your ass.”
That was when Sarah saw the two figures standing twenty feet away from the cell. Everett raised his goggles up and then started brushing wood chips from his shoulders. The man standing to her direct front also removed his night vision equipment.
“Strange company you’re keeping these days,” Collins said as his eyes moved from Sarah to the man trying to pick himself up off the floor.
Sarah ran through the cell door and hugged Jack as if she had never hugged anyone before.
“Hey, hey, there’s not a lot of time here; gather these girls up.”
Sarah pushed back from Collins and looked into his eyes. “Don’t tell me you guys are alone?”
“Yes, please don’t tell us that, Colonel.”
Jack looked from Sarah to the man using the bars as a brace to stand.
“He came here specifically to get me out, Jack,” Sarah said, taking his arm before he could enter the cell.
“I bet he did,” he answered as he shook Sarah’s hand from his, stepped inside the cell, and assisted the Frenchman to his feet.
On his way past McIntire, Everett shoved a white handkerchief into her hand. “In case you didn’t notice, your nose is broken.” Sarah took it and swiped at her painful break. Everett and Mendenhall stepped in behind Jack and hurriedly gestured for the young girls to be quiet and get the hell out of there. They were young, but they also knew it was time to go. Sixteen girls ran for the cell door all at once, pushing Jack and Farbeaux out of the way as they scrambled into the corridor.
“Jack, you didn’t answer me. Are you guys the cavalry?”
“Honey, I’m afraid the only cavalry here tonight has been dead for close to a hundred years.”
Everett walked past her and a stunned Farbeaux who had his arm around Jack’s shoulder as he too was removed from the cell.
“We are what you would call shorthanded, and probably out of work.”
Sarah sighed as she followed the men and young girls.
“Again, Jack?”
* * *
The girls were lowered one at a time through the missing floorboards. It was painstakingly slow. Farbeaux came to as he was held upright by Collins and looked around quizzically. He tried to focus on Jack’s face and then saw Mendenhall as he lowered Sarah through the small space.
“I thought you had more friends than this Colonel,” Henri said as he winced at the attempt at humor.
“Yeah, but with the three I have here, it still makes three more than you have, Henri.”
“Touché, Colonel,” Henri said and then hung his head again as his arm relaxed around Jack’s shoulder.
Everett, who was watching the cell area, poked his head around the corner. “We have company coming down the stairs, and it sounds like whoever it is has more than just three friends with him, Jack.”
“The gentleman who is coming … is not a particularly nice person, Colonel,” Farbeaux said as he again tried to clear his head.
Colli
ns adjusted the Frenchman’s weight and then looked back and nodded at Everett.
“Is that your expert opinion?”
“Indeed. Perhaps you better give me one of those weapons you’re … so fond of … carrying.”
“Give it a rest Henri. Right now you couldn’t see what it was I handed you. In case you didn’t know it, you’ve got one hell of a concussion.”
Farbeaux finally managed to get his head up and then looked at Collins. “And that is … your expert … medical opinion?”
Jack shook his head. “When one bleeds out of his ears, Colonel, the diagnosis is pretty damn plain,” Collins answered as he placed Henri behind one of the large barrels lining the wall. He removed his nine millimeter and handed it to the Frenchman. “What the hell, when Mr. Everett opens up, at least add some noise with that thing and make people duck … make them duck.”
Farbeaux squinted and then half smiled. “Your confidence in my military prowess is … overwhelming, Jack.”
Farbeaux watched as Jack left to join Everett, charging a round into the suppressed M-14 carbine.
The lights being out gave them a small tactical advantage. But Collins suspected that Guzman wasn’t the type of leader who favored saving the lives of his men, so he knew they couldn’t make it so expensive that the Anaconda would back off.
As Jack took aim slightly above Everett, who was on one knee with his ambient-light goggles already down, he looked at his friend.
“We hit ’em hard with no warning. We pile up their bodies until they can’t come through.”
“Good plan … I guess,” Everett said as he removed the safety on his carbine. “Okay, they’re on the last set of stairs.”
The pounding of feet was louder and then they heard before they saw the first man as he gained the bottom floor. Collins placed his hand on Everett, staying him from firing at the first one.
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