Instinct

by Jeremy Robinson

  For the first time in her life she found herself unwilling to follow the wishes of Uncle Trung. She had already given him her life. She would not die for him, too. Not willingly.

  She leaned her head onto her arm. Blood seeped over and dripped from the knife hilt. As she watched her life fade, drop by drop, she became filled with a need for vengeance. King had to be told. Pawn was gone. She breathed deep, intending to shout a warning over the gunfire, but the knife stole her breath as it cut deeper. She tried to move, but found the pain overbearing.

  There was nothing she could do.

  Somi rolled onto her back and watched as the occasional sliver of blue sky peeked through the thick canopy above.

  FIFTEEN

  ROOK’S CHEEK SHOOK as he fired the last three shots in his clip. He jammed in his fourth and final clip and took careful aim. A three-shot burst ripped through the air and into the body of another fleeing soldier. The VPA regular army had been brutalized. At least one hundred of them lay dead and dying on the cleared mountain slope. But they kept on coming, though more slowly and carefully now. Their initial enthusiasm brought on by superior numbers had faded after encountering the Chess Team’s lethal aim and devastating tactics.

  The gunfire had died down on both sides to sporadic bursts, allowing the team to talk again.

  “Like pigeons in front of a 747,” Rook said, before firing three more shots. “Splat.”

  Knight fired a shot. The bullet blasted through the chest of a VPA soldier, splattering those around him in blood. They turned and fled. Others across the field followed suit. Knight pulled away from his sniper scope, which he’d been staring through for the past five minutes. “They’re bugging out.”

  They’d succeeded in holding off a small army, but no one hooted a victory cheer. They weren’t done until they were back at Fort Bragg sharing a case of Sam Adams.

  “Anybody hit?” King asked.

  No one answered.

  “I think a mosquito bit me,” Rook said. Then he felt something on his leg, squeezing. He turned and instinctively raised his weapon. He dropped it a second later. “Pawn Two is down!”

  He knelt next to Somi. Her eyes were glossy and her lips were purple. But her chest rose and fell. She was alive. Then he saw the knife in her chest. “How did—”

  “Bishop, Knight, keep an eye on our friends down there,” King said as he and Queen joined Rook by Somi’s side.

  “Cut her shirt off,” Queen said. She shrugged out of her backpack and opened it up. A medical kit sat on top. She removed it and popped it open. She set aside a roll of gauze, two gauze pads, and a package of QuikClot. Then she began assembling a needle and syringe.

  Knight untucked Somi’s long-sleeve black shirt. It was like a second skin on her and getting his KA-BAR knife underneath proved a challenge. He didn’t want to stab her again. Once the knife slid in, he moved with confidence, slicing her shirt up the middle. A second slice from her collar to the knife sticking out of her chest freed the shirt, which fell away. Somi’s tattooed stomach and black bra were revealed. The knife stuck out of her chest like a skyscraper in the middle of Arkansas, just to the inside of her right-side shoulder strap.

  A near-lethal strike, it had missed her lungs by inches. Instead it had chipped bone and sliced through muscle. Normally, the wound wouldn’t be fatal, but in the field, where operating tables and surgeons were in short order, a variety of wounds could slowly take a life.

  Knight fired twice. The blast cut through the momentary silence. “They’re regrouping just out of sight. I’m catching a few stragglers, but they’re up to something.”

  “Rook,” King said, “call it in. Get us an armed evac over this clearing. Get it yesterday.”

  “You do remember that we’re not supposed to be here, right?” Rook said as he opened his backpack where his secure satellite phone was hidden beneath a cache of equipment. Their orders had been to remain silent and only make contact when they had completed their mission and returned to the designated EZ . . . in Laos. But that plan didn’t include two hostile forces and a reenactment of the Vietnam War.

  “Screw it,” King said. “We need to get out of here now. We have what we came for.”

  Somi suddenly reached up and grabbed King’s arm. Her lips moved slowly, parting and closing like those of a dying fish. Then her eyes closed and she fell back. Her eyelids twitched. She fought to stay conscious.

  Rook shuffled through the backpack in search of the phone. “This was a lot easier with Deep Blue in our ears.”

  Queen returned to the scene. Without pausing to explain or give warning she plunged the syringe deep into Somi’s leg. She depressed the stopper, sending the clear liquid into Somi’s leg.

  Queen looked into Somi’s eyes. “Morphine. For what comes next.”

  Somi nodded and gritted her teeth in determination, though her quivering lips revealed her fear.

  Queen waited for a count of five, giving the opium-derived drug time to massage her nervous system, then grasped the knife handle and yanked it out. Somi didn’t scream, but a sound like a tortured rodent squeaked through her clenched teeth. A fresh flow of blood pulsed from the now-open wound on her chest.

  “Queen . . . ,” Rook said.

  “We don’t have time to be gentle.” Queen ripped open the pack of QuikClot and removed the four-inch pouch filled with 3-mm-diameter zeolite beads that absorb blood and rapidly promote coagulation. “Now hold her wound open.”

  Rook abandoned his search for the phone and knelt down. Saving Somi’s life would have to come first. He pried the wound open with his fingers, ignoring the blood flowing over his hands and under his fingernails.

  Somi sobbed for a moment, trying to speak, but unable to catch a breath. Unconsciousness loomed.

  Using her index finger, Queen shoved the flexible pouch into the wound.

  Somi groaned and struggled only for a moment. The morphine was working. “Give me the knife.”

  He handed it to her. She looked at its blood-soaked blade then slid it beneath her belt. “Mine now.”

  With the wound packed with QuikClot, Rook sat Somi up as Queen wrapped gauze around her chest and shoulder, pulling it tight to keep pressure on the wound. As Somi leaned back in Rook’s arms, feeling a mix of morphine and blood loss pulling her mind away, she reached out for King.

  King leaned in close. “You’ll be—”

  She grasped his arm. “Th—This is not . . . an object lesson.” She let go and succumbed to the drugs and pain. She slumped in Rook’s arms, unconscious.

  King nearly fell over when he spun around. He searched in every direction.

  Nothing.

  Sara had disappeared right out from under their noses. “No one move!”

  King searched the area, taking in every depression in the earth, every disturbed leaf, every hidden clue. He found the flattened area where Sara had been lying. The leaves behind it were disturbed in a four-foot area. King pounded the butt of his M4 on the earth. A dull thud revealed a hollow space beneath.

  Rook was by his side, aiming his assault rifle toward the earth. He nodded to King, who dug in, pulled up the hidden hatch, and opened it. Rook swept the area, looking for a target, and found nothing but a dark tunnel descending into the heart of the mountain.

  “Knight, get as high as you can,” King said. “If we’re being watched, I want you to find out. Take out anything you see living and breathing that’s not one of us.”

  Knight nodded and bolted up the mountainside.

  King unslung his backpack and dropped it at his feet. “Queen, you’re with me.”

  Queen tied off the gauze. “Try to keep her still,” she said to Rook.

  Rook stood up. “Do I look like a nurse to you? I’m coming.”

  Bishop fired a ten-second burst down the hill. “Rook.”

  Rook pointed his FN SCAR over the wall and fired a grenade. It exploded seconds later, followed by screams. He turned to King for an answer.

  King knew tha
t Rook wanted to come because he and Sara had bonded. You didn’t carry someone’s thirty-pound pack for miles and not develop some kind of connection. But there wasn’t time to debate or pull punches. “Sorry, Rook. You’re too big and too slow.”

  Bishop fired another volley down the mountainside. “Rook . . .”

  “Besides . . .” King clapped him on the shoulder. “It sounds like you’ll be doing more than nursing.”

  King jumped into the tunnel and hurried in. Queen followed and pulled the hatch down behind her.

  Rook looked down at Somi. Unconscious, she lay still next to her shotgun.

  “Rook!” The urgency in Bishop’s voice came through loud and clear. Bishop speaking at all was unusual. Bishop sounding worried was unheard of. Rook looked over the wall. His eyes went wide.

  “Holy shit.”

  SIXTEEN

  SWIRLING GREEN DUST glowed in the pair’s night vision, choking the view and their lungs. But King and Queen plunged forward through the dry fog without pause or complaint. A member of their team had been captured by the enemy—the only member of the team who needed to survive this mission. But what was worse was that she had the only blood sample from Anh Dung. A blood sample that might hold the answer to the question the whole world might soon be asking: Is there a cure for Brugada?

  The tunnel was four feet tall and equally wide; large enough for them to move about, but too short to stand and a little too short to crouch-run. King had tried when he first entered and found himself smashing his head and the assault rifle slung over his back—a soldier’s two most important weapons—into the stone ceiling again and again. He couldn’t afford damaging either so he tried the hands-and-knees approach. Crawling proved to be faster and far less painful—though still painful enough to make them long for the tunnel’s exit. The padding built into the knees of their black, Delta-issued fatigues took the brunt of each impact, but their legs and arms were jarred nonetheless.

  As they continued on, King took note of the tunnel’s solid construction. The walls, floor, and ceiling were nearly smooth and lacked any joints where slabs had been fitted together. It was almost as though the tunnel had been burrowed straight through the mountain. The slight downward slope confirmed it. They were traveling into the mountain’s core, not along its outer edge.

  Through the dust, which had been kicked up by those they were pursuing, King saw the tunnel branch in three different directions. He stopped quickly and Queen bumped into him from behind.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “The tunnel splits.”

  “Then we’ll split up.”

  “That won’t help.”

  Queen crawled up next to King and saw the three tunnels. “Which way . . .”

  The branching tunnels split like a trident, two angling off to the left and right while the tunnel they were in now continued straight on. King removed his night vision goggles and clicked on a small Maglite flashlight. The tunnel filled with yellow light. The dust became brown. The walls gray. He moved forward slowly, shining his light at the floor of each tunnel. He was hoping to find the floor of only one tunnel disturbed, but whoever took Sara knew what they were doing. All three tunnels showed signs of movement.

  “King, look.” Queen pointed at the inside wall of the left-side tunnel.

  There was an inscription carved into the stone. Just a few mixed lines. Some kind of Asian script, though King couldn’t place it to any specific country, not even Vietnam. He looked at the other tunnels. Each held a different inscription. He realized they were signposts, like exit signs on a freeway. But which exit to take?

  King returned his scrutiny to the dust-covered tunnel floor. They could split up and then turn back when the dust disturbance ran flat, but that would take too much time, and both of their first guesses could be wrong. There had to be a sign. No one could conceal themselves perfectly.

  Then he found the flaw. Two tunnels had been disturbed by at least one person crawling and making a mess. The third had been disturbed in a very similar fashion, probably by a man bringing up the rear, but he’d failed to completely conceal the two parallel lines carved into the grit by Sara’s dragging heels.

  “This way,” King said as he extinguished the flashlight, donned his night vision goggles, and lunged into the right-side tunnel.

  Queen took one last look at the carved symbols and pounded after him, unaware that a pair of eyes was watching her retreat.

  SEVENTEEN

  KNIGHT REACHED THE top of the mountain without incident. He’d seen no sign of man or beast. He believed anything living with half a mind or a speck of instinct would have taken off after the battle that raged below. He took up position on a rocky outcrop overlooking the jungle below. The high perch provided a view to the horizon, but he’d need Superman’s X-ray vision to see anything moving beneath the canopy. What he could see clearly was a range of mountains—the Annamites. The forest thinned out and then ceased to exist near the top of each mountain, which provided him with a view of anything moving on them. But the most important view was down the slope. The jungle was dark with shade provided by the canopy, and much of the slope was concealed behind layers of tree trunks. For amateur snipers, it would prove an impenetrable shield behind which enemies could move freely. For Knight, it was just the kind of challenge he excelled at solving.

  Knight felt secure in his hiding spot, surrounded by large rocks and clumps of tall grass. His backside was hidden from view, even from those who might look down from the mountain’s peak. And below him . . . well, anyone below him would be dead before realizing he was there.

  Plunging his hand into one of the many pockets of his pants, Knight found his custom-made silencer. The barrel of the PSG-1 lacked threads that a silencer would normally need to screw onto a weapon, so he’d had one made for it. Confusion and stealth were the compatriots of all good snipers, especially when you wanted no survivors. A shot echoing from above would let the target know from which angle to hide. Seeing the man next to you suddenly lose his head without any indication of direction was enough to freeze any soldier in his tracks. Knight slid the silencer into place and tightened the clamps that held it.

  He quickly detached his optical sniper scope and replaced it with a heat-sensitive infrared scope. Unlike his night vision scope, the infrared scope didn’t magnify visible light—he’d be blinded in the bright daylight pounding the mountaintop—rather it detected heat variations against the ambient temperature. Typically a living creature would show up as red, orange, and yellow blobs against a blue/green background, but with the air reaching one hundred degrees beneath the broiling canopy, which held the heat in, a human being would appear as a slightly cooler spot. Hard to detect, but easier than using the naked eye to pierce through darkness.

  With the scope attached he lay down, propped open the rifle’s bipod, and searched for targets. He didn’t have to look for long. Running from his position were two men. Trees momentarily blocked his view of them, but he tracked them smoothly as they descended. He looked for their weapons and found a distinctive, cold blue shape—AK-47, the staple weapon of the world’s poorest armies. The gas-operated assault rifle, being the most numerous weapon of its kind on the planet, was cheap, compact, and powerful. But at this range, they didn’t stand a chance against Knight’s rifle.

  The two men moved quickly—nearly running. Either they knew he was watching, which he doubted, or their mission was complete and they were heading home.

  Not so fast, Knight thought. If he could stop these two, the rest of their squad might wait around for a minute longer before leaving. And that might be just enough time to let King and Queen catch up.

  Knight slowed his breathing and closed his left eye while he looked through the scope with his right. His finger stroked the trigger gently—foreplay before the kill. He tracked the first man’s head, bobbing up and down and shrinking slowly as he moved farther away.

  His finger twitched and a bullet was sent noiselessly through the
air. A second later, the man in front pitched forward and tumbled. The second man didn’t miss a beat, though. He jumped over the first man’s body and quickened his pace. These men were highly trained. They didn’t react to death, which meant they didn’t fear death. Death Volunteers, Knight thought.

  “Who wants to volunteer next?” Knight said. “Go on, you can raise your hand.”

  Knight pulled the trigger again and the second man went down, his head hanging from his shoulders. Knight scoured the area for more targets and found none.

  Realizing he hadn’t seen where the first man had been hit and not wanting him to radio a warning, Knight began pushing himself up. He’d have to make sure they were both dead.

  Then he heard the grass rustle behind him. He focused on his surroundings without moving a muscle.

  It wasn’t windy. Not even a breeze.

  Knight rolled onto his back without taking his eye off the scope. He saw a massive red shape fill the scope. He pulled the trigger.

  His weapon was knocked aside as a tremendous weight slammed into his chest. But then it was gone, tumbling down the rocks behind him. He’d hit it.

  It screamed in pain. But the noise wasn’t fearful. It was angry.

  Knight realized he’d shot one of the creatures from the field—one of the things that had torn the VPA scouts apart and thrown a human limb at him.

  Brush exploded below as the creature ran. Knight tried to find it again through the infrared scope, but it was gone. He looked with his naked eyes and saw a wave of brush bashing left and right as the creature retreated. But he couldn’t see it through the scope. Its body heat matched the surrounding air.