by Jordan Dane
“Yeah, I’ve been feelin’ it, too.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“Pass the word to the others.” She kept her voice low. “Stay alert. Bonus to anyone sprouting eyes in the back of their head.”
“You got it.” He grinned and headed toward the rest of her men.
They had a fifty-fifty shot at making the right decision. Some might like those odds, but she didn’t. The storm had messed with their best chance at catching up to the hostages. Any delay in finding them meant someone might die.
No, she didn’t like those odds at all.
Kinkaid crept low and steady through the underbrush before he came to a stop in a thicket off the trail. He’d gotten as close as he dared to Alexa and her team. Using his binoculars, he followed the movements of her trackers until they circled back. From experience, he knew they’d make an assessment on what to do next. The trail had split. They were looking for fresh tracks, and Alexa would make the final call.
His head ached, and the infected wound in his belly throbbed with heat. He took a gulp of water with more antibiotics while he waited for Alexa and her team to head out again. He didn’t have to wait long. They took the ridge to the summit, and Kinkaid was ready to follow them.
But something caught his eye.
A glint of light flashed below. And something jostled a tree limb. By the time he turned to get a better look, the flash of light and the movement were gone. He blinked and wiped his eyes before he peered through the binoculars again.
Had he imagined it?
Kinkaid searched the canyon and didn’t see anything out of order. Whatever he’d seen replayed in his mind until he made a decision. Alexa and her men were headed in the opposite direction. Their boot prints would be easy to pick up later, but he had to take the narrow path into the valley to make sure her trackers hadn’t missed anything. If Alexa and her men got to the terrorists first following the ridge, they were equipped to handle them, and he’d hear the skirmish. If her team was headed the wrong way, he owed it to Kate to check out the road not taken, even if it was a risky proposition.
He stowed his binoculars and grabbed his weapon, an HK G3 assault rifle. With a grimace of pain, he stood and carefully made his way to the path down into the canyon. Although going alone into the gorge wasn’t his smartest move, it was worth the risk. If he crossed paths with the bastards who’d taken Kate, he’d make good on his promise to pull the trigger when he got them in his crosshairs.
He wouldn’t go down without a fight. A burst of gunfire from his G3 would be like sending up a flare. Alexa and her team would be within earshot to back him up. It would have to do.
The trail to the bottom of the steep gorge was a series of switchbacks, a narrow worn path cut through dense vegetation. The air was more muggy, and the bugs had multiplied. He kept his eyes alert and his G3 ready. His pace was slow and cautious. If he got ambushed, it would be on this path, when he would be most vulnerable. It was the only way down from the ridge.
Kinkaid crouched and moved through the tree line, sticking to the shadows cast from the thick canopy overhead. He listened for sounds, searched for movement, and sniffed the air for anything that triggered his instincts. Near the end of the path, a bent limb caught his eye. Wind damage from the storm. He almost dismissed the shredded branch until he took a second look. When he got closer, he saw a white cut in the fallen limb. A clean slice. The kind of fresh cut from a machete. The sap had dried. By his estimation, it was no more than a day or two old. It was something.
His heart lifted for the first time that day.
When he reached the bottom of the trail, he hunkered down in a thicket to catch his breath and grabbed his binoculars. He peered through the trees and heavy underbrush. A slow-moving river had overrun its banks, flooding the ground and turning the land into a swamp. Although the clay soil had been saturated, shrubs and grasses protruded from the water, a good indication of where the riverbank had been.
On the air came the smell of death. He searched for the source and found the bloated body of a large rodent near an embankment. Flies buzzed the creature’s swollen belly, and the stench carried on the faint breeze. With the intrusion of the flooding, the rotting smell of the dead rodent mixed with the stagnant odors of the jungle, but he found it hard to believe the foul stench came from one animal.
Something worse hung heavy in the stifling heat.
When motion in the distance caught his eye, it took him a moment to shift his binoculars for a better look. Eventually, he recognized what it was—a flap of a very large wing. The feathers were dark brown, the color caught in the dappled sunlight through the trees. He focused on the sight, unsure of what he’d found. Shadows huddled under a large tree. A dark horde moved as one until it broke apart into frenzy, tugging at flesh and something more.
Vultures were feeding on a carcass.
Slowly, he lowered his binoculars and fought the lump wedged in his throat. Kinkaid had seen enough. To make sure, he’d have to move closer. He wanted to believe the vultures were feeding on another dead animal, but he knew the truth.
Animals didn’t wear black cloth.
CHAPTER 14
Southeast Cuba
Sierra Maestra Mountain Range
Afternoon
Excessive rains from the storm had caused the river in the gorge to overflow its banks. Kinkaid kept his eyes alert for any signs of danger as he headed for the far side of the canyon. Water looked knee deep on the fringes. He kept to the outer edge of the river and navigated the uneven marshy terrain.
He found it hard not to stare at the body lying under the trees ahead, covered with the feeding vultures that had claimed it. Normally, the birds fly high to spot their prey and circle above it. Nature’s own cleanup crew. But the dreary dirty-looking predators were done flying and were now on the ravenous and greedy phase of their existence. Kinkaid gripped his assault rifle and made steady progress as he stuck to the shadows under the trees.
When he got close, the mounting drone of flies buzzed in a mind-numbing blur, white noise to a grotesque nightmare. Vultures covered the body with flapping wings in a feeding frenzy, brazenly feasting on decaying flesh with their bloodied razor-sharp beaks. The stench made it hard for him to breathe, especially with the muggy heat.
Kinkaid saw a black garment under the claws of the large birds, and his mind launched into images of Sister Kate wearing her nun’s habit. Memories of the day they’d first met at the hospital raced through his mind. And even though those days were still a blur, he would never forget Kate. He clenched his jaw and fought the rage that welled inside him. None of this should have happened to her. It had been tempting to shoot his rifle at the scavengers, a release for his anger.
He couldn’t do that. Not here. Not in hostile territory, with other lives at risk.
He crept closer and waved his arms, but the vultures had staked their claim and ignored his approach. He had to swing at them with the butt end of his rifle and kick a couple off before he saw the dead body. The vultures bounded away in lumbering and awkward hops. The birds stayed on the ground, only yards from the body, ready to pounce on the decaying corpse after he’d lost interest.
Kinkaid covered his mouth and nose with his arm and stared down at the beheaded body of a man dressed in a bloodied tuxedo. A swarm of large flies hovered over the corpse, and maggots writhed through shredded skin, adding the finishing touches to a nightmarish ordeal he wouldn’t forget. He forced his gaze off the body and searched the ground nearby. The severed head was nowhere to be found, perhaps carried off by other predators.
He’d been relieved that it wasn’t Kate and didn’t want to think about how that reflected on him. The reality of the horrifying death this man had endured brought a rush of guilt and the powerless feeling that he’d laid this at Kate’s door and been unable to rescue her.
He’d found one body. Would hers be rotting somewhere else…in a spot he might never find?
An overwhelming wave of n
ausea hit him, the result of the horror at his feet and a heady mix of antibiotics with too little food and too much heat. And he felt the fever under his skin. At this rate, the infection had an edge and would take him down. He had to keep moving.
Kinkaid wanted to bury the man, but the damage had been done. In an hour or two there would be nothing left except bones picked clean. There was nothing more he could do except look for ID. He winced in pain as he dropped to one knee to pat down the man’s pockets. He found nothing on the body that would identify him. The man’s shoes were gone and his belt, watch, and wallet were missing. His killers had stripped his body, the final degradation. He hoped they’d waited until after he’d been murdered, but he doubted it. Any man who would kill like this had no soul and no sense of morality. Only a solo cuff link remained on the corpse, picked at by the vultures until it reflected in the dappled sun filtering through the trees.
It was the glint of light he had seen earlier.
Kinkaid turned away from the body and shifted his focus. Now it was time to help the living, and he hoped he wouldn’t be too late. He circled the location of the dismembered corpse in a slow and methodical fashion, making a full 360-degree circuit to pick up any tracks leading away from the carcass. The storm made it almost impossible. Eventually, he found a recognizable boot print—a partial—one he’d seen near the beach in Haiti. The print had been sheltered from rain damage by the thick canopy of trees and hardened in the dried clay soil. He’d found the trail of the hostages again. And trampled grasses gave the direction he would go.
Before he headed out, he looked over his shoulder to see that the vultures had reclaimed their prize. An overzealous flutter of wings and snapping beaks reestablished their pecking order as they got back to the business of survival, leaving Kinkaid with a stark reminder of his own mortality. With the infection ravaging his body, he was living on borrowed time. If he died here, no one would know…and few would care. He could drop dead in the middle of nowhere, his body becoming nothing more than a host for maggot larvae and fast food for the ugliest bird on the planet.
Winding up as bird crap? If that didn’t humble a guy, nothing would.
Clutching his assault rifle, he followed the tracks with a renewed sense of purpose and drive. His sliver of hope was only tainted by the fact that he was alone again. If he didn’t find Kate and the hostages soon, Alexa and her team would be too far away to matter.
Joselyne ate with dirty fingers from a filthy bowl, scooping grainy mush into her mouth. Her eyes watched the men near the campfire, her lips hovering over the bowl as she ate. The food smelled bad, but she was too hungry to care. Her stomach grumbled and ached. She had to go again. Not more than twenty minutes ago, before the men gave them food, she had raced into the woods to potty. Two men with rifles followed her and watched as she squatted.
When they heard the embarrassing noises she made, they laughed and pointed at her. She didn’t have to understand their language to know what they were saying. Without being able to clean up, she smelled bad from the thick brown dribble down her legs. She’d gotten some on her torn dress. After she came back and crawled under the tarp to hide, the rest of the kids had moved away and kept their distance.
All of the hostages looked scared. It wasn’t just the other children…or her.
Their camp had been moved. After the storm, they had been forced to hike again. Only this time, they hadn’t walked all day. Things were different. This time they joined another group of armed men who lived in a small village in the hills. And she saw they knew each other. None of these men seemed surprised that they were being held captive.
Being in a village, she hoped they would get better treatment. That didn’t happen. They were forced to camp outside like before, herded to the outskirts of the village like goats. From under the tarp, she watched the armed men mix with the others. They ate cooked food that smelled better, and they laughed as if they were on holiday.
She hated them for taking her away from her family, her father.
At first she prayed like she’d been taught at school, but after a while she gave up. Maybe God didn’t hear her prayers anymore, not after the men killed Sister Kate. She felt an ache deep inside when she pictured the face of the nun. Picturing her dead hurt as bad as the day her mother died.
And the sick man was gone, too, the one who had been shot. She remembered seeing the light of the camera on the night of the storm. And the next day, she saw the armed men do something she didn’t understand until later. That was when she knew what they had done to the wounded man. They had done the same to the brave nun.
Thinking about Sister Kate and the man who’d been shot made her belly ache. And she was scared all the time now. The bad men kept looking at her. The way they looked at her made her feel dirty. She avoided their eyes, unsure that had stopped them from staring. She wanted her father to hold her and tell her she was safe, but with each passing day she thought that might never happen. She’d never see her father again.
“What are they doing…over there?” Andre whispered. All of them turned to see what he was looking at.
One of the armed men came to the leader, and they both headed to a pitched tent on the opposite side of their camp. They spoke again in words she didn’t understand, but the man in charge was not pleased. He waved his hand and looked like he gave an order. Joselyne was certain she wouldn’t like it.
Especially when the armed man came for her.
“No…please…NO!” she cried. Joselyne dug in her heels and made the man drag her in the dirt and through the mud puddles. The other children clutched at her legs, but none of them were strong enough to help her. She dropped her bowl of food and almost threw up. Everything slipped away, and the memory of her father faded into nothing.
In her moment of desperation, she found herself praying.
New York City
Sentinels Headquarters
“Jessie, wake up. Jessie?”
A voice edged her sleep and forced her to open her eyes. Jess squinted into the overhead light and raised a hand to block the glare, not registering what was happening at first. Seth knelt next to the bed and pulled a strand of hair off her face. His dark eyes came into focus, her first waking moment and a sight she could get used to.
“You with me?” he asked with a smile on his handsome face.
They were in a dormitory room at the Sentinels headquarters, with the smell of stale coffee and the remnants of cold pizza lingering in the air. Seth had worked through what had been left of the night. She looked down and realized he’d covered her with a blanket. And whatever tunes he had cranked while he was working earlier, a tinny hint of music came from the earplugs lying on the desk. He’d resorted to using them after she’d fallen asleep.
“Yeah, I think so.” She propped herself up on his pillows and ran a hand through her hair. “What time is it?”
“I have no idea. In Harperworld, time is only a concept. We gotta talk, Jessie. I think I found it.” Eagerness brightened his eyes, and his face glowed. No way he’d spent the whole night working. Harper definitely came from good genes.
“Found what?” She yawned. “I need to brush my teeth…get coffee.”
“No, you need to listen this time.” He grinned and pulled her chin toward him until her gaze locked on him. “I found a signal, Jessie. A high-density bandwidth in Cuba. It has to be them.”
“You found the…” When his words finally sunk in, her eyes widened, and her voice raised an octave. “You did?” Before he answered, she leapt off the bed and hugged him. “Of course you did, Harper. Talk to me, tell me what’s going on. Have you told Garrett and Tanya?”
“No, not yet. I thought you should have the honor.” He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “But we gotta tell them now.”
“Now? I thought once you isolated the signal in Haiti, you still had to triangulate their position and track them from there.”
“Yeah, I did that. It took longer than I expected, and I had t
o wait for them to transmit again. That’s why I woke you. They’re transmitting now. A fresh signal. If we can cross-reference the location of the signal with Alexa’s tracking beacon, we can provide their coordinates and give her an idea how close they are.”
“You’re right. We gotta call Garrett and Tanya.”
She grinned at him and cupped his face in her hands. Giving in to the moment, Jessie kissed him without thinking. A switch flipped in her brain, and she did what came naturally. She savored his lips and the warmth of his arms. His hands touched her body, and although she wanted more, it wasn’t the time.
Rain check, Harper. A definite rain check. She didn’t risk saying those words aloud. Maybe one day she would.
Southeast Cuba
Sierra Maestra Mountain Range
The armed man hauled Joselyne by the wrist and dragged her away from the other children to the far end of the camp. He yelled before he reached down to yank her hair. And when he tossed her under the tented tarp, he shoved her to the ground. Her knees were scraped, and they stung. And her eyes had to adjust to the darkness.
It was dusk, and nightfall would soon come. Only a glimmer of light shone through where the tent met the ground. It took her a moment to see. When she did, Joselyne cried. She crawled across the makeshift tent toward the body under the blanket.
The body of Sister Kate.
She barely recognized the nun’s face. She’d been beaten. Joselyne reached toward the body with trembling fingers. Despite the heat, she touched lifeless skin that felt cool. The body reminded her of the day her mother was buried. But when the bloodied swollen face twitched, and a low moan came from the sister’s throat, Joselyne jerked her hand back and cowered in the shadows.
Sister Kate opened her eyes and stared into the darkness. Her blank empty expression scared Joselyne. The life had gone from her eyes.
