by Chuck Dixon
Morris thought about arguing that he had his own ride but decided it was irrelevant to the conversation.
He went with them without protest.
Larry Fonseca watched from the window of his bedroom as the Chinese guys loaded the bespectacled, bearded guy into the back of their Suburban.
“He’s gone. I did what you asked. We’re done here, right?”
The two well-dressed men who’d been keeping him company since last night stood now. They wore vinyl gloves that he hadn’t noticed before.
“Oh shit,” Larry said.
18
Monsters of the Swamp
“Ocean Raj to the Lone Rangers.”
Jimbo was surprised when the radio squawked to life with Boats’ voice coming from the speaker. The drone was hovering at its maximum altitude of five thousand feet to act as a relay antenna to extend the range for their latest attempt to reach the ship out in the Pacific a thousand millennia from when they were.
“Is that you Boats?” he said keying the set.
“Bet your ass, Cochise. Surprised?” The voice was coming through in digital clarity.
“I wasn’t expecting to reach you live.”
“We’re live twenty-four and seven, bro. The Taubers built a brand new rig that keeps a hole punched to your twenty on a permanent basis.”
“The field is open all the time?” Jimbo said and turned to Chaz who was squinting at him puzzled.
“Just a small window. Enough to transmit and receive. We can be in constant contact. What’s your sit-rep?”
“We’re past Barstow halfway to Fort Irwin. Remember that place?”
“That shithole? I did desert training there. What’s it like?”
“Nothing like you’d remember,” Jimbo said. The team had reached the top of the broad mesa leading to the higher country of Nevada. He could see the endless expanse of the primordial prairie they’d spent two days crossing. Ahead of them was a forest of beech, poplar, and tall pines. The landscape bore no resemblance to the arid wastelands of the Mojave Desert that would one day be here.
“You’re making good progress. Any complications?”
“A wild dog pack followed us most of yesterday. We turned them back with a twenty mil. Haven’t seen them since,” Jimbo said, recalling the harrowing day of watching the extended pack loping along their flanks as they marched. By evening, the dogs were coming close enough to smell, growing bolder as the sun went down. Lee let a 20mm grenade loose into the thick of the pack. It sent a half-dozen dogs flying to bits. The others took off in a race with their own asses. Lee sent a second grenade looping after them to let them know the first one wasn’t an accident. They camped that night without hearing a single bark from the pack.
“You guys extracted okay, right? How’s Dwayne?” Jimbo asked.
“He’s with a doc in Ensenada. Him and Caroline should be back on board in the next few days. You going to be able to stay in contact?”
“Only when I have the juice to send up the drone. Once a day at most. I have to bring it down now to conserve the battery.”
“We’ll be here listening. Happy hunting, chief. Hope you find your friend soon. Ocean Raj out.”
“Rangers out.” Jimbo broke the connection and set the drone on a return course earthward.
The trees of the forest atop the mesa thinned out toward the end of the following day. The ground was pitching away into a valley below. The hillside was dominated by thick hedges of berry bushes that Jimbo warned them against picking. The drone revealed that the bush country went on for miles to the east. It was impassable on foot with growth above eye level and spiked with long thorns. An impenetrable barricade of vines alive with the chittering and caws of birds overhead and within.
They camped at the edge of the wall of berry bushes and awoke the next morning to find themselves in the center of a herd of moose quietly munching on the fruit and leaves along the hedge line. Jimbo was on morning watch and never heard the enormous creatures moving toward them through a soupy morning fog. He moved among the team, waking them as gently as he could, and whispering a warning to break camp without startling the herd.
The largest of the moose were twelve foot at the shoulder, and some had racks of antlers easily that wide across. The calves were the size of modern adults. They turned their heads lazily to watch the Rangers, Bat, and Byrus move at a slow walk in a line through them. With little curiosity, the antlered monsters surrendered to the lure of the sweet berries and returned to feeding.
“Jesus, I thought regular moose were big. Those were Moosezillas,” Chaz whispered when they were well clear of the last of the herd.
“We are damned lucky the females had calved. If we showed up in mating season or when the cows were carrying, we’d be dead now,” Jimbo said.
“They’re so cute,” Bat said.
“Cute, my ass,” Jimbo said. “One of those fuckers would stomp you to a greasy spot. They’re calm as hell most of the time but can be killers depending on the season.”
The team stopped long enough to wolf down some protein bars and secure their gear after the hasty decamp. Jimbo unpacked the drone and sent it aloft to find a dry wash that led through the thick brush in a generally northern course into rocky ground and down the back slope off the mesa.
The trail was narrow and covered over in spots by a bower of bushes. The hedge around them blocked any movement in the air. Even though the path was an easy one and carried them downhill, they were gasping for air and drenched in new sweat. In addition, the insects were even more punishing here. They became used to the constant buzzing cloud around them and the feathery touch of wings on every inch of open skin.
Swarms of birds hopped from branch to branch on either side of them, cackling defiantly overhead or from the protection of the thicket of thorns. At one point, they had to halt entirely to allow a herd of wild pigs, the same kind they’d met in the dunes, to trot before them before disappearing again, grunting and squealing, into a gap in the bushes.
“What do you call a herd of pigs? Herd isn’t right, right? That’s for cows?” Bat said.
“I’ve heard ‘drove’ or ‘passel,’” Jimbo offered.
“In Alabama, we call a bunch of swine a ‘sounder,’” Chaz said.
“I call it barbecue,” Lee said.
They emerged from the thicket where it ended in broken ground falling away from the mesa. A welcome breeze rose up the slope. They stripped out of their packs and took seats on flat rocks strewn among the field of scree. Below was a flat plain with forested hills rising miles beyond. The broad valley, torn in the earth by the passage of glaciers in an earlier epoch, was thick with vegetation. The afternoon sun created a silvery sheen in the open areas between copses of thick cane growth.
“It’s a marsh. It stands between us and the lake where we left Rick,” Jimbo announced to the team as he eyed the screen on the drone controller. Byrus crouched by him, gripping the haft of the spear and sniffing the air.
“Is there a way around?” Lee peered over his shoulder at the miles of wetland stretching beneath the drone hovering stationary a half-mile out over the valley.
“I can’t tell how deep it is or what the bottom’s like. It could be a flood plain or swampland. No way to tell from here. Best plan is to follow the ridge we’re on south to try and find a way get around it.” Jimbo jinked the drone onto a southerly course to where the valley narrowed.
“They’re crossing it,” Chaz pointed down to where a line of figures moved across the shallows.
Jimbo raised his glasses and found a long column of some species of camel plodding through the muddy water that reached midway up their legs. The single-file herd left a wake of mocha latte mud behind them as their feet disturbed the silt floor of the wetland.
“They weigh more than us. That means the bottom is solid. The water would be thigh deep for us.” Jimbo lowered his scopes and turned to the others.
“Okay. If it takes a couple of days off the march, I say
we go wading,” Lee said.
“Zim,” Byrus said and pointed the tip of his spear down at the camels.
Dark shapes were gliding through the shallows on a direct course toward the line of camels. Partly submerged, they moved at speed on a deliberate path to intercept the column. Seven or more of them were piloting from the reeds out into the open water.
“Alligators?” Bat said.
Jimbo found them through the binoculars. The shapes were black and, judging from the scale of the camels, were six or more feet in length with shiny, sleek coats. Their heads were blunt, and they lacked the elongated bodies of gators or crocs. Their passage created nothing more than gentle ripples in the dark water. The animals glided without effort and no visible means of propulsion. They were moving fast to close with the unsuspecting camels crossing the marsh at a leisurely walk.
The torpedo shapes struck the center of the file of camels. Three animals went down shrieking in churning water that turned to pink foam in an instant. The panicked camels before and after the stricken members of their herd bolted away from the slaughter to flounder in deeper water. The predators were on them in seconds. White teeth flashed. The greater weight of the attackers bore them under the water.
“Beavers,” said Jimbo, eye to his scopes.
“Bullshit,” Lee pulled a 30x scope from a pouch on his Molle.
The herd was down in seconds. Splitting up only brought the end faster. The lumbering camels fought to make progress in the water while their killers moved at astonishing speed. One adult and a calf struggled onto a bar of mud to get out of the water and escape the carnage. The sleek furred killers rushed from the water and up onto the bank. These were leaner, more muscled animals than the species the team knew from documentaries on tv. The adult camel bleated and kicked as two beavers leapt to bring it down with claws and teeth. The calf screamed in a cry in an eerie mimicry of a human baby. A beaver clamped its razor-sharp incisors on the yearling’s leg and dragged it back into the water where both vanished in a welter of bubbles and spray.
The water grew still but for expanding ripples of foam. The bodies of camels, some surrounded by greasy pools of their own bowels, floated in the crimson mire. Their attackers drifted back the way they came, not staying to feed.
“Giant beavers. Fuck me.” Chaz sighed.
“It was my people hunted them to extinction. Now I understand why. Imagine a world full of those bastards,” Jimbo said.
“They wasted those camels. Killed all of them. But they’re not eating them,” Bat said, eyes locked on the torn bodies moving past them on a sluggish current heading south.
“They’re defending their habitat,” Jimbo said.
“You mean they have a dam?” Chaz said.
“That’s what flooded this valley. We follow the current to the right we’ll find it,” Jimbo said. He turned to see Byrus staring at the carcasses floating by. Some were getting hung up in the reeds where billows of insects were already gathering to feed. The Macedonian’s mouth was hanging open.
“Tartarii,” Byrus said in a hoarse whisper. The Pima didn’t correct him this time.
19
In Flight
It wasn’t his first ride in a corporate jet. But it was his least fun ride in a corporate jet.
The Embraer Legacy 650 climbed to thirty thousand feet, pressing Morris Tauber gently back into the plush suede leather seat. Whisked away by mysterious Asians in a state-of-the-science private jet. It was all starting to feel very James Bond. But Morris wasn’t feeling very Sean Connery. “Do you like the ride?” the smiling man in the tinted glasses asked from the swivel seat across from him.
“It’s comfortable,” Morris admitted.
“This is one of the finest executive jets you can buy. Made in China. Jackie Chan owns one. Who would have thought the communists could build a ride with this kind of luxury?”
“So, you’re not a communist?”
“Taiwanese. Of course, even the communists aren’t all that red any more, am I right?”
One of the men from the SUV, the driver, came down the aisle offering a tray with tall glasses of iced tea. Morris took one and waited until the smiling man took one before sipping. Chilled with a fresh lemon slice and honey. The driver returned with a tray of cookies. Macadamia nut with white chips.
“This isn’t a coincidence. My favorite ice tea. My favorite cookie,” Morris said.
“We pride ourselves on our research, Doctor,” the smiling man said.
Morris replaced the cookie he’d chosen on the tray and searched for his inner Connery. “I’m not going to tell you where they are. I won’t betray my sister or my friends,” he said with all the gravity he could muster.
The smiling man’s smile faded to a frown. He wasn’t angry. He was disappointed.
“I don’t wish to threaten you,” the man said. Morris said nothing.
“Coerce you? Yes. Gently. You were not forced to come with us. No one has done so much as touch you, Dr. Tauber.”
“I’m free to go then?”
“After a while. After we have talked.” The man’s smile returned.
“Then what do you want? Why go to all this trouble?”
“To make you, and your people, an offer.”
“What kind of offer?” Morris’ eyes narrowed. “A job, Dr. Tauber.” His host was Jason Taan, CEO and principal shareholder in Dex-Tan Industries, a diversified engineering firm specializing in water management and dam construction projects worldwide. They’d recently moved into building supertankers with the purchase of a Dutch shipbuilding firm.
“As you can see, I take a hands-on approach to my business,” Jason Taan said.
“You have no connection with Sir Neal Harnesh?” Morris asked as they shared a meal of shrimp cocktail and a salad of chilled arugula.
“He is a competitor in areas where our businesses intersect. That’s why we purchased company files stolen from the database of one of his subsidiaries by a hacker. We wanted a dekko at how he was pricing some of his contracts.”
“In the area of…”
“Oil transshipment. I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but India and China are in a fierce struggle for energy resources to fuel their growing economies. We are looking to be competitive now that Dex-Tan has moved into the construction of supertankers.”
“And did you find what you were looking for?” Morris said, gesturing with the tail of a shrimp on the end of a fork.
“Not at all. The database we purchased was from a separate corporation not associated with either shipbuilding or oil pipeline construction. An outfit called Gallant Limited.
Are you familiar with it?”
“Yes.”
“You worked for them for a number of years. Along with your sister. Then you suddenly severed your relationship with them but not by mutual accord. The files we have detail the theft of some very dodgy items from the company inventory. And the company’s efforts to find you and recover those items has been interesting, to say the least.”
Morris swallowed. “I suppose.”
“Sir Neal very much wants his nuclear reactor back,” Jason Taan said with obvious amusement.
“He does.”
“And his time machine.” Jason Taan held up a glass for his driver to fill with champagne.
Morris raised his eyes to see Taan smiling at him.
“Yes. I know all about it, Dr. Tauber. What’s more, I believe it. As fantastic as it all sounds, I believe it.”
“Uh huh.” The shrimp was turning to chum in Morris’ stomach.
“Don’t worry, Doctor. I don’t want to steal your device. I only want to borrow it.”
Jason Taan laughed openly at Morris’ reaction to that.
20
The Lake
They reached the dam before noon the next day.
It looked more like a massive natural deadfall than a planned structure. The trunks of whole trees filled a narrow gap in what was once a tributary feeding a broad river. The
wall of logs was reinforced by a tangle of limbs piled behind it to form a barricade created from dozens of habitats. The domes of individual lodges dotted the organized mess. Jimbo counted fifty-two. That was well over a hundred of the buck-toothed monsters out of sight beneath the water or in their nesting chambers. The two hundred foot long dam breast was held in place by tons of packed mud. The dam was old enough that a thicket of reeds grew through the construction, further camouflaging it as a natural obstruction.
The blockage reduced the river’s flow to a trickle that ran down through gaps in the ten-foot face of the timber weir. The effect over the years since its completion was the swamping of millions of acres at the base of the mesa. The day before they’d passed hundreds of independent lodges. For that reason, they kept to a high trail to avoid the miles-long beaver colony. Any threat to that colony would be met with violence. They had no desire to share the fate of the camels.
The team moved down to follow the gravel bed of the river. A stream trickled at the center with weed-choked slopes describing where the water once rose up the banks before the dam stopped the flow. Birds hunted for grubs in the mud. Some fluttered aside as the group approached. Wingless birds stalked clear and stood watching the four men and woman pass. The largest of the flightless birds were eye-level with Lee Hammond at six foot four. They were dove-gray with long necks and hooked beaks. Scaly red legs rose atop powerful feet with three toes ending in wicked black claws, hooked and razor-sharp. Their heads tilted and turned, eyes locked on the strange column moving among them.
“Never had a chicken size me up for dinner before,” Chaz said.
A short drone flight revealed that the river turned south, then hooked hard east where it joined an elongated lake. Jimbo and Chaz recognized it as the body of water from their first trip into the past. The cliff wall where they’d found Caroline Tauber held captive was another day or two from where they stood. It was here they hoped to find Rick Renzi.
