The Traveler (48 page)

Sarah and Anya waited for Virginia as she fought to assist the kid she had just helped to his feet. As she did, the animal outside tore away a goodly percentage of the branches covering the small crevice. Anya and Sarah's eyes widened when they saw the muzzle of the largest bear they had ever seen outside of a natural history museum. The cave bear swiped and roared at the intruders to its lair. The second and third Russians never stood a chance as they tried to squeeze past the women to get to the opening. The set of claws hit the first across the throat, sending his head flying half on, half off as he continued to fight for the doorway. The sight froze the second man as he saw his friend dispatched right before his eyes.

Sarah hurriedly reached for the running and headless man's Glock nine millimeter but the headless man continued into the open and then finally collapsed into the collected ash of Erebus. The roar of the enormous cave bear shook the world around the women as the bear started to lower its spittle-filled muzzle toward the cowering Sarah, Anya, Virginia, and the only Russian guard who was left. All they could do was cower as the cave bear moved its fifteen-foot body far enough to block their only escape route.

They leaned as far away as they could as the giant roared with bloodlust. The prehistoric bear crashed into the enclosure and the world exploded with blood and fur.

*   *   *

Jenks finally got the second remote unit under control. The nightmare-sized condor discovered something far less maneuverable and vanished into the now-clearing skies after the wind had shifted the ash cloud. The master chief cursed and brought the drone to a much higher altitude. As he watched the monitor he saw the distant outline of the bird as it made its way to the south.

“Damn, Slim should have put a mini-gun on this damn thing,” Jenks hissed as he spun the remote 360 degrees to see if there were any more surprises waiting for his robotic viewing pleasure.

“Master Chief, you better look at this,” Charlie said.

Jenks placed his drone in a hover over the canopy as he leaned over and looked at what Ellenshaw was viewing on drone number one's viewing screen.

“What in the hell is that?” he asked, knowing well that the cryptozoologist had no idea what it was they were seeing.

“Well, the telephoto lenses are at full capacity, maybe thirty-five miles or so, but they're close enough that I can tell you beyond a doubt that not only are we seeing a large contingent of mammoths, but the largest herd of bison ever dreamed about in North America. Millions of them are flanking the mammoth families at the center. They seem to be migrating toward Erebus,” Charlie said, his excitement growing while his eyes took in the magnificent sight.

“You can see all of that?” Jenks asked, looking at the way Ellenshaw perched his glasses on his head as he closely viewed the scene on the monitor.

“Oh, yes. See how easily they move? This looks like a natural migration.” Charlie looked over at the master chief, who was staring at the monitor. He turned and gently lowered the cryptozoologist's glasses to his eyes.

“My point being, Doc, if you can see all of that why can't you see the dust clouds rising to either side of this mass migration?”

Ellenshaw looked closer at the monitor. He scowled as he saw what the former navy man was referring to, but not his point. He faced the master chief.

“There. About the middle of the pack and toward the front. Watch closely.”

Charlie finally saw the movement Jenks was seeing. Every few seconds a number of the bison would roam farther from the giant herd after smelling greener grass, and as they did they ventured closer to the valley walls where trees of prehistoric size lined the trail. At first he saw a shadow break quickly from the cover of the tree line and make straight for the wandering beasts until the animals stopped and were scared back into the fold. The same thing happened toward the front of the migratory animals. Another small, darkened shape shot from the trees as some young bison and even a small baby mammoth strayed too close from the herd and stopped and ran a very fast circle around the frightened animals until they too were turned back.

“Uh-oh,” Ellenshaw said under his breath as he reached out and pushed replay on the small screen.The high-definition scene rewound until the small creature had just burst from cover. It was one of the small raptors that had attacked them. As Charlie pushed the play feature, the camera began a live streaming of the migratory herd once more. He zoomed in on the line of giant trees that encompassed most of the ancient game trail. Then his heart froze as he saw the enemy of both man and animal—thousands of the brightly colored raptors were following both herds and that led Ellenshaw to believe the same thing was happening on the far side of the game trail also.

Jenks cursed something under his breath as he turned to his own monitor and saw that the second hovering drone had lost Colonel Collins and the Frenchman. The master chief knew any attempt at finding them would be a waste of battery time, and this new development had changed priorities, at least as far as the base camp was concerned.

“Think you can fly that drone back here without cracking it up?”

“But we need to keep an eye on this, and what about the colonel and Farbeaux? We need to stay in contact with them.”

“That's why we have radios, Doc. Now get that drone back here so we can recharge it for when we really need it.”

An angry Charlie waited the briefest of moments until the master chief looked up. He returned the look. “Listen, do you see that Ferris wheel–lookin' thing over there?”

Charlie saw the doorway in its incomplete state. “Yes.”

“The priority is that damn thing, not keeping an eye on two men that know how to take care of themselves. We need to know when those murderous chickens start getting too close, is that clear to you, Doc?”

“Yes, but I don't like the fact that I feel we are abandoning our friends out there, Carl.”

“One more thing while you're so damn worried about everything else, there's a missing piece of that Ferris wheel and those damn raptors or whatever they are have it. We need to see where they have taken it before the whole damn thing becomes a moot point. And in case you didn't notice, we are sitting right in the middle of that damn game trail.”

Without another word Charlie started guiding drone number one home. He still couldn't shake the feeling that they were abandoning Jack and the others when they needed their eyes the most.

Without knowing it, Ellenshaw was mirroring the master chief's very thoughts.

 

20

The giant cave bear's claws missed Anya's head by mere inches. The blow was so close that it cut clean a long lock of her black hair. She cursed in Romanian and then in Hebrew as she scrambled backward on her behind just as the branches covering the small crevice came crashing in upon all of them. The enormous but blunted snout of the brown and black fur–covered behemoth roared as it leaned in to swipe at the branches covering its intended targets. The young and wounded Russian managed to slide by Sarah and Virginia and partially raise his weapon up and through the large leaves of their cover. That was a major mistake as it acted like a marker for the monstrosity fighting to get in. The boy screamed as the beast moved like lightning and took the man's hand, but instead of biting through the light meat, sinew, and bone of the man's wrist, the bear pulled the Russian up and out of the collapsed enclosure. Sarah and Virginia tried for his flying feet but missed.

The man screamed as he was thrown through the air to crash into other trees. The bear turned to move toward the easy meal.

Before anyone realized it, something had drowned out the roars of the enraged bear. Gunshots sounded outside and then their hopes soared as they realized that the colonel and his team had found them, or at the very least that bastard mobster had returned with Ryan and Mendenhall. Three more shots were fired and the roaring animal vanished from the enclosure. Sarah, Virginia, and Anya scrambled to push the debris of the shelter away as they struggled to take advantage of the brief respite. McIntire was the first one to break through and it was like a drowning swimmer breaching the surface for some much-needed air, only this particular sensation was brought on by fear. Anya popped up next to her and then Virginia with a halo of leaves garnishing her brown hair.

The animal screamed again and they saw the beast as it charged something that was blocked from view.

“Why aren't they still shooting it?” Anya yelled over the din of the charging cave bear.

That was when they saw a fur-covered form break cover and dodge the charging giant. The man-shape moved quickly and took up station just to the animal's exposed left flank as the beast crashed into the undergrowth where their savior had been in cover. Then they were amazed when the fur-covered figure fired a large arrow into the confused bear. Then another arrow was quickly nocked and fired without hesitation. Then the figure was again on the move just as the enraged animal turned to confront its attacker. The dark figure moved fast and before the women knew it the attacker had launched two more arrows at the bear.

“What in the hell is that asshole doing?” Sarah asked as she fought further to free herself from the roof of the enclosure. “Arrows?”

The bear had had enough. The giant roared one more time at the pesky animals that had thwarted its meal. The cave bear rose once on its hind legs and then screamed its outrage. It flopped onto all fours and vanished into the thick growth.

Sarah finally managed to free herself totally and then helped Anya and Virginia. They turned, and with their hearts still threatening to beat right out of their chests, they saw the fur-covered hunter move quickly toward the downed Russian. The man's pulse was checked and the person or whatever it was lowered his head. Then their new company looked up toward them. There was no movement for the first few seconds as they waited to see who or what had come to their rescue. Finally, without rising from his crouched position, a gloved hand was raised and the fur hood was removed.

Even at the distance Anya saw who it was and her heart froze. Sarah and Virginia laughed aloud and even clapped their hands as the blond man finally rose. The beard was thick but even from that distance they saw the man's eyes and there was no mistaking Admiral Carl Everett. He slid the large bow over his shoulder and smiled. Yes, it was Mr. Everett, and Sarah felt the tears come to her eyes as Anya ran forward. Virginia placed a hand on Sarah's shoulder and they took in a reunion that had never been dreamed of until Moira Mendelsohn had been discovered. She jumped the last four feet and flew into his fur-covered arms. Carl took her in, fearing his own voice would fail him. As it turned out he didn't need his voice at all.

Sarah looked at Virginia and saw that the older woman was crying. For Sarah it was a rerun of her reunion with Jack during the Leviathan mission … she knew the joy. Sarah's smile said it all.

“We beat the damn odds, didn't we?” she said as she watched Carl Everett embrace Anya for the first time since his once-upon-a-time death.

Before the embrace and the joy faded, the odds had shifted again for the worst as Mount Erebus rumbled and belched burning-red boulders from her caldera, and this time she and her sister world-killers didn't stop.

*   *   *

The radio coming to life made Jack cringe. He hurriedly pulled it from its holder and lowered the volume. The noise in the silent jungle was not conducive to avoiding some of the pitfalls he and Farbeaux were made aware of by the screams of cats and other species that seemed to want to eat everything they came across. Collins could see that Henri was coming a little unglued, and he had to admit to himself that he was faring no better. You could only search in a scary place for so long before you start to hear monsters behind every bush you see.

“Collins,” he said into the radio as he hurriedly tempered his angry response, after all it wasn't the master chief's fault he had left his volume up like a rookie.

“Colonel, we have a serious problem,” Jenks said from five miles distant. “It seems we have an assorted selection of wildlife heading straight for us, and they have some disturbing company herding them. Doc says that they are migrating toward Erebus while the rest of the wild kingdom is heading the other way away from the volcano. The group heading our way is being herded by our feathered friends, over.”

“Our raging peacocks again?” he asked as Henri stopped beside him with an open bottle of water from his pack. Collins shook his head and then waited.

“Oh, yeah. The smart little bastards are keeping a massive migrating herd of bison and some damn big, ugly elephants.” Jack and Henri heard Charlie Ellenshaw's complaint in the background that they were called mammoths before he was cut off.

“How long?” he asked as the exasperation and hopelessness of the situation was starting to wear on him.

“Doc says they're traveling leisurely, but even if they stop at Denny's we're lookin' at no more than twenty-four hours until they amble right over us and the doorway. Over.”

“Master Chief, do you see any indication of where these raptors may be clustering? Maybe they have a nest or something.”

It dawned on Jenks and Charlie at the same moment they heard Jack's question.

“No, but I see what you're getting at. Any leadership cast or whatever social, or pecking order”—they heard the master chief laugh if only briefly—“that may be where they stashed our little coupling.”

“My train of thought exactly.”

“Okay, we have our orders, we'll use both drones and see what we can see. Any luck finding out who the assholes were that started the fires?”

“Negative, there wasn't that much left to view.”

“I see, Jenks out.”

Jack lowered the radio and looked at Farbeaux, who had recapped the water and then wiped his brow. He looked from Collins toward the setting sun.