Atlantis (6 page)

“Weird stuff,” Flaherty muttered.

“They all died,” Dane said.

“Who did?” Flaherty asked.

Dane spread his hands. “The warriors who manned this post. And those they guarded. All dead. They were great once. The greatest of their time.”

“Yo, Dane,” Flaherty slapped his teammate on the back. “Come back to me, man.”

Dane shivered. “I'm here, Ed.” He tried to smile. “I don't want to be, but I'm here.”

Between Castle and his mysterious rucksack, the compass and radio not working, and Dane's warnings, Flaherty was anxious to get moving to the pickup zone.

“We'll get out OK,” Flaherty said to Dane, but he could tell the words were finding no purchase. Castle had finished doing whatever it was he was up to, but continued to stare toward the jungle.

“Let's go,” Flaherty said to Castle.

The CIA man sealed his pack and threw it back on his shoulder.

“Can't we just move along the high ground?” Flaherty asked. “We can see everything from up here.”

“We have to go down to the river,” Castle said. “The crash site is on the other side. Down there.”

It was lighter now, but fog still blanketed the ground below, hiding whatever was down there. It looked like the fog was lifting on this side of the river but it was just as thick on the other side.

“That’s strange,” Flaherty commented. He didn’t like the look of the fog. It was yellowish-gray with streaks of something darker in it. He’d never seen anything like it in all his years in the field. He turned back to Castle.

“My man here,” Flaherty said, pointing at Dane, “thinks we're going to get blown away if we go down there. So far he's four for four on calling ambushes. I suggest you listen to him.”

“There's no VC down there,” Castle said.

“I don't know what's down there,” Flaherty said, “but if Dane says there's something bad, then something bad is there.”

A shadow came over Castle's face. As if he were resigned, Flaherty thought with surprise. “We have to go,” Castle simply said. “The quicker we get this over with, the better. This isn't negotiable. It's too late for all that. We all signed on, we do what we're paid to. There’s no other way.”

The three of them stood on the ancient stone rampart, each lost in their own thoughts, each realizing the truth of Castle’s words. They had all taken different roads to get here, but they were here together, cogs in a machine that was not overly concerned with the quality or length of their lives.

“Let's get going then,” Flaherty said.

They rejoined the other two men and began the descent, Dane in the lead. As they left the craggy rocks behind, they again went under the blanket of green. It was dim now, despite the sun. Flaherty was used to that. No light penetrated the triple canopy unblocked. Halfway down the ridge toward the river, tendrils of fog began snaking their way through the trees until visibility was down to less than forty feet.

They pressed on. It was like walking in place, the trees and other fauna the same, the ground sloping down, the fog crowding around. Then they could hear water running, getting closer, until Dane, walking point, saw the ground drop off in front of him.

Dane halted, looking out onto the river. It was shallow and fast moving. The swirling fog occasionally parted to show the far side, a dark green line of jungle forty meters away but his vision couldn't penetrate beyond that. The fog was much thicker across there, a smear of grayish white overlaid on top of the green vegetation. But even the trees looked strange, sickly almost. It was chilly and the sweat on the men's skin met the damp air, producing goose-bumps and shivers.

Castle moved past Dane and slithered down the bank until he was knee deep in the water. He pulled a jar out of his ruck and filled it with the water, resealing the lid and putting it back in his pack.

“We have to cross,” Castle said, looking up at the four men who were kneeling on the bank, the muzzles of their weapons pointing in the direction Castle wanted to go.

“What are you doing?” Flaherty demanded. The water sample bothered him.

“I'm not authorized to tell you that,” Castle said.

“No, you're only authorized to get us killed,” Flaherty muttered. He gestured. “Thomas and Tormey, cross with Castle. Dane and I will provide far security, then you cover us.”

Thomas climbed down without a word or a look back. Tormey looked at Flaherty, then across the river and back at his team leader before he followed. Flaherty thought he had never felt the responsibility of command as sharply as the moment Tormey’s face shifted to utter resignation.

Dane extended the bipod legs of the M-60 and lay down on the bank behind a log. He flipped up the butt plate and put his shoulder under it. Flaherty joined him. The other three men were moving in a triangle, Castle in the lead, Thomas on the left and Tormey on the right, ten meters between each man.

“Call them back,” Dane suddenly said as the men reached the halfway point.

“What?”

“Call them back. It's an ambush!” Dane's voice was low but insistent.

Flaherty whistled and Thomas stopped, ten meters from the bank. He looked back and Flaherty gestured, indicating for him to return. Thomas hissed, catching Tormey's attention. The new man halted. Castle looked over his shoulder, irritated, then continued, reaching the far bank.

Thomas was backing up now, retracing his steps, his M-203 swinging in arcs, aimed over Castle's head. Tormey was frozen, uncertain what to do. Flaherty gritted his teeth, waiting for the explosion of firing to come out of the tree cover of the far bank and the bodies to be riddled. Castle climbed up, but nothing happened as the CIA man disappeared. He seemed to just fade from view and be swallowed up by the fog and jungle.

Flaherty blinked, but Castle was gone. If there was going to be an ambush it would have been sprung while the men were in the kill zone of the river.

“No ambush,” Flaherty said.

“There's something over there,” Dane insisted.

Castle suddenly reappeared on the far bank in a brief opening in the fog, angrily gesturing for them to follow.

Flaherty stood and indicated for Thomas to hold. “We have to cover Castle,” Flaherty put his hand on Danes arm. “Plus he's the only one who knows where the pickup zone is.”

Dane reluctantly stood and followed his team leader down the bank and into the river. They hurried through the water, linking up with Thomas and Tormey.

As they clambered up the bank, Dane suddenly grabbed Flaherty's arm. “Listen!” he insisted.

Flaherty paused and strained his ears as Thomas and Tormey got to the top of the bank. “I don't hear anything.”

“The voice,” Dane said.

“What voice?” Flaherty cocked his head but heard nothing.

“A warning,” Dane whispered, as if he didn't want to be heard. “I've been hearing it for a while, but it's clear now. I can hear the words. We have to get out of here.”

Flaherty looked ahead. Castle was nowhere to be seen. Flaherty heard nothing, the silence in the midst of the jungle as disconcerting as Dane saying he heard a voice. “Let's get Castle,” Flaherty ordered, not wanting to let the CIA man further out of sight.

They climbed up. All four paused as they reached the top. Dane staggered and went to his knees, vomiting his meager breakfast. It felt as if his stomach had been turned inside out. His brain was pounding, spikes of pain crisscrossing in every direction. And still the voice was there, inside his head, telling him to turn around, to go back.

Flaherty shivered. The fog was different here. Colder and there was a smell in the air that he'd never experienced before. The air seemed to crawl across his skin and he couldn't seem to get an adequate breath.

“You all right?” he asked Dane.

Dane shook his head. “You feel it?” he asked.

Flaherty slowly nodded. “Yeah, I feel it. What is it?”

“I don't know,” Dane said, “but I've never felt anything like it before. This place is different from anywhere I’ve ever been. And there
is
a voice, Ed. I can hear it. It's warning me not to go forward.”

Flaherty looked around. Even the jungle itself was strange. The trees and flora weren't quite right, although he couldn't put his finger on the exact differences. Dane struggled to his feet.

“Can you move?” Flaherty asked. “Let's get Castle and get the hell out of here.”

Dane nodded, but didn't say anything.

The team went into the jungle about fifty meters, the eerie quietness making each member of RT Kansas jumpy. Flaherty shivered, not so much from the cold but the feeling of the fog against his skin. It felt clammy, and he could swear he felt the molecules of moisture ripple against his skin like oil.

Then there was a sound, one that pierced through each man like an ice pick. A long, shivering scream of agony from directly ahead. The four men paused, weapons pointing in the direction of the scream. Something was crashing through the undergrowth coming toward them, hidden by the vegetation and fog. Fingers twitched on triggers and then suddenly Castle was there, staggering toward them, his left hand clamped onto his right shoulder, blood pouring between his fingers. He fell to his knees ten feet from them. He reached out, bloody hand toward the team. Four inches below his shoulder, his right arm was gone, blood pulsing out of the artery with each beat of his heart.

Then something came out of the fog behind him, freezing every member of RT Kansas in his tracks. It was a green, elliptical sphere about three feet long by two in diameter. It was moving two feet above the ground, with no apparent support. There were two, strange dark bands crisscrossing it's surface, diagonally from front to rear. The bands seemed to pulse but the men couldn't make sense of it until it reached Castle. The front tip, where the bands met, edged down toward the CIA man, who scrambled away. The tip touched Castle's left arm, held up in front of his face, and the arm exploded in a burst of muscle, blood and bone. For lack of any better comprehension, the men could now see the bands were like rows of black, sharp teeth moving at high speed on a belt. From the widest part of the elongated sphere, the thing suddenly expanded a thin sheet of green like a sail and the object slid forward, catching the remnants of Castle's left arm in the sail. Then the green folded back down, taking the flesh and blood with it.

RT Kansas finally reacted. Dane's M-60 machine-gun spewed out a line of rounds right above Castle's body into the sphere, which promptly floated back into the fog. Dane raised the muzzle and cut a swath through the undergrowth into the unseen distance. Tormey spewed an entire magazine of his AK-47 on automatic. Thomas fired off a magazine, quickly switched it out, then fired three rounds of 40 mm high explosive in three slightly different directions to their front as quickly as he could reload. Flaherty contributed his own thirty rounds of 5.56 mm from his CAR-15. Silence reigned as their weapons fell silent. There was the stench of cordite in the air and smoke from the weapons mingled with the fog.

Remarkably, Castle was still alive, crawling across the jungle floor toward the team, using his legs to push himself, leaving a thick trail of blood behind.

“What in God’s name was that?” Thomas demanded, his eyes darting about, searching the jungle.

“Let's get him,” Flaherty ordered. He and Dane ran forward and grabbed the CIA man by the straps of his ruck and dragged him back to where Thomas and Tormey waited.

Flaherty ripped open the aid kit. Castle was in shock. Flaherty had seen many wounded men in his tours of duty and he knew the signs. Castle's face was pale from loss of blood and he didn't have much time. Even if they had a medevac flight on standby there was no way the man would make it.

Flaherty leaned forward, putting his face just inches from Castle's. “What was that?”

Castle ever so slightly shook his head. “Angkor Kol Ker,” he whispered, his eyes unfocused, the life in them fading. “The Angkor Gate.”

“What?” Flaherty looked up at Dane. “What the hell did he say?” When he turned back to Castle, he was dead.

“Angkor Kol Ker,” Dane repeated. “That's what the voice said,” Dane stared at the dead man in surprise.

“Let's move to--” Flaherty began, but then he paused.

There was a noise, something moving in the jungle.

“What is that?” Thomas hissed as the noise grew louder. It was closer now and whatever it was, it was big, bigger than the thing that had gotten Castle. From the sound, it was knocking trees out of the way as it moved, the sound of timber snapping like gunshots was followed by the crash of the trees to the ground.

And now there were more sounds, many objects moving unseen in the fog and jungle. Noise was all around them, but not the natural noise of the jungle; strange noises, some of them sounding almost mechanical. All the while somewhere to their left front was that incredibly large thing moving.

“We'll be sitting ducks in the river,” Flaherty said, glancing over his shoulder.

“We'll be dead if we stay here,” Dane said. “We have to get out of this fog. Now! Safety from these things is across the river. I know it.”

Tormey screamed and the three men turned right. The newcomer's body was off the ground, quickly moving up into the first level of canopy. His body was surrounded by a golden glow that emanated from a foot wide beam extending into the fog.

Even as they brought their weapons to bear, Tormey's body was drawn back into the fog and disappeared.

“Oh fuck!” Thomas said. Then he staggered back, a look of surprise on his face as some unseen force hit him in the chest. The big man dropped his weapon, his hands to his chest, blood flowing through them. There was a neat circular hole about the size of a dime cut through the uniform into his chest.

“What's wrong?” Flaherty asked, stepping toward the radioman, then freezing as a half-dozen unbelievably long red ropes flickered out of the fog and wrapped around Thomas, dragging him toward their invisible source.

Dane fired, the M-60 rolling on his hip, the tracers disappearing in the direction of whatever was controlling the ropes. The firing jerked Flaherty out of his shock. He moved forward toward Thomas when movement to his left caught his eye. Something on four legs was bounding toward him. The image seared into his consciousness: a large serpent head with a mouth opened wide, three rows of glistening teeth, a body like that of a lion, long legs with clawed feet and at the end a tail with a scorpion's stinger.