Burial Ground (31 page)

Colton took a step toward him and Galen
instinctively cringed. Even the man's posture radiated menace.

"You
will
keep your mouth shut until
given clearance to open it," Colton whispered. Voices filtered
through the underbrush behind them. Colton's stare ticked toward
the sound, then returned to meet his. "Do you understand?"

Galen could only nod. No threat had been
uttered, but the implication hung in the air between them.

Christ. They already knew, didn't they? How
long had they known, and why the hell hadn't they turned back yet,
or at least warned the rest of the party?

Colton's expression softened as though
controlled by the flick of a switch. He reached forward, lifted
Galen's poncho, and plucked the feathers from the breast pocket of
his vest.

"Thank you for sharing your concerns, Dr.
Russell," Colton said. A genuine smile lit his face. What kind of
man could cycle through emotions so quickly? "Believe me when I say
that your safety is our primary interest, and there's absolutely
nothing that would compromise our commitment to maintaining
it."

Colton tucked the feathers into a pocket
beneath his poncho, clapped him on the shoulder, and struck off on
the path with Leo. He could hear them whispering, but couldn't
decipher their words.

What just happened?

Galen was terrified. Something was out there
in the jungle with them, possibly mere feet away in the underbrush,
something that should never have survived this long. They had no
idea exactly what they were up against. If he was right, as he
firmly believed, they were dealing with a species of predator the
likes of which mankind had never encountered.

His breathing grew fast and shallow, and his
legs started to tremble.

Merritt scrambled down the wall of roots and
hopped to the ground beside him. Galen opened his mouth to tell the
pilot about his encounter. Then he remembered the expression on
Colton's face and thought better of it. His mouth fell closed with
the click of teeth.

Sam climbed down next, while the three
remaining guards began the arduous task of scaling the wooden
jungle gym with the crate of supplies. Her eyes appeared haunted as
well. What had
she
seen?

The attractive director and her cameraman
stood behind the men, filming their efforts. They were blissfully
unaware of the danger surrounding them, as though capturing footage
in a park rather than the black heart of the Amazon.

Galen turned to the forest and watched for
any sign of movement. Anything. Only the insects stirred. They
stayed near the tree trunks, out of the path of the raindrops.

And even though he couldn't see them,
somewhere out there was a species that shouldn't exist, something
capable of hunting this section of the rainforest to near
extinction.

A flutter of movement drew his eye to where
a large butterfly opened and closed its wings. It clung to a liana,
its body the color of the bark. Folded together, its wings were
nearly invisible. When it opened them, Galen recognized it as the
same variety Jay had recorded in the jungle the day before: pale
olive-colored background, veined to imitate scales, with twin
turquoise circles on each forewing, and a design on the hindwings
that simulated a sharp-toothed snarl.

Galen shuddered.

He thought of the way the walking stick
insect had evolved to mimic a twig, the way the atlas moth had
altered the shape and design of its wings to mimic the striking
face of a snake.

The butterfly closed its wings again,
breaking his trance.

They were in serious danger here.

When he turned back to the path, the others
were already gone.

His heart pounded and his legs trembled.

"Wait up!" he called in a shrill voice, and
sprinted up the trail after them.

1:48 p.m.

There were only two of them left now, but
Tasker was unconcerned. This merely altered his plans and increased
his stake. They were only up against eleven, maybe half of which
had any military training. The remainder were civilians, who didn't
pose the slightest threat. And he and McMasters maintained the
element of surprise. Once their prey discovered the source of the
wealth they sought, they would attack under the cover of night.
With a rotating two-man patrol, it would be easy enough to isolate
one set of guards and take them out, which would buy several hours
to sneak into the camp and dispatch the rest while they slept
unaware. The plan was perfect in its simplicity, and the risk
involved was minimal at best. Assuming everything fell into place
by nightfall, by this time tomorrow, their biggest problem would be
how they were going to transport their fortune back out of the
mountains. And that was one problem he didn't imagine he'd mind one
little bit.

The only variable was the natives. Once the
lone native who had eluded them returned to the village and told
them about the slaughter, they would come after McMasters and him
again, and this time in greater numbers. Or perhaps after
witnessing the extent of the massacre, they would simply go back to
minding their own damn business. Maybe on their way back out of the
jungle, he and McMasters could make a detour, scale that little
wall of theirs, and show them exactly what they had to fear from
the outside world and the technological advancements in military
weaponry.

He smiled at the thought.

The overhanging trees fell away as the path
rounded a steep stone cliff. To his right, all he could see were
dark thunderheads hovering over a seamless mat of green forest that
stretched clear to the infinite horizon. A layer of mist clung to
everything, made fuzzy by the onslaught of rain. The wind screamed
along the northern face of the mountain and buffeted them with
enormous droplets.

Tasker lowered his head and advanced into
the storm. The path thinned until it was merely a rock ledge on the
sheer slope. A mess of vines cascaded from above and covered the
trail, making their footing even more tenuous. The tonal quality of
the gusting wind changed. He recognized it immediately as the sound
of a gale blowing across a hollow cavity in the cliffside. A moment
later, he discovered a gap where the vines had been hacked away to
reveal a maw of shadows.

He glanced back over his shoulder, nodded to
McMasters, and stepped from the ledge into the darkness. The gray
light from the outside world reached past his shoulders to
silhouette the structures against the rear wall. Dust hung in the
air on the aged stench of a crypt. He paused and donned his
night-vision goggles, drawing contrast in shades of green. The
giant humanoid sculptures reminded him of the abstract art that was
all the rage, a substitute for talent and training if you asked
him. The odd structures to either side were reminiscent to some
degree of the conjoined townhouses in the Haight-Ashbury district
of San Francisco, had they been built from mud by primitives. The
site obviously wasn't of great importance, or their prey would
still be here.

Something drew his eye at the base of the
statuary, a recessed concavity, inside of which twin reflections
sparkled. As he approached, the object took form. The reflections
came from twin jewels set into some sort of bust. Not just a bust.
A golden bust. He knelt before it and stroked the tacky residue of
age from the smooth creation. It was some sort of idol to a long
dead god; a sharp-toothed skull with gemstones for eyes, set on a
bed of feathers. He carefully lifted it and appraised it. It had to
weigh fifteen pounds. If that headdress had fetched a seven-figure
sum, then this one piece alone could make all of their efforts
worthwhile.

McMasters whistled appreciatively behind
him.

Tasker set the skull back into the recess
and studied the surrounding structure. He knocked against the
plaster. Hollow. He turned to face McMasters.

"Tear it down."

Together they slammed the butts of their
rifles repeatedly through the adobe and tore away the fractured
sections. Dust billowed out and the rotten smell intensified. He
had no doubt that bodies had been walled inside. If the people who
had interred them were like so many other prehistoric societies, he
was bound to find the most prized possessions of the dead with
their remains.

By the time they were finished, the six
faces lorded over a massive black ruin that swirled with dust.
Debris was heaped everywhere. Inside was a platform built from
rocks and wood, on top of which were several egg-shaped bundles of
rotting fabric. Tasker grabbed them one by one and threw them to
the ground, then scoured the shelf. He brushed aside piles of dust,
plaster fragments, and feathers to reveal the coarse wood. There
were no artifacts.

Unsheathing his knife, he turned his
attention to the burial bundles and slashed the cloth. McMasters
tore them apart behind him. The smell became unbearable. What in
the world had they buried in there?

"For the love of God," McMasters
groaned.

Tasker slit the final bundle and returned to
where his partner hovered over the first.

"What...?" he started, but as soon as he
stepped around the other man, he could clearly see the source of
the foul aroma.

Tangles of dry fur, still attached to
withered chunks of desiccated meat had been packed between the
outer blanket and the greasy one beneath.

Tasker shoved McMasters aside and ripped
through the second layer to find a stuffing of feathers.

"Where's the gold?" he growled through bared
teeth.

He tore through another layer of fabric,
crisp with the fluids that had long since soaked into the blanket
and hardened, and jerked the frayed sides apart to expose the
mummified corpse at the core.

Tasker stared down at the body for a long
moment before looking over at McMasters, who had paled
noticeably.

"What the hell is that?" McMasters asked,
and took a stumbling step in reverse.

Tasker knelt before the carcass to study it
more carefully.

There was nothing remotely human about
it.

He pictured what was left of the three
Peruvian guides they had found in the forest and the bloody mess
that had once been Jones. And this...thing, exploding from the
rainforest in a flurry of teeth and claws.

The sooner they finished their mission the
better.

2:34 p.m.

With the roar of the unseen falls and the
clamor of the rain in the canopy, the jungle had become a cacophony
of water. The steep path was now a small stream that covered their
feet and turned the packed clay to mud. Ever higher they climbed,
until the clouds no longer rested on the treetops, but became a
part of them. Mists eddied around them, occasionally hiding even
the person ahead on the trail. The temperature continued to fall.
It still had to be somewhere in the upper-fifties, yet their damp
clothes kept their skin stippled with goosebumps. They had to be
nearing ten thousand feet in elevation, and surely the summit of
the peak they now scaled couldn't be too much farther up into the
clouds.

Sam's legs ached and she had lost the
feeling in her toes. Her heart raced and her fingers trembled with
excitement. If their assumption about the location of the ruins was
correct, then it was only a matter of time before they stumbled out
of the forest and into---

She walked right into Merritt's back and had
to steady herself to keep from slipping. If she fell, the
waterslide that was the path would send her careening down the
slope.

Merritt turned and braced her by the elbow.
He nearly lost his balance as well.

"Why did you stop?" She had to shout to be
heard over the deluge.

He merely smiled in response and inclined
his head over his right shoulder.

Holding her breath, Sam walked around him
and saw Colton and Leo framed against a backdrop of rain at the
terminus of the path. The trees grew sparser ahead. Creeping figs
and vines tied them together and to the shrub-covered ground.
Beyond she could see a sheer abutment covered with lianas and
vines. It wasn't an ordinary cliff. Vertical and horizontal seams
were visible through the vegetation.

It was a manmade wall.

She walked past Colton and Leo to inspect
the fortification. Black stones had been chiseled to the size and
shape of concrete blocks, and stacked in a staggered pattern. Most
of the mortar between them had eroded away, but the lianas served
to hold them in place. Some sections were so overgrown with
vegetation that they appeared to have become a part of the
hillside.

She ran her fingers along the smooth stones.
Obsidian. Volcanic rock.

The wall extended as far as she could see to
either side. Every twenty feet or so was an arched enclave barely
large enough for a man to crouch inside. They reminded her of
decorative sewer drains. In front of each was a column roughly five
feet tall and two feet wide, composed of stacked rocks, only on top
of each was a charred iron cage like a chimney. She approached one,
stood on her tiptoes, and peeked inside. A sunken recess was filled
with detritus, and the sides were scored with carbon. They were
torches like those that surrounded the fortress in the valley
below.

She could hardly contain herself. The
anticipation was overwhelming. She glanced back at the others at
the end of the trail. Above their heads was nothing but clouds. Her
eyes met Leo's, and she felt his pain, which spawned feelings of
guilt at her unbridled enthusiasm. This was presumably where Hunter
had spent his last hours. He must have drowned somewhere
nearby.

Sam turned away and followed the
fortification toward the sound of the waterfall. The ground turned
from soil to slickrock, and the forest dropped away to the right. A
rugged rock slope led to a point, beyond which she could barely see
the spray of a waterfall through the mist trapped against the
mountainside.