Chimera (43 page)

“An interesting tradition, seeing as how it probably doesn’t snow real often in Thailand,” Bulatt pointed out.

“Which is why Thai women must always be adaptable and thoughtful, as well as practical,” she said with a dimpled grin.

“Ah,” Bulatt said as he took a cautious sip at the tea.

“And as a traditionally-trained Thai woman,” Achara went on in a suddenly more-serious voice, “I fully intend to cook you a warm and nutritious meal before we go outside and conduct our own hunt to locate and control Mr. Hateley and the men who killed our Rangers.
 
But before I do that, I want you to help me understand something.”

“And what would that be?”

“Whatever else they may be, these killers we seek — Marcus and Quince and Jack — are clearly military men with a disciplined sense of order.
 
All of the supply and equipment boxes stocked here for us were clearly marked, and the contents itemized on a separate check list.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic-sealed check list.

“So help me understand, please,” she said, holding up the torn but still readable list, “why a bear would ransack our cave, eat some of our food, and then carry most of the food that remained away; along with a cooking pot, a spoon, a fork, and a can-opener?”

CHAPTER 39

Outside Cave 2, the Maze.

The rocks that Bulatt had lugged and dragged to the front of the cave entrance now formed a two-foot-high barrier that — along with the pair of cross-tied tree limbs that could be pulled up and held tight against the entrance with a rope tied to a cross-bracing spear — would force any intruders, man or beast, to stay upright as they tried to work their way past the entanglements; thus exposing them to the lethal impact of a spear, an arrow, or a .44 Magnum hollow point.

“What do you think?” Bulatt asked, kneeling in front of the cave entrance and peering in through the cross-tied branches.
 
Behind him, the sky was darkening rapidly, forming a contrasting backdrop for the falling clumps of snow that had already filled the multiple sets of boot prints leading down to the now-invisible drop zone.

“I think I’m much safer in here than you are out there,” Achara said, her beautiful features visible in the reflection of the propane lanterns overhead as she brandished the stainless-steel revolver, “so don’t stay out there too long without me.”

“I’m just going to get to high ground long enough to contact Quince and let him know we had some interesting company,” Bulatt said.
 
“I’ll come right back after that, we’ll eat dinner, and then we’ll go looking for Hateley and have our heart-to-heart talk, fair deal?”

“Yes, just as long as you leave that flasher on,” Achara said.

They had argued about that while they were outside searching for suitably-sized rocks to form the cave entrance barrier.
 
Bulatt wanted to disable the blue flasher mounted over their cave — or at least move it some distance away — to make it more difficult for whoever had stolen their food and cooking equipment to find their way back; but Achara had insisted that Bulatt leave it on, to make it easier for him to find his way back.

“I am a Thai Ranger Captain armed with a barrier, four spears, twelve arrows, and a forty-four Magnum revolver with fifty rounds of ammunition,” Achara had reminded Bulatt firmly when he continued to look uneasily up at the intermittently-flashing blue light.
 
“With all of that, I should be able to hold off an army of bears and thieves for days if necessary; but I do need you to deal with Marcus and the others.
 
So, you either leave that flasher on, or I’m going outside with you; and that means you will miss out my delicious dinner.”

“Okay, I’ll leave it on,” Bulatt promised as he stood up, reached for the M14 rifle leaning against the cave entrance, and started working his way uphill — through the snow drifts and in the growing darkness — toward the distant green-flashing bait pile.

He was half-way to the bait pile, and no longer able to see anything of the cave behind him through the flurries of falling snow — except for the intermittently-flashing blue light — when the walkie-talkie in his left hand suddenly crackled.

“— stole all my goddamned food!” a voice raged.

Caldreaux
.
 
Bulatt smiled, recognizing the Cajun’s distinct voice.

“— four … stay there … coming —” a deeply accented Australian voice responded.

Who’s that?
Bulatt wondered as he held the walkie-talkie up, trying to get better reception.
 
Definitely not Quince
.

“— shit … after my trophy … not going to let —”

Frustrated by the poor reception, Bulatt tried changing channels on the walkie-talkie, got to channel seven, and heard — a little more clearly — the same deeply accented Australian voice say “… heading over to position three, now, to check on Caldreaux …” and then the familiar voice of Quince respond with a “Gecko-Two, copy that.”

Okay, interesting to know
, Bulatt thought as he listened to static for another thirty seconds.

Then, after switching the walkie-talkie back to channel one, he looked around; saw a high granite outcropping nearby; stuck the walkie-talkie into one of the empty pouches of his assault vest; quickly scrambled his way up and around the surrounding trees and boulders, using the stock of the M14 for leverage, his boots slipping frequently on the snow-covered rocks; and finally reached the top of the rocky outcropping.
 
He could already hear the voices — much clearer now — as he retrieved the walkie-talkie from his vest.

“Cave-Four, this is Cave-One.”
 
Hateley, sounding calm and amused
, Bulatt thought.

“Don’t worry about the food, Stuart,” Hateley said.
 
“Marcus is aware of the bear situation.
 
He’s going to arrange to run them off and re-supply us tomorrow morning.
 
Max and I both found our food stores ransacked, and probably Carolyn and her boyfriend did too, I’m guessing, but we haven’t heard from them yet.”

“Cave-One, this is Sarge-One,” Bulatt said.
 
“Be advised we got hit also, but I don’t think it was —”

At that moment, the suddenly hushed voice of Kingman interrupted.
 
“They’re here!
 
I can see them … at my feeding pile.
 
I’m going off the air.
 
We’re making too much noise, don’t want to scare them.”

“I can see mine also, and they are beautiful things to behold,” Hateley said with an almost reverent tone to his voice.
 
Good hunting, everyone.
 
Cave-One, out.”

Bulatt stared at the now-silent walkie-talkie for a few moments, shrugged, stuck it back in his vest, and began working his way back down the outcropping.

He was half-way back down the slope, the blue-flasher in sight, when a sudden movement off in the distance to his left caught his attention.
 
Coming to an immediate halt, he slowly turned and then stared in disbelief as the two creatures — first the larger mother and then her smaller offspring — slowly stepped out of the trees and approached the intermittently-green-lit bait pile less than fifty feet away from his position.
 
It was obvious that both creatures saw him; but neither of them seemed concerned as they slowly approached the piles of hay and fruit.

I’ll be damned
, Bulatt thought, as he stood there and watched the two creatures — one very familiar looking and other something he’d only seen before in drawings and paintings — begin to feed.
 
I guess we really are on a mammoth hunt
.

*
   
*
   
*

Sniper Post, Base Camp

Quince Lanyard and Jack Gavin were huddled under the canvas shelter over the tripod-mounted M107 rifle, Gavin talking on one of the walkie-talkies, when Wallis appeared out of the darkness and sat down on a second trunk-like aluminum rifle case, setting the M40A1 bolt-action sniper rifle he’d been carrying next to a pair of loaded M4 carbines.

“I checked on Hateley’s cave,” Wallis said, pulling off his night-vision goggles and brushing away the accumulated snow and ice.
 
“It was definitely a bear.
 
Big bastard; probably injured from the look of the tracks.
 
I followed him for a while, until the snow got too deep.
 
It looks like he’s working his way back to an area somewhere between Cave-One and Cave-Two; probably where his den is located.
 
Given the amount of food he seems to have consumed, I doubt that he’s going to be hungry again for a while.
 
I got Hateley settled down.
 
What’s the status on the others?”

“Caldreaux was a little worked up at first,” Gavin responded, “but it sounds like the elephants have just come out to feed, so nobody seems to be worried about bears anymore.”

“What about the lass?”

“Her boyfriend called in, said their cave had been ransacked too; but he didn’t sound too concerned,” Lanyard replied, his eyes focused on the laptop computer screen.

“I wouldn’t be concerned about a wandering bear, either, if I was tucked into a cozy little cave with that young lady and an M14,” Gavin commented.
 
“Not sure I’d even be getting around to the hunting part until tomorrow; and maybe not even then.”

“That’s the trouble with you hunter/killer types, mate,” Lanyard commented.
 
“Just can’t get yourselves worked up to hunt things that don’t shoot back; especially when there’s a lively lass to be had.”

Wallis blinked, cocked his head and stared at Lanyard for a long moment.
 
“Speaking of shooting,” he finally said, “what’s the status of the one-oh-seven’s auto-tracking system?”

“Back up and running,” Lanyard said, looking up from the laptop.
 
“I replaced both feed cables, and now everything seems to be working fine.
 
But I wasn’t too thrilled about that glitch you and Jack ran into, so I did what you suggested and re-programmed the auto-target-and-shoot mode with a safety feature so that the computer can’t trigger a round any closer than four feet to the original signal source, even if the source moves.
 
My fault; I should have thought of that earlier.”

“That’s why we always want to conduct field exercises, to work the bugs out of the systems first,” Wallis said, sounding distracted.
 
“Probably asking a bit much to have something this complicated working correctly right out of the box.”

“I think we’re going to be okay,” Lanyard said.
 
“I put an option to disable the safety feature in the main menu; but I wouldn’t recommend doing that until we know more about that glitch.
 
If you want, I can erase the entire auto-target-and-shoot mode from the drive until I have a chance to de-bug the program.”

“No.”
 
Wallis shook his head.
 
“What I want you to do now is get back into that computer and tell me everything you can about this Gunny Sergeant Bulattus.”

*
   
*
   
*

Outside Cave 2

“What’s the matter, don’t you want to eat my dinner and enjoy the warmth of our cave for a while?” Achara asked as she stood outside the cave and watched Bulatt lash the cross-tied branch barrier back into place.

“I very much want to eat your dinner, and I can’t think of anything much more enticing than that cave right now,” Bulatt said.
 
“But if I stay in there and eat and enjoy, instead of taking you to see this, you’ll be mad at me for a very long time.”

He refused to tell her why, only that it was very important that she turn the stove off, get back into her cammo-white outer-shell tunic and pants, pick up the bow and quiver of arrows, and follow him.

“And you don’t want me to take the spears?”

“There’s no need,” Bulatt said as he slung the M14 rifle over his shoulder, and then took the unstrung bow from Achara’s hand and slid it over her shoulder into the quiver.
 
“We’re not really hunting anything, and I can protect us with the rifle or the pistol if it becomes necessary; but, more importantly, I don’t want you to scare them.”

“Them?”

“Yes, them.”

It was dark enough now that both of them were wearing the night vision goggles, turning the surrounding rocks and trees into darker green shapes against the pale green of the snow that covered everything and still continued to fall; the big fluffy swirling clumps reflecting brightly in the beams of their IR-filtered flashlights.

On the climb back up the slope, Bulatt placed himself on Achara’s right, and kept his flashlight beam centered on the trail of mostly-filled boot prints — his from his recent trip to the outcropping — so that the expanse of rocks and clearings off to their right remained in darkness.
 
At the top of the hill, he stopped.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes, of course I’m ready,” Achara said impatiently.
 
“But I don’t see why —”

In answer, Bulatt slowly swung the beam of his flashlight to the right until it centered on the two creatures that were standing still, staring back at the two figures in the darkness they could hear and smell, but only intermittently see.

“Oh my god, it’s true,” Achara whispered, her voice hoarse with disbelief as she centered the beam of her flashlight on the smaller creature standing calmly next to its mother.

“Apparently,” Bulatt said.

“I understand the science,” she said in a hushed voice, “but I still didn’t believe it could really be possible.”

“And now that you’ve seen it with your own eyes?”

“I ... I want to see it closer,” Achara said.
 
“Do you think we can?”