The only response was silence. Russell tried again, and with each failed attempt to make contact, the furrow between his eyebrows deepened. Finally, he turned to the others. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the comms. We should still be in range…I’m going to investigate. You three stay here.”
“Is it wise to separate?” Kismet asked.
Russell shrugged, but then managed a wan smile. “Probably not. Don’t worry. I won’t take any chances. And I think you three can take care of yourselves.” He nodded to Higgins and his big Kimber rifle.
Before climbing into the raft, he marked the location on his GPS. “I’ll meet you back here in, say an hour? Any longer than that, and…” He shrugged and then pushed off, paddling in deliberate strokes for the river channel.
Kismet watched for a few minutes before turning to his companions. “Al, what do you think?”
The former Gurkha shook his head. “Something’s wrong.”
Annie folded her arms across her chest. “Do you think it’s Leeds?”
Kismet didn’t want to believe that the occultist had somehow tracked them down once again. Moreover, as ruthless as Leeds was, Kismet had trouble believing that man would go up against the army.
“So what do we do?”
Kismet frowned. They were close; he could feel it.
“This mound is shaped like a serpent, just like the one on Fontaneda’s map. The snake wasn’t just supposed to represent the river; it also showed what to look for.” He pointed into the woods. “The head of the snake is where ‘X’ marks the spot. So, we find it…fast. And then get the hell out of here until we can figure out what’s going on.”
Father and daughter nodded in agreement, and Kismet, borrowed pistol in hand, led the way into the woods on the back of the snake. The trees seemed to fold over them, shutting out the light of day and plunging them into a world of shadow and silence. The ground to either side of the snake mound was saturated, and in some places there were deep, reeking pools of stagnate water, buzzing with mosquito larvae. About twenty yards in, Higgins gestured for an abrupt halt, and then pointed down into the murk. At first, all Kismet saw was the dark water and the browns and greens of the forest floor, but as he stared, he saw the statue still form of an alligator — at least eight feet from tip to tail — patiently waiting for something to come within reach of its powerful jaws. They gave the beast a wide berth and pushed forward, but a few moments later, they emerged from the trees and found themselves staring once more out at the waters of Lake George, about a hundred feet east of where they’d gone into the woods. The mound continued out into the lake and disappeared like the first.
“It’s a loop,” Annie exclaimed.
Something was nagging at Kismet’s subconscious, trying to bubble to the surface. The snake, writhing, but ultimately coiling around in a circle to meet itself—“Of course!” he exclaimed. “It’s an Ouroboros. Like Leeds’ ring, the snake, devouring its own tail.”
“Then the entrance is…where? Out there?” She pointed to the lake, approximating a point midway between the ends of the earthwork serpent.
Kismet was about to answer in the affirmative when a nearby tree branch exploded in a spray of woodchips, followed almost simultaneously by the report of a gun.
In unison, they dove for cover, practically tumbling onto the slope of the mound, even as more shots started to thunder from the woods. Clods of earth and splinters of wood showered down on them, and the air was filled with the smell of fresh cut wood and cordite. The shooters were close.
Too damn close, Kismet thought.
It had to be Leeds’ men, though he couldn’t imagine how they had slipped past the soldiers, or how they thought they were going to escape. It didn’t seem possible that the entire platoon could have been wiped out; they’d only heard a single shot…
The shot had been a signal. As soon as he realized that, the other pieces began falling into place, even as the forest around them continued to explode with violence.
A signal to Russell, letting him know that the trap was laid.
Was it Leeds’ men shooting at them? Or was it the army?
“Al! We can’t stay here.”
“Agreed.” The Gurkha was on his belly, the rifle cradled in his arms as he scanned the top of the mound in all direction, trying to figure out where the fire was coming from. “But I think they’ve got us boxed in.”
“Then we swim.”
Higgins looked at him in astonishment and then glanced at the water. About thirty feet of murky swamp was all that separated them from the open waters of the lake. They would be exposed, but it was the only avenue of escape that didn’t require them to run a deadly gauntlet of enemies.
“Give me the rifle,” Kismet shouted. “I’ll cover the two of you.”
“Like hell you will. I’m a much better shot than you, and you’re a better swimmer. Take my daughter and get the hell—”
Suddenly the dark water at their feet erupted, as something long and scaly burst onto the slope. Kismet barely had time to turn his head to look before the beast’s jaws closed on the meaty part of his calf, and then, as quickly as the attack had begun, it ended with the alligator snatching its prize back into the swamp.
As the water closed over him, the spike of pain through his right leg recalled to Kismet’s mind everything he knew about alligators — about their powerful jaws, about how they liked to drown their prey and leave them submerged, sometimes for days, before eating them.
He also recalled watching gator wrestlers subdue the thickly muscled creatures, almost effortlessly holding those powerful jaws because while an alligator’s bite strength was almost unparalleled in the natural world, it had almost no muscles for opening its mouths.
As the scaly black monster thrashed deeper into the swamp, dragging him toward the deeper waters of the lake where the killing would surely occur, Kismet wondered if that bit of trivia would be enough to save his life.
Annie was still gaping in disbelief at the suddenness of the attack that had snatched Kismet away when more scaly shapes broke from the murk below them. Despite the bullets scorching the air overhead, she instinctively climbed higher, away from the reach of the slavering reptilian jaws. A pair of alligators waited below them, one still half submerged, but the creatures did not advance. The water was their element, and they were nothing if not patient.
Kismet’s pistol had slipped from his grasp during the attack and now lay a few feet away from Annie. She scooped it up and was about to fire down at the nearest gator, when the Kimber boomed in her ear and the top of the beast’s head exploded. It thrashed violently in its death throes, forcing the other alligator to retreat.
“Save your bullets,” her father admonished. “That pistol won’t even slow them down.”
Helpless, Annie looked past the mortally wounded animal to where Kismet was locked in a struggle to the death with another, while dirt and debris stirred up by the constant barrage of gunfire continued to rain down around her.
Kismet felt the vise around his leg loosen almost imperceptibly, but enough. The blunt, peg-like teeth tore through the fabric of his trousers and the skin underneath as he wrenched free. Part of him desperately wanted to put as much distance between himself and the alligator as he could, but he resisted that urge; in the water, the alligator could move like lightning. Instead, he did the only thing he could think of to keep it from seizing him again: he wrapped his arms around its snout and hugged the beast to his chest.