“I’m afraid that what passes for a police force around here is more concerned with meeting rubber quotas than protecting people — especially these people.” Hurricane was uncharacteristically somber. “I’m sure it’s the reason the Padre came back here; to help the natives where no one else would. Come on, let’s find the church.”
As they searched the rubble piles, Dodge tried to distract himself from the grim task by sating his curiosity. “Who is Krieger?’
“My greatest regret. About fifteen years ago, we were chasing a gang of international gunrunners — they called themselves ‘the Ninety-nine.’ I’m not sure why, there was only about twenty-nine of them — but they led us on a merry chase.”
“Krieger was their leader?”
“They didn’t have a leader as such, but there was a pecking order, and Krieger was near the top. He was definitely the brains of the outfit. It all came to a head not too far from here. Krieger was trying to move a boatload of Enfield rifles to a group of Mahdist rebels hiding out in the jungle. Unfortunately for us, he got the guns to them before we caught up with him.
“It was a bloodbath. We took more losses that day then we did in the War.”
“You never wrote about it.” Dodge kept his tone low, sympathetic.
“Lord knows, I tried. Those boys that fell were heroes, and deserved to be remembered; I just couldn’t find the words.” He cleared his throat, as if to bring himself back from the edge of the emotional abyss. “Anyway, when all was said and done, we licked ‘em good. Krieger and his rats took refuge in a cave, so we dynamited the entrance and thought that was the end of it. I guess we should’ve given Krieger more credit, but we never heard about him after that.”
“This is the kind of place you go to lose yourself,” Dodge observed.
“That’s what the Padre was trying to do.” He stopped, pointing to something in the ruins. “That look like a cross to you?”
It was indeed a cross of hammered metal, ash gray now from the flames that had destroyed the chapel. The ruin was no larger than any of the other buildings, but as they started pulling apart the scorched timbers, they found the trappings of a house of worship, and more bodies. Three elderly Africans had perished seeking sanctuary in the church, and their charred remains were laid side-by-side, arms inextricably entwined, as if they had sought to create a human barrier against the invading force.
“They were protecting something,” Dodge realized aloud. “Or someone.”
Hurley shook his head sadly. “Poor souls gave their lives for nothing. They should have run.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Look at how they’re positioned. I don’t think the pirates came in here; they just torched it from outside.” He tried to look past the carnage and view the bodies analytically. “Help me move them out of the way. I think there’s something underneath them.”
Hurricane’s cheek twitched, but he knelt reverently beside the macabre tableau. Dodge placed his hands on the opposite side and together they lifted the arrangement of bodies out of the way. It was a surreal moment for Dodge; he had never touched a dead body before, and the experience was nothing like he expected. The remains were impossibly light, as if the absence of life had somehow subtracted a disproportionate amount of mass from their molecules, the weight of their souls.
“I’ll be damned.”
Hurley’s soft utterance broke the spell. Dodge looked back to see what had prompted his words and saw revealed a flat wooden dais that had been spared the force of fire. The big man probed it experimentally. “It’s covering something… a priest hole.”
He slid his fingers under the plank and heaved it back. There was a flash of movement in the dark hole underneath and Dodge caught a glimpse of something metallic rising toward Hurley.
“Shotgun!” He acted without thinking, grabbing the barrel of the weapon as a snake charmer might seize the head of a viper, and thrust it skyward. The weapon discharged with a deafening boom and the blast of expanding gases from the exploded gunpowder hit his exposed face like a slap. The barrel grew instantly hot in his grip, but he kept a tight hold and tried to wrench it from the hand of the person hiding below the dais.
Hurricane rolled back on his haunches and snatched out his guns, ready to do some damage, but Dodge hastily interposed. He had seen what Hurley had not; the person with the shotgun was no pirate lying in wait, but a frightened survivor. More than that, it was a young woman.
She wore a simple white shirt with faded trousers, and a nun’s wimple covered her hair, but these plain garments could not hide her essential beauty. She wore no cosmetics on her freckle spotted, doe-shaped face, but her thin copper-colored eyebrows perfectly accentuated emerald eyes. Those eyes stared up at Dodge in fierce defiance; she had not yet relinquished her hold on the gun, even though the discharge had rendered it momentarily impotent.
“It’s okay,” he soothed. “We’re the good guys.”
She stopped struggling immediately. “Good guys? English? You’re not with them.”
The last was not a question, and Dodge saw that the message had finally sunk in. He released the weapon and extended a hand to help her out of the priest hole. “They’re gone. But I’ll warn you, it’s not pretty out here.”
A sob escaped her lips, but she still held the shotgun like a ward against evil. Hurley holstered his guns and also reached out to her.
“Come on, miss. Up you go.”
Her green eyes fixed on him and then widened in astonishment. “You? I know you. You’re Hurricane!”
He chuckled. “I am indeed, miss.”
“Guess Captain Falcon even makes the Sunday funnies out here,” Dodge commented as they pulled her from the hide.
“Falcon?” She turned to Dodge. “You?”
He smiled, grateful that her attention was momentarily distracted from the horror that had nearly claimed her. “Good heavens, no. I just write about him.”
“I don’t think she’s one of your readers,” Hurley observed then turned to her. “You know Father Hobbs, don’t you?”
She smiled. “I should say so. He’s my dad.”
Hurley scouted the perimeter of the settlement, while Dodge set to the dismal task of burying the dead. At least he was in good company.
The girl’s name was Molly Rose Shannon. “I grew up here,” she told him as they worked together to clear a space for the hasty grave. “My real parents were missionaries. They brought me here when I was very young, but died in a cholera outbreak. I don’t really remember them.”
“I’m very sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s a hard place; folks die easy here. You get used to it.”
“I don’t think I could ever get used to this.”
“No, this is…” Her voice trailed off, prompting him to look her in the eye, and he saw emotion welling there. “I should have been here with them, but they pushed me in that hole and covered it with their bodies. They gave their lives for me.”
Dodge didn’t know how to comfort her. The shallow grave they were excavating — an expediency to prevent carrion eaters from defiling the remains — seemed an inappropriate way to honor their sacrifice. “We didn’t find the Padre,” he said. “Father Hobbs; do you think he’s still alive?”
It was the right thing to say. Her eyes brightened and she looked to the jungle, where Hurley was finishing his reconnaissance. He joined them a moment later. “I found a trail.”
Molly however shook her head. “They came from the river; a single boat.”
Hurricane frowned. “The trail I found is fresh, a big group. I’m sure it was the captives being forced to march.”
“You don’t understand. They had to leave by boat; they took our plane.”