There was something about being a soldier that had seen active service, and in extreme hot zones, that seemed to heighten the senses to danger; call it a soldier’s sixth sense. And right now, those sensory alarms were screaming in his head.
There was clear and present danger, and a pending attack. Brocke felt a calm come over him and he stopped and trod water, bicycling his legs to keep his upper body above the surface. He drew his M4 from over his shoulder.
He spun, and not six feet away, the thing’s head surfaced. It was like a smooth alligator, but bigger, so much bigger.
From where the eyes sat toward the back of the skull, he could just make out about six feet of snout and jaws. The thing turned a little, regarding him with one large, predatorial eye.
Any normal man would have been frozen in fear or been reduced to a screaming pile of insanity. But instead, Brocke kicked hard in the water and launched himself high. As he lifted, he pointed his weapon and yelled a battle cry that carried right across the lake.
The creature also lunged, perhaps stirred by the activity. It became a test of which killer would be quicker.
Brocke never got to fire a shot.
On the shoreline, they watched with a mix of horror and fury. Helen had hands up on each side of her head, and a small sound escaped her lips like that from a tiny, frightened animal. Camilla sat down and turned away, her lips moving rapidly. But Andy was riveted.
Drake, Fergus, and Ajax had waded back into the water, guns tight to their shoulders, but the attack was too far out for them to do anything but watch, teeth bared in impotent rage.
Emma stared as the animal surged and then jaws that were longer than the man sprung open and closed over Brocke, snapping shut with an audible clack like a bear trap closing. The massive beast’s momentum took it upward and its huge body lumped in the water before diving again. A tail as long as a Buick flapped in the air, and then in only a few more seconds, the surface of the lake returned to calm.
Drake lowered his weapon and let his eyes drop to Juan who was nearing the shore. He half-turned to his men.
“Get him out.”
“What the fuck was that?” Ajax’s voice was high.
“Freshwater mosasaur,” Helen breathed. “Probably.”
“They’re usually sea-going creatures, and those guys can get to seventy feet.” Andy stared out into the lake. “But they also lived in large bodies of fresh water. And grew pretty big there as well.”
“No shit,” Ajax seethed, and then spun back to the lake. “Fu-uuuuuuk!” He continued to roar his curse as he fired a long burst into the water, throwing up a zipper of sprays out to where Brocke had been taken.
“Stow that!” Drake yelled.
The young soldier spun to Emma and jabbed his finger at her. “She knew. She fucking knew that thing was in there.”
“Shut it.” Drake showed his teeth. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re not in fucking Kansas anymore.”
Ajax still stared from under lowered brows. “If we had—”
“Nothing,” Drake cut him off. “So what if she did? We crashed, remember? We weren’t supposed to be anywhere near a goddamn lake.”
Ajax continued to glare as Fergus helped Juan up onto the bank, and his jaws tightened for a moment before he marched over and jammed the muzzle of his rifle into the Venezuelan’s stomach.
“Why didn’t it take this fat piece of shit? He’s the one bleeding and probably attracted it.”
“So are you,” Emma said softly.
Ajax looked down his body to see blood seeping through his pants. He slapped the wound hard. “Fuck it.” He turned away, cursing even more.
Drake looked down at Juan who was now up onto the bank and lying down, breathing hard.
“Brocke, our brave soldier and friend, died doing what we were designed to do, what we were bred to do — protect people.” He looked up into Emma’s eyes. “That is our lot.” He turned to Fergus first, who nodded, and then to the sullen Ajax.
Emma looked around, trying to get her bearings. It was the same, and it was different to how she remembered: alien.
Huge trees launched up into the sky, but between them, there were stands of strange plants that looked like 30-foot-high green pompoms on sticks. Spiky-looking cycads spread wide on the ground, in between ferns with strappy or broad, pulpy fronds, and stuff that looked like hanging beads that might have been fruit, seedpods, or maybe even insect eggs, for all she knew.
Emma sighed. “We need to move. And we need to be silent. There are hunters everywhere.”
“Equipment and supplies check, everyone,” Drake said, and the group quickly looked over what they managed to salvage.
Emma looked back out to the lake. A few packages, boxes, and assorted flotsam and jetsam bobbed there. They might as well have been on the far side of the moon, as no one was going to get them.
Fergus squatted by his packs, forearms on his thighs. “Good ammunition for the M4s, we’ve got a dozen grenades for the launchers, and a few spare mags for the SIG Sauer; not so bad.” He looked up. “A defensible ordnance. Not enough to make war, but enough to stand our ground.”
Drake grunted. “Good. We only need to do that for twenty-four hours.”
Andy and Helen sorted through some other packs. “A bottle of water each, water purifiers, and some protein bars.” She sighed. “I’ve got some personal medical supplies, but the medical kit wasn’t stored away after Juan, so… ”
“So it’s lost.” Drake exhaled through his nose. “Okay, overall, could have been a lot worse.”
Ajax scoffed. “Jesus, man, are you missing the fucking elephant in the phone booth here?” His face was flushed and eyes wide. “The balloon’s gone; you know, that big fucking thing we were gonna fly out in?”
“We climb down,” Fergus said evenly.
“Oh yeah, how? If Ben really has been here ten years, why didn’t he climb down then? He was top-notch Special Forces guy. If anyone coulda done it, he could have.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Emma stepped forward. “If Ben had climbed down at any time other than when the portal was open, he’d be climbing down into the world as it was a 100 million years ago.”
“So he needs to try it now?” Andy queried.
“Exactly,” Emma replied. “Now that the two time zones have been thrust up against each other.”
“Now?” Helen repeated, her gaze flat. “Now, when the plateau is as high as the top of the Empire State Building.”
Emma turned, her voice quieter. “We’ll find a way.”
“Oh, we’re fucked.” Ajax threw his hands up and walked in a circle.
“We’re alive. So I think you just won the lottery,” Emma said. “Coulda been worse… just ask Brocke.”
Ajax’s eyes bulged for a moment, but he kept his mouth shut.
“We gotta move,” Drake said. He turned to Emma. “You think Ben might have tried to get to the cliff edge? Where you scaled down?”
She nodded. “It’s where I’d go.”
“Then that’s where we try first. How far?” Drake asked.
Emma pointed. “Miles, I don’t know. This isn’t part of the jungle we went through. But it took us about four hours to get there. We followed a stream… but that was a mistake.”
“Why?” Helen asked.
Emma turned. “Because that was where the snake found us.”
Helen stared. “The snake, our snake?”
Emma nodded.
“Oh Jesus.” Helen rubbed her face.
Andy put his arm around her shoulders. “This is crazy, but I want to see it, and I also don’t want to see it. I can’t help it, I’m a scientist.”