Emma grabbed it and then tossed it in even further than her own. She looked up and froze. Eyes, lots of eyes, glinted red in the dark. “Guys… ” She eased back. “I think… ” She backed up and out of the portal opening. “We need to get the hell out of here… now.”
Suddenly, the airflow stopped, and she heard a sound coming up from deep down inside the cave — it was something heavy and coming closer.
“Oh crap; I think its Momma.” She grabbed Drake’s arm. “Let’s go, move it!”
“Oh yeah?” Ajax loaded a grenade into his M320 undercarriage launcher. “How about I give this asshole an enema — clean ‘em all out at once.”
“No,” Drake said forcefully. “You might collapse the tunnel or bury us all.” He grabbed the young soldier’s arm and backed up. “Right now, we poked the hornet’s nest, and the hornets are angry. We’ll make a plan and finish this later.”
The three of them backed up to the steps and ran up to meet the group. Drake led the way.
“Okay, people, we are leaving.”
“Find a way out?” Andy asked.
“Maybe,” Emma said. “Just one problem — there was somebody home.”
Juan groaned and Camilla wrung her hands as she knelt beside him. “I don’t think we can travel much more. He’s sick.”
“Leave him here, then,” Ajax dictated.
Camilla got to her feet. “Can we both not stay, and maybe… ” She looked at each of the soldiers. “… maybe, Fergus can stay and guard us.”
Emma walked toward her, her eyes hooded. “Still think it was me that killed Ben? Still think I made this all up now?”
“I never said that,” Camilla pleaded.
“You didn’t have to.” Emma’s jaw clenched. “If you stay behind, you’ll be dead within the hour. Your call.”
“No, they come. Get him up.” Drake motioned to Juan, and Ajax went and dragged the Venezuelan cameraman to his feet.
Drake joined Fergus at the door. “Anything out there?”
“Nada. Everyone’s gone home.” Fergus turned. “You guys got a bit noisy down there — all good?”
“The residents didn’t like us poking around in their bedroom. So we’re giving ‘em some space… for now.” Drake let his eyes run over the green wall and then pointed. “2 o’clock; that space between the two big tree trunks. That’s our entry point.”
“Got it.” Fergus watched the jungle.
Drake turned. “Okay, people, let’s clear out.”
Emma joined him. “We’ll need to come back.”
He nodded. “But not right now. We can’t fight these snakes in a small space; we’ll need to draw them out first.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I have a plan. First, let’s find Ben.”
Emma nodded. “That’s what we came here for.”
“Damn right.” Drake looked past her. “Okay, people, same as before, my men will take flanking positions, everyone else stay in the center and keep up. We move hard and fast.” He turned back to the jungle, taking one last look. “On my 3, 2, 1… go.” He sprinted out.
CHAPTER 29
The rest of the day was spent darting, hiding, crawling forward a few feet at a time, and then scurrying to the next place of concealment. The humidity and heat sapped their strength as much as the constant tension and fear sapped their mental acuity.
At one point, they emerged from the miasmic jungle into a vast open area of primordial forest. Emma recognized the smell, but not the shapes. “Like pine.”
“It is. Or will be one day,” Helen observed.
The stand of huge pine-like trees had waxy, flaking bark, and large, heavy wood cones. It was like a land of giants as everything here dwarfed their tiny bodies. Later, they also had to skirt around a herd of brightly colored and crest-headed dinosaurs, that each stood about 12 feet at the shoulder.
“Hadrosaurs,” Helen said.
“We suspected they fed off the pinecones.” Andy grinned. “And now we know for sure.”
Fergus scoffed. “Jesus, how the hell do you eat a pinecone? Like eating a freaking rock.”
“Dinosaurs like hadrosaurs, which we know as duckbill dinosaurs, had unique jaws with thousands of rows of teeth adapted to grind up the tough cones. Think of the cones as super big and hard nuts,” Andy said. “In these Cretaceous forests, marshlands, and swamps, everything is food.”
“Including us,” Ajax said over his shoulder.
“Got that right.” Emma wiped her face, feeling the grime. There were twigs in her hair, and the odd tiny bug wriggling in the rivulets of salty water pouring from her.
They’d need to reapply their repellent soon. It was an odorless form of DDT — supposed to keep everything at bay, but Emma wondered whether it being odorless to them was the same as being odorless to things that had the sense of smell of bloodhounds.
“It’ll be sundown soon,” Fergus said and swigged from his canteen.
“So what?” Emma shot back. “We continue to search all night. We can sleep when we’re home.”
Drake turned. “I agree. We’re on the clock, so we continue the search. But we’ll need to recharge, so we’ll be taking rests every three hours. If there was ever a place where we need to be sharp, it’s right here, right now.”
“Another hour,” Emma shot back.
“No, we need to rest now,” Camilla said softly. Beside her, Juan’s face looked like it was shaped from wax, and his bandage had already turned several different shades as his arm now seeped a yellow fluid.
Emma grunted her annoyance. She knew Drake was right. But, so was she. They only had a small window to find Ben, and then get the hell out. She’d just make sure the rest stops were as short as possible.
“Fine; rest, eat, drink, recharge, and then we continue.” She turned away.
“Anyone else hear that?” Ajax asked. He lifted some glasses to his eyes and scanned the foliage.
“Insects,” Andy said.
“Yeah, there’s always insects, you putz. But not like this… listen.” Ajax turned back.
Emma focused; there was something over and above the constant background hum, click and chirrup of the Cretaceous bug life — there was a constant drone, like one of those kit airplanes the enthusiasts fly in the park on weekends.
“Flies,” Drake said. “Lots of them.”
“Yep, and that means death,” Fergus added. “Just up ahead, I think.” He turned to Drake. “Take a look?”
“Not all of us,” Drake said and turned. “Emma, we’ll do a quick scout.”
She nodded and turned back to where the noise was coming from. The ancient conifers were smaller here but tightly packed together.
Drake set off, rifle ready, and eased around and between the spiked limbs and trunks. Emma followed as he burrowed through the living barriers of young pine, bracken stalks, and eased around the odd hairy tree trunk. In another few minutes, the buzzing became loud enough to drown out everything else.
“There.” He pointed with the barrel of his gun.
“I see it,” Emma whispered, even though she didn’t need to.
There was a cloud of insects swirling madly over something on the jungle floor. The surrounding ferns and grasses had been trampled into a mat, and many of the larger remaining fronds were splashed and shining — blood, and not old blood — as it still retained some hues of glossy scarlet. It was these fresh areas that excited the vermin.