If anyone was to blame, Payne knew it was himself, for he was the one who let her enter the cave. The one who knew she was a translator, nothing more. Certainly not trained for that type of gore. Yet for some reason he urged her to tag along, even though she served no purpose inside. Even though he knew they were about to stumble into something much worse than a rescue mission. Not with that smell. Not with all those soldiers carrying all that firepower outside the scene. Obviously this wasn't about a missing person. This was something different. Something more significant. But for the life of him, he didn't know what it was. That's the main reason he wanted to step outside and get some fresh air. He needed time to think. To figure out why they'd brought him in. What role they wanted him to play.
Now all of that would have to wait. His focus was no longer on the cave. It was on Kia. She was his number one priority. Not because she was a woman or defenseless, but because she was part of his team. And that's what leaders were supposed to do. Protect their squads at all cost.
Payne knew snipers were nestled in the camphor trees and buried on the hillside, tracking his every move through mounted scopes. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. Watching. Waiting. Hoping someone did something aggressive so they could pull their triggers. The key was not to give them an excuse. Slowly he turned and studied the rock face behind him, trying to determine where he would have positioned his men if he'd been in charge of security.
One up top. A couple over there. A few more down the path.
No way Kia went anywhere without being watched. Without them telling her where she could puke and where she couldn't. This was their land. Their terrain. They were the spiders, and this was their web. They could tell him her exact location. No problem at all.
But first he had to get one of them to talk.
Payne crunched down the trail, focusing on a thick grove of trees. It looked dark and impenetrable. The perfect place to take residence. With a grin on his lips, Payne pointed toward the dense brush and signaled for the sniper to come out. Then Payne just stood there, staring and smiling, until he heard some movement. A snap was all Payne needed to know that he was right.
A few curse words later, the guard emerged from the thicket. Mud on his young face. Twigs on his helmet. A rifle in his hands. "Dammit, sir. How'd you see me in there?"
Payne shrugged. "Who said I did?"
The sniper cursed again, this time even louder. Pissed at himself for giving up his position to someone who hadn't even seen him.
"Wow. When you were a kid, you must've sucked at hide-and-seek."
"Actually, sir, I never lost."
Payne smiled. "Actually, son, you just did."
The sniper was tempted to argue, but what could he say? Instead, he quickly changed die subject. "Was there something you needed?"
"I'm looking for my translator. Female. Asian features. Probably covered in vomit."
"You mean the hottie? She headed toward the village."
"There's a village?"
The sniper pointed down a side path that cut through the woods. "Can't tell you much about it. Haven't been there yet."
"Is it secure?"
"Don't know. Don't care."
Payne nodded, not surprised by the answer. In the military, most information was compartmentalized- especially on secured projects such as this one. A guard over here didn't need to know what was going on over there unless it posed an immediate threat. And even then, he sure as hell wasn't going to talk about it with someone he didn't know or trust.
"We done here?" asked the sniper, who waited to be dismissed before he slipped back into the woods to find a better place to hide. Payne watched him for a while, then turned his attention to the village path. It was dark and foreboding, like everything else in the area. Protocol told him that he should let Jones know where he was going, but something in his gut told him that time was of the essence. That Kia was in a lot more danger in the village than Jones was in the cave.
And as usual, Payne's gut was right.
Kia walked through the center of town, staggered by the silence. It was the middle of the day, yet there were no dogs barking, no kids playing, no errands being run. No movement or activities of any kind. Tiny stone huts sat back from the rocky road, separated by stone fences and guarded by dozens of harubang, their friendly stone faces no longer quite so inviting. In fact, in the stillness of the village, their presence was somehow disconcerting, as if the people themselves had been consumed by these ancient stone figures. As if they were suddenly the only residents.
A gust of wind added to the chill that Kia felt surge through her body. She was accustomed to the warm tropical breezes of the Marshall Islands, not the whipping wind of this volcanic ghost town. Or was the chill from something else? Perhaps more to do with her fear and apprehension than the temperature itself. The thought was an unpleasant one, especially after her recent behavior in the cave. No way she was going to turn and run again.
Once was bad enough. Twice would be unbearable.
The strength of the wind increased, this time bringing the faint scent of burning wood. Not maple. Not oak. Maybe pine. The musk filled her nose, quickly erasing the memory of the bloody cave and replacing it with the promise of survivors. She turned toward the smell, staring into the face of the breeze, looking for a sign of life. Any sign. And then she saw one. A tiny wisp of smoke rising from a stone chimney on the far end of the village. It wasn't much, but its presence gave her hope. A rope to cling to as she journeyed forward, searching for answers.
Kia passed house after house, yard after yard, all of them seemingly deserted. Each adding to the mystery of this vacant town, each filling her head with more questions. Were the villagers dead? Or were they hiding? If so, from whom? Or what? She prayed the blood in the cave didn't belong to them, but every empty home, every abandoned car made that seem less likely.
Obviously there was a connection between the two mysteries.
She hoped it wasn't a tragic one.
Payne heard the scream from the far end of the village and reacted instinctively.
In a single motion, he pulled his Sig Sauer P226 from his waistband and broke into a full sprint. His eyes scanned the horizon, searching for danger. The only movement he saw was the bouncing of tree limbs as they swayed in the breeze. Payne leaped a log gate in a stone fence that lined one of the nearby yards and checked his weapon. His magazine was full.
At least until he found a target.
Because of the wind and the echoing effect of the rock, Payne couldn't gauge where the scream had come from. He knew it was somewhere up ahead, but that's all he knew. Maybe from a house. Maybe in a yard. Maybe in the woods beyond town. To him, it was like tracking gunfire in an open canyon. The first shot announced trouble; the second shot gave its location.
Thankfully, the scream was followed by the murmur of voices. Close enough to be heard, but too far away to be understood. Yet Payne didn't care about diction. He cared about location. Every second of sound gave him a better chance to find the threat and stop it.
Moving silendy, Payne skirted the stone fence and crept forward, his weapon raised in an offensive position. His eyes focused. His breathing controlled. Just like he'd been taught to do. In fact, this whole scene felt like a training exercise. Like he'd stumbled into Hogan's Alley-the mock city at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia-and was being tested for speed and marksmanship. Only this was the Asian version. And it was real. No fake terrorists armed with paint guns. No spring-loaded wooden targets. And absolutely no do-overs.