“They’re still watching the trees,” Verhoven said. “Waiting for the natives to come screaming through the forest like the bloody Zulus.”

Verhoven’s hand floated over the defense console as he waited for Hawker to get ready. “Too bad for them,” Hawker said, steadying his rifle.

With the barrel of the .45, Verhoven casually flicked a switch and the world around them turned to daylight. In the same instant, Hawker drew a line and began to fire.

Kaufman’s mercenaries were suddenly exposed, caught against the far walls of their foxholes and looking into the distance, their backs to Hawker and Verhoven. They heard firing but no orders, and they were confused by the sudden use of the floodlights.

They scrambled around, some of them reaching for their radios, others firing in various directions—out into the trees and across the clearing, almost everywhere but toward the center. Those who did turn around saw only the blinding glare of the spotlight. And in the swirling confusion they fell in rapid succession.

Hawker aimed and fired and retrained his rifle, turning rapidly from bunker to bunker. In ten quick seconds, four of the bunkers had gone silent. But before he could draw on the fifth, a spread of shells ripped through the equipment lockers beside him. He and Verhoven scrambled for cover.

“North side,” Verhoven shouted. “That’s all that’s left.”

Hawker ducked, turned and fired back.

The men in the bunker popped up and fired again, the bullets kicking up dirt and splintering part of a wooden crate. A stone hit Verhoven, stinging his neck. He put his hand to the spot to make sure he hadn’t been hit, then fired back angrily as Hawker changed his position.

“Two at least,” Verhoven shouted.

Amid the carnage, Kaufman began to move. “No,” he growled, semicoherent and trying to stand. “No. You don’t realize what you’re doing.”

Verhoven kicked him back to the ground as more bullets whipped past, blasting out one of the floodlights in a shower of embers. Hawker’s return fire was more accurate and the mercenary who’d taken the shot fell, dead. The other soldier ducked back into the bunker.

“Listen to me,” Kaufman begged. “We can stop this.”

“Shut up!” Verhoven shouted.

It was too late. The last of Kaufman’s men took a chance that he shouldn’t have, stepping up for a shot.

Hawker pulled the trigger. The soldier stiffened at the bullet’s impact, his rifle tilting skyward and firing straight up into the darkness. A second shot knocked him backward and he fell out of sight. The massacre was over.

CHAPTER 33

Much like the night of the Chollokwan inferno, this battle ended with a shroud of smoke hanging in the air. In this case, there was also the acrid smell of gunpowder, exhaust from the flares and a growing swarm of moths and other insects flicking around the lights in a maddening, random dance.

In the dark void between the floodlights, Hawker and Verhoven turned from point to point, checking for any sign of life and warning Devers and Kaufman not to move.

Eventually Hawker lowered the rifle, his face a mask of despair. His friends were safe now, but at a terrible cost.

Verhoven seemed to sense the conflict within him. “This is what you are,” he said. “Whatever you chose to believe, this is what you were made for.”

Behind them Richard Kaufman spoke. “You don’t know what you’ve done. You just don’t know.”

Hawker stepped toward him, putting the tip of the rifle under his chin and tilting his head up. “But I know what you’ve done, you son of a bitch. And I’m about to undo it. I’m going to go get my people free, and then I’m going to come back here, and I’m going to kill you.”

Kaufman replied coldly, strangely confident for a man in such a position. “Go get your friends, then. You should, they can help. But don’t waste your time if you plan on killing me, because without my help, none of you will make it out of here alive.”

“We’ll see about that,” Hawker said. “Where are the keys?”

Kaufman gestured unsteadily toward the dead mercenary. “On him.”

Hawker searched the man and pulled a set of keys from his breast pocket, testing the small key on Verhoven’s remaining handcuff. It released and fell to the ground.

Hawker turned to go. “Kill the lights,” he said.

Verhoven flicked the switch and the metal-halide bulbs faded to a dull orange and then went black. The artificial daylight vanished and the darkness rushed in again, swallowing them whole.

Hawker moved across the clearing quickly, traveling with the distinct impression that he was being watched—a feeling that had come and gone several times in the past few hours. He’d had a similar feeling at the Wall of Skulls. And he now wondered if Kaufman had additional men out there somewhere, if that was the basis for the man’s arrogant boast. He stopped, taking cover in one of the foxholes and scanning the area with the night-vision scope. He didn’t see anything.

————

Left behind at the command center, Verhoven moved to a position where he could better see his two prisoners. He waved the gun at Devers, instructing him to move closer to Kaufman.

Devers slid over, his good arm putting pressure on his injury, which was a through-and-through bullet hole in the fleshy part of his shoulder. “You could at least give me something to stop the blood,” he said.

Verhoven looked at him with scorn. “I could,” he said. “You’re right about that.”

Kaufman turned to Verhoven and began to plead his case. “Your friend won’t listen but maybe you will,” he said. “I can help you. But if you let him shoot me you’ll never get out of—”

Verhoven bore into the man with his eyes. “Good men you’ve killed,” he said, with a voice like gravel. “Mates of mine for twenty years. So you’d better hope he shoots you, because if he doesn’t, I’ll stake you to the ground, cut off your hands and leave you for the animals.”

“You don’t understand,” Kaufman replied, slowly. “We’re all in danger. Not just me. You, your friends, all of us. If you don’t—”

A soft electronic beeping interrupted him. It came from the Perimeter Warning System. Something had set off one of the sensors.

Out in the clearing Hawker’s radio squawked. “Hawk, you listening? There was a target on the west side. It’s gone now, but it was confirmed. Cut east before you go down toward the tree, that’ll give you some distance from it.”

Hawker looked through the night-vision scope again, still wondering about Kaufman’s men and remembering they had been shooting into the forest long after his charade had ended. Could the Chollokwan really be closing in? He clicked the talk switch on his radio. “What kind of target? How far back?”

“Target was a single. At the limit of the sensors. About fifty yards into the trees.”

Hawker acknowledged and, after a quick glance to the west, did as Verhoven suggested, moving east in quick bursts, before stopping cold at a strange sound: the barely audible whine of a crying dog.

Back at the defense console, Kaufman’s face seemed to contort. “Your friend’s in danger,” he said. “You should call him back.”

“The screen’s clear now,” Verhoven replied.

“I don’t think it matters,” Kaufman said, quickly. “There are animals out there. Animals the natives use to hunt people like us, foreigners, infidels. The same animal that attacked my people in the cave.”

Verhoven glared at him. When Kaufman had told them of Susan’s death, he’d called it an accident, a collapse in the cave’s roof. At the time, all Verhoven really cared about was escape, and he’d been privately pleased that Kaufman had lost five of his people in exchange for the young woman.

“Not a cave-in, then, ay?”

“I know,” Kaufman said. “I lied. But you have to listen. They were mauled.”