Guardians of the Portals (32 page)

The sun had sunk well below the surrounding peaks. Not even a stray ray zinged off the mirrored surfaces. What the odd metallic-faced stone did was amplify the ambient background light, giving everything and everyone an odd translucent glow.

Zack hustled to the shelter and grabbed an M40 with a nightscope. He'd laid the small arsenal out on either side so each of them could access a weapon from any position. It was tight in the shelter and they'd be laying down so he took special care to allow for movement and shifting when one or the other slept. He'd assumed they'd do shifts. As an afterthought he scooped up an S&W .357 and tucked it in the small of his back. He'd have preferred the belt holster but apparently third world countries liked the macho Hollywood look.

Zack did a quick sweep of the area to the right of the shelter but the brush was thin and hid nothing in that quadrant. He stepped over stumps and piles of burnt vegetation, carefully picking his way to the outer edge of the oasis. That end of the pond and brush backed up to a sheer cliff face, now shrouded in shadow. Zack stared skyward along the unmarred surface—nobody was going up that without special equipment. He turned right again and skirted the outer edge, making slow eye sweeps to the left and right. The deathly silence and lack of a breeze made him squirrely, magnifying the sound of his heartbeat and the blood pulsing through his veins. He imagined movement, flickers of shadow and light, wayward, ghostly. He resisted calling Kieran's name.

A low moan echoed eerily off to the left. Zack stopped dead and peered intently at a tumble of boulders resting at the foot of the cliff. He crab-stepped to the base, taking care to sweep the area first.

"Oh crap, Kieran. What did you do?"

Kieran rubbed at his scalp and muttered something unintelligible. His body lay in the shadow of the boulders so Zack couldn't see the extent of the damage until Kieran pulled himself to a sitting position.

"Jesus, man. Here, let me look at that." Zack turned the tall man's head and paled at the deep gash above his left eye. The entire left side of his face looked like somebody had taken a cinder block and whaled on it, leaving bits of sharp-looking protrusions in his cheek and along his chin.

Kieran mumbled, "Tried climbing. Fell."

"Crap. Come on. We need to get that cleaned up before it gets dark. Can you stand?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"All right, but let me help you." Zack set his rifle down and hoisted the taller man, surprised at how easily he could do that. Kieran was down to skin and bones.

"Put your arm over my shoulder. I'm not carrying you."

"I'm fine, I can walk." Kieran stumbled forward, moving under his own power. Cursing softly, he bent to pick up his weapon, the effort pitching him forward.

"I'll get that. Go on." Zack picked up the rifle and said, "I got the shelter fixed up like you wanted." Kieran grunted something he couldn't make out and shuffled off.

Zack followed his commander, turning frequently to scan the ridge and the darkened sky. He guessed the moon had risen, judging from the reflection off the tip of the monolith. He suspected the bowl that housed the oasis would light up like a Christmas tree once the moon got high enough, and bright enough, for whatever flew the friendly skies. There'd be more than enough light for beasties to spy any tasty morsels moving about. He doubted he had to be afraid of the dark—it was the moonlight that could make their lives interesting.

Kieran hesitated at the pond. "I don't want..."

"Kier, I don't give a shit what you want. Get that washed off. Now. I'll keep watch. And move it. I got a bad feeling."

Once Kieran had cleaned most of the grit and blood off his face, Zack dragged him back to the shelter and gave him a quick run-down of weapons and locations. He directed the injured man to the right side of the shelter, knelt down and carefully backed in. He wanted to keep an eye on the sky. He didn't mind a good fight but he liked to know what was coming at him.

Kieran mumbled. "Got water?"

"Yeah, pond scum. In the bottle. Not bad. Kinda like gritty oatmeal."

Kieran swore under his breath and set the bottle against a crate. He rolled over onto his right side, careful to keep anything from touching his ravaged face.

Zack murmured, "I'll keep first watch," but Kieran was already snoring softly.

****

"F
alcon, this is base. Do you read?" Jake turned to Gunnarr. "Why doesn't he answer?"

He and the capo had scrambled to put the teams into the field after Trey's call to alert them about Kieran and Zack being dumped into the hellhole where he'd lost Caitlin. After escaping from his abductors, Trey had surfaced through a Portal near Denver and managed to meet up with their squads at the Riverton regional airport, the closest rally point. From there they'd taken the copters to what was known as Falcon's gate, the one Trey and Caitlin had disappeared into and the one they'd used to mount the first search and rescue. Finding anyone in that trackless wasteland had been dumb luck. Trey claimed he could do better now, but that remained to be seen.

"Can he really redial that thing to get to a specific place?" If he could, that added a whole new layer to the man's skill set.

The capo shrugged and waved to the tech manning a bank of monitors to his left. "You. What's your name?"

"Mark, uh, Andrews. Sir."

"Do you have a visual yet?"

"Um, yeah, working on it." Mark adjusted his headphones and barked a series of co-ordinates into the microphone. He looked back at the capo, explaining, "Satellite feed. We got weather."

Gunnarr stared at O'Brien and demanded, "What's he mean—weather?"

"Storm. Moved in earlier this afternoon. Been a string of them coming out of the Northwest. It's playing hell with our comlink." Jake wheeled his chair toward the young man next to him. "Fletch, talk to me, boy."

Fletcher grimaced. He stabbed a finger at the monitor and turned to O'Brien, eyes wide. "Going in hot."

"One or two teams?"

Fletcher held up two fingers, moaning, "Jesus, sir. It sounds like a fucking war." He pulled the headset away from his ears and shook his head.

Gunnarr barked, "Where's Falcon?"

Fletcher muttered, "They said they're setting tactical. I don't know what that means. Sir?"

Mark yelled, "It's closing down. Falcon's losing control over the portal. You're gonna lose them if they don't haul ass out of there NOW."

Jake turned to Gunnarr. "Your call."

"Are we in agreement?"

Jake nodded
yes
and directed his attention back to the bank of monitors. "Lock and load. Seal that sucker down tight."

Fletcher was staring at the screen, pale and shaking like a leaf. Jake said, gently, "Let me have the mic, boy." He moved the kid out of the way and positioned himself in his place.

Mark hissed, "One man down. Team one, clear. Team two, setting it now."

Gunnarr snarled, "Who's down?"

"Dunno, sir. Can't hear for all the..." Mark shoved away from the workstation in horror. "Shit, what are those things?"

Leaning in for a closer look, Jake mouthed, "Shit," then yelled into the microphone, "Get them out! NOW! We can't have those things breaching the gate."

Gunnarr pounded the desk and bellowed at Mark, "I want to know who's down, damn it." Mark stuttered into the headset, "Gimme a minute. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Out." He turned to Gunnarr. "He's alright, sir. Zack's down. They're trying to load him on the stretcher."

Gunnarr stared hard at O'Brien and came to a decision. "Leave him."

Mark's expression froze in open-mouthed disbelief. "What the fuck? You can't leave him."

Jake edged past Gunnarr and pulled Mark away from his post. "Listen." Jake shook the young man's shoulders and barked, "I said, listen boy. We could lose them all. We don't have a choice."

Mark bolted from his chair, sending it crashing into the table behind him. He threw the headset at Jake and stalked from the control room.

Gunnarr nodded at Jake and hissed, "Do it." He turned to Fletcher. "Report."

"It's collapsing. Team one is well clear." He listened for a moment, finger tapping anxiously on the earpiece and said, "Team two coming now. Falcon's holding the portal open, but it's gonna be close."

Jake came up behind Gunnarr and stared at the second set of monitors. He asked Fletcher, "Are they out?"

"Yes, sir. All clear." Fletcher looked from Gunnarr to Jake and back. "They said they set it. Everything's go."

Jake nodded and gave his last instructions to Fletcher. He took Gunnarr by the arm and pulled him out of the control room. Neither man spoke as they rode the elevator to the eighth floor. Gunnarr led the way to his office, yanked open the door and waved Jake through.

The capo stared at Jake with hard eyes. They'd crossed the line that night. And there would be more collateral damage in the near term. Too many people knew their dirty little secret. The cleaners would be busy. He poured two fingers of scotch for each of them and handed Jake a tumbler.

Jake sat on the leather couch, shoulders slumped. He accepted what was going to happen next but he didn’t have to like it.

Keeping his voice neutral, Jake said, "I'm going to miss Mark. The kid's sharp. Fletcher, not so much."

Everyone in the control room would be collateral damage after seeing first-hand what happened when they lost control over a situation. Even worse, they'd witnessed Gunnarr's son exercising control over a device that few of them understood. That bit of intel would be worth a lot in the open market, if it hadn’t already made its way out there.

There had to be reasons for what had happened. Trapping that kind of asset and making it look like a mission screw-up wasn’t beyond any of their competition’s resources. The Russian mob wasn’t much more than a pack of thugs but their brain trust was canny and opportunistic.

"You'll see to the other matter?" Gunnarr sat at his desk and moved papers around. "It's not easy when it's family."

It took Jake a minute to figure out that Gunnarr referred to his cousin and second-in-command, Knutr. The man had set up the mission, arranged for transport of banned weapons and willfully violated every rule and protocol set in place for centuries.

Jake muttered, "What was he thinking? Tactical nukes, for God's sake." Jake downed his scotch in a single gulp, then got up to pour another. It gave him time to think about how he was going to deal with Knutr. It wouldn't be easy.

It was unnecessary but Jake said, "He's gone, you know."

"Find him, O'Brien. Put a team together. We've got to stop him."

Jake tipped his glass to Gunnarr and said grimly, "Knutr's as good as dead."

Gunnarr pushed away from the desk and walked slowly to the door where he paused and husked, so low Jake had trouble hearing his capo's final words, "Find out who's behind this. My cousin is ... not up to the challenge. I pray it's not Eirik."

"And if it is?"

"Then I will do what I have to do. Gods' speed, O'Brien."

"Good night, sir."

Jake slipped out of the building and headed for his car, deep in thought. His timeline had just been blown to hell, and he no longer trusted his instincts to tell him who or what to target. One thing he knew for certain. He couldn't do it alone, not with Knutr going to ground. Kieran had been his first choice, but the boy's brains were too scrambled. He had one other, risky option—a man with nothing and no one to live for.

Trey.

––––––––

C
aitlin huddled in a stand of mountain maple and old growth birch. She'd been dodging through the trees on a gut-hunch that the joy riders might not be friendlies. Trey had bequeathed her a healthy dose of caution to go with the lust and despair of her existence in that alternate reality. It was a lesson he'd ingrained so well that she'd reacted immediately to the racket of the engines and the familiar goosing of torn ground and spraying gravel. Her brain did the rapid calculations, logging speed and direction, noting trajectories of light from the headlamps, assessing rpms and idle times. It's what
he
would have done. But ...
which he
? She could feel the vibes, the tether active now, though where it led and to whom she couldn't tell.

Here on Planet Earth, her playing field had just turned upside down and off-kilter. Two voices echoed in her head: Wolf cautioning that they weren't his people though she wasn't clear what that meant; Trey warning that all was not as it seemed. That didn't exactly help but what was even more confusing was how she could feel both of them, like simultaneous sensations warring for supremacy. More than a tickle, less than an electric shock, the sensation was a hybrid of discomfort and disquietude.

She slid to the ground, her back against a thick birch trunk. The set of five behemoths entwined like snakes, leaving gaps that she could peer through without being noticed. She confirmed to her phantom companions that there were guns, lots of guns. Her brain countered with 'no worries' so she sloughed her skin and shrank like Alice on crack mushrooms. The wool jacket tented about her rail thin frame, its only saving grace being its length so she could sit on it and stay reasonably dry. The man with no name was tall, much taller than her towering five-foot-ten inches, but built like a brick shithouse. Caitlin smiled—that was a term her dad liked to use for some of his better endowed recruits.

She gathered the folds of cloth tight against her chest and mouthed 'why now' to the dark heavens. At some point, while dodging through the woods, or hopping onto the road to take advantage of the snowmobile tracks, her body decided to revert to her original shape. Just like that. She'd held the template effortlessly for hours, even under considerable stress. 'Xena' had filled the jacket and stuffed the clinches, keeping cold air and errant snowflakes out. Now it flopped about her, the chill tickling her skin and sending shivers like an icy waterfall up and down her spine.

She wondered if she could just curl up in it and go to sleep for a while, at least until the men got tired of looking and left. Common sense cautioned that it was a dangerous line of thought. It meant she was getting cold, tired and flirting with hypothermia. She had no body fat to speak of. When no-name had pressed into her flesh in the kitchen, he'd crushed her bones against the door jamb, his huge chest weight-builder solid, muscles-on-steroids thick. It had taken her by surprise. Until that moment, that connection, she'd not noticed his sheer physicality. He'd moved about the cabin whisper smooth and panther quick, always within her peripheral vision, always at the edge of awareness.