Gods and Men- The Hank Boyd Omnibus, page 26
part #1 of Gods and Men Series
She was short, five-foot-two, and of average build. She wasn’t exactly supermodel skinny but wasn’t overweight, by any means, either. She had toned, tanned arms and an ample chest, which she accentuated with her tanks. The tattoos drive as many guys away as the boobs bring back. She laughed at the thought. Her former roommate back home, Becki, had always said that.
After sucking in her stomach a little and being halfway satisfied with her outward appearance, she turned. One hundred sit-ups before bed tonight, she thought, letting out her breath and her barely discernable paunch.
Ever the perfectionist, Olivia approached the tent’s door remembering the strange sensation she felt a couple nights ago. She was doing the same thing in her personal quarters, a 120-square foot Barebones Livable Safari Tent, when it felt like someone was watching her.
It was late that night, and she was changing, getting ready for bed when she thought she heard someone outside the entrance to her tent. Half-naked, startled, and a little freaked out, she peeked outside the door but didn’t see or hear anything. Pleased with not finding some pervert watching her change, she finished getting undressed. She immediately wrote off the eerie feeling to her hanging around the dead and a camp full of men for the last few months.
Shivering at the thought of one of the diggers, or God forbid one of her colleagues in the science team seeing her naked, Olivia opened the door of the research tent. Squinting at the early morning sun, she stepped outside, and into a throng of rushing figures.
Most of the men were of local descent, but some were her American colleagues. She and Dr. Keen were the only foreigners in the scientific team, having been hand-selected for the expedition.
She was chosen by Dr. Weaver, a man she admired greatly. She loved his calm exterior and his jovial personality the most. He looked like a real-life Père Noël, or as Keen called him a “bearded Colonel Sanders,” due to his affinity for white linen shirts. Plus, he was the smartest man she’d ever met, both in the lab and in the field. The man had done it all and rumor was he was about to hang up his shovel.
Keen had been chosen by a man named Dr. Boyd back in Washington. She wasn’t exactly sure why the Aussie had been selected, with him being so young, but that wasn’t up to her. All Olivia knew is that she hated the little snot and thought he was a rat. But, like Dr. Weaver, she knew not to second guess a decision handed down from Dr. Boyd. He was everyone’s boss and had the reputation to back it up. So, she bit her lip and did her job—
One of the research assistants, a man she had become friends with, named Sean Ellis, bowled over another, one of the locals. Both men went tumbling to the ground, but only one of them got up. The American hit the ground and broke in half at the waist, his upper body literally disintegrating. All that was left were his head and legs.
She then saw that Ellis’ eyes were wide open in shock as his mouth involuntarily gasped for air. His legs twitched like a bug’s during a death spasm and then all at once they too crumbled to dust.
As Olivia helplessly watched the man shrivel up into an ashy mess and fall apart, a scream to her left jolted her back into the now.
The man, Ellis, ran into bellowed in pain as he shambled towards her speaking incoherently and missing both his arms. Seeing her, the digger picked up his pace, looking for help, speeding right in her direction.
Just before the digger fell apart and landed on her, Olivia dove backward into the research tent, where she unceremoniously cracked her head on one of the metal legs of a computer table. Her eyes blackened and her sight narrowed from the hit. She reached up, feeling something warm oozing down the back of her head. Blood, she thought.
In her final attempt to stay conscious, Olivia placed a hand on the cot stationed across from the desk, while her other hand groped the wound on the back of her head. Through spinning thoughts and memories, she remembered that Dr. Weaver had someone install it a few weeks prior. She had been known for working late into the night and falling asleep at her station.
Olivia looked at her blood-soaked hand, nausea momentarily taking over her other senses. Then, she tried to push herself back onto her feet, but the strain of the attempt mixed with the sight of her own blood, made her pass out and fall face first into bed.
5
Isla de Jaina, Campeche, Mexico
The man looked at the scene from afar through his tactical scope, surveying the chaos that ensued. He recorded the events on an HD video camera that had just taken place. His clients wanted to see the effectiveness of the ancient biologic that they were after.
He didn’t know what it was, but he had heard stories of a flesh-eating bacteria, or possibly some sort of old-world plague. It was supposedly locked away in a hidden vault-like crypt on Jaina Island, off the western shore of the Yucatan Peninsula in Campeche. Who or what created it was unknown and how it was contained was beyond his knowledge, but they had apparently succeeded…until now.
Through his scope, he witnessed a younger man, the Aussie, exit the recently unearthed tomb. He shrieked and quickly fell into the waiting arms of another, instantaneously setting off a chain reaction. Every time someone made contact with another person the biologic was transmitted.
“Well,” he said to himself. “At least I won’t have to steal it from under their noses and release it myself. The bastards did the hard work for me.”
That’s when he saw an infected man crash into another, grabbing his shirt as they fell. Nothing, he thought. Interesting. Then, the same man, screaming in fright grabbed another man’s ankle, pleading for help, successfully transferring the bacteria…if that’s really what it was.
So it’s skin-to-skin contact? He thought, scratching his head. Probably airborne too. Glad I came prepared.
He recorded everything.
Every death.
Every agonizing wail.
All of it.
“Where did the lovely French woman go?” He mumbled as he scanned the terrain. “Eh, she probably turned to ash, just like everyone else.”
It was hard to tell, there weren’t any bodies to count. Unless he counted the sweaty t-shirts and underwear. Um, no thanks.
John Frost, callsign Wolf, was formerly a member of the United States Army. Currently, he was the Operations Leader for his security firm, Broadsword Inc. BSI was presently contracted by an organization named Zero. They were themselves a relatively unknown group, and quite frankly, a little bit on the shady side. Not that he cared. Money was money. And they paid…a lot.
BSI trained in both defensive—and if the situation called for it—offensive measures. The offensive team, called Sword, was primarily comprised of ex-Special Forces soldiers, while his defensive team, labeled Shield, was mainly filled with former Regular troops and mostly used for straight security detail.
It was pretty cut and dry. If you needed to get something done, you used Sword. If you needed security for a research facility or something of the sort, you used Shield. If all hell broke loose…you used both, but that was rare.
Frost packed his gear once the mayhem ended, kneeling in the tall weeds surrounding the dig site. As he disassembled his scope, he thought back to what he just witnessed.
He had single-handedly watched over thirty people die in less than five minutes. None of it bothered him whatsoever, though. He had seen and done much, much worse, mostly in the name of the United States.
Frost, originally in the Army Rangers, was extremely deadly with a sniper rifle and was used to ending people’s lives. So death never bothered him. While in the service, he had always boasted that, “I can kill you with something long-and-strong like a sniper rifle, or with something short-and-sharp, like my Leatherman, or with something in between…and mean.”
He stood and zipped up his protective hazmat suit. Frost then exited his hiding spot and ambled down the hillside perch at the edge of the dig.
He double-checked that the seals of his hazardous materials suit were in fact sealed.
That would be bad, he thought. Collecting the original sample from inside the tomb shouldn’t be too much of an issue now. But without this suit…
He let the thought hang in the air. After what he’d just seen, he wasn’t taking any chances. Whatever this crap was…it was sure-as-shit lethal.
Frost entered the site and tiptoed around the debris left by the victims of the biologic. There were entire wardrobes just lying about. It was like a pissed off woman had just kicked out her cheatin’ ass husband and threw his clothes out in the street.
As he got closer and closer to the tomb entrance, it became impossible not to step in the ash of the dead. Even a man as heartless as Frost shuddered a little, an impossibly cold chill climbing up his spine in the morning heat. He realized that he was literally walking through the remains of a crematorium. Gross.
A few minutes after he entered the clearing the dig sat in, he arrived at the entrance and knelt. Crouching, Frost clicked on his own flashlight, showing it into the opening. He could see the shuffle marks made by the two archaeologists—
It’s then he realized that he was sitting in what was left of the Aussie, the one called Keen. “Good riddance,” he said to himself. “Bastard was a jerk-off anyway.” Frost had heard the way the man had talked to the people working with him through various listening devices he planted around the camp during the night.
He remembered a few nights back when the tattooed French woman had almost discovered him while he was covertly installing one just outside her personal tent, where her sleeping quarters were. He did the same to everyone else in the scientific team, along with their Eureka military-grade tents, where they housed all the equipment.
Frost entered, following the path the others took earlier, straight through to the burial chamber. After passing the sets of mummified feet, he grunted and stood up in the entryway to the next room and grinned. “It’s not even my birthday.”
So far, his intel, supplied by his employers, had been accurate. But when they said a “possible trove of wealth may be on hand,” he had dismissed the idea. Looks like some of the ancient tales may have been true after all.
The information came from an unquestionably wise, but unknown source. They seemed to know everything, except who to hire. He personally knew that, of course, ever since one of his newest operatives botched the job in southern Algeria. Omar Jafari was young and reckless and a little bit of a zealot nut job. He genuinely believed in Zero’s cause and beliefs.
And he was an ignorant moron for doing so, Frost had thought at the time. But the guy was motivated and jumped at the chance to lead an op.
Frost knew better than to fall under the spell of some secret society. When he was contacted, he had told them straight up, “No bullshit, just pay me my fee.”
He found the partially filled pot halfway across the room, lying on the gold covered floor. Realizing he was foolishly holding his breath, Frost still couldn’t work up the courage to inhale. Just in case, he thought.
He carefully picked up the dangerously opened piece of masonry and resealed the lid, finding the top close by. Once sealed, Frost then pulled out his encrypted phone and took a picture of it, pocketing the device once the photo proved to be of high quality.
He then unbuckled his belt and placed the pot in an airtight vacuum-sealed specimen container that was attached to it. After reconnecting it, he turned to leave and tripped over something. He looked down at what he stumbled over and flinched at the sight of Dr. Xander Weaver’s body. He laid there, covered in his own blood, a puncture wound in his chest. The ground underneath the older man was drenched—blood soaked—in crimson.
How’d I miss that?
“Looks like the Aussie got a little frisky,” Frost said, admiring the young man’s handy work. “Ruthless little shit, wasn’t he? I just figured the old man succumbed to the outbreak.” He wouldn’t take any from this section, but he’d gladly procure whatever else he could. It’s not like I don’t’ have the time, he thought as he stepped over the man’s corpse.
Cutting off communications to the outside world was the easy part. He set up a remote jamming station over near where he had observed the disaster. It would be at least another day’s time before he would have to clear out. Comms in this part of the world were iffy at best, and no one would be the wiser until the next morning.
As he got down on all fours to reenter the tunnel, Frost noticed a human skull cracked and broken on the floor. He looked at it and then glanced back to the open coffin, instantly making the connection.
“Well old friend, what can I say but…thanks.” He gave the skull a mock salute, continuing forward through the passageway, back towards the now silent excavation.
When Frost exited, he stood, surveying the damage. Thirty-plus people dead and no survivors.
He frowned.
Not at the thought of what happened here, but because he didn’t get to use his new toy. The XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System was a rifle-like weapon that used a laser-guided, micro-chipped, explosive round. You could point it at a target hiding behind a wall, and the gun would help you compute the distance so the round would detonate right over the targets head.
Oh well, Frost thought. Another time. He then headed back to his hidden truck. Before he left, he took out his phone, finding enough reception to send the picture he took of the find to the only number programmed into it.
He smiled wide when not ten seconds after receiving the text, an amount of five million dollars was deposited into one of his untraceable bank accounts. Frost grinned with delight in receiving the first half of his payment. He would eventually receive the other half after the pot was delivered. But that wouldn’t be for a few more days.
After feeling much satisfaction in a job well done, Frost hoofed it back to the hillside and collected his equipment. Had he stopped to check the closest research tent, he would have found the unconscious form of Dr. Olivia Dubois.
6
Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
Half an hour later, I emerge from the bathroom freshly showered and mostly awake. I won’t be fully cognizant for at least another hour, maybe two. One cup of coffee just isn’t enough anymore. Do they have energy drinks down here? I hope so…
The trek to the second most visited archaeological site in Mexico only takes us a few minutes. Conveniently, there are plenty of hotels outside the grounds—ours included. We arrive at our destination a couple minutes later by shuttle service provided by the Dolores Alba Hotel and make our way towards the park's front gates.
This is kind of an undercover reconnaissance mission of sorts, so we dress the part. Kane and I both have on the standard American-male tourist attire, complete with hiking boots and hats. I still have on my trusty Detroit Tigers baseball cap and Kane, being the big kid of the group, has on his authentic Indiana Jones fedora. We also carry the latest and greatest Nikon cameras around our necks. Personally, I have no idea how to use the damn thing. It’s all for show anyway, so I hope I don’t look like a moron while pretending to take pictures.
The problem is that we still stick out like a pair of sore thumbs. For instance, I’m six-foot-two, and Kane is a monstrous six-six. We look nothing like the other men here. But, that’s where Nicole comes into play.
She steps up next to me, intertwining her fingers with mine, publicly playing the role of blonde bombshell girlfriend, which she does fabulously. She then leans into me, lifts a foot off the ground, and gives me a playful peck on my cheek, making a show of it. Her job here is to be the center of attention and keep it off Kane and me, which is pretty easy for her to do. Have you seen this woman?
She steps forward showing off her flawless figure, which has been accentuated by her form-fitting clothing. Her white tank and hip-hugging khaki shorts are going to get some guy in trouble with his wife as we stroll through the gift shop area, for sure. As we enter and make our way into the front section of the park, I notice that not a single person has even noticed Kane or me. Even the women are staring at Nicole, but for very different reasons. They have pure hatred in their eyes. The men…well…you get the picture.
There are also two accessories that the three of us have in common—and no, it has nothing to do with Victoria’s secret. First off, we all have on Oakley sunglasses, only these aren’t your typical make and model. These are the next-gen design of the Night Vision Specs, the NVS2, from the boys in the CIA.
We recently used a prototype, the NVS1, in the underground necropolis in Algeria and have since been outfitted with these.
The new-and-improved model is light sensitive, and the lenses turn transparent when there is no direct contact with UV rays, turning them into your run-of-the-mill shooters glasses. Not only do they still have their night-vision capabilities, but they now feature an ultra-clear high-def video camera installed in the frame’s bridge. This is made possible by more technological mumbo-jumbo I don’t understand. All I know is how to use them, but it’s why our very over-priced Nikon cameras are now just expensive props.
There are two feeds—one belonging to Nicole and the other to Kane. They pop up inside the outer edge of the lenses, one on each side, for me to see. I can turn off the feed, which can be a little distracting sometimes, by way of a tiny little button on the left temple arm. The right temple arm still holds the night-vision on/off switch from the original prototype. Pretty nifty, huh?
Also, they feature a handy mapping tool too. Before our op, we downloaded as much information on Chichen Itza as we could, nearly filling up the database. But that wouldn’t be enough according to the software’s creator, a man named Todd Jenkins.
This is the key reason why we need to do a walk-through first. The main-frame that our NVS2 is linked to can then plug-in the missing specifications that can only come from our own personal line-of-sight. Once installed, a variable light-show will appear, and it will look like a Heads-Up Display (HUD). It’s the same thing you’d see in a first-person shooter video game.
