David Golemon - Primeval

As the rest of the force lay down in their tents, the few technicians still working had set up a powerful metal detector just a few feet from the water's edge. They made sure the connections were made and then they sighted the conical-shaped stand at a spot they had determined would show the best results. Two of the first shift guards watched them from a distance. There were at least fifteen men on watch around the camp.

"Do you think they have an idea where the gold is already?" one of them asked his shift partner.

The larger of the two Spetsnaz watched the technicians return to the largest of all the tents. "It's not the gold I would like to get my hands on, but the sister to that diamond the bosses have, that's what I would like to see."

The smaller guard was a late addition to the team, a man who had just received his discharge from the red army and one of the only men there that wasn't a true old-camp Spetsnaz. He looked at the tall man beside him, as if he were sizing him up. Then he looked around the camp and picked out six other teams of guards as they walked a perimeter. They were far enough away from their river position not to hear their voices.

"How deep do you think the river is at the point right across from us?" the man asked, watching the Spetsnaz for a reaction.

"Too deep to cross you fool, and don't think I don't know what it is you are thinking." He looked down at the man with steely blue eyes. "Even if you made it across, the boss would gut you and leave you for the wolves when you returned."

The small man turned away and saw the American woman who had chosen to sleep outside of her tent. She lay by the dwindling fire and he couldn't tell if she was awake or asleep. Then he turned back to look at the taller man.

"The boss wouldn't know if one of us stayed behind while the other had a look-see. I could be across and back in half an hour, with nobody suspecting I had even crossed."

"You fool, you don't even know what it is you're looking for. You could step right on something over there and not know it. Besides," the man looked across the river, "don't you feel it?"

"Feel what?" the small weasel of a man asked.

"I don't know. It's like when I was stationed in Afghanistan the last months of the war. I was a kid back then, but I remember I used to gaze into the mountains and know my killers were there." He looked back at the small man. "I get that same feeling looking out there, across the river. And I'll ask you this, we are being led by men who have taken on the new Russian government and beat them at every turn, so why are these very same men who are not afraid of anything, keeping south of the river. If what we seek is on the other side, why not camp there?"

The man didn't say anything. He just glanced over at the tent that held Sagli and Deonovich, and watched the line guard stationed at the front of their large enclosure.

"Because they know something we don't, my friend — they sense danger just as I do and they would prefer not to face whatever it is in the darkness. They are old-guard KGB and they know danger when they smell it."

The small man made a grunting sound and then shrugged his shoulders as if the explanation hadn't fazed him one bit.

"I think you Spetsnaz have been brainwashed to the point of paranoia. That story is proof that they just want to keep you in the dark about how much gold is really over there."

The tall commando just shook his head, and then turned and continued walking his post along the river.

The small man was regular army, one of only six others the team had been forced to take when others had been stopped and questioned coming into Canada. The Spetsnaz liked to joke about the regular army, saying "they didn't have the sense God gave to geese."

As the guard watched the far shore past the luminous passing of the river in the moonlight, he saw something that made him lean down and try to focus upon. It looked as if one of the trees had moved. He caught shadow moving against shadow, and that movement was betrayed by the bright moon as it shone down upon the far northern bank of the Stikine.

The man thought about calling his guard partner back over to inform him that someone had braved the river and crossed, and were now more than likely searching for the gold, just as they should be. However, something held him back as he glared into the night. He quickly unsnapped the small pouch on his belt and removed the night-vision goggles and placed them over his eyes. The movement on the far shore had ceased. The darkness was still there beside one of the larger trees in the distant tree line and it hadn't moved since he froze and watched it. In the green filtered ambient light of the goggles, he could tell whatever it was it was huge, standing at least nine feet beside the tree. The guard raised the goggles and then shook his head and rubbed his eyes. When he focused the ambient light goggles again on the same spot on the far bank, the shadow he had been watching seemed to have blended in with the tree — or trees, as now he didn't see any discernable difference in any of the shadows as one bled into the other.

The guard knew that the Spetsnaz had tried to fool him with a spook story on how their bosses were frightened of the dark across the river, but he knew better. There was something over there all right, but it had nothing to do with spooks and goblins. There was gold, and what was the harm in finding out, especially if no one knew?

The guard smiled as he looked around and then caught up with his partner. After their shift was over, he would make his excuse to wander away to do his private latrine business, and then investigate on his own the far shore — danger be damned.

Twenty minutes later, the guard had waded across the same exact spot in the river that Professor Ellenshaw had crossed in 1968. The man turned just before exiting the water and watched the camp across the river. No alarm had been sounded as the change of watch was going about its business. The man smirked at the expertise of the old-guard Spetsnaz. They may have been good once, but those days were long past.

The man made his way out of the river and watched the woods. They were silent and unmoving. With the moon almost down, the ominous shadows had vanished and with it, the nervousness he had felt before crossing the Stikine.

As he made his way up the rocky slope, his foot struck something that sounded like metal. He stopped and reached for the object. He stayed on one knee and rolled the piece of black aluminum around in his hand. He was curious as to its misshapen state as he rose. At that split second of realization that he was no longer alone on the shore of the river, the guard slowly looked up. Instead of seeing the faint outline of the forest ahead, he saw nothing but blackness blocking his view. As his head continued to move upward, he dropped the aluminum he had been looking at and it tumbled to the rocks. As his eyes rose to the sky, he whimpered in his throat when he saw the eyes looking down at him.

The giant beast tilted its enormous head as it studied the small man before it. The eyes were a dull green and seemed to be illuminated from the inside. The man tried to take a step back and the beast grunted its displeasure at the movement. Then the guard made a move to unholster his weapon from his side. The great beast saw the movement and in a split second had reached out and grabbed the man's wrist, snapping the thick bone in two. The man was shocked at the speed of movement and really didn't realize his wrist had been snapped like a dry twig.

The animal grunted again and then its luminous eyes came up and it studied the camp across the river. When he felt the man start to pull away, the animal returned all of its attention to him. As the beast moved its head, the man was amazed to see that some of the thick, foul-smelling hair of its head had been braided. It was sloppily done, but braided nonetheless. The guard pulled harder at the restraining hand of the animal and that was when the great beast took the man into the air by grabbing his neck. It shook him like a rag doll, snapping not only his neck, but three places in his spine as well.