James Rollins - Altar Of Eden

Her father lowered his voice. “You should know that there’s some sort of white tiger out there. One hell of a big monster.”

A nod. “We know. Didn’t you get the evacuation warning?”

Her father glanced sheepishly at her, then down.

“Doesn’t matter,” the man said, not bothering to scold. Water under the bridge, his expression seemed to say. He even clapped her father on the shoulder. “You’ve done a good job setting up a perimeter fire wall. If we stay alert and keep weapons ready, we’ll be okay.”

Her father’s back drew straighter. Stella studied the agent with new eyes, appreciating how he didn’t browbeat her father and avoided demoralizing him during such a tense time. Recriminations could come later. For now, the agent wanted everyone focused.

No wonder this man was a leader.

Agent Menard passed on a few orders to his men, then unclipped a radio from his belt. She hovered a step away, eavesdropping.

“We’ve reached the farm. But there are over sixty people here. Men, women, children. Have you heard from the other team?”

As he listened she noted his fingers tighten on the radio.

His voice cracked, bright with anger, thickening his Cajun accent. “She’s gone and done what?”

LORNA HEADED OVERLAND through a section of bottomland forest. Two Border Patrol agents flanked her: Garcia and Childress. Ahead of her trotted Burt. The hound’s nose was buried in the marsh grasses. The dog ran with his tail high.

She carried her assembled tranquilizer gun stiffly in front of her. It was a.50-caliber Pneu-Dart rifle loaded with a clip of five 1.5cc darts containing etorphine hydrocloride, known as M99, a highly potent neuroleptanalgesic. A single drop could kill a man. Five milligrams was enough to drop a rhino. Still, once darted, the drug took time to send an animal into a catatonic state.

So she was happy to have Garcia and Childress at her back with their assault rifles.

The three of them had left the CBP’s Zodiac tied up on to the eastern bank of the channel. Minutes ago, they’d all heard the sporadic gunfire from the team on this side of the canal. Then nothing since. They’d kept watch on the forest through night-vision goggles, but there had been no sign of the other team.

Still, during that vigil, Lorna had spotted something of interest out in the swamp: a heat signature about fifty yards back into the bayou. The shape was indistinct. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked too large to be a raccoon. She watched it for a full minute. It didn’t move and seemed nested at the foot of a large cypress. Finally the silhouette rose and stretched its back, forming a characteristic feline arch, that seemingly boneless curve so typical of cats. It turned a few times, then settled back down.

Could it be the jaguar’s cub, the sibling to Bagheera back at ACRES?

It could explain why the big cat had turned so aggressive. The mother wasn’t only defending territory and food supply, but also her child. No wonder she attacked the Thibodeaux boat first. That team had been unlucky enough to pick this side of the channel, where the cub was hidden.

It all came down to the cub.

If they could capture it, get it back to the boat, they’d have the perfect bait for its mother, a way to lure it away from the assaulted team- that is, if the men were still alive. And if not, they’d still have a tool to control the jaguar.

And that’s just what she had argued with Scott Nester.

Control the cub, you control the mother.

It was worth the risk of a fast search. She had insisted on coming along, warning Jack’s second-in-command that she’d jump overboard and swim to shore if necessary. As they readied the Zodiac, Scott had tried to radio Jack for authorization. But there’d been no response, so Scott finally relented, just as concerned about his teammates’ fate.

Still, his instructions had been firm to Garcia and Childress. “There and back. If it runs off, you don’t pursue.” He had pointed at Lorna. “Drag her back by her hair if she gives you any trouble.”

So they moved swiftly through the forest. They aimed toward the large cypress. But there was no way to move without any noise. Within a few steps, Lorna watched the cub’s silhouette slip behind the bole of the tree, alerted to their presence.

Was it still there or had it run off?

Generally cubs tend to stick to their nests, even in the face of danger. She recalled a nature documentary in which an entire litter of lion cubs was killed by a cobra, simply because they feared leaving their den. With any luck, the cub was still there.

As Lorna hiked, she caught the barest whisker of a heat signature through her goggles. The cub was still behind the tree, but it looked ready to bolt. She dared not try tranquilizing it. The darts were too potent for something so small.

But she couldn’t let it get away.

“Burt…”

The hound stopped, one ear cocked back, listening, but he kept his nose fixed ahead. He didn’t need any goggles to pick out the cub. Lorna had to trust that the hound was typical of hunting dogs in the area, trained like most to hunt raccoons.

And there was only one sure way of catching a raccoon.

“Go tree him, boy,” she commanded.

Burt lunged ahead, running low, spearing through the grass. He angled to the side, circling out and around. He wasn’t about to let his prey escape into the deeper woods.

As Lorna had hoped, the cub stuck to its instincts. It didn’t want to leave the spot where its mother had left it, but it also recognized the threat in Burt. Reacting on pure feline instinct, the cub shot up the cypress.

Burt hit the tree, letting out a loud bawl, announcing his success.

They all took off at a run toward the treed cat.

Lorna hated to terrify the small creature, but she also recognized the necessity of its capture.

And quickly.

The dog’s barking was surely already drawing the big cat in their direction. Lorna reached the tree first. “Quiet, Burt.”

The hound bounded about the trunk, excited, tongue lolling, but he obeyed and stopped his bawling.

The cub was perched on a limb overhead. Barely newborn, it hadn’t been able to climb too high. Huge eyes, glassy with fear, stared down at them. It hissed a warning, its coat bristling out in all directions.

Lorna had brought along a thick red fire blanket, carried over one shoulder. She set down her rifle, unfurled the blanket, and tossed it like a net over the cub. The weight and the surprise rolled the cub off its perch. Tangled in the blanket, it fell, but Lorna caught it in her arms. It squirmed and fought inside the bundled blanket, but like its sibling it was malnourished. It didn’t have much fight.

She hugged the cub through the blanket, trying to stifle its panic with a calming pressure. From inside came a plaintive mewling. The sound tugged at her heart.

Poor thing.

“Ma’am, time to go,” Garcia said.

He and his partner held their rifles tight to their shoulders. They all strained to listen for any telltale sign of an angry mother barreling toward them. Instead, a different noise intruded: a heavy thump-thumping.

They all turned to the north. Lorna winced as the bright lights flared in her goggles. It had to be the helicopter Jack had called down from Bay Lanaux. One-handed, she pushed the goggles to her forehead. Darkness enveloped her, and the brightness dissolved to a dot in the sky. The chopper was still a half mile off, but the noise grew louder with every heartbeat.

“Let’s go,” Garcia pressed.

Lorna reached her free arm and grabbed her rifle from the grass.

As she straightened, she found herself staring at a pair of large eyes deep in the forest, reflecting the meager light, glowing in the dark.