Alex Archer - Sacrifice

Annja checked herself. Her stomach seemed to have clenched up. Vic must have noticed because he started chuckling again.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“That look.”

“What look?”

Vic pointed at her stomach. “The MRE look. The rations we carry are so dense that they almost block you up, if you get my drift.”

“You mean—?”

He nodded. “Yeah, you’ll be constipated for a few days, I’d expect.”

“Great.”

“It’s no biggie. Happens to everyone who eats those things. Best cure is some fresh food. Maybe a chocolate bar and a cup of coffee. That’ll clear you out once you get back to civilization.”

“This is some amazing lifestyle you’ve got for yourself here, Vic.”

“Ain’t it, though?”

Annja frowned again. “I was being sarcastic.”

“I wasn’t,” he said with a grin.

“You really like it?”

Vic nodded. “Yep. I’m my own boss out here. As long as I complete my assignments, no one hassles me. I’m working in nature, having a ball and loving life. Not too many other people can say the same.”

“You’re killing people.”

Vic shook his head. “I’m killing monsters who kill innocent people. Far as I’m concerned, it’s justifiable. Even necessary.”

Annja shifted the pistol on her belt. “I guess it would be futile to argue with you.”

Vic leveled a finger at her. “Are you telling me you’ve never killed anyone before? I find that hard to believe.”

“Why?” Annja asked, shocked by the question.

“Because you’ve got the look,” he said.

“There’s a look?”

Vic shrugged. “I think so. People who have been close to death or even dealt some of their own have a certain expression that creeps over their face from time to time.”

“And you see it on my face?” she asked.

Vic smirked. “Well, not right now.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re filthy from all that mud you caked on yourself.”

Annja sighed. “You’re no prize yourself.”

Vic nodded. “Yeah, but I clean up real well.”

“I’ll bet.”

Vic pointed out to the jungle. “Let’s get moving.”

“Okay.”

“One more thing.”

Annja stopped. “What is it?”

“We go out in the bush, we don’t say a word. Sound travels out here, even with the thick canopy all around us. The last thing we want to do is make it easy for them to find us.”

“Understood.”

Vic looked at her for a final moment and then turned. Slowly, they began making their way back into the jungle.

Eduardo Archibald Gomez could not believe his luck.

Their great leader Agamemnon had radioed him and informed him that he was being tasked with the search for the mysterious sniper who had killed Luis in the night.

“I am placing great faith in your abilities, Eduardo,” Agamemnon had said.

Eduardo could barely contain his excitement. To be given this great a responsibility after only a year in the service of Abu Sayyaf was truly an incredible event. And it was one Eduardo took extremely seriously.

He had bowed toward the radio a moment before keying the microphone. “I swear to bring him back. Or I will not return.”

Then he had assembled the best men he knew in the camp. All of them wanted a piece of the action. Luis had been a kind and remarkable leader for their group. He had personally taken Eduardo under his wing and taught him the finer points of ambushes, shirtsleeve explosive formulas, improvised munitions and much more. To see him cut down with a single shot to the head last night had scared and infuriated Eduardo.

He looked toward the jungle. Somewhere out there was the man who had killed Luis. And he would prove a very competent quarry. Eduardo would need to be careful; otherwise the sniper would sense them coming and kill them all.

Eduardo had no intention of letting that happen.

He called forth a withered old man with a long, wispy, white beard. The old man was clothed only in the scantiest of rags, but apparently cared little about his state of dress.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

The old man nodded. “Leave me be for now. I will find the trail before long.” His voice sounded like a rock being scraped against moldy bark, and he smelled of a thousand layers of dirt, but Eduardo knew he was the best tracker in these parts. The old man had grown up in these jungles and knew every one of their secrets. Even around the campfire he spun odd tales of strange serpents and people who wandered into the deepest parts of the jungle never to return.

Eduardo and many of the others considered the old man strange. He’d simply shown up one day as they were building the camp. They hadn’t been able to get rid of him. Death threats didn’t sway him. He insisted he could be useful.

Eduardo nodded. “Very well, but you will need to report back to me within the hour or we will lose any time we might have gained with this early start.”

The old man bowed once and then seemed to slide right between two clusters of dense shrubs at the periphery of the camp. In another second, he had disappeared completely.

“He is a strange one,” the man behind Eduardo said.

Eduardo smiled. “How many times have I heard you say that, Miki?”

“Probably too many times. But I am not comfortable with the idea that this old man is responsible for leading us around the jungle. We have many other competent trackers that could do the same job.”

Eduardo shook his head. “No, there’s only one who knows the jungle as well as we need in order to fulfill our mission. And it’s that man.”

“So you say, Eduardo. But do you trust him yourself? He’s not really one of us, after all.”

“He has shown himself willing to lead us around the jungle in our search for the sniper. He saw the death last night, as well. Perhaps he knows it could have just as easily have been him that was felled by that single bullet.”

Miki frowned. “I don’t presume to understand his motivations for helping us. It is too dangerous to do so, I believe.”

“Be that as it may, Agamemnon has ordered us to find the sniper and bring him to justice—our justice. I intend to succeed in that mission. Only when we have the sniper will we be free to undertake the mission that Luis intended to launch.”

Miki sighed. Eduardo looked at him. They had been fast friends for many months now, their skills complementing each other on kidnapping missions and extortion runs. Eduardo felt a certain kinship with Miki and they both held the same rank, although with Agamemnon’s blessing, Eduardo was currently the man in charge of the camp.

Still, he wouldn’t let the rank go to his head. And he valued Miki’s opinion, even if it differed from his own.

“Don’t worry, my friend. The old man will not let us down. He knows what will happen to him if he does.”

“I don’t think he cares,” Miki said.

Eduardo waved his hand. “Regardless, how is the rest of the team? Are they prepared?”

Miki pointed at the four other men sitting on their haunches nearby. “They are anxious to go out.”

“As we all are.”

“But only four? Surely, that will not be enough to capture the gunman,” Miki said.

“I think it will, actually.”

“The others in camp are restless. They want to be involved in the capture just as much as everyone else. I think some of them feel left out by your decision to only use a small unit.”

Eduardo nodded. “I do not doubt their commitment or their willingness to participate in the mission.”

“So why not take them along?”

“Because the man we are tracking is not an ordinary person, Miki. A sniper is a specialized breed of soldier. If we were going out looking for a band of civilians, then yes, the more men we employed in that regard, the better.”