FIFTY-SIX

Mount Meru—Vietnam

MAJOR GENERAL TRUNG could sense the enemy surrounding him and thirty of his best—all that remained of his original strike force. They had launched a successful sneak attack on a small group of the hairy beasts, but the noise had attracted more. Many more. And they found themselves suddenly outnumbered and encircled.

The jungle had gone silent, save for the wind shaking the tree branches above and warning of an approaching storm. But on occasion, the branches would sway and creak without a breeze present, and sometimes the tall trees would bend against the wind.

They’re coming. He recognized the signs he had missed prior to his first encounter with the creatures in 2009.

And, he thought with anger, the most recent ambush. They had lost the American prisoners. More important, they had lost the scientist they had gone to so much trouble to acquire.

But what had started out as a slaughter had turned into a victory when his men—the men who now shared the jungle floor with him—pushed the enemy back.

Their prize had been lost, but she would no doubt be found.

He only hoped she would still be alive at that point.

A shift in the breeze bent the jungle toward his position, surely hiding the approaching force above their heads. But it also carried their foul scent.

They were close.

But Trung was ready. He signaled to his men. Half of them raised their weapons to their shoulders and aimed. Up. The rest crouched to one knee and swept their weapons back and forth, forming an impenetrable, three-hundred-sixty-degree perimeter.

Trung squinted into the humid haze lit by the few streams of light filtering down from above. As the wind picked up, the light moved and danced on the forest floor. In the space between light and shadow, he detected movement of another sort, but couldn’t trace it. His index finger tightened on his AK-47’s trigger.

The enemy had arrived.

But they were waiting.

His thoughts turned to Queen. He wondered for a moment if it was she who was now stalking him. His breath caught in his throat as he pictured her face, ripe with ferocity and bearing the bloodred insignia of his Death Volunteers. Trung flinched back as a loud voice filled the forest.

“You shouldn’t have come back!”

Trung recognized the voice as the same he’d heard in 2009, and again during the ambush on the VPLA camp. It was the voice of his enemy, and his enemy was American.

“Give me the woman, and we will leave,” Trung said. It was the truth. He had no desire to fight this man, and his . . . brood, again. Having the location carpet bombed would be a much easier solution.

Movement dead ahead caught his attention. He focused on it.

The man emerged.

“Don’t shoot,” he said with raised arms.

Trung held his fire and his men followed his lead. The man was tall, rising a foot above Trung’s tallest soldier. He was also nearly naked, clothed only in some kind of loincloth, and had a fresh bite wound on his shoulder, like some kind of primitive.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” the man said.

Trung did not respond, allowing his silence to ask the questions. Why?

“She belongs to me,” was the answer.

Belongs to him? Though he could plainly see the man’s reversion to a primal lifestyle (despite the glasses on his face), Trung was stunned by the man’s cavemanlike assertion that he now owned the woman.

He scanned the forest, looking for others, and saw none. But he knew the man was not alone. One man on his own could not create such a stink as now swirled around them. “She is important to the people of Vietnam,” Trung said, doing his best to hide his growing animosity.

“Of that I am sure,” the man said. “But you cannot have her.”

Trung squinted as he took aim at the man’s head, but the subtle change in facial expression did not go unnoticed.

He tracked the man as he ducked, never losing aim as his finger applied pressure to the trigger. Despite being focused on his quarry, he saw a shadow shift in his peripheral vision. Something was rising up behind the man.

Trung’s finger depressed the trigger and three shots rattled off, but his aim was sourly off now that he, too, was diving to the jungle floor. A thick-bodied hairy woman had risen up behind the man, spear in hand, and had let it fly with a mighty heave. He heard the shaft cutting through the thick air as it slid past his cheek. It struck, with a wet smack, dead center in the back of the man who had been covering the group’s rear position.

The soldier fell to the ground silently, his spinal cord severed.

Chaos erupted as his twenty-nine remaining men opened fire, first at nothing, then at the large hairy bodies emerging from the forest. They came from the trees and the jungle floor simultaneously. The first to arrive were already dead—falling from above as they were plucked from the trees like rotted fruit. Each landed with a thud and an explosion of brush, filling the air with plumes of crushed leaf litter.

Trung squeezed off a quick three-round burst. One of the creatures pitched forward, tumbled, and fell, sliding to a stop at his feet. But the stumbling body had concealed the man’s approach. He charged forward, spear raised high in one hand, a knife in the other. The look in his eyes was wild. Frenzied. Any sense of the man willing to let them leave after a simple conversation had vanished.

Then the spear was in the air and Trung was ducking once more. But he was not the intended target. The rod struck the man next to Trung, knocking him off his feet and pinning him to a tree.

Trung’s eyes widened. The savage man was a warrior.

With a whistle, the major general called six of his men to his side while the others continued to fire into the encroaching mass of bodies. His plan would take timing, finesse, and sacrifice.

A pause in the gunfire signified clips running dry. The soldiers were adept at changing the spent clips out for fresh ones, but the few-second delay was all the enemy needed. The white man raised his knife in the air with a battle cry. This was the moment Trung was waiting for.

He released the grenade from his hand with a sideways toss, letting it bounce, mostly concealed, across the jungle floor.

“Get down!” he shouted to his men. Before ducking behind a fallen tree, he saw, with pleasure, the caveman’s spectacled eyes widen. The man shouted a warning and dove to the side, but the battle cries of his brutish brethren and the reports of the VPLA weapons drowned out his voice.

The explosion sent shrapnel and a wave of pressure into anyone standing in range. Trung stood from his position without pause. When the caveman and his brethren picked themselves up and rejoined the battle, they would find Trung and nine of his men gone. The old tunnel discovered on a Vietcong map would lead them past the battleground. They emerged like snakes from a den, the sounds of battle behind them.

They had breached the front line. And the city gates were next.

Trung left the majority of his men behind. They would either win the day or die in combat—the way of the Death Volunteer. It was a price they all accepted, and often the cost of success. When the jungle cleared, he knew the sacrifice had not been made in vain. A village had been constructed at the base of a mountain, which rose high above them. A village populated by more of the man-creatures. But these were not warriors, and fled into the jungle at the sight of them.

Trung paused at the village center while his men searched the huts. They reported to him quickly. The village was empty. One of the men pointed out a large cave descending into the mountain. Torchlight licked the walls.

Trung ordered his men in.

Moments later, the gunfire in the jungle ceased. It was followed by the roar of a man.

Having heard the angry howl, Trung paused at the cave’s mouth. The caveman was coming.