DEA and Bolivian teams were holding the perimeter. The SEALs went in alone.
The Verde caves lay ahead. Burial ground. Trafficking hub. Maybe both.
Bear’s pulse thudded beneath his skin with purpose. Ayla’s necklace burned in his memory. Bailee’s hand on his back still lingered in muscle memory.
They weren’t just hunting ghosts tonight. They were becoming them. He signaled with two fingers, and Flint veered left, nose to the wind.
The brush ahead thickened, twisting roots, broken reeds, stone rising from mud. Beyond that? Silence. Not the natural kind. The kind that held breath. That waited to kill.
Bear’s hand curled into a fist.
He’d been trained to handle all kinds of evil. The jungle was thick with shadow and sound, and tonight they were the monster-hunters.
Leaves dripped in the aftermath of recent rain, the air damp enough to cling to skin, gear, breath. Every step sank slightly into loam, every branch overhead twisted like ribs in a collapsed chest. It was the kind of terrain that didn’t just obscure movement. It swallowed it.
Bear led point, rifle up, Flint close to his left knee, low, focused, alert. Bailee and Sayers moved in the center of the formation, flanked by Joker and Professor. Zorro swept rear, a ghost among green.
They moved in staggered formation, silent, practiced. Eyes scanning. Triggers prepped but disciplined.
They were one klick out.
Bailee reached into the front of her vest and pulled out a vacuum-sealed pouch, a ripped piece of tactical shirt fabric soaked in sweat.
“Mara’s,” she said, opening it and handing it to Bear without a word. “Taken from her go-bag at the Bolivian outpost.”
Bear crouched down, set the fabric beneath Flint’s nose and let him get a clean inhale.
The Malinois froze, nostrils flaring. Then the low growl came, a confirmation. He had it. Bear gave the signal. Flint veered slightly left but held pace.
The deeper they moved, the more the jungle changed.
Boot prints appeared first, light, recent, too uniform to be casual movement. A half-klick later, they found a charred site in a natural clearing. Burned offerings. Twisted branches woven into crude figures. Bones smeared with something dark and drying. Human? Animal? Hard to say.
Bailee stepped beside him, crouched. Her fingers hovered above the remains without touching.
“Ritual adjacent,” she murmured. “Deliberate desecration. Not tribal. Not sacred. Just close enough to look like it.”
Bear didn’t look at her. Just scanned the perimeter as his gut twisted with something that wasn’t fear. It was disgust. “This isn’t faith,” he said quietly. “It’s marketing.” She turned her head. He glanced at her then, eyes cold. “They’re selling terror. Building myth. Using our women to scare innocents away.”
Bailee’s jaw flexed, tight with unspoken rage. “To keep outsiders from asking questions.”
Flint whined once, sharp and urgent, pulling hard on the leash.
Bear swung his rifle toward the brush ahead.
A dark trail wound left, narrow, cut clean through heavy vine. Blood marked the entrance, smeared in a rough handprint. There, half-buried in the mud, a shell casing still warm.
Zorro moved forward. “Contact’s near.”
Joker gave the signal and the team galvanized into motion.
They moved fast, eyes cutting through shadows, rifles up, boots quiet in the damp undergrowth. Flint weaved ahead, nose sharp, body tense. The cave mouth was near. Bear could feel it. The way the jungle thickened, how the vines seemed to crowd the path. Like the land was holding its breath.
Then he heard it. A wail. Faint. High. Too human to be wind. Too deliberate to be natural. Bailee froze beside him. It came again. Higher. Softer. Echoing through the trees like it had no source. Like the jungle itself was mourning.
Sayers whispered, “Jesus. What the hell is that?”
Bear didn’t answer. He already knew.
