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MAY 29, 2024
Steel
A single beadof sweat trailed from the hairline at the nape of his neck, its descent maddeningly slow as it teased his skin. As desperate as he was for it to flow faster and soak into the collar of his jacket, he refused to even twitch. Right now, the noises of the jungle surrounded him, a rhythmic cadence of insects and frogs harmonizing with a light breeze blowing through the canopy overhead. The slightest of sounds or movements could disturb the natural forces at work, so he continued to calmly sit and watch through his night vision goggles.
Another droplet of sweat formed and ran down the side of his face. This one was harder to ignore as it trickled past his temple, following the outer edge of his eye socket. Grateful that the glasses kept it from dropping into his eyeball, he still cursed his impatience to flick it away. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. But he wanted to, and that, in itself, was a loss of control.
Whining noises came from down below and to his right. Careful not to make any sound, he solidified his position and waited for the source to show itself rather than turn his head toward it. Traditional night vision goggles were useless this deep in the Darién Gap. With no moonlight capable of penetrating the thick vegetation and nothing civilized for miles, there was no ambient light for them to pick up. Luckily, he had been using the infrared feature to “see” in the dark.
His patience was rewarded when a black-and-white creature, the size of a small wolverine and resembling a ferret in its markings, pushed through the brush at ground level. A tayra. However, the noises coming from that direction were wrong somehow. Too much. They didn’t link with its movements, much like a classicGodzillamovie, where the actors’ mouths and the ADR voices didn’t match up. Moments later, he saw why. Coming around the tree were two smaller versions of the tayra. A mother and her young. She was teaching them to hunt for food.
A pang hit his heart. Painstakingly slow to avoid startling them, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of beef jerky, opened it, and tossed the meat down onto the ground. Not the healthiest for them, but then again, if they were hungry, they’d eat it. Sure enough, the mother smelled the pungent dried meat and pushed it toward her offspring, who both grabbed for it and came away with a piece each.
Mom went back to sniffing around the tree. It only took her a few moments before she found something that squeaked, which she pushed toward the two younglings. Between the two of them, they batted and snapped at it before one finally grabbed it in its teeth, and the squeaking abruptly stopped. The one who lost out on the live meal hissed, then went back to gnawing on the jerky.
When they finished, the mother led them out of his sight, most likely to continue looking for more food.
Quickly, he squelched the happy feeling at seeing the mother care for her young and went back to watching the jungle with his cold, silver eyes.
He shifted slightly, careful not to disturb the branch enough to make noise. His ass was starting to go numb from sitting in the crook of this tree for so long.
Correction. It was already numb. He didn’t relish the thought of rising from his point as overwatch and making his limbs work normally. He felt way too old to be just the overside of forty, but the years of jumping out of planes for the Navy had made short work of his joints.
God-fucking-dammit, he hated the jungle. Give him the desert heat, the Arctic cold, even the humid rest of the world—anything but the jungle. You were always wet. Everything was wet from the moment you arrived to the moment you left. To be honest, even after you changed clothes for the first time when you got back, you still felt wet. And everything always had to be destroyed when you got home because no matter how soon you had it cleaned, it still grew mold.
More sweat trickled from his brow, down the side of his face, and into the collar of his jacket, where he began to itch. In a normal place, he wouldn’t be so covered. But since it was the beginning of the rainy season, the warm temperatures, the high humidity, and the swarms of insects made the protection necessary, no matter how uncomfortable it might be.
Just to fuck with him, a mosquito feasted on his neck. After six hours in his hiding spot, it was obvious to him that there was nothing to find out here, so he no longer cared about moving or making noise.
A swift, deadly swat took care of the offending insect.
“Pérdida de tiempo,” he muttered. It might be a waste of time, as well as a wild-goose chase, but he didn’t move from his spot, and he wouldn’t until his team leader called him in.
A tingle started at the back of his head and traveled to his brain. He glanced down at his watch. The closer the sensation reached his eyes, the more it became a visual, a glimmer, telling him it should be right about?—
“I’m calling it.” The voice came from the comms. “Everyone back to base camp.”
Now.
He allowed himself a moment of pride. The team bet on everything, and he won those bets ninety percent of the time. Why couldn’t they have bet on this?
Quickly, his thoughts shifted to the tone of the man’s voice. His team leader did not sound happy, and it was rare that the man allowed irritation to bleed through.
A series of confirmation replies came in from the five team members at various watch points in the jungle.
Thirty minutes later, Steel emerged from the dense foliage into their base camp, the last to return. The others were already hunkered around a low lamp in the center of a small clearing they’d made, snacking on their version of MREs.
“Anybody else feel like we were sent on a wild-goose chase?” The disgruntled tone came from one of his teammates, TB, a constantly grumpy giant of a man. At six foot seven and two hundred forty pounds, he looked terribly uncomfortable sitting on a felled tree.
“If Ka-Bar activated his distress beacon, it means he’s in dire circumstances. We were ordered to come get him.” The low and soft reply was returned by their team leader, Waters. He ran a hand over his blond, close-cropped hair, exasperation clear in his expression and tone.
“He’s not here, boss. We’ve been here a week. If he was here, he’s gone now.”
“I’m not leaving Kubrick’s brother stranded.” He looked around at the men in the circle, their eyes holding his, their expressions blank. He sighed. “We’ll do one more sweep tomorrow in daylight. If we don’t find anything, we’ll head home.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched. “Boss, we get it. He’s been underground with the Salieri for over two years. Playing double agent has got to be wearing on him. But he’s not here. We found his tracker buried in the ground. It was a distraction.”
