Conspiracy Game (GhostWalkers, #4)(5)

Jack fitted the scope to his brother’s rifle and calmly loaded the shells in.

The blast was loud in the quiet of the night, sending a fireball into the sky. It rained metal and shrapnel, sending debris slamming into the camp and embedding metal into trees. The screams of dying men mingled with the cries of birds and chimpanzees as the world around them exploded into orange red flames. The lead jeep had hit the wire right at the entrance to the camp, tripping the claymore and blowing everything around it into pieces. The soldiers hit the ground, covering their heads as fragments rained from the sky.

Jack kept his eye to the scope. Biyoya was in the second jeep, and the driver instantly veered away from the fireball, nearly spilling the passengers as the vehicle careened wildly through the trees. Biyoya leapt out, ducking into the foliage, screaming at the soldiers to fan out and look for Jack.

Using the chaos of explosions and screaming men as cover, Jack squeezed the trigger, taking out one of the soldiers on the edge of the forest. Switching targets, he rapidly fired three more times. Four shots—four kills. Not wanting the soldiers to spot where he was firing from, Jack immediately caught hold of a vine and went down headfirst on the opposite side of the tree from the soldiers, crawling hand over hand, until he could flip to the ground. He landed softly on the balls of his feet, fading into the overgrown ferns and dropping to his belly. Through the brush, he could slither along the almost invisible game trail that brought him up behind Biyoya’s personal guard.

Jack rose up, a silent phantom, blade in hand. He went in fast and hard, careful to make certain the guard couldn’t give away his presence with a single sound. Jack slipped back into the foliage, his skin and clothes blending with his surroundings.

Biyoya turned to say something to his guard and let out a shocked yell, leaping back away from the dead man and ducking around his jeep. He shouted to his soldiers and they sprayed the jungle with bullets, lighting up the night with the flashing muzzles. Leaves and branches fell like hail, raining from above, and several soldiers went down, caught in the cross fire. Biyoya had to shout several times again to establish control. He ordered another sweep through the surrounding forest.

The soldiers looked at one another, obviously not happy with the command, but they obeyed with reluctance, once again shoulder to shoulder, walking through the trees. Jack was already back in his tree, leaning his weary body against the thick trunk.

He slumped down, but kept his eye to the scope in hopes of getting a clear shot at Biyoya. He tried to keep any thought of home and his brother from his mind, but it was impossible. Ken’s body—so bloody—so raw. There hadn’t been a place on him that wasn’t bleeding. Had Jack been too late? No way. He’d know if his brother was dead—and if it was at all possible, Ken would come for him. Even now, might be close. Intellectually Jack knew better—knew Ken’s wounds were too severe and that he was safe in a hospital thousands of miles away—but he couldn’t stop himself. Jack reached out along their telepathic path, the way he’d been doing since they were toddlers, and called his brother. Ken. I’m in a f*cking mess. You there, bro?

Silence greeted his call. For one terrible moment, his resolve wavered. His gut churned and fear swamped him. Fear for his own situation and something nearly amounting to terror for his brother. He held out his hand, saw it shake, and shook his head, forcing his mind away from destructive thoughts. That way lay his own destruction. His job was to escape, to survive, to make his way to Kinshasa.

The soldiers tramped through the forest, using bayonets to thrust into the thick shrubs and ferns. They stabbed the vegetation on the floor and walked along the banks of the stream feeding into the river, blades pounding the damp embankment. The jeep slowly began to move, only the driver and soldiers surrounding it vulnerable as they made their way past the wreckage of the first vehicle into camp.

Jack lowered the rifle. It was going to be a long night for the soldiers. In the meantime, he had to plan his way to freedom. He was west of Kinshasa. Once in the city, he could find Jebediah and hide until they found a way to call for extraction. It sounded simple enough, but he had to work his way through the rebel encampments between Kinshasa and his present position. He wasn’t going to kid himself; he was in bad shape. With so many open wounds, infection was a certainty rather than a possibility.

Weariness stole over him. Loneliness. He had chosen this life many years ago, the only choice he had at the time. Most of the time he never regretted it. But sometimes, when he sat thirty feet up in a tree with a rifle in his hands and death surrounding him, he wondered what it would be like to have a home and family. A woman. Laughter. He couldn’t remember laughter, not even with Ken, and Ken could be amusing at the most inopportune times.

It was too late for him. He was rough and cold and any gentleness he might have been born with had been beat out of him long before he was a teenager. He looked at the people and the world around him stripped of beauty, seeing only the ugliness. It was kill or be killed in his world, and he was a survivor. He settled back and closed his eyes, needing to sleep for a few minutes.

He woke to the sounds of screams. The sound often haunted him in his nightmares, screams and gunfire, and the sight of blood running in dark pools. His hands curled around the rifle, finger stroking the trigger even before his eyes snapped open. Jack took a long, deep breath and looked around him. Flash fires came from the direction of the camp. Several of his traps had been sprung, and once again chaos reigned in the rebel encampment. Bullets spat into the jungle, zipped through leaves and tore bark from trees. The ghost in the rain forest had struck again and again, and fear had the rebels by the throats.