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John’s voice sounded in his ear. “Fellas, I forgot to mention that the structure they’re in used to be a hospital. However, the sick now use the Kalandula Municipal Hospital several kilometers to the east.”
The droplets grew in size.
John’s voice faded as the rainfall grew heavier.
Gage raised a hand, the signal for when they reached EN 140. They then stood around for several minutes, waiting to see whether a vehicle would pass through, but there were no engine sounds or headlights.
On the other side, the treeline broke to reveal the small village they would have to cross over to make it to the second part of the forest. In these rural areas with no electricity or running water, it was difficult to determine what was occupied and what was vacant.
Gage and Dez ventured ahead to clear the structures. The rest of the team kept an eye out for passersby or possible hostiles.
A shadow caught Joel’s eye.
After silently alerting the team, he observed the person as they moved along the edge of the treeline near the farthest house, several yards from Dez and Gage’s current location.
It didn’t move stealthily, which was a good sign, and this person didn’t appear to be trying to remain hidden. Still, he didn’t look away. Although his unit in the Marines saw little combat, one thing that continuously unnerved him was a person showing up where he hadn’t been expecting them, doing something entirely too innocuous.
The person, who appeared to be a male of average height with a husky build, stretched their arms above their head. A cigarette dangled from their lips. Then, they lowered their hands, and a splashing sound followed.
Gage’s voice buzzed against his eardrum. “You have eyes, Lattimore?”
“Yeah. Civilian taking a piss.”
Gage and Dez cleared the rest of the community.
After urinating, the person hung around outside for a few additional seconds before slapping their hands on their thighs and heading inside one of the housing structures.
“Clear,” Joel said. “Not a hostile.”
They continued on.
Crossing the road came without incident, and the other border dropped them back into a thicket of trees. They had one more, narrower road to cross before they had a straight shot to the abandoned hospital. That road, the Est. Quedas de Kalandula, led to the Kalandula Falls.
It felt sordid that anything as dangerous as forced recruitment could occur in the same area as a beautiful gift of nature like the Kalandula Falls. It was somewhere he would have taken Sydney, and he could see them standing on the rocky surround, holding each other as they marveled at, by volume, one of the largest waterfalls in Africa—their private jet had included a shitload of reading material on the area.
Maybe they could make it an annual thing, visiting everywhere from the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe to the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland.
Focus, Joel.
The encampment came into view, darker than the night that surrounded it. For it to have been a hospital, it stood isolated in the middle of a dark green thatch of grass with no nearby satellite buildings. A broken, rusted-through chain-link fence with a single string of barbed wire running across the top created a border around it. There were dozens of windows, and with them all unlit, the only thing that would tell them whether the abductors had prepared for their arrival was a nozzle flash. By then, it could be too late.
Mike took wire cutters to an already broken section of the fence, widening the opening. After Julien gave the all-clear, Dez went through first while Gage remained behind. Once everyone was accounted for, he stepped inside.
Joel handed off his rifle to Giorgio, who’d remained as quiet as a teardrop on cotton during the trek.
“You good, Lattimore?” Mike asked.
“Why is everyone asking me that?”
“Because we’re a team.” Mike strapped on his climbing equipment with a finesse that came from years of experience. “One mind, one heartbeat. If shit’s off with you, it can throw shit off with us. So, I’ll ask you one more time. Are you good?”
He stared at the hooks and links to the climbing equipment, his mind blank. He’d done this dozens of times, but all of a sudden, he felt like a toddler faced with an algebra problem.
“Some shit happened with Syd,” he said. “She got an apartment.”
They froze.
“Why?”Julien asked.
