Blood Lines

59

›› Nine Klicks Outside Qui Nhon, Binh Dinh Province

›› Socialist Republic of Vietnam

›› 1658 Hours (Local Time Zone)

“What do you think they’re looking for?”

At first, Victor Gant ignored Fat Mike’s question. They sat under a thick copse of brush on a hillside over a half klick from where the Marine who had killed Bobby Lee was searching. Victor held the high-power field glasses carefully so that the sun wouldn’t ever reflect from the lenses. There was less and less chance of that happening as the cloud cover from the approaching storm became more complete.

Finally Victor lowered the field glasses and stared at the figures in the distance. Without the lenses, he could barely make out the people searching the land.

“This far out in the brush, there’s only one thing they’re looking for,” Victor said.

“That kid’s body?” Fat Mike asked.

“Did we bury anybody else out here?”

Fat Mike looked like he was thinking about that. There had been a number of bodies back in those days. And that wasn’t even counting Charlie and the Kit Carsons they’d left lying where they’d dropped them.

“Did we?” Fat Mike asked finally.

“No.”

Fat Mike snorted. “They’re not going to find that grave.” He cursed. “As long as it’s been, I don’t think I could find it now.”

“They brought those dogs for a reason.”

“Maybe they’re trying to track us.”

“No.” Victor put the field glasses in the protective case on his hip.

“Do they have grave dogs?”

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Fat Mike said. “There’s probably so many people buried out there, they’ll never find Hinton.” He glanced at the darkening sky. “Not only that, but the storm that’s coming is gonna be a toad strangler. The ground we’re standing on is gonna turn to muck.”

Victor watched in silence.

“You know,” Fat Mike said, “I was thinking that if we had a Barrett rifle, something with some serious range, you could settle that Marine’s hash and be done with this before they could ever find you. We could fade the heat and be gone before they could catch us. None of them know this jungle like we do.”

“No,” Tran said. The slightly built Vietnamese crime lord sat farther back and up the hill. His hair was cut short and was mostly gray these days, which amused Victor. “If you attack, even from this distance, the local soldiers will hunt us down. And I don’t believe we could escape them before they closed in.”

Victor silently agreed with the assessment. He’d noticed the quiet way Tran had been watchful about the NCIS team’s search. As always, Tran didn’t miss much. Most people didn’t get that because Tran was tight-lipped and didn’t speak until he had something he was willing to talk about. Outside of himself, Tran was the most vicious and dangerous man Victor knew.

He looked over at Tran. “I don’t want to drag this thing out. We know where their base camp is. They’re staying out here.”

Tran looked at him. Both wisdom and wariness showed on his friend and business partner’s features.

“I want to take care of this tonight,” Victor told him. “I don’t know how long they’re going to be here or what they’re going to find, but I don’t want to wait, and I sure don’t want them dragging anything out of the ground that’s better off staying buried.”

“All right,” Tran said. “We do this tonight.” His eyes locked on Victor’s. “Then you are done with this thing, Victor. Your son would have wanted you to live, and you have wasted enough time with this. You and I, we have a business to run that requires our attention. We have lost some ground in the United States.”

Anger roiled up inside Victor, but he didn’t say anything. Tran was probably the only man on the face of the planet who could speak to him so bluntly. They’d shared danger for so long that Victor respected the man. More than that, Victor knew without a doubt that Tran would kill him if he started endangering his drug operation.

Thunder rumbled across the sky.

“We may get an early start,” Victor said, “if this storm rolls in within the next hour.”

›› 1823 Hours (Local Time Zone)

Rain spattered against the broad leaves of the trees. Will thought it sounded like he was surrounded by footsteps. His nerves jangled because he wasn’t used to being in enclosed places like the jungle. The only enclosed environment he’d dealt with had been aboard ship. But there he could always go up on deck and feel the world open up around him.

Rainwater collected on the ground. It was the rainy season, and the earth was already saturated. Pools formed first; then they began tiny rivulets that gathered more volume and became miniature streams.

The historical remains dog ahead of them suddenly took on renewed energy. The animal hardly ever lifted its head from the ground as it became a flesh-and-blood vacuum cleaner for scents.

Rain wouldn’t hamper the dog. The water actually reactivated the smells trapped within the earth, making them sharper and stronger and more easily detected.

Mud clumped to Will’s boots and made his feet feel like they weighed a hundred pounds apiece. Walking became a physical toll, and that was without the constant threat of slipping.

“Sir,” the handler called.

Will tore his gaze away from searching the trees to keep watch and glanced at the young man working the dog.

The dog had stopped moving forward and was zigzagging through the trees. The sensitive nose never lifted from the ground.

“I think Rusty’s found something, sir.” The handler was a young man with a forthright manner and a shy smile. His name was Neal and he’d been working with the historical remains dog program for eight years. He wasn’t chatty, preferring to get his job done, but he seemed to express himself enough for people to get to know and trust him.

Will stood in the rain. Although his rain poncho had a hood, he didn’t pull it up because it would have restricted his hearing and his vision.

“I’d like to give him some time,” Neal said. “Let him sort through everything. Kind of a confidence vote. He’s been working hard today.”

“All right,” Will told the handler.

The dog kept wandering around through the nearby jungle, but the outside journeys grew smaller and smaller. Finally, a few minutes later, the dog chose a patch of muddy earth between two towering trees and lay down.

“He’s found something,” Neal said excitedly. “That’s his signal.”

Will walked forward and studied the ground. When he squatted and looked across the lay of the land, he saw where an irregular oval had filled up with water where the dog lay.

The oval was definitely man-size.

“Let’s close it in,” Will said to Maggie. She stood twenty feet away. “See if we’ve got anything. If we don’t, we make camp. We’re losing the sun anyway.”

›› 1856 Hours (Local Time Zone)

Although the night hadn’t yet arrived, they were working by lantern light in the thick copse of trees. Shel used one of the trenching tools they’d brought. Will used the other.

Nita stood at the prospective graveside. Although Will had wanted her to stay at the base because of her pregnancy, she hadn’t agreed. She’d told him that she’d been praying about the situation and felt she needed to be on hand. Besides, as the team’s medical examiner, her testimony about the recovery of the body-or bodies-was important.

Shel was glad she had stayed with the rest of the team. There was safety in numbers, and they could better protect her with them than if she was off somewhere else.

As he worked, Shel’s muscles warmed. Even with the storm, the air remained muggy. When the fabric of his shirt kept slowing his efforts, he’d taken the shirt and Kevlar vest off. He’d seen Will glance at him and expected that Will might tell him to put them back on, but he didn’t.

“It won’t be too deep.” Neal squatted beside his dog. “Rusty got a good hit, so you can expect to find something within three or four feet at the most.”

Shel kept turning dirt that was just short of qualifying as oozing mud. Every shovelful felt heavier, but he only worked harder.

He thought of the forty years that his daddy had lived with the guilt of accidentally killing a man-a fellow soldier-and burying his body so the family wouldn’t know. Of that same forty years when Tyrel McHenry had been mentally prepared to go to military prison for the rest of his life or to be executed. Of all the years that Shel had grown up not understanding why his daddy hadn’t taken any real interest in him.

Pain shivered through Shel’s heart. All those years of misunderstandings and arguments and hurt feelings hadn’t been because of him. Or his daddy. If the situation had been reversed, if Shel had accidentally killed a fellow soldier during a firefight-and such things happened-he honestly didn’t know how he would deal with it. Or if he’d be able to live with himself.

And that was now, when he had nearly twenty years of experience behind him.

How could anyone expect a fresh-faced kid away from his home country to handle something like that? More than that, Tyrel had been drunk and been led by Victor Gant. Nothing good could have come of that.

Nothing good did come of it, Shel reminded himself.

Then his shovel pressed against something hard.

Shel got down on his knees and searched for the object with his fingers. The falling rain pooled in the bottom of the excavation. Several times before, he and Will had been forced to saw through tree roots that had grown through the area. This felt different, not as big, not as solid.

His fingers uncovered something round. Hope swelled in his heart.

“Nita,” Shel called, trying to keep his voice calm. “I need more light here.”

Nita moved immediately and brought the light to bear.

As Shel brushed away the mud and grit, the object became very clear. It was a human skull.