Four Summoners Tales Part 73

pushed past Top and began checking Finn myself. I saw the burn and pulled Finn's shirt completely open to look at it. Finn tried to stop me, his fingers quick and nervous.

"Finn," I said, helping him sit up, "what the h.e.l.l happened?" He shook his head and looked past me at the blood. "My men," he whispered. "Bear . . . Cheech Wizard," he said slowly, his voice barely a whisper, "Jazzman."

I took him by the shoulders and tried to steady him. Gave him just a little shake, maybe put some of his marbles back into their slots. "Finn, what happened here? Where's your team? Where are your men?"

I almost said what are your men. My pulse was still hammering.

Finn's eyes roved around the town square, from one patch of blood to the other.

"Here," he said hollowly. "Joe . . . they were all just here."

Top and Bunny glanced at me, but I let nothing show.

"What happened out here?" asked Bunny.

But Finn's eyes rolled up in their sockets and he pitched forward into my arms.

I took his weight and, with Bunny's help, carried him out of the big pool of blood and onto to unmarked ground.We propped him up with his back against a rock wall. Top watched and I could tell from the calculating look in his eyes that he was doing the math on all this and wasn't happy with the numbers.

Top gave me a small sideways tic of the head, and I rose and walked a dozen yards away with him.We stood there, surveying the carnage.Top took a pack of gum from his shirt and we each had a piece. He saw my hands trembling as I unwrapped mine.

I tapped my earbud. "Cowboy to Bug."

It took five tries to get a static-filled connection. "Go for Bug."

"Give me a rundown on thermal and satellite feeds."

"Satellites are a negative. They went offline ten minutes ago. NASA's working on it."

"b.a.l.l.s. And the thermals? We getting any signal?"

"We got lots of signals, Cowboy.We got four signatures right now-Echo and Finn.All cl.u.s.tered together.That's cool that you found him. How is he?"

Bug had never been great at the formality of tactical radio chatter.

"Alive, minimal injuries but disoriented. Unable to debrief at this time. What about Rattlesnake?"

"Their signals are weird, Cowboy. One minute they're here, the next they're not. Then they're up in the mountains, then somewhere else.The telemetry is totally fritzed."

"Okay. We're returning to the LZ. I need exfil for four now and then air surveillance. Screw the satellites, get me some helos."

There was a squawk of static and we lost the signal again.

"s.h.i.t," I said, and picked up a rock to throw it as hard as I could. I stopped midthrow, weighed it in my hand, and dropped it.

Then I gave the order to make a stretcher and carry Finn back to the ancient town built into the mountain, back where his team had gone missing. There were enough slats from the unburned stake-bed pickup, and we used the jackets of dead men for a sling.Top and Bunny carried while I walked point.

"Why not wait here?" asked Bunny, and Top nodded.

Fair question.

"Because this s.h.i.t started back by that small cave," I said. "I want to figure it out in some kind of order."

As explanations go, it was lame as h.e.l.l; but they were sergeants and I was a captain and this wasn't a democracy. The truth . . . ? This place spooked me more than I could express. Those faces with the burning eyes had been too real, but I didn't want to talk about it with them. I've had some psych issues in the past, and I'm pretty sure my guys know about it. This was not the time to shake their confidence in me.

When we were back at the abandoned town, we placed Finn in the shade of pair of withered trees. He was still unconscious.

"I'm going to walk the scene," I said to Top.

He glanced around, not liking it. "This is a weird place, Cap'n."

He left it there in case I wanted to say something. I didn't.

"Call me when Finn's awake."

I stepped back from them, moving to the edge of the town square so I could see the whole thing. I used to be a pretty good homicide cop back in West Baltimore.A lot of what I know about working a crime scene comes from three reliable sources. The first was my dad, who was a cop before me, and he'd worked his way up from the street to a gold shield to commissioner before finally jumping ship to run for mayor. None of his promotions were purely political. He'd been a cop's cop-he'd done his time and closed a big share of his cases. He taught me a lot.

The second source was my own time on the job. Baltimore has a lot of crime and never enough cops, so the guys on the job have to do the job.