Matt Archer: Redemption Part 15

"Eight-foot long, four-hundred pound rats that can walk on their hind legs, I'm guessing?"

He picked up his phone and squinted at the screen. "Only seven feet long. But they have the most gnarly barbs on their tails. Like machetes."

This sounds entertaining, Tink chirped. Dangerous on both ends.

I groaned. "Fun. Let me go change into some BDUs, then we can go scouting." On my way back to the lobby, I paused. "What were the Taipei monsters like?"

"Lord almighty, I've never seen anything like them. Some mix of lobster, slug and octopus. Defied explanation." He held up his phone. "I have pictures if you really want to know."

"Forget I asked."

"Asked what?" Johnson called at my back.

Precisely. Because for now, giant rats were more than enough to think about.

Eighteen days later, I sat on a bench near Notre Dame in Paris. Every joint ached and a patchwork of bruises, stiches and sc.r.a.pes marked my skin. "A week, my a.s.s," I muttered at a few pigeons picking at crumbs on the sidewalk.

A shadow fell over me. Funny how such a small man could cast such a large shadow. Jorge came around to the front of the bench and lowered himself slowly, wincing. "I think the colonel underestimated the infestations out here."

"I'm glad he teamed us up, though," I said. "Trying to divide and conquer might've been a disaster."

"Of that, I have no doubt." He frowned up at the roof of Notre Dame. "Those gargoyles were a true pain in the posterior."

"I fought rock monsters once before, but they were slow, stupid and had a nice, easy target under their arms." At the time, it hadn't seemed easy, but I was more battle-tested now. "Fast, flying stone monsters? G.o.d, I thought we'd never get that last one."

"Me neither." He sighed. "I sent the others back to the hotel to sleep for a while."

"You settle up with the Cardinal?"

"To the extent I could. Wrecking a third of one of the world's most famous churches didn't endear me to him very much."

"How soon before the press gets here?"

He shrugged. "Not long, I suppose. We should get back."

We both rose, but it cost us. I groaned and threw the last of my croissant at the birds. "Bon appet.i.t."

Catching the metro seemed like too much work, so Jorge hailed a cab. The driver looked us over. "Wielders, oui?"

"Oui," we grunted in unison. We'd heard that exact question fourteen times in the last twenty hours.

"The ride is on the house," he said in pa.s.sable English. "And I'll not tell a soul where you are going."

"Thanks." I told him which hotel-a small one near the Arc de Triomphe. No more five-stars for us since Marrakech. I spent the rest of the ride with my head leaned against the headrest and my eyes closed.

Jorge nudged me awake when we arrived. All I wanted was a really hot shower and my bed. This was supposed to be the last hot spot in Europe, and I hoped that meant I'd get a short furlough before Uncle Mike sent me anywhere else. The thought of Ella's lips against mine was the only thing that could force me to crawl out of the cab.

We'd barely made it into the lobby, though, when we found Johnson waiting for us. Dark spots smudged the skin under his eyes, which were bloodshot.

"Heard from the colonel," he said. "Jorge, he asked if you would go to Alaska and meet up with Ramirez. Apparently the monsters from Vancouver have cousins up in the tundra somewhere. They've torn up two entire villages-sixty-eight dead or missing-and are en route to Anchorage."

Jorge shot him a baleful look-it was Alaska in November, after all-but nodded. "I a.s.sume I can sleep a few hours before flying out?"

"Yeah, you don't leave until early evening."

"And us?" I asked, getting the sinking feeling I wouldn't be going home anytime soon.

Johnson gave me a pat on the back that nearly sent me to my knees. "We're going to China."

Chapter Nineteen.

Excitement mixed with wariness and a good shot of dread danced the tango in my stomach as the plane touched down in Bejing. We weren't staying here, because after nearly a month of urban warfare, we were going back to our roots-jungles, forests and villages. The things we were searching for out here had gone to ground far from the main population. We aimed to keep it that way.

The plane taxied to the jetway and I stood as soon as the seatbelt light dinged. "That was a long, long time to be on a plane."

Johnson stretched. "Not as bad as Tokyo to L.A. but close."

"We still have another three hour flight to go, though." I looked out the little window. "Pretty foggy. I'm surprised they let us land."

He laughed. "That's not fog. It's smog. Welcome to the air pollution capital of the world."

"That's gross." Good thing we weren't staying. "At least we're on the ground, right?"

"Hooah," Blakeney murmured, collecting his stuff. After three weeks of travel and fighting, he was a little worse for wear.

We all were.

What I didn't know was whether Will would be meeting me, or if it would be someone slightly less welcome: my father. I still hadn't heard from him. D. C. had been half-demolished-I thought that might rank a phone call, but apparently not.

I shoved that thought to the back of my head. After the last month, my own stupid frustrations meant very little. I needed to focus on the important stuff: saving lives, killing monsters, finding a shaman with all the answers.

Still, it was kind of hard to forget my dad when he was the one out hunting for the shaman. I'd have to deal with him one way or another on this trip.

After a quick bite at the airport, we caught our flight to Chengdu, a major city in Sichuan province. I hadn't realized how huge China was, but it was bigger than the United States, and bordered fourteen countries. A lot of ground to cover. I hoped Will had some leads or this could become a slog really fast.

Once we landed in Chengdu, my team shuffled off the plane and I tried to get my bearings. The airport was teeming with people and I heard conversations in nine different languages at once. By the time we made it out to the curbside pickup area, my head ached from the constant barrage.

"Sir?" Lanningham said to Johnson. "Are those your new men?"

I tracked where he was pointing and spotted two shiny new sergeants standing next to two shiny new Range Rovers. As soon as they caught us looking, both snapped to attention.

"Blakeney?" I said. "I think we can safely say you are no longer the greenest green bean in this outfit."

"I think the last of my green wore off in ... " Blakeney frowned. "Uh, what was the one with the wolf men? Austria?"

"Sounds about right." I glanced at the newbies. Their dog tags flashed bright in the sun and I tucked my battered pair inside my jacket. "Those two make me feel old."

"Play nice," Johnson said. "I picked them myself. They're good men."

I didn't doubt that, but running new teammates, especially a couple with limited combat experience, always made me nervous. Will quietly called them "redshirts" because they didn't have good life expectancy. I couldn't even joke about it; if they didn't make it, that would only add to the death tally I was responsible for.

We gathered up our gear and jogged to the waiting vehicles. The Range Rovers were nice and more comfortable than a Humvee. Lanningham, Blakeney and I rode in one, while Johnson, the equipment and extra supplies rode in the other.

Our driver, Jamison, was the size of a wide receiver with quick gestures, a brown flattop and habit of tacking "sir" onto everything he said-even to me and Blakeney.

"The country is pretty nice, sir," he chattered as we fought traffic. "Really green and stuff. Mr. Cruessan has us canva.s.sing small villages out there. People have been nice so far."

"Anybody speak the local dialects?" Lanningham asked.

Jamison rattled off a long sentence in what sounded like Chinese, then laughed.

"I'll take that as a yes," I said. "So, um, any word from Officer Archer?"

"Our spook?"

Blakeney glared at the back of Jamison's headrest. "Our CIA liaison and Archer's father. Better not hear you call him spook again, understand?"

The tips of Jamison's ears turned red. "Sorry, sir."

I was tempted to tell him to stop calling us sir because Blakeney and I weren't officers-we worked for a living. But that made me think of Davis, which made me think of how far from home I was. "Don't worry about it. I've called him worse. To his face, even."

Everyone laughed uncomfortably. I needed to rein it in and act like a professional for a while. "Has he turned up any intel? He was searching for someone for us."

"Sir, yes sir. He came out last week, stayed a few days, then disappeared again. We haven't seen him since." We stopped at a light and Jamison met my eye in the rearview mirror. "Oh! Mr. Archer, sir? Mr. Cruessan told me to have you call him. They have cell coverage out there, believe it or not."

I pulled out my phone, eyebrow raised. We were going deep into mountainous rainforest, and they had cell towers? Interesting. "How long is our drive?"

"About three hours, sir."

"Well, then I have plenty of time to chit chat," I muttered, dialing Will's number.

It rang six times before Will answered with, "a.s.shat!"

"What did I do to deserve that?"

"I missed you, that's all." He laughed. "We've already bagged seven Pandas."

"Only seven?"

"Yeah. They're spread out all over, so we've had to track them." He paused. "Why?"

I leaned my head against the window, letting the gla.s.s cool my throbbing head. "Over the last eighteen days, Jorge and I've put down sixty-five, um, a.s.sorted."

"If this is a contest, you should know the freak show in Taipei counted as twenty-six."

"That does make me feel better."

He snorted. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Whatever. We're on our way in. Any news from my old man?"

"A little. He found someone who knows someone who heard someone say there's a holy man searching for 'the archer.' He thinks the guy meant Archer with a capital 'A' so he's on the trail."

Lots of hard-to-connect dots in that sentence. "Okay. Maybe he'll turn up again soon."

"Well, he knows you're coming, so I expect him tonight," he said. "I meant to tell you I'm really sorry about Dorland."

I looked at the ragged, burned-out remnants of my team, and a tightness spread through my chest. "Me, too."

"See you later. I have a lovely meatloaf MRE waiting for you, since you like it so much."

Now it was my turn to say, "a.s.shat."

The camp was nestled at the edge of foothills lush with bamboo and other plants, but mountains rose tall and forbidding in the distance. Wild pandas roamed there, and lately, so had unnatural ones. Sichuan province was heavily populated in the cities, so our job was to keep the monsters up here rather than rampaging through every village within, well, rampaging distance.

Four tents, a utility Jeep, another Range Rover, and a stockpile of crates made a barrier around an open s.p.a.ce cleared of vegetation. A fire burned there, lighting up the swiftly falling dusk. Jamison had told us that this was just base camp. If we got enough hits higher up in the mountains, we'd move.

"We have a helicopter to help move up there?" I'd asked. "Because that would be a h.e.l.l of a climb."

"If we need one, I'll make sure the captain gets one," Lanningham had said.

We climbed out of the Range Rovers, me praying that I'd have time for a good, long run in the morning. If I didn't move soon, I thought my knees might go Tin Man-stiff permanently.

Will popped out of the first tent and loped over to punch me square in the bicep.

"Ow, d.i.c.khead. What was that for?"

He grinned. "I felt like it."

Ah, he was lonely. That made sense. The only guy on his team other than Captain Johnson that he knew at all was Lieutenant Nguyen, who was cool, but not very chatty. He preferred leading morning calisthenics to hanging out or exchanging stories. It must've been rough for Will, hunting on his own and coming back to an unfamiliar camp.

"So, how's the new crew?" I asked.

"Pretty good. Still a little skittish around monsters, but I'm breaking them of that quick."

After barking a few orders to Will's team, Johnson strode over and looked Will over. "Still in one piece. Good. I was hoping."