Plague Read online

  “Who are they?” she asked, stepping back.

  Fitz and Jan took her place, one on either side of Logan. “Poachers most likely,” Fitz said, “but I’m not exactly sure why they are in the hole with the rest of the dead.”

  “No bullets,” Jan said, pointing out the obvious.

  “Look,” Logan said, motioning to three of the dead poachers. These were gathered around a long and girthy tusk of what Logan knew to be a bull. A chainsaw lay at their feet.

  “It can’t be…”

  The two Aussie men snapped their attention to the right, straight at Jan, who stepped back in shock. They had never seen him with a look of abject horror on his face before. Logan didn’t even think the man was ever scared.

  He is now.

  “What is it, mate?” Fitz asked, trying to place a hand on his shoulder.

  The bigger man flinched but stopped when a smaller, gentler hand caught his arm. CJ stepped up beside him, rejoining the three men at the edge of the grave. The two had become close over the last year and neither held back their feelings for the other anymore.

  Logan wasn’t exactly sure if they were technically an item. It didn’t matter either way as he approved of her choice. Jan was a strong person, both mentally and physically, and would take care of CJ—not that she couldn’t handle what life threw at her by herself.

  “What is it, Herr Gruber?” Logan asked, getting Jan’s attention, focusing the man.

  Jan stepped forward, blowing out a heavy breath. “It’s the men in there with the animals.”

  Logan looked back down into the pit at the dead poachers, confused. That’s what got this guy all worked up?

  But before he could voice as much, Jan continued. “Look past the newly dead—to the old.”

  Eyebrows creased, Logan did as instructed and paid no attention to the five poachers. He glanced at the first man, noticing the bullet hole in his head. What the hell? This one was obviously older than the others, but besides the unnerving execution-style bullet wound, he only saw shredded rags.

  Clothing.

  Logan then moved on to the next and instantly saw it, embroidered into the man’s uniform. Everyone on the planet that wasn’t just born yesterday would be able to recognize the emblem.

  “Bollocks.”

  CJ and Fitz followed suit and found the body that Logan had seen and instantly froze in the still warm nighttime air. As one, they all shuddered at the symbol’s meaning.

  “Is that…?” CJ asked, her voice trailing off. She knew what it was, but didn’t want to believe it.

  “A swastika,” Logan said, confirming her fears.

  “It’s worse than just the swastika.”

  Everyone turned to Jan.

  “Look at the other symbol, my friends.”

  “Ah, shit,” Fitz said, seeing the easily recognizable double lightning bolt.

  “It’s not just the Nazis,” Jan said, breathing heavily. “It’s Himmler’s SS… The Schutzstaffel made it to Tanzania.”

  6

  “The SS made it down here?” Logan asked. His knowledge of World War Two was fairly deep, but he didn’t know the finer details. He’d studied general World War History while in the service on his down time. He figured if he was in the business of preventing wars, he should, at the very least, learn about them.

  “No, they didn’t,” Jan said, shaking his head as he turned away from the pit, leading the others away from the foreboding place. If he had hair, it would have whipped back-and-forth with as hard as he shook it. “Not that I know of, anyway.”

  “What of your family? Was there ever an account of them traveling this far south?” Logan asked.

  “There were some…ghost stories,” Jan replied. “I have heard tales that never made it to the tabloids, but we were made to believe them as the stuff of myth or folklore.”

  “Anything about the SS having business in Tanzania?” Fitz asked, gripping his combat shotgun tighter.

  The sound of shifting dirt caught everyone’s attention as a breeze kicked up the dirt surrounding the dig. Then as quickly as it came, it stopped, returning the site to its previously quiet state.

  “Not officially, no,” Jan said, “but there was rumors and hearsay about a convoy of Nazi transport trucks arriving at Rommel’s Egypt base unannounced. It was said he was ordered by the offices of Hitler via transcript to not record their visit in any log books on penalty of death.”

  Logan knew that the news of a Nazi SS team making it down to southern Africa would change the way we viewed some of the war. He also knew it would bring a number of unwanted visitors. Which begged the question…

  “What do we do with this?” he asked the group. “It’s not like we can just cover this up, or forget we ever found it.”

  “Either way,” Jan added, “we are going to have every fanatic on the subject traipsing all over our park. Nature is best left alone. We know that. We don’t need hundreds—maybe thousands—of people coming to see this site, destroying the various habitats.”

  “Or endangering themselves to some pretty nasty buggers out here,” CJ added, motioning to the land around them—the whole of Africa.

  The sound of shifting wind and dirt struck the group again, this time eliciting a yelp from CJ, who was nearest to the pit.

  “I think that came from down there,” she said, pointing down into the burial. The trembling of her finger as she pointed definitely gave Logan a reason to believe her. Yes, CJ was quick to startle, but the woman didn’t scare easily.

  “Nah,” Fitz said, “they’re dead, mum. Was probably just the wind picking up and whipping through the brush—”

  The sound started again, this time getting everyone’s attention…towards the excavation. Something was definitely moving down there.

  “You think one of the poachers is alive?” CJ asked, Glock already clutched in her hand.

  “Could be,” Logan said, “but they sure looked down-for-the-count to me when we checked.”

  Then, what sounded like a muffled moan sang out from the bottom of the pit, getting a response out of Pandu. The Kenyan, Saami’s twin in every way—minus the lower tone of his voice—edged towards the rim of the crypt, rifle slightly shaking, but ready.

  “Logan, sir,” Pandu said in heavily accented English. He paused, looking straight down into the seventy-year-old tomb. “Something moves—”

  As the man said, “moves,” a clawed hand sporting black dagger-like talons, reached up and out of the grave, stabbing into Pandu’s gut. Before he could scream out in pain, the hand gripped his pierced stomach and yanked, sending the bleeding SDF member into the shadows below.

  “Pandu!” Saami shouted, seeing his brother attacked and taken. He rushed to the lip, weapon raised, and screamed. “Oh, my God! They’re killing him!” He then released a barrage of gunfire into the darkness as his brother wailed in agony.

  Just as he was about to send his third three-round burst, another hand, this one coated in what could only be his brother’s blood, wrapped around his ankle and squeezed. The audible sound of the man’s bones breaking was horrifying and his shouts of pain worse, as he too was dragged down into the burial.

  They’re? Logan thought to himself, recalling Saami’s horrified words. There’s more than one. But how many?

  “The fuck?” Fitz yelled, leveling his Mossberg at the opening twenty feet in front of them. “What the hell is going on Logan?”

  Logan froze, unable to move. He had no idea how to react. He was more than qualified to take on just about anything this world had to offer. But this…this was something different.

  For what seemed like minutes, but was really more like seconds, the only thing the SDF members could hear was the tearing of fabric, the snapping of bones, and the chewing of flesh.

  “Back up,” Logan whispered. “Slowly.”

  What was left of the initial team backpedaled as one, making it another twenty feet. Then, a hand emerged from the hole, covered in even more blood than before. It
did, indeed, sport a set of menacing black fingernails. Logan then saw a form behind the hand rise. Followed by another. And another. And another. Six in all.

  Six? Wait… There should have only been five, he thought, terrified. There had only been a couple times in his life when he was genuinely frightened, but this topped them all.

  “Hey, boss,” Fitz said, his voice quivering in fright. “Lose the green.”

  He glanced over and saw that Fitz, along with CJ and Jan, had ditched the night vision equipment. They were just standing there, staring towards where Saami and Pandu had been undoubtedly killed.

  Following the advice of his trusted friend, Logan flipped the goggles up and stopped. The only thing he could feel, besides his shaking hands and trembling legs, were the six sets of glowing blood-red eyes burning holes into him. The things that just killed two of his men in a matter of seconds peered up and over the rim of the grave, eyeing what he believed to be their next meal. He’d seen a predator’s hungry look before.

  This was much worse.

  And then the owners of those devilish eyes attacked.

  7

  “Fire!” Logan yelled as he flipped down his night vision goggles. He opened up on the closest man with two quick three-round bursts, all six bullets finding their mark dead center in its chest. The man-thing stumbled and fell, but still stirred.

  Damn, he thought. How the hell do we kill them?

  A single round, popped from CJ’s Glock, striking the man that Logan felled in the forehead. The poacher’s head snapped back and he fell limp. Dead.

  Logan, Fitz, and Jan got the hint.

  Headshots.

  All three men carefully aimed their weapons. Logan fired another controlled burst into one of the four remaining men’s heads, busting it open like one of Gallagher’s watermelons.

  Fitz and Jan both carried shotguns, which they boomed across the Serengeti from point-blank range. The other crazed poachers fell in a heap of blood and gore, silencing the night air.

  “Backs on me,” Logan ordered. The three remaining members of the SDF team backed up into Logan, essentially creating a four man compass of flying lead. If anything tried to spring a sudden attack, one of them would see it coming and alert the others.

  “Was that all of ’em?” Fitz asked, scanning north.

  “Should have been,” CJ replied, “but who knows if there were others who weren’t in the pit, to begin with. They could be roaming the plains for all we know.”

  “It’s not,” Logan said, never taking his eyes off the pit. He knew he would never be able to get the vision of the six sets of demonic eyes out of his nightmares.

  “What?” CJ asked, voice shaking.

  They didn’t see it.

  “There were six of them,” Logan replied. “Only five attacked us. Which means—”

  “Which means…” Fitz said, finishing Logan’s assessment. “Either the sixth is dead dead or he buggered off while we were busy with these blokes.”

  “Quiet,” Jan said, firmly.

  “What is it?” Logan asked in a whisper.

  “Listen,” Jan replied, his voice barely audible. He had a single finger pointed to his ear.

  After a moment, they heard it. There was a faint shuffling sound, like someone—or in this case something—moving farther off in the distance, away from the burial.

  Dammit, Logan thought, keying his ear piece.

  “Mo?” he said. “Come in for immediate EVAC. We have men down.”

  There was a long pause over the airways before Mo replied. “Yes, sir. On my way.”

  Logan looked up towards the kopje and had an idea. “I’m going up there to see if I can spot our friend. Watch my back—and your own—until Mo gets here.”

  Before anyone could argue, Logan ran for the thirty-foot rock formation. The boulders were small enough to scale but large enough to hold his weight. A few of the inner rocks looked like they weighed a couple thousand pounds at minimum. On any other day—or night—he would have enjoyed the climb and the kopje’s natural beauty, but not now. This was no ordinary night.

  Halfway up, he could hear Mo coming in from his holding pattern somewhere in the nighttime sky. He was certainly making good time. Like always.

  Reaching up, Logan found his last handhold. He then clasped the top edge of the rock, finding a seam, and pulled. As he hoisted himself up, the rock beneath his feet shifted, loosening. Scrambling for purchase, Logan shoved with his legs, rolling onto the top of the kopje.

  He landed with a bang of what sounded like metal. He froze, unsure of what just happened. Now, lying on his back, Logan knocked the top of the stone rock formation with his elbow, duplicating the metallic bong of bone on metal.

  “What the…” he said to himself, getting to his knees. Through his night vision, he could see what appeared to be stone, but as he knocked on it again, this time with his knuckles, it banged like you were pounding on the hood of your car.

  He keyed his earbud. “CJ to me. Double time it.”

  “On my way,” CJ replied, never asking why. It’s only when she was halfway up that she asked. “What is it, Logan? Did you find the other…thing…that killed Saami and Pandu.”

  He was so engrossed with his find that he completely forgot to look for the sixth poacher. He quickly scanned the area, finding nothing.

  Shit, he thought. Another time.

  CJ hopped up to the six-by-six uppermost rock, landing with a gong. She paused, looking utterly confused. Then, she looked down at her feet and stomped, prompting another report from the obviously metal rock.

  “Um, that’s not supposed to sound like that,” CJ said, eyebrow raised to the heavens.

  Logan stomped on it one more time, putting his 185lb frame into it. The rock where he was standing didn’t sound as empty.

  “Trade spots with me,” he said, motioning to CJ.

  She complied and they carefully switched positions.

  He stomped again, dead center, and the rock resonated, sounding almost…

  “It sounds hollow,” CJ said like she read his mind.

  “Lights,” Logan said softly. They both lifted their night vision devices and turned on their ultra-bright LED flashlights.

  “Dammit,” CJ cursed, blinking hard, trying to force her eyes to readjust quicker to the brightness. After two more heavy blinks, she looked down and saw Logan fiddling with the edge of what looked like an opening of some kind.

  “Is that what I think it is?” CJ asked.

  Logan unsheathed his knife, an M9 Bayonet, and dug it into the crack between the stone and metal. He pushed and scraped until he dug into a crevice between the two. Once the blade tip was deep enough he asked CJ to move down a section and he pulled.

  The six-by-six rock revealed a four-by-four hatch, as it popped free. The lid was heavy and Logan needed his sister’s help to fully open it. They shoved together, opening the hatch, locking it into place.

  He couldn’t help but smile. But then it faded as Mo came in low and fast, kicking up the dirt surrounding the dig.

  Keying his earbud again, Logan spoke, “Jan you’re with me and CJ. Fitz, go with Mo and see if you can spot the bastard that ran off. If you see him land the Blackhawk on his fucking head and take him out. I wanna see a stain on the bottom of that bird when you get back.”

  After getting a round of “yes sirs,” Logan peered down into the hole he just discovered and noticed two things. First, it wasn’t a hole. It was the shaft to a hidden underground structure of some kind, complete with ladder. And secondly, he saw an emblem he knew all too well engraved into the underside of the lid. Twin lightning bolts.

  “It’s the same,” he said more to himself, hearing Jan come up from behind.

  “The same as what?” The big German was so caught off guard by what he saw he almost fell backward off the kopje.

  “The SS,” Jan said bewildered, CJ gripping his collar. “This can’t be good.”

  8

  He wandered through th
e dark, unable to see more than a few feet in front of himself. The moon, which normally provided enough light to see by, was behind dense cloud cover, only revealing itself a few seconds at a time. So, instead of relying on his sight, he relied on his other senses, particularly his sense of smell.

  Georges Boluva, was born in Zambia, across Tanzania’s southern border, near the capital of Lusaka. He grew up a poacher’s son, so naturally, he took to the family business. It’s all he knew. It was the only steady job around nowadays.

  But now, he didn’t remember any of that, and if he could, he wouldn’t have cared. All he was concerned with now was his next kill…his next meal. He knew he hadn’t always been as bloodthirsty as he was now, but again… He didn’t care. This felt right. It felt normal.

  He looked down at his hands, seeing the elongated obsidian colored talons on his fingers. He smiled at the prospect of using them again. Up close, and personal.

  A sound like a creature stirring caught his attention as he meandered through the darkness. He quickly stopped unsure of the direction in which to go, but quickly heard the noise again off to his left. It was followed by a low growl, emanating from a creature he knew very well. A lion.

  Fueled by the bloodlust that now consumed him, Georges charged into the dark, claws outstretched. He flexed his fingers as he neared, ready to hack and slash anything that he came across in the low light.

  He stopped a few hundred feet later and smiled a sickly, fang-filled grin. These too were new…and he liked them. It helped him tear the throat out of one of the men that got too close. The men with the guns.

  Movement caught his red-tinted gaze as the cloud cover opened enough for him to see the family of lions fifty feet away from him. He stopped and licked his lips. He could smell the blood that pumped through the beast’s heart, feeding the rest of the animal’s body with the life-giving liquid. It was intoxicating, like that of a woman’s sweet perfume. He could see it too, through the crimson that engulfed his vision. The pulsating of major arteries was there just underneath the skin.