Chapter 20

The return trip to the camp was only a ten minute drive, had they driven directly there. Instead, they circled North and came towards the camp from the opposite side. As they neared the top of the ridge, keeping the hilltop between them and the camp on the other side, Bob pulled to a stop.

They climbed out, and with a look, split up. Kat headed along the ridge line north for a hundred meters, then lowering herself to the ground, she edged forward under the low brush and grasses. Easing herself over the top of the ridge line, she raised herself up into a crouch and moved back towards the camp, her senses alert for danger.

She was within ten meters of where she knew the camp to be before she could see anything. The camouflage they had set up the night before was damnably effective. The camp was silent and still and no one was in sight. She knew Alex Vargas had set out sensors and should be aware of her presence by now, but there was no sign that someone was coming to investigate. She froze in place, realizing that the silence could mean that Vargas, Deacon and Roberts could already be out in the woods, watching her approach.

That could be awkward. Raising her hands, but remaining in her crouched position, she slowly turned a 360 degree circle. If they were watching, she wanted to be sure that they recognized her as one of the good guys.

Feeling a little foolish, she lowered her arms and resumed her creep forward, cursing the lack of foresight that allowed them to leave that morning without an easier way to contact the men they had left in camp.

Scanning the ground as she approached, she selected several small stones. When she was a mere five meters away close enough for her to be lethally effective with the flechette pistol, even through the heavy foliage, she tossed a stone against the side of the nearest tent. When there was no response, she tossed stones against each of the tents in turn, hoping.

Nothing. This was not good, not good at all. Deciding to let Bob take the lead, she whispered "Holding" just loud enough for her ear bud to pick up, and hunkered down, covering the camp with her pistol...

It wasn't long before she saw movement, and could watch Bob slide from tent to tent, peering in to each one with his pistol leading the way. After he had checked the last tent, he darted back into the underbrush and disappeared from sight.

His voice came over the radio, "Mule, go!"

Kat didn't hesitate, moving immediately back the way she had come but crossing the ridge line by a different route. She moved slowly, and silently towards the spot where they had left the vehicle. Her caution may have saved her life.

A leaf, still green and hale, drifted down and swirled to the ground in front of her as she made one of many frequent pauses to listen and search the woods ahead of her. Kat stared at the leaf for a minute, trying to figure out why it distracted her so.

It was a green leaf. Not a dead leaf, or an insect eaten leaf whose purchase on a branch had been compromised, but a live leaf.

Not daring to even breathe, she let her eyes move upward, scanning the branches of the tree above her for as far as she could see. Then, as slowly as she could, she tilted her head back and looked straight up.

There! Perched in the crotch of the tree, where the trunk split into four, almost equally-sized large branches, was a shimmering form. Someone wearing adaptive camouflage was waiting, watching the area. If she had not been right beneath the man, she never would have noticed that he was there. The adaptive mechanism was obviously designed for the sides and, possibly the top view. How often would a man have to be hidden from someone standing underneath his feet?

There was no way that the person could see the mule from that position, so she had to assume it as a picket of some kind, a forward observation post who would warn a larger body of troops if the enemy, her and Bob, were spotted. How she had managed to pass without notice on the way out, she had no idea, but she was not going to tempt fate on the way back in. Gauging how high the fork was, she thought that if she stood on tip-toe, she could probably touch the man's boot, and that gave her an idea.

With frequent looks back at the barely visible figure in the tree, she searched for a stick, a rock, something large and heavy enough to throw as a distraction. She found what she wanted, and cursed silently, under her left foot. Taking a deep breath, her muscles already feeling the fatigue of holding to her crouch for so long, she shifted her weight and slowly inched her foot backwards.

When she was able to finally get her fingers wrapped around the wood, she took a deep breath and threw it, as hard as she could, down-slope and away from the direction of the mule. Above her, she heard the man shift position, hopefully bringing whatever firearm he had to bear on the noise.

From her crouched position, she sprung straight up, her fingers grasping for, and finding, a loose fold of the camouflage sheath that covered the man in the tree. The hidden man, completely unready for the additional weight of a second person pulling at his uniform, was yanked backwards and flew over Kat's head, hitting the forest floor with a ground-shaking thump. His scoped rifle clattered to the ground a meter away.

Kat, falling backwards to clear the path for the tumbling man, turned her momentum into a messy, but effective, backwards somersault, regaining her feet in a quick second. She lunged forward and let her weight fall onto the man's chest area, her knees slamming into this belly and ribs. Her knife was easily able to part the tough material of the camouflage cover and, to her surprise, she was staring at the red face and bulging eyes of Alex Vega.

Kat, her knife now just barely nicking the carotid artery on the side of Alex's neck as her entire weight pressed down on the knee that was keeping him from breathing.

She called out to Bob. "I got Vega here; he was perched in a tree with an adaptive camo cover and a rifle. He was covering our most likely avenue of approach to the camp."

"Sonofa..." Bobs voice came back immediately. "Hold him. On my way."

Kat hopped to her feet and backed off, out of arms reach. Sheathing her knife, she drew one of her pistols and covered Vega with it until Bob arrived.