Part 31 (1/2)

”What happened after the fog came in?”

”A lot of confusion,” said Shuko. ”They had no idea what was going on. They seemed disoriented and completely unaware. You heard the animal howling, as did I, but just before the mist dissipated, I heard two sounds that could only have been people getting knocked out.”

”You're sure about that?”

”Absolutely.” Shuko pulled back the hood of the ghillie suit so she could lay down the parabolic microphone. ”This thing is state-of-the-art technology. And I'm pretty good at identifying sounds like that.”

Nezuma pondered this for a moment. ”Once the fog rolled in, I couldn't see anything. The way it came, though, seemed rather bizarre. I thought it was a natural occurrence, but now I'm not so sure.”

”You think they had a fog machine?”

”I don't know. What I do know is Kennichi and Creed are now missing from the glen where they were a few moments ago. Their gear is also missing. The whole thing seems rather strange to me.”

”Looks like a s.n.a.t.c.h job,” Shuko said.

Nezuma smiled. ”That,” he said, ”is exactly what it looks like to me, too.”

”You think someone beat us to the punch?”

Nezuma undid his hood and let it back so fresh air could circulate on his skin. ”Possibly. But I don't know who.”

”Your Yakuza friends,” Shuko said.

Nezuma spit. ”They're not friends, Shuko-you know that. As far as I'm concerned, they're idiots. And they certainly don't have the ability to pull off something like this in such an isolated area. It would require far too much planning and technical skill to bring it off successfully. Plus, they would need an intimate knowledge of this area.”

”They don't have that knowledge.”

”No,” Nezuma said. ”They don't.”

”Which leaves us with what-two possibilities?” Shuko said.

Nezuma nodded. ”A party we might know about or a party we have no idea about.”

”I doubt we'll figure it out here.”

”True. What did you hear before the mist came down?”

”The woman said something about the waterfall.”

Nezuma sat up. ”What did she say?”

”Something about it looking honeycombed. That she saw something while she was inside it.”

”Interesting.” Nezuma glanced at the waterfall. It fell from a soaring height, probably close to two hundred feet. It was a pure wall of water falling over rocks that had probably been there for hundreds of thousands of years.

”What are you thinking?” Shuko asked.

He glanced at Shuko, who was already pulling off her ghillie suit. ”I am considering the possibility that Creed is actually a bit smarter than I recognized early on. That perhaps she did indeed see something when she was in the waterfall.”

”The entrance to the caves?”

”Very possibly.” Nezuma rolled his suit up and stowed it in his backpack. ”Let's get going.”

Shuko followed him down the side of the cliff. They'd positioned themselves there earlier after Nezuma had declared it one of the few areas from which they could comfortably observe the glen without fear of someone coming up behind them.

The trail down was steep, with bits of shale and gravel coming loose with every step. Nezuma and Shuko adjusted their footwork accordingly, using their body weight to slow their descent so they wouldn't accidentally fall.

At the bottom, they paused, squatting by the trail leading up. Nezuma used hand signals to let Shuko know they should wait to see if anyone was around and reacted to their walk down from the cliff.

But after ten minutes of nothing but natural noises, Nezuma signaled it was time to move. He drew out his own gun, a smaller Heckler & Koch UMP that he could fire comfortably with one hand.

Shuko came behind him, cradling the heavier H&K. The bullets in her gun were much more powerful than Nezuma's. They moved to the glen. Nezuma approached first with Shuko braced by a tall pine scanning the area in case of an ambush.

Nezuma knelt where the camp fire had been only forty minutes before. The ground was damp and there remained only a patch of burned gra.s.s where there had been stones, logs and char from the fire.

He frowned. What could so utterly erase the presence of people in such a brief span of time?

Even the pine needles that Kennichi and Creed had used to make themselves more comfortable had been scattered around. In fact, he realized, someone coming through this glen would be hard-pressed to prove that there had been anyone camping there recently.

Nezuma shook his head. There was no way on earth this could have been carried out by anyone he knew of.

He turned and waved Shuko in. It went against his better judgment to bring his cover fire in, but he wanted her to see what they were dealing with.

Shuko knelt and brushed her hands along the ground. Nezuma knew she was looking for sign-tracks left by Kennichi and Creed and possibly by whatever had grabbed them almost an hour before.

”There's nothing here,” she whispered. ”We saw them, clear as day, and we saw them vanish. But there's nothing here that would prove they even existed.”

Nezuma nodded. That's what he was afraid of. He nodded to the waterfall. ”Let's get in there.”

Shuko stood and they moved to the pond. But rather than strip down, Nezuma and Shuko split up and each took a side, scanning the entire area.

Nezuma caught water spray in his face and he brushed it away, still alert for any possible indication that the mist and what it contained was coming back. He bent low and looked behind the waterfall as much as he could. But given its position, doing so was almost impossible.

He saw Shuko coming back. ”Any luck?”

She shook her head. ”It's too difficult getting a glimpse at it. I think we need to actually get into the water.”

”I agree,” Nezuma said.

Shuko hefted her G-36. ”I'll get the dry bag.”

Nezuma turned back to the waterfall. What was it about this that had produced such an odd occurrence? And if this really was the entrance to some sort of hidden monastery, then how did they access it?

Shuko returned and Nezuma slid his UMP into the bag. Shuko closed the zipper and then secured the overlap that would protect the guns from exposure to water. Shuko's would fire anyway even when submerged, but Nezuma wasn't sure about the performance of his UMP after being dunked. He didn't want to take any chances.

Shuko strapped her pack on again and hefted the dry bag, as well. From her belt, she drew out her knife and stepped into the water.