Part 74 (1/2)

My third source was a cop from DCPD named Jerry Spencer. He was a grumpy son of a b.i.t.c.h, but he could work a crime scene like Sherlock Holmes. He didn't just see, he observed. And he kept his opinions in neutral until he had enough facts to build a reasonable supposition. Even then, he was never sold on a theory as long as there was a potential for a decent competing theory.

So I stood there and I let the scene speak to me.

Here were the things I could tell for sure.

Rattlesnake Team had come into this valley from the west. As I walked around a clearing that must once have been the town center, I found the trail of their footprints at a few hundred yards, and then the faint brush marks from where Finn and his boys erased the signs of their presence as they prepared to lay a trap. The four of them separated. Finn went through a short tunnel that curled and rose to a flat rock on the far side of the town, almost certainly to set up a good elevated shooting position. Personally, I thought it was a questionable choice.A good shooting position should be in can't-miss range, but even for a sniper as good as Finn that spot was at the outer edge of safe range. Its only virtue was an element of absolute surprise, but there were better choices he could have made. Maybe that was part of whatever went wrong here. One bad choice can shove everything else downhill in an avalanche of consequences.

The other three guys from Rattlesnake skirted the edge of the town square and found concealed spots to set up an ambush. There were the distinctive marks in the sand of men sitting, lying p.r.o.ne, and kneeling.That spot was thick with their sh.e.l.l casings.

I went upslope and that's when I found the caravan. Or what was left of it. From ground level, it looked like an empty trail because of a raised lip of ragged stone. But as I drew near, I heard blowflies and smelled the stink of rotted meat. A dozen of the corpses were adult men, and one was a boy of about ten. My heart twisted for the kid. It's insane how many cultures drag their children into the middle of a war, often literally putting guns in their hands and metaphorically painting bull's-eyes over their hearts. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

There were also three dead horses, their bellies swollen from internal gases and crawling with flies and maggots.

The ground all around them was littered with sh.e.l.l casings. The men had made a fight of it, but they all went down.

There was a sudden rasp of static in my ear. ”Bug to Cowboy.” ”Go for Cowboy. Good to hear you, kid.”

”Hey,” he said, ”we might only have this connection for a few seconds. NASA's now saying that there might be some combination of minerals in the mountains where you are that's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the signal. Nothing else seems to make sense.”

”You have any useful intel?”

”We got a couple of good thermals and some clean satellite images and your whole area is clean. Just the same four signals- Echo and Finn.”

”No one else?”

”No.”

”Bug, see if you can take another look at the area we just left. The convoy ambush. I thought I spotted the rest of Rattlesnake Team there, but I lost them.”

”We've scanned it. No life signs, no thermals, no visuals, and no telemetry from the RFID chips.There's nothing out there but dead Taliban guys and lizards.”

”Look again.”