Altar of Eden

  But for that to succeed, they needed to move swiftly and silently.

  Behind him, a radio squelched loudly—then a voice called. “Team One. Report in.”

  The Border Patrol agent placed a hand on his radio, but T-Bob stopped him from unclipping it and shook his head. The four in the boat went dead still, eyes staring outward. They waited a long breath.

  Except for the fire’s rumble, the swamp had gone silent around them.

  “I’M GETTING NO answer from Mansour’s team,” Scott reported in.

  Seated stiffly in the canoe, Jack was about to reply when a spat of rifle fire echoed across the bayou. It sounded as close as the next tree, but he knew it had to have come from at least a mile off.

  They had their answer.

  Lorna was right. The cat was here.

  Jack lifted the radio. “How long until the chopper gets here?”

  “ETA in five.”

  “Have it sweep to the east. Toward where the others went.” He remembered Lorna’s concern about the helicopter’s lights, rotorwash, and engine scaring off the jaguar. He prayed it would work. “Tell the pilot to keep low to the tree line. Maximum noise.”

  Randy called from the back of the boat. “What’s going on?”

  Jack kept the radio to his lips. “And, Scotty, watch yourselves over there. Get everyone back on board.”

  “Already done. We’re watching both shorelines. Are you heading back to the boat?”

  Jack felt the eyes of the other men on him. “No. We’ll continue on. Try to circle past the fire and offer support to whoever’s trapped at the farm. They may need our firepower with that cat on the loose.”

  “Aye, sir. Understood.”

  Jack lowered the radio.

  Randy spoke from the stern. “So we’re going on?”

  He nodded. “We’re almost around the fire.”

  Jack stared through his goggles. The heat and glow of the inferno were plain through the trees. He hated to turn his back on the Thibodeaux brothers and his other teammates, but it would take them longer than five minutes to retreat out of the swamp and even longer to track the other canoe’s path on the far side of the canal.

  Jack pointed to a wider flowing stream heading due south. If it ran relatively straight, they could use it to skirt the edge of the fire and reach the alligator farm.

  Randy sighed and shoved off. The two other men paddled. The canoe glided into the channel, and they were off again. Jack tracked the encroachment of the forest fire.

  Unfortunately, the channel grew narrower and tree limbs lowered, until it felt like they were traveling through a chute, made even more pronounced by the tunnel vision of his goggles. Jack crouched low, and still low-hanging branches batted at his helmet and beards of moss slapped his face.

  Randy swore behind him.

  But at least the fires stayed to the east of them.

  Unfortunately the stream grew more tortuous, taking sudden twists and opening into stagnant side pools. Fireflies swirled in the night, creating luminous silver-green clouds through his goggles.

  Half blinded by a swarm, Jack did not see the branch. It smacked him in the face and clawed at his cheek. He shoved it out of the way, only then realizing his mistake.

  The branch was soft, covered in cloth.

  The body fell out of the tree overhead and crashed atop the canoe. Limbs tangled; men shouted in surprise and horror. Jack ripped off his goggles and yelled for everyone to calm down.

  The corpse draped half in the water, facedown, over the edge of the canoe. It was missing a leg, a hand.

  Randy pointed a paddle ahead.

  Jack twisted. The glow from the nearby fires lit up a gruesome sight. Another two bodies hung in the trees like macabre Christmas decorations. As he stared, thick droplets of blood splashed into the water.

  Jack glanced past them. About twenty yards away, a fence crossed the stream, sealing it off. A sign hung there. Though it was dark, he could still make out the red lettering.

  NO TRESPASSING.

  It had to be the outskirts to the alligator farm.

  They’d made it. Confirming this, Jack heard people shouting off in the distance. The roar of the fire obscured any words. But Jack discerned brighter voices among the tumult.

  Children.

  “Keep moving!” Jack said.

  His two men dumped the body overboard. Paddles splashed, and the canoe glided forward, passing under the draped bodies. A cold drop stuck the back of Jack’s hand. He stared down at the splash of crimson, then back at the bodies. The positioning of the dead men so near the farm seemed too purposeful, as if they’d been left as a warning, the cat marking her territory.

  Exactly how smart was this beast?

  Chapter 18

  Stella yelled to be heard above the scared cries and sobs of the children. “Spread the campfires in a circle around us! Stoke them high!”

  “Why are we staying here?” one den mother asked. “The fire’s spreading. We’ll be trapped.”

  Stella noted other eyes staring at them. Many of them hadn’t seen the big cat or how quickly the monster moved. If they tried to escape on foot, it would pick them off one at a time.

  “The campsite is open space,” Stella shouted. “The wind is heading the other direction. And even if the fires circle us, we have access to water to soak ourselves. But just in case, we should start wetting down bandannas, be ready to cover noses and mouths against the smoke if the wind shifts.”

  “She’s right,” her father said, nodding to her. “We’re safest if we stick here.”

  He was covered in soot and sweat. He had been helping the men and older boys with setting up the protective ring of fires. Her mother was with some of the other women, keeping the younger children corralled together, trying to stave off panic.

  “Someone’s coming!” a man yelled, pushing up to them but pointing back at the farm.

  Stella and her father turned. Three figures stood on one of the boardwalks on the far side of the breeding ponds. Smoke wafted over them. The fire raged nearby.

  Where had they come from?

  A fourth man climbed over one of the border fences and joined the others.

  “Are those Gar’s men?” her father asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Stella squinted. A gust of wind cleared the smoke for a second. Three of the men wore uniforms, had helmets. They all carried weapons. “Look like the military.”

  They definitely weren’t Gar’s cronies.

  In fact, she had seen neither hide nor hair of Garland Chase since the fire. After fleeing the burning house, he had hightailed it toward the radio shack near the edge of the farm. It sat on the highest ground, its roof bristling with antennas. Gar must have decided to hole up there, the coward likely barricading himself inside.

  On the other side of the farm, the four men had gathered and now pounded across the elevated walkways. They headed straight toward the campsite. The closer they got, the more sure Stella grew about her initial assessment. The men wore combat uniforms and carried assault weapons. As they ran, they guarded both sides of the boardwalk as if expecting to be attacked.

  Did they know about the giant cat?

  In less than a minute, the four men came running up. Her father and the scoutmaster met them. The leader of the combat team stood a head taller than the others. He studied the camp with a calculating eye.

  “Agent Jack Menard with the CBP,” the man introduced himself.

  So he was with the Border Patrol. As her father gave a thumbnail version of their story, she noted a patch on his uniform. It bore the symbol of a rearing Pegasus with three lightning bolts and the encircling words: Special Response Team. They were the elite of the Patrol.

  “We have a boat on the far side of the fires,” the man said. “Even if it could reach here, it’s too small for this many people. But a Coast Guard rescue unit is on its way with helicopters and boats. Once they’re here, we can begin ferrying everyone to safety.
But it’ll take time. We’ll need everyone to stay calm.”

  Her father lowered his voice. “You should know that there’s some sort of white tiger out there. One hell of a big monster.”

  A nod. “We know. Didn’t you get the evacuation warning?”

  Her father glanced sheepishly at her, then down.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the man said, not bothering to scold. Water under the bridge, his expression seemed to say. He even clapped her father on the shoulder. “You’ve done a good job setting up a perimeter fire wall. If we stay alert and keep weapons ready, we’ll be okay.”

  Her father’s back drew straighter. Stella studied the agent with new eyes, appreciating how he didn’t browbeat her father and avoided demoralizing him during such a tense time. Recriminations could come later. For now, the agent wanted everyone focused.

  No wonder this man was a leader.

  Agent Menard passed on a few orders to his men, then unclipped a radio from his belt. She hovered a step away, eavesdropping.

  “We’ve reached the farm. But there are over sixty people here. Men, women, children. Have you heard from the other team?”

  As he listened she noted his fingers tighten on the radio.

  His voice cracked, bright with anger, thickening his Cajun accent. “She’s gone and done what?”

  LORNA HEADED OVERLAND through a section of bottomland forest. Two Border Patrol agents flanked her: Garcia and Childress. Ahead of her trotted Burt. The hound’s nose was buried in the marsh grasses. The dog ran with his tail high.

  She carried her assembled tranquilizer gun stiffly in front of her. It was a .50-caliber Pneu-Dart rifle loaded with a clip of five 1.5cc darts containing etorphine hydrocloride, known as M99, a highly potent neuroleptanalgesic. A single drop could kill a man. Five milligrams was enough to drop a rhino. Still, once darted, the drug took time to send an animal into a catatonic state.

  So she was happy to have Garcia and Childress at her back with their assault rifles.

  The three of them had left the CBP’s Zodiac tied up on to the eastern bank of the channel. Minutes ago, they’d all heard the sporadic gunfire from the team on this side of the canal. Then nothing since. They’d kept watch on the forest through night-vision goggles, but there had been no sign of the other team.

  Still, during that vigil, Lorna had spotted something of interest out in the swamp: a heat signature about fifty yards back into the bayou. The shape was indistinct. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked too large to be a raccoon. She watched it for a full minute. It didn’t move and seemed nested at the foot of a large cypress. Finally the silhouette rose and stretched its back, forming a characteristic feline arch, that seemingly boneless curve so typical of cats. It turned a few times, then settled back down.

  Could it be the jaguar’s cub, the sibling to Bagheera back at ACRES?

  It could explain why the big cat had turned so aggressive. The mother wasn’t only defending territory and food supply, but also her child. No wonder she attacked the Thibodeaux boat first. That team had been unlucky enough to pick this side of the channel, where the cub was hidden.

  It all came down to the cub.

  If they could capture it, get it back to the boat, they’d have the perfect bait for its mother, a way to lure it away from the assaulted team— that is, if the men were still alive. And if not, they’d still have a tool to control the jaguar.

  And that’s just what she had argued with Scott Nester.

  Control the cub, you control the mother.

  It was worth the risk of a fast search. She had insisted on coming along, warning Jack’s second-in-command that she’d jump overboard and swim to shore if necessary. As they readied the Zodiac, Scott had tried to radio Jack for authorization. But there’d been no response, so Scott finally relented, just as concerned about his teammates’ fate.

  Still, his instructions had been firm to Garcia and Childress. “There and back. If it runs off, you don’t pursue.” He had pointed at Lorna. “Drag her back by her hair if she gives you any trouble.”

  So they moved swiftly through the forest. They aimed toward the large cypress. But there was no way to move without any noise. Within a few steps, Lorna watched the cub’s silhouette slip behind the bole of the tree, alerted to their presence.

  Was it still there or had it run off?

  Generally cubs tend to stick to their nests, even in the face of danger. She recalled a nature documentary in which an entire litter of lion cubs was killed by a cobra, simply because they feared leaving their den. With any luck, the cub was still there.

  As Lorna hiked, she caught the barest whisker of a heat signature through her goggles. The cub was still behind the tree, but it looked ready to bolt. She dared not try tranquilizing it. The darts were too potent for something so small.

  But she couldn’t let it get away.

  “Burt . . .”

  The hound stopped, one ear cocked back, listening, but he kept his nose fixed ahead. He didn’t need any goggles to pick out the cub. Lorna had to trust that the hound was typical of hunting dogs in the area, trained like most to hunt raccoons.

  And there was only one sure way of catching a raccoon.

  “Go tree him, boy,” she commanded.

  Burt lunged ahead, running low, spearing through the grass. He angled to the side, circling out and around. He wasn’t about to let his prey escape into the deeper woods.

  As Lorna had hoped, the cub stuck to its instincts. It didn’t want to leave the spot where its mother had left it, but it also recognized the threat in Burt. Reacting on pure feline instinct, the cub shot up the cypress.

  Burt hit the tree, letting out a loud bawl, announcing his success.

  They all took off at a run toward the treed cat.

  Lorna hated to terrify the small creature, but she also recognized the necessity of its capture.

  And quickly.

  The dog’s barking was surely already drawing the big cat in their direction. Lorna reached the tree first. “Quiet, Burt.”

  The hound bounded about the trunk, excited, tongue lolling, but he obeyed and stopped his bawling.

  The cub was perched on a limb overhead. Barely newborn, it hadn’t been able to climb too high. Huge eyes, glassy with fear, stared down at them. It hissed a warning, its coat bristling out in all directions.

  Lorna had brought along a thick red fire blanket, carried over one shoulder. She set down her rifle, unfurled the blanket, and tossed it like a net over the cub. The weight and the surprise rolled the cub off its perch. Tangled in the blanket, it fell, but Lorna caught it in her arms. It squirmed and fought inside the bundled blanket, but like its sibling it was malnourished. It didn’t have much fight.

  She hugged the cub through the blanket, trying to stifle its panic with a calming pressure. From inside came a plaintive mewling. The sound tugged at her heart.

  Poor thing.

  “Ma’am, time to go,” Garcia said.

  He and his partner held their rifles tight to their shoulders. They all strained to listen for any telltale sign of an angry mother barreling toward them. Instead, a different noise intruded: a heavy thump-thumping.

  They all turned to the north. Lorna winced as the bright lights flared in her goggles. It had to be the helicopter Jack had called down from Bay Lanaux. One-handed, she pushed the goggles to her forehead. Darkness enveloped her, and the brightness dissolved to a dot in the sky. The chopper was still a half mile off, but the noise grew louder with every heartbeat.

  “Let’s go,” Garcia pressed.

  Lorna reached her free arm and grabbed her rifle from the grass.

  As she straightened, she found herself staring at a pair of large eyes deep in the forest, reflecting the meager light, glowing in the dark.

  She froze.

  A deep growl flowed from Burt.

  Then in a blink, the eyes vanished.

  She backed in a hurried stumble.

  “What’s wrong?” Childress asked.

&
nbsp; “Run!”

  Chapter 19

  Lorna clambered from the Zodiac up into the boat. She was winded. Her heart pounded in her throat. Reaching the open deck, she gazed back toward shore.

  Why hadn’t the big cat given chase?

  Overhead, the helicopter hovered. Its rotors pounded down at them, shaking the leaves and branches of the tree line.

  Though they had reached the boat with their precious cargo, she knew they were all far from safe. The tree line was only ten yards off. The cat could easily leap that distance from a dead standstill.

  Garcia and Childress recognized this danger, too. As soon as their boots hit the deck, they spun with their rifles up and pointed toward the shore.

  Burt hopped up from the Zodiac and sniffed at the blanket-wrapped parcel in Lorna’s arms.

  Scott Nester joined them. He had to yell to be heard. “You found the kitten?”

  “Cub,” Lorna corrected. “And its mother.”

  Scott stared at the dark bank. Nothing moved. “Garcia? Do you see anything?”

  “Nothing but friggin’ fireflies.” The man kept alert, but the taut tension in his shoulders loosened. “Maybe Dr. Polk only saw some reflection off the water. Childress and I didn’t see anything out there.”

  “She’s out there,” Lorna insisted. It hadn’t been refracted starlight off water. Those glowing eyes still burned in her memory, bright with a cunning intelligence.

  “If you’re right,” Scott said, “then she’ll stick close, knowing we have her cub. That should keep her away from the men out there.”

  Lorna read the unspoken caveat in the man’s worried expression.

  If any of them are still alive.

  Lorna hiked the cub higher in her arms. It had settled, the warmth and darkness lulling it into submission. She stared out at the dark woods.

  Why hadn’t the cat come after them? Lorna sensed it wasn’t the noise and blaze of the hovering helicopter that held her back. She’d had no fear of attacking the airboat and its pilot.

  The cub squirmed, seeking a more comfortable spot. While this cub wasn’t as sickly as the one they’d recovered from the shipwrecked trawler, it was still in poor shape. Had the mother known that and given up on the cub? Was that why she hadn’t given chase?