Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 140965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Uneasy, he paused just as he was coming up on the third corner, the one also facing the river. The rain was steady now, falling in fine drops little more than a mist, so that a gray veil seemed to be descending over the forest. He could use that to conceal himself and hunt for whoever was shadowing him. He tried to “feel” the energy. He could always feel an enemy long before he came upon one, but this time he didn’t seem to ever be close enough to get a feel for whoever was watching.
He gained ground under cover of the darkness, coming up on the two soldiers who were clearly uneasy. They continually tried to raise the other guards, their voices reflecting their growing fear. Unlike the others, they turned, going back to back, weapons ready while they talked frantically into their radios, now raising the alarm that too many of the guards weren’t answering.
Shylah Cosmos lay in the slight depression that afforded her some cover, puzzling out the identity of the lone man ruthlessly cutting down the guards of the Milisi Separatis Sumatra. He was not just good; he was a freaking killing machine. He could have been a robot programmed to kill. There didn’t appear to be one wasted motion. He didn’t seem to need rest. He just flowed across the ground, like a dark wraith in the night, like a ghost …
She gasped and shoved her knuckles into her mouth, biting down to keep from making a sound. He had to be a GhostWalker. She was looking at a legitimate GhostWalker. The real deal. He was that good. That smooth. So quiet he couldn’t be real. He looked more a predator, more an animal flowing across the ground than a human. She blinked several times to keep her focus. She’d been following him ever since she’d caught a shadow sliding into the village and then the infirmary.
He’d gone right into the enemy stronghold without so much as a flinch. He could really have been a ghost for all the MSS members noticed him as he walked among them. No way could Shylah not have noticed him. He had a distinctive build. He seemed larger than life, but maybe it was because she was watching him do the impossible. In one night he had made at least twenty-five kills single-handedly. That was impressive. Four in the village, three of the four corners, and that was two guards each. Across the back of the village, in front and down one side, were five each. He might have made more kills had the guards not been in continual contact with one another.
She knew that the soldiers would try to raise their commander, and she knew that he was already dead. She’d seen the GhostWalker do the impossible and kill him. She knew it was a clean kill because she’d actually gotten into the house to see with her own eyes. Up close, the kill had been grisly, the sword blade slicing cleanly through the man’s throat. The dead commander was staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide open, the blade protruding. The eyes made her sick to her stomach and she’d had to turn away. Still, as deaths went, she considered it the perfect ending for a man like that, although she would have liked to have known he suffered before he went.
Shylah had seen the effects of the virus on the people of Lupa Suku and she was certain the commander had access to the virus and had infected the villagers with it. She’d been tracking the three virologists who had created the virus for some time and her search had brought her here to Sumatra. There had been five incidents that she knew of to date, all occurring right around the Banyuasin River. The first three had been small and could have been easily overlooked, but she’d been sent in as soon as the first incident had been recorded.
A fisherman on the Banyuasin River had found three men dead, their bodies bloated and ravaged by some horrible disease, but each in a different dwelling. The three men had makeshift camps they’d used as a base to hunt and fish. They hadn’t been together, nor did they seem to have had any contact with one another when she’d traced their movements, yet all three men had died the same way.
The fisherman who’d found the bodies had called the authorities and they’d made a report. Dr. Whitney immediately had been notified that an unknown virus appearing to be hemorrhagic had killed three random people, men who made their living on the river. Unfortunately, Whitney suspected his three missing virologists had created the virus and she’d been sent in to confirm. More, Whitney was certain the three were testing the virus, or showing buyers what it could do. He feared the virus had been offered for sale to the MSS and they had used it on the unsuspecting forgotten tribe.