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)
Colorful birds were everywhere. He identified scarlet-rumped trogon and the red-naped trogon. Eventually, he spotted the Asian paradise flycatcher and a blue-throated bee-eater. He’d already seen the blue-eared kingfisher when he’d been closer to the river. He looked for the rarest of the birds, the helmeted hornbill, wanting a sign of good luck, but there were none to be seen. This was a place poachers often came to trap birds to sell in other countries as there were so many sought-after species. That, in turn, could mean there were traps set by the villagers.
Farther out from the fruit trees was a small grouping of Cinnamomum burmanni trees. This village had everything it needed, not only to survive, but to thrive. The cinnamon in the bark could be harvested and traded as well as used by the villagers.
Draden took his time studying the layout of the forest floor. Once the members of the MSS came, he would have to move fast, kill most and then track one back to their nest. He wanted to know where every trap might be, so he didn’t get caught in one. After mapping out the forest floor in every direction as far as he could see, he marked the places he thought a trap most likely would be set.
He closed his eyes and studied the effects of the virus on his body. He could find none. His guess was, going off incubation for the Ebola and Marburg viruses, he had two to twenty days to find the home of the MSS terrorists and kill them. As far as he was concerned, that gave him plenty of time to get his job done.
He might have dozed off but when the insects stopped their continuous droning, his eyes were quartering the forest floor for his prey. Two men approached from the direction of the burning village. He could smell the smoke, but the glow of the flames had died down. If the fire had licked at the surrounding trees and brush, it hadn’t spread far, at least it didn’t appear as though it had, thanks to the level of saturation from the continuous rain. There was nothing he could do even if the flames had found the trees and brush. Lupa Suku had to be burned for the good of the country.
Both men studied the ground, searching for signs that Draden had come this way. They were Indonesian and appeared to be used to tracking in the forest. They didn’t hesitate as they moved through the dense vegetation. They were quiet and appeared to listen to the warnings of the animals and insects. Neither spotted him sitting up in the tree. He watched them for a few minutes, getting a feel for them. They talked back and forth in hushed tones, pointing out a bruised leaf and a crushed frond of fern as evidence of his passing. Since he hadn’t come from that direction, he knew he wasn’t the one leaving behind the signs for them to follow. Idly, he wondered who had.
He let them nose around right under the tree he sat in. Neither looked up. Not once. Their eyes were trained on the ground as they cast back and forth for any kind of a track. One squatted suddenly and pointed to the ground where Draden was certain a trap had been placed for any poachers. The trap was uncovered, proving him right.
It was hot. Rain began to fall, a steady drizzle that hit the leaves of the canopy and filtered down to the forest floor. Light was streaking through the sky, turning the rain to an eerie silver. This was a far cry from his modeling days. He waited until the guerrillas pointed in the opposite direction of the village and started to walk that way.
Very calmly, he put a bullet through the head of one and the shoulder of the second. It was deliberate and fast, a quick one-two, squeezing the trigger as he switched aim. One crumpled to the ground while the second jerked sideways, nearly went down but forced himself to stumble behind the thick buttresses of a dipterocarp tree.
Draden remained absolutely still. The two bullets had been fired fast. The sound of the gunshots had been loud, reverberating through the forest and quieting the insects. It didn’t take long for the cacophony to start up again. In short time, the frogs began to join in. Mice scurried through the leaves. Beetles and ants found the dead body and the pool of blood that coated the debris on the ground. The forest returned to normal that quickly, as if the violence had never been.
The man he’d wounded would need immediate care if he wanted to live. Infections were almost a foregone conclusion in the high humidity and vast array of insects of the rain forest. As a native, the wounded man would know that. He would have to make his way back to the nest, the home of the Milisi Separatis Sumatra.