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Chapter Seven

An hour’s worth of Riley’s typing had given them some good stuff, rounding out what they had learned from the others. Ellis turned to Graham saying, “Miller – your very own copy. Hot off the presses.”

“Thanks.” Graham scanned the printout Ellis had just handed him. Most of what Riley had written covered the months during which Graham was still there. He had tried to forget about what he had seen, but the images were burned on his brain.

They had been sent in because something nasty was tearing apart missionaries in the jungle. Twenty Army guys went in; goal: destroy the demon nest and stop these things from breeding. Graham, Riley, Taggert, and Johnson were all Initiative men; the rest were on their first mission out of Special Ops.

A late season tropical storm had lingered and it had taken them over a week to get to the village in the Cayo district where the missionaries had been. It was pouring; a driving, pounding, god-awful rain that obliterated all the other senses. Deafeningly loud. Coming at your face so hard that you could barely open your eyes to see.

He had been bringing up the rear of the line, trying to keep the man ahead of him in sight. The rain had stopped abruptly. For a moment there was silence; but then they heard a horrible sound. Wailing. Keening. Graham had rushed forward when he heard it. He stopped short as he realized what it was; he almost fell over the man kneeling on the ground.

The man was clutching a woman’s arm. The hand was still attached. Graham remembered thinking the rings were the most beautiful he had ever seen. He fixated on the silver jewelry, trying to ignore the broken bones in her fingers and the muscles and nerves hanging from the socket where her shoulder should have been.

The scene replayed in Graham’s mind in slow motion: twenty men standing stock still amidst unbelievable carnage. The bodies were unidentifiable, if you could even call them bodies: arms, legs, torsos. The heads were mostly those of women and old men. The ground was slick with blood; the stench unbearable. Graham couldn’t remember how long they stood there. Through a daze, Graham heard Riley issuing orders. No one moved; they were still in shock. When Riley fired a shot into the air to get their attention, the man stopped screaming. He hadn’t registered their presence before, but once he did, he saw them as the enemy. He charged at Riley with flailing arms and unseeing eyes.

Graham knew that Riley could have easily stopped the man but he just stood there and let the man beat on him until there was nothing left but grief. Graham could still picture the image of Riley towering over this man, holding the shaking body until the tears had stopped.

They had burned the bodies so that the smell wouldn’t attract animals. The man’s name was Marcial. He sat staring out into the forest while they did this. When they were done, he led them away from the village and into the trees. After a few hours, they could see a group of men ahead of them, sitting around a campfire. Riley ordered his soldiers to set up camp for the night as he and Graham followed Marcial to the fire. They kept their distance as the twelve men learned they would not be seeing their families again; waited until Marcial called for them.

Language was a problem. Though in the cities English was spoken fluently, here, deep in the rainforest, the Spanish dialect was hard to understand. Only because Professor Walsh had insisted that the Initiative training include intensive language instruction, had Riley and Graham been able to understand the basics of what had happened: the village had been attacked in the middle of the night and the children were taken. The strongest men set out to find them. When they couldn’t, they retreated to this camp that was used as a base when hunting and sent Marcial back to give word of what was happening. Riley and Graham knew the rest.

Graham had argued with Riley about whether to let the villagers join their team. Graham had been adamantly against it: they had no training, no discipline. Their searing grief was what was making them want to lash out. How could they possibly help slay demons? They were just normal men. But Riley pulled rank.

“When you lose everything you may as well be dead. And once you come that far, you just try and fight the hate. They’ll be useful.” Riley’s voice had been matter-of-fact, but his words chilled Graham. When RIley walked away, Graham knew that the man he'd once known was long gone.

As the weeks progressed, they found more villages like the first. Added fifty more men. The days were spent tracking and cleaning up. Graham had almost welcomed the attack when it finally came. He was aching to fight.

They held their own, but they shouldn’t have. The creatures were huge. Eight feet tall with bat-like wings and tails that could send a man flying. The blasters didn’t touch them; machine guns were useless. They had been fighting for an hour when the creatures grew still. There was a rustling in the trees. Graham had looked up; he could have sworn he saw a man climbing up through the leaves. He looked back around him to see that the creatures had gone.

They hadn’t lost anyone. The men had been excited – they had won their first battle. Riley let them celebrate, but Graham knew that he wasn’t satisfied. It had been too easy, too painless. Over the next four days there were two more battles. No casualties. The men felt they were untouchable; they were full of themselves. Graham would have been too, but he knew Riley too well. He trusted Riley’s instincts.

The worst attack came in the middle of the night, almost a week to the day from the first one. Graham woke to hear men shouting. He hadn’t even gotten his gun out when he got jumped. He could feel talons encircling his chest and wings around him, suffocating him. He managed to reach his knife and stab it in the gut. The claws released and the wings opened; he fell twenty feet to the ground below. He broke his wrists in the fall, but he had been lucky. Eight men were carried away; twelve were killed in the battle.

Riley went ballistic. He blamed himself. Said he should have realized the first fights had been training. The demons hadn’t been fighting; they’d been studying the unit’s techniques.

The demons struck again the next few nights, taking more men each time. The Army wanted to pull them out; they said they wanted to learn more about the species before they sacrificed more men. That rationale had never rung true to Graham – from day one the mission was known to be highly dangerous. They should have been sending in reinforcements, not pulling the team out. Graham had wanted to talk to Riley about it but he never got the chance. As soon as Ellis called in the orders, the village men erupted. They had lost their sons and daughters; their wives and mothers. They blamed the Army men for not seeing the mission through. Graham had appreciated the irony: these “normal” men turned out to be the true soldiers.

Riley had calmed them down, told everyone to bed down for the night and they’d discuss it in the morning. Graham had woken up a few hours later with a knife at his throat. He hadn’t rated a gun thanks to his broken wrists. He looked around to see that the villagers had taken the Army men prisoners. It was mutiny – a surprise attack. The Army guys had no chance – there were too few of them left and most of them were injured.

Graham watched as Marcial and a few other men led Riley away from the camp. Graham thought they’d execute the Army men one by one and was surprised when they all came back an hour later. Riley had made a deal: if the villagers let the Army guys go, the soldiers would take the long way home. Long enough so that the village men would have time to attack the nest and do as much damage as they could.

Riley was the first to be blindfolded; his hands were tied behind his back. The others didn’t fight. They knew it was the only way they were getting out alive and as much as they were trying to be brave, they just wanted to go home. They marched for a full day before they were allowed to stop. Graham had been exhausted but the excruciating pain in his wrists – exacerbated by the bonds on his arms and the painkillers he had left behind – kept him from falling asleep. He heard whispers – not Spanish this time, some language Graham didn’t know. Someone else was there. Someone else had brought them to this place.

While they slept, their bonds had been loosened. They removed their blindfolds and found basic supplies and a crude map showing where they were. For some reason, Graham wasn’t surprised when he saw that Riley wasn’t with them. At first he thought that Riley had just walked off to die in the woods. But by the time they emerged from the rainforest, three weeks later, Graham had come up with a different theory: Finn had asked to stay.

Riley’s report had confirmed this. Graham wasn’t sure if it made him feel better or worse.

Ellis’ voice snapped him back to the present. “Sound about right?”

“That’s pretty much how I remember it.”

Ellis was pleased. “Not bad for the first day. Maybe he’ll finish it tonight.”

God, he hoped so. Graham didn’t know how long he could see Riley like this. The old Riley – the one he thought he said goodbye to in Belize. The one that made magic with Buffy. There was still something between them; it was visible to anyone watching, even in this artificial world. When Riley woke up and found nothing had changed after all would it destroy him all over again?

But there was no alternative. And maybe there was some hope of a happy ending. She had been there the night they left Sunnydale. He had had no right to keep that information from Riley. But maybe – somehow – they could find each other again here in this alternate reality and live happily ever after. “So if he finishes tonight, we get them out of there,” he said mostly to himself. He didn't expect the whispered response.

“Can we wait 'til he actually fucks her?”

The crude comment pulled Graham away from his fairy tale ending. His head jerked up to see who had just said it. He had been so caught up in reading the report that he hadn't noticed the stranger sitting next to him and the others who had filtered in.

Ellis was furious. “You – out.” Idiot. He didn’t want any of these visitors and he was certainly not going to let them get away with shit like that. “We get him out when we get the information we need. If he finishes it tonight, then we get him out tonight.” He addressed Graham. “You think he’s telling us the truth?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You think he’s telling us everything?”

Graham chewed on his pen and thought about his answer carefully. He looked around the table again. There were too many new faces, faces he didn’t trust. “I think there’s something more. There was a weird feeling down there. You always felt like you were being watched. Maybe it was just animals, but maybe… I don’t know.” He tried to ignore all the eyes on him. “By that last attack we were decimated – physically and emotionally. Those men could have done some damage but they couldn’t have destroyed that nest.” He had seen the pictures of the destroyed caves. They hadn’t had that kind of manpower. “Riley's one of the best soldiers I’ve ever seen, but there’s no way he could have escaped on his own.”

“So what are you saying – Tarzan swept in and rescued him? Destroyed the nest?” asked another guy Graham didn’t know.

Ellis stared the man down as he answered, “Not Tarzan, but definitely someone unconventional. It took a laser to break the wristbands Finn was wearing when his body was recovered. But someone in that cave tore them from the wall.” He looked around the room, irritated that he had to put up with these people just because they were VIPs and they got to go where they pleased. At least he didn’t have to be nice about it if he didn’t want to. “Some of you may have heard about the little show we had here this afternoon.” His glare erased all smirks. “This is not a stag party, gentleman. This is a military operation and I expect you to respect the situation and handle it like any other. Anyone getting hot and bothered will be removed immediately, understood?” It always felt good to wield a little power. “Dismissed! Miller, stay back.”

“Thanks for saying that,” Graham said once the others had left the room.

Ellis looked at his second in command. “Graham, you know what happened this afternoon…”

“Yeah,” Graham replied. “Riley and Buffy never could keep their hands off each other.”

“Yeah,” Ellis replied right back, “well, it’s possible things could get very uncomfortable very soon. Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I thought I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

“No. If we proceed, you’re in for the long haul. But I’m giving you the chance to shut this operation down right now. Turn off the machines, let Finn go, and give him the hero’s funeral that he deserves – no more limbo.”

Was he serious?

“I’m giving you an opportunity you won’t get again. You have 30 seconds to make a decision.”

Graham had a lot of kills to his credit but he couldn’t add another one. Not this one. Forrest probably could have done it, but Forrest never would have brought Riley back in the first place. Forrest would have put a bullet in Riley’s head the minute they brought him out of the jungle. He sunk his head into his hands. “I can’t. I just can’t. I need to see it through. We need to see it through.”

“Good choice, Agent Miller; you just saved both our careers.” Ellis knew he shouldn’t have done it, but Graham was faltering. Every soldier understood loss, but this was different. No one should see his friend like this. “Go get dinner. Think about your friend. If it helps, think about him being with Buffy. Report back in one hour and make sure everyone’s ready to go. This could be a long night."

~~ End of Chapter 7 ~~

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