Page 46 of Walking the Bird

Viper snapped his attention to Ghost, “What?”

Handing the phone to Viper, “Recognize him?”

Viper felt the shock as if grabbing onto a live wire. His mind drifted back to the day when he’d sat beside Havoc inside their Captain’s chambers as a gavel was swung and the career of one of his men was over.

“Rules are for men without courage!” Manguez shouted at him, before ripping the trident off his uniform, snapping one of the tips off and throwing it at him.

“Listen up, we are no longer dealing with your standard issue piece of shit. We are dealing with…” Zach trailed off, unable to believe the name was about to cross his lips. “One Miguel Manguez, aka, Walking the Bird.”

* * *

“Oh,you’re the right wife, Eleni. Your actions this week have given me the perfect venue to have my revenge.”

“Revenge how?”

“By killing you, of course.”

“You said it yourself, there’s trouble in paradise between Alex and I. What makes you think he would care if you killed me?”

“Your assumption is too simple, Eleni. You’ve forgotten nearly every guest has seen and heard of the trouble between the two of you. All able to testify to the authorities they’d noticed friction, especially after the display earlier.”

* * *

“He’s pure evil,”Ziere warned as Matt cut the rope securing his feet and hands. “He gave me the hoodie, told me to let you guys see me and then disappear.”

“Why?”

“He didn't say, but I think it had something to do with the day you guys went fishing.”

Tossing the cut rope to the floor. “Ziere, I need you to get your wife and get as far away from here as you can.”

“What about Melinda?”

Glancing over his shoulder, Matt found Cade with his arms wrapped around Melinda in a protective embrace, and a feral look on his face.

“She’ll be safe with Cade.”

“You swear it?”

“I swear.”

Standing to his full height, Matt watched as Ziere tapped Melinda on the shoulder, whispered something in her ear, and then kissed her on the cheek.

Turning to his left, Matt reached for his bag, removing his laptop and firing it up. Like most of his team, he never went anywhere without some tools of their trade.

“Are you drawing those goddamn schematics, Reaper?”

“Yep, borrowed your crayons, Viper.” Matt tossed back, hoping to lessen the tension in his leader's voice. Logging into one of his programs, Matt tapped into one of the government satellites overhead. Staring hard at the diagram on his screen, Matt shook his head in disbelief, “How in the fuck?”

Zach looked down at Reaper’s computer screen, searching the lines and dashes for anything out of the ordinary. “What did you find?”

“An impossibility,” pointing at the shadowed area. “We’re almost two hundred feet below sea level, making it impossible to have anything underground that isn't flooded with water.”

“Unless…” Zach trailed off, an advertisement for snorkeling coming to mind. “Pan out, I want to see if we’re close to a plateau.”

Matt moved to do as Zach requested, when he hovered his mouse over the shadow once again, the dimensions and shape reminded him of something he’d seen during a mission in Guam.

“Hold up.” Matt clicked open a new tab, typing the information he wanted into the search engine.

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