Callsign: King II- Underworld

Nina didn’t think the Mogollon Monster was responsible for the events that had closed Highway 60, and she wasn’t hiking across the Superstition Wilderness to find proof of the creature’s existence. She expected to find only a very rational, banal explanation for the accident and the subsequent enforcement of the exclusion zone, and when she returned with proof, she would write about it. If she learned something else, something unexpected, she would write about that with the same objectivity. That was what she did.

Though barely discernible in the darkness, Nina had little trouble keeping to the trail, which followed a creek bed along the western slope of Pinto Peak. The course of both the creek and the trail—which according to the guidebooks, had been in use since prehistoric times, and in the not so distant past, had been used by the Apaches and by US Army soldiers hunting them—had been determined by nature; like the water that periodically flowed down Campaign Creek, the trail followed the path of least resistance, through the narrow divide between the craggy mountains.

Nina had lapsed into a natural rhythm, her legs no longer complaining about the constant climb. After about two hours, she crested the high point on the trail, still well below the level of the surrounding peaks, and began the somewhat trickier task of descending the other side in the darkness.

As she started down the path, she checked her GPS. She was more than halfway to her objective, and soon would turn east along Cuff Button Trail. If she kept this pace, she would be in position to observe activity in the exclusion zone well before dawn.

Her sense of satisfaction was short lived. As soon as she put the Garman back in her pocket, she realized that the few moments spent staring at the screen of the device had deprived her of her night vision. Even as she cursed her stupidity, an unseen loose rock shifted beneath her foot. She went down on her backside, sliding unceremoniously about ten feet down the trail. The coarse terrain scraped her legs through the rip-stop fabric of her pants, which nonetheless protected her from serious damage. The same could not be said for her bare hands; she had instinctively flung her arms out for balance, taking the impact of the fall on the heels of her hands, which were then nearly shredded by the short slide down the rocky trail.

She cursed her bad luck, instinctively cradling her scraped and bleeding palms. But even as the echoes of her oath and the sounds of tumbling rocks jarred loose by her fall were swallowed up by the night, she heard another noise that turned her blood to ice.

It was one of those sounds that everyone recognized instantly, even if their only experience with it was from movies and nature documentaries—a rapid clicking sound, almost like a party noise-maker.

It was the unmistakable buzz of a rattlesnake, and it was close. Despite her familiarity with the desert and its many diverse and potentially deadly denizens, Nina did what most people do when surprised by a venomous snake: she screamed.





11.


King and Pierce were only about a quarter of a mile away when a shrill scream broke the otherworldly quiet. The two men exchanged a brief glance and then, as if motivated by a single mind, turned and headed back up the trail at an urgent but prudent jog.

Faced with essentially the same problem—how to approach the exclusion zone surreptitiously to conduct a covert investigation—King and Pierce had arrived at the same solution as Nina Raglan. Using the highway was a non-starter; that route would be subject to the heaviest surveillance. But the maze of trails running across the Superstition Wilderness was not as likely to be watched, particularly at night. That, at least, was what King was counting on.

He had done extensive map reconnaissance during the flight, scanning overhead satellite imagery of the area, researching other environmental factors that might have significantly altered the conditions on the ground. He had also done a little shopping.

Their first stop after picking up the rental car at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, was at a large sporting goods store in Tempe, where his purchases were waiting to be picked up. Equipped with the very best survival gear, and perhaps most importantly, two sets of ATN Viper night vision monoculars, King drove their rented SUV east, away from the setting sun, along state route 88 and the Campaign Trailhead, little suspecting that very soon they would have company on the trail.

King’s night vision device soon revealed an attractive woman, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, staring fearfully at her surroundings. Her eyes, which glowed like green coals in the Viper’s display, were darting back and forth, and he realized that she was straining to see in the darkness. Her head snapped up at the sound of their approaching footsteps.

“Who’s there? Don’t come in any closer. I’m practically sitting on a rattler, and he’s pissed off.”