You need the practice, Ezekiel, and the dog’s listenin’ to you. Wyatt wanted to save every bit of energy for dealing with the man who’d shoved his grandmother. He knew he wasn’t 100 percent healed, but he wasn’t going to wait to give the man a beating.
The guard checked the fence itself next. He stepped up to it with his light and carefully examined all along the chain link, even up to the razor wire. He was thorough in his inspection, taking his time, another mark of a professional. When he was finished, he crouched beside the dog, scratching its ears and talking low while he examined the ground on the other side of the fence.
What the hell is he lookin’ for? Wyatt asked.
Not us, Malichai said. It hasn’t even occurred to him yet that he might have someone out here watchin’ him.
The guard spoke into his radio softly. Wyatt’s hearing had always been extremely acute and was even more so from both his psychic and physical enhancements. With the feline DNA, he found he could hear higher pitches far better than he’d ever been able to before.
Did you make out what he said, Wyatt? Malichai asked.
He asked someone inside to check the cells. Cells, not rooms. And I don’ think he’s enhanced. He’s been a soldier at one time, but he’s not a GhostWalker.
Wyatt’s warning radar was beginning to give him a few prickles. He took a long slow look around, careful not to rustle a single leaf in the tree.
I don’ think we’re alone out here, boys. You feelin’ anythin’?
There was a long silence while both brothers stretched their senses to encompass as much of their surroundings as possible.
I don’t see or hear anything at all, Ezekiel said, but the dog is getting harder to control. I think we’re going to have to get out of here for tonight and rethink our plan of reading to that man from the good book.
That wasn’t happening. You go on ahead and I’ll meet you at the pirogue.
Wyatt stared hard at the man who had shoved his grandmother into the swamp. He’d patted her down and pushed her. She could easily have broken a hip, and the guard had known it but hadn’t cared.
The guard brought the dog twice up to one of the gates and stood waiting, as if he’d receive a signal to let the animal loose. The dog barked, baring its teeth, looking out behind Malichai.
He’s feeling something I can’t, Ezekiel said.
Fall back, Wyatt told them. He’s goin’ to come out and investigate.
Not alone, he’s not, Malichai said.
As the guard opened the gate, two other guards ran up to join him. Neither of the others had a dog, but they were heavily armed. They came outside the fence and immediately spread out, keeping about five feet apart as they moved toward the grove of trees where Wyatt and the Fortunes brothers had taken up residence.
That dog has the scent of something, Ezekiel said. And it isn’t us.
Wyatt inhaled deeply, taking in the odors of the night. Jasmine hung heavy in the air, mixing with the smell of the swamp, the moss hanging in ropes from the cypress groves and the mix of wild flowers. The pharmaceutical field had its own perfume from hundreds of varieties of herbs and flowering plants, some poisonous, some not, but all with their individual scents.
He caught the odor of the alligator. A bobcat lurked close. Somewhere a little farther off was a small herd of deer. Raccoons caught fish near the riverbank and a family of opossum trailed through the vegetation seeking dinner. Nutrias, originally from South America, traveled in a small group as well, wandering around destroying the plants as they devoured the stems and roots.
The wind shifted just a fraction and he caught the same scent the dog had. Elusive. Beckoning. Mysterious. Impossible to identify, but there. It made every hair on his body stand up. His heart beat faster and blood ran hot through his veins. He felt an itch between his shoulder blades as if someone had a scope and a rifle with their centers on him.
The dog burst from the gate and, slipping its collar, sprang away from his handler, rushing across the clearing and low-level plants straight into the cypress grove. He made no noise at all, but he moved fast with purpose. His handler raced after him, calling his name, clearly alarmed at the dog being off the leash. What was out there that might harm his dog? The other two men moved much more cautiously, exchanging a quick signal with one another before they followed into the grove, maintaining a five-foot spread from one another.
Wyatt ran lightly along a heavy branch that nearly touched another tree next to the one he was in. He leapt for the tree, landing lightly and quickly moving to the next. He used the branches as a highway above the swamp, following the three guards. He knew their exact positions but he couldn’t always see them through the thick vines and foliage.