Wyatt sank down in the grass and the rest of the team followed suit, crouching low, listening. They were going to have to move into the open soon. The small stream was wide enough to get a boat in, but shallow, the rocks, sand and debris making it difficult, but not impossible to maneuver over. The Comeaux brothers did so on a regular basis.
Gino studied the layout across the stream. It looked peaceful enough. The moss hanging in the branches of the cypress trees swayed with the wind. The grass was taller here, although he could see two distinct trails where humans had walked single file forming paths leading back into the tree line. The tract of land between the stream and the swamp held only a few large boulders, grass and sand. The open space was approximately thirty feet wide. Maybe forty. Once into the swamp, the trees were thick and closer together than in a lot of other places. That gave the advantage to anyone guarding the property.
On their side of the stream, the bare tract of land between them and the stream was much narrower, perhaps closer to fifteen feet. Altogether, that gave them quite a lot of territory to cover without drawing attention from a guard.
Up in the trees, south end. The tall one with the wide branches, about two-thirds up, Rubin said.
Only Gino’s eyes moved. If they had a spotter in the trees—and the soldiers would—any movement would draw his attention. It took a few seconds to find him. The soldier appeared part of the tree, his body partially hidden, the rest in plain sight but covered with a ghillie suit, making him appear part moss and part leaves and branch. The man was very still, but obviously hungry. Every now and then his arm would move, so that it looked as if the branch swayed upward toward his mouth and then came back down.
He can’t be the only one. He doesn’t have sight from every direction, Gino told the others. He was already searching the trees in the area to the east. The second sentry would be in a similar tree—one tall and strong enough to support a heavy soldier. Now that he knew what he was looking for, and where the soldier would have to be, Gino spotted him. This one was sitting, not standing, and he was in a good position to shoot with his rifle. The cross-branch was perfect for him to set up shop.
I see him. These two know what they’re doing. I’ll take the one to the east. He’s taking his job very seriously.
I’ll take west, Draden said.
We’ll be taking a little nap while the two of you go play, Wyatt said.
Gino dropped back into deeper cover to work his way to the east. He would have to cross the stream and grass areas in order to get to his goal. He knew he looked no more than a shadow, but any movement would draw the sentry’s eye. That meant moving slowly. The one thing Gino had in abundance was patience. He could move like a sloth if that was what was required. He wouldn’t be surprised if Wyatt and the others really did take a nap while they waited. It might take a couple of hours for Gino and Draden to work their way to their goals, and the others didn’t have much to do.
He went to his belly and began to inch his way out of the trees into the grass and rock that would take him to the stream. The water was cold as he slid into it. It was so shallow that only his chest and legs were immersed, but he was inching over rocks, some sharp as he pressed down to make certain there was no sound to give him away. He didn’t look toward the sentry, there was no use. Either the man would spot him or he wouldn’t, and sometimes, scrutiny drew the eye.
The water was uncomfortable, but that barely registered. He was used to cramped, uncomfortable positions. Once, he’d stayed motionless, covered in mud, buried in the embankment of a river while the enemy camped just feet away. He killed seven of them before they discovered anything was wrong. They never saw him, but he watched them pack up and leave from that same mud bank.
He was on the other side, moving slowly now, using fingers and toes to slide forward over the rocky ground toward the grass. The grass was going to be tricky. He would have to follow exactly in one of the paths already trampled down, or the sentries would be able to see the grass being flattened as he moved.
Voices stopped all progress. Two men walked out of the trees. Both were big men with dark beards. They looked left and then right. Both spat at exactly the same moment. Gino recognized them immediately. One was Pascal Comeaux. He was the taller of the two brothers and had a reputation for beating his wife and children. Blaise wasn’t married, but considered himself a lady’s man, and he was every bit as mean as Pascal.
The brothers loved to fight, bully and drink. It was rumored they often shared women. Gino had, more than once, considered letting them pick a fight with him at the Huracan Club, a bar in the swamp they frequented. So far, he’d resisted, but it hadn’t been easy.
“No one tells me what to do,” Pascal said. “I want to shove my knife in that big bastard’s gut and watch him die slow. He keeps telling me what to do, it’s going to happen.”
“There’s only eight of them. We could take them. I was looking at their weapons, Pascal. If we kill them all, we could sell those weapons and make us even more money,” Blaise said. “After they kill Wyatt.”
“You see Wyatt’s woman?” Pascal licked his lips. “I want that one for myself.”
“If I help you kill these bastards, you’re sharing that with me,” Blaise protested.
They walked right past Gino, toward the part of stream where they had a boat beached. Clearly, they were experts at guiding their boat in the stream, going slow over the shallows until they made it out to the main branch of the river. Their voices faded a little as they pushed the boat into the stream.
“How we going to kill all eight of them?” Blaise wanted to know.
“Poison. They all gotta eat, don’t they?” Pascal said. “The wife fixes something for them, and we dump poison in it. Even if it just makes them sick, it won’t be hard to pick them off like rats in a sewer.”
Gino took advantage of the fact that both sentries would be naturally looking at the Comeaux brothers. He slid toward the grass, covering a few extra feet much more quickly. He was right at the mouth of the path leading back into the trees. The Comeaux brothers were idiots thinking they could kill the supersoldiers. They had no idea what they had let into their homes. They’d be lucky if they managed to get out of the entire thing alive, and that was with keeping a low profile.
He dug his elbows and toes into the ground and propelled himself forward into the crushed grass. The soldiers and the Comeaux brothers had been using the two paths for some time. He could see that the grass was so compacted that it felt like a thick mat he was traveling over rather than actual grass. He continued dragging himself, careful not to touch the taller grass still standing upright on either side of him. Even with the Comeaux brothers leaving, he knew the sentries would be watching closely. They had been too still up in the branches of the trees to indicate they weren’t taking their job seriously.
He made it to trees and slipped behind the deeper foliage. His arms and legs needed a little break, so he stretched cautiously while he took stock of his surroundings. The Comeaux household was about a half mile from the stream. It had been close to the river until erosion had changed the course of the river, creating the little stream and veering the river away from their property. Like most of those living in the swamp, Gino knew, the Comeaux family had originally relied on the river for their livelihood. The family now had more money than most, but still, they hunted and fished and crabbed. Losing river frontage had to have upset them.
He caught movement to his left, and he rolled over slowly to get a better view. Soldiers moved, surrounding an outside fire pit. They were a good half a football field away, but he could see four of them. That accounted for six men if he counted the sentries. That left two more.
Comeaux brothers had conversation, stated eight soldiers here. I see four more back here. Don’t have eyes on the other two. Draden?