AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following contains scenes of intense violence. You have been warned.
Ziva couldn't help but be stunned at the sight that greeted her when she stepped off the Osprey.
Well over a hundred Marines swarmed the beach. Several crouched in entrenchments, manning machine guns, anti-tank missiles and mortars. LAV-25s and Humvees with .50 caliber machine guns or grenade launchers were parked amongst the Marines. Two helicopters circled overhead. Thin, insectoid-like Huey SuperCobras, loaded with gatling guns and missiles.
Her eyes flickered from the choppers to the rocky stretch of beach about three hundred yards away. Somewhere there was the cave Corporal Chambers had told them about. The cave that contained the beast and its crate.
"Holy crap!" Tony gazed around the beach with wide eyes as he escorted a dejected-looking Chambers out of the aircraft. "Jeez. I'm surprised they didn't bring in a guided-missile cruiser or a B-1 bomber."
Ziva couldn't help but smirk at Tony's remark. Actually, she wouldn't have minded seeing a hundred more Marines and a dozen more combat vehicles here. In war, one should engage the enemy with more than overwhelming force to ensure victory. As far as she was concerned, there couldn't be enough Marines here to finish off this man-eating . . . gorilla-thing.
She realized no one had actually given it an official name, not even Dexter Stanley after all these years.
Something tells me he prefers to try and forget what happened at Horlicks University.
They could decide on a name later . . . after they killed it.
Ziva noticed five people approaching her. Colonel Walling and two of his MPs walked ahead of Gibbs and McGee.
"You got him." Walling nodded to the handcuffed Chambers. "Good job."
"S-Sir." Chambers shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I'm . . . I'm sorry about -"
"Shut the hell up!" Walling stomped over to Chambers. He got right in the young man's face and continued yelling. "Three Marines and a civilian are dead because of you! Do you understand that!? You knew about this thing the whole time and didn't tell anyone!"
Spittle dripped from the corner of Walling's mouth. Chambers turned away, on the verge of crying.
"You're a disgrace to the Corps." Walling glanced at his MPs. "Get this . . . thing out of my sight."
"Yes, Sir." The MPs grabbed both of Chambers' arms and dragged him off to a nearby Humvee.
"So I guess we're in time to see the fireworks, Boss?" Tony grinned.
"Just waiting on you two. Come on." Gibbs waved for them to follow.
"So what's the plan?" asked Tony.
"We recon the cave to determine if the creature is still in there," Walling answered. "Then, if it is, we blow the hell out of it."
Tony looked up to the sky for a moment, then nodded. "I like that plan. Nice and simple."
Walling led them over to a Humvee. He opened the rear driver's side door, reached inside and pulled out a slender shotgun with a flashlight mounted atop it. Ziva recognized it. An M1014, the standard shotgun of the U.S. Armed Forces.
"You sure this will work?" Ziva accepted the shotgun from the Colonel. "After our last engagement, it's obvious that thing is immune to small arms fire."
"Not to worry, Officer David. We replaced the standard shotgun rounds in these things with armor-piercing sabot rounds. Those things can go through a brick. They should penetrate our monster's hide."
She nodded, hoping that was true.
Walling handed shotguns to Gibbs, Tony, McGee and three of the four Recon Marines with them, including Lieutenant Hernandez, who initially discovered Corporal Conti's remains not far from here. The Colonel and the fourth Recon member hefted a tubular weapon with a large cylindrical drum; an M32 multiple grenade launcher.
"Explosives inside a cave?" Ziva cocked an eyebrow. "Aren't you worried about a cave-in?"
Walling flashed her a quick smile. "Don't worry. Both M32s are loaded with magnesium flares. If this thing freaked out when Agent DiNozzo used a camera flash on it, imagine what it'll do when one of these babies goes off in front of it. Or on it. One of these flares can burn as hot as four thousand degrees Fahrenheit. I don't care how tough that thing is, there's no way it'll be able to stand that kind of heat."
Again, she prayed the Colonel was right.
"All right, people. Let's move out."
Colonel Walling led them toward the rocks. Admiration pulsed through Ziva for the Marine. Many Lieutenant Colonels, she imagined, would prefer to sit in their command vehicles or some building miles away while their subordinates did all the difficult work. But not Walling. The man was personally leading them into a cave where a very dangerous animal likely lived. That didn't surprise her, much, given how personal he took the deaths of the three Marines and the Fish and Wildlife Officer.
All this made Colonel Walling an ideal leader in her eyes.
Right up there with Gibbs.
Her heart thumped harder as they neared the mouth of the cave.
"Lights on," Walling ordered.
They all clicked on the flashlights attached to their weapons and entered the cave. Beams of light cut through the darkness, dancing around the uneven rock walls.
"You'd figure the Marines would have already searched this place," said McGee. "It's not exactly hidden from view."
"A couple Marines did search this cave." Walling moved forward, his M32 pointed straight ahead. "They probably didn't go in deep enough. Or that thing and its crate are well hidden."
Soon the sunlight spilling through the cave mouth began to fade. The numerous flashlights became the group's only means of illumination. Ziva's eyes constantly flickered from one beam of light to another. She saw no sign of a crate, or a monster. Tension squeezed her muscles. She expected the thing to jump out from some shadow where their flashlight beams missed.
Ziva held her breath, listening beyond the crunching footfalls of her teammates. She waited for a growl, a roar, the thumping run of an animal charging them.
Sweat formed on her brow. Fear boiled within her. Fear of what lay beyond their flashlights. Fear they might somehow miss this beast and it would attack them by surprise. Fear she'd be eaten alive.
Trust your teammates. Trust your equipment.
Trust yourself.
The cave floor dipped. Ziva and the others took careful steps, descending lower beneath the surface. How far into the cave was this creature? She couldn't imagine Chambers and Conti running so far through a dark cave and making it outside before that thing caught up to them.
Maybe the creature dragged its crate deeper into the cave after it attacked Conti. Dexter Stanley had told them after the monster killed that janitor, it had returned with its crate to under the basement stairs where it had been discovered.
"Over there," one of the Recon Marines said in a hushed voice.
Ziva looked to him, his finger silhouetted in the beam of his flashlight. Her eyes followed where he pointed. Other beams of light aimed in that direction.
Part of a wooden crate poked out from behind a rock outcropping.
She steadied her breathing, her index finger hovering over the trigger of her shotgun. Walling moved ahead with two of the Recon Marines. The others followed. The flashlight beams washed over the crate. A chill went up her spine.
The crate was open.
Gibbs and one of the Marines poked their shotgun-mounted flashlights inside the crate.
"Empty," Gibbs announced.
"So where is it?" The Recon Marine with the M32 shrugged.
Ziva bit her lip and pointed her shotgun down the cave. She saw nothing in her flashlight beam.
Sighing to herself, she turned back to the group.
Yellow eyes burned through the darkness.
"There!" Ziva racked her shotgun and pointed.
A roar echoed through the cave. The beast jumped out from a darkened crevasse behind the crate. The Recon Marine raised his M32 a couple inches before it tackled him. The grenade launcher clattered on the cave floor. The Marine cried out as the beast bent down, then came up, a chunk of human flesh in its mouth.
Ziva fired. Two more shotguns boomed. The beast threw back its head and howled, the bloody hunk of meat in its mouth falling onto the Marine. A red blotch appeared on its right shoulder. Blood also flowed down its side.
Walling lifted his M32. "Close your ey-"
The beast lashed out. Walling hollered and stumbled back.
And into Ziva! She grunted, falling to the ground. Her fingers desperately tried to clutch her shotgun, but it fell from her grasp. Walling's M32 bounced across the cave floor.
Pain hammered her side. A weight lay across her. Walling. She tried to crawl out from under him. More shotgun blasts erupted. The beast roared. It sounded on top of her.
Two flashlight beams swept over the monster. It was just a couple feet away.
"Son-of-a-bitch!" Walling sat up.
Ziva scrambled away. She scanned for the fallen M32. A dark lump lay a few feet away.
She checked over her shoulder. The beast loomed over Colonel Walling. The Marine raised his arm, made a fist and swung.
The beast's jaws clamped down on Walling's hand. There was a crunch, a rip. The beast jerked its head. Walling screamed as he stared at the bloody stump where his right hand had been.
Two more shotguns fired. The beast flinched, more bloody holes appearing on its torso. It roared, turned back to Walling, and buried its face into the officer's neck.
Ziva scrambled across the ground. Shotgun fired continued. The beast cried out.
"Look out!"
"Move!"
Flashlight beams whipped through the darkness. She caught flashes of the beast lunging into the group. McGee flailed and fell down. Lieutenant Hernandez sprawled on the ground, his shotgun clattering next to him.
Part of a flashlight beam fell across the butt of Walling's M32.
Ziva scrambled for it.
"Where the hell is it!?"
"Probie! You okay?"
She snatched the butt of the M32 and pulled it toward her. She looked up.
Two flashlight beams criss-crossed the beast. It breathed heavily, blood covering its white fur.
But it still stood, still looked ready to attack.
It growled, its yellow eyes aimed right at Ziva.
Sitting on her rear, she raised the M32.
"Shut your eyes!"
She waited a second, praying everyone followed her order.
The beast roared and charged.
A deep thump burst from the grenade launcher. Ziva turned away, closing her eyes tight.
She heard a pop, then a sizzle. She sensed a white haze leaking through her self-imposed darkness.
A blood-curdling scream pierced her ears. Her shoulders and jaws tightened. She heard thrashing and claws furiously scratching the ground.
The white haze faded. She cracked her eyes open. The flare, laying on the cave floor, still burned. The beast jumped and twisted, pawing at its face. Smoke wafted from its chest.
It wailed and ran into the cave wall. The beast stumbled and fell on its back.
"Keep your eyes closed!" Her eyes open in thin slits, she aimed best she could. She pulled the trigger twice and shut her eyes tight.
More white haze burned through her darkness. The agonized cry from the beast made her shudder.
She dared open her eyes a crack. Brilliant white filled the cave. She could just make out movement among the burning flares. The smell of cooking meat reached her nostrils. Though this wasn't a smell to relish like from a kitchen. This was sickeningly sweet. She clenched her teeth, fighting down the nausea.
The howling continued. A new sound emerged. A crackling sound.
Flames.
Ziva opened her eyes a bit more. The flares started to burn out. Still they remained rather bright. She shielded her eyes and watched the beast thrash about on the ground, fire consuming its body.
The flares faded. So did the beast's cries. It rolled on its stomach, pounding the ground, each strike less powerful than the last.
A shotgun racked. Tony approached the fiery monster, his gaze locked solidly on it. He stood a few feet away, the flames revealing the sweat covering his face. He aimed the M1014 shotgun down and fired once . . . twice . . . three times.
The beast's head split open. Blood and gray matter spattered across the ground.
Ziva exhaled loudly. She then drew a breath, and hacked on the smoke emitted by the burning monster.
"You okay, Ziva?" asked Tony.
"Yeah. Fine." She got to her feet. "McGee?"
"Yeah. I'm here. I think I banged my elbow on a rock."
Tony rolled his eyes. "I think you'll live, Probie."
Gibbs sounded off, as did Hernandez and his remaining two Recon Marines.
She did not hear from Colonel Walling.
Biting her lip, she looked down. In the glow of the fire she saw Walling lying still, blood pooled around his shoulder and head.
Slowly, she walked over to the body. She winced, taking in the large bloody tears in Walling's shoulder, neck and face.
Jaw tightened, Ziva nodded to the dead man. "We got it, Colonel. We got it."
NEXT: THE CONCLUSION
