Excerpt: Eye of the Serpent

The moon broke out from behind the clouds, illuminating the junglescape with silvery light that reflected in dazzling highlights from the small stream. The light barely illuminated the ground below the jungle canopy but did reveal the buildings squatting in the middle of the large, cleared field as well as several men wandering slowly up and down the rows of crops growing there.

In the darkness beneath the canopy, a shadow moved beneath a tangle of leaves and vines. David Stone lifted a pair of night-vision binoculars to his eyes, carefully angling them to avoid reflecting the moonlight towards the fields ahead, and scanned the area. He lowered them again, touched the earpiece he was wearing and whispered quietly.

"I count six. You?"

There was a slight pause then the earpiece crackled. "Yes, six on patrol. But I think there is another on the roof of the lab building."

David lifted the binoculars again and looked, then cursed quietly to himself. Gabriel was right; another man stood on what looked to be a platform built against the slope of the roof. He noted that this guard was also using a pair of binoculars to periodically scan the area.

"I see him." he whispered to Gabriel through the earpiece. "He's running survellience too. That's going to make it more difficult."

"Agreed." came the response. "Should we pull back? Wait for your government or mine to send more people."

David shook his head then remembered that Gabriel couldn't see him. "No. The fact that they have someone up there shows that they're already expecting trouble. And recently too; the sat photos we got were from two days ago and that platform wasn't there then. If we delay they may move the lab and we'll have to hunt them down again."

Gabriel grunted and fell silent. David settled back down to the ground, trying to ignore whatever it was that was crawling across his leg and watching the movement of the men in the field.