government had been the routing of electrical lines through the jungle to the camp. But even in the capital, service was unpredictable at best, and Lassiter hadn’t wanted to take a chance on a complete power blackout.
The generator was a safeguard and had been one of a long list of items he’d presented to Kruger before he’d signed on to the operation. To the oilman’s credit, he hadn’t batted an eye at the price tag. And with good reason, Lassiter figured. His fee for services and equipment was substantial, but the wells that had already been drilled were producing thousands of barrels a day. If they continued at that rate for several months, let alone years, Kruger Petroleum stood to make millions.
Along with the generator, Lassiter had also requested portable thermal-imaging cameras which he and his men had camouflaged and mounted around the perimeter of the camp. The monitors were watched around the clock in the event the guerrillas or one of the drug cartels—or even the Cartégan army—decided to launch an assault.
The door to the building was open to allow in the night air, and when Lassiter stepped inside, Taglio glanced up with a frown. He was several years younger than Lassiter, well educated, well traveled and with a grace and style that often caused people to underestimate his toughness. Sometimes even Lassiter wondered what had brought a man with Danny Taglio’s looks and privileged background to a place like Cartéga, but he never asked. No one ever asked.
“You better take a look at this,” the younger man said.
Lassiter crossed to the monitor and watched as Taglio played back one of the surveillance tapes. Noting the time and date in the right-hand corner of the screen, Lassiter automatically glanced at his watch. Less than five minutes had elapsed since the image he was now watching had been captured on tape.
“Which camera?” he asked.
“Sector Seven.” The camp was divided into a grid similar to a tic-tac-toe board. Sector Seven was the lower left corner, the area closest to the mountains and to the heaviest guerrilla fighting.
Lassiter studied the screen. The resolution from the thermal-imaging cameras was a vast improvement over the night-vision equipment they’d once had to work with, but a thick mist had drifted down from the cloud forest, obliterating almost everything on the screen. Lassiter could make out the vague shape of trees, but that was about it. The camera spanned down, and the fence around the compound came into focus.
“I can’t see a damn thing,” he said. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“Just keep watching. It should be coming up—” Taglio glanced at his own watch “—right about…now.”
Lassiter caught his breath. The image was there, then gone in a single heartbeat. He couldn’t even be sure of what he’d seen.
“Roll it back.”
Taglio did as he was instructed, and Lassiter watched the monitor, not daring to blink. “Freeze it!”
It took Taglio a couple of tries before he was able to freeze the frame Lassiter wanted, but when he had it, Lassiter leaned forward, a chill going through his body. “What the hell?”
“It’s a woman,” Taglio said. “Right outside the fence.”
She wore a scarf over her head, but Lassiter didn’t think she was one of the local peasants. “Where’d she come from?” he muttered. They were miles from any kind of civilization.
“The better question would be, how is she there one second and gone the next?” Taglio asked tensely.
“Press play.”
The moment the tape started, the woman vanished. In the blink of an eye. The fence was still there. The trees were still there. But the woman was gone.
It was as if she’d stepped off the face of the earth.
Impossible.
But then, Lassiter knew better than anyone that nothing was impossible.
“It must be the mist,” Taglio said. “Somehow it created an optical illusion.”
“Were any of the alarms tripped?”
He shook his head. “There’s no way she could get through the lasers without all hell breaking loose.” He glanced up at Lassiter. “You want me to put the camp on alert?”
“No, not yet.” Lassiter was still watching the video, which now showed nothing more than mist swirling around the fence. “Let me have a look around first. I’ll let you know if I find anything. In the meantime, don’t mention that tape to anyone else.”
Taglio shot him a look, but whatever was on his mind he kept to himself. “You’re the boss. But just for the record, you never answered my question. How can a person just disappear like that?”
Lassiter shrugged. “I think you answered it yourself. It must have been some kind of optical illusion.”
“Yeah, that must have been it.” But Taglio didn’t sound convinced, and his expression was anxious as his gaze moved past Lassiter to the open doorway and the gathering darkness beyond. “Or else…”
“Or else what?”
Taglio’s gaze lifted and something that might have been fear flickered in his eyes, giving Lassiter a glimpse of vulnerability in the younger man that he suspected few people had ever witnessed. Taglio seemed almost embarrassed by what he had to say. “Maybe she isn’t human.”
Lassiter frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“A ghost, Lassiter. I’m talking about a damned ghost.”
LASSITER TRIED to laugh off Taglio’s supernatural explanation, but he found himself shivering even though the night was warm and humid.
But Tag had it all wrong, Lassiter thought grimly as he climbed into his jeep and headed over to Sector Seven. The woman on the video wasn’t the ghost. Lassiter was. He’d died a long time ago and he had some pretty damning proof that he should have stayed dead. Dead and buried in a watery tomb that now rested on the ocean floor hundreds of feet below the surface.
For a moment, the claustrophobic memories threatened to engulf him, and he could hear the cacophony of clanking metal and human screams slowly making their way to the surface. He shoved them away, buried them deep and kept driving.
He checked the fence along Sector Seven, but the metal hadn’t been cut and the alarms were still set. The woman couldn’t have gotten inside the camp. But just to be on the safe side, Lassiter drove the perimeter of the compound, making sure the guards were at their posts, and then he checked all the buildings.
The mess tent and rec hall were deserted, but he could see Kruger and Martin Grace still at work in the office, heads bent low, their expressions gloomy. They appeared to be arguing, but what compelling business kept them at it for so long, Lassiter had no idea. He didn’t interrupt them this time. He had other things on his mind.
Parking the jeep, he crossed the interior of the compound on foot and checked the infirmary. The place was run by a man named Angus Bond, an Australian expatriate Kruger had dug up from somewhere who claimed to be a doctor. Bond had padlocked the door to keep the more potent drugs from falling into the
