“What do you mean he’s vanished?”

The second tracker, whom Agamemnon had learned was called Joey, shook his head. “When I went back to get him as you ordered, he was nowhere to be found. I searched the area close by but he’s gone.”

Agamemnon frowned. This was not good. Losing one of his trackers, especially Joey’s brother, was a horrible event. It would surely lead to a further loss of morale, something Agamemnon could not afford. With his men already worried about the nature of what they might be fighting and the possibility of spirits stalking them, another mysterious event could push them over the edge.

Agamemnon summoned his patrol leader. When the exhausted soldier squatted next to him, Agamemnon pushed himself up. “Joey is going to show me the lay of the land for our search tomorrow. Take care of getting the men squared away. I want small fires only, nothing too large. There’s no sense advertising our presence if we can avoid it. Get them fed and to sleep. We’ll be back shortly.”

The patrol leader nodded and moved away, pushing the men into action. Agamemnon watched him for a few seconds and then turned to Joey and spoke in a low voice. “Let’s go.”

Joey led him out of the small clearing and down the trail. Agamemnon watched the tracker carefully pick his way through the thick brush. Agamemnon kept a hand on his pistol, just in case.

After fifty yards, Joey stopped and pointed to the ground. “This is where his last track is.”

Agamemnon frowned. “I can’t see anything.”

Joey took his hand and placed it on the ground. “Touch lightly here.”

Agamemnon did so and felt a shallow depression. “Ah.”

“You feel the rounded parts?”

“Yes.”

“From the ball of his foot. He pushed off here. But his trail ends and I have cast around for the next one but can’t find a thing.”

“You say he pushed off?”

“Yes.”

Agamemnon nodded. “So that’s good, right?”

Joey frowned. “I don’t follow, sir.”

“Well, if he was taken captive or killed, he wouldn’t necessarily be pushing off, would he? He’d be dragged somewhere.”

“That’s true, I suppose.”

“And since his track shows no sign that he was incapacitated, there’s a good chance he’s fine and has just wandered off, right?”

Joey shrugged. “Well, I suppose so, but it’s odd that his trail ends. No matter where he’d gone, I’d be able to follow him.”

“Are you sure?”

Joey grinned. “We were trained together. We each know every one of the tricks the other uses to throw people off our trail. God knows we’ve had plenty of occasions to use them. When we were training to be trackers, we learned how to find each other regardless of what we tried to do to disguise our trail.”

“But you can’t find him now.”

“No.”

Agamemnon glanced back over his shoulder. He could see small fires springing up. He couldn’t be out here much longer if he hoped to avoid his men growing suspicious. “Well, what do you suggest we do?”

“Look for him,” Joey said.

“Now?”

“He could be in trouble.”

Agamemnon frowned. “Look, we stopped because you and your brother told me it was too dangerous to go poking around here at night. Now you want me to forsake that very order and go off looking for your brother who may, in fact, be fine.”

“He’s not fine,” Joey said.

“It’s downright dangerous.” Agamemnon pointed over his shoulder. “Look, I’ve got a patrol of hungry, tired men who are already jumpy about our predicament here. Thanks to the rumors about spirits, they’re thinking nasty thoughts. If I go back there and tell them your brother has gone missing, it’s liable to make them run for parts unknown. Imagine how bad it will look knowing one of the trackers—one of the very people who are supposed to be helping us—has disappeared. I’ll have a mutiny on my hands.”

Joey looked away. “I can’t leave him out there.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to,” Agamemnon said.

When Joey looked back at him, he found himself staring into the muzzle of Agamemnon’s pistol.

“You should know that I will shoot you dead unless you come back with me right now and pretend that everything is fine. I need you and your skill,” Agamemnon said.

“He’s my brother—the only family I have left.”

“These men are my family. And I have a responsibility to keep them together, focused on what needs to be done. You going off on your own will not allow me to do that.”

Joey’s eyes flashed and for a moment Agamemnon was worried he might indeed have to shoot him. But then Joey seemed to relax. “All right. You win. We’ll look for him tomorrow.”

“Good.”

Joey put his hand on Agamemnon’s arm. “But if anything happens to him between now and then—”

Agamemnon pulled away. “Don’t threaten me, Joey. Don’t be that foolish. I’ve killed men, women and children for far less. And I’ve enjoyed doing so.”

They made their way back to the improvised camp. As they approached, Agamemnon could hear a few stray laughs percolating in the darkness. That was good, he thought. They still had the capacity for humor.

His patrol leader looked up as they came in. “Where is the other one?”

Agamemnon glanced at Joey, who took his cue and cleared his throat. “My brother likes to make sure we aren’t surprised and has opted to spend the night out beyond the periphery of the camp.”

“Alone?” the patrol leader asked.

“Yes,” Joey replied.

The patrol commander frowned. “He’s crazy.”

Joey smiled. “We’re a bit unorthodox, yes.”

“Isn’t he worried?”

“About what?” Joey’s smile looked genuine enough.

The patrol commander started to say something, seemed to think better of it and then just shrugged. “I thought he’d at least join us for dinner.”

Joey shook his head. “We’re skilled at finding food without the need for fires and the like. He’s probably got himself in a tree, enjoying the solitude. He is a bit of a loner.”

Agamemnon clapped his hands together. “Well, then, let’s get some dinner, shall we?”

The patrol commander handed him a plate of rice and chicken. Agamemnon took a forkful and chewed it, marveling at how suddenly ravenous he felt. He tore through the food and then got himself a second helping.

Joey ate little. Agamemnon could tell he was still thinking about the safety of his brother. That was fine, he reasoned. Provided he didn’t do anything stupid. And as long as no one else noticed his concern and got suspicious.

The patrol commander passed around a canteen. Agamemnon washed down his meal with several long swallows. He passed it to Joey, who took a long drag on it before handing it back.

“Thanks.”

Agamemnon nodded. “You mentioned something about being in Laos a little while ago.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Joey shrugged. “We hired ourselves out to the local warlords in the Golden Triangle. They had someone who’d gone off with a suitcase full of money. Apparently the person took off into the jungle and the warlord wanted someone who could track them.”

“They didn’t have anyone local who could do that?”

Joey shrugged. “There’s a difference between knowing the jungle and being able to track. A local guide is good, but you still need the skill to be able to follow a man. That’s where Michael and I came in.”

“So they paired you up with a guide?”

Joey shook his head. “Nah. We just went in and did our thing. As long as we have a trail to follow, why bother with a guide? It’s not like we needed to know where we were going. We only needed to know where our quarry was headed. The evidence was the only map we needed.”

Good, Agamemnon thought. I just need to keep him talking about this and I’m sure he’ll forget all about the need to go off and find his brother. “Was it a difficult task to find the man?” he asked.

Joey grinned. “Wasn’t a man.”

“No?”

“A woman. A clever one at that.”

Agamemnon smiled. “They sometimes are.” Just like the American woman I’m trying to find, he mused.

“She’d apparently been one of the warlord’s favored concubines. I guess she had finally had enough and thought she deserved some severance pay for her troubles. She ran off with over a hundred thousand dollars in U.S. currency.”

“That would make for a heavy suitcase, wouldn’t it?” Agamemnon asked.

Joey shrugged. “She had it in a rucksack, actually. It was probably a good deal of weight, but she kept it squared on her back pretty well. It showed in her tracks, though.”

The patrol commander spoke up. “So you can really tell how much the person weighs by their track?”

Joey nodded. “Absolutely. More weight means the tracks sink deeper or register more on different types of terrain. You can tell where the weight is situated by how they push off—it will show on the toes or the heel.”

“It’s fascinating stuff,” Agamemnon said truthfully.

“We could tell that she had it on her back. And that she was in great shape. This wasn’t a sedentary woman. She knew how to walk and run, probably because she was a local. She’d grown up in the jungle until the warlord decided she’d make a good concubine.”

Agamemnon smiled. Joey could certainly sell himself when he needed to. Agamemnon had almost forgotten about his missing brother.

The patrol commander leaned forward. “So, what happened?”

“We tracked her toward the base of a giant waterfall. You hear about these things, but finding one untouched in the mountains is truly an amazing thing in and of itself.”

“Yeah?”

“She’d climbed the waterfall. She was trying to use the water to conceal her path, make her almost vanish, as it were.”

“Remarkable.”

“It was, yes,” Joey said. “Until she fell.”

“She fell?” Agamemnon asked.

“Blew open her skull when she bounced off the boulders at the bottom of the falls.” Joey shook his head. “What a waste. She was a beautiful woman, too. Obviously very headstrong, but you have to admire an independent spirit like that. She took a risk and it didn’t pay off for her. But you still had to respect her decision to risk it all. She knew what would have happened if we’d caught up with her.”

“You would have killed her, right?” the patrol leader asked.

Joey shook his head. “Not us. Our job was to bring the money back. But we would have brought her back, as well. And I don’t think the warlord we worked for would have been very kind to her. We’d seen his handiwork before.”

Agamemnon smiled. “What did he do?”

Joey faced him. “He liked to gouge out eyeballs and pour acid into the sockets, listening to his victims scream as the acid ate into their brains.”

That’s one I haven’t considered, Agamemnon thought. He grinned. “So, you brought the money back.”

“And got paid and we left,” Joey said. He stretched. “And on that note, I think I’ll retire. We’ve got an early morning ahead of us.”

Agamemnon nodded. “Wise words. Everyone get to bed.” He stretched and then got to his feet. The patrol commander pointed to a hammock a few feet away.

“Your hammock is all set, sir.”

“Thank you.” Agamemnon rolled into the hammock and pulled his mosquito netting over him. Instantly, he felt a blanket of sleep settle over him. He could hear the whine of mosquitoes trying to get at him but stymied by the netting. Their discordant lullaby filled his mind and he fell asleep.

The next thing he knew, the patrol commander was shaking him. Agamemnon’s hand went right to his pistol. “What is it?”

“Sorry to wake you, sir.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost midnight.”

“Why are you waking me?”

The patrol commander shook his head. “It’s the tracker. Joey.”

Agamemnon sat up. “What about him?”

“I just went to check on the troops. They’re fine. But he’s gone.”

Agamemnon gritted his teeth. Dammit. He looked out into the darkness. God help you, he thought. When I get my hands on you, I just might pour some acid into your eyeballs.