The Tank

by Nicola Lombardi

  As soon as the clangor stopped and the doors opened, he pushed the chair forward and positioned it between the photocells, preventing the doors from closing. A simple solution, but an efficient one.

  The other possible way in was the Escape. But that - if they couldn’t manage to get their hands on the right key - was safe.

  (Are you sure? Do you really think that a couple of bullets to the lock wouldn’t solve the problem?)

  He realized he was thinking in a confused way, but he wasn’t surprised. The incessant beep echoing in the Control and running through the Ring was dazing him. How long would it go on? Until he turned it off, of course. The message had been received, so he went back in and switched the alarm off. It was like suddenly putting is head in a tin bucket. The reverberating silence falling on his almost made him stumble.

  (You’re not going to pass out now, are you?)

  But the effect produced by that sudden acoustic interruption lasted just a few seconds, because from the outside the noises of battle had become louder. Nearer.

  He ran to his bedroom, catching a glimpse of the mute TV in the kitchen.

  A man was flying over a mountain valley on a hang-glider. A glider on which to run away, get to safety...

  But it would be a great act of cowardice. However scared he might be, he would never be a coward. “I am the NMO”, he said, but he almost didn’t recognize his own voice.

  Looking out the window he immediately noticed how far the fire was spreading and how much smoke was expanding, intoxicating the red and purple clouds on the horizon. The gunshots went on. How many were already dead? Instead of the entry gate, he could now see a large, smoldering space opening Camp 9 to the outside world. There were lots of people going in and out, running, curved, burdened with weapons, rucksacks, bags. There were really lots of them.

  Giovanni looked up to the sky, a dark expanse filled with shadows from which very few stars met his gaze. He could do nothing but wait. Hw could only watch the events unfold, hoping they would go for the better; and get ready to face any threat to him and the Tank.

  He touched the holiest with one hand. The Beretta FS 83.9 was still there, ready for the fourth and last daily delivery, which had been canceled for circumstances beyond his control. There were fourteen rounds inside the magazine. He would be better off getting the second one, too. He went back to the Control, opened the drawer where he usually locked the pistol in and found what he was looking for. He opened the small packet and put its content inside the pocket of his shirt, right above the heart.

  Then he went back to he window.

  He was left out of breath. He sucked in with a pound noise, as if he had a snorkel between his teeth.

  A mass of armed people - on foot or jeeps - was walking towards the Tank. There were about a hundred. A confused clamor accompanied them. They would be there in a minute or so.

  The foolish idea of throwing a cauldron of boiling oil on them came spontaneously, like a horrid multicolored flower, from the fertile soil of his fantasy. He whispered a prayer, grinding them with his nervously chattering teeth.

  (“Aren’t you afraid?”)

  Yes, general. I really am...

  They couldn’t see them from that distant, but his instinct made him move away from the window. A good shooter with a good rifle could work miracles, had he spotted him.

  What could they do? That was his doubt. He didn’t know what resources they had nor their intentions. The only thing he was sure about is that if they reached him, they would unleash all the hatred they were brooding who-knows-how long, not caring about him being nothing but an executor. On the other hand he couldn’t appeal to sacred duty of obedience like the soldiers in Nuremberg during the previous century. He was a civilian who had chosen to apply for that job and fought to get it; if he got caught by the revolutionaries, he would have no right to ask them for mercy.

  He went back to the Ring, gun in hand and blood running from the lip he was biting.

  He tried to think about it. First, they would try with the main entrance. And when they realized the cabin was unavailable, what would they do? Was it worth it to try forcing the elevator door, maybe using a bomb? No. They would simply reach a dark shaft with the only perspective of needing to climb the steel cables like monkeys.

  They no doubt knew (and there were many things they probably knew, considering what they had managed to do) that on the side of the Tank there was a ladder, hanging from the concrete, leading almost to the top...

  They could climb only one at a time, and any bulky weapon would be an hindrance; after reaching the top and opening it, they wouldn’t be able to burst in all together. It made him think of the Thermopylae and with an ironic hiccup he swallowed some blood.

  He moved away from the elevator - still open, with the chair has its steadfast sentinel - and, ignoring his own reflection on the glass of Shutter, he reached the Escape. Alex had gotten in from there using a copy of the key. The people outside (the revolutionaries) had likely gotten their hands on one, too; he momentarily holstered his Beretta, took his keys out of his pocket and looked for the right one, then took it out of the keychain. He then put it into the lock and turned it a little to prevent other keys from pushing it out.

  There. He could do nothing but wait for them

  He stepped back until he had his back against the wall, the back of his head to the Porthole. Had he turned, he would see his face trapped in the darkness of those curved crystals. He didn’t, also because his excitement could trick him into seeing other faces, and it certainly wasn’t the tine to give up to the torments of his imagination.

  Crawling with his back against the wall he bent his knees, sitting on the floor. He extracted his gun again and, with a two-handed grip, used his kneecaps as a base. Fourteen rounds, plus another fifteen-round magazine in his pocket. Twenty-nine in total. They could be enough, if after seeing the first comrades fall, the others would desist. Or maybe not. IT would be enough to throw a grenade...

  No way he could get out alive.

  He almost felt a kid again, when he played war with his friends in a thicket on the outskirts of his town. He used to hide behind a tree, armed with a sling, rubber bands or peashooter, and reviewed the best strategies of attack and defense to win that battle. The only thing one could lose then was his reputation, which in his thirteen-year-old eyes was invaluable. Now his very life was at stake; the concept of reputation was a small thing in comparison. Of course there was honor. And the idea had some kind of comforting appeal. It wasn’t enough to drive the fear away, of course, but it somehow ennobled his critical situation.

  The general would be proud of me, if he could see me now, he thought, using his forearm to wipe the sweat that was dropping from his temple to his neck. If he is till alive.

  He imagined his lying behind his desk, a still smoking hole in the middle of his head. No, it couldn’t be...

  Stevanich wasn’t there. Stevanich was managing everything from a more secure position, a less accessible one. Wherever he was, he had already been informed of what was happening. It was only a matter of waiting for the counteroffensive. Nemo me impune lacessit. Camp 9 was under attack and Giovanni couldn’t believe a hundred man could be, however well organized they might be, could conquer the Tank and overthrow what it symbolized.

  (They will be enough to capture you and make you regret being born.)

  He shook his head, as if by doing so he could drive away the harmful thoughts that didn’t miss a chance to weaken him in critical moments like these. He had already had the chance to think about it, the fact than in such situations those thoughts were his worst enemies. And then...

  And then nothing. From the outside, there came the first noises.

  Clang. Clang. Clang. Boots on metal tubes. Feet on steps. Men incoming, almost reaching the platform acting as a landing, right outside the Escape.

  Enough crying, enough hiding in futile mental ways out. It was the time to annul himself, cage his rational side, w
ith all its neurosis, and leave room to the animal roaring in his blood.

  Voices, steps, keys. The keys, of course...

  The black handle lowered itself once, twice, but to no avail.

  Did you think I would the door open? Maybe with a doormat?

  Something metallic was inserted in the lock. Click clack. More attempts on the handles, useless ones.

  No, friends, no way.

  Giovanni grinned, glad he had managed to make their lives more difficult preemptively forestalling their attempt to get into the Tank without breaking a sweat.

  They were shouting, out there, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. The blood flowing in his ears produced e deep buzz, spaced out by the dull thuds of his heartbeat. They shouted and kept hitting the door. It could be a gun or the stock of a rifle. They were trying to break the lock. Someone cursed, others laughed excitedly. And all those noises expanded like black waves around the Rings only to come back at him, giving the impression the blows came from the other side, too, as if the door of the Shutter was about to be forced from the inside.

  Obeying the commands of the survival instinct that he felt taking control for the first time, Giovanni gradually tilted rightwards; when he was almost lying on the linoleum floor he moved his legs and got out of what would probably be the line of fire. Then, silence fell outside. Giovanni held his breath. The handle bent. The second came with the strength of a maul and the lock moved inwards ten centimeters or so. Cheers outside. The third shot sent broke locking mechanism and got stuck into the Porthole. Giovanni instantly thought he would have a hole in his throat, hadn’t he moved.

  He aimed forward, pervaded by a chill he had never felt before. As if his blood had suddenly stopped running.

  Once more moment of silence. Somebody, on the other side, was getting ready. The wasn’t enough room barging in shoulder first, but he strong enough kick would do.

  Giovanni whispered: “I’m ready.”

  With a loud noise the Escape opened in a bang of metal fragments and splinters of green paint, rotating on its hinges and crashing into the wall. On the external platform a bulky man still had his leg up. Giovanni tried to look him in the eyes, but the neon lights couldn’t penetrate the shadow cone hiding his face. The intruder had no way of immediately noticing the Keeper lying prone, but he would in a few seconds. If he stepped in the Ring, the other would follow him and it would have been the end.

  But it would be cowardly not to give him at least one chance.

  “I’m here.” Giovanni said calmly.

  The man lowered his gaze, following the voice. An indistinct gurgle came out of his throat. He started rising his right hand - the one holding the gun used to destroy the lock - but it was too late. Giovanni couldn’t even hear the gunshot. He saw the Beretta vibrate in his hands and smelled the stench of the heated metal.

  The man fell backwards, pushed by the force of the projectile that hit him under his sternum. The sky behind him was dark and Giovanni couldn’t clearly see the arms and legs moving. He thought he saw a foot where the head was before and at the same time a scream reached his ears, moving away from him. Now, beyond the door, only the railing was visible, nothing else.

  He heard screams and curses.

  Giovanni was shaking, but he didn’t move.

  HE heard somebody, the one who was probably getting ready to enter after the first, growling. “Be careful, the pig is armed, in there!”

  That’s what I am for them, he thought. An armed pig...

  So the answer came naturally to him, out loud: “Nemo me impune lacessit! Do you understand? Nemo me...”

  A movement, a sneaky shape crawling on the other side of the door. Giovanni rapidly pulled the trigger twice. Two flashed, two violent snaps.

  “...impune lacessit!”

  Silence. No lament, no noises. The bullets were lost in the night without meeting flesh nor bone, but the man about to get in had rapidly changed his mind.

  Maybe they were talking, in that precise moment. Plotting something. They could choose to barge in, use numbers. But they knew that the first ones who got in, however fast they could be, would inevitably be in his line of fire. A spark of folly in its purest state reminded him of the mice in that old tale. They needed to tie a bell to the cat’s neck, so that they could hear him and get to safety. Yes, but...who would go?

  I’m talking to you, revolutionaries: who wants to get i first?

  No, they wouldn’t. He could almost hear them. “Who has a bomb? Pass me a bomb!”

  Someone had it and it was advancing up the stair. It got up, from hand to hand...

  In a few seconds he would see a small, rounded object fly inside the Ring, roll somewhere, and if he was lucky he would have time to run away; but after the explosions, they would get in, go everywhere. Maybe he would manage to get inside the elevator, covering his escape by shooting left and right, but then? Once downstairs, he had no chance of saving himself.

  There was another possibility: grab the bomb before it could explode and throw it back at them. It would be a great feat...

  Or, exploiting that moment of stasis, he could run to one side of the Escape and start shooting down the ladder, towards all those who were grabbing on to it. They would fall one after the other. It was worthy of a war veteran, and...

  His fantasies were stopped suddenly by a noise - a series of noises - approaching. Absorbed by his frantic plans of survival he didn’t perceive it until it was too evident to ignore it. Shots on shots on shots.

  Patpatpatpatpatpatpatpat.

  A drop of sweat got into his eye and Giovanni had to rapidly close it to ease the pain. It seemed the sound of quick steps, of people running. He imagined that elevator being called and coming up packed with angry revolutionaries. Or worse, the Shutter wide open, and from its glass maws man both alive and dead swarming out, like in his worst dreams...

  The Ring was filled with that obsessive noise. He bit his lip again, and tasted the coppery blood.

  Beyond the darkness of the door, where his death was being planned, now the screams of terrified men, screams that the sound (Patpatpatpatpatpatpatpat) was submerging with a thundering wave. A light appeared in the sky, a turbulent beam, white as snow, and the rumbling of engines filled everything. Giovanni laughed and tears started running down his cheeks.

  A helicopter!

  Powerful blades whipped the fresh, dark air, the blinding eye looking for preys. And as soon as it found them, an infernal fest of bullets and flames set the world on fire. Giovanni lowered his gun, astonished by the rectangle of lights, explosions, screams, rumbles and gunshots, endless gunshots. From his point of view he couldn’t see the enormous engine of death, but he could imagine his movements from the moving lights and sounds, the veers, the dives, while the machine guns spit flames and metal on falling bodies, amassing in hopeless escapes, decaying in red shreds feeding a constantly hungry soil. The whole structure of concrete and metal vibrated, shake by the artificial thunder. Hypnotized, Giovanni stood up and slowly walked towards the changing colors luring him. He wanted to see, fill his eyes and soul of that scene.

  And he looked.

  Nobody was on the ladder, of course. He could calm down. With a hand on the railing, he followed the agile maneuver with witch the vehicle - an AB-413 armed with machine-guns firing one-hundred and fifty round per minute - flew downwards and landed among the lifeless bodies. Everywhere, as far as the floodlight could go, there were corpses, or crawling shapes, some on all-four, other still standing.

  A hatch opened outwards from one side of the chopper and six, seven soldiers came out, all with their rifles out. And they didn’t wait one second before unloading their ammunitions on anything that moved.

  From above, Giovanni feasted on that show. His heart had calmed down and his mind started crawling out from the torpor it was in. He stared at the scene with a certain detachment, like watching a movie; but the tremor running through his body destroyed the simulacrum of indifference
in which he was in.

  When the soldiers stopped firing they they returned inside the helicopter - which was still buzzing, a sleeping beast ready to attack - ducking under the blades.

  At the same time two other soldiers got out, with two heavy bags on their bags. Giovanni wondered what they were about to do, but as soon as he saw them aim their weapons forward he understood. And thanked that the LPG tank was on the other side of the Tank.

  Two tongues of fire came out in perfect sync and, without separating the dead from the living, devoured clothes and flesh. In about thirty seconds a large bonfire at the feet of the Tank was all that remained of that revolutionary contingent. A black, stinking smoke rose from the flames, expanding in spirals; when Giovanni inhaled the stick of burning bodies he holstered his gun and put his hand on his mouth. He stepped backwards, groaning, distancing himself from the heat, but despite going back to the dark cool of the Ring he kept standing by the doorstep.

  A devastating migraine plunged its fangs in his head, but in such a moment pain had no meaning. Outside, down there, among scarlet flashed evoking sombre visions from beyond, the helicopter’s rotors strengthened their roar. In a few seconds, with a take-off blowing away smoke and heat in the night, the AB-413 brought itself near the torn Escape and its eye impertinently started searching inside the building. Giovanni rose and arm, shielding his face from the blinding beam. Did they want to shoot him too? He couldn’t think of a reason why, but if that was how things would go, he had no intention of moving.

  A cawing voice, amplified and distorted by a megaphone, fought the noise of the engine to be heard: “The alarm has ceased. Restore the elevator’s operability. We need to proceed with indoor controls. Do you understand, Keeper?”

  “Yes”, whispered Giovanni. “I understand.”

  “If you did, raise your right arm.”

  Giovanni did so, then let it fall.

  “Good. Proceed!”

  With a noise similar to the explosion of a mortar the megaphone was turned off and the helicopter tilted sidewards before leaving for the Center, on the other side of the Tank.