by Edge O. Erin
It was said that bad things come in threes. Their mission was in the toilet, and Abda was dead. Now, as they rounded a promontory, the gunboat appeared in the distance, and a charge exploded to their starboard. The next shot would surely cripple them. Thankfully the patrol boat was more manoeuvrable than its bigger cousin, and he yanked it closer to shore. Selecting a path that looked to be free of surface rocks and would take them to the beach, he pushed the throttle all the way forward.
“Get ready to jump! We’ll stay together for now.”
They raced towards the shore. Screeching sounds indicated they were skipping over subsurface rocks. Almost there…
Suddenly he was tumbling through the air. He landed in knee-deep water and immediately began scrambling towards the shore. To his right, he saw a leg and part of a torso. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the gunboat had halted due to the shallow and dangerous waters. Bullets were plunking into the sea near him. Then Jarvis emerged from the water beside him, gasping and spitting out water and sand, but otherwise intact. He grabbed him by his backpack and dragged him forward, and they raced towards the cover of boulders and trees. A few feet from a large rock, blood and bone spattered the side of his face and neck, and Jarvis disintegrated beside him. He still had Jarvis’ backpack in his hand. He dove behind the boulder, slithered into the verge, and made his way uphill.
He risked a peek from a knoll down towards the beach. He couldn’t see the gunboat but reckoned it was there along with forensic investigators and dive teams to sort through the wreckage and analyse the corpses of his squad. Personnel would be fanning out and tracking him, while others would be swooping in from the other direction. A drone would probably be tasked to fly over and look for heat signatures. Farther up and inland, the undergrowth and forest would give way to scrubland and then a muddy wasteland where fence separated seaside environs from subsistence farms, shacks, and squalor.
By now, MEM leaders would be aware of the failed mission, and PEDE would be deploying personnel for a catch or kill operation.
He tucked his aquasuit into his bag and donned his camo. He then took what he needed from Jarvis’ bag and jammed emergency rations, a second knife, gun, and cartridges into his own. Claire would be worried sick by now, and while some at MEM, like Scorp and Jon, truly cared for him, there would be nothing they could do to assist him right here. Suddenly the bushes rattled near him, and his heart was in his throat; they had found him already! He spun around, and a large, domesticated pig ambled up to him. Not only was it not afraid, but it also came right up to him. He reached out his hand, and the pig nuzzled it; clearly, it was somebody’s pet. An idea leapt to mind. He grabbed Spangler’s pack, smeared some ration meal on it, triggered the transponder, and tied the lot to the pig’s back. He slapped the pig on the backside, which made it squeal, and it started running up the hill.
As stealthily as he could muster, he started back down the hill towards the beach. The search party from the north would probably have dogs, but those down on the beach would not. Piggy on the run and the searchers’ expectations were positive elements, and he had to remain positive.
It wasn’t easy to avoid slipping and sliding down the hill, and as the rain came down harder, it made it that much more difficult. Every few steps, he would stop for a few moments, look, and listen. He continued until he heard an audible “Umphh!”
He peered down through the vegetation but couldn’t see anyone. Wait, there… yes, he could see something now; it was the distinctive skid mark of a person who had lost their footing and slid, or fallen, backward. It was steep down there. He waited, one minute, two minutes, still nothing. A beautiful yellow-and-green bird landed at the base of a jackfruit tree between himself and what he assumed to be a fallen foe. He felt a tad guilty for not knowing what kind of bird it was. Maybe some sort of parrot or parakeet? The small bird pecked away at a bumpy green fruit that lay on the ground. If only he could take a photo of it and show it to Claire. Then the bird took off. Something had startled it. He remained motionless; eyes glued to the area below. Finally, an “uh” and a muted, “Ah, crux.”
The person, a man, stood up, grabbed his head, brushed some mud, and matter off and looked about. Cooper had to stifle a gasp of incredulity. Under the dirt and camo, there was no mistaking the fact that the man looked very much like him. Not seeing anything, the man shook his head slightly, probably an attempt to clear the cobwebs. He then rolled and tilted his head a bit, which made him clutch his head again. He must’ve hit his head hard enough to be knocked out. Recognising this, he radioed in, “I’ve taken a bad tumble and must return to base.” Even the voice was uncannily like his own! It was as shocking as it was disturbing. He could see blood running down the man’s cheek. Being aware that the bleeding was significant enough to warrant immediate attention, the wounded man sat down and bandaged his head and took a few sips of water. After another couple of minutes, the soldier gathered himself and started down the hill. Carefully and quietly, Cooper followed him down. The man was moving slowly and awkwardly until he stopped again.
“Negative, I don’t need help, I will be back in thirty to sixty.” There was a pause and then, more sternly. “No, I haven’t seen anything, and yes, I will observe radio silence.” Seconds later, the man stumbled and crashed into a tree, and like a ship taking on water, keeled over and fell silent.
Cooper waited, but just a minute. This time the man, if he weren’t dead, would probably be out for quite a while. Either way, his face-planting presented a growing opportunity. He stifled a chuckle, for that was something Claire would’ve said. It was true, the longer two people were together, the more they grew alike. He eased his way to the man. His astonishment grew, for the face, save for being a bit thinner and having a thin moustache, was his own! How could it be? Giving his head a shake, he calmed. They said everyone had a twin; that had to be it… an incredible coincidence. Lookalike or not, chances are this man would have shot him on sight. He carefully checked the man’s headset; it hadn’t been triggered, and there was no feedback. Whew!
The usual procedure would entail personnel being tracked and monitored, but with the dense vegetation, location information might not be logging or transmitting consistently or correctly. Since the man had just spoken to someone, it could be that his taskers wouldn’t be vigilant or otherwise concerned. Furthermore, their focus would probably be on the personnel that had ventured further up the hill, interacting with units moving in from the north, securing the perimeter, and so on.
He considered choking his twin to death, but familiarity mixed with logic made him yield. If they came looking for the man and found him dead instead of incapacitated by concussion and shock, they would suspect foul play, and his situation would become even more perilous.
The man had on standard military garb with a shirt that was zipped up to the neck. The top of it must’ve caught on something and was torn open, revealing a necklace and pendant. The deep cobalt caught his eye as did the shape, an ‘M’ with a smaller ‘X’ raised to the upper right of it. It was striking, and he rotated the pendant between his fingers. The ‘X’, while also cobalt in colour, appeared to have a speck of diamond or cubic zirconia in the centre of it. On the back of the pendant was an inscription, ‘Mh81’, not a name, or invocation or oath, but Mh81, which was more than curious, for MH stood for something else, something significant to MEM’s leadership. He pulled the necklace off the man, with some strands of hair stuck to it, and put in a sealed bag in his pack.
He took a last look at the man and a few photos before he scrambled over a shelf of rock. Below, he could see the gunboat moving out due to the low tide, leaving two smaller boats at the shore, a small patrol boat, and an even smaller and nondescript tender. There was a tent set-up, a temporary base for the tracking team.
Water was dripping off a shelf, and after drinking heartily, he topped up his reservoir. A couple of hundred feet further down, he stopped, waited, and watched. There was no noise from above; the man mu
st still be down and out. Moving even slower and more cautiously now, he crept another ten feet and became part of the hardy, yet soft Eskdale grass. He almost squished a bird’s nest with his left hand. In it were four eggs. Scrambled eggs would be so good right now! Or boiled… heck, even raw, he was famished. He broke one open and sucked it down. He couldn’t bring himself to eat more; he liked birds and a steady stomach.
Looking down, he saw two individuals coming in and out of the tent. One man, one woman. Chances are another was staying at the coms or in a coordinate and control function. Whisper quiet, he scooched along until he was just shy of where the tall grass gave way to the seaweed, rocks, and driftwood on the upper part of the beach. Three different voices, only three. That was good. He had positioned himself such that the tent was between himself and the gunboat.
Now he had come this far, how should he proceed? The tracker’s tent would be in contact with those on the gunboat, and it was reasonable to think their commander and as many as ten others were on-board. Taking out the people in the tent wouldn’t do him any good for their silence would be as loud as thunder. Alone, he couldn’t bring down the gunboat. To do, as he initially thought, meant many miles of skirting along the beach and then an equally dangerous journey inland to the penitentiary entrance and hope that part of the plan was still intact.
A cacophony came from the tent. Among it, he heard the words “…biologic movement, Sector 6”! More indiscernible chatter ensued. The gunboat stayed fast, limited by low-tide and its anchor.
More words… “A pig? Seriously?”
He heard a burst of gunfire in the distance. Someone probably shot the pig. “Sorry, Miss Piggy,” he said to himself. Then there was more gunfire, a prolonged bout of it, and from different weapons.
“Reinforcements required in Sector 6! Fishers and farmers…”
Clearly, there was a skirmish up there somewhere.
“Estimating thirty locals with small arms and homemade weapons, the casualties being…”
Then the people inside the tent came running out, jumped into the patrol boat, and sped off towards the gunboat. To his delight, he saw the gunboat lift anchor, and both boats move out and then beyond the cape. He listened until he could hear them no more.
He could still hear gunfire, but it was sporadic and farther off.
In the tent, he gobbled down some fruit while listening to a radio to hear what was being said. A last look around, no, he had left no sign of his presence.
Donning a nondescript rain jacket, he climbed into the tender, took down its flag, fired it up, and made his way out and along the shore towards what he hoped would still be a viable extraction.
***
Jon felt guilty that they couldn’t yet help Cheriot and Mary escape, but perhaps he could inspire them with a message? The chief problem was he couldn’t access the PIP interface remotely and getting the microbots to modify the existing setup was probably impossible.
Examining footage of Cheriot’s cell, it occurred to him, the monitor! He could get the microbots to flash a message over the monitor itself. Based on his confidence that the video loop he had created of Jop’s sexual abuse of Cheriot would be noticed and too hard to ignore, he could write something legitimate. He scribbled something down:
You have friends. Though the good doctor is unable to visit you, we have taken steps to reveal Jop’s ongoing abuse of your person. We believe it will be too difficult for analysts and his bosses to ignore and can only hope the mistreatment will end. Please don’t lose hope! Some people care for you and Mary and want to set you free.
He considered writing it again, but he was a man of guile, not grammar.
He provided the necessary instructions to the microbots in Cheriot’s cell and trusted they would accomplish the task. If nothing else, it helped him get to sleep.
Chapter Twelve
“What’s your business here?”
“I’m here to speak to Commander Talon.”
“You want to speak to the Commander, the Commander of this Pen? Who are you? Where are your credentials? You show up here on foot, stinking and dirty, and want to speak to the Commander?”
“Get me Commander Talon,” Cooper said more forcefully.
“Why don’t you get on your knees and suck my knob?”
He took note of his name tag, “If you don’t get me the Commander right now, you, and your little knob, will be fish bait. Do it now, Gazik-Gate2-E!”
The man stood glaring and glowering. Not taking his eyes off him, he keyed in and said, “Commander, I have a Mr?”
“Sunshine.”
“… A Mr ’Sunshine’ wants to speak with you.”
The reply came back. “But sir, he looks and smells like a damn fish… OK, yes sir, sorry sir, we’ll get him straight to you.”
The guard didn’t like it one bit, but he swallowed his pride.
“Follow that one in,” he pointed to a grey-clad thickset man who just emerged from the back of the gatekeeper’s shack.
Cooper followed the man along the access road, then down a path, through a neglected, but not lifeless flower garden and to a windowless door in the cement wall. The door opened as they drew close, and they then ascended several flights of stairs. He was handed over to a younger man at the top, and together they took an old, rusty elevator down and down some more until they emerged in a wet and gloomy basement. The man pointed at another door. “In there.”
Was it a trap? What commander would have his office down in the bowels of such an establishment?
He opened the door to salt air and water lapping against concrete and tile. It was a dimly lit cavern, with most of the light coming from a distant opening to the sea.
The light from a lantern cast an eerie glow over a lanky figure, sitting on the edge of a desk and seemingly focused on a chunk of tangled rope.
“So, you made it, good on ya.”
It was Five Fins.
Cooper wasn’t all that surprised to see the old man had survived the ordeal, but that he was here, in this place, was mind-boggling.
“Five Fins, is that really you? And you, you’re Commander Talon?”
“I’m not much for titles or names.” The wiry old man continued to work away at the knotted piece of rope.
He waited patiently… one minute became two; two became five. Finally, Five Fins tossed the rope onto a pile of others like it against the wall. Getting up, he grabbed another length of rope and started twisting and tying it into knots and loops. Another two minutes dragged by before he spoke.
“And so?”
“I want to go home.”
“Don’t we all.” A pause and then, “Home stops being the home we knew whenever we leave the dock.”
He felt like saying he didn’t have time for fishy philosophy but knew this man had his life in his hands.
Five Fins tossed him a length of rope and a chunk of metal bar, like from a prison cell.
“Know how to tie a gunner’s knot?”
Cooper was puzzled, “Gunner’s knot?”
“I should’ve known. Maybe you know it as a ‘double constrictor’?”
This one he recalled.
“Yes, but it’s been a fairly long time.”
“A long time? You’re not old enough to ’long time’. Do it.”
Cooper grabbed the rope, felt its fibres and strength, and how it felt in his hands. The memory was conjured, and he did it with relative ease, holding the bar fast in its draw.
“Pass it back.”
He did, and Five Fins checked it out, giving it some additional pulls and cutting off the excess before lobbing it back to him.
“Now untie it, with your fingers only.”
Whatever the game was, he had to play it. Untying was proving difficult. He worked at it, but even pulling the stubs of rope parallel and up from the bar didn’t work.
“Try harder,” the Commander encouraged.
He tried harder, but to no avail, at least not yet. Five Fins grew impatie
nt. “If I could use a bit of wood?” Cooper asked.
“No. Pass it here.” Apparently, impatience was contagious.
He passed it back to Five Fins and watched the old man’s twisted fingers work, his veins and sinewy muscles in his leathery hands and forearms pulsing and twitching. In short order, the metal bar fell to the ground.
It was impressive. “Well done.”
“Why couldn’t you do it?”
“Lack of time… and experience?”
“Often, undoing is easier than doing. In this case, it’s not.”
What was the meaning of all this? Was the knot a parable for his own situation?
Five Fins threw the rope onto the pile but kept the iron rod in his hand. He tapped the tile floor three times.
A small boat floated into the light from out of the black, a man almost as dark as Five Fins himself, paddling it. The man got out into the knee-deep water and pulled the boat up what was clearly a sloping ramp meant for ease of access and departure.
Five Fins beckoned Cooper to come closer. He whispered, “See anyone familiar out there?”
Now how could he know that? Before he could muster a response, the old man waved him towards the boat. “Two Gills will look after you.”
“I don’t know if I can thank you enough.”
“People I honour, and respect speak highly of you… that’s thanks enough.”
***
Cooper was late, and given all that she heard about the mission, which was nothing beyond his ETA, she was anxious. His absence also meant she had to put Jasker into the building’s day-care, which she hated doing. The ladies there were sweet, so very sickeningly sweet that she couldn’t help but wonder when, after all the mothers left, and the doors were closed if they would play ‘baby toss’ or pinch the first child that started crying. No one was that nice.
If it weren’t for the fact this was her first official day of work at Kyles Books, she would’ve stayed home. But this opportunity was too significant to pass up, and she also knew if she stayed home, she would go positively nuts, or negatively nuts, whatever was the greater of the two.