by Eric Meyer
At a quick glance, it looked like three people huddled in a group. If he didn’t take them straight away, it would all be over. Last, he positioned himself behind the door with the lantern and the bottle of gas. The plan was simple. Splash the fuel over the guards and toss the lantern into their midst. If everything went well, they’d burn like torches, and he’d relieve them of their rifles while they screamed and died. If it went wrong, they’d be dead. At least they’d be no worse off. If there were more than two men, like last time, they’d also be dead. If the guards noticed anything wrong, they’d be dead.
What do we have to lose? Nothing, and maybe everything to gain, if it works.
He hunkered down and waited. In the glow of the lantern, Sara kept hard at work with Greg, wiping his brow, adjusting his dressing, trying to make him more comfortable, murmuring to him in soothing tones when he cried out. At one time, she looked over to him.
“His temperature is still rising. He doesn’t have long, Stoner.”
“I hear you.”
Don’t die, Greg. Think of Faria and the kids. Don’t die.
They were late, and he was beginning to think he’d got it all wrong. About three hours later, the bolts rattled. He tensed, holding the lantern in one hand, and the bottle in the other. Two men entered the cell and regarded the huddled group across the cell. One of them gave a low throaty chuckle.
“It’s time for the evening entertainment, infidel. This will be the last, at least, the last you remember. After they’ve finished, you won’t remember your own name.”
You’ll remember me, assholes. For the rest of your short, miserable, stinking lives, you’ll see my face etched in your worst nightmares.
He stepped into view, and if what was at stake wasn’t so deadly serious, he would have laughed. One man had left his rifle propped outside the cell and was stepping forward to get Stoner and take him back for torture. The other insurgent had his rifle tucked under his arm while let lit a cigarette. Stoner stepped out, ignored their looks of shock, and hurled the contents of the plastic bottle at both men. They still stared, frozen in shock, and he tossed the gasoline lantern at them. The flame ignited the gas dripping from their clothing.
The effect was instantaneous. A ‘whump’ as the flammable material caught, almost an explosion. Both men opened their mouths to let out piercing, agonizing shrieks of agony that could have awoken the dead. Stoner snatched the rifle dropped by the second man and used it like a club to smash the wooden butt into their skulls. Both men fell to the floor of the passage. Their bodies and clothing were still on fire, but the men inside them were dead. Their awful moment of agonized misery had been brief, but he suspected it had felt more like a lifetime.
Shouts were coming from down the tunnel. He grabbed the second rifle and called to Sara, “It’s time to remember your infantry lessons. Cover me while I pick Greg up, and then we’re getting out of here.”
“Be careful. He’s very weak.”
“Noted. Get out here, and be ready to do some shooting.”
She abandoned her patient, rushed from the cell, and snatched up the rifle. Knelt in a crouch, weapon facing down the passage, and Stoner carefully picked Greg up and put him over his shoulder. Wincing at the fresh agony to his back, he raced out of the cell and walked quickly up the passage. The ground sloped upward in a gentle incline, moving away from the entrance, and deeper into the mountain. He hoped they were heading in the right direction for another cave exit. Wayne had hinted at the existence of others, but whether true remained to be seen. He broke into a jog, struggling with Greg’s heavy weight pressing on his raw back. The first shots echoed through the tunnels as Sara opened fire on the enemy.
He picked up speed, going as fast as he could, and behind him, he heard footsteps. Light footsteps, Sara, not hostiles, and then she caught up with him.
“Stoner, we don’t have long. They didn’t sound impressed when they saw their buddies on fire.”
“They never are when they’re on the receiving end. We’re looking for an exit, so stay sharp.”
“How far?”
“How far? Jesus, Sara, how long is a piece of string? I’ve no idea.”
“But you’re sure there is an exit?”
“Pretty much.”
“You don’t know?”
“Wayne said there were several. Well, one or two. Problem is, he never told me where they were.”
“That’s really useful.”
He didn’t reply, but ran on, ignoring the hot agony knifing through him from his wounds. Carrying the semi-conscious Greg made it worse, much worse, but he’d have endured ten times more if that’s what it took. Twice more, Sara stopped, knelt, and opened fire. Each time a barrage of hot lead pursued them along the passage. The second time, she shouted, “Stoner, I’m out.”
“Okay, take my rifle.”
He stopped, gave her the gun, and she knelt again to unleash a third barrage of bullets at the pursuing enemy. They were getting closer, and the bullets had less distance to travel, less twists and turns to negotiate, and several rounds whistled past them. He ran on, and she was right behind him.
“Stoner, I’m nearly out. All I have left is five rounds. I saved them just in case.”
“Keep running.”
He knew what she meant. In case the enemy got close enough to recapture them. A self-administered bullet would be a better option than what they’d have in store for them. He tripped and almost dropped his friend, but managed to recover and keep running. The tunnel was dark, so dark he almost missed it. He was two paces past, when he stopped and went back. Something had nudged his brain, perhaps cleaner, fresher air he’d felt on his skin. He found the opening, clambered through, and he was looking out at the sky. A cloudless sky, stars, a full moon casting its rays onto the mountain slope. The chill breeze of early evening was like cool silk against his skin.
Sara appeared through the narrow crack in the rocks. He adjusted the burden on his back and started moving again, climbing. They had five bullets left, and a band of savages behind them. Not a recipe for a long, healthy life, but he kept climbing.
If they found it, they’d have somewhere to hide, somewhere to shelter Greg from the freezing night. After that, he’d no idea. He’d take things one step at a time. Get away; find somewhere to keep Greg and Sara safe, and then? He needed help, but he doubted Wayne’s old haunt had a landline installed. Shouts rang out from the cave they’d just exited, and he waited for the triumphant call that announced their discovery. And then the clouds drifted across the face of the moon, and the slope was in darkness. They hurried on and rounded a spur on the track, out of sight.
He kept climbing, never slacking his pace despite the weight of Greg on his shoulders, and ignoring everything except the need to get away to safety. He kept climbing until the sounds of pursuit had faded, and still he climbed. Climbing into…blackness.
When he came to, Sara had her face close to his, staring down at him.
“Do you feel any better?”
“What happened?”
She grinned. “You pushed yourself too hard and too fast. You just collapsed. You have to rest for a short time.”
“We must go on…”
“No, rest first. There’s no sign of a pursuit.”
“There will be. Just as soon as they discover we didn’t go one way, downhill, they’ll come uphill after us.”
“And they won’t find us. You realize where we are. Right next to the entrance to another cave, and this one is almost invisible if you don’t know where to look. Unless I’m wrong, this could be Wayne’s old hiding place. Take a look.”
He couldn’t get up. His back was a fiery torment, and his legs wouldn’t yet support him. He crawled in the direction she’d indicated, and sure enough came to a dark opening, less than a meter in diameter. Hidden behind a bunch of large, tumbled stones, he recognized it from the last time they were here. He crawled back to Greg and started to drag him toward the cave, but his body was too wea
k. Sara put her arms under Greg’s shoulders, and helped move him. Stoner did his best to push and pull him along.
They squeezed through the entrance, and it was an inch-by-inch agonizing process to ease him through. They were so slow he thought the hostiles would catch them before they got inside, but they made it into the small cave that had once been home to Wayne Evers. He used the last of his strength to drag Greg inside; helped by the faint rays of moonlight that seeped in from outside and lit up the way. When the dark cavern began to widen, he pulled him the last couple of meters, and Sara helped to put him gently on the floor. He slumped, exhausted almost to the point of unconsciousness. He was about to say he’d go outside with something to bring back snowmelt for them to drink, when he stopped.
They weren’t alone. The odor was the giveaway, a faint, metallic smell. A body that was unwashed, a faint overlay of booze, mixed with gun oil and the unmistakable tinge of nitrates. Ammunition or explosives, someone was in here, and they were armed. He tried to peer into the furthest recesses of the caves, but dark shadows stared back as if mocking him. He crawled next to Sara.
“The rifle, give it to me.”
“The rifle?” She put it into his hands, “Why the rifle? You think they’re here already? Don’t forget we have five bullets.”
He put his head close to hers and murmured, “There’s someone in here. Don’t make a sudden movement or any sound to tip them off. I’m going to crawl around and find him.”
They both jumped when the man spoke, the voice almost mocking, “You gonna shoot me, Stoner?”
Evers!
“Wayne! What the hell, what’re you doing here?”
A chuckle. “I could ask you the same question, buddy. I came here to get some peace, and it’s getting to be like Times Square. I take it the shooting I heard was something you did to upset my neighbors.”
“Your neighbors? You mean Tarzi?”
“Him, yeah. When I came back here they were everywhere, but it didn’t worry me none. I just came up here to my old place and hunkered down. I needed time to think.”
“Think about what?”
“This and that. Thing is, I found it a tad crowded back there. You know how it is, too many people, too much noise. Much better when it’s just you, and no one to answer to.”
Stoner felt his heart thumping wildly in his chest. “Greg here stopped a heavy caliber bullet trying to kill the man they assigned you to kill. We’re trying to help him.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry about that. Thing is, when I get the urge to be on my own, I just take off. How bad is he?”
“He’s dying. The bullet is out, but the infection is spreading, and he’s running a fever, so he doesn’t have long.”
A pause. “Tell you what, I have some antibiotics somewhere around, unless they’ve been looted. No idea what sort they are, but they might help. I used them on myself a while back after I cut myself during a fall. I rigged up an intravenous drip. Worked like a charm.” He laughed, “Well, I’m still here, so I guess that proves it.”
“Wayne, find them!” he snarled, “It may give him a chance.”
“I’ll look around. Damn, I forget where I put them. So many hiding places in these caves, stuff stashed everywhere. Have to be careful where you’re looking. Scorpions, they’re not nice if they sting you.”
“Scorpions!” Sara leapt to her feet, “Where?”
“Don’t worry, lady. They stay in their holes. Don’t disturb them, and they won’t disturb you.”
“Keep them away from me, Wayne. I hate scorpions, spiders, and snakes. I’d sooner sleep outside.”
“You’ll be okay,” he said, his voice sounding amused, “If I see any, I’ll make sure to keep them well away from you.”
“You’d better.”
He chuckled again and began groping his way around the clefts in the rocks. Stoner marveled the stuff was still there after he’d left it all those months ago. Then again, who would have come up here to find it, only a madman or a fugitive. Tarzi’s people had only recently arrived at the caves. Besides, if you didn’t know it was here, the cave entrance was almost impossible to find.
He heard a ‘crunch’ as a hard-carapaced insect died beneath Wayne’s boot, and Sara appeared not to notice. Then he called out in triumph.
“I’ve got it. Medical supplies, issued to the Pakistani Army. It’s out of date, but it should be okay. I’ll bring it all over.”
Stoner felt the unspoken question from Sara. The stuff was years out of date. Would it cure him, or do nothing? Worst case, kill him even quicker? They were back to a familiar scenario. They had nothing to lose. Wayne handed the drip bag and a bottle of precious antibiotic fluid to Sara, who began to jury rig a drip stand. A piece of line strung from a knobby outcrop on the cave roof, leaving the bag hanging suspended over Greg’s body. She inserted the needle into his arm and turned back to Wayne. “I need the solution. Saline solution.”
A pause. “I, er, don’t have any left.”
“You what?” Sara hissed at him, “Are you crazy? You know this won’t work without saline solution. He needs rehydrating, and the antibiotic has to be dissolved into the bag.”
“I got salt,” He brightened, “Would that do it?”
“Purified water?”
“Nope.”
She whirled on Stoner. “Go get that snowmelt. Ask Wayne for something to put it in. Bring it here, and I’ll lash something together.
Wayne gave him an old, cracked mug, and he went outside. The temperature had dropped, and he felt the chill on his naked, wounded torso. He had to be quick, before he froze, and he climbed a few meters to a shaded patch of rock where the snow lay thick. Rinsed the mug out with snow, and packed in more clean virgin snow to take to the cave. He almost made it. The bullets lashed past him, and when he looked down, they were climbing the slope. They’d seen him, and they were on the way.
He raced back, handed over the mug to Sara, and shouted to Wayne, “They’re coming up. We have to push them back.”
“Shit.”
He raced to the far corner of the cave and moved aside a slab of rock that looked like a natural part of the floor. It wasn’t. Below the slab, he exposed a hole in the floor of the cave, and inside, bundles wrapped in waterproof plastic and burlap. He handed them to Stoner.
“These’re all I have. I collected them from the men I killed over the years. They’re Russian and Chinese-made weapons, but when you pull the trigger, bullets come out the right end.”
They unwrapped the weapons while Sara applied the drip to Greg. Stoner found a PK 7.62mm machine gun and slammed in a magazine. He took five spare magazines from another package and scrambled outside. A few seconds later, Wayne joined him. He carried an AK-47, and something that could be even more useful, a sniper rifle, a venerable Moisin Nagant bolt-action 7.62mm, fitted with a short scope. Good enough for the famed sniper Vasily Zaitsev to kill hundreds of Nazis in the killing ground of Stalingrad in 1942. And Wayne was a sniper, a marksman who was up there with the best.
They kept out of sight, watching the men climb the slope toward them, and Wayne pointed to a narrow path through the rocks.
“We have to steer them away from my cave. If they find it, we’re done for. Only way is to make them see us go around the rocks, and pick them off as they come after us.”
“You think it’ll work? I could see a lot of them moving up the slope.”
His gaze was flat, as if he didn’t care. “Probably not, but we’ll have some fun.”
“We still have to get Sara and Greg out of here.”
“Not if we’re dead, buddy. But we’re not at that stage yet. Trust me.”
He shrugged and didn’t reply at first. Instead, he delved into the pockets of his coat and handed him two round, metal objects. Pineapple-shaped, old fashioned, but lethal Chinese-made F1s. “Try these. That should make them think twice before they get too close.”
He pocketed the grenades, and they scrambled over the rocks to almost tw
o hundred meters from the cave. Wayne indicated a narrow ledge that overlooked the slope. Stoner peered over the edge. They were still climbing, almost thirty men, enough to outnumber them by a huge margin. Evers lay flat on the rocky shelf, staring down the slope, and he angled the barrel of the Moisin to select his first target. When he pulled the trigger, the bullet whip-cracked out, echoing around the rocks, and both the noise and the puff of smoke from the muzzle were like a signpost pointing to their location.
The man he’d targeted went down, spinning to the ground, and the body started to tumble back down to the bottom. A man pointed at their ledge, and the insurgents changed direction, hurrying toward them, and away from the cave. A storm of bullets whistled up the hillside, too close for comfort, and they ducked low. When he put his head up, he could see them coming in a rush.
“Wayne…”
“I see them.”
Stoner pulled the trigger of the PK and unleashed a hail of bullets into their midst. Evers kept up a witheringly accurate fire, and when the robed attackers decided they’d taken enough, they’d left ten bodies stretched out on the slope. The rest disappeared into cover.
“They’ll change tactics,” Wayne murmured. “My guess is they’ll come at us from the flank. He pointed to the west, “About there, I’d say. Why don’t you slide over, stay out of sight, and when they get close, give them the surprise of their miserable lives. I’ll stay here in case they try to attack from the front again.”
He nodded and slid away. He took up position another eight meters to the west, hidden in a narrow crevasse between two rocks that had tumbled from higher up, sometime in the past two million years. Then he waited. He still had no coat or shirt, and he began to lose all feeling in his upper body. Cursed for not asking Wayne for something he could wear to keep out some of the cold. After all, the guy had stuff stored in in every nook and cranny inside the cave. He stamped his feet and windmilled his arms, jumping up and down to try to keep the circulation moving. The cold was intense, and he had to work hard to fight it. So hard, he almost missed them.