by Andy McNab
"Luz! Where are you? Luz! It's me, it's Nick, call to me!"
I shone the torch in a broad sweep but it only reflected back at me off the wet leaves.
"Luz! It's me, Nick."
"Over here! We're over here! Nick, please, please, Nick!"
I turned to my right and pushed towards her, dragging the cot away from a stand of wait-a-while that wanted to hang on to it. Just a few feet more and the torch beam landed on Luz, soaking wet, kneeling by her mother's head, her hair flat and her shoulders shaking. Carrie was lying beneath her, in pain, covered in leaf litter. Seeing Luz's face in the torchlight, she raised a hand, trying to remove the hair stuck her face.
"It's OK, baby, everything's OK, we can go back to the house now."
I dragged the cot alongside them, and inspected the job I'd done on her leg. It wasn't as good as it should have been: maybe I didn't deserve that first-aid badge after all. Thunder rumbled and cracked above the canopy.
"Where's Daddy? Is Daddy at the house?"
Luz looked at me from the other side of her mother, squinting into the torchlight, her red face wet with rain and tears.
I looked down and busied myself with the dressings, pleased that the weather, distance and canopy would have soaked up the sounds of automatic gunfire. I didn't know what the fuck to say.
"No, he went to get the police ..."
Carrie coughed and screwed up her pale face, smothering her ;M child into her chest. She looked at me quizzically over her head. I If closed my eyes, put the torchlight on to my face and shook my head.
I?
Her head fell back and she let out a low cry, her eyes shut tight.
Luz's head jumped up and down as her chest convulsed. She ;
tried to steer her mother's thoughts elsewhere, thinking it was ;
only physical pain.
"It's OK, Mom, Nick's going to get you back ;
to the house. It's OK."
;V
I'd done as much as I could with the dressings.
"Luz, you've got r to help me get your mum on the cot, OK?" Moving the torch slightly so as not to blind her, I looked at her scared face, nodding ' slowly as rain coursed down it.
"Good. Now get behind your mum's head, and when I say, I want you to lift her from under the armpits. I'll lift her legs at the same time and we'll get her on the cot in one go. Got it?"
I shone the torch above Carrie's head as Luz got into a kneeling position behind her mother's head. Carrie was still thinking of Aaron. That pain was far greater than anything her leg was causing.
"That's right. Now put your arms under her armpits." Carrie raised herself limply to try to help her daughter.
I jammed the torch into the mud. The beam shone up into the canopy and rain splattered on to the front of the lens. On my knees, I slid one arm under the small of her back and the other under her knees.
"OK, Luz, on my count of three are you ready?"
Thunder reverberated over the canopy.
A small but serious voice answered, "Yes, I'm ready."
I looked at what I could see of Carrie's face.
"You know this is going to hurt, don't you?"
She nodded, her eyes closed, taking sharp breaths.
"One, two, three up, up, up."
Her scream filled the night. Luz was startled. Carrie had gone down harder than I'd have wanted, but at least that phase was over. As soon as she landed she started breathing quickly and deeply through gritted teeth as Luz tried to comfort her.
"It's OK, Mom, it's OK ... ssssssh."
I pulled the torch from the mud and placed it on the cot next to Carrie's good leg so that it shone upwards, creating horror-movie shadows on their faces. The hard bits are done."
"It's OK, Mom. Hear that? The hard bits are done."
"Luz, grab your end, just lift it a little and I'll lift this end,
OK?"
She jumped to her feet and stood as if to attention, then bent her knees to grip the aluminium handles.
"Ready? One, two, three, up, up, up."
The cot lifted about six inches and I immediately started crashing backwards through the vegetation in the direction Carrie's feet were pointing. More thunder rumbled, swamping Carrie's sobs. Luz still thought it was just pain.
"We'll see Daddy soon. It's OK, Mom."
Carrie couldn't hold back and cried out into the storm.
I kept checking behind me and soon made out the lights of the Land Cruiser penetrating the foliage. Just a few paces later we were out in the open.
The rain was relentless as we lifted Carrie into the back of the vehicle, like a patient into an ambulance, her legs protruding on to the tailgate. 'You need to stay with your mum and hold on to her in case we hit a bump, OK?"
There was going to be no problem with that. Carrie pulled her child down and mourned covertly into her wet hair.
As I drove very slowly towards the rear of the house, the headlights cut through the rain and bounced back off the shiny skin and Plexiglass of the Huey. Its rotors drooped as if depressed by the weather.
Carrie was still getting soothing messages from Luz as we pulled up by the storeroom door. It took longer than I'd expected to get her inside, kicking cans out of the way, not worrying now there was no one to alert. We waddled with the cot into the brightly lit computer room. She was in a bad way, with soaked, bloodstained clothes, pruned skin, glued hair, red eyes and covered from head to toe in leaf litter.
As we lowered her to the floor near the two PCs, I looked to Luz.
"You need to go and turn the fans off."
She looked a bit confused but did it anyway. The fans would make the moisture evaporate quicker, producing a chilling effect. Carrie was in enough clanger from shock as it was.
As soon as Luz left us, Carrie pulled me down to her, whispering at me, "You sure he's dead, you sure? I need to know ... please?"
Luz made her way back to us as I looked her straight in the eye and nodded.
There was no dramatic reaction: she just let go of me and stared up at the slowing fans.
There was still nothing I could do to help her with her grief, but I could do something about her physical injuries.
"Stay with your mum, she needs you."
The medical suitcase was still on the shelf, though it had been opened and some of the contents scattered. I collected everything together and threw it back in the case, then knelt at the side of the cot and searched through to see what I could use. She'd lost blood, but I couldn't find a giving set or fluids.
"Luz? Is this the only medical kit you have?"
She nodded, holding hands with her mother, squeezing her fingers tight. I guessed they would have depended on a heli coming in to get them in the event of serious illness or accident. That wasn't going to happen tonight, not with this downpour -but at least it was keeping Charlie at bay. As long as it kept raining so hard he wouldn't be able to fly back to find out why contact had been broken.
I found the dihydrocodeine under the shelves. The label might have said one tablet when required, but she was getting three, plus the aspirin I was pushing from its foil. Without needing to be asked, Luz announced she was going to fetch some Evian. Carrie swallowed eagerly, desperate for anything to deaden what she was feeling. With this lot down her neck it wouldn't be long before she was dancing with the fairies, but for now she was studying the wall clock.
"Nick, tomorrow, ten o'clock..." She turned to me, her expression pleading.
"First things first."
I ripped the crunchy Cellophane from a crepe bandage and started to replace the belt and bits of sweatshirt in a figure of eight around her feet. She had to be stabilized. As soon as that was done, we needed to be out of this house before the weather improved and Charlie fired up his helis. Even if the rain stopped when we were half-way to Chepo, the Hueys would catch us up en route.
The clinic in Chepo, where is it?"
"It's not really a clinic, it's the Peace Corps folks and-' "H
ave they got a surgery?"
"Sort of."
I pressed the soles of her feet and her toes and watched the imprint remain for a second or two until her blood returned.
Two thousand people, Nick. You've got to talk to George, you must do something.
If only for Aar-' Luz returned with the water and helped her mother with the bottle.
I didn't disturb the dressings over the wound site, or the foliage packed between her legs, but just gradually worked my way up her legs with the four inch bandages. I wanted to get her looking like an Egyptian mummy from her feet up to her hips. Carrie just lay there, staring vacantly at the now stationary fans.
I got Luz to hold her mother's legs up a little so I could feed the bandage under them. Carrie cried out, but it had to be done. She managed to calm herself, and looked directly into my eyes. Talk to George, you'll speak his language. He won't listen to me, never has..."
Luz was on her knees, holding her mum's hand once more.
"What's happening, Mom?
Is Grandpa coming to help?"
Carrie stared at me, mumbling to Luz, "What's the time, baby?"
Twenty after eight."
Carrie squeezed her hand.
"What's wrong, Mom? I want Daddy. What's wrong?"
"We're late ... We've gotta get Grandpa ... He'll be worrying ... Talk to him, Nick. Please, you've got to ..."
Where's Daddy? I want Daddy." She was getting hysterical as Carrie held her hand tight.
"Soon, baby, not yet ... Get Grandpa ..." Then she turned her head away from her daughter and her voice was suddenly much quieter.
"Nick has to go and do something for us first and himself. I don't mind waiting, Chepo isn't that far." She stared at me for a few moments with half-closed, glazed eyes, then rested her head back on the cot, mouth open. But there wasn't any noise. Her big, wet, swollen eyes looked at me and begged silently.
Luz got up and went over to her PC.
"We'll see Daddy soon, right?"
Carrie couldn't tilt her head far enough back to see her.
"Get Grandpa."
"No, not yet," I said.
"Get a search engine Google, something like that."
Both of them looked at me as if I was mad. My eyes darted between them.
"Just do it, trust me."
Luz was already clicking the keyboard of her PC at the other end of the room when Carrie beckoned me closer.
"What?" I could smell the mud caked in her hair, and heard the sound of the modem handshaking.
She stared at me, her pupils almost fully dilated.
"Kelly, the Yes Guy. You got to do something ..."
It's OK, I've taken care of that, for now at least."
She smiled like a drunk.
"I got it, Nick I got Google."
I walked over and took her place on the chair, and typed in "Sunburn missile'.
It threw up a couple of thousand results, but even the first I clicked on made grim reading. The Russian-designed and -built 3M82 Moskit sea-skimming missile (NATO code-named SS-N-22 "Sunburn') was now also in the hands of the Chinese.
The line drawing showed a normal, rocket-shaped missile, quite skinny, with fins at the bottom and smaller ones midway up its ten metres. It could be launched from a ship or from a trailer-like platform that looked like something from Thunderbirds.
There was a defence analyst's review:
The Sunburn anti-ship missile is perhaps the most lethal in the world. The Sunburn combines a Mach 2.5 speed with a very low-level flight pattern that uses violent end maneuvers to throw off defenses. After detecting the Sunburn, the US Navy Phalanx point defense system may have only 2.5 seconds to calculate a fire solution before impact when it lifts up and heads straight down into the target's deck with the devastating impact of a 750 Ib warhead. With a range of 90 miles, Sunburn ... Devastating wasn't the word. After the initial explosion, which would melt everyone in the immediate vicinity, everything caught in the blast would become a secondary missile, to the point of steel drinks trays decapitating people at supersonic speed.
That was all I needed to know.
I moved off the chair and walked towards the other two.
"Luz, you can get your grand ad now."
THIRTY-EIGHT
I knelt down beside Carrie. The banjo you were talking about, is it a river? Is that why they have a boat?"
The drugs were kicking in.
"Banjo?"
"No, no where they came from last night, remember? Is it a river?"
She nodded, fighting hard to listen.
"Oh, the Bayano? East of here, not far."
"Do you know where they are exactly?"
"No, but... but..."
She motioned me with her head to bend down closer. When she spoke, her voice was shaking and trying to fight back the tears.
"Aaron next door?"
I shook my head. The Mazda."
She coughed and started to cry very gently. I didn't know what to say: my head was empty.
"Grandpa! Grandpa! You gotta help ... There were these men, Mom's hurt and Daddy's gone for the police!" She was getting herself into a frenzy. I moved over to her.
"Go and help your mum, go on."
I found myself facing George's head and shoulders in the six-inch-by-six box in the centre of the screen. It was still a bit jittery and fuzzy around the edges, just like last night, but I could clearly see his dark suit and tie over a white shirt. I plugged in the headset and put it over my ears so nothing could be heard over the tinny internal speaker. Luz had been protected so far from all this shit: there was no need for that to change.
"Who are you?" His tone was slow and controlled over the crackles.
"Nick. A face to the name at last, eh?"
"What's my daughter's condition?" His all-American square-jawed face didn't betray a trace of emotion.
"A fractured femur but she's going to be OK. You need to sort something out for her at Chepo. Get her picked up from the Peace Corps. I'll-' "No. Take them both to the embassy. Where is Aaron?" If he was concerned, he wasn't sounding it.
I looked behind me and saw Luz, close to Carrie but within earshot. I turned back and muttered, "Dead."
My eyes were on the screen, but there was no change of expression in his face nor in his voice.
"I repeat, take them to the embassy, I'll arrange everything else."
I shook my head slowly, looking into the screen as he stared back impassively. I kept my voice low.
"I know what's happening, George. So does Choi. You can't let the Ocaso take the hit. You know how many people will be there? People like Carrie, Luz -real people. You have to stop it."
His features didn't move a millimetre until he took a breath.
"Listen up, son, don't get yourself involved in something you don't understand. Just do exactly what I said. Take my daughter and Luz to the embassy, and do it right now."
He hadn't denied it. He hadn't asked, What's the Ocaso?"
I needed to finish my piece.
"Get it stopped, George, or I'm reaching out to anyone who will listen. Call it off and I'm silent for life. Simple."
"Can't do that, son." He leant forward as if he wanted to get closer to intimidate me. His face took up a lot of screen.
"Reach out all you want, no one will be listening. Just too many people involved, too many agendas. You're getting into ground that you wouldn't be capable of understanding."
He moved back, his shirt and tie returning to the screen.
"Listen up good, I'll tell you what's simple. Just take them to the embassy and wait there. I'll even get you paid off, if it helps." He paused,
to ensure I was really going to get the message.
"If not? Take my word for it, the future won't look bright. Now just get with the program, take them to the embassy, and don't get dragged into something that's so big it'll frighten you."
I listened, knowing that as soon as I was through those embassy gates I'd be history.
I knew too much and wasn't one of the family.
"Remember, son, many agendas. You wouldn't be sure who you'd be talking to."
I shook my head and pulled off the headset, looking around at Carrie with a shrug of exasperation.
"Let me speak to him, Nick."
TSfo point. He's hearing, not listening."
Two thousand people, Nick, two thousand people ..."
I went over to them both and grabbed one end of the cot with both hands.
"Luz, we need blankets and water for your mum. Just pile them up in the storeroom for the journey."
I pulled the cot back so Carrie was within reach of the headset, and placed it over her head, repositioning the mike so it was near her mouth. Above us, George's face still dominated the screen as he waited for my answer.
"Hi, it's me."
The face on the screen was impassive, but I saw the lips move.
"I'll live ... all those people won't if you don't do something to call it off."
George's mouth worked for several seconds, but his expression remained set. He was arguing, rationalizing, probably commanding. The one thing he still wasn't doing was listening.
"Just once, just for once in my life ... I've never asked you for anything. Even the passport wasn't a gift, it came with conditions. You have to stop it. Stop it now ... I looked at George, and his cold, unyielding face as he spoke. It was now Carrie's turn to listen. She slowly pulled the headset from her face, her eyes swollen with tears, and let it drop on her chest.
"Disconnect it ... get him out of here ... It's over ... Comms are closed."
I left them to it as George had already cut the com ms himself.
The box had closed down. That was because he'd be getting on to the missile crew using the relay.
Looking up at the ceiling, I followed the black wires from the dishes, down behind the plywood boards and out under the tables, looking like a plate of spaghetti as they jumbled themselves up with white wires and fought with each other on their way to feed the machines.
Sliding under the desk, I started to pull out anything that was attached to anything else as I shouted at Carrie. Where's the relay board? Do you know where the relay is?"