“That’s enough go-jus I think,” he declared finally, ending the safer part of our day.
~
Just over an hour back in the uncomfortable van saw us passing the trading post, Dan slowing to wave at the guard who had wandered outside in response to the sound of engines approaching. It was Roland, as it often was, and he returned the wave with all the self-importance of a man standing guard over his own small fiefdom.
The drive to where the battered, grubby once-white pickup was abandoned had been longer than I expected, showing just how exhausted I must have been when I had walked the man who had tried to kill me back towards the trading post. Fuel was siphoned out, topping off the van and filling the pickup’s tank before making it splutter back to life.
Three hours after our early start, the fuel truck headed for home and we headed for the mountains. And for revenge.
I Spy
I led the way, driving the pickup with, of all bloody people, Lucien sat beside me and our long rifles creating a kind of barrier in between us. He had this annoying habit of keeping silent, which I usually liked, but he did it with a kind of smirk that drove me crazy.
I lasted about fifteen kilometres before I started shifting in my seat and huffing, which made him smile wider and stay infuriatingly silent. Another fifteen kilometres and I cracked when he chuckled to himself.
“What’s so funny?” I asked him in English, forgetting to translate my thoughts as they came out.
“I do not laugh at you, Leah,” he said smoothly, still smirking.
“What then?” I snapped back, returning his smile for some unknown reason and trying to wipe it off my face in case he didn’t take me seriously.
“I was just remembering,” he said carefully in English that was better than I recalled or expected, “when your boyfriend tried to show me how big and strong he was…” He trailed away to look out the window and chuckle ruefully again.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I snapped, sounding younger than I was as he touched a raw nerve, “he never was. He’s a dick.”
Lucien burst out laughing, a melodic giggle with a hint of tenor that made my concentration waver from the road more than I expected.
“What?”
“What is this word, dick?” he asked in a tone that suggested he knew what I meant but wanted me to say it. I called his bluff.
“Henry,” I said carefully, “is a cock. A penis. A bloody bellend, and I don’t like him, and I was angry that he thought I was his… his property to be argued over.”
Lucien thought about it for a while before answering.
“I apology,” he said. I ignored the grammar knowing that I would be just as roughly translated if I tried to have the conversation in French. “I did not mean to make you angry. It is just that…” He paused, taking in a long breath through his nose and stretching his neck up in thought. I forced my eyes back to the road and away from the defined muscles in his neck. “It is just that he had… raisons pour lesquelles.”
“Reasons?” I asked. “What reasons?”
“He heard me speak of you, and I think he try to defend you.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure where to take the conversation. Luckily, he pointed at a road sign ahead and changed the subject for me.
“That is the way to where I used to call my home,” he said wistfully.
“Where did you live?”
“To the east of Le Mans,” he said, lost in retrospection, “in a small town of little value. We were les Sarthoises,” he said, pronouncing it Sart-warrs, “much as the people of Sanctuary and indeed of Andorra are Catalan. That is the language the prisoner has, Catalan, not Spanish.”
“How did you get to Sanctuary then?” I asked, ignoring the information Alita had already given me.
“I was in Barcelona for a fight,” he said, “my father called our home and my mother said she was sick. So was my sister. My father became unwell that night…” He trailed off, not wanting to go any further on the subject.
“I was left alone too,” I told him, “I was only twelve.”
“I was sixteen,” he said softly, “I was in the summer after leaving school, and my trainer said that these fights in Spain would get me seen by the people in Paris”—he pronounced that in the true way—“and that I would have the chance to be with the Olympics if I did well.”
“And did you?” I asked, feeling dumb but trying to roll with it anyway. He gave that smooth little self-depreciating chuckle again before answering.
“I did not have the chance, and there was almost nobody there to see. None of the Olympics coaches came. That was the same night that all was changed.”
I nodded and drove in silence for a while. I tried to think of a way to fill the awkward silence that now echoed around the squeaky cab, and decided on a complete subject change.
“What did you do to pass the time on long journeys?” I asked him, a hint of conspiratorial mischief in my voice. “You know, to pass the time?” He leaned back a little, shifting his position for comfort before answering.
“We talked, we listened to music…” he said almost vacantly, “and you?”
“Same,” I said, “and we played I Spy.”
I kept my eyes on the road but could feel his amused gaze boring into the side of my head as he waited for the explanation. I decided to make him ask.
“I surrender,” he said mockingly, “what is the I Spy?”
“It’s a game,” I told him, “we take it in turns. I find something I can see and tell you what it begins with, then you have to guess.”
“Okay,” he said smiling, “you begin.”
“I spy,” I said, drawing out the words theatrically like I was thinking, just as my mother had done when I was younger, “with my little eye… something beginning with… C.”
“Are we to play in English?” he asked after a pause.
“Yes,” I said, “my game, my language.” He smirked with a mock huff.
“Car?”
“Yes. Your turn,” I said with feigned annoyance having given him the easiest one I could think of as we passed a long line of derelict vehicles on my side of the road where they had been parked and never returned to.
“I spy with my little eye,” he said, faster than I had, “something beginning with L.”
I thought hard, seeing nothing obvious.
“In English?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, his tone of voice making it obvious that he was enjoying teasing me. I thought again, casting my vision out to the extremes of what I could see.
“Lights?” I tried.
“No.”
“I give up,” I said in exasperation.
“Leah,” he said softly. I tutted, rolling my eyes at the simplicity of the joke at my expense.
“I see you. I watch you run sometimes,” he went on, “you are fast.”
I paused, not sure whether to feel creeped out or excited.
“Through your scope?” I asked. “From the watchtower?”
“Yes.”
“So… you’ve been pointing a high-powered rifle at me?” I said carefully. He pulled a face as though he was only just considering this for the first time.
“Yes, but I have the safety on,” he replied ruefully making me blush despite the breeze coming in through my window. I drove on in silence, not wanting to play I Spy any longer.
You can keep your bloody safety on, I thought, and we can discuss that remark when we’ve finished the job.
~
At the end of the long stretch that Rafi had told me would take a long time, I slowed before we reached the foothills, dabbing the brakes to roll the truck to a stop and pulling to the side of the road. Dan pulled up beside me, the passenger window open and Alita’s smiling face looking slightly downwards to mine.
“The road gets steeper after this,” I said, pointing out the obvious as the landscape about a mile ahead began to rise steeply, “and that’s where I hit the ambush.”
Dan, leaning forw
ard with his left forearm resting on the top of the steering wheel, nodded and thought.
“Nothing on their radio yet?”
“No,” I replied, “but I doubt it will work this far away.”
“Okay,” he said, his eyes looking ahead as he thought, “carry on, carefully, until we get to before where you ambushed them. Then I’ll figure out what to do.”
We drove, slower now because the winding roads were awkward and forced the speed down to be able to see around the switch-back bends, and because I half expected to meet resistance.
When I had reached the fork in the road where the very truck I was driving had been parked to cut off my escape, as though I would be dumb enough to walk along the only road off the mountain top, I almost missed it until the oily-black stains on the tarmac caught the sun. I stopped, crunching the selector up into park and switching off the engine before climbing out to raise my weapon. I moved four quick strides to my left to get my body clear of the vehicle.
Vehicles attract fire, my brain barked at me as though I ever needed reminding.
Lucien had done the same, breaking off right and settling himself into the foliage at the roadside near to where I had hidden to await my opportunity to take out Rocco’s friends, the unfamiliar assault rifle in his hands as the marksman rifle was a hindrance in the close confines of the leaf-shaded road. Nemesis had bounced down from the bed of the truck, her claws clattering on the metal and the tarmac as she moved to my side, and the van rolled to a stop behind us before killing its engine.
I waited, straining my ears in the silence to filter out the natural sounds and force myself to detect any unnatural ones.
Nothing.
I waited for longer, but still nothing.
I rose, flicked my thumb up to engage the safety on the carbine, and walked back to the open driver’s window of the van.
“A few K’s ahead,” I explained softly, “after the border post, the road drops down into a shallow bowl. The new town is there, and the road swings right to avoid it. The tunnel and mountain road split off there.”
“Go ahead, slowly,” he told me, “then stop before the town is visible. I want you and pretty boy up high before I go in on foot.”
“What’s the plan?”
He chewed the inside of his cheek as he thought.
“I’ll offer an exchange of prisoners,” he said cryptically, “and take it from there. You know the signal.”
It was a statement, not a question, and I nodded before turning back to the battered truck.
We were heading back to Andorra.
The High Ground
The border post was exactly as it had been when I had left it, with no sign of anyone using it for the intended purpose. We cleared it anyway, because it never paid to take chances or make asses of you and ’umption, and I led the way onwards and upwards.
Stopping well short of the crest of the rise before the tops of the buildings came into view, I swung the truck off the road and killed the engine but left the keys in the ignition. Someone would take over driving it, probably Neil if I had to guess, but that wasn’t my concern any longer.
Lucien mirrored my movements, strapping his own weapon on his back in favour of the longer barrelled marksman rifles we now needed, and I pointed to the right side of the road. He understood and set off to make the climb out of sight there as I looked up at the left side of the road. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but my side looked a lot steeper. I looked back at Dan who now had Rocco sat on the road in front of the van as the others fanned out to protect our staging area from any unwanted surprises. He didn’t have Ash with him, no doubt forcing him to grumble as he stayed with the others. I didn’t blame him; I wouldn’t want Nem at my side when I was walking into a killing zone in case any stray bullets found their errant way to her unarmoured body.
I nodded to him, flashing two fingers like a victory salute before making an ‘o’ with my thumb and forefinger, having the nod returned on his serious face that seemed to brood darkly. Whenever he smiled, the vicious scar that had only now faded to a dull pink as it ran down his face from eyebrow to cheek seemed to disappear, but when his mood darkened the scar somehow took on another meaning and made him look menacing.
I set off, jogging up the slope with my dog picking her way almost daintily between the rocks, eager to reach the high ground and settle into a vantage point with the twenty minutes I had before he began his own journey.
I was sweating and breathing hard before I had even moved around the bluff of the rise to approach the direction of the town, and when the rooftops came into sight I ducked down until I could no longer disguise my profile. I dropped slowly onto my belly, crawling forwards on knees and elbows and wished I had adopted some protective pads for my arms. The knee pads did their job well, but I could feel the skin being worn away from my elbows each time they connected with the arid surface.
Eventually, uncomfortably, I reached a rocky outcrop that offered me a view of the road below while providing a small amount of cover from the direction of the town. Checking my watch, I saw that I had a minute before Dan would begin walking brazenly down the middle of the road. Nemesis was flat to the ground, her hind legs coiled underneath her as she was ready to spring into action if called upon, and I was happy that she had found some shade as her dark fur grew hot under the beating sun.
And I waited.
I scanned the opposite ridge, lower than my vantage point, until I located the long, black barrel of Lucien’s weapon protruding from a bush. I knew he would have gently cut away some branches to give himself the best cover from view and provide a clear shot, and I smiled at the thought of him doing it.
Focus, I told myself, focus.
~
Dan checked his watch, gave it another minute just to be sure, and told Rocco to get to his feet. Mitch flanked him, with Alita at his shoulder, and he exchanged a glance with Neil who would be left in charge of the others.
He marched the handcuffed prisoner ahead of him, not prodding him with the barrel of his gun as some people would do and kept a sedate pace so as not to expend energy unnecessarily. Alita, following Mitch’s instructions, stayed behind him to keep her small body out of sight of their unknown enemy ahead.
He didn’t glance up to his left or his right, wasn’t so ill-trained as to betray their position to anyone eyeing his approach, but he knew that the two marksmen would be there, covering their approach like angels watching over them.
He stopped a few hundred paces from the edge of the town, near to where the road split to turn right and in view of the gaping, black maw of the unlit tunnel, and waited. If anyone occupied the town, if they had any sense at all, then he would have been seen by now. He waited five minutes, then another five.
Eventually he grew tired of waiting and rested the carbine on its sling to draw the ugly shotgun over his right shoulder.
“Cover your ears,” he warned the others softly as he braced himself against the expected recoil, aimed it at a patch of dusty ground off to their right, and fired twice as he let each shot reverberate massively around the natural acoustics of the area.
It worked; movement in the distance showed where people ran about near to the end of the town at the limits of the shadows of the buildings until they organised themselves. A contingent of three began to walk out of the light grey buildings, walking slowly as they went to investigate what had roused them.
Dan waited, unmoving and stoic as was his way, and by the time the people were close enough to make out any details he had hardened his exterior into the ruthless warrior he needed them to see.
The man at the head of the trio, advancing like a lead fighter pilot with his two wingmen flanking him, was tall and well built. His dark olive forearms were muscled, and he wore a gun on his hip, as did his companions. He stopped ten paces away from Dan and assessed him, his eyes flickering over the way he and the man beside him were festooned with weapons. He regarded their guns with a keen eye that suggested h
e knew what he was looking at, and only the slightest raised eyebrow responded to the fat protrusion under the barrel of Mitch’s weapon. He tried to show no surprise at being called out from his nest to greet heavily armed soldiers. He leaned around, trying to see Alita with a smile that was less than friendly, and only then did his eyes land on Rocco.
His face darkened into a scowl that promised a retribution for failure. He held the handcuffed man’s eyes until his hopeful smile dropped and his eyes went to the ground. Only then did he speak.
Dan didn’t understand him, but he held his gaze all the same and waited for Alita to translate.
“He wants to know what you want,” she muttered.
“Tell him,” Dan said slowly as he fixed the man with a look not of threat, but of guarantee, “that I want to swap prisoners.”
He waited for the words to be translated and called out from behind Mitch, seeing the man smirk and scoff as though the trade was an unwelcome one.
“Tell him that he can have his man back, and we get ours, along with his weapons and equipment.” He paused for the translation to catch up. “And after that we will leave and not come back here.”
The man took that in, scratching at a stubbled chin under suspicious brown eyes as he looked back into Dan’s cold blue ones. He spoke again.
“He says he is Tomau Codina,” she said, “and he is commander of this area. He says he has a hundred men at his words and wants to know why he would do a trading with you.”
“Because,” Dan said, investing a small amount of gusto into his voice and not bothering to introduce himself, “we have a sniper trained on him right now.”
At that, the man stiffened slightly, and his hand fluttered as though he wanted to reach for his weapon but he stopped himself in case this intruder wasn’t bluffing.
“You understood that well enough,” Dan said, taking a pace forwards that the man mirrored, and drew himself up, “so let me be clear… If you want to live through this, then we get our own people back and we go our separate ways.”
Andorra_The Leah Chronicles Page 14