by F. J. Chase
They hit the railroad tracks long before Avakian thought they would. Just stuck their heads out of an alley and there they were. City land was too precious to allow for much right of way, and the Western concept of noise mitigation as an urban planning consideration was laughable in China. Recalling the map, he was sure the tracks paralleled the river. And at some points ran right next to it.
His problem was that it was all open area. A street, a fence, a short gravel slope up to the tracks, the railway line, and another slope down. No cover at all. Known in the trade as a linear danger area. A perfect field of fire to shoot at someone.
They said tactics were like opinions—everyone had a different one. His was that you always crossed a danger area at full speed. No creeping around. That also meant running full speed into whatever might be on the opposite side, but so be it.
“Okay,” he whispered to Judy. “We’re going across as fast as we can. Stick right behind me and don’t stop unless I do. If we get shot at just keep running. Your instinct will be to hit the dirt. Do not. Just keep running. Stay low going over the tracks. And don’t get in front of me in case I need to shoot. Questions?”
Judy shook her head. That was the longest lecture of the evening, which meant they were about to do something particularly dangerous. Okay, Judy. Run. Don’t stop. Stay behind him. Stay low. Don’t hit the dirt. That shouldn’t be too hard for a doctor of medicine to remember. Then why did it feel like there were goldfish swimming around inside her cranium? Well, that was probably what happened when you became a blonde.
Avakian held up three fingers. One, two, three, go.
They ran out of the alley, crossed the road, and leaped onto the fence. Avakian dropped down and turned his head to make sure Judy was all right. She landed beside him.
The gravel slope was like running on ball bearings, only noisier, and they even used their hands to claw their way up.
As they gained the top Judy’s legs felt like lead. She tried to step over but her foot caught on the outside rail and she went down hard. Only her outstretched hands kept her from cracking her head open on the opposite rail.
Avakian heard her fall and turned back. As he bent down to pick her up a bullet broke the sound barrier right above his head. He dropped on top of her, wrapping his arms around her waist. A second shot sounded right between his shoulder and ear with an even louder crack.
With Judy in his arms he rolled them both over the rail. A clang and a vicious whine as the next bullet hit the rail and ricocheted off. Now they were rolling down the slope, and a final frustrated shot sailed high overhead as they slipped into defilade.
Their downhill roll was halted by the fence on the other side. Avakian kicked up the bottom so Judy could crawl under, digging herself a groove in the dirt like a badger.
They were practically on the bank of the river, and Judy followed as he crawled into a row of stunted riverside trees and brush.
Once inside cover Avakian grabbed her and ran his hands over her body, feeling for wounds because he couldn’t see anything in the darkness. No blood. “Are you okay?” he whispered.
“I’m going to have a mother of a bone bruise on my shin,” was her whispered reply.
His teeth shone in the dark. “You can check another block on your list of experiences. That was being shot at. Enjoy it?”
“No. I don’t want to tell you your business, but shouldn’t you have been shooting back at them?”
“That was a sniper with a night scope. No idea where he was.”
“Never mind, then.”
“You just catch your breath,” he whispered.
It was an absolutely perfect spot. Even though it was littered with empty booze bottles and trash of every description. Avakian took the Chinese army equipment harness from his duffel bag and put it on, filling the pouches with all the remaining rifle magazines. And a few handfuls of cash from her bag that he stuffed into his pockets.
Judy rolled over to watch and almost put her hand on a pile of used hypodermic syringes. Someone’s shooting gallery. Eeew.
Laying a sheet of plastic out on the ground, Avakian placed both their bags in the center, folded the plastic over, and rolled everything up like a cigar. One end was twisted shut, folded over, and cinched tightly with clothesline. Gathering the other open end in his fist, he blew into it to fill the package with air. Judging the buoyancy to be correct, he cinched that end also. Then duplicated the process with a second sheet of plastic, though without inflating it with air.
Judy watched fascinated as he wrapped the outside of the plastic roll with more clothesline in diamond hitches, yanking up brush and stuffing it into the rope until it looked like a big pile of brush instead of a tied-up roll of plastic.
He wasn’t done. He literally yanked a six-foot sapling with a full spread of leaves right out of the ground and laid it across the camouflaged plastic roll so the leaves hung over one end and the root ball the other. That was when the wire came out and lashed everything together.
“We get underneath the leaves,” he whispered, demonstrating. “Hang onto the rope underneath the water and float right down the river and through the city like a piece of debris.”
Her first thought was that it actually might work if the summertime depth of the river wasn’t too shallow. But there was another factor. “I don’t want to be a killjoy, but I’m getting the chemical smell of that river all the way up here.”
“Let’s look at it this way,” Avakian whispered back. “Jumping into the river might take ten years off your life. Not jumping into the river will take all the years off your life.”
“Okay, I’m sold. If I said no you were going to leave me here, right?”
“Time’s wasting. You ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“We’ll probably get shot at somewhere along the line.”
“I’m sorry, but I already checked that block.”
“Just remember that a foot of water will stop any bullet. If we do take fire hang onto the raft and go underwater. Do not let go for any reason. Stay bent at the waist and keep your feet pointed downstream so they hit any rocks first. Don’t let them dangle down—your foot gets snagged on the bottom rocks and you’re in trouble. Other than that we’ll just have to play it by ear.”
Judy knew it was even more serious when he deliberately tried to sound casual and optimistic. Well, she’d never been rafting like this before, either. “Let’s go.”
He held up one finger and crawled to the edge of the bank, spending a long few minutes eyeing every inch of the area. Could be another sniper out there. This really sucked. But he couldn’t afford to listen to his gut unless his gut gave him some other alternative.
He crawled back to her. They picked up the raft and went over the bank.
The water did smell like a chemical plant. With an added bouquet of sewer for good measure. Judy made a mental note to herself to not swallow a single drop of it.
Four steps into the water and the bottom dropped away, surprising them both. The weight of the tree put the raft almost entirely underwater, with only the twigs from the brush camouflage sticking out.
The water was a little cooler than Avakian had anticipated. A steady current, though not whitewater by any stretch of the imagination. The average width of the river was about three times that of a city avenue.
He could barely see through the leaves, which was exactly what he wanted. If you couldn’t see them they couldn’t see you. He had one arm around Judy’s waist, grasping her belt, and the other was hanging onto the raft. As long as it didn’t start leaking they were okay.
The water was foul, but not to the extent of his fears. His fears had been formed by tales of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia back in the ’70s, when it was so polluted it occasionally caught fire. It was said that people who fell in would puke for the next three days. The smell was giving him a little headache but he didn’t feel sick.
Judy had managed to concentrate hard and shut he
r nostrils to the odor. Other than that the cool water was actually refreshing. She was starting to relax a bit when the tree’s root ball, which was leading the way downriver, hit something and the whole raft began to turn around.
They both kicked in the opposite direction and got it straightened out. But the raft was dragging on something. Avakian grabbed the sapling trunk and gave it a hard shake. They were moving faster now so something must have come loose.
Judy sensed the pressure in the water and swung her feet toward it. Her sneaker hit something soft, and she poked her foot at it until she realized it was a human body and kicked it away. God.
Avakian had been oblivious to this, and she did not share the story of her experience. He was just relieved they’d cleared the obstruction.
The railroad tracks disappeared from the right bank and were replaced by a street. Streets ran alongside both banks now. A bridge spanned the river up ahead. The gunfire was really loud, almost immediate. Through the leaves they could see as well as hear the tracers darting overhead. They were getting right into it.
One of the concrete bridge arches loomed up over them. People shouting up on top.
An automatic rifle opened up from there. Avakian and Judy went underwater under the raft, pulling down on it to get it even deeper.
The sound of the bullets punching into the water could be heard just as clearly underwater. Avakian felt a spent round drop against his leg. He was running out of air. The impacts stopped. They must be under the bridge. He still had his arm around Judy’s waist, and they came up together.
Under the bridge was as dark as a locked closet. The splashing of the water against the concrete sounded like an echo chamber. Then a vehicle drove overhead and that vibration drowned out everything else.
Their underwater dive had turned the raft to one side. They kicked it back into position.
“Get ready for more when we come out the other end,” Avakian whispered.
The only indication was the change in the echo of the splashing, and the darkness becoming a little lighter. And the sound of more laughter from up on the bridge. Weapon actions being cocked. Avakian prepared to take a deep breath.
But an authoritative voice screamed something and there was no more shooting. Probably some lieutenant yelling about wasting ammo, Avakian thought.
There wasn’t much time to appreciate the open water. Another bridge was coming up soon. This one was for the railroad.
A flare popped and floated over the water. Right behind it came a stream of slugs that boomed instead of cracked. Heavy machine-gun, Avakian thought, sliding down so only his face was sticking out of the water. Either 12.7mm or 14.5mm. The tracers floated from the right bank to the left and hit something, maybe a building, close enough that they could hear the impacts. Tracers always seemed to be floating slow enough to reach up and catch, until they came close and the shocking violence of their arrival immediately changed your mind.
By the time they reached the next roadway bridge the mass of the firing was behind them. They sailed under and were within sight of the opening on the other side when they hit something and stopped dead in the water, the impact nearly knocking them off the raft. Hung up. They shook the raft and kicked but it wouldn’t budge.
“Got to go forward and take a look,” Avakian whispered.
They went hand over hand to the front of the raft. A big pile of debris, brush, and wood was wedged all the way across. They kicked at it, exhausting themselves, but it wouldn’t move. No way could they pull the raft over it.
“Don’t let go,” Avakian whispered. And disappeared.
Judy was left hanging onto the raft with a jet of ice in her stomach. Even if she wanted to follow she had no idea where he was in the darkness. God.
Avakian paddled down the length of the obstruction until he reached the concrete wall of the bridge arch. It felt like a full-size tree was wedged in there, with every other bit of junk that had floated down the river piled up on it.
Holding onto the tree, he braced his feet against the concrete bridge wall and pushed. It moved a little bit. Coiling himself up tighter, he pushed off with all his power. Barely moving. He got a better angle and did it again. It felt like his gut was going to burst. Maybe rocking it back and forth would work. He didn’t have a lot left.
He took a good grip on the trunk, driving himself forward and yanking back. Something cracked and the pile moved. Encouraged, he bounced back and forth without stopping.
Another crack and the logjam broke. The pressure of the water swept everything forward with a rush, and he got pulled along with it. Except where was the raft now that all this crap was moving? More than a little panicked, he let go and swam hard to his left.
Judy felt everything begin to move but there was no Pete. The raft floated out from under the bridge. With her on it alone. God.
One lump of brush looked pretty much like another in total darkness. Avakian kept swimming at a diagonal across the debris field. Now he was out in the open on the river.
Someone on the bridge saw the enormous pile of debris float out and opened up on it.
Judy hunched under the branches and held on to the rope so tightly she lost feeling in her hands. God, God, God.
Avakian dove under as the rounds came in. The current carried him, but he had to come up for air. Pushing up against the surface, he only exposed enough of his face to take a breath. He’d lost her.
The fire was being aimed at the big tree off to his right, so he brought his head up out of the water. He couldn’t see a thing.
A flare ignited far upriver and cast just the faintest glow on the water. Sticks, lumber, brush, plastic jugs. Were those leaves? He swam hard at it, a silent side stroke. As he strained in the water it occurred to him that going for a little swim fully clothed with an extra twenty pounds of rifle, pistol and ammo harness wasn’t the swiftest move he’d ever made.
He was getting close, but there was a real question whether he was going to conk out before he reached it because he was swimming slower by the second. It had better be the raft, because otherwise even staying afloat without ditching all his gear was going to be an issue.
The shooters on the bridge walked another few bursts much closer. It was fun to watch the spray as the bullets hit the water.
Avakian dove again, kicking hard but blindly. His head hit wood. He reached out and touched plastic.
Something hit the raft and it swung around. In the grip of the blackest depression of her life, Judy barely felt like moving. Then a hand grabbed her and she almost screamed in mortal terror before Pete’s beautiful bald head bobbed up out of the water beside her.
Avakian tried to get a breath but her arm was around his neck squeezing like a python and her legs were wrapped in a scissors around his waist. He nearly went under before, thrashing around wildly, he managed to grab the raft. Eyes burning from whatever chemicals were in the water, sputtering for air, and Judy saying in his ear, “Never, ever, EVER do ANYTHING like that again. I swear, I’ll kill you with my own hands.”
“I believe you,” Avakian gasped. “But unless you want to do it now, let me get a little air.”
She loosened her grip but continued to whisper, “Never. I mean it…”
Just as relieved, and trembling just as hard as she was, all he could do was hug her back.
It took a while, but he caught his breath and things settled down again.
Avakian had completely lost track of the distance they’d traveled. But he didn’t want to take any chances. “Nice and easy,” he whispered. “Start kicking this thing toward the left bank. The river branches off to the left somewhere up ahead, and if I remember the map that smaller branch eventually flows alongside the 110 Highway that’s our route to Mongolia.”
He didn’t want anyone who might be watching the river through a night scope to suddenly see a tree start moving diagonally across the water under its own power. So they kicked periodically and let the current do the rest of the work. Just as well
as they were both exhausted. Even though the water wasn’t cold it was still enough to pull the heat from their bodies after enough exposure.
They almost missed even seeing it. The road that ran along the left bank ran right over the entrance to the branch in the river, and in the darkness the bridge arch looked like just a continuation of the bank.
Their hiding place under the leaves didn’t offer much of a view, so the opening came as a complete surprise. Judy saw it first and signaled him by kicking hard. But a raft made from a tree and bushes didn’t exhibit dazzling maneuverability in the water. They were almost past it when one more kick took them into the right line of the current and the water did the rest.
They both hung off the raft, spent. Please, no more logjams, Avakian thought. But they cleared the bridge without any problems.
This new branch was much narrower than the main river channel, about the width of a single city street. And for some reason didn’t smell as bad, though Judy thought that was because her senses were now permanently damaged.
They let the current drive them, with only an occasional kick to keep the raft straight. They didn’t have the strength for anything else.
The branch flowed under three more bridges. Avakian kept checking his watch. They were going to have to get out of the water soon, destination or not. At least they’d have an extra half hour or so of darkness after sunrise. It would take the sun that long to pop up over the mountains.
The highway they should have been driving on went through the entire length of the city and then hooked left, heading directly west. China National Highway 110. So this water also had to make a substantial bend to the left. That would be their spot, right after the bend. Hopefully it would be the right one. And hopefully they’d reach it in time.
23
“Excuse me, Comrade Commissioner,” said the sergeant behind the wheel. “They say they have control over the northern part of the city. But control can mean many things in such a complex situation.”