by Paul A. Rice
The man replied with a low moan: ‘Water, water…’, his tongue flopping against bloodied lips like a grounded catfish.
Ken knelt next to him and asked the question once more. ‘Red, is he up there?’ he said, and pointed with his hand. ‘Red, is he that way, yes?’ The man nodded and then screamed as a bright spurt of blood pulsed out of his trousers. ‘OK, that’s good enough for me,’ Ken said, and gave the man a bullet through the right temple. ‘I guess that Red’s up there, then…’ he murmured, turning to glance over his shoulder. He was just in time to see Mike looking at him in horror. Ken shook his head and rose to his feet in anger, saying: ‘Mikey, we aren’t here to fuck about!’ He stood staring at the Australian.
Mike nodded. ‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, ‘It’s just that, well...I thought we’d left all of this shit behind! We were doing well with the business, and now look at us – straight back into the meat grinder, we didn’t ask for any of this!’ He retched horribly and turned to one side to spit out a mouthful of bile. Wiping his chin, he said, ‘I’m okay mate, c’mon, let’s get out of here and make a plan, shall we?’
Ken agreed, but first he told Mike to get as much of the ammunition and as many of the weapons from the dead men as he was able to. Mike quickly looted their enemy and then dumped their ill-gotten gains into the back of his Spear. Ken took a grenade from one of the dead men’s assault webbing, pulled the pin and then carefully wedged the device under the still-warm body. The weight of the cadaver held the firing lever safely in place, but, should anyone move the body...
He straightened from his task and looked grimly at Mike. ‘Just a little setback for anyone who decides to come down to search for them,’ he said.
Mike nodded, and then walked away in silence to climb back into his Spear. The pair reversed down the track, found a place where they were able to spin the Spears around, and then sped off downhill. Upon reaching the road they turned left and headed back the way they’d come after their lunch break.
Ken saw a small gulley to his left. Making the choice he thought: ‘To hell with the mines!’ Deciding they would just have to place their trust in the Spears’ ability to repel hits, he bounced the vehicle across a ditch and headed uphill in a hurry. The steep banks of the wadi kept them hidden from the place where they’d just wreaked such terrible havoc with a number of Red’s men. Ken smiled to himself. ‘That’s another four men down, Red – how many more do you have left? That’s some much better odds, my old son. Some much better odds indeed!’
His hands were still shaking from the aftermath of the contact, and the odour of recent battle seemed to have soaked into his pores, but he felt good, felt alive. He wanted to go and get the bastards right now whilst the fire in his heart still burned, ‘Get up there and smash them – blow their bastard heads off!’ Ken gripped the steering controls tightly.
He felt sorry for Mike as his friend had never seen him kill up close and personal before. Sure, they’d been through some pretty rough stuff together, but Mike had never really seen Ken’s true nature, had never seen him with his lips drawn back, eyes burning with the lust of killing. Mike merely thought of him as a mad Pommy bastard – he’d just never fully realised quite how mad.
George had though, and the real truth behind the reasons as to why the old man had chosen him dawned upon Ken. ‘A Hunter, am I, eh? Yeah, well, I guess the old bastard has a point…’ He grinned ruefully to himself at the thought. It wasn’t something he relished, the killing, and he would much rather have led the quiet life any day. But, if it was a fight you wanted, well, Kenneth Robinson would be the very man to fulfil your wish, most definitely.
The two men scanned their screens as they manoeuvred up the gulley. Its sides had become steeper now, their rocky slopes affording even better cover than before; Mike had dropped back so that the two vehicles were spread out, allowing room for Ken to reverse if necessary, or for Mike to accelerate should the situation dictate. The monitors showed them nothing except the gleam of the Light Maker’s beacon way ahead in the distance.
Ken didn’t have a clue as to what month it was as all sense of time had long since been lost to him. However, by the way the sun had started to dip in the sky over to their left, he surmised it was probably late September, or maybe even early October. Long shadows were already starting to cast their scrabbling fingers across the landscape, their creeping advance caused yawning pools of darkness to form amongst the ridges and spines of the surrounding hills.
If it hadn’t been for their high-tech monitors, the two men would have had serious problems in advancing. Each darkened cave might have been an enemy position, hiding them until it was too late to react. Every unseen shadow could have been filled with sudden death. Legions of men had faced the same problem over the years, the task of winkling out the occupants from such harsh terrain eventually overcoming even the most determined of invading armies. Centuries of invasions and war waged with no results other than blood, death and misery.
The only objects of interest the monitor displayed were some occasional flashes of white as the amazing screen indicated the body heat of some small creature or another. It also lit up with the heat residue left within rocks from the retreating warmth of the day’s sun. Otherwise it was only the barrenness of the cooling desert that flowed across their screens.
Mike spoke over the intercom. ‘Look to your left, that rock might be a good place to camp up beneath...’ he said, voice cracking with weariness.
Looking left, Ken saw a deep re-entrant leading up to an enormous, overhanging cliff face, and like Mike had said – it did appear almost ideal. He turned his Spear and followed the gulley to where it met the sheer wall of rock. Spinning the vehicles around, they reversed up to the rock face and parked side by side. Exiting the Spears, the men took their weapons and performed a quick check of their surroundings. The rock face loomed above them, rising to about four hundred feet and then protruding out to such an extent that it became almost like a colossal shelf. Anyone on top of the rock would be unable to see them as there was no direct line of sight downwards. There were good fields of fire from their position as well. It was a steep climb and someone would have to be very determined, or very stupid, to come up there in search of trouble. Ken liked it and after spending some twenty minutes looking around, he re-joined his friend back at the vehicles.
Seeing him approach, Mike asked: ‘What do you think – is this place good to go, or what?’ He looked tired and was still a bit green around the gills. His question was one in need of some positive confirmation as he glanced up at Ken and started to remove his armoured vest. Ken reached across and gave him a hand to get out of the Kevlar, waiting until Mike had dumped the armour before he gave the answer his friend craved.
‘Yeah, it looks to be just about ideal, should we doss here for the night? They’ll have their hands full if they wanna come up here in the dark, that’s for sure!’ He grinned in an effort to raise Mike’s spirits.
Mike looked relieved. ‘I’ll whack the perimeter protection on and then we can get some scoff, yeah?’ he said.
Ken nodded in silent agreement. His friend’s demeanour worried him, Mike was a tough cookie and his reaction to the contact was not of his usual brazen manner. Even though he knew that his own history of blood-letting most likely outweighed Mike’s by about ten-to-one, Ken still felt as though something wasn’t quite right, but decided that he would ask Mike about it later, because right now they had work to do.
Between them they sorted out their campsite. Mike started on the food whilst Ken took care of the weapons; he reloaded his magazines and made sure Mike’s stock was also replenished. Mike had gone through a fair amount of ammunition and Ken had to fill four of his friend’s magazines. After checking that all the guns were back to full readiness, and seeing that his partner was still busy with the meal, Ken took his rifle and meandered around the area for a while.
Only the gently-flowering desert met his searching eyes, even in the distance he was able to s
ee the greenness of new plant growth. The soft colours were darkening as the day drew to an end, the place was still very isolated and exuded a sense of emptiness, loneliness, almost as though everything had been somehow paused, like it was waiting for something. What that something may have been, Ken had no clue. But deep inside he had a fairly good idea that whatever it was, he and Mike were going to be part of it – he just knew they were. Not wanting to dwell on the eerie sensation that the emptiness of the surrounding hills and gullies filled his head with, he sat under the rock face and watched Mike as he worked on their meal.
It was funny how an encounter with the enemy was able to change your opinion about a man. Mike had appeared about ready to cry when he’d seen Ken dispensing with their adversaries, Ken realised that he didn’t really know that much about Mike after all. Yes, they had been close friends for years now, but he still didn’t have a clue as to any of Mike’s personal life. There’d never been any mention of family or stuff like that, all Ken knew was that Mike was brilliant with electronics and that he loved his women. He had always been his own man and even though Ken knew the Aussie was a strange one at times, he still had a lot of respect for the guy. When it came right down to it, Ken realised that he didn’t know that much about Mike at all, but it didn’t matter, they were good mates and that was more than enough. With that thought in mind, he stood up and made his way over to join his friend.
Reaching the vehicles, he saw that their evening meal was well under way – the food smelt good and reminded Ken of how hungry he was. Darkness was now upon them and only the flames from the small stove relieved the gloom as they stood waiting for the food to heat. Mike had propped his body armour in front of the stove, the bulk of his heavy vest did a good job of shielding the tiny flame from any prying eyes that may have been lurking in the valley below.
Mike said, ‘Let’s eat, I’m bloody starving!’
Ken helped dish up a steaming pile of food. With a couple of bottles of water each they retired to the rock face to sit and eat their meal with backs against its monolithic tower.
‘That was pretty damned good, huh?’ Mike said when he’d finished.
Ken nodded in agreement and licked the remains of his stew from the spoon. He looked across in the flickering stove light and noticed that the faint smile didn’t quite manage to reach his friend’s eyes, they looked dark and humourless. Ken had a feeling this was a special occasion, particularly to Mike. It must have felt like this at the Last Supper, he guessed. In fact, Ken did wonder if this wasn’t to be something similar – a final gathering. ‘It’s a damn shame there ain’t a whole load of heavily-armed apostles here right now...yeah, another twelve more blokes would definitely come in handy!’
The thoughts only deepened the sense of foreboding in the air, a feeling of some unsaid doomsday event, one that left a small flutter of despair in his chest. Ken simply put it down to the after-effects of an adrenaline overdose. He watched as Mike sorted out the makings for a brew – the hot water was ready in no time at all.
Whilst sipping on his drink, Ken broke the silence. ‘Are you okay, Mikey? You seem a bit weird, mate,’ he said, the whispered words floating between them in the cool, evening air.
Mike said, ‘Yeah, I am. It’s just that...well, like I said before, we didn’t ask for this, I’ve been so up my own arse with all these gadgets, the Spears and all this weird stuff, you know, I’d lost all sense of reality and of what’s really happened to us, of what’s happened to everyone!’ He shook his head and looked at Ken. ‘When we were in that contact I was so busy trying not to get shot that it still didn’t sink in. Then, when we searched those guys and you just went and head-jobbed them! I mean, Jesus Christ, you never even batted an eyelid, Ken. That’s when reality hit me, and hit me hard, too!’ He shook his head and shivered.
Ken put his arm around Mike’s shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, Mikey!’ he said. ‘It’s gonna be just fine, there’s only a few of them left and we’re more than a match for any of those tossers!’ He looked closely at his friend, peering through darkness at his face, hoping that Mike would see the truth in his eyes, see it and take some solace.
Mike’s reply did nothing to help Ken fight George’s Dragon.
‘It’s not them that I’m afraid of, I know that you alone can go up there tonight and fuck them all up. I know it and you know it! We only stopped here because...because I wanted to.’ He looked wistfully out into the darkness. Breathing out deeply, he said, ‘No, it’s not them at all – it’s the Stone, the Light Maker, I saw it in my dream, it’s mine and I have to take it, of that I’m sure, but I’m scared of not being able to, I’m scared of cocking it up, of not having the balls to…’ his voice took on an angry, pleading tone, ‘…to do what I’m supposed to do, I have no choice, I…’ He stopped talking and looked across at Ken.
After a moment of silence, Ken replied with an easy confidence, which he didn’t really feel, for his friend to draw upon. ‘You’ll piss it, mate, it’s easy as pie...and like you’ve said before, we’ve been through a lot worse than this! We’ll go up there tomorrow, get hold of Red and his mates, we’ll kill ‘em all if we have to, and then we’ll get the device and go home, end of story!’ Ken didn’t even convince himself with that statement; wishing he was smarter with his words he tipped the dregs of his coffee away and reached for the kettle.
Mike nodded, saying: ‘Yeah, you’re right, it’s only another adventure and I’ll know what to do when the time comes, I guess...Just don’t let Red get in my way, okay!’ He raised his cup in a small salute.
Ken nodded and sipped on his own fresh brew.
Once the campsite was cleared and everything was packed away, Mike said that he was going to try and get some sleep. He looked shattered and Ken agreed with the idea, although he himself had decided to stay awake for a while longer.
‘I’m just gonna stay up to listen for a bit, see if there’s anything moving about, you can hear all sorts of things up here at night,’ he said.
In reality, Ken simply wanted some time with his own thoughts; his mind was still in overdrive and he didn’t suppose he’d be getting much sleep anyway. He just wanted to sit and think for a while, let the day’s events wander off into the darkness and maybe he would sleep later.
Mike nodded, yawned, and then crawled into the back of his Spear. He closed the door and Ken saw the vehicle rock as his friend settled in for the night. Standing alone in the darkness, he looked at their strange vehicles, looked at the orange moon behind the huge rock above him, and then finally took a long stare across the moonlit valley and hills in the distance.
An unearthly orange glow seemed to permeate from everywhere. The whole thing was surreal, orange and surreal. He thought about the things Mike had said earlier, ‘Back into the meat grinder’, Ken knew what Mike had meant. One minute they were running a successful business on the airfield, where Ken, merely for the hell of it, had organised for two pinstripe suits to be made. Abdul from downtown Kandahar had done a brilliant job – they’d even had a photograph taken for posterity. Standing in front of an Apache helicopter-gunship and grinning like a pair of well-heeled orang-utans. He had laughed at the time, saying: ‘No more guns for us now, eh, Mikey – no more guns!’
Ken remembered how great it had felt, it had been a big day in their lives, the biggest day. Those two suits had been like a symbol, they had become almost like a talisman, a reminder to make sure that he and Mike knew the direction in which their lives should be going.
‘No more guns,’ it had been their motto.
Finally they had been in charge of their own destiny.
Ken shook his head in disgust and let his angry thoughts off their leash.
‘Yeah, well that’s just great, isn’t it? And now here we are – in the middle of bloody nowhere with more guns than John-fucking-Wayne! How the hell did we end up here doing this? It’s just way too crazy! His mind started doing that little sliding thing once more. Ken shook the feeling away and let the memo
ries of the storm come back to him.
He shuddered as the sharp teeth of their terrible reality returned; the stinging bite of their undeniable truth jumped into his head and savaged his mind like a rabid Pit Bull. It seemed like an awfully long time ago since his life had been more normal, a very long time ago. The thoughts sickened him. He and Mike had been in a different place back then, worlds away.
In a place he was able to remember, and remember exactly…
26
Seeing Red
The other thing that Ken remembered, precisely, was how they had ended up here on this very beautiful, but eerie, night. The smell of blood lay in his nostrils, gunpowder residue clung to him, its sticky abrasiveness sitting between his fingers and lying etched into the lines on his face. Burnt propellant and rifle-oil had a way of clinging to you, sitting there for days afterwards. Dying men’s blood had a way of clinging to your mind, too. It stuck in your head to run in rivulets through your memory – sometimes it kept running forever. The contact from a couple of hours ago was still fresh in his mind and Ken envied Mike’s ability to simply sleep it off.
He looked up at the sky and then with a rueful shake of his head, walked over to the rock face and squatted on his haunches for a while, just to take a breather and do some thinking. He needed to let this madness find its own way out of his head, five minutes was all it would take – five minutes of peace and quiet and all would be well with the world. Ken grinned horribly at that pleasant, but ridiculously stupid thought.
He knew that things weren’t finished yet, not by a long way.
The moon rose over the top of the hills behind him and although its face was obscured by the huge rock, the orange glow of its cascading light still illuminated the vast expanse of hills and desert to his front. It had a calming effect upon him. Ken wondered if George and his gang weren’t perhaps looking down at them on some fancy monitor or a weird silver screen. Maybe they were here, but he just couldn’t see them...‘Everything has a parallel, Kenneth!’