by Jack Du Brul
When they were ready, the first refugee lay on his stomach before the coils and slowly began to worm his way under the mound. He moved with care, but even before he managed to extend one whole arm into the spirals of steel, he was cut and bleeding. He didn't cry out or complain or try to remove his limb. Instead, he started working his other arm in. He had borrowed clothing from other miners, so he wore several layers to protect himself, but as he crawled deeper into the fence, the cloth split, and seconds later blood as dark as his skin welled up and was washed away by the downpour. He cried out only when a barb pierced his face, snagging against his chin and tearing a long gash that would require stitches if it was ever to heal properly.
For ten minutes, Mercer, Habte, and another refugee watched the man's progress, holding their breath when he removed the tiny dagger and whispered back that it had missed everything critical. Five more minutes passed before all that remained of the Eritrean in the stockade was his bare feet. Then it was time for the second refugee to broach the wall of razor wire.
The second man dug himself under the first Eritrean's feet and like a snake wriggled under him, using his predecessor's body as a shield from the barbs. He snagged only a couple of times, minor snarls that he could dislodge with a quick shake of an arm or leg. It took him only a few minutes to cover the distance the first volunteer had paid for with his pain and blood. They waited another twenty minutes while the second African crawled farther forward, tunneling and burrowing slowly and carefully. His passage was marked with bits of clothing and flesh stuck on the barbs. He stopped only when his knees bracketed his comrades' head, though there was still another eighteen inches of wire to cover.
Mercer didn't hesitate. He put himself to the task with the same fatalism of the Eritreans. He slithered under first one refugee and then the other, his much broader shoulders taking the brunt of the steel thorns. "Yakanyelay," he said when he reached the second man's head. "Thank you."
Moving slowly, feeling time slipping away, Mercer began to work himself under the remaining wire. His hands were slick with a mixture of blood and rain. Water was streaming into his eyes, so he worked nearly blind. Only when a bolt of lightning flared could he see how pitifully small his progress had been. The two Africans had covered twice his distance in half the time while he appeared to be lying completely still. He quickened his pace, but a careless move rammed a barb under his fingernail all the way to the cuticle. A lancing needle of pain shot up his arm, exploding in his skull, and he had to bite down not to scream out.
He pulled out the barb and continued, closing his eyes to the agony. Suddenly his probing hands moved against nothing. He had reached the end. He wriggled forward, clearing both arms of the entanglement before whispering for Habte to follow. It took Habte just three minutes to reach Mercer, snaking under the obstacle with sinuous ease. Mercer felt at least a dozen barbs sink into his back as Habte crawled under him, pressing him up against the heavy coils. It took an act of will for Mercer not to shout for his friend to hurry.
When Habte was finally free, he helped Mercer clear the last of the tangle, plucking wire from his back and legs as Mercer slithered those last few feet. The rain fell in a biblical deluge.
"There are going to be others following our route," Habte said as they tasted freedom for the first time in weeks. Rainwater washed the blood from their faces, hands, and arms.
"If those two men don't get help, they may bleed to death."
"They know it's the price if more of us can be freed."
Mercer studied Habte and knew the Eritrean was speaking the truth as an African saw it. He wondered if the Ethiopians who'd once occupied these lands really believed they could have defeated an enemy with that kind of mettle. "Their sacrifice isn't going to be in vain. Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"I'll meet you at the mouth of the tunnel in--" Mercer looked at his watch, dismayed by the amount of time that had elapsed. "One hour and twenty minutes. You'll be am">
Mercer looked into the darkness beyond the mining camp. It would be easy for him to just walk away. He could be miles from the valley by morning, and the rain would make it impossible to track him. He could be back home in a couple of days. He knew now that Harry White was being held by Israelis, and he had enough contacts in the government to secure his friend's release. The two of them could be enjoying a drink at Tiny's in a week. Mercer shook the image from his head angrily and looked away from the beckoning desert.
In order to stop Levine, he had to stop Gianelli first. To do that, he had to free some of the refugees so they could cover his attempt to contact Dick Henna. Besides, he'd led the Eritreans into slavery, and it was his responsibility to get them out again. He also thought of Selome and what she'd been through. For the first time since Aggie Johnston had left him, Mercer felt that old slow burn in his chest. At this point it didn't mater if it was love--maybe that would come, maybe not, but it gave him the strength to go on. He started in the direction of Giancarlo Gianelli's camp.
The camp for the whites was about a quarter mile from the prisoners' stockade, upwind from the open-air latrines the Eritreans were forced to use. The night was inky black, and the light spilling from the clutch of tents was like a beacon as Mercer slogged through the mud. The rain masked any sound he might have made as he slipped and slid toward his destination but it would not shield him if he stumbled into a patrolling Sudanese.
An armed soldier loomed out of the tinsel of rain so suddenly that Mercer doubted his own vision. The Sudanese wore a wet poncho and was facing away, his AK-47 held under protective cover. Mercer's throat went dry, his breath shallowing until he was holding that last inhalation like a souvenir of a less-frightened moment.
He came up on his toes, silently urging the soldier not to turn. He moved fast, making his strides as long as possible in the circumstances. With three feet to go, the soldier, a veteran guerrilla, sensed something behind him and started to whirl, clearing his assault rifle to engage.
Mercer covered those last few feet like a wraith. He brought his elbow up to his head and, using his momentum and the soldier's spin to increase the power of the blow, smashed it down on the side of the man's neck. The force of the blow drilled the Sudanese into the mud. Dead or out, Mercer didn't take the time to care. He snatched up the AK, rifled the man's uniform for spare magazines, and continued toward the encampment.
He released that held breath, returning to his focus, shutting the violence from his brain.
Armed and feeling a measure of control, Mercer approached the tents. They were laid out in two distinct groups, the larger ones aligned in four rows, the other five grouped in a circle. A crack of lightning revealed tables and chairs in the center of the grouping and a ring of stones for a fire pit. Guessing that the four smaller tents were for the whites, Mercer dodged around the encampment to approach as far away from the Sudanese tents as possible.
The storm hid him as he worked his way to the back of them. Nearly choking himself on an invisible guy rope, he fell heavily in the mud. He lay still for a slow count of twenty, waiting to see if his ineptitude had drawn attention, but no alarm was raised.
Mercer rested his ear against the tent's nylon shell, listening for voices. He had snapped hands. The gun butt made a sickening crack when it landed on the soldier's skull. Of the third guard, there was no sign.
"Damn." The guerrilla was either at the latrine or inside the women's stockade selecting a victim for the night. Mercer couldn't spare the time waiting for him.
He looked into the enclosure, but the rain obscured his vision beyond ten feet. Everything farther was a murky curtain of darkness. The lock on the barbed wire gate was off, suggesting the Sudanese was inside. He stepped in and cleared his eyes of water. But it was his ears that gave away his quarry's location.
A sharp, feminine scream lanced out from the far side of the stockade, and Mercer took off to track down the source. There was a large square of plastic on the ground, shiny wet and glossy, and Mercer k
new the majority of the women were beneath it, huddled like their male counterparts a short distance away. He skirted the tarpaulin and came up to where two dark figures struggled in the rain. From a few feet away, it was impossible to make out who was who, and Mercer committed his charge to taking down the taller of the two combatants.
Then, at the moment before he jammed the AK barrel into the Sudanese's kidney, he realized that it was the shorter figure who was the man. The taller person was Selome! Redirecting his aim slightly, the rifle barrel caught the rebel in the lower back, rupturing his skin until the steel was buried in the man's flesh up to the forward sight. The African arched his spine in agony. As he bent back, Mercer released his hold on the assault rifle, grabbed the man by the throat, and slammed him to the ground. He clamped a hand over the man's
The Bobcat was taking a pounding, both front tires deflating when struck, though the vehicle continued to crawl forward. Mercer rammed the throttle to its stops. Despite the increased speed, it was obvious he'd underestimated the number of guards at the mine entrance and their accuracy. Selome was returning fire, controlled three-round bursts that pinned men behind cover, but had yet to diminish the Sudanese ranks.
Mercer chanced a look under the bucket just as one of the guerrillas caught a bullet and flew back into the mud. He was about to congratulate Selome on her shot when he realized she was changing clips. Another Sudanese went down, punched through the mouth so his entire skull erupted as the round passed through. Mercer thought Habte was shooting from his cover behind the mound of tailings, but the angle was all wrong. It was during a second-long pause in the murderous exchange of fire that he heard the sharp, distinctive whip crack of a high-powered rifle.
There was someone else involved in the fight! A sniper helping Mercer and Selome make it to cover, and he knew who it was. The Israeli commandos, the men he'd thought, hoped, he had lost weeks ago. He had no idea how long they had been watching the camp or what their plans were, but Mercer wasn't about to lose the advantage they were giving him.
"Empty the clip as fast as you can. This is it!"
They were twenty feet from the entrance, and as they drew closer, more Sudanese fell, gunned down from above by the unseen assassin. Mercer realized that the Israeli had positioned himself in the middle of where Habte had planted the explosives. He felt nothing that the man who had just helped them was about to die.
He drove the hearty little excavator into the tin shack that housed the safe, crushing one guard between the blade and the metal wall. The building collapsed under the grinding pressure, falling apart like a house of cards. The safe was white and very high-tech, about the size of a steamer trunk. Mercer lowered the blade and scooped it up. Its weight was almost too much and the Bobcat's engine seethed, but they continued forward with the safe nestled in the bucket.
Fifteen feet from the entrance, Mercer felt the ground shudder. Ten crimson blooms erupted in the darkness above the mine entrance. Habte had fired the charges he'd planted, and the stability of the rock face was gone. The overhanging mountain started to come down in an avalanche. They had ten feet to cover, and the Bobcat's motor was missing every few moments, an ominous skip that signified a bullet had pierced something critical. Mercer lowered the blade and released the thigh restraints that had locked over him and Selome.
"Be ready to run!" he screamed, seeing a solid wall of dirt, rock, and mud rushing down the mountain, hundreds of tons of debris that forced the air ahead of it in a gust.
The Bobcat surged again, finding a bit of power that carried them into the mine just a fraction of a second before the first of the avalanche plummeted to the desert floor. Mercer kept the throttles to their stops, racing ahead of the debris that started to fill the tunnel itself. The ground continued to shake, rock falling from the ceiling. The tunnel was about to collapse.
"Mercer!" Selome gasacing forward faster than the Bobcat could possibly move. Mercer considered abandoning the excavator, but he needed the safe and the diamonds inside it for bait. Pressure bursts erupted just behind them, chunks of rock exploding down the shaft with the speed of bullets, more rubble clogging the tunnel. Stones rattled off the skiploader's safety cage.
They drove for two hundred yards with a surging wall of debris chasing their heels. The engine began coughing again just as they started to pace ahead of the wending fissures in the walls. Mercer's lips worked in a silent entreaty for the rig to keep moving.
After a few more seconds, the sound of falling stone receded. He looked behind them. The cave-in had stopped, though he could still feel the earth shifting as the mountain settled.
He shut down the Bobcat and silence rushed in, he and Selome panting in the dust-choked air.
The string of lights in the tunnel were powered by a generator in the main chamber, and they danced in time with the man-made earthquake. A few of the bulbs had smashed against the ceiling and plunged the drive into shadow. Behind them stood a packed jumble of stones, some as large as automobiles, others mere shards, but still the drive was completely sealed.
"What in the hell was that all about?" Selome coughed, stunned by the ferocity of the avalanche.
"Our entombment," Mercer replied, unconcerned by the destruction around him.
Valley of Dead Children
Yosef couldn't believe his eyes when the mountain beneath his sniper's position suddenly began sliding downward in an unstoppable rush. He was a quarter mile away, higher in the hills that surrounded the valley, and he watched the whole thing through night-vision glasses. Even in the greenish distortion of the second-generation optics, the sight was unbelievable.
One moment, he saw his man work his rifle, the long silencer fitted to the American-made Remington, eliminating all telltale signs of his location while cutting just a fraction off the deadly weapon's accuracy. And then the hill heaved upward in multiple gouts of earth. The sniper was caught unaware, vanishing into the maelstrom of debris so quickly that Yosef couldn't track his position as he was swallowed by the avalanche. Nor could he tell if Selome Nagast and Philip Mercer had made it into the tunnel. It was possible they'd been crushed by the tons of rock and dirt.
He radioed his other team, thinking that the mine was under attack. The two-man team reported that nothing was happening at their sector.
If it wasn't an attack, then Yosef had no idea what had happened. He'd watched Mercer's escape from the barbed-wire enclosure and tracked him as he moved stealthily around the mining camp, first to a cluster of tents and later to free Selome. Their dash for the mine in the small digging machine was dismaying. Yosef couldn't understand why they hadn't tried to escape the valley. And then came the avalanche. He considered that perhaps the explosions were the result of a trip-wire booby trap designed to prevent unauthorized entry into the mine. There could be no other explanation.
Then came the full realization. The ancient mine had been sealed by the landslide! He gaped at the mounds of rock and earth that blocked the entrance and was struck dumb. All the work that had gone into the opening of the mine was lost, and it could only be the fault of Philip Mercer. Yosef prayed that the American had been smeared into a weion opticvery rough."
Gianelli whirled. "You had better well hope so!" Spittle flew from his lips. "Mercer's satellite phone is missing, which means the government is going to know about us shortly. I need those stones. We still have time, but not much."
The men and machines continued to rip apart the mounds of dirt and rock that covered the entrance. If anything, Hofmyer's time estimate was too generous. To Gianelli's eye, it appeared that the tunnel would be cleared in two hours, maybe less. One of the South African miners had come up with the idea of using the pumps brought to empty the earlier Italian workings and use them to power a water cannon. The apparatus was turned on while Giancarlo watched, water drawn from a rain-created lake that had grown to enormous proportions. The high-pressure jet tore into the debris like a drill, washing away soil and smaller rocks.
Yes, he thought, may
be this won't be too bad after all. He hoped Mercer had survived the cave-in so he could watch the man die a much slower death. The idea gave him a grim satisfaction.
Mercer didn't have a good plan for eliminating the four other Sudanese guarding the pit. He wanted to avoid a firefight, since he and Selome had only two guns and a finite amount of ammunition. While waiting for inspiration, providence provided for him. The white miner--Mercer recalled the man's name was du Toit--started up from the pit floor, heading for the tunnel exit and his own investigation. Hidden as they were, the miner wouldn't see Mercer and Selome until he was almost on top of them.
Selome read Mercer's intentions and crossed the tunnel to take up a position to prevent du Toit from bolting. The South African walked between them, his flashlight aimed straight ahead. Mercer stepped from around a large boulders, his AK held low across his belly, the barrel pointed at du Toit's groin.
The South African raised his hands so quickly that his knuckles scraped on the low ceiling. Selome made a tiny scuffing sound as she came up behind du Toit, and if anything, the miner's hands pressed tighter against the hanging wall.
"Smart choice," Mercer said softly. "Now, we're going back to the pit and see if you can convince the guerrillas to do the same thing. Nod if you think that's a good idea."
Du Toit bobbed his head vigorously, though his eyes never left the 7.62mm aperture of the AK leveled at his genitals.
"That's good, because if you aren't convincing, you'll be the first to die."
Mercer stood at the top of the working pit, holding du Toit by the shirt collar, and gave a bellowing, primeval yell. The four Sudanese swiveled their guns to the duo standing ten feet over their heads but held off firing. Selome quickly crawled forward to cover the guards with her own AK.