by Jack Du Brul
Three Sudanese had been given the job of watching the refugees, but as Mercer passed the tent they had erected for shelter, he saw one of them already asleep and the others looking about ready to nod off. On a night as foul as this, they weren’t expecting trouble from their prisoners.
That’s right, boys, Mercer thought as he entered the enclosure, no one out here but us sheep bunking in for the night. You have yourselves a good nap.
The Eritreans had reserved a corner of a tarp for Mercer and Habte, and he was directed to the spot with quiet gestures. He rolled under the top piece of reinforced plastic to wait until Habte finished his waterlogged meal. Despite the adrenaline beginning to wend its way through his system, he slept for a few minutes until Habte appeared at his side.
“You can sleep?” Habte remarked. “I guess you are not too worried.”
“If you’re as ugly as I am, you need all the beauty rest you can get.” Mercer turned serious. “Do you have it?”
Habte showed him a small miner’s hammer tucked in the waistband of his pants. “They never knew it was missing.”
“And you’ve got the two men to help?”
“One man. I will help get us out.”
“Forget it, Habte. We can’t risk your hands getting too cut up. You have some delicate work to do after we get out of the stockade.”
Habte nodded. “Okay, I have another who will do it.”
The fencing that kept the Eritreans prisoner was concertina wire, heavy coils of razor-sharp barbed wire laid in a pyramid ten feet wide at its base and over eight feet tall. The snarled strands were wrapped so tightly, the obstacle resembled a steel hedgerow protected with tens of thousands of inch-long teeth that could cut cloth or flesh with equal ease. Mercer’s plan was simple, but it needed the courage of two refugees and a tolerance for pain that was almost beyond comprehension.
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 stuck himself in the groin and exhaling 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 able to do everything?”
Habte thought for a moment. “Yes, it will be tight, but I’ll be waiting.”
“See you in a while.” Mercer and Habte shook hands, and in seconds they were swallowed by the storm.
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 one of the barbs from the razor wire, which he could barely hold without slicing his fingers. When he was satisfied that the tent was empty, he used the little blade to slit open a gash where the wall attached to the floor.
He had to strain to make out any details once he was inside. Light from the adjoining tents cast just the feeblest glow. As soon as he realized there were two beds, he knew he had the wrong tent. He was looking for Gianelli’s, and it was doubtful the billionaire would bunk with anyone else. This one must belong to a couple of the South Africans currently in the pit, he thought.
At the next tent, he heard Gianelli and Joppi Hofmyer talking. The rain made it impossible to hear what was being said, yet there was no mistaking the voices. Mercer slid to the opposite side from where the voices were loudest and used his blade to cut a tiny eyehole. His vision was obscured by a piece of Louis Vuitton luggage. Rather than stare inanely at the leather, he put his ear to the hole.
“Better than using the Bobcat, why not the mechanical arm of the excavator?” Gianelli laughed, and Mercer guessed they were discussing the manner of his own murder.
“I think it would be more fun to turn him over to the Sudanese and let them rape the fooker to death,” Hofmyer boomed.
“I didn’t think Christians did that sort of thing.”
“Aye, but remember these monkeys are Africans first. Raping your vanquished enemies is about the oldest custom around here.”
“It’s nine-thirty,” Gianelli exclaimed. “I lost track of time. I need to call Venice. You will have to excuse me.”
“Sure, Mr. Gianelli. Sorry to make you late for your call.”
“Not late yet, but I’ve got to use the toilet again. Boiled water, imported food, and no ice for weeks and my stomach is still fouled.”
“Touch of Menyelek’s revenge, eh?”
“Not funny, Hofmyer.”
Mercer heard a tent fly zip open like the sound of tearing silk and then the voices faded. The last words he could discern were a curse by Gianelli about the rain.
He had maybe ten minutes before Gianelli returned, and he wasted none of them. He enlarged his peep hole so he could slip into the tent. His movement unsettled the mound of matching luggage, tumbling the pile to the floor. “Son of a bitch,” Mercer hissed, massaging the back of his head where a valise had caught him.
He began a systematic search of Gianelli’s tent, pawing through the trunks and cases. Gianelli had brought several pieces of furniture with him on the expedition, including an antique ironwood canopy bed complete with mosquito netting. Mercer searched under the mattress and box spring and rifled the two built-in drawers beneath it where he found the sat-phone he’d given Habte at the nomad village of Badn. One item down, one to go. The desk was also an antique. It had ten drawers, and Mercer went through them all, fruitlessly shuffling through mounds of papers.
He glanced at his watch. Eight minutes had passed. Panic was beginning to hurry his movements. Next to the camp chair was a small table. Its top was piled with more papers. Mercer plucked them up to see if anything was hidden beneath—again he turned up nothing. Gianelli would be back any second, and if Mercer failed in his search, his plans for escape were finished. He would be better off returning to the stockade and trying again the following night.
The rain pattered against the nylon roof, making it impossible to hear anyone approaching. Mercer checked the time again. Eleven minutes; he had to leave. It would take him another minute to right the stack of luggage, and he’d already stayed too long. Just then the gas powered refrigerator to his left gave a little shudder as it cycled off. Mercer realized it was the one place he hadn’t looked. The fridge was small, designed for camping. Mercer opened it. Set on the bottom shelf was Mercer’s leather kit bag. He took just a moment to make sure the folded Medusa photographs were still amid the clutter. Oh, thank you, Christ! Had they not been there, Mercer’s escape plans would have crumbled.
Gianelli must have put them in the fridge to protect them from the brutal humidity, he realized, slinging the kit bag across his shoulder. He had begun stacking the luggage, leaving just enough space for him to crawl back out again, when Gianelli’s voice made him freeze. The Italian sounded as though he was just outside his tent, calling something to one of the Sudanese guards, Mahdi perhaps. Mercer didn’t move.
Ignoring the remaining cases, Mercer ducked for the hole just as the tent fly zippered open, the metal tag climbing the wall as if by magic. He threw himself to the ground, scrambling to get out of the tent before Gianelli spotted him. At the last second he hooked his foot on the precarious mountain of Vuitton, sliding it in place just as Giancarlo entered his temporary home.
Mercer lay panting next to the tent, the rain washing away the nervous sweat that slicked his face and hands. He could hear Gianelli begin speaking on the satellite phone hooked to his computer. Five seconds, Mercer thought. Five seconds and he would’ve been nailed. He snatched up the AK-47, transferring the spare magazines into his satchel, and raced back to the compound. He had only fifteen minutes to free Selome and link up with Habte.
“Shit!” he breathed. He had anticipated a cushion of a half hour.
As he ran, he wondered if it wouldn’t have been smarter to seize Gianelli and use his life as a bargaining chip to free the remainder of the Eritreans. That might have worked, he conceded, slipping in the clinging morass, his eyes straining against the darkness in hopes of spotting any guards before he himself was seen. But if Gianelli either refused to cooperate, which was a distinct possibility given the man’s instability, or if the soldiers got trigger-happy, then Mercer’s action would lead to the deaths of a hundred innocents. No, he thought, his original idea was better. Mercer felt he couldn’t win a head-to-head with Gianelli, so he would hide, and fight only when he was ready.
The women’s stockade was smaller than the men’s. There were only about thirty women and girls in it along with those male children too young to work in the mine. Mercer had studied it in the early-morning hours before his shifts and knew its only weakness was the guarded entrance. He didn’t have the luxury of time to burrow under the coils of razor wire as he had done earlier.
Like the men’s enclosure, the guards here had erected a tent to shelter themselves from the elements and to give privacy to their nightly rapings. There was just enough light for Mercer to see the gleam of brass when he snapped the banana mag from the AK to check its load.
The guards’ tent was quiet as he approached. He had no way to disguise his clothes and white face, so he simply ducked in. The first Sudanese
to notice him was sitting on a wooden stool. When he stood to challenge, Mercer cracked the butt of the AK between his eyes, sending him sprawling. Another guard dodged away when Mercer twisted to repeat the attack, rolling to the floor next to a low pallet the men used for sleep. The Sudanese hadn’t had the time to arm himself and Mercer ignored his supplicating 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 knew 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 nose and mouth until his struggles ended.