The Fifth Battalion

by Michael Priv

  Linda and the meatheads faired similarly well. Numerous dead bodies could be seen everywhere in the lobby, some civilian parishioners as well but mostly the paratroopers. I caught Bruno thoughtfully examining a dead body that was burnt to a crisp. I bet I knew how that happened. These grunts sure picked a wrong denomination to piss off this morning. Judging by the ensuing silence, I’d say the entire attack team was wiped out, two busses-full and a command truck by yours truly. I reminded myself that this was a damn tragedy, a war, but still… was anybody keeping score?

  Deeper inside the building, the ugly reminders of the recent battle stared at us from everywhere—bullet-ridden walls and furniture, dead bodies, smoke-filled hallways, wounded, screams of pain, blood.

  We pushed our way through the throng of evacuating parishioners, most of them devoid of any luggage to blend easier with the tourists outside. Forced to run for their lives. For what crime? Nonconformity with the prevailing party line as dictated by the Priests. Nailed for nonconformity again.

  The Minus Two level presented a scene of orderly desperation — people carrying stacks of folders, computers, and laptops from the offices down the hallway to a room with a sign “Archives” on the wide-open steel door. About a dozen armed militia under Daevika’s command were clearing the corridors of dead bodies, piling them in the dining room. A parishioner’s body was being laid out on a table, attended by crying family members. The wounded were carried out of the building, probably to be loaded into vans and cars outside.

  We ran into Liran, who threw a surprised look at the two Guards briefly (but not as surprised as I would expect), then turned to me with a smile.

  “ Why did you return? Go, guys, go,” Liran insisted. “They’ll be back soon enough, man, a lot more of them. Take Linda and the meatheads and go. Evacuate!”

  “We’re here to help,” Alesh interjected calmly. “Tell us what to do. And don’t call me a ‘meathead.’”

  “Sorry, man,” Liran replied, furrowing his brow and staring at Alesh and Bruno dubiously.

  “Help carry folders and computers to the archives storage. That’s most important right now.” “Liran, where is the Amibrotos?” Linda asked.

  “He’s evacuated, gone and safe. Don’t worry.”

  “What about Grace, the Assistant who looked after me?” I asked.

  “Didn’t make it. Sorry. Their position was overrun on the other side of the conference room. Steven, her husband, too.” Damn these stupid wars. I felt ashamed of myself for wanting to keep score.

  “What about setting up defenses?” I asked. Carrying folders to the storage didn’t seem like a worthwhile task to me right then. “Daevika’s team will take care of that,” Liran replied. “We have to destroy the records.” “Daevika!” he yelled . “Get set up here. I want the 50-cal in corridor C, seal off corridor D and the passage through the conference room.”

  Plump and pleasant Daevika, wrapped in a bright yellow sari, didn’t look anything like a military commander. “Yes, sir. Brenda!” Daevika nodded, already pointing out the big gun position to the gunner, a middle-aged, about three hundred-pound black mama, belted with webbing, adorned like a Christmas tree with spare 50-cal clips and other ammunition.

  “Kevin!” Daevika yelled. “Help Brenda set up, then stay with her as her Second, clear?” Young Kevin, formerly known as Consul Varro, smeared in soot and blood, appeared from nowhere, carrying an AR-15 awkwardly. He acknowledged his eager agreement, his incredible Adam’s apple in constant motion in his throat.

  Liran grinned at the machine gun lady. “How’s it going, Brenda? Ready to do it again?” “The se bastards—they can kiss my ass.” Brenda glanced back. “My entireass,” she added weightily, raising an eyebrow. We all chuckled.

  We joined the thin human chain, organized to channel all the folders, records, and computers into the storage room.

  “What’s with that storage room?” I asked Liran. “That steel door is not gonna hold off the paratroopers for long.”

  “It’s an incinerator,” Liran explained hurriedly. “We’ll load up the stuff and burn it.” We worked in silence for a bit, passing stacks of folders, notebooks, laptops and such toward the incinerator. Lesson notes, observations, the followers’ personal information, administrative notes, and sales receipts—you name it—all records were being destroyed.

  The crossflow of evacuees interfered with the chain operation and suddenly an even bigger disruption hit us—people running in the opposite direction.

  “Soldiers!” A high-pitched shriek threw my concentration. Above us, I could hear renewed sounds of battle. “Ismail, get your snipers off the roof and beef up Daevika’s team, you hear?” Liran yelled into his radio. “All we need is five more minutes. Then pull out to Minus Three, Exit Beta.” The radio crackled something back to Liran’s satisfaction.

  The last of the folders and a laptop were thrown into the incinerator. “Stay clear!” Liran yelled and hit the big red button next to the steel door. A siren blared, and the door slid shut. The sounds of a roaring fire reached me from inside the storage room.

  “That’s that,” Liran said. A crowd of parishioners and staff, both armed and unarmed, filled the corridor. “Listen up! Everybody, move to Exit Beta. Alpha is sealed already. Orderly moving to Beta now. Staff members, take charge! Move-move!”

  The shooting on the level above us intensified. I clearly discerned the booming staccato of the 50-cal. Go Brenda! “Linda, I’m going back to help Daevika. You guys stay here,” I yelled, already rushing upstairs, noticing that both Guards and Linda stayed with me.

  “We’ll hold the door open for you guys as long as we can, but then we’ll seal it,” the big Israeli yelled after us. “So, hurry the fuck up!”

  We emerged into hell, the ripped into shreds reality of the supernatural. Lit by only a few red emergency lights, the place was almost dark, full of reddish smoke and deafening shooting, screams of pain and explosions from both sides. The overpowering stench of gunpowder, blood and burnt flesh in the closed space hit us with the force of a fly swatter killing a fly.

  Judging by the sounds of gunfire, both corridors were under attack, not just one. The attempts to seal the left corridor, as Liran ordered, must have failed, making this position indefensible. The breach was imminent.

  Daevika knew that. “Fall back to the stairwell. Smoke grenades, go! Fire Team B! Brenda, Kevin, what did I just say? I said right now, I meant right now!” I heard Daevika’s lilting orders to her team from my right. The 50-cal fire stopped.

  A few members of Daevika ’s team, shocked into the kind of hectic listlessness you sometimes see on a battlefield, emerged from the right hallway and started taking position in the stairwell next to us. The team was trying to pull out while still engaged with the enemy. That didn’t go well. The contact had to be broken first. The thunder of intense fire also continued from the left corridor. The team pinned down there was obviously unable to extricate itself. I rushed to the left with Linda and the two meatheads.

  Staccato greeted us as we turned the corner. Amid intense gunfire, the two remaining defenders were firing down the gloomy hallway from the office doorways. The advancing attackers’ menacing shadows vaguely showed in the semi-darkness through red smoke.

  This position was hopeless. In a few seconds, the soldiers would advance to within a grenade’s strike, and we’d all be dead. Linda, wearing an M16 she picked up along the way slung behind her back, joined in with her MAC 10. Bruno and Alesh fumbled with small, flat devices, like hockey pucks, that they extracted from their pockets. They tossed these grenades far down the hallway, yelled “get down!” and immediately hit the floor, covering their heads. Judging by their actions, these weren’t ordinary grenades. Oh, shit!

  “Get down!” with a kick I swept Linda’s feet from under her and tumbled on top, covering her head and chest with my body. Two explosions that followed could only be described as tremendous. A huge concussion, followed by an enormous fireball, roared down the ha
llway over us like a terrifying freight train, singeing the hair on the back of my head and for a second pulling all the air out from my lungs.

  Man,I mustget me someof those! Fire sucked itself out with a whoosh. The hallway turned absolutely quiet. The only gunfire we heard now was from the other hallway, held by the rest of Daevika’s contingent.

  We rushed back, joined by the two surviving members of Daevika’s team, jumping over several dead bodies of their fallen comrades. Meanwhile, Daevika did all she could to extricate her troops from the gunfight to retreat and save the team but didn’t have enough firepower or enough room to maneuver. The Cambodians were too close, too determined, too numerous.

  “You got more of those pucks?” I yelled to Alesh. He shook his head. “C’mon.” He simply ran toward the enemy, shooting and ignoring a bullet, which immediately slapped his massive shoulder.

  Bruno, Linda, and I joined Alesh. With the four of us laying suppressive fire and keeping the attackers at bay for a few long seconds, the remnants of Daevika’s team managed to extricate themselves.

  Except Daevika.

  “Go, Norman! I’ll hold them off.” I heard her voice from behind and turned around just in time to see Daevika a few steps behind me, running head first into a bullet, her face strangely distorted at the instant of impact. Her body, draped in a very dirty, yellow sari, collapsed at my feet.

  Brave-hearted Daevika, a true military commander, you died well. See you again sometime. “Grenade!” Bruno yelled. All four of us ran a couple of steps back and hit the floor as a grenade exploded behind us. Time to go. Seriously. Linda tried to drag Daevika’s body with us.

  “Leave her,” I ordered in passing. “She’s dead. Run!” The explosion of the second grenade knocked out Alesh. Linda and I dragged him to safety, straining beyond our physical capabilities, as Bruno covered us from behind an overturned vending machine. Alesh weighed at least half a ton, I swear. Good thing a couple of Daevika’s guys rushed in to help us. Inexplicably, we all made it to the stairwell, where Bruno stubbed Alesh in the chest with a small dart he extracted from a cheap first aid box in his pocket.

  Alesh came around, coughing. “Are we dead yet?” “Yes,” Bruno replied sourly. “You are.”

  We caught up with the Brenda-Kevin team and a dozen militia covering the Guards’ retreat. Exhausted and bloodied, down the stairs we ran to Level Minus Three, Exit Beta.

  44

  “Where’s Daevika?” Kevin’s high-pitched terror instantaneously permeated the hall.

  “She’s dead,” I replied. “You can’t help’er now. Take us to Beta.” “No , she can’t be dead, don’t you understand?” Kevin dashed back toward the stairwell, but Linda tackled him with an oomph, pinning his body against the wall with all her weight.

  “No, stay here, Kevin, she’s dead!” Linda yelled, struggling with Kevin.

  “Let’im go,” I ordered. Not sure what she heard in my voice, but after a few seconds of indecision Linda let Kevin go. She stared hard into my face. Kevin ran back upstairs yelling, “Daevika, hang on, I’m coming!” His voice was suddenly drowned out by the stream of machine gun fire. Linda kept staring into my eyes. Then she turned away.

  An elderly church security officer was nervously rigging a hefty stack of C-4 explosives to booby trap the stairwell entrance door to Minus Three.

  “Get out!” I yelled to him. “They’re right behind us!” “This’ll hold’em for a bit. You guys take this corridor to Beta right across the library on your left. Go-gogo!” he yelled, pointing. Bringing up the rear, I had only taken a few steps down the corridor when a powerful explosion from behind knocked me down like a sledge hammer, reducing my world to a deafening whistling. My head suddenly felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

  I strained to penetrate the whistling grayness in my mind, visions of Linda, Daevika in her yellow sari, and my smiling mother with a glass of wine in her hand jumping around in the fiery halo. I willed myself to focus, banishing the ghosts. My vision returned—partially, slowly. I tasted blood. There was not a sound in the world except for a constant, shrill whistling in my ears.

  Turning my head slowly and painfully toward the door, I saw through the smoke a gaping hole in the wall and several mangled bodies beyond. With effort, I turned and stared at the smoldering chunk of horror thrown next to me, which up till a second ago had been the security officer’s body.

  Since I could not immediately locate my AK, I reached for the handgun, grateful for the reassurance the rubber grip offered. Turning around, much easier now, I felt my strength slowly returning—not my hearing yet—and saw Alesh, unsteadily rocking on his heels, taking position further down the hallway. I felt a pull and a tug. Linda was dragging me away from the attackers, her face strained with exertion. Blood mixed with sweat ran down her cheek, adding more stains to her already dirty designer blouse we’d bought for her at—wherever the hell that store was. I tried to get up or at least assist her in some way but couldn’t coordinate my movements to be of any use. Bruno, baring his teeth in an insane scowl, unsteadily braced himself against a door opening, reloading his rifle to cover our retreat. His lips moved. I couldn’t hear any sounds coming out of his mouth, but the gist of his communication was clear. He wanted us to follow Alesh—and quick.

  “Picky, help me,” Linda was panting hard, carrying most of my weight. Painfully, I got up on all fours first and leaning heavily on Linda ’s shoulder, waddled slowly past him down the corridor, grateful for Linda’s shoulder to lean on and her arm around my back. Both Bruno and Alesh opened up at the attackers, covering our retreat.

  Brenda set up her gun behind a pile of office furniture, obstructing the hallway in front of us. Suddenly her gun came to life. Linda and I scattered to the wall and hit the floor. The sounds of the battle hit hard, smothered to a degree by the continuous whistling in my ears and throbbing in my skull.

  Brenda and a couple of Liran’s security guards were covering the hallway, assisted by Bruno and Alesh, presently retreating leapfrog style along the wall, covering each other. I saw the dark shapes of Cambodian soldiers behind them in the smoke, being picked out one by one by our fire. Linda and I joined in from the floor, sniping at the shapes. I still couldn’t get my shaking hands under control, but the action of shooting felt good. Blood ran profusely from my nose; warm, sticky blood now covering my chin and the entire front of my t-shirt.

  Stomping past me like an alarmed buffalo, Bruno stopped long enough to grab me off the floor. Safely but painfully squeezed under his enormous arm, I made it into the door across the hallway from the library—a broom closet, as it were, with a secret door opening in the back wall, leading to another staircase.

  “Linda,” I croaked.

  “Right behind us. Alesh is taking care of her,” Bruno replied without the usual scowl.

  A sudden grenade explosion back in the hallway ripped through the staccato of the small arms fire.

  “Linda!” I yelled, terrified. Alesh appeared in the closet door carrying Linda in his arms. “She’s okay. Just a concussion… debris from the explosion… too close,” Alesh strained to explain through blood in his mouth and heavy and shallow breathing. “Let’s go.”

  I craned my neck in time to see the ample shape of Brenda moving swiftly toward us, dodging bullets, and firing her handgun rapid fire in the direction of the attackers. After a long, agonizing second she made it inside the closet unscathed with a triumphant yell, “That’s what I’m talking about! My entireass!”

  45 A narrow spiral staircase brought us down to a large, empty, smoke-filled chamber with an entrance into a low tunnel. At the entrance to the tunnel, sweaty Liran, his right arm in a makeshift sling now, threw a few more smoke grenades with his left hand into the chamber and impatiently waved for us to hurry up.

  “Any stragglers behind you?” he asked, patting me on the shoulder.

  “Nobody,” Brenda replied, squeezing past him followed by Bruno and me. “Daevika? Kevin? Anybody else?” Liran asked, lin
gering. “Gone,” I replied. “Dead.”

  Liran shook his head. “Dafuk barosh,”he swore in Hebrew. Then yelled, “Sealing Exit Beta!” The attackers’ dark shapes poured into the smoke-filled chamber. Liran shoved Bruno further in and punched a large red button inside the tunnel with the heel of his palm. Red light flashed, betraying our position in the smoke-filled room. The steel door came down, shutting off the tunnel. A hailstorm of bullets slapped the armored door just as a powerful explosion in the entry chamber rocked the tunnel. The whole structure must’ve collapsed outside the steel tunnel door, burying all the surviving attackers and who knows whom else under the rubble. The last exit was now sealed.

  The tunnel was hot and low. In my present condition, it seemed excruciatingly long. Endless. It was probably no longer than a couple hundred yards, but it felt like miles. Bruno in front of me labored for breath, bent in half. The earthen walls and tunnel ceiling oppressed the hell out of me too, although I didn’t have to bend that low.

  We finally reached our destination, which surprisingly turned out to be a wine basement separated from the tunnel once again by a steel door. Liran punched the red button inside the basement. The steel door plunged down like a ton of bricks. The ground trembled from a series of distant explosions that must have obliterated the tunnel we’d just taken.

  The School was no more. How much of a problem did this calamity really present to Brell and the movement? Not all that much, I supposed, on a cosmic scale. Not the end of the world, as Bill Hall would probably characterize it. But damn devastating, to say the least.

  We emerged from the basement into a Buddhist temple or Wat, in Khmer, the language of Cambodia. This Wat greeted us with a large, cheerful sign “PLEASE KNEEL DOWN,” set up by the altar. To my astonishment, Liran and Brenda immediately dropped to their knees and bowed low. Linda, still disoriented, seconded their motion, followed by me and even the two Guards, Alesh and Bruno. Our huge bloodied-up friends seemed otherwise unfazed except for heavy breathing.