by Jack Du Brul
He skidded to a stop and was about to fire when something slammed into his shoulder. His feet slid out from under him. As he fell he managed to twist himself and clutch the ground before sliding into the trench, his assault rifle pinned uselessly under his chest, his feet scraping against the trench, trying to climb back out.
Mercer stopped and raised his pistol, yet hesitated to fire at the defenseless, wounded boy. Who knew how many people this child warrior had killed, how many women he’d raped, how much suffering he’d caused? At that moment, it didn’t matter. Mercer couldn’t shoot him in cold blood. Instead he ran forward and grabbed the boy’s skinny ankle. The rebel shouted out to his comrades as Mercer yanked him off the wall.
The boy splashed into the water and before he could regain his equilibrium, Mercer fired a straight right fist into his face. With a broken nose and several loose teeth, the boy would be unconscious for hours. Mercer made sure the kid wouldn’t drown, tucked his Beretta into the flat holster sewn into the back of his pants, and took the AK-47.
Who had shot the kid? he wondered. Could there be government troops in the area? Is that who took out the second rebel when he and Cali were pinned in the open? Because Mercer was sure his second shot had gone high.
A shadow passed over his face. He whirled, firing from the hip. The first two rounds blew dirt from the lip of the trench; the other three punched blooming crimson holes in the chest of another rebel. An instant later a third rebel ducked his head over the parapet. Keeping out of view, he swung his weapon and sprayed the trench with a full magazine.
His shots went wild as the assault rifle bucked in his hand. Mercer and Cali raced around the next corner. A moment later came an anguished cry as the rebel peeked over the rim of the mine and saw the cloud of blood forming around the friend he’d just finished off. The rebel and three others jumped into the trench and started after the whites.
Hand in hand, Mercer and Cali ran on, staying in the shorter stretches of trench, trying to keep from being spotted, but Mercer knew their wake was as easy to follow as a trail of bread crumbs. At the next corner, he pushed Cali ahead of him and flattened himself against the wall. The pursuing rebels made no effort at silence, coming on like charging crocodiles. Mercer waited another two beats, then rounded the corner.
The AK was at his shoulder and he had complete surprise. He killed the first before they were even aware they were being ambushed. The second went down an instant later. The third dove flat and Mercer fired his last two rounds into the spot where he’d sunk. The body floated to the surface, two neat holes in his back. Mercer threw the gun aside and took off after Cali.
He caught up with her just as she rounded another corner. Twenty paces away a rebel stood in the center of the trench, a rocket launcher tucked under his arm. Mercer and Cali both dropped into the water as the RPG punched out of the launcher and ignited. A blazing trail of fire and smoke corkscrewed down the trench and hit the far wall. The projectile detonated an instant later, blowing a twelve-foot hole in the dam separating the flooded trenches from the steep riverbank.
Mercer erupted from the water, pistol in hand. The instant his vision cleared, he put two rounds in the terrorist’s chest. As he fell back he realized what had happened. With the dam breached by the RPG, the stagnant water began to rush through the opening, worrying at it, eroding the sides so the hole doubled in size in seconds. Caught in the inexorable pull, he and Cali were swept along with the current. Neither could dig their heels into the muck at the bottom of the trench or find purchase on the crumbly walls.
Water swelled through the cleft, a remorseless torrent that bore them like so much flotsam. Mercer cursed and Cali clung to his arm as they were sucked through the opening. They went airborne for what seemed like forever before crashing to the ground, tumbling in the flood, and sliding down the bank amid a batter-thick sludge of water and mud. They cartwheeled over each other and the Beretta was stripped from Mercer’s grip.
When they hit the river, they were pushed far out into the stream but were so disoriented they couldn’t seize the opportunity to escape. Together they struggled back to the bank, choking and coughing up water with every painful breath. Mercer pushed Cali ahead of him as they floundered back to land. Neither looked up until they’d dragged their upper bodies from the surprisingly cold river.
The man was huge. Six four at least, with a broad chest and a head like a cannonball. He wore fatigues, new boots. A leather vest made of some animal hide was all that covered his muscled upper body. His features were cold and distant while his sunglasses mirrored the pitiable figures at his feet. The holster belted around his waist was big enough to carry a railroad gun. He took an unlit cigar from between his teeth and gave a short derisive laugh.
“Welcome to hell, Mr. CIA Man.” The looming rebel removed his sunglasses, revealing deep-set fanatical eyes. “I am General, soon to be Emperor, Caribe Dayce.”
Central African Republic
Bound at the wrists, Mercer and Cali were dragged back up the riverbank to the village and dumped into one of the few surviving huts. The men took everything from their pockets and performed an exhaustive search of Cali’s breasts and between her legs. By their expressions, there was little doubt what was in store for her when Dayce was done with them.
Two of the men remained outside the hut while the others went on to continue ransacking the small village to a chorus of screams and rifle fire.
“I think we’re going to be okay,” Mercer whispered, shuffling across the dirt floor so he could lean next to Cali. Their clothes were soaked, and despite the tropical heat he could feel her shivering.
“Are you out of your mind?” she hissed, her eyes wide. “In an hour or two you’re going to be shot and I’m going to be raped to death.”
“No, listen to me. I don’t think we’re alone. The kid who fell into the mine, he’d been shot in the back and the second guerilla who went down just before we reached the trench, I don’t think I hit him. I think there’s another force out there who took them out, a rival faction or maybe government troops.”
“I’d like to think so,” she said in return, “but doesn’t it make a little more sense that they were shot by their own men? Please be quiet and let me think for a second.”
Cali didn’t get her second. Caribe Dayce wedged his considerable bulk into the thatched hut, seemingly dropping its temperature by ten degrees just with his presence. He didn’t remove his sunglasses in the dim recess of the rondavel. The clouds of smoke wafting from his cigar masked the stench of abject poverty.
Blood dribbled from the bottom of his knife scabbard, forming a black pool in the dirt as he hunkered down to stare at his seated captives.
“The CIA must not think too much of me to send just two of you, and one is a woman.” Dayce spoke slowly in English with a deep, commanding voice.
“We aren’t from the CIA,” Cali said before Mercer could buy a little time by replying in French. “I am from the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC.”
“Ah,” Dayce said as if he’d heard of the organization. “That is the arm of the CIA that controls disease and spreads it among the people of Africa by pretending to vaccinate our children.”
“No. It is not part of the CIA,” Cali replied hotly. “I’m here to prevent the spread of disease. I hope to save your children.”
He casually backhanded her. Mercer stiffened and Dayce’s enormous pistol was suddenly pressed between his eyes. “Next lie I use my fist. You are here to spread AIDS and to give me AIDS, like how the CIA tried to kill Brother Fidel by overwhelming Cuba with pigs.”
It took Mercer a moment to realize Dayce’s warped sense of history had led him to believe the Bay of Pigs invasion was quite literally an invasion by a bunch of pigs. In another time and place he would have laughed.
“You are assassins sent to kill me and end my revolution.” He switched his attention back to Cali. “You carry the disease, yes? I am supposed to want you because you are white? And whe
n we are done you will tell me I have the Slim.”
“Yes.” Cali scoffed in a display of bravado or idiocy. “We’re here to assassinate you with a disease that takes years to kill.”
“And you.” He turned back to Mercer, never once lessening the pressure of the gun between his eyes. “What disease do you carry?”
At that moment Mercer saw a white man pass by the rondavel’s open door. He was dressed for combat and carried a machine pistol slung under his arm. He moved with an easy professional grace, almost like a shadow in the smoke of burning huts. He had to be from the UN, one of the Belgian soldiers on guard in Kivu sent north to hasten the evacuation of the region. And if there was one there had to be more. Mercer swiveled his eyes back to Caribe Dayce and kept all trace of emotion from his voice. “Optimism.”
The African guerilla leader rocked back on his heels and laughed. “That is something that you can’t spread in Africa.”
“I know.”
Dayce got to his feet, remaining in a stooped position because the hut wasn’t tall enough. He holstered his sidearm. “I think we will not take chances with the two of you. I decree that you are CIA spies and sentence you to death. Execution is at sundown.”
“Did you see him?” Mercer asked as soon as Dacye had walked out of earshot.
Tension ran from Cali so her body sagged against his. “Yes, Jesus, I did! Who is he?”
“I think he’s a UN peacekeeper and he won’t be the only one. They must be getting into position. Get ready to bolt as soon as they attack. Can you get your hands free?”
“I can’t even feel my hands.”
“Doesn’t matter. As soon as they attack we’ll kick out the back of the hut and drop straight for the river. The truck’s only a mile downstream. All we need is three minutes’ head start and we’re gone.”
They crawled to the back of the hut and braced their feet against the wall. One or two good kicks would likely knock the entire structure down. The tall riverbank was only a couple of yards beyond the hut. For the first minutes Mercer felt adrenaline sing in his veins as he waited for the inevitable assault. But after five his body relaxed as his mind began to wander. The UN soldiers had to have seen their capture. They wouldn’t wait until the last minute before attempting an attack. Granted they were outnumbered, but Mercer had taken out a half dozen rebels and he had nowhere near their combat training. More experience maybe, but not training. Even if they didn’t attack Dayce’s entire force, they must know where he and Cali were being held and could rescue them.
After another couple of minutes Cali pushed back to a sitting position, her lower lip quivering slightly. “We’re wrong.”
“You can’t be sure.”
She composed herself and gave him a wry smile while mimicking Caribe Dayce’s voice. “You can’t spread optimism in Africa.” She looked at him levelly. “If there really is a UN force out there, they’ll wait until after sundown to attack. That’s what I would do in their position, making it a bit late for us.”
Her easy grasp of military tactics was at odds with what she’d told him about herself. Again Mercer wondered if she’d been in the military. “Who are you?”
“I told you. I’m with the CDC.”
“And before that how long were you in the army?”
“What makes you think…”
“No one who hasn’t seen combat is as calm as you.”
She looked away. “I was captured by Sunni insurgents in Baghdad in 2005. They couldn’t pull a Jessica Lynch for me because no one knew I was missing.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Medic in the National Guard. I got separated from my unit just before they ran into an ambush. It took three days for our guys to recover our Humvee and realize mine wasn’t one of the four burned bodies. Another five days passed before Special Forces got me out.”
Mercer was about to ask why the media never picked up the story, but he stopped himself. He imagined that military censors quashed it. The reasons would forever be locked in a file someplace and in her heart.
A tense silence filled the hut. Even the village had gone quiet.
“I wasn’t raped,” Cali said softly after a minute.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said I wasn’t raped. I just wanted you to know. I’m scared shitless right now but the Iraqis didn’t touch me and I’m relieved that Dayce’s men won’t get to me either.”
“I’m grateful for that too,” was all Mercer could think to say.
Although it put his wrist in an awkward position, he reached out as much as the binds would allow and took Cali’s hand. She returned the grip and together they waited for a rescue that seemed less likely with each passing second.
A half hour before the sun set on the overcast day, the final flicker of hope vanished when the white soldier they had seen crossing the camp suddenly stepped into the hut. In the glow of the lantern he carried, they could see he was as large as Caribe Dayce and equally muscled. His features were Eastern European, with thinning blond hair and thick, slack lips. One of his eyes was hidden by a black patch that couldn’t cover all of a scar that ran from his temple to his nose. His other eye was watery blue and small, but held dark malevolence. Whatever had taken his eye had damaged the tear ducts because the patch was moist and he wiped at it with a finger absently as he regarded the two prisoners.
Mercer knew the type. He’d even run across a few. The man was Special Forces from the former Warsaw Pact, now turned mercenary. Spurned by the countries who’d trained them to be killers, many elite soldiers had sold their skills on the open market. While Western governments concentrated on keeping Russian nuclear scientists from trading their skills with terror organizations, ranks of highly specialized soldiers had gone to the very same terror groups to train the next generation of fighters. While the fear of a nuclear device falling into the wrong hands was very real, a perhaps more immediate threat was thousands of fundamentalists with skills rivaling the best Special Force troops in the world.
Caribe Dayce entered the room and slapped the mercenary on the shoulder. The man whirled. Dayce recoiled. He had an army of soldiers at his command, a reputation of brutal savagery, and the confidence that came from his huge size, and still he feared the mercenary.
“What have they told you?” The mercenary’s accent was thick, Slavic or Russian, and his voice was as deep as Dayce’s.
“There is nothing they can tell us,” the rebel leader said with a touch of deference. “We will find what we find, as I said.”
“I do not like that they are here when we arrived.”
“I don’t either, Poli,” Dayce agreed. “My men saw them enter just before the attack. Whatever they learned will die with them here.”
“We do not know who sent them.”
“They are American. It must be the CIA.”
The mercenary looked Mercer up and down, then gave Cali the same scrutiny. He didn’t appear impressed by what he saw. “I do not think they are CIA.”
“Then torture us and find out, you stupid son of a bitch.” Cali’s outburst startled all three men. Mercer tightened his grip on her hand to steady her, but she continued. “Jam bamboo shoots under our nails. Cover us in hot coals. Do whatever you want. In the end you will know that I work for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and Mercer is here on behalf of the UN. In case it escaped you, your little revolution has caused a humanitarian crisis that has killed God knows, no you know, how many people, and forced thousands to flee their homes.”
Poli regarded her for a moment as Cali struggled to get her breathing under control. He said nothing and backed from the rondavel. Dayce followed him out and a moment later four teenage guerillas stormed into the hut. Since Dayce’s pronouncement earlier, Mercer and Cali had known this was coming, but now the moment of reckoning was here. Cali screamed and Mercer struggled to his feet. He kicked the gun from one rebel’s arms and threw himself bodily at a second, knocking the skinny youth to the ground and
landing on him with his full force. The teen’s breath exploded in Mercer’s face, a rank combination of stale liquor and rancid meat. Mercer head-butted him to keep him down and was just getting his legs untangled from the youth’s when a third soldier rammed the stock of his AK-47 into his kidney.
Mercer recoiled from the strike, searing agony radiating from the blow. The guerilla tried to repeat the attack. Mercer managed to roll enough so the wooden butt slammed into the back of his thigh, deadening his leg. He continued to roll as the soldier rained blows, swinging the assault rifle like a club. Mercer came up against the hut’s wall and frantically tried to kick his way through. It was a test of endurance between the rondavel’s rickety walls and his ability to absorb punishment, but as fate would have it the wall was the hut’s strongest, and a particularly sharp blow to the back of his head knocked Mercer momentarily unconscious.
The rebel clubbed Mercer once more for good measure, then he and his partner hauled him to his feet. Cali had been subdued in the first seconds of the melee with a rifle butt to her lower abdomen that nearly ruptured her bladder.
They were both dragged outside, where several excited soldiers waited in the village’s central clearing. Only two huts remained; the rest were smoldering piles of ash. A short line of men waited outside the second hut. They joked with each other with nervous gibes and toothy grins as they waited their turn with whoever was alive inside.
Two wooden poles had been rammed into the loamy soil behind an odd stone pillar. Mercer was dimly aware of the strange column’s size, about seven feet, and how it was shaped like an obelisk, before he was turned and thrust up against one of the poles. Cali fell as she was pushed against the second one. A rebel hauled her to her feet while another tied her bound wrists to the pole. Mercer tried to fight off his two guards but was eventually secured as well.