by David Poyer
Their work unit pecked away at the seams all morning. Teddy was getting better with the pick. He could swing hard, and hit at an angle that chipped off several flakes of the quartz-heavy, sparkling ore. When he’d knocked free a couple of cubic feet, Ragger or Trinh or Shepard or Vu would rake it into a basket, hoist it, then set off on the trek back up to the breakers.
But he had to rest for minutes in between swings, and it took the carriers forever to reach the surface. They weren’t going to make quota. Hell, that was for healthy, well-fed prisoners. The guards shambled among them. They didn’t look all that great either. Their uniforms hung on them, scarecrow-style. They coughed and blew their noses constantly, and perched shivering on rocks. Teddy kept eyeing their rifles. A snatch, when they were nodding off, would be easy. But then what? Down here in the pit, the other troops would mow them down like weed-whackers clearing a highway divider.
The sun came out and hung pale and cold as a frozen opal. He blinked up at it between swings, savoring the faint warmth on his skin. The dust-haze was clearing. Before, he hadn’t been able to see the sun at all.
Around noon a truck coasted down the ramp, silently, engine off. Teddy had a bad turn seeing this, but was reassured when the guards started handing down the familiar tureens. Only three, though, and the prisoners who’d worked in the pit before murmured that there would not be enough.
And it wasn’t corn mush, but the brown soup, the kind that made his turds prickle like he’d been eating briars. A soggy leaf was threaded through the grains, and one tiny slice of what might have been an actual vegetable—turnip, or parsnip. As the whistle droned, Teddy fished it out with his fingers and wolfed it, then inspected the rest like a finicky cat. Squatting on his haunches, he stared into the bowl. Hungry as he was, he didn’t want to eat this crap. It hurt too much when it came out the other end.
He lifted his eyes to the sky. Was that blue? He’d never seen blue here before. Maybe it was a good omen.
Or maybe, just the last blue sky he’d ever see.
They got a break to eat. No more than fifteen minutes, but it was always observed. If nothing else, he understood now why eating was sacramental. When they had their bowls in hand, the prisoners drifted to the shade of the parked equipment. His unit settled against one of the trucks. He examined his ration again, and almost threw it on the dirt. But, finally, forced himself to lick the last grains off the cold metal. If they went tonight, he’d need every erg of energy.
Getting up to return the bowl, he caught a flash of movement above him and cringed. Then hesitantly glanced up, arm lifted to protect himself.
He was staring into red-rimmed, terrified eyes set in a black-smeared, hair-covered face. It was gaunt. Filthy. Only the radiating scars under the grime informed him, after a shocked second, that this was his own visage, reflected in the truck’s side-view mirror. He dropped his gaze.
Then raised it again, struck by a thought.
He looked around. The guards were on lunch break too. The only one visible was across the quarry, facing away.
He reached up. Pressed the button on the driver’s-side door handle, and eased it open. Then, swiftly as a snake, glided up and into the cab, greasing the door closed behind him. Crouching, so his head wouldn’t show.
The cab smelled of diesel and old sweat. He plundered through the glove compartment, then pawed behind the seats. A white metal box: a first-aid kit. But when he unlatched it, it was empty. Next: a tool roll. He unrolled it, hoping for something weapony. Crank rods, a rusty socket wrench set. “Fuck,” he muttered.
Then he saw what lay beneath it.
A nylon towing strap, neatly made up with zip ties.
“Ted-ti?” A familiar croak. He flinched and rolled out of the cab, stuffing the bundle hastily down his pants.
Old Lew was in what looked like gray pajamas. He nodded to Teddy in an avuncular way, and held out a small package wrapped in brown paper.
“Tíngzhi! Nà shì shénme?” shouted the hard-faced guard, strolling over. Lew flinched but stood his ground, chattering so rapidly that Teddy couldn’t follow. He unfolded the paper, displaying the contents. The guard smiled and took some. The old man grinned and bobbed. The guard nodded, spat on the ground, and turned his back to them.
“Ted-ti,” the old man said again, “zhè shì gei nín de. Yigè liwù. Wo bù chouyan de yancao.”
Which he didn’t get, but the way the codger held it out in both hands, bowing, made his intent clear. Teddy bowed too, unfolded it, and sucked air. His astonishment must have been clear, because the old man chuckled as he tottered away.
Leaving Teddy staring down at two slightly bent, obviously well handled, but perfectly genuine Winston cigarettes.
* * *
THAT night he laid out his gear. Just like before a mission. Only this time, instead of Knight’s Armament SR-25 and magazines of M118 heavy-bullet sniper rounds, suppressor, and cleaning kit, a screwdriver sharpened on a shard of flint. Instead of his thin-blade, a stone axe cobbled from a piece of bone and a chunk of black quartz he’d hand-flaked to a point. Instead of battle dressings and a bugout kit, a faded quilt rolled and tied with string woven of braided grass. A discarded plastic bottle filled with water. And the towstrap. Instead of MREs and Power Bars …
For breakfasts, before a mission, he’d liked to eat heavy. Ribeye steaks, or thick slabs of pink fried ham. Fried potatoes, ice cream. Protein and fat you could burn for fuel while humping overland, or up a cliff, or busting down doors clearing a compound.
Fuck that, Oberg. Fuck it. It was probably a lie, but he told himself, Get up that cliff, and you’ll be eating roasted goat. He twisted grass into a plug and tucked it into a cheek. Next to the left upper bicuspid, which was dying, loose in its socket. He scooped ash from the firepit, spat into it, and worked the paste into his skin. Not camo paint, but it would work.
Ragger, at his elbow. “Ready?”
“All set. Maggie?”
Pritchard was gagging in the far corner, where they pissed when they were too sick to stagger outside. Teddy rolled over. “Up for this, Digger?”
“Just lemme cough.… I’m game. I’m game.” He wiped his face and pushed up to hands and knees.
Outside, for the first time in days, the stars were visible. Light to steer by. On the other hand, better for any guards at the top of the bluff to pick them out. He’d never seen any night vision equipment here, but if there was, it would be in the towers. Teddy muttered that he’d take point, to maintain a five-yard interval, and to stay low and hug the cliff.
They went slow, which his foot appreciated. He’d wrapped the prosthesis even tighter than usual, and it quickly numbed. That worked. He slid along the bluff, trying not to turn his good ankle on the scree littering its base. That tuff, or whatever it was, was going to make it hard to climb, but he thought he could make it. Maybe by cutting in steps with the axe. Once he got to the top, the others could haul themselves up by the towing strap.
The stars glittered down. The wind was cold, but not as sharp as before. Spring was on the way, all right.
Would he be here to see it?
He figured the odds were about fifty-fifty.
* * *
AN hour later, the stars had wheeled on. They passed fire-flickers, but most huts were dark, untenanted. From these blew a cold stink like rotting meat.
At last, his leg aching, they reached the ravine. Here the bluff curved in and steepened, but in such a way that they were screened from overhead view. Here, too, a line of poles ended. Which meant either power or communication. From the size of the wires, carefully observed day after day from where he’d been entowered, like a hungry, ugly Rapunzel, atop the breaker, he guessed power. This was confirmed by a sixty-cycle hum.
“Transformer,” Ragger whispered, close to Teddy’s ear. “Which means—”
Teddy put his lips to the pilot’s ear in turn. Mouthed, so low he couldn’t hear it himself over the wind, “Shut the fuck up.”
Fier
ros fell back. Teddy leaned in and eyed the wire. Then froze, motionless as coal, at an almost nonexistent wash of ruby light somewhere above. So faint that if he hadn’t been in the dark for an hour, he’d never have detected it.
Someone was above them where the cables crossed the wire, drooped, then lifted again to scale the cliff. With a perfect field of view to observe their route up.
He gestured the others down. He wasn’t sure he was fit for this. But he’d taken down sentries before. Killed with a knife. He had the best chance.
Thinking this, he’d already slid into the eroded-out gully under the wire. Had a bad moment when he thought: Mines. But probably erosion would expose them. If he was lucky, he’d hit an edge before he contacted the detonator.
Just take it slow, then … and the stars above his upturned face had wheeled fifteen minutes farther before he hoisted himself by slow degrees to hands and knees.
The shack was above him. The cliff, a black absence above that. From this angle, he doubted that whoever was in there could see him. In sniper lingo, he was in a dead zone. Still, he crept like a tortoise, breathing through his mouth. Extending one hand at a time, then oozing his body up the loose scree after it. Not disturbing a pebble until he reached the rough cold poured-concrete supports of the guard box.
He kept going under it, until he came out the other side.
The back of the shed was open. The light, he saw now, came from a shaded lamp down near a pair of boots. Its upper half painted over, the pilot lamp topped a box he guessed was an intercom linking the posts. The boots belonged to a small soldier perched on a stool high enough to give a view over the wire and up the ravine. A set of black binoculars hung from a nail. The unmistakable shadow of a Kalashnikov leaned against the wall.
Teddy debated. Chert axe, screwdriver, bare hands? He finally slipped out the screwdriver. Six inches of shiv, stone-honed to a needle point.
One more step.
The trooper stared out into the darkness.
Teddy closed, rotating in, jammed his knee into the guy’s back, and wrapped a hand over his face. He jerked the head back with all the rage he’d pent up for months, and with his right plunged the screwdriver in. The guard shuddered, and started to cry out before Teddy’s palm corked her breath.
Startled, Teddy loosened his grip. It was the girl guard, who’d sung and joked with them.
The next moment he was jolted back by a vicious elbow strike that caught him in the solar plexus. He choked, folding, only just managing to hold on. Control the head. The body follows. Warmth drenched his hand as he reoriented the screwdriver and drove it down, through the angle between neck and shoulder, probing for the heart.
She writhed in his arms. Her boot flicked back to hook his ankle. She was small but strong, and he was weak. His only advantage had been surprise, and now that was gone. If she broke free, there had to be an alert button in here. Or she could simply grab the AK. With four puncture wounds in the neck, she’d bleed out, but even after your heart stopped, you had a good thirty seconds before you lost consciousness.
Another elbow strike, but weaker. He kept forcing her head back, palm sealing her mouth and nose. No breath, no fight. He jammed the pick in again, deeper, like a harpooner feeling for the whale’s life.
She fell back, limp, into his arms. Finish your opponent.… He did it, then let her slump to the floor. Slowly, without unnecessary noise.
He sank too, upper body propped against the wall, red and black curtains eddying and flaring before his eyes, like one of his grandmother’s Hollywood openings. His whole body shuddered. The reeks of blood and shit filled the wooden box.
When he had his breath back, he bent to the corpse. It was still warm. Wet. He unbuttoned her shirt, and thrust his hand in. Yeah. Itty-bitty. He pulled out the sharp chert. Positioned it, like a prehistoric hunter preparing to skin his kill.
A hiss jerked him around. “Teddy!”
It was Pritchard. The Aussie dragged himself up the steps and halted, staring. In the faint light Teddy saw his jaw drop. “What the fook are you doing?”
“I took the guard out.”
“I can see that, mate, but what the … never mind. We taking this?” He touched the rifle.
“Bet your ass.” Teddy let the girl’s blouse fall closed and stuck the axe back in his pants. Had he really intended to cut them off? And then do what? His head swam. “Grab it. Let’s go. Somebody’s gonna be calling to check in.” He bent again, searching the body, but found only a metal belt buckle and, in the pockets, a scrap of handkerchief and a small plastic billfold. Leaving the wallet, he rebuttoned her blouse and propped her against the wall. Then, after a moment, covered her face with the cloth.
* * *
THEY climbed in single file, stooped to the ground. When his feet slipped he fell to his knees, which grew warm and wet with blood. His jacket was growing stiff. Caked with more blood, no doubt. Hey, at least it wasn’t his.
He avoided thinking about what he’d been about to do when Maggie had come in.
At the sheer cliff he halted abruptly, bewildered. How had he planned on scaling this? He stood scratching his beard, brain vacant.
At last he remembered, and bent, and slipped off his ragged cloth POW-issue shoes. He dug bare toes into rough rotting stone, getting the feel of it. Knotted the laces, and hung them over his neck. Unlashed the grass rope on his bindle.
He’d cut the steel fittings off the tow line back at the cave, leaving only braided nylon. He doubled it and rewrapped it around his waist and shoulder in the familiar configuration of a climbing rope. Let four yards dangle free, then rethought that and tucked them into his pants. The fewer Irish pennants, the less likely it would snag.
He looked up, hesitated, then reached out. And looped the line around the heavy metal cable that led up the bluff.
The thick wire hummed like a hornet’s nest. Enough volts were coming through it, from some faraway hydroelectric plant or reactor, to run the whole camp. It didn’t even seem to be insulated, from the way the nylon slicked along it when he leaned back. Just smooth, bare copper.
Touch it with his toes dug into the ground, and that would be all she wrote. Actually, if a body part got close enough, high voltage could jump a gap.
Okay, enough thinking … he leaned back even farther, keeping tension on the strap. Planted his feet, and bounced his upper body to slide the nylon up ten or twelve inches. Then, searched again with bare toes for the next gritty foothold.
The bad foot folded on him. He slipped, caught himself, but his sweat-coated face hovered within inches of the bare wire. The soil was crumbling away beneath his clawed right toes. He cocked his head, looking into the face of Death.
Deep slow breaths. Imagine looking through a gunsight at a distant target. Heartbeat. Another breath.
He lifted his leg again, feeling with his toes for the barest crack in the crumbling rock.
* * *
HALF an hour later he lay full length at the top of the cliff, shaking. Patterns chased themselves like flocks of starlings over his retinas. Their black wings throbbed. He gasped for air. Then lifted his head, and peered around.
As he’d expected, it was wired. Jagged coils of concertina outlined themselves against the starlight. It was staked in with what looked like four-inch I beams. Thinner wires within it looked ominous, might be live. He couldn’t tell if there was another belt beyond that, but he’d have put one there. Trap any would-be escapees between the two, pin them with lights, and machine-gun them. He lifted his head higher and picked up the tower, dark against the sky, thirty feet up. That was where the searchlight had come from, the one they’d watched from the cave. Every few minutes, all night long, it roved the pit below, and presumably the wire here too. He clawed up crumbly dirt and rubbed a fresh layer into face and hands. It wouldn’t be enough if the guard was alert, but if he wasn’t, he might not see a motionless shape the color of everything around it.
He thought about neutralizing the guard up h
ere too, but dismissed it. He was too weak to go hand to hand again.
If only he had some way to divert their attention …
First, though, he had to get the rest of the team on deck. After ten frozen minutes, he began a low crawl toward the nearest I beam. Shook it, but it didn’t move. Good.
In the dark, he put a bowline in the end of the nylon, making it fast to the beam. Waited another two minutes; then slid back and dropped the line over the cliff.
Ragger came up next. When he had his breath back, Teddy hissed at him, “Roll off to the right and find a way under the wire.” For once the airman didn’t argue, just crawled off. A smaller shadow next: Trinh. Obie whispered, “Go left and look for a gap.” The shadow nodded.
“Where’s Maggie?” Teddy hissed.
“He is not doing well.”
Fuck. He crawled to the edge. Gradually he made out a darker blot ten feet below. “Magpie! That you? Get your ass up here!”
A cracked whisper-cough floated. “Not … quite sure I can, Teddy-boy.”
“Stay clear of the cable. I’m gonna come in on this line.” He began hauling it up, almost dragging his own flagging corpse over the edge. He gasped as the crumbling rock gave way, and scrabbled backward. But returned to whisper fiercely to the prisoner below, urging him up. At last he gripped outstretched fingers, and pulled him up and over to lie together.
The Australian’s shoulders were shaking. Teddy realized he was coughing, silently, face pressed into the dirt. “Maggie, y’okay?”
“Taken a bit crook today, mate. Just … a bit crook.”
“We’ve gotta get through this wire before that searchlight comes back on.”
“Just … can’t.”
Something liquid bubbled in Pritchard’s throat. Teddy could make out the dark gleam of blood in his beard. “Knackered here, mate. Done for. You … go on without.”
“Don’t give me that shit, Magpie. You’re coming, if we have to drag you.”
“No, oi … been thinking. Gotta cut that light off. No chance making it without.” His cave mate was fumbling at his back, freeing what Teddy realized was the AK. Pushing it into his hands. “That cable … feeds the light, right?”