Grand Junction

by Maurice G. Dantec

  They drive. Every minute puts the Maine border farther behind them.

  Chrysler’s plan has worked perfectly.

  They drive. The morning light plays on the various plant and mineral textures that mark the changing landscape.

  They drive. The engine growls deeply, continuously.

  They drive. The world is staggeringly beautiful.

  They drive. And suddenly, Yuri screams in the cabin:

  “STOP!”

  They stop. Cleanly, at the edge of a wooded area opening onto a vast plateau grooved with ravines and scattered with heavy blocks of stone.

  And everywhere on the plateau, their backs to the convoy, walking toward the river, are hundreds of men. Men in urban-camouflage uniforms of gray and black. Armed to the teeth. And with them are various civil and military vehicles.

  The rear line must be three hundred meters away.

  Hundreds of men. Maybe more than a thousand.

  Yuri barely takes the time to confirm what his binoculars are telling him before ordering Chrysler to back off—“Good God, faster”—into the shelter of the woods from which they have just emerged. He seizes the radio microphone. The language of the Territory takes control of his brain, it is a state of absolute emergency. “Code red. Total stop. Vehicles under cover immediately.”

  “Who are these guys?” Chrysler demands.

  Yuri jumps out of the pickup and walks through the underbrush toward the clearing. From behind a bare, ancient maple he observes the crowd of men through his binoculars. Campbell sees him run back toward the truck at top speed.

  “They saw the truck coming. They’re turning back toward the road!”

  Chrysler doesn’t hesitate for a second. The roar of the engine makes the air shiver like thunder above the streets where the last men are fighting. Yuri hears himself screaming into the radio in the language of the Territory, the language of militarized zones exploding from his throat: “Junction to all units; code red. Maximum speed. I repeat: code red, maximum speed.”

  “Canadian unionists,” he says as they drive at almost a hundred kilometers per hour along the side of the plateau where dozens of men are running in their direction, shouldering their firearms, while several all-terrain vehicles execute half-turns with difficulty amid the ravines and boulders.

  The light is dazzling in the windshield. The sky is a pure, electric azure blue. The men running after them are like a parade. Even when plans aren’t working as expected, the world is still inalterably beautiful.

  Yuri watches the rear guard of the army of men turn toward them en masse. Red-and-white Canadian flags flutter like pennants from the combat vehicles’ antennae. The light glares in the windshield; the morning is pale yellow like an awakening; the morning is pale blue like the mountains; the morning is the color of a steel bayonet attached to a sawed-off rifle.

  Surprise, and the speed of their movements, are obviously on their side. Bullets of various calibers explode around them, some of them lodging in a compact block in the rear door of the pickup. An RPG-7 rocket snakes past them through the air, leaving a tail of white smoke in its wake, but it explodes farther down, on the other side of the road. Behind them, the truck and the sheriff’s Silverado are taking their share of fire, but soon Yuri can see in the rearview mirror the enormous mass nearing them like an avalanche of steel, the yellow-and-white papal standard glittering like a gold-and-silver sun; he can hear the metallic noise of the turbo inflating the compressed air of the military diesel pipes. The world continues to produce sublime accidents, unexpected colors, unplanned sounds. Beauty will not give way.

  On the radio, Yuri hears confirmation that no serious damage has been done; they have stopped the unionists in their tracks without giving them time to react in a coordinated manner. The pickup bounces on the road; at each pothole, each rut, each crack, each upward or downward slope, Yuri has the impression that they are not driving on broken asphalt but rather flying low above it, like a plane taking off.

  “We’ve got to put as much distance as possible between them and us, as fast as we can. Soon we’ll get to 216, which will be almost the end of the mountains,” Chrysler says.

  Yuri doesn’t reply.

  Chrysler’s plan is still working, even if pushed to the extreme limit.

  The Law of Bronze is with them, Yuri thinks. It will protect the convoy.

  And the plan will proceed.

  “The best plan,” says Chrysler, “is the one you didn’t think of. The one that makes you think.”

  Of course, sometimes you have to think very, very fast.

  27 > MAGIC BUS

  Yuri looks at Chrysler, and sees unwavering determination in his face.

  No. They won’t budge. The sun is already beginning its descent toward the horizon; they are way behind schedule. But that isn’t the sort of argument that will impress Campbell.

  They have been waiting for more than an hour in the shelter of the dense woods. They will wait another hour if they have to. Campbell doesn’t even have to open his mouth for Yuri to know that.

  Zero risk. Maximum security. Follow the plan.

  Nothing else.

  They had just reached the 216 when Yuri had called for another emergency stop to the convoy. On the hills to the west, in the direction of the river, was another squadron of men in movement. They had seemed to be picking up camp to move to another, unknown destination.

  This time they were protected by a long curtain of vegetation—chaparral, dwarf pines, yellow lodgepoles, green pines, and umbrella trees—and by the fact that the small army was busy among the hills in two or three parallel ranks, as well as the kilometer’s distance between them. But vast gaps of space kept them from any further movement, for fear of repeating the experience of less than two hours before.

  “We won’t move,” Campbell had said. And Slade Vernier had agreed with him 100 percent.

  Yuri notes the desert-camouflage uniforms of the men, the blue flag emblems with white crosses, the fleur-de-lis.

  “Quebecois separatists. They seem to be moving northwest. Maybe to catch the unionists from behind, on their southern flank. Are they heading to the Plains of Abraham from the other side of the river?”

  “I told you they were at war. All of them. Everyone against everyone.”

  For Chrysler, this is good news. In a few hours, the two largest armed groups in the region will be slitting each other’s throats—and the convoy will be a hundred kilometers farther south.

  They will wait. Wait for the separatist army to traverse the hills.

  The plan seems perfectly suited to the serenity of the place, the Notre Dame Mountains overlooking the landscape, indifferent to the ephemeral humans dithering about in it.

  Beauty cares nothing for the Beast.

  Later they are forced to leave Route 216, cut off by recent landslides that have happened since the trip out. This wasn’t on the map. But the plan makes up for the insufficiency of maps. They will take the 277, and then the 276, going through Les Etchemins County. That will bring them a little closer to the Maine border again, but Campbell wants to be out of the mountains before night.

  So, there is no other choice. No other choice but to follow the plan. No other choice but to let themselves soak up all the dangerous beauty this world still possesses.

  This world peopled with men who spend their time making war.

  Everyone against everyone.

  The 276 is also blocked, and in a way that suggests a violent bombardment; even the high-tension wires have been sabotaged; the pylons that follow the crest are nothing but piles of rubble. Armies farther north must have been fighting here even as we were arriving at Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, thinks Yuri, knowing that his companion is coming to the same conclusion.

  Their unofficial telepathy. Their “junction.” Their mutual training. The Law of the Territory, of which they are, just as much as the sheriff’s men, designated representatives.

  We’re just private contractors, bounty hunters
. And our job is to escort twelve thousand books across eastern Quebec. And no one has any reason to try to stop us. Not even nature. Not even the World.

  No one.

  The plan is there to make up for bad luck. The Law of Bronze is there so the plan will be followed to the letter. The Law is above both Beauty and the Beast—or, more exactly, on an oblique line that connects them, in a way. It is there so that the Territory’s work can be accomplished, this Law from a world where it is undoubtedly maintained with implacable rigor.

  They will have to make a long detour by Sainte-Rose-de-Watford and Route 204, coming close again to the American county of Aroostook, before they can go back down via 275 toward the main road. Orange alert. Everyone on their guard. The sun continues to descend; the shadows lengthen. The blue of the sky deepens to cobalt. The earth and even the air are full of golden spangles.

  The plan is working, thinks Yuri, but we are losing time again. A lot of time.

  They are on the 112, near Asbestos County, on the Thetford Mines road. They have just passed a small, semideserted town called Tring Junction. The sun is sinking toward the horizon, shining infrared, endowing the sky with a brilliant layer of acrylic fire.

  Tring Junction. It is like a funny homonymic reminder, a geographical blink, a little joke on the map. It is a sign that they have succeeded. A sign that they chose the right path. A sign that the plan worked.

  A sign that the library is in good hands. Because even the names are with them. Even the accidents. Even the problems. Even nature. Even the bombardments.

  Yuri rummages in the glove compartment and pulls out an antique cassette by The Who. It is a relic that belonged to Campbell’s father. The tape Made in the Twentieth Century.

  “Magic Bus” fills the cabin, and Yuri surprises himself by singing the chorus softly. Too much, magic bus …

  Campbell glances at Yuri. His smile is wide, frank, radiant.

  Yes, they have succeeded. They have just entered L’Amiante County, so named for the huge beds of asbestos that the Canadians strip-mined for a century and a half. They can see the vast gray-green circles tracing their giant curves in the very heart of the earth; in the fading light of evening they look like steel tombs for some yet-unknown metal.

  They have come through the Notre Dame Mountains, their biggest obstacle. Soon they will arrive in the Estrie. The worst part is behind them. To the right, the west, toward the river, where the sun will disappear at any moment, expanses of woods stretch in compact bunches in the midst of a landscape of rocks and piney brush. To the left, the east, the sky is dark, flooding with slate-blue light a vast plateau of schistose rocks studding gray earth that has taken on the color of chrome in the twilight.

  They have come across four hundred and fifty kilometers of mountains and escaped two armies of a good thousand men each. The library is in good hands. The library is protected by the shield of the Territory, the shield of the Law of Bronze.

  And the only men who can ensure that it is respected.

  Everywhere. For everyone. And every one.

  Without the slightest exception.

  It is at that very moment that bullets star the windshield and the driver’s-side window.

  One of the physical phenomena most directly affected by this type of situation, meaning the critical moment of the explosion of hostilities, is time itself.

  Everything goes faster, much faster, much too fast, and yet it is this very speed that causes the reverse particularity: the general slowing, the rhythmic discrepancy, the elastic time span between seconds, the inverted periods, the freezing of events in a sort of filmic memorial bath in “real time.”

  And if time is affected according to the intangible rules of Einstein’s physics, then space is affected just as much. Distances, perspectives, volumes, light, colors, textures. Everything.

  Which is exactly what is happening now.

  First movement: impacts on the cab, stars of crystal on the windshield, the reddening light of sunset. Everything turns into a pinkish plasma that fills the truck.

  Second movement: sudden stop of the vehicle, perfectly controlled downshift, strident shriek of tires on asphalt, Chrysler’s voice—“We’re being attacked!”—Yuri’s voice into the radio—“Attack, code red; I repeat, code red.”—and the lurching of the world in the phosphorescent green of the combat binoculars.

  Third movement: rat-a-tat-tat! Sustained percussion of automatic gunfire, new impacts, a tire flattens with a sucking noise.

  Fourth movement: understand what is happening, see what is happening and where it is coming from. Understanding a threat is half of reacting to it.

  Fifth movement: need to act fast. Scope out the target. A dozen men, on foot, hidden behind a line of rocks on their left, to the east, above the road, lined up like acrobats on a high wire; the rocks are almost square, their sides covered with brownish moss.

  Sixth movement: operative technique. The laser telemeter shows the distance—three hundred twenty meters. Multifrequency sensors detect all sources of radiation. The dozen men, perfectly identified as living organisms with details of the materials they are carrying, are screened with the infrared, neutrino tomography, mass spectrography, radar waves, other kinds of radiation. They can even be seen behind centimeters of rock, wood, metal. Nothing escapes the electronic eye.

  Then: a long sequence of events at high speed, barely punctuated by a few pauses, as everything unfolds with the fluidity of a scientific documentary filming a growing plant in slow motion inside a Mason jar.

  First the plan, the Law of Bronze in action, organize their defenses. They have to regroup. Chrysler decides to attempt a half-turn and go back toward the convoy, but Yuri stops him—“NO! Why?! What the”—and shows him why: the truck and the Silverado have already stopped a good kilometer behind them, at the top of the long rise they had just finished descending when the fire erupted. “AND?” And look, up there, the road winds around a tall butte. “AND?” shouts Campbell, resuming his maneuver. And these ten or twelve guys are just a diversion, three hundred fifty meters, with old assault rifles; all they could do was flatten a tire! They’re just there to bar our way, to make us act like they want us to. “AND HOW THE FUCK DO THEY WANT US TO ACT?” They want us to make a half-turn up to the top of the rise; they want the convoy to park in a defensive position, so the larger part of their force can trap us as we pass the tall butte. Numeric superiority, land advantage, surprise and proximity of attack.

  Chrysler thinks fast, understands fast, acts fast.

  The plan. The Law of Bronze.

  War isn’t won by weapons; it is won by the men who wield those weapons.

  But there are no pauses in war. Acting fast is necessary, but not always sufficient.

  Yuri shouts into the microphone, ordering the two other vehicles to rejoin them as fast as possible at the bottom of the rise. Fast. Very fast. As fast as possible. RED ALERT.

  “What’s happening?” demands Chrysler, calmly opening the locker under the pickup’s backseat.

  “They’re coming from everywhere. Incredible. Fuck! It isn’t possible.”

  “What isn’t possible?” asks Chrysler, taking out his automatic AK-101 rifle and the Ruger Mini-14, which he hands to Yuri.

  “You won’t believe it.”

  The firing resumes; a few more bullets hit the windshield, and one of them causes the right rear window to explode; shards of frosted glass fly past the electronic binoculars, leaving a translucent trail in air saturated with liquid silver.

  “We’ve got to get out,” Campbell says. “We’ll hide behind the pickup until the convoy gets here.”

  It isn’t long after they scramble out of the pickup that the convoy pulls into sight, less than two hundred meters away. Italian-made turbo-diesel engines aren’t lacking in horsepower.

  Chrysler, stunned by what he has just seen up there at the top of the rise they came from, doesn’t ask Yuri any more questions. Above them the first stars are appearing in an electric
ultramarine sky. So the night will be their domain.

  The dozen men downhill on the rocky ridge are changing positions, replaced by a lighter squad, and suddenly everything becomes clear. Who. Why. How. From where.

  Horsemen.

  Horses! Mounted men, firing at them with various types of military and hunting rifles and a great deal of ferocity.

  And the men high up on the butte, even more numerous, and who only Yuri’s presence of mind detected; these men are also armed in a varied fashion, typical of hired soldiers acting as an advance guard for heavier, more structured units, but also independently.

  Their uniforms. The long brown or gray tunics, motley military uniforms, square bits of cloth in black and white or green and white knotted around their necks and resting on their shoulders …

  The horses. And these … animals.

  The truck roars to a stop just in front of the pickup, creating a huge shield of metal and Kevlar for it—though one now pocked with several bullet holes. The Silverado follows suit, parking at an angle behind the Iveco, blocking the road while remaining relatively protected by the imposing mass of the truck. Their view of the butte, located a little more than a thousand meters away, is partially obstructed by the vehicles, but what Chrysler has already seen is more than enough to dumbfound him.

  He turns an incredulous face toward Yuri, as pale as if he has seen a ghost.

  “No, you aren’t dreaming,” Yuri assures him, readying the Mini-14’s twenty-round cartridge clip. “They are neo-Islamists. And those are camels.”

  Yuri was the first to notice the horses, and then the desert animals. It was only in the midst of battle, of killing, that he became fully aware of the wholly unexpected creatures. And after the combat he would discover another sort of typology of living beings that none of them could have foreseen.

  Every plan, even the best, meets its limits at some point—limits that are often imposed by the most secret parts of the enemy’s plan.