by Lee West
“Okay. Just be careful at the supply shed. We can’t afford to alert anyone of our intentions,” said Joe, turning to Meg.
“I’m always careful. We back in a few!”
Meg kissed Joe and then left the tent.
— 35 —
Ed visited the university’s kitchen to get an assessment of their food situation. The head chef assured him that even with the influx of people, their food supply would continue to serve them for at least a few months. The resistance fighters that came to the campus seemed to get the word out that they needed to regroup at the university. As a result, many more of them showed up seeking shelter. By Ed’s informal count, at least thirty extra people now stayed in the tunnels.
Many of the new people had connections to those already on campus. At first it seemed odd to Ed that anyone on campus would be associated with the resistance fighters. Then he realized the obvious connection: the people who knew each other were all Chinese. Many of the Chinese students settled in the local area after graduation. Some acquired research positions at the campus, while others applied for and received work visas from local tech companies. Of course they would know one another. It made perfect sense to Ed.
A group of students and newly arrived resistance fighters sat at one of the tables in the cafeteria, their heads together in a huddle as a serious-looking conversation ensued. Ed decided to join them. Maybe they needed help with something.
“Hey, guys! Everything all right over here? Did you get enough to eat?”
The Chinese people immediately stopped talking and glared at him in near unison.
“We’re fine, Mr. Ed, no need to worry about us,” said one of the students.
“They fed us really well! We’ll be rested and fed just in time for the fight!” said a resistance fighter.
One of the women in the group gave the fighter a stern look, which puzzled Ed.
“Alright. I’m glad to hear it. I’ve got to get to the rest of my rounds. Just let me know if you need anything. We’re sure glad you guys are here. We’ve been worried about the soldiers attacking the campus. At least now we can fight back,” said Ed.
“You’d better believe we’ll fight back!” said the resistance fighter.
Again Ed noticed the woman once again turning to the fighter and giving him a stern look. Shaking his head as he walked away, he knew he would never fully understand the Chinese culture.
He descended the dark stairway into the tunnels. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Switching on his flashlight, he followed the light beam to the tunnel doors.
Ed spotted Nancy, Brett and Marvin sitting on one of the couches in the communal area of the tunnels. They were talking to one of the resistance fighters, a Chinese woman with a strong Mandarin accent.
“Hey, Ed! Why don’t you join us? We were just talking with Yee about the soldiers quartered at our house,” said Brett.
“Yee said they didn’t know about the large concentration of soldiers in the area and that we should attack them. It might help to push the government back out of the region. What do you think?” asked Nancy.
“Do we have the numbers and ability to safely do that?” asked Ed.
“We have superior numbers and military power. There are more troops coming as we speak. Once they arrive, we can make attack,” said Yee in broken English.
“I’m no military man, so I need to trust your opinion on this issue. If you think that’s best, then I say go for it. I’d love to clean the area of troops. It would be nice to beat them back a little so that we aren’t surrounded,” said Ed.
Yee’s lips pulled back in a slight smile, exposing crooked, discolored teeth. She nodded her head and said, “Excellent. I couldn’t agree more.”
— 36 —
Using the map Joe gave her, Meg made her way through the tent city, looking for the supply shed. The Supply Corps coordinated the movement of supporting materials to the frontline troops. They would know when trucks left for the hot zones.
After making several wrong turns, she finally found the supply building. Nothing in their appearance distinguished one building from another. All of the structures had been constructed from the same sand-colored corrugated metal material. Large signs and numbers painted on each building’s façade provided the only identifying features. The architectural cohesiveness of the base made it nearly impossible to quickly move around unless a person understood its general layout.
Meg took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an effort to calm herself down before entering the building. Her hands shook from the fear of getting busted. Riley had said that if she got caught aiding the enemy, they would be court-martialed for treason. For some reason, the thought of getting into legal trouble caused her far more anxiety than the very real possibility of getting killed by the enemy.
She approached the large jumble of desks hastily arranged near the entrance of the building. The supply department would likely get their requests through the military intranet, so they had no reason for the building to have a front-facing customer service station like the intake shed that had processed them. Instead, the people sitting at their desks pounded away at keyboards, made notations on clipboards, and talked to each other very infrequently. She hesitated, unsure where to begin or whom she should talk to.
“You need something?” said a young man.
She hadn’t seen the man heading in her direction. He must have been in a different part of the building when she entered.
“I’m trying to get to medical, but think I came into the wrong building. The base is such a confusing maze!” Meg smiled.
She flipped her hair and tilted her head down while maintaining eye contact with the man. Experience told her that most men would give her what she wanted if she looked at them in a certain way with her large, thickly lashed eyes.
“Medical? Oh brother, you’re way off. Let me help you.”
He moved closer to her. She extended the base map to him and said, “That would be amazing. I really appreciate it.”
He took the map and turned it until they could both read it. Instead of looking at the map from a distance, Meg moved in a little closer to the man, brushing her bare arm against his.
“All you need to do is go back here, make a right, then a quick left, and you’ll find medical.”
“Oh my gosh! How silly of me, I must’ve walked right past it!” She laughed at her mistake as she touched his shoulder gently. “Thanks so much! You’re a lifesaver.”
“Anytime.”
Meg sensed that the man grappled for something else to say that would keep her in his presence. She decided to get right down to the real reason for her visit.
“What’s this place?” she asked flirtatiously.
“It’s the base supply hub. We keep the troops supplied and coordinate all transportation.”
“Wow. That sounds really important.”
The man immediately puffed up with pride and said, “Supply is the most important billet in the fleet! Without us we’d never win a war. Nobody ever stops to consider that for every soldier or sailor on the front lines, it takes three of us to keep them fighting.”
“Sounds dangerous too! Like the frontline medics who risk their lives saving our troops.”
“Oh yeah, it’s plenty dangerous. In fact, we have a supply truck headed to a hot zone this evening. I’d be surprised if they made it back,” he said proudly.
“Do you mean up to the mountains? I heard something about the university being one of the—what did you call it—hot zones?”
“It sure is! We’re sending the last supplies to them tonight. We have to wait until after nine p.m. tonight to make the run in the dark. Otherwise the Reds might see our truck coming and hit it. Trust me, no one wants to fight on an empty stomach!”
Meg processed the information. She tried to quickly calculate if she could get more out of the man or if pushing the envelope would make him suspicious. She decided to push for a little more.
&
nbsp; “After nine. Geez. That seems so hard for the drivers. Do all the trucks leave so late? Or is that just the ones going to the mountains? How do they drive in the dark?”
The man hesitated. A twinge of suspicion crossed his young face then disappeared as she smiled at him encouragingly.
“No. We’re pretty safe going east. Those trucks leave all the time. The mountains require us to be a little more cautious. Tonight’s truck is the last one we’ll send over there for a while. They’ll drive with night-vision goggles.”
“That’s so smart of you to plan it that way,” she said, smiling. “How much training does it take to drive with those goggles? Seems like they’d have tunnel vision.”
“You have no idea how hard it is. I got a chance to—”
Before he could continue, another soldier from one of the desks called for him. Meg used the diversion to make a break for the door before the man could ask her about herself.
“Thanks for your help! I’ve gotta go!” she said as she moved quickly.
She could hear the man sputtering a response as she fled toward the door. Once outside, she smiled to herself at how easily she’d obtained the information they sought.
— 37 —
Joe and Mike sat in the tent waiting for Meg’s return. Joe hated using her to obtain the transportation information because he worried for her safety. They could not afford for her to get caught helping the enemy. None of their plans would come to fruition if that happened, and it would likely end with her arrest. Meg burst into the tent a few minutes later. Her face looked flush from running and she panted, catching her breath.
“Were you able to get any information?” whispered Mike.
After a few more seconds of catching her breath, she sat down and said, “Yes. They have one last truck leaving tonight at nine for the mountains. The guy over there said it’d be a while before they send another one.”
“We don’t have much time,” said Joe, glancing at his watch.
“We need to get over there and wait for an opportunity to jump on the truck,” said Mike.
“I agree. But how will we know which truck is heading for the mountains?” asked Joe.
“The guy I talked to said that the other supply trucks travel during the day. The one to the mountains has to leave late in order to travel at night. He said if they went to the mountains during the day, the Reds could discover the movement and destroy the truck. Are you guys sure you should be doing this? It seems way too dangerous. Maybe we should just ask Riley to help us warn the troops about the innocent civilians on campus? I’m starting to get a really bad feeling about this plan,” pleaded Meg.
“I’ve thought of that too. But there’s just no way for the troops to grab the patriots without getting killed. They’re all mixed together,” said Mike.
“I agree. If I were planning the attack, I would consider the civilians collateral damage,” said Joe.
“I need to head back to my tent to grab a few things. I’ll meet you outside the chow hall at eight thirty,” said Mike.
“See you then, man.”
Joe knew Mike didn’t have anything to get from his tent. None of them had arrived at camp with possessions. Mike merely sought to give them privacy to say goodbye—and Joe took advantage of the kind gesture.
“I know you’re worried. So am I. But I feel like I need to do this. If I sense any danger, I’ll get out of there immediately and play it safe. There’s nothing that can keep me from coming back to you. You have my word,” said Joe.
He gently kissed her, savoring the moment. Even though they’d kissed countless times before, this one felt different because of the preciousness of its finality.
“You’d better come back,” she said.
They held each other silently for a few more moments until he broke away. He looked into her eyes one last time and left the tent. Joe jogged to the chow hall, where he expected to find Mike waiting. He hoped he’d made the right decision to leave Meg in order to save their friends.
“Hey, Mike! You ready?” asked Joe as he ran up to him.
“Sure am. Let’s do this.”
They moved quickly to the supply shed. Once the building came into view, they stopped and studied the exterior layout for a moment while trying to look as casual as possible. Joe noticed that the trucks left from the back of the building. There must be a secondary gate, which enabled them to leave without driving through the base. He knew the loading bay would be their best chance of hopping on the truck.
“Let’s go to the loading bay. Maybe we’ll be able to figure out which truck is leaving,” he said to Mike.
Mike nodded in agreement. Then the two men walked briskly around the building to its back side. Several trucks had been parked with their back gates open to the loading bay. Joe had no idea how to tell which one would leave this evening.
A man walked out of the building onto the loading platform. He looked right at Joe and Mike and yelled, “Finally! We’ve been waiting for the two of you!”
Joe hesitated, unsure how to respond. Mike casually walked forward before Joe had a chance to think through their next move.
“Yeah, sorry about that. You need us to load the truck that’s leaving tonight?” asked Mike.
“Of course I do! Geez. Get these boxes into the truck at bay one! And move it! We don’t have a lot of time,” yelled the man.
Mike and Joe quickly started loading boxes into the truck. Joe assembled the boxes toward the back of the truck in such a way that would enable them to hide without detection if someone looked into the back of the vehicle. Finally his mood started to lift. This just might work.
As they got down to the last boxes, Joe heard a commotion coming from the inside of the building. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see the man who told them to load the boxes arguing with two uniformed soldiers. The man pointed in their direction and shouted something. Then one of the soldiers looked at a document on a clipboard.
“Shit! I think they’re onto us. We need to go, NOW!” he whispered quickly to Mike.
They moved as fast as they could without looking like they were running toward the truck. Each carried several boxes in their arms in an effort to maintain the charade. Joe glanced over his shoulder toward the interior of the shed. He could no longer see the men and had no idea if that helped or hurt them.
“Come on, get to the back of the truck! We’ll have just enough room to hide,” he said to Mike.
The men dove into the small hiding spot they had created, listening to the sounds around them for clues as to whether they would get away with the scam.
Mike shifted in place, squirming to get into a comfortable position. “This is going to be a long ride.”
“I know. Sorry, I should have given us a little more room,” said Joe.
“Shhh!” whispered Mike tensely.
Joe strained to listen to the sounds coming from outside the truck. As they’d gotten into the truck, they’d closed the canvas flaps, plunging them into near darkness. Their ears took over for their nearly useless eyes.
“I just need to get this package out to the forward observation post!” said a soldier.
“That truck leaves tomorrow! I told you that! You’ll have to come back then!” another man said.
“It can’t wait until tomorrow. I thought you had a truck leaving tonight?”
Joe recognized the man’s voice now that he heard it again. Riley stood outside in the loading bay, arguing with the supply officer.
“We do, but it’s going to the mountains, not FOB West,” said the manager.
“I didn’t say anything about FOB West. I need these to get to the mountains to the FOB up in that arena,” said Riley.
“Well, you should’ve been more specific! Truck’s over there in bay one. Add whatever you want. It leaves in five.”
Joe looked at Mike through the darkness of the truck’s interior. If Riley saw them, they would never be able to leave the base. He would make sure of it. One of the flaps ope
ned, causing light to stream into the truck.
Riley stepped onto the back of the truck, making the truck’s suspension move down under the added load.
“Joe? Joe? You here?” whispered Riley.
Joe and Mike looked at one another, unsure what to do.
“Joe? Mike? Come on out. I’m not here to bust you.”
Joe stood slowly, looking at Riley. “How did you know?” said Joe quietly.
“You’re one of the most decent guys I ever met. If it weren’t for you, I would’ve never made it through basic. I saw the look on your face when I said your friends were as good as dead. I knew you’d try something to save them, even if it’s a harebrained, crazy idea.”
“It is a crazy idea, but we have to try,” said Joe.
“We?”
“Mike’s here too. He’s just too wedged in between boxes to stand or talk,” said Joe.
“Hey, Riley,” whispered Mike.
“I have to get out of here. I just wanted to bring you a couple of things that’ll help.”
Riley tossed a bag to Joe. Before Joe could look into the bag or even say thank you, Riley jumped out of the truck and closed the canvas flap. A few moments later the truck roared to life and took off from the base.
— 38 —
The bag Riley gave him contained two flashlights, a detailed map that included the university, several water bottles, and a night-vision scope. Riley had thought of everything they needed to effectively get their friends out of the university. Joe knew he could never repay Riley’s kindness.
“I have to say, for the first time since we hatched this insane plan, I actually believe we’ll make it back in one piece,” said Mike.
“You didn’t think we would before?”
“Not really,” said Mike.
“Me neither, I just pretended for Meg’s sake.”
“I wonder if the radio will allow us to hear communications between the U.S. forces? That could really keep us out of the fray.”
