Dead of Night

by Brendan DuBois

  I said, ‘Weather’s too bad for helicopters, and they know that. Maybe they’re just on a scouting trip. Maybe they’re—’

  ‘Jean-Paul,’ Charlie said, keeping his voice even and his gaze focused on the truck. ‘Get your crew behind some cover. Now. And why don’t you get on the horn and start talking to your people?’

  For once, Peter didn’t argue, and for once, Jean-Paul didn’t have to repeat Charlie’s orders. We all scattered but I stayed close to Charlie, who was still keeping his gaze directed down toward the driveway. Karen was whispering something to Sanjay and I looked over to see that Jean-Paul had the satellite phone in his lap, talking low and urgently. I couldn’t see where Peter and Miriam were. There was a faint click and I wondered what the noise was. Then I clasped my hands together as I realized it was Charlie, switching off the safety on his M-16. His voice still low and casual, he said, ‘That you, Samuel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Think you can get in the rear seat of this Land Cruiser, without raising your head, and get something for me?’

  ‘Sure I can,’ I said, feeling reassured just a bit, like I was contributing something.

  ‘Good. On the floor there’s two black duffel bags. Bring me the largest of the two, all right? That’s very important. The largest of the two.’

  ‘You got it,’ I said, and I crab-walked back to the door and opened it up. I looked inside, at the jumble of gear and bags and equipment, and saw the two duffel bags. But which one was the largest? It was impossible to tell from where they were situated. I looked at them, trying to decipher which one was largest, when Charlie said, ‘I need that bag now, Samuel. And I’m not fooling.’

  Shit. I pulled the bags out, both of them heavy, and saw instantly which one was the largest, I dragged it over to Charlie. He stepped away and said, ‘Unzip the top, will you?’

  I pulled back the heavy zipper and said, ‘It’s open.’

  ‘Great,’ he said. I gaped in awe at how fast he moved now, plunging down, one hand holding the M-16, the other burrowing deep into the bag and coming out with a small satchel and a tubular weapon with a handle, both of which he threw on top of the hood of the Land Cruiser. His hands moved in a quick blur as he opened up the satchel, brought out a metal cylinder about the size of a small egg and slid it into the now open weapon, which I had finally recognized as a grenade launcher.

  Then whatever sense of professionalism I had kicked in. This wasn’t the time to keep an eye on Charlie; it was time for something else. Keeping low, I scuttled back to where I had started and picked up my Sony camera. I went to the rear of the Land Cruiser, still staying close to the ground, and I ignored the whispers of my teammates. I got down on the cold dirt, crawled past the left rear tire and looked down the driveway. I got the viewfinder up to my face and started taking photographs of the pickup truck as it finally slowed down. The guys in the vehicle were talking to each other and I zoomed in a bit with the camera, catching all their faces. Click, click, click. I took the pictures as fast as my fingers would allow. I started out with a group shot of the truck and its passengers, focusing first on the three men in the cab and then on the four guys in the rear. Then I took close-up shots of each individual face.

  I tried not to think too hard as I was taking the photos. But still, I was struck by the similarity of the faces, how they looked like they were all related and had come out of the same polluted gene pool. They all had raggedy beards or mustaches, their complexions were rough and scarred, and when they smiled I saw plenty of signs of poor dentistry. I saw them talking among themselves, some of them laughing and smiling, and it seemed like the guy in the center of the cab was in charge. He talked first to the driver and then to the guy closest to the passenger-side door. Then he turned back and said something through an opening in the rear cab window.

  Voices. No, just a voice. Charlie murmuring, ‘Just a bit closer, darlin’s, and I’ll show you some serious fucking hurt.’

  I pulled my face away from the camera and looked over at Charlie who was now leaning across the hood of the Land Cruiser, the grenade launcher looking tiny in his big hands. I went back to my camera work and took yet another set of group photos. Then I paused as my breath caught and my hands suddenly started shaking. The driver of the pickup truck had said something to the guy in the center, who now seemed to be looking right at me. He laughed and held up a hand, waved in my direction, then raised his middle finger in the classic gesture of insult and threat. I could not take another photo. I could not move. The only thing I could do was to understand the terror a small creature feels when faced with a snake slithering up to eat him. This man was a member of one of the local militias, no doubt about it, pacified zone or not. I knew down to the frozen marrow of my bones that only a handful of meters separated the two of us and if he got close enough he would shoot me or stab me or bludgeon me with about the same amount of emotion that I would have about swatting an irritating mosquito that had come into my tent. Death squad, I thought. This was a death squad. ‘Militia’ was just too bland a term.

  I was frozen. I was terrified. My breath was coming in quick gasps and the camera was shaking in my hands so much that I had to move it away from my vulnerable eye sockets. Then the truck stopped, its engine grumbling.

  Charlie murmured something and waved at the men, making sure they could see the grenade launcher. There was a quick confab among the group. I had the feeling that Charlie had just upset their plans, that in the rear of the truck, hidden under an old bedspread or a piece of canvas, were their weapons. But now they had to think. They had to gamble. And the gamble was whether they could pull out their guns fast enough to stop Charlie popping off a round from the grenade launcher.

  I found that my breathing was beginning to ease. The equation had suddenly changed once the militia group had noticed Charlie. Now the camera wasn’t shaking as much in my hands and I could imagine what could happen. An ill-advised movement by the militiamen and then a loud pop from the grenade launcher and a loud bang! as the round found its target, a nice blossom of orange and red fire and black smoke. Then Charlie would probably pick up his M-16 and hose them down, shoot at them all, shoot at these militiamen who hadn’t expected to come up against a real soldier, nope, probably all the practice they’d had was shooting farmers and shopkeepers and businessmen and businesswomen and dads and wives and children.

  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed that little fantasy of seeing these young men gunned down. They had ruled this piece of the country like their own little feudal kingdom, stealing whatever they wanted, murdering whomever they wanted, and raping anything female, from eight to eighty, that came across their path. I wanted them to be hurt. I wanted them to be scared. I wanted ...

  I wiped my face against a coat sleeve. I wanted to throw up, and I trembled. I imagined my father’s blood coursing through my veins right now, the temper, the violence, the easy way to settle things, either through fists or knives or bullets. It wasn’t a nice feeling.

  Another quiet comment from Charlie: ‘C’mon, you fuckers, what you got going?’

  I looked at the truck again and then put the camera back up to my face, used the zoom function once more. There was some serious talking going on among the three men in the truck’s cab, and then it seemed like the center guy — who, I now noticed, had a goatee—made a decision. Some of his companions in the rear seemed to complain, but he said something sharp and that was that. The pickup truck began to back down the driveway, and then the center guy looked back in our direction and made an expansive shrugging motion with his hands and shoulders, like he was saying, ‘Oops, got me, maybe next time.’

  Sure. Maybe next time. I carried on taking photos until the truck disappeared into the thick fog. Then I put the camera down on the ground and sat up, wiped my hands on the side of my coat.

  Charlie turned to me and grinned. ‘Guess I earned my salary today, huh?’

  I just nodded.

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER SIX
<
br />   There was a lot of talking and arguing and discussion after the truck left. Charlie just smiled at me and broke down his grenade launcher. I smiled nervously in return, and also felt an odd sense that he and I had shared something when I had passed the weapon over to him. It was like he’d had confidence that I could help him with something so important, and I felt good, even though a minute or two earlier my hands had been trembling with fear.

  Peter was yammering away at Jean-Paul, who in turn was talking loudly into the satellite phone, while Karen and Sanjay were standing close to each other, trying to make sure that their voices were heard as well. Miriam, on the other hand, was standing by an open door of one of the Toyota Land Cruisers, eating a piece of German chocolate.

  ‘…Tell the bloody UN that we won’t move any more unless we get a proper armed escort, damn it...’

  ‘... If this place is so pacified, what were those militiamen doing, out in the open like that... ?’

  ‘... Head back to California if this happy crap holds up ...’

  Charlie whistled a little tune as he put everything away. I went over to him. ‘That was a great job you did, Charlie, a very great job,’ I said.

  Even though his words were calm, I could tell he was pleased by what I said. ‘Wasn’t much of anything, Samuel. Guys like that, they feel important and on top of the world when they’ve got the weapons and nobody else has. When the roles are reversed they just scatter away, like when you turn on a kitchen light at night and the cockroaches head for shelter.’

  Having been fortunate enough in some ways not to have grown up in an environment like that, I said, ‘What would you have done if they had kept on coming up the driveway?’

  ‘What do you think I would have done?’ he asked, zipping closed the duffel bag with the grenade launcher inside.

  I thought for a moment as the conversation continued around the besieged figure of Jean-Paul, still talking loudly and rapidly into his satellite phone, speaking French.

  ‘…Nothing against Charlie “here, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better with a couple of APCs at our disposal…’

  ‘... Can’t trust what the UN says about this area, we should just pack up and get the hell out...’

  ‘... Agree with Sanjay, this is ridiculous ...’

  Charlie was waiting for a reply, so I said, ‘I’m not sure what you would have done. All I know is, I’d have hated to be in your position. I mean, standing here, evaluating the threat, wondering if they were just some local toughs, out exploring and looking to steal something. That’d be a hell of a thing, if you had done something and it turned out they were unarmed.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Charlie said. ‘That would have been a hell of a thing. So, Samuel, you still haven’t answered the question. What do you think I would have done?’

  ‘I think you would have done the right thing, that’s what.’

  He didn’t say anything in reply, but his smile was wide. Then I looked over at Miriam, who carefully folded up the chocolate wrapper and placed it in a pocket of her down vest. She smiled and winked at me, and I smiled back, thinking then and there that I was falling in love with her. It would have been so simple for her to have let the wrapper fall to the ground but no, she was showing respect and she wasn’t about to trash this destroyed family farm.

  ‘Bien, bien,’ Jean-Paul said, hanging up the phone and then rubbing a large hand across the top of his head. His face was red and when he turned away from the phone everyone who had been talking fell silent. I was suddenly glad that I had kept my mouth shut, for he looked like he was one sharp comment away from blowing up. That might have been amusing to watch, but my amusement meter was pegged pretty low after what had just occurred.

  ‘All right, my friends, this is what’s happening,’ he started out. ‘I’ve contacted the military liaison. There’s a quick-reaction force coming here shortly. We are to stay here until they arrive. Charlie, you have my gratitude and that of our little crew here. That was spectacular, what you did, facing them down. Truly spectacular.’

  Sanjay interrupted, ‘We should be doing something more, Jean-Paul. We should make sure that the reaction force knows what they’re looking for. Those men and that truck should be taken off the streets—’

  Peter interrupted in turn, ‘Yeah, and what kind of bloody description can we give them? A bunch of men in a black pickup truck? You know how many of the towns and villages around here have pickup trucks?’

  Charlie spoke up, quieting everyone with his strong voice. ‘Talk to Samuel, why don’t you?’

  All faces were turned in my direction, and Jean-Paul said, ‘All right, let’s talk to Samuel, then.’

  Charlie was smiling again in my direction, and I said, ‘I’ve got photos.’

  Karen said, ‘Photos? You’ve got photos?’

  ‘Sure he does,’ Charlie said. ‘While the rest of you were hunkered down, Samuel here was doing his job. He got nice photos of those bad boys—am I right, Samuel? Lots of nice photos.’

  I turned to Jean-Paul and said, ‘I’ve probably got a couple dozen or so. Group and individual pics of the truck and its occupants.’

  Finally, Jean-Paul grinned, came over to me and slapped me on the shoulder. ‘Very good. Here, while we’re waiting for the reaction force to arrive, we’ll uplink your photos to Geneva. Very good, Samuel, very good.’

  So I got back to work, with words of congratulation from everyone else in the group—except Peter, who was busy checking on what we had available for lunch later. Which was fine by me, for Miriam had slipped me another piece of her German chocolate, and that was worth much more than any words from Peter.

  ~ * ~

  By the time we had uplinked my photos of the militiamen—using, at his request, Jean-Paul’s data system, which was much more high-powered and encrypted than mine -the quick-reaction force had arrived: four APCs with big black tires and machine guns and grenade launchers mounted on a turret on top. All four had UNFORUS painted on the side and the flags they were flying from radio whip antennas on the rear were Ukrainian. Three of the APCs took up positions on the road, while the lead unit came up the driveway and the unit commander—wearing camouflaged clothing and the blue beret of the UN—spoke in fairly passable English to Jean-Paul. At the time I was standing next to Charlie. I thought he might amble over and talk to the Ukrainian army officer, as one professional to another, but he didn’t. He had a grim look on his face and when Karen said something about him going over and explaining what had happened, he said no, he wasn’t going to do that.

  ‘That’s Jean-Paul’s job,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Well,’ Karen said, ‘don’t you think it might be helpful—’

  Charlie walked away, shaking his head. ‘Ukrainians—can you believe it? In my fucking country.’

  And I knew why Charlie had stood still. Foreigners under arms, in his country, doing his job. To Charlie, no doubt, that was disgraceful. Me, I was just glad to see the extra firepower.

  With the photos uplinked and my gear back in the Land Cruiser, Sanjay came over to me and said, ‘Good job again, getting those photos.’

  ‘That’s my job,’ I said.

  ‘Still...’ Sanjay looked around him and leaned toward me, speaking softly, so that Karen wouldn’t hear him, I suppose. ‘That was a brave thing to do, to take such pictures of the militiamen when they were so close to us. Me, I don’t even pretend to have such bravery. I went to medical school and learned all there is to know about human bodies and the creative ways men devise to hurt them and destroy them. But I cannot handle dealing with the living—their fears, their wishes, their demands, their families. I prefer the dead, for what is the worst you can do to a dead man?’

  ‘Not a hell of a lot, I guess,’ I said.

  ‘So true. And I cannot even handle my family, who felt disgraced that I would lower myself to working with the dead. So the coward’s game again: here I am, with the UN, far away from my home.’

  I nodded toward the APCs.
‘Hell of a place for a coward.’

  He smiled widely. ‘We take what we can, don’t we?’

  ‘That we do.’

  Eventually the APCs backed down the dirt driveway, their engines burbling loudly, the yellow and blue flags flapping in the breeze. I got into a Land Cruiser with Peter and Miriam, Miriam this time sitting in the front seat. She said, ‘jean-Paul told me that one of the Ukrainian APCs will be with us for a while. Isn’t that good news?’

  Peter shook his head. ‘Bloody soldiers will ask us to feed them, just you wait.’

  I said, ‘Having protection like that should be worth a meal or two.’

  ‘Fine,’ Peter said. ‘Then you can cook for them.’

  Miriam glanced back at me as we bumped down the driveway, and I leaned over the rear of the seat.