by J. J. Holden
Then he heard another explosion, and another. All around him, the entire area east of the supply depot was being hammered with mortar fire. He quickly noticed, however, that it was not terribly accurate fire. The Americans were simply bombarding the entire area. How could they have enough rounds to waste like that? Intel hadn’t reported such a stockpile, dammit.
It dawned on him that, with such a volume of mortar fire and such poor accuracy, it must be a simple screen. A “rolling thunder” of fire sweeping forward from the depot’s perimeter. There was no other explanation but that the mortar fire was intended to disrupt and slow the attackers while the Americans brought up reinforcements.
How had they known about the raiders? There was no way. His unit’s scouts had shot every person they came across out in the open, empty lands they had traveled through to get here, so there was no one who could have alerted the defenders. In the old days, with electronic communications, he would have expected this and planned around it, but those didn’t exist anymore. Certainly neither he nor his commander had taken such communications devices into account. After all, nothing electronic still survived. Had they missed an enemy scout? Maybe the garrison had been warned, if the Korean scouts/snipers had missed one. It was the only explanation.
Jwa came to a quick decision. As the Americans said, no plan ever survived contact with the enemy. His ancestors would not approve of him wasting the lives of his men or himself.
He reached up, grabbed the whistle that hung around his neck, and blew three short, sharp blasts. It was the signal to retreat.
His interpreter grabbed him by his shirt front and spun him around, then put his face inches away from Jwa’s. He growled, “Why do we retreat? We must attack! We need the supplies, and you have your orders. We must obey.”
Jwa was acutely aware that his Korean soldiers were outnumbered by the ISNA fighters with them. His indignation at being handled by a subordinate—much less a filthy sand-eater—began to rise, and he felt his cheeks flush. With one deft movement, he drew his dagger from his belt and plunged it into his interpreter’s chest. The knife slid easily between two ribs. The interpreter had a look of surprise and anger on his face as he slid away to the side, pulling Jwa’s knife with him, and he collapsed to the ground. He lay with his eyes open, unmoving.
It was time to go. In Korean, Jwa shouted, “Disengage and pull back!” He used his arm to motion his soldiers back, and they rushed toward him from among their ISNA companions.
He and his four Koreans sprinted east, retracing their steps—he knew the path they’d taken was probably just as empty as it had been on their approach.
He heard the sound of an AK-47 firing two shots from far behind him, and a Korean private running next to him grunted and flew forward, landing face first into the pavement. Jwa saw blood spreading across his back between his shoulders.
He turned back around and continued sprinting. “Go, go,” he shouted. He would probably be executed when he got back to his unit commander, but he hoped at least to save his troops, whom he would exonerate of any responsibility. His ancestors would understand his sacrifice.
Behind them, more mortar shells landed, exploding all over the neighborhood. Jwa and three other Koreans ran for their lives.
* * *
Choony trudged through the desolate streets of Maywood. He kept alert for any movement, any sign of people, but so far he had seen nothing except empty streets lined by empty houses with empty window frames. The neighborhood was a ghost town for as far as he could see. His journey to the address he had been given could have taken only another fifteen minutes or so, but he made it a point to wind his way back and forth, shifting direction every block as he continued his journey generally northward. He could make sure that he wasn’t being followed, that way.
He had begun to feel rather silly and was debating whether he should simply make a beeline for the address, rather than taking so many precautions, when he glanced down the street to his right at an intersection and saw, in the distance, a figure on a bicycle.
He immediately thought of the man he’d seen at the market who looked like Jack, but he shook his head. That must only have been someone who looked a lot like Jack. He grabbed his backpack straps and adjusted the weight on his back, then continued onward, moving more quickly. He was definitely not going to take the direct route, not right after seeing his first living person since leaving Andy’s company many blocks ago.
At the next intersection, he glanced right again. He saw the figure on the bicycle again, but this time closer. Close enough to be fairly confident that the rider was male. He reassured himself that it might still be coincidence to have seen him twice, and continued on his way.
At the end of the block, he turned right. The man on the bicycle rode slowly across the intersection, perpendicular to Choony’s new direction. At the next intersection, Choony glanced again, and that time, the man on the bike was traveling parallel to him, and was still closer. He was now maybe five blocks away.
Choony’s heart beat faster. There was no way it could be a coincidence. He glanced to his left, looking for a way out or a place to hide, but his heart skipped a beat when he saw another man on another bike, about the same distance away. There were two of them, one to either side.
“Damn.” He kept walking northward. It was all he could do, now.
Midway down the block, he saw an open gate leading to a large backyard, and he ducked through it. When he got to the back fence, he climbed over it, and then climbed over the side fence into the yard next door. He crossed it, going around a rusty children’s swing set, then jumped over the next side fence, too. He continued like that until he reached the last house on the block, then peered over the fence and looked up and down the street. He didn’t see either bicycle, so he took a deep breath to calm his nerves. He ducked down and slowly counted to ten as he evened out his breathing.
Choony stood again and peered over the fence. Damn—he saw both bike riders two blocks down the road, to his right. They had stopped, talking to one another. He quickly ducked down, then went to the house’s side gate. Thankfully, it wasn’t locked, and he had no problem opening it. Hopefully, the two men around the corner wouldn’t see him. He took three quick, deep breaths and then sprinted across the street and then through another side gate. He kept running, crossing that backyard as well, and hopped the back fence into another backyard. When he reached that side gate, he found it ajar and poked his head out to look up and down the street, which ran north to south. His two followers should now be three blocks east of him, if they hadn’t moved out.
He stepped out onto the sidewalk, then put his head down and sprinted across the intersection, heading north. When he got across the street, he kept running down the block, continuing north.
Panting, he got to the last house on the block and then ducked into its side yard, crouched behind a shrub, and waited. If the men on bikes had seen him, they should be riding by any time now. As he waited, he counted from one to one hundred, allowing his pulse to calm again while he caught his breath.
Seventy-five… Seventy-six…
The shadow of a man appeared on the ground in front of him and his heart leaped as he realized somebody was standing behind him, between him and the easterly sun. He didn’t waste a heartbeat before he shot to his feet and sprinted out of the side yard. He ran across the street, then turned to head north again.
As he ran across the next intersection, he glanced behind him and saw the same man who looked like Jack, right behind him, knees and fists pumping as he bolted after Choony.
Choony turned forward and redoubled his efforts. A block went by, then another. He glanced behind him and saw Jack still behind him, but he had closed the distance a little.
His chest ached and his legs burned, so he cleared his mind of everything but the need to take one rhythmic step after another. He allowed himself to get lost, hypnotized by the even repetition of his feet pounding on the cement. Two more blocks went by, then a
third.
When he reached the next intersection, although his legs were in agony and he was sucking for air like a fish out of water, he didn’t slow. He kept going, sprinting. Everything was silent except for the sounds of his pursuer’s foot strikes and his own.
Choony kept running, crossing the next intersection. Halfway across, he felt a massive weight strike him on his left side. It sent him flying through the air like some toy kicked by a petulant child. His mind reeled, confused, trying to catch up to what was happening, but he was too dazed to make sense of what he saw. Why was he looking at the ground? Why was he looking at the sky? Why was he looking at the ground again? The ground rose up to meet him and by sheer reflex, Choony flung his arms in front of his face as he crashed into the pavement.
He tumbled and rolled, a human tumbleweed, until he came to rest on his backpack beneath him. He urged his body to move, but it just wouldn’t respond. He could only lay there stunned, staring up at the sky. It was over, he realized. Whoever had been chasing him wasn’t chasing anymore. Now they had him, and he’d never find Jaz…
He wondered how badly he was injured, because he couldn’t feel a damn thing. Couldn’t move anything. Even his fingers just wouldn’t respond to his commands. His dazed mind told him he was dead and awaiting transference. He felt… serene. Not frightened, as he should. He had done his best, he knew, and dying in the attempt to rescue someone would grow his Karma. He would die increased. Perhaps reincarnation would take his Karma to someone who wouldn’t have to struggle quite as much as he had in this life.
At least, those were his thoughts. After several seconds, however, he realized he wasn’t dead yet. How sad… The first part to obey his commands were his eyes. He glanced around as best he could. As he looked up from his back, a face appeared into view from his right, hovering over him. It was definitely Jack’s. Then, from the other side, another face slid into view. He didn’t recognize that one.
Jack opened his mouth and began to speak, his words sounding very far away. “Well, if it isn’t the mighty Choony. I see you got my message.”
The other man said, “Yeah, Jack. Looks like he got it alright.” He grinned down at Choony, his brown hair and freckled face contorted into a sneer that looked very much at home on the young man’s face, like it was simply an extension of his inner self, displayed for the world to see. “You was right, where ever Jaz was, this fuckin’ guy would be.”
To Choony, the words were barely understandable. He was still too much in a daze to focus, but he caught most of it. Especially when they mentioned Jaz’s name. “Jaz…?”
Jack chuckled and moved in closer to Choony. “She’s my bitch, now.” His foot shot forward, connecting with Choony’s ribs.
As pain exploded in his side, bursting through the dazed numbness, Choony tried to roll over but couldn’t; he tried to move one of his hands but it merely flopped over onto his chest, completely uncoordinated.
The younger man said, “I think you broke him, dude. He didn’t even flinch. Is he dying?”
Choony looked up at the two faces that leaned over him, the known and the unknown, burning their images into his mind.
Jack smacked the younger man upside his head and said, “Don’t be stupid, Chump. It’s not like we shot him, just knocked the sense out of him when you smashed him with your bike.” He smiled. “Though, I have to admit, it’s not as much fun as playing with Jaz.”
Choony felt pain shoot into his side. He curled up reflexively covering his stomach with his arms and whimpered in pain. He forced the anger away. It would only cloud his mind, and he suspected he would need all the clarity he could muster if he wanted to survive long enough to rescue Jaz, assuming that would even be possible. If they beat him to death here in the middle of the street, he wouldn’t get the chance.
Chump grunted, then kicked Choony in the back.
Choony cried out and rolled onto his back, arching from the pain so that only his buttocks and the back of his head actually touched the ground. Through the agony that spread down his spine to his very toes, he heard the two men laughing.
The world was full of such men, and it was only Choony’s misfortune to be caught by them this time. He hoped that if they were going to kill him, they would do it quickly. He preferred not to feel a lot of pain before moving on in the great cycle of life, though he knew the world was made of pain.
Jack bent down and grabbed Choony by the neck with one hand, and with the other, he grabbed Choony’s arm. “Help me get this prick up.”
The younger man did as he was told, but laughed out loud. “You said ‘help you get this prick up,’ dude. Need some Viagra, old man?”
Jack didn’t respond, and Choony found himself yanked painfully to his feet. He still swayed a bit, but the two held him up. He didn’t struggle or try to get away. There was no way he could escape, so he simply accepted what was. He was captured, and they would do what they wanted with him. He did offer up a prayer to Buddha that, if Jack and his crony, Chump, were going to kill him, he’d have the chance to see Jaz one last time, but that was the extent of his resistance.
Chump stripped Choony’s backpack off, then wrenched his arms behind him. He felt a zip tie binding his hands behind his back.
Jack grabbed a handful of his jacket and wrenched hard enough to spin him around, so that he faced the asshole, who looked at him for a couple of seconds with an irritating smirk on his face. Then, in a blur, Jack’s fist whipped out and connected with his left eye. There was a wet plop noise when the fist struck, then pain exploded inside his head. He staggered back, but from behind, Chump grabbed him under the arms and held him up.
Jack said, “That was for being an asshole and cock-blocking me back in Clanholme.” Jack gave Choony another hard kick. “And that’s for getting me exiled. And what I do to you later will just be purely for my pleasure.” Choony’s vision was blurred, but he could still make out the wide grin on Jack’s face looking down at him.
The two grabbed Choony by his jacket and arms, and shoved him hard, forcing him to walk between them. They walked through Maywood like that, Jack whistling aloud like he had not a care in the world.
* * *
Jwa and his three Korean companions turned left at the next intersection, sprinting down the block, then doglegging to the right. This took them out of the line of fire from the ISNA troops they had left behind, assuming any of them had survived the mortar fire. He didn’t waste any energy on speaking—they simply ran toward the wall. And kept running.
It seemed like they had run for hours by the time they got to the low rubble east wall of Ephrata. He wasted no time giving orders, but simply got in the position to launch one of his men up onto the wall, his fingers interlaced and waiting to receive a foot. The others followed his example, and it took only a couple of seconds to get two of them up on the wall. They reached down and pulled Jwa and the other Korean up, and then all four dropped down to the open ground beyond the wall.
He turned south and ran, no longer sprinting but settling into a quick, measured pace he could keep up for miles. If they were being actively pursued before he could get to the bikes, they would likely be caught whether he sprinted or kept up a sustainable pace, but it wouldn’t do them any good to be exhausted after a couple hundred yards. They still had some ways to go before they got to the bikes.
After a lot more running, during which time he had been unable to resist the urge to look over his shoulder time and time again, looking for pursuit, they reached the bikes. Before leaving, they had strapped their backpacks to small frames that had been fabricated for the purpose of making long-distance travel on the bikes a lot easier. Jwa grabbed his bike, the one with his own custom saddlebag arrangement, picked it up, and pedaled south. Another glance over his shoulder told him that his three men were right behind him.
It had only been a few minutes of hard riding when Jwa heard the report of a rifle. He glanced back yet again, but this time, he saw what he had been fearing all along—half
a dozen or more people on horseback riding hell-bent for leather, as the American cowboys said. Two more shots rang out from among the mounted pursuers, but they again missed. Thankfully.
Jwa put his head down and pedaled for his life. Every so often, another shot would ring out, but so far they had all missed. They had traveled at least another couple of miles by the time he risked another look back; their pursuers were gaining ground on him. He really had no hope of escape because the cavalry would outpace his bicycles in the short term. It was only after an extended pursuit, half a day or more, that the bikes would again take the lead. He didn’t think they had that kind of time.
One of the two men to his right shouted, “We will never make it. It has been an honor to serve with you, my leader.”
Jwa wasn’t certain he had the breath to respond. He was sucking air, couldn’t get enough of it, and his legs burned like they were on fire. His three Korean companions were all excellent soldiers, loyal to the Plan, and had served with distinction so far. They were all going to die, and they were his responsibility. The Arabs had been, too, though he cared less about those animals.
It dawned on him, then, that although he couldn’t have saved his ISNA brothers, even if they hadn’t turned traitorous under fire due to their reckless fanaticism, he just might still be able to do something to save his brethren. Better to lose one irreplaceable Korean soldier for the cause than to lose all four. He shouted, “Turn left one-five degrees… Aim for the rocky outcropping. When we get there, keep riding. I will stay behind so you all can make it home. The honor has been mine.”
“But, sir—”
“Save your breath. Just do it.” Jwa redoubled his efforts. Another look over his shoulder showed him the cavalry was bearing down on them. Soon, their random potshots would start finding their targets.
