The Watchers

by Mark Andrew Olsen

  This is crazy, he heard the voice of his experience hiss at him. He’d finally cracked. Here he was, practically defenseless, facing a coordinated assault from a foe presumably armed to the teeth, defending a totally exposed shooting-ducks gallery overlooking a hundred miles of perfect cover. Worse yet came the hard-nosed voice from his past; he was heeding a couple of loony women so overdosed on religion that they wanted him to push aside the best military training in the world in favor of mumbled prayers and half-baked warm fuzzies.

  Another voice broke in as correction, reminding him that Abby’s and Sister Okoye’s faith wasn’t asking him to throw out his training but merely place it under the authority of someone other than himself, then add to it a whole new level of strategy he’d never known before.

  Still, it felt—

  Hatfield!—roared the voice of every drill instructor and field officer he’d ever worked with, barking at him in tandem—Pull it together. . . !

  The smoke, now curling heavily about their position, embodied the rising urgency of his dilemma. He tried to analyze the situation with the same ease and calm he once had been famous for, but now the lateness of the hour made everything spin into a frantic, dizzy blur. A surge of panic rushed through him. His heart began to race like that of a rank amateur in his first simulation op. His lungs began to heave wildly in his chest.

  And swirling around the core of this internal tempest was a maelstrom of old combat rules, warnings, war slogans and axioms, each one drilled into his subconscious many years before, each one now adrift and chaotic, crashing into the others and threatening to churn his brain into senselessness.

  Should he stand his ground? Shock his enemy with a bold, random countermove? Abandon the position altogether? Wrack his brain for wily, out-of-the-box trickery?

  After all, the latter had been his own choice, just today.

  From somewhere in the mental carousel arose the calming, unlikely notion of praying. His soldier’s mind told him no—that the time for praying was later, when all the action was over and the dust had settled.

  Another consciousness, deeper and steadier, seemed to be whispering that now was exactly the right moment.

  So Dylan started the prayer like an impatient teenager eager for his parents to leave. God, seems clear that right now might be a good time to hear from you. It’s just that you didn’t wire me to stop and check out of reality right in the middle of a fight. So maybe, if you could make yourself really, really clear—and incredibly persuasive—and all in very short order, that would be great! Thank you. Amen.

  Another idea came to him from out of nowhere.

  The lighting of the methane—it was too quick. Too easy. It was a diversion. Some kind of trap.

  But what? What was he being diverted from?

  The thought came hurtling through his brain like a stray bullet.

  The other side of the rampart!

  He’d focused on the jungle side of the wall because the rain forest at large represented the outside world, the direction of Lagos and civilization and the danger all those things embodied. But with a hundred-mile-long wall, how difficult would it have been to set off the swamp gas using some sort of fuse or delayed ignition, then double back and scale the rampart somewhere downrange, attacking from behind when the fire’s commotion had sucked all his attention the other way?

  And here he was—even now, straddling the top but clearly oriented toward, and looking down on, the moat side.

  He pulled out the dead insurgent’s revolver, the one with only four bullets left, and swiftly turned to the far side of the rampart’s edge. This slope was dark, the night cloudy and moonless, the wall’s plummeting depths only visible through the dimmest of shadows from the smoke rising above the opposite rim.

  He’d sheltered Abby on a higher point of the wall’s spine, ready and instructed on how to rain a half dozen boulders on Shadow Leader if he tried to climb the Sisterhood’s ancient footholds. Hours before, he had agonized over the decision of what to do with Abby, mentally poring over contingencies of concealing her in the cave, taking her to a hiding place deep in the jungle or along the wall, even putting her in plain sight to draw out his enemy faster. Finally, the wisest course had seemed to give her a spot atop the wall, both within sight of him and reasonably protected from prying eyes below. It wasn’t perfect, but given the circumstances it appeared the wisest choice.

  Turning around, Dylan put two fingers to his eye sockets, the military symbol for watch, and pointed toward her appointed lookout area. Keep looking, he was saying, and she nodded knowingly.

  While he scrambled along the edge and strained for any sign of attack, Dylan fought against yet another panic. This wave screamed at him that the situation was falling out of his control, that he was losing the initiative, hopelessly stuck in defense. He’d never been in this situation before. He’d always out-trained, out-thought, out-foxed, out-prepared, then flat-out outperformed any adversary he’d ever faced before. He’d never, ever been forced into playing catch-up.

  That voice inside him wanted to curse those foolish women and their ridiculous notions for putting him here.

  And they’d be the first ones to pay with their lives, the voice added darkly.

  He gritted his teeth. Something else within him, from another place entirely, was warning Dylan that no, it was nothing like that— that, indeed, this very voice of anger and panic was his greatest danger, and listening to its bitter ravings would only lead to failure and death.

  Shut up! he finally screamed, mentally, to his warring insides. I’m sticking with God and His ways, he said to no one but himself, reaffirming what he desperately wanted to do.

  Lord, please show me . . . please guide me . . .

  “Dylan!” came a masculine shout from behind him.

  Before the bitter bile even had time to rise in his throat, he was already turned back around. And then he almost fainted in shock and disgust.

  Abby faced him, her eyes wide with terror, a scythe snug across her throat. Behind her writhed a camouflaged jumble of limbs and ghillie-suit strips.

  The realization sank into him like a poison. Shadow Leader hadn’t come up from either side. He’d crawled right along the top of the spine like some lizard!

  And now he had her. And him.

  Dylan let go of the revolver, letting it drop to the ground.

  “That was pathetic, my man,” snarled Shadow Leader. “I mean, I’m a little long in the tooth, and I hardly broke a sweat cutting through your defenses. Sort of reminded me of your apartment, that cute little Chinese technology you had rigged up there. What’s the matter, man? Did I just overestimate your abilities? Were you just overrated? Or have you been having too good a time out here with your little harem?”

  “Look, if you’re here to punish me, then fine. You can have me. Just let her go. She’s of no use here.”

  “Ahhh, Dylan—are you still figuring me for a straight-up soldier? I know better than that, my man, and so do you. You may be my target, but I know more about the other side than you’d ever guess. And I know this one here’s what this operation’s about.”

  “What about Sister Okoye? She knows everything we do. She can do your sick cause a lot of damage.”

  “I’m killing her next, you fool!”

  But Dylan wasn’t listening. Hearing the word next was all he needed. With a quick, garbled Please, God! he launched himself desperately into the air. The impulse had thunderstruck him, with no plan or logic other than the knowledge that if he just stood there, he had seconds to live. Even with the sudden reaction, there came a gunshot and a bullet grazing the length of his side with a blaze of agony.

  And he paid for the reaction’s impulsiveness. His uninjured side slammed into the wall, shooting waves of pain straight through to his already seething flank. He rolled and felt gravity latch on to his limbs, warning him of a great fall just ahead.

  Another gunshot, and a bullet whistled inches from his face.

  Falling,
he stretched out his hands in lunging, desperate clutches, trying to find a finger hold. Ridges, moss tufts, disintegrating clumps, all sheared cruelly from his grasp. He could feel his descent gain speed, gather momentum. The bottom wanted him. A cold fate had him in its teeth.

  Then a single ring finger seemed to catch on something. Strong from years of rock climbing, he flexed the finger to hold fast. One, two, three more fingers joined it, clawing on to the outcropping. He swung his free arm around to strengthen his hold, then remembered this was the injured side and clenched his teeth in agony as he stretched.

  Somewhere above him, Abby screamed. The sound of her voice in that state made him recoil so viciously that he almost lost his grip. He heard the body hit the wall above where he was dangling, then start rolling down toward him.

  Please, God! he pleaded. Save us. . . !

  CHAPTER

  _ 47

  But the falling body came for him anyway—a dark shadow bouncing grotesquely toward him. He prepared to swerve and try to avoid it. Then it passed, bouncing, striking.

  Ghillie strips waved over his face. Camouflaged legs kicked the air viciously.

  Dylan gaped, then turned downward to look.

  Shadow Leader! Had she. . . ?

  He saw a split second of hate-filled eyes and then . . . something he had never seen before. In the tiniest of fractions, a fleeting impression of fangs, of not two eyes but six, ten. A shiver of hatred so cold and intense that he felt as if he’d been plunged into dry ice.

  Instinctively, he looked up.

  Abby’s hand filled his vision, outstretched from somewhere above him. His right hand shot up, grabbed hers and then pulled. At first he feared he might yank her over with his weight, but then he felt her impressive strength and so pulled hard. Seconds later he scrambled to safety, then to his feet.

  Abby was beaming.

  “How. . . ? Did you throw him over?” he said, hardly believing it possible.

  She nodded through a wide grin.

  “Judo. Grades ten through twelve.” And she laughed. Actually laughed out loud.

  Dylan felt the urge to laugh with her, until it occurred to him that Shadow Leader might not have been neutralized by the fall. With a body like that man’s, an imperfect slope and a soft landing, you never knew. He reached for Abby and pulled her back, away from the far edge. He saw a shadow in her eyes and realized she’d misinterpreted his action.

  “Let’s be careful,” he said, explaining a little too emphatically, “until we know for sure what happened to him. Stay down.”

  “How about I go to the back of the cave and get ready there.”

  “Good idea,” he said, then watched her turn away.

  As he approached the edge, he realized he was more engrossed in the new prayer he was thinking than the danger all about him. Perhaps this was growth, he wondered. Maybe this is what Sister Okoye had wanted for him so badly.

  He peered down into the gloom. The bottom was smothered in total blackness, and yet he thought, with the briefest imprint of his peripheral vision, that he saw something. A silhouette? A writhing of animals? Something evil? Or just . . .

  A grenade, its trajectory curving up around the wall!

  The explosion rocked the wall to his left. Heat and a terrible force tossed him savagely aside.

  He clenched his every muscle and rolled away, feeling his battered side absorb yet another white-hot impact.

  Despite the pain, Dylan had to shake his head in admiration for his adversary’s toughness. A seventy-foot rock tumble, right after a very hard landing on packed dirt—it was all pretty impressive for a man fifteen years his senior. And the man wasn’t just sitting there thanking his lucky stars for surviving either. He was counterattacking, and with every resource available to him.

  And if the grenades continued, and got any closer . . .

  He pushed over one of the boulders Abby had lined up to knock down the other side. Rolling it to the far rim, he let it drop. He heard repeated impacts as it bounced down the side, followed by a flat thump.

  Dylan vowed not to wait for the next grenade. He began running for the cave. That would be their final stand; he’d known it from the beginning.

  He reached the entrance, saw Sister Okoye faithfully knelt before the candle, deep in prayer. “What’s God telling you?” he panted, running up to her.

  “He’s here, along with His enemies,” she whispered. “He wants you to trust Him. Listen for His voice.”

  “I have been,” Dylan said as he took up a defensive position just outside the cove. “I’m just not sure I’ll survive what He’s telling me to do.”

  Another grenade exploded, forcing them all down on their stomachs. Facing the women, Dylan warned them through gritted teeth.

  “He’s coming back.”

  Abby could not tell whether it was a result of fatigue, stress or trauma, or even the surreal sight of smoke wisping about their once-pristine aerie. Regardless of the physical cause, she knew something was up.

  She could smell the tiniest aroma of heaven.

  Now came the faintest hint of that ethereal music. The exquisite brush of angels’ wings. The inexpressible yet overwhelming joy, as singular as the taste of an exotic food, which had overwhelmed her before.

  Yes, that was it—just a taste, an inexplicable crossing of spiritual wires.

  Her vision began to blur again. But now it was smiles she glimpsed—white light instead of blackness, peace instead of turmoil.

  Angels.

  Now there unfurled a great unshaped purpose, welling up in her spirit. A wonderful something that was slowly gathering form.

  Lord? What do you have in store for me? What do you want me to do? Please make it known to me. . . .

  Then she stood, the idea fully formed and settled in her mind. She picked up Dylan’s sickle from where he’d thrown it an hour before, useless. Seemingly useless. Without even a pause to look about her for protection, she walked out of the cave and up the wall’s spine to her former perch.

  “Abby! Be careful!” shouted Dylan’s voice behind her. “He’s throwing grenades, remember?”

  She turned and flashed him a defiantly blissed-out grin.

  A few feet ahead, marked by a small hole in the rampart and a constellation of black and gray smudges, lay the spot where the enemy’s first grenade had exploded. She reached it and held up her right arm.

  In a single, emphatic motion, she raised the scythe with her other hand and sliced her wrist.

  The sight of blood dribbling to the ground caused her to smile again, even more fiercely. Am I indeed following a heavenly prompting? she asked herself. Or am I going mad?

  The world around her shifted into slow motion. Behind her, through a pale gauze of unreality, she could hear Dylan’s and then Sister Okoye’s voice rising in reaction. Dylan was shouting her name with palpable fear. Okoye called her name also but in a different tone.

  Her legs were carrying her back toward the cave entrance. Sister Okoye now stood beside her, and she felt the older woman’s hands bear her up, helping draw her back to the safety of the cave.

  “Abby! What are you doing?” Dylan cried. “Sister Okoye, what is she—? Is she trying to kill herself?”

  His face passed by, wracked by confusion, as the two women shuffled slowly deeper into the cave, with Abby’s wrist still dripping blood as they walked.

  Dylan looked down, and a sudden epiphany seemed to brighten his features. At the last second, Abby’s hand trailed back and grasped his.

  “Come with us, Dylan,” she said in an otherworldly monotone. “Here is where we make our last stand. He will follow us now.”

  Dylan nodded, seeming to understand.

  She looked up and saw Dylan glance back at the smoke from the latest explosion that drifted across the cave’s mouth, faintly lit by the swamp’s dying flames. The air of astonished calm on his face conveyed that he saw how perfect a plan it was. He turned back and locked eyes with Abby and nodded his acknow
ledgment.

  Blearily she smiled back at him.

  Abby allowed her knees to bend into a kneeling position, then held out her wrist for Sister Okoye to bandage. Neither one needed words to convey what needed to be done, for a kind of communion had gathered around the two of them. Okoye looked down with a soulful tenderness as she flipped a band of gauze around the wounded wrist.

  Abby pulled back her arm and gave the other two a knowing nod. It was time. She crawled back a foot or two and lay down, curled into a fetal ball. Sister Okoye moved forward and blew out the candle. Near darkness settled over the cave. Dylan crept back, out of sight along the farthest wall, then sat down and clutched his injured side. Sister Okoye went and sat beside him, her eyes glued to the entrance.

  Boom! Another grenade roared, so close now that it shook the entire wall and sent a rain of dirt down upon their heads.

  They remained silent and still, and waited.

  CHAPTER

  _ 48

  They did not have to wait long. A shadow stuttered across the penumbra, then stretched larger. A sense of pervading evil blew into the cave, its pungency almost suffocating to the three who lay prone inside.

  “You fools,” rumbled the half growl, half grunt from the wounded Shadow Leader’s lips.

  The man bent down toward Abby with the grimace of someone seriously hurt. A harsh light blinked on from the end of his machine gun and filled the room with a hazy glow. The barrel trained itself on Dylan, then Sister Okoye. It moved back to Dylan, lingered for a moment, then moved away when he didn’t move a muscle. Blood-streaked eyes moved across the scene—from the girl mortally wounded, to Dylan almost dead against the back wall, to the Nigerian dazed and shaken up.

  “Hatfield, you sure don’t know how to protect your woman,” the man chuckled. “Let alone yourself.”

  He returned his attention to Abby, prodding her motionless form. Spotting the scythe lying next to her, he bent down and picked it up. Confusion swept over his face. “What is this? You’re offering yourself? You trying to deny me?”