Gravedigger

by Mark Terry

  Once up at the encampment, the leader of the group had asked them what they were doing there. He was a burly bearded man, probably in his fifties. His name was Nadir Khan.

  Noa had spoken up, saying, “He is an American aid worker. I am—”

  He had struck her. “Do not speak unless spoken to.”

  Johnston, not understanding, had said, “I don’t speak Pashto. No Pashto. No Farsi. No Arabic. She is my translator.”

  Squirming awkwardly to a sitting position, Noa said, “I am his translator.”

  Nadir Khan glared at her. “Why are you here?” He turned to look at Johnston.

  Noa turned and said, “He wants to know why we’re here.”

  Not sure if the man actually spoke any English, Johnston said, “Tell him I am Jim Johnston, from the United States. America.” He briefly unreeled their cover story.

  Noa translated. Khan’s dark eyes bore through her. When she was done, he said, “Why did you come to this village?”

  She hesitated, looking at Johnston. She understood he was being careful. They didn’t know exactly how dangerous these men were, although they suspected they were very dangerous. And Derek was still out and about. They didn’t want Khan and his people to know about him. If things got worse, maybe Stillwater could bail them out. She had read his file and knew he was a capable soldier, but his CIA record indicated questionable judgment. On the other hand, he had crossed the Straits of Florida from Cuba to the United States in a kayak during a storm and survived. The man had survival skills, if nothing else.

  Johnston explained that they had been at another village and been told rumors about many mysterious deaths here. They decided to investigate.

  Leaning over her, Khan had said, “How many of you are there?”

  “Just the two of us.”

  He hit her. Johnston tried to put himself between them, and received a kick in the ribs for his efforts.

  “My men tell me there are three. Who is the third person?”

  Johnston shook his head. “There are only two of us.”

  Khan glared at them. He walked away, looking at the crates stocked at the back of the cave, which was more of a shallow depression in the cliff than a real cavern. He turned and studied the Range Rover, then looked at the horses.

  Khan waved over one of his men, presumably a lieutenant or deputy. “Load as much of the shipment onto the truck as we can. You and I will take it to Shing Dun tonight.”

  The mujahideen leader walked back toward Johnston and Noa. He said, “Did you contact anyone? Tell them you were coming here? I see you have a satellite phone.”

  Johnston said, “Yes. I told my people at headquarters we were coming here and why.”

  Khan punched Johnston in the side of the head. He went down hard in the dirt. Khan spit on him and walked away.

  “OUCH,” DEREK SAID, flinching.

  “Don’t be such a wimp,” Noa said. “I’ve put a couple stitches in there. And take some antibiotics. Might as well if we’re going to be digging in a mass grave.”

  Derek, crouching nude close to the fire, shook his head. “Not ‘we.’ Just ‘me.’ You and Jim have something else to do. Right?”

  Johnston had looked through the remaining couple crates. “I’m afraid so. Besides, we’re at least fifty miles from the nearest village.”

  “We need to go to Shing Dun,” Noa said, bandaging Derek’s shoulder.

  Derek stood up and donned the dry clothing. He took an antibiotic from the first aid kit and swallowed it with a gulp of water. “So,” he said. “The other shoe is about to drop.”

  “These are Russian RPGs,” Johnston said. “And it seems that Khan and his people have been scrounging them and selling them to some people in Shing Dun.”

  “And we need to go there and, what? Stop this? Prove this?” Now dressed like a mujahideen, Derek crouched back by the fire, staring into the flames.

  “We don’t want them to get into the wrong hands,” Noa said. “And we’re not sure that the crates only held RPGs. There may have been nerve agents or other things.”

  Derek sighed. He glanced sideways at Johnston. “Part of your mission, too?”

  He shrugged.

  “Tell me what else happened. Then I’ve got to go dig up some bodies.”

  AFTER KHAN AND his lieutenant left, for the most part the muj had gone about their business. Several of the men had been told to go back to their guard duties. They had grumbled and complained – the weather was terrible. But they went. Four remained in the encampment. Two of them kept watch over Johnston and Noa. Johnston and Noa moved so they were sitting next to each other, their backs to the cavern wall.

  Johnston murmured, “You took a hell of a hit. Are you okay?”

  “I’ll live. What about you?”

  “The kick might’ve broken a rib or two. I’ve been down that road before. I’ll live. Any ideas?”

  She nodded. “Just be ready.”

  Time crept by. Noa hoped Stillwater would do something soon. Strapped to the inside of her wrist she kept a small, very sharp combat knife. She also carried a gun beneath her robes. Getting to the gun was a problem. But she might be able to get to the knife if she had time without the guards watching her.

  The two men were looking at her. She knew the look and didn’t like it. They whispered to each other, then nodded to her. Finally one of them walked over and dragged her to her feet. “Come with me.”

  Johnston said, “What do they want?”

  “Me,” she said in English.

  Johnston started to roll to his feet, but the muj punched him in the face. Blood gushed from his nose and he staggered backward. The other man kicked Johnston’s legs out from under him and pointed the barrel of the AK47 at his head and shouted at him.

  “He says,” Noa said, “to stay on the ground.”

  “Noa—”

  “Be ready,” she said.

  The guards pushed her toward the back of the cave. They pushed her down on the ground. One of them reached for her robe. She kicked out at him, her sandaled foot meeting his knee. He staggered back. His partner laughed at him. This angered him. She edged back toward the cavern wall, her fingers twisting to get hold of the knife.

  The muj crouched down just out of reach of her legs. “I will kill you if you fight me,” he said.

  Her fingers caught the hilt of the blade.

  He gripped her robes with both hands, pulled them up. She twisted and kicked out, catching him in the face. He staggered back, then kicked her in the head. She went flying. The blade slipped from her fingers. He went after her. Rolling on the ground, she scissored her legs, sweeping him off his feet. His companion laughed again.

  She caught the blade with her fingers, twisted, and snipped the rope binding her wrists.

  He leaned toward her.

  Silently she jammed the blade into his heart.

  With a scream he collapsed on top of her.

  His companion shouted. Suddenly outside the cavern came the sound of gunfire.

  Noa squirmed to get out from beneath her attacker.

  Suddenly Johnston appeared and slammed into the other guard with his shoulder. She rolled to her feet and slashed the man’s throat.

  Outside, the other guards were running. She took a deep breath. In a low voice, she said, “I’ll get the ropes. Turn around.”

  Johnston offered her his arms. She quickly cut the ropes. Turning, massaging his wrists, he said, “Okay?”

  “Timing is everything.”

  Johnston picked up the rifles and handed one to her. “Derek’s busy. Let’s get out of here and see if he needs any help.”

  DEREK TURNED HIS head and studied Noa. He nodded to her. “Not bad.”

  “Not bad yourself, Stillwater.”

  Sighing, Derek stood up. “I don’t suppose anybody’s seen a shovel or a pick around here?”

  “Down in the village,” Johnston said. “You want company?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’ll let you t
wo get organized. We walking to Shing Dun?”

  “Horses,” Noa said.

  Derek closed his eyes. He was not a fan of horseback riding. Particularly through the mountains in the dark in the snow and rain. “Shit,” he said.

  9

  PULLING ON HIS RUCKSACK, DEREK wrapped himself in the poncho. He picked his way back down the terraces, taking his time. He was armed with an AK47, his Beretta, his knife, and extra ammo. He used the NVGs rather than the flashlight, although he thought it would be easier to dig in the grave with the flashlight.

  Finally, back in the village, he went house to house. He found a spade on his third try. Hefting it, he started in the direction of what he thought might be a mass grave.

  As he cut through the village, the wind was the only sound he heard. A ghost town. Dark and lonely. Abandoned.

  Derek approached the spot he had seen on his first recon of the village. Studying it now, he thought he was probably right. Something had been buried here. The ground was muddy and trampled, but mounded over a specific area.

  Crouching, he took off the rucksack and pulled out the chemical test kit. He ran a check on the mud. There were chemical traces, but faint and not conclusive.

  Setting the ruck aside, he hefted the shovel and began to dig.

  About two-and-a-half feet down, the spade broke through into an open space. A whoosh of gas, ripe from rot and decay, exploded from the hole.

  Suddenly the ground beneath Derek’s feet collapsed. The spade went flying. He tumbled into a muddy pit that was now six or seven feet deep. It shifted beneath him.

  Scrabbling for purchase, Derek caught what felt like a hand. His heart hammering, he focused his gaze in the dim light.

  In the green glow of his NVGs he saw it was a hand.

  Derek was lying in the midst of a tangle of rotting corpses.

  With a cry, he struggled to escape. The bodies shifted beneath him. More mud tumbled into the pit. He lost his balance and fell back into the bodies. He sank beneath several decaying corpses.

  Flailing his arms, panic gnawing at his gut, he struggled for purchase among the rot and decay, the flesh and bone and tattered, muddy clothing.

  Finally he flung himself upward, rolling out of the pit into mud.

  His nostrils filled with the stench of rotting flesh.

  Derek staggered out of the trench, gasping for breath. He dropped to his knees in the mud and the snow, head bowed. His heart raced. He struggled to breathe.

  Crawling away from the bodies, he collapsed near his rucksack, clawing at the cold ground. His ears buzzed and he thought he heard music. Latin popped into his head, music he remembered from his childhood:

  Dies irae! Dies illa

  Solvet saeclum in favilla:

  Teste David cum Sibylla!”

  He didn’t know who wrote the music. Was it Bach? Or Mozart? Derek breathed, trying to get himself under control. Rising to his knees, he look at the mass grave and wondered how many were buried here.

  He collapsed back onto his hands and knees, retching into the mud and snow.

  Oh God, oh God, ohgodohgodohgod!

  Time passed. His breathing slowed. His heart rate normalized.

  The decaying bodies had created methane gas, which had been trapped beneath the ground. When his spade broke into the grave, it released the gas. The bodies shifted, the pit collapsed, taking him with it.

  Staring around, he didn’t see the spade anywhere.

  “You have a job to do,” he said to the night. Mors stupebit, et natura…

  Staggering back to his feet, he snatched up the rucksack, pulled out the test kit, and walked back to the edge of the pit. Leaning down, he used a scalpel to cut off bits of flesh from the nearest corpse. He dropped them into test tubes. Moving away from the pit, he added solution from the kit. In the glow of the flashlight he watched the colors change.

  More lines from the music popped into his head. Lacrimosa dies illa, qua resurget ex favilla ludicandus homo reus.

  Raised by pacifist missionary physicians around the world, Derek’s religious education was exceptional. He had even been taught Latin, although they were not Catholic. But his father had thought that Latin would be useful for when his two sons went to medical school. Only one of them had gone to medical school, Derek’s younger brother David. Derek had joined the Army, gone through ROTC, continued through a doctoral program.

  Edging around the pit, Derek found another body he could reach without climbing back in with the bodies. The air was fetid. He thought of the test results. This was a potentially dangerous place, this graveyard of unblessed bodies. The tests showed organophosphates. They showed evidence of sarin gas. They showed evidence of VX gas.

  He took a sample. And another.

  Testing the ground, he moved closer.

  More bodies. He now stood waist-deep in a mound of rotting bodies. Rain and snow filled the trench. Turned to water, to mud.

  Derek took samples. He took tests.

  Snow and rain wet his face like tears.

  Tearful will be that day,

  On which from the ash arises

  The guilty man who is to be judged.

  Spare him therefore, God.

  DEREK RETURNED TWO hours later to the encampment with dozens of tissue samples and enough test results to convince him that the village had been wiped out fairly recently by Russian chemical weapons. He walked into the camp, dropped his ruck, dropped his weapons, and proceeded to strip from the clothing he wore. As he pulled off each article of clothing he dropped them into the fire.

  Johnston and Noa watched him. Noa started to say something, but Johnston cut her off. Down to his boots, Derek walked out into the snow and rain and stood naked for a long moment, shivering. Finally he returned to the camp. Johnston handed him a rough blanket and more clothes, including a heavy winter Russian military jacket. Derek quickly dressed and crouched by the fire.

  “You found the grave?” Johnston asked.

  Derek nodded.

  “Bad?”

  Derek nodded again.

  Johnston crouched next to him. “Look at me, Derek.”

  Their eyes met. Softly, Johnston said, “What the hell happened?”

  Derek covered his face with his hands. Took a deep breath. Shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Probably over fifty bodies. Mostly women and children. The fifty is a wild-ass guess, but based on the size of the grave and the size of the village, that’s my estimate.”

  “What killed them?” Noa asked.

  “Sarin and VX.”

  Johnston exchanged a meaningful look with the Israeli. She nodded.

  Derek jerked his head toward the remaining crates. “Did you go through those?”

  “They’re all RPGs,” Johnson said.

  “What’re we going to do with them?”

  “Take some with us,” Noa said. “Destroy the rest on our way out. Do you want something to eat?”

  He shook his head. His stomach still roiled. The taste of acid filled his mouth. The stench of the dead was still in his nose, in his hair, on his skin. “When are we leaving?”

  “When are you up to it?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “You’re exhausted.”

  Rocking slightly, he said, “I’m not sleeping here.”

  Noa said, “Half an hour then. We’ve got food and water. We just need to load up the horses. It’ll be dawn in a couple hours. But we should leave here before someone comes back.”

  He nodded. Noa left to attend to the horses. Crouching next to him, Johnston stared into the flames. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “We’ve got some mujahideen that have acquired chemical weapons. And they’re going to either use them on somebody or sell them to somebody who plans to use them.”

  “That’s my mission. To figure out if that’s happened. Track them down.”

  “And Noa? What’s her mission?”

  “S
omething similar is my guess. You with us?”

  Derek nodded. “I want them destroyed.”

  They hauled all the remaining RPGs and guns and stacked them in the mouth of the cave. Noa took a can of kerosene she had found among the supplies and poured it over the weapons, then lit them with a torch. The flames ate hungrily at the weapons. They watched for a moment, then decided it was time to get out of there. There was no telling what the grenades would do once they got hot enough.

  10

  JOHNSTON AND NOA HAD PREPARED six horses. One for each of them, the others loaded with as much food and gear as they could carry. Derek studied the horses. They looked to be about a two-thirds the size of horses he was used to in the U.S. Not that he had spent much time around horses. The U.S. military did not offer classes in horsemanship. He’d worked briefly with packmules in a program in the Colorado Rockies. He’d ridden a couple times in his life. He was not a fan.

  “You good with horses?” he asked Johnston.

  “Yup. I’ve been riding since I was a kid.”

  Derek nodded to Noa. “You?”

  She nodded. “Not tons, but I’m not bad. You?”

  “I’m a quick learner.” He patted a saddle and frowned. “What the fuck is this?”

  Grinning, Johnston said, “It’s not going to be fun.”

  The so-called saddle was homemade. Boards hinged together and covered with a goatskin and a blanket that smelled like it had been born with the horse. It might be an appropriate size for Noa, but it looked tiny for Johnston and Derek. The stirrups were rings made of hammered iron attached by leather to the saddle. They seemed too high.

  “These things made for midgets?”

  “You notice most of these muj aren’t much bigger than Noa,” Johnston said.

  Shaking his head, Derek manhandled his way onto one of the horses, a brown and white horse he was able to look in the eyes. When he tucked his boots into the stirrups, his knees rose up almost to his belly button. Comfortable was not a word he would use to describe it.

  Johnston saddled up and looked over at him. “Holy hemorrhoids, Batman! Maybe I’ll walk.”