Ghost Watch

by David Rollins

West and Cassidy stripped the bodies of valuables – weapons, backpacks.

  ‘Nice little windfall,’ said Cassidy.

  ‘Lookee here,’ said West. He opened up one of the backpacks. There was a poncho, cigarette lighter, packets of South African beef jerky and more tins of food. We also had their QCWs and Nazarians, the M16, spare mags, two sets of high-powered Chinese-made binoculars, plus the extra-special prize – a serious-looking Chinese-made 7.62mm sniper rifle, with eight spare magazines.

  The haul suggested that this patrol had a longer-term mission.

  ‘How’d you get the drop on them?’ West asked me.

  ‘Mistaken identity. The blue patches. My face still blacked out?’

  ‘Yeah. And now that you mention it, you look funny,’ Rutherford said.

  And now that he mentioned it, one whole side of my face was itchy, pulsing, throbbing and hot. I touched my cheek. It was puffed up like a souffé, a teardrop of semi-crusted blood running from a puncture wound. I couldn’t see the humor in it.

  ‘I am not an animal,’ said Rutherford, enjoying himself.

  ‘You been bit by something,’ said West, stating the obvious.

  I walked up to the fallen log, drawing my Ka-bar, and came back down with the struggling monster arachnid skewered on the end of it.

  ‘Shee-it, Cooper,’ said West, horrified by the size of the thing. Him and me both. My nightmares had themselves a new gatekeeper.

  ‘What about the bodies?’ said Cassidy, all business.

  ‘We could just leave ’em,’ Rutherford suggested. ‘They could’ve been slotted by anyone in this place.’

  He was right. And it was time to vacate the vicinity. I shook the bug off my knife, toed some leaf litter over it, and dug the blade into the soil to remove a smear of yellow and green pus. I grabbed a handful of the prisoner’s shirt and hoisted him to his feet. Cassidy gave him a nudge to get him moving up the hill. The side of my bloated face wobbled like a plate of Jell-O with every step. I tried not to think about it. The fog was burning off fast now and there were wide patches of blue between the layers of cloud overhead. The day was trying to make up its mind about what kind of day it was going to be. Personally, I hoped it would come down in favor of putting on a little sunshine. The cold and wet were beginning to wear a little thin.

  Fifteen minutes later we were back at our base camp. Boink was keeping watch. He stood up when we came closer, uncertainty in his face. Four went out, five were coming back. How was that happening?

  ‘What’s for breakfast?’ I asked the big man as I walked past.

  ‘Radishes,’ he said, looking at me strangely, not quite connecting the face with the voice.

  I returned the strange look with interest – radishes?

  LeDuc and Ryder came down to meet us. Leila and Ayesha stayed beside the ponchos now strung between the trees.

  LeDuc checked the man up and down.

  Rutherford said, ‘Feel free to start the interrogation – name, rank, et cetera?’

  The African smiled at LeDuc, much of his fear appearing to dissipate.

  ‘Looks like you remind him of someone,’ I said. Maybe the fact that the Frenchman was MONUC put him at ease.

  LeDuc snapped at the African and the man’s smile faltered. A rapid-fire exchange then ensued between them. When they’d finished, LeDuc said, ‘His name is Marcel Nbendo and he is twenty-one years old. He comes from a village twenty miles from here, and was recruited forcibly. His chief was paid money to vote for the local government man, plus an extra bounty for contributions made to the army. Marcel was one of those contributions. That was three years ago. He says he wants to desert, but has nowhere to go if he does because he can’t go back to his village. The chief wouldn’t allow it – too risky.’

  ‘Where was his patrol going and what was its mission?’ I asked.

  LeDuc asked the man and then said, ‘Their orders were to kill the commander of the force holding the heights. His name is Colonel Makenga. Marcel did not want to do this mission, believing his patrol would not come back.’

  ‘Got that right,’ Rutherford observed with a grin as he walked within earshot.

  ‘Ask him if our principals are still alive down there,’ I said to LeDuc.

  The pilot translated, and then said, ‘He and the others in his unit were briefed at the HQ. He saw two prisoners held out in the open.’

  ‘Both black men?’ I asked.

  A moment later, LeDuc said, ‘Oui.’

  ‘Still no Fournier,’ West commented.

  ‘He says that when their patrol was briefed, he saw them tied up and under guard.’

  ‘Are patrols out looking for us?’

  LeDuc and the prisoner had a brief exchange. ‘He says no.’

  ‘How would he know?’ I thought about the question and qualifed it with another. ‘Did breaking Ayesha out set off the alarm bells?’

  The French pilot considered the questions before putting them to the African.

  The man gave a stuttering reply, his eyes wide with fear.

  ‘He says that the commander of the FARDC force is a proud man. He would tear the hillside down in order to kill us if he knew we had dishonored him by stealing into the encampment, murdering his people and taking back a hostage.’

  West yawned. ‘Bring it on,’ he said.

  ‘What are they going to do with the prisoners?’ I asked.

  After another exchange, LeDuc said, ‘He does not know. Marcel is, how you say, “a grunt”. ’

  The sun burst through the trees, fooding our campsite with warmth. Almost instantly, wisps of steam began to rise from the shoulders of our rain-and-sweat-soaked shirts and body armor.

  ‘If this colonel knew his captives were wealthy, would he be interested in ransoming them?’ I asked.

  LeDuc and the African batted this around.

  ‘Marcel says his colonel is already a rich man, but that riches make a man greedy for more.’

  ‘We’ve captured a bloody philosopher,’ observed Rutherford. ‘What about numbers? How many have they really got down there?’

  ‘Around a hundred and eighty,’ said LeDuc after a quick consultation.

  ‘One-eighty – shit,’ said Rutherford. ‘More than we thought.’

  ‘Morale?’ I asked.

  ‘Comme si comme ça,’ the African volunteered, without the need for translation.

  On the right ride of my face, my lips were swelling, and I noticed that it was getting more difficult to talk and swallow without dribbling.

  ‘Ask him if he knows anything about the big scorpions around here – how poisonous they are?’ I said, just as preoccupied with my own situation.

  ‘Can you say that without spitting, skipper?’ Rutherford asked, wiping his forehead, grinning.

  ‘Is that what happened to you? Le scorpion?’ LeDuc inquired, looking at my face like it was something in a specimen bottle.

  ‘Ask the damn question,’ I said, losing patience.

  LeDuc got back to me. ‘Marcel wants to know – how big or small was the animal that stung you?’

  I held my hands apart; no need to exaggerate.

  The African seemed impressed and said something to LeDuc.

  ‘No, these ones are not so poisonous,’ the Frenchman translated. ‘There are smaller ones.’ He held his thumb and forefinger an inch and a half apart. ‘These ones are much worse. Some of the men keep the big ones as pets. They have fights, make bets – like cockfights.’

  ‘I think you lost your bout, Cooper,’ said Rutherford, enjoying himself.

  My cheek was sagging so much under the weight of whatever was making it so puffed up that I felt like I needed to support it with my hand.

  ‘There’s an Asian guy down there in the FARDC HQ,’ I said, wanting to sit down. ‘Ask him if he knows who the man is and what he’s doing there.’

  ‘I don’t need to ask this to know the answer,’ said LeDuc. ‘The Chinese are helping the DRC. They get weapons, money and loans from China, beca
use from the West – America – all they get is a lecture from the International Monetary Fund.’

  ‘Jesus . . .’ I said, patience gone.

  The Frenchman gave me one of his shrugs and then had a brief conversation with the African.

  ‘Oui,’ LeDuc said when they were finished. ‘The man is Chinese – PLA. He is giving instruction.’

  ‘Instruction?’ I said.

  ‘Training,’ said LeDuc, correcting himself.

  ‘He’s PLA?’

  ‘Oui. Central Africa has become, how you say, a two horses race between your country and the Chinese.’

  ‘We need to secure Marcel here, somehow,’ I said.

  A pair of black fexcuffs bobbed in front of my eyes, Ryder’s fingers holding them. ‘I packed a few pairs,’ he said. ‘Thought they might come in handy.’

  This being Ryder’s first positive contribution to the mission – at least as far as I could see – I felt I should say something team-building to the guy, but what I in fact wanted more than that was just to sit. My face throbbed, I was producing more saliva than I could swallow and I could feel my heart galloping in my chest like one of LeDuc’s plural horses. And then, before I knew what I was doing, I was down on one knee, throwing up and seeing double, which is pretty much all I remember about that.

  Friends

  ‘How long have I been out?’ I asked Ayesha, who was sitting beside me. The sun was higher in the sky than I remembered it. A gentle breeze moved the tops of the trees in small circles. I was actually warm and mostly dry.

  ‘Less than an hour,’ she said.

  I pushed myself up into a sitting position and felt my cheek. It wasn’t nearly as swollen or hot, and there was a plaster strip covering the puncture. I also had a sense that my face had been cleaned and, with the exception of several minor cuts, my hands and forearms had also regained their former coloring.

  ‘The stinger broke off under your skin. Did you know that?’ she said.

  I didn’t.

  ‘You had an anaphylactic reaction to the poison. It could have been worse. You seen what nuts can do to some people?’

  I had the feeling that both of us were drifting along, floating in a semi-reality, like maybe we’d pulled off the river onto the bank and were having a nice picnic on a blanket. She was still in shock. I wondered what I was in.

  ‘I cleaned you up, in case you were wondering,’ she said.

  I thanked her and looked into her face. Those blue contact lenses were gone, but she was still striking.

  ‘Can you see without them?’ I asked.

  ‘I only wear them for effect.’

  I was surprised that she knew what I was talking about, but that was the bubble we were floating in.

  ‘There’s quite a bit of useful medicine in the captain’s first aid kit,’ she informed me. ‘I did two years of nursing school before I went into makeup.’

  ‘Why’d you quit?’

  ‘There are only certain bodily fluids I want anything to do with. A nurse can’t be choosey.’

  ‘I guess not,’ I said.

  ‘Like blood. I see it, I pass out. Well, I did when I was younger.’

  I could see how that might be a problem for a nurse.

  Neither of us spoke.

  Eventually I asked, ‘They hurt you?’

  She looked up at the sky and then down the hill and said, ‘I don’t remember.’

  I watched the treetops scribing the circles against the blue far overhead.

  Eventually, breaking what I can only describe as an ethereal silence, Ayesha said, ‘Thank you, Vin.’ She gave my hand a brief squeeze, which seemed to transfer a lot that had been left unspoken, then stood and walked off before I could spoil it by opening my mouth.

  I became aware of the staccato snap, crackle and pop of distant small arms fire, which brought me back to a damp hillside in the middle of a battlefield in a country I knew absolutely nothing about.

  ‘They’re at it again,’ Cassidy said as he came over, glancing off in the direction of the fighting. ‘We’re packed and ready to move out,’ he said.

  ‘Where to?’ I stood up, making the sounds old men make when they stand. My head felt light, my joints creaked and my muscles ached like they were pumping the stuff that runs through refrigerators.

  ‘ To wherever you say,’ he replied.

  ‘Now there’s an interesting development,’ I said, forcing a grin.

  He shrugged. ‘So far so good, Mr Air Force.’

  I glanced around to get my bearings. Ayesha, Leila and Boink were seated on a log, LeDuc chatting to them about something. West and Ryder were keeping watch, one up the hill, one down. Our prisoner was seated by himself, fexcuffed to a branch, staring at the ground. Nearby, keeping an eye on him, Rutherford was checking over the spare, newly captured Nazarians and QCWs.

  ‘Saved you some breakfast,’ Cassidy said, handing me a tin and his Leatherman to open it with.

  ‘Lemme guess,’ I said, ‘radishes?’

  Cassidy gave me a smile – a first – showing more gum than the Wrig ley display at a 7-Eleven. I could see why he might not want to make a habit of it.

  ‘Red Cross.’ Cassidy replied as if that explained everything, and handed me a packet with a couple of strips of beef jerky in it.

  ‘We don’t know how much time Twenny Fo and Peanut have got,’ I said, opening the can. ‘We need to make a few hasty decisions.’

  Cassidy agreed.

  I drank the juice out of the tin and then ate the contents. The taste was hot and also bland.

  Standing wearily, I made the ‘on me’ hand signal. Our band huddled up as I walked to Leila, Ayesha and Boink. Rutherford kept one eye on the African secured to the tree, while West and Ryder abandoned their watch.

  Keeping it brief, I said, ‘After yesterday’s skirmish, both sides will try to outflank each other today. We’ll get caught in a pincer.’ Pincer. I shuddered, the word making me think of the scorpion.

  There were nods from the other SOCOM guys.

  ‘Man, this is bullshit,’ said Boink. ‘What ’bout Twenny Fo and Peanut? What’s gonna happen to them?’

  I turned to Cassidy, West, Rutherford. ‘What do you guys think?’ I asked them

  ‘We got more weapons and ammo,’ said West. ‘Maybe we can cause a diversion, you know . . .’

  I knew where he was going because I’d wrestled with the same thought. ‘Aside from our M4s, we’ve got some 97s, a few submachine guns and the sniper rifle,’ I said. ‘Do we really think that launching ourselves into what’s down there in the valley would achieve anything other than getting all of us killed?’

  ‘We’d need a plan,’ West said.

  ‘I’m listening if anyone’s got one,’ I told them.

  Silence.

  ‘Cassidy?’

  The big man said nothing.

  ‘Look, we can handle a patrol or two, possibly even a platoon,’ I said, ‘but a whole reinforced rifle company? Maybe our best chance of getting them back alive is up there, sitting on the ridgeline. The rebels are supposedly our friends and allies . . .’ I looked directly at LeDuc, who reminded me with a hand motion that maybe they were and maybe they weren’t. ‘So then let’s go hang out with our friends,’ I said, ignoring the equivocation. I didn’t see that we had much choice but to throw ourselves on the benevolence of the folks who held the high ground. ‘If nothing else, perhaps up there we can get access to communications, and organize evacuation for Leila, Ayesha and Boink while we negotiate the safe return of the others. Has anyone talked with our prisoner to see if he knows what we can expect up there?’

  ‘Oui,’ said LeDuc. ‘He expects death.’

  ‘Aside from the general dying thing, are there any specifics – numbers, for example?’

  ‘No, he does not know.’

  ‘Whoever’s up there sure is throwing down a lot of iron,’ said West.

  ‘We’ll need a white flag, Cooper,’ said Cassidy. ‘Coming from the valley, we might be mis
taken for targets.’

  Good point. ‘Anyone got anything white?’

  No one stepped forward.

  ‘Nothing?’ I asked.

  Everyone looked at each other.

  ‘Not even a hanky?’

  Boink got up and lumbered up to where our possessions were packed and disappeared from view behind a tree. As the discussion had moved on from his buddy’s rescue, I guessed he’d had enough.

  ‘Okay, let’s get ready to move,’ I said. We’d have to take our chances without a flag of truce.

  ‘You can’t take Marcel into the rebel positions wearing a FARDC uniform,’ said LeDuc. ‘They will kill him. You should also change.’

  Those blue slashes on my shoulders. The Frenchman was right, but it presented a problem. I had my battle dress uniform, but what was our prisoner going to slip into? ‘Anyone got any spare clothes?’ I asked.

  Ryder reached into a small daypack he’d scrounged from the MONUC chopper before it blew and pulled out a clean, pressed ACU, complete with Office of Special Investigations badges and ‘Special Agent Ryder’ nametag. ‘This do?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, playing down the surprise. I mean, a clean uniform? I took the clothes, dropped them on the round and stomped on them half a dozen times so that it wouldn’t seem like Marcus had walked straight out of the Clothing Sales.

  West shook his head. ‘I dunno. Two Ryders? Could be too much of a good thing, Duke.’

  ‘You should give him Ryder’s dog tags as well,’ said Rutherford, ‘in case he gets checked a little more thoroughly.’

  Made sense to me.

  Louder booms of exploding mortar shells peppered the sound of distant small arms fire. Boink reappeared from behind the tree, carrying a white flag, and a couple of minutes later, loaded up with our gear, we were heading slowly up the hill, picking through the thick foliage, walking behind a stick on which the biggest pair of white undershorts I’d ever seen hung like a wet sail. West took point. Ryder had the rear. As we walked, LeDuc and I schooled OSI’s newest special agent and briefed him with an overview of our intentions. The guy listened, sweating bullets.

  The first indication that we were getting close to the rebels’ forward positions came after we’d walked for about an hour, and was a fragment of conversation carried on the breeze down the hill. The second was the crack of a rifle shot that carved a large splinter off a tree inches from Boink’s face, showering him with moss and wood dust and making him jump. If he’d still been wearing that white flag we were following, there’d have been a big brown smudge in the bottom of it.