Ghost Watch

by David Rollins

  ‘I got a problem with heights,’ I said. I didn’t, but I told everyone that to make them feel better. It didn’t appear to.

  ‘Swimming’s not the immediate problem,’ said Rutherford. ‘How exactly we gonna get the big man down there?’

  ‘And how do we know the water’s deep enough for us to jump into?’ asked Ryder.

  My answers weren’t nearly as good as the questions, but I gave them anyway. ‘I had a look when we came in. A couple of ravines empty into it, but the pool down there is pretty still, which means it’s probably got some depth.’ No one appeared particularly convinced. ‘Look,’ I whispered, failing to keep a lid on my impatience, ‘if anyone’s got an alternative, now’s a good time to put it on the table. But we’ve left a trail of dead people behind us, like Hansel and Gretel left bread crumbs, so whatever we do we’ll have to do it quick.’

  ‘A jump gets bad for your health at six storys,’ Rutherford said.

  I could have told them about the time I fell out of a plane without a parachute and survived a fall of around twenty thousand feet. But I knew no one would believe it – hell, I still didn’t believe it – so I kept that to myself.

  ‘A hundred feet is about the limit,’ said Cassidy. ‘Land the right way and you should be okay.’

  ‘What’s the wrong way?’ Ryder asked.

  ‘On your head,’ the master sergeant replied.

  ‘Get me the hell down to where I have to jump an’ I’ll do the rest, yo,’ said Boink, sucking it up.

  I realized that, being as large as he was, Boink probably hadn’t seen his feet in quite a while. We’d have to rope him down to the jump point. We had no rope, but I knew where to get some. To Cassidy, I said, ‘Find some cover. If we’re not back inside ten minutes, get everyone down as best you can. Mike, follow me.’

  Keeping to the shadows, West and I skulked back to the HQ, where everything was as quiet as any mortuary invaded by frogs would be. I tripped on a dead smoker.

  ‘Watch your feet, boss,’ West whispered in my ear.

  ‘Next time, clean up your mess,’ I told him.

  The DRC men hanging in the trees hadn’t gone anywhere.

  ‘What are your climbing skills like?’ I asked.

  ‘Average,’ he replied.

  ‘Then they’re better than mine. Up you go and cut three of them down. Wait till you feel me take the weight of the body before you cut. Don’t drop the rope ends. Bring ’em all down with you.’

  ‘Roger that,’ he said.

  We moved one of the trestle tables, positioning it under the bodies. West chose one of the dead guys on the end of the row, jumped and grabbed the rope above his head, and then shinnied up. The rope was tied around a bough maybe twenty feet off the ground. Three lengths of it would give us enough to do the job. When I felt West had stopped climbing, I took the weight of the corpse, and lifted it. A disgusting ooze with a putrid, unspeakable stench leaked out of its nostrils, trickled onto my ear and ran down my neck. A second later, I felt the rope cut. I lowered the body onto the table, then onto the ground. We repeated this a couple of times while I concentrated on stopping the gag refex. West brought down the ends of the cords and we slipped the nooses off the cold, broken necks.

  A movement on the other side of the HQ distracted West. He pointed at two men walking slowly along the path. Perhaps the watch was about to change, in which case our time here was up. We gathered the ropes together and retreated, putting the hangman’s tree between us and the newcomers. Our people were off the track behind a screen of bushes. Cassidy, Rutherford and Ryder were busy transferring the spare weapons to the backpacks that contained drysacks, which would make them buoyant and easier to handle in the water.

  ‘Jesus, Vin,’ Rutherford whispered. ‘Is that you? What stinks?’

  ‘Been a while since I fossed,’ I said. Moving on quickly, if only to distract myself from the ghastly smell, I added, ‘We’ve got around sixty feet of rope.’ I looked Cassidy up and down. He had maybe twenty pounds on me, and in other circumstances would have been the natural choice to help someone like Boink rope down, but as this was my plan – and, as plans went, it wasn’t one of my better ones – I felt I should be the one who anchored the big lug.

  West had almost finished tying the rope ends together. When he was done, I took an end of the rope, wound it around my thigh and then looped it around one shoulder. I got the other end and looped it twice around Boink’s midriff and tied it off.

  ‘I’ll go first and scout a path down,’ said Rutherford.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but keep one eye on us.’ If Boink lost his footing and I couldn’t hold him, I didn’t want the guy’s subsequent roll down the hill cleaning up the Brit. ‘Who’s going after us?’

  ‘I’ll take care of everyone else,’ said Cassidy. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate.’

  A distant cry of alarm silenced the frogs, and the night stillness came alive with urgent distant voices. I doubted Colonel Makenga’s men would look for us where we were temporarily hunkered down; not straight away, at least. But time was running out.

  I looked at each of our civilians and Ryder in turn. ‘All right, people, we can do this. The way down’s going to be tricky. Make sure of your footing before you put your weight on it. When the going gets steep, you might find it more comfortable going down backward. If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask.’

  Leila, Ayesha and Ryder all nodded gravely.

  LeDuc translated for our prisoner.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said when he’d finished.

  Rutherford led the way. He criss-crossed the edge of the dropaway, going back and forth a couple of times, before making a decision on the best way down. Nimbly, he slid down onto a ledge five feet below, turned and motioned for Boink to follow.

  ‘Take your time,’ I told him. We both knew I meant hurry the fuck up.

  Without protest, Boink got down on his hands and knees and wriggled further out as I took the weight on the rope.

  ‘Easy,’ I cautioned as he disappeared over the edge a little faster than I had anticipated. Two seconds later, the rope snapped taut. And suddenly the world became a rolling, tumbling spin cycle as I was yanked over the edge and pulled down the steepening incline, my fall interrupted by impacts with bushes, rocks and mud outcrops. I went into a ball and rolled faster, out of control and tangled in the rope, smashing into solid objects. And suddenly the collisions stopped and I was falling upside down through clear air. I was going to fall to my death unless something—

  A powerful force grabbed my ankle, gave me a vicious flick and almost pulled my leg out of my hip socket as I came to a near-instant stop, hanging upside down. I bounced and swung pendulum-like, the rope wound around my lower leg and ankle, and the blood rushing to my head. The arc I was dangling on carried me into the sheer rock wall, and I bashed my right shoulder against it as small rocks and gravel pulled down from the fall rained over me, filling my mouth and nostrils and hitting my neck and chin. I closed my eyes and did my best to shield my head. Once the worst of this had passed, I relaxed a little and wondered what to do next. At least nothing felt broken.

  Somewhere above, Boink had obviously come to a stop while I’d continued falling and now I was hanging in space over the water, joined to him by the hangman’s rope. I looked down but couldn’t see anything below. There was no moon and no stars. The only color was black and there was nothing discernible in this inverted shapeless world of darkness.

  No vibration or movement was coming down the rope. That told me Boink wasn’t moving. At my end, things weren’t much better. The rope wrapped around my ankle presented its own problem. I checked the scabbard on my thigh. I’d lost the Ka-bar somewhere on the way down, which meant I had nothing with which to cut the rope. I had to get my foot untangled somehow, but to achieve that, I had to take the pressure off that knot. Swinging upward, I grabbed the rope just above my ankle, and tried to heave myself up. I got nowhere. Who the hell was I kidding? There was no way I
could pull off a Cirque du Soleil stunt like that.

  A gray shape flew past, falling fast, falling silent. Another followed, screaming. I knew that scream: Leila. A line of sparkles crackled up in the sky. Muzzle flashes. Shit, the rebels had us pegged. Another shape dropped through the air not far away. An instant later, the rock face above me exploded into flying chips as the soldiers fired at the next jumper, leading its descent, trying to hit it. The line of semi-automatic fire raced down the wall toward me. Jesus, I was a sitting duck. Worse – I was a hanging one. Stone chips flew and fzzed past me, some ripping through the fabric of my battle uniform and cutting up my skin. From the downward march of the sparks against the rock wall, I could see that the rain of lead was coming toward me. It was going to saw off my foot. Something punched into the rope, viciously shaking my leg. And then I was free-falling, accelerating into the black void, upside down, head first – the wrong way.

  Animals

  I smashed into something hard, which gave way beneath me. Sudden cold made me want to gag for breath, and my nose and throat filled with water as the back of my neck ploughed into the rock bottom of the lake floor. I fought the panic brought on by cold and disorientation and stopped moving until natural buoyancy told me which way was up. Turning, my feet found the rocks and I pushed off, lungs burning as two torpedoes shot into the water beside me, dragging me down again.

  Thrusting off the bottom a second time, I came to the surface choking and coughing, and Cassidy bobbed up beside me with Boink’s head cradled in the crook of his arm, rescue-style. I reached down to my ankle, untangled the rope. I coughed and snorted the cold water out of my nostrils. ‘You need help?’ I asked Cassidy as he struck out for the bank, shimmering a ghostly white in the moonlight.

  ‘I got this,’ he said. ‘Look for the others.’

  I scoped the surface of the lake. Lucky random shots fired from the ridge speared into the water here and there, pulling up small gray geysers edged with phosphorescence. I hoped Uncle Sugar hadn’t sweetened the deal with Makenga by handing out night vision scopes to his people.

  My feet felt the gently sloping bottom. Pebbles gave way to a soft ooze. I waded in as close to the water’s edge as I could, then pulled myself up onto the bank, the mud sucking and gurgling at my hands, knees and feet. On the shore, several meters beyond the mud, I could dimly make out tall elephant grass. All except Cassidy and Boink had dragged themselves out of the water and onto the bank and were lying there, exhausted. I let myself fall beside the backpacks, the rifles and submachine guns still lashed to them.

  ‘What have we got?’ I asked no one in particular.

  ‘So far, bruised ribs, one mild ankle sprain,’ said West close by, lying on his back. ‘Could’ve been worse. You?’

  I was sore all over but then, who wasn’t? ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘The place went nuts when they found our handiwork in the HQ,’ said Rutherford behind me, also lying on his back. ‘A couple of guys stumbled onto us. One of them got away and we had to leave in a hurry.’

  ‘Marcel,’ said LeDuc, standing unsteadily, his feet sinking in the ooze. ‘He is gone.’

  ‘You jump with him?’ I asked.

  ‘Oui. He landed badly. Hit his head on a rock. He drowned.’

  I felt a pang of guilt, but there was not much we could do about a dead guy and there were other priorities. I scoped the bank. Leila and Ayesha were flat on their backs, covered in mud, chests heaving with exhaustion and fright, but they seemed okay. Ryder was sitting between them, head between his knees.

  ‘Duke. All right?’ I asked him.

  He managed a nod.

  ‘Who’s got the ankle sprain?’ I asked Rutherford.

  ‘Me. More of a rolled ankle. No big deal.’ There was a shrug in his tone.

  The CNDP above us had given up firing blind into the blackness.

  I heard splashing in the water. Cassidy was dragging Boink through the shallow water.

  ‘Need help here,’ the sergeant gasped.

  Cassidy was a big man, but Boink was in a whole other league. West and I waded back in and hauled him up onto the bank while Rutherford and Duke went to Cassidy’s aid.

  ‘What happened up there?’ I asked.

  ‘I think that first ledge gave way under him,’ said West. ‘After that, I’m not sure, but dragging you along behind slowed him down. A tree growing out of the top of the cliff finally stopped him. You missed it and went over.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’ I could hear Boink’s teeth clacking together. He was shivering with cold.

  ‘He was conscious when the rest of us jumped,’ said Cassidy. ‘I think he went into the water in reasonable shape. Might have hit his head somewhere along the way.’

  ‘Thanks for cutting the rope,’ I said. ‘Perfect timing.’

  ‘Wasn’t cut, not by me anyway.’

  I thought back to the moment. There’d been a lot of lead flying about. If a bullet had done the job, I’d been luckier than I thought.

  ‘Everyone make it?’ Cassidy asked.

  ‘We lost the prisoner,’ I told him.

  ‘Solves a problem then, doesn’t it?’

  It did.

  Boink, lying face up, looked like a beached Manitou in basketball gear. He groaned, his head moving from one side to the other. His eyes opened.

  ‘Yo,’ said Rutherford leaning over him. ‘Wasssuuup?’

  Boink’s eyes moved between all of us, roving uncertainly.

  They came into focus. ‘Fuck,’ he said. And then again, with meaning, ‘Fuck!’

  Cassidy patted down Boink’s legs and arms. ‘No breaks,’ he reported.

  ‘What about his neck and spine?’ asked Rutherford.

  ‘Move your fingers,’ Cassidy told him.

  Boink wiggled them.

  ‘Now your toes.’ Cassidy grabbed the end of his mud-encrusted Nikes. After a few uncertain seconds, he said, ‘Yep, got movement.’

  ‘Let’s get everyone to dry ground.’ I tapped Boink on the leg. ‘Can you get up?’

  He gave it a go, groaning as he rolled onto his stomach before coming up on all fours. Cassidy and I took an arm each and helped him stand. Boink took a step and the mud sucked hard at his shoes, gurgling loudly. The guy faltered, and then regained his balance.

  ‘I’m over this shit, you know what I’m sayin’?’ he said, shaking his head.

  Yeah, I knew. We wrestled him up the greasy bank and then onto the flatter ground up beyond the erosion. The elephant grass was thick and each blade of it had a sharp edge, but when flattened it provided a reasonably dry bed. We sat the big man down and went back for the others.

  Five minutes later, everyone was higher and a little drier. Unless the troops up on the ridge cared to take the jump into the unknown like we did, which none of them seemed prepared to do, we were beyond their reach. Rutherford and West unpacked the gear, pulling out the packets of beef jerky. There wasn’t a lot to go around, but something was better than nothing.

  ‘We need sleep,’ said Cassidy. ‘I’ll take the first watch, and split the remaining time between West and Ryder. You get some sleep, Cooper. You look like shit.’

  ‘But at least you don’t smell like it anymore,’ said Rutherford.

  ‘Anyone got a watch?’ I asked.

  West handed me my Seiko. ‘Found it in one of the rucksack pockets,’ he said.

  It was just after eleven. ‘We’ll have to move before dawn. We don’t want anyone up there on the ridge getting lucky with a 97.’

  Cassidy agreed, and then said quietly, ‘Done good, sir. We live to fight another day.’

  Too tired to think of anything snappy, I just nodded and took one of the available ponchos. I lay down under it and sleep hit me like an angry circus animal.

  In what seemed like a handful of seconds, I heard Rutherford’s singsong voice in my ear saying, ‘Wakey, wakey.’

  Would he go away if I told him to? No. I opened an eyelid, seemingly the only muscle not bruised black and blue
and cramped in place. I moved my tongue around my teeth, got a hint of my morning breath. The awful smell of the nose ooze from the hanging guy had taken up residence in my mouth. I needed a hot shower that lasted till the water ran out, two black coffees – extra strong – and maybe four toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. No, make that five. My bladder ached like it was full of cold acid. I opened the other eye and realized that I was spooning Boink, and that a body behind was spooning me, an arm over my waist, a hand on my chest. Leila’s. It was steamy under the poncho, and stank of river mud, wet body odor and stale farts.

  I removed Leila’s hand and propped myself on one hand, disturbing the others still trying to sleep. Somehow I got to my feet and managed to step over bodies without leaving boot prints on anyone, and the dark masses wriggled together, closing the gap my departure had created.

  I stopped to allow the contents of my bladder to kill a bush before following Rutherford over to where Cassidy, West and Ryder were quietly talking. It was four thirty-five.

  ‘Sleeping Beauty has riz,’ Rutherford said as I made my way over to them.

  ‘How’s your ankle?’ I asked him.

  ‘Better.’

  ‘Boss, found this in the mud,’ said West. ‘Yours, I think.’ He held the knife toward me, handle first. I told him thanks and sheathed it.

  While I’d been catching somewhat less than forty winks, the crescent moon had climbed a little higher and was mooching around behind a thin screen of high cloud, providing enough light to see that all our weapons and other stores were laid out on a poncho over a flattened square of elephant grass. If all this stuff worked as the PLA intended, we really could give a platoon-sized force a good mauling. There was a change in the mood. Preparation was in the air. West was reassembling one of the QCWs after having cleaned and dried it, getting ready for something. I didn’t need an itinerary to know what, but I said, ‘We going somewhere?’

  ‘That’s up to you,’ said Cassidy.

  ‘Do we believe they’re still alive?’ I asked, sinking onto my haunches. No one had spoken out for some time on the possible state of our captured principals’ health, but the subject on my mind was obviously also on theirs.