I jumped down out of the truck, Ryder and Boink following, and said, ‘We should test it.’ I nominated the QCW for the job because it was silenced. Ryder handed me the weapon. Selecting three-shot burst, I disengaged the safety, aimed and fired into the sandbags. The weapon leapt in my hand. We climbed back into the truck for the inspection and quickly found the holes in one of the makeshift sandbags. On further inspection, the rounds hadn’t penetrated to the Kevlar container behind it, the wet mud stopping them cold. But the defenses had a weakness. While we’d be covered by the cabin behind us and by the containers on three sides, one of those sides offered less protection than the other two, there being not enough of the larger Kevlar containers to complete the box. This side was of a lower height than the other two. I compensated for it with additional sandbags, stacking them higher on that side, but if massed incoming fire hit them, they’d get chewed up quickly, leaving those inside the box exposed. There was nothing I could do about it, except perhaps not to dampen the enthusiasm by drawing attention to the potential problem. So I left this flank untested and instead shifted everyone’s attention to getting a decent night’s sleep. This meant first transferring the ammo-filled magazines and the grenades to the assault truck, and then collecting palm fronds to use as bedding, laying them down inside the load area of our spare truck.
These jobs took some time and were completed while the thunderstorm was in full swing, the massive cloudbanks pelting us briefly with marble-sized balls of hail mixed into the rain. When we were done, Duke handed out dry uniforms. Leila and Ayesha slipped into them, using the assault truck as a changing room. With the fronds, dry clothes and weatherproof tarpaulin covering the Dong’s load’s space, it would be our driest, most comfortable sleeping quarters since departing Cyangugu.
‘Get your weapons load-out organized,’ I said to Ryder, making a final inspection of our mobile barricade in the last of the ambient light, rearranging a heavy pair of green pants filled with mud, the bottom of the legs tied in knots and the waist secured with loops of liana. ‘I’ll take the first watch.’
‘What time do we rock and roll?’ he asked.
‘Oh-four-thirty.’
‘I’ve been thinking . . . what if Twenny and Peanut aren’t there in the FARDC camp? I mean, they could have been taken out on that chopper. We might be risking our lives for nothing.’
Okay, so Ryder again proved that he could think tactically. I gave him the answer I’d given myself. ‘And what if they are still there?’
‘From up on the hill, Cassidy, West and Rutherford might have been able to see who got on board. We should wait and get some confirmation one way or the other.’
‘Rutherford will be here soon,’ I said.
‘What if something happens to him and he doesn’t make it back here?’
‘Duke, we’re never going to have enough intel to plug the holes. A FARDC patrol might stumble into us. Lissouba might wise up to who stole his toys and wait for us to make a move, or ambush us as we come in. And we’ve also got our own problems with hunger and morale. Every extra hour we spend hanging around here works against success. We have to go at the earliest opportunity. That’s in around eleven hours from now.’
Ryder nodded thoughtfully. ‘I had to ask.’ He absently tapped a full magazine on the side of one of the sandbags. There was something else on his mind.
‘I’ve never been in combat. I . . . I don’t want to fuck up,’ he said.
I didn’t want him to fuck up either. ‘I had you lined up to stay with Leila and Ayesha. Or had you forgotten that at least one of us has to accompany our principals at all times?’
‘What about Boink? Can’t he be the sitter tonight? And he can have Francis for company. You’re going to need all the firepower you can get when you hit that camp.’
‘Rutherford and I will handle it.’
‘Look, I want to come, sir. I’m not going chickenshit on you. I’m just scared, is all.’
I wanted to tell Ryder that the only people who weren’t scared in combat were already dead, but I didn’t think that would cheer him up at all, so I said, ‘I’m scared. Scared is natural.’
I’d seen far too many people die in battle and every single one of those deaths reminded me that bullets don’t have brains. That can work in your favor and against it. You can feel lucky and take a bullet. And you can feel with naked certainty that you’re not going to live to see the following day, and write letters for your buddy to send home on your behalf, convinced that you won’t be far behind them only zipped into a body bag. And then, before you know it, within a few hours of the last shot being fired, you can be drunk in the arms of a girl who has your money in her pocket, while the guy you gave those letters to is lying in the morgue. But one thing is a constant: once those lead doors were welded closed behind your eyes, you knew nothing, saw nothing and felt nothing. About anything. I pushed the image of Anna lying on the carpet, her eyelids heavy with death, out of my mind.
‘Do you know what it was like before you were born?’ I asked him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not.’
‘Me either . . . But I think that’s probably what it’s like to be dead. You don’t even know that you know less than nothing.’
Ryder stared at me, head at an angle, thinking about it. ‘Hey, that’s kinda comforting.’
‘Yeah.’ I turned and saw Leila standing behind the truck.
‘You always sneak up on people?’ I asked her.
‘I don’t sneak – I glide. Anyway, Ayesha and I, we’ve been listening to your conversation,’ she said, using a banana leaf as an umbrella substitute. Ayesha drifted in beside her, also holding a leaf over her head. ‘We’re not staying here. We’re coming with you.’
‘Oh, c’mon! No!’ I said, folding my arms tightly across my body armor. ‘It’s just too damn dangerous.’
‘Cooper, I’m not asking, I’m telling,’ Leila said. ‘You’re leaving us with no protection and you’re not supposed to do that. We know the rules.’
‘What rules?’
‘Your own stupid PSO rules. Duke told us.’
Jesus! I glanced at Ryder and he looked away. ‘I’ve got a pretty uneasy relationship with rules, Leila, or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘You’re going off again and leaving Ayesha and me with Phillip, aren’t you?’
My eyes flicked to Boink, who was nearby, keeping watch. He turned his head at the sound of his name, not real happy to hear it, and glared at Leila.
‘You stand a much better chance of seeing tomorrow if you stay here with Boink,’ I said, massaging Phil’s ego.
‘But we trust you,’ said Ayesha. ‘You do this for a living.’
‘No, actually I’m a cop,’ I said. ‘I sit on the phone all day, asking people questions. Occasionally, I might have an argument over who gets the last donut.’
‘You came with a reputation, Cooper,’ said Leila. ‘Twenny talked about you. I read the newspaper stories about you, and we’ve all seen first hand what you’re capable of doing. It’s dangerous being around you, but we think it would be more dangerous not being around you. We’re going to take our chances with you – and with Duke and the Englishman.’
‘Rutherford’s a Scot,’ I said. ‘On his father’s side.’
‘Whatever,’ she said, brushing the correction aside with a wave of her hand.
I glanced at Duke. He gave me a what-choice-do-we-really-have shrug, reminding me that Leila was an immovable object. And maybe he was right. I couldn’t think of a single instance where I’d succeeded in talking her out of something she intended doing. But what she was demanding this time was seriously nuts. A lot of hot metal would be flying around where we were going. By coming along, they posed a risk not just to themselves, but to Twenny, Peanut and everyone else in our merry band – me included.
Leila was giving me that stance, the weight-on-one-leg-and-a-hand-on-one-hip stance that announced she was going to have her way on this, no matter what. I hoped I had m
ore success with the FARDC than I had with her.
‘You will do everything I tell you, when I tell you,’ I said.
‘Waitresses take orders,’ said Leila.
I didn’t respond, so she sighed dramatically and said, ‘Okay, I’ll do my best.’
Ayesha didn’t look nearly as sure as her boss did about what they were letting themselves in for. Smart girl.
‘Let’s give the doing-as-your-told concept a test, shall we?’ I said. ‘Go get some sleep.’
‘I’m not tired.’
‘I don’t call that doing your best.’
Leila shook her head, took Ayesha by the arm, and they disappeared from view, heading for the sleeper.
I heard a faint whistle.
‘Who’s that, yo?’ Boink whispered, talking into the plant life.
‘Rutherford,’ came the reply. The SAS sergeant materialized out of the shadows behind the big man, who jumped about a foot when he sensed the presence behind him and glanced over his shoulder.
‘You nearly give me a heart attack, man,’ he said, a hand to his chest.
‘Sorry, sunshine,’ Rutherford said. ‘Where’s the skipper?’
‘Over here,’ I whispered, standing on the back of the truck.
He trotted over and bounded up beside me.
‘Any problems?’ I asked him.
‘FARDC’s sticking to the roads, acting spooked, like the kid told us. They know something’s up. How’re we doing here?’
‘Ready as we’ll ever be.’ I didn’t give him the news about Leila and Ayesha.
Rutherford went to the fortifcations and looked them over. ‘Good job. You test it?’
‘It’ll work. We’re calling it the Alamo.’
‘You lost that one, didn’t you?’
‘Keep that to yourself,’ I said.
Rutherford noted the magazines stacked high on the floor. ‘Someone’s nervous?’
‘I’ve had four craps in the last half hour,’ I said, ‘but I put that down to a bad banana.’
‘How about you, Duke?’ Rutherford asked.
‘I’ll be okay.’
‘Shitting bricks too, then, eh?’
A brief, tight smile animated Duke’s lips.
‘How’s Cassidy and West. They all set?’ I asked Rutherford.
‘Bit of a climb carrying that kit between the three of us but, other than that, no probs.’
‘You see that chopper lift off?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Don’t suppose you saw who was on it?’
‘I was already on the move by then. Why?’
Ryder laid it out for him.
‘I get the picture,’ Rutherford said, chewing the side of his cheek. ‘Doesn’t change much for us, though, does it? There’s no time to go get a roll call on who’s still in camp.’
‘We read it the same way,’ I told him.
‘So what’s the timetable this end?’
I briefed him on the plan for the coming morning. It was straightforward and only took a couple of minutes. ‘Questions?’ I asked. There weren’t any, not even about the news that Leila and Ayesha would be hunkered down in the Alamo. ‘So that leaves two things left to do – say our prayers and get some sack time. I want the last watch; do a last-minute walk around before we hit it.’
I got down out of the truck to look for Francis – I hadn’t seen him for a while – and found him curled up under the front wheels of the second Dong. I woke him and outlined the morning’s activities and told him to go sleep in the truck with everyone else.
Ryder relieved Boink, who urinated long and loud in the bush before heaving himself up into our sleeping quarters. With all the palm fronds laid down on the load tray as bedding, the interior smelled like the Puma after it came through the tree canopy like a five-ton food processor. That smell of chopped foliage conjured in my mind pictures of Shaquand and Lieutenant Colonel Blair Travis, who were now sleeping like they were before they were born.
I climbed up behind Boink. Leila and Ayesha were spooning, the rain hitting the tarpaulin covering, and the frogs around us getting horny in the rain, their personal lubricant. Francis had laid himself out directly behind the cab, flat on his back, with his hands behind his head. Boink settled in beside Ayesha, which left the space behind Leila for me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take it but didn’t have a lot of alternatives. I lay down on my side on the bed of fronds and turned away from the women. I had been lying like that for about a minute when an arm draped itself over my body armor and Leila pulled herself toward me, her body curling into mine.
‘I hate you, Cooper,’ she whispered, her voice dreamy with sleep.
Attack
A familiar beep from my Seiko woke me at one-thirty am. ‘Vin?’ It was Ryder.
‘I’m awake,’ I said, searching my surroundings with my senses. Leila was no longer spooning. I propped myself up on one hand for a few seconds to get my bearings, then moved down on my butt bones to the back of the truck, where I could see Ryder’s shape illuminated by moonlight. The rain had stopped. The air was cool and smelled of banana. Even the ever-present mosquitoes appeared to be on a break. I felt refreshed after the best sleep I ’d had in a week.
‘All quiet?’ I asked him.
‘Nothing’s stirring, not even a frog.’
He was right. ‘When did they knock it off?’
‘Just before the rain stopped. I thought it was significant, like an early warning sign of visitors approaching, but . . .’
‘Maybe the orgy just ran its course,’ I suggested as I hopped down beside him.
Behind us, Boink stopped snoring momentarily to call out some gibberish in his sleep.
I looked over the sleeping bodies and conducted a subconscious body count. We were one short.
‘Where’s Rutherford?’ I asked.
‘In the cab, stretched out on the full-width seat.’
I wished I’d thought of that.
‘How much time have I got for a little shut-eye?’ Ryder asked.
‘Around two and a half hours.’
‘Well then,’ he said, laying his rifle on the floor of the truck and then hauling himself up with a grunt, ‘nighty-night.’
I strolled away from the trucks to take in the evening and realized that I was casting a shadow. The moon was full, almost directly overhead, and it blazed away like an LED, the effect quite eerie. Just our luck. A clear night sky and a goddamn searchlight hanging right in the middle of it. I prayed for rain. I wondered how West and Cassidy were doing, whether they had been able to sleep.
The one hundred and eighty minutes of my watch dragged by. The night was still and breathless with just the occasional distant clucking of some unknown animal to punctuate it. I went into the Alamo, counted and recounted the magazines; fddled with the barricade and watched the minutes tick past, one by one. I went for a stroll and collected bananas for breakfast and also came across a stand of sugar cane and cut a couple of lengths. That job done, I nosed around till I found an ant nest and reapplied the mosquito repellent, as the insects had finished their break.
With nothing else to do, I walked in slow circles around the trucks and wondered about Lockhart and his treachery, and about LeDuc and his perfdy. I wondered whether Twenny and Peanut were still alive in the FARDC’s camp, and made a deal with the universe that if they were still there when we arrived, I’d eat less meat and more vegetables. I wondered whether Lockhart intended cutting the PLA guy in on any ransom monies that might come his way. I wondered whether Biruta, Makenga and Lissouba might enjoy being tied into a sack with a couple of those cat-sized scorpions. I wondered whether my team would make it back to Rwanda in one piece, complete with the same number of principals we’d departed Cyangugu with. I wondered whether Masters, wherever she was, blamed me as much as I blamed myself for her death. In fact, I was surprised at just how much wondering could be achieved in a hundred and eighty minutes. And then, with the familiar note sounding from my Seiko, time was up. I woke Rutherford,
Ryder and Francis at exactly 0401.
Handing out bananas and cane, I suggested that they gear up while they ate. Ten minutes later, they returned, webbing stuffed with spare mags and grenades. They took over the watch while I went into the Alamo and likewise raided the stores. When we were all set, I had Ryder wake our principals.
A couple of minutes later, they wearily vacated their sleeping quarters. I handed Boink a backpack full of our staple diet.
‘Breakfast,’ I whispered. ‘Eat more than you need and see if you can’t get the girls to do the same. This might be the only food you’ll get for the rest of the day.’
‘Yo,’ he replied.
I could’ve also said that this might be the last meal they had period, given that they were so all-fired keen to ride with us into the valley of death.
Boink hesitated, then said, ‘What’s my job today, soldier man?’
Francis interrupted. ‘We must go. It will soon be light.’
I looked at my Seiko and pinched the illumination function. Just past 0432. The schedule wasn’t running away from us quite yet.
‘Two minutes,’ I told him, then said to Boink, ‘Walk with me.’ I led him away from the trucks. ‘Today, for one day only, consider yourself a personal security officer.’
‘What I have t’ do?’
‘Follow a bunch of rules.’
‘And?’
‘Chew on a bullet for Leila and Ayesha if you have to.’
‘Oh . . .’ He had to think about it.
‘You have to stay with them at all times. On no account let them leave the truck. Use force if you have to, but set your phaser to stun.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Never mind.’
I handed him two spare mags for his Nazarian. ‘Use single shot only. Conserve your ammo – no full auto. Fire when you have a target, and don’t hesitate to pull the trigger.’
‘I got it, yo.’
We found ourselves back at the trucks.
Ghost Watch Page 31
