by David Poyer
They fell in slowly, picking their way down the rockfall to the road like arthritic centenarians. She scolded and pushed them into raggedy columns, wailing insults in a high, comical singsong.
For a moment Teddy felt an urge to take charge, get them formed up, but it faded. He realized then that he’d understood her insults without having to translate in his head. He shuffled into the rearmost rank, set his teeth, and tried to match the pace. They didn’t move fast, only at a sort of starvation shuffle.
His interrogators had torn the ligaments in his foot, stamped on it when they’d realized that it hurt, and laughed when he’d asked for medical attention. He had it strapped up now so it didn’t hang, and had carved a makeshift wooden brace for ankle support. With it cinched tight he could limp, but it hurt like a sonofabitch. From time to time the guard would look back and shout at the laggards, or unsling her rifle and point it at Teddy. Finally, she squeezed the trigger.
But it didn’t fire. Only clicked. The kid laughed.
But Teddy narrowed his eyes. So the guards carried their old AKs with chambers empty. That would give him a second’s grace, if he ever had the chance to grab one.
He might even, still, be stronger than a fifteen-year-old girl. If he could take her by surprise, plunge a stone-whetted screwdriver into her throat …
Hobbling along, he bared rotting gums in a ghastly grin. Once he’d have looked at her and fantasized about sex. Now he wondered how her tits would taste roasted. Probably like fatty ham … The best parts would be thighs and buttocks. But he wouldn’t turn down a tasty morsel of liver, or a kidney.
Teddy pointed up to his breaker as they neared, and she nodded. He fell out and slowly climbed the ladder. At the top, his trusty boss was pacing back and forth, looking worried. When he saw Oberg, old Lew spouted a long explanation, out of which Teddy could get only “bo”—none, nothing. They were missing something, but who knew what.
At last their prime mover started up, chugging black sulfurous smoke. The gears groaned as the roller mills clanked into motion, grinding the last fifteen- or twenty-ton load of ore from the day before. A few minutes later, through a gap in the corrugated iron that sheathed the breaker, he glimpsed a gray tide cresting the rise between him and the pit. This tide lifted erratically, spilling between outcrops and hollows in the ground, but rolling steadily toward him. The resemblance to an advance of army ants was creepy.
“Shangban, shangban,” Lew grumbled, flicking him with the stick he carried more to lean on than for anything else. Get to work. He put a finger to his nose and blew snot onto the ladder. Teddy bent to his broom again, clinking nodules into the hole, which led down to a bin at the bottom of the breaker that got emptied every couple days. He still didn’t know what they were mining. His only clue had been a weathered signboard atop the bluff that still bore traces of paint. After many examinations, he’d deciphered the faded letters as CHINA WESTERN RARE EARTH GROUP COMPANY. From the whitish growths on old Lew’s hands, he suspected it might be radioactive.
* * *
THEY worked through the day, but even with hundreds of prisoners dumping their baskets, Teddy worried his breaker would shut down. If he was in charge, that’s what he’d do. Instead of running all these breakers at half capacity, pull the manning out, and put those hands to carrying baskets of ore too. Old Lew looked anxious. He kept scurrying up and down, scolding and chattering at them to hurry, though the conveyors themselves were running at half speed.
At noon, instead of one droning note, the whistle hooted staccato bursts. A jeeplike vehicle dropped off the guards. The prisoners downed tools and mustered in marching order. Teddy hung back, but the guards hustled him into line too.
They filed down into a deeper pit lined with crumbling red rock, as if whatever had been here had been mined out down to the floor. Now it made a natural amphitheater. They were shouted and buttstroked into squatting ranks. Teddy settled in with Pritchard, Trinh, Shepard, and Fierros. Then nothing happened for about an hour, except that the cold wind shuddered through him.
Finally, with a snort and rumble from the direction of the town lights, a menacing shape clanked and squealed into view. Shading his eyes, Oberg made it as an old Soviet-era T-55. The tank crawled down the gravel road, rocks spitting from beneath iron treads. It halted, venting black smoke. The engine revved, then shut down.
Two guards brought a ladder, and a middle-aged man in a green uniform climbed onto the back deck of the tank. A guard handed up a loud hailer. As he spoke, the prisoners in front of Teddy and Pritchard turned and glared at them, hissing through their teeth.
Major Trinh translated in a mutter. “He is Colonel Xiu, commander of Camp 576 Production Cooperative. He says: The war is going well. China army is advancing on all fronts. Enemy dogs, Japan, Vietnam, are running with tails between legs. However, the U.S. has grown desperate. It has begun criminal biological warfare. Many, many are dying.”
Teddy hung his head, understanding now why the other prisoners had hissed and shot them murderous looks. The officer tried to whip the prisoners into a cheer, but it sounded more like the weak bleating of underfed lambs.
“He says … the Party announces a generous release program. Convicted criminals, even political prisoners, can demonstrate love for country. Those between twenty and fifty with less than five years on sentence can join army. They will get large meal of rice, fried pork, and hot tea. A new, warm uniform. They will leave camp now, today.”
Teddy couldn’t help it; his mouth watered. Here and there, men began standing. They shouted and yelled, shaking fists. Then a rock lofted. It hit Pritchard in the chest. More followed, raining down, and the Chinese around them scrambled away, clearing the field of fire. Teddy shielded his face with both arms but took a stone to the skull from behind. Stunned, he slumped over.
A staccato crack echoed. Blue smoke drifted from one of the T-55’s machine guns. The Chinese prisoners subsided. They turned away from the Caucasians, and joined a queue. Officials were setting up the same folding tables at which they’d checked Teddy’s transport in, months before.
Obie stood with arms dangling, looking into the sky. He couldn’t shake the images. Warm uniform. Hearty meal. Hell, he could taste it. Sweet and sour pork, fluffy steamed rice … he took one sliding step toward the desks before reality hit and he halted, hammering a fist on his thigh and grunting like an angry camel. Get control, Oberg! That would be ringing the brass bell the loudest any SEAL ever had. Not to mention that with this strapped-up, useless fucking foot, he wouldn’t be accepted into any army on the fucking planet.
Another rock came flying. This time he didn’t bother ducking. His hand came away from his cheek smeared with red. Shit, even his fucking blood looked darker, felt stickier than it used to.
No. He couldn’t stay here any longer. Or he’d die.
Maggie Pritchard, beside him, tugged at his sleeve. “Come on, Teddy. Let’s get the fook out of here.”
* * *
THE next morning, on the road, mustering the prisoners who remained, their brigade commander announced in a singsong that Breaker Twenty-Three was closed. All hands employed there would report to Pit Three.
“I am sorry, Ted-ti,” he added. “I tried to get you place in kitchen. But no joy.”
At least that was what Teddy thought he said. “That’s okay,” he told him.
The girl guard formed them up, joking in her lilting tones. The column was more than decimated. Most of the Chinese had volunteered, leaving the too-old, the too-sick, and the foreign devils. They huddled shivering in thin jackets and ragged blankets, hands under their armpits. When they shuffled into motion, Obie found himself in the middle of the column for the first time. The girl trailed them, singing something gay as they marched a mile and a half to Pit Number Three.
In all the time he’d been here, he’d never seen where the ore came from. Even when he peered from atop the breaker, piles of waste had hidden whatever lay beyond. The path twisted through culm hills,
acres of loose rock and shale, then began to drop.
They marched down, and down, along sloped ramps into a sort of reversed ziggurat. He couldn’t make out the bottom. The cold wind was stirring up a haze of grit that coated their lips and made everyone cough. Teddy kept peering around, half expecting something with teeth and claws to emerge out of the haze.
Gradually, from the dust-fog, the floor emerged. A mile-wide yawning in the earth, at the bottom of which lay containers, stacks of tools, scattered puddles of dully reflecting, dirty water, tar paper-roofed shacks. And parked to the side, well-used power diggers, graders, augurs, dump trucks. They were motionless. The dust-haze was thinner down here, the wind less fierce. As they reached the pit floor, he saw the ore. It writhed in twisted veins across the rock, amid dun-colored, softer-looking slate. Trusties waited by each excavation point. Sidling in among the new arrivals, they broke the column into six-man work units. With peremptory gestures and pidgin Han, they explained the quota. Ten cubic meters a day.
“You got to be shitting me,” he muttered to Maggie. He’d watched this stuff go past on the belt. It took forty-ton hardened-steel rollers to crush it. But the unit leader was handing out picks and shovels, pointing to dump barrows with bicycle wheels and stacks of woven plastic baskets. Teddy grabbed a pick. With his leg, he wasn’t going to be any use on a wheelbarrow.
His first blow struck sparks from the rock, but didn’t loosen a grain. The leader shouted something at him. To hit harder, apparently. He reshouldered the tool grimly.
Ten cubic meters.
It didn’t sound like all that much.
* * *
THAT night, back in the cave, he and Maggie and Toby Fierros, the pilot, huddled over the hot water that was all they had to brew. Even two feet from the little smoking fire, the cold was numbing bitter. “They wouldn’t even fucking feed us,” Pritchard marveled. “Wouldn’t even fooking…”
“Méiyou pèi’é, méiyou shíwù,” Trinh said, coming over.
“And that means?”
“No quota, no food.” The Vietnamese looked grim. A twist of grass stuck out of his mouth. It gave you racking gut-aches, but it was something. Vu, the other Viet, squatted behind him, silent.
“We got to get out of here,” Fierros said.
No one spoke again for some time. Until the pilot added, “Doesn’t matter where we go. Probably, just out there to die. But we’re gonna get bagged here, anyway.”
Teddy slumped against the cave wall, massaging his leg. He’d kept falling down, passing out, all afternoon. Each time the unit leader had kicked him back to his feet. Fourteen hours straight. And since they hadn’t made quota, they’d been sent back to the cave hungry, pushed away from the chow line. Just corn gruel, tasteless, stale, and icy cold, but he and one of the guards had locked gazes for a long time before Teddy had lowered his head and shambled off.
This wasn’t the first time they’d discussed escape. He and Pritchard had talked it over on and off since they’d arrived. Each time, they’d concluded it might be possible to get up the bluff and over the wire. Or, alternatively, that they could make their way along the bluff at night, and attempt an escape via the town side, although they didn’t know what was down there. Teddy had hobbled a mile in that direction when it was warmer, and he hadn’t felt so weak. But he hadn’t seen a way out, just passed more culm piles, pits, and huts. And what lay outside the wire? At SERE, the Escape phase had emphasized two points to plan for: cooperation of the locals, and food supplies en route. Neither seemed promising here.
The other airman, Bill Shepard, said, “We can’t live without the ration.”
Fierros said, “But they’re not feeding us.”
“You heard the wolves,” Pritchard observed. “We leave the wire, mytes, we’re the fooking food.”
“Those aren’t real wolves,” said the pilot.
Teddy did a double take. “Fuck you talking about? I’ve heard wolves howl before. In the White Mountains. Those are fucking wolves, dude.”
“They’re recordings of wolves,” Fierros said. “You haven’t figured that yet? To scare us off escaping.”
Teddy hoped he was joking. “No, those are real wolves, swim buddy. Ever seen a grave around here? I haven’t. I figure, they just put the dead up on the bluff. That’s what’s attracting them.”
Trinh looked disturbed. “You say … animals eat them? That is where they took Phung?”
“That a problem, Major?”
“No, no, not a problem … I am a Communist. No matter, what happens to the body. After one is dead.” But he still looked disturbed, and muttered something in an undertone to Vu.
They debated this, Fierros stubbornly maintaining his point, but Teddy thought the guy was getting lightheaded. So was he, for that matter. Fantasizing about roasting that guard’s breasts. Jesus. She was probably on the Camp 576 People’s Itty-Bitty Titty Committee. But nobody knew they were here. No one had ever seen anyone from the Red Cross. The Geneva Convention said you couldn’t make prisoners work. But here they were being worked to death. And now, not even being fed.
They had to either escape, or just die one by one.
“If we did, where would we go?” Teddy said.
Fierros shrugged. “Only one way from here, Scarface. West.”
“Into Tibet?” Pritchard said.
“No, amigo. Tibet’s actually to the south of us.” Fierros’s dark eyes glittered as the fire flared up. “We head for Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan. Possibly, northern Pakistan, but I don’t think we’re that far south. I flew missions in Afghanistan. From the sun height at noon, I think we’re about four hundred miles north of the latitude of Kabul. That’d put us somewhere in the Tien Shan mountains.”
Magpie said, “Where you say we’d be headed. They friendly?”
The pilot shrugged. “Who knows. When we were flying out of Bishkek, they were neutral. Manas Airfield. But even if they interned us, wouldn’t we be better off?”
“At least they’d feed us.” Pritchard smacked his lips, as if the words themselves could be sucked for nutrients.
Teddy nodded. “Yeah. And probably, eventually, turn us over to the nearest allied forces. How far would we have to go, across the mountains?”
Fierros said, “I figure two hundred and fifty, three hundred miles.”
They all stared into the fire. “On foot?” Magpie said at last.
“No, we take the train,” Teddy said. “Of course, on foot. Ragger, how sure are you about those distances? And the direction? We can steer by the stars. But we don’t know where we’re starting from.”
“I’m pretty sure about it,” the pilot said, but Teddy, remembering that the guy didn’t think those howls at night were from real wolves, figured they’d better build in a Jesus factor. At SERE they told you that traveling at night and laying up during the day, you could make fifteen to twenty miles in twenty-four hours. Even at the low end of Fierros’s estimate, and the high end of miles per night, that would hang them out in hostile territory for two weeks. From the looks of the hills around the camp, it would be slim pickings along the way. And they weren’t in good shape to start with.
“I see what you’re all thinking,” Fierros added. “But I’m at the point where I’m gonna say, fuck it. They shoot me on the wire, I’m not hungry anymore. Who’s with me? Teddy? You’re probably the fittest here, except for that foot.”
“Uh-huh,” Teddy said, feeling like he was stepping over a cliff into deep water. “Yeah … all right. So, when do we leave?”
“Sooner the better. Two days? Three?”
“The longer we wait, the weaker we get.” Teddy leaned and spat. “Maggie and I did some exploring, before you got here. There’s a spot three-quarters of a mile down, where a ravine cuts. It’s narrow, steep, but there’s a power cable leading up.”
Shepard said, “You serious? Climb that bluff?”
“Anything can be climbed. If you take your time, and have the balls. What we find at the top could be a
nother story. We could pop our heads up and be looking into an IR-sighted machine gun.”
Trinh tossed the grass chew into the fire. It flared up, illuminating haggard visages. “But are you saying, Americans only? Because we want to go too.” He tilted his head at the silent Vu.
“I’m not an American,” Pritchard said. He coughed hard into his hand, and hid it under his haunch. “But I’m going.”
“You can barely drag your dick out to piss,” Fierros said.
“Nevertheless, I’m going.”
“He’s going, all right,” Teddy said. “Major, we’re not leaving you guys here either. Okay, it’s Ragger, Magpie, Vu, the Major, and me.” He looked at the other airman. “Bill, you in?”
“Somebody has to stay,” Shepard said.
“What?”
“To buy time. You’re going at night, right? In the morning, I’ll say everyone’s sick in our cave. They’re too scared of whatever everybody’s dying of to come in and look. That’ll give you a day, maybe more, head start. Until they figure you’re gone.”
“You sure, amigo?” Teddy asked him.
“No,” the airman said. “But I’m gonna stick it out here. I wish you guys all the luck.”
The fire flared up once more, and they sat silently around it. Then, one by one, each drew a thin blanket over himself, and nestled against the others, drawing warmth from the rest.
* * *
THE next day Magpie stayed in the cave. He said he was too weak to walk. The rest mustered at the road, but Trinh stepped out from the ranks when the guard arrived. Not the girl, this time, but a hard-faced oldster whose iron visage gave away nothing as the Vietnamese explained they had to have some food. They couldn’t work without eating, and there’d been nothing the day before. He kept bowing. The guard fingered his rifle. Teddy, gripping the screwdriver under his jacket, tensed to jump the guy if he took the safety off. Instead, at last, he only nodded. “He says there is not much for the troops, either,” Trinh said, shuffling back in line. “But he will ask. Pass our concerns up.”
