The Ruins

by Matt Rogers

Slater spun in circles, finding nothing in his field of view. It was impossibly dark. The wind blew hard against him.

  He shivered.

  He said, ‘No.’

  ‘Go a mile north. You’ll find the ruins. She just confirmed she’s waiting there. She said she won’t stay for long. Like I said, she doesn’t really want to help.’

  ‘How much do you know about her?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Am I about to find myself with a knife to my throat?’

  A pause, and then, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s something that would be good to know in advance.’

  ‘I’m not going to pump you full of false promises. We know very little right now. This is fresh, and we’re scrambling. I won’t lie to you. There’s a possibility she could be dangerous. You never know. Just keep your guard up. Have a weapon ready.’

  ‘I’d rather not spend my time out here killing civilians.’

  ‘If she’s planning an ambush, then she’s not a civilian, is she?’

  Slater let Lars’ question hang in the air, concentrating instead on getting his bearings. He worked out which direction was north, and flipped the visor of his helmet up, and narrowed his eyes. He found the faintest outline of a cluster of dark foreboding objects in the night.

  Dark blue against black.

  Ruins.

  He said, ‘Found it. Wish me luck.’

  ‘You’ll be compensated handsomely for this.’

  ‘You think I give a shit about that right now?’

  ‘Stay safe.’

  ‘Not a frequent occurrence in my line of work,’ he muttered, and ended the call for the second time.

  He removed the HALO helmet with attached oxygen supply and laid the equipment on the sand, burying it just as he’d done to the rest of the gear. It took a weight off his shoulders, and he breathed easy knowing he had better mobility.

  He gave himself the once-over.

  Dark khakis, hiking boots, and a skin-tight tactical jacket over a thermal compression shirt. He barely felt the cold, despite the wind battering his frame. The pack on his back contained a M4A1 carbine with an entire SOPMOD accessory kit, including a vertical foregrip, a forearm, and a number of optical sights for any situation he found himself in.

  But he figured blundering into the ruins with an assault rifle in his hands wouldn’t reassure the informant if she truly did mean no harm.

  So he shrugged the pack off and took out a compact Glock 19. He slotted it into an appendix holster under his jacket, positioned so he could get it out in an instant.

  And he truly didn’t know whether he would have to.

  It stirred the primitive part of his brain.

  It told him, Be ready.

  You’re everyone’s enemy out here.

  Then he put the pack back on and set off on the one mile trek to the ruins.

  7

  He stalked through a vast city gate — one of nine set in the perimeter wall — and entered the ancient city of Gaochang. He felt all the history in the walls around him. Now they lay cold and dead and silent, but he imagined the area in ancient times, bustling with activity and travellers coming off the Silk Road.

  Now, there was no-one.

  No-one, except for a hooded woman in traditional dress crouching in the lee of a giant archway.

  He didn’t see her at first, and almost walked right into her. She blended into the surroundings, as still as the rock on either side of her.

  She watched him.

  He raised both hands in a display of peace.

  She nodded curtly.

  He approached.

  The wind blew in through the ancient city gates, and came over the walls, and he found himself thinking he’d entered some surreal fantasy world. He was used to live operations amidst civilisation — in city streets and buildings where rogue terrorists plotted their revenge on the West. Now he was in uncharted territory, and he was keenly aware of that fact. He was swimming in uncertainty up to his neck, and if he wasn’t careful it would surge into his mouth and drown him.

  The woman said something in Uyghur.

  Slater said, ‘Hold on.’

  He touched his earpiece.

  Lars said, ‘You there?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Slater scrutinised the informant. She was in her fifties, with darker skin than he was accustomed to seeing in China. She stared at him without blinking, eternally patient, and as he sensed the desolation around them he figured patience was a virtue in this part of the world.

  He said, ‘Translator ready?’

  A soft voice said, ‘Yes,’ in his ear.

  Slater nodded to the woman.

  She eyed him warily.

  She said nothing.

  She didn’t trust him.

  Slater muttered, ‘Lars.’

  ‘She wouldn’t tell us details over the phone,’ Lars said in his ear. ‘She wanted a face to face, and she didn’t believe me when I told her we were inserting someone into the region. Now you’re face to face with her. Get her to talk.’

  Slater dropped his psychotic operational persona in an instant. He let it go, even though he considered it one of the most dangerous things to do in the field. He shifted to regular old Will, and even in the moonlight she could see it.

  He nodded and smiled at her, and silently encouraged her to talk.

  She talked.

  It went on for close to a minute, and he refused to let his expression change. He wasn’t Slater anymore. He wasn’t a monster. He was encouraging a hesitant civilian to share what she knew. Even though it put him in mortal danger. If hostiles were to appear, it would take him a moment to shift back into operational mode, and a moment was all it took.

  But he needed this information.

  Otherwise he’d be stuck roaming the desert with not a clue where to start.

  She went silent, and he switched back to kill mode.

  He said, ‘Did you get that?’

  In his ear, Lars said, ‘Got it. Wait one.’

  Slater waited with his hands crossed behind his back. Indicating he didn’t convey any threat.

  She stood there restlessly, staring up at him through bright eyes set deep in a weather-beaten face.

  Lars said, ‘This is a word for word translation. Ready?’

  ‘Ready.’

  ‘I saw the three of them yesterday on the other side of the city. They were roaming where they were not supposed to, disturbing everyone in sight. I told them to get back on the regular path. They laughed at me, but they obliged. A local man I do not know came up to them, because he spoke English. He asked them where they were going, and they said they were headed to the Jiaohe ruins for an adventure. He told them to be careful, and they said that would not be fun. And then they left. The bystander conveyed all this to me, and promptly left himself. That is all I know. I’m sorry.’

  Slater said, ‘That’s enough, right?’

  ‘That’s more than enough,’ Lars said. ‘The city of Jiaohe is only five miles from you. You can walk it. Otherwise I was going to advise you to steal a vehicle.’

  ‘You see a vehicle out here?’ Slater hissed.

  ‘Lucky it’s within walking distance, then.’

  ‘Okay,’ Slater said. ‘You think ETIM will still be prowling around?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Don’t mention it around her, though. She doesn’t need to know anything more than necessary.’

  ‘She doesn’t speak English. You said it yourself. How’d you find her in the first place?’

  ‘We passed some questions to a contact in the region and she came forward.’

  ‘Right.’

  Slater took the woman’s hand between his gloved palms and nodded gratefully to her.

  She nodded back.

  Then an incoming alert shrilled in the GPS device in his pocket — an update from Lars, an added destination — and he set off walking, following the small red checkpoint on the screen.

  As soon as he left,
she pulled a phone from her pocket and said in English, ‘He’s here for us. Just as we thought. He’s going to Jiaohe. Intercept him there, and it’ll send a message. We can send these scum back with their tails between their legs. We can show them where they don’t belong.’

  8

  Slater moved fast across the desert.

  During his downtime he was the first to admit he abused alcohol and drugs, but he also approached physical training with the same intensity. He went all-out in every aspect of his life, and although he knew the substance issues would catch up to him eventually, they were held at bay by the relentlessness with which he honed his body.

  He could cover the five miles to the Jiaohe ruins with relative ease, barely breaking a sweat as he jogged across the fine sand.

  He shifted the weight of the pack on his back, and pressed forward.

  On the way over, he emptied his mind.

  Meditation had been a useful tool in his arsenal for the better part of a year now, ever since an unorthodox mental performance coach had been recruited by Black Force to fashion their operatives into stoic assassins. What Slater had initially dismissed as bullshit proved to be paramount to emptying his brain of the incessant worry that came with this lifestyle.

  Because no-one could maintain their sanity as a Black Force operative without mastering their mind.

  And he’d approached the art of meditation with — you guessed it — the same intensity as everything else.

  So now he focused on the breath — in … out … in … out — and cleared his mind of any secondary thoughts. He thought of nothing, feeling the padded rhythm of his hiking boots in the sand. Over and over and over again.

  Then he made it to the Jiaohe ruins, and tucked the slim GPS device back into his pocket.

  He drew his Glock, lowered his centre mass, and scrutinised the area for signs of life.

  He didn’t know what he hoped to find.

  Lars’ voice crackled in his ear. ‘We see you on the map.’

  ‘How am I looking?’

  ‘You’re on the eastern perimeter. What do you see?’

  ‘Another ancient city.’

  These ruins were equally as spectacular, if not moreso. The giant slabs of sandstone rose out of the earth in broken twisted spires, most of them equidistant to the other. Like a prehistoric maze at the top of a rise in the desert floor. The view from the ruins themselves would be unparalleled, sweeping over the desert in every direction, but Slater knew he’d be exposed up there.

  He crouched in the lee of the dune and contemplated his next move.

  There were too many variables. He wasn’t accustomed to such indecisiveness. Usually he came in with a clear objective and acted on it immediately. He conveyed this to Lars.

  ‘I’m not good at this Sherlock Holmes stuff,’ he muttered. ‘What am I supposed to be looking for?’

  ‘Anything. Just do your best. This is all we have to work with.’

  ‘They’re probably already dead.’

  ‘They’re not. We got a grainy surveillance photo of them on the Silk Road after they were captured, surrounded by what we believe to be ETIM soldiers. I told you that.’

  ‘Then why am I here?’

  ‘Because they fell off the map and we can’t find them, so where they were taken is the best place to start. And we didn’t know that until thirty minutes ago.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘Wait one.’

  Slater dumped his pack into the dirt and removed the M4A1 carbine. He glanced up at the ruins for a second time, judging the terrain he’d be scouting. They were gargantuan, and he knew he couldn’t be sure there weren’t hostiles prowling the shadows. So he fitted a M6X Tactical Laser Illuminator to the weapon and tested it once, shining the thin red beam into the sand at his feet. It lit his silhouette up like a beacon in the night, so he abruptly switched it off.

  It would only come in handy if the ruins became a war zone.

  He stared down at the night-vision goggles resting in the pack and gave them careful consideration. But the full moon was out, and the night was relatively bright, and his eyes had adjusted to the lowlight. The goggles were bulky and cumbersome and would severely hinder his ability to react with the speed he was accustomed to if it became a close-quarters skirmish.

  No.

  No goggles.

  He wrapped one hand around the vertical foregrip and the other around the pistol grip near the trigger, and quietly ghosted up the side of the dune.

  In operational mode.

  Ready to kill at a moment’s notice.

  Like he’d taken a handful of Dexedrine, but relying entirely on his own physiology and mindset.

  So when he made it to the top of the hill and crept like a cat into the ruins, it only took him the briefest of moments in time to recognise the tall thin man directly ahead.

  The guy’s back was turned. He was hunched low, clutching what appeared to be a Kalashnikov. Slater couldn’t make out specifics. It was probably an AK-47. The man was well over six feet tall, wearing cheap khakis, a bulletproof vest that was far too big for him over a bare torso, and a black balaclava. He had the tactical awareness of an amateur. He wasn’t checking his six.

  He was a dead man walking.

  Slater knew exactly why the man was here.

  He hadn’t trusted the informant from the get go, and it seemed she’d given him up almost immediately. There was no way to know for sure if the information she’d provided was accurate or not, but right now that was the least of his concerns.

  He crept up behind the ETIM soldier and waited with bated breath for the best opportunity.

  It came when the man paused at a T-junction in the ruins, deciding whether to go left or right.

  Slater inched closer.

  So close he could hear the man’s ragged breathing.

  And then the guy turned around in one explosive motion — fast as lightning.

  With a wide grin on his face.

  Slater lunged forward, thinking he’d been compromised, desperate to silence the terrorist before he could cry out for help. Things were moving too fast. He didn’t understand why the man was smiling.

  Then the garrotte looped around his throat.

  From behind.

  They wanted him alive, too.

  No guns.

  He froze on the spot. If he moved, they’d yank the steel wire tighter, severing his arteries. He’d bleed out in under a minute. No chance of getting the blood flow under control out here, in the dark, surrounded by endless hostiles.

  Lars’ voice crackled in his ear, ‘Anything?’

  Behind Slater, an accented voice whispered in his other ear, ‘Say anything, you die.’

  Slater kept his mouth shut.

  Lars said, ‘Anything?’

  Silence.

  Lars said, ‘Will?’

  Silence.

  With a gloved hand, the soldier in front of Slater stepped forward and plucked the earpiece out. He dropped it into the sand and stomped it into oblivion.

  The accented voice in his right ear said, ‘Alone now.’

  Slater didn’t respond.

  The steel bit into his throat.

  His heart hammered in his chest.

  He sighed.

  9

  Some part of his brain told him, This is okay.

  He’d been in worse situations before. He wasn’t sure why he was so calm, but he figured he’d been beating the odds for most of his career so far. He wasn’t about to stop.

  Then it all got serious.

  Three more ETIM soldiers materialised out of nowhere. It was like they rose up from the sand itself — as if they were golems planted in the desert for millennia. In reality they had simply appeared from alcoves and archways, but everything was quickly turning to shit, so Slater didn’t mind imagining the fantastical. There were now five of them all around him — one with a garrotte around his throat, and four spread out in a tight semi-circle in
front of him.

  He could raise the carbine and pump the trigger, and probably gun down all four of the tall ragged men in front of him before the fifth tore his throat open. He figured his reaction speed was sufficient enough to get the jump on a ragtag group of terrorists.

  But what good would that do?

  He’d end up dead regardless.

  Or he could bring the carbine up to chest height and leave it hovering there. Effectively holding one of the four men in front of him hostage. A stalemate.

  But not really.

  Because he knew full well the guy holding the garrotte wouldn’t give a shit if one of them died. Their mission meant more than the death of a single comrade. Slater had been dealing with extremist organisations for most of his career, and he figured he had enough of a grasp on their collective state of mind. Maybe this was an outlier, and these five men had grown up together as childhood friends, and even threatening one of them would send the other four down to beg and grovel at his feet.

  But he figured that was highly unlikely.

  So he dropped the gun.

  He considered it his only option.

  Hostility right now had a zero percent chance of working.

  He had to wait, and pray they dropped their collective guards for the briefest of moments.

  It had happened before.

  Actually, he figured it always happened.

  There would be an opening.

  The carbine landed in the sand, and a couple of the men in front of him visibly flinched, anticipating some last-ditch effort from Slater to save his own skin. But there were no tricks. The gun lay still and dormant, awash with pale moonlight. Slater dropped his hands to his sides and held his palms out, fingers spread.

  If he submitted willingly, they’d suspect something, so he let terror wash through his face.

  Artificial terror.

  Inside, he was as stone cold a killer as when he’d first entered the ruins.

  The voice in his ear hissed, ‘You are weak, American.’

  Slater said, ‘Are you the only one who speaks English?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell your buddies they need to eat more. You’re all so thin.’

  The man barked something in Uyghur, and a couple of the soldiers laughed harshly. One of them sauntered forward and jabbed a bony finger into Slater’s bicep. It bounced off. Slater’s arm was thick with corded muscle.