by Dave Eggers
Four decided he would call headquarters. This latest encounter was Nine’s fault, he decided. Every deviation found its origin in Nine’s neglect. Had Nine been nearby, the woman would not have gotten so close. Four wouldn’t have been in this position, in terms of schedule or location. He wanted to do violence to Nine, and this call would be a kind of violence. Nine would be dismissed for this. The company would tell Four to keep the schedule, that they would send someone from the capital, most likely via helicopter, to retrieve Nine. Again Four pictured him at trial. There would be no trial, could be no trial, but the image presented itself to Four and gave him satisfaction. Nine’s head hung low, repentant.
The company, though, would also ask Four how it came to be that Nine had deviated from protocol. Where had Four been during all this? they would ask. And how had Four, as Nine’s superior, allowed all this indiscipline? Four would protest, would explain that Nine had left despite his admonitions, that he could not control the man. But this would not suffice. Four’s good record would be tarnished. Four was known for work without complication. A good worker does not report problems; he fixes problems. Four decided against calling the company. Silence was clarity. Silence was power.
He retrieved a bottle of water and drank deeply, and as he did he realized there was a possibility that Nine had been kidnapped. If so, this would mean the kidnappers would find Four, and would ransom him, too. There was also the possibility that Nine had simply been robbed and killed by bandits. Certainly in a place like this the quad was worth enough to take one man’s life.
Without evidence, Four grew more certain that Nine was dead, and decided that he would now work at a doubled pace, to finish the work as soon as possible, and he would sleep in the RS-80. Seeing the battlefield earlier in the day had jarred him more than he had realized.
He looked ahead at the dirt road, russet red and dry as chalk, and then looked behind him, at the black highway. A shape appeared as he stood squinting into the distance. It looked to be a motorcycle and was moving quickly. He could make out a man on it, but could not make out the man’s face. The insect buzz of a small diesel engine broke the quiet.
Four thought of retrieving his gun from the vehicle. He had time. But he hesitated long enough that soon it was too late; the movement would be too sudden and provocative. So he stayed where he was and raised an arm in greeting. The man on the motorcycle did not reciprocate. Four thought again about diving for his gun. But finally the man lifted his chin and the sun illuminated his face. It was Medallion. He waved his gray-palmed hand to Four as he swung the bike to a stop.
“Yes!” he yelled. “Yes! I found him. There is trouble. He sent me.” Medallion was out of breath as he stepped off the bike. He held his hand over his chest to slow his heart. “I found him in the tent. Very ill. He said he cannot move. I told him I was a messenger from you. He told me that he will stay there until he feels better. He said it was no problem.”
“How far back is this?” Four asked.
“Twenty kilometers, twenty-five,” Medallion said.
“And he’s alone?”
“He is with my cousin. My cousin stayed with him and lent me his bike.”
“He can’t move?”
“No. He has no shirt on, and just he lays there on his back. His eyes are closed. He has a high fever. I gave him some water and put food by his bed.”
“What sort of food?”
“Some bread, some biscuits. I think he will be fine. It looked like some minor poisoning to me.”
“Poisoning?” Four asked. “You mean food poisoning?”
“Yes, yes,” Medallion said, and pointed an ancient finger into his mouth.
Four knew that the best thing would be to have Nine brought to him. As if reading Four’s thoughts, Medallion said, “I asked him to ride back with me but he said no, he cannot lift his head. He said to leave him alone.”
“He has to be brought here,” Four said.
“Yes, I know this,” Medallion said.
“Do you have more cousins nearby?” Four asked. “Maybe the one who lent you this bike?”
“Yes, many cousins,” Medallion said.
Four asked Medallion if he could ride with a cousin on the motorcycle, the two of them, to Nine. They should, he said, bring with them some sort of plank with which they could fashion a gurney. Nine would be attached to the gurney, and this gurney would be attached to the quad. Carrying Nine, Medallion would ride the quad back to Four.
While Four was speaking, a confused expression had come over Medallion’s face. Finally he asked, “What is the quad?”
Four explained the nature of a quad, that it had four wheels and was built for off-road usage. He tried other words for it—ATV, small car, large motorcycle.
“Ah, yes, I know this vehicle,” Medallion said. “But there is no vehicle with the man.”
“Are you sure?”
A new, grim expression came over Medallion’s face. “I think it is stolen. This is possible.”
“Did he tell you this?” Four asked.
“No, I didn’t know about this vehicle before you just mentioned it. So I did not ask about it. Maybe he doesn’t know?”
Four thought for a moment. The quad could be stolen. But a suspicion bloomed inside him, that this was all a ruse and that Medallion had something to do with it. Four tried to work out the play happening here, the next few steps. There would no doubt be ransom for Nine, ransom for the quad.
“Excuse me,” Medallion said, “I know he said he can stay there alone, but I do not think this is good. It is not common for a foreigner to be harmed here, but the robbing of the vehicle is a problem. It makes me think. The road brings new people to the area, and their behavior might be different from ours.”
Medallion played with his necklace.
“I think I should bring him to you,” he said. “It is not a problem. There are many ways to carry him.”
XII
FOUR STARTED THE RS-80 and shut the door. He cursed himself for not trusting his instincts sooner. He should have fired Nine on day one. Nine had broken crucial covenants that first morning and yet Four allowed him to continue. It was appalling, all of it—Nine’s behavior and Four’s inaction.
The cab vibrated alive and Four’s anger dissipated. The ideal would involve Medallion bringing Nine to the last pod of the day. They could install Nine in his tent and Four would try to diagnose him, treat him with some of the medicines he had in the RS-80. He had antibiotics, antimalarials; Nine would be better in a day. Four would call headquarters and someone would retrieve Nine, most likely by helicopter. No matter Nine’s health, Four wanted him gone.
Then a pale memory of nighttime sounds came to him. Some recollection of clicking at night. Of someone in the vehicle. He had been deep in dreaming and had not woken, but the premonition now grew louder, more insistent. He shut down the RS-80.
Four opened the compartment that held the first-aid kit. The compartment was empty. His adrenaline spiked. He opened every compartment, to no avail. The kit was not in the vehicle. Someone had removed it. Four’s gut insisted it was not Medallion. Medallion was not an actor, was not capable of this long ruse. Four knew it was Nine. There could be no doubt. Nine had found some reason to take the first-aid kit to one of his villages. He had given it away.
When he was seized by fury, Four made plans. He planned to call the company. He planned to insist they remove Nine immediately. Now there were two reasons to do so: he was ill and he was a thief. He would be removed, and then Four would file a report. It was a criminal act to appropriate the first-aid kit, depriving both of them of critical self-care in a land virtually without medical expertise. It was a grievous crime and he would seek all available legal remedies against Nine. Four had never wished ill against another human, but he wanted grave consequences visited upon this man.
F
our threw open the compartments again, planning to make the call to headquarters, even while knowing he should not do so. Not yet. He knew he should not call anyone in this state, that the remedy for Nine’s crimes should be administered with cold execution. But he was in that unique fugue state of knowing he was acting rashly but so deeply savoring its delicious vengeance that he could not hold back.
He searched but could not find the satellite phone. He found a toolkit—held in a similar hardcase—and opened it, knowing the phone would not be within. He worked in an unthinking rage, opening every compartment four times and finding no phone. He tossed the guns and knives and cash aside. He emptied the compartments of the flares and flashlights. And with a growing dread he realized the phone was gone, too. Nine had taken the phone and had given it away.
Four calmed himself and slowed his breathing. Now he thought briefly of murder. By stealing the first-aid kit and phone, he had greatly endangered Four’s life. He had brought him far closer to death than he’d been with these protections; it was like driving Four to the edge of a cliff. It was tantamount to murder, so Four’s contemplating actual homicide was not irrational. It was logical. It was next.
* * *
—
He had to work. He had to be contained and moving, so he started the machine and worked through the afternoon, calmed by the straightness of the road as it passed, undeviating, through grasslands and briefly under a canopy of tortured oaks. Under dappled white light Four noticed a vehicle to his right, driving on the embankment. It was Medallion, hunched over in the cab of a tiny three-wheeled vehicle, a tuk-tuk with a small truckbed. Another man rode a motorcycle in parallel, his face stern with purpose. Medallion pointed to the truckbed behind him, and sped up so Four could see a figure there, covered in a tarpaulin. It was Nine. His limbs were stiff and his face was gray, his tightly closed eyes facing the sun. His pallor and rigid posture were those of a dead man. So Nine was dead. Four’s stomach knotted, and he realized he did not want Nine dead, that Nine dead would be far worse than Nine inefficient or meandering. Finally Nine’s mouth opened like a drowning man’s gasping for breath. He was alive. Four felt only faint relief.
Four paused the RS-80 long enough to instruct Medallion to bring Nine to the road’s next pod. Medallion readily agreed, and it wasn’t until Four had restarted the paver that he wondered why Medallion was doing all this. At some point, certainly, he would demand compensation. Being in Medallion’s debt greatly increased the chances of further, and possibly worse, complications. Entering into any financial transaction in a postconflict zone like this was perilous. No deals were fixed; all was malleable. And once funds had changed hands, word would get around that Nine had cash, and there would be no end to the trouble.
* * *
—
Four paved eleven kilometers in the last hours of the day, uninterrupted and alone, until he was within sight of the final pod. One of the sensors indicated that the RS-80’s paint supply was running low, and Four turned around to make sure the double yellow line was still covering steadily. He saw a pair of vehicles moving quickly toward him, and his first thought was of a bouquet of dying roses. There were six or seven men in each truck, each of them wearing a red beret. Four hadn’t seen any men in uniform since he’d left the southern city and immediately assumed he figured into their intentions. The trucks were coming up the road at great speed and the men were clearly armed. He did not panic. He knew the probabilities and he knew his options.
He let the RS-80 continue to run. Stopping would be a mistake, a concession, an admission. He slunk down in his seat, so as not to alert them that he was retrieving a weapon. He opened the box under the seat and found the handgun and put it under his left thigh. He fumbled for a grenade and put it under his right thigh, and all the while the trucks grew louder until they seemed to be directly behind him.
He looked in the rearview mirror and found they were only fifty meters away but had slowed. He took them to be a breakaway rebel group. They planned to ransom him, Four assumed. Or, to defy the president, they planned to take Four and to capture or destroy the paver. From his sunken position in his seat Four continued to watch as they drew closer. Between the two trucks there were twelve men, but now that he could see their faces they seemed strangely casual. A few were talking, laughing. Only the driver was looking forward.
Four was just another assignment, another kidnapping, he assumed. He reconsidered his gun and grenade. He would surely die if he attempted to use either. He tried to put the grenade back in the box under the seat but couldn’t make it fit. He opened one of the compartments in the dash and dropped it inside and then took the gun and slid it into his jumpsuit. He would be frisked and they would find the gun but would not begrudge him for having armed himself. Now he waited.
He considered where they would keep him while they sought a ransom from his company. He would first try to buy them off himself and if that didn’t work he would tell them whom he worked for and how to reach them. The process could be over in days, he knew, but could last months. Workers had been held for years. He glanced into the mirror again, knowing that by now they must be upon his vehicle and ready to force him to stop, but instead he watched as the first truck turned down the embankment and onto a dirt path running perpendicular to the highway. The second truck followed, and he saw the second truckbed, also full of men with red berets, descend the embankment and disappear into the woods. A minute later, a military helicopter emerged from the tree line and banked hard, following them.
* * *
—
Four reached the final pod in the early evening. For the hour after the trucks had almost overtaken him, he had been disarranged—his body calm but his head churning. He could not form linear thoughts. His visions of their plans and his imminent detention were so florid that the reality, wherein he was unharmed and simply sitting in the cab of the RS-80 and continuing his slow work on the road, was far less plausible. He expected the rebels to return. He expected to be thrown from the cab and tied up. But instead he had come upon the final pod, powered down and stepped out of the cab under his own power. Just ahead he saw Nine’s tent assembled at the edge of the trees. A man was standing by the tent, the man who had been in the truck cab with Medallion. He nodded to Four and pointed to the tent. Its flap was open and Four could see Nine’s prone legs, Medallion kneeling beside him. The smell of feces seized the air. Someone had shat in the tent, he was sure. Four’s mind fought itself. He wanted to know how sick Nine was and what the remedy might be. He wanted to know if Nine had stolen the first-aid kit and phone and given them away. He wanted to know if Nine knew anything about the disappearance of the quad. But he also had no desire to see Nine, fearing his own fury.
Medallion emerged from the tent.
“He is very ill,” Medallion said.
“Typhoid,” Four said.
“Or malaria. Or a bacterial infection. Or something else. You and I are not doctors.”
Four suppressed a volcanic rage. Nine had gotten sick on his own accord and had eliminated all options to help him.
“The ride here was not good for him,” Medallion continued. “He had a bowel movement on the way and then again when we stop here. His stomach is very swollen.”
Medallion’s friend was at the tuk-tuk, wiping down the truckbed with a rag. The presence of Nine, and the animal power of the man’s offal, brought Four into the moment again.
“There is a clinic not far from here,” Medallion said. “It is a foreign woman who runs it, she speaks your language. I think the man needs her attention. He needs antibiotics. We can go, and my cousin will watch the vehicle.”
“But we had antibiotics,” Four said. “Did he tell you this? Did you see any medicine? Maybe he gave it to you?”
Medallion looked very confused. “No, no. He had this medicine? Where was it? You still have it?”
“No,” Four
said, and now he knew that Medallion could be trusted. He spoke directly. He looked Four in the eyes. His reactions were genuine. He knew nothing, Four was sure, about the quad or the medicine. Everything Nine had lost he’d lost on his own. Four explained that there had been medicine in the vehicle, but that Nine had likely given it away.
“Then we go to the clinic,” Medallion said, his long fingers holding his square chin.
The news that there was a clinic close by gave Four great strength. At the clinic there would be doctors, perhaps someone from his own part of the world. He would be able to talk all this through. He could get information about whoever the rebel group was. He could stay there for a day perhaps. Perhaps he could even leave Nine with the clinic. Yes, he thought. Nine was sick and he could leave him with the medical professionals who could not ethically turn him away.
“I saw two trucks,” Four said. “They were full of armed men in uniform. They weren’t any uniforms I knew.”
“Actually I know these men,” Medallion said. “These are just opportunists. Bandits posing as politicians. You acquire two trucks and some business cards and you have a rebel movement. They are not to be worried about.”
“They got very close to me,” Four said.
“And they left you unharmed,” Medallion said.
* * *
—
Leaving the RS-80 unattended by company staff was strictly prohibited, so Four proposed that Medallion take Nine in the tuk-tuk.
“There is no road from here to the clinic,” Medallion said. “It is only a narrow dirt path. The tuk-tuk will not make it. But we can take the motorcycle. You will go with me and we will get the doctor and bring the doctor back. Your friend should not be moved again, I don’t think. My cousin will stay with him and the machine.”
