The Mantis

by Mike Gomes

  “Not from what I can tell. He sounds like a guy who wants to blow that place up.” Otto let out a breath. “You think they tortured me badly, it was nothing compared to what they did to him. He spent years with them.”

  “So now he will just wipe out lots of innocent people?”

  “If it means he will get the guys who hurt him and his people, he will just consider them collateral damage,” Otto confirmed. “You have to remember you’re not dealing with a world class mind here. This guy was a minor player and he fell ass backwards into getting this bomb. He is the worst kind of guy to have it. He doesn’t realize it’s worth so much more to him not being detonated.”

  “So why is he willing to see me?” Gabriella was curious.

  “You’re the mule.”

  “Excuse me?” Gabriella questioned. “I’m a what?”

  “You’re a mule. It is a drug running term for the person that brings the drugs from place to place. But you’re going to be bringing the bomb to its position for detonation.”

  “And why would he trust me?”

  “Because I said you’re okay.”

  “That’s all it took, is you saying I was okay?” Gabriella asked.

  “When you spend some time with a guy in a Russian gulag, you get a certain bond with him,” Otto said. “We busted out of the place together. He trusts me.”

  “Why are you going against him now?”

  “Because he’s willing to kill several million people who did nothing,” Otto said, looking to the ground. “I can’t be part of that. If I refuse to set up the bomb, he will get another person to do it who will most likely explode the damn thing.”

  “When and where is the meeting?” asked Gabriella keeping her focus on the job.

  “Two days at seven PM in Moscow. He wants to take us to dinner.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  MANY YEARS AGO

  The gulags were first developed under Joseph Stalin. The man used the gulag system to keep political rivals and outspoken members of the community in check. Forced labor camps, that were developed to beat men down into submission by working fourteen-hour days in all kinds of weather with little protection for them. Death was a frequent occurrence in the gulags, as men would drop from exhaustion in the midst of doing their daily work. There was no time for relaxation, there was no time for rest. Men's bodies were beaten by the horrific work placed upon them, and the sadistic guards wouldn't think twice about leveling the butt end of their rifle between the shoulder blades of a man who was not working fast enough and hunched over with a shovel. Gulag life was such that it was designed to break men of their will, until they either simply collapsed from death or became a distant shadow of who they once were. Never returned to their families, never returning to their friends, but simply continuing to work, until the sweet relief of death took them in and allowed them to escape the horrors that they had seen day-to-day.

  "I thought they did away with these things back in '55," Otto muttered, as he lifted up the sledgehammer to crack a large rock obstructing the shoveling from the men around him that sat in the earth. The blades kept furiously working around the rock, digging deeper in, giving him more opportunity to strike. The furious nature of the work wasn't so much for the need to get the rock out of the ground, but more to keep the guards at bay. The men inside the gulag had a saying twisted from the colloquial words, "Our idle hands are the devil's playground," but instead, the men of the gulag would say, "Idle hands put a man in the ground." They knew full well that there was no repercussion for the guards to strike down and kill a man at any time.

  "What's the matter? You guys don't talk?" Otto questioned, again swinging the sledgehammer up above his head and then hard down onto the rock. The vibration from the iron head of the sledgehammer rose up through the shaft and into his hands, up his arms, and into his chest. His thoughts drifted to the thousands of times he was going to be required to do this day in and day out. "Come on, guys."

  "Don't talk too much," whispered the voice of a man next to him, not raising his head, but digging in the shovel harder and harder to the ground around him. "If they catch us talking, they'll come and beat us."

  "Just for talking out here?" Otto asked.

  "Yes, now keep it down," the man spoke quietly. "You can whisper, but make sure you're looking at your work. Don't make eye contact with anybody. Save that for later on when we're back in our cells."

  "I don't even have a cell yet. They immediately sent me here." Otto again, took another swing and cracked the rock, splintering off a small edge. "I've got no idea where to go. They just sent me out here after giving me these clothes. There wasn't a trial or anything."

  "None of us had a trial in here," the man said. "By the way, my name is Akio Mari Moto."

  "Nice to meet you. My name is Otto," he replied, looking at the sky as the clouds overhead filled with darkness, letting him know that soon snow would be falling.

  Siberia had long been a destination for political prisoners under the old Soviet Republic and the new Russian Empire. Although the gulags had thought to have been closed, in secrecy there was still control over those who defied the Russian government and needed to be placed somewhere that was far away from the common man. They would also send the message that people simply disappeared with no return, so all citizens should be careful of what they say.

  "Just stick with me, okay?" Akio Mari Moto kept his voice down in a hushed tone. "I have no cellmate and they really don't assign anybody to cells anyways. Basically, when you get in there, it's a war zone that's worse than out here."

  "What are you talking about?" Otto asked, stunned. "They have to have guards. They have to have some control or there'd be riots."

  "Oh, there are riots all the time. They're between different groups within the gulag. Gangs, political groups, everything you can think of. But the guards couldn't care less. If we kill each other it just makes it easier work for them." Mari Moto let out a sigh as he squeezed his shoulders together backward, making a cracking sound that he knew he would do dozens of more times throughout the day. "They watch us from above. Anything that goes on inside the blocks, stays within the blocks. The guards really don’t give a damn."

  "How do I know that they'll let me go in where you are? They're at least gonna look at what block I'm in."

  "Buddy, I don't know how much more plain I can make this. They don't care," Mari Moto spoke slowly and quietly, glancing up quickly, catching Otto’s eyes, creating the first eye contact between the men. "Just follow me in, and then come with me right to my cell."

  "I think I've heard this story before," Otto muttered. "It seems like I'm setting myself up to be somebody's girlfriend. Once you get me in that cell, I've got no way of getting out."

  "Hey man, I'm trying to give you a solid here. You're new, and I'm trying to help you just like someone helped me. I don't want you for a girlfriend or some inmate prize to trade. I'm trying to cut you a break. People talked that you were coming in anyways."

  "What do you mean they talked about me coming here?" Otto asked, wondering what the word had been about him before he had arrived.

  "They said there was a spy that was coming in. That's why I'm working this pile with you right now. I was in the business too."

  The two men, along with all the rest of the prisoners, continued to work, raising shovels, picks, and axes, slamming away at ground that they would break up for a new road.

  The relentless work only yielded for twenty minutes where the men would be allowed to break for a cup of water and a crust of bread. All too often, the bread held mold, and the flies had found their way into the water. But at this time of the year, as the snow had started to fall, Siberia created its own way of preserving the foods that the men would get. The two men ushered through the lines to collect their meal with their heads down, heads shaved, and the look of drawn depression upon their faces. The same look on the faces of all others who went through the line.

  "For Christ's sake, this look
s like the old pictures of the Holocaust," Otto declared, sitting down on the ground next to the man he had just met. "Everybody looks two steps from death."

  "Still don't make eye contact," Mari Moto said quietly. "That's what they look for. They'll go charging over to someone, screaming about them being saboteurs, and then start to roll heads. Someone will be dead before the day is out."

  "Is it random or is there at least a reason of some kind?" Otto asked, looking at the guards patrolling around the prisoners as they ate. Every five minutes, a yell would come out letting them know how much time was left in their break.

  "As you can see, we all kind of self-select where we want to be," Mari Moto said, keeping his tone hushed. "Over here with us, we're the abled body guys. Most of us have been here less than a month, maybe a little bit more if you came in really strong. Down off the edge of this mound, you got the guys that have been here longer term, right around up to six months. They're exhausted and they're tired, and they've shared an experience that the rest of us have no idea about. That's when people go into the silent phase, they just stay within themselves. Some of them get crazy dreams about trying to escape, but they never make it very far. Their bodies have been too depleted.

  “They wind up getting shot along the side of the road, or sometimes the guards just let them run if there's a field. And once they reach about a hundred yards, they start taking shots like it's a contest. They never even go out to check to see which body it is. It doesn't really matter. They're just counting heads at the end of each day. Even if you did slip away, they'd never tell anybody. They'd just send out the dogs to track you and kill you. The worst to be, is those guys down there on the left, down near the road. Some of them can't even make it up here to the chow line. They have to rely on friends to go through twice. Friends that are willing to give up part of what they do and what they're going to eat to help save them. A lot of them don't even have the strength to eat anymore. In the twenty minutes that we have, they may have two or three bites, but that's about it. They're just about to the point of acceptance about what's gonna happen to them."

  "They know they're gonna die," Otto murmured, staring at the ground and shaking his head, not wanting to lift it to look at the men suffering down to skin and bones who lay on the ground, pulling in small bits of air before knowing they have to return to their feet for another seven hours of labor. "Those are the guys they had sweeping?"

  "You got it," Mari Moto confirmed. "But here's the worst of it, kiddo, they have these guys typically sweeping dirt. A never-ending process, just back and forth, back and forth over the same area. Anything to keep them working, anything to keep them moving until they've used up about everything they could. The only reason they don't shoot them in a group is because they fear that there will be too many bodies in the way, and then they'll have to clean them up.”

  "Then why the hell don’t we get out of here right now?" Otto asked, causing the man to break from his routine of staring hard at the ground and having to lift his eyes up, creating a hard eye contact.

  "Because you're gonna get a bunch of people killed, that's why," Mari Moto said through gritted teeth. "These guys don't play around. They're just gonna start shooting."

  "Well, you're telling me we're all gonna die anyways. Why don't we make a go for it while we still have some energy? I know this is my first day here, but it only makes sense. Each and every day that goes by, they're wearing us down more and more. The prime time to make a break for it, is now not later."

  "Hey, I understand what you wanna do, and I understand that you wanna help everybody here, but this is a little bit crazy."

  "It's not that crazy," came the quiet voice of a young man sitting several seats away, causing numerous men to stop their eating and quickly glance to him. "I kinda like what this guy Otto is saying. If we're gonna die, let us die on our own terms, not some version of us being worked to death and humiliated. I'd rather run for my life than die in this spot."

  "It's not really that bad. The tree line to the forest is about a hundred yards away. They'll open fire on us for sure, but if we could take out one or two guards beforehand, get a little something we could use for some cover fire back at them, we might just have a shot," Otto said, rolling with his idea now. "I'm not bullshitting you guys. In fact, I volunteer that I'll take out one of the guards if someone else can meet me and do the same thing."

  "I'll do it. As long as it's that bastard Barhovski. He's right at the end of the chow line. Separated my shoulder the first day I got here. He wound up taking a big rock and dropping it on my shoulder because I wasn't moving fast enough. I'm dying to put him in the ground."

  "Okay, let's spread the word. Only the able bodies," Otto declared, taking a semblance of control that was met with no reaction from the other men.

  "Sorry there, Otto, but I'm kind of the leader here. You could say I have higher rank than the rest of these guys. But I like your plan and I think they do too, so let's do it," Mari Moto said with a small smile. "Just realize, guys, we got one shot, and I sure don't wanna start running across that field only to have you guys not running with me."

  The bell rang ending the short lunch time, and a gunshot fired into the air, telling all the men to get to their feet. Just like cattle, the men were instructed where to go, and poked and prodded on their way to find their positions to, again, start the swinging of the various tools they held.

  As the day shifted into evening, dusk began to drop on the land.

  "Perfect timing. It's not gonna be as easy to see us," Otto said, giving out a wry smile. "The dark clothes they gave us will help."

  A murmur came up from the men in agreement as Mari Moto glanced up out the corner of his eye and gave a smile in return.

  "I'll make the first move. Bordetsky is right over there."

  Straightening up his back, Mari Moto stretched his shoulders again, cracking his back, only to be met by a stream of Russian profanity coming from just the man he wanted to see coming at him.

  "Mari Moto, what do you think you're doing?" Bordetsky barked, pushing the butt end of his rifle into the man's chest, hard, making him stumble back a few steps.

  "Nothing, sir, just stretching my shoulders."

  "There's no time for this. Get to work," Bordetsky growled as he stuck out his index finger, pointing to Mari Moto and then to the ground.

  "Why don't you give him a break?" Otto said from the other side, causing Bordetsky to turn quickly to face the man who had just dared to question him.

  "And who in God's name do you think you are?" asked Bordetsky, just a split second before the metal of the shovel creased between his jaw and nose. A rapid, swift swing, better than any baseball player had done before, cracked the man's jaw and cheek in one blow with a mighty pinging sound that came from it. Dropping to the ground, Mari Moto again drove the shovel spearing through the neck of Bordetsky, who laid on the ground, the blade incision halfway through his neck before being hit to the spinal column causing it to stop, but a loud crack resulted and blood drained from the hole in his neck.

  Scooping up the gun, Mari Moto saw the other guard in the area had been alerted to what was going on.

  Running into the fray, the second guard was quickly met with a pickaxe to the chest. One of the men at random, driving it through him, causing a stop in his motion. Seeing the opportunity, Otto scooped up the rifle and pointed at the man, telling him and all those around him to run.

  Turning and running with the group, Mari Moto and Otto made their way across the field with a burst of energy. Within fifty yards of the tree line, bullets began to fly, and the two men pulling up the rear of the others behind them started to spray bullets in a random fashion behind them, causing the guards to take cover.

  "Twenty-five yards to go," yelled one of the members running through the fields. "More cover fire, more cover fire."

  Letting out another burst, Otto and Mari Moto stopped another volley of fire.

  "Everybody, random directions, they ca
n't find us all," Mari Moto shouted, hoping that the men would follow his heed.

  "You mind if I stick with you?" said Otto said, looking to Mari Moto.

  I think we make a good team," Mari Moto nodded. "If only we can stay alive."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The sun drifted across the sky dipping below the horizon into the east, the light turning to darkness bringing along the chill, and the stars popped out overhead. The small number of miles between the major city of Moscow and the campsite that they held was enough that the city lights wouldn’t hamper them from seeing the stars clearly.

  "Are we making a move for the city tonight?" Gabriella asked.

  "I thought you were the one in charge," Otto said as he lifted his eyes up to look at the woman in the soft firelight.

  "Well you're the man with all the information," Gabriella huffed. "Do you need to make another contact with our man, or is what you've done enough?"

  "I couldn't make a contact if I wanted to," Otto said flatly. "I don't have the means anymore, I destroyed the transmitter."

  Gabriella looked in surprise at the man who stared back at her blankly. Her green eyes blazed through the firelight that put an orange tint on everything. Otto stared back at her, noticing that her eyes held power and beauty. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and a light amount of dirt covered her hands and cheeks, she was a beautiful mystery.

  "You destroyed it?" Gabriella was stunned. "Straight out of the spy’s handbook. Get rid of the communication device when you're done making communication."

  "It might be a little bit cliché, but it makes perfect sense," Otto let out a small chuckle at the end of his comment. "It's not that I don't trust you. Well, that's wrong actually, I don't trust you."

  “If I had been in your situation, I would have smashed that communicator into little tiny bits and then buried it. You did remember to bury it, right?”

  “I ate it,” Otto said, casting a large smile with his voice followed by a choking sound. “So now the only way you get that device is to cut me open while I sleep, or you can just go sifting through my mess.”