Camp 576, Western China
THE POWs slept in a corrugated iron lean-to built against one wall of the gigantic pit. Behind the hut a cave went back into the rock. The ceiling was just high enough that Teddy could sit upright, but not stand. Dried turds littered the ground between this hut and the next. More hut-caves stretched around the jut of the bluff. All night long lights shone down from the guard towers. Dried grass was the prisoners’ only bedding. Teddy slept nestled with Pritchard and the Vietnamese, and was glad of the warmth.
There were seven POWs in the cave. Teddy Oberg, captured in the raid on Woody Island. “Magpie” Pritchard, the Australian, shot down in the South China Sea. The three Vietnamese, Trinh, Phung, and Vu, whose ship had gone down in the same action. And two U.S. airmen, Fierros and Shepard, shot down over the Taiwan Strait. The space was cramped, but it wasn’t important where you crawled to sleep.
What mattered was more basic.
There was no clock. Only the whistle. No calendar, so Master Chief Teddy Oberg, SEAL Team Eight, U.S. Navy, didn’t know what day it was. Or even what month.
Only that the wind kept getting colder, and now and then crystals drifted down. The air was too dry to snow. But their piss froze in the plastic buckets, and they shivered all day long. The camp’s only concession to winter was to issue a thin flannel-lined jacket and one too-short, weary-looking quilted cotton blanket per man. The prisoners scavenged anything that would burn. Paper, trash, broken shovel handles. One of the Vietnamese stole a discarded tire, but when they burned it in the cave, the smoke drove them out like sprayed hornets.
Lice spread among the prisoners, then fever. The guards sniffled and blew their noses into their fingers, then slapped the POWs. This sickness spread. One by one, prisoners began to vanish.
At night, wolves howled. And now and then machine-gun fire clattered from the towers.
Their Australian messmate raved and shook in a corner. His cough grew worse. Once Teddy caught Pritchard studying what he’d expectorated. Bright blood blossomed in his palm.
One day one of the trusty mechanics left a screwdriver near Teddy’s tray, at the breaker where they processed the ore. When the trusty came back later, Obie said he hadn’t seen it, didn’t know where it was.
Some days there wasn’t any soup, only rice gruel. Then for two days there was no gruel either. After that they were served slops of some grain he didn’t recognize. The hulls were sharp and scratched his throat as he swallowed. He had to force himself to eat it.
He mostly stopped shitting. When he did manage to squeeze a turd out, it was small and hard and licorice-black, with bits of the undigested grain sticking out.
For several days, Phung complained his legs hurt. Soon he screamed softly, talked to himself, and crawled back to the darkest part of the cave, raving and twisting under his blanket. He stank like rotting meat. Vu smuggled back his own corn gruel for him, but Phung wouldn’t touch it.
The next morning Phung was dead. They dragged him outside, and when they came back from work, his body was gone.
* * *
THEN one day the truck didn’t show up. Instead one of the guards came hiking along, rifle slung. She was about five feet high, and her uniform might have fitted her father. She looked to be about fifteen.
Over the last month, the military-age guards had disappeared, leaving only kids and old men. Also, Teddy had stopped hearing the distant thuds he’d always figured were dynamite, excavating explosives, down in the pits. “Prisoners, come with me,” she snapped.
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 another 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.”
Their work unit pecked away at the seams all morning. Teddy was getting better with the pick. He could swing hard, and hit at an angle that chipped off several flakes of the quartz-heavy, sparkling ore. When he’d knocked free a couple of cubic feet, Ragger or Trinh or Shepard or Vu would rake it into a basket, hoist it, then set off on the trek back up to the breakers.
But he had to rest for minutes in between swings, and it took the carriers forever to reach the surface. They weren’t going to make quota. Hell, that was for healthy, well-fed prisoners. The guards shambled among them. They didn’t look all that great either. Their uniforms hung on them, scarecrow-style. They coughed and blew their noses constantly, and perched shivering on rocks. Teddy kept eyeing their rifles. A snatch, when they were nodding off, would be easy. But then what? Down here in the pit, the other troops would mow them down like weed-whackers clearing a highway divider.
The sun came out and hung pale and cold as a frozen opal. He blinked up at it between swings, savoring the faint warmth on his skin. The dust-haze was clearing. Before, he hadn’t been able to see the sun at all.
Around noon a truck coasted down the ramp, silently, engine off. Teddy had a bad turn seeing this, but was reassured when the guards started handing down the familiar tureens. Only three, though, and the prisoners who’d worked in the pit before murmured that there would not be enough.
And it wasn’t corn mush, but the brown soup, the kind that made his turds prickle like he’d been eating briars. A soggy leaf was threaded through the grains, and one tiny slice of what might have been an actual vegetable—turnip, or parsnip. As the whistle droned, Teddy fished it out with his fingers and wolfed it, then inspected the rest like a finicky cat. Squatting on his haunches, he stared into the bowl. Hungry as he was, he didn’t want to eat this crap. It hurt too much when it came out the other end.
He lifted his eyes to the sky. Was that blue? He’d never seen blue here before. Maybe it was a good omen.
Or maybe, just the last blue sky he’d ever see.
They got a break to eat. No more than fifteen minutes, but it was always observed. If nothing else, he understood now why eating was sacramental. When they had their bowls in hand, the prisoners drifted to the shade of the parked equipment. His unit settled against one of the trucks. He examined his ration again, and almost threw it on the dirt. But, finally, forced himself to lick the last grains off the cold metal. If they went tonight, he’d need every erg of energy.
Getting up to return the bowl, he caught a flash of movement above him and cringed. Then hesitantly glanced up, arm lifted to protect himself.
He was staring into red-rimmed, terrified eyes set in a black-smeared, hair-covered face. It was gaunt. Filthy. Only the radiating scars under the grime informed him, after a shocked second, that this was his own visage, reflected in the truck’s side-view mirror. He dropped his gaze.
Then raised it again, struck by a thought.
He looked around. The guards were on lunch break too. The only one visible was across the quarry, facing away.
He reached up. Pressed the button on the driver’s-side door handle, and eased it open. Then, swiftly as a snake, glided up and into the cab, greasing the door closed behind him. Crouching, so his head wouldn’t show.
The cab smelled of diesel and old sweat. He plundered through the glove compartment, then pawed behind the seats. A white metal box: a first-aid kit. But when he unlatched it, it was empty. Next: a tool roll. He unrolled it, hoping for something weapony. Crank rods, a rusty socket wrench set. “Fuck,” he muttered.
Then he saw what lay beneath it.
A nylon towing strap, neatly made up with zip ties.
“Ted-ti?” A familiar croak. He flinched and rolled out of the cab, stuffing the bundle hastily down his pants.
Old Lew was in what looked like gray pajamas. He nodded to Teddy in an avuncular way, and held out a small package wrapped in brown paper.
“Tíngzhi! Nà shì shénme?” shouted the hard-faced guard, strolling over. Lew flinched but stood his ground, chattering so rapidly that Teddy couldn’t follow. He unfolded the paper, displaying the contents. The guard smiled and took some. The old man grinned and bobbed. The guard nodded, spat on the ground, and turned his back to them.
“Ted-ti,” the old man said again, “zhè shì gei nín de. Yigè liwù. Wo bù chouyan de yancao.”
Which he didn’t get, but the way the codger held it out in both hands, bowing, made his intent clear. Teddy bowed too, unfolded it, and sucked air. His astonishment must have been clear, because the old man chuckled as he tottered away.
Leaving Teddy staring down at two slightly bent, obviously well handled, but perfectly genuine Winston cigarettes.
* * *
THAT night he laid out his gear. Just like before a mission. Only this time, instead of Knight’s Armament SR-25 and magazines of M118 heavy-bullet sniper rounds, suppressor, and cleaning kit, a screwdriver sharpened on a shard of flint. Instead of his thin-blade, a stone axe cobbled from a piece of bone and a chunk of black quartz he’d hand-flaked to a point. Instead of battle dressings and a bugout kit, a faded quilt rolled and tied with string woven of braided grass. A discarded plastic bottle filled with water. And the towstrap. Instead of MREs and Power Bars …
For breakfasts, before a mission, he’d liked to eat heavy. Ribeye steaks, or thick slabs of pink fried ham. Fried potatoes, ice cream. Protein and fat you could burn for fuel while humping overland, or up a cliff, or busting down doors clearing a compound.
Fuck that, Oberg. Fuck it. It was probably a lie, but he told himself, Get up that cliff, and you’ll be eating roasted goat. He twisted grass into a plug and tucked it into a cheek. Next to the left upper bicuspid, which was dying, loose in its socket. He scooped ash from the firepit, spat into it, and worked the paste into his skin. Not camo paint, but it would work.
Ragger, at his elbow. “Ready?”
“All set. Maggie?”
Pritchard was gagging in the far corner, where they pissed when they were too sick to stagger outside. Teddy rolled over. “Up for this, Digger?”
“Just lemme cough.… I’m game. I’m game.” He wiped his face and pushed up to hands and knees.
Outside, for the first time in days, the stars were visible. Light to steer by. On the other hand, better for any guards at the top of the bluff to pick them out. He’d never seen any night vision equipment here, but if there was, it would be in the towers. Teddy muttered that he’d take point, to maintain a five-yard interval, and to stay low and hug the cliff.
They went slow, which his foot appreciated. He’d wrapped the prosthesis even tighter than usual, and it quickly numbed. That worked. He slid along the bluff, trying not to turn his good ankle on the scree littering its base. That tuff, or whatever it was, was going to make it hard to climb, but he thought he could make it. Maybe by cutting in steps with the axe. Once he got to the top, the others could haul themselves up by the towing strap.
The stars glittered down. The wind was cold, but not as sharp as before. Spring was on the way, all right.
Would he be here to see it?
He figured the odds were about fifty-fifty.
* * *
AN hour later, the stars had wheeled on. They passed fire-flickers, but most huts were dark, untenanted. From these blew a cold stink like rotting meat.
At last, his leg aching, they reached the ravine. Here the bluff curved in and steepened, but in such a way that they were screened from overhead view. Here, too, a line of poles ended. Which meant either power or communication. From the size of the wires, carefully observed day after day from where he’d been entowered, like a hungry, ugly Rapunzel, atop the breaker, he guessed power. This was confirmed by a sixty-cycle hum.
“Transformer,” Ragger whispered, close to Teddy’s ear. “Which means—”
Teddy put his lips to the pilot’s ear in turn. Mouthed, so low he couldn’t hear it himself over the wind, “Shut the fuck up.”
Fierros fell back. Teddy leaned in and eyed the wire. Then froze, motionless as coal, at an almost nonexistent wash of ruby light somewhere above. So faint that if he hadn’t been in the dark for an hour, he’d never have detected it.
Someone was above them where the cables crossed the wire, drooped, then lifted again to scale the cliff. With a perfect field of view to observe their route up.
He gestured the others down. He wasn’t sure he was fit for this. But he’d taken down sentries before. Killed with a knife. He had the best chance.
Thinking this, he’d already slid into the eroded-out gully under the wire. Had a bad moment when he thought: Mines. But probably erosion would expose them. If he was lucky, he’d hit an edge before he contacted the detonator.
Just take it slow, then … and the stars above his upturned face had wheeled fifteen minutes farther before he hoisted himself by slow degrees to hands and knees.
The shack was above him. The cliff, a black absence above that. From this angle, he doubted that whoever was in there could see him. In sniper lingo, he was in a dead zone. Still, he crept like a tortoise, breathing through his mouth. Extending one hand at a time, then oozing his body up the loose scree after it. Not disturbing a pebble until he reached the rough cold poured-concrete supports of the guard box.
He kept going under it, until he came out the other side.
The back of the shed was open. The light, he saw now, came from a shaded lamp down near a pair of boots. Its upper half painted over, the pilot lamp topped a box he guessed was an intercom linking the posts. The boots belonged to a small soldier perched on a stool high enough to give a view over the wire and up the ravine. A set of black binoculars hung from a nail. The unmistakable shadow of a Kalashnikov leaned against the wall.
Teddy debated. Chert axe, screwdriver, bare hands? He finally slipped out the screwdriver. Six inches of shiv, stone-honed to a needle point.
One more step.
The trooper stared out into the darkness.
Teddy closed, rotating in, jammed his knee into the guy’s back, and wrapped a hand over his face. He jerked the head back with all the rage he’d pent up for months, and with his right plunged the screwdriver in. The guard shuddered, and started to cry out before Teddy’s palm corked her breath.
Startled, Teddy loosened his grip. It was the girl guard, who’d sung and joked with them.
The next moment he was jolted back by a vicious elbow strike that caught him in the solar plexus. He choked, folding, only just managing to hold on. Control the head. The body follows. Warmth drenched his hand as he reoriented the screwdriver and drove it down, through the angle between neck and shoulder, probing for the heart.
She writhed in his arms. Her boot flicked back to hook his ankle. She was small but strong, and he was weak. His only advantage had been surprise, and now that was gone. If she broke free, there had to be an alert button in here. Or she could simply grab the AK. With four puncture wounds in the neck, she’d bleed out, but even after your heart stopped, you had a good thirty seconds before you lost consciousness.
Another elbow strike, but weaker. He kept forcing her head back, palm sealing her mouth and nose. No breath, no fight. He jammed the pick in again, deeper, like a harpooner feeling for the whale’s life.
She fell back, limp, into his arms. Finish your opponent.… He did it, then let her slump to the floor. Slowly, without unnecessary noise.
He sank too, upper body propped against the wall, red and black curtains eddying and flaring before his eyes, like one of his grandmother’s Hollywood openings. His whole body shuddered. The reeks of blood and shit filled the wooden box.
When he had his breath back, he bent to the corpse. It was still warm. Wet. He unbuttoned her shirt, and thrust his hand in. Yeah. Itty-bitty. He pulled out the sharp chert. Positioned it, like a prehistoric hunter preparing to skin his kill.
A hiss jerked him around. “Teddy!”
It was Pritchard. The Aussie dragged himself up the steps and halted, staring. In the faint light Teddy saw his jaw drop. “What the fook are you doing?”
“I took the guard out.”
“I can see that, mate, but what the … never mind. We taking this?” He touched the rifle.
“Bet your ass.” Teddy let the girl’s blouse fall closed and stuck the axe back in his pants. Had he really intended to cut them off? And then do what? His head swam. “Grab it. Let’s go. Somebody’s gonna be calling to check in.” He bent again, searching the body, but found only a metal belt buckle and, in the pockets, a scrap of handkerchief and a small plastic billfold. Leaving the wallet, he rebuttoned her blouse and propped her against the wall. Then, after a moment, covered her face with the cloth.
* * *
THEY climbed in single file, stooped to the ground. When his feet slipped he fell to his knees, which grew warm and wet with blood. His jacket was growing stiff. Caked with more blood, no doubt. Hey, at least it wasn’t his.
He avoided thinking about what he’d been about to do when Maggie had come in.
At the sheer cliff he halted abruptly, bewildered. How had he planned on scaling this? He stood scratching his beard, brain vacant.
At last he remembered, and bent, and slipped off his ragged cloth POW-issue shoes. He dug bare toes into rough rotting stone, getting the feel of it. Knotted the laces, and hung them over his neck. Unlashed the grass rope on his bindle.
He’d cut the steel fittings off the tow line back at the cave, leaving only braided nylon. He doubled it and rewrapped it around his waist and shoulder in the familiar configuration of a climbing rope. Let four yards dangle free, then rethought that and tucked them into his pants. The fewer Irish pennants, the less likely it would snag.
He looked up, hesitated, then reached out. And looped the line around the heavy metal cable that led up the bluff.
The thick wire hummed like a hornet’s nest. Enough volts were coming through it, from some faraway hydroelectric plant or reactor, to run the whole camp. It didn’t even seem to be insulated, from the way the nylon slicked along it when he leaned back. Just smooth, bare copper.
Touch it with his toes dug into the ground, and that would be all she wrote. Actually, if a body part got close enough, high voltage could jump a gap.
Okay, enough thinking … he leaned back even farther, keeping tension on the strap. Planted his feet, and bounced his upper body to slide the nylon up ten or twelve inches. Then, searched again with bare toes for the next gritty foothold.
The bad foot folded on him. He slipped, caught himself, but his sweat-coated face hovered within inches of the bare wire. The soil was crumbling away beneath his clawed right toes. He cocked his head, looking into the face of Death.
Deep slow breaths. Imagine looking through a gunsight at a distant target. Heartbeat. Another breath.
He lifted his leg again, feeling with his toes for the barest crack in the crumbling rock.
* * *
HALF an hour later he lay full length at the top of the cliff, shaking. Patterns chased themselves like flocks of starlings over his retinas. Their black wings throbbed. He gasped for air. Then lifted his head, and peered around.
As he’d expected, it was wired. Jagged coils of concertina outlined themselves against the starlight. It was staked in with what looked like four-inch I beams. Thinner wires within it looked ominous, might be live. He couldn’t tell if there was another belt beyond that, but he’d have put one there. Trap any would-be escapees between the two, pin them with lights, and machine-gun them. He lifted his head higher and picked up the tower, dark against the sky, thirty feet up. That was where the searchlight had come from, the one they’d watched from the cave. Every few minutes, all night long, it roved the pit below, and presumably the wire here too. He clawed up crumbly dirt and rubbed a fresh layer into face and hands. It wouldn’t be enough if the guard was alert, but if he wasn’t, he might not see a motionless shape the color of everything around it.
He thought about neutralizing the guard up here too, but dismissed it. He was too weak to go hand to hand again.
If only he had some way to divert their attention …
First, though, he had to get the rest of the team on deck. After ten frozen minutes, he began a low crawl toward the nearest I beam. Shook it, but it didn’t move. Good.
In the dark, he put a bowline in the end of the nylon, making it fast to the beam. Waited another two minutes; then slid back and dropped the line over the cliff.
Ragger came up next. When he had his breath back, Teddy hissed at him, “Roll off to the right and find a way under the wire.” For once the airman didn’t argue, just crawled off. A smaller shadow next: Trinh. Obie whispered, “Go left and look for a gap.” The shadow nodded.
“Where’s Maggie?” Teddy hissed.
“He is not doing well.”
Fuck. He crawled to the edge. Gradually he made out a darker blot ten feet below. “Magpie! That you? Get your ass up here!”
A cracked whisper-cough floated. “Not … quite sure I can, Teddy-boy.”
“Stay clear of the cable. I’m gonna come in on this line.” He began hauling it up, almost dragging his own flagging corpse over the edge. He gasped as the crumbling rock gave way, and scrabbled backward. But returned to whisper fiercely to the prisoner below, urging him up. At last he gripped outstretched fingers, and pulled him up and over to lie together.
The Australian’s shoulders were shaking. Teddy realized he was coughing, silently, face pressed into the dirt. “Maggie, y’okay?”
“Taken a bit crook today, mate. Just … a bit crook.”
“We’ve gotta get through this wire before that searchlight comes back on.”
“Just … can’t.”
Something liquid bubbled in Pritchard’s throat. Teddy could make out the dark gleam of blood in his beard. “Knackered here, mate. Done for. You … go on without.”
“Don’t give me that shit, Magpie. You’re coming, if we have to drag you.”
“No, oi … been thinking. Gotta cut that light off. No chance making it without.” His cave mate was fumbling at his back, freeing what Teddy realized was the AK. Pushing it into his hands. “That cable … feeds the light, right?”
“Looks like it. Why?”
“Short it with something, breakers’ll pop. No lights.”
“We don’t have anything to short it out with, Maggie. Or—oh—you mean the rifle?”
“No, you’re going to need that.” The Australian waved a hand. “Ready?”
“Magpie … Pritchard … what the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’ve got fooking galloping consumption. Not going to make it into those hills. But, you know what?” He coughed hard, and the bubbling sounded deeper. “Least, I’m dyin’ free. Tell ’em that, if you make it.” He writhed, and Teddy realized he was digging one arm into the friable soil. Spitting his own blood onto it, to make the short circuit complete. His other arm hammered Teddy’s back. “O-roo, mate. Now get the fook going.”
Major Trinh, in the dark. Vu, a smaller, silent shadow behind him. “Gap in the wire. Ten meters to our left.”
Closer to the tower, but maybe that wasn’t bad. Teddy wavered, grinding his teeth, about to argue. Then accepted it. He squeezed Pritchard’s wrist. “We’ll miss you.”
“Half your luck, mate. Half your luck.”
They were on the far side of the wire and crawling for the second belt when the searchlight came on above them. It swept up the bluff, then toward them. Teddy hugged the ground, face buried, but they were too close to be overlooked now. In the next second, a machine-gun bullet.
A sputter and hiss from the cliff edge. A cry, cut off almost instantly.
The searchlight flickered, and went out.
* * *
THERE were three wire belts, with a ditch between the first and second, but the outermost was only half finished; more a warning to outside trespassers than a serious barrier. Once past that, they rose warily to stand erect. Almost not believing they’d made it through. But despite shouting between the towers, no lights had come on. And when Teddy had brushed against a wire with his back, it had been dead, without power.
They began walking.
They trudged along all night, keeping to hard surfaces and then the tops of ridges, when ridges rose. Keeping rock under their feet so they’d leave no tracks. Teddy didn’t have to drive them on. They knew they had to push it. He had to admit, Maggie had been right. No way he could have kept up. Not in his condition.
At dawn they lay concealed on a hill, lost in a chaotic jumble of immense rocks that made him think of the White Mountains. Far ahead the snowcapped peaks of the Tien Shan floated in the clear air.
He lay motionless, belly empty, staring up. Could they really cross them? It seemed impossible. But they had to, or die. He, and Trinh, and Vu, and Fierros.
Yet even death would be better than recapture, and the camp again.