Rain is pissing down on me. My fingers twirl thin wires around the contacts of a control unit. Five minuscule dollops of C4 cling to each wire pair; ten pairs trail to the controller. Explosive squirrel droppings on a string.
‘Ready,’ I whisper and a small crack sounds in my ear. Runner doesn’t speak now. He’s too close to the BSA camp, compressing soil to the sides and bottom of the fourth and last of our foxholes. Or maybe he’s already smoothing dirt and leaves over the bamboo lid.
I crawl back to our hideout, a two-layered shelter made of a tarp with a grass-covered netting a few centimetres above it. The tarp blocks our thermal signatures. Should the tarp begin to warm up — it hangs a mere twenty centimetres above us — the netting and greenery above it will cloak and diffuse the thermal signatures of our bodies and muzzle flashes to an undetectable blur.
I wait, scanning the camp through my night-eye and trying to find Runner, but there’s no trace of him. He must be on the way back already.
In these past days of reconnaissance and preparation, the Taiwanese forest has begun to feel like home. It’s not too different from where I grew up. Mountains, beeches, maples. The firs look a bit different, though, and the red cypresses are impressive — taller and thicker than any tree I’ve ever seen. I love these ancient giants that seem to touch the sky with their crowns and grab the Earth’s belly with their mighty roots. The bamboo forests freak me out; they feel like a trap — nothing to climb, nowhere to hide, only a too-evenly spaced mass of slender stems.
Even the birds here are familiar. Some of them, anyway. I’ve seen nuthatches and great tits, red tails, and dippers. Others look like odd versions of the birds I knew. There’s a blackbird with a white head, and ravens with blood-red beaks. I’ve yet to find out what sings like a creaking door — that thing is so loud, it grates my eardrums. Or the creature that sounds as if someone is rasping a piece of metal over a comb. I’ve never seen it, but I guess it’s an insect.
‘On my way back,’ sounds in my earbud. ‘At the stream, now. I’ll wash and find us some food.’
‘I’ve got your back,’ I answer, and scan the small river until I find Runner stepping out of the woods and stripping naked. My gaze is stuck to his skin. The night-eye paints his caramel body white as marble with a greenish glow. His long hair is tied back; one strand escaped and now rests on his collar bone. His beard is cropped; short black hair covers his chest, a thin black line trailing down to…
I tilt my rifle a fraction to scan the forest behind him. It’ll be kept in my crosshairs until he’s on the move again.
Two hours before sunrise, Runner returns. All is prepared, the rucks are packed, rifles and ammo are in position. He lies down next to his weapon, and I rest my eyes for a bit, drink water, and eat handfuls of the berries he’s brought.
Tonight, I’ll be the spotter, correcting for windage and distance in the twilight, reporting on spray of dust if his bullet misses the target. I’ll also control the small detonations that mimic muzzle flashes up on the crest of our side of the mountain. With the rising sun at our backs, no one will be able to see Runner’s muzzle flash. Instead, the BSA will see minuscule explosions four hundred metres away from us, just at the edge of the rising sun.
‘Fifteen minutes,’ he whispers.
I stare through my scope and see the first movements in the camp. A man walks out of a tent, stretches his muscles and walks south. To us, the camp is a map in the sand with sections identified by number-letter combinations. The man walks from B2 to E1 and pisses at a tree.
The fifteen minutes are up. The rising sun shields us now.
‘E1,’ Runner says. ‘Centre mass.’
When the first shot rips through the morning, I press the first button. Up on the crest, the first pop echoes. The man in my finder falls. Red explodes from his shoulder.
‘Right shoulder,’ I whisper and he fires the second shot. The abdomen rips open. ‘Target down.’
Runner has to fire five shots in increments of approximately two seconds to match each series of five miniature explosions up on the crest. ‘E5. Centre mass,’ he says and hits a man in the chest.
‘Target down,’ I answer. ‘Centre mass.’
The camp snaps into frantic activity. Men run to their weapons, but none of them has the slightest clue where the attack comes from.
‘C4.’
‘Down.’
‘C4, again.’
‘Down.’
Men try to find cover behind the sandbags. A group runs into the forest and I’m not sure if they are running away from danger or trying to find us. Erik has left and that is a good thing. The commander is the most vital part — cut the head off and you’ll get a wildly twitching body.
Now, the kids come swarming into the centre of the camp, herded by men with rifles.
Runner raises his head from his scope and looks at me. Severe is what comes to my mind. ‘Endure,’ he says, and aims.
When he doesn’t announce the camp section he’ll be firing into, I look through my scope. One of the girls is dragged to the trunk of a fallen tree. She’s screaming and kicking. A man holds her hair in one fist, an axe in the other. Her heels kick up dust.
‘B4,’ Runner rasps.
No, no, no! I think. That’s not where the man with the axe is!
He fires and I automatically press the second button. A man falls, and I say, ‘Down.’
As I’m supposed to.
Screeching pulls my view to the girl on the chopping block. The man swings the axe, the blade reflects the orange light of a rising sun.
‘A2.’
A crack and a moment later, both man and axe drop, and the girl runs away, splattered in her attacker’s blood.
‘Down,’ I huff.
‘A2,’ he says again, and I repeat, ‘Down.
Wind picks up and ruffles the trees. Runner says, ‘A1,’ and I have no time to tell him about the windage before he shoots. Dust flares up at the girl’s feet just before her throat is slashed by another man.
‘Favour right, gentle wind from south-east,’ I say and the next shot hits the man and takes off his hip. He twists and falls. Two seconds later another falls in A1.
Runner takes down twenty-three men, missing only two shots, before the BSA seems to spot our fake muzzle flashes up at the crest. ‘Movement at C3,’ I say. That’s where they keep their rocket launcher.
‘I know. Can you see it?’
‘Yes.’ A flap opens at the tent’s side, a small window cut hurriedly, and a muzzle the diameter of my leg pokes through it. I hope their aim is good. Being on the dangerous side of a heavy gun is not how I’ve imagined it — I need to pee.
Trees bend before I hear the WOOOOOMP of the launcher.
‘Shitty aim,’ I squeak when Runner coolly says, ‘C5,’ and pulls the trigger.
The wind drops and he misses. I call corrections, and he kills another four men before the rocket takes off the mountaintop not far from us. We roll onto our sides, cover ourselves with our rucks as we’ve practiced earlier, and rocks begin to pelt netting and tarp until they collapse on us. When only dust thickens the air, we pull our equipment from the rubble and pack it, hump our packs, and grab the rifles. We brush dust and small rocks over our foot and belly prints, and run down the hill before the BSA comes looking for our dead bodies.
———
Runner draws new figures into the soil. He outlines the camp and points to where men died, and where he missed. He shot twenty seven men. With Erik and two of his men gone, there must be twenty-six men and thirteen kids left in the camp. ‘We’ll rest for two days, then we’ll return. Ask your questions now, Micka.’
‘Why did they kill the girl?’
‘To demoralise us. Every time we attack, they’ll drag one of the kids out into the open and dismember them. Not only do they know how to shock their attackers, they also know that this will stir the hate in each of these kids. They’ll hate us, not the men who kill them. It’s us causing the bloodbath. That’s what these men have drilled into the kids’ brains. They make much better weapons that way.’
That makes no sense to me. I shake my head.
‘When you were little, wouldn’t you have done anything to please your parents? When your father injured you, who was guilty?’ He bends forward, eyes black like mulberries. ‘Who did you blame, Micka?’
‘Myself.’
‘Now, tell me how that makes sense.’ He leans back, giving me space to breathe. ‘A single nice gesture has tremendous weight because these kids hunger for it. Beat them half-dead and tell them you had to do it because the enemy made you do it, then, tell them you don’t want to beat them because you love them, but you have no choice. It works, every time.’
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
‘Next time, we’ll both fire. When a man drags one of these kids out into the open, he chooses the moment well. He usually wants to distract from something bigger. Look out for that bigger thing. The next best thing you can do is shoot the kid.’
‘What?’
‘The one they pick is killed the same day, no matter the outcome of the battle. Even if I fire only one shot, they’ll cut a child’s head off in return.’
‘There are thirteen kids in the camp,’ I croak, trying not to count the days we’ll be firing at men, and causing bloodshed among the kids.
‘Twelve,’ he corrects me.
Feeling sick, I drop my gaze and swallow. Bile burns in my airways. When I look up at him, I can see it — it’s as if he’s opened a door to his own darkness. Something is coiled up inside, waiting to be sprung. He just took twenty-seven lives as if they meant nothing. Yet, he tries to make my life easier for me. I’ve been his accomplice. I’ve helped him kill and cheat the enemy. And all of a sudden, I find myself wanting to be there when he drops his guard.
I shake my head and stand.
‘If you have a magic wand,’ he growls. ‘Wave it now, because self-pity doesn’t get you anywhere.’
‘I…What?’
‘Go ahead and lay down your weapon, weep, and go hug someone who needs saving. I’ll not help you dig your own grave.’
‘What the fuck, Runner?’
‘I have to clean my rifle.’ He stands, walks a few metres away to sit behind a tree, and begins to work.
Puzzled, I watch him for a few moments, then stick my earbud in and say, ‘Have fun. I’ll see what our buddies down at the camp are up to. Maybe they need a hug. Or something.’
He doesn’t reply, only takes his earbud from his pocket and stuffs it into his ear.
I shut up and get to work. Our rucks go into hiding under a pile of leaves, my rifle and I hide underneath my ghillie. That ghillie stinks. I’ve walked, slept, and eaten in it. I’ve lived in that thing since we arrived here. Its inner netting is stiff with sweat and dirt. I’ll have to wash it soon, else I’ll retch.
After a thirty minute hike, I pick a tree roughly three hundred metres north of the camp and prepare for a long day ahead.
Laying my cheek on my rifle’s stock, I scan the perimeter. The scope shows me that the camp is beginning to settle down. Bodies are being dragged into the forest; a man with a gun watches a group of boys and girls dig a hole.
The sun crawls across the sky and slowly begins to dip down again. Shadows stretch. The girl’s body is still stuck to the puddle of her own blood in the centre of the camp. Erik still hasn’t shown. My eyes burn, my mouth is dry, and I need to relieve myself. I edge backwards until my feet touch the trunk, press my back against it, inch down my pants and pee down the bark.
My head aches. I’m dehydrated and I shouldn’t have let this happen. Enough sleep and water is what keeps a well-adjusted killing machine fully functional. A headache and flickering eyesight from dehydration and lack of sleep invite lethal errors. My accuracy goes from close to one hundred percent down to sixty. At this distance, four of ten bullets will miss their targets. I decide against climbing down to find water; I’ll postpone that until night falls. But I can catch up on sleep. After all, Runner’s just slept off his shooting spree stress. I can hear him stir now. I whisper to him, tell him where I am and that I’ll take a short nap. He says he’ll find us some food. He still sounds like he needs time alone. I wonder if it will always be like this. We kill, then we avoid each other.
Nestling in a crook formed by two thick branches and the tree’s trunk, I strap my rifle to my torso and lean my head against the bark. Sunlight peeks through the gaps in my ghillie. In the semi-darkness, I watch the foliage above me and the flickering of light until I doze off.
———
A noise awakens me. I twitch. My heart races but I force my movements to be calm and quiet. Move the rifle in front of you, look through the scope, Micka. Breathe. My gaze sweeps over the camp and the forest between my enemies and myself. The scope shows me two guards leaning against a tree two hundred and fifty metres away from me. They’re precisely where they’ve been on the previous days. It seems they believe us dead. Runner’s plan worked out well.
But then… What woke me?
‘Micka, can you hear me?’
Shit, Runner almost gave me a heart attack. I wipe my face and tap my earbud once.
‘Any movements besides the expected clean-up?’ he asks.
I tap twice.
‘Are you okay?’
I tap once.
‘Good. Retreat. I’ve moved our rucks two kilometres east of where you left them, I’ll give you instructions on how to find my location once you’re on the move. I’m preparing a late lunch. Goat cooked in a pit. Your favourite.’
Saliva floods my mouth and I almost forget to tap my earbud to let him know I’m coming.
Without disturbing a single cricket, I make my way down the tree, find water to refill my canteen, and hike the long way back to find Runner sitting cross-legged under tarp and netting. A leaf-covered hole in the ground burps faint wisps of smoke. The cooking goat meat makes my empty stomach rumble in anticipation.
We debrief after the meal. I tell him about the group of five who made for the site of the impact, about the pit the kids had to dig and the bodies they had to dump. He tells me he’s satisfied with the number of men we took down today and the smoothness of the mission. Two days’ rest, lots of sleep, good food, and a short dash to our buried ammo boxes. Then, we’ll return to terrorise what’s left of the Bullshit Army. He says there’s a chance some of the kids will escape if the men are all dead.
Twelve children kept as meat for the bunks and the battlefield. Why wouldn’t they all run the moment they were free? I don’t understand it. Runner says it has something to do with adaptation and fear. But my mind refuses to swallow this crap. They should have the guts to run. Fuck the fucking BSA.
The two days are over in a rush. I fold my clothes and pack them at the bottom of my ruck, the hammock follows, blanket, mosquito net, cookware, tarp, water filters and canteens, provisions, tools, lines, hooks, tape, a hacksaw, squeeze light, emergency fire starting kit, hunting knife, pliers, a compass should the SatPad fail, and more. MedKits are packed on the sides, ammo in the top pockets. I pack everything tightly and shake the ruck to make sure its innards don’t rattle. We need to be fast, quiet, and flexible.
I’m still worried about pulling the trigger. I know I can do it, will do it. But what if my rifle jams? What if it isn’t zeroed-in correctly and I don’t get to adjust it with tons of bullets zipping all around me and my calculations are off and… Fuck, what if my fingers tremble so hard I can’t even hold my rifle still?