Nelson Demille - The Quest

Mercado scanned the high terrain with his field glasses as he replied, “Yes, but I think the better story is with Prince Joshua.” He added, “Lost causes and crumbling empires are always a good story.”

Vivian said, “Can we stop speaking about the Gallas?”

Mercado lowered his field glasses and told her, “Better to speak of them than to them.”

They continued on, and Mercado sat back in his seat. He said, “The dangerous thing about a civil war is that the battle lines change like spaghetti bouncing in a colander.”

Purcell inquired, “Can I quote you on that?”

Mercado ignored him and continued. “I covered the Spanish Civil War. As long as you travel with one side or the other, you are part of their baggage train. But if you get caught in between or out on the fringes and try to get back in, you become arrestable. You know, Frank, if you had been traveling with the Khmer Rouge, you probably wouldn’t have been arrested. I suppose it all has something to do with spy-phobia. They don’t like people who run between armies. The trick is to get inside the battle lines without getting shot. If you’re challenged by a sentry, you must be bold and wave around your press cards and cameras, as if you had been specially invited to the war. Once you get inside, you’ll usually find the top dogs are courteous. But you must never appear to be arrestable. The business of armies, besides fighting, is arrest and execution. They can’t help it. They are programmed for it. You must not look arrestable or executable.” He asked Purcell, “Do you understand?”

“Why don’t you drive, Henry, and I’ll pontificate?”

Mercado laughed. “Did I hit a sore spot, Frank? Don’t fret. I’m speaking from personal experience.”

Purcell thought he was speaking to impress Vivian.

Mercado continued, “There was one moment there in East Berlin when I could have blustered my way out of arrest. But I started to act frightened. And then they became more sure of themselves. From there on, it was all just mechanics. From a street corner in East Berlin, less than a thousand yards from Checkpoint Charlie, to a work camp in the Urals, a thousand frozen miles away. But there was that one moment when I could have brazened my way out of the situation. That’s what happens when you deal with societies where the rule is by men and not by law. I had a friend shot by the Franco forces in Spain because he was wearing the red-and-black bandanna of the Anarchists. Only he didn’t know it was an Anarchist bandanna. He was just wearing something for the sweat. A handkerchief he had brought from England, actually. They stood him against a wall and shot him by the lights of a truck. Poor beggar didn’t even speak Spanish. Never knew why he was being executed. Had he made the appropriate gestures when he realized that it was the bandanna that was offending them, had he whipped it off and spat on it or something, he’d be alive today.”

“He’d have screwed up someplace else and gotten shot.”

“Perhaps. But never look arrestable, Frank.”

Purcell grunted. There had been one moment there, back in Cambodia… a French-speaking Khmer Rouge officer. There were things he could have said to the officer. Being an American was not necessarily grounds for arrest. There were Americans with Communist forces all over Indochina. There were American newsmen with the Khmer Rouge. Yet he had blown it. Yes, Mercado had hit a sore spot.

Purcell came around a curve in the road and said, “Well, you have a chance to prove your point, Henry. There’s a man up ahead pointing a rifle at us.”

Vivian sat up quickly and looked. “Where?”

Mercado shouted, “Stop!”

Purcell kept driving and pointed. “You see him?”

Before Mercado or Vivian could reply, the man fired his automatic weapon and red tracers streaked high over their heads.

Purcell knew the man’s aim couldn’t be that bad, so it was a warning shot. But Mercado dove out of the Jeep and rolled into the ditch on the side of the road.

Purcell stopped the Jeep and shouted to him, “You look arrestable, Henry!” He stood on his seat and waved with both arms. He shouted, “Haile Selassie! Haile Selassie!” He added, “Ras Joshua!”

The soldier in the dirty gray shamma lowered his rifle and motioned them to approach.

Vivian peeked between the seats. “Frank, how did you know he was a Royalist?”

Purcell slid back in the seat and put the Jeep in gear. “I didn’t.”

Mercado climbed out of the ditch and crawled into the passenger seat. “That was a bloody stupid chance you took.”

“But you weren’t taking any chances at all.” Purcell moved the Jeep slowly up the road.

Mercado, trying to explain his dive into the ditch, said, “I thought he was a Galla.”

“I could see that he wasn’t.”

“Do you even know what a Galla looks like?”

“Actually, no.”

They drove closer to the man, who they could now see was wearing a sash of green, yellow, and red-the colors of Ethiopia and of the emperor.

Purcell said, “Well, we’re now in the Royal Army.”

Mercado replied, “Good. This is where the story is.”

Purcell reminded him, “The Provisional government forces could have gotten us back to Addis. Prince Joshua probably can’t even get himself out of here.”

“We don’t know what the situation is.”

“Right. But I know that your safe-conduct pass from the Provisional government won’t do us much good with the prince.”

Mercado didn’t reply for a moment, then said, “I’ve actually met Haile Selassie here in ’36, then again when he was in exile in London.” He assured Purcell and Vivian, “I will tell that to Prince Joshua.”

Vivian, who knew Henry Mercado better than Purcell did, asked, “Is that true, Henry?”

“No. But it will get us royal treatment.”

Vivian said, “That’s why I love you, Henry.”

Purcell advised, “Don’t look arrestable.”

They were within twenty meters of the soldier and they waved to him. He didn’t return the greeting, but he pointed to the right.

Mercado said, “He wants us to take that small path.”

“I see it.” Purcell swung the Jeep to the right and gave a parting wave to the tattered soldier on the rock. The smell of the dead began to permeate the air, although they saw no bodies yet. Purcell navigated the Jeep up the narrow path that looked like a goat track.

Mercado pointed to a flat area ahead. About a dozen bodies lay ripening under the sun. A soldier with an old bolt-action rifle walked toward them. Purcell wove around the dead bodies and drove the Jeep toward the man, who was looking at them curiously.

Mercado stood up and yelled a few Amharic words of greeting. “ Tena yastalann! ”

“That’s the stuff, Henry,” said Vivian. “Ask him how his kids are doing at Yale.”

“I did.”

The man approached the Jeep and Purcell stopped. Mercado waved his press card and said, “Gazetanna,” as Purcell held out a packet of Egyptian cigarettes.

The soldier wore a shredded shamma and bits and pieces of web gear. He smiled and took the cigarettes. Purcell lit one for him. “Ras Joshua.”

The man nodded and pointed.

Purcell moved the Jeep farther up the hill through grass that came up to the windshield. There was little evidence of military activity and few physical signs of the night’s artillery barrage. As in most third world armies, Purcell knew, the weapons of modern war were more for the sound and the fury than anything else. The artillery barrages were small compared to modern armies, and most of the ordnance went wide of the mark. The real killing was done in a manner that hadn’t changed much in two thousand years-the knife, the spear, the scimitar, and sometimes the bayonet of the rifles without ammunition.