Greg Bear - Quantico

Or the radio was simply busted. The M2GPS on his belt was haywire, working only about half the time.

Their last hope was the C-SARB that relayed their position and aircraft ID in microbursts at irregular intervals. To enemy trackers, it would sound like cosmic hash-or nothing at all.

When Harris caught up, Fouad handed him a bottle of water from the pack. Harris was trying to look in all directions at once. His broken arm, slung close to his chest, was obviously hurting but now was no time for painkillers. They had about a week’s worth of food. The water would last at most two or three days.

Harris took a drink from the bottle. ‘They’ll find us,’ he said. ‘To them, it’s like a day in the country picking flowers. They’ll track us from the wreckage. They’ll kill us and take pictures and spread our headless corpses out on the desert to dry. That’s how screwed we are.’

Fouad did not feel much more sanguine about their chances.

They had pulled Fergus and as much equipment as they could from the smoking ruins of the Superhawk. Master Sergeant, the Captain, the co-pilot and crew chief, and two other crew members, whose names Fouad had never learned, had been inaccessible, along with the more powerful weapons and most of the survival gear.

The forward bulkhead and the floor beneath Fergus, Harris, and Fouad had been ripped up and slammed to the back of the cabin by the initial impact and that had saved them when the helicopter had finally bounced off one boulder and ploughed into another. Fouad was not clear on all this. Some of the memories were returning, but right now, they were simply not relevant.

Fergus had died while they were still in the air. They had dug a quick grave and covered him with a hatch, the most they could do under the circumstances.

‘Well, pilgrim,’ Harris said, trying to stand straight. ‘What’s say we hide like furry little rodents.’

Fouad checked his compass and the chart from the map pack. He had looked at the stars the night before, after arranging the sling for Harris’s arm. They had not traveled far from the high barren field before being shot down. Or had they? He had been napping. Still, he thought he knew where they might be within twenty or thirty klicks. He hoped he knew.

Any crumb in a famine.

‘You take the blanket,’ Fouad instructed Harris, who was already shivering. ‘Sleep. I will stand watch.’

‘I’m not going to argue,’ Harris said. He found a crusty, sandy place next to a large boulder, lay down gingerly, and pulled the silvery thermal blanket over himself. The sun was past zenith and the air was already chilly and dry. Fouad’s throat hurt and his legs ached and his bruised chest felt tight. Breathing deeply hurt, as did pressing on his right side. Very likely ribs were broken. Finally, he was grateful for the extreme fitness regimen at Quantico. Victory over pain, Pete Farrow had called it.

‘Any guess?’ Harris called from the side of the boulder.

‘Still in Iraq,’ Fouad said. ‘Near no place we would know the name of.’ He walked over, held the chart out to Harris, and pointed to a square several centimeters across. ‘Somewhere in here.’

‘Very good,’ Harris said. ‘Awesome. That’s totally reassuring.’

‘Now sleep.’

Harris saluted and lay back with a groan.

A few minutes later, Fouad heard him shout ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ Harris shuffled past him, brushing his pants with his good arm.

‘Scorpion,’ he said. ‘Got my trousers but missed my leg. Fuck this. Fuck this to almighty hell. Did you know scorpions out here produce cytotoxic venom? Like a recluse spider. Haemolysis, necrosis, ankylosis, kidney failure, you can even go off your head-even. Very nasty shit.’ His eyes were red-rimmed and his face looked hot from fever. He danced from foot to foot for a few seconds, then let out his breath with a whoosh and barely controlled his fall to one knee.

‘Again, you are lucky,’ Fouad said.

‘Yeah, lucky,’ Harris said. ‘Do you think anybody cares what’s in this box?’ He reached up to tap the aluminum case.

‘For the sake of Fergus and Master Sergeant and the others, yes,’ Fouad said.

‘Did you ever learn Master Sergeant’s name?’ Harris asked.

‘No.’

‘Wait. I’ve got it here.’ Harris pulled out the duplicate tags that had been slung by the rear hatch, fanned through them with one hand, and read the stamped label above the ID chip. ‘Jerry Walton. Jesus. We’re as dead as Jerry Walton.’

‘Sit and be still,’ Fouad suggested, patting the ground beside him. ‘They could have infrared.’

‘I don’t want to take a pain pill,’ Harris said. ‘I want to be clear-headed when they kill us.’

‘Shh,’ Fouad said.

‘Fuck, it hurts.’ Harris squatted beside him and they watched the skies over the plain. Soon, Harris was on his back again, asleep but restless. The last of the dust devils had cleared. The sun was within minutes of setting. Soon it would be dusk, then night.

Fouad used his compass and quickly oriented himself, then laid down the flap edge of the sack and knelt on it to pray. He had to begin before sunset. Eventually he would have to catch up on the missed prayers. To pray was more than relief, far more than duty; it was a marvel of renewed strength.

He performed four raka’at.

A few minutes later, Fouad heard Harris cursing softly in his sleep. This was a profanation, but what could be done? His companion was in pain. He finished his prayers, then added a Ya Latif. As the evening deepened and the plain was covered in a veil of gray, Fouad spoke in a soft voice,

‘ You who is gentle with children still in the wombs of their mothers, exhibit thy gentleness and grace towards us, a grace that befits Your Generosity and Your Mercy, O You who is the Most Merciful… ’

He did not often pray for relief from his distress. It was his thought that God, even in his deep and abiding love, had many concerns and should not be bothered for petty ills and sorrows. This his father had taught him, though his mother had also said that God never tired of listening. But now was definitely the time for extraordinary help and guidance.

When night fell, they could not risk using any light, and so they would not see the scorpions.

Seattle

‘I am no longer your boss,’ Rebecca said. ‘You’re buying the first round.’

‘You’re still senior,’ William said. This brought a look from her that seemed at once angry and vulnerable. She turned back to the bar menu.

‘For someone of my age and seniority, I am hungry,’ she said with forced cheer.

‘Not what I meant, of course,’ William said. He smiled at their figures in the mirror behind the ranked collection of bottles filled with amber, green, blue, and pale fluids. ‘We could buy all of those and forget for an entire evening. That’s what blue people often do.’

‘Tell me more about people who are blue.’

‘All right,’ William said. ‘We are few. We are blue. We protect him and her and you. I had a partner when I was working OCID-’

‘Organized Crime Investigations Division,’ Rebecca said. ‘Right after getting kicked out of vice. That’s how you got into FBI. The joint taskforce.’

‘That’s part of it. My father’s reputation preceded me like Cyrano’s nose.’

‘Cyrano? Was he a goombah?’

‘Cyrano de Bergerac. He had a huge nose and flew to the moon. You know Cyrano. He wrote letters for a guy who was in love with Roxanne. But he was in love with Roxanne, too, so it was tragic.’

Rebecca gave him a you-are-shitting-me stare.

‘Steve Martin, Darryl Hannah,’ he said.