Гарри Гаррисон - 50 in 50

"You're catching on fine. We hit and we leave. The goods we confiscated go in one direction, we go in another. The military finds our tracks and sort of concentrates in this direction. They don't really believe them, they don't believe much of anything anymore, but they don't have much choice. We lead them on a bit, keep them busy until dark, and that is that. By morning we're gone, the supplies are gone, and the world is back to normal." He smiled wryly when he spoke the last word.

"Then we are — so to speak — bait?"

"You could say that. But remember bait is usually placed in a trap."

"Would you explain that?"

"Wait and see."

"Whitey wakin' up," a voice said from behind them.

They stopped and waited until the litter bearers came up to them. The officer's eyes were open, watching them.

"Get up," Mau Mau ordered. "You can walk now, you been in dat baby buggy too long." He put his hand out to help. The officer ignored it and got his legs to the ground and stood, swaying.

"What's your name?"

"Adkins, Lieutenant—10034268."

"Well, Adkins, Lieutenant, are you beginning to wonder why we didn't leave you back there by the road, you being wounded and all that? Isn't often we take prisoners, is it?"

The officer did not answer, and started to turn away. Mau Mau reached out and took him by the chin, dragging his head back until they were face-to-face again.

"Better talk to me, Adkins. I can make big trouble for you."

"Do you torture prisoners, then?" He had a firm, controlled voice that was used to command.

"Not very often. But stranger things have happened in this war, haven't they?"

"To what do you refer? And I prefer to call this a criminal, Communist insurrection."

Bruno had to admire the man. He wondered how he would have acl«&d in the same situation.

"You call it just what you want, Whitey, just what you want," Mau Mau said in a low voice. He went on, still speaking softly. "I think this is more of a war, with you on one side and me on the other. Bad things happen during a war. Did you hear what happened at Ellenville?"

There was the smallest break in the lieutenant's composure. A small start, a slight narrowing of the eyes. If Bruno had not been watching him closely he would never have noticed. Yet the man's voice was calm as ever.

"A lot of things have happened at Ellenville. To what are you referring?"

"Let's move.” Mau Mau said, turning away. "Choppers will be coming soon and we need a few more miles behind us."

They moved in silence after that. The two former stretcher bearers walking close behind the prisoner, guns ready. After about five minutes Mau Man halted them and put his hand to his ear. "Is that a copter out there? Ali, rig that listener and see if you can hear anything."

Ali slung his rifle and took the submicrominiaturized listening device from his pocket. The plastic case was olive drab in color and obviously army issue. He put the earphone into place and sprang open the collapsed acoustic shell. They all watched closely while he turned in a slow circle, listening intently, hesitated, then turned back. He nodded.

"Kin hear one real clear. An' mebbe 'nother one way out."

"Search pattern. Let's double time," Mau Mau ordered.

They ran. Bruno was staggering, exhausted and soaked with sweat, before they reached the clearing that was their destination. There was a banked mound of raw dirt around a yard-wide hole in the center of it.

"Chopper, dive down and get the bolo," Mau Mau said. "Then the rest of you get in there with Whitey and keep a close eye on him." He turned to Bruno. "Stick around, I think that you'll enjoy this."

The big Negro vanished over the mound of dirt and reappeared a minute later with a device like a bulge-barreled telescope that was mounted on a tripod.

"The modern technology of war," Mau Mau said. "The military just love gadgetry, they do indeed. All the hardware makes them feel important and is great for explaining their inflated budgets. Over eighty percent of the federal budget is spent by the military, one way or another, and has been for the past forty, fifty years. You record this. Now the military was glad to have black boys for cannon fodder, in Vietnam and the like, and those boys learned real good how to use all the fancy devices. Of course the army is kind of lily-white these days, but an awful lot of blacks learned how to press the buttons before they were booted out for the good of the service." He stopped and listened. The distant rumble of a helicopter could be clearly heard now. Mau Mau smiled.

"Here come the ofay air cavalry now. They know that a lot of people walked off with a lot of their goods and they have to find them right quick. Because by morning those goods will be buried real deep and safe, and the people will be back at their farms and at their jobs and who's to know? So they go flapping around up there with sophisticated electronic sniffers and body-heat detectors and all kind of expensive junk. They'll smell us out soon. And when they do bolo there will sniff them right back. Got a sound detector in its nose. Works simple and is hard to jam."

Louder and louder the copter sounded, obviously coming toward them now. Bruno resisted the temptation to cringe away from its advance. He knew just what the gunship could do with its rapid-firing cannon, rockets, bombs. .

The nose of the bolo missile was turning. Chopper stood off to one side, the control box in his hand with the cable leading to the tripod. "Range!" he called out, and at the same moment the rocket spat out a jet of flame and hurled itself up into the fog. One, two, three seconds passed — and a great explosion sounded from the sky, which lit for an instant with a ruddy flame. Pieces of debris crashed down through the trees and thudded to the ground, and silence followed.

"Scratch a couple million bucks," Mau Mau said, and pointed to the hole. "Now get down because there will be incoming very soon."

By the time Bruno had stowed his camera and clambered up the mound the other two were out of sight below. Thick lengths of branch were set into the shaftlike rungs of a ladder, and he climbed carefully down them. It was completely dark and musty in the deep hole, claustrophobic. He touched bottom and, by feel, found that a low tunnel went off horizontally. He went into it, on his hands and knees and, after turning two right-angle corners, came out into an underground chamber. Battery lamps illuminated it. It was low, he could stand only if he crouched over, and just big enough for all of them to sit against the walls, knees almost touching. It was roofed with heavy logs, which were notched and supported by even thicker sections along the walls. It was dark, the officer's face the only relieving spot of white in the chamber.

"We have three, four minutes at the most," Mau Mau said. "As soon as the chopper was missed from the radio net they send something flying over to look for it. They'll find the wreck. Then they'll call for air support. Then they'll drop a lot of bombs hoping that there are a lot of nice black people just sitting down here waiting for incoming mail."

There was a muffled explosion and dirt shook down from above. Mau Mau smiled. "Three minutes. They're getting very efficient."

Bruno did not know how long the barrage lasted. There were separate explosions at first, but these quickly joined into a continuous hammering roar. The ground shook under them, bigger clouds of earth fill from above and the roaring became so loud they had to cover their ears. The sound eased a bit when an explosion sealed the entrance tunnel. To Bruno's fear of being killed was added the greater fear of being buried alive. He spoke prayers aloud, but could not hear them. The men looked upward, then at each other, turning quickly away when they caught another's eye. The sound went on and on.