Brendan DuBois - Dead of Night

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed that little fantasy of seeing these young men gunned down. They had ruled this piece of the country like their own little feudal kingdom, stealing whatever they wanted, murdering whomever they wanted, and raping anything female, from eight to eighty, that came across their path. I wanted them to be hurt. I wanted them to be scared. I wanted…

I wiped my face against a coat sleeve. I wanted to throw up, and I trembled. I imagined my father’s blood coursing through my veins right now, the temper, the violence, the easy way to settle things, either through fists or knives or bullets. It wasn’t a nice feeling.

Another quiet comment from Charlie: ‘C’mon, you fuckers, what you got going?’

I looked at the truck again and then put the camera back up to my face, used the zoom function once more. There was some serious talking going on among the three men in the truck’s cab, and then it seemed like the center guy — who, I now noticed, had a goatee—made a decision. Some of his companions in the rear seemed to complain, but he said something sharp and that was that. The pickup truck began to back down the driveway, and then the center guy looked back in our direction and made an expansive shrugging motion with his hands and shoulders, like he was saying, ‘Oops, got me, maybe next time.’

Sure. Maybe next time. I carried on taking photos until the truck disappeared into the thick fog. Then I put the camera down on the ground and sat up, wiped my hands on the side of my coat.

Charlie turned to me and grinned. ‘Guess I earned my salary today, huh?’

I just nodded.

There was a lot of talking and arguing and discussion after the truck left. Charlie just smiled at me and broke down his grenade launcher. I smiled nervously in return, and also felt an odd sense that he and I had shared something when I had passed the weapon over to him. It was like he’d had confidence that I could help him with something so important, and I felt good, even though a minute or two earlier my hands had been trembling with fear.

Peter was yammering away at Jean-Paul, who in turn was talking loudly into the satellite phone, while Karen and Sanjay were standing close to each other, trying to make sure that their voices were heard as well. Miriam, on the other hand, was standing by an open door of one of the Toyota Land Cruisers, eating a piece of German chocolate.

‘…Tell the bloody UN that we won’t move any more unless we get a proper armed escort, damn it…’

‘…If this place is so pacified, what were those militiamen doing, out in the open like that… ?’

‘…Head back to California if this happy crap holds up…’

Charlie whistled a little tune as he put everything away. I went over to him. ‘That was a great job you did, Charlie, a very great job,’ I said.

Even though his words were calm, I could tell he was pleased by what I said. ‘Wasn’t much of anything, Samuel. Guys like that, they feel important and on top of the world when they’ve got the weapons and nobody else has. When the roles are reversed they just scatter away, like when you turn on a kitchen light at night and the cockroaches head for shelter.’

Having been fortunate enough in some ways not to have grown up in an environment like that, I said, ‘What would you have done if they had kept on coming up the driveway?’

‘What do you think I would have done?’ he asked, zipping closed the duffel bag with the grenade launcher inside.

I thought for a moment as the conversation continued around the besieged figure of Jean-Paul, still talking loudly and rapidly into his satellite phone, speaking French.

‘…Nothing against Charlie “here, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better with a couple of APCs at our disposal…’

‘…Can’t trust what the UN says about this area, we should just pack up and get the hell out…’

‘…Agree with Sanjay, this is ridiculous…’

Charlie was waiting for a reply, so I said, ‘I’m not sure what you would have done. All I know is, I’d have hated to be in your position. I mean, standing here, evaluating the threat, wondering if they were just some local toughs, out exploring and looking to steal something. That’d be a hell of a thing, if you had done something and it turned out they were unarmed.’

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Charlie said. ‘That would have been a hell of a thing. So, Samuel, you still haven’t answered the question. What do you think I would have done?’

‘I think you would have done the right thing, that’s what.’

He didn’t say anything in reply, but his smile was wide. Then I looked over at Miriam, who carefully folded up the chocolate wrapper and placed it in a pocket of her down vest. She smiled and winked at me, and I smiled back, thinking then and there that I was falling in love with her. It would have been so simple for her to have let the wrapper fall to the ground but no, she was showing respect and she wasn’t about to trash this destroyed family farm.

‘Bien, bien,’ Jean-Paul said, hanging up the phone and then rubbing a large hand across the top of his head. His face was red and when he turned away from the phone everyone who had been talking fell silent. I was suddenly glad that I had kept my mouth shut, for he looked like he was one sharp comment away from blowing up. That might have been amusing to watch, but my amusement meter was pegged pretty low after what had just occurred.

‘All right, my friends, this is what’s happening,’ he started out. ‘I’ve contacted the military liaison. There’s a quick-reaction force coming here shortly. We are to stay here until they arrive. Charlie, you have my gratitude and that of our little crew here. That was spectacular, what you did, facing them down. Truly spectacular.’

Sanjay interrupted, ‘We should be doing something more, Jean-Paul. We should make sure that the reaction force knows what they’re looking for. Those men and that truck should be taken off the streets—’

Peter interrupted in turn, ‘Yeah, and what kind of bloody description can we give them? A bunch of men in a black pickup truck? You know how many of the towns and villages around here have pickup trucks?’

Charlie spoke up, quieting everyone with his strong voice. ‘Talk to Samuel, why don’t you?’

All faces were turned in my direction, and Jean-Paul said, ‘All right, let’s talk to Samuel, then.’

Charlie was smiling again in my direction, and I said, ‘I’ve got photos.’

Karen said, ‘Photos? You’ve got photos?’

‘Sure he does,’ Charlie said. ‘While the rest of you were hunkered down, Samuel here was doing his job. He got nice photos of those bad boys—am I right, Samuel? Lots of nice photos.’

I turned to Jean-Paul and said, ‘I’ve probably got a couple dozen or so. Group and individual pics of the truck and its occupants.’

Finally, Jean-Paul grinned, came over to me and slapped me on the shoulder. ‘Very good. Here, while we’re waiting for the reaction force to arrive, we’ll uplink your photos to Geneva. Very good, Samuel, very good.’

So I got back to work, with words of congratulation from everyone else in the group—except Peter, who was busy checking on what we had available for lunch later. Which was fine by me, for Miriam had slipped me another piece of her German chocolate, and that was worth much more than any words from Peter.

By the time we had uplinked my photos of the militiamen—using, at his request, Jean-Paul’s data system, which was much more high-powered and encrypted than mine -the quick-reaction force had arrived: four APCs with big black tires and machine guns and grenade launchers mounted on a turret on top. All four had UNFORUS painted on the side and the flags they were flying from radio whip antennas on the rear were Ukrainian. Three of the APCs took up positions on the road, while the lead unit came up the driveway and the unit commander—wearing camouflaged clothing and the blue beret of the UN—spoke in fairly passable English to Jean-Paul. At the time I was standing next to Charlie. I thought he might amble over and talk to the Ukrainian army officer, as one professional to another, but he didn’t. He had a grim look on his face and when Karen said something about him going over and explaining what had happened, he said no, he wasn’t going to do that.