Brendan DuBois: Dead of Night

That was what I imagined. Seeing her there, on the table, her skin puffy and dark, the exit wound of the bullet having tom apart her forehead. When the examiners got to that point I took a photo, left the tent, tossed my camera gear down and found the rock.

Tough.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very tough. But only for a few minutes more.’

‘You’re leaving?’ Miriam asked.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you? There’s another shift coming in, and Peter and me and Charlie, we’re going to get drunk, I think. Please join us.’

She rubbed my back. ‘Later, I will. I just met a woman, a classmate from the university. I want to talk some. But I’ll catch up with you at the hospital. All right?’

‘Sure,’ I said. Below us, some horns started honking and it was time to leave. I was going to kiss Miriam, but she was already up, heading back to the mine shaft. She paused, turned, and waved.

I waved back, and then went down to the parking lot.

Peter was standing near one of the Land Cruisers, his face grimy and his eyes red-rimmed. Other people were inside the vehicle. I went up to him and said, ‘Did you find her?’

‘Yes,’ he snapped back.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. By this time tomorrow she’ll be back home, away from this bloody place. And…she did her job, right up to the end.’

‘Got the diskettes?’

‘Got the diskettes.’

‘I’m… My heart goes out to you, Peter,’

‘Thanks.’

I looked back, wondering if I could catch Miriam, but she wasn’t in sight. I said, ‘Can I ask a favor?’

‘Ask away,’

‘Someday… someday I’d like to tell Miriam what Site A was all about. If it’s all right with you.’

Peter sighed. ‘Sure. Go ahead. But not now—maybe later. Like on your honeymoon or something.’

I almost smiled, and then I thought of Peter, no doubt just an hour or so away from having identified his dead wife among the body bags. So I just said, ‘Sure. Later.’

Peter wiped at his eyes. ‘Come on. Time to leave.’

We climbed into the Land Cruiser. Peter was driving again, and Charlie was there and another guy I didn’t know, a Japanese fellow who nodded and kept quiet. Peter tried to lighten the mood and said, ‘Another minute, we would have left you behind.’

‘A chance for a shower and a drink, I wasn’t going to miss it, not at all,’ I said.

This convoy was smaller, just two APCs in front, and we were the second Land Cruiser in the column. I leaned back in the seat, realizing that my back was throbbing. We went over the bridge, the planks making a clunking sound again, and I was about to ask Charlie what kind of drinks he was hoping for when the bridge blew up behind us, rolling us over.

When the Land Cruiser rolled over the Japanese guy fell on top of me and started yelling. So did Peter and Charlie. I started fighting with the Japanese guy, trying to get him off me. Somebody, maybe Charlie, got a door open. We got out and stumbled around, and then someone yelled, ‘Down! Down! Down!’ I don’t know, maybe the Japanese guy didn’t understand English or was too frightened, but he started running up the road, away from the now-burning timbers of the bridge. Automatic gunfire cut him down.

I coughed and choked. Then I crawled behind the overturned Land Cruiser. Peter was there, one arm bleeding and hanging strangely, and he was yelling into a hand-held radio. I crawled over to the other side where Charlie was at work, firing at somebody or something. Another explosion. I heard a loud whoosh! and looked up, seeing a smoke trail from a rocket waver up into the sky. One of our helicopters was climbing, its door gunner firing away. There was another whoosh! and this time the rocket went right into the helicopter’s open hatch. The explosion filled the aircraft with flame and smoke and it crumpled into itself, its blades spinning out like a windmill going berserk. It plummeted down into the hillside, blowing up in a big blossom of fire.

The gunfire was rapid and loud, and it seemed to be all-around us. The bridge was ruined, and a Land Cruiser was tangled up in the shattered timbers, its windows blown out, two of its doors hanging open. I didn’t see anybody moving around in there. One of the APCs was next to us, its turret gun firing into the woods across the stream, to the left of the parking lot, and I could even hear the pings! as return fire struck its armor plating. The other APC was on its side, just like us, and the soldiers who’d been inside it had bailed out and were returning fire with their own automatic weapons. I wanted to yell, I wanted to scream, but most of all I had to find Miriam. Had to. She was on the other side of the stream bed, and now the tents where the bodies were being examined were on fire, their canvas walls and roofs peeling back and streamers of flame and smoke rising into the sky. Charlie stopped firing, ejected an empty clip, took out a full one—tapping it twice on the undercarriage of the Land Cruiser—and inserted it into his M-16. He looked over at me, breathing hard, his eyes wide. ‘You better stay put, buddy, ‘cause we are in some serious shit here. Our air cover’s now on the ground, burning to beat the band.’

I crawled back to where Peter, panting, was leaning up against the vehicle’s undercarriage, one arm bloody and limp, radio in his good hand. ‘Got through to the region,’ he shouted. ‘But it’s gonna take ‘em a while to help us out. Fuckin’ bastards. A classic ambush. Wish I had my bag with me.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Inside the— Hey, don’t you dare—’

I got up, hoisted myself over the undercarriage of our Land Cruiser and immediately fell through the open door. The inside was a mess, with gear, empty coffee containers, ropes and duffel bags all mixed together. But I knew what Peter’s bag looked like—it bad red handles—and I found my own bag as well. I tossed them both out of the open door and then followed them, landing hard on the packed dirt of the roadway. The nearest APC was growling as it churned up soft soil near the road, its turret swiveling, firing again. Charlie yelled, ‘You go, baby—get some!’

Peter didn’t waste any time, opening his bag and tossing out clothing and a notebook until he found a zippered black case. He unzipped it, holding it up to his mouth with his good hand and using his teeth, and pulled out an automatic pistol, a nine-millimeter model, it looked like. He thumbed back the hammer and rolled over beside the front tires and started firing, taking care to place each shot precisely. I had never felt so goddamned helpless in my life. I opened my own bag, dug through the camera gear and my notebooks, and pulled out a small pair of binoculars. I raised myself up over Peter’s prone body and tried to focus on what was going on across the way, by the mine’s parking lot.

The buildings and tents were now all ablaze, as well as a few of the Land Cruisers. A defensive line of some sort seemed to have been set up at the right side of the parking area, where the ground sloped down at a slight angle to the stream bed. Three APCs were hull-down behind the slope, and were firing up at the woods. There were a number of people there, milling about, and it seemed that only a few had weapons of their own and were firing back. I tried to calm my breathing, tried to calm my shaking hands, and tried to look at each person who was moving around there. Although I saw two or three women, I couldn’t find the woman I was looking for.

Charlie stopped firing again. I went over to him and said, ‘You got anything else? A pistol? The grenade launcher?’

He pulled out a fresh clip. ‘Grenade launcher’s back at base. Pistol I’ve got, but you’re not getting it. Sorry.’