Authors: J.H. Kavanagh
He crosses wide behind crumbling prefabs and waits for a deeper squall of rain before skipping through a courtyard with a storm-doused fire, several tables and strewn chairs. Close to one bare wall a set of goal posts has been improvised with poles and a rope crossbar. You wait. Above a tumbledown tiled roof there is now a torchlight playing over a column of reptilian green camo paint, the Stonebreaker winching to its launch angle.
Tyler is whispering on the link.
‘Rees, you there?’
‘Yup. You see what I see?’ You picture him hunched in darkness working up an old-fashioned nine-line to peck in – with his GPS co-ordinates, clichéd terrain description and the rest of the crap that they’ll have to re-key at the other end.
‘It’s nearly up. They’re getting ready to start the pumps. Two guys in bio suits. What do you make of that? My best shot is to take them out when they do the alignment. I should be able to hold them from the perimeter for enough time.’
‘Too risky…Those suits are for toxic fuel, that’s not a bio warhead. Nah – you have to stay right where you are until air support gives you a one- ten and then split. And you need to be all the way back here and preferably further before you give them Cleared Hot because, I guarantee you, Harper needs this kill so bad he’s gonna send double strength.’
‘I got my orders and boy, was he clear.’
‘Can I have your Yamaha when you’re gone?’
‘Yeah, right.’
You hear a shout and a burst of automatic fire from a weapon that isn’t Tyler’s. Then an explosion – a cartoon jag of eye-searing yellow that blinds momentarily and leaves vague shards of black falling through peripheral vision. You belatedly squeeze your eyes and duck as two more blasts bring dirt rain whispering close out front. The clamour is immediate. Voices of pain and alarm. More shots. Orders barked in panic.
You shoulder the M-19 and scope the compound. A man holding his eyes turns his torso. A first time view of a real person in your sights. You hesitate. Another by a truck, weapon protruding, unsure where to aim, looking up, head turning. Now a choice, somewhere inside there’s a shifting of forces, not a voice but weight leant to a conclusion. Shtumph. Pan across to the far side, a glimpse of two men in shiny bodysuits running from the launcher. You leave them be and rummage in Tyler’s bag.
You try him on the link. ‘You read me, Tyler? You taking that fire?’
Nothing.
You are on your feet and running. They won’t have placed your suppressed shots and if they’ve tumbled Tyler he’ll draw them to the other side. ‘Tyler you read me?’ At half way you stop and wait. A crackle of small arms fire is directed out into the desert. A random pop or two comes your way. They don’t know what’s happening. Then a chugging sound tells you they’ve got a heavy calibre up and running.
‘Tyler, you out yet?’
‘Nah, some fucker tripped a can – I’m pinned.’
You’re running full belt. He comes and goes like a strobe.
‘Got your pigeon off yet?’
‘Asshole. Five minutes to the one-ten.’
‘Can you back out if I flash the front side?’
‘I told you to stay the fuck out of it. They’ll abort and try to split. They must know what’s coming.’
‘Couldn’t copy that, Tyler. I’m at the South side. Coming to your aid. Wait for the bangs and get the fuck out when they blow.’
‘Rees, I’m telling you…’
You run down the line of vehicles unseen. The cans have a count of four. As you run back, you bounce the first one under a truck. There’s a brass edge to the explosion and something keeps jangling until the second blast takes over – lifting a Land Cruiser on a cushion of smoke and spares. You post your last through an open cab window and keep running.
‘Rees?’ Tyler, buzzing in a loose earpiece. ‘Rees, you read?’
The mic is jiggling. Goosebumps lift the skin on your back. You throw in a zigzag, suddenly expecting a shot that doesn’t come. The rain is stubble on your face. The M-19 is bouncing in your arms.
‘I copy you. I hope you’re fucking clear.’
You can hear he’s moving. ‘Thanks man – you’re a stupid fuck but I owe you. I just gave them the one-ten. Clear the fuck out of there, read me?’
‘I’m not stopping.’
You come to the wire but not where it’s cut. A headlight beam sweeps past and you can hear the squeal of a vehicle lurching at speed. Left or right? You head right; fuck! Left, it must be near, thought you were retracing your fucking steps!
You stop at a concrete post. They’re all the same and the marsh the other side has no landmarks. Now you’re thinking really hard. Fucking maps swirling. Tangled with instincts shouting and stopping you thinking clearly. You take a look back. Three sets of lights between the blaze of the compound and you. They are moving your way. You empty the magazine at them and curse yourself for the stupidity of it. Running again, there’s the triangular flap of wire caught in headlight beams. A power slide, a snag and a ripping of cloth and skin. Then you’re wading through mud up to your thighs. No real choice, just the feeling that this is a really stupid, stupid fucking swamp in a stupid fucking country and what in God’s name are you doing?’
There are strong lights pivoting overhead and the sound of motors and movement. This is going to be worse than fish in a barrel. You make a lurch outwards and writhe between tall clumps of reed. Deep breath and corkscrew down, forcing your body out of sight, rifle flat across your shoulder, pack turned to the shore, the reed clump casting a pineapple shadow around you.
The mud squelches and backfills as you force your way into a crouch. Cold water spills through the collar of your suit and settles in chill hoops over your ribs. You’re kissing muddy water and looking through crocodile eyes as this prehistoric waterscape lights up like a stage. The first crackle is a light automatic weapon. Out where you’ve come from the surface springs a scribble of ticks. You hear excited voices. They’ve found where you cut the wire. Then a beam pulls an oval of light in a zigzag pattern across the marsh, first away and then towards you. It pauses at each clump. There’s a slow ripple around an upright twist of dead stems to one side. A parp of heavy fire reduces it to a whorl of straws. You try to put a predetermined ceiling on your panic, Solomon directing the medipac in its little pulses at your hip. The adrenalin sharpens but doesn’t blind. It’s enough to steady your body. You wait. Thoughts steady too. You consider turning and shouldering the rifle for a final exchange: A light smashing. Then what? Or maybe submerging, blackness closing in and your lungs bursting while light beams and bullets play their game of battleships over the marsh.
The link earpiece is still working. Tyler’s voice: ‘Rees, you there?’
You tilt your head slowly back and the mic lifts clear. ‘Don’t know if you can hear this, Tyler,’ you whisper, ‘but I am….’ What are you? Waiting, that’s what you’re doing. That’s the best and only option you have. It’s just a case of how long they want to keep poking their weapons through the wire netting and spraying the water with bullets.
‘Rees? Rees, you there?’ Fuck this equipment and this fucking swamp. ‘Rees, do you read? Don’t say the bastards have got you, Rees. Rees, do you read?’
Vehicles are moving down the fence line. You can hear them behind the wire and the spotlights they carry blink at each post and throw shadows of the wire like nets. The shots come sporadically. A lone rifle now, enthusiasm waning – that’s good. Drawing parallel.
SHIT! The breath comes out in a single gasp and your eyes and mouth burst open. You only hear the dying of the shot. The pain is like a heavy blow across your shoulders and then a tongue of heat down your right arm and into your skull. Did you cry out? You feel the squeeze of the Medipac in response to a ballistic tear. Another shot. This time it’s further along. They’re still moving. Suddenly you feel elated. You’re still alive and they’re moving on. You can’t tell how badly you’re hurt. The pain centres on your neck and spikes into your skull on any movement. But you can move. You’re going to make it. As the lights move down the line you stand up out of the water. You can’t feel a bleed. You let the rifle fall and slide the pack strap off the shoulder. The shifting weight seems to stab behind the eyes…You lurch blindly into the shallows and stumble in ankle-deep sludge. You’ve taken your gamble and now you know they’re leaving. You want out. You want Tyler out. Please God come and get us.
You make slow progress. You’re breathing steadily and you’re getting help. All that matters is to get out of the drop zone. The pain is intense but you can bear it. You just have to think of something else – something positive. You can do this. You can do this. Not really thinking it, just a surge of knowing. You just have to concentrate – the training, the routines they embed – the extra five percent – the final shove, the energy for the last degree between boiling and not boiling, athletes – winners winning by tiny margins of superior effort – top gun – the focus – the visualisation routine Solomon prompts but can’t fill in, drawing on what matters…
The planes come suddenly in tight formation. They give a single snarl at the edge of the world then tear off the sky. There’s a faint whistle in their wake. Your clenched eyelids flash orange as you smack into the water.
Silence. For how long? Recollections coming like adverts; Eva blowing misty breath on to a cappuccino on the terrace of the little mountainside hotel. It’s snowing but she sits resolutely, baby-wrapped, boots crossed on a chair in front and wide-brimmed hat turned low over her shades.
You step into view and your smiles meet. She stands. You think she’s going to run forward – as a child would – but she waits as you walk up and then embraces you before you can set your bag down. A waiter in the doorway glances from his shirt sleeves to the falling snow, gives you a quizzical look as he takes in the otherwise deserted terrace. You go inside. Weeks of enforced separation punctuated only by illicit texts as IOUs for intimacy, all to be cashed now.
Entwined upstairs, you explore and reclaim one another. Your eyes check in as you slide together. She whispers that you are leaner, harder, says the short hair makes you more serious. The briefest exquisite hesitance holds your first touches and then the urgency takes over.
A different memory. The one that always comes; your brother, Brett.
That last summer when he worked on the dairy farm. He was up early but came back for breakfast most days, still early in the morning and the sun barely up, pyjamas on under overalls, telling stories about the animals by name as though they were friends. You could picture their faces appearing from the mist and walk in amongst them with him talking gently and loving the rhythm of it, the cold morning and the steamy warmth of the animals, the muck and the milk and the mess.
He talks about fishing and winks at you when your Mum starts on about revision. She appeals to Dad for support but he’s gone into forensic examination of the sports pages. Maybe today she’ll get it over without him having to speak and it all turning nasty.
Evening on the river in the old wooden dinghy. The fish aren’t biting and you’re just talking and drifting until you fetch up at the old pits. Maybe there’ll be something where the river runs out from the reeds and merges with the deeper, darker water over the old works. At one place you see a kind of edge where fast and slow textures meet in the surface like two different grains in wood. Brett says there’s a pike there and that’s because there’s always fish going past in the fast stream. But Brett isn’t into fishing today. He just wants to lie there and smoke and watch the sunset. His jeans are rolled up to reveal huge bare feet and his faded cotton shirt has creases that bunch in the valleys of his muscles. He lets you smoke too; a few dizzying drags and you hand the soggy roll-up back. He smiles, takes a pull and sighs. The evening settles with him.
We ought to get back, you say. Nah, Brett says, relax.
A heron unfolds amongst the bulrushes on the far side of the river and storyboards up the bank. The sun sinks between the willows and Brett finishes his smoke and then another. It’s nearly dark and a flight of geese pumps over on old hinges. When he’s had enough he throws the butt over the side and picks up an oar to fend off from the reeds. You put an oar in the water and pull. You turn a few degrees on the spot but something holds you fast under the boat. Brett laughs and puts on a silly voice. ‘We’re bloody well stuck.’ He tries his oar at a couple of different angles but can’t get a purchase. ‘Hey! Cop this,’ he calls and starts undoing his watch, actually Dad’s big watch with the timer gizmos that pre-empts excuses on curfew and endeavour. He makes out he’s going to go over the side and try to push off whatever you’re snagged on. He tosses the watch too hard and it bounces in your fingers in slow motion and skips over the edge of the boat. ‘Wanker!’ he says, ‘he’ll do his nut,’ and he leans across to peer into the water where it splashed. He’s laughing all the time. ‘Hold on,’ he says, ‘this bit can’t be all that deep. I’ll feel along the bottom for it.’