The Best of Lucius Shepard (28 page)

Mingolla
began to operate in a kind of luminous panic. He realized that he would have to
kill the black soldier. Kill him without any fuss, take his rifle and hope that
he could catch the other two off-guard when they came back for him. He slipped
into the nearest room and stationed himself against the wall to the right of
the door. The Cuban, he had noticed, had turned left on entering the room; he
would have been vulnerable to someone positioned like Mingolla. Vulnerable for
a split-second. Less than a count of one. The pulse in Mingolla’s temple
throbbed, and he gripped the machete tightly in his left hand. He rehearsed
mentally what he would have to do. Stab; clamp a hand over the Cuban’s mouth;
bring his knee up to jar loose the rifle. And he would have to perform these
actions simultaneously, execute them perfectly.

Perfect
execution.

He almost
laughed out loud, remembering his paunchy old basketball coach saying, “Perfect
execution, boys. That’s what beats a zone. Forget the fancy crap. Just set your
screens, run your patterns and get your shots down.”

Hoops am ‘t
nothm’ but life in short pants, huh, Coach ?

Mingolla
drew a deep breath and let it sigh out through his nostrils. He couldn’t
believe he was going to die. He had spent the past nine months worrying about
death, but when it got right down to it, when the circumstances arose that made
death likely, it was hard to take that likelihood seriously. It didn’t seem
reasonable that a skinny black guy should be his nemesis. His death should
involve massive detonations of light, special Mingolla-killing rays,
astronomical portents. Not some scrawny little shit with a rifle. He drew
another breath and for the first time registered the contents of the room. Two
cots; clothes strewn everywhere; taped-up polaroids and pornography. Officer
country or not, it was your basic Ant Farm decor; under the red light it looked
squalid, long-abandoned. He was amazed by how calm he felt. Oh, he was afraid
all right! But fear was tucked into the dark folds of his personality like a
murderer’s knife hidden inside an old coat on a closet shelf. Glowing in
secret, waiting its chance to shine. Sooner or later it would skewer him, but
for now it was an ally, acting to sharpen his senses. He could see every
bubbled pucker on the white walls, could hear the scrape of the Cuban’s boots
as he darted into the room next door, could feel how the Cuban swung the rifle
left-to-right, paused, turned ...

He
could
feel
the Cuban! Feel his heat, his heated shape, the exact position of his body. It
was as if a thermal imager had been switched on inside his head, one that
worked through walls.

The Cuban
eased toward Mingolla’s door, his progress tangible, like a burning match
moving behind a sheet of paper. Mingolla’s calm was shattered. The man’s heat,
his fleshy temperature, was what disturbed him. He had imagined himself killing
with a cinematic swiftness and lack of mess; now he thought of hogs being
butchered and piledrivers smashing the skulls of cows. And could he trust this
freakish form of perception? What if he couldn’t? What if he stabbed too late?
Too soon? Then the hot, alive thing was almost at the door, and having no
choice, Mingolla timed his attack to its movements, stabbing just as the Cuban
entered.

He executed
perfectly.

The blade
slid home beneath the Cuban’s ribs and Mingolla clamped a hand over his mouth,
muffling his outcry. His knee nailed the rifle stock, sending it clattering to
the floor. The Cuban thrashed wildly. He stank of rotten jungle air and
cigarettes. His eyes rolled back, trying to see Mingolla. Crazy animal eyes,
with liverish whites and expanded pupils. Sweat beads glittered redly on his
brow. Mingolla twisted the machete, and the Cuban’s eyelids fluttered down. But
a second later they snapped open, and he lunged. They went staggering deeper
into the room and teetered beside one of the cots. Mingolla wrangled the Cuban
sideways and rammed him against the wall, pinning him there. Writhing, the
Cuban nearly broke free. He seemed to be getting stronger, his squeals leaking
out from Mingolla’s hand. He reached behind him, clawing at Mingolla’s face; he
grabbed a clump of hair, yanked it. Desperate, Mingolla sawed with the machete.
That tuned the Cuban’s squeals higher, louder. He squirmed and clawed at the
wall. Mingolla’s clamped hand was slick with the Cuban’s saliva, his nostrils
full of the man’s rank scent. He felt queasy, weak, and he wasn’t sure how much
longer he could hang on. The son of a bitch was never going to die, he was
deriving strength from the steel in his guts, he was changing into some
deathless force. But just then the Cuban stiffened. Then he relaxed, and
Mingolla caught a whiff of feces.

He let the
Cuban slump to the floor, but before he could turn loose of the machete, a
shudder passed through the body, flowed up the hilt and vibrated his left hand.
It continued to shudder inside his hand, feeling dirty, sexy, like a
post-coital tremor. Something, some animal essence, some oily scrap of bad
life, was slithering around in there, squirting toward his wrist. He stared at
the hand, horrified. It was gloved in the Cuban’s blood, trembling. He smashed
it against his hip, and that seemed to stun whatever was inside it. But within
seconds it had revived and was wriggling in and out of his fingers with the mad
celerity of a tadpole.

“Tea!”
someone
called.
“Vamos!”

Electrified
by the shout, Mingolla hustled to the door. His foot nudged the Cuban’s rifle.
He picked it up, and the shaking of his hand lessened—he had the idea it had
been soothed by a familiar texture and weight.

“Teo! Donde
estas?”

Mingolla had
no good choices, but he realized it would be far more dangerous to hang back
than to take the initiative. He grunted
“Aqui!”
and walked out into the
tunnel, making lots of noise with his heels.

“Dete fmsa,
hombre!’’

Mingolla
opened fire as he rounded the curve. The two Cubans were standing by the
entrance to the auxiliary tunnel. Their rifles chattered briefly, sending a
harmless spray of bullets off the walls; they whirled, flung out their arms and
fell. Mingolla was too shocked by how easy it had been to feel relief. He kept
watching, expecting them to do something. Moan, or twitch.

After the
echoes of the shots had died, though he could hear the big guns jolting and the
crackle of firelights, a heavy silence seemed to fill in through the tunnel, as
if his bullets had pierced something that had dammed silence up. The silence
made him aware of his isolation. No telling where the battle lines were drawn
... if, indeed, they existed. It was conceivable that small units had
infiltrated every level, that the battle for the Ant Farm was in microcosm the
battle for Guatemala: a conflict having no patterns, no real borders, no
orderly confrontations, but like a plague could pop up anywhere at any time and
kill you. That being the case, his best bet would be to head for the computer
center, where friendly forces were sure to be concentrated.

He walked to
the entrance and stared at the two dead Cubans. They had fallen blocking his
way, and he was hesitant about stepping over them, half-believing they were
playing possum, that they would reach up and grab him. The awkward attitudes of
their limbs made him think they were holding a difficult pose, waiting for him
to try. Their blood looked purple in the red glow of the emergencies, thicker
and shinier than ordinary blood. He noted their moles and scars and sores, the
crude stitching of their fatigues, gold fillings glinting from their open
mouths. It was funny, he could have met these guys while they were alive and
they might have made only a vague impression; but seeing them dead, he had
catalogued their physical worth in a single glance. Maybe, he thought, death
revealed your essentials as life could not. He studied the dead men, wanting to
read them. Couple of slim, wiry guys. Nice guys, into rum and the ladies and
sports. He’d bet they were baseball players, infielders, a double-play combo.
Maybe he should have called to them, Hey, I’m a Yankee fan. Be cool! Meet’cha
after the war for a game of flies and grounders. Fuck this killing shit. Let’s
play some ball.

He laughed,
and the high, cracking sound of his laughter startled him. Christ! Standing
around here was just asking for it. As if to second that opinion, the thing
inside his hand exploded into life, eeling and frisking about. Swallowing back
his fear, Mingolla stepped over the two dead men, and this time, when nothing
clutched at his trouser legs, he felt very, very relieved.

Below Level
Six, there was a good deal of mist in the auxiliary tunnel, and from this
Mingolla understood that the Cubans had penetrated the hillside, probably with
a borer mine. Chances were the hole they had made was somewhere close, and he
decided that if he could find it he would use it to get the hell out of the
Farm and hide in the jungle. On Level Seven the mist was extremely thick; the
emergency lights stained it pale red, giving it the look of surgical cotton
packing a huge artery. Scorchmarks from grenade bursts showed on the walls like
primitive graphics, and quite a few bodies were visible beside the doorways.
Most of them Americans, badly mutilated. Uneasy, Mingolla picked his way among
them, and when a man spoke behind him, saying, “Don’t move,” he let out a
hoarse cry and dropped his rifle and spun around, his heart pounding.

A giant of a
man—he had to go six-seven, six-eight, with the arms and torso of a
weightlifter—was standing in a doorway, training a forty-five at Mingolla’s
chest. He wore khakis with lieutenant’s bars, and his babyish face, though
cinched into a frown, gave an impression of gentleness and stolidity: he
conjured for Mingolla the image of Ferdinand the Bull weighing a knotty
problem. “I told you not to move,” he said peevishly.

“It’s okay,”
said Mingolla. “I’m on your side.”

The
lieutenant ran a hand through his thick shock of brown hair; he seemed to be
blinking more than was normal. “I’d better check,” he said. “Let’s go down to
the storeroom.”

“What’s to
check?” said Mingolla, his paranoia increasing.

“Please!”
said the lieutenant, a genuine wealth of entreaty in his voice. “There’s been
too much violence already.”

The
storeroom was a long, narrow L-shaped room at the end of the level; it was
ranged by packing crates, and through the gauzy mist the emergency lights
looked like a string of dying red suns. The lieutenant marched Mingolla to the
corner of the L, and turning it, Mingolla saw that the rear wall of the room
was missing. A tunnel had been blown into the hillside, opening onto blackness.
Forked roots with balls of dirt attached hung from its roof, giving it the
witchy appearance of a tunnel into some world of dark magic; rubble and clods
of earth were piled at its lip. Mingolla could smell the jungle, and he
realized that the big guns had stopped firing.

Which meant
that whoever had won the battle of the summit would soon be sending down mop-up
squads. “We can’t stay here,” he told the lieutenant. “The Cubans’11 be back.”

“We’re
perfectly safe,” said the lieutenant. “Take my word.” He motioned with the gun,
indicating that Mingolla should sit on the floor.

Mingolla did
as ordered and was frozen by the sight of a corpse, a Cuban corpse, lying
between two packing crates opposite him, its head propped against the wall.
“Jesus!” he said, coming back up to his knees.

“He won’t
bite,” said the lieutenant. With the lack of self-consciousness of someone
squeezing into a subway seat, he settled beside the corpse; the two of them
neatly filled the space between the crates, touching elbow to shoulder.

“Hey,” said
Mingolla, feeling giddy and scattered. “I’m not sitting here with this fucking
dead guy, man!”

The
lieutenant flourished his gun. “You’ll get used to him.”

Mingolla
eased back to a sitting position, unable to look away from the corpse.
Actually, compared to the bodies he had just been stepping over, it was quite
presentable. The only signs of damage were blood on its mouth and bushy black
beard, and a mire of blood and shredded cloth at the center of its chest. Its
beret had slid down at a rakish angle to cover one eyebrow; the brass scorpion
pin was scarred and tarnished. Its eyes were open, reflecting glowing red chips
of the emergency lights, and this gave it a baleful semblance of life. But the
reflections made it appear less real, easier to bear.

“Listen to
me,” said the lieutenant.