Dead of Night

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Remembering my training, I rolled John over onto his side to check his breathing. But Peter pulled me away and then Karen was there, speaking crisply and professionally, saying, ‘Sanjay. Our vehicle, my tan leather pouch. Bring that and the first-aid kit. Get Miriam over here, too. And tell Charlie there’s bad guys in the area. Tell Jean-Paul as well.’

I stood up and stepped back, my hands sticky, saw that they were covered with John’s blood. His breathing was coming in low, rattling gasps. Karen and Peter were working together, Karen examining the newsman’s back while Peter cradled his head in his lap. Peter’s voice now had a soothing tone, a type of voice I had never heard from him before, and I had to look at him twice to make sure it was the same Peter. ‘OK, John, try to relax, try to take it easy. Where’s your people? Where’s the van? Who did this to you?’

I could see John’s lips moving, saw Peter bend down and listen. ‘Louder,’ Peter asked, but not in a demanding way. ‘Please, John. Tell me louder.’

‘Here,’ Karen said to me. ‘Help me with his coat.’

I knelt back down on the pavement, helped Karen to undo John’s coat. It was hard going because John was lying on his side, holding the coat down, Peter said, ‘Samuel, my inside coat pocket. There’s a folding knife. Get it.’

I reached into the open coat, conscious that John’s blood was now smearing Peter’s shirt. But neither of us cared. I got the knife and snapped it open, passed it over to Karen. Then I heard John moan again and barely audibly say, ‘Go right… Go right…’

‘OK, John,’ Peter murmured. ‘We hear you, we hear you.’

Karen said, ‘Ah, shit, where is everybody? Here, start pulling away the coat while I start cutting.’

She went to work with the knife, her hand moving swiftly and surely, the blade cutting away the fabric of the expensive coat. I pulled away the pieces of cloth, nausea rising up in my stomach, seeing the shirt now soaked completely through with John’s blood. I held something heavy in my hands. The man’s wallet. I flipped it open quickly, saw the glassine photo pages inside, his driver’s license, press identification, picture of him on a beach, holding the hand of a woman and a young child, nice family portrait, back in warm and safe and sunny Australia. I closed the wallet and let it fall to the ground, along with the remnants of his coat. John was now shivering and Peter said, ‘He’s going into shock, Karen.’

‘No shit,’ she said, her hands now completely stained. ‘OK, I’ve got at least three entry wounds in his back. Peter, you got anything up front?’

‘No.’

‘Damn it, he got chewed up really bad—Christ, finally.’

Lots of voices, trotting figures, all carrying something in their hands. It quickly became even more chaotic as Charlie demanded in a loud voice where the bad guys were, while Jean-Paul kept on asking information on where John’s companions were, and Miriam and Sanjay and Karen talked among themselves, ignoring everybody else. Except once, when Karen spoke up sharply and said, ‘Charlie and Jean-Paul, shut the fuck up, will you? We’ll be lucky enough to stabilize him for a medevac chopper, if those assholes feel like flying today.’

Peter was still there as well, talking quietly to John, using that soothing voice that probably came in so handy when he was working the mean streets of London, comforting the injured or the bereaved. Sanjay said, ‘Samuel, make yourself useful! Hold up this IV bag!’

I stepped forward, dropped a piece of John’s coat that I had been holding. I grabbed the soft plastic bag and held it up, while Sanjay slipped the needle at the end of the tubing into an exposed forearm. A thin Mylar space blanket covered most of John in an attempt to keep him warm, and the area around him was messy with his blood and with empty plastic containers and bandage wrappings. A small green oxygen bottle was near his head, and Peter slipped a clear plastic oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Miriam was working side by side with Karen and they were speaking to each other in technical phrases and acronyms, none of which I could understand or follow. Their hands moved like those of two concert pianists. Charlie looked almost frantic, squatting down and sweeping the area with binoculars, M-16 at his side. Jean-Paul was talking again into his satellite phone, trying to arrange a medevac, trying to reach somebody, and what little French I knew told me that he was having problems communicating with the regional headquarters.

I stood there, my legs tired, holding the IV bag still, not daring to move it, fearful that I might pull the needle out or do something else to make the situation worse. Karen and Miriam were tending John’s back, and Sanjay was at his front, running his hands up and down his chest and abdomen, looking for exit wounds. From my vantage point I was looking down at John, his face gray-white, his eyes wide and staring up at me. I smiled down at him in my most reassuring way, as if to let him know that a dedicated group of men and women were doing their damnedest to help him live, to bandage him up so that he could get to a real hospital, where he would recover and get back to Sydney or Melbourne or wherever, with a prizewinning story of how he had almost ended it all on the world’s latest killing fields.

I kept smiling at him all the time until he closed his eyes and died.

We sat at the side of the road, exhausted. Karen was weepy and Sanjay had his arm around her, while Miriam looked despondent. I sat down next to her and she leaned against me and said, ‘Oh, Samuel.’

I held her hand and she squeezed it back.

Peter and Charlie had moved John’s body to the side of the road, placing it in a hollow by an outcropping of two boulders. They had carefully stretched the Mylar blanket over him, securing it with small rocks so that the breeze wouldn’t catch it and blow it away. Now they were talking to Jean-Paul, and while I expected a lot of shouting and arm-waving and red faces it didn’t happen. The three of them were standing in a circle, looking solemn, motioning every now and then toward us and then to the covered body of John. Miriam said, ‘We have to go look for the others.’

‘I know.’

‘Charlie won’t like it,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure Peter will like it either, but we have to look for the others. And right now. We shouldn’t be waiting around.’

I squeezed her hand. ‘You’re absolutely right.’

And I got up and walked over to them.

Charlie saw me first as I came closer. ‘Yes?’

I looked over to Jean-Paul, who still held on to his useless satellite phone as if he was expecting an apologetic message to come through at any moment. ‘Why are we still here?’

Now all three of them looked at me like I had come over and had just ordered a pizza or something. I carried on and said, ‘John’s dead. But we don’t know what happened to the rest of his crew. Why are we still here? We should be looking for them.’

Charlie said something about the terrain being dangerous and Jean-Paul said something about trying to regain communication with the regional UN office. But Peter shook his head and spoke over them, saying, ‘He’s right, you know.’

I wasn’t sure who was more shocked, me or the other two.

‘Say what?’ Charlie said.

Peter said angrily, ‘The kid’s right. We’re sitting around here on our arses while John’s getting colder and colder, and we don’t know where the rest of his crew are. We should go look for them. John mentioned where they might be, just before he died.’

Charlie said, ‘Jean-Paul, there are hostiles out there. I don’t really think it’s—’

Jean-Paul put the receiver back on his satellite phone. ‘I must be getting old, or getting less bold. Peter and Samuel are right. We cannot forget those two. No matter what. Helmets and flak jackets on. Let’s get going.’

A few minutes later, the three Land Cruisers were back on the road, engines idling. Peter had a map in his hands and was talking to Sanjay and Jean-Paul. Charlie shot me a dark look and I guessed he wasn’t my best buddy any more, which was something I could live with. While that was going on I got into the nearest Land Cruiser and took out my duffel bag. I went over to the side of the road, to the place where the Mylar blanket was. I unzipped my bag and took out my Sony digital camera. I took a number of photographs and then knelt down and removed the rocks securing the blanket. I pulled it back to reveal the gray-white features of John. His face and name were probably familiar to hundreds of thousands of viewers back in the land Down Under, but right here and now he was just another statistic, another little checkmark. I centered his face in my camera’s viewfinder and took one picture. Then another. And then another.

After I put the blanket back Karen was there, brushing her hair back away from her tear-stained face. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Taking souvenirs?’

‘No, I’m not,’ I said, gingerly placing the stones back around the edges of the blanket. ‘I’m just doing my job.’

‘Job? What do you mean, your job?’

I looked up at her angry expression. ‘What the UN pays me for. To document war crimes. And it’s just my luck I got to cover a fresh one.’

Karen shook her head and walked away. A moment later I followed her.

Peter led the way, driving one of our vehicles, and I sat up front with him and Miriam was in the rear. We headed down the slope, away from the highway that had once promised us a way out. Riding once more unto the breach, in the dirty and crowded and now smelly Toyota Land Cruisers. I was becoming heartily sick of being inside them. The other Land Cruisers were right behind us and we sped down the road, coming to an intersection. As we blew right through it, I yelled out, ‘Hey, what the hell are you doing?!’

‘What’s your problem?’ Peter said.

‘Stop the car, stop it—you’re passing the intersection!’

Peter said; ‘So what?’

Maybe it was the time of day or what had just happened, but I reached over with my left foot, plunged it past his legs and punched the brake. Pete flailed at me with his right hand, and Miriam was saying something, and I punched the brake again and again, and finally the Land Cruiser slid to a halt. There was another thump as we were struck again from the rear. Miriam said, ‘Oh, damn, I hope that wasn’t Sanjay.’

I reached over, turned off the ignition, grabbed the keys and got outside. Peter scrambled right after me, swearing, his London accent now very thick. ‘You bastard, you stupid bastard, I’m going to fucking nail you!’

Jean-Paul and Charlie came up to us, the Marine with his weapon in his hand. Jean-Paul said, ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’

Peter grabbed the front of my coat with one hand while Miriam held back his other arm. He said, ‘Damn fool stopped us for no reason.’

I held the keys behind me, like we were in a schoolyard brawl, and said, ‘He passed the turnoff.’

‘What turnoff, you idiot?’ Peter said, tugging at me, his face scarlet. ‘What fucking turnoff?’

Jean-Paul pulled him off me. Karen was now out with us but Sanjay was still in the other Land Cruiser, the one that had rammed us, probably happy that I was getting the brunt of Peter’s anger. I said, ‘Go right. That’s what John said. He said go right.’

Jean-Paul said, ‘Is that true?’

‘Bloody fuckwit, no, it’s not true,’ Peter said. ‘He said go straight. That’s what he said.’

‘Karen?’ Jean-Paul asked.

‘Shit, I don’t know,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘I was too busy trying to keep the poor guy alive.’

I said, ‘I know what I heard. He said go right. That’s what he said.’

‘Bloody Canuck, that was his Aussie accent you were hearing. He said go straight. That’s what he said. He didn’t say go right.’

Jean-Paul started saying something and Charlie said, ‘Well, shit, let’s take a right, see where that goes. If it doesn’t look promising, then we go back.’

Jean-Paul nodded. ‘Makes sense.’

Peter stalked off. ‘Well, you drive with the little shit, then. Fucked if I will.’

I suppose I should have said something about what I had seen earlier, the quiet moment in the woods when Peter had been talking with radio gear to someone. But then I thought about Mick and Alice, the producer who wanted to go back and see her children. So I got into the Land Cruiser, driving for the first time since I had been here, and Charlie joined us, sitting up front. That made me feel better.

We took the right, like I was sure John had said, and we’d driven down the road a couple of klicks, past abandoned farmland and areas of woodland, when Charlie said, ‘Slow down, Samuel. Slow down.’

‘What’s going on?’ I asked, and Miriam said, ‘Oh. To the left.’

I slowed down and stopped, and we all got out. Charlie stood there, weapon at the ready, and he said, ‘By the side of the car. Now.’

The other Land Cruisers stopped. Our little group assembled behind Charlie and I saw what he had noticed. The brush and grass on the left side of the road had been disturbed and there were fresh tire tracks. I sniffed the air and said, ‘I smell smoke.’

‘So do I,’ Miriam said.

Jean-Paul came up and said, ‘Charlie?’

‘I think we might find something, if you give me a minute,’ he said.

‘All right,’ Jean-Paul said.

Of course, Charlie wanted all of us to stay behind but none of us were listening to him. We straggled after him, our pathetic little parade following our armed Grand Marshal, and then Miriam grabbed my hand again as we all spotted the rear end of a white van. An attempt had been made to bum it but whatever fire there had been had since died out. But the van was still smoldering, the windows were shattered, and the side door was open. The stench of burned plastic and scorched metal was stronger now. Charlie motioned us back with his free hand, but we kept walking forward. Bullet holes had perforated the side and front of the van. I circled around and saw a shape in the front seat, slumped over. Charlie went over to check and then Sanjay was there, saying, ‘Is he wounded? Is there something we can do?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘Don’t think medical science knows how to fix blown-off heads, now, does it?’

I stepped closer, recognizing the shape and clothing of Mick, the cameraman, and nothing else. He was slumped over the steering wheel, his arms dangling down, and something in my stomach did a queasy flip-flop as I noticed the pulped mass of bone and brain and blood and hair that had once been his head, just a few hours ago, this combination of muscle and tissue and ligament had been breathing and living, talking to me about being a cameraman in the service of journalism. Now it was all dead flesh, growing colder and colder with every passing minute.

Peter finally spoke, saying, ‘Anybody see the producer woman? Alice?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet. Maybe she went straight, like you thought.’

If Peter heard me, he didn’t say anything. He started going through the brush and bramble, and then Karen yelled out, ‘Over here! Over here!’

We ran up the side of a small hill, to a place where the grass hadn’t grown up as much. The woman called Alice was lying there, eyes staring up blankly, legs spread wide open. Her arms had been staked to the ground. Her slacks were gone and a pair of white cotton panties was tangled around one ankle. Her blouse had been torn and it looked like someone—or several someones — had worked on her torso with knives. The area around her had been trampled and disturbed, and there were empty bottles of Budweiser beer scattered about.

‘The bastards,’ Karen whispered. ‘The filthy, murdering bastards.’

Sanjay whispered back, ‘What about the cease-fire agreement? What about the truce?’

‘Guess somebody didn’t get the word,’ I said.

Jean-Paul slowly walked up to join us. He was carrying several satchels and dropped them on the ground. ‘Charlie?’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Is this place relatively secure?’

Charlie looked up at him as though Jean-Paul had just announced that he intended to flap his wings and fly to the moon. ‘That’s a hell of a word, “relatively”,’ he said. ‘You want my advice, we all get back in our wheels and head back to the highway. This place is going to the shits pretty quick, and I can’t defend a crew like you by myself.’

‘True,’ Jean-Paul said, kneeling down on the dirt and unzipping the bags. ‘But we have work to do, right here. And we cannot leave. Peter? Miriam? Karen? Samuel?’

I looked at the group. Peter was stolid, not showing any emotion, but the others looked like the poor producer woman had, a few hours ago. Terrified and wanting to go someplace safe, someplace away from this madness. I took a breath, walked over to my own bag. I took out my Sony and said, ‘I’m ready to go to work.’

Miriam joined me. ‘So am I.’

Karen said, ‘Oh, fuck. I guess I am, too.’

Hours later, as we were cleaning up, I stood next to Miriam and said, ‘I have a proposition for you.’

‘That sounds interesting,’ she said, wiping her hands dry with a dirty towel.

‘Would you care to share my tent tonight?’ I asked.

She smiled and nudged me with her elbow. ‘Do you have something naughty planned?’

I coughed and took the soiled towel from her. ‘I wish I could say that. But I don’t want to be with Sanjay tonight and have him play musical tents again, and Peter is about ready to strangle me, and the other two… Well, Miriam, you went right to the top of the list.’

I winced as I dried off my own hands. The fingers and palms were blistered from having dug three shallow graves for the Australian television crew. Karen and Sanjay and Peter and Miriam had gotten tissue samples, swabs and even some latent fingerprints from the burned-out and shot-up van. I had done my own work with camera and computer, but I’d had no success when I’d tried later to upload the information. Either the satellite uplink was malfunctioning or maybe the jamming from the militias was active again. Working with the camera this time, I was grateful for having the viewfinder between my eyes and what was on the ground before me. The burned-out van, the shattered body of Mick and the brutalized and violated body of Alice seemed only to exist in the space beyond the camera, and I found that comforting.

Now we were parked under an oak tree, a number of klicks away from the shooting site. We were drawn up in the by now familiar triangular formation. After maneuvering our way into some woods, Charlie had gone out with us and directed us to drag branches and pieces of brush around to hide the fact that we had gone in among the trees. We had a cold dinner of cheese, bread and water, and a cold wash-up, and by then I was exhausted.

Miriam nudged me again. ‘All right. That’s a deal, then. I’ll share your tent tonight.’

‘Thanks.’

Miriam smiled. ‘My pleasure.’

I wanted to believe her.

Jean-Paul gathered us together and said, ‘I… I am tired, as are all of you. We will be here tonight, and tomorrow we make our way back to the highway. I… I…’

I stood there, hands in my coat pocket, shivering, wishing we could have built a fire. But there would be no fire tonight, not even something hot to heat up water. We were standing in a loose semicircle, Sanjay holding a cupped flashlight, throwing off just a little illumination. Then my throat tightened as I saw that Jean-Paul’s eyes were filling with tears. I felt bad for a moment, about all the times I had thought poorly of him. Poor guy was just overwhelmed. He coughed into his hand, rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment, and then went on. ‘I… I am very proud of you, all of you. Get a good night’s sleep.’

We went back to the tents, one beside each Land Cruiser. Sanjay was heading towards the closest one. ‘Not so fast,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘What I mean is that I’ve already made other arrangements,’ I said. ‘My tent-mate tonight is Miriam.’

‘Oh… really?’

‘Yep.’

‘Then where am I to sleep?’

I was very tired and wanted to end this quickly. ‘Shit, Sanjay, sleep on a rock for all I care. Go crawl in with Karen.’

He shook his head. ‘That may not be possible. We had a fight earlier.’

‘Well, there might be some people in New Delhi who’d be happy with that—wouldn’t they?’

Sanjay muttered something and stalked off. I wish I could say I felt bad about it, but sometimes wishes just don’t come true. All in all, I felt pretty good, considering.