Dead of Night

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Before the UN convoy left the parking lot, the passenger door of a Land Cruiser opened and Charlie Banner, USMC, clambered in, M-16 in his hands, and sat next to Peter, who was behind the steering wheel. Charlie turned, grinned, and held out a hand to me. I was sitting in the rear.

‘M’man Samuel, good to see you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been meanin’ to look you up, but I had a shitload of things to do once I got back here, after the armistice broke down. You look pretty good.’

I gave his strong hand a firm squeeze, and he paid me the compliment of not trying to squeeze back. ‘Thanks, Charlie,’ I said. ‘You’re looking good yourself. Thanks for getting everybody out.’

‘Thanks for the warning,’ he said. Then he shook his head. ‘Too bad about Sanjay, though.’

Peter started up the Land Cruiser. ‘You did your very best, Charlie. Sometimes you can’t save ‘em all.’

‘Yeah, that’s the hell of it,’ Charlie said, snapping his seat belt shut. ‘Sometimes the ones worth saving you can’t, and the ones that ain’t worth keepin’ alive make it until they’re ninety or so.’

Miriam said, ‘It’s nice at least for us four to be together again, don’t you think?’

Charlie looked out at the other vehicles gathering in the hospital parking lot. ‘Where’s Karen? In another Toyota?’

Peter said, ‘If so, it’s one in California. She resigned her UN contract and headed back home. Can’t really blame her, can you?’

Out by the tent a cluster of uniformed men and one woman was standing. The militia negotiation team. It was hard to tell what was on their faces, but I could make out Gary just fine. I guess it was a bad idea but I couldn’t resist. I gave him a very cheerful wave as Peter put the Land Cruiser in drive and lined us up behind another UN vehicle. Gary didn’t wave back, but he did lower his head and talk to the militia woman. Oh well. So much for a defiant gesture.

Charlie shifted in his seat. ‘California. Nice safe place, so long as you live in one of the right cities. I hope she’s OK.’

‘Knowing Karen, she’ll be just fine,’ Miriam said.

Charlie turned his head. ‘What does that mean?’

Miriam slipped her hand into mine. ‘It means nothing. Nothing at all.’

As we drove along the state road, Peter said, ‘Now, this is what I call traveling in style. I wish we’d had this kind of set-up a couple of weeks ago. Nobody would have troubled us, not at all.’

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Charlie said.

Even with Miriam’s hand held in mine, I was still nervous, a trembling anxiety of anticipation, like lying awake in bed at five a.m. on December 25th as a child, wondering what awaits you downstairs in the dark rooms. Charlie and Peter were right: it certainly was a pleasure to be traveling in style. We were in a convoy of about a dozen vehicles, with a couple of APCs up front and another two in the rear, providing security. There were a half-dozen white Land Cruisers, just like the one we were in, and two open-bed tractor-trailer trucks that were carrying a bulldozer and an excavator. Flanking our progress on both sides were two helicopters—gunships, it looked like—and as we went through the countryside I could sometimes spot people emerging from their homes and trailers, looking at us as we went by.

‘What do you think the militia are doing, back at the hospital?’ I asked.

Peter said, ‘Probably hoping that in all the commotion they can scarper out and go home. If you’re right, Samuel, and Site A is where you think it is, then the generals at The Hague are going to have a rough time of it.’

Miriam said, ‘Maybe the armistice talks will break down for a long while. Have you thought about that?’

Peter kept on looking straight ahead, at the rear of another Land Cruiser. ‘Most of the militias in the other states have signed up. These guys were trying to play games, trying to get their leaders back. Fine. Let them play all the games they want. By tomorrow, once the media gets a hold of Site A, they’ll be even more isolated and marginalized. The armistice will fall into place by default.’

Then Peter spared me a quick glance, and I knew what he was thinking. So much more was at stake than the armistice, or the respective futures of the militias and the UN intervention. So much more.

The road rose up and curved to the left, and I caught a quick glimpse of a general store passing by on our right. I swiveled my head, peering at the innocent-looking building with its friendly front porch and inviting doorway. I must have shuddered or something, because Miriam leaned over and said, ‘You all right?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, turning my head even more as we raced by Coopers General Store. ‘Just got bad memories, that’s all.’

‘Of the store, that one there? Why?’

I turned around and looked at that beautiful smile, the concerned look in those sparkling blue eyes. ‘Had a bad meal there once, that’s why.’

The amazing thing, to me at least, was that it didn’t take long, not at all. After stopping at the earthen berm that was blocking the access road to the state park, a group of military engineers looked around, poking at the ground and checking for land mines or IEDs. When they gave the all-clear, the bulldozer revved up its diesel engine, backed off the trailer and then got to work, tearing apart the dirt and trees and brush as though they were made of polyester foam. While this was going on, we stood outside our Land Cruiser while APCs kept watch at both ends of the road, and soldiers — a mix of Hungarians and Ukrainians -patrolled the woods. I still felt jumpy: the memories of having been here a few days ago, on the run, trying to survive, trying hard not to get caught, came racing back.

Peter was leaning against the dirt fender of the Land Cruiser. ‘Sun feels good, doesn’t it?’

I did the same thing, trying not to think of the days I’d spent in that smelly and cold school bus, trying not to think of what was out there, waiting for us.

Peter said, ‘My dad told me once, in London, that there were never too many sunny days, and if you got one you should enjoy it for as long as possible. Back when he grew up, there was still a lot of coal being burned in and around London. Lots of cloudy days. Not a bad piece of advice, to enjoy those sunny days that come your way. Your dad ever give you advice, Samuel?’

‘Yeah, but I never listened to it,’ I said.

Miriam asked, ‘What kind of advice was that, then?’

‘Never to volunteer,’ I said.

Even Charlie, up at the front of the Land Cruiser, heard me, and they all had a good laugh at what I’d said.

A dozen or so meters away the bulldozer started back up again on the flatbed trailer and there were some yells. Charlie said to Peter, ‘Looks like it’s time to saddle up.’

‘We ride again,’ Peter said.

I opened the door for Miriam, and just like that she reached up and kissed me. Right on the lips.

‘I’ll remember that,’ I said.

‘Good,’ she said. I climbed in after her and got the door shut just as Peter put the Land Cruiser in gear and we rejoined the convoy.

The going was slower this time, since the soldiers in charge were keeping a close watch on our progress. The helicopters raced ahead and then came back, hovering overhead, at an altitude of what looked like under a hundred meters or so. APCs and a mine-clearing crew led the way, and armed soldiers were again flanking our sides out in the woods. The river came in view to the right, the one I had forded, and I kept looking around on the left, looking for a particular tree, a tree where I had found a volunteer like myself dangling in the breeze. But the SAR unit that had picked him up had done a good job: there was nothing left, no parachute, no parachute lines, nothing.

Miriam squeezed my hand. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘Truthfully?’

‘Of course truthfully.’

‘OK.’ I was going to say something snappy, like I’d been imagining her in a bubble bath, wearing nothing but a smile, but I decided that Charlie and Peter didn’t need to hear something like that. ‘I’m thinking that maybe Peter will be able to hide me if we get there and there’s no Site A. I imagine that general will be very unhappy.’

Miriam reached up with her free hand, tickled Peter’s scalp. ‘You’ll do that, won’t you, Peter? Hide Samuel if there’s trouble?’

‘He should ask Charlie,’ Peter said. ‘I’m just a cop, nothing else.’

Miriam sat back. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think cops can boss generals around, now, can they? Why won’t you tell me who you really are?’

Charlie wouldn’t let Peter reply, because he said, ‘OK, we’re here. Now the fun begins.’

We came up to a wooden bridge spanning a fast-moving stream that no doubt led into the river I had crossed the other day. The wood planks made a clunking sound as we drove across them. In front of us was a wide stream bed, and up ahead was a dirt parking lot. There was a steep hill at one end of it and two low-slung wooden buildings. There were stumps again, where signposts had been taken down. The convoy came to a halt, parking in a semicircle. I stepped out, slung my duffel bag over my shoulder.

Miriam saw me and smiled. ‘Still on the job?’

‘Until I’m sent home, yeah, I’m still on the job,’ I said.

The helicopters stayed overhead, darting back and forth like dragonflies seeking prey. Soldiers were moving about and I experienced a little taste of shame, remembering all the times I had thought badly of my father, his service, his chosen career. Being a soldier was more than a matter of black and white. Sometimes they were there in the middle, defending those shades of gray.

Peter got out, looked around. Charlie climbed out and stood next to him, his weapon slung at his side. With Miriam with me I felt indestructible, as though this UN team could go anywhere, do anything to protect the helpless and the innocent.

‘Where do we start looking?’ Peter asked.

‘Wherever the mine entrance is, I suppose.’

Charlie said, ‘There’s a crowd forming, over there by the hill. Let’s take a walk.’

We all walked over, each of us — except Charlie — carrying a bag of gear that marked his or her own specialty. With all the other people around and the soldiers as well, I had the feeling that our little inspection group was about to be overwhelmed. But damn it, we were going to do our job, so long as we could.

There was another series of wooden stumps set into the ground, where signs had been removed. General Hale, now wearing a beret, was standing beside a gravel path that led toward the steep hill. There was a cluster of soldiers and UN types around him, and he caught my eye, offering a slight look of ‘I certainly hope you’re right.’ I turned and looked at the gathering of APCs and earth-moving equipment and white Toyota Land Cruisers. All here because of me. As if she was sensing what was going on inside my mind, Miriam reached over and squeezed my hand.

‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Just you see.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ I said.

Peter said, ‘Enough of that kissy-face stuff. We’ve got work to do.’

Charlie said nothing. He just smiled and led the way up the path. It rose at a slight angle, fairly wide, and I noticed how chewed up it was. Tire tracks, lots of them, making the dirt look tom up. As we got further up the trail Peter said, ‘Congratulations.’

‘What do you mean, congratulations?’ I asked.

Miriam whispered something in her native tongue and Peter looked back at me. ‘Can’t you smell it?’ he asked.

Then I noticed it, right after he said it. A sickly, sour-sweet smell that made my throat swell up and my eyes start to water. Peter said, ‘You smell it once, you never get it out of your mind, Samuel, no matter how hard you try…’

Ahead of us the path widened, leading to an area where the ground rose steeply and where rock was exposed at the side of the hill. A heavy-duty green canvas tarpaulin was secured against the side of the rock and it moved some, as if it were breathing. A mine-clearing crew was there, looking spectral in their gas masks as they finished their work with their detecting equipment. I coughed again, my eyes still watering, trying to take it all in. Peter said, ‘I hope you’re not too fond of what you’re wearing, mate, because when we’re through here it’s going to be good for burning, and nothing else.’

Where the path had widened there were some park benches, and a small metal and wood hut that had refreshments/souvenirs displayed on a red, white and blue sign overhead. Above the tarpaulin was a rock overhang, and the place was thick with evergreens and brush. Not much chance of air surveillance finding anything out. Miriam put down her bag and started taking some things out. ‘This will help,’ she said. ‘Trust me, I know.’

She opened up a little glass bottle of some type of cold cream, which she smeared on my upper lip and in each nostril. Vicks VapoRub rides again. Just like that time -ages ago, it seemed—when we had excavated those cows back at that burned-out farm. The smell was overwhelming, but it was a heavy mint scent that at least overwhelmed everything else. She did the same with Charlie and Peter, and then passed out little paper face-masks as though we were heading into surgery or some damn thing. Lastly, rubber gloves and clear safety glasses. I put everything on, feeling hot and uncomfortable and not quite understanding how the mine-clearing crew could be doing their job. More people were coming up behind us on the path, and they weren’t as prepared as Miriam, for most had handkerchiefs around their faces.

One of the mine-clearing crew came up to me and pulled up his gas mask, his face red and sweating, his black hair sticking to his wet forehead. He said in a thick accent, ‘Things OK here. You want us to open it up?’

I nodded, too stunned to appreciate that he had asked me instead of Peter or Miriam or anybody else. ‘Yeah, open it up.’

He turned and shouted something—in Slovakian, maybe?—and two of the crew went to one side of the tarpaulin. Ropes and turnbuckles were holding down the side of the heavy canvas, and the mine-clearing crew went to work. The ropes snapped free and two men grabbed a corner and started pulling it back. And damn it if there wasn’t an awful gurgling, burping noise as the foul air inside the mine entrance was set free. I got dizzy and walked a few steps, took a deep breath, removed my face-mask, and threw up on the ground. My breakfast came up in three heavy spasms, and I felt enormously embarrassed until I stood up, wiped my face with a coat sleeve and looked around. Except for the men with the gas masks and Charlie, everyone else was standing there as well, a wet mess on the ground around their feet, their eyes glassy and their lips shiny-wet with saliva.

We waited some more while an engineering crew came up with large round metal blower fans, which they set up at the mine entrance. Another engineering crew went to work with a generator, powering up the lights within the mine shaft. With the tarpaulin gone, I could make out the round entrance fairly well. There were timbers holding up the sides and the roof, and it looked big enough to drive a truck into. The low roar of the fans was swamped some by the sound of the helicopters hovering overhead and that of the vehicles moving around in the parking lot. General Hale came over to me and said, ‘The air quality in there is about as good as it’s going to get. Since you led us here, I think protocol should be damned and you should have first crack at taking a look. That all right, son?’

I picked up my gear and said, ‘Only if Peter and Miriam and Charlie go with me. They’re my crew.’

‘Of course,’ Hale said.

The three of them, all dressed like me with face-masks and rubber gloves and safety glasses, joined me as we went up the dirt roadway into the entrance of the mine. The walls and the roof were rough-hewn rock. The blower fans were switched off and a small crowd of a couple of dozen watched us go in. Temporary lights had been set up at the entrance to provide even more light, and I froze as we took just one step in, for I had seen a small child on the ground. Miriam bumped into me and said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I just looked down at the tiny figure and then squatted down on the ground. The doll weighed almost nothing, and its long blonde braids and its cloth face were dirty. I looked ahead to the shapes lying there, stretching out into the darkness, and I stood up, the doll in my hands.

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ I said. ‘But everything’s wrong.’

‘Yes,’ Miriam said.

I looked over at Peter and Charlie, who seemed to be waiting for me to do something. Even with all that was no doubt going on inside his head, Peter stood still, no real expression on his face. So I went ahead, turned round and said, ‘Welcome to Site A.’

And one of the horrible things, though I’m not sure if it was the worst thing or not, was how damn easy this was going to be. The militia units or rogue state police or whoever had been in charge here had created an efficient system. The mine shaft went in for a couple of hundred meters and there was still enough room to walk down the middle. On each side, lined up one after another, were the bodies, wrapped in green plastic garbage bags secured with twine. The smell was horrific, a deep, thick odor of decay and sweet-sourness that seemed to ooze right into our pores. The light overhead came from single light bulbs dangling from long power lines, and they wavered some in the air flow, making the shadows quake upon the long lines of dead men, women and children. I wasn’t sure what was worse: the sight of all those green-wrapped bodies, stretching out, or the sight of the wet stone floor where the bodily fluids had been leaking out. We walked in slowly, using flashlights to help light our way, and I had to look away each time there was a shorter bundle lying next to a longer one.

Peter led the way and Miriam was beside me. She pulled my head close and said, ‘The hate, my God, so much hate.’

Charlie was behind us, his face cold and impassive, and I knew that if we’d been back at the hospital parking lot he would have opened fire in an instant on the militia representatives who were waiting there, hoping for another armistice.

Then the path ended, at an exhibit of rusting old machinery. There were no more bodies. Just the gloom of the mine shaft, now descending at a steeper angle. Peter leaned in, flashed his light down there, and said, his voice muffled, ‘There might be more, tossed down the shaft. We’ll have to send a crew in there with lights and ropes.’

Miriam looked back at the little round spot of light that was the entrance to the tunnel. I stood beside her and shifted my duffel bag from one shoulder to the other. I knew we had work to do, I knew my gear was ready to be pulled out and used, but the sheer scale of everything overwhelmed me. It was like trying to excavate a house foundation using nothing more than a teaspoon.

‘Two hundred and twelve,’ Peter announced.

‘Excuse me?’ I said.

‘Two hundred and twelve,’ he said. ‘That’s how many bodies are in here. Look, we’ve got work to do. We’ve got to get that engineer unit in here, make sure the bodies aren’t booby-trapped, and we’ve got to do everything we can before night falls.’

Charlie said, ‘I think you’re too late, man. It’s already twilight. Can’t you see?’

I think Peter was going to say something about it not even being noontime yet, but he looked at Charlie’s face and knew what he meant. I could only imagine what it must be like to see so many of your countrymen laid out like that, dead, for the crime of being hungry and being from away and for being different. That was all.

For being different.

Several hours later I was on an exposed piece of rock that was getting some late-afternoon sun, near the entrance of the mine shaft. The two helicopters were still overhead, doing their patrol work, making sure, I guess, that nobody was creeping around to steal the bodies. I’d taken off my gloves, safety glasses and mask and they were in a little pile at my feet, and the cream over my lip and in my nostrils was doing its job as best it could. I had a liter bottle of mineral water, which I was sipping slowly. I was into some sort of nutty routine where I would take a gulp of water, swish it around, spit it out, then take another gulp, and then swallow it. I think I was fooling myself into thinking that maybe I was rinsing out whatever bacteria and odors were coming in from the open mine shaft before I swallowed the next gulp of water.

The work had gotten underway after the engineers had determined that there were no booby traps inside. Soon enough, the bodies started coming out. Temporary morgues with refrigeration units had been set up in large canvas tents in the parking lot, and myself and a couple of other recorders went in first, taking photos and writing down descriptions. Then there was the first pass from the forensics investigators who took measurements and other details of each body. That took some time. Then I helped photograph each body as it was removed and brought out to a flatbed truck. It could hold twenty adult corpses at a time. The soldiers who moved the bodies wore full chemical/biological-warfare gear, with gloves and gas masks. Us UN civilians had to make do with the little face-masks and glasses and ointment. Then, with a roar of diesel engines, the truck carrying twenty dead Americans — or twenty-four or twenty-six, depending if children had been brought out—were taken down to one of the tents, where the real horror began.

I raised the water bottle, swished, spat, and then raised it again, swished and swallowed. The bottle shook so hard that its end rattled against my teeth.

‘Hey,’ came a voice.

‘Hey, yourself,’ I said as Miriam came over and sat down beside me. Her hair was matted at the back of her head and her face was bright red. I offered her my water bottle and she nodded gratefully and took three long swallows. No spitting. She was an expert at this, while I was just a kid newspaper reporter looking to do something different.

‘We’re almost done emptying the mine,’ she said. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Lousy,’ I said.

‘Why?’

I took a breath and then regretted it. The stench from the mine shaft seemed to come in waves, and I’d got a good whiff that made my stomach do flip-flops. I coughed and said, ‘Because I haven’t done shit in the past few hours, that’s why.’

‘What have you been doing, then?’

‘Sitting. Breathing. Letting other people do the work. I should be down at the tents, doing the documentation, but I can’t.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It is very tough.’

Tough. There was a procedure at the tents, too. With each delivery, soldiers would pick up a body and bring it into the cool interior of the tent. It would then be placed on a metal examining table, set at an angle so that any blood or other bodily fluids would flow down to the feet. Then the medical examiners would get to work, gently snipping away the twine and unwrapping the plastic trash bag. I would be there as well, taking photos, trying to stay out of the way. There would be the low murmur of voices, the clinking sound of medical instruments being dropped into trays, the rustling as the plastic wrapping was taken off and tossed onto the dirt floor. And I would be there, taking photos. The very first photo was that of an old woman dressed in a red flannel nightgown. That was what got to me. A nightgown. I imagined her in a tiny apartment, maybe a cat or two at her feet, having a cup of tea, feeling scared and lonely about what was going on after the attacks, not sure of what tomorrow would bring, and then…

The knock at the door. Her family has come, or maybe her neighbors. They are leaving the city, joining the others who have given up after weeks of no power and no water and no food deliveries, of no news on the radio or the television. So she leaves her home and departs from the city and maybe there’s help out there, friends, fellow Americans who will help her and her neighbors.

Doesn’t that make sense?

And then the refugee column is halted, they are yelled at—and maybe they are robbed and maybe the younger women are taken away—and there you are, cold and frightened and not quite believing that this is happening to you, a little old lady, here in the United States of America, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, believing it must all be a mistake, right up to the point where someone -maybe even Gary, the local schoolteacher—places a pistol at the back of your head, right below the gray curls of hair.

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.