Dead of Night

CHAPTER THREE

In the morning rain had come through for a bit, and I joined the others for a stand-up breakfast in the parking lot, shivering. But at least it wasn’t dark. I was tired, not having slept much after my little excursion outside my room. Karen gave me a cool glance that said it all: our conversation last night did not happen, and please don’t bring it up. And Peter was Peter—when he said that he had slept like a brick, not moving once during the night, I wondered why he was lying. I also wondered why I should care.

Another hot shower sure would have been fine but Jean-Paul decided against restarting the generator because he wanted to make an early start. Not that he had put it up to a vote in the group; he had just done it, like some EU bureaucrat in Brussels, deciding on his own the proper fat content for a particular English cheese. A low mist hung over everything, the water droplets beading up on the various surfaces. While last night the parking lot of the motel had seemed almost cheerful, with our vehicles parked in a semicircle and a fire warming us up, now the place looked trashed. The ashes and logs were black and slick-wet, and the bright orange furniture that we had dragged from the motel looked out of place. This little piece of the countryside now looked worse than it had the day before, and it was our fault. And I knew that any suggestion on my part to move the furniture back and clean out the fire pit would be met with puzzled smiles. What would be the point, compared with what was already out there? And my answer would have been the only one I could come up with: to show respect. But I guess being the youngest in the group meant I still had a bit of optimism.

This morning Sanjay took over the cooking duties, which were minimal: hot tea or instant coffee, with hard rolls and orange marmalade. For Sanjay and Jean-Paul and Miriam and Peter, this seemed to be a reasonable breakfast, though I wished for something more substantial, like eggs and bacon or pancakes and sausages or even a cruller or two. I’m not sure what Charlie or Karen normally had for breakfast—Charlie probably thought breakfast was a waste of time and Karen probably had granola or fruit mix or some damn thing—but whatever we had, we ate on the wet hoods of our Land Cruisers.

Sanjay sipped noisily from his metal mug of tea, the liquid wetting the ends of his mustache. ‘Look over there,’ he said, gesturing with a shrug of his shoulder to another Land Cruiser, where Jean-Paul had a satellite phone up and working. ‘I think Jean-Paul is getting his marching orders from Albany, don’t you?’

Jean-Paul was speaking rapidly in French, gesturing wildly with one hand. Peter was next to him, holding a map steady against the hood of the Land Cruiser. Charlie was at the end of the parking lot, looking up and down the road. Karen was next to Sanjay, and I noticed how she had gently bumped her hip against his twice when she didn’t think anybody was looking. I guess New Delhi was still quite far away.

Miriam took another hard roll, split it with one hand while spooning out some more marmalade. ‘Jean-Paul is under a lot of pressure, as are the other teams in this area. If there is no Site A, then there is no case in The Hague. And without a case in The Hague, you know what happens next. The criminals are released and, most likely, are released back to this poor country to start up where they left off if the UN leaves as agreed. Shooting refugees for sport. We have to do what we can.’

‘How many teams do you think are out here?’ I asked, finishing my meager breakfast and hoping against hope that tomorrow we would have something, anything, other than the chalky-tasting marmalade again.

Sanjay shrugged. ‘A half-dozen, maybe more. All driving around on the ground in this county, all poking around and asking questions and doing who knows what.’ He raised his head. ‘But up there… up there out in space are surveillance satellites, satellites that have the information we need. Archival footage to compare to real-time footage. Compare and contrast. See the trucks and the trains at work. All up there, ready to be used at a click of a mouse button. And we cannot touch it. Not even a single byte.’

Karen kept silent and Miriam added, ‘The Americans and the Russians have the best equipment. And neither are in a position to help us. You know how it is. The Americans are still humiliated over what has happened, and the Russians don’t want to piss off the Americans, in case they ever get back on the world stage like before.’

Sanjay looked at Karen, as if to suggest in a way that maybe it was her fault, I don’t know. Sanjay said bitterly, ‘I knew how it is, but I don’t have to like it.’

I looked over and saw Jean-Paul apparently still hard at work, with Peter next to him, equally intent. Then I had a start: Charlie was talking to two people, down where the road met the parking lot. To change the subject I said, ‘Look there. Seems like a couple of local men have come over to say hello.’

Sanjay and Karen and Miriam looked where I was pointing, and Karen said, ‘Look again, Samuel. The locals look like they haven’t reached puberty yet.’

I felt my face flush with embarrassment as I realized she was right. The two visitors were young boys and, looking again, I spotted the bicycles that they had been riding. Miriam said, ‘Young boys, out for a ride. How incredible. I wonder where their parents are. I don’t care what the map says about pacification; if they were my boys, they would still be in a basement or a shelter. Or in Canada or Mexico.’

‘Life muddles along,’ Sanjay said. ‘Seems like they’re telling Charlie something.’

Which was true. The boys were pointing up the road and Charlie was talking back to them, nodding his head, and when it seemed like he was satisfied with whatever it was they were saying he reached into his camouflaged coat and pulled out two chocolate bars. He passed them over and in a few seconds the boys were back on their bicycles, riding back to the town. Charlie watched them for a minute or so, and then ambled back and started talking to Jean-Paul. His face was impassive and I think I knew why. It had been quite normal in the previous century for good-hearted American military men to give out candy to local children in an occupied area. But these were not normal times, not when an American Marine had to do that in his home country. Our team leader pressed the satellite phone against his chest while Charlie talked to him, and then Peter caught my eye.

‘Better wrap up breakfast, folks,’ I said. ‘I think we’re going to be moving out quite shortly.’

Miriam smiled at me. ‘Samuel, you are so right.’

I helped with the dishes yet again, and then Jean-Paul strolled over. By now the stubble on his face almost matched in length the stubble on the top of his head. ‘We have to head out immediately,’ he said. ‘Those local boys told Charlie that something bad happened at a farmhouse a few kilometers away.’

‘What kind of bad?’ Karen asked, wiping her hands with a brown paper napkin.

‘Bad enough,’ Jean-Paul said.

Within ten minutes we were on the road and I looked back at the broken-down motel, feeling a bit of regret at leaving it behind. The bed and the room had been comfortable, and maybe we would be back tonight. Then again, maybe we’d be in a field once more, shivering from the early autumn cold. It all depended where we went and what we found.

Our three Land Cruisers made a small convoy as we drove along the narrow blacktop. The first Toyota was being driven by Charlie, with Jean-Paul at his side. I was in the second vehicle, with Peter driving and with Miriam in the rear seat, leaning in front so that she could talk to us, and Sanjay and Karen were in the last vehicle. I looked back a few times, saw them laughing a lot as we drove out. It looked like Karen had found the right room last night, and that the room’s occupant had helped erase memories of California after last spring’s attack.

Within a few minutes of leaving the motel we passed a refugee column heading in the opposite direction. It was smaller than others I had seen before in the weeks I had officially come ‘in-country’. This one consisted of two pickup trucks laboring under heavy loads of furniture and luggage, and two tractors pulling large flat wagons. About fifteen or twenty people, men and women, boys and girls, all ages, looked at us blankly as we sped past them. I watched them for only a moment. When I had first come here, I had wasted time examining the looks in the faces of the refugees, trying to determine on my own if these were aggressors or victims. And after a while I gave it up. I couldn’t tell, speeding by in a UN vehicle. The faces of the refugees all began to look the same: the same blank stare, the same resignation, the same exhaustion that prevented them from even glancing at us as we sped by, the official representatives of what was grandly called a peacekeeping organization, traipsing around in a nation that had usually hated the UN, even during that outfit’s good days. It was a hard thing to be a refugee here, especially when you had grown up thinking that refugees only lived on the other side of the world.

The road was well maintained and we stopped only once, at a crossroads where a fueling station had been set up. Three olive-green tanker trucks had pulled into a dirt parking area that looked like it had once held a farmstand that now consisted of burned wooden beams and shingles dumped in a ravine. Two armored personnel carriers guarded the approach from each direction. The familiar UNFORUS was stenciled in black on the side of each APC. The soldiers were Hungarian and were friendly enough, especially when they spotted Karen and Miriam. While only a couple of the soldiers seemed to speak any English, they managed to fuel up all three Land Cruisers within five minutes or so.

As we left, a couple of the soldiers stood out in the road, automatic weapons slung across their backs. They waved and called out, and Peter swiveled in his seat and said, ‘Looks like you’ve got a couple of potential boyfriends there, Miriam.’

She laughed, rested her thin forearms on the rear of our seats. ‘Drive on, Peter. Just drive on. Besides, maybe they were waving at Karen.’

I folded my arms, leaned back. ‘I think Karen is spoken for.’

‘By who?’ Miriam asked.

‘Sanjay,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she said. I couldn’t figure out what she meant by that one word.

The road narrowed some and Peter concentrated more on his driving. The morning fog hadn’t lifted yet and the fields and shallow valleys were still covered by the slowly moving curtains of light gray mist. Miriam rested her chin on her forearms and said, ‘All this beautiful country. Look at all this land. My father and grandfather, they would have been thrilled to have so much open land around them. Good land, too.’

‘Farmers?’ I asked.

‘Dairy farmers, yes,’ she said. ‘The best. But land in Holland is so expensive. My father never quite forgave my mother for giving him three daughters, and he never quite forgave his daughters for not wanting either to be farmers or marry farmers. Soon, when my parents both pass on, so will our farm. Sad.’

Peter said, ‘Sad, sure, but at least they won’t be gunned down by their neighbors because they didn’t follow the crowd, or because they tried to escape to a nearby town.’

‘True,’ Miriam agreed. ‘Peter, your father? A police officer, as well?’

‘Nope, a solicitor. Like his father before him. But the same disappointment. Didn’t want his son out in the streets, getting his hands dirty dealing with the muck. Poor old boy.’

Miriam chuckled. ‘How like me. Father and grandfather.’

I folded my hands together. Miriam turned to me, gently nudged my shoulder, ‘And you, Samuel? Newspapermen in your family?’

‘No,’ I said, enjoying the brief touch from Miriam but hating everything else that was now going on. ‘No, they were soldiers. My great-grandfather was in the trenches in the First World War. My grandfather was at Dieppe. And my father was in the Canadian Army, as well’

‘Oh,’ Miriam said. ‘Well, your father, he must still be proud of you, then.’

‘You would think so,’ I said. Then the Toyota Land Cruiser in front of us braked suddenly and an arm was thrust out of the driver’s-side window, windmilling excitedly.

Peter slammed on the brakes, causing Miriam to shout something out, and me to bounce up against the seat belt. Peter slammed the gear lever into reverse and backed suddenly. I turned, wondering if we were going to slam into the other Toyota, but Sanjay—surprisingly enough, considering his passenger — was paying attention and had backed up as well. Sanjay stopped about fifty meters away and we carried on reversing to stop about twenty-five meters in front of him. Then I tried to swallow.

Miriam leaned forward. ‘What’s wrong?’

Peter swiveled around in his seat again, his eyes wide and his stare hard. ‘Not sure, but that was the disperse signal Charlie gave us up there. Damn it, with all this bloody fog this sure is a great place for a fucking ambush.’

I was aware of just how exposed we were, and I wished that Peter had kept his mouth shut. I knew the purpose of the dispersal signal: to prevent us from lumping together and thereby making ourselves an easy and attractive target. Our Land Cruiser’s engine was still rumbling in idle and I thought about how thin the metal of the doors and frame around us was. The militias were well armed. A couple of sweeping motions with a couple of automatic weapons and the UN would be out one inspection team.

Miriam said, ‘Jean-Paul and Charlie are stepping out.’

‘So they are,’ Peter said.

I leaned forward, saw them get out, kneel down by the side of the road. I rubbed my hands against my pants legs. Peter suddenly opened the door and said, ‘To hell with this, I’m not waiting here to get gut-shot. I’m going up to see what’s going on.’

Miriam said, ‘We’re not supposed to move without the all-clear signal. Those are the procedures. Right, Samuel?’

I shook my head. ‘Sorry, I’m with Peter on this one. Let’s see what’s going on.’

I joined up with Peter at the front of the Toyota and walked with him as we went up the road, our feet sounding loud on the pavement, loud enough that I imagined gunmen kilometers away could hear us. I swiveled my head constantly as we went up to the first vehicle. Peter just kept looking ahead of us and said, ‘Miriam still back there?’

‘Yep.’

Peter snorted. ‘Nice little Dutch girl. Almost as bad as the Krauts when it comes to following the rules. Karen and Sanjay moving?’

I turned again. ‘Nope. Still in their Toyota.’

Another dismissive noise from Peter. ‘Probably tearing off a piece or something while we’re waiting.’

‘You always this pleasant, or are you trying extra hard today?’

Peter just laughed, a nasal tone I couldn’t stand. We got close enough to hear Jean-Paul and Charlie talking, and Peter called out, ‘What’s going on?’

Jean-Paul stood up from the pavement, brushing at his knees. There were dark areas around each knee, where moisture from the road had soaked through. ‘You should be back there with your vehicle. I didn’t give the all-clear signal.’

‘Sorry, boss. I thought I saw it. Right, Samuel?’

Jean-Paul looked at me, his gaze judging and evaluating me. I had seen that look before, many times, growing up in Father’s household. ‘Well?’ he asked.

‘That’s what we thought,’ I said. ‘We thought we saw the all-clear.’

‘Hmm,’ Jean-Paul said.

Charlie stood up and said, ‘Looks all right, Jean-Paul. Just a spoof.’

Peter stepped around the side of the Toyota. ‘What’s going on? And what sort of a spoof?’

‘There,’ Jean-Paul said. ‘Charlie saw this before we ran into it.’

I got closer and saw the ‘it’. A length of heavy string or fish line, stretched across the road. My throat tightened up and I stepped back. A tripwire. I remembered a slide-show briefing for us new arrivals, weeks ago, on booby traps and their uses. The other end of the tripwire could be attached to anything from a land mine to an artillery shell to homemade napalm. They were called IEDs: Improvised Explosive Devices. Rumor had it that some were built from the firsthand knowledge of local veterans who had served in Iraq years back. Some of the photos in the slide show displayed graphically what could happen to you after a tripwire had been used and one-inch-diameter steel ball bearings had come scything at a human target at waist height. I cleared my throat and said, ‘Charlie, how in hell did you see that?’

Charlie smiled, rubbed at his strong chin. ‘Lucky for us it’s been a wet morning. The dew collected on the string, so I could see it before we ran into it.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Peter breathed.

Charlie kept on smiling. ‘Doesn’t make much difference,’ he said. ‘Still looks like a spoof.’

‘Like Peter said, what kind of a spoof?’ Jean-Paul asked, still with that schoolmaster’s voice.

Charlie motioned us to the string and we walked to the left side of the road. One end of the tripwire was tied firmly around a sapling, and when Charlie tugged the other end I flinched and both Jean-Paul and Peter swore and backed away, like me, expecting the sudden crump of a booby trap going off.

But nothing happened. The string became limp in Charlie’s hands, and he tossed it to the side, among the tall grass and brush. ‘A spoof,’ he said. ‘A fake booby trap, maybe to slow us down, maybe to give somebody amusement.’

‘Maybe those two boys,’ I offered.

Charlie nodded in my direction. ‘Perhaps. A spoof,’ he repeated.

‘Fine,’ Peter said. ‘A damn joke. Can we get moving, see if that farm is for real—or is that a spoof, too?’

Charlie looked over at Jean-Paul, giving him a knowing glance. I wasn’t sure what was exchanged in those looks, but Jean-Paul gave a little nod, as if something had been settled earlier. ‘All right, we move on. But we move on in helmets and body armor.’

Peter protested. ‘What for? That bloody stuff’s hot and heavy.’

Charlie looked at Peter, and the gaze made me flinch. ‘Better to be hot and heavy than be on the side of the road, bleeding out, waiting for a medevac chopper to dust you off,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m the military advisor and escort to this little outfit, and right now I’m advising helmets and body armor, and your team leader’s agreed with me. So. You’ve got a fucking problem with that? Sir?’

Peter shook his head, and I decided I liked Charlie even more. ‘No, no problem,’ our Brit said.

We resumed driving after about fifteen minutes or so of digging through our gear, pulling out the black body-armor vests and the light blue helmets with the white UN crest. The helmets were dented and faded, the crest depicting the globe and olive branches chipped and worn away. Miriam held up hers and shook her head. ‘Makes me wonder what places this helmet has traveled, what horrors it has witnessed.’

Peter said, ‘Is it clean? Is it whole?’

‘Yes—why do you ask?’

Peter smiled, showing his teeth, which needed a good brushing. ‘Just be glad there are no bloodstains or holes or flecks of brain matter inside. I’ve seen it before. Bad luck and all that.’

I saw the sweat stains on the green webbing inside my helmet and thought about what Miriam had said. She was right, whatever Peter might say. These helmets had been used and re-used. With money tight for peacekeeping, allowances had to be made. I put on my helmet, tightened the chinstrap, and instantly felt ridiculous, like an impostor. My buds at the Star would probably wet themselves laughing at seeing me dressed like this. We helped each other with the Velcro straps of the body armor, making sure that our radiation monitors were not obstructed by the material. I was pleased when Miriam turned down Peter’s offer of assistance and asked me to help.

Peter pretended that it didn’t bother him when I stood behind her and gingerly pulled the straps tight against her. It seemed a special, intimate moment, and I had an urge just to stand there, my hands around her slim waist. Then Miriam turned and smiled and said, ‘Fine. Let’s go, then.’

We followed the lead Toyota again, though slower, and Peter said, ‘I still don’t like what happened. Spoof or no spoof, someone’s fucking with our heads. This place is supposed to be pacified. I don’t like it, not at all.’

‘Maybe it was the kids,’ I said again, seeing how the land was beginning to rise up, fences with barbed wire and fields all around us. Some of the mist started to bum off.

‘Well, maybe it was the daddies of those kids, looking to see what we do in case we spot a booby trap or obstruction in the roadway. Now they know our hand signals, how we’ll disperse, the distances we aim to put between each other. Easier for them to take us out.’

‘So,’ Miriam said, trying to lean forward to talk to us without bumping her helmeted head on the roof of the Toyota. ‘What should we do? Go back to the hotel? Try to fill the swimming pool? Is that it?’

‘No, but Jean-Paul could get on the horn there and get us some back-up, besides that Marine,’ Peter said. ‘I’d feel a hell of a lot better with an APC in front of us, that’s for sure.’

I folded my arms, saw brake lights come on again up front. ‘Aren’t enough to go around, you know that.’

Miriam added, ‘Besides, this area’s pacified. That’s what all the maps said.’

‘Sure,’ Peter said. ‘But remember what Sammy here said last night. Did anybody tell the paramilitaries what kind of maps they should be using?’

Then we all shut up as the lead Toyota turned right and started going up a dirt driveway. We followed and I swung my head around, to check on the third Land Cruiser. Sanjay and Karen were back there but I didn’t see any laughter, any smiles. It’s hard to stay in a good mood while wearing a helmet and body armor. I saw something else I didn’t like: two black mailboxes, torn from their wooden posts and flung to the ground.

The driveway went up about a hundred meters, and Peter said, ‘I surely do take it all back. That sure don’t look like a spoof to me, mates, does it now?’

I didn’t answer, just trying to take it all in. There had once been a large farmhouse here, with a barn and a couple of outbuildings. But the windows were all shattered and there were scorch marks where fires had burned. In front was a large dirt turnaround and all three Land Cruisers maneuvered so that they were facing back down the driveway, for easy escape. A tractor was on its side, and a pickup truck was on flat tires, its body rust-red from having burned some time ago. We got out and Jean-Paul motioned us to stay behind. I felt my hands quivering as Charlie went into the rear of his Toyota and came out hefting a utility belt from which hung various items of equipment. He was also holding an M-16 rifle. Unlike the rest of us, his helmet looked like it belonged on him. Karen and Sanjay joined us, standing behind the front of the Toyota where the tires and engine block might protect us if something bad were to happen.

Karen said, exasperation in her voice, ‘Damn it, there he goes again. A man with a gun. Ninety percent of the world’s problems—and one hundred percent of our particular problems—would be eliminated if we could figure out a way to get rid of men with guns.’

I think I surprised everyone there—including myself—by saying, ‘Don’t be so quick to get rid of this particular man. He’d die fighting to protect you, Karen, so show some appreciation, why don’t you?’

Karen made a dismissive noise and looked to Sanjay for something, maybe reassurance. But Sanjay was watching with the rest of us as Charlie carefully walked around the buildings, stepping in and out for a moment or three. He then went into the two-story farmhouse. The building was painted bright yellow, which made the scorch marks around the broken windows that bit more dramatic. I looked out beyond the trees, wondering if the gunmen had come from there or if they had been so blatant as to come right up the driveway.

Charlie came out of the house, the M-16 slung over his shoulder, and I realized then that my legs had relaxed—earlier they had been threatening to start shaking. Charlie met with Jean-Paul and they talked for a moment. Then Jean-Paul came over to us, shaking his head.

‘No bodies, but there looks to be evidence in the barn and in the downstairs living room,’ he said quietly. ‘Time for all of us to get to work.’

There. For the first time since I had joined the team I had heard those quiet words. I went with Peter and Miriam to the rear of our Toyota, where each of us pulled out our work rucksack.