Nano, page 27
Dina’s team is the first to rock up with tired, ashen faces, looking like they’d all seen ghosts.
“Did you find anyone?” Mikey asks, expectantly.
Dina hesitates before replying. “Not exactly,” she finally says.
When the other two teams arrive, Dina leads us all past the railway station – a formerly bustling transport hub, exporting the coal mined here across the country – and to the outskirts of a town to the east. There, she leads us to what appears to be freshly dug soil, and the next thing I see turns my stomach.
A hand – its fingers bloodied and stretched in morbid directions – reaching out of the earth. It looks almost like a small, deathly tree poking out of the ground. And the disturbances in the soil around it feel like it’s the first of many.
“A mass grave,” Dina says, her voice emotionless and unwavering. “I think there was a ravine here. They probably just filled it with bodies and pushed the earth over.”
We all look on in silence before Salman begins to walk the edges of the hastily moved dirt. I look up and see two crows nesting in a rooftop, making grim-sounding calls. Then I look over to see Abbas, wiping tears away from his eyes, before disappearing into a nearby house.
“This is graveyard.”
I turn to see Fadi, pointing and shaking his head. My adrenaline from earlier is gone. Now I just feel a sober sense of shame and anger. I don’t say anything; just meet his eyes with my own and shake my head too.
CHAPTER 36
“Well, I suppose it’s mission accomplished,” Mikey says, his rifle hanging from his shoulder and his arms crossed defeatedly. “For now, at least.”
“The camp is already on the move,” Dina says. “I’ve heard that an entire battalion is headed this way. Could be 1000 people headed down here. The leaders want to solidify this new territory and add it to our own.”
I look around – at the devastation, the dust-filled craters, the bombed-out houses – and wonder what there is to add. Dina sees my quizzical expression and feels compelled to explain.
“This could be a defensible position for us. And if we get the rail network here running again, we can resupply the front line with ease. It was important to Darida once. Until this whole withdrawal.”
Yeah, the withdrawal. I’m starting to get more and more suspicious about Darida’s intentions. The mass graves, the bloodthirsty armies here one moment, gone the next, sometimes so quickly as to be unable to take home their dead.
“It won’t be long now,” Abbas says, his eyes reddened from his own tears. “Darida will be the one in the grave.”
All of us suspect Abbas knew someone here, but so far none of us have dared ask him. Everyone’s in a strange mood. Some of us are quiet and sullen – Mikey isn’t even his usual brash self – whereas others seem barely able to contain their anger.
I can’t get the hand – twisted, poking out of the dirt – out of my mind. I wonder how many other bodies are in that mass grave, and what Darida and his government are trying to cover up.
Everywhere I look, I see something that reminds me of the horrors of the last few days. There’s a strange, dark brown spatter against one of the walls nearby. It could be paint, or then again it could be the telltale dark crimson of old, dried blood. I flash back to the man I killed and the dark, bloody mess of his balaclava…
I excuse myself from the group, telling Mikey I need to go for a walk. He gives me the usual platitudes about being careful, and I walk away from everyone, heading around the outskirts of town. I feel I need a different perspective on all of this.
“Vega,” I say, watching the late afternoon breeze raise a cloud of dust across the horizon. “What do you make of all of this? Mass graves?”
Despotic regimes can be brutal. Especially so in times of war. Without an in-depth investigation there is little more to say.
I step across a set of rail tracks. They’ve been blasted at a couple of sections – warped and twisted by the damage – but Mikey seems to think we’ll get trains running again with some repair work.
There’s an old building composed of corrugated metal and empty panes, long since relieved of their glass. It looks like it was once used to house trains. I walk up to it and take a seat on the concrete indoors, escaping the harsh sun on the back of my neck.
There is something of note, though.
I sit up, anticipating what Vega has to say. Clues of secret weapons of mass destruction? Strains of a zombification virus hiding out here?
There’s a lot of gunpowder residue – smokeless powder, to be exact – here. It’s apparent in the sand, on the walls, and seems especially high in this hangar you’re currently sitting in.
“Gunpowder residue?” I think about it and recall the hundreds of destroyed, burned-out vehicles nearby. “There was a battle nearby. It doesn’t seem unusual.”
Perhaps. But I’m detecting evidence of large amount of unburned, unused explosive primer. Ordinarily the gunshot residue would be burned in firing, but very recently this town hosted a massive stockpile of relatively fragile, unsafely secured ammunition. It might even still be here.
I stand back up and take a look around, my interest finally piqued. I follow the rail tracks out of the building and deeper into the desert. After 10 minutes of walking I see them descend a dune and meet a small cliff-face, plus a couple more buildings. In the cliff-face is an entrance to the underground, boarded up with scrappily constructed wooden planks.
“I guess this must be the entrance to the mine, right?”
Yes, it appears so.
I make the walk over there and take a look at the boarded-up entrance. The nails are new – they shine silver in the sun – and the wood hasn’t long been exposed to the elements judging by the condition.
I place my palm against one of the planks and wait for Vega’s response.
There’s a lot of unspent primer residue here. I think there will be more beyond these planks.
I take a step back and look at the entire structure again. Then I take the crappy radio out, push a couple of buttons, and hope I get through to someone. To my shock and amazement, Mikey answers.
“I’ve got something you’ll want to check out.”
“Huh, so what am I looking at?” Mikey is scratching his head underneath his helmet before adjusting his sunglasses. It took him, Dina, and Fadi about 20 minutes to make it down here, and they’re all looking confused as to why they bothered with the walk.
“This is the entrance to the mine,” I explain, hoping to talk them round without mentioning that my fingertips can detect gunpowder residue. “Look, these nails, these planks, they’re all new. Can’t be older than a couple of days, right?”
Mikey looks at Dina. She shrugs but doesn’t look completely opposed to my reasoning.
“Why would they board up this mine without leaving?” I ask, trying to tie this all together. “What are they hiding inside the mine that they don’t want us to find?”
I can see I’ve asked Mikey a question he can’t leave unanswered.
“Yeah, we should open it.”
“Shouldn’t we wait ‘til the battalion gets here?” Dina asks. She has her arms crossed again, ever the killjoy. “I mean, there could be evidence of war crimes.”
Mikey turns to her with a sly smile.
“Ahh c’mon, aren’t you curious?” He begins trying to prize the planks off, but after a couple of attempts he gives up.
“We need a crowbar or—”
I interrupt him, quickly stepping up and beginning trying to prize a plank off. I dig my fingers into the wood, sending a couple of splinters into my fingertips, but after a few moments of effort, I manage to prize it away and throw it to the ground behind me.
“Oh ’kay,” he says, shocked at my strength. “I did not expect that.”
I look at Dina, but she isn’t impressed. Again, she’s entirely suspicious of me.
“C’mon,” I say, stepping up to prize out another plank. “Maybe I loosened it for you.”
Mikey and Fadi begin pulling the planks off with me, sending nails flying as each is prized off. After a few more we see the dark at the end of the tunnel. After a couple more we can finally climb through.
“You can’t honestly be going in there,” Dina says with palpable disbelief.
“Why not?” Mikey asks, already sticking a foot through the exposed entrance. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
Dina looks on disapprovingly. I shrug at her and follow him into the mine. Inside, he switches his flashlight on and we begin to walk slowly into the depths following a series of cables that probably once carried power into the mining complex. It isn’t long before we find something else, though.
“Huh,” Mikey says, stumbling on something on the rocky ground. “Take a look at that.”
He shines his flashlight downwards and I see something gold and shiny in the dirt.
“These are 7.62mm ammunition rounds, Soviet,” Mikey says, and I see that they’re barely shiny and gold after all. Instead, they look like the bullets I’ve been loading and unloading into my rifle. He picks one up and examines it closely. “They seem to be intact.”
We press on, coming to a series of turns in the mine and a ladder. We climb down it with only Mikey’s flashlight to guide our path. I should probably suggest we turn back – maybe Dina was right to suggest waiting for reinforcements – but my curiosity gets the better of me.
The air is warm and acrid; there’s a damp, pungent smell in the air, but also something I can’t quite identify. It brings back memories of the fourth of July, somehow, and the cloudy haze of fireworks.
“The briefing said these mineshafts go all the way under town, right?”
“Yeah,” Mikey replies, as we slowly saunter onwards. Then he pauses, shining his flashlight onto something in the distance. “What’s that?”
I see something like a wooden pallet or crate, and beside it another one. When we draw closer, we see the entire mineshaft is full of them. Box after box, crate after crate, pallet after pallet.
Then I put my foot down into something that feels different from the uneven, rocky ground I’ve been used to. It feels almost like metallic gravel, shifting and clinking underneath my feet. Mikey evidently feels the same and shines the flashlight down to see dozens of unspent bullets. All different sizes, shapes, and colors.
“Wow,” Mikey says, shining his flashlight into a nearby crate. “They must have used this place as an ammunition dump. Underground, easily defended from the town above, close to the rail network, it’s perfect.”
“So why’d they leave it behind?” I ask. I’m not exactly a master strategist – I couldn’t even get a hang of how to play Risk – but even I know there are plenty of unanswered questions here.
“Beats me man,” Mikey says as he continues walking forward with me following behind. “Maybe it was too much to carry. There could be millions of bullets, shells, and other explosives here. But one thing’s for sure…”
He turns to me, placing his flashlight below his face, lighting it from below.
“It’s a great find.”
I look back at him uneasily. We come to a pause as Mikey pulls out his radio and begins to report our findings to the others. Only now, in the overwhelming darkness, do I remember I have a flashlight of my own: the cellphone Mikey gave me. I pull it out and use the flashlight function.
Taking a few more unsteady steps on jagged rock and loose bullets, I shine the light in my path and take a look at the crates on my own. There’s Middle-Eastern lettering on the crates and each one seems to be at least three-quarters full of bullets or magazines full of bullets.
I walk a little deeper into the mineshaft and come upon something else: a larger crate, loosely sealed with a wooden lid. I force the lid off with ease and shine my light inside.
“Hey Mikey,” I call out, “take a look at this.”
“Oh, crap,” he says when he gets here; I see his eyes widen. “Artillery rounds. I think those are 122mm shells.”
They’re large – five inches, perhaps – in an array of colors from green to red to metallic brass.
“This stuff could really come in handy for us,” Mikey adds.
Kris, Vega says, with such vigor that I almost reply out loud. What are those cables underneath the box?
I shine my flashlight down, and sure enough Vega saw a couple of cables that I didn’t: two white wires, bound together, snaking out of the bottom of the crate. I follow them along, and see a couple more join the bundle from another large box. I keep following the cables eventually coming to a large, metallic box almost like a fuse box.
“Mikey,” I shout, my voice echoing across the rocky walls. “Here!”
He slowly makes his way over. I point out the cables and the box, and he scratches his chin. Then, he opens the fuse box, shines his flashlight inside for a moment, and suddenly ceases all motion.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“Well,” he hesitates, before slowly pulling his hands away from the box. “I think this is a remote detonator.”
“A detonator?! That means…”
“I think this place is rigged to blow.”
CHAPTER 37
I watch as the last few black buildings of Kolajje disappear behind the great cloud of dust our vehicle kicks up as we speed away from there.
Dina is speaking Aljarrian over the radio, frenetically pronouncing syllables of words I don’t understand, repeating herself occasionally, and shouting occasionally. They almost sound like swear words.
The last hour has been a blur; Mikey and I took some very quick photos of everything we found before finding our way back to daylight and gathering the rest of the group as quickly as we could. Then, we all ran back to our vehicles and decided to race out of there and back to base camp as quickly as possible.
Dina suddenly ends her call and looks to me, Mikey, and Abbas in the car, exhaustedly.
“They’re going to postpone the move to Kolajje, at least for now.”
I feel a surge of relief. Everything I’ve seen today – the burned-out husks of tanks and vehicles; the blackened, destroyed buildings; the mass grave – has been a prelude to one, big, explosive final act. The detonation of the ammunition stores under Kolajje and the destruction of the entire town.
“I can’t even believe he’d plan something like this,” Dina says, rubbing her fingers against her temple. I look over at Abbas who sits next to me in the backseat, staring out of the window intensely, his eyes burning a hole in the glass. He looks way beyond tears now.
“I guess Darida knew he was laying a trap all along,” I reply.
It makes sense in a twisted way. Everyone knows Kolajje is an important strategic location. Darida gets to hide evidence of his war crimes and the mass graves; he gets to kill thousands of rebels as we rush to take back the city, and he gets to blame us for blowing up the town as soon as we retake it.
“Those tunnels could go on for miles,” Mikey adds, gripping the wheel as he speeds away into the dusk. “If all those tunnels are full of old ammo, there’s no telling what the explosive power of it all will be. The entire town will be reduced to one smoldering crater.”
When we reach base camp, I can see everything has been turned upside-down. Tents are half-dissembled, with tired-eyed soldiers slowly putting them back up. Men hang out of the back of trucks, throwing boxes back out of them, and we’re greeted by an array of incredulous, frustrated expressions, like we just pulled the plug on everyone’s new dream home purchase at the last minute.
We park up and head straight for Captain Mahmoud – sweaty and irritable – who yells at Dina in Aljarrian, who promptly yells back. Then she paces over to me, grabs the cellphone from my pocket, and shows him the pictures I quickly snapped of all the ammunition, the shells, and the fuse box.
His expression soon changes. He crosses his arms and softens his tone, before looking Mikey and I in the eyes ruefully. I feel like the prospect of your new camp going boom in the night will change your mind like that.
Everyone seems to be running around, bobbing up and down like emperor penguins, trying to make head or tail of this entire situation, but at this point I’m just tired. I tell everyone I’ll be elsewhere in the camp if they need me, and walk to the showers hoping they haven’t yet been disconnected from the well here.
They haven’t, and I spend a good 15 minutes standing under the freezing cold water, washing off all of the dust and the dirt and the gunpowder residue and the decaying asbestos, and whatever else Kolajje imprinted on my skin today.
What Kolajje imprinted on my mind, though, will take a lot longer to wash clean.
When I get out and put some clothes back on, Dina is waiting for me outside.
“Kris,” she says, her arms crossed as ever and her dark brown eyes inquisitive, “I feel like we’ve got some talking to do.”
It’s dark at this point; she’s lit only by a couple of camping lights still left out, but I can see her stern expression perfectly well. I feel like I’m running out of time with her.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, hoping to disarm her before she explodes in my face. “It was a job well done today huh?”
She doesn’t reply; she just harshens her gaze. I gather my towel and walk past her.
“You wanna talk?” I finally say without turning to face her. “Let’s go to the firing range.”
I hear her following me, and immediately feel that old, familiar feeling of dread in my stomach; a cold, tight knot of nerves that embeds itself below my sternum. I take a deep breath and try to put together what I’m going to say here.
She’s been suspicious of me for a while. I don’t think she suspects me of being a ‘superhero’ as she’s not stupid enough for that. Instead, she sees me for what I am; a strange, supposedly inexperienced American 20-something who turns up and miraculously finds himself at every right place at every right time.
Or, of course, the times I get shot, or wounded, and heal as if by magic. Not even a dent on the fender.
