Nano, page 31
All of a sudden this all feels very real. It’s so far from our silly ambitions about becoming James Bond or whatever. One of us will soon have the pleasure of sitting down with a real-life genocidal maniac.
“And there, during this meeting, you must kill the Butcher of Ben-Assi.”
Mikey exhales deeply; I can almost hear him saying ‘whoa, man’ in his head. Dina, on the other hand, doesn’t make a sound. If not Darida’s neck yet, I think she’ll happily get her hands around this ‘Butcher’ character’s throat.
“How do we kill him?” Dina asks.
“We’ve manufactured a poison,” the Major General replies, straightening his posture. “One of you will need to smuggle it into Darida’s territory, and one of you will somehow need to administer the poison.”
Poisoning? Here I am again on the precipice of killing a man. That man is a murderer of hundreds – if there’s anyone I should kill, it’s him – but the thought still makes me queasy.
“Hell, I’ll do it,” Mikey says, throwing his hands up in the air dismissively. “I’ll be this weapons dealer and get that poison into his body, no problem. I’ll feed it to him if I have to.”
“Our suggestion is that both of you Americans attend the meeting. One as Mr. Elphick-White, the other as his assistant. That would leave you, Dina, to act as their support staff.”
She nods once.
“How old is this guy?” I ask, my mind teeming with questions. “I mean, if there’s a 20-year age gap, this will look suspicious right?”
“He’s in his mid-thirties,” the Major General replies. “I would suggest Michael here be Mr. Elphick-White on the day, and you, Kris, be his assistant.”
Too baby-faced to play an arms dealer. My acting career over before it’s even begun.
“You’ll be given appropriate attire – suits, an expensive watch, etc. We’re assured that the Butcher doesn’t know what Mr. Elphick-White looks like, so with the appropriate knowledge and documentation, you should hopefully be able to walk straight into the meeting.”
The Major General pauses before looking at Mikey. “And yes, feeding the poison to him would be a preferable mode of delivery. It is designed to be colorless, odorless, and can be added to food or drink without the victim being aware. It’s delayed-acting. You should have between 30 minutes and three hours to escape before he begins suffering the effects.”
He then turns on the projector, giving us a series of notes about the town we’re due to meet the Butcher in. It’s close to the frontline, but very well-fortified by Darida’s men still, so the chances of a bomb going off beneath us this time seem slim.
Apparently, the three of us are to cross no man’s land and the frontline on foot tonight, just after nightfall. This will be the first challenge: ensuring we’re not seen. Then, we should find a vehicle stashed away earlier by another team of rebels and can drive into town.
We have a safehouse set up there where we can finalize our plans and rest before the meeting, which is set up tomorrow at 12:00 PM. The venue is a former rec center – once full of rich Aljarrian businesspeople playing racquetball, but now another dilapidated husk.
After we’re done with the meeting – if we manage to escape with our lives – we’re to meet Dina, who will drive us back over the frontline and no man’s land. Our forces will allegedly be told to expect our crossing and won’t shoot at us.
If all goes to plan, we’ll have a leisurely walk over the frontline, find the car for a nice evening drive, get well-rested in a comfortable safehouse, and then meet our friend the Butcher for dinner and discuss an arms deal. Then we’ll take our leave, meet up with Dina, and make our way out of town, all while the poor Butcher chokes on his lamb chops.
If it doesn’t go to plan, we’ll all be dead.
Mikey and Dina ask a couple of follow-up questions, but I’m still grappling with the logistics of it all. It’s clear now that Cantara needed us because Mikey and I are real, authentic Americans, with real American accents and real understanding of the culture back home. We’re the only people who could convincingly impersonate the weapons dealer.
But there are so many ways this could all go wrong…
I look over at Mikey and Dina; Mikey asking questions and joking with enthusiasm. Dina listening intently, determined to finally begin striking back at the generals who put her mother up against the wall. They’re my friends; the closest friends I’ve had in years, perhaps. I don’t want to lose them.
I must do what I can to protect them.
“Kris,” Dina says, snapping me back to reality. “Do you have any questions?”
“Uhm, no, I don’t think so” I answer. It’s not true. I have many questions, but I doubt they can be answered until we begin the mission.
“Thank you for listening,” the Major General says. “Thank you for volunteering for the mission, and above all, good luck.”
We leave the room and go back upstairs to our quarters. When we get there, we sit down at the table in contemplative silence. There are muffled voices down the hall, no doubt officers and generals planning out more elaborate schemes. Players plotting the pawns’ next moves.
“We’re living the dream now,” I finally say, repeating what Vega sarcastically told me last night. “I suppose we’d better get ready.”
I take a shower and change into the clothes provided: desert camouflaged pants, T-shirt, and jacket, along with a similar colored baseball cap. Mikey and Dina are dressed the same; the gear that will hopefully get us across the frontline. In addition, we get some kind of co-ordinate tracker to help us find the vehicle.
After an hour or so, the Major General comes up to our quarters and hands Dina a small box: plastic, but heavy and robust. Inside is a tiny glass vial – maybe an inch and a half tall – which we’re told contains the poison.
“Taped to one of your bodies, the vial won’t trip any sort of metal detector and shouldn’t be discovered in a pat-down,” he says, articulately. “Whatever you do, don’t ingest the poison. It’ll wash harmlessly off your fingers, but if you somehow swallow it, it will kill you.”
Don’t swallow the poison, got it.
“Also, this goes without saying, but you won’t be taking weapons with you,” he goes on to say. “The risk of one of you being caught with firearms, and thus derailing the mission, is too high.”
He bids us good luck again and tells us they’ll come to take us to no man’s land at 3:00 PM, before leaving with a grateful smile and a salute.
“All right,” Mikey yells, far too loud for this time in the morning. “I’d better get acquainted with Mr. Elphick-White, huh.”
He grabs a handful of documents from the arms dealer’s interrogation – provided to him in the briefing – and takes them onto the balcony, closing the door behind him with a thud.
Dina looks at me with her eyebrows raised high. Her expression is one of excitement. Funnily enough, since the briefing I’m not feeling it.
“How are you feeling?” she asks me, seemingly reading my mind or at least my face.
“I don’t know,” I reply, somewhat truthfully. “There’s a plan, but it’s long and complex. There’s many places and ways in which it can go wrong.”
She nods in agreement, although her enthusiasm doesn’t seem to be quelled.
“And, you know,” I go on, with plenty on my mind, “we’re amateurs at this. We’re not spies, are we? We were selected because two of us are American.”
“It’s war,” she simply replies. “You have to do what you can. Fight until they corner you, and then fight some more.”
“Aren’t you afraid?” I ask. “Even slightly?”
“No. Not anymore.”
There’s a silence between us. I take a deep breath and try to regain my composure.
“Are you?” Dina eventually asks.
I think about it for a moment. “I’ve spent my entire life being afraid. Up until recently, I woke up every morning thinking death could be just around the corner.”
She snorts with laughter. I look her in those deep, brown eyes.
“You’re not exactly easy to kill, Kris. I think we both know you’ll survive this mission.”
I turn away from her, breaking eye contact at last.
“Maybe it’s not me I’m afraid for.”
I sit up in my chair and rub my head. This is the kind of scenario that would disable me with a migraine for an hour. Now I know I don’t have to worry about that. Nanomachines in my cerebrospinal fluid, yadda-yadda-yadda. But I still have that instinctive reflex to rub my head.
“I can look after myself,” Dina says with the same implacable courage as ever. “So can Mikey. And besides, if we get into trouble, you’ll be there to throw your body in the way of their bullets.”
She smiles at me with that same fiery doggedness in her eyes. I can’t help but admire her. Dina and Mikey – Dina the fearless freedom fighter, Mikey the thrill-seeking American hero – are everything I ever wanted to be. Adventurous, courageous, heroic.
She’s right. I would take bullets for them.
CHAPTER 43
I’m looking out onto the vast dunes of Aljarran again. An expanse of rolling sandbanks and catastrophically jagged rocks that seemingly never end. Barren wastes, the occasional bit of thorny scrub, and sparse patches of brown grass. I didn’t miss it.
At least the sun is going down. Its golden glow illuminating the sharp rocks, casting horrifying shadows on the horizon. It’s an appropriate setting for no man’s land. A harsh and unforgiving place, but also one of peace and solitude, right until the next artillery shell lands.
We’re traveling in a 4x4 driven by one of Cantara’s men. We’ve just left the road, and now we’re bumping over sand, dirt, and rock. The motion is enough to make me feel slightly sick. I guess the nanomachines can’t compensate for travel sickness.
By the time the sun goes down and the unforgiving dunes are bathed in darkness again, the 4x4 comes to an abrupt stop. The driver says some words to Dina, and she beckons for us to get out and unpack the trunk. Then, with a couple more words, the 4x4 speeds away, leaving us in a cloud of dust.
“This is it then,” I say to them both. “No turning back.”
“No turning back,” Mikey repeats with a smile.
He takes the GPS tracker out of his rucksack along with a small flashlight. And then, over treacherous rocks and sands, we begin to follow him.
Kris, be careful, Vega tells me. This is a battlefield. It’s no man’s land. There could be any number of hazards here.
“Better keep our eyes open,” I say to the others, trying to inspire the same level of care and attention as Vega tries to inspire in me. “There could be anything here waiting to kill us.”
“Yeah man,” Mikey says, trudging forward at a brisk pace. “This terrain is no joke. All we can use to light our way is this stupid little flashlight, so try to stay behind me.”
We walk for what seems like an hour, talking, laughing and joking occasionally, trying to keep the mood jovial but mostly just concentrating on not falling and cracking our heads on a rock.
It’s difficult work – always second guessing yourself, wondering whether the darker patch of terrain you put your foot into is a bit of dirt or a foot-shaped rut in the rock hungry to break your ankle. I’m so busy concentrating – cold sweat emerging from my pores like bullets – that I forget Vega is doing the same.
Kris, there was a landmine to your right. You just passed it. You’d better alert the others.
“Guys, I—”
They don’t even have time to turn and face me before I see it: something dark, raised, and most worryingly perfectly circular. A shape that couldn’t exist out here among the dangerous shapes and angles. And Mikey’s just about to put his foot onto it…
“Mikey, Mikey! Don’t put your foot dow—”
He steps on it.
And we wait.
It feels like an eternity. I know it’s only one single moment, but I feel as though my heart beats a 1000 times. We’re all paused on the spot – frozen in time – until finally Mikey speaks.
“Well, how about that?”
He carefully adjusts his position as Dina and I watch, unable to move, talk, or ask him what the hell we do. Then he slowly steps off it, eliciting a moment of panic that grips my body coldly.
“Looks like it doesn’t work.” He kneels down beside it, analyzing it closely with his flashlight. “The fuse has been knocked out of position. It’s disabled.”
Dina begins to laugh. She carefully steps forward and slaps him on the back. I take a deep breath; I’m not quite able to cope with this just yet. I think back to the first time this happened – the grenade taped to the refrigerator door – and know that this time I couldn’t have saved him in time.
“I’m guessing these landmines were dropped by plane,” Mikey says, picking it up and throwing it off into the distance like a frisbee. “It’s a quick and easy way to lay a minefield, but occasionally the impact on the ground can jolt the fuse loose.”
“Jesus Christ,” I say at last, putting my hand over my heart. “You could have been killed.”
“Oh no,” he says, wagging his finger at me like I got a quiz question wrong. “These things aren’t designed to kill you.”
“They’re not?” I ask, showing my battlefield naïvety again.
“No, they’re designed to maim. Blow your foot off. Sometimes even your leg. You’re a bigger hindrance to your own side if you’re bleeding out on the battlefield. And, you know, you’ll never fight again.”
I think about it, and it makes sense in that logically pure, yet absurdly cruel way I’ve come to expect from this war or any war for that matter.
“Shall we head on?” Mikey asks, before walking – both feet intact – slowly ahead.
“Wait,” I call out. Mikey pauses and turns to look at me expectantly.
“I should go first. I’m good at spotting traps, I’m observant. If there are any more ahead, I’ll see them.”
Mikey’s expression turns to doubt, and we both look at Dina. She nods in agreement with my suggestion, understanding the greater sense in having me blow my feet off rather than Mikey.
He relinquishes his flashlight to me and we trudge on again.
Vega is useful in pointing out one more landmine. I in turn point it out to the others, and we pace around it. It isn’t long before Mikey’s reading of the GPS tracker has us in the vehicle’s planned location. Sure enough, hidden inside a small ravine with a brown fabric draped over it we see the vehicle.
It’s a rather shabby saloon car, stained light-brown from the dirt and the sand. But, so long as it has four wheels and a working engine, it’ll suit us just fine.
“So we’re through no man’s land, past the frontline, and inside Darida’s territory,” Dina says, tired and relieved. “Now we’ve just got to find that safehouse.”
Mikey and I sit in the back, trying to make ourselves comfortable while Dina fumbles around with a map to the safehouse the resistance left us. Then she finds the key in the glove compartment and the engine soon purrs to life.
We endure a nervous hour of driving – first through the rocky wastes, and then on dirt roads and across arid farmlands. Mikey and I look at our passports for the first time, knowing that they’ll be needed should we run into a military checkpoint.
“Paul Elphick-White, just as promised,” Mikey says, reading from his new passport. “How about yours?”
“Mark Cochrane,” I reply, reading from my passport in the glow of a passing streetlight. “I’m your assistant, right?”
“Say you’re my cousin,” Mikey responds. “Family connections are more easily trusted.”
I look at my picture in the passport; my face, looking entirely listless, staring down the camera. Mark Cochrane, cousin and assistant to an arms dealer. I’ve never so much as appeared in a school nativity play, now I’m impersonating arms dealers and performing in front of bloodthirsty, genocidal generals.
We finally make it onto an asphalt road, and it isn’t long before we come up to our first military checkpoint: a couple of armored cars blocking all but one lane of the road and two rifle-toting soldiers beside it.
We pull up beside them and Dina exchanges some words with the soldiers, before pulling out her fake passport. Then she beckons for us to do the same.
The soldier takes my ID, shines a flashlight on it, then shines the flashlight directly in my face. My eyes strain under the bright light, but it doesn’t last long. He quickly moves to give Mikey the same treatment. After a couple more words with Dina, we’re free to continue on.
“That was easy,” Mikey says as we speed away from the checkpoint.
“Plenty of Americans on Darida’s side of the frontline too,” Dina says bitterly. “The war profiteers looking to make a quick buck. Arms dealers; oil and gas companies; lithium miners all wanting their piece of Aljarran if Darida should win the war.”
Darida’s Aljarran is very similar to the rebel territory, it seems. Passing military convoys, hearing the occasional low boom of artillery, and seeing ashen-faced citizens walking by the side of the road, just trying to get on with their lives. We speed past a couple of villages, festooned with banners 12 feet high bearing Darida’s face on them. His smug grin, watching our every move.
We pass a bombed-out village; blackened farmhouses with their roofs caved in, walls reduced to scattered bricks and splintered wood. The ground is pockmarked with craters; scarred with the tormented memories of the horror that once occurred here.
I think again of that photograph I found of the little girl amongst the wreckage of the destroyed apartment building and find myself ready to shed a tear. Is the Butcher of Ben-Assi responsible for this too? Or one of a 100 military officers loyal to Darida?
They’ve all got to pay.
It’s another hour or so before we reach the town we’re due to meet the Butcher in and our safehouse. Our shelter for the night is a small farmhouse just on the outskirts of town. It’s no more than a couple of buildings with an outhouse for a toilet. Cattle was probably farmed here once, but any signs of livestock are long gone aside from a large steel trough outside.
