Twilight (31 page)

Authors: Brendan DuBois

BOOK: Twilight

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But the bandaged man lying in bed saw me and said in a hoarse whisper, “Hey, Samuel, c'mon over.”

The men moved aside and I went to him, grasping the hand that didn't have an IV in it. This was the first time I had ever seen Charlie out of uniform, and it was amazing how he seemed to have shrunk. There was a bandage around the back of his head, and his right leg was also bandaged and was hanging from an overhead chain. A tube was running out of his leg and an IV was feeding into his right hand. His face was scratched and bruised but he was smiling, and he squeezed my hand back, strongly. Peter had been right. Charlie was tough.

“Guys, this is Samuel Simpson, from Canada,” Charlie announced to the other Marines. “He was in the unit I was assigned to.”

The guys stared and a couple of the friendlier ones just nodded. Then Charlie said, “He's a good guy. Gave me backup when I needed it, and gave me good first aid. Probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for him.”

With that statement it was as though an iceberg of hostility had just
shattered. The guys smiled and came over and shook my hand and slapped me on the back and introduced themselves to meâalthough I quickly lost track of who was a private and who was a gunnery sergeant and who was a lance corporalâand they said that if I ever needed anything, all I had to do was check in with the Sixth Marine Expeditionary Force and I'd be taken care of, don't you worry about a thing. Then it was, hey, Charlie, we've got to get going.

And like a quick-moving thunderstorm the Marines jostled around Charlie, poking him and punching his shoulder and squeezing his hand, and then they were gone. Charlie said, “Spare chair there, Samuel, why don't you take a seat?”

Which I did. I looked around the ward, saw a pile of yellow and red plastic toys in the corner. Charlie noticed where I was looking and said, “This used to be a daycare place for the hospital staff. But you can see what they had to do after yesterday's cluster-fuck.”

“How are you doing?”

“Oh, Christ, I'm hanging in there,” he said. “Got a slight concussion, happened when that Hungarian APC got greased. Also got some shrapnel in my leg and the back of my head. Good thing I was wearing my vest. The medics picked up about a half-pound of shrapnel back there. How about you, Samuel? You doin' OK?”

“No,” I said.

“Miriam?” he asked.

“Yep. She and about a half-dozen others were captured. No word yet from the unit that took them. No ransom demands, not yet.”

Charlie shifted, winced some. “There will be, you can count on it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Look, they treating you all right here? Anything I can get you?”

He frowned. “Yeah. A new country. Think you can arrange that?”

I said, “When we're done here I think it'll be a new country, all right. But not the one you grew up with, I'm afraid.”

“Yeah â¦ Shit, you know what I was thinking, back when we were getting shot at? That I was returning fire against fellow Americans, that's what. Oh, I was under the proper command authority and properly detached to UNFORUS, but still â¦ I was shooting at Americans, who were shooting back at me. A hell of a thing. Something like that hasn't happened since the 1960s. Man, when I was in high school I saw some pictures in a history book of when the cities were burning, during some of the race riots. There you had jeeps with machine-gun mounts and APCs and troops with guns in the street. And everybody's forgotten it ever happened,
you know? Never thought there'd be another time when we'd be asked to fight in our own country, against our own citizens.”

Another shift, another wince. Charlie went on. “Don't hear much news about it, but I guess there's a few hundred guys from all the services who're now serving time in the stockade for refusing to go out after the militias. Can't rightly blame them for not raising a weapon against an American in a domestic situation. Shit, that's what cops are for. Not the military.”

“You must have found it hard, too,” I said.

“What makes you think that?” he said sharply.

“Well, I don't know, the reaction I got from your buddies there, and â¦”

Charlie shook his head. “Just because I've got a uniform on doesn't mean I don't have a mind, Samuel. Those are good guys who'll follow orders, just like they've been trained. And some of us â¦ well, for some of us it's personal.”

I waited, listened to the PA system, hoping for a Doctor Matthews to report somewhere. Charlie was staring right at me as if daring me to say something. So I did.

“You want to tell me why it's personal?”

“Not particularly.”

“OK.”

Charlie said, “But I will. Maybe it's those damn drugs I've got going through me, make me loosen up my tongue. OK. One little talk from me, and then we drop it, OK? No questions from you. Then we talk about the weather or politics or whatever. That's my deal, Samuel. All right?”

“Fine,” I said.

He took a deep breath, shuddered again from the pain. “My mom, she worked for an investment firm, as an admin aide. She was good, a good worker, brought me and my brothers up well after Dad died. A good mom. And she had the rotten luck to be working at an investment firm that had its offices near the World Trade Center construction site in Manhattan. Savvy?”

I couldn't say a word. I only nodded. Southern Manhattan, and the third time it had been the target of hate. And this time the haters were not from overseas, they were from the home territory. And they wanted to outscore and out-terror the first and second times. No truck bomb. No hijacked airliners. Just the power of the split atom, splitting this country apart along old lines of hate and suspicion.

“So that's why it's personal, and why I don't mind trying to keep the peace, even if I am in-country. You know what I mean â¦ ?” Charlie said.

I nodded. We sat like that for a bit.

Charlie coughed and said, “You're not saying much.”

“You asked me not to.”

He started laughing at that, until he winced again from the pain. “Shit, yes, you're right, Samuel. You are fuckin-A right. OK. We can talk now, but let's not talk about Lower Manhattan or balloon strikes or yesterday's shit storm. You got anything else you'd like to chat about?”

“Yes,” I said. “I'm looking for your help.”

“Me? Man, I'm one fucked-up cat. I ain't going anyplace soon.”

“But you've got your friends, just like those Marines who left, right?”

Now Charlie sounded a bit suspicious. “Yeah, of course I do. What are you looking to do?”

I looked around, made sure we were alone, and then I told him. He pondered what I said and asked me a few questions, which I did my best to answer. Then he looked out at the ward, at someone in a gurney being wheeled away, a sheet covering the body from head to toe.

He looked back at me, held out his hand. I shook it, gave it a good squeeze.

“OK, friend,” Charlie said. “You've got it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A
day after my talk with Charlie I was back at the ambush site. I had hung around the hospital parking lot for a while, and managed to hitch a ride with a small convoy of earth-moving equipment and APCs that was heading back to assist in the clean-up. The word I got, just before I left, was that the armistice talks were resuming and that the attack two days ago had been the work of rogue militia units who were opposed to any peace talks. I wasn't sure if that was the truth or notâwho could tell?âbut I didn't particularly care. The news from overseas had also been quiet. If Peter's diskettes had made an impact yet with the British Prime Minister the news hadn't gotten back here yet. The APC I rode in was from another Ukrainian unit, and one of the soldiers practiced his English on me, all during the long drive out there.

At the ambush site a temporary bridge of wood and steel had been set up over the stream, and our wrecked Land Cruiser, as well as the Land Cruiser that had been blown up in the bridge mine detonation, were piled at the side of the road, near the burned-out APC. There was still a haze of smoke and fog in the late-afternoon sky, and I watched the work go on from a distance, just standing there, wearing my UN-issue ID around my neck.

I had on new clothes, camouflage gear, courtesy of the U.S. Marine
Corps. Being a civilian UN employee, I was breaking a half-dozen rules or so and I didn't particularly care. On my back was a heavy knapsack, also courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps, and among the gear they'd given me were just a few of my personal possessions, including a few snack items and my treasured George Orwell book. My collection of Heinlein short stories was probably turning to mud somewhere, maybe a few klicks from here, but it seemed more appropriate anyway to have the Orwell book. This wasn't the time for wonderful speculation about mankind's glorious future, and Orwell's sharp words were going to guide me during these next few weeks. I rested at the side of the road, watched the work go on at the mine entrance and the parking lot. The story I had heard just before leaving was that the rogue militia was desperately trying, one last time, to destroy the evidence of Site A. Again, though, who knew if that was true?

But one thing was true. Not one word, one sentence, one syllable had been uttered by any of the militia units about the prisoners they had taken two days earlier.

I squatted down, played some with the dirt on the embankment, waiting. A helicopter came overhead and hovered, and I looked around. I was alone on this stretch of road, and the people on the other side of the bridge were all watching the approaching helicopter. And I took advantage of that, working quickly, and dug at the side of the embankment until I had freed Charlie's M-16.

I grabbed it and stood up. Then I walked quickly to the other side of the road and it looked like I was going to make it, until the voice came at me from the brush: “Hey, Samuel, where in hell do you think you're going?”

I stopped, shocked at what I had just heard. Then Peter emerged, wearing camouflage gear like mine, his arm in a sling, fresh bandages around his fingers. I looked to see if anybody else was about and then I walked further into the brush, so that it was just him and me.

“I'm going for a walk,” I said.

He nodded at what I was carrying. “Some walk.”

“Well, I've heard it's pretty dangerous country out there.”

“Yeah, right. Look, Samuel, what the hell are you trying to prove?”

“Prove? You tell me. What was the point of everything we've done these past weeks and months, eh? The case against the militia leaders over in The Hague is still up in the air â¦ And where are your promised stories about the bombings, the people behind them, the ones who caused all this chaos? You got your precious information. Where is it? I thought that was the whole key. Get the truth out to get this country up and moving again, recognize who did this to them, make them face the lies and the deceit.”

Peter looked subdued for a moment. “Governments â¦ they can move
slowly sometimes. There are debates and positions to be considered and â¦ Oh, bugger it. I don't rightly know. But tell me again. What are you trying to prove?”

I slung the M-16 over my shoulder, where it bumped up against my knapsack. “Not trying to prove anything, and you know it.”

He came over to me. “Going to look for Miriam?”

“Yep.”

“You won't find her, you know.”

“But I might,” I said.

“The UN won't like having you out here, traipsing around.”

“Back at the hospital there's a letter of resignation from me that no doubt is going through the proper channels. In a week or two, they'll figure out that I'm missing. By the way, how in hell did you know I was coming out here?”

Peter smiled. “I didn't. But I did spot you earlier, at the hospital parking lot, dressed up like you are, with a pretty heavy knapsack on your back. I followed you here in the same little convoy, riding with the guy pulling the bulldozer.”

“Well, goody for you.”

“Samuel, you know the odds are against you, andâ”

“Peter, you're not going to change my mind, not at all,” I said. “I'm going to find Miriam if it takes the rest of this month and all the way through winter. I don't care if UN units are looking for her and the others. I don't care if negotiations are going on. I don't even care if the truth comes out about the bombings and the bastards who were behind them. All I know is that the woman I love is out there, scared and in danger, and I'll be goddamned if I'm going to sit on my ass and wait for somebody else to find her. You tell me. If you'd had any proof that your Grace had still been alive, and not dumped in Site A, what would you have done?”

Peter replied without any hesitation. “Same thing you're doing. No doubt about it.”

“So there you go,” I said.

“That Charlie's weapon?”

“Yep.”

“You know how to use it?”

“Well enough,” I said. “He gave me a little lesson this morning. Drew pictures and everything. And his buddies gave me some food, a stove, a nice bedroll, night-vision goggles, a couple of grenades and a couple hundred rounds of ammunition.”

Peter shook his head again. “You and a gun, all alone againstâ”

“Remember Karen?” I asked.

That seemed to startle him. “Karen? Of course I remember Karen. Why?”

Another helicopter roared overhead, coming in for a landing, and I waited until the noise had died down. I said, “A week or so ago she said that all the world's problems were due to one thing: men with guns. She was right, you know. Most all of the world's heartache and destruction and death are due to men with guns, not jet bombers or missiles or submarines. But she was only half right.”

“Yeah, mate, I see where you're going with this,” Peter said.

“I hope so,” I said. “The thing is, the only thing that's going to stop the men with guns is
good
men with guns. Trying to negotiate with the bad guys, trying to appeal to their better nature, trying to enhance their self-esteem isn't going to work. It's going to take good men with guns who will either overpower or destroy the bad men. Not very PC and pretty simple, but it was the best I could come up with, these past few days.”

“Karen and others might disagree with you,” Peter said.

“Fine. And they can discuss my shortcomings all they want, but I'm going out there to start looking for Miriam.”

I started to walk past him and Peter said, “Wait, just one second.”

“Why?”

He looked at me, smiled and said, “I'll come along. Trust me, Samuel. I'm pretty good at what I do.”

“I'm sure you are,” I said. “But how much can you do with one arm?”

“Plenty,” he said.

I turned around. “Sorry, not good enough.”

I started into the woods, seeing an overgrown path ahead of me. Then Peter called out, “A week!”

“Excuse me?”

Behind Peter the shadows along the roadway were lengthening. He said, “A week. The docs say in a week I'm rid of this sling. How about then?”

I thought about that for a moment or two, listening to the sound of machinery at work a little distance away, cleaning up so much debris, so much death. “All right. A week. If I don't find her by then, I'll be back here in a week to pick you up. Deal?”

“Deal,” Peter said. “My, you must love her something awful.”

“I do,” I said.

“I envy you,” he said.

I smiled and waved. “Peter, that's the best thing you've ever said to me. Ever.”

Peter waved back. “OK, I've taken enough of your time. You go in there and find her, you bastard.”

“I will,” I said. “I will.”

So I turned and walked into the darkness, and the little eight-year-old-boy was gone. Not once was I afraid.

Not once.

Miriam, I thought. Miriam.