Emily nodded, preoccupied. “Do you have axes in the other trucks?”
Eitan thought a moment. “Yes, in the third truck. Maybe half a dozen. Some saws, too.”
Emily clapped her hands in delight, startling him. She scrambled down off the tuck, shouting a flurry of orders. “Not much time! Move your asses!”
On the bridge, a soldier suddenly pointed to a bend where the river road turned toward the bridge. “See, right there, just sticking out a little past that big rock. That is the front of a truck!”
The Green commander lifted his binoculars and adjusted the focus. By God, it was the front of a truck! The Gold team had finally made it. He glanced at his watch. Too late, too damn late. Blue and Gold had less than two hours to make it to Four Corners. He looked at the bunkers squatting on the bridge like three shabby trolls. No way in hell they were going to get past that, he thought with satisfaction. He lifted the binoculars again. But why weren’t they attacking?
In answer to his question, eight men on the bridge suddenly screamed and fell to the ground. Arms and legs flashed orange. Two men just stood there, not quite understanding they were already FOF.
“Where the hell are they?” someone shouted. “I can’t see them.”
“On the hill! Snipers on the hill!”
The Green commander threw himself behind one of the bunkers, out of the line of fire from the hilltop. More shots, and he was shocked to see the two men with him blink orange. Another shot nicked his shoulder and pain lanced through him. Dammit! “They’re behind us!” he shouted. “Take cover! They’ve sent troops across the river.” Well, he had a surprise for them. He spoke urgently into his radio. He had a team of fifty men hiding in the forest just to deal with this possibility, and they would come in from behind and crush the enemy against the river.
But as the troops hiding in the forest came forward to crush the attackers, they came within reach of the attackers on the hill. More Red and Green soldiers fell. The Red commander ordered fire from the bridge, but to get a decent firing angle the soldiers had to leave the protection of the bunkers. FOFs began to pile up.
“Fall back!” the Green commander ordered disgustedly. “Get back into the forest and the bunkers. Make them come to us.” He shook his head in frustration: fifteen dead after only ten minutes of fighting. He looked at his watch. Not much longer.
“Pull, dammit! Pull!” Emily shouted. Fifty men pulled on the rope and the first truck lurched off the sand bar. Its nose started to sink into the water, then the two tree trunks jammed behind its front tires gave it some buoyancy. Five of the miners from Christchurch thrust more logs under the back of the truck just as the rear wheels reached the end of the shallows. Then the truck was floating — precariously, perhaps, but floating. The men on the far side of the river pulled, the rope tightened and the truck jerked forward, bobbing toward the far shore.
Emily laughed out loud. It was working! One of the men from Christchurch called to her: “Give us more time, Little Sister, we build you a proper bridge, eh?” The others laughed with him. And Emily looked at the scene; dozens of men splashing through the river, men pulling on the tow rope, trucks being readied for the crossing. We’re going to do this, she thought. And I am their commander!
Once the first truck was across, Emily sent two platoons led by Cookie and Sandra Lee ahead to take the Four Corners. She was taking a risk that Green and Red had it heavily defended, but she was betting they had thrown everything into securing the bridge.
They used the first truck to tow the second truck, and the pace picked up. The miners waded waist deep in the river, stuffing logs under each truck as it was dragged off the sand bar. Crews on the far shore received the trucks, pulled the logs out and swam them back across to use with the next truck. Emily had already taken the precaution of sending all of the precious, mysterious boxes across and they were loaded into the lead truck.
Sergeant Kaelin stood behind her, hands on his hips. “Got an hour and a half left, Tuttle. You just might pull it off.”
“Just might, Sergeant.” She couldn’t suppress a grin. “Just might at that.”
“Catch a ride, Little Sister,” one of the miners called as the last truck splashed past her. She leapt onto the passenger side door runner. The driver smiled broadly. “All honor to you! By my life, this is a great day!” The truck reached the end of the sand bar and another miner tied the rope to its tow ring. On the far shore the truck started to pull. The tow rope lifted out of the water, spraying droplets everywhere. Emily wanted to sing.
She was never sure exactly what happened next. Maybe the truck had not been lined up properly, or maybe the previous trucks had weakened the sand bar. As the truck lurched forward, the entire side of the sand bar suddenly collapsed. The truck shuddered, creaked loudly, then fell over on its driver’s side as if in slow motion. When it crashed to the river bottom, Emily’s face cracked into the door frame. Her nose broke in an agonizing spray of blood and pain lanced all the way to the back of her skull. Black dots suddenly crowded her vision, growing larger and larger and-. Suddenly she was in the water, sputtering, coughing, then under water, choking, then she felt herself grabbed hard by the shoulders and hauled to the surface.
Pain ravaged her head and overwhelmed her senses, but she became dimly aware that people were still shouting and someone was screaming and more people came running, and only then did she realize that there were people trapped under the fallen truck.
When it was over, two soldiers — two of her beloved miners — were dead.
Sergeant Kaelin cursed. He exchanged a long look with DI Johnson. Something passed between them, then Johnson shrugged. “Fuck it, Andy. I’ll back you either way,” he told Kaelin.
Emily felt thick-headed, fuzzy. What was Johnson talking about? She looked at the two bodies laid on the shore. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she scrubbed them with the back of her hand.
“Tuttle,” Sergeant Kaelin said quietly.
She thought about the two men and wondered if they had girlfriends waiting for them. Did they-
“Emily!” Kaelin said more sharply. She looked up at him. He looked tired, she thought. He was soaked to the skin and his thinning hair was plastered to his head.
“Emily, listen, I have to call for a chopper to evacuate the casualties. If I call now, it will come within minutes, but the Major will insist that the maneuver be stopped. Do you understand?” He looked at her hard. But why was he telling her this? The men were dead, of course they had to-
And then she did understand. There was still time for her to take the convoy to the Four Corners. Still time to complete the mission. But if they called in the fatalities now, the operation would end. She shook her head. Stupid, stupid, stupid. All a game and now two men were dead forever. She looked up at Kaelin and the tears came freely now, almost invisible against her wet cheeks, but there.
“I hate this,” she said. “Gods of Our Mothers, I hate this.” Then she turned to the river and waived her arms until she caught Rafael Eitan’s attention on the far shore. Her radio was on the bottom of the river somewhere. She checked her watch and saw they still had forty minutes. She cupped her hands to her mouth.
“Go!” she shouted. “Take it to the Four Corners!”
“Come across, Emily,” he shouted back. “We’ll wait for you!”
Emily waived him away. “Go! Complete the mission. You’re running out of time.” Eitan stood for a moment, then climbed into the truck without another word and the convoy drove across the field.
Emily turned and walked to edge of the water. Men who were standing there silently moved aside. She knelt down between the two bodies. She knew them both. They were two of the men who had teased her, offered her fruit they had taken from the mess hall, kept an eye on her on some of the brutally long marches. Nodded at her in approval when she did something well. Followed her orders.