“This isn’t you, Meryem. Are you going to stand by and watch them do this?”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t get it.
“No, Michael. I will not stand by. Fools and civilians stand by. I will finish my family’s work.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Faruk manipulated the excavator. He swung the shovel up and over us this time, dumping it near the opposite wall. This was it. Action time. I took another step toward Meryem. Another step toward the barrel of her gun.
“Do not come a step closer,” she said.
It was all about the timing now. It would be a careful ballet. I waited for the shovel to swing back behind me. I needed cover. Cover from the rear. The bucket was a big piece of steel and while it was behind me, it would shield me, but it wouldn’t take care of my problem on its own, I needed to work to do that.
It’s counterintuitive, but the closer you get to your opponent’s gun, the more you increase your likelihood of survival. It’s because in close, if your opponent is within your reach, you can make a difference. And I was close to Meryem, just a few feet away. But I took her advice, I didn’t take a step closer. She did, though. She took a half step forward, steadying herself. And that split second when her left foot was off the ground spelled one word: opportunity. A walking human is more precariously balanced than most people realize. I swept in with my right foot and snapped out with my left arm, sweeping the barrel of the Kalashnikov up. I knew I risked a nasty burn from the gun as I took hold of its barrel, just as I risked being shot in the back by my favorite guard. The move was fluid, focused, and smooth. The barrel of the gun went up and Meryem went down.
I yanked the weapon from her as she fell on her back, pulling it off her shoulder and into my hands. An instant later her throat was beneath my foot. I could have broken her windpipe if I needed to, and she knew it. She breathed heavily, wheezing, dirt on her neck. I felt sorry for her. I had liked Meryem. I had liked her a lot. But I didn’t like what she was planning on doing, and I didn’t like that I still had a machine gun trained on my back. I turned. Chip-Tooth had me in his sights. I had Meryem, but I couldn’t say that he looked worried.
Then I saw why. Actually, I heard it first. A hydraulic hum. After that I caught a flash of silver out of my eye. I knew what was happening, but I wasn’t fast enough. The giant bucket of the excavator hit me like a tank. And like a tank there was no arguing with it, no negotiation. It clipped me hard on the side of the head and sent me tumbling into the freshly dug hole below.
I landed on my back in the dirt. It must have been six feet down, maybe eight, I was woozy so it was hard to tell. But I wasn’t unconscious, not yet. And I still had the gun. I fired a burst upward to keep the others away. But, as it happened, the others weren’t the problem. It was the dirt. Because the excavator raised its boom and slowly dumped a fresh bucket of loose dry soil on top of me. I remember thinking that I should leap up, but I just couldn’t pull it together. I thought I heard the word kale again and after that, my world turned dark.
Chapter 53
Everything was black. I wasn’t dreaming, but I knew I wasn’t awake either. I was in some kind of protoconscious state, a place where there was no life, but no death. A place of suspended animation. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t even know who I was. All I knew was that I was thinking about a man. The man looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He was just an older man having dinner with a younger woman. Dating a younger woman. A woman less than half his age. The woman was familiar, but somehow not right. She had dark auburn hair and good teeth and a radiant smile. It definitely wasn’t the woman the man was supposed to be with — I knew that.
Then my focus shifted. I needed to get out. Out of what, I wasn’t sure. A blanket, I thought. A black wool blanket that went on and on and never stopped. A black wool blanket that was gritty and hard and filled my mouth. A blanket of dirt.
It was then that I came to. I knew that I wasn’t under a blanket. My head hurt and my eyes were closed. I tried to open my eyes, but quickly closed them again. There was dirt everywhere. My arms were in front of my face, elbows together, my chin tucked into my neck. I moved the ends of my fingers, feeling the gritty soil. I remembered that the man in my dream was my father. The woman was Kate. I was sure of it. And then I realized a terrifying fact. I had been buried alive.
I gasped. There was air in front of my mouth. Not dirt. So that meant that there was an air pocket there. Maybe not a big one, but an air pocket. I felt my claustrophobia kick in. The panic. The fear. But I fought it. I willed myself to remain calm. I moved my fingers again, soil all around them. But I felt something else. Something hard and metallic. I knew what it was. It was the machine gun’s trigger. I pulled the trigger back and the earth shook around me. More dirt fell, the rifle’s muted report shaking the earth. But the falling dirt made my air pocket smaller, not bigger. I tried to move my shoulders. I got a little movement, but not much. It was the same with my legs. It felt as though I was trying to swim in concrete.
My breathing became labored. There just wasn’t enough air. From the lay of the trigger guard, it felt like the barrel of the rifle was pointed above my head at about a sixty-degree angle. I didn’t know whether I could shoot my way out. I figured the gun would jam eventually, but I had to try. I hit the trigger again. It worked after a fashion. I was able to increase the size of the air pocket above me. But at the same time, the more dirt the bullets moved, the more dirt fell on top of me. It told me that the earth was loosely packed. It was the only way to explain why I was still alive.
But my luck didn’t hold. My air pocket, which had been getting bigger, began to get smaller again. Loose, friable dirt rained down on me. I knew that the gun would jam soon. AK-47s were known for their reliability, but no weapon could continue to fire from six feet under the ground. If I was lucky, it would jam. If I was unlucky, the barrel would blow up in my face.
There was dirt all around my mouth. I couldn’t breathe. I reached up with my left hand to clear the dirt away. Then I fired with my right hand and tried the swimming motion again. The dirt was even looser. I reached down and cleared my mouth. But I was running out of air, I could feel my lungs burn with the desperate need to begin hyperventilating. I fired the gun again and reached up. More dirt fell, but it was too much to clear away. I was down to the tiniest of air pockets. I closed my eyes and mouth and tried to control my breathing. I put my hand over my nose, pushing the dirt away, but it did no good. I was going to die down there.
I thought about praying. I thought about how far I’d come. I thought about the irony of my situation. Here I was, trying to find my father, a man I had idolized for so long, only to discover that he wasn’t the man I thought he was at all. I thought about the fact that I had been chasing a phantom — a man who didn’t really exist.
I wanted to laugh at that point. I wanted to cackle hysterically, the dirt closing in around me. And then, I thought that I wanted a good stiff drink before I died. It was a weird sensation. I’d never been a whiskey drinker, but I wanted a single malt at that moment. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. But instead of a whiskey, I got a slap on the wrist. I actually felt my left wrist move as though I had been hit. Then something grasped it, something warm. After that I felt myself being pulled out of the dirt, hands digging around me.
What felt like an eternity later, my head was pulled free.
Chapter 54
I gasped like a drowning man, gulping down the fresh air. My eyes felt as if they were on fire. I opened them briefly before quickly shutting them. They hurt because there was dirt in them, but the irritation was nothing compared with the relief of being able to breathe again. When I opened my eyes for a second time, I was staring at Kate. My day just kept getting better and better.