The work had gotten underway after the engineers had determined that there were no booby traps inside. Soon enough, the bodies started coming out. Temporary morgues with refrigeration units had been set up in large canvas tents in the parking lot, and myself and a couple of other recorders went in first, taking photos and writing down descriptions. Then there was the first pass from the forensics investigators who took measurements and other details of each body. That took some time. Then I helped photograph each body as it was removed and brought out to a flatbed truck. It could hold twenty adult corpses at a time. The soldiers who moved the bodies wore full chemical/biological-warfare gear, with gloves and gas masks. Us UN civilians had to make do with the little face-masks and glasses and ointment. Then, with a roar of diesel engines, the truck carrying twenty dead Americans — or twenty-four or twenty-six, depending if children had been brought out—were taken down to one of the tents, where the real horror began.
I raised the water bottle, swished, spat, and then raised it again, swished and swallowed. The bottle shook so hard that its end rattled against my teeth.
‘Hey,’ came a voice.
‘Hey, yourself,’ I said as Miriam came over and sat down beside me. Her hair was matted at the back of her head and her face was bright red. I offered her my water bottle and she nodded gratefully and took three long swallows. No spitting. She was an expert at this, while I was just a kid newspaper reporter looking to do something different.
‘We’re almost done emptying the mine,’ she said. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Lousy,’ I said.
‘Why?’
I took a breath and then regretted it. The stench from the mine shaft seemed to come in waves, and I’d got a good whiff that made my stomach do flip-flops. I coughed and said, ‘Because I haven’t done shit in the past few hours, that’s why.’
‘What have you been doing, then?’
‘Sitting. Breathing. Letting other people do the work. I should be down at the tents, doing the documentation, but I can’t.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘It is very tough.’
Tough. There was a procedure at the tents, too. With each delivery, soldiers would pick up a body and bring it into the cool interior of the tent. It would then be placed on a metal examining table, set at an angle so that any blood or other bodily fluids would flow down to the feet. Then the medical examiners would get to work, gently snipping away the twine and unwrapping the plastic trash bag. I would be there as well, taking photos, trying to stay out of the way. There would be the low murmur of voices, the clinking sound of medical instruments being dropped into trays, the rustling as the plastic wrapping was taken off and tossed onto the dirt floor. And I would be there, taking photos. The very first photo was that of an old woman dressed in a red flannel nightgown. That was what got to me. A nightgown. I imagined her in a tiny apartment, maybe a cat or two at her feet, having a cup of tea, feeling scared and lonely about what was going on after the attacks, not sure of what tomorrow would bring, and then…
The knock at the door. Her family has come, or maybe her neighbors. They are leaving the city, joining the others who have given up after weeks of no power and no water and no food deliveries, of no news on the radio or the television. So she leaves her home and departs from the city and maybe there’s help out there, friends, fellow Americans who will help her and her neighbors.
Doesn’t that make sense?
And then the refugee column is halted, they are yelled at—and maybe they are robbed and maybe the younger women are taken away—and there you are, cold and frightened and not quite believing that this is happening to you, a little old lady, here in the United States of America, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, believing it must all be a mistake, right up to the point where someone -maybe even Gary, the local schoolteacher—places a pistol at the back of your head, right below the gray curls of hair.
That was what I imagined. Seeing her there, on the table, her skin puffy and dark, the exit wound of the bullet having tom apart her forehead. When the examiners got to that point I took a photo, left the tent, tossed my camera gear down and found the rock.
Tough.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very tough. But only for a few minutes more.’
‘You’re leaving?’ Miriam asked.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you? There’s another shift coming in, and Peter and me and Charlie, we’re going to get drunk, I think. Please join us.’
She rubbed my back. ‘Later, I will. I just met a woman, a classmate from the university. I want to talk some. But I’ll catch up with you at the hospital. All right?’
‘Sure,’ I said. Below us, some horns started honking and it was time to leave. I was going to kiss Miriam, but she was already up, heading back to the mine shaft. She paused, turned, and waved.
I waved back, and then went down to the parking lot.
Peter was standing near one of the Land Cruisers, his face grimy and his eyes red-rimmed. Other people were inside the vehicle. I went up to him and said, ‘Did you find her?’
‘Yes,’ he snapped back.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. By this time tomorrow she’ll be back home, away from this bloody place. And…she did her job, right up to the end.’
‘Got the diskettes?’
‘Got the diskettes.’
‘I’m… My heart goes out to you, Peter,’
‘Thanks.’
I looked back, wondering if I could catch Miriam, but she wasn’t in sight. I said, ‘Can I ask a favor?’
‘Ask away,’
‘Someday… someday I’d like to tell Miriam what Site A was all about. If it’s all right with you.’
Peter sighed. ‘Sure. Go ahead. But not now—maybe later. Like on your honeymoon or something.’
I almost smiled, and then I thought of Peter, no doubt just an hour or so away from having identified his dead wife among the body bags. So I just said, ‘Sure. Later.’
Peter wiped at his eyes. ‘Come on. Time to leave.’
We climbed into the Land Cruiser. Peter was driving again, and Charlie was there and another guy I didn’t know, a Japanese fellow who nodded and kept quiet. Peter tried to lighten the mood and said, ‘Another minute, we would have left you behind.’
‘A chance for a shower and a drink, I wasn’t going to miss it, not at all,’ I said.
This convoy was smaller, just two APCs in front, and we were the second Land Cruiser in the column. I leaned back in the seat, realizing that my back was throbbing. We went over the bridge, the planks making a clunking sound again, and I was about to ask Charlie what kind of drinks he was hoping for when the bridge blew up behind us, rolling us over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
When the Land Cruiser rolled over the Japanese guy fell on top of me and started yelling. So did Peter and Charlie. I started fighting with the Japanese guy, trying to get him off me. Somebody, maybe Charlie, got a door open. We got out and stumbled around, and then someone yelled, ‘Down! Down! Down!’ I don’t know, maybe the Japanese guy didn’t understand English or was too frightened, but he started running up the road, away from the now-burning timbers of the bridge. Automatic gunfire cut him down.