‘Yeah… 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… 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 . ..’
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… 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 out-score 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… ?’ 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 not—who could tell? — but 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 US 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 US 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… 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.’