“Transformer,” Ragger whispered, close to Teddy’s ear. “Which means—”
Teddy put his lips to the pilot’s ear in turn. Mouthed, so low he couldn’t hear it himself over the wind, “Shut the fuck up.”
Fierros fell back. Teddy leaned in and eyed the wire. Then froze, motionless as coal, at an almost nonexistent wash of ruby light somewhere above. So faint that if he hadn’t been in the dark for an hour, he’d never have detected it.
Someone was above them where the cables crossed the wire, drooped, then lifted again to scale the cliff. With a perfect field of view to observe their route up.
He gestured the others down. He wasn’t sure he was fit for this. But he’d taken down sentries before. Killed with a knife. He had the best chance.
Thinking this, he’d already slid into the eroded-out gully under the wire. Had a bad moment when he thought: Mines. But probably erosion would expose them. If he was lucky, he’d hit an edge before he contacted the detonator.
Just take it slow, then… and the stars above his upturned face had wheeled fifteen minutes farther before he hoisted himself by slow degrees to hands and knees.
The shack was above him. The cliff, a black absence above that. From this angle, he doubted that whoever was in there could see him. In sniper lingo, he was in a dead zone. Still, he crept like a tortoise, breathing through his mouth. Extending one hand at a time, then oozing his body up the loose scree after it. Not disturbing a pebble until he reached the rough cold poured-concrete supports of the guard box.
He kept going under it, until he came out the other side.
The back of the shed was open. The light, he saw now, came from a shaded lamp down near a pair of boots. Its upper half painted over, the pilot lamp topped a box he guessed was an intercom linking the posts. The boots belonged to a small soldier perched on a stool high enough to give a view over the wire and up the ravine. A set of black binoculars hung from a nail. The unmistakable shadow of a Kalashnikov leaned against the wall.
Teddy debated. Chert axe, screwdriver, bare hands? He finally slipped out the screwdriver. Six inches of shiv, stone-honed to a needle point.
One more step.
The trooper stared out into the darkness.
Teddy closed, rotating in, jammed his knee into the guy’s back, and wrapped a hand over his face. He jerked the head back with all the rage he’d pent up for months, and with his right plunged the screwdriver in. The guard shuddered, and started to cry out before Teddy’s palm corked her breath.
Startled, Teddy loosened his grip. It was the girl guard, who’d sung and joked with them.
The next moment he was jolted back by a vicious elbow strike that caught him in the solar plexus. He choked, folding, only just managing to hold on. Control the head. The body follows. Warmth drenched his hand as he reoriented the screwdriver and drove it down, through the angle between neck and shoulder, probing for the heart.
She writhed in his arms. Her boot flicked back to hook his ankle. She was small but strong, and he was weak. His only advantage had been surprise, and now that was gone. If she broke free, there had to be an alert button in here. Or she could simply grab the AK. With four puncture wounds in the neck, she’d bleed out, but even after your heart stopped, you had a good thirty seconds before you lost consciousness.
Another elbow strike, but weaker. He kept forcing her head back, palm sealing her mouth and nose. No breath, no fight. He jammed the pick in again, deeper, like a harpooner feeling for the whale’s life.
She fell back, limp, into his arms. Finish your opponent.… He did it, then let her slump to the floor. Slowly, without unnecessary noise.
He sank too, upper body propped against the wall, red and black curtains eddying and flaring before his eyes, like one of his grandmother’s Hollywood openings. His whole body shuddered. The reeks of blood and shit filled the wooden box.
When he had his breath back, he bent to the corpse. It was still warm. Wet. He unbuttoned her shirt, and thrust his hand in. Yeah. Itty-bitty. He pulled out the sharp chert. Positioned it, like a prehistoric hunter preparing to skin his kill.
A hiss jerked him around. “Teddy!”
It was Pritchard. The Aussie dragged himself up the steps and halted, staring. In the faint light Teddy saw his jaw drop. “What the fook are you doing?”
“I took the guard out.”
“I can see that, mate, but what the… never mind. We taking this?” He touched the rifle.
“Bet your ass.” Teddy let the girl’s blouse fall closed and stuck the axe back in his pants. Had he really intended to cut them off? And then do what? His head swam. “Grab it. Let’s go. Somebody’s gonna be calling to check in.” He bent again, searching the body, but found only a metal belt buckle and, in the pockets, a scrap of handkerchief and a small plastic billfold. Leaving the wallet, he rebuttoned her blouse and propped her against the wall. Then, after a moment, covered her face with the cloth.
They climbed in single file, stooped to the ground. When his feet slipped he fell to his knees, which grew warm and wet with blood. His jacket was growing stiff. Caked with more blood, no doubt. Hey, at least it wasn’t his.
He avoided thinking about what he’d been about to do when Maggie had come in.
At the sheer cliff he halted abruptly, bewildered. How had he planned on scaling this? He stood scratching his beard, brain vacant.
At last he remembered, and bent, and slipped off his ragged cloth POW-issue shoes. He dug bare toes into rough rotting stone, getting the feel of it. Knotted the laces, and hung them over his neck. Unlashed the grass rope on his bindle.
He’d cut the steel fittings off the tow line back at the cave, leaving only braided nylon. He doubled it and rewrapped it around his waist and shoulder in the familiar configuration of a climbing rope. Let four yards dangle free, then rethought that and tucked them into his pants. The fewer Irish pennants, the less likely it would snag.
He looked up, hesitated, then reached out. And looped the line around the heavy metal cable that led up the bluff.
The thick wire hummed like a hornet’s nest. Enough volts were coming through it, from some faraway hydroelectric plant or reactor, to run the whole camp. It didn’t even seem to be insulated, from the way the nylon slicked along it when he leaned back. Just smooth, bare copper.
Touch it with his toes dug into the ground, and that would be all she wrote. Actually, if a body part got close enough, high voltage could jump a gap.
Okay, enough thinking… he leaned back even farther, keeping tension on the strap. Planted his feet, and bounced his upper body to slide the nylon up ten or twelve inches. Then, searched again with bare toes for the next gritty foothold.
The bad foot folded on him. He slipped, caught himself, but his sweat-coated face hovered within inches of the bare wire. The soil was crumbling away beneath his clawed right toes. He cocked his head, looking into the face of Death.
Deep slow breaths. Imagine looking through a gunsight at a distant target. Heartbeat. Another breath.
He lifted his leg again, feeling with his toes for the barest crack in the crumbling rock.
Half an hour later he lay full length at the top of the cliff, shaking. Patterns chased themselves like flocks of starlings over his retinas. Their black wings throbbed. He gasped for air. Then lifted his head, and peered around.
As he’d expected, it was wired. Jagged coils of concertina outlined themselves against the starlight. It was staked in with what looked like four-inch I beams. Thinner wires within it looked ominous, might be live. He couldn’t tell if there was another belt beyond that, but he’d have put one there. Trap any would-be escapees between the two, pin them with lights, and machine-gun them. He lifted his head higher and picked up the tower, dark against the sky, thirty feet up. That was where the searchlight had come from, the one they’d watched from the cave. Every few minutes, all night long, it roved the pit below, and presumably the wire here too. He clawed up crumbly dirt and rubbed a fresh layer into face and hands. It wouldn’t be enough if the guard was alert, but if he wasn’t, he might not see a motionless shape the color of everything around it.