The radio crackled.
“I’ve got movement on the road,” said a disembodied voice over the radio. Bower recognized Bosco’s nasal twang. “Lone truck. One occupant, driver. Headlights off. Moving slow.”
“Looks like they’re delivering my spare parts,” another voice replied. Bower thought it was Smithy, but she wasn’t sure.
“It’s about bloody time.” That was Elvis. There was no mistaking his voice over the static.
Jameson spoke into the radio. “Warning shot. Single burst. Tracers over his head. Let them know we’re here. We’ll give them the opportunity to pull back.”
“Roger that.”
Jameson peered out over the low stone wall. He’d flipped his night-vision goggles down from his helmet, making him look more of a machine than a man. Bower couldn’t help herself, she had to look. She turned around, kneeling as she peered over the rough rocks. Kowalski stayed where he was.
Looking out through the night, Bower could see the landing zone to one side on a flat expanse before the dark jungle canopy. The truck Smithy had been working on had been moved into the village, hidden from the road by the crest of a small hill.
Her eyes struggled to make out any detail in the murky grey darkness. She could hear the rebel truck, but it still sounded several hundred yards away.
The night lit up briefly. For a second it was as though lightning had struck. Gunfire streamed out away from the village into the darkness. Tracer rounds snapped through the air, leaving reddish phosphorescent trails cutting through the pitch black of night. Thunder rolled around them. It took Bower a moment to realize the chesty thump was that of the machine gun firing and not the storm breaking. She was surprised to see the faint outline of one of the Rangers illuminated briefly by the outgoing tracer rounds. He was lying prone not more than thirty yards away. She’d expected him to be hidden rather than lying flat on the landing zone. No sooner had he fired than he was on the move.
“Spotting,” came the call over the radio. “Elvis, you are clear. Eleven is stationary. Looks like an observation post. One occupant.”
“I’ve got movement at three,” and Bower was able to pick out Smithy’s voice.
“I’ve got movement at seven,” another voice added over the radio.
“The truck’s conducting a three-point turn, pulling back,” Bosco said, his voice breaking up with static.
“Stand by,” Jameson said into his radio.
Bower was impressed by the clinical detachment Jameson had, reminding her of some of her senior lecturers at medical school, and how calmly they’d describe a complex procedure like a heart by-pass. She liked to think of herself as pretty calm and collected in the operating theatre, but the reality was that if an operation deteriorated on her she struggled under the pressure. She hadn’t lost a patient, but she’d come close enough to walk out of theater with her hands shaking. In Africa, though, not losing a patient was nothing to brag about, the serious cases rarely made it as far as a field hospital.
Out of nowhere, a machine gun opened fire, raking the village.
Bower ducked, even though she knew it was technically too late. If she’d been the target she’d already have become a casualty, and that thought alarmed her. She’d treated plenty of bullet wounds and understood the damage a small piece of lead could do when accelerated faster than the speed of sound. Bower didn’t fancy lying on a stretcher undergoing surgery in the middle of Africa and figured she’d keep her head down. Although she felt an impulsive desire to watch what was unfolding she knew there was nothing to see, just fleeting flashes in the darkness.
Jameson held his finger up.
“No zing. No ppft. This is a bluff, a fake, intended to draw us out and get us to expose our positions.
“They might be amateurs, but they’re not dumb enough to mount a frontal assault across an open grassy field. Don’t worry about this. It’s a diversion while they conduct a flanking maneuver. They’re trying to keep us preoccupied with a frontal attack while the real action comes from three and seven.”
He was pointing as he spoke.
“Three is on the move,” came as a crackle over the radio.
“Eleven is open,” said another voice.
“Take him,” Jameson replied, talking into the radio with no emotion at all. He could have been ordering pizza.
A single crack resounded through the night.
“Eleven down.”
Bower struggled to swallow the knot in her throat. In those few seconds, she’d witnessed the death of a rebel. There were no theatrics, no drama. If anything, life seemed cheap; an entire life had been snuffed out as one would swat a fly.
As a doctor, Bower found herself wondering about ‘eleven,’ wondering if the shot had been instantly fatal. She’d didn’t want to second guess the Rangers, but she doubted the man was dead just yet. There were very few places on the human body that would kill a man in an instant, and she found herself wondering about a rebel bleeding to death in the jungle foliage. Her interest wasn’t some form of pseudo-emotionalism. Bower understood he’d brought this on himself, and yet she was trained to save life, it was hard to ignore that. In her heart, she’d never really made the connection that soldiers were trained to kill. Intellectually, she knew that, but reality struck her hard in those few moments sheltering there in the dark, leaning against the rough stone wall.
Jameson spoke into his radio. “I am en-route to three.”
Bower breathed deeply. Jameson rested his hand on her shoulder as he spoke, reassuring her.
“You’ll be fine. This will be over before you know it. Trust me.”
Bower nodded as Jameson slunk away, melting into the night.
One of the nurses appeared crouched in the doorway to the stone hut.
“I’ve got it,” said Kowalski, staying low as he darted over and into the hut, and with that Bower was alone.
Sweat ran down her forehead, soaking her collar. Her gloves were sticky and uncomfortable. The ground was rough. She shifted her weight, trying to clear away some of the smaller, gritty stones to make sitting there bearable.
Sporadic gunfire erupted around the outskirts of the village. Each shot felt as though it was directed at her. She winced, trying to curl up into a ball as she sat there, wanting to become so small as to disappear. There were no zings, no ppfts, she reminded herself. Wasting ammo, that’s how Jameson described it, just like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
A flash of lightning lit up the brooding clouds. Bower expected the crash of thunder to break a few seconds later, but the resounding boom was almost instantaneous, breaking directly over the village, shaking the ground. Bower jumped as the thunder rattled the village.
Large drops of rain began falling. At first, just one or two, but they struck her hat with unusual force. Within seconds, torrential rain fell. The temperature plummeted. Another bolt of lightning arced through the sky, followed by a thunderous crash that shook her to the bone. It seemed the heavens were at war with Earth, competing with the Rangers and the rebels. Through the deafening downpour, Bower could hear the crack of gunfire increasing in its tempo. An explosion erupted from the far end of the village, from what Jameson had labeled seven o’clock.
Bower wanted to run.