When the Killing Starts (10 page)

When the sun had passed behind me and was throwing shadows at ninety degrees from the angle I'd noticed when I sat down, I broke out the dog biscuits and crunched a few of them, washing them down with water from my canteen. I spun it out until dusk, then walked down close to the water.

I still couldn't see anything but now, at dusk, the wind freshened. I stood and listened to it, trying to shut out the hiss of pine needles clashing together, listening for man sounds. And suddenly I heard them.

They were faint, so faint that I realized they were traveling most of the length of the lake, which was funneled toward me by its shape. There were three of them, three times the r-ri-rip of a triple gun shot. It meant three things to me. First, I was in the right place. Those were battle sounds, not hunting shots. Second, Dunphy was teaching his men the British combat technique. Limeys don't hose anything down. They fire a couple of quick shots on every sighting, making their ammo count. And third, because the shots came in triplets it probably meant they were equipped with ultramodern automatic weapons, the H. & K. probably, set up to fire three shots on every trigger press. I was where I should be, and I was in danger. These guys had enough equipment to leave me dead.

I passed the last half hour of daylight by protecting my supplies. The ammunition I had with me: .38 for my pistol in the right pocket of my combat jacket with the gun on top of it; .308 for the rifle in the left. I also filled both breast pockets with dog biscuits. Then I took a line out of the pack and tossed it over a branch. That took time. Red pine doesn't have branches close to the ground, like a maple. The lowest was thirty some feet over my head but after a dozen tries I managed it and then tied my pack on and hoisted it ten feet clear of the ground where no bear would be able to tear it up.

By now it was almost dark and I carried the canoe quietly down to the water's edge and waited. It was cool but I didn't wear the combat jacket. If the canoe tipped I would have to swim a half mile and you can't do that with pockets full of hardware. I tied it to the life jacket and put it into the stern of the canoe. Then, when darkness finally settled on the water, I pushed off softly onto the blackness of the water and headed north.

As I paddled I kept listening for more gunshots but there was no sound anywhere except for the lonely yodel of a loon and the soft swish of my paddle. I glanced from side to side as I paddled, making out the tree line on both shores, keeping them equal in size, trying to stay out in the center as far as possible.

After half an hour I could see the trees meeting ahead of me and I paddled slower, taking care not to clunk against the side of the canoe. I was wondering whether the trainees would be out on a night exercise. It seemed likely. The shots had come late in the day. That could mean they were playing at ambushes, one group stalking another in the darkness, a game they would have to play for real when they headed south on their assignment. I wondered too if they had heard the aircraft. The wind had been blowing from them to us and Robinson had kept low when he circled the lake but the roar of an aircraft engine carries a long way over water. Up here there were not many other sounds to drown it out.

When I judged I was three hundred yards from the north shore I turned in to the west, halfway to the point, taking the extra precaution now that I knew for sure there were men around. The darkness was almost total but my night vision is good and I was able to find my way to shore without running onto a rock or tangling myself in the deadfalls that reached out into the water.

When I reached shore I sat for a moment, listening to the silence. Nothing was moving and I pulled the canoe broadside to the water's edge and stepped out onto a spongy mass of roots. It sagged under my weight and my left foot went into the water but I was wearing running shoes, the best thing for canoeing, so the water didn't bother me. I got out and picked up the paddle and my rifle and then hoisted the canoe by one of the cross braces and dragged it silently over the duff until it was clear of the water and I could carry it into the trees where there was a tangle of low branches.

There was nowhere to hide the canoe so I lifted my jacket out, turned it over, and slipped the paddle underneath. I put my jacket on, grateful for the extra warmth now that I wasn't using any energy. The hard part was about to begin.

 

 

 

SEVEN

 

 

Now that I was ashore, alone, close to the enemy, I felt a bit like the dog that caught the car. What now? Sure I was in position to get the job finished, but the danger almost outweighed the advantage. I still had to locate the mercenaries without being seen, then isolate young Michaels and try to talk sense to him. And I wasn't sure he'd listen. He might just whistle up his buddies instead for a pickup game of kick the messenger.

I stood and thought it all through, working out my plan. The first consideration was their perimeter defense system. If they were serious about teaching these guys how to fight, they would have set up trip wires and booby traps around their camp. Maybe they would even have explosives wired up, something to get their people used to the nerve-shattering noise that's a part of every contact with the enemy. It wasn't likely they'd be using claymore mines. They didn't want their recruits dead, just smarter. But even a nonlethal charge would be fatal to me if I set one off. They would be all over me like a cheap suit.

In the end I did the wise thing. I waited, hidden among the thickest part of the brush that I could worm my way into. First I went back to the water's edge and drank my fill. Then I snake-crawled under the brush and lay there waiting for daylight. Slowly I let myself relax, and finally, in spite of my intentions, I slipped off into sleep.

Reveille came a little before dawn. Not a bugle call but a sudden explosion of gunfire and shouts. I jolted awake and lay listening, checking the direction and distance. A quarter mile on, I judged, at the apex of the lake. I sat up, resting my back against a tree trunk, and listened to the male roaring. It sounded like Wallace cursing out some recruit.

"You're dead, asshole," he shouted. "If I was the enemy, you'd have holes through your head. Where's your weapon?" Familiar sounds to anybody who has ever been through military training. The recruit must have tried to answer, but he was shouted down, and then a chorus of voices rose in a chant that made my hair prickle. "Kill! Kill! Kill!" they shouted like good little robots, and then changed it to a formless roaring as they ran for thirty seconds, which ended when the lake exploded with activity as they hurled themselves into the water.

I edged out of my hidey-hole and went to the water's edge to look at them. Eighteen men in the water, two on the rock. They were too far away for me to make out faces, but one of the men on the rock had a swagger stick under his arm and colorless hair. The other one was bending from the waist, shouting and clapping his hands like a swimming coach, swearing at the swimmers. Wallace, I guessed, with Dunphy playing his role of colonel.

Wallace kept them in the water for ten minutes, letting them out and ordering them back in three times before he formed them into two ranks and doubled them away over the rocks and back to their camp.

It was my cue to move. I figured they would be eating breakfast, shaving and hitting the latrine for the next twenty minutes. After that it would be soldier games that could send them out into the bush. If I moved now, I could be close enough to check which way they went and even to see which was young Michaels's hooch. I took out a few biscuits for breakfast, then moved up the side of the lake, gnawing as I went.

The trees opened up as I approached the head of the lake. It was difficult to stay in complete cover, but I kept low and moved from tree to tree as carefully as ever I had done in 'Nam. In one way the terrain favored me. The duff was a thick brown carpet. If anybody had grubbed down through it to dig a foxhole in the sand underneath, they would have thrown up a gray pile that would have stood out like a flower bed in the middle of a living-room rug. Another factor in my favor was timing. The recruits would not be looking for outsiders. Even this early in their training they would know that the only person out to ambush them was Wallace. At this moment, breakfast time, they would be relaxed, thinking he was getting his chow. But I kept my eyes wide open for booby traps. I'd seen my share of them in 'Nam and avoided them all. I wasn't about to make any mistakes now.

At last I saw them, and I was impressed. About eighty yards ahead, on a slight rise among the trees, there was a cluster of hooches, one-man shelters made from militarystyle ponchos strung over poles, about eighteen inches high, each protected by a twelve-inch pile of loose rock stacked around it. Wallace hadn't made them dig foxholes. It was impossible where they were sited because of the rock. Instead, they were camped high, but blending into the background. If I hadn't been searching carefully, I might have passed them by without seeing them. I stopped to unroll the hood of my combat jacket and throw it up over my head, lacing it loosely at the throat. Then I went forward, keeping an even closer lookout for wires.

The first one was about ten yards on, strung a few inches above the ground. I stepped over it carefully, then pushed on, down on my belly now, my rifle in front of me, checking for the second defense line.

It was about fifty yards out from the camp, and I stayed on the outside of it. There was no need to get closer. It wasn't close enough to recognize faces, but if Michaels appeared, I would probably be able to pick him out. I had to hope that when they started their exercises they wouldn't move out in my direction. It was possible but unlikely. They probably had a pathway through their perimeter that they would open by day and close at night. This wasn't the spot. I squeezed lower to the ground and waited.

Somewhere close by, the other side of the ridge where the hooches lay, I could hear men's voices, the cheerful off-duty voices of soldiers at their breakfast. And then there was the smell of good coffee, so alien to the forest that I could pick it up over the hundred yards or so from the cook fire. It made my mouth water, and once I smelled it, I knew my wait would soon be over. They would drink it and start their day.

Within minutes they had finished and were straggling back to their camp, lollygagging as they took the only minutes of relaxation they would have all day. I watched them, counting. Sixteen came back, all dressed in combat gear, with the high-top hats that had alerted Robinson's friend to the fact that they were military. They all carried rifles, automatic weapons that I recognized as the new British bullpup assault rifles, possibly the most effective infantry weapon in the world. My.308 and my pistol wouldn't cut it against them at short range. They had enough firepower to shred me.

I swallowed quickly and strained to see their faces. All of them appeared young as far as I could tell from this distance. The oldest would have been around thirty. Then I recognized the youngest, Jason Michaels. At least he had the same general description his mother had given me, and I picked him out by his slouch. Two days' training hadn't made a soldier out of him, although he was carrying his weapon professionally. But he looked out of place. I guessed he was in deeper than he liked. Big, noisy men who couldn't be bullied with his money were making him work hard, and his body wasn't used to anything more strenuous than a session with a girl in some motel room. He went to his hooch and crawled into it. I swore under my breath as I watched. It lay close to the center of the cluster. It would be impossible to creep in and get him out at night without waking his companions.

The men stood or sat around and smoked, chatting to one another in low, growly voices. They weren't relaxed. They hadn't worked together long enough; they hadn't fought together. I was reminded of a ball club at training camp. They were all jostling for recognition, each man acting a little larger than life, hoping to be the one who pleases the manager better than the rest. It bothered me. Any one of them would hold me if he could, just for the pat on the head he might get from Dunphy.

I also kept checking for sentries. If this was for real, they would have left at least one man in their campsite while they went for breakfast. He would go down later. And there were two missing from my count at the lake. That might mean there were a couple of guys on KP, or it might mean they had scouts out. I hoped they weren't circulating in the woods. It occurred to me again that I would have been better off turning Mrs. Michaels down and sitting in Toronto drinking beer and missing Fred.

Then Dunphy and Wallace walked up onto the rock. Wallace bellowed an order, and they all stood at attention, first grinding out their smokes on the soles of their boots. Michaels was the last man to reach the group, and Wallace strode over to him and chewed him out in a low, sneering hiss. I watched the kid's back stiffen as he tried to stand up straight, tried to avert the evil eye. Wallace roared at him. "What's the matter, rich kid? Didn't the butler wake you up in time? Gimme ten." And then young Michaels was on the ground doing push-ups. He did a quick ten and stopped. Wallace shouted again, and he did a further fifteen, growing slower and wearier with each one.

Then Wallace said something quiet that made everyone except Michaels laugh out loud. And finally they turned and doubled away over the rock and down the way Wallace and Dunphy had entered, chanting an exercise song as they ran. God. Boot camp one more time.

I lay and waited until their chanting had died away, then counted to a thousand, slowly, waiting to see if they had left a guard at the camp. If they had, he would move now, with the boss away, stretching himself and maybe grabbing a quick smoke before Wallace had time to come back and catch him at it. But no one moved, and so I slowly stood up, moved back, keeping as many tree trunks as possible between me and the campsite. I hopped over the trip wire on the perimeter and moved away to the west around the rock.

As I moved, I heard the sound of an aircraft, the same trapped bumblebee roar that Robinson's Cessna had made the day before, but far off and faint. I stopped for a minute, wondering if it was bringing in supplies or new recruits, but the sound faded in the distance. An overflight, I thought, somewhere to the west of me.