Читать книгу The Gravitational Leap - Darrell Lee - Страница 8

The pit of winter skulked beyond the horizon like a pack of wolves. The relentless wind numbed any skin exposed to the frigid air. For the previous month it had been like that every day. It was colder earlier in the year this year. Already seven centimeters of snow lay on the ground.

In his twenty-four years of existence Timo had never seen snow this early. The warmer days, in the peak of the growing season, were a distant memory. At least once during that season he could take his shirt off and feel the stinging rays of sun on his pale skin. Once the snow started, there was hardly any direct sunshine, just the same diffused light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere across the sky. He hadn’t seen the moon since the end of the growing season.

Three hundred meters in front and forty meters below his perch on the rock ledge meandered a dry riverbed. The landscape was nothing but rock, sand, and snow, except for a few small bushy plants growing at the base of some of the larger rocks that were along the center of the riverbed. Another three hundred meters beyond the scruffy plants, the opposite side of the riverbed rose to the same height he was. Beyond that the ground faded into the featureless hills in the distance. Nobody went too far beyond the riverbed; it was the territory of the nomads.

Timo had picked this spot an hour before daylight. Now, after four hours of lying motionless, the granite rock underneath him that had seemed so smooth and flat when he first swept away the snow and lay prone on it, felt like it was covered with sharp ridges. Even through the leather mat and his parka they jabbed him. Next to him lay his wife, Alyd, looking through the eyepiece of her spotting scope, its magnification much greater than a rifle’s scope and its optical lens much larger. She could see the opposite canyon side crisply. She was the same age as Timo, shorter than him by seventeen centimeters and weighing a very fit fifty kilograms. She had short blonde hair under a brown knit cap, an ivory smooth complexion with a natural blush over high cheekbones and brown eyes behind the spotting scope. They had known each other from school but had never met until they each were accepted into sniper school. The attraction sparked immediately. She liked his boyish face, light complexion, muscular build, and tousled brown hair. He liked every centimeter of her. Their romance lasted through the 240 days of sniper training. They married fifteen days after graduation.

A camouflaged canvas, stained to look like the rocky terrain around him, lay over them. It was anchored by rocks they placed on the under-folded edges and propped up with sticks to create a small cavern with an opening to the front that allowed a clear view. The canvas helped block the wind and mitigated the chill. Timo’s sniper rifle rested on a bipod, the very end of the suppressor barely sticking out the opening.

Timo looked at the snow that the wind piled against rock near him. At least the cisterns were full, he thought. When the snow came, after an abnormally dry autumn, everybody scraped the snow from every elevated surface, placed it in containers, and stored it in their dwellings. They couldn’t gather the snow from the rooftops; it was forbidden. An elaborate drainage system existed for rain, but for snow, workers would come and scrape it into carts and deliver it to the neighborhood cisterns.

After adjusting the padded leather pillows under his elbows, he began again, scanning with his rifle scope from his left to his right, and near to far.

Alyd leaned her shoulder into Timo as she adjusted her position and removed a stick of dried meat from a side pouch. Without his eye leaving the rifle scope, he matched her pressure to give her support, making it easier for her to complete the task.

“Want some?” she asked.

“Just a bite,” he replied. “But no water yet. We still have three more hours before we’re relieved.”

“Who’s our relief?”

“Masi and Reetu,” Timo replied.

“Good. They’re never late.”

“Team-three hourly check,” Lieutenant Risberg’s voice came through the walkie-talkie.

Alyd picked it up to get the foot-long antenna somewhat vertical and pressed the transmit button on the side. “Team-three clear,” she responded and laid the radio back down.

“Too bad we can’t use this thing to call my mom to tell her to heat up a bowl of soup for us,” Alyd said.

“And have her bring it to us,” Timo added.

Alyd scanned a ravine on the opposite slope. “You’d have my poor mother come over six thousand meters outside the wall, in this weather, just to bring you soup?”

“I guess not—not just soup. Have her bring beer.” Timo grinned behind the rifle scope.

“If she had beer, I’d make her come too!” Alyd nudged him hard with her elbow.

Like most days, when the patrol shift ended, they planned to go to Alyd’s mother’s dwelling, bringing her anything she may need from the market, if the market had it, while she heated supper. After the meal it would be a dark and chilly six-block walk to their dwelling.

Both of them thought about the warm meal waiting for them. With some luck there would be bread too. Neither of them liked the thought of the long trek back against the wind. Dreading the return as the wind got colder in the late afternoon, knowing soup waited for them made it more bearable. They didn’t speak for the next hour.

Timo leaned back from the scope and rubbed his tired eyes. He watched Alyd methodically working her spotter’s scope from ravine to ravine, painting each one with her view through the scope. She never quits and never misses anything, he thought. Something made her stop. He could feel her tense up, even though they weren’t touching—just a slight change in body position.

“I think I see something,” she said.

Timo looked through his scope. “Where?”

“Second ravine, near the center. There was movement. Actually it’s just outside the ravine, about one hundred meters past the two bushes; it’s a large rock.”

Timo increased the magnification to maximum on the rifle scope and swung over to the second ravine.

“Is it moving now?” Timo asked.

“No.”

They waited. The wind howled through the riverbed. That’s when he saw it. The surface of the large rock rippled with the wind, shifting and tightening.

“There!” Alyd said.

“I saw it. I’d say that rock is a meter tall,” Timo said.

“I agree. What the hell is a scout doing in this sector?”

“It’s two-point-three mils tall,” Timo said.

Alyd scribbled on the cloth-like paper in a notepad for a minute. “Okay, math whiz, what is it?”

“Four-hundred-thirty-four-point-seven-eight meters,” Timo said.

She looked through the spotting scope again. “I don’t know how you do that skíta in your head…to two decimal places no less.”

“Do you want the third decimal place?”

“That’s why I married you, baby, for your very large brain…well, your brain and your typpi.” Alyd grinned.

Timo removed the glove from his right hand with his teeth. “Call it in,” he said.

Alyd picked up the walkie-talkie. “Command, this is team-three.”

“Go, team-three,” Lieutenant Risberg responded.

“We have single contact, 435 meters in the north ravine.”

The radio was silent for thirty seconds. “Clear to engage. Surrounding teams have been notified.”

Timo’s breathing slowed. Flow with the wind, he said to himself.

Timo clicked the rifle’s safety off. He felt the wind with his mind, anticipated when it would gust and when it would lull; it had a rhythm to its breathing. He slowly exhaled full lungs of air through his nose, and the skin of his bare index finger put light pressure on the cold metal of the trigger. He felt the wind’s breath subside.

The rifle’s report sounded like a sack of wet cement had been dropped to the ground from the roof of a hut. A man standing over one hundred meters away wouldn’t hear it at all.

The rock jolted and the camouflage cover came off as the man underneath rolled and got up on his elbows to crawl for the protection of a nearby boulder. Timo worked the bolt on the rifle, ejecting the hot, spent casing and ramming a new round into the chamber in a single motion. He settled the crosshairs of the scope on the correct elevation and windage offset to the man’s chest and fired again. The man jerked and flopped to the ground, twitched an arm, and stopped moving. Timo chambered another round and watched and waited.

“Nice shooting,” Alyd said, still watching through her scope.

“Thanks,” Timo said and breathed deep to help slow his heart rate in case of a follow-up shot.

After ten minutes Alyd spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Team-three.”

“Go, team-three.”

“Confirmed kill on our contact.”

“Understood. Teams eight and nine will set up to the north and south of you. Execute normal intel retrieval procedure,” Lieutenant Risberg ordered.

“Copy,” she said into the walkie-talkie and placed it back down. “Damn it.”

“There go our warm bowls of soup,” Timo said, still looking through the rifle scope. “I hate intel retrieval.”

“Why does command want us to do that?” Alyd asked. “That’s an awfully big risk. What if it’s a trap just to target a sniper team? The Denock wouldn’t be above sacrificing a mercenary to get a crack at one of us.” Alyd scoffed and picked up the spent bullet casings lying next to her and put them in an empty slot in the ammunition pouch. She looked through the spotting scope.

“He’s just a scout, like every other scout. Our teams have killed more than a dozen this year. What’s so special about this one?”

“I guess we’ll find out when we get there,” Timo said.

An hour after dark, they informed the flanking teams they were moving out. The sniper rifle was strapped across Timo’s back. Each of them had an assault rifle slung across their chest. Timo paused and scanned the distant ridge with binoculars. No silhouettes appeared, so they started their descent into the river bottom. They could only use bushes and rocks for cover part of the way, until they had to sprint across the open, snow-covered ground from the edge of the dry river to the spot where the scout lay dead. Timo held his rifle at the ready position and veered to a rocky outcrop to the left, and Alyd veered to one on the right. They crouched behind each, pressing their backs to the cold stone. Alyd took the walkie-talkie from her belt, her heavy breath misted. She keyed the microphone.

“How are we doing?”

Team-eight replied fast. “No movement.”

“Same here,” replied team-nine.

Timo peeked over his rock at the dark hillside in front of him. He took out the binoculars and scanned the ridge top again. The optics gathered the little light available and showed him details he couldn’t see otherwise. He waited and listened. Only the wind moved. His heart rate slowed, but not as much as he’d wanted. Timo hand-signaled Alyd to hold her position. He moved from behind the outcrop, rifle at the ready. The corpse was lying facedown. Timo felt his heart rate quicken again as he stopped beside it.

The scout wore typical Denock garb: sand-colored uniform pants, hooded parka, and gloves. The snow around him was soaked with dark, sticky blood. Timo patted down his back and then around his waist and found nothing. To the right, the camouflage canvas he was using for cover flapped in the wind, held in place from blowing away by a backpack. He moved to the backpack and felt the contents through the outside. Nothing seemed suspicious. After he untied the flap, inside he found a set of civilian clothes with a head wrap and gloves, a revolver, a large knife in a sheath, food rations, a canteen filled with water, and a walkie-talkie.

The knife felt heavy in his hand and its handle smooth. Different-colored wood followed a diagonal pattern across the handle. He drew the twenty-centimeter blade from the leather sheath. The blade was steel, polished to a mirror-like finish, and sharp as the best razor. He’d never seen a knife so well made. He knew that neither team-eight nor team-nine, from their positions across the riverbed, could see enough detail in the dark to know exactly what he was doing. His back was turned to Alyd, blocking her view. He glanced at her. She held her rifle at the ready, scanning the hillside. He put the blade back in the sheath and tucked it inside his jacket.

Next he examined the radio. It looked different from the one he had. It had a short, thick antenna, a rectangular display on the front, and buttons with unfamiliar symbols. He put everything back in the pack, including the camouflage canvas, slung it over his shoulder, and low-walked back to the scout. Gripping the scout by the shoulder he rolled him faceup. Upon removing the cloth wrapped around the scout’s head, Timo saw that he was bald and his skin was dark brown. Timo was stunned.

“What’s wrong?” Alyd whispered from her hiding place.

“He’s an Asus soldier,” he whispered back.

“What? What’s he doing here in the winter? And why’s he dressed like a Denock?”

Timo laid his hand on the dead scout’s head and bowed his head for a silent moment of prayer.

“Go forth, dear soul, from this world in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you. In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for you. May your home be with God in Zion and all the angels and saints,” Timo whispered.

He moved back to his hiding place near Alyd.

“This could be very bad,” Timo whispered to Alyd.

“No kidding! If the Asus and Denock have joined, that could be a real problem. We need to go,” Alyd said. She took the radio from her belt. “Team-eight and nine, we’re returning.”

“Team-eight copy.”

“Team-nine copy.”

Timo and Alyd raced back across the open span of the canyon. Once among the rocks on the rugged hillside, they stopped to catch their breath. A voice came over Alyd’s radio.

“Alyd, this is Masi.”

“Go ahead, Masi.”

“Reetu and I are waiting for you at your gear. Just wanted you to know so you don’t shoot us.”

“No problem.”

Timo and Alyd climbed the hillside to their perch. Masi and Reetu were waiting exactly where they said they would be, by the packs they’d left behind.

Masi, the senior of the two men, spoke. “What did you find?”

“It’s the strangest thing. It was an Asus, but he was dressed in Denock gear.”

“Damn… You think they have joined?”

“That’s our guess,” Alyd said.

“He had a pack with civilian clothes and a strange-looking walkie-talkie. He was using rock camouflage, so keep a sharp eye,” Timo said.

“What’s a scout doing this far north?” Reetu asked, not expecting anyone to have an answer. “Asus or Denock, it doesn’t make any sense.”

“He was probably thinking the same thing about us,” Alyd said.

“We need dinner—stay safe, guys,” Timo said.

After Timo and Alyd left their friends, Timo led the way across an open field into a thick forest of leafless trees. Small piles of snow hid from the wind on top of the branches where the branch met the trunk. The pale snow on the ground gave enough contrast for them to move, without flashlights, silently through the dark woods. They stopped periodically to check for any movement ahead or behind. After crossing a dry creek bed, Timo knelt down and rested against a tree. Alyd rested on one knee beside him.

“I have something I want to show you,” Timo said.

“Not now, Timo. It’s too cold—my lips will just freeze to it… Actually that sounds kind of hot.”

“Is sex all you think about?”

“No, but I’m working on that problem.”

Timo took the knife out of his jacket and handed it to Alyd. She removed it from the sheath.

“What’s this?”

“It was in the scout’s pack. That has got to be the finest knife ever made.” Timo held out his hand as Alyd re-sheathed the knife. She gave it back, and he placed it inside his jacket.

“It is nice, but what’s it doing in your jacket?”

“I’m keeping it.”

“You’re what?”

“That’s the best knife I have ever seen. I’m keeping it. Why just give it to Risberg? You know he would just keep it for himself. Remember that pistol from the scout Byan killed?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. It could be important.”

Timo stood. “Don’t make a big deal. It’s just a knife.” He started toward the village again.

They stopped eight hundred meters from the wall.

“Team-three to sentry commander on channel three,” Alyd spoke into the walkie-talkie.

“Sentry commander on three.”

“Approaching south gate.”

“Clear.”

When they were one hundred meters from the gate the electrical flood lights came on. Timo and Alyd pulled back their parkas and exposed their faces, and the lights were extinguished. As he approached, Timo could see the silhouettes of the sentries examining them through their rifle scopes from the top of the wall.

The wall around the village stood ten meters high, some of it wood, most of it stone. During times when the clan felt threatened, like now, sentries were posted every five hundred meters along the top of the wall during the day, except near the gates where there were twice as many. At night a sentry stood every one hundred meters. The west side wall, which faced in the direction of the riverbed, stretched fifteen hundred meters long. The north and south walls were two times as long. The east side’s composition was two walls that came to a point. Timo heard the lock clunk, and the gate swung open just enough to let them pass.

Once through the gate, Timo saw his commanding officer, Lieutenant Risberg, a high-strung demagogue wannabe, approaching. Timo and Alyd stood at attention and saluted. To their surprise he stepped aside and behind him appeared General Bartel, an ox of a man. He was the highest-ranking military officer of the army and Tower security.

“At ease,” the general said. “Give me your report, soldier.”

“We spotted an enemy scout trying to cross the river in sector twenty-seven. We neutralized the contact and then performed intel retrieval, sir,” Timo said.

“What intel did you recover?”

Timo took the backpack off his shoulder and handed it to the general. “There is a walkie-talkie inside. I’ve never seen anything like it before, sir.”

The general unzipped the pack and looked inside, removed the walkie-talkie, examined it briefly, and placed it back inside. “Anything else?”

Timo could feel the weight of the knife in the inside pocket of his parka. I hope Alyd doesn’t stay too mad. “Yes, sir. The scout was Asus, but dressed like a Denock.”

The general crinkled his brow. “Where is he now?”

Timo looked at Alyd, who had the same surprised expression. “What do you mean, sir?” Alyd asked.

“The body. Where is it now?”

“We left him where he fell, sir,” Timo replied.

“What?”

“We were told to do normal intel retrieval, sir. Nothing else,” Alyd said.

The general snapped his head around to the lieutenant. “Send another team out for the body, now!”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied and ran for his radio.

The general glared at Timo and Alyd, slung the backpack over his shoulder, turned on his heels, and walked away without another word.