The Ares Decision

43

Jon Smith checked the hand-drawn map again as they crawled along a barely discernible jeep track cutting through the rolling terrain.

They’d left the farm after downing an elaborate breakfast Duernberg insisted on making, and now the sun was directly overhead. Temperatures had risen to a level that was taxing even the overbuilt cooling system of Janani’s truck, and the wind was churning up thick clouds of dust in the distance.

“Won’t work,” Sarie said from the backseat when Smith leaned out the window to dry his sweat-soaked face. She was right — the air felt like it was blowing out of a wet convection oven.

He pulled back again, adjusting the assault rifle sticking up between the front seats so he could lean forward and get his back off the leather. “The map shows an intersection with a better-defined road ahead. We turn left on it and then it’s not much more than a mile to the cave area.”

“If the intersection is still there,” Howell said. “That’s not exactly a new map.”

“All we’ve got. How are we looking behind, Sarie?”

“Nothing. I think our friends must have abandoned us.”

The soldiers tracking them hadn’t made an appearance since the prior afternoon. They’d probably broken an axle or been washed away in a stream crossing like they themselves had nearly been no less than twenty times since leaving Kampala. Or maybe they’d just turned back. Bahame wouldn’t be particularly accepting of Ugandan soldiers wandering around in his backyard.

The road leveled out and Howell used the opportunity to accelerate as they came around a sweeping curve. The heat and empty landscape had dulled his normally razor-sharp reflexes and he slammed on the brakes just a fraction too late. The vehicle fishtailed in the loose dirt, sliding forward until the brush guard rammed the side of the military truck parked in their path.

Howell immediately went for the assault rifle, but Smith grabbed his wrist. The cab of the truck was empty, but there were three armed men in the back, their elevated position perfect for shooting down into the Land Cruiser’s windshield. Camouflage-clad men appeared out of the tall grass and approached cautiously with weapons at the ready.

“Get out of the car!” one demanded in heavily accented English.

“You’re the ones who have been following us since Kampala,” Smith said as they stepped cautiously from the vehicle. “We have permission to be here.”

Six guns were trained on them, and out of the corner of his eye Smith could see Howell sizing up the men holding them. They appeared to be a few notches above the poorly trained part-timers so common in this part of the world.

It suddenly struck him just how alone they were. Had Sembutu decided that they were more trouble than they were worth — that it would be better if they just disappeared? It would be so easy. No one would ever find the bodies, and their disappearance could be credibly blamed on Bahame or any of the hundreds of other things that killed people every day in that part of the world.

“You must turn back,” the man said. “Go home.”

“We’re scientists,” Sarie added. “We’re here studying some of your local animals.”

“You study ants, yes?”

“That’s right, we—”

“You want to die for ants?”

“We don’t just study ants,” Smith said. “We study diseases and the way they’re spread. The work we do saves lives.”

“Not yours if Bahame finds you.”

“That’s a risk we’re willing to take.”

The man just stood there for a few moments, scowling silently at what he undoubtedly saw as soul-crushing stupidity. Finally, he pulled a sat phone from his pocket and began speaking unintelligibly into it. When he hung up, he looked even less happy.

“If you refuse to go back, my men and I have been ordered to protect you.”

“We appreciate that, but it’s really not necessary. We don’t want to put you in danger. It—”

“Then go back to Kampala.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that.”

The man let out a frustrated breath and started back to his truck.

How are you holding up?” Smith said, scrambling over a pile of jagged boulders as he jogged toward Sarie. The terrain had opened up into rocky grassland punctuated by occasional stands of trees that looked like enormous parasols. She was standing in the shade of one of those, and he pulled out a canteen, taking a sip before holding it out to her.

“Just another day at the office.” The edges of her eyes crinkled as she squinted through her sunglasses at the shapes the wind was creating in the grass. “But I’m starting to wonder if this is the right place. It seems like with this many people we’d have found something by now.”

They had pressed Sembutu’s soldiers into service, and they, along with Peter Howell, were walking across the field at twenty-five-yard intervals, searching for a cave entrance.

“This is what the map said.”

“For his patients’ sake, I hope Duernberg was a better doctor than he was a cartographer.”

Smith pulled off his straw cowboy hat, holding it up to block the sun as he looked out over the endless landscape.

“These are hard conditions,” Sarie said. “You’re doing a lot better than I would have expected.”

Smith grinned. “I can’t figure out if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“It’s an observation,” she said, her expression turning probing. “You and Peter don’t seem very bothered by the terrain or the sun or people pointing guns at you. I understand that he was in the SAS, but what’s your excuse?”

“I may not be SAS, Sarie, but I’ve worked on the front lines in MASH units attached to special forces units.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, clearly unconvinced. “I get around, Jon. I’ve known military doctors. Some have had some interesting adventures. But in the end, they’re city strong.”

“City strong?”

“They go to the gym religiously three days a week. They do their little midlife-crisis triathlons. It’s different in the bush. But then, you know that, don’t you?”

Smith wasn’t happy with the direction the conversation was going and was almost relieved when he heard a frightened cry from one of the soldiers searching to the north. He pulled his pistol from its holster and ran over the uneven ground toward the voice with Sarie a few feet behind.

Sembutu’s other men had dropped to their knees and were sweeping their rifles back and forth while Howell called for calm.

Finally, Smith spotted the cause of the commotion. One of the soldiers he thought was crouching had actually fallen chest-deep into a hole. His arms, spread out flat on the ground, were the only things keeping him from plunging the rest of the way through.

Smith and Sarie grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him out while the others gathered around.

“Are you all right?”

He didn’t seem to understand, and Smith pointed to the blood beginning to soak through the right leg of his fatigues. “Just sit back and relax for a minute. I’m a doctor.”

Someone translated, and Smith took out a knife, cutting through the fabric and looking at the gash made by a sharp outcropping the man had hit on his way down.

“I have a first-aid kit,” Howell said, digging through his pack and handing over a well-stocked plastic organizer that he’d obviously created himself. Smith cleaned the wound with alcohol and then pulled out a hooked needle and some thread.

“Tell him this is going to sting a bit.”

The man lay back but, to his credit, didn’t flinch or make a sound while Smith stitched up the wound.

“I think Dr. Duernberg has redeemed himself,” Sarie said, lying flat on the ground and peering into the hole. “It’s about fifteen meters to the bottom. Can’t see how far it goes in either direction, but it looks pretty big.”

“What about the rock he hit?” Smith said.

“Clean and dry.”

Smith nodded. There was a good chance they’d found the parasite’s hiding place. The cave’s entrance was hidden by a tangle of grass and vines, making it easy for anyone walking through the area to tumble in. Had the soldier gone all the way down and gotten his cut contaminated with water or bat guano, things could have gotten complicated. They’d been lucky.

Smith bandaged the wound while Sarie unpacked her equipment and Howell enlisted the remaining soldiers to clear the foliage from around the hole.

When he was done, Smith grabbed a flashlight and leaned in, shining the beam in a slow circle. There was no way to climb down — the entrance was in the middle of a vaulted roof that he couldn’t see the edges of. The floor was strewn with rocks from millennia of miniature cave-ins, and he could hear dripping echoing somewhere beyond the hazy ring of illumination.

“What do you think?” he said, sliding back out.

“I say we take a look,” Sarie responded, uncoiling a rope next to a box of surgical gloves.

He frowned and looked around them. Beyond the gloves and a few basic surgical masks, they had no biohazard equipment. And beyond the rope, they had no climbing equipment. Not exactly ideal. Then again, these weren’t exactly normal circumstances.

“You sure you got me?”

There was nowhere to anchor the rope, leaving no choice but to have Howell and the soldiers dig in like a tug-of-war team on one end. The result was less than confidence inspiring.

“You’ll be the first to know, mate.”

“Great,” Smith muttered, weighting the rope enough to test their grip as he slid into the hole. It gave a good foot, and he soon found himself in the same position as the soldier who had fallen, unwilling to completely abandon terra firma.

“Off you go, then,” Howell said, repositioning his boots in the soil for maximum traction.

Smith closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind of the fifty feet of air beneath him and the effect of the parasite whose lair they were bumbling into.

Finally, he took a deep breath and let go, wrapping his legs around the rope and gripping the knots Howell had tied into it with white-knuckle intensity. He heard the worried shouts of the Africans as they skidded toward the hole and winced as the rope dropped another couple of feet.

“Faster would be better than slower,” Howell called, the strain audible in his voice.

Smith descended quickly but found little comfort in the sensation of solid ground once it was beneath his feet. He checked again to make sure his pants were tucked tightly into his boots and his sleeves into the surgical gloves. “I’m off, Sarie. Go ahead and come down.”

She slid down awkwardly, struggling to find the knots with her feet and grunting audibly. When she got within reach, Smith grabbed her legs and eased her to the ground.

“You made it look easier than it was,” she commented, flexing her right hand painfully.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fantastic, thank you for asking. Have you noticed how lovely it is down here?”

He hadn’t, but now that she mentioned it, he noticed the temperature had dropped a good thirty degrees and there was a slight stirring of air. Every cloud had a silver lining. Sometimes you just had to look really, really hard.

She helped him off with his pack, accidentally dropped it, and then began fumbling around with the top flap.

“Scared?” he said, gently pushing her hand away and unfastening the plastic clips himself.

“A little. The truth is, I don’t much care for confined spaces. And most of the parasites I work with don’t…” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “You?”

“Scared? Yes. Afraid of confined places? No. I love them. In particular a nice hazmat suit.”

She smiled, her teeth flashing in the bright sunlight coming from above. “I can see how maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”

A shadow passed across her and Smith looked up to see Howell peering down at them.

“You all right down there?”

“Can’t complain. It’s air-conditioned.”

The Brit shook his head. “I reckon I’d rather be up here in the sun.”

Smith knew that Peter Howell wouldn’t think twice about facing down twenty armed men with nothing but a ballpoint pen and a damp tea bag, but he’d never been a fan of microscopic creepy crawlies. Not a fair fight in his mind.

“I’m going to see if I can find somewhere to hang a net,” Sarie said. “I’d love to get a bat spec—”

The unmistakable crack of a gunshot floated down to them, followed by the just-as-unmistakable thud and grunt of a man stopping a bullet. A moment later their rope dropped down on top of them.

“Peter!” Smith shouted, but Howell had disappeared and the only response was multiple bursts of machine-gun fire from at least three separate weapons.

“Peter!” Sarie called. “What’s happening? Are you all right?”

Another wet thud sounded above and everything went briefly dark. Realizing what was happening, Smith grabbed Sarie and yanked her out of the way before she could be crushed by the soldier falling through the cave entrance.

Smith dropped to his knees next to the man and checked for a pulse.

“Is he…,” Sarie started.

“The bullet hit him in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.”

Smith gave the man’s rifle to Sarie and checked his pockets for anything else they could use. Nothing but a few Ugandan shillings and a hot-pink rabbit’s foot that was apparently defective.

“We can’t get out the way we came in. It’s too loose and too overhanging,” Smith said, grabbing her arm and leading her down the slope into the darkness. “Sarie? Are you listening?”

Her breath was coming in short gasps and she seemed unwilling to take her eyes off the spotlit corpse lying only a few yards away. Smith positioned himself to block her view and put his hands on her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

“Just give me a second, okay?”

Her breathing began to slow and she closed her eyes for a moment. When they opened again, some of the fear had dissipated. “What about Peter?”

“There’s nothing we can do for him right now. We have to concentrate on ourselves. On getting out of here.”

“How exactly are we going to do that? I’ve never been pinned down in a cave by people with guns before. How about you?”

“Actually, I have.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope. Do you feel the breeze?”

She nodded.

“Let’s go find out where it’s coming from.”

The broken rocks made travel slower than he would have liked, but at least the ground was flat and not sloping endlessly toward the center of the earth. They stopped every few minutes to listen for anyone following, but everything had gone silent except for the occasional crack of stone dislodging from the roof.

The passage narrowed and finally dead-ended into a wall with a three-foot-wide hole in it. Sarie shined her flashlight inside but it just glinted off a crystal-encrusted wall where the tube jogged right.

“You’re going to tell me we have to go in there, aren’t you?”

Smith held out a hand to test the air blowing from the passage. “If you’ve got any better ideas, I’m listening.”

She just stood there, chewing her lip miserably.

“Ladies first,” he prompted.

“You want me to go in front? You can’t be serious.”

“No offense, Sarie, but if you freak out, I’d rather have you in front of me than behind me. Just take it slow and watch for drops-offs. I’ll be right with you the whole way.”

She stood there for a lot longer than he would have liked, staring into the darkness while he listened for any sign that they were being followed. Peter would hold off the attackers as long as he could, but with no way to know how many there were or what kind of firepower they were packing, it was impossible to estimate how much time they had.

Finally, she picked up the rifle they’d taken off the dead soldier and slithered inside.

Time ceased to exist in the tiny passage, and Smith had to keep checking the glowing hands of his watch to confirm that minutes and not hours had passed. Sarie stopped a few times for brief hyperventilation breaks but then soldiered on, never uttering so much as a single complaint.

They went on like that for another fifteen minutes before she stopped — a little more abruptly than she had before. “Jon? I think we might have a problem.”

“That’s okay. I’m right here with you. Are you all right?”

“Ja. But I’m on a ledge and the flashlight doesn’t go far enough to see the bottom.”

“Is there a loose rock? Toss it down and count until you hear it hit.”

“Okay. Hold on.”

Her answer didn’t come as soon as he’d hoped.

“Six seconds.”

“That’s going to be a little longer than our rope. Does the ledge lead anywhere?”

“It goes right.”

“How wide is it?”

“Half a meter.”

“Can you get out on it?”

“Without falling, you mean?”

“That would be best.”

He heard her sigh and then the scrape of the rifle as she pushed it farther out in front of her.

“Damn!” she said, her shout echoing off the stone walls. He was about to ask what had happened but then heard the metallic clatter of the rifle hitting the ground far below.

Great.

“It’s okay, Sarie. No problem. Focus on what you’re doing.”

He gripped her ankle as she turned the corner, though he doubted he could stop her if she fell. More likely they’d both go over.

“All right,” she said, struggling to keep her breathing under control. “I’m out. I’m on the ledge. But it stops in front of me. There’s a meter gap before it starts again.”

“Can you stand up?”

“No way in hell.”

“The only way you’re going to make it across a gap that wide is by jumping it.”

“You think I don’t know that?” she snapped. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. “I’m sorry, Jon. I know you’re just trying to help. But the ledge I’m on is narrow enough that my left side is hanging in the air and the wall above me just feels like a bunch of dirt and mud. There’s no way I could keep my balance.”

“I understand,” he said calmly. “Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to slide straight back until your hips are even with the hole I’m in. Understand?”

“Yeah. Okay. Back. Back is good.”

The illumination from the flashlight in her hand played off the cave walls as she carefully reversed herself.

“That’s far enough. You’re doing great.”

He slid a hand down the back of her cargo pants, getting a solid grip on the heavy cotton waistband.

“I’d like to get to know you better, too, Jon. But do you really think this is the time?”

They both laughed, longer and harder than the joke probably warranted, but it helped drain off a little of the tension.

“Okay, Sarie. I’ve got myself wedged in here like a tick. I’m not coming out and I’m not letting go. So just stand up and don’t worry about falling.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“It was pretty easy, actually.”

They laughed again and he dug harder into the contours of the wall as her hips rose. When her shoulders came even with the top of the hole he was in, he started pulling, causing her back to scrape against the rock as she straightened.

“Move right and look around on the wall for something solid to hold on to.”

“Yeah…Okay, I found something. It feels pretty solid.”

“Your turn to help me, then.”

Less than a minute later he was on his feet, spine pressed into the wall and toes hanging over a pit as black as outer space. They eased right and he took one of her hands, steadying her as she crossed the gap.

They circumnavigated the chamber carefully, the breeze strengthening the farther they went. When it turned into a wind powerful enough to affect their already precarious balance, they stopped.

“Turn off your light a second, Sarie.”

“What? Why?”

“Just humor me.”

She flicked the switch and he waited for his eyes to adjust. As they did, the blackness turned gray with the dim glow of sunlight.