Whiplash

30

Nuri lay across the rafters above the sheetrock, waiting as the new set of guards took their posts. One stayed in the small vestibule near the door, snuggling into the soft chair. Despite the ridicule he’d heaped on his colleague, he was dozing within a few minutes, done in by boredom, the stale air, and the late hour.

The other guard walked through the building, turned into the hallway, and headed for the restroom, his way lit by a soft red light activated from the threshold. He hummed as he walked, bouncing and full of energy.

The man had learned that his wife was pregnant with their first child earlier in the day, and the prospect of a new son — and the bonus Colonel Zsar paid to all married men when their children were born — filled him with something approaching glee. He’d taken inside guard duty before, though always when people were working; tonight the laboratory would be dark, its last batch of material processed twenty-four hours before.

Though guard duty was a boring, mindless task, he liked the chance to let his mind roam, filled with songs he was constantly inventing. He wasn’t much of a soldier, as he would have been the first to admit. He’d joined the colonel’s army for the pay, choosing to be a rebel because soldiers were hardly ever paid on time. Religion was also a factor in his choice; he wouldn’t have joined Uncle Dpap, even though his reputation for watching over his men was better than the colonel’s, because Dpap was a nonbeliever. As dim as the soldier’s own concept of Islam might be, he nonetheless observed the proper forms, praying and dreaming of one day making his own hajj, the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca.

Nuri held his breath as the guard walked down the hallway nearby, then entered the restroom. The light shone through the fan covering. Nuri slipped over to the fan and peeked into the room through the open space. He couldn’t see the rebel — he’d gone into the commode nearest the door — but he could see the man’s rifle, an early model AK-47, complete with a battered but polished wooden stock, leaning up against the exterior of the stall almost directly below him.

The man’s humming continued. Nuri wondered if it might be possible to somehow plant a bug on his gear.

He could put one of the small ones into the gun barrel. The gum would make it stick.

It was a crazy idea. The device would be found as soon as the man cleaned his rifle.

The rebels fell asleep on guard duty and laughed about it. Were they likely to clean their weapons?

And what if it was discovered? So what? By that time he would already have a decent idea of what was going on.

If he surrounded it with gum, the soldier would just think it was a stone or some sort of debris. He’d think it was a prank and never report it. It wouldn’t look like much of anything.

The fan was held down by a pair of screws. Nuri undid them, then put his hand on the fan assembly and lifted it slowly. The detector of course found motion, but it would be dismissed by anyone who knew the guard was in the bathroom.

Just as Nuri got the fan off to the side, the soldier stopped singing in his commode.

Nuri started to replace it. Then the man began humming again.

The barrel of the gun was about six feet from him.

Nuri leaned over, but his small body left him a good four feet away. He slipped over some more, leaning farther, but was still at least three feet from the barrel. It was just a little too far, he decided, stretching farther.

His knee slipped against the joist, and suddenly he started to lose his balance. He threw his hand out, grabbing on the top of the nearest stall.

“Who’s there? What?” said the rebel soldier.

Nuri, leaning almost full out of the hole, reached over and took the barrel of the gun with his right hand. He pushed the bug into the barrel, then pulled himself back up. As he did, the gun slid on the floor, clattering against the wood.

The rebel hurried to finish. He couldn’t see the fan from where he was, nor did he even imagine that someone had slipped inside the building. He thought his companion was playing tricks on him.

“I’ll get you, I’ll get you,” he shouted as he pulled open the door.

He wasn’t surprised that no one was there. He went and grabbed his gun, spinning all around. He checked the stalls, but didn’t look at the ceiling before running out and going back to the vestibule to berate his friend.

Nuri decided it was time to leave.

“I’m coming out,” he whispered to Hera. “Get the panel off. Quick! And be quiet.”

He scrambled across the rafters. Hera pulled off the screws and took the panel away. As she did, Nuri reached the side and swung out through the opening, landing in a tumble on his feet. Hera put the wall back in place, turning the screws quickly.

“Give me some,” Nuri told Hera, taking the screws.

“Ssssh,” said Hera.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

The Voice, listening through the bug Nuri had put in the gun, translated the conversation between the two guards. The guard from the vestibule said he’d been napping; the other one refused to believe him. Both then began accusing the other of trying to pull a hoax. Finally they decided to conduct a full search of the building.

They looked in the front room, then in the hallway, and finally in the empty offices at the rear.

“Maybe it was Jacob inside,” said the guard from the vestibule.

“Maybe,” said the other man doubtfully. He was now starting to think that he had either imagined it or that the ghosts some of his neighbors believed in were real.

“Well, go ask him, and leave me alone,” said the first.

During the search, Nuri and Hera circled around to the other side of the road, back in the direction of the motorcycle in case they had to make a quick getaway.

Nuri stopped when he heard there was another man in the building.

Finally he understand what was going on there. Or at least part of it.

He reached into his pocket and took out the small iPodlike control for the Voice unit. Then he told the computer to track the bug feed on an outline of the building.

“What are we seeing?” Hera asked, looking over his shoulder at the tiny image.

“I slipped a bug into the guard’s rifle.”

“Where?”

“In the barrel.”

“That’s not an image.”

“I wasn’t lucky enough to get it in heads-up. Next time I’ll do better.”

Actually, the gum surrounding it would have made it very difficult for the camera to pick up anything. Hera wasn’t sure whether slipping the bug into the gun was the ballsiest thing she’d ever heard — or the craziest. She kept silent, deciding she didn’t want to compliment him. He had enough of a swelled head already.

The guard returned to the hall, and then to the area where the restroom was. And then he went behind the building — downstairs, Nuri realized, into some sort of secret basement that extended into the hill behind the building.

The earth hampered the audio transmission, but he had heard and seen enough.

“We have to plant radiation traps around the site,” he told Hera. “And get some soil samples from the front yard.”

“What’s going on?”

“I think we just found out where those metal tubes are.”