Chapter 7-1
1077 Words
Chapter Seven
It had been twenty minutes since they’d left the base. Sophia wanted to change vehicles.
The road Jay had taken was feeding them between two mountains, their peaks dipped in fog. Coming up on their left, a town peppered across the mountainside forest. Two-story yellow-clay houses were nestled in a stepped fashion, the rooftops acting as walkways for the levels above. Sophia couldn’t see any vehicles in the town itself, but up ahead was a repurposed hospital bus.
‘Jackpot,’ Jay said, pulling in beside it. He hunched over the steering wheel, rubbing his eyes. ‘On second thoughts, it probably wouldn’t make it over the next hill. I think we have a better chance sticking with what we got.’
‘A military Land Cruiser doesn’t exactly blend in,’ Sophia said. ‘And neither does a hospital gown or military uniform.’
Jay was about to answer back but sneezed instead. It was absurdly loud inside the 4WD.
Damien slouched in the front seat, arms folded. ‘So much for stealth. I’m pretty sure goat herders on the other side of the mountain heard that one.’
‘Shut it,’ Jay said. ‘You snore like a trumpet.’
Sophia remained still in the back seat. Since their capture in the desert, something was different. She felt . . . strange. She examined the hospital bus parked next to them. At least, what had once been a hospital bus. The drab olive paintwork remained, but it was decorated with straw-colored curtains and had collected a small army of trinkets on the dashboard.
‘Where’s your knife?’ she asked Jay.
He pulled the KA-BAR from its scabbard.
She took it from him. ‘Take the bus.’
He exhaled loudly through his nose. One nostril whistled in disappointment. ‘No way. Riding a brick would be faster than riding that bus.’
‘Not if the brick was painted in army cam,’ she said.
‘Fine. I suppose you have a point for once.’
She could see a clothesline on one of the rooftops. Dry clothes. No one was outdoors yet, it was too early.
‘Think you can get us some clothes?’ she said. ‘And shoes for me if you can.’
Jay grinned. ‘Easy.’ He stepped out of the 4WD. ‘I’ll steal some cash too.’
‘Jay.’ She climbed through to the front seat. ‘Quietly.’
He winked. ‘It might interest you to know that I have the grace of a ballet dancer.’
She shut the door in his face. ‘I sincerely hope not.’
That should’ve earned a chuckle from Damien, but instead he said, ‘I shot the staff sergeant.’
‘I know,’ Sophia said.
She watched Jay plot a careful path to the clothesline, then surveyed the town again. Not a soul in sight. Good. She pulled out the disposable cigarette lighter and began sterilizing the tip of the KA-BAR knife.
‘We killed that family,’ Damien said. ‘They looked like soldiers. But then they weren’t.’ He watched her sterilize the knife. ‘I grabbed that girl. I thought she was a soldier. I don’t know what I was doing.’
Sophia withdrew the knife from the flame. ‘Get the hip flask.’
Damien searched the pockets of his stolen uniform for it.
She offered the underside of her right forearm. ‘Pour.’
He unscrewed the lid, splashed alcohol on the skin over her RFID. Now she stank of cheap whisky.
The RFID was a radio-frequency identification tag encased in silicate glass and implanted under her skin. It was pill-shaped and about twice the length of a grain of rice. It kept precise GPS coordinates on all operatives in the field, above or below ground. As long as they had them under their skin, Denton would always know where they were. He had been using the RFIDs with the Fifth Column Assetrac—asset-tracking system—since 2004.
‘I think we’re all a little confused right now,’ Sophia said.
Damien watched with detached interest as she made an incision over the top of her RFID. Blood escaped. She ignored it, flexed her forearm a few times to nudge the RFID, then used the tip of the blade to coax it out. The fingers on her right hand twitched involuntarily. The pain almost made her drop the knife, but she clenched her teeth and fought through it. The RFID slid out. She discarded it between her feet. It can stay in the Land Cruiser, she thought.
She wiped the blade, let Damien douse it in more whisky, wiped again, then swapped the flask for the blade and lighter. It was Damien’s turn now.
She stared at the incision in her arm. It was hard to believe what she was doing. Her thoughts didn’t feel like her own any more. For a moment, she considered secretly approaching Denton and explaining she was no longer fit for service. But he would never trust her again. And there would be nothing she could say to change that. If she returned to the Fifth Column, she would face her end. All the more reason for them to cross the Iraq–Iran border again and get back to Tehran, where they had some chance of obscuring themselves from the prying eyes of surveillance satellites.
She gritted her teeth, pulled out the tube of Dermabond and applied a thin stripe of the violet liquid across the cut. She held it in place with two fingertips on either side. Once it was set, she poured whisky on Damien’s forearm, then watched him cut out his RFID. When he was done, she gave him the Dermabond.
Jay returned. He was wearing a thick woolen jacket and a headscarf, but fortunately no glamor turban. There were two other jackets slung over his shoulder. He opened the driver’s door. ‘Bus is ready to roll.’ His breath fogged the air between them.
‘I didn’t even hear you,’ Sophia said. ‘Good work.’
He dangled a set of keys. ‘Someone up there loves me.’
Damien snorted. ‘That’s hard to believe.’
‘And we’re rich.’ Jay shoved a wad of notes into Sophia’s hands. ‘Two million rials.’
Sophia checked the notes. ‘That’s around 200 bucks.’
Jay unraveled his headscarf. ‘Right. Well, it’s all I could get my hands on without being compromised.’
Sophia took the headscarf and wrapped the notes inside. She jumped out of the driver’s seat. She could see a wafer of orange upon the horizon. The sun was rising.
She turned to Jay and handed him the knife. ‘We can go to Tehran. But you need to remove your RFID first.’
He glared at her. ‘Are you insane?’
‘Jury’s out on that,’ she said. ‘But there’s no point changing vehicles if they can still track us.’
Grumbling, he snatched the knife off her and rolled back the sleeves of his jacket. ‘I’m only agreeing to this because Tehran has good beer.’
- Writer
