Page 78 of What Remains

His rifle was always set up on its bipod legs, and now, he lowered his binos with exaggerated care, mindful that a stray flash in the gathering darkness might draw attention he didn’t want, and they couldn’t afford. Then, he dropped into a squat alongside and then stretched out onto his stomach and embraced the rifle. He did this gently, the way Dare had taught and, as an adult, the way John might a lover. He breathed in, then out, then in again and out again, and then Dare’s voice, from long ago, floated through his mind.

You got to be ice, son. To do this job, you got to be stone.

I am ice, he thought now. His left hand rested on the barrel beneath the scope, his right alongside the trigger. The rifle’s stock was cold against his right cheek.I am stone.

He moved his head to bring his right eye in line with his scope. At once, what he had viewed through his binoculars leapt into view, only closer than before because the scope was more powerful. If he’d wanted, he could’ve drilled in, so he looked at only a piece of a person: an eye, an ear. But he needed to be able to see a bit more, where people were placed, the distance between them, and so had dialed back to give himself a better view. When it came time, he would have to quickly change settings.

Which he knew he could do. He had, after all, done this before.

Just not here.

The plan was simple:get a visual on Flowers and Meeks, take out Sarbaz and his men, pop-pop-pop, one right after the other. Doable, but he would have to be very fast, dial in, make his shots, and then pray that any more of Sarbaz’s people who might come running could be taken care of by Amu and?—

His thought broke off as he spotted light and then movement and then realized that thelightwas moving. The man who’d disappeared into the mine emerged first. He held a candle which seemed strange, but then John remembered what Amu had said about the mine not using generators in winter because there weren’t as many men and so no need for as much power. Setting his candle on a rocky shelf about shoulder height, the guy took up position again to Sarbaz’s left.

More flickers now as three people moved into view. Two moved stiffly and their hands were bound.

Flowers and Meeks.At least they were still alive. Both men’s hands were tied behind their backs. There was a dark splotch on Meek’s left shoulder and more blood on his left sleeve. Flowers limped behind, and one whole side of his face was swollen, the eye blacked shut, as if someone had clocked him a good one. A rifle butt, maybe. John watched as their guard crowded them both up against a far wall.

Two last people emerged. One had a rifle. The other, shorter and slimmer, carried a candle and had a pack slung over a shoulder. The mine’s doctor? A reasonable guess and a woman, given what looked like a veil. Well, good. That meant Shahidahad sold it. Distracting everyone with the need to shut Shahida up was part of the plan, too.

She’s a good actress, I’ll give her that.Create a distraction, a disturbance, get Sarbaz and his men to let down their guard just for a few seconds.And then it’s showtime.He pulled in an even breath and let it out and then breathed in again, stilling and centering himself as the mine’s doctor turned to speak to Sarbaz.Just a few more?—

And then whatever track his mind had been on simply ran out.

No.A black, icy rose of horror unfurled in his chest.No, it can’t be.

But it could be—and it was.

She once saw a play,Curse of the Starving Class,by Sam Shepard. She’d been young, maybe nineteen, and didn’t remember much of the storyline. But she did remember this one scene in the third act.

There had been some quarrel; she couldn’t remember what, but this was Shepard. People were always arguing. Anyway, third act, the son walked through the kitchen. That wasn’t so amazing.

But what did grabeveryone’sattention in that theater? That kid was naked as a jay and blood dripped from his hands. That son didn’t run across the stage either but took his time.

So, that was just downright shocking. She’d never seen a nude person on stage and certainly not a man. But then, in the play, the mother, who had been asleep at the table, opened her eyes and said,Nothing surprises me anymore.

Truer words, she thought now. Truer words.

She hearda woman shouting when she was still halfway from the entrance. All she could think was,oh brother. She knew what Sarbaz would want. When it came to mouthy women, Sarbaz always the same thing: to shut them up.

She flat-out refused. She’d known there was some poor woman his men was pumping full of crap. Maybe she should’ve been there to supervise. But she thought that would be a little like a doctor participating in an execution. Back in the States, doctors refused. The AMA refused. Doctors didn’t kill people.

And I won’t drug them either.

Stepping across the entrance’s threshold and into the staging area, she blinked against wind-driven shards of icy snow. For a second, she simply inhaled. Fresh air was fresh air even if it was so cold, it made her chest hurt.

Now that she was out, she took in the situation at a glance—and just wasn’t surprised. Because this was the way her luck was running. Honestly, her life had devolved into that old joke: just when you thought things couldn’t get any darker, they went pitch-black.

Flowers and Meeks, both of them wounded and needing her help, told her about Shahida. Mac and Driver, she’d not even seen. The shooting was over by the time she realized that the person coming into her cave wasn’t trying to kill her and, in all probability, she’d just given him a bath of her own piss and poo.

I was so sure that would work, too.In the few seconds before she’d brought that heavy pail of her own shit and piss whizzing through the darkness, she’d allowed herself that bright, brief flare of hope. Because whoever had stumbled into her dark little cave at the back of the mine hadn’t bothered to seat hisNVGs properlyandhe’d clicked off his red flashlight…but not before he had shown her exactly where he was. So, she had swung that pail with all her might, thinking of what she would do as soon as he was down and she got his weapon and set herself free because this was her chance, this was her best shot.

She took it. She won, too. Sort of.

The guy must have hearing like a bat or just be very experienced. Whatever the case, she’d caught him on the helmet and then before she’d even recovered her balance, a hand had her by the throat and a fist whistled for her face and then it had been lights out. Or maybe it had been his rifle butt that hit. She didn’t know. Her jaw was still sore.

Later, though, when she was tending to Flowers, he said she’d probably tried taking out Mac.

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