Lucy’s voice:
‘You got to remember, they didn’t have TV.’
Lucy and Huang explored the ruined necropolis. A succession of courtyards filled with tumbled blocks of rubble. Broken arches. Toppled colonnades.
‘Place is a fucking maze,’ murmured Huang.
Empty storerooms. Lucy switched on the barrel lamp of her rifle and scanned darkened interiors. Sand-choked doorways. Stone debris. Empty wall niches.
She checked dusty flagstones for signs of recent disturbance. She examined each entrance, looking for the needle-fine gossamer thread of a monofilament tripwire.
Kandahar. A whitewashed farmhouse. Home to a known bomb maker. Paid informants suggested the man kept a stockpile of old tank shells buried under his chicken coop. He gave local kids 1.5v batteries and improvised firing circuits. Twenty dollars a pop to lay IEDs along the nearby airport highway. Three of Lucy’s Special Recon platoon were killed when a pressure-plate mine reduced their Snatch to whirling shrapnel in a millisecond pulse of white light.
‘Got to watch ourselves, all right?’ said Lucy’s commanding officer. ‘This guy’s a fanatic. He knows, sooner or later, he is going to get taken down. He’ll lay on a surprise, take a bunch of us with him, if he can.’
They kicked in the door. The guy was eating dinner. He was sitting at his table, spoon in hand. Lucy shot him in the face and he nodded head-first into his stew.
She pulled back a curtain door. A side room. She saw rugs and cushions.
A wad of papers in the middle of the floor. Possible intel. Lucy moved to enter room but the CO shouted ‘Stop.’
She moved aside. The CO took a can of party shop Silly String from a mag pouch. He shook it. He sprayed. The can spat webs of yellow foam string at head height. The string drifted to the floor. A single tendril hung suspended at knee level. They crouched. Fine fishing line stretched taut across the doorway.
‘Shit,’ said Lucy.
‘Everyone out,’ shouted the CO.
They retreated two hundred yards into a poppy field and fired a couple of shoulder-launched LASM rockets into the farmhouse. Walls collapsed and a series of secondary explosions reduced the place to dust.
Lucy and Huang picked their way across a rubble-strewn chamber. Sunlight shafted through a hole in the domed roof.
‘Any idea what these buildings used to be?’
Jabril’s voice:
‘Part of the temple economy. Storerooms, perhaps. Built to contain grain, dried fruits, spices. There are no settlements or farms nearby. This was not a self-sustaining community. Someone with god-like authority picked this site, ordered the construction of a temple out here in the hinterland and kept it supplied with food and water. Despite the arid location, there are ceremonial pools, baths and fountains within the complex. A demonstration of unimaginable wealth and power.
‘Can you picture how this site must have looked, thousands of years ago? Elaborate frescos painted on every wall. Rugs, silks, brass, perfumes. Yet the citadel is too remote to be erected for earthly prestige. It is a secret priest city. Lifelong home of soothsayers and astrologers. They would chant their incantations and sacrifice ritual offerings. They would study forbidden texts, transcribe opium dreams, dance themselves to a delirium. This was a serious place. A power-house of daemonic energy. The inner sanctum of the temple approached with the same trepidation as the plutonium core of a nuclear reactor. A great warlord wanted to draw down the power of the gods and blast his foes. When armies met on the sand he wanted his cavalry to sweep through barbarian ranks and lay them waste like a cyclone. Maybe he got his wish. Who knows?’
Toon’s voice:
‘This place scares the shit out of me, boss. Sooner we get going, the better.’
‘Everyone chill the fuck out,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s just a bunch of rocks, all right? This isn’t a vacation. We are here to work.’
They crossed a cloistered courtyard. They navigated tight avenues strewn with rubble.
‘How long were you here, Jabril? You and your men?’
‘Two months.’
‘I haven’t seen a single sign of disturbance. Not a footprint, not a cigarette butt. This place is pristine.’
‘Most of our troops wouldn’t enter the citadel walls. The youngsters were superstitious and easily scared. Some of the night-watch said they saw ghosts. Figures moving on the ramparts in moonlight. We decided to camp further up the valley.’
Huang turned to Lucy.
‘What about bodies? Jabril said there was a big-ass gun battle. Place-should be a corpse-field.’
‘Plenty of guys died out here,’ said Lucy. ‘I can feel it. And I’m willing to bet Jabril played his part. As long as he leads us to gold, I don’t give a shit.’
They explored the dark recesses of a shrine built against the perimeter wall of the citadel.
Six internal pillars held up a low roof. A crude altar ready to receive votive gifts: libations and burnt offerings to win the favour of a minor deity.
‘Whoa,’ murmured Huang. ‘Check it out.’
The room was carpeted with spent shell cases and discarded AK magazines. Each footstep clinked and chimed. The walls were cracked and cratered, brickwork blackened by muzzle-flare.
Lucy unsheathed her knife and dug a bullet from splintered granite brickwork. The bullet had mushroomed on impact. A misshapen, steel and copper coin.
‘Hell of a fire-fight,’ said Huang. ‘Seriously heavy contact. Look at this. Emptied a full clip at the same spot in the wall. Damn near drilled right through it.’
Shell cases piled in the centre of the room. Empty magazines, up-turned ammo boxes.
Lucy brushed cartridge cases aside with her boot and stood at the epicentre of the debris.
‘Two stacks of empty mags. I reckon two guys holed up in this room. Brought all the ammunition they could carry. Threw their shit down and let rip. Their last stand. Their fucking Alamo. Looks like they stood back to back. Fired about a thousand rounds. Fired in all directions. Look at that. Shooting way up the wall. Must have blown their eardrums. Must have melted their gun barrels. So much smoke they couldn’t see a hand in front of their face.’
She scooped shell cases from the floor. Fresh bullets among scorched brass.
‘They ejected a bunch of rounds. Misfires. Weapons overheated and jammed.’
‘But who would try to overrun a couple of guys armed with AKs? What kind of maniac runs into that shitstorm? Even Taliban would hang back.’
‘Maybe they went nuts. Heatstroke. Cabin fever. Started shooting at thin air.’
‘Two guys? A shared madness?’
‘It happens.’
‘Want to ask Jabril? See what he has to say?’
‘He’s full of shit.’
Lucy raked her fingers through spent cartridges. She could almost hear it, smell it. The ghost of battle. Gunsmoke and stuttering muzzle flame. Men crazed with terror, frantically struggling to free the bolts of malfunctioning weapons.
‘The more I see of this place, the less I like it,’ said Lucy. ‘Every instinct tells me to forget the gold and get the hell out of here.’
‘We need this, boss. We got old. All of us. This is our last war. It’s time to cash out.’
Toon unclipped his earpiece and let it hang. He didn’t want to hear any more of Jabril’s ghost stories. He sat with his back to the rampart wall. He wiped sweat from his eyes. Couldn’t get used to the heat.