‘Yes, it is a beautiful city.’
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘No, there is only me.’
The trembling subsided, slightly. Chase took that as a good sign and started the delicate task of sliding the wire into the hole. ‘I’ve met your dad — what about your mum? Does she live there too?’
‘No, she…’ Sadness replaced fear in her tone. ‘She died, a few years ago. From cancer.’
‘I’m sorry. My mum died of cancer too.’
‘I am sorry,’ Natalia echoed. Another silence followed, but this time she broke it without prompting. ‘My grandmother died from cancer also. She was Russian, she came to Germany in 1961.’
‘What, she got out of Russia?’ The wire was almost in the hole, but Natalia’s shuddering was making the mine wobble. Chase used his other hand to brace the device.
‘Yes. She was actually supposed to be taken to America with my grandfather, but…’
‘But what?’
There was an odd — hardness? Bitterness? — to her words. ‘He did not make it out of Russia. So my grandmother did not go any further than West Germany. My mother was born there a few months later.’
‘Well, at least she made it to the right side of the wall.’ The wire finally slipped into the hole. It was a tight fit; he slowly applied pressure to push it in deeper. ‘West Germany sounded a better place to grow up than East Germany.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘You don’t sound too sure.’
‘East and West — they are both bad, in different ways. Not the people,’ she quickly added, ‘but the politicians, those in charge.’
‘Can’t argue with that too much.’ The wire gradually disappeared into the hole. Chase kept pushing — but another thought had come to him. ‘So… your grandparents were Russians? You think there’s any connection to those Russians at the camp?’
Natalia drew in a breath, as if about to make a confession—
Click.
A much softer sound than before, accompanied by a tiny but discernible amount of resistance that Chase felt through the wire. According to his training, the fuse should have been deactivated.
Should have — but then the mine should have exploded a couple of seconds after Natalia stepped on it. Its safety features might be as faulty as its detonator. He withdrew his finger. The wire stayed in place.
‘Okay, Natalia,’ he said. ‘When I count to three, I want you to very slowly lift up your foot. Are you ready?’
The reply was barely even a whisper. ‘Yes.’
‘Right. Now, one, two… three.’
She hesitated — then raised her leg.
The spring-loaded prongs rose back into position… and stopped. No sounds came from inside the mine’s casing.
It was safe.
An explosion did come, though — from Chase. ‘Fuck! Buggering fuck-bollocks arse and shit!’ he cried, pent-up tension finding release. ‘Fuck. Ing. Hell! God, I hate mines.’
Natalia still had one foot raised, balancing like a flamingo. ‘Is it safe?’
‘Yeah, it’s safe. You can put your foot down now.’
She did so — and began to cry. ‘I’m sorry. I should have been more careful…’
Chase bent the end of the wire to hold it in place, then unscrewed the fuse from the mine’s body and carefully lifted it out. The metal was scabbed with rust; the trigger had jammed. ‘Hey, it’s not your fault, okay? Blame whichever arsehole dumped millions of mines in the jungle and then forgot where they put ’em.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I should have known. When I was at Ly Quang, they warned us not to go too far into the jungle. One of the boys in the village lost a leg last year to an old mine.’
‘The Yanks probably planted them to protect the radio tower.’ He put down the fuse and sat up. ‘This one should be safe now, though.’
Natalia wiped her eyes. ‘Should be? Is there still a danger?’
‘Depends how unstable the explosive is. It might have totally broken down by now, or it might go off if it takes a hard knock.’
‘We cannot leave it like this, then. Another child from the village may set it off. Can you make it blow up from a safe distance?’
‘Yeah — but a bang like that’ll be heard for miles. The people who’re after us’ll know where we are. We’ll just have to tell your friends in the village to watch out for it.’
‘But we do not know exactly where we are!’ she protested. ‘The Vietnamese government has people who destroy mines when they are found, but they need to know their precise location.’ She thought for a moment. ‘If we take it with us, we can leave it near the village so it can be found and destroyed safely.’
Chase stared at her. ‘You want me to pick up a landmine.’
‘Yes.’
‘And carry it through the jungle.’
‘Yes.’
‘While bad guys are still after us.’
‘That is not a good idea, is it?’
‘Nope. But,’ he went on, ‘you’ve got a point. We’re not that far from the village, so there’s a chance someone else might find it.’ Another reason for taking the mine had occurred to him: if their pursuers found them again, it would give him an extra weapon — however dangerous — with which to fight them. For obvious reasons, he kept this to himself. ‘So long as we’re careful, we should be okay. The explosive in these mines can get unstable, but it’s not like nitroglycerine or something — it takes more than just a tap to set it off.’
He bent down again and gently scooped the earth away from the mine’s casing. There was a chance it could have been booby-trapped — a Vietnam-era tactic was to bury a live grenade beneath a Bouncing Betty so that if the mine were moved the hidden bomb would go off — but it didn’t take long to confirm that had not been done here. A deep breath… then he raised the weapon out of the ground.
‘Well, we’re still here,’ Chase announced after a moment. Natalia let out a nervous giggle. ‘Okay, I’ll carry it. You take the gun.’ Her expression changed to one of concern, or even disgust. ‘What?’
‘I am a pacifist,’ she said, regarding the Kalashnikov on the ground as if it were a venomous snake. ‘I do not want anything to do with guns.’
‘You want to carry the mine instead?’ Seeing that she did not appreciate his sarcasm, he softened slightly. ‘Look, it’s okay — it’s got no magazine, and the safety’s on. Even if you pull the trigger, it won’t fire.’
‘It is not about whether it can fire. It is about what it was built to do. To kill people. I do not want anything to do with weapons of war.’ Her resolve belonged to a much older and more world-weary person.
Chase’s own view on the subject boiled down to some people just deserve to be shot, but this was something else he opted to keep to himself. ‘Okay, I’ll take ’em both,’ he told her. ‘I won’t be able to carry you if you have trouble with your foot, though.’
She nodded. ‘Okay. I did not mean to insult you,’ she added, suddenly apologetic. ‘You are a soldier, you use weapons as part of what you do. But it… it is not for me. I only ever want to help people, not do anything to hurt them. I hope you understand that.’
‘Yeah, I do.’ He smiled at her; she seemed a little surprised by his ready acceptance. ‘What? I want to help people too, and it’s not like I go out of my way to hurt anyone. Only an idiot, or a psycho, actually looks for a fight. It’s just that sometimes, people do bad stuff and, well… a stern letter isn’t going to stop ’em.’
Natalia regarded him uncertainly. Questions crossed her face, but the one that finally emerged was: ‘Have you ever killed anyone?’