Braco (9 page)

TUESDAY:
JAC LARUE

EXHAUSTION
.

Jac rubbed his face hard with the towel and drew in a long breath. Nothing could give him his second wind.

Or was it his fifth wind? He had lost count.

The carrier trudged along beside him and the moon brightened as it rose. It lit the road so well, the carrier could move without headlights. Jac never imagined he would, as a soldier, be so grateful for a full moon. Headlights and flashlights usually attracted the wrong kind of attention.

Ahead, a boy latched onto the grate holding a fuel can. He slipped sideways, a foot bouncing against the rotating track. Jac sidestepped a woman and dove towards the boy, pulling him off the side of the carrier.

“No,” Jac said. He slapped the side of the carrier. “Dangerous. You have to walk.”

The boy ran, disappearing into the moonlit crowd. When Jac turned around, two young men were trying to untie the fuel can. Their eyes met and the men raised their palms and backed away.

“They're empty,” he yelled after them.

A mortar whooshed overhead and struck the woods behind them.

That was too damned close.

Jac stopped. Screams erupted in the distance. A man broke through the crowd carrying a little girl, her face full of blood. Jac drew her hair back. A shard of metal protruded from the flesh above her ear.

“Ah, God.” Jac looked at the carrier. People sat two and three deep on top. Even if there was room, she'd get pushed off. He turned back to the man. “I don't think the shrapnel is in too far. Can you carry her? To Potocari? See doctor in Potocari?”

A woman spoke to the man in Bosnian and he nodded.

“Tell him to stay close,” Jac said to the woman. “And tell him not to pull it out.”

“Yes, yes.” The woman translated Jac's message and then she placed a rag against the little girl's head.

The boy returned and tried to scale the carrier again. Jac pulled him off just as the vehicle slowed and stopped. Sergeant Janssen climbed out of his hatch and waved to the crowd.

“To Potocari. To Potocari.”

He wiped his brow, took a long swig on a bottle of water, and dropped back into the hatch. The vehicle lurched forward. Maarten waited until the vehicle moved ahead and then walked with Jac.

“Know where we are?”

Jac gazed forwards; he recognized the stretch of road. The shoulder dropped off steeply on the left and on the right a rock face skirted the edge of the road. The narrow passage forced the refugees to squeeze into the tight space. Some ran ahead of Jac and the carrier, others waited to fall in behind.

“Yeah,” Jac replied. “We're almost home.”

Maarten patted Jac on the back and walked ahead, moving in front of the carrier.

Jac checked his watch. Just one more hour, he thought. The refugees would be safe and he could finally lapse into a coma and dream of the bedroom he hadn't seen in seven months. The double bed with clean sheets and a thick quilt his mother had made for him.

Warm. Secure. Safe.

Another mortar struck above the rock face. Jac ducked then straightened up and glanced around. The carrier stopped and the sergeant climbed out of his hatch. Erik motioned to Jac.

“It's a boy,” he shouted over the engine.

“What?

The moon lit up Erik's smile.

“The pregnant woman. She just had a boy.”

Jac had just started to return the smile when the sky above Erik turned red. A tracer round split the air directly above the gunner and ricocheted against the rock wall. Another followed; five rounds struck the cliff for every tracer that lit up the sky. Bodies rolled from the carrier like logs falling off the side of a lumber truck. Flailing arms struck Jac in the face and he fell backwards. People fell on top of him. Some scrambled up and ran. Others remained still.

“Get inside!” Erik yelled. He disappeared inside his hatch.

Jac climbed to his feet and ducked around the back of the carrier. He slipped on something wet and fell hard, his helmet catching on a metal corner. The hatch swung open. A pair of arms slid in under Jac's and scooped him up. Maarten pushed him through the opening. Karel brought up the rear, slamming the hatch closed.

Metallic pings peppered the side of the vehicle.

A baby cried.

Jac crawled over the mass of arms and legs. Sweat blurred his vision. His arm slipped between two bodies. His head hit a torso. He struggled to pull an arm up, using someone's knee as leverage. He finally yanked it free and grabbed a strap hanging from the roof, pulling himself forward. He reached the front of the passenger compartment and rubbed his vision clear with his towel. A flashlight stabbed through the darkness and Jac caught a glimpse of the sergeant safely in his seat.

“They're shooting at us,” Jac shouted to anyone who would listen.

“We have to move,” someone else shouted from behind. “If they put mortars on us, they'll kill them all.”

“Get out of here,” another voice added to the noise.

Jac hauled his helmet off and wiped more sweat from his face. Erik listened to the sergeant over his headset. Then the gunner gave a thumbs up and climbed back into his hatch where he had some protection. Jac tugged on Erik's pants.

“What are you doing?”

“They're shooting at us,” Erik shouted from above. “We have to move or the Serbs will cut the crowd to pieces.”

Jac heard the vehicle's horn and light filtered in from Erik's hatch as the carrier's headlights flooded the road. The vehicle lurched forward and Jac lost his balance, falling against the engine wall. He held on as they picked up speed.

The metallic pings continued.

A woman screamed.

Men shouted.

Next to Jac, the engine was revving higher than it had all day. Then the right side of the vehicle suddenly rose and fell, then the left side. And the right.

Are we off the road?

Erik dropped down from his hatch, screaming into his headset. Jac could hear nothing over the engine, but he was sure Erik's lips were mouthing the word
stop
, over and over. Jac pulled himself over mounds of gear until he could see the sergeant. The headset hung around Janssen's neck; his head was jammed against the hull so he could watch the road through the periscope. Erik grabbed Jac and yanked him back.

“We're running them over,” he shrieked next to Jac's ear. “For God's sake, tell him to stop!”

Jac turned, pushed aside their kit and reached towards Janssen. Three times he tried to poke the sergeant in the back, but he fell each time the vehicle shifted to the left or the right. Finally, he managed to grab the back of the sergeant's seat and steady himself. He pulled on Janssen's uniform.

No reaction.

The carrier swung right and Jac fell back. They jolted to a stop and the engine switched off. Jac looked up.

Janssen was gone.

Erik's legs slipped up through the gunner's hatch. Jac crawled up behind him and then dropped to the ground. Refugees were sprinting in all directions. Some were hiding behind the vehicle, others moved forward. The carrier had come to rest around a bend in the road.

We're safe here.

He turned around; Erik was arguing with the sergeant.

“We have to go back,” Erik said. “We have to help them.”

“They'll only shoot at us again. I've got a woman bleeding to death in there and I have to get her to a doctor. Now get back up in your hatch.”

The sergeant walked away. Erik slammed his hand against the side of the vehicle.

“What's going on?” Jac asked.

“Goddamnit, Jac. We ran them over.” He drew an arm across his face. “They were up against the rock wall and there wasn't enough room. Don't you see? They pushed people in front of us to make room. Women and children. They just pushed them in front of us. Bloody bastards.”

Erik climbed the vehicle and dropped into his hatch, wiping his eyes. Jac looked down the road, but he couldn't see anything except desperate faces running by. The sergeant waved his arms at the refugees.

They don't need any urging, Jac wanted to say.

Arie was at work helping the refugees. Jac helped the wounded climb back on top of the carrier. He recognized some of the injured civilians.

“Are they all shrapnel wounds?” Jac asked, passing a little girl up to the medic.

“As far as I can tell.”

“No crush injuries?”

“Crush injuries? No. Why would there be?” he asked then drew in a sharp breath. “Jesus. We didn't, did we?” A baby shrieked. “Can you take care of this?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jac said. “Go on.”

Arie disappeared inside the carrier.

“Keep them moving,” the sergeant said.

Jac followed Janssen around the carrier.

“Shouldn't we go check, Sergeant?”

“Jac, even if I wanted to risk them firing on us again, I can't drive back through all those people.”

The sergeant turned around and climbed onto the carrier. He dropped into his hatch.

“I can go with Maarten. We can bring the injured up here.”

“We can't stay. These people need medical attention now.” Janssen pointed to the side of the carrier. “Get him off.”

Jac turned; a boy was trying to scale the side of the vehicle. By the time he pulled the boy down, Janssen had disappeared inside the carrier.

Jac looked back at the road. Refugees scurried by. A woman tripped on an abandoned bag. A man helped her up. A little girl walked alone, crying. Jac stepped forward; a woman scooped the child up. She looked at Jac.

“Safe here?”

“I think so.”

She started to walk away.

“Wait,” Jac said. He pointed down the road. “Are there people hurt down there? On the road. Anyone hurt?”

The woman followed his finger and then looked back, confused.

“I not see anyone. Very crazy. Lots of people running.”

“Thanks.”

The woman left. Jac stared down the road and then looked back at the carrier. Karel pushed a man away from the rear hatch and pulled a girl down. Arie sealed the rear hatch as Jac turned away and walked deeper into the crowd. People bumped into him, knocking him from side to side. Tracer fire popped. He looked back. The crowd hid the carrier from sight. He kept walking, watching the crowd for injured refugees.

Then the crowd opened up before him, running around something on the road. Something metallic.

He leaned down and touched the cold metal handle of a wheelbarrow. The steel reflected the moonlight and had been twisted into an unnatural position. The short axle held onto the punctured tire.

Jac followed the trail of parts until he found the crushed metal bin. Next to it, the shattered remains of a stereo. Feet kicked wires and circuit boards in every direction. A speaker cone rolled from one foot and was crushed by another.

He looked up the road.
This can't be all there is.

Mortar struck the side of the hill. Jac covered his eyes and ducked. Women screamed. Some stopped and covered their children.

The carrier started up.

Jac stood still. Another mortar struck the ditch.

He backed up.

The engine revved. Tracks rattled.

“Damn it.”

He turned and walked with the crowd until he reached the carrier. For the next hour, he watched the dark road behind him, waiting for someone to bring the injured forward, but no one appeared.

The vehicle turned left onto the main road where Dutch carriers blocked their path. The sergeant got out to speak to the officer in charge. The refugees flowed around the blockade like a forked river.

Jac walked to the front of the carrier. Erik was in his hatch, leaning on the machine gun. He stared straight ahead. Jac left him alone. He walked in front with Maarten as their carrier crossed the blockade and crawled through the sea of refugees.

“Unbelievable.”

“There must be thousands,” Maarten said.

They woke people sleeping on the pavement and helped them move aside as the carrier crept by. They entered the camp at midnight and pulled up next to the hospital. A group of medics helped offload the wounded and then the carrier rumbled towards the vehicle bay. Erik remained on top, his eyes drilling a hole through a distant wall.

After Jac delivered the last wounded civilian to the clinic, he left Maarten with Arie and went looking for Erik. He walked through the main building to the vehicle bay expecting to find the carrier. Instead, he found thousands of refugees; men, women, and children occupied every scrap of open space on the floor of the vehicle park. Heads turned in his direction. Mouths formed questions in Bosnian.

“Jac.”