Free Life During Wartime by Lucius Shepard Page B

back up the tunnel.
    Levels Five, Six, and Seven were officer country, and though the tunnels were the same as the ones above – gently curving tubes eight feet high and ten feet wide – the rooms were larger and contained only two cots each. The rooms Mingolla peered into were empty, and this, despite the sounds of battle, gave him a secure feeling. But as he passed beyond the tunnel curve, he heard shouts in Spanish from the rear. He peeked back around the curve. A skinny black soldier wearing a red beret and gray fatigues was inching toward the first doorway; then, rifle at the ready, he ducked inside. Two other Cubans – slim, bearded men, their skin sallow-looking in the bloody light – were standing by the arched entranceway to the auxiliary tunnel; when they saw the black soldier emerge from the room, they walked off in the opposite direction, probably to check the rooms at the far end of the level.

    Mingolla began to operate in a kind of luminous panic. He realized that he would have to kill the black soldier. Kill him without any fuss, take his rifle and hope that he could catch the other two off guard when they came back for him. He slipped into the nearest room and stationed himself against the wall to the right of the door. The Cuban, he had noticed, had turned left on entering the room; he would have been vulnerable to someone positioned as Mingolla was. Vulnerable for a split second. Less than a count of one. The pulse in Mingolla’s temple throbbed, and he gripped the machete in his left hand. He rehearsed mentally what he would have to do. Stab; clamp a hand over the Cuban’s mouth; bring his knee up to jar loose the rifle. And he would have to perform these actions simultaneously, execute them perfectly.
    Perfect execution.
    He almost laughed out loud, remembering his paunchy old basketball coach saying, Perfect execution, boys. That’s what beats a zone. Forget the fancy crap. Just set your screen, run your patterns, and get your shots down.’
    Hoops ain’t nothin’ but life in short pants, huh, Coach?
    Mingolla drew a deep breath and let it sigh out through his nostrils. He couldn’t believe he was going to die. He had spent the past nine months worrying about death, but now when circumstances had arisen that made death likely, he had trouble taking that likelihood seriously. It didn’t seem reasonable that a skinny black guy should be his nemesis. His death should involve massive detonations of light, special Mingolla-killing rays, astronomical portents. Not some scrawny little fuck with a rifle. He drew another breath and for the first time registered the contents of the room. Two cots; clothes strewn everywhere; taped-up Polaroids and pornography. Officer country or not, it was your basic Ant Farm decor; under the red light it looked squalid, long abandoned. He was amazed at how calm he felt. Oh, he was afraid all right! But fear was tucked into the dark folds of his personality like a murderer’s knife hidden inside an old coat on a closet shelf. Glowing in secret, waiting its chance to shine. Sooner or later it would skewer him but for now it was an ally, acting to sharpen his senses. He could see every bubbled pucker on thewhite walls, could hear the scrape of the Cuban’s boots as he darted into the room next door, could feel how the Cuban swung the rifle left to right, paused, turned …
    He could!
    He could feel the Cuban, feel his heat, his heated shape, the exact position of his body. It was as if a thermal imager had been switched on inside his head, one that worked through walls.
    The Cuban eased toward Mingolla’s door, his progress tangible, like a burning match moving behind a sheet of paper. Mingolla’s calm was shattered. The man’s heat, his fleshy temperature, was what disturbed him. He had imagined himself killing with a cinematic swiftness and lack of mess; now he thought of hogs being butchered and pile drivers smashing the skulls of cows. And could he trust this