The Medusa Stone

hear Mercer and Habte’s conversation.

“Are you set with everything you have to do?” Mercer asked tiredly. He’d rested as much as he could during the shift, but he was still weary, a bone fatigue that felt like it would be with him forever. The only bright spot was that Hofmyer hadn’t broken any of his ribs.

“Yes. I’ll be waiting just outside the tunnel. Everything will be rigged and ready to go.”

“If it’s not, this is going to be the sorriest escape in history,” Mercer growled. “Does everyone know what’s expected of them?”

“They will know what to do when the time comes. Those I didn’t speak to directly today, like the men headed to the mine now, will hear from the others. Don’t worry, they will be ready.”

Mercer was relying on a hunch, a thin one at best, and if he was wrong, Hofmyer and Gianelli would probably take turns roasting his testicles over an open fire and machine-gun everyone else.

“Are you set with everything you have to do?” Habte grinned, trying to cut through Mercer’s black mood.

Mercer gave a gallows chuckle. “We’ll both know in two hours.”

As Mercer suspected, Gianelli hadn’t provided tents for his laborers. Yet the Italian, the other whites, and the Sudanese troopers were waiting out the storm in separate tents, huge affairs that hummed with air conditioners to cut the humidity and glowed feebly through the silver streaks of wind-driven rain.

None of the women were forced to serve food during the storm, but they had laid out a meal for the returning workers. The injera was so soggy it oozed from Mercer’s hands like mud, and the stew kettles overflowed with rain water. Rather than waste his time with a meal he was too nervous to eat, Mercer made his way to the barbed-wire stockade. Big blue tarps had been spread on the ground, and he could see countless lumps beneath the plastic ground cloths. They were the men huddled together for warmth and protection. The sky cracked with thunder and lightning, piercing explosions that shook the earth. Following every blow of thunder, he heard the moans of the terrified Eritreans.

Three Sudanese had been given the job of watching the refugees, but as Mercer passed the tent they had erected for shelter, he saw one of them already asleep and the others looking about ready to nod off. On a night as foul as this, they weren’t expecting trouble from their prisoners.

That’s right, boys, Mercer thought as he entered the enclosure, no one out here but us sheep bunking in for the night. You have yourselves a good nap.

The Eritreans had reserved a corner of a tarp for Mercer and Habte, and he was directed to the spot with quiet gestures. He rolled under the top piece of reinforced plastic to wait until Habte finished his waterlogged meal. Despite the adrenaline beginning to wend its way through his system, he slept for a few minutes until Habte appeared at his side.

“You can sleep?” Habte remarked. “I guess you are not too worried.”

“If you’re as ugly as I am, you need all the beauty rest you can get.” Mercer turned serious. “Do you have it?”

Habte showed him a small miner’s hammer tucked in the waistband of his pants. “They never knew it was missing.”

“And you’ve got the two men to help?”

“One man. I will help get us out.”

“Forget it, Habte. We can’t risk your hands getting too cut up. You have some delicate work to do after we get out of the stockade.”

Habte nodded. “Okay, I have another who will do it.”

The fencing that kept the Eritreans prisoner was concertina wire, heavy coils of razor-sharp barbed wire laid in a pyramid ten feet wide at its base and over eight feet tall. The snarled strands were wrapped so tightly, the obstacle resembled a steel hedgerow protected with tens of thousands of inch-long teeth that could cut cloth or flesh with equal ease. Mercer’s plan was simple, but it needed the courage of two refugees and a tolerance for pain that was almost beyond comprehension.

When they were ready, the first refugee lay on his stomach before the coils and slowly began to worm his way under the mound. He moved with care, but even before he managed to extend one whole arm into the spirals of steel, he was cut and bleeding. He didn’t cry out or complain or try to remove his limb. Instead, he started working his other arm in. He had borrowed clothing from other miners, so he wore several layers to protect himself, but as he crawled deeper into the fence, the cloth split, and seconds later blood as dark as his skin welled up and was washed away by the downpour. He cried out only when a barb pierced his face, snagging against his chin and tearing a long gash that would require stitches if it was ever to heal properly.

For ten minutes, Mercer, Habte, and another refugee watched the man’s progress, holding their breath when he stuck himself in the groin and exhaling when he removed the tiny dagger and whispered back that it had missed everything critical. Five more minutes passed before all that remained of the Eritrean in the stockade was his bare feet. Then it was time for the second refugee to broach the wall of razor wire.

The second man dug himself under the first Eritrean’s feet and like a snake wriggled under him, using his predecessor’s body as a shield from the barbs. He snagged only a couple of times, minor snarls that he could dislodge with a quick shake of an arm or leg. It took him only a few minutes to cover the distance the first volunteer had paid for with his pain and blood. They waited another twenty minutes while the second African crawled farther forward, tunneling and burrowing slowly and carefully. His passage was marked with bits of clothing and flesh stuck on the barbs. He stopped only when his knees bracketed his comrades’ head, though there was still another eighteen inches of wire to cover.

Mercer didn’t hesitate. He put himself to the task with the same fatalism of the Eritreans. He slithered under first one refugee and then the other, his much broader shoulders taking the brunt of the steel thorns. “Yakanyelay,” he said when he reached the second man’s head. “Thank you.”

Moving slowly, feeling time slipping away, Mercer began to work himself under the remaining wire. His hands were slick with a mixture of blood and rain. Water was streaming into his eyes, so he worked nearly blind. Only when a bolt of lightning flared could he see how pitifully small his progress had been. The two Africans had covered twice his distance in half the time while he appeared to be lying completely still. He quickened his pace, but a careless move rammed a barb under his fingernail all the way to the cuticle. A lancing needle of pain shot up his arm, exploding in his skull, and he had to bite down not to scream out.

He pulled out the barb and continued, closing his eyes to the agony. Suddenly his probing hands moved against nothing. He had reached the end. He wriggled forward, clearing both arms of the entanglement before whispering for Habte to follow. It took Habte just three minutes to reach Mercer, snaking under the obstacle with sinuous ease. Mercer felt at least a dozen barbs sink into his back as Habte crawled under him, pressing him up against the heavy coils. It took an act of will for Mercer not to shout for his friend to hurry.

When Habte was finally free, he helped Mercer clear the last of the tangle, plucking wire from his back and legs as Mercer slithered those last few feet. The rain fell in a biblical deluge.

“There are going to be others following our route,” Habte said as they tasted freedom for the first time in weeks. Rainwater washed the blood from their faces, hands, and arms.

“If those two men don’t get help, they may bleed to death.”

“They know it’s the price if more of us can be freed.”

Mercer studied Habte and knew the Eritrean was speaking the truth as an African saw it. He wondered if the Ethiopians who’d once occupied these lands really believed they could have defeated an enemy with that kind of mettle. “Their sacrifice isn’t going to be in vain. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll meet you at the mouth of the tunnel in—” Mercer looked at his watch, dismayed by the amount of time that had elapsed. “One hour and twenty minutes. You’ll be able to do everything?”

Habte thought for a moment. “Yes, it will be tight, but I’ll be waiting.”

“See you in a while.” Mercer and Habte shook hands, and in seconds they were swallowed by the storm.

Mercer looked into the darkness beyond the mining camp. It would be easy for him to just walk away. He could be miles from the valley by morning, and the rain would make it impossible to track him. He could be back home in a couple of days. He knew now that Harry White was being held by Israelis, and he had enough contacts in the government to secure his friend’s release. The two of them could be enjoying a drink at Tiny’s in a week. Mercer shook the image from his head angrily and looked away from the beckoning desert.