Jimbo tore the legs and wings from it and dropped it in the water. He split the breast and added that as well, followed by a liberal splash from his trusty Tabasco bottle and a dash of salt. The gang of men gathered around and watched in rapt fascination. Jimbo activated the heat stick and inserted it in the folding pot. Within thirty seconds, there was steam rising from the pot. Bruce clapped his hands on his thighs and babbled to the others, who simply stared at this everyday wonder in dumb amazement.
Jimbo left them watching the pot. Bat was sitting by Boats, dribbling water on his lips from the straw of her CamelBak.
“Can you make sure they give that bird at least thirty minutes?” he asked.
“Sure. Where are you heading?” she said.
“I’m going to go back aways the way we came. I want to make sure no one’s closing the gap on us.”
“You know those guys think you’re a miracle worker.” Bat nodded toward the ring of men staring at the steaming pot with mouths open.
“That’s how rumors get started,” Jimbo said and slung his Winchester over his shoulder.
Bruce rose to follow, but Jimbo waved him back down with a smile. He descended the slope after a high sign to Lee Hammond, who was lying invisible in the dark at the top of the hill.
Bat turned back to Boats and used her fingers to moisten his dry, cracked lips. In addition to the wound to his leg, he had a lump to the back of his head that was swollen with fluid. One of his eyes was puffed shut, and a dark purple bruise was spreading from his jaw to his right ear. The man had taken an epic beating but was still hanging in. She took a thumb and pulled up one of his eyelids, and was startled when he spoke to her.
“We in the clear?” His voice was a wet rasping sound.
“Not yet, Boats,” she said, keeping her voice level and calm.
“What’s the situation?”
“We’re making good time. We’re three days, maybe four from extract.”
“I’m holding you up.”
“We’re managing. It’s good.”
“No bullshit.” He locked hot, red-rimmed eyes on hers.
“No bullshit, sailor,” she said levelly.
Then he was gone again.
Jimbo was downslope and nearing the tree line they’d left at twilight. The temps were dropping. His sweat-soaked tank top felt chilly against his skin under the armor. The woods were quiet but for the distant sounds of a high, truncated yelping. Bat Jaffe had told him it was jackals that made those sounds. She said they were a common sight outside the kibbutz she’d lived on when she was younger.
He stopped dead on the slope and scanned the trees. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and scanned the shadows through the scope, the night vision on and wide open for maximum contrast. The eidetic memory that he honed as part of his tracking skills was telling him to look closer.
Something was wrong. Something was different.
Something was here that had not been here when they passed earlier.
A fluttering shape at the edge of the wood, moving in the breeze.
The Pima crept down the hill, the rifle traversing back and forth. The eyes looking for movement in the shadows.
He approached and took the shape in his hand.
A bit of tattered red cloth tied with a knot to the end of a scrub branch.
Jimbo turned and ran full-out back to the camp.
Bruce’s name was actually Byrus.
Bat learned this by questioning him through one of their Jewish tag-alongs who also spoke Greek. Byrus was a Macedonian. He’d been a slave as long as he could remember. “Born in chains,” as he colorfully put it. He spent years as a pit fighter before being sold by his owner into the quarry. How many seasons ago, he was not sure.
She asked what he would do now that he was free. The man only shrugged and returned to watching the mystically boiling pot.
“Some of us will return home,” Iyov, the translator told her. “Many, like Byrus, have no home. They have always been slaves. Or they would not be welcome there.”
“How will they survive then?” she asked.
“Become thieves or bandits. Maybe join the rebels. There’s little difference in the end. If we are caught, we’ll wind up on a cross.”
“Then we have done you no favor by freeing you.”
“You have not freed us. We are still slaves. A dog unleashed is still a dog.”
“I am sorry. We had to do what we did,” she said. “None of us is free, are we? Not for long, anyway.”
Iyov made a spitting noise.
Byrus said something in his basso voice that sounded like he had once gargled razor blades.
“He asks why you used your power to release us from the quarry. What makes you kill Romans with such zeal?” Iyov said.
Bat wasn’t sure how to answer that. “There was one among you of great renown,” she said after a moment’s thought.
“A man important to your people?” Iyov asked after relaying her answer to the Macedonian.
Bat was considering how to answer that thorny question when Iyov fell forward, gagging on the iron tip of the spear blade that suddenly appeared from his throat.
41
The Intruders
It was night once again in Paris, and the few newspapers that saw print were filled with rumors of peace.
Artillery fire had become more sporadic throughout the day until finally abating altogether as
