Gravedigger by Mark Terry Page B

arises
    The guilty man who is to be judged.
    Spare him therefore, God.

    Derek returned two hours later to the encampment with dozens of tissue samples and enough test results to convince him that the village had been wiped out fairly recently by Russian chemical weapons. He walked into the camp, dropped his ruck, dropped his weapons, and proceeded to strip from the clothing he wore. As he pulled off each article of clothing he dropped them into the fire.
    Johnston and Noa watched him. Noa started to say something, but Johnston cut her off. Down to his boots, Derek walked out into the snow and rain and stood naked for a long moment, shivering. Finally he returned to the camp. Johnston handed him a rough blanket and more clothes, including a heavy winter Russian military jacket. Derek quickly dressed and crouched by the fire.
    “You found the grave?” Johnston asked.
    Derek nodded.
    “Bad?”
    Derek nodded again.
    Johnston crouched next to him. “Look at me, Derek.”
    Their eyes met. Softly, Johnston said, “What the hell happened?”
    Derek covered his face with his hands. Took a deep breath. Shook his head. “Never mind.”
    “What’s there?”
    “Probably over fifty bodies. Mostly women and children. The fifty is a wild-ass guess, but based on the size of the grave and the size of the village, that’s my estimate.”
    “What killed them?” Noa asked.
    “Sarin and VX.”
    Johnston exchanged a meaningful look with the Israeli. She nodded.
    Derek jerked his head toward the remaining crates. “Did you go through those?”
    “They’re all RPGs,” Johnson said.
    “What’re we going to do with them?”
    “Take some with us,” Noa said. “Destroy the rest on our way out. Do you want something to eat?”
    He shook his head. His stomach still roiled. The taste of acid filled his mouth. The stench of the dead was still in his nose, in his hair, on his skin. “When are we leaving?”
    “When are you up to it?”
    “The sooner the better.”
    “You’re exhausted.”
    Rocking slightly, he said, “I’m not sleeping here.”
    Noa said, “Half an hour then. We’ve got food and water. We just need to load up the horses. It’ll be dawn in a couple hours. But we should leave here before someone comes back.”
    He nodded. Noa left to attend to the horses. Crouching next to him, Johnston stared into the flames. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
    “We’ve got some mujahideen that have acquired chemical weapons. And they’re going to either use them on somebody or sell them to somebody who plans to use them.”
    “That’s my mission. To figure out if that’s happened. Track them down.”
    “And Noa? What’s her mission?”
    “Something similar is my guess. You with us?”
    Derek nodded. “I want them destroyed.”
    They hauled all the remaining RPGs and guns and stacked them in the mouth of the cave. Noa took a can of kerosene she had found among the supplies and poured it over the weapons, then lit them with a torch. The flames ate hungrily at the weapons. They watched for a moment, then decided it was time to get out of there. There was no telling what the grenades would do once they got hot enough.

10
    Johnston and Noa had prepared six horses. One for each of them, the others loaded with as much food and gear as they could carry. Derek studied the horses. They looked to be about a two-thirds the size of horses he was used to in the U.S. Not that he had spent much time around horses. The U.S. military did not offer classes in horsemanship. He’d worked briefly with packmules in a program in the Colorado Rockies. He’d ridden a couple times in his life. He was not a fan.
    “You good with horses?” he asked Johnston.
    “Yup. I’ve been riding since I was a kid.”
    Derek nodded to Noa. “You?”
    She nodded. “Not tons, but I’m not bad. You?”
    “I’m a quick learner.” He patted a saddle and frowned. “What the fuck is this?”
    Grinning, Johnston said, “It’s not going to be