Holy City: Chapter One - Part Two

Fontan circled without responding to the question. She made sure to stay two long strides away from his body. That distance would give her enough time to shoot if he made a move towards her.

That distance wouldn’t help if he had somehow hidden a bomb, perhaps inside a body cavity or maybe in one of those torn shoes. Of course, if he had a bomb, he wouldn’t bother with Fontan. The man would wait until he was inside the gates, until he was close to the barracks. There was no point in using a bomb to kill one soldier, he would try to take as many soldiers with him as possible.

“March!” Fontan shouted at the man once she was behind him.

The man began to walk with the same limping gait he had emerged from the desert with. If he was faking, he was a good faker.

“What’s wrong with your leg?” Fontan asked.

“I walked thru the Aten Desert.” The man answered.

Fontan narrowed her eyes wondering if the man was making a joke at her expense or if he was being serious. Either way she decided she wasn’t going to ask any further questions.

Jannis was waiting for them. Once they were inside, he closed the gate, locking them in the no man’s land between the first checkpoint and the second checkpoint. The man was looking across the sand to that second checkpoint, two hundred yards away. A crowd had gathered behind the fence and were watching the scene like spectators at a ballgame.

“Pat him down again.”

“But I already did.”

“Do it again.”

Fontan moved in for a second pat-down. This one was even quicker than the first. She turned to Jannis. “Nothing.”

Jannis fixed Fontan with a long stare. He turned and looked at the man.

“Down on the ground. Face down.”

The man slowly dropped, first his knees and then his entire body face down into the compacted sand. Jannis walked over and put the barrel of his M30 to the man’s head. “Do you feel that? There’s one hundred and fifty soldiers at this checkpoint with the same gun. If you try anything, you’ll be torn to pieces. Do you understand?” The man didn’t reply. “Do you understand!”

The man nodded his head into the dirt, sand attaching to his beard.

Jannis took a step back and turned to Fontan. “Give me your weapon.”

“What?”

“Give me your weapon, private.”

Fontan reluctantly handed her M30 to Jannis.

“Now stand him up.”

Fontan walked over to the man and helped him up, holding his right bicep as she guided him to his feet.

The three of them began their walk to the second checkpoint. The crowd behind the fence had grown. There were a half dozen soldiers watching from the guard tower above and over a dozen on the ground behind the fence. Jannis walked several paces behind Pvt. Fontan and the prisoner. Fontan kept a tight hold of the man’s arm, her fingers digging in harder the closer they got to the second checkpoint. If the man had hidden a bomb in his body, this was his goal. He could take out two dozen soldiers in a matter of seconds.

“Make sure his hands aren’t doing anything.” Jannis warned.

They stopped outside the second checkpoint. Sgt. Kadek was already stalking towards them, ducking under the lifting gate.

“What’s going on here?”

“This man walked out of the desert. He approached our gate.” Fontan said.

“We think he’s a hostile.” Jannis added.

“And you two idiots decided to bring him inside. You should have shot him.”

“He might have intelligence. The captain will want to speak with him.” Jannis’ face was turning red, he had never like Kadek.

The sergeant looked closely at the prisoner, less than an inch away from the prisoner’s face, the whiskers of the prisoner’s unkempt beard nearly tickling the sergeant’s clean-shaven chin.

“What do you want?” The sergeant shouted at the man.

The man looked down at the ground. “Sanctuary.” He said in a weary voice.

Kadek stepped back and looked at the man’s clothes. “You walked through the Aten? Where did you walk from?”

“Alexandria.”

The sergeant shook his head. “It can’t be done. You’re a deserter. You’re a deserter, aren’t you? What company were you in?”

“I’m a civilian from Alexandria.”

“Bull. It can’t be done. You’re a deserter. From our army. We shoot deserters here. You’re going to be shot for cowardice. This trick isn’t going to work.”

“I am not a deserter. From your army or from any other.”

Kadek punched the man in the kidneys, doubling him over. “Hitch him over there.” The sergeant pointed to a stretch of fence ten feet away.

“We’re not bringing him inside until the captain approves.” The sergeant turned to the other soldiers, the crowd behind the fence. “Everybody back. Everybody!”

Fontan sat the man down on the sand and attached his right cuff to a link in the chain-link fence. The man closed his eyes as Fontan quickly backed away, still worried a bomb could go off at any time.

“Back to your posts.” Kadek continued to yell at the lingering soldiers. “You too!” he screamed at Fontan and Jannis as the automatic gate of the second checkpoint closed.

Fontan and Jannis walked back to their posts. “I don’t like him sitting behind us, watching everything we do. If we’re going to shoot him, we should shoot him.” Fontan said.

“The sergeant’s not going to make a decision if he doesn’t have to. He’ll let the captain decide.” Jannis replied.

Fontan looked back to the prisoner. “I never should have let him in.”

For seven hours as the sun moved through the sky and Fontan and Jannis stood guard at the first checkpoint, the man sat on the ground, his body and outstretched arm forming a human sundial. The guards in the tower kept watch from above. After four hours they took bets on whether he was still alive. Then the man would shift a foot or move his left arm or stretch his neck and they would wait another hour, see him lying limp against the fence and take bets for a second time. Then he would move another body part and money would exchange hands again. They did this every hour until the end of the day.

Fontan was watching the man as well. The near lifeless man was more interesting than the empty valley in front of the checkpoint. Every so often Fontan would look back to the mouth of the canyon that led into the Avaris Valley and wonder if it was really possible for a man to survive the walk from Alexandria. Each time she came to the same conclusion, it wasn’t possible and this man was lying to them somehow. He was lying about the walk through the desert and he was lying about the blood. Even though he hadn’t said anything about it, it was still a lie, that blood on his shirt. Who did he kill so he could survive?

As the last hour of her shift approached, Fontan resolved not to look back anymore. The man was obviously waiting to enact his plan, turning to look at him wasn’t going to make it happen any sooner. And if the man really was a refugee from Alexandria, although Fontan was sure he wasn’t, Fontan couldn’t stand the sight of a starving, dying man looking for sanctuary being tied to a fence like an old dog waiting to die.

For the last sixty minutes of her shift, Fontan let her gaze fall on the jagged peaks of the valley as shadows formed and crawled their way down the slopes. This is why she was surprised when she and Jannis were finally relieved from duty. The man was gone.

“They must be interrogating him.” Jannis said as they approached the second checkpoint. “The captain will get him to talk.”

Fontan nodded. It had been her most eventful day in the army yet.



Next Chapter: Chapter Two
Previous Chapter: Chapter One Part One