Cryptonomicon

After a smoke, they are back on the road. More black cones coalesce, all around them now, and the road begins to ramble up over hills and down into valleys. The trees get closer and closer together until they are riding through a sort of cultivated and inhabited jungle: pineapples close to the ground, coffee and cocoa bushes in the middle, bananas and coconuts overhead. They pass through one village after another, each one a cluster of dilapidated huts huddled around a great white church, built squat and strong to survive earthquakes. They zigzag around heaps of fresh coconuts piled by the roadside, spilling out into the right-of-way. Finally they turn off of the main road and into a dirt track that winds through the trees. The track has been rutted by the tires of trucks that are much too big for it. Freshly snapped-off tree branches litter the ground.

They pass through a deserted village. Stray dogs flit in and out of huts whose front doors swing unlatched. Heaps of young green coconuts rot under snarls of black flies.

Another mile down the road, the cultivated forest gives way to the wild kind, and a military checkpoint bars the road. The smile vanishes from the driver's face.

Goto Dengo states his name to one of the guards. Not knowing why he is here, he can say nothing else. He is pretty sure now that this is a prison camp and that he is about to become an inmate. As his eyes adjust he can see a barrier of barbed wire strung from tree to tree, and a second barrier inside of that. Peering carefully into the undergrowth he can make out where they dug bunkers and established pillboxes, he can map out their interlocking fields of fire in his mind. He sees ropes dangling from the tops of tall trees where snipers can tie themselves into the branches if need be. It has all been done according to doctrine, but it has a perfection that is never seen on a real battlefield, only in training camps.

He is startled to realize that all of these fortifications are designed to keep people out, not keep them in.

A call comes through on the field telephone, the barrier is raised, and they are waved through. Half a mile into the jungle they come to a cluster of tents pitched on platforms made from the freshly hewn logs of the trees that were cut down to make this clearing. A lieutenant is standing in a shady patch, waiting for them.

"Lieutenant Goto, I am Lieutenant Mori."

"You have arrived in the Southern Resource Zone recently, Lieutenant Mori?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"You are standing directly beneath a coconut tree."

Lieutenant Mori looks straight up in the air to see several wooly brown cannonballs dangling high over his head. "Ah, so!" he says, and moves out of the way. "Did you have any conversation with the driver on the way here?"

"Just a few words."

"What did you discuss with him?"

"Cigarettes. Silver."

"Silver?" Lieutenant Mori is very interested in this, so Goto Dengo recounts their whole conversation.

"You told him that you were a digger?"

"Something like that, yes."

Lieutenant Mori backs off a step, turning to an enlisted man who has been standing off to the side, and nods. The enlisted man picks the butt of his rifle up off the ground, wheels the weapon around to a horizontal position, and turns towards the driver. He covers the distance in about six steps, accelerating to a full sprint, and cuts loose with a throaty roar as he drives his bayonet into the driver's slim body. The victim is picked up off his feet, then sprawls on his back with a low gasp. The soldier straddles him and thrusts the bayonet into his torso several more times, each stroke making a wet hissing sound as metal slides between walls of meat.

The driver ends up sprawled motionless on the ground, jetting blood in all directions.

"The indiscretion will not be held against you," says Lieutenant Mori brightly, "because you did not know the nature of your new assignment.

"Pardon me?"

"Digging. You are here to dig, Goto-san." He snaps to attention and bows deeply. "Let me be the first to congratulate you. Your assignment is a very important one."

Goto Dengo returns the bow, not sure how deep to make it. "So I'm not--" He gropes for words. In trouble? A pariah? Condemned to death? "I'm not a low person here?"

"You are a very high person here, Goto-san. Please come with me." Lieutenant Mori gestures towards one of the tents.

As Goto Dengo walks away, he hears the young motorcycle driver mumble something.

"What did he say?" Lieutenant Mori asks.

"He said, 'Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.' It's a religious thing," Goto Dengo explains.

Chapter 63 CALIFORNIA