The Quest

Purcell thought that despite their imprisonments, both he and Mercado had been mostly lucky as war correspondents, or at least smart enough to stay alive. But Mercado had stayed alive far longer than Frank Purcell. So when Henry Mercado and Vivian had approached him in the Hilton bar, armed with a safe-conduct pass from the Provisional government, and asked him if he’d like to accompany them to the current hot spot, he’d agreed without too much hesitation.

But now… well, what sounded good in Addis did not look good three days out. Purcell had been in worse places and much tighter situations, but after a year in a Khmer Rouge prison, facing death every day from starvation and disease, and seeing men and women executed for no apparent reason, he felt that he’d used up his quota of luck. Unfortunately, he hadn’t come to that realization until he was a day out of Addis Ababa. And now they had reached that point of no return. Avanti.

Purcell lit a cigarette as he kept the wheel steady with one hand. He said, “I’m hoping we hook up with the army. I’m sure they beat the hell out of Prince Joshua last night, and I’d rather travel with the winner. The Gallas travel with the losers.”

Mercado scanned the high terrain with his field glasses as he replied, “Yes, but I think the better story is with Prince Joshua.” He added, “Lost causes and crumbling empires are always a good story.”

Vivian said, “Can we stop speaking about the Gallas?”

Mercado lowered his field glasses and told her, “Better to speak of them than to them.”

They continued on, and Mercado sat back in his seat. He said, “The dangerous thing about a civil war is that the battle lines change like spaghetti bouncing in a colander.”

Purcell inquired, “Can I quote you on that?”

Mercado ignored him and continued. “I covered the Spanish Civil War. As long as you travel with one side or the other, you are part of their baggage train. But if you get caught in between or out on the fringes and try to get back in, you become arrestable. You know, Frank, if you had been traveling with the Khmer Rouge, you probably wouldn’t have been arrested. I suppose it all has something to do with spy-phobia. They don’t like people who run between armies. The trick is to get inside the battle lines without getting shot. If you’re challenged by a sentry, you must be bold and wave around your press cards and cameras, as if you had been specially invited to the war. Once you get inside, you’ll usually find the top dogs are courteous. But you must never appear to be arrestable. The business of armies, besides fighting, is arrest and execution. They can’t help it. They are programmed for it. You must not look arrestable or executable.” He asked Purcell, “Do you understand?”

“Why don’t you drive, Henry, and I’ll pontificate?”

Mercado laughed. “Did I hit a sore spot, Frank? Don’t fret. I’m speaking from personal experience.”

Purcell thought he was speaking to impress Vivian.

Mercado continued, “There was one moment there in East Berlin when I could have blustered my way out of arrest. But I started to act frightened. And then they became more sure of themselves. From there on, it was all just mechanics. From a street corner in East Berlin, less than a thousand yards from Checkpoint Charlie, to a work camp in the Urals, a thousand frozen miles away. But there was that one moment when I could have brazened my way out of the situation. That’s what happens when you deal with societies where the rule is by men and not by law. I had a friend shot by the Franco forces in Spain because he was wearing the red-and-black bandanna of the Anarchists. Only he didn’t know it was an Anarchist bandanna. He was just wearing something for the sweat. A handkerchief he had brought from England, actually. They stood him against a wall and shot him by the lights of a truck. Poor beggar didn’t even speak Spanish. Never knew why he was being executed. Had he made the appropriate gestures when he realized that it was the bandanna that was offending them, had he whipped it off and spat on it or something, he’d be alive today.”

“He’d have screwed up someplace else and gotten shot.”

“Perhaps. But never look arrestable, Frank.”

Purcell grunted. There had been one moment there, back in Cambodia… a French-speaking Khmer Rouge officer. There were things he could have said to the officer. Being an American was not necessarily grounds for arrest. There were Americans with Communist forces all over Indochina. There were American newsmen with the Khmer Rouge. Yet he had blown it. Yes, Mercado had hit a sore spot.

Purcell came around a curve in the road and said, “Well, you have a chance to prove your point, Henry. There’s a man up ahead pointing a rifle at us.”

Vivian sat up quickly and looked. “Where?”

Mercado shouted, “Stop!”

Purcell kept driving and pointed. “You see him?”

Before Mercado or Vivian could reply, the man fired his automatic weapon and red tracers streaked high over their heads.