here.â Alex could feel a cold numbness creeping through his leg. It got worse, the more he thought about what lay beneath his foot. âCan you help me?â he asked.
âStay still.â The man knelt down a second time. He had produced a flashlight. He shone it on the ground. It seemed to take an age, but then he spoke again. âItâs a butterfly,â he said, and there was no emotion in his voice at all. âThey call it that because of its shape. Itâs a Soviet PFM-1, pressure-sensitive blast mine. Youâre standing on enough high explosive to take your leg off.â
âWhatâs it doing here?â Alex cried. He had to fight the instinct to lift his foot off the deadly thing. His entire body was screaming at him to run away.
âThey train us!â the man rasped. âThey use these things in Iraq and Indonesia. We have to know how to deal with them. How else are they going to do it?â
âBut in the middle of a fieldâ¦?â
âYou shouldnât be here! Who brought you here?â The man straightened up. He was standing very close to Alex, the brown eyes boring into him. âI canât neutralize it,â he muttered. âEven if I had the training, I couldnât risk it in the dark.â
âSo what do we do now?â
âIâm going to have to get help.â
âDo you have a radio?â
âIf I had a radio, Iâd have already used it.â The man laid a hand briefly on Alexâs shoulder. âThereâs something else you need to know,â he said. He was speaking softly. His mouth was next to Alexâs ear. âThese things have a delay mechanismâ¦a separate fuse that youâll have activated when you stepped on it.â
âYou meanâitâs going to blow up anyway?â
âIn fifteen minutes.â
âHow long will it take you to find someone?â
âIâll move as quickly as I can. If you hear a clickâyouâll feel it under your footâthrow yourself flat onto the ground. Itâs your only hope. Good luckâ¦â
âWaitâ¦,â Alex began.
But the man had already gone. Alex hadnât even asked him his name.
Alex stood there. He had lost any sense of feeling in his leg, but his shoulder was burning and he was beginning to shiver violently as the shock set in. He forced himself to bring his body back under control, afraid that the slightest movement could bring a hideous end to this ordeal. He could imagine the sudden flash, the pain, his leg separated from his body. And the worst of it was that there was nothing he could do. His foot was glued to the device that was ticking away, even now, beneath him. He looked around. Although he hadnât noticed it before, the mine had been placed on the top of a ridge, the ground sloping away steeply to a ditch at the bottom. Alex tried to work out the distances. If he threw himself sideways, could he reach the ditch before the mine exploded? And if the force of the blast was above him, would he escape the worst of it?
The bombing had stopped. Suddenly everything was very still. Once again Alex experienced the sense of being completely alone, standing like a scarecrow in the middle of an empty field. He wanted to call out but was afraid to, in case he accidentally shifted his body weight. How long had it been since the man had left? Five minutes? Ten? And how accurate was the timer anyway? The mine could go off at any time.
So did he wait? Or did he take his life into his own hands? Alex made his decision.
He took a deep breath, tensing his body, trying to think of the muscles in his legs as coiled springs that could launch him to safety. His right foot was resting on the mine. The left foot was on flat ground. That was the one that would have to do most of the work. Do it! Alex had to force himself, knowing that he might be making the worst mistake of his life, that seconds from now he could be