Year Zero Read Free

ground was muddy, not from rain, but from their raw sewage. Cholera was going to rampage through them. All the aid workers said so.
    A team of skinny rescue rats from West Virginia loaned him two hardhats. They were gaunt. One had a broken arm in a plastic splint. They didn’t mark their calendar in days, but in hours. For them, time had started the minute the first quake hit, 171 hours ago. It was a rule of thumb that after the first 48 hours, the chances for live rescues evaporated. Their work was done. They were heading home. Nathan Lee asked for any advice.
    “Don’t go down there,” one said. “Why mess with the gods?” He had a combat soldier’s contempt for the civilian. If you don’t belong, don’t be there.
    His partner said, “How about the lions; you been briefed on the lions?”
    “Seriously?” said Nathan Lee. It had to be an urban legend. Here be dragons.
    The man spit. “From the zoo.”
    The first man said, “They found a body in the Armenian quarter. Mauled to rags. One leg missing. That means they they’ve tasted us. They’re maneaters now.”
     
    A T SUNSET the smoke turned bronze.
    Nathan Lee found Ochs on a cot in a tent, stripped to the waist. He’d seen pictures of the linebacker in his 400-pound bench-press days, an Adonis on steroids. Nathan Lee looked down at the wreckage of beer fat. Sweat glistened on his salt-and-pepper chest hair. “Wake up,” Nathan Lee said.
    Ochs came to with a groan. The canvas and wood creaked as he pried himself from the cot.
    “We made a mistake,” said Nathan Lee. “It’s too dangerous. There’s a curfew, dusk to dawn. Shoot to kill.”
    “Give me a minute,” Ochs growled.
    “It’s a war zone. No one’s in charge over there. They’re at each other’s throats. Hamas and the Hezbollah and the SLA and Israeli army and kibbutz militias.”
    Ochs glared at him. “Suck it up, Swift. What did you expect? Nine-point-one on the Richter scale. From here to Istanbul, it’s scrambled eggs.”
    “I don’t like it.”
    “What’s to like?” Ochs tossed his head side to side like a boxer warming up. The vertebrae crackled. “This time tomorrow, we’ll be on our way home. Think of it as starting the college fund. Grace’s,” he added, “not yours. It’s time you moved beyond your academic ambitions.”
    The unborn child had become Ochs’s hostage. Nathan Lee didn’t know how to stop it. The conspiracy between sister and brother was beginning to scare him. “You don’t need me,” he said pointblank.
    “But I do,” said Ochs. “Don’t let it go to your head. You’re younger. You have abilities. Come on. We’re on the same team, slick.”
    “This isn’t a bowl game,” said Nathan Lee. “We’re trespassing on history. Legends. Everything we do could alter the record. It could bend religions.”
    “Since when did you find God? Anyway, you’ve got responsibilities.”
    “It was you who taught me about the integrity of the site.”
    “Those were the days.”
    “You just want revenge,” said Nathan Lee.
    “I just want money,” said Ochs. “What about you, Nathan Lee? Don’t you get lonely in there?”
    They went to the mess tent. It was crowded with relief workers in various states of fatigue. They spoke a babel of languages. They were fed much better than the survivors. In place of protein bars and bottles of water, they got lamb stew and couscous and candies. Ochs made a beeline for the caffeine.
    Nathan Lee went outside with his paper plate and sat on the ground. Ochs found him. “No more seesaw. It’s yes or no.”
    Nathan Lee didn’t say yes. But he didn’t say no. That was all Ochs needed.
     
    A T MOONRISE , they cast loose of Camp 23.
    They wore cotton masks, Red Cross bibs, the borrowed hardhats, and jungle boots from the Vietnam era. The soles had metal plates to protect against punji stakes. Ochs had spotted them in an Army surplus store outside of Georgetown.
    In theory, the camps were locked down between dusk