Read Fog for Free Online Page B

boots hit the dry hard clay; the bulk on my back bending my knees upon impact. I straighten up and we walk a few metres, giving Ben’s machine space to take off.
    We watch the small plane disappear, then trot to the very end of the runway, carving small marks into three trees while we walk back to the other end, assessing the distance as we go. We take our time, slinking from cover to cover and letting our rifles and scopes adjust to the higher humidity, temperature, and elevation. Silently, we lie down in the dirt, remove our night vision goggles, and aim our infrared lasers at the closest knife-mark. Nine hundred and eighty-seven metres distance shows in my scope in tiny red numbers. The night-eye paints the surroundings in shades of grey and green.
    I aim and snap the first shot, watch where the bullet rips off the bark, adjust my scope and fire again. The night echoes the muzzle report. Fomp. Fomp. I know the BSA aren’t anywhere close, else Ben and Yi-Ting would have seen them on their flights. Still, I hate to produce noise. It’s as if I scream at the enemy, ‘I’m here! Come and get me!’
    Two more shots for the next tree and another two fired at the farthest one. Then it’s Runner’s turn. While he zeroes-in his rifle, I try to adjust my eyes to the darkness. No stars light up the night, no moon. My pupils are cranked open to the max, but all I see are faint silhouettes in the corners of my vision. When I lower the night vision goggles, the world around me appears clear and crisp. I can breathe easier. The darkness was stupefying and Runner’s muzzle report did nothing to reassure me.
    ‘That’ll have to do,’ he says and stands. He brushes the dirt off his pants and we begin our march uphill. The SatPad is stuck in a side pocket of his rucksack. We’ll use it only in an emergency. We have no idea if the BSA can tap our communications. Odd, to be so cut off from the others. But I’m more creeped out by the fact that we can’t zero-in our rifles when we’re up at the observatory. The temperature and pressure up there will be lower, meddling with our finely tuned weapons. But it would be even creepier to fire shots in an area where the BSA could show up at any moment. The last thing we want is to let them know we are on the island.
    There’s a one to two day hike ahead of us until we reach the border between Taitung and Pingtun at roughly one thousand seven hundred metres elevation. We’ll install an amplifier once we reach the crest. During briefing, we took a very close look at the images Ben and Yi-Ting shot of the observatory. It houses the island’s only intact satellite control centre. In the light of things, the observatory gained a whole new level of interest to us. The goal of our mission is to investigate and install a couple of mics. But getting inside the building undetected is another story.
    While we quietly hike through the night, my thoughts are free to roam. And they travel unbidden to sweet Yi-Ting and the way she bid Runner goodbye. When I step on a twig and produce a crack , Runner stops. His pale grey-green features show surprise.  
    ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Stupid boots. I shouldn’t have put them on. Give me a second.’
    I pull off my footwear, tie them on top of my ruck and make sure they don’t flop around; then I shoulder my pack again and nod at him to walk on.
    I know what made me slip into boots in the first place. Taiwan is home to a variety of poisonous snakes and walking around barefooted became less enticing the more I thought about it. But there are also snakes that jump off trees and into your face whether you wear boots or not. I grew up barefooted and know how to move silently through the woods.  
    Drawing the attention of a bunch of heavily armed morons in black suddenly seems much worse than stepping on a Banded Krait.
    Roughly four hours later, Runner stops and choses a spot to camp for the night. We drink water and eat a thick paste made of dried fruit,