Short Story Fiction Contest May 2014 | Page 62

V

It took more than an hour for the Argentine boarding parties to land and sweep the upper decks of the refuge, and Agnarsson, who watched most of it on camera, found their pace agonizing. They moved painstakingly through every corridor and compartment, turning over beds and tables and ransacking closets. He watched impotently as they set demolition charges on the remaining autocannon turret and rolled grenades into the lifeboats, but not once did they destroy one of the cameras. Whether it was an oversight or done with intent to demoralize the survivors, he couldn’t know, but more than once he saw marines look into the cameras through the eyeslits of their knitted face masks.

And now, at last, the Argentines were at the door. Their time had run out and no one had come to the rescue.

Agnarsson withdrew toward the rear of the room, knelt behind the blockade of heavy cabinets and bunks that they’d turned over for cover and to deflect grenades. He spared a glance back at Horacio and Sandra Vietes, watched their lips move with whispered prayers. Horacio squeezed his daughter’s hand and then took up his rifle, kissed her on the forehead, and stepped toward the blockade.

“Stay behind me,” Agnarsson said. “Stay with your daughter.”

Horacio’s eyes did not move from the armored door, which rang with the incessant banging of hammers and grinding of metal. The muffled voices of the Argentines could be heard through the door calling for explosives. “It should be me up front,” he said. “I set this in motion.”

Agnarsson shook his head gently, patted him on the shoulder. The other man relented and took up his rifle in the corner of the room, his body shielding his daughter.