Blood Covenant (9 page)

SEVENTEEN

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 10:38 P.M.
MT. MAJA, SENGANIE ROUTE, 7,800 FEET

Brandon snapped on his flashlight and ran toward the porter, his thoughts gnawing holes in his conscience. They never should have come here. Not with all the unrest in the country. And he never should have let Jodi return to their tent alone. If she’d stayed with him, they’d have both been fine. All the men had wanted were radios and phones. Robert had died because they’d felt threatened. They would have let Ashley go. Would have left Jodi alone if he’d been with her.

His boots crunched on the coarse gravel. Branches whipped at his pant legs. They were off the main trail and into the bush where spindly tree limbs and the black night sky hovered above them. But the stars had vanished behind clouds that now settled in above them, masking the earlier brilliant skies and making it harder to navigate through the thick brush. The forest around him blurred as he tried to keep up with the guide; the beam of the flashlight was too focused to offer him the light he needed.

His lungs screamed at the lack of air from the high altitude, but he pushed himself to keep up with the porter, who seemed to move effortlessly in the darkness. “Where is she?”

“Over here!”

Finally, his flashlight caught the edge of Jodi’s red jacket. She lay on her back, head to the side, her face ghostly white. He dropped beside her and took her hand. “Jodi?”

The porter who had remained with her stood above them. “We were afraid to move her.”

Air whooshed from his lungs. “Jodi.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she groaned before closing them again. Blood had run down her face and dried on her cheek. He felt along her temple where blood matted her hair.

“Jodi, what happened?”

“I don’t … know.” Her eyes opened again. “They came with guns … I ran …”

He wiped away the blood with his shirt, but all he found was a cut along her hairline. There had to be something else. “Were you shot?”

“I … ran.”

“Were you shot?”

“My arm … hurts.”

Frantically, he began looking for holes in her clothes — anything that might signify the entryway of a bullet. Blood seeped from her left shoulder. He told the porters where to aim their flashlights, then, after gently slipping off her jacket, ripped her shirt sleeve, exposing the wound. He’d seen enough scars from gunshot wounds to know that both entrance and exit wounds were not always easy to distinguish, and that he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that she’d been hit twice.

He pulled off his own jacket and pressed it against the wound to stop the bleeding as his mind scrambled to deal with the emergency situation. He was used to working with patients who’d been seriously injured — but in physical therapy, long after they’d been patched up by ER doctors and surgeons. He reached for her wrist and took her pulse. It was fast, but steady. Breathing seemed normal, with no signs of a blocked airway.

What else?

“Do you hurt anywhere beside your shoulder?”

She shook her head. “Just my ankle, but that’s to be expected.”

If she was right, the metal pin was the least of their problems at the moment.

“We’ve got to get her out of here.” He felt her forehead. Beside the gunshot wound, she was burning up with fever. He looked up the incline toward the camp. “Can you walk?”

Her chin quivered. “I don’t know.”

Brandon helped her to her feet. Even with Jodi’s slight frame, he wasn’t sure how far he could carry her down the mountain. But without a stretcher, any other options began to fade. “I’ve got to get her off this mountain and down to the base camp so she can be evacuated.”

With the help of the porters he hoisted her onto his back, careful not to jar her shoulder. Ten minutes later they were at the camp, where he laid her on their sleeping bag in the tent and began to pack their water and supplies. He’d pay whatever it took for two of the porters to help get her down the mountain.

Mosi appeared outside the tent, holding one of the high-frequency radios. “It’s a miracle the rebels missed this after tearing everything apart, but we found this in one of the tents. I’ve been in touch with the base camp.”

“What did they say?”

“They will arrange for medical personnel to be waiting for us at the base camp, along with a plane so Jodi can be medivaced to the nearest hospital.”

Brandon’s mind swam with the daunting task ahead of them. Even going downhill, at a much quicker pace, it would take at least two or three hours to get to the base camp in the daytime. At night it could take them twice that long. And carrying Jodi …

“How do we get there?”

“Porters from the base camp are on the way up with stretchers right now.”

“How long until they arrive?”

“Another five or six hours.”

Which meant it would be almost dawn before they made it. “Forget it. I’m going to go now. I’ll meet them halfway.”

That would cut the time in half.

Ashley stood at the entrance of his tent. “I’m coming with you.”

He threw his bag over his shoulder. “I meant what I said. I can’t be responsible for you. I’ve got to get my wife the help she needs.”

“I’ll get down the mountain on my own.” Her voice rose a notch. “But there’s no way I’m staying here another second.”

Determination shone in Ashley’s eyes, but he couldn’t deal with both Jodi and a hysterical woman. “Listen to me, Ashley. As soon as it’s daylight, one of the porters will take you back, but not now.”

Mosi’s chin dipped. “He’s right. They’ll bring a stretcher for your father as well and take him down the mountain in the morning.”

Brandon glanced to where her father’s body now lay bundled up in a sleeping bag ready for transport down the mountain. When had their excursion to the summit turned into a fight for their very survival?

“I’m going now—”

“You’ll never make it in the dark.” Fatigue washed over Brandon. “Wait until morning and go down with one of the porters.”

The calculations were simple. It would take them half the time to get down the mountain if they met the porters climbing up. And once they got the stretcher, they could move Jodi even faster. Ashley would only slow them down.

Ashley turned to the group of porters listening to the exchange. “I’ll pay a thousand dollars for two of you to guide me down the mountain and carry my father’s body.”

Two men stepped forward and hoisted the body of her father onto their shoulders.

“Fine.” He was finished arguing with her. “Radio the base camp and tell them that we’re headed down the mountain now and will meet the other porters along the trail. Because as far as Jodi is concerned, tomorrow morning might be too late.”

EIGHTEEN

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 11:02 P.M.
KINGANI REFUGEE CAMP

Paige shoved her stethoscope into her medical bag, ignoring the mess the rebels had strewn across the clinic floor. She yanked on the zipper. It snagged, breaking her fingernail in the process. Fine. She grabbed the bag by the bottom and stalked toward the door of the clinic. She didn’t need to shut the dumb thing anyway. What did it matter? What did anything matter at this point? Anger seared her senses, managing to erase all the guilt she felt over her decision.

At least fourteen had been found dead in the camp after the raid, beaten to death by the Ghost Soldiers, and there had been nothing she could do to save any of them. If Samson hadn’t managed to confiscate one of their guns and scatter the rebels, the bloody death toll would have been higher. The three rebels they’d managed to capture were tied up and under guard, but they’d only postponed the inevitable. More rebels would be back.

“Paige?” Nick stood between her and the doorway. “I just wanted to check and see how you’re doing.”

Her nostrils flared. Great. He was the last person she wanted to see — because he was the one person who would try to talk some sense into her. And she was way past any rational thinking.

He stepped in front of her. “Where are you going?”

She brushed past him. “Home.”

His hand grasped her forearm, stopping her at the edge of the empty bed where they’d just taken away the body of another one of the burn victims. “What are you talking about?”

She pulled away. She never should have told Digane she’d come. No matter what she did, the patients would keep coming. Babies would keep crying. IVs would keep dripping in the isolation ward. People would keep dying … like Marila.

“I’m going back to Nashville where it’s thirty degrees cooler and they have plenty of water, electricity, and deep-dish pizza.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re responsible for getting this cholera treatment center up and running, and if that isn’t enough, perhaps you forgot that there are rebels out there who would be happy to use you to make a point.”

She rubbed the bruise the rebel had left on her arm. “I haven’t forgotten anything.”

“I can fly you out of here tomorrow if you insist, but as for right now, how in the world do you plan to get around them?”

Her free hand shook. She stuck it into the pocket of her lab coat and hoped he hadn’t noticed. “I figure I can outrun them in the jeep.”

“In the dark, on a road you don’t know, past armed rebel soldiers? You’re not thinking straight.”

She groaned. Of course she wasn’t thinking straight. If she had been, she wouldn’t have come here in the first place. She’d be packing for her trip back to the States. And it wasn’t as if she’d worked out all the details of her escape. She just knew she wasn’t staying. She started again for the door. At least if she left she’d be in control of the situation. “You can say what you want, but I’ve already made my decision.”

“You know, I thought you were different. The Paige Ryan I got to know today wouldn’t up and run away because things got tough.”

Man, she really didn’t like this guy. She turned to face him. “Then obviously you don’t really know me.”

“Oh, I think I do, because I’ve met plenty who went home because they couldn’t stick it out. They get tired of the living conditions. The constant rain during the rainy season where nothing gets dry and all your clothes end up smelling like a pile of damp socks. They get tired of the lack of sleep, the stress, and especially they get tired of the death. But I don’t think you’re really like them.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m sick and tired of all these things.” She shoved the medical bag under her other arm. “And if that wasn’t enough, I have a feeling that the going rate for an American doctor is pretty high and would have pulled some weight with their negotiations.”

“Being fearful is normal.”

“Oh, I’m way past fear. I’m completely terrified. But I’m also furious. Furious that we buried twenty more people today. And that …” She shook her head. “They’ve knocked out the cell towers so I can’t even call my family and let them know I’m alive.”

Something about losing that link to the real world had turned into the final straw.

Nick grabbed two chairs from against the wall and pushed them into the middle of the empty waiting room. “Give me five minutes.”

“Why?” She spun around to face him. “So you can give me a pep talk and I’ll change my mind?”

“Sit down. You’re not the only one who’s had to face a life-and-death situation and come up short. I just don’t want you to one day hate your decision.”

She hesitated, then plopped down onto one of the chairs, knowing she was going to regret the action. No matter what he’d used to be, there was no way he could understand what the past three months had done to her, let alone the past twenty-four hours. And there wasn’t anything she could do to stop what was happening. In the process, she’d tried to dig down deep to find that deeper dose of faith so she could come out triumphant despite the circumstances. Instead, all she’d found was the intense desire to run. Which was exactly what she intended to do when his five minutes were up.

He slid onto the chair across from her and tugged on his ball cap, looking as uncomfortable as she felt. “I want you to listen to me. I know you’re scared, but you know as well as I do that running isn’t the answer. You go out there and they will kill you. We’ll wait until morning, then I’ll fly back to Kingani and get help.”

She wasn’t ready to admit there was wisdom in what he said. She wanted to be back home in her one-bedroom apartment now, working twelve-hour shifts at the hospital and hanging out with her friends on her time off. Because the rebels were still out there, and it was only a matter of time before they returned and she and the others would be forced to go through tonight all over again.

She sucked in a sharp breath. “This is supposed to be a place of refuge, but not only can’t I promise them that, there’s nothing I can do to change things.”

“You weren’t brought here to save the world. You were brought here as a temporary field director to set up the cholera treatment center and get this epidemic under control. And this isn’t a place where you can make out a list and neatly check things off. This is the real world where sometimes you’ve got to go with the punches, suck it up, be creative, and do things even when you want to run in the opposite direction.”

She folded her arms across her chest and crossed her legs, resisting the urge to stand up and slug him. Her lists might not work here, but laying on the guilt wasn’t going to work either. “And what would you know about the real world? You fly chartered planes for doctors and their patients.”

Nick’s expression darkened. “So that makes me, what? A glorified tour guide?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what you implied.”

“What I implied was that I’m the one who is supposed to be in charge of all of this, and — ”

“And you’re also the one who’s leaving.”

Her jaw tensed. He infuriated her. “This is a ridiculous conversation that’s never going to get us anywhere, because you don’t understand — ”

“Yeah, I do.” He slapped his hands against his thighs and leaned forward. “You’re not the only person who’s had to face situations that made you question what in the world you were doing.”

Paige swallowed hard. The situation was clouding her judgment. Maybe she had been too quick to judge. “What are you talking about?”

“I …” Nick drew in a deep breath. “I joined the military when I was twenty-one. After a few years as an officer, I made it into the pilot training program. Fifteen months ago, I walked away from it all.”

Paige’s mind worked to put the pieces together. Nick was the last person she’d imagine running away from something. “Why’d you quit?”

“I’d been deployed to Iraq where I served as a medivac pilot.” He shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable with telling his story. “We spent our days waiting for calls to evacuate wounded soldiers and transferring patients and supplies. One day, I was ordered to fly with a crew to a specific location in the desert in order to evacuate four wounded soldiers whose plane had gone down.” Nick stared at the ground. “The whole mission began as a routine flight and rescue across the desert. But it didn’t end that way.”