True Valor (35 page)

“Not that I saw. We can ask him, but I don’t think he will say.”

The grandmother brought him back water. Bruce accepted the pail, stunned to find she had enough fresh water to half fill it. The water was even cool. “Thank you.” She nodded. Jim was resourceful to have provided so well for his family.

Bruce touched her hand and caught her gaze. Her grandson had a very bad burn, but the wound showed no sign of infection. “You did a good job helping Jamael.”

She smiled again and moved to sit at the head of the bed where she stroked the boy’s hair. Bruce took Jamael’s temperature and his blood pressure, knowing it was the length of time since the injury that was the most difficult risk to assess.

Not quite 103 degrees; he’d been afraid it was higher. At some point the boy became so worn down and weak his body could not rally to recover. Jamael needed to be in a hospital where there was someone to provide twenty-four-hour care, but Bruce could read reality. Jim would never take him to a Turkish hospital even if they could find one that had a bed among the other earthquake victims.

His language skills were decent, but they didn’t stretch to what the boy was murmuring. Bruce pulled two peppermints from his pocket and unwrapped them. “Jamael?” The boy opened his eyes. They were brown, pain filled, and glazed. Bruce brushed his hand along his hot cheek. “Candy,” Bruce said softly, offering one to his grandmother and then to the boy. Jamael smiled when he tasted it. “Suck it.” The sugar would help the boy start having a taste for something to eat and drink.

Bruce nodded to Wolf to open the medical kit. The tough decisions were coming. Had the boy even seen a needle, let alone been given a shot? Bruce tried to balance the painkiller against the boy’s size and what pain his trying to help was likely to cause.

He’d been in enough situations like this around the world. He could work as a doctor among kids trapped in war zones for the rest of his life and barely scratch the surface of the need. Wolf distracted the boy with a flight patch while Bruce carefully gave him two shots, a painkiller and a strong antibiotic. The grandmother had a harder time with it than the boy did.

Bruce patted her hand. “All done,” he reassured with a smile.

Wolf opened the sterile packs. “Your bedside manner is improving.”

Bruce slid a large sterile square under Jamael’s leg. “I hope your nursing skills have.” He carefully cleaned the boy’s leg around the wound while he waited for the painkiller to take effect before he started taking care of the burn. He had to remove the dead patches of skin, remove places where skin had tried to heal but had actually curled on itself into the burn. It took almost an hour of careful work. There was good pink skin below the burn that was a great relief to see. The boy wouldn’t lose his leg as long as infection was kept out. The boy’s grandmother sat quietly watching the entire time.

Bruce carefully applied a thick layer of burn cream to keep the skin soft and infection out, and lightly laid gauze across it. “If I leave supplies, can you do this twice a day for Jamael? Morning and night?”

His grandmother nodded. “Yes.”

Bruce took a look at the blisters on the boy’s hand and arm. “Wolf, find the bottle of painkillers and cut the pills in half. I assumed the patient was an adult.” His friend looked relieved to be able to step away from being nurse. The man did look a little green around the edges.

Bruce decided it was best to leave the boy’s hand open to the air. It had to be very painful but it was healing.

“We’ll leave all the supplies we brought with us, the antibodies, the painkillers. Give Jamael one white pill and one pink one every morning until they are gone. It’s important he take them all.”

His grandmother leaned over to make sure she understood which pills, then nodded. “Okay. One and one, each morning,” she repeated, touching them to make certain.

Bruce offered her the thermometer he had used. “If it goes up to the red area, have your husband come find us.”

“Yes.”

Bruce patted her hand again, seeing the fear on her face. “By the full moon, Jamael will be walking again and playing.”

She gave a small smile. “He’s a good boy.”

Bruce began cleaning up the supplies he had used, putting them in the black biohazard bag. “Wolf, find the Gatorade packets.”

“Right here.”

Bruce dumped one packet into his water bottle and filled it with water. The boy was waking up. Bruce helped him raise his head to drink, then helped his grandmother change the large cotton T-shirt the boy wore. His temperature was down to 100.5. “Do we have any of those baseball cards left in one of the packs?”

Wolf smiled. “Be right back.” Bruce hadn’t met a boy yet who didn’t like to collect things, even a sport he didn’t necessarily play.

The boy laughed when he was given the cards, and turned to show the top one to his grandmother. Bruce carefully draped the blanket over the bedposts to keep it from touching the boy’s leg. “One more favor, Wolf. Cut loose my sleeping bag.”

“A step ahead of you. I’m leaving two, and my dried snacks.” The last thing the boy needed was his grandmother getting sick because she was now sleeping on the floor.

“Thanks.” Bruce leaned forward one last time and smiled at the boy. “It was nice to meet you, Jamael.”

It was a shy smile in return, but a smile, and it about broke Bruce’s heart.

“Ma’am.” He offered her the chair he had used.

“Thank you.” She was close to crying.

“You’re very welcome.”

Bruce followed Wolf outside. He stopped across the threshold and took a very deep breath, then let it out slowly, feeling exhaustion curl all the way to his toes. “I wish Rich had been available instead of me. He’s better with kids.”

“I’d say you did just fine,” Wolf replied. “Now comes the fun part.”

“Kids and politics should not be mixed.”

“Agreed.”

The men were sitting together in front of the middle tent, a small fire burning, and the smell of tobacco drifted on the wind. It was a silent group, Cougar standing farther away by one of the few trees on the plateau. Bruce walked with Wolf over to join them. “The animals look surprisingly healthy considering the drought.”

“I saw signs of a couple horses too, probably moved somewhere else for the night. Jim has found a water supply for his family, and it’s kept these folks going.”

Jim rose and came to meet them.

“Your grandson should get better,” Bruce said. “You were right to ask us to come. I left supplies with your wife. If his fever rises, please come get us. They were bad burns—I would really like to see where it was your grandson was playing when he got hurt.”

The Turkish officer interrupted them. “We’ve done our part of the deal.”

One of the embassy men intervened, cutting off the Turkish officer, apologizing for him. “Jim, we were honored to help.” The Turkish officer tossed a frustrated look at him and walked back to the fire.

“If you can help us too, it would be appreciated but there is no deal, and never was one. When you honor us with a request for help, we will be glad to assist you.”

“I know this, Samuel, which is why I sent the message to you. A favor for a favor is fair.” The old man knelt down, smoothed the dirt, and picked up a stick. He drew a sketch on the ground. “Where the trails divide, go north. There is a solitary gypsum tree along part of the trail that drops off sharply. Descend the face of it to the bottom of the ravine. There’s a new fissure that cuts into the ravine; follow it east. You’ll see the mouth of a cave down low to the ground. The weapons are there.”

“The stingers?” Samuel asked.

The man tossed down the stick. “The weapons are there.”

Bruce shot a glance at Wolf. Stingers? As in what brought down Grace’s plane?

“Thank you, Jim,” Samuel replied, extending his hand.

“Jamael is worth it.”

“And if you need us to come back, we will come quickly.”

With a doctor this time, Bruce noted to himself, wondering why one had not been found for this trip. Probably the Turkish officer’s influence there, and the fact so little was known before they came.

The old man looked at Bruce. “The planes that go overhead?”

“Yes.”

“I watch them. One went down. The pilot is okay?”

Bruce tugged a worn picture from his pocket and offered it. “The pilot.”

“There were rumors.”

“She’s home and will be fine.”

“Good. That is very good.”

Jim handed back the picture with a sigh and looked at the embassy officer. “This land needs peace, Samuel. And if what is in the cave can bring it . . .”

“You have my word, Jim. The gesture will go far with my government.”

“I will see.”

“If you are comfortable we can leave the boy, it would be best if we were in and out by dawn,” Bear commented, joining them.

“I’ve done what I can.” Bruce slipped his pack back on.

Polite good-byes were extended to their host.

“Let’s get moving,” Bear said. “Cougar, take point.”

They headed back to the trail.

It took trial and error and a few mistakes as to what constituted the solitary gypsum tree before they found the ravine.

“Incredible,” Wolf voiced for all of them. The ground had been opened in a gash, one side lifted a foot higher than the other, and the two sides slid in opposite directions. Bear, Wolf, and Bruce rappelled down in pairs while the others stood guard.

“Where did he say the cave entrance was?”

“Down there somewhere.” Wolf pointed.

“An old cave or a new one just opened?”

“If it’s being used as a weapon storage, you would think old.”

They found it along the base of the ravine, a twisted squat tree trying to grow just above the four-feet-long by two-feet-high opening. It was more a fracture in the wall than an entrance, and it appeared to open up farther inside.

“You smell that?”

Wolf winced. “Sulfur.”

“A cave is also a natural place for methane gas to build up,” Bruce pointed out.

“You want to wait for a geologist to get here?” Bear asked, shining his light around the area to see how much of the rockslide looked new.

“When we’re in the area under the watchful eyes of rebels with essentially a one-time pass to come and go without being shot at? I vote we get in, get the stingers, and get out,” Wolf replied.

“If the cave preexisted the earthquake, there are probably several branches and caverns. I doubt the weapons were stored in the first few feet of the entrance,” Bear replied.

“Wolf and I can do it,” Bruce offered. “We stay low, go slow; it shouldn’t be more complex than other cave jaunts we’ve made.”

Bear nodded. “Try it. I’ll leave Cougar to pull you out if you get into trouble, and the rest of us will spread out and set up a screen. Stay in close touch.”

Wolf slid on his gloves, picked up his coiled rope, and glanced at Bruce. “You just don’t want to be standing around out here when someone realizes we’re stealing what they stole.”

Bruce smiled. “Now what made you think that?”

“You know how I love caves. You first?”

“I’d hate to rob you of the honor.”

Wolf got down on his belly and slid into the cave. “Spiders. Wonderful.”

Bruce nudged Wolf’s foot and the man slid the rest of the way in. “It’s big and it does open up.”

Bruce followed his friend into the cave. There was a breeze through the entrance of the cave, which suggested a much larger cavern ahead where the temperature difference of air underground and that outside was creating a natural eddy.

Bruce squeezed through an area barely large enough for his body. “I like caves.”

“You would.”

“Something has been pulled through here; the rocks are scraped.”

“Ouch.”

“What?” Bruce asked.

“Nothing.”

Bruce bit back a laugh and kept crawling, following Wolf’s boots.

“Finally. Watch the drop.” Wolf disappeared from view. Bruce followed him and nearly tumbled when the floor disappeared.

“I’d say that was an effective trapdoor,” Wolf commented, sliding over to prevent Bruce from landing in his lap. They had abruptly entered a long, hollow cavern.

It was dry, cool, and what looked liked leaves had blown in from what had to be the solitary bush at the cave entrance. “Smell anything off?”

“No. And the spiders are still alive,” Wolf pointed out.

“We’re in, Cougar. How’s reception?”

“You’re clear, power levels are good.”

“Roger.”

Wolf shown his light around. “Would you like door one or door two?” Two passageways disappeared.

“Two. Those rocks look scraped.”

“Two it is.” Wolf, half crouched, led the way.

“I’m getting a whiff of rotten eggs.”

“Stay low.”

Wolf slowed his walk forward. “It’s opening up again.” Metal rapped against stone. “Watch your head.”

Another smaller passageway opened up.

“Pay dirt. Hand grenades, a couple mines, ammo, sidearms, rifles, even some M-16s.” It was a neat inventory, resting upright along the wall with boxes at either end. Wolf started exploring boxes. “Here’s a tally sheet in a language I can’t read.” He handed it back.

“Stingers?” Bruce asked.

“There they are. Still in their Made in the USA cases. The Army investigators will appreciate getting those shipping manifest labels back.”

“We can’t carry all this out of here and we can’t leave it.”

“We take the stingers, destroy the rest,” Wolf suggested.

“Let’s think about that a bit more. Jim didn’t come out and say it, but I bet Jamael was hurt somewhere around here. And we were smelling sulfur outside the cave.”

“Meaning if we toss one of those hand grenades, no telling what we might accidentally set off.”

Bruce nodded. “Exactly. Let’s see if we can find where the boy was hurt. Five minutes, and if we have to, we destroy the rifles, take the stingers, and leave the rest behind.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Wolf looked around. “Back to door number one or do we take one of these three options?”

“How about number four? That rockslide looks new.”

“And that opening looks too small for a man of my size,” Wolf noted.