WAR: Intrusion (18 page)

Lachlan flicked his eyes toward the back door and shrugged. “I should check on the doctor. She already had that head injury and David clocked her pretty hard.”

“Makes sense. If, you know, you’re finally convinced she’s not the enemy.”

Lachlan leveled a glare at Tony, who just gave him an innocent look. “As if you didn’t have doubts yourself, mate,” Lachlan grumbled.

“I did. But I never put bruises on her wrist.”

Lachlan cursed and stood up. “Aye, well, I’m not proud of it, am I?” He nodded. “So I’ll just make my way over there and apologize.”

“Good idea. I doubt the villagers are going to leave their festivities to tromp through the rain and wreak a little havoc on the clinic. But if they do,” he nodded at the assault rifle Lachlan had just finished cleaning. “I’ll be armed and ready. If anyone’s of the mind to cause trouble, they’re more likely to go after the doctor. After all, she banned David and his cronies from the clinic. You can use the bodyguard excuse for her to let you in.” Tony’s mouth twisted as he tried to hold back a smile, then he gave in and grinned. “Go apologize to the lady doctor, Lachlan. I like her. Not many people would stand up for their convictions when faced with a mob of angry men thirsting for violence.”

Remembering how fiercely Helen had defied David’s orders, her green eyes on fire and the bandage on her head giving her the look of a pirate, he nodded. “Aye. She has a warrior’s spirit, she does.”

Mind made up, he pulled on his rain gear and stepped into the storm.

CHAPTER TWELVE

STANDING
IN FRONT of the two-burner electric stovetop in her tiny kitchen, Helen spooned thick bean stew and fried plantains onto a scratched plastic plate, covered it with a second plate, then pulled up the hood of her rain jacket. Every time it rained she wished her bungalow had been designed with more convenience in mind. It hadn’t been raining too hard while she’d used the shower and toilet facilities across the uncovered courtyard. But in the few minutes it had taken her to heat the stew and plantains, the rain had turned into a torrent. For a moment she watched the rain pouring off the roof and vanishing down the drain in the middle of the courtyard. Then she took a deep breath, picked up the plates, and dashed into the rain. As she came even with the gate into the courtyard, a flash of lightning revealing a man walking toward her bungalow’s door.

Helen screamed and slammed to a halt. She bobbled the plates and nearly lost her grip on them before the man stepped forward to steady her.

“Careful, doctor.”

MacKay. Didn’t it figure? As if she didn’t have enough to deal with, between the pain in her head and the ache in her jaw where the back of David’s hand had hit her.

“What do you want?” She tried to move around MacKay, but he reached the door first, opening it and ushering her through. Before she could tell him to go away, he stood inside.

Too close.

Ignoring the water dripping off her rain jacket, she circled the dining table. Feeling safer with it as a barrier between her and Lachlan, she set her dinner down.

“Easy, lass. I’m not going to hurt you. I came to check that you’re all right.”

“I’m fine.” Thunder boomed and she tried to hide her wince as the sound reverberated in her aching skull. “You can go away now.” She motioned toward the door.

“Please, doctor. You and I need to talk.”

Helen hesitated. MacKay’s presence made her jittery. She didn’t want him anywhere near her. Her nerves were still too raw.

“Be a bonnie lass and let me stay.” He gave her the first genuine smile she’d seen since she’d met him, changing his face from intimidating into something gentler.

“Drop the charm,” she snapped. “I don’t want you here. You’re a killer. A torturer.” The same as her mother. MacKay didn’t care who he hurt as long as he achieved his objective.

“I’m a soldier. I’m not going to apologize for doing what I felt was necessary to save lives. But I’d still appreciate the opportunity to discuss our differences before having to head back into the rain.” He gave her a pleading look that said she’d be a heartless woman to send him into the storm.

“Don’t try to manage me, MacKay.”

He held up his hands. “Sorry. So, may I stay?”

Lightning flashed, followed immediately by a crack of thunder. “Fine. It seems Mother Nature wants to keep you here. But I don’t have enough stew for the both of us, so you’re going to have to watch me eat.”

“No worries. I’ve already eaten, lass,” MacKay said, with a small smile of triumph.

“Really? Eaten what?” she asked as she peeled out of her rain jacket. “The kitchen at the clinic only has a few digestive biscuits, tea, and powdered coffee.”

“We brought rations with us.”

“Rations? That’s not real food.”

“We’re used to it.”

She glanced over at him and discovered that MacKay had also removed his rain gear and was standing on the towel she kept on the floor for just such weather. She’d forgotten how tall and muscular he was. But having him stand in her tiny dining room in just a damp t-shirt and cargo pants, his feet bare as he hung his socks over the tops of his muddy boots to dry, she was acutely reminded of her first impression of him being a barbarian warrior.

Well, she’d nailed that one, hadn’t she?

A frisson of some unidentifiable emotion ran up her spine at the thought of eating in MacKay’s presence. To hide her sudden unease, she asked, “Where’s Jacobs?” but thunder drowned out her words. Once the noise had faded, she repeated her question as she sat down and uncovered her food.

“Jacobs is back at the clinic, on guard in case David or the other villagers decide to cause trouble.” MacKay shrugged and sat down. “Besides, I walked here. It would have been tricky for him on his crutches in the mud.”

“I’m sorry. I should have checked his bandages tonight. I didn’t think.”

“No, doctor. He’s fine. There’s no sign of infection and I changed the bandages myself.” His eyes darkened as he studied her face. “You’ve put ice on that bruise?”

She nodded and forked up a bite of plantain.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stop David from hitting you,” he said.

“I—” She started to shake her head, remembered her headache, and gave him a half shrug instead. “It wasn’t your fault. I had no idea he would strike me or I would have moved out of range. I—” Helen ate another bite.

MacKay watched her with an odd expression on his face. Part curiosity. Part…satisfaction?

No. She had to be imagining that. Right now he might be acting all friendly, but his actions made it clear that he didn’t like or respect her. Which meant the real reason for his visit had nothing to do with checking on her. He wanted something.

“So,” she said, fighting resentment as she scraped the last of the stew from her plate with a piece of plantain. “Tell me why you and Jacobs are really here. What information do you think I’m withholding this time?”

His lips tightened and for a moment she thought she saw remorse in his eyes. Then the electricity went off. She sighed and reached for the lantern and matches she kept on the table, but MacKay was faster. A moment later, the flame from the kerosene lantern flickered to life. Uncomfortable with the cocoon of intimacy the light created, she was relieved when MacKay stood up and walked over to the window next to the door.

“Don’t worry about Jacobs,” she said. “The clinic’s generator will have kicked on.”

MacKay chuckled. “We’ve slept out in worse. As long as he has a roof over his head, he’s happy.”

“So you’re part of some military force?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore. We belong to a private security group.”

“What does that mean?”

“Can’t tell you that. But I can tell you that our primary objective is to stop the rebels.”

“Oh. Right. I remember David mentioning that after the attack. But why did you come here? There’s never been any rebel activity in this region.”

He turned to face her, standing at parade rest. “We received reports that weapons were being smuggled to the rebels through your airfield.”

Betrayal wrapped familiar tentacles around her, squeezing out all of her air. Dammit, she’d been right. Lachlan’s real mission was the smuggling. Only not in the way she’d originally thought. “And of course, you decided that I was guilty.” She winced at the bitterness in her voice.

“Aye. We had a photograph showing what appeared to be boxes of weapons being unloaded from a plane, with you and Kwesi in the background.”

She blinked, having expected him to mention her mother. “To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never even seen a box of weapons.” She frowned. “I suppose it’s possible that Kwesi unloaded the weapons as I was getting ready to leave with my medical supplies and I assumed the boxes were his usual luxury goods.” She sighed and rubbed at the ache in her temples. “Or do you still believe that I knew about the weapons?”

“No. We’ve found no physical evidence tying you to the smuggling. Plus, if you were truly involved in illegal activities, you wouldn’t have worked so hard to treat the victims after the attack. You wouldn’t have patched up Tony while you yourself were in pain. And you wouldn’t have stood up to David with such righteous fury in your eyes.”

A tiny ray of warmth spread through her, until she thought about the fact that his first reason for believing her innocence had been lack of evidence of wrongdoing. Her personal work ethic had been a secondary consideration. When to her mind, the type of person she was should have pointed immediately toward her innocence.

His lack of trust hurt more than she’d expected.

The cold, hard truth was that MacKay inflicted violence on others. She healed the victims of violence. There could be nothing but heartache and betrayal between them.

The thought of what MacKay and the others might have done to David’s prisoner turned her stomach. She’d patched up victims of the rebels’ torture before during her work at a hospital near the front lines. It was a miracle she didn’t still have nightmares as a result.

“So what information did you come over here to get tonight?” she asked.

“You wound me, lass. What’s to say I didn’t want to see for myself that you were safe?”

“Let’s see… Perhaps because deep inside you still consider me an enemy? Or at the very least a naïve, idealistic obstacle?”

“Don’t be putting words in my mouth, doctor.”

“Why not? Isn’t that what you were thinking today? That I was a pesky do-gooder getting in the way of your macho display of aggression?” As the fury and helplessness of that afternoon flooded back, Helen felt too vulnerable sitting down. She pushed to her feet, then moved behind her chair, wanting an additional barrier between them.

“I didn’t come here to defend my actions, doctor. I took the action I deemed necessary to remove a potential threat to the lives of the villagers. We learned that the prisoner had not armed the explosives yet. The police bomb squad has come and removed the explosives. If not for the storm, you’d hear the villagers celebrating.”

“I’m relieved that the villagers are safe,” Helen said. “But I still think the first response should have been a mass evacuation, not torture.”

“We had no way of knowing if the prisoner had booby-trapped the roads. It’s been known to happen. Using force against the prisoner was the least dangerous way of getting the information we needed to save lives.”

“You just admitted that the information you received wasn’t immediately life threatening. So I don’t see how that justifies torture.”

“While I respect your right to stand by your beliefs,” Lachlan replied, “I don’t regret what I’ve done. Given the knowledge we possessed at the time, I honestly believed lives were at stake. If you can’t accept that, well, I can’t force you to understand. But know that I did not make the decision lightly.”

She glanced away. The one thing she could point to whenever someone compared her to her mother was that she’d never deliberately harmed another person or allowed harm to fall to someone under her care. But that was not something she cared to share with MacKay. “Violence should not be the first response to a threat. Particularly not in a region that’s being torn apart by violence.” He started to speak, but she talked over him. “Yes, this area has been free of rebel attacks, but the villagers have radios. They’ve heard the stories of the atrocities committed by the rebels. They need to know that the village and their homes are places of safety. They deserve to know that when they visit the clinic, that too is a place of safety.” Grief and frustration stole her breath and she fought to take in enough air. “But what you and David did this afternoon has destroyed that sense of safety. You’ve turned the clinic into a place of violence.”

“That’s not—”

“Yes, it is true. Not only that, you’ve jeopardized the entire future of the clinic.”

“What?”

Helen thought back to the phone conversation she’d had with Gloria after she’d woken from her nap. “My boss is furious. If word gets out that a patient was tortured at the clinic, and that I failed to stop it, then no one will want to invest in us. And we won’t last another two months without outside funds.”

“You weren’t responsible for what we did. We kicked you out.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Helen’s voice cracked. “What’s important is that I lost control of the clinic. It’s no longer a place of safety.” She’d turned the clinic into a model for the region. She’d convinced the skeptical villagers to trust the white lady who spoke their language and understood their customs. She’d felt accepted. And proud that she could point to the fact that because of the clinic, fewer children fell seriously ill and many more women survived childbirth.

“In one afternoon, you and David have wiped out every success I’ve achieved since I arrived. Would you want to bring your child to be treated by a doctor who allowed a man to be tortured?”

MacKay flinched.

Too bad. Where had his remorse been when she needed him to put a stop to David’s plan? The damage had been done. She didn’t know if either the clinic or her reputation would ever recover.

“Stop talking about us as if we were as bad as those CIA interrogators,” MacKay snapped. “What we did was nothing compared to that.”