WAR: Intrusion (45 page)

Helen poured some rubbing alcohol over her hands and began scrubbing up. Mrs. N’Dorah moved up beside her. She gave Helen a warning glance out of the corner of her eye as she removed her own gloves.

For the moment, she and Mrs. N’Dorah were unguarded. Natchaba was watching the transfer of the prisoner with an almost bored expression. His back was partially turned to Helen. All the guards were occupied with her patient. Did she dare attack Natchaba?

As if sensing her thoughts, Natchaba turned fully toward her. He gave her a chiding look and raised a pistol, aiming at her chest.

The lights went out.

Helen pulled Mrs. N’Dorah down onto the wooden boards of the platform as Natchaba fired. Helen shoved Mrs. N’Dorah off the platform onto the cavern floor, where she’d be safer.

With a crash that caused Helen to flinch, the light stands toppled over. Men howled in pain. The light stands must have hit them. Good.

Using the chaos as cover, Helen flicked on her lighter and tossed it into the basin of rubbing alcohol. As she rolled off the stage, she lashed out with her arm and knocked the flaming spirits onto the wooden floor at the base of the operating table.

Helen landed hard on her right shoulder and the impact drove the air from her lungs.

“Quickly!” Mrs. N’Dorah beckoned to Helen from underneath the platform.

Helen crawled toward her and Mrs. N’Dorah scooted back to make room. Once they were both hidden from view of the rebels still standing on the platform, Helen wriggled out of her white lab coat, grateful that she wore dark clothing underneath. She removed the scalpel from the pocket, then shoved the coat behind her.

One of the lanterns along the edge of the cavern shattered and went out. Then a second one.

All around them men cried out in fear. “The operating theater is on fire!”

“What is happening?”

A man screamed in pain. More lanterns were shot out. More men screamed.

“There’s a sniper! Get down.”

“No, run!”

Boots slapped against rock as the rebels panicked. Helen heard Natchaba shouting above the commotion. “The prisoners. Do not let our prisoners escape.” But he sounded farther away than she expected. Peeking around the corner of the platform, she spotted him to the left of the side passage where the injured man had been taken. Natchaba had crouched down behind a rock formation and two of the guards from the stage stood between him and the direction of the sniper.

Helen pulled back. Then she eyed the crowd. Not all of the men were stampeding toward the exits. Some had their weapons out and were moving low to the ground against the mob, heading for the place where the shots had come from. But then the shooter fired again, killing another man, and the angle suggested that he’d moved.

Was it Lachlan or one of his men?

Whoever it was, Helen was grateful for the distraction. It just might save her and Mrs. N’Dorah.

A rebel fell just a few feet in front of her. From the dark stain on the front of his uniform, he was either dead or would soon bleed out. Helen checked in both directions before crawling out. She took his pistol, and then, with only a faint flicker of guilt for not trying to help him, she scurried back to her hiding place.

Used to the shotgun she’d kept at the clinic, the pistol felt too small in her hand. But she was grateful to have a more substantial weapon than the scalpel. “Do you want this?” Helen asked in a whisper, holding out the scalpel toward Mrs. N’Dorah.

“No, doctor. You keep it. I fear I will trip and cut myself.”

“Okay.” The crowd was thinning. Pretty soon, there wouldn’t be enough rebels to provide cover for them.

“We have to make a break for it,” Helen whispered to Mrs. N’Dorah. Thanks to the sniper, the only light remaining was from the fire on top of the stage, which was already dying down, and lanterns set farther back in the rows of stalagmites. Helen hoped the darkness would help conceal them.

“We’ll go that way.” Helen pointed to a passageway through the stalagmites to their left. “That’s not in the sniper’s current target area.” Many of the rebels had fled that way, but Helen would deal with that once they were out of Natchaba’s line of sight.

Mrs. N’Dorah nodded.

They both rose to a runner’s starting position. Not knowing where else to put it, Helen held the pistol in her right hand.

“Wait until the next shot,” she said.

A moment later, the shooter loosed a hail of bullets. When he finished, Helen burst forward. Within a few steps Helen realized that she was pulling ahead. She slowed, grabbed the older woman’s hand, and tugged her faster.

They were several yards from the safety of the stalagmites when someone sounded the alarm. “There they are! Stop them.”

A bullet ricocheted off the rock floor inches from Helen’s foot. Then there was another burst of gunfire behind them. She heard men cry out in pain and the thud of bodies hitting the ground.

With a final burst of speed, Helen dragged Mrs. N’Dorah in between the stalagmites. She immediately dodged left, tugging Mrs. N’Dorah with her so that they didn’t run into the rebels at the exit who were even now turning and pointing at them. “Come on, you can do it,” she urged when Mrs. N’Dorah started to slow. “Not much farther.”

On instinct, she changed course, zigging and zagging through the stalagmites to her right. But the footing here was uneven. Mrs. N’Dorah stumbled, so Helen slowed to a walk. A heartbeat later, a barrage of bullets chewed up the stalagmites where they’d just been.

One of the rebels yelped. “You fool! Careful where you aim. That ricochet almost hit me.”

Helen’s heart leapt into her throat. The rebels were too close. Seeing a darker space in between two rock formations, Helen moved toward it, hoping it would provide an exit. She didn’t dare try to hide them behind one of the larger rock formations because she feared that Mrs. N’Dorah’s labored breathing would give them away.

The space was barely wide enough for someone to fit through sideways. As Helen waited for Mrs. N’Dorah to squeeze her body through, she picked up a couple of loose rocks. Once Mrs. N’Dorah was safely on the other side, Helen threw one rock as far to her left as she could. It landed with a satisfying clatter.

“Did you hear that?” One of the rebels asked.

Helen threw another rock, this one in the same direction. As the rebels moved toward the sound, she threw her last two rocks at spots moving closer to the main cavern, hoping the momentary distraction would be enough for her and Mrs. N’Dorah to put a safe distance between them.

Once the rebels had moved out of earshot, Helen slipped through the gap. It opened into a sort of passageway running between the stalagmites and the wall of the cavern. Out in the main cavern the sounds of gunfire continued. Only now it sounded as if the rebels were firing back.

There was little light here, just the faintest illumination from some source far ahead to their left. Behind them and to the right, she heard the footsteps of a large group of men heading their way.

“Hurry,” Helen whispered. Taking the lead again, she moved as quickly as possible without making noise. But it wasn’t long before she realized that the marching rebels were catching up with them at the same time the light was growing brighter. The only place to hide was back on the other side of the stalagmites. But they were packed particularly tightly here.

Come on, come on, there had to be some place where they could slip through.

Helen finally found a low opening where two stalagmites curved away from one another like the above ground roots on a baobab tree. She helped Mrs. N’Dorah through, then wiggled through herself just as the rebels came into view.

Scooting away from the hole, Helen pressed her face to a smaller gap farther up the formation. About fifteen rebels, each carrying a rifle, marched past. Thankfully, the noise of their footsteps was loud enough to hide Mrs. N’Dorah’s heavy breathing.

No sooner had they disappeared, than a man driving a forklift barreled down the corridor heading in the opposite direction.

Helen and Mrs. N’Dorah shared a puzzled glance. Then Helen indicated for Mrs. N’Dorah to follow her through the stalagmites and rock formations. She assumed that the rebels had been heading toward the exit. So, either she and Mrs. N’Dorah needed to find another way out where they wouldn’t be faced with multiple armed rebels, or they needed a secure place to hide until all the rebels had left and the women could exit without being spotted.

Unfortunately, the cover of the stalagmites soon began to thin. Then it intersected with a pathway leading from the main cavern to a side tunnel. Helen didn’t see any rebels nearby. “All right,” she said to Mrs. N’Dorah. “You run across. If someone spots you, I’ll take care of it.” She lifted the pistol she still held in her right hand.

Mrs. N’Dorah nodded.

Helen checked again that no one was in sight, then Mrs. N’Dorah dashed across the open space and into the relative protection of the widely spaced stalagmites. Helen waited a few heartbeats. When no one raised the alarm, she followed.

But just a few steps away from safety, a rebel walked into view from the main cavern. She thought he shouted as he raised his rifle toward her, but couldn’t be certain over the sound of gunfire. She lunged forward. Mrs. N’Dorah grabbed her arm and tugged. As Helen stumbled between the stalagmites, a burning pain tore along the top of her left shoulder.

“Keep going,” Helen whispered. “We have to get away.”

They zigged and zagged between the formations while the rebel behind them continued to shoot at them. None of the bullets hit them, but ricocheting pieces of rock did. Helen changed course, darting between two stalagmites into the main corridor. When she spotted a small passageway branching off to their right, Helen led Mrs. N’Dorah down it. They quickly moved out of the reflected light from the lanterns, so had to slow to a walk. Helen used her hand on the wall to guide her through the darkness, while Mrs. N’Dorah hooked her fingers through one of the belt loops on Helen’s pants and followed close behind.

Helen’s hand fell into space and she stumbled. She caught her balance, then grabbed Mrs. N’Dorah and pulled her into what she discovered was a slight alcove.

Her hopes that the rebel would continue along the main corridor were dashed when lantern light illuminated their passageway.

Helen put herself in front of Mrs. N’Dorah. She reversed the pistol and raised it over her head. When the rebel appeared in front of her, Helen smashed her gun down on his head.

He stumbled and dropped his rifle, but didn’t go all the way down. Instead, he grabbed Helen’s arm and flung her across the corridor. She hit the wall with her back, losing her grip on the pistol as her wrist slammed into a rocky projection. Dazed, she slid down to the floor in a sort of seated position. Then, partly because she was so dizzy and partly because her pistol wasn’t that far away, she let herself topple to her right, sprawling with her hand outstretched toward the gun.

The rebel attempted to pull Mrs. N’Dorah out of hiding, but she fought him, hitting him and clawing at his face. Helen’s fingers closed over her gun. The rebel’s back was to her. Helen raised the pistol.

Her hands shook. Hitting a man with the butt of her gun was one thing. Shooting him, maybe killing him, was another. She knew what damage a bullet did to a body. Knew that if she pulled the trigger, she was stepping over the do-no-harm line she’d set in order to distinguish herself from her mother.

The rebel dodged Mrs. N’Dorah’s swinging fist and tried to pull her out of the alcove, but she darted around him. Before Mrs. N’Dorah could fully get away, the rebel stuck out his leg. Mrs. N’Dorah tripped over it and went sprawling. The rebel raised his gun and pivoted toward Mrs. N’Dorah.

Helen fired multiple times at his back. He toppled forward.

Oh, God. Helen stared at the rebel’s unmoving body. Had she killed him?

“Here now, doctor,” Mrs. N’Dorah crooned. “Let’s put this away, all right?” She gently put her hands over Helen’s. Only then did Helen realize that her hands had been shaking so violently, she’d been in danger of accidentally firing the gun.

She let Mrs. N’Dorah take the pistol from her hands. But when the other woman went to slide it into the largest of Helen’s cargo pockets, she shook her head. “I don’t want it. I don’t think I could use it again.”

“Hush. That man would have killed me. Your shot saved my life.” Mrs. N’Dorah held the gun out to Helen. “You are a strong woman. A survivor. You will do whatever necessary to protect us.”

Helen stared at Mrs. N’Dorah, the woman’s words echoing in her head.
Whatever necessary…to protect…to protect…
Swallowing heavily, she nodded and accepted the pistol.

On a moment of clarity, Helen knelt beside the body. She took the man’s flashlight, but noted numbly that one of her bullets must have ricocheted off the wall, because the walkie-talkie was shattered. The man had extra magazines of ammunition in his pocket. Helen grabbed those as well, then picked up his rifle and slung it over her shoulder.

Then she froze, staring at the man she’d killed.

She’d taken a life. She hadn’t intended to kill the man when she fired, just to stop him from hurting Mrs. N’Dorah. But the result had been the same.

“Doctor? Are you ready?”

Helen forced back a shiver and nodded.

“Good. Now come.” Mrs. N’Dorah pulled Helen to her feet. Helen winced, because that was her bad arm.

“Doctor?”

“Here, hold the rifle please.”

With a moue of distaste, Mrs. N’Dorah reached for the weapon and slipped her arm through the carry strap. She also accepted the extra magazines. Then she frowned. “What is wrong?”

“I got nicked by a bullet,” Helen said. “Let me put a quick bandage in place. She fished her handkerchief out of her pocket, folded it, then reached beneath the neckline of her shirt and stuck the makeshift pad over the wound. Without a way to secure it in place, the pad would shift if she didn’t hold it. Luckily, she thought she could navigate this section of the cavern even with her hand across her chest to hold the pad. And once the blood soaked into the pad, it would act as a mild adhesive and help prevent the pad from slipping.