The Ides of Matt 2015

by M. L. Buchman

  The woman’s hair was a lush cascade of mahogany that spilled over her shoulders. If she’d had a niqāb, the scarf was long gone. Her shapely face had a broad openness that belonged on television.

  She squinted one eye open at him and he realized he was staring, but even in her current state of disarray she was well worth a second look. He swung the flashlight rapidly downward and caught the dark red stains on the little girl’s hem and the still bright stain on the woman’s arm.

  “Come,” he stepped forward and took her opposite arm, the one that held the child, and guided her toward the helo. He could feel her stagger beneath his grasp as if she’d collapse in the next step.

  He knew he shouldn’t burden himself, all his training said to keep his hands free, but he scooped the girl into the crook of his own arm and supported the woman back to the helo. The girl clung to his neck as he bounced her on his hip the way he’d seen his sister do with Lee’s niece.

  “Where are you hurt?” There was no room in his Little Bird to minister to her. The small two-seat cockpit was a tight fit. The rear seat was filled with ammunition cans for the mini-guns mounted to either side. Lee guided her to sit on a nearby rock.

  “Am I hurt?” the woman asked with mild curiosity that his medical training had said was a bad sign.

  “Excuse me. But I’m going to have to touch you again.”

  First, he checked the child. She didn’t complain even though he made a point of pressing everywhere and moving her limbs. Then, so that she wouldn’t run off, he placed her between the woman’s knees and hoped she’d stay.

  “What are your names?” Lee asked in a light sing-song voice hoping to soothe the child as he began checking over the woman.

  “I’m Donya,” she hissed sharply when he probed her ribcage and the girl whimpered in response.

  Great! It couldn’t have been her arm, could it? He checked the rest of her, but it was definitely her left side. The sleeve of her robe was only stained from being pressed hard against her wounded side. He could feel the wetness in the cloth through the thin gloves he’d pulled on.

  “Donya Nakhla.”

  Startled he looked back at her face, blinding her with his headlamp. He immediately looked down again. She certainly did belong on television. How many hours had he watched Donya Nakhla’s insightful reporting while he was learning Arabic? It had been a tough learn for an Air Force brat from Arizona and watching her had certainly eased the path.

  “What’s your daughter’s name?” he asked to distract them both—her from her pain and him from…her. He slipped on his NVGs and scanned the wadi once to make sure they were still alone.

  Then he replaced it with a small headlamp, flicked it to its narrowest beam and turned it on. Her whole side was a bright red. He shouldn’t even be touching an Arab woman, much less pull up her robe up around her high enough to expose, well, everything. He hadn’t felt a bra. Did she even wear anything beneath the robe? She must, but it was best not to find out what.

  The fighting, which had fallen off for the last few minutes was rejoined with renewed vigor over to the west. The muted hammer of .50cal and the higher pop of NATO 7.62mm rounds sawed back and forth through the darkness.

  “Here,” he pulled the NVGs over Donya’s head. “Can you see through them?”

  “Everything is green.” Still alert. No slurring in her voice. Good signs.

  “Keep a watch all around us. If someone comes, they’ll shine bright green in your view.”

  “What should I do if I see someone?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Oh. Yes.” And now he was worried again.

  “Your daughter’s name?” Because of course a woman as stunning as Donya Nakhla was married. Where was her husband, the man who should have kept her from being bloodied? Then he thought it through and decided it would be kinder if he didn’t ask. He pulled out his K-bar knife and eased the red-stained fabric away from her side. Rather than removing her robe, he’d make a side slit to inspect her through and hope it was enough.

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked up at her face again, careful not to flash his light in her NVGs. She sounded coherent, mostly. Was she fading in and out or…

  She was attentive enough to stroke the little girl’s hair where she lay upon Donya’s lap, nearly asleep.

  Time to stop the bleeding. He found a small tear, inserted his blade in the hole and sliced the side of the robe, pulling it open gently. A thin linen shirt beneath that, also heavily red. He slit that as well. Blood was smeared everywhere from the side of her breast down to her hip.

  “This will be a little cold,” he warned and rinsed the area with a squeeze bottle of water. Actually, the desert was so hot, even at night, that the water was nearly body temperature anyway.

  Then he spotted the long slice.

  “You were stabbed?”

  “Oh. Yes of course. That was it.” Her voice sounded stable, smooth and sophisticated, whatever trauma her mind and body were dealing with.

  Under different conditions, he’d do his damnedest to sidle up to a woman who sounded like that and looked the way she did, and reported the way she did. He’d earned himself more than a small crush during training. A lot of the guys in class with him had the same reaction, but he liked to think he was the least crass about it.

  At the moment, he fished for the glue in his med-kit and hoped it was the right thing to do; he was no corpsman.

  “I had forgotten that I was stabbed.”

  “You forgot?”

  “Yes. It has been a busy evening.”

  To his non-professional eye, it was strictly a surface wound. There was a long slice along her skin, just missing the side of her breast and running over the tops of the ribs. He pulled out a Quik-clot bandage and smoothed it over her wound as gently as he could. He managed to tape it in place without touching her too inappropriately, but it wouldn’t stay without a full wrap around her rib cage. He tried to figure out how to do that without pulling up her robe, and was again at a loss.

  Instead, he placed her arm tight against her side, then used a four-inch Israeli Emergency Bandage to wrap around her torso and hold her arm in place.

  She was still scanning the wadi. Something wasn’t matching.

  Didn’t know her daughter’s name, had forgotten she’d been stabbed, but was alert and answering his questions.

  He’d done all he could. The sounds of distant gunfire rattled in the distance.

  “Can we depart yet?” She kept that perfect voice of hers soft and smooth. Her English was American, but with an utterly charming lilt of the Arabic overlaid in the rhythms of it.

  He gently took the goggles back from her and pulled them on himself after dousing and removing his headlamp. A quick scan showed that the sounds of battle above still hadn’t drawn any attention down into their hideaway.

  He radioed the question back to Captain Moretti’s drone for relay. Nope.

  “Not yet,” he sat beside Donya on the rock.

  3

  “What’s your daughter’s name?” Lee tried to make the question sound innocent, but was still unable to gauge the woman’s well-being.

  “She’s not my daughter. That’s why I don’t know,” the girl was now asleep in Donya’s lap. She tried to bend down over the girl, but hissed sharply and sat back up slowly. Once she had her breath back, she continued, “She is too young to have learned her own name yet as well.”

  “Where are her parents?”

  “They were shot down in their own living room, as punishment for hiding me with their daughter. I owe them a life debt, but I didn’t know their names either. I waited until nightfall before leaving, but I couldn’t leave the girl behind as none had come to claim her even after her parents’ bodies had been dragged away.”

  The words were horrible, but the anger in Donya’s voice wa
s so thick that it he could feel it slicing through her. Unsure what else to do, Lee wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

  She leaned her face into his shoulder and he could feel the tears that ran down her face dampen his sleeve, though no sobs shook her body. There was no more questioning her bravery than her deep-rooted anger. He’d had bad tours, landed in the hospital more than once from nightmare battles. He knew about the bad days being even worse than you’d ever thought possible.

  So, he simply let her cry; let her purge.

  When she at last recovered, she made no move to sit upright, but kept her head against his shoulder.

  Each time he turned to look past her to scan for possible intruders, his face ran into her hair. He was holding an injured woman with a child that wasn’t hers deep in hostile territory and hoping that he wasn’t about to create an international incident. And all he could think about was how incredible it felt to hold her and how exotic her smell was. Her hair was like some unknown spice, a smell as rare as the Sonoran Desert after a hard rainfall that made the saguaro cactus bloom for a single magic day.

  As a distraction, he asked about just what had been her day.

  Caught in the middle of a riot.

  A protest against the current military government, suppressed with unblinking brutality. Chaos, she’d seen dozens die when troops had stormed her news station’s office under cover of the protests. A reputable, if vocal station, that would have an entirely new staff supplied by the government for tomorrow’s broadcasts. As far as she knew, she was the only survivor. Her hiding place beneath the brightly lit anchor desk so obvious that no one had looked there.

  “That is what is happening up there,” he could feel her head against his shoulder nodding toward the Suez. “Using the canal, the government already had gunboats in place before the riot started. They staged the riot to clear out unwelcome elements of the populace. Everyone who flocked to the protest was arrested or shot. At least that must have been their plan. But someone else was waiting for them.” She nodded toward the sound of sporadic gunfire that was slowly moving farther and farther away.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I was able to confirm that it wasn’t the local protesters before I was spotted and stabbed. I collapsed and pretended death so they did not shoot me. Perhaps it is militias pushing out from Syria or Gaza. I don’t think it’s the Israelis because there are no jets or tanks. If this military government stands, it will be as much luck as control.”

  Another stray round cracked by, low above the wadi.

  He held her a little tighter as if he could protect her; somehow make her feel safe after such a day. She was wounded, had lost all her co-workers, and managed to survive. He was amazed that she could speak at all.

  4

  They talked long into the night. Every hour Lee left her and climbed the west wall to observe the battle. It was moving north toward El Qantara. Moretti kept holding him in place. From her vantage high above, she could still see patrols along the Suez.

  Less than a half kilometer away were people who would kill himself, Donya, and the nameless child on sight. And yet in their dark haven, they remained alone and undisturbed.

  While waiting, Donya began telling him about herself. She unwound her life backwards as slowly as the night stars were crawling forwards.

  A top reporter on Egyptian television. A native of Cairo sent by her father to be educated at Vassar College and Columbia University. Her father who had been purged along with the Muslim Brotherhood when they’d been thrown out of power.

  A girl who had dreamed of a better place than the one she grew up in and fought for it in every way she knew how.

  “That is gone now. You know that they have passed laws that a journalist can be jailed for reporting accurate numbers that aren’t the government’s ‘official’ numbers? Seven hundred dead in protests becomes seventy. A bomb kills a hundred? No, fourteen. And that is only the beginning.”

  In turn he told her of growing up in a military family, on both sides of the house. Mom mostly at sea—chief petty officer on a destroyer. Dad still a jet mechanic at Luke Air Force Base outside of Glendale.

  They spoke softly for hours. Whenever her words slurred, he’d force Donya to eat a little and drink some water, though she tried to decline every time. At first he didn’t want her to go to sleep because of her injury; he had no way to assess how much blood she’d lost. He inspected her several times, but there were no signs of additional blood seeping into her clothing; he’d done all he knew how. Now he didn’t want her to sleep also because how much he was enjoying her company.

  In addition to being passionate in her beliefs and an amazing survivor, Donya Nakhla was sharply intelligent—obviously smarter than he was—and so kind when the nameless girl awoke scared of the night. Kind, but he could see that it hurt her to hold and reassure the child. He didn’t dare give Donya more than the mildest of painkillers.

  He finally took the girl himself and rocked her until she fell asleep.

  “You are good with the child,” Donya sounded unsurprised.

  Lee was surprised to his very core, “First time holding one.”

  “It looks good on you.” A sliver-thin moon had risen and washed the dry river bed with a brush of silver. Donya’s dark eyes were so close, her face so…he pulled the goggles back down and scanned once again.

  Lee had never been so attracted to a woman who he’d done no more than help and talk to. As the night progressed, his crush on the stunning television reporter had been left behind by the reality of the incredible woman leaning against him.

  Moretti’s call to get out of there came as a shock, as if the real world had reached out to slap them both. The gunfire had faded and moved north. He’d tracked the battle, but while waiting for Moretti’s all clear, the desert had become silent except for their whispered words and the occasional creak from the helicopter as the temperature dropped.

  When she was unable to stand, he lifted Donya into the copilot’s position. The Little Bird wasn’t made for a third passenger, not even a child. He managed to rig a strap so that the girl could ride safely in Donya’s lap and not fall out the open side of the helo if he had to do some hard maneuvering. Taking an extra minute, he unrigged the cyclic joystick from the copilot’s side so that it wouldn’t be inadvertently kicked.

  He took them aloft, headed south and stayed as deep in the wadi as he could fly. Rather than heading ten miles north to cross the heavily populated Mediterranean coast as someone might expect, he turned south and flew a hundred miles over the desert. Well past Suez—the southern entry to the canal—he veered out into the Gulf of Suez and landed aboard the U.S.S. Peleliu that had been waiting for him.

  5

  Lee had tried to stay away, because he knew his attachment to a celebrity Egyptian reporter was utterly ridiculous. So instead, he’d delivered her to the infirmary, found his way to Chief Warrant Lola Maloney, and been debriefed on the mission.

  He’d eaten dinner and headed to bed. Night Stalkers flew at night and slept during the day, so this should be perfectly normal. Except the longer he lay there, the less normal it felt. Giving up on his finding comfort in his narrow bunk, he climbed up two decks and went for a run around the Hangar Deck, clocking a quick ten K. And when that didn’t help, he did ten more. A cold shower and he was back in bed.

  But his memories were sitting out in the silent desert, a small girl asleep in his arms, and a stunning woman at his side.

  A stunning woman with whom you have nothing in common, he reminded himself as he arrived outside the infirmary. No sign of Doc Evans or either of the nurses, he poked his head in still wondering what he hoped for. The ward was a half dozen beds packed tightly together; just enough room between them to get someone on and off the mattress. Only two of them were occupied.

  Whatever his expectations had been, Donya was asleep. Her bloody
clothes were gone. The hospital gown and thin sheet revealed that her figure, always hidden on camera by her traditional attire, went just fine with her face. There was no equipment hooked up to her which he took as a good sign.

  He should really get his sorry ass out of there.

  Then he spotted the girl, fussing in the next bed over. He scooped her up so that she didn’t disturb Donya. Lee turned to find the orderly on duty down the corridor and tell him that he was taking the girl out for a walk or food. Perhaps find someone who knew what to do with a small girl. But the instant he lifted her, she snuggled down against his chest and settled back to sleep.

  At a loss for what to do next, he sat down in a chair, rested his head back against the steel wall and watched the two women: the tiny one asleep in his arms and the other one…he didn’t know what.

  6

  Donya woke slowly, opened her eyes and was relieved to recognize gray steel and narrow beds. Ship’s infirmary. An American ship. She was safe and whole, a gift that her own country could no longer promise.

  She managed a shaky breath.

  And she was done. Her mother dead in the first riots of the Arab Spring. Her father and brother during the bloody aftermath of the military coup that followed two years later. She had given enough.

  Somehow she had to find a new start, a new way to help her people without dying in the process—for then she would be of no use at all.

  But any vision of the future eluded her.

  She needed time. Needed to get past yesterday’s anger and the horror of watching more sanctioned murders.

  Then she remembered last night. The pain that had lanced through her with every breath; the certainty that each step would be her last but finding the strength to take one more because of the young life she had chosen to carry and protect. Until she’d nearly collapsed into the arms of Sergeant Lee Ames.