Khadija changed like the clouds changed the shadows on the faces of the hills. Who was he kidding—she was more dangerous because he felt something for her and feelings were something he’d trained out of himself a long time ago.
He sat up and winced at the wound. It was a constant throb like an extra heart. He reached for his pack and pulled out a hashish cigarette, lit it, and inhaled the acrid smoke.
He didn’t like to blur his senses—not under these conditions—but the pain made it almost impossible to move and Allah knew he needed to keep moving. He stared across the fire.
Just looking at the soft curves of her form he felt his will soften. He shook his head. The funny thing was he’d known he would feel something for her just from listening to all of Yaqub’s stories.
The brother had loved the sister very much, had described her beauty and her strength and intelligence and caring. What Yaqub hadn’t described was the effect the woman would have on Michael—the way all her qualities coalesced into something that spoke of—precious life?—that sent a heat running deep into the cold empty places where Michael dwelt.
He inhaled another deep draft of hashish. Khadija tried to mine him like the old miner after lapis—using heat to loosen the semi-precious gem. The trouble was that fire could loosen his words. Better to keep his heart hard.
Another long pull of the smoke and he released it in a series of small concentric circles. The pain eased its clamp on his side. Or perhaps he just didn’t care anymore. Soon he would face the tasks of saddling the horse and mounting, and then the long hours of riding. He wanted to be numb by then.
When he looked back at her, her green-brown eyes were open, considering him. He stood and took another drag, the cigarette sizzling as it burned to the roach. The sun had fallen westward beyond the mountains and dusk would come quickly. At least there were no contrails. No sign of the impending war. But soon.
“We need to get moving.”
She sat up. “It’s not nightfall for a few hours yet.”
He shrugged.
“Won’t caution serve us best?”
The folds of the chador framed her face. In the faded daylight her features were a picture of grace and symmetry, even with the little lines of worry between her brows.
“Caution slows us.” He tamped the roach between his fingers and pocketed it, exhaling the last of the smoke and feeling the muzzy gentling of the fire in his side.
“This is about more than escape. But then, you know that.”
He heard his own bitterness and turned away, but felt her nearness as she came to him but did not touch. Not like when she came from the river. There was none of that tempting. Another shift of the clouds of Khadija.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He ignored the unspoken question and left to catch the horse while she packed their few possessions into the medical bag. The bandages were almost gone. The last of the antibiotic had long been used to treat both their wounds.
Not that it had done any good for him. He winced as he tightened the girth under the animal’s belly.
She brought him the last of the partridge from their previous night’s meal. Their supply of lentils and rice was perilously low, so they were dependent upon whatever he could shoot on the trail. Thank God for the Pakistani rifle. Most nights he had been able to find something. The landscape was actually full of life—if one knew how to see. He rubbed his eyes against a sudden double vision and caught himself against the horse.
“Michael? Are you all right?”
“Just the hashish, doll. Just the hashish.”
“It’s not good for you. You need to eat more, too.” She held out the wing of meat she nibbled. “You can have mine, if you like. I’m not hungry.”
He pushed her offering away.
In truth the pain had taken his appetite away, but thirst was becoming a problem. He could down half the water bag at one sitting if he wasn’t careful, and it was becoming harder and harder to be prudent with their supply.
He didn’t like what that meant. Sometimes he felt his fever thickening his thoughts. Even the hashish was better than that. They mounted and he looked at the egg-crate peaks of the mountains before him. They seemed to stretch forever. He had to get through them soon or he might not get there at all.
The ride took them almost due south into darkness. Night masked the stark landscape. Skazar could not be much further—a few days at most. It was a larger town and with a larger town it might be easier to gain the supplies he needed to make it through the mountains.
“You’re avoiding my question, Michael. If this isn’t just escape, what is it?” She shifted against him and he felt his body react—even through the muzzy hashish cloud. She still had that effect, no matter her allegiances.
He was too tired to spar with her. Too tired for far too much. In truth he’d been so tired for so many years it seemed like he had lived lifetimes.
“All right. As well as having information Hashemi wants, I have information he doesn’t want me to share. That information’s critical to the safety of the world. Something big is about to happen in China that could lead to a war. I just don’t know when.”
The hashish let him hear the absurdity of his words. He snorted laugher. His damned head ached. Lights seemed to dance in the darkness. Fireflies? He’d not seen them since he was a child in New Hampshire. He’d not thought they lived in Afghanistan. Did they? The idea made him chuckle.
“Happy now? You asked how I came to be Hashemi’s prisoner—he caught me bringing a warning to the Amrikaayi you so hate. The jihad plots to blow up a nuclear reactor in the heart of China’s major oil fields. It’ll be seen as a major blow at the economic heart of China and Sino-American relations will be blown right out of the water. It’s likely to start a war and I’m trying to stop it. Is that enough for you? Now will you quit with your damned questions?”
The light of the fireflies hurt his eyes. They buzzed around him, buzzed in his ears, filled his head. Buzzing and the crack of stone on stone as rocks rolled from the horse’s hooves and the earth groaned under the burden of humanity. The wind in his ears carried the voices of all those who died. Yaqub and screaming.
He gripped the reins harder.
“You are the keeper of secrets and I can’t hide. You are the beauty of the world but I am trapped on the ground. You are the direction of spirit, but I am caught only watching clouds.”
Rumi again. Had he spoken it aloud? He wished they rode near the river. He’d like to douse his head to clear his mind.
“That’s a heavy burden, Michael.” Softly, so softly she spoke he could almost think it was his own thought. “I wish you’d shared it earlier.”
“Sharing’s not an option. People die.”
“And so you choose not to live to keep them safe.”
Her words chased the muzziness away. He tried to see her face. How long had they ridden? What had he said? He looked up at the sky. Clouds hid most of the stars. In the mountains there would be snow. The Anjoman Pass would be more difficult. The fireflies returned, almost blinding him. He swiped at them, but it made no difference.
“It’s time to call a rest.”
He reined in and slid off the saddle, but his legs were someplace else—gave under him. Khadija caught his arm. Where had she come from?
“Michael.”
He jerked away and went to squat on his heels, but he swayed and almost fell. Had she seen? He looked up. The fireflies were gone. Now streaming colors filled the night. They hummed in the sky, hurt his head, until he covered his eyes.
When she touched his shoulder, he pushed her aside. “Leave me. I’m the one they want. I’m the one with too many secrets buried inside. Get out while you can.”
“Michael?”
A soft touch on his brow. He yanked away. He needed none of her and her cloud-shadow ways.
“You’re burning up.”
“You think I don’t know that? Your damned antibiotics did no
thing. You can’t heal me anymore than I can heal the faults in this land or the flaws in your people. You helped me die and I helped your country fail? How’s that for a trade?”
The humor of the situation caught in his chest. Laughter boiled out of him. It was better than the anger, better than the bitterness. Better than the desire to die.
“I spent my whole fucking life trying to do something for this country, and all I’ve done is fail.”
Gentle hands on his chest. Gentle hands pushed him back.
“No!” He lashed out, and his fist met something soft. He struggled to his feet. “You can’t have my secrets, bitch. I paid for those secrets. So did others—far better than you.” He turned away and plunged into the colors, the snowstorm of colors. Let them bury him.
“Michael!” The voice came from such a long distance. It was no friend, certainly. Easy to be sure of that, when you have no friends. More laughter ate his side.
A stone tripped him and he sprawled onto the gravel. The heels of his hands found jagged rock.
“Something else to get infected,” he said with a chuckle.
Let the earth open and swallow him. It was all he could ask. All he deserved. He tried to get up, but his legs betrayed him. Why not them, too? Everything else had. Did. Would.
A strong hand rolled him over. Roselight showed a beautiful face with eyes the shades of night.
“Are you a houri?” He chuckled at the idea of Paradise.
“Shhh.”
Hands on his vest, his shirt, hiking them up and: “Bloody hell, Michael. Why didn’t you tell me?” Thickly accented English.
“Not my doctor, didn’t you say?” The giggle welled up, and became a bark of pain as she tore something from his side.
“Oh my God. Stay here.”
And then the rose-colored face was gone, the earth quaked and there was only darkness and the wind that came with falling.
Chapter 35
“Allāhu akbar—God is great,” Khadija prayed as she stumbled over stones in the darkness. “Let him live. Let him live.”
How had he managed to hide this from her for so long?
Because you trusted him to tell you. Because you were so consumed with your honor and your worries that you didn’t even ask!
She grabbed the gelding’s reins and dragged the horse and the medical pack tied to its saddle back to the man lying on the ground. He was still when she returned, but his lips moved when she touched him. His hand closed around her wrist.
“Kohendil?”
A Pashtun name.
“It’s me, Khadija.”
“Kohendil. You have to get word to Sirdar Khan. Their troops move from Helmund this way.” The hardness of his voice frightened her.
“Shhh. Michael. Don’t talk. Stay still.” She did not want his names. She did not want to know.
In the dark she couldn’t see what she dealt with, only smell the stench, feel the heat and the swelling in his side. She needed light. Somehow she found fuel in the darkness, stealing fodder from the gelding, anything else that might burn. She needed light!
The wind blew colder when she returned to where he should be. He wasn’t. She shivered as she stared into the night. Where had he gone? The horse still grazed nearby.
“Michael!” The wind stripped his name away, leaving her alone in the dark. Please Allah, she had to help him. She wanted to run into the night to find him but knew she dared not lose the horse and their few supplies. In his condition, he could not have gone far. Stripping off her chador, she started in a spiral from the medical bag and nearly tripped over him. He had tried to crawl away.
“Michael,” she said, on her knees beside him.
She rolled him over and his eyes flashed open. His fist caught on her cheek and sent her back onto her butt. Her vision blurred with stars.
She held his hands, trying to stop his thrashing, repeating his name over and over. Finally he collapsed.
He still breathed. At least he breathed but his body quaked with fever. She released him and found it was her who trembled when she couldn’t afford to be afraid. She retrieved the fuel and the medical bag and set about making camp on the sere slope where he lay.
There was no shelter, but she could not move him. He simply weighed too much.
She shifted rocks to make a hearth and fought the wind to make fire, sheltering the flame with her body. Finally, it caught.
It was a welcome eye into the darkness, but what she saw of Michael was no comfort. His side was hideous. The flesh had healed over but the wound had festered, its edges now black. The stench of putrescence was overpowering. As she’d feared, the wound had healed from the outside, stopping the drain of infection.
“How could you let this happen?” No one answered as she heated a pan of water and seared the old scalpel in the flame. She turned back to him, holding the heated metal with the edge of the petu he had used to keep her warm after the river. The stench of burning wool caught in her nose.
The river dousing would have exacerbated his wound. The dressing would have been soaked through, the dampness a perfect breeding ground for bacteria.
“What kind of doctor are you? You had an injured man in your care and you don’t check his progress? Not even after he helped you?”
“But he seemed fine, strong. So strong.”
And that was it, wasn’t it. She hadn’t demanded to check his wounds because she’d been scared of that strength, scared and fascinated and angry at him for making her feel safe, when she was so weak and confused. She’d told herself to let him be—that she didn’t need him—that she would not treat her enemy. But he wasn’t her enemy.
“Michael, this’s going to hurt like hell.”
No response. Probably better that way. She looked warily at his hands, her cheek still throbbing from his last blow, but there was no way to tie him that wouldn’t get in the way of her work. She lifted his arm across his body and began.
At the first incision, green ropes of liquid pulsed from the wound. She sat back, wanting desperately to find clean air to breathe. She didn’t deserve it. He’d borne the pain for so long, the least she could do was bear the stench. She leaned in closer, gagging, as the firelight flickered over the oozing sore.
So much for the chloramphenicol. The wound was far worse than it had been at the cave and she had no antibiotics now.
She lanced the exit wound and allowed more of the filthy fluid to drain onto the ground, gathering more fuel as the fire flickered towards death.
With the scalpel she carved the blackened flesh away, seeking clear, red blood before she stopped. Then she allowed herself to sit back for a moment.
Let the blood carry the poisons away. Then she would take the next step.
Michael muttered again, his head thrashing back and forth as if he relived something he did not want to see. His mouth released a long string of names and towns he had memorized in verse. They were far too memorable, because she did not want them.
She clenched her fists over her ears, but his hands started tearing at the scabs on his chest. She grabbed his fists, held them, waiting, waiting as the names filling her head and then he went still.
His eyes flashed open as she readied the boiling water and a syringe. They locked on her face.
“Yaqub? Yaqub, is it you, my friend? How can it be?”
Khadija couldn’t move, couldn’t speak as his pale gaze roamed over her face. His skin was slicked with sweat that glittered in the firelight.
His hand flashed out and caught her wrist. “Yaqub, we should leave. There’s nothing more we can do.” He cocked his head as if listening.
“I know. The Hazzara women. But we can’t get to them. We’ve got the others to get out. We have to leave now.”
A low moan came from his belly and he lashed out. His voice rose in a scream. Then he shuddered.
“Noooo! Yaqub! No!” His body arched up off the soil.
“Allah, no. No.” She gagged on the words. The world trembled around her
. Not Yaqub. Not her Yaqub. Her legs gave so she sat down hard beside Michael.
He had said her brother was his friend—more than friend it seemed. Which said that Mirri’s information had not been true. All that she had done. All the messages she had passed.
She wanted to be sick at what she had done in the name of honor and revenge.
She could barely see as she filled the syringe with boiling water. She had hated so much. All the time she had been working against the very things Yaqub had sought to do, to protect. How many people had she harmed by her error?
“You can’t die, Michael. For Yaqub. For the man he was. I’m sorry. I’m so bloody sorry.”
She wept as she stuffed the corner of his petu into his mouth and sprayed the stream of boiled water into the wound.
He screamed, then collapsed.
The gelding trotted a few strides, then stopped to graze again. Khadija inspected the wound, then went back to the fire. The water had cleaned out the worst of the poison, but there was one more thing she could do. She heated the scalpel again, holding the handle wrapped in her petu and praying the tempered steel would accept what she would do.
The woolen petu smoked and she had to change hands many times. The blade blackened first, then grew hotter until the steel began to glow. It was probably as hot as this small fire could get—what with the altitude and the poor fuel. She bowed her head, then lifted the scalpel to Michael.
“Allāhu akbar—God is great!” She said as she placed the heated metal against his tortured flesh.
Smoke! The stench of burning! But it was better than the rot that had been. Again, she reheated the scalpel, repeated her action, trying to cauterize the worst of the wound. Whether she had caught it in time, she didn’t know.
When she was done, she dug into the medical pack for the last of the dressings and finished bandaging the wound. There was nothing for it. At Skazar the medicines would have to be replenished and Inshallah, she would begin to undo all the evil she had done.
At Skazar they would have to evade Hashemi.
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