A hand gripped Mohammed’s upper arm and pulled him from the safety of the cupboard. Mohammed tried to break away. “I’ll yell. The people will help me.”
“If you yell, you won’t find Khadija, will you?” The man’s soft voice carried more threat than any fist. It stopped Mohammed in his fight.
The speaker shoved him through the curtain to the second room, and then so he stumbled against the rear doorframe of the clinic. The door was open.
He stumbled out into the narrow lane and the man caught his arm and began to drag him uphill into the maze of narrow streets. His mind churned with questions. Who were these people? What had Khadija gotten involved in?
He heard traffic and knew they neared the Jadayi Maywand. He smelled wool and knew they passed through the carpet bazaar that stood at one edge of the old city. Then those sounds and smells were behind him and he no longer knew exactly where he was.
Except in danger.
Chapter 48
A pulse of fear and the glimmer of light in the eastern sky startled Khadija fully awake as she rode the gelding downhill. Something had woken her. Michael still lay across the pommel, his heat radiating into her legs.
He hadn’t regained consciousness last night, though she had tried to rouse him. By the heat of him she wondered at the fact he still lived at all.
That they both did.
Hashemi’s men had given her and the gelding no rest. The horse almost hobbled on three legs now as she looked behind. The animal’s head was down, his sides drenched with sweat, but the noble little animal still went on through the snow, even as his riders were so near collapse. Khadija’s hands shook on the reins. She could see nothing downslope, but she knew they were coming.
“Damn Hashemi. Damn them all.”
All night just as she had thought she was safe and might rest, might take the time to care for Michael, voices had driven her on. She placed her hand on Michael’s back and felt his chest move.
He needed a hospital. But in the snow there was not even shelter—only the need to keep going and the trial of climbing down from the horse to chip away the ice balls that formed in the bottoms of its hoofs. Each dismount had been an agony, but she’d had to do it: the ice balls left the gelding slipping and sliding, almost unseating her and Michael.
“How much farther?” she asked the dawn. “Please not much more.”
All she knew was that Michael spoke of the Panjshir Valley as safety—that and the stories of heroic Massoud. Perhaps his men would be waiting to help her.
Or Hashemi’s men. With the night and her wandering they could have passed her. That could be why there had been no clear voices for the last hour.
It could be because you slept as well.
Michael groaned, and she ran her hand over his damp hair. Allah, he was so hot—as if he burned from within.
“Stay with me. Medical help is close. We’ll get there,” she lied to herself.
The snow covered the open slope and the rough crags surrounding them, so she felt lost in a bowl of a world where white peaks went on forever. The wind had dropped in the night, but the snow had still fallen once they had left the pass. Here, there was only a thin layer that would melt with the rising sun. If only Hashemi and his men were left behind. She glanced over her shoulder again.
From what she had seen of the Arab, his men would have spent the night clearing the road while others followed. They would come. They would kill her and Michael. Stopping the message would be their only priority now, just as it was her priority to beat them.
The responsibility tightened her stomach—not like the cheap excitement she’d felt when she carried the message to Hashemi. That had been a stupid young woman’s adventure. This was like preparing for trauma cases in the E.R. Life and death.
The faint eastern light became a crown of streamers piercing the heavens and the mountains were crowned in a glory of gold.
“Life,” she whispered, her hand resting on Michael’s damp curls. “I want life.”
The sky became watercolor blue. Ahead, the road, discernable under the snow by the ruts worn by past traffic, disappeared between two crags of stone. They passed them and she reined in, feeling as if she’d stepped into some magic canvas of spring—some Xanadu.
The land fell away in front of her in great, grey-blue folds ringed in by the seemingly endless, white-capped mountains. Far away, to the south west, a haze of green trailed southwestward, speaking of fields in the valley bottom. The green seemed to wend its way towards them, up along a glittering string that fell away from their position.
The Parian River, the lifeblood of the Panjshir Valley followed the fold of the mountains. It must rise in the mountains northwest of where she sat.
She urged the gelding down through the snow. The warming air brought the sound of running water and snow collapsing off boulders and crags. A low rumble and a spume of snow brought Khadija’s gaze up to a neighboring mountainside. The heat had loosed an avalanche of snow and stone and earth down the far slope. She supposed it had been loosened in the quake last night and hoped the places they were to travel were still stable.
The gelding slipped. Slipped again and went to his knees. Khadija struggled to hold Michael but his limp weight was too much. He slid forward onto the horse’s neck and then tumbled to the ground as the gelding righted himself.
Khadija was out of the saddle and to Michael’s side before the horse could stop. It stood, head down, lame hoof raised in the air.
“Michael! Michael!” He lay unmoving. She checked his breathing, his pulse. Still just the fever. Just. It devoured him. She had to get his temperature down, but there was no place here to do it safely.
The horse snorted and sidled away, his ears flicking at her, at Michael, at the slope, as if trotting away would be a good idea. She could not afford to lose the horse and their few supplies. She went after him.
“Come on,” she gentled. “You’ve more ice balls, I think. I wish we could get down out of this snow. Don’t you wish it, too?”
She stepped forward, hand out. The animal had been faithful for so long. Don’t let it fail them now.
“It’s not far now. There will be trees soon, and grass—beautiful rich green grass along the river. I’ll bring you oats and you’ll live in my garden and grow into a fat old gelding.” Her desperation made her sound like a fool.
She lunged, caught the reins with shaking hands, and stroked the warm brown neck. She needed to be calm, but the adrenaline high she’d been working on was starting to wear off, leaving exhaustion in its wake. She led the horse to Michael. He still hadn’t moved, but the rise and fall of his chest said he still lived. His lips moved under the fever-flush of his cheeks.
Get the horse ready to go, then get Michael up. She would find a way. She fished in her pocket. The rusted scalpel had been her only tool to dig the ice from the horse’s hooves. She picked up the horse’s lame fetlock. Ice glittered blue in the cup of the animal’s hoof. She chipped at it, balancing the horse’s hoof on her lap, until suddenly the whole lump came loose. She released the animal’s leg and was repeating the action when she heard voices.
There was no cover on the slope, no place to hide. The sunlight suddenly was too bright and betraying, the crags she’d passed through too far upslope. And there was Michael, whom she would not leave. The horse’s ears twitched at the slope below them, where the road ran around another rock crag.
Male voices.
She repocketed the scalpel and unslung the rifle, but her cold hands didn’t work, and she couldn’t steady the long barrel of the gun.
“They couldn’t have gotten in front. They couldn’t.”
But the tears in her eyes said it was so. She was lost. Michael was lost. The world—life had lost. Please not that. Please. She dragged the gelding closer to Michael. If she could get him up they might escape. To where, she didn’t know, but she’d try. She’d promised.
She pulled his arm up over her shoulder, but his limp body resis
ted. It slid down when she lifted, folded when she needed him to straighten.
The voices came closer.
“Michael! Michael, wake up!”
Nothing. Sweat beaded his face. There was no way she could get him up.
The voices—she could almost make out words. A laugh.
They would hurt him. Hurt her. She grabbed the rifle again. She had never shot one before, but she’d seen enough of them. If young boys could use them, how hard could it be?
She stood over Michael, the horse’s reins in her hands, and fumbled with the bolt action to see if a shell was chambered. From around the crag came two figures.
Male. Kalashnikov rifles glittered darkly in the new sun.
“Stay where you are!” she ordered.
Khadija raised the rifle to her shoulder and prayed she did it correctly, that they wouldn’t see how her hands shook, wouldn’t hear how her voice shook.
The men stopped dead, surprise on their faces. They looked at each other and took another step forward, their weapons steady in their hands. How could she even think she could stand against them? She lowered her head as if taking aim.
“I said stop.”
The two men were dressed in salwar kameez with worn weapons vests over top. They wore the traditional Afghan flat cap and their beards were cut close to their chins, symbols of pride for those who resisted the Taliban.
“You’ll be dead before you can shoot us both.”
“Who are you? Who do you work for?” she demanded.
The two men grinned.
“An uncovered woman questions a man? What world is this? Who are you, who walks our land?”
“Are you—are you Fahim’s men?” Her rifle wavered as she spoke. She hoped she got the name right. If they were Hashemi’s men, they already knew her weakness. The men looked at each other.
“Who asks?” asked the taller one, weapon lifting to ready. He had a great burn mark across his left cheek that left a bare patch in his beard.
One shot and she was dead. Two and Michael would be dead as well and their message would not get sent, the world would end in war. She had to take a chance. She lowered the rifle.
“I don’t matter, but this man needs medical help. He has an urgent message for Marshal Fahim and the Amrikaayi.”
“Amrikaayi? Who is he?” The man with the scar lifted his chin, suspicion clear on his face. Had she erred again?
“Help him. He’s trying to stop a war!”
“A war? We have a war—have lived a war for my whole life. Will it end?” He wagged his head in equivocation—
—until a bullet slammed into him and sent him crashing backwards. The air rang with the weapon’s report and with a yell from upslope and the distant sound of a Jeep engine.
Chapter 49
Khadija swung her rifle around and slipped in the snow. The weapon went off.
“Hashemi!” she screamed.
The gelding snorted and trotted two steps away. The unwounded man was on his belly, Kalashnikov rattling, fanning upslope just past her position. Khadija threw herself over Michael to shield him. The wounded man groaned in the dirt. They had to get away, they had to get free.
The uninjured man slid to his friend, who clutched his side. The injured man motioned to her.
“Get them out of here. If this is a trap, make them pay. If she’s telling the truth, I’ll hold them as long as I can.”
The uninjured man was across the distance so fast it left her breathless. He had her, had twisted the rifle from her and her arm behind her back, before she could protest. Then he caught the horse and hefted Michael over the saddle.
“Try anything and I’ll kill you both.”
A shower of bullets slammed into the gravel around them as he led her at a run straight down the slope. To get out of range, she supposed. She’d seen Michael do it before. He had the scars to prove it. Above them the injured warrior let loose with a barrage of bullets, showering the double crag Khadija had ridden between. Had they been so close all night? If she had known, she would have died for fear.
The uninjured warrior cut across the slope, keeping the gelding and Michael between the gunfire and himself. Bullets spit gravel from the ground so the horse almost ran them over in its panic.
“No! Michael’s the one who has to live.” She grabbed the reins and tried to shift the horse to safety. The Panjshiri backhanded her and she tasted blood as he dragged her on. And then they were around the next crag and the bullets were behind them.
“If Amidullah dies it’s on your head.” Her captor was not a tall man and his scrubby beard spoke of not much age, but he was strong as she had seen and felt, and his gaze was brown as earth and solid.
“I don’t want his death, either, Inshallah.”
The young man’s gaze showed he almost believed her, even though she was a woman breaking oh-so-many cultural taboos just by speaking to him. “Who are you?”
“No one. A messenger. Our pursuers have chased us from Feyzabad. My—friend was a prisoner. He was tortured for what he knows. We have to get free.”
Past the outcroppings, the snow disappeared as a narrow vale opened. Through it ran a glittering strand of river. The water was white with rocks and melt from the snow, but the grass was green and the trees, though bare, rustled in a breeze that still carried a hint of summer. A thin streamer of smoke ran up into the air and then was tattered on the wind. Beyond the trees an open military Jeep acted as a road block.
“I am Safit of the Panjshir,” he said, his scrubby young man’s beard bobbing on his chin. “I am from Dasht-i-Rewat. My father had a gun such as this.” He motioned to Michael’s rifle, draped across his back. “It is very old. Not modern like this.” He patted the Kalashnikov in his arms like a proud parent. The stock of the gun had been carved and decorated with paintings, flowers, and the names of Allah.
They reached the grove of trees and another man came off the mountain slope just as a shout came from up hill. Amidullah came leaping down the slope, his hand bloody over his side, his breath wheezing in his lungs.
“I counted six,” he said as he fell against the Jeep, a wild smile on his lips. “There are three less now, but they have a Jeep and more men—who knows how many. Time to leave, I think.”
The three men herded her into the Jeep; they draped Michael into the back and Amidullah climbed in beside him, his face pale. Khadija crouched beside them.
“You have medical supplies?”
Safit said nothing, but Amidullah nodded.
“Drive,” Amidullah, obviously their leader, ordered. Safit needed no urging. He cranked the ignition and the third Panjshiri leapt aboard as Safit slewed the Jeep around and they left the copse of trees in a hail of stone that startled the gelding towards the river.
“As-salaam ‘alaykum,” she called after it, knowing she was a fool because her eyes were filled with tears. The animal had carried them so far.
She turned back to Amidullah.
“The medical supplies? I’m a doctor.”
Sweat stood out on his brow. The blood ran through his fingers as he nodded at an old munitions box in the bed of the Jeep. Khadija scrambled to it as the Jeep bounced over the washboard road. She yanked open the metal clamp and dug through the contents. Amidullah looked back and shouted as a closed-top Jeep came over the crest of the ridge behind.
Khadija’s vehicle careened around a bend in the road, throwing her over Michael as medical supplies scattered in the rear of the open Jeep. She grappled with the mess of dressings, syringes, tourniquet, and vials of drugs. They rattled as the Jeep leapt from pothole to pothole. Her fingers couldn’t seem to hold anything. She could barely keep from being thrown from the vehicle.
The Panjshiri man in the front seat was on his knees, facing backwards, Kalashnikov at his waist. Khadija looked behind. The other Jeep careened around the curve behind them in a cascade of gravel. The Panjshiri yelled and Khadija ducked as he let loose with a barrage at the following vehicle.
&n
bsp; Michael! Make sure he was all right!
But Michael wasn’t bleeding. She knew his status. Triage.
She pushed Amidullah back and ripped open his vest. The felted fabric was sodden and the grey salwar kameez was awash with red.
She pulled the fabric out of the way, revealing a bubbling crater in the man’s lower chest. She looked up at his face. Skin paling even as she looked. Blood on his lips. Blood flowing down his chin. The lung, then. The man was formidable just to have made it back to the camp.
A hail of bullets slammed into the Jeep and the Panjshiri gunman screamed, toppled, and fell from the vehicle, his weapon with him. Amidullah yanked Khadija down over him.
Safit slammed the gas peddle and the Jeep fishtailed on the road. Poplar trees flashed past on either side. The road curved. Curved again, denying their pursuers a clear shot. She pushed herself up from Amidullah. Her jalabiyya was sodden with his blood. His breath came in short gasps, but still his fingers held her upper arm.
“I have to get something on this or you’ll bleed to death.”
His black eyes were on her, his facial scar livid on the pallor of his skin. He nodded, but still did not release her. The vehicle crossed a narrow bridge and the road followed the river’s edge. The vehicle bounced so hard there was no way she could do anything other than try to stop the worst of the bleeding. She fumbled for dressings. Slapped one on his side.
Blood overwhelmed it. Another and she grabbed Amidullah’s arm, forced it down over the dressing.
“Hold it.” He was losing blood too fast. He needed fluids. She dug in the medical pack.
There had to be fluid packs. There had to be. She pulled equipment out of the case until she reached the bottom. Nothing. She turned back to him. His black eyes were on her, his breath ragged. The trickle from his lips had increased, rouging his lips like a child who had eaten too much pomegranate.
“You need blood. Where we’re going—is there a clinic? A doctor?”
Amidullah shook his head and his eyes fluttered closed. His fingers relaxed on her arm as he drew in a breath. It frothed in his mouth as he exhaled, as his head slumped to the side and his mouth went slack.
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