Lethal Cure
Page 18
His thundered “Calista!” drowned in the wind and blood whooshing in my head. Short of stopping to drag me in, he could do nothing but vibrate with fury. Though, maybe seeing my plan working might defuse him. The guerrillas were lowering their weapons, coming forward, even the couple manning the Jeep, intrigued, surprise clear in their body language. I could now see their faces. So they could mine. My gun-free hand tossed them an enthusiastic wave for a double whammy.
They started nudging one another now, laughing, exchanging merry obscenities and macabre plans, no doubt. I had no doubt anymore. I was in range. I could pick up a thug’s intention to hack me to pieces after violating me in every way his sick mind could come up with, within a hundred feet. They were loud about it. I understood the vicious tone well enough.
“They’re arguing, after they kill the men, who’ll—go first with you,” said Lucia. Always forgot she spoke Spanish.
All right. Good to know there was no ambiguity here. Unequivocal purpose was always appreciated. “They’re all in plain sight now. All together…”
One—two—three hard-muffled pops went off, silencing me. Silencing everything. Nickel-sized crimson blossomed on three guerrillas’ foreheads. Time hung still as the already dead men’s filthy consciousness blinked out, as their bodies froze in that last snatch at life, before going down like buildings in synchronized demolishing.
Damian! Not leaving much for us, huh? Must have taken extra exception to the guerrillas’ plans for us. Or for me?
Everything coexisted, all thought and movement and sound, actions and reactions. Damian hadn’t braked to a standstill and the Jeep crept closer to our enemies, our victims, in drop-frame motion. His first three shots segued into mine, then Lucia’s. Mine found two more foreheads, hers a shoulder and a thigh.
Damn. Shouldn’t have included her in this. Damian and I could have done this alone. A mistake.
Now we paid for it.
Her victims fell, already firing back, bullets spraying. Right at her. She screamed.
She fell back inside the Jeep, agony pouring from her lips and blood gushing down her forearm. My fear for her gained our enemies a priceless second.
Machine-gun fire bombarded our windshield. The outer glass layer fissured, shattered, the radiating white overlapping networks obscuring visual. The middle polycarbonate laminate held under the barrage. No telling for how long. Three uninjured men remained, running for their Jeep—make that two. Damian got another one. Then I another.
The one remaining reached for his grenade machine-gun controls and fired.
Damian was ahead of him, wrenching the wheel in a ninety-degree swerve, the power of his foot on the accelerator surging into the engine, bringing it to thundering life, catapulting the Jeep into the air, veering us out of the grenades’ trajectory—but—oh God! Savannah and Al’s truck, right behind us, taking our place in the bull’s-eye!
“Jump out. Run!” I screamed over the radio.
Too late—too late—oh God, oh God! They wouldn’t have time to swerve. The grenades would explode on impact, piercing up to two-inch armoring. Even if they jumped out, shrapnel would kill personnel within twenty feet.
“The trailer’s hit. They’re clear.” Damian’s growl smashed into me as hard as his foot did the brakes.
Everything overlapped, merged again, training taking over, reactions on auto, no thought, no fear, no feeling. One objective. Wipe out the enemy. Now.
I felt it all, saw it, was it. Seven years ago, Damian had imprinted lightning-fast responses into my nervous pathways, eliminated hesitation, taught me to trap fear and nausea and pain into an unused corner of my mind, severing its connection with my body, my actions. It was happening again.
Our doors exploded back on their hinges as Damian and I hurtled out of the vehicle, hitting the ground within split seconds of each other, rolling, springing up, taking position. That bastard wasn’t getting another shot.
He didn’t. We both got him. Then Damian got the other two, the injured ones.
Then silence. Slow, expanding, enveloping.
It wasn’t fooling me. I gave it three tripping heartbeats, rolled toward Damian as he did toward me, uninterrupted moves taking us back to back, crouching low, arms extended, guns first. We swept around our axis, scanning for hidden enemies, a second wave. Our four guards had taken similar positions.
On one side tropical vegetation rustled and quivered. Just the wind running rampant in the jungle, wrenching dust devils off the unpaved road. On the other side, a gorge sloped steep and open and clear. No place to hide there, either. Seemed this really was a fringe job.
I swung around to face Damian. He heaved up to his feet, taking me with him, his gaze a feverish sweep, inspecting me for injuries, mine reciprocating.
Large hands constricted my arms like a blood-pressure cuff till my hands went numb, cold. His pupils were anxious pinpoints leaving his eyes all-blazing amber. Then he squeezed them, swung on his heels, already running away. “I’ll secure the perimeter and conduct the cleanup. You take care of the injured.”
The injured. An image of Lucia burst into my head first, propelling me to the Jeep. Midway through my sprint, my feet lost steam, faltered—God! Savannah, Al—did they need me more?
Damn, damn, damn triage! Dictating I prioritize, unable to help everyone at the same time…
Still, Damian had said they’d gotten clear. But how? There hadn’t had time! What if he’d been saying that only to get me to concentrate on the battle? I’d kill him if he had.
Find them, help them.
I turned and flew to their battered truck, feeling no ground beneath my feet. “Savannah! Al!”
Silence. No one came out, from the truck or the trailers. I screamed louder. Then it hit me.
They must be confused, unsure of what exactly had happened, if it was safe to emerge. Another shout built inside me—and I almost choked on it. Al appeared from behind the last vehicle in our convoy, the rear-guard truck. Then Savannah.
I don’t remember running the last of the way. There was a cut in time, then I was hurling myself at them, hugging and sobbing.
“Hey, we’re fine.” Al patted me on the back and tried to unclamp my arm from his neck. “At least, we are for now.” He pushed the muzzle of the gun still clutched in my hand up and away.
I stuffed the gun in my waistband, gave a distressed giggle, sniffed. “Don’t be silly. Or be silly—be anything as long as you’re okay. Oh God—oh, guys—how?”
“We jumped out the back of the truck long before you told us to. As soon as you signaled us.” Savannah returned my hug, a tremor passing through her to me. “So is this is how it’s going to be from now on?”
“Probably not, once we make it to Soacha and—Lucia!” I exploded, running back to the Jeep. They kept up with me, questions coming fast.
“They got her in the forearm,” I panted. “But with the shower of grenades your truck got, I thought you were far worse. I’ll initiate emergency measures, you grab a stretcher and we’ll transfer her to the STS.”
Without missing a step, they swerved to their new purpose. I approached the Jeep, awareness wide-open once more, taking it all in.
The devastating scene, the dead enemies, Damian and the guards deep in the cleanup job, doing what needed to be done to draw suspicion away from us, to make it look like a regular guerrilla attack, emptying our damaged truck, stripping from it any sign of identification. We’d leave it behind. We wouldn’t be able to drive into the paramilitaries’ territory and explain just how we’d survived an attack of that caliber.
I swooped down on Lucia’s door, snatched it open, found her heaped sideways onto the driver’s seat, her injured arm beneath her, the other still clutching one of the guns.
I jumped on my disaster bag in the back, produced compression bandages. Stop hemorrhage first. Anything else came later.
“Lucia, honey, I’m going to turn you over now.”
She moaned, moved on her own, struggl
ed to sit up, turned to me. “Is it over?”
I helped her, my eyes frantically seeking her wound. She’d already bandaged it. “Yes. It’s okay now. I’ll take care of you. Not that you seem to need me, huh?”
Her open face crumpled. “You won’t say that when you see my arm. Oh, Cali, I’m sorry. I messed up. I’m messed up.”
“Shut up, okay? You didn’t mess up. This is all my fault. I knew you were exhausted and drained. I should have told you to duck and remain down until this was over. Hell—I should have insisted you stay back home beside Juan.”
She shook her head. “I should have gotten better shots in. God knows you’ve trained me enough. I—hesitated. And I wasn’t doing Juan any good back home. I was going crazy watching him lie there like that. Here I thought I would be of use, to you, to the others.” A bitter laugh wheezed out of her. “Though I don’t think I’ll be useful any longer. Maybe ever.”
“Remember that thing about shutting up?” I unwrapped her compression bandage, cautiously, slowly, ready to pounce with a fresh bandage. Tension leaked from my spastic muscles when no pulsating gush occurred, just a slow ooze. Boded well for no arterial injury then, only venous, muscular. Those were better, if they weren’t extensive. If there was no compounding bone and nerve injury.
I could see two bullet entries in her slender forearm. A tangential one that had ripped out skin and muscles, and one through-and-through wound. I needed to surgically explore the wound, get Doppler studies and X-rays.
But first, to spare her the ordeal. I rummaged through my injections, grabbed for a ready-loaded morphine syringe. Rolling up her other sleeve, I looked into her eyes, smoothed a glossy black lock from her blotched face. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll take care of you. We’ll take care of you. You’ll be fine.” I located her vein, pierced it with the needle, poured the potent pain-eradicating drug into her bloodstream. Soon the euphoric effects would push aside her devastation, give her reprieve. “I’m sending you home when this is done, Lucia. Forgive me for dragging you into this.”
“No. I wanted to come—I want to stay—help you—you know I’m ambidextrous. My left hand will do…I mean it…I’m staying…” Her protests weakened with every word, chemical influence blunting her awareness, releasing her grip on pain and worries.
The others had arrived with the stretcher and I helped her out of her seat and onto it. In a minute we had her in the STS. The others had already expanded an operating table, an anesthesia station and the needed diagnostic equipment.
I had just leaned down to her and murmured more reassurances, when the boom hit. A compression wave followed, rattling the STS and every bone inside my flesh.
The others stood, panting, eyes darting around at one another as they reeled with shock.
I had no time for shock, was already bursting into action, snatching guns, screaming “Get down, everybody!” I ran to the entry way and threw myself on the floor to open the door just a crack as yet another explosion went off. Then another.
Sounded like the world was ending outside.
Twenty-Four
I lay facedown on the floor, panting, thinking we’d been too hasty assuming that it was over. Then I realized.
This was no attack. This was Damian!
He was demolishing our damaged vehicles beyond hope of recognition. Must have judged the radical measure needed to guard against identification.
He could have warned us first, the jerk!
Which was no issue to him. Scaring a few years off our life expectancy wouldn’t be one of his concerns right now.
“St. James!”
At his shout, I jerked to my feet and raced out. I found him striding toward me against the backdrop of flaming vehicles and scattered corpses, grim, intimidating, a warrior who’d just finished wiping his enemies off the face of the earth, aggression still emanating from him, spoiling for more.
One thing was wrong with this picture. Our Jeep was in one piece. He’d destroyed our enemies’ Jeep instead.
He answered my unvoiced question. “Only the windshield was bullet-riddled. I removed it, so there’s no need to destroy my Jeep. We’ll say vandals shattered it. You done here, St. James?”
I always became St. James when he was in Agent De Luna mode. “We have to operate on Lucia right away.”
“Can you do it while we’re on the move?” His eyes flashed in the slanting sun, radiating his need for me to say yes.
Our operating tables were gyroscope mounted. I had no idea how stable it made them. Not on this kind of road. Wouldn’t have considered finding out if it wasn’t the lesser evil.
I gave him a grudging nod.
His nod was as terse as he turned around. “Move out,” he barked loud enough for all to hear. “And pour on some speed.”
Two harrowing hours dragged by.
Lucia’s injuries were bad. Shattered ulna and radius bones, an occult radial artery injury, incomplete radial nerve injury with transection of a few branches and veins. Not to mention the muscular damage.
It took the three of us surgeons to put her forearm back together. Wouldn’t have managed it without every microsurgery facility on board. We’d reconnected severed veins and nerves and muscles to put everything back in anatomical order. But functionally? I sure as hell had no idea. The thing that worried me most was the almost non-existent nerve transmission. At best she wouldn’t have the full use of her hand for the next few months. At worst— I wasn’t thinking of that.
I was placing the last bandage around her wounds, the tears I’d frozen to get the job done melting down my cheeks again, when the STS stopped. What now?
I snapped off my scrubs, grabbed my gun, ran to the driver’s compartment. We’d reached the paramilitary camp.
I ran back, hid my weapons before joining the others racing through removing evidence of the surgery, then rushed to help Savannah dress the sedated Lucia in a long-sleeved shirt and transfer her back to the emergency stretcher.
“Okay, guys,” I panted once we finished. “First one to come up with a plausible scenario when they come in to search, gets first-shift sleep tonight and—”
Too late! The paras were already climbing inside the STS, with Rafael and Damian following.
And just so my happiness would be complete, the unconscious Lucia was the first thing they asked about. At least from the sporadic Spanish words I got.
Medical knowledge evaporated in my overheating brain. Damn it! Think! A medical crisis causing loss of consciousness but not involving injury or sedation. What would that be…?
Al, who was actually Alvaro, and another Spanish speaker, said something and they just nodded and moved on to their thorough search.
Just like that? I was having a heart attack and they didn’t even blink at his explanation? What had he told them?
Al took pity on me, dropped it right in my ear. “I told them she suffered an epileptic attack.”
I wanted to kiss him! I settled for giving his hand a thankful squeeze as we followed the search party. They seemed to consider Rafael and Damian our spokesmen, and the two men translated back and forth.
Rafael did it all with his tranquil flare. As for Damian—what could I say? I’d seen him submerging his demon before, witnessed his transformation to innocuous, genial pussycat, but it was no less startling and alarming this time around. An actor of monumental scope—no two ways about it!
The search went uneventfully, as always. No one could ever find our hidden weapons without taking the trailer apart panel by panel. And the rest, the poisons and material for explosives manufacturing, was hiding in plain sight in both our STS and ML, legitimate medicines and medical supplies that would turn deadly in the hands of those who knew how to tap their destructive potential. And among us, we had the best at that.
After the search, we were taken to meet the leaders for an hour of questioning, and detailing the restrictions we had to comply with during our stay.
The stay they limited to four days maximum.
Then we were on our way, escorted to our destination. At last. Walking in my friends’ footsteps, tracing the actions that had led them down the path to their inexplicable affliction.
Clouds brushed across open tropical skies, lush hills undulated endlessly into the horizon, and the breeze at over nine thousand feet above sea level blew cool and balmy. All the ingredients of heaven were here. It should have been a delightful sight, a peaceful site.
It was anything but.
Among hills untouched since the dawn of time, the IDP community huddled, turning once verdant expanses into an eroded, crammed-to-capacity shantytown.
Hovels crowded, haphazard and discordant, clay-bricked, tin-or wooden-roofed, board-doored and plastic-windowed. Strips of green and a few trees struggled to survive among the chaotic growth of manmade misery. Low ground was flooded, even now in Colombia’s dry season. Children played in the mud, sailing paper boats in the mini-lakes among a slapdash arrangement of electric poles.
For people to be forced to live like this! To be evicted, pursued, cornered, then held down in degradation and hopelessness, all for the mere chance to survive. Or not.
I placated myself with a daydream of attacking their oppressors, risking all to buy them a chance to escape. I’d do it, too, like I had in Sudan all those years ago, if a similar result could be obtained. But it wasn’t so simple here. This was not a village of a few hundred held hostage by dozens of monsters. This was a town. Worse, a State-perpetuated status quo. There’d be no kamikaze rescue here.
But at least there was something that helped defuse me, then deluge me, making me forget why I was here even. For a while. A reception party. And what a reception.