Kate shook her head. “That was me. I tried forceps, but the stomach’s so rotten and decayed, it just tears.” She’d have had better luck tweezing up snot. “Apparently, the rot’s supposed to be good because it means the stomach has absorbed the evil spirits or whatever.”
“Uh-huh. Well, grab a penlight so I can see what I’m doing here.” Snapping on gloves, Pederson used the side of a hand to skim away muck then reared back as he exposed several oozing sores pockmarking the birdcage of the baby’s ribs. “What are those, sores?”
“Well, they were originally burns, sir. When the baby didn’t get better, the healer dipped cotton in oil and set it on fire.”
“The fuck?”
“Another common remedy.” Bibi paused as the girl said something. “Mmmm, interesting. Palwasha says the healer thought to rid the baby of ifrits. They are a type of very evil jinn, monstrous beings made of fire who live in caves and deep underground.”
“Fight fire with fire?” Tompkins said.
Bibi nodded. “Palwasha says the mountains around Cham Bacha are full of ifrits. They especially like haunting ruins.” She cocked her head as Palwasha injected something else. “Like that compound we saw on the way up,” Bibi translated. “She says she has seen many demons coming and going in recent weeks.”
“Demons?” Tompkins frowned. “Come again?”
“Evil spirits,” Pederson grunted. “Next she’ll be telling us about vampires and werewolves.”
“No, I think not. Vampires originated in Serbia in the early 1700s, and the Greeks were the first to spin tales of shapeshifting lycanthropes.” At Tompkins’s look, Bibi offered a slim smile and, for a fleeting instant, Kate thought the woman might actually tip a wink. “I know. She reads.” Bibi arched an eyebrow. “Do not tell anyone, Corporal. I would so hate to lose a finger.”
“No, no,” Tompkins fumbled. “I was just . . .”
“Hey, hey, can we focus here? My God.” Gagging, Pederson winked away tears as he skimmed off more rot. “Look at this crap.”
“Yes, sir.” Although she’d seen the damage before, Kate’s stomach still did an unhappy flip. The baby’s skin beneath the rotted goat’s gut was a mass of infection. Enormous boils—some swollen with yellow pus, others only oozing—erupted in angry, raw-looking welts over the little girl’s chest and stomach. Having chewed through skin and fascia, the infection was busy making inroads at liquefying tendon and muscle to a pulpy stew.
“Is that all from burns, sir?” Tompkins asked.
“No, it’s necrotizing fasciitis, probably from flesh-eating strep.” Pederson’s tone turned professorial. “Same bacteria that can give you strep throat, though staph, which also lives on your skin, can do it. There’s probably some exotic bacteria from the goat in there, too. See here?” Pederson flicked a finger at an enormous ulcer on the baby’s belly. “The peristalsis? It’s eaten right through fascia and muscle.”
“Peri-what?” Giving Six a hand signal to stay, Tompkins moved closer. “Whoa, Jesus, what is that? Is that moving?”
“Yeah. It’s exposed bowel.” Back in her EMT days, Kate’s crew had answered a call to a construction site. A girder had broken loose. The guy was dead already—one look was all it took to know that—but the girder’s weight combined with speed had created enough impact-pressure to force a loop of bowel through the man’s groin. Pink and flecked with yellow fat, the bowel had slowly undulated like a bloated earthworm. Residual peristalsis, one of her team said: Goes on for a couple hours after death. Kinda creeps ya out. “Probably small intestine.”
“Jesus.” Tompkins’s Adam’s apple bobbed in a hard swallow. “Can you do anything, Doc?”
“Not at this point. See how dusky that bowel is? Those dark patches? That’s infarction. Means there’s no blood flow, and that section of intestine is already dying. Unfortunate, too.” Pederson gestured at what looked like clumps of soggy rice. “This is the right idea, even if accidental, and much too little too late.”
“Sorry, sir? Right idea? Too little?” Nose wrinkling, Tompkins slid forward another reluctant step. “What are those?”
“Maggots,” Bibi said. “Farmers find them quite efficient with wounded livestock. I don’t believe these were intentionally placed, however.” Bibi waved a hand at the buzzing, shimmery cloud hanging over the mat. “We have the flies to thank for that.”
“No, come on.” Tompkins sounded appalled. “Maggots? Like hatched from fly eggs?”
“The very same. They chew up dead tissue.” Using the tip of a gloved finger, Kate nudged a glistening clump. This quivered then broke apart into a heap of squirmy, glistening larvae. “Place I worked before I joined up used them on the burn unit. Of course, those flies were raised in sterile conditions.” Still kind of gross, but douse them with a little saline, a little medical turpentine oil, and voila: clean away that mess of dead maggots, and there you’ve got new skin, pink as a baby’s butt.
“Yeah, a real shame they chowed down on the kid and didn’t bother eating away this goat crap.” Rocking back on his heels, Pederson let go of an exasperated sigh. “Why do you bring me shit like this, McEvoy? You could’ve taken a couple pictures and presented this kid, or brought her down yourself.”
She wanted to do the latter, but Palwasha had been insistent Pederson come to her. That still niggled. Odd, really. She couldn’t foist this off on the poor kid, though. “I’m sorry, sir. I guess I wasn’t thinking. I thought it would be faster if I brought you here and then you could . . . ah . . . well, we could get her down in a more efficient way?”
“More efficient . . .?” Eyes suddenly slitting, Pederson wagged a finger as if he’d caught her with a fist in a cookie jar. “Why, you little sneak. No. No fucking way, McEvoy.”
A sinking sensation in her stomach. “Sir?”
“Don’t give me those goo-goo eyes. You want me to authorize a medevac.”
Goo-goo eyes? “Well, sir, yes. That is, if you think a medevac is appropriate.”
“Bullshit. You think it’s appropriate, or you wouldn’t have insisted I come see this kid in person. Well, let me tell you something, Corporal. For starters, you’re a fucking combat medic. I’m a physician with years of experience, and you’ve had, what? A year’s training?”
“Yes, sir.” Her ears flamed. Asswipe. She zeroed in on his twitchy little ferret’s nose. One good pop. “In the Army, I mean, yes. But . . .”
“Hey, she’s not clueless, sir. She was an EMT a couple years.” Tompkins sounded defensive. “She’s been in the shit, too, and put on the save. She’s even taking the MCATs and—”
“Corporal Tompkins.” Bibi shook her head. “He is her superior officer.”
“Damn straight,” Pederson said.
“I’m just saying—” Tompkins began.
“Let it go, Tompkins.” She was grateful, but this was a pissing match neither she nor Tompkins would win, and Bibi had been right to divert Tompkins’s attention. They needed Pederson to dial it down, not get his knickers in more of a twist than they already were. “It’s fine. Dr. Pederson’s right. I overreached.”
“Yes, you did.” Pederson looked smug. “You can be certain I will let your CO know, too. Now, if we could go?”
“Of course.” She swallowed. “And the baby, sir?”
“What about it? Are you deaf as well as stupid, McEvoy?” Shaking his head, Pederson peeled out of his gloves. “Absolutely not. We do not run a shuttle service.” At his tone, Palwasha let out a small moan. Without looking around, Pederson snapped, “And please, no hysterics. She has no one to blame but herself.”
Oh, you righteous prick. Kate forced her fists to unclench. “All due respect, may I ask why not, sir?”
“You need me to draw you a map? I’ll give you two reasons.” Pederson’s finger, like his tone, was blunt and flat. “One, this is not our mandate. We start calling in choppers for every sick kid, we’d need an entire fleet and resources we don’t have.” He held up a second finger. “Two, that kid’s dea
d already. It’s dehydrated, malnourished, probably septic as all hell. If that thing’s not dead by the end of the day, I’ll eat my hat.”
She’d happily help. Cram his cover down his throat and watch him choke. “It’s a baby girl, sir, not a thing and not an animal.”
“Watch your tone, Corporal. You wanted my opinion? You got it.”
“Yes, sir.” When he was almost to the door: “Sir, would you at least discuss this with the captain?”
“What, am I speaking Swahili, McEvoy? Not on your fucking life, and don’t you go crying to Campbell, either.” Pederson poked a finger at her. “I hear you’ve gone over my head, you won’t like what happens next to either you or him.” And then he was gone.
3
“He is not a very pleasant man.” Peering downslope, Bibi lifted her chin at a distant speck. “I think I shall have to ask forgiveness for wishing him to turn an ankle.”
“Please, no.” Kate let out a sound that was more groan than laugh. “Then I’d have to treat him.”
“There is always amputation.” When Kate let go of a laugh, Bibi grinned. “There, I knew your sense of humor had not deserted us.”
“No, just given up the ghost.” Been beaten down by Afghanistan was more like it.
“Look, I respect you had to try, but a medevac was always a long shot, Kate. Pederson’s a needle-dick, but he’s right. It’s not in our mission directives. You know that.” Pulling up, Tompkins turned and put a hand on her shoulder. “Although I’ll bet Captain Campbell would’ve gone for it if Pederson had given you the chance.”
“Maybe . . . thanks, boy.” She patted Six who was giving her fingers a thorough, very sloppy lick. Pressing his massive head against her right thigh, she scrubbed at the side of the dog’s neck until the animal groaned. “Yes, I love you, too.”
“You and that dog.” Bibi tut-tutted. “When you leave, with whom will he flirt?”
“Hey, dog handler standing right here.” Throwing Bibi a mock scowl, Tompkins fussed over the shepherd. “Unless you maybe want to make goo-goo eyes with Bibi here, boy?”
“Hey.” Kate was nettled. “It wasn’t funny when Pederson said it either.”
Tompkins only grinned down at his dog. “Huh, huh? How about it? You want to stay and make goo-goo eyes at your Aunt Bibi?”
“I am an aunt now? Wait, is that not incestuous? Besides, I think my relatives would have . . . erhm . . . how do you say it? Heart attacks, yes. On the other hand”—cocking her head, Bibi swept Six with a critical eye—“now that you mention it, he does bear an uncanny resemblance to my uncle, Waheed. Quite unfortunate looking. A hound of a man with very large ears.”
Laughing, Tompkins launched into a story about dogs looking like their owners, but Kate tuned out. Her one last chance to do some good shot all to hell, and Pederson was right. It would have been a waste of resources because that baby didn’t have a prayer.
But what do you do? Before they’d left, she had cleaned the baby up as best she could, which amounted to not nearly enough. Now, turning back to look up toward the house, she was a little surprised to see Palwasha, small bundle in hand, standing on the lip of a rock. As if she’s followed us down. Why would the girl do that? Hope that Kate would change her mind, magically conjure a solution?
She wasn’t aware that Tompkins had asked a question until a silence stretched. “What?” Turning her back on Palwasha, she stirred air with a hand. “Sorry. Just thinking.”
“Yeah, any harder and steam’s going to come out of your ears.” Then, to Bibi, Tompkins added, “It’s a figure of speech.”
“Ah.” Bibi favored Tompkins with another smile. “First, goo-goo eyes and, now, figures of speech. This has been a very instructive day, Corporal.” She touched a hand to Tompkins’s right arm. “Oh, and look, I have touched you and your dog has not made a meal out of my fingers. We have struck a blow for mutual understanding, yes?”
She’s flirting. As Tompkins flushed, Kate felt a queer little pang. Well, I’m glad two of us are having a good time. Bibi was all right, and she liked seeing Tompkins looking happy for once. Too bad all this would end in about three hours when they would climb into their Humvees, convoy Gholam and Bibi and the rest of the police to their truck, wave good-bye—maybe even trade assurances that they’d be seeing each other again soon. Which was bullshit. After today, she would never see Bibi again.
“So, what gives, Kate?” Tompkins gave her a light punch on a shoulder. “I’m serious.”
“Nothing.” At his expression, she amended, “I was just thinking about what you said last night.” Half a truth was better than none.
“Which was?” Bibi asked.
“Here. Us.” She made a helpless gesture in the general direction of the mountains. From this vantage point, only the houses farthest downslope toward the valley were visible. Earlier that morning on their walk into Cham Bacha, they’d spotted both a cluster of ruined houses, perhaps once a large estate, reduced to rubble, and a pack of wild dogs tearing at something. A goat, perhaps. They hadn’t been able to make it out. She looked for the dogs now, but nothing moved over the broken earth, and the ruins were nearly invisible, melting back into the mountainside. If there was something dead down there, she couldn’t see it.
Just us and the ifrits. Demons, for God’s sake. Sudden fatigue mantled her shoulders. She wanted a shower, a cup of tea, something to eat. She wanted sleep. Most of all, she wanted to be gone from this place and, well, she would have her wish, wouldn’t she? Because they hadn’t made a dent, that was the truth of it. Her gaze traveled over fallow fields, rippling with heat shimmers, to a rutted ribbon of bad road where their convoy waited. The Humvees were tiny as toys, the soldiers posted there to stand watch no larger than ants or specks of dirt. Hold up a thumb, and the Humvees and soldiers disappeared completely.
The history books had it all wrong. Uncapping a Nalgene bottle, she tipped back a swig of lukewarm water that she swished around her mouth. It wasn’t that Afghanistan was so hard to conquer. It was that no invader in his right mind wanted to stay.
“You are worried.” Bibi regarded her with frank concern. “About the girls who did not come?”
Swallowing, she nodded, thought about another sip, decided she ought to wait, and reluctantly recapped her bottle. “It’s not like them not to show.” Although, even if they had, what could she say? Saying good-bye might be right, but it wasn’t smart. And when she never came back after today? Fatimah, Sabera, Malik, Jawad . . . they would all think she was like everybody else.
“Do you wish to look for them, Kate?” At Kate’s surprised expression, Bibi offered a lopsided grin. “We still have some time, yes? Your Captain Campbell said”—she checked her watch—“two hours before Maghrib, as I recall.”
“He told you?” She knew Jack would order them on the road well before sunset salah, but talking about it wasn’t like him at all. No one advertised arrivals and departures unless they wanted to be ambushed.
Bibi’s dark brows knit. “No, not to me. He must’ve mentioned this to Gholam. The major passed that along to me. Kate, is there a problem?”
“No.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. A headache was beginning to mutter between her temples. Need to hydrate. Food wouldn’t be bad either. “Just tired.”
“You are sure? I will be happy to help.”
“Do I get a vote? Wait.” Tompkins picked up Six’s left forepaw then raised his right hand. “That’s two against. Look, I care about the kids, Kate, but Six is so tired, he’s cleaning up the mountain with his tongue. Captain told me to escort you two, but if you decide to go looking for your girls, we might have to carry Six. He’s tough but not bionic.”
“What is this”—Bibi’s brow furrowed—“this bi-optic?”
“Bionic. You ever watch Star Trek? Not the old one with Shatner but the newer one, with Stewart? Bald guy, British?”
“Ah, yes, bionic.” Brightening, Bibi held up a finger. “You mean, like the Borg.”
N
ow it was Kate’s turn to be confused. “Who?”
Tompkins executed an impressive eye-roll. “Don’t tell me you never watched Star Trek.”
“Well, I’ve heard of it, but no.” Science fiction—sci-fry, when she wanted to get her dad going—just wasn’t her bag. Her dad was a real maniac, though. Had this huge library. She’d tried a few books. Asimov was all right and, well, Frank Herbert was clearly talking about Afghanistan and heroin, even if he called it Arakis and spice. Some detective stories by Larry Niven, she’d liked, especially about a guy who’d lost an arm but whose brain generated a phantom limb that actually did things in the real world. That was cool. “What are the Borg?”
“Cyborgs. Half-machine, half-human, and they are all together . . . how do you say it?” Bibi made a vague motion by a temple. “Corporal, you know what I am trying to say, yes?”
“She means the Borg are all connected in this, like, neural network. They’re part of a collective, like a beehive? You’ve got your worker bees, which are the regular Borg, and then the queen, who can think and act independently.”
“Okay.” Sounded stupid, or a little like the military, only with a woman in charge instead of a guy. But a queen bee? How sexist could you get? Maybe there was a reason she’d never watched the show. “Well, anyway, Tompkins’s point is that Six isn’t part-machine, so I guess we really should get back.”
“If you are sure, Kate. We can go on alone, you and me. I am a fine shot . . . Do not arch your eyebrows like that, Corporal. I truly am.”
“Me?” Tompkins struggled to get his face under control. “Hey, I’m just standing here.”
“Arching eyebrows. We could . . . how do you say it . . . erhm . . . pop off a few rounds together? Do a little one-on-one action? ” As Tompkins spluttered and Kate burst out laughing, Bibi looked bewildered. “What? This is not how you say when you are at target practice?”
“You said it fine.” Kate swallowed back another gale of giggles. Tompkins was the color of a ripe beet. “And, really, it’s okay.” Though she was tempted to take Bibi up on her offer. No slouch herself—she’d grown up in Wisconsin, for God’s sake, where it was practically un-American not to hunt—she had no doubt Bibi was a fine shot. Between the two of them, they’d probably be fine. Besides, Jack had said Prophet reported no insurgent or Taliban chatter. Better safe than sorry, though. This little side trip had eaten up precious time. “We shouldn’t. It wouldn’t really do any good or change anything. Captain Campbell’s probably wrapping things up now anyway.” And maybe getting an earful from Pederson. She’d reported in before they set out to Palwasha’s the first time around and then again when she went to grab Pederson. Jack had been professional as always, asked questions about where and why . . . but she thought she also heard a note of strain. Or was it worry? Jack had been so on edge, worried this last mission would go sideways. We’re almost home-free, she thought, and then worried she’d just jinxed them somehow. Oh, don’t be stupid. “Besides, you’re probably anxious to get going, too.”
Brotherhood Protectors: Soldier's Heart Part 2 (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 2