The War Within (11 page)

“It doesn’t matter. If they catch us here, we’re dead. We have to leave without them seeing us. Quick. This way.”

Robinson pushed Meredith toward the back of the bar as people began to pound on the front door as if they meant to break it down. The doorman leaned against it like a human barricade. He was a big man, but Meredith doubted he could hold out for long.

She struggled to remain upright so she could avoid being trampled by the panicked women surrounding her. Military women whose careers could be ruined by the merest hint of scandal. Tonight, she was one of those women. Robinson’s hands on her waist provided much-needed support.

“What about Lt. Col. Daniels?” she asked, trying to spot her in the sea of worried faces.

Robinson looked over her shoulder. The path to the stairs that led to the second floor was blocked. “She’s gotten out of worse scrapes than this before. She’ll be fine.”

Meredith chose to believe her, even though Robinson didn’t sound convinced. She didn’t have time for doubts.

She followed the crowd to the back door. She had nearly reached it when Robinson pulled her toward what looked like a storeroom. Boxes of liquor and crates of wine were stacked everywhere.

“They’ll be waiting at the front door and the rear exit,” Robinson whispered, “but I doubt they have the place completely surrounded.” She quickly closed the storeroom door as a wave of men wielding batons rushed through the main entrance.

“What do we do now?” Meredith asked.

“We go out the window.”

Robinson moved several cases of whiskey out of the way and slowly raised the window. Meredith held her breath when the small aperture’s metal frame squealed in protest, but the sound apparently wasn’t loud enough to alert anyone to their hiding place because she didn’t hear any booted feet running in their direction. She could hear voices shouting commands in the bar and on the street, but none in the narrow passageway between Suzy’s and the building next door.

“I’ll go first to make sure it’s safe,” Robinson said.

“And if it isn’t?”

“I’ll distract them long enough for you to get away.”

“Wait. Don’t sacrifice yourself for me.”

Meredith tried to stop her, but Robinson scooted through the window and dropped down the other side before she could. Robinson looked left and right, then reached for Meredith. “Your turn.”

“Is it safe?”

“As safe as it’s ever going to be.”

Meredith shimmied through the window and, putting her trust in Robinson, followed her through the alley.

“Go slow,” Robinson said. “We don’t want anyone to see us coming.”

Robinson needn’t have been so cautious.

A crowd of curious onlookers had gathered in front of Suzy’s. Their attention was focused on the front door as several women were herded out of the bar and loaded into the back of a waiting police van. Meredith couldn’t bear to look as the crowd pointed and stared at the women as if they were exhibits in a zoo. She had very nearly been one of those women. She had been spared the pain of public embarrassment, but how many others had not been as fortunate? How many would be paraded across the base on Monday and shipped home to unforgiving families? She didn’t want to fall victim to the same fate.

She and Robinson skirted the crowd and slowly edged away. They walked as casually as possible, trying not to draw attention. Meredith kept waiting for someone to tap on her shoulder, slap a pair of handcuffs on her wrists, and haul her off to the stockade, but the tap never came. When she and Robinson reached the main street, she nearly fainted in relief.

“Does this happen every week?” she asked after several people brushed past her to get a closer look at the action in front of Suzy’s.

“Every couple of months, the police and the MPs bust in and arrest enough people to give the crowd a show. They harass the rest and let them go with a warning not to come back. The next few weeks, attendance drops. Only the locals show up. Everyone else drifts back in over time, and the process eventually repeats itself.”

“Have you ever been arrested?”

“No, I’ve been lucky so far, but there’s always a first time.” Robinson gently pulled her away from the spectacle. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to your hotel.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I do. You’re here because of me. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

The stubborn look on Robinson’s face told Meredith it would be pointless for her to argue. She fell in step beside her as she escorted her through the city streets. If possible, the traffic was even more snarled than before.

“When will you find out what happened to everyone?” she asked. She hadn’t seen Kerry or Lt. Col. Daniels in police custody or in the crowd out front. Hopefully, they had managed to escape or find a good place to hide until the excitement died down.

“Kerry will let me know. Either she’ll write me a letter or she’ll come to see me the next time she visits the base.”

“How did you two meet?”

“Through Huynh.” Robinson looked over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed. “Kerry works for the Red Cross. When Huynh’s son Hoang was sick, she couldn’t get any of the local hospitals to treat him because his father’s a black American GI and having a mixed race child is taboo here.”

The military discouraged relationships between soldiers and locals. Such relationships frequently occurred despite those efforts, occasionally producing children who couldn’t find places in the society in which they were born. Robinson had intimated she wasn’t sleeping with Huynh, and Meredith doubted the woman was an enemy agent, but Robinson’s friendship with her could cause trouble for her before all was said and done.

“Huynh turned to the Red Cross out of desperation. She stood in front of a support vehicle and beat on the hood until the driver opened the door. Kerry took her in and told the driver to head to the closest Red Cross field station, which happened to be located on my base. I was on duty when they showed up. They were quite a motley crew—a sick baby, a worried mother, and three panicked aid workers. Huynh was yelling in Vietnamese, Kerry was tossing out Australian slang, and Hoang was screaming at the top of his lungs. I finally managed to piece their stories together and figure out what was wrong. I examined Hoang, discovered he had what I suspected was a perforated bowel, and got him prepped for surgery. It was touch and go for a while, but Hoang’s a fighter. He pulled through with no complications. Huynh thinks Kerry and I saved her son’s life.”

“You did save his life. If left untreated, his condition could have been fatal.”

Robinson shrugged. “Anyone with medical training could have diagnosed him.”

“But not everyone with medical training cared enough to treat him. You did.”

Robinson didn’t accept this latest compliment any better than she had the earlier one. She quickly changed the subject to deflect attention away from herself, a tactic Meredith noticed she used quite often.

“Huynh couldn’t afford to give me money, and I wouldn’t have dared ask for any. As payment, she offered me a place to stay whenever I’m in Saigon.”

“But Vietnamese civilian areas are off-limits.”

“So is the place we just left. That doesn’t leave me with many options, does it?”

Meredith slowed her pace. Her hotel was only a few blocks away now, and there were so many questions she hadn’t yet asked. She decided to begin with the most important. “Are you and Kerry still together?”

“No. We never were, really. We had a few laughs to ease the tension after a life-and-death situation, but we were never an item. It was fun while it lasted, and we’ll always be friends, but we could never make it as a couple.”

Meredith couldn’t believe Robinson made her relationship with Kerry sound so cut-and-dried.

“Don’t you want to fall in love?”

“Of course I do, but I’d rather wait until I’m Stateside full-time before it happens. It’s stressful enough worrying about myself out here. It would be even worse worrying about someone else.” She looked at Meredith out of the corner of her eye. “You’ll see what I mean if George gets transferred to the front lines.”

“He and I are just friends.”

“For now.” The muscles in Robinson’s jaw crawled as she clenched her teeth. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He’s already smitten.”

“What about me? Don’t I get a say?”

Robinson stopped in front of the Lotus Blossom when they reached the end of their journey. “Whether you choose to claim your destiny or allow someone else to decide your fate is entirely up to you, Meredith. But I need you to do me a favor.” She sighed as if she was reluctant to say what was about to come next. “Thank you for visiting the way I live, but please don’t come back unless you intend to stay. It’s too dangerous. For you and for me.”

Meredith felt as if the ground on which she was standing had suddenly shifted. She fought to maintain her stability. “I would never intentionally do anything to put you at risk. If you want me to stay away from you—”

“It’s not about what I want, Meredith. It’s about you. I know what I want, but I don’t think you do. Not yet, anyway. When you figure it out, you know where to find me.”

“Robinson—”

Meredith didn’t know what she intended to say, but she didn’t get the chance to find out.

A massive explosion rocked the street. The sound was like the end of the world. A heavy, percussive boom, quickly followed by shattering glass and ear-piercing screams.

Robinson threw Meredith on the sidewalk and covered her body with her own as rubble rained down on them.

Meredith heard moans of pain and cries for help. In the distance, sirens began to wail. The odd
ooh-ah
,
ooh-ah
sound she couldn’t quite get used to.

Robinson raised her head and brushed Meredith’s hair out of her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Meredith’s ears were ringing. She shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it. She closed her eyes when a wave of dizziness hit her so hard she thought she was about to lose the hamburger and fries Tran had worked so hard to make.

“Are you sure?” When Meredith opened her eyes, Robinson’s face was a mask of concern. Blood ran freely from a cut on her forehead.

“Yes, I’m okay, but you’re hurt.” Meredith pushed Robinson off her and scrambled to her feet. She peered at the cut just above Robinson’s left eyebrow. “I think you need stitches.”

“It’s just a scratch.” Robinson swiped at the blood and wiped her hand on her jeans. “Get inside where it’s safe.” She pushed Meredith toward the lobby of her hotel and took off running. Toward the smoke and flames not away from them.

“Where are you going?” Meredith shouted at her retreating form.

“To help the injured.”

Meredith kicked off her shoes and fell in behind her.

“Where are
you
going?” Robinson asked.

“To help you.”

To her credit, Robinson didn’t try to stop her. Meredith could be stubborn, too. Together, they raced toward the burning ruins of the Regency Hotel.

“You’re barefoot,” Robinson said, pointing at the debris-strewn ground. “Watch out for the shattered glass.”

Broken bodies littered the sidewalk. Some were in flames, others were already burned beyond recognition. Meredith gagged on the sickly sweet smell of charred flesh. She told herself to remember her training so she wouldn’t begin screaming hysterically like the unfortunate woman whose dress had melted into her skin.

Robinson sat the woman down and told her not to move until the ambulances arrived. She bent and pressed her fingers against the neck of a man who had been impaled by a three-foot-long piece of steel.

“No pulse.”

Meredith was so overwhelmed by the amount of devastation and the number of casualties she didn’t know where to focus her energy. Her head was still fuzzy, making it hard to concentrate. She turned to Robinson for guidance. “What do you want me to do?”

“Help me triage according to the normal protocols. If they’re ambulatory and coherent, corral them next to that bike stand. Put the most critical cases here in the street so the medics can get to them first.”

“Got it.”

Meredith began to sort through the victims, praying she wouldn’t come across anyone she knew. Her prayers weren’t answered.

Her heart lurched when she found Alice’s seemingly lifeless body under a pile of debris. Both her legs were broken, the left one bent at an impossible angle. The grisly compound fracture was the least of her worries, however.

Meredith dropped to her knees, ignoring the pain as shards of glass dug into her skin. She felt a faint pulse at the base of Alice’s throat, none at all in her extremities. Blood streamed from a wound in her side. Meredith needed something to staunch the flood or Alice would exsanguinate before help arrived. She looked around for a towel or strip of cloth. Anything she could use to put pressure on the gaping hole.

“Here. Use this.”

Meredith turned at the sound of a familiar voice. George stood behind her, offering his shirt. She pressed the gift against Alice’s side. The colorful cotton cloth quickly turned dark red.

“Is she going to make it?” George asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

George squatted next to her. “When I heard the explosion and discovered you weren’t in your room, I knew I’d find you here. Both of you.”

He looked over at Robinson, who was performing an emergency tracheotomy on a man whose airway had been crushed by falling concrete. Nurses were allowed to perform simple procedures. A tracheotomy wasn’t one of them. Under the circumstances, Meredith doubted anyone would hold it against her. Robinson was up to her elbows in blood, but her patient appeared to be breathing through the tiny tube she had inserted in his throat.

“You’re in danger here,” George said. “There could be other bombs.”

“What do you want us to do,” Robinson asked plaintively, “leave these people here to die?”

“Of course not.”

“Then stop bitching and lend us a hand.”

George pushed himself to his feet. “Tell me what to do.”

The first ambulance showed up ten long minutes later. The police soon followed. Robinson finally backed off when MPs and local police began to cordon off the area.