WAR: Intrusion (15 page)

Unlike last night, tonight all of the clinic’s beds were unoccupied. Since none of Helen’s patients had been in critical condition, they’d been released in order to finish recuperating at home. Grateful for the privacy, he settled Tony face down on a bed, then went back outside.

Helen stood at the back of the SUV, talking with the night watchman. When she saw Lachlan, she stepped forward, wobbled, then grabbed the night watchman’s arm for balance. But the older man wasn’t prepared to take Helen’s weight and he stumbled.

Cursing under his breath, Lachlan strode forward and swung Helen into his arms. “Easy, lass.” He carried her into the clinic and settled her on a bed in a separate exam room from Tony.

She immediately tried to rise, then grabbed her head and laid back, groaning. “Just…give me…a minute…” she gasped. “Then…I’ll finish working on…Jacobs…”

“No, doctor. You rest up. You’re in no condition to be treating anyone.”

She ignored him and sat up, grunting in pain. She inhaled slowly, then exhaled and slowly eased her legs over the side of the bed. “His wounds need to be properly cleaned and re-bandaged so he doesn’t get an infection.”

Lachlan clenched his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching for her as she gingerly put her weight on her feet and unfolded to a standing position. If the stubborn lass wanted to tax herself, he wouldn’t interfere, but he wouldn’t help her, either.

But she made it upright without his aid, only swaying a moment before catching her balance. “See?” She gave him a smug smile, although the lines of pain around her mouth dimmed its impact. “Now, where’s Jacobs?”

He shook his head. “This way.” He stepped into the hallway.

She gasped. “Oh. My. God.”

He spun around. “What?”

She stared at him in horror. “Your back is covered in blood.”

“Oh. That.” He shrugged. “I took a wee bit of shrapnel and had to pull it out in order to drive.” He craned his neck, trying to see. “The bandages must have slipped. It’s nothing.”

“You got hurt protecting me in that hallway.” She met his eyes. “Thank you.”

He just nodded, then pointed down the corridor. “I thought you were in a bleeding hurry to treat Tony?”

Helen rolled her eyes, but didn’t quite manage to hide her wince. “Don’t change the subject, MacKay.” She walked carefully toward the other exam room. “I’m going to treat your wounds as soon as I’m done with your comrade.”

Lachlan shivered as the old, familiar panic rose up. “No, doctor. There’s not a chance in hell of that happening.”

She paused with her hand on the doorknob. The hurt in her eyes made him feel guilty, but he wasn’t going to explain himself. He returned her gaze coolly. “Give me the supplies and I’ll take care of the wounds myself.”

“Fine,” she bit out. “If that’s the way you want it. But you’re opening yourself up to infection unless those wounds are flushed.” She pushed open the door. Despite what he knew had to be considerable pain in her head, she stalked into the room. When she approached Tony the tension drained out of her as she shifted into caretaker mode. Aye, the lass was a healer at heart.

So then why did he trust her to work on Tony, yet remain unable to let her put her doctor’s hands on himself?

The
Republic of Dahomey

West Africa

“
WE
ARE PLEASED to report that the prognosis for the regional governor is excellent,” the news reporter announced. “He is expected to make a full recovery.”

The phone in Sani Natchaba’s second home rang. With a sharp jab at the remote control, he muted the television. “Natchaba speaking,” he answered.

“Your demonstration has failed to impress me,” a familiar, mechanically altered voice stated.

How dare this man question his competence? There had been no fault in his plan. Between the exploding MP3 players, his snipers, and the additional explosives, no one should have survived the festival.

“While it is true that not all the attendees were killed,” he said with a calm he did not feel, “several hundred people are dead. Hundreds more were injured. How is this considered a failure?”

“It was expected that the devastation would be complete. You staked your reputation on that, or have you forgotten your promises that your special explosives would strike fear into the heart of the nation?” The man spoke the last words in a mocking tone that sliced painfully at Natchaba’s pride.

Renewed anger drove him across the room to glare out the window at the view of the ocean. “You are the one who provided my father with access to the miniature explosives. I assumed that the devices would perform as expected.” His middleman had purchased the devices with Natchaba’s father none the wiser regarding the identity of the true buyer.

“Do not attempt to blame your failure on me,” the man said. Natchaba assumed it was a man, since a woman would never achieve such a position of power. “I made it quite clear to both you and your father that the explosives were experimental in nature. It was your failure to account for the possibility of malfunction that has resulted in the current fiasco.”

“The plan would have succeeded regardless of the number of failed explosions if the men from WAR had not been present.” His spy within the regional police had confirmed that the national president had given the two white men investigative powers. No one directly spoke the name WAR, but who else would the government trust to assist in locating those responsible for the attack?

“I believe that your father has echoed my warnings regarding the danger WAR poses to our success. Next time you would do better to assume they will interfere,” the man chided.

The sunlight gilded the tops of the waves, yet Natchaba instead saw his hand holding a knife to his caller’s throat. Imagined the satisfaction of driving the knife in and watching lifeblood spurt while the man apologized for treating Natchaba as a child. It would be as exhilarating as killing his staff at the mansion had been.

That had been glorious. A chase to excite his blood, followed by the satisfaction of feeling skin split and the life drain out of another living being.

The love of the visceral thrill of killing provided Natchaba a deep connection with his men that his nameless sponsor would never understand.

“You realize that the other rebel leaders are mocking you, don’t you?” the mechanical voice said.

Natchaba could barely understand the man’s words through the pressure in his head. Only an act of personal violence against his enemy would calm him down. Yet he had to remain in hiding until the immediate search for him had ceased. “Yes,” he managed to grit out. “My lieutenant has informed me that there are rumors being spread that I am incapable of effective action. Which is why I have planned a series of follow-up attacks.” First to fall would be those who had exiled his mother.

“Excellent. I look forward to hearing of your success in the media. If you fail, then our association will be terminated.” On that warning, the man hung up.

Natchaba threw the receiver across the room. It had been a mistake to approach his father’s mysterious benefactor. At the time, he had only wanted to take away the newfound status his father had achieved when he took over Dietrich’s supply routes. He had not realized that the sponsor was no better than a petty king, issuing orders and expecting to be obeyed while keeping himself safe. Presuming to know better than Natchaba how to destabilize this region and bring about a new world order.

Yet the man provided access to weapons and intelligence that Natchaba could not yet achieve on his own. Until he reached the top position within the rebellion, he would have to continue swallowing the man’s sour medicine.

But once he had achieved such success, then the man’s blood would flow.

CHAPTER TEN

Eastern
Region

The Republic of the Volta

West Africa

LACHLAN
MACKAY WAS a ridiculously stubborn man, Helen fumed the next afternoon. Just look at how stiffly he moved as he handed Jacobs a pair of crutches. If the idiot had allowed her to treat his wounds, she could have applied some topical analgesic to ease his pain. But Lachlan had refused both her treatment and the offer of aspirin. Apparently he still didn’t trust her, and the only reason she could think of had to do with her mother.

She’d been right to question his apology. Like so many others, he’d never see past the deaths her mother had caused. It didn’t matter that her mother had been a researcher, not a doctor treating patients in the field. All anyone ever considered was that her mother had allowed hundreds to die in order to further her search for a new cancer drug.

At least Lachlan had allowed Helen to treat Jacobs. Although, when it came to stubborn, Tony Jacobs ran a close second. He’d ignored her advice to stay in bed, instead insisting on becoming mobile. “You’re lucky, Mr. Jacobs,” she said, as she finished checking and re-bandaging his wounds. “There’s no sign yet of infection.”

She shot a look at Lachlan. “I wish I could say the same about Mr. MacKay here.”

The men exchanged looks, then Jacobs cleared his throat. “I finished removing the shrapnel then flushed the Commander’s wounds out after you left last night,” he admitted.

“Oh. Well, okay then.” Trying to act as if his words hadn’t bruised her heart, she turned away and gathered up the stained gauze pads, then dumped them in the biohazard bin. All day she’d been irritable. Her head still hurt. Leticia had examined her last night and put butterfly stitches over the wound. Since the clinic didn’t have diagnostic equipment to diagnose serious brain damage, before she went to bed Helen had set her alarm to wake her every couple of hours. Pain and lack of sleep weren’t new to her, but added on top of the stress of the festival day attack, then barely escaping Mr. Natchaba’s exploding mansion, her patience was non-existent. The closed, macho circle of trust between Lachlan and Jacobs only added fuel to her simmering temper.

Clamping her lips together so she wouldn’t lash out verbally at them, she watched as Jacobs hopped forward on his crutches with an ease that spoke of previous experience. “Just remember—”

Angry shouts from outside the clinic cut her off. A second later, Leticia burst into the room.

“Dr. Kirk, come quick. David and some other men are dragging one of the villagers from Palipé toward the clinic. They’re calling for you.”

“Me?” Helen ran down to her office, grabbed her shotgun off the rack over the door, then hurried after Leticia. Each step caused her headache to throb, but at least it wasn’t the sharp, piercing pain of last night.

When she reached the front, instead of opening the door she stood to one side of the window and peered out though the louvers. Her throat went dry. A mob was marching toward the front of the clinic, led by David and the elders of the three nearest villages. Behind them, two men dragged a man whose face and shirt were covered in blood.

David strode up to the clinic and shoved open the door. His group strode into the waiting room.

“Stop. You can’t just barge in here.” Helen stepped in front of the group to block them from entering the main clinic. “Tell me what’s happened.”

David shoved her aside and led his group down the hallway. When she started to protest, Lachlan pulled her back against him and removed the shotgun from her hand.

One of the men barked a question at Leticia, and she answered by pointing to an empty exam room.

Helen broke free of Lachlan and caught up to David. “What’s going on?”

David grabbed her arm and tugged. “Come, doctor, we need your help.”

Lachlan broke David’s hold and gave the other man a warning glare.

“Hurry,” David said. He turned his back and strode into the exam room.

Helen pushed through the group of seven—no nine—men until she stood next to the exam table. There wasn’t enough room for everyone inside, so Jacobs and his crutches had to wait in the hall, while Lachlan took up guard position just inside the door.

She didn’t recognize the unconscious man. First impressions indicated that he’d been beaten severely. The anger in the room left little doubt as to who was responsible.

“We caught this man planting explosives at the edge of the village,” David announced.

Helen barely managed to swallow her cry of shock. A tendril of fear twisted through her belly.

One of the elders nodded. “He tried to run, but we stopped him.”

They’d done more than stop him. They’d beaten him unconscious. The man’s nose was broken and he had several deep gashes on his face that would require stitches. “I can’t treat his injuries with all of you crowded in here,” she announced. She barely had room to raise her elbows away from her sides.

“No. We do not want you to help him, doctor,” David said. “We require that you give him medicine to wake him up so that we may question him regarding the explosives. We need to know if he has already set them to explode. If there are more he has planted that we have yet to find.”

Her fear shifted into anger. She glanced at her patient, then turned to David. “Let me get this straight. You want me to inject a seriously injured man with stimulant so you can torture him for information?”

“My home is closest to where he planted the explosives. If they go off my wife and family will be killed.” David’s voice rose to a shout. “I do not care what we have to do to get this information.”

Shaking inside and all too aware of how vulnerable she was in this group of furious males, Helen placed herself between the man on the bed and David. “No. I won’t do it. Evacuate the village. Call the police and let their bomb squad handle the situation.”

David slapped her. The force of the blow rocked her head to the side and her headache exploded. She tasted blood from where her teeth had cut her lip.

“Get out of my way, woman. If you will not do it, I will tell the frightened villagers to search this clinic until they find the drugs we need.”

Lachlan pushed two men out of the way and stepped between Helen and David. “Do not touch the doctor again,” he warned with a chill to his voice Helen had never heard before.