WAR: Intrusion (16 page)

“Or what, white man?”

“Or I’ll show you what it’s like to fight a trained opponent…and lose.”

She had no idea what David saw on Lachlan’s face, but his anger faded into uncertainty, then fear, before morphing back into belligerence.

“What you’re asking of me is ethically wrong,” Helen said quietly. “I won’t do it. I won’t be a partner in hurting this man.”

“The information he gives us will save lives,” one of the elders spat. “If you refuse to help us, then you are no better than a murderer.”

“And the sentence for murder is death.”

A man aimed a punch at Helen’s temple. Lachlan caught the man’s wrist before his blow landed and bent the man’s arm behind his back until he gave a cry of pain. “I’ll not say it again. Leave the doctor alone.” He met David’s eyes. “Let her walk out of here unharmed and I’ll help you.”

“What?” Helen couldn’t believe what he’d said. “No! If they want to save their families, they should tell them to evacuate, not torture this man.”

“Why, white man?” David asked.

MacKay released the other man’s arm and turned to face Helen. “Because sometimes the needs of the many take precedence over the life of one man. How do we know the roads haven’t been booby-trapped? Perhaps there are snipers waiting to kill off the villagers as they flee. We have to know the extent of the threat.”

“No.” Helen vibrated with fury. “Not in my clinic. Get out.” She looked around the room. “All of you. Leave now. You brought the man to me. He is now my patient. Go evacuate your families. Do not desecrate this place of healing by torturing this man.” For a moment, shocked silence fell over the room and Helen thought that perhaps she’d broken through to them. Then one of the men snarled, “Kill her” and lunged forward.

MacKay grabbed the man, spun him around and slammed him into David, who had pulled a knife.

A
knife
.

Both men went down, but another man’s fingers latched onto her shoulder. Helen broke free, but her stomach twisted in shock at the hatred on his face. She’d once set his broken arm. Now he looked ready to kill her.

MacKay hooked his arm around her waist and hustled her to the door, shutting it behind them. “Get out of here,” he snapped. “You’re not going to change their minds.”

The lack of emotion in his eyes chilled her. “I won’t give you the medicine,” she said.

“You don’t need to.” His words were almost gentle. Pitying? The thought infuriated her. “I have something in my emergency kit.” His eyes flicked to Jacobs, who nodded.

Of course he did.

The door opened behind them and Helen quickly stepped out of reach.

“Hurry, white man,” David said. “Our families are at risk.” He didn’t even glance at Helen.

“Please, David, don’t do this.”

He ignored her.

“I won’t forget this,” she said quietly. “If this man dies, all of you in the room will be the ones who are murderers.”

“No. We will be saviors,” David said.

His words shredded something inside her. “If you’re going to do this,” she choked out. “At least allow the staff to leave so they won’t be traumatized by the man’s screams of pain.”

Over David’s shoulder, she saw one of the men flinch. Good. Let him think about the consequences of his actions.

“That is fair,” David conceded. “You have five minutes.”

There was nothing fair about this situation, she wanted to scream. But it was clear that nothing she did would change their minds.

Holding her head up, she stepped away from the door. Jacobs moved as if to follow her.

“Don’t.” She held up her hand. “Just stay there. I don’t want anything to do with you or MacKay. Neither one of you are welcome here or at my bungalow any longer. Once you’ve finished your torturing, I want you gone.” She turned and faced the room. “In fact, I don’t ever want to see any of you here at the clinic again,” she called through the open door. “You’re no longer welcome. From now on, you must go into the regional capital for your medical needs.”

Head and heart aching, she turned away and retreated to her office. Slipping out of her lab coat, she threw it on the floor, then collapsed into her chair. All of her hopes and dreams, the decent jobs the clinic had provided to the villagers, the medical care that had saved lives, the pride of the locals that they’d helped to restore the clinic—all of that had just been destroyed by a needless act of violence.

“Doctor?” Leticia appeared in the doorway. She looked worried. And scared. “You’re bleeding.”

Helen put her hand up to her mouth and her fingers came away spotted with blood. For some reason, that caused a hysterical bubble of laughter to rise up inside her. She set her teeth against the cut on her lip, using the small pain to kill the laughter before it could escape. “It’s nothing,” she reassured Leticia. This small pain was insignificant next to what agony MacKay and David would inflict on that poor man.

“We’re closing the clinic,” she told Leticia. “We have four minutes now to get out. Tell everyone to grab their things and go home.”

“Will we open again in the morning?”

“No. I—” Helen glanced in the direction of the newly refurbished lab. Her heart hurt so much, she could barely breathe past the pain.
I don’t know if I can do this any more.
“I think it’s best if we stay closed for a few days until tempers have settled down. I’ll send word when we decide to reopen.” She mustered up a smile and Leticia nodded.

“You heard about the explosives in the village?”

“Yes, doctor.”

“If you or any of the others don’t feel comfortable returning to the village, you can stay at my bungalow. For those who want to go home but are afraid to walk past the mob, I’ll give them a ride.” She pushed to her feet, then swayed under a wave of sadness, fury, and a sickening sense of helplessness. Pain pounded in her head, making it difficult to think. “But we must hurry.”

“Yes, doctor.”

Knowing she would go over the five minute deadline, Helen quickly boxed up her patient folders. Then she stacked the three boxes and carried them into the hallway.

Jacobs stood guard at the door to the exam room, cradling an automatic weapon in one arm while balancing on his crutches with the other. Helen quickly turned her head away.

“Here, doctor.” Leticia walked up from the other end of the hallway, pushing the cart with all of the sensitive supplies that they usually locked up each night. Helen gratefully set her boxes on the empty space on the corner.

“I told you to leave.”

“Yes, but we don’t want those angry people to cause more damage than they already intend,” Leticia explained.

Throat tight with gratitude, Helen could only nod her thanks. Leticia pushed the cart into the storage closet, then Helen entered the code to open the secret door. It only took a moment to load the cart onto the special dumbwaiter and send it down to the underground safe room.

“Has everyone else gone now?” Helen asked after she’d locked the door and the closet.

“Yes, doctor.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

They walked out the back door together. Helen had feared there’d be more angry villagers in the yard, but although she could hear angry chanting from the front, this area was empty.

Helen’s feet automatically carried her toward the SUV, but at the last moment she veered away. While she still wanted to believe that Mr. Natchaba was innocent, she didn’t feel comfortable using the SUV until she knew for certain the expensive vehicle hadn’t been a gift from a murderer.

Instead, she opened the door of the clinic’s aged pickup truck and indicated for Leticia to get in. As she drove Leticia home, they saw a few people walking away from the village toward the main road. Apparently not everyone felt confident that David would get the information he needed to protect them.

“Are you certain you don’t wish to stay with me?” Helen asked.

“Thank you, doctor, but no. My husband has a motorbike. We will visit my sister in the northwest region. I am more worried that the villagers will come after you.”

Helen didn’t understand how things had so quickly gotten out of hand. “I’ll be fine. I’ll escape underground if necessary.”

“Doctor.” Leticia turned to face Helen. “In case something happens, it has been my pleasure serving with you.”

Tears stung her eyes. “Thank you, Leticia. It has been an honor to work with such a dedicated, caring woman as yourself. Safe journey.”

Leticia nodded and closed the truck’s door. Helen watched until she was met by her husband, then started to drive back to her bungalow. But she realized that she didn’t want to pass the rest of the day brooding. Instead, she offered the next group of fleeing villagers a ride. Playing taxi proved to be an excellent distraction and she’d calmed down considerably by the time she arrived home.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LACHLAN
GUARDED THE prisoner while Tony went to retrieve the emergency med kit, although the man might not be able to speak clearly even when awake. His nose was broken and his split lips were already swelling. But Lachlan would extract as much information as possible in order to prevent more children from dying.

“Here you go, Commander.” Tony hobbled into the room and passed Lachlan his kit. His eyes flicked to the prisoner and his lips tightened.

Ignoring his teammate’s disapproval, Lachlan pulled out the syringe and filled it with stimulant. If he’d had this option seven months ago, would Father MacGuinessy still be alive?

“Lachlan. Stop, lad. You’re going to kill him.”

Two of his teammates pulled Lachlan away from the bruised and bloody body of the rebel. “He hasn’t told us where they’re holding Father MacGuinessy and the others,” Lachlan gasped as he struggled against the arms holding him.

“He can’t tell us what he knows while he’s unconscious.”

Fear and despair nearly choked Lachlan. “We have to find them. Time is running out.” Father MacGuinessy had saved him. Lachlan couldn’t let him die.

“Commander?” Tony murmured. “Are you with me?”

Lachlan shook his head and stared at the syringe in his hands. “Aye.” By the time the other rebel had regained consciousness and given up the location of the hostages it had been too late. The multi-national hostage rescue team had arrived at the missionary school to discover that three hostages had already been killed. Father MacGuinessy had been tortured so badly that he’d died in Lachlan’s arms.

A fist of anguish and regret squeezed his heart. For a moment Lachlan couldn’t breathe. His loss of temper that day had been responsible for his team’s fatal delay. He couldn’t go back and save Father MacGuinessy, but today he would save other innocent people.

Taking a deep breath, Lachlan injected the stimulant into the prisoner’s biceps, hoping that Tony didn’t notice the fine tremor in his hand. But with the events of the past two days, particularly the deaths of nearly a hundred children, Lachlan’s control over his temper was razor thin.

An hour later, Lachlan finished setting and bracing the prisoner’s broken fingers, basic field medicine Lachlan had frequently performed in the past. This time, nausea slithered through his belly and he could almost hear his father’s mocking voice.
No better than the old man, are you? Hurting the prisoner and then healing him.

Lachlan clenched his jaw. He
wasn’t
like his father. He hadn’t hurt the prisoner because he needed an outlet for his temper or because he enjoyed inflicting pain. In fact, he’d had to stifle his own memories of crying out in pain each time one of the prisoner’s finger bones had snapped. Yet in the end, they’d received the information they needed to make certain the villagers remained alive. Plus, the man had confirmed that Natchaba was behind not just today’s attempted bombing, but the festival day attack.

So why did Lachlan feel as if he’d stepped over a line?

After securing the last bit of medical tape round the brace on the prisoner’s finger, Lachlan turned to David. “He’s all yours.”

David scowled at the prisoner. “I did not expect such a tale. When Natchaba moved into this area he asked if Kwesi and I recognized his surname. It is a common enough name, so we did not understand the question. Natchaba then explained that his mother’s family had been exiled from our tribe when she was a small girl.” David shrugged. “At the time, I believed that he had returned in order to impress us with his wealth. How was I to know that Natchaba would attack our people in order to take revenge for an insult to his family that occurred before many of us were born?” He flicked a disgusted glance at the prisoner. “This man, he always wanted more than he was willing to work for, but I would not have guessed he would agree to help kill us all.”

“Natchaba will not stop,” the prisoner said in a voice hoarse from screaming. “You will see. He will destroy you and everyone you hold dear. The other rebels will see how great he is and he will become a powerful leader.”

“Perhaps. But first we will kill you for helping to stage the festival day attack. Our tribe will have justice for the deaths you have caused.” David nodded to two of the other men in the room. They grabbed the prisoner’s arms and escorted him outside.

“Your tribal members were not the only ones who died in the attack,” Lachlan pointed out. “The right thing to do is turn the prisoner over to the government. Show the country that you are different from the rebels and that you value the rule of law.”

The need for retribution burned in David’s eyes, but after a long, tense moment, he nodded. “What you say makes sense. I promise that we will hold the prisoner until the authorities arrive.”

“And that he will not be harmed any further,” Lachlan added.

David looked at him in surprise, then shrugged. “As you wish. We will not hurt the man any more.”

Lachlan wondered if convincing David to spare the man’s life would earn him any points with Dr. Kirk. Somehow, he doubted it.

“Now, enough of this serious business. Thank you, my friend.” David grinned and clapped Lachlan on the shoulder. “Our people will rest easy tonight because of your assistance.”