WAR: Intrusion (37 page)

“Dr. LaSalle might be your best bet,” she added. “He seems to have contacts and influence in a variety of sectors, including the military. Maybe he can find someone to help us. If you’re unable to reach him, try the U.S. embassy in the Greater Niger Republic.” That was the only remaining fully staffed foreign embassy in West Africa. Plus, it was located next to an American military base. “I know they’re too far away to be of any immediate help, but we need someone to be aware of our situation.”
In case we don’t survive.

Tom nodded grimly. From the downward turn of his lips, she knew he also wondered if they’d make it out alive. But neither one would speak that fear aloud, in case it caused the others to panic. He gestured for Ateni to precede him, and the two of them headed for Helen’s office.

“Okay,” Helen said to her team. “Let’s prepare our critical patients to be moved.” It would take time to transfer all the patients who were hooked up to machines to portable versions.

Forty-five minutes later, Helen was transferring the last patient from an electricity-powered breathing device to a battery-powered one, when the lights went out. Despite having practiced what to do in this scenario the day after she’d arrived, her heart still gave a frightened lurch. Then the generator kicked in and the backup lights came on.

The loss of power only reinforced the last report from RTR that the rebels had reached the outskirts of town. She motioned for one of the nurses to take charge of the patient, then strode down the corridor, checking on the patients that were waiting their turn to be loaded onto one of the evacuation vehicles. Thankfully, her staff remained calm, so the patients weren’t panicked. Still, when Helen looked out the back door and saw that only the hospital’s pickup truck had returned from dropping off its last group of evacuees, her heart sank. There were about twenty patients waiting to be evacuated, but they wouldn’t all fit in the bed of the pickup.

“We have to get as many patients onboard the truck as possible,” she told the security guard who was in charge of loading the patients. “Even if it means some of them are pushed uncomfortably together.”

His eyes flicked to the open door to the hospital. “The power is out?”

She nodded, and he cursed softly. “Then it won’t be long now,” he said. He’d been a member of the national military before joining the security firm and his calm, steadfast manner reminded her of Lachlan and his men.

“When will the other vehicles return?” Helen asked.

“Perhaps some fifteen minutes.”

“Then I hope the rebels take their time in reaching us.”

The man nodded, then shouted for one of the orderlies to help him load up the pickup truck.

Helen returned to the critical care ward. She supervised the last of the patients being wheeled down to the evacuee line, then checked that no patient records or life-saving medicines were being left behind. They were twenty minutes over the original hour mark, and Helen was just locking the last of the remaining medicines in the secure cabinet, when Kofi burst into the room.

“The rebel trucks have just made the turn from the main road,” he announced.

“Thanks. I’ll be right there.” Helen waited for him to leave, then unlocked the cabinet. Her hand hovered over the vials of morphine. Telling herself that taking them with her didn’t mean that she had to use them, she shoved the vials and several packages of syringes into her pockets, then re-locked the cabinet and ran for the back of the building.

She reached the door in time to see the taillights of the overpacked pickup truck disappear down the lane. Behind her, six critically injured patients waited in the hallway. All of them were hooked up to battery powered devices. “Quick. Move everyone down to the morgue.” Without electricity, they’d have to use the hydraulic lift, which could only take one gurney at a time, and the stairs.

Her staff moved with well-oiled precision. They’d just lowered the last patient into the dark, cool morgue when the building shook under the force of an explosion.

“Doctor, please we have to leave,” the owner of one of the local restaurants announced. His minivan was nearly full with those remaining patients who could tolerate sitting up, but he’d saved a few spots for her staff.

“Go,” Helen told her staff. Since each group of patients evacuated was being attended by several nurses or other personnel, there were only twelve staff members remaining, not including Helen. “I’ll stay here with the patients.” Even if everyone jammed into the car, they wouldn’t all fit.

“No.” Tom shook his head. “I will also stay.”

Helen started to protest, but gunfire and angry shouts punctuated the air. “Fine. Those of you who want to leave, go now. The rest of you, into the morgue with me.”

All of the staff elected to stay. Even the security guard shook his head when she told him he should go and protect the evacuees. “I will set some traps here to slow the rebel soldiers down.”

Tears in her eyes, Helen waved the businessman off.

“Thank you. Stay safe,” she told the security guard, knowing that this was likely the last time she’d see him alive. Then she locked herself and the others in the morgue.

Two minutes later, after another explosion, the generator shut off, plunging the room into darkness. Helen fumbled to activate the battery powered lights as another explosion shook the building above them. Dust rained down in the faint illumination.

“Kofi, please activate the emergency brake on the lift and destroy the door mechanism. I don’t want the rebels to have easy access to us.” Hopefully, the rebels wouldn’t have the patience to manually force open the sliding metal door.

But the regular door at the top of the stairs would be easier to breach. The landing in front of the door was barely three feet deep, but at least the door opened inward. “Everyone else, let’s stockpile as many items against the door at the top of the stairs as we can fit so the rebels will have to work hard to break it open.”

But even as she went to work creating a barricade with her staff, she fingered the vials in her pocket and knew the moment was coming when she’d have to make the most difficult decision of her life.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The
Republic of Dahomey

West Africa

FROM
HIS POSITION at the edge of the jungle forty kilometers north of a medium sized town on the western edge of Dahomey, Lachlan watched two rebel guards turn the corner of the main building in the middle of the small compound.

After saying good-bye to Helen, and receiving confirmation from Obi that the security firm hired by her new employer had a solid reputation, Lachlan and the rest of his team had driven to the town of Sotoume. That was where Obi’s informant had seen Natchaba meeting with a man that was listed as a business partner to one of Natchaba’s aliases. But the informant turned up dead before Lachlan’s men could question him. The team had then visited the local house bought by Natchaba using that alias—not as large or fancy a house as the one near Helen’s clinic, but still far above average—only to discover that the household staff had been killed in the same manner as the staff at the mansion.

Not long after that, WAR had been notified that the rebel prisoners being held at the jail in New Accra had escaped. Fearing for Helen’s safety, Lachlan had notified the head of the security company to assign extra men to her hospital.

Wishing that his team could take over the job of protecting Helen, Lachlan had returned his attention to tracing Natchaba’s movements within Sotoume. The sooner they found Natchaba, the sooner Helen would be safe.

His team had found no further sign of Natchaba, and Lachlan had begun to think this was another dead end, when the tracking device he’d placed on the rebel lorry up by Helen’s clinic had suddenly started transmitting again. Half of Lachlan’s team had followed the signal to an airfield, watched as cargo had been transferred from the plane to the lorry, then part of Lachlan’s team had continued to follow the lorry while Lachlan led the others to capture the pilot. While the pilot was not Seth Jarrod, questioning him did reveal that this was the second shipment he’d flown to this airfield for Natchaba’s alias since the attack on the villages.

While Lachlan had been prepared to use force to get the pilot to talk, he’d succumbed to regular questioning. The pilot wasn’t a believer, just a man who asked no questions as long as he was paid. In keeping with Natchaba’s policies, the pilot knew little more than the name of the man who paid him and the man who supervised the unloading of the cargo. Still, the local police were happy to have someone to put in jail so they could appear to be making progress in stopping Natchaba’s organization.

The other team had followed the lorry to this compound and watched it park inside a large garage, where the tracking signal had cut out. Levine and Hoss had snuck inside and taken photos, documenting that the cargo had been cartons of Eastern European assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols. The same weapons they believed Natchaba had smuggled through Helen’s airfield. But they’d found no sign of the missing mini-explosives.

Based on the variety of insignia on their uniforms, Lachlan’s team had determined that the force in residence consisted of men from five different rebel groups. Two of which were the ones responsible for the destruction of Helen’s clinic and the nearby villages.

On orders from Azumah, Lachlan had reported his team’s findings to the national government. The president had decided to conduct a joint raid, with the understanding that Lachlan’s team would do the bulk of the takedown but the government forces would receive all the credit.

Lachlan had no problem with that. He was just happy to have a chance to take down some of the men who’d been behind the attack that had killed little Sisi.

Right now, most of the rebels were in their bunks in the two barracks out behind this main building. But thermal imaging showed that several of the leaders were having an informal meeting around the kitchen table in the back of the main building, while the less popular leaders slept upstairs in their private quarters.

When the second guard moved out of sight, Lachlan adjusted the focus on his binoculars and scanned the building to confirm that no rebels were in sight. Then he signaled for Dev and Lars to move in.

Dev and Lars crept past the motion-activated lights, which would remain lit for several minutes now that the guards’ movements had triggered them. They followed the guards around to the back, where Levine and Obi were lying in ambush. When the all-clear tap came through his comm unit indicating that Dev’s team had disabled the guards, Lachlan sent the signal for the government’s team to take their positions by the front and back doors. The government forces would prevent anyone from leaving while Lachlan’s team cleared the interior.

The rules of engagement set by the government were to capture, not kill, those inside. So Lachlan’s team were equipped with knockout gas grenades.

When the government forces were in place and Dev’s team had joined Lachlan and the others, everyone pulled their gas masks into place. Under the watchful eyes of the government’s men, Lachlan’s team lined up against the wall of the building. On Lachlan’s signal, JC, in the lead position, used his shotgun to shoot the lock and force open the door, then Levine tossed a grenade inside.

Within minutes, the team had moved through the first two rooms. Both were empty.

Dev broke off and led his team up the stairs to the next floor.

The next downstairs room held several men who had been watching TV before the knockout gas rendered them unconscious.

Lachlan’s team reached the final room, the kitchen at the back of the building. Levine tossed the grenade inside, but it failed to detonate.

Piece of surplus shite.

The rebels who’d been sitting around the table grabbed their weapons and started shooting. Lachlan and JC returned fire as Levine grabbed another grenade off the back of Hoss’s pack and tossed it into the kitchen. This one detonated and Lachlan’s team successfully cleared the room.

When Lachlan finally gave the all-clear, two rebels lay dead. The rest, including the man Lachlan suspected to be the man in charge of the entire compound, were unconscious and securely tied.

Dev reported that his team had captured four men upstairs.

The government forces stopped two men from escaping.

As the government’s men moved in to take control of the prisoners, Lachlan’s team conducted a brief search of the building. JC took photos of any documents WAR might find helpful in fighting the rebels, since the originals would be taken into evidence by the government.

JC whistled in dismay. “Commander, check this out.” He thrust a sheet of paper at Lachlan.

Lachlan glanced down. Under the word WANTED was a black and white photo of Helen. The bounty for information regarding her location was listed at $75,000.

Lachlan stuffed the paper into a pocket in his vest, not trusting the government forces with this information. The government didn’t pay their soldiers well. There had been instances of soldiers in other countries selling out their own platoons to the rebels for cash or food. Lachlan wasn’t going to risk Helen’s life by assuming that the government forces here tonight held only honorable men.

It took several hours for the operation to wrap up. The boxes of weapons in the storage room were photographed and catalogued by both the government and WAR’s forces. As part of their agreement, WAR was allowed to take possession of three boxes of weapons to add to their limited arsenal.

None of Lachlan’s team had been injured, so when they finally had permission to leave, the mood on the Blackhawk was one of elation.

Lachlan’s satisfaction was tempered by his concern for Helen. Aye, he was still furious at her for refusing to admit that she felt the same powerful connection between them as he did. If he could change from suspecting her of involvement in terrorism to wanting her to share his life, then she could at least be honest with herself. No matter how angry he was with her, he had no intention of going quietly into the sunset. He fingered the paper in his pocket. First though, he’d have to make certain she survived Natchaba’s plans.