Xenophobia (19 page)

Looking around, dark shapes appeared in the doorways and broken windows of the surrounding buildings. Bower could see the upturned Hummer. Oil and diesel seeped out onto the dusty ground.

Smithy was standing defiant in front of the wreckage, firing the SAW on full automatic at rebel soldiers charging in from further down the street. They dropped like flies. Hot shell casings skidded across the road away from her. Smithy eased up, turning her attention back to the rooftops with short bursts. Her tiny frame shook with the recoil of the bullets streaming out of the smoking barrel of her machine gun. She was fearless. Bower was terrified.

“Get her the fuck out of here,” Jameson yelled over the noise and carnage, pointing at Bower.

Bosco was running toward a storefront with a wounded soldier draped over his shoulder. Where was Kowalski? Her heart raced. She could see soldiers still trapped inside the Hummer, but they weren’t moving. Blood marred the inside of the shattered windscreen. Smoke billowed from the stricken vehicle. She got up, wanting to run over to the Hummer and help the wounded Rangers.

Elvis caught her by the scruff of the neck, grabbing her kevlar vest and dragging her the other way. He was strong, unbelievably strong. She had no choice in the matter. Dust kicked up in front of them as bullets cut up the street. Elvis jerked her to one side, changing direction and running for the sunlit side of the street. She felt like a rag-doll blown about in a storm.

Bower found herself slammed up against the wall next to a burnt-out car outside the abandoned UN compound. The rest of the soldiers were on the far side of the intersection.

A rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the cab of the truck, tearing the metal to shreds in a blinding flash. Flames leaped into the air. Although Bower was thirty feet away, the concussion wave shook her body.

Blood dripped from her lip.

Elvis was saying something to her, but whether it was the shock or the ringing in her ears, she couldn’t hear him. She could see his lips moving but his words sounded distant.

They hunkered down behind the burnt-out car as bullets cut through the air around them.

Bower forced herself to hear, willing herself to amplify the sound of his voice. Elvis still had his gold-rimmed dark sunglasses on. His hair was still slicked back. The smile on his lips seemed surreal. Even his uniform seemed clean. Whereas all around her dirt and dust and grim marred the world, Elvis looked pristine.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Miss. We’ll get you out of here.”

She couldn’t believe him. In the midst of the sporadic gunfire and the tinny sound of bullets striking the metal frame of the car they were hiding behind, he was grinning like a child. He leaned over the rusted hood of the car and returned fire at the growing number of rebel soldiers pouring into the area.

Bower slumped down behind the car, her back pressing against the rusted metal door. Her chest hurt, but she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of breathing at an anaerobic rate, perhaps it was the adrenalin wearing off. Her hand ran over the breastplate on her bulletproof vest, her fingers lingered in two tiny holes, barely big enough for her fingertips to reach within. The crumpled remains of two bullets were still hot to touch.

Tears ran down her cheeks. A wave of anguish swept over her. Why? Why her? How could man be so cruel to himself? How could such anger and hatred be directed at her when all she’d ever wanted to do was to help others. And it was impersonal. Their assailants knew nothing about them, nothing other than the flag under which they sheltered. They knew nothing except their own blind ideological hatred, and that was something she couldn’t fathom.

Bosco scared the hell out of her. He came sliding in beside her, having crossed between the overturned Hummer and the burning wreckage of the truck.

“It’s about fucking time,” Elvis said, grinning at his friend.

“Someone’s got to bail your ass out, pretty boy,” Bosco replied.

“What’s the plan?” Elvis asked, peering out over the hood of the car for a moment before dropping back behind cover.

“Sarge doesn’t want to risk the Doc in the open. We break left, try to find some clear air. He’s going to provide covering fire before breaking right. Smithy found a stash of RPGs in that storefront so they’re going to give these bastards a taste of their own medicine. Plan is we meet back at the markets.”

“Who?” Bower asked. She couldn’t bring herself to say any more.

From the look in his eyes, Bower already knew what Bosco was going to say. “We’re three down. Two Rangers and a civilian.”

Bower swallowed the lump in her throat.

Again, there was that sense of clinical detachment in the Ranger’s military speak, although Bower realized Bosco’s comment was as much for Elvis as for her, as Bosco didn’t name the soldiers that had died.

“I’m sorry,” he added, his eyes unable to hold hers as he spoke. “He didn’t feel anything.”

Those words, they were lies and she knew it. The cold detachment with which Bosco dealt with death was all too familiar. She’d seen it before, the facile comfort of an apparently quick death. No one dies instantly. As a doctor, Bower understood that all too well. And yet as the moment passed and the light faded, there was nothing but shallow comfort to be gained from tragedy. Sorry never meant anything to the dead, and for the living it was misplaced but somehow well meaning. Kowalski didn’t feel anything; it was a statement no one could ever verify. Well, he won’t feel anything anymore, she thought, keeping that to herself.

In the blistering heat of the day, Bower felt sick. Bile washed up the back of her throat. She looked back at the Hummer, but she couldn’t see any movement within the darkened, shattered windscreen. How did Bosco know Kowalski was dead? Maybe he was badly injured. Maybe she could still save him. Maybe, but Bosco had clearly seen enough of death to understand the limits of life. Would he lie to her? Would he soften the truth so as to avoid her being reckless?

Bower tensed her muscles, readying herself to spring out into the maelstrom of fire and dart over to the Hummer when a rocket-propelled grenade soared above them, striking the wall less than ten meters away. A wave of heat washed over her. Fragments of rock and stone rained down on her, leaving her wondering how long it would be before she joined Kowalski in the cold, dark silence.

Bosco scrambled out from behind the cover of the rusted car and over to the sharp, stone wall dominating the street corner. He had his back to her, marching forward with the barrel of his M4 leading the way, the rifle pressed hard into his shoulder. He fired a couple of rounds, seemingly oblivious to the gunfire behind him. From the other corner, Jameson and his soldiers opened up, laying down suppressing fire.

“Time to go,” Elvis said, grabbing Bower by the collar.

“No.”

Bower couldn’t move, but she could pull against Elvis. She was safe here, she thought, the rebels couldn’t shoot her behind the car. In reality, the high-velocity rounds raining down upon them punched holes clear through the wreckage. Her only measure of safety came in not being seen.

Elvis dragged her to her feet, his fingers locked around the collar of her Kevlar vest.

“Let me go. You have no right.”

“We’ll debate freewill in combat situations later, Doc. For now, we have to move or we’re dead.”

Bullets whistle by her head. Her feet stumbled across the rubble on the ground.

Bosco crossed the road. His eyes never left the gunsight on his M4. He was leaning forward, moving at a light jog, his rifle pointing down the street as he fired.

“We’ve got snipers at two o’clock,” Elvis yelled at Bosco. “Launchers on the rooftops.”

Bosco was focused on one thing, getting clear of the intersection. Without taking his eyes from the scope on his M4 he dropped out an empty magazine and slammed another in place.

Jameson and his team were firing off rocket launchers of their own.

Smithy had abandoned her SAW and was using a regular M4, firing short bursts at someone in the building ahead of them. Whereas the other soldiers were behind cover, Smithy seemed to be oblivious to the concept of self-preservation. She stayed on the move, her combat boots kicking up dust as she ran in short bursts away from the intersection, moving in the opposite direction to Elvis and Bosco. Smithy was constantly turning to identify another threat. Jameson had a soldier draped over his shoulder, running hard after her as the other soldiers followed, darting between storefronts.

Elvis dragged Bower across the road behind Bosco. It wasn’t that Bower was resisting Elvis, she simply couldn’t keep up with his pace. Her feet felt like lead. Her legs were clumsy, flaying as she ran.

The intersection was covered by rebels on the flat rooftops. Bower could see one of the rebels opposite Jameson lining her and Elvis up with a rocket launcher mounted over his shoulder.

“Won’t feel anything,” she mumbled under her breath. “We won’t feel a thing.”

There was no comfort in that thought, but it was all she could hold to in the moment.

Elvis must have seen the rebel as well as he quickened his pace and threw Bower against the wall on the far side of the intersection. He threw his right arm across her chest, flattening her against the crumbling brickwork just as the RPG struck the corner.

Bower never heard the blast.

The sudden compression of air shook her frame and she found her ears ringing with an eerie high-pitched whine. Clouds of dust enveloped her. She was confused, disoriented. Her ears rang but there was silence at all other frequencies as though someone had pulled the plug on the stereo.

Dirt, dust, rocks and bricks billowed across the street, hurled outward by the explosion. Elvis staggered forward away from what was left of the crumbling wall. She’d felt the blast travel through the air, through the wall, even through him as his arm held her prone against the bricks. Elvis faltered, his boots catching on the debris in the road. His glasses were gone. His helmet had been blown off his head. Blood marred his face and neck.

He staggered forward oblivious to all around him. Bullets kicked up the dust around his feet. Elvis fell to his knees. His back was straight but his head was bowed as though he were kneeling in prayer. It was only then Bower noticed the dismembered, bloodied arm lying some fifteen feet away in the middle of the road. Splatters of blood marred the ground, turning the dust black rather than crimson.

Bower felt a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ve got to go.”

Bosco’s words were muted even though he was shouting, just a vague semblance of sound slowly leaking back into her silent world.

“Nooooo.”

“There’s nothing you can do for him,” Bosco cried above the crackle of battle. “If you die then his death has been in vain.”

Bower looked at Bosco through tear-stained eyes. She was already pulling the belt from her waist. The sound of explosions, bullets flying and men screaming rose in a crescendo, but none of that mattered. She couldn’t leave Elvis.

“He’s not dead,” she cried aloud.

Bower pulled away from Bosco, surprising herself with the vigor of her own movement.

Bower shut out her own fears and changed gears mentally, moving into overdrive. She grabbed Elvis by the shoulder and wrapped her belt around the shattered remains of his upper arm, pulling it tight and stemming the flow of blood. The blast had left his bicep in tatters, with the ruddy white humerus bone protruding to just above where the elbow should have been. By strapping her belt across his deltoid, leading from his shoulder, she hoped to contain the arterial bleeding.

“
Fuck, fuck, fuck
,” Bosco cried. He was manic, she could see that by the way he was moving. He fired erratically, turning rapidly one way and then the other. He dropped an empty magazine out of his M4 and slid another in seamlessly. “What a way to
fucking
die. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this is a complete cluster-fuck.”

Bower ignored him. She slapped Elvis on the side of his face, staring deep into his eyes as she spoke.

“Elvis, look at me. Come on, I need you to be here, now. Look at me. Remember me, Doctor Elizabeth Bower. You’re in Malawi. You’re in a fire-fight. I need you to focus. I need you to come with me. Do you understand?”

The distant glassy look in his eyes gave way to a lethargic nod. Bower helped the big man to his feet, struggling to support his weight. Two sharp stabs of pain cut into her back and she knew she’d been hit. Her bulletproof vest took the brunt of the impact, but the pain surging through her back felt as though she’d been struck by a baseball bat. Bower staggered, almost dropping Elvis.

“We’re
fucked
,” Bosco cried. “We are so
fucked
.”

Looking around, Bower could see Jameson and his team were gone. She remembered how he’d described the different sounds of gunfire back in the village, the violent snap of the M4 compared to the throaty thump of the rebel AK-47s. There was only one M4 firing, Bosco’s.

Bosco had moved behind the cover of a storefront further down the road, moving as though he could will Bower and Elvis to move faster. Elvis was heavy. Although there was nothing wrong with his legs he was leaning heavily upon her, making it hard for her to push on.

To her surprise, the AK-47s stopped shooting, and for a moment she held out hope they’d escaped, but mentally she knew they were barely twenty feet from the intersection. Something else had happened, but what? The lonely crack of the M4 continued, but something was wrong.

Looking up from beneath the weight of Elvis bearing down on her, Bower watched as Bosco was hit first in the leg and then the arm by two precise shots. He staggered forward but couldn’t bring his M4 to bear.

Ahead, a crowd of African rebels ran in toward them yelling and screaming, but they weren’t shooting, they wanted to take them alive. They reached Bosco and began clubbing him with the butt of their AK-47s. They knocked Elvis to the ground as well, but they left Bower standing there covered in his blood.

Bower watched in horror as one of the rebels slipped a black sack over Bosco’s head, pulling a drawstring tight around his throat. She cried out as her hands were pulled behind her back and bound tightly together with rope. Her world went black as coarse sacking was jerked over her head. The pull-rope around her throat restricted her breathing, causing her to panic. Bower was pushed forward and fell awkwardly to the ground, unable to break her fall with her arms.