Blood Covenant Read online

  “Nick’s just received a radio transmission with orders to pull us out immediately, but he didn’t give an explanation.”

  “Nick wouldn’t transmit security-related information, which means the rebels must have returned.”

  She shook her head, unwilling to accept the order. “The rebels have no reason to return here, and these people need me. I can’t leave.”

  Paige caught the look of conflict in Simon’s eyes. “As much as I hate to pull out, I don’t think we have a choice. I’ll have Abraham drive us back to the plane immediately–”

  “Wait a minute.” Paige moved in front of him, blocking his way. “I know our safety is on the line, but the situation here is serious. The rebels stole the hospital’s generator, and I’ve got a woman in there who’s gone into labor six weeks early. Without a generator, a baby born premature doesn’t have a chance – ”

  “I understand how you feel, but Nick wouldn’t call us back to the plane without a serious reason, which means that, like it or not, we’re leaving.”

  “Without any regard to the needs and safety of these people?”

  Simon’s jaw twitched. “You have to know by now I’m committed to ensuring that these people receive the help they need, but I will not put the lives of my own people in danger. We’re leaving. Now.”

  Paige marched back into the clinic, yanked her stethoscope from her neck, and dropped it into her medical bag beside Tayla’s bed. Throwing a tantrum wouldn’t change anything, but she still hated the helplessness of the situation.

  She ran her finger down the rounded face of the young child that glistened with fever. “I’m sorry, Patience. They’ve ordered us to leave the region and fly to Kingani immediately.”

  “The rebels … They are back?”

  Paige shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Patience’s voice pleaded with her. “Please … please, don’t forget us.”

  “I’ll do everything I can to make sure someone returns with what you need. I promise.”

  Guilt squeezed again at her chest as she said good-bye, then ran to catch up with Simon. “There’s got to be another way. Something we can do to help these people.”

  “I’m sorry, Paige. You have to know this isn’t a call I take lightly. I’m as determined as you are to make sure every single person in this country gets the medical care they need, but sometimes it simply isn’t possible.”

  She tightened her grip on the handle of her medical bag. “I know, but all of this seems so preventable. There’s got to be a way to stop these insurgents.”

  Simon stopped in front of the jeep and caught her gaze. “I’ve been here for a year and a half, and I don’t think I’ll ever fully get used to the horrors I’ve seen. But we do what we can and that has to be enough. Life here … It’s like dangling precariously on the end of some flimsy thread, and sometimes there’s just nothing we can do to stop it from breaking.”

  “It’s not right.”

  “No, it’s not.” He helped her into the back of the vehicle and climbed in beside her. “But it’s the reality.”

  Abraham floored the gas pedal, and Paige watched the cinder block hospital disappear around the corner as they headed back toward the plane. Wind whipped through her hair and fanned the injustice smoldering inside her. She caught sight of a couple of villagers sifting through the charred remains of broken clay urns. How was it that life had become this unfair paradox? Those needing her the most were the very people she couldn’t help.

  The crackling of gunfire ripped through the morning air. Fear closed in on her, constricting her lungs, and she ducked beneath the door frame. Rural Tennessee had its problems, but they had never included being chased by rebels with machine guns. This wasn’t Tennessee.

  Another round of shots split the air. Simon slumped beside her.

  Abraham shouted from the front seat. “Everyone get down.”

  Paige ducked, then reached for the patch of red soaking through the fabric of Simon’s shirt. Warm blood covered her fingers. “He’s been shot.”

  “How bad?” Michael shouted from the front seat.

  “I don’t know. Simon? Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah.” He rolled his head backward. “I always wanted to go out with a bang. Please … please tell April I’m sorry.”

  “Stop. You’re going to be fine. You’re not going anywhere except on the plane and out of here.”

  Paige’s fingers tightened against his chest as she fought to keep pressure against the bullet’s entrance to stop the bleeding. The vehicle bounced across the uneven ground, jarring loose her hold.

  Michael was already on the radio with the pilot. “November Gold, this is Mike Foxtrot. Request that you are ready for immediate takeoff. Over.”

  “Roger that, Mike Foxtrot. Over.”

  Paige strained to look behind her, searching for any sign of the armed rebels. Trees waved in the morning breeze, along with the tall grasses lining the runway, but there were no signs of the insurgents.

  Panic engulfed her. “I don’t see them.”

  “I don’t either. They’re probably on foot and meant it as a warning.”

  “A warning?” Paige shouted. “That was no warning shot. They hit Simon!”

  Abraham slammed on the brakes beside the plane and within a matter of seconds the men had hoisted Simon inside behind Paige.

  Michael turned back to Abraham. “Come with us.”

  He shook his head. “These are my people. I’ll be waiting for your return.”

  Nick pulled up the ladder and closed the door. “Fasten your seatbelts, everybody. We’re taking off.”

  THREE

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 12:23 P.M.

  KINGANI HOSPITAL, KINGANI REGION

  Nick crossed the well-kept lawns toward his plane, grateful for the long, narrow field that allowed for emergency landings at the back of the hospital. Especially on days like today. They’d been lucky to escape, but that did little to take away the lingering trauma of the past two hours. Anyone of them could have been hit by the rebels’ bullets. Simon had been.

  He grabbed a stick of gum from his backpack, mentally thanking his sister for her occasional care packages. Her last box had taken four months to arrive and had been filled with snack foods and DVD reruns of the television series M*A*S*H. But it was the photos of his four-year-old nephew Malachi that had turned his thoughts toward home. The sweet, blue-eyed boy was growing up far too fast and made him wish he could bridge the distance between Africa and Louisiana more often.

  A rare wave of homesickness struck, making him long for his small hometown, fishing in the bayou with his grandfather, and Sunday dinner with his sister’s fried chicken and shrimp fritters. His stomach grumbled at the thought, and he hesitated beneath the thick, tangled branches of an African tulip tree, wondering if he should find something to eat at the hospital or go ahead and leave for his base in Kasili. With today’s attacks, his flight itinerary had been indefinitely postponed, which meant he’d probably end up running maintenance checks on planes until the government found a way to squelch the rebel uprising.

  Still debating, he caught sight of Dr. Paige Ryan sitting on one of the concrete benches behind the clinic, wearing blue surgical scrubs and staring out across the lawn, now brown from the summer heat. He’d only met her twice during the short time she’d been in the RD, but the shared connection of a home country and mother tongue tended to bond expatriates quickly. Her independence, obvious sense of adventure, and the fact that she was beautiful were all added bonuses.

  He breathed in the musky fragrance of the orange-red blooms above him. Memories of his own first days in the RD swept over him like it was yesterday. When he’d arrived, Ghost Soldiers were nothing more than rumors brushed aside by government officials. Today, with the rebels demanding amnesty for their involvement in the slave trade, the situation had exploded into something far worse than anything he’d had to deal with outside the Middle East.

  Making the decision to delay his lunch plans, he crossed the lawn and slid onto the bench beside her. He dropped his backpack on the ground. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Simon didn’t make it.”

  Nick felt the punch to his gut at her brusque announcement. He’d seen life snuffed out a dozen times before in the throes of war, but every time death crossed his path it reverberated within him like the first time. “I was just going to ask you how he was, but I thought … I assumed he’d make it.”

  “The bullet was lodged in his chest. He might have had a chance somewhere else, but not here.” She stared across the lawn toward the colorful bougainvillea climbing up across the high walls of the hospital compound, her hands trembling in her lap. “He has a sister who lives in St. Louis and a fiancée in Cincinnati. Her name’s April, and they were planning to get married this summer.”

  “I’m sorry.” Nick digested the news … and the dozens of memories it dug up from his own past. “I know firsthand how tough it is to lose a colleague.”

  “We had breakfast together this morning.” She rubbed the back of her neck with her hand. “I’ve treated gunshot wounds, saved some and lost others, but this is different. We’re aid workers trying to save lives. Simon wasn’t supposed to die.”

  He watched her shoulders slump and hoped it would take more than a rebel’s bullet to send her running. As tough as the situation was, this country needed more people like her. “You did everything you could, both in the plane and here on the ground. That’s all you could do.”

  “But it wasn’t enough to save Simon’s life.” Paige shivered, even though the temperature was well into the nineties. “I thought I could come here and make a difference, but it’s always the same. Today I left a hospital full of people needing medical help and watched a colleague die. I’ll never get used to this.”

  Poignant memories surfaced in the form of random snapshots. Nomads dressed in their desert garb. The flash of light from the grenade. He’d been in her position before. What happened in places like this was rarely expected – or fair.

  “I don’t think any of us get used to the death and poverty we see every day. Between stalled plans, hard-nosed officials, injustices, and the feeling of powerlessness, most of us end up realizing that we’ll never change everything.”

  Her jaw tensed. “Then why come if we’re not making a difference?”

  “I never said we couldn’t make a difference, but we’ll never be able to save them all.”

  Despite his affirming answer, Nick cringed at the question he’d heard asked again and again. He, of all people, knew that no matter how much good they did, or how many lives they saved, it was never enough to erase the sting of losing someone. He’d dealt with the same discouragement in his own life, but knew that he could never let those intense feeling of failure and loss wipe out the good they did. That was what she needed to hold onto in moments like this.

  “I always saw myself as an optimist.” Her hands fiddled with the hem of her scrubs as she broke the silence between them.

  He nodded at her to continue. Talking was a positive step.

  “But I’ve watched that part of me slip away over the past few months until I catch myself feeling cynical about everything around me. Simon was a good man, one who wanted nothing more than to help the people here.”

  “Someone once told me that there are two kinds of people who end up here: runners and seekers. The runners are fleeing their past and the seekers are hungry for adventure.”

  “Which one are you?”

  He’d run the first time at twenty-one. Adventure had become the perfect escape. Thirteen years later, there were still days when he felt as if he was trying to find a way to buy his redemption.

  “Honestly? I suppose a bit of both. What about you?”

  She looked up and caught his gaze. “I don’t know that it really matters anymore. I’m leaving for the capital tomorrow to finish up some paperwork and debriefing, then catching a flight on to Nashville on Friday. I’m going home.”

  FOUR

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 12:39 P.M.

  KINGANI HOSPITAL, KINGANI REGION

  Paige felt the tension that had been building in her shoulders begin to release at the thought of going home, but even that wasn’t enough to dissipate the lingering anger. Something had snapped the moment Simon took his last breath. Life had turned into a game of Russian roulette and she wanted out.

  Three months ago, she’d left for the RD as a naive doctor who’d intended her assignment with Volunteers of Hope International to be the first of many. It hadn’t taken long for that idealistic dream to shatter. In a matter of weeks, the stark reality magnifying the gap between the haves and have-nots had left her reeling. She’d watched mothers lose their babies and children lose their parents, all because of the lack of clean water, inadequate medical care, and harsh living conditions. And no matter how many lists she wrote or how many improvements she tried to implement, the pain and suffering she saw around her only seemed to multiply.

  “Are you ready to go back home?” Nick’s question broke through her troubled thoughts.

  “Honestly, I never thought I’d be so ready to leave.” She wiped a stray tear from her cheek, self-conscious of her display of emotion in front of a man she barely knew.

  “Give yourself some credit. Jonga is said to be one of the hardest assignments in the country.”

  Paige couldn’t help but smile. “It isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis.”

  Before being transferred to Kingani for the last month of her assignment, she’d worked alongside twenty Dzambizian nationals and a handful of foreign volunteers in Jonga. The remote Volunteers of Hope compound had consisted of a row of whitewashed buildings and thatch-roofed huts. Electricity had been sporadic, telephone lines nonexistent, and relief from the heat impossible to come by.

  She shoved her hands inside the front pockets of her scrubs and felt the worn photo of Marila. The ten-year-old orphan’s plight had been the significant factor that had not only brought her here, but had kept her going when the reality of living in a third-world country hit with a vengeance. And was why her relief to return home was tinged with traces of sadness.

  “Despite all the frustrations, there are parts I love about the work. The children’s smiles, the mothers’ love for their babies, and their dedication to family. I’ve been able to run mobile clinics, set up cholera treatment and therapeutic feeding centers, and oversee vaccination campaigns. There are days I’ve felt as if I were making a difference.”

  “You are.” Nick’s solemn expression intensified the worry lines on his forehead. “But then sometimes, like today, there’s nothing else you can do but walk away. Humanitarian efforts often become high-value targets and a way for rebels to leverage their demands, which in turn can strip us of our role as provider.”

  Which was what haunted her the most. She was used to finding solutions to problems and making things work. Her medical knowledge and experience helped keep her in control, and being told she couldn’t do something made her want to fight back.

  But even those intermittent feelings weren’t enough to make her want to stay.

  Nick’s cell phone rang. He spoke briefly, flipped his phone shut, and caught her gaze. “That was Digane. He wants to see us.”

  The hospital administrator sat in his office at the end of the green, cinder block hallway deep in the middle of a phone conversation. He signaled for them to sit down in the two open seats in front of his desk before finishing his conversation and hanging up. “I appreciate your coming to see me. I just heard about Simon.”

  Paige’s jaw tensed at the visual image the reminder invoked. While declaring a patient dead had always been a heart-wrenching duty for her, having it be someone she knew and worked with had made the task even more difficult. “They shot and killed him in cold blood.”

  “I know that the conditions you are forced to work with are difficult enough without having to witness the murder of a colleague.” Digane slid his thick glasses up the bridge of his ebony nose. “I truly am sorry you had to go through something like this, and I want you to know we are doing everything we can to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

  Her fingers pressed against the edge of the desk. “I was told when I arrived that all foreigners have been warned to leave the Mponi region.”

  “That’s why we pulled you out. The warning from the government has now turned into an order for all foreigners to leave.”

  Suspicion closed in around Paige. “I’m glad to see the government doing something about the situation, but if Abraham is right — and we saw evidence that he is — the official government death toll doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.”

  “You may very well be right.” Digane nodded. “I just finished an emergency conference call. As you might have already heard, due to these escalating attacks a refugee camp has sprung up north of here near the border. Already there are over ten thousand people who’ve arrived needing shelter, water, sanitation, and food, with hundreds more arriving every day. We sent in a skeleton team and a convoy of supplies a week ago to deal with the basic needs of food, water, and shelter, but it’s not enough.”

  She’d heard the scenario before. It was rarely enough. “I’m not sure what this situation has to do with me.”

  Digane didn’t hesitate with his response. “I’d like you to lead the emergency medical team we’re sending in.”

  The request took her off guard. “I’m returning to the States in a couple days — ”

  “I realize that, but we’ve got a serious situation on our hands. What started out as a small cholera outbreak has quickly reached epidemic proportions.”

  Paige shivered. She’d seen it happen before. While relatively simple to treat if discovered early on, controlling the spread of cholera was an entirely different matter. And unlike other diseases, it could kill within hours as the result of dehydration.

  “The minister of health is helping to coordinate with our efforts,” Digane continued, “and is prepared to send additional medical personal, but their resources are scarcer than ours.”