He thought back. “She was okay at the hotel—in that intense way of hers, like she’s holding the world together through an act of personal will. Quiet in the car. Scanning everything like Jasha, our fixer, does.”
“She wasn’t saying anything but she was engaged?”
“Exactly.”
“When did her behavior change?”
He tipped his head, retracing the trip in his mind. “I know it was after we made the turn onto the mountain road. I remember seeing all that artillery out the back window and realizing we were going to be fired on—us, specifically—and it was a real possibility we would be killed. I looked at her, a little shocked, I guess, and she got the oddest look on her face.”
“Odd, how?”
“Like a deer in the headlights.”
“Then what?”
“The shells started coming in. We all just hung on, Jasha driving like crazy. After we got the window blown out, that’s when I noticed she wasn’t okay—” He paused, buried his nose in her cap of silky-fine hair, heartsore for her. “Why am I alright and she isn’t?”
There was a tap on the door and a nurse leaned in, spoke to Mariana, and closed the door again.
“I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ll check in on you later.”
“Mariana? Are you and Brenna friends?”
Mariana lifted a shoulder. “To the extent that she allows.” She paused, hand on the doorknob, and looked at Brenna. “She trusts you,” she said. “A rarity.”
“Soon as she wakes, she’ll start growling again.”
“If we’re lucky.”
After the door closed he eased Brenna into a more comfortable spot and leaned back against the wall.
She turned on her side. Using his lap as a pillow, nose buried in his torso, she slid an arm around his hip and pulled her knees up to her chest.
Looking down at her, his throat closed over a hard lump. Fetal position. Fragility he never suspected. She was a mystery, a mercurial pain in the ass, a bundle of contradictions—irascible and intransigent one moment, exquisitely tender the next. Collaborating with her was like clinging to the tip of a whip.
What a nightmare, he thought, listening to the muffled poom, poom, poom.
He felt like a speck bobbing on a raging torrent. He’d been dropped into a surreal world—a fantastic illusion that he couldn’t reconcile with anything he’d ever experienced before. He felt sick, polluted, estranged from the man he had been a day-and-a-half ago.
He gazed down at Brenna. For months—years—she’d been living this. How had she stood it?
He lifted his hand and gently cupped her head. Tch, he mumbled, caressing her with his thumb.
“How is she?”
Jasha’s soft voice startled Daniel. He jerked upright, blinking, rubbing his eyes. He must have drifted off.
The fixer was looking down on him and Brenna.
Up close, Daniel saw how ridged and taut the burn scars on his face and neck were, how weary the slope of his shoulders. These were the vestiges of a once-healthy man, ground down and blown to the winds by an inexorable war. “They gave her an injection,” he replied. “We’re waiting to see.”
Jasha squatted to Brenna’s level and studied her silently. “She is good woman,” he whispered. “Good journalist. I have respect. Woman like this, she could be lazy—she has money. But she works. She helps.”
“With her photos?”
“Yes, photos.” Jasha nodded. “But more. These boxes I am bringing—from front seat, you remember, yes? These are medicines, bandages, supplies for hospital. She pays bribes in Italy to put them on plane. Here, she makes Canadians look away. This is contraband. She could be arrested. But we need it. We are in despair.”
Brenna groaned, stirring in Daniel’s arms.
“Jeez, Jasha—” she said, groggily trying to prop herself up. “Ellsworth wouldn’t cross the street against the light and you make him an accomplice to smuggling?”
“Hey,” Daniel bent, smiling, to look in her face. “You’re awake.”
“And you,” she said, her face so close he could feel her breath. “You have your hand under my jacket. How did we get to you rubbing my back?”
“It comforted you on the balcony.”
“You don’t remember that.”
“Sure I do,” he said. “And for all your bluster about where my hand is, I notice you still have yours on my butt.”
She whipped it away. “I do not!”
Jasha flashed crooked teeth. “Oh! She is fighting. Good. Good.”
“What’s good?” Mariana asked, stepping into the room from the hallway.
“She’s awake. Scolding us.”
“I go to car now. Bring boxes.” Jasha grinned and disappeared.
The doctor stole a corner of the bed and patted the mattress for Brenna to sit up and scoot closer. “Can you tell me your name?”
Brenna rubbed her forehead. One minute, she’d been riding in the car, and the next—nothing. She’d jumped a track. Unplugged the power bar. Misplaced reality. And now the doc was checking if she was oriented? Well, yeah, sure. Now.
“Yes. I can tell you my name.”
Mariana smiled at her evasion. “And mine?”
“Yours, too, Mariana. And before you ask if I know where I am, I do. We’re in a gondola on the Grand Canal in Venice.”
“So,” Mariana said gently. “You hide behind glibness. It must have been a terrible scare.”
Brenna pressed her lips together, fighting a sudden prick of tears. She felt emotionally volatile, marginally under control. Damn Mariana’s kindness. She knew it disarmed her. She pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. She wasn’t going to cry. Tears had no end.
“Tell me about your ride up here today,” Mariana persisted.
Brenna recalled fragments, random images. The city. Jasha fighting the car. Explosions. Nothing out of the ordinary. She’d made the trip before, knew it was rolling roulette. Life or death was determined by the caprice of firing arc, wind speed, and timing. You lived or you didn’t.
She’d mentally survived thirty months of warfare because, apart from taking pictures, she wanted nothing—not even her own life. Unafraid of death, she’d been untouchable. And that had given her an incalculable edge. Free of fear, she could assess a scene without distraction. Which helped her cheat the inevitable. She knew she was locked in a contest she couldn’t win, knew the odds were piling up against her.
Until recently she had been okay with that.
And then this morning she saw Daniel look out the back window and realize that nothing he had lived by would save him. It didn’t matter that he was a decent man, that he had loved ones awaiting his return, that he wanted to live. He was a target in a green Volkswagen—luckless prey in the sights of an armed predator.
That look of his broke her heart. She wanted to console him, to tell him there weren’t really people trying to kill him, that he wasn’t powerless and he’d get home again. But on the mountain road, there was no going back. Two ruts. Forward only. At whatever cost.
This morning, for the first time in years, she had wanted something for herself.
Daniel’s deliverance.
When the car windshield shattered and she smelled the cordite, the old pain poured over her. Recollection mixed with reality, a mirage shimmering in her consciousness. Ari and Daniel jumbled in her mind. Present became past. It was Tel Aviv. She was kneeling over Ari’s body. All her willpower, all her desire meant nothing. Consciousness crumpled. She could not see that—could not be there again.
Then she woke in Daniel’s arms and he was all right and she felt like laughing and sobbing at the same time. But she didn’t. She fought it. She held her feelings in.
Because that was just Round One.
Daniel still hung in the balance. She had a job to finish. She needed focus, not emotion.
Emotion was a liability.
Mariana’s voice broke through her reverie. “Brenna?”
She s
crabbled to the edge of the bed and hung her feet over the edge. Yikes. Sudden head rush. She grasped the mattress, waiting for the dizziness to pass. She must have been given drugs. Slowly, the black-tunnel effect cleared. She got up, using the stacks of boxes to steady herself. Shuffling to the middle of the room, she looked around, missing something. She patted her breast, hip, and cargo pockets.
Mariana tipped her head, watching her intently. “What do you remember?”
“A tough commute,” Brenna answered distractedly.
Daniel grunted in disbelief.
Mariana ignored the parry. “Did you flash back to Ari?”
Brenna glanced sharply at her, then at Daniel. He didn’t know about Ari—didn’t know she’d lost her mind once before.
Mariana turned to Daniel. “Would you mind stepping out for a moment?”
“He doesn’t have to go. We’re finished here.”
“No. We’re not.” Mariana crossed the room and gripped her elbows. “You did flash back, didn’t you?”
Brenna didn’t answer.
“You’ve had trauma upon trauma. You need rest, counseling, safety,” Mariana said. “You are breaking psychologically.”
The doc had a point, of course. Dying was one thing, losing your mind was another.
Daniel broke his silence. “Turn in the material you’ve already shot. It’s time to wrap this up.”
The offer tempted her. Call it done, Brenna thought. Get out of Kavsak.
Fissures opened in her resolve. Was it possible? Could she tell the story with the footage she already had? Mentally, she inventoried the material she’d shot with Daniel, and the clips she’d been collecting for months—footage that needed to be part of a larger whole, that she was throwing in gratis.
No, she concluded. There were still gaps.
It wasn’t enough to show one man’s evil. Inhumanity was a conspiracy perpetrated across society in actions large and small until an entire culture became corrupt. The story needed layering, reiteration, exemplars—and she didn’t yet have the footage for that.
“It’s not finished,” she said.
“It’s over,” Daniel growled. “Done.”
“You can go home whenever you’re ready, Ellsworth. I live here.”
The muscles in his jaw clenched. “Consider the terms of your contract fulfilled.”
“Fine,” she said. “Tell Sam I’ll transmit the remaining material just for the fun of it.”
If Daniel’s looks could kill, she’d be riddled with holes.
“You must leave Kavsak,” Mariana said. “You are coming apart.”
“I’m finishing the story. Subject closed. Now. Mariana. You promised me an interview. If Ellsworth won’t ask the questions, I will.”
Mariana crossed her arms.
“And how will you do that—” Jasha’s quiet voice cut across the room from the doorway. He’d appeared again, stealthy as aircraft under the radar, holding something aloft.
The camera.
A wave of heat shot up the core of her body, a turbulent vortice that sucked in every loose shred of fear and self-doubt inside her, dragged it up to her clavicles, and precipitously dropped it.
Fuck. The tool her life revolved around, and she’d been patting down her pockets, trying to recall what it was. She was cracking up.
Jasha stepped forward, his eyes locked on hers. “You never leave your camera.”
She shook her head slowly, acknowledging his unspoken message: She was teetering on a dangerous edge. Mariana was right. And Daniel was just trying to let her off the hook, irrespective of the consequences to his project.
“You have helped our city enough, my friend. Dr. Lazarov and I know this. But the time has come for you to leave us.”
She crossed the room on trembling legs and curled shaking fingers around the camera handle.
Poom. Poom. The building shook. A babble of urgent voices rose, call and response in the church of violence.
Her grip tightened. “I can’t turn my back, Jasha.” Not on the people of Kavsak, and not on Daniel. He was relying on her, and she wasn’t going to disappoint him like Geoff Garrett had.
Jasha held onto the unit. “Today and tomorrow, you work. The next morning, Thursday, you leave Kavsak for good.”
“No,” Daniel objected. “It ends now.”
“Thursday,” Jasha overruled. “Agreed, Brenna?”
A child’s frantic scream carried down the hall like the wail an ambulance.
“Doctor! Doctor Lazarov!” The storeroom door burst open. A nurse urgently demanded Mariana’s help.
Brenna closed her fist decisively. In a single fluid motion, she lifted the camera to her shoulder, flipped on the power lever, and followed Mariana out.
Damn, Daniel thought. This just gets better and better. First Brenna scared the hell out of him. Then she defiantly refused to listen to reason. Now, having blocked every attempt to safeguard her, she was off like a loose cannon, pointed in the direction of his documentary.
His project was going down the tubes, fast.
He scrubbed his hair with frustration. He should just write her off and hire someone locally to finish the shoot.
Problem was, he’d seen the flush of terror that went through her when she blanked on her camera. Kavsak was taking her down, a vandal defiling a magnificent work of art. He wouldn’t play spectator.
“I must assure you,” Jasha said quietly, “this has not happened to Brenna before. She did not accept to work with you, knowing she was…fragile. But me. Thinking back… I should have predicted… Even the strongest…”
Daniel lowered his chin. “Finish at least one sentence, would you Jasha?”
“About two weeks ago, before she went to Washington, we were on the other side of the river—still photos for Der Spiegel. We were separated briefly, and when I found her, a Nationalist soldier had her on her back with his bayonet in her throat. I think this triggers this…falling apart.”
Daniel winced. “So why in God’s name did you give her ‘til Thursday? That’s when we’re leaving anyway. There’s no gain.”
“No. That is when you are leaving. Brenna, as she points out, lives in Kavsak. I have urged her to depart, not just fly out. Anyway,” Jasha shrugged, “there is no escape from Kavsak before then, my friend. Thursday airlift is first opportunity. You must know she will not hide in the hotel until then. It is better, no, to keep her close so we can protect her?”
Daniel dug his palms into his temples and shook his head.
“She is difficult woman to care for, yes?” He squeezed Daniel’s elbow and edged around him to go for the rest of the contraband supplies.
Opening his jacket, Daniel dug in the breast pocket for the tiny notepad and pencil stub Brenna had given him. Since he was here, he might as well work. Maybe he could progress enough to salvage the documentary.
He stepped into the hallway and nearly collided with two porters dragging the corpse of a white-haired man in a black coat. The body trailed a paint-roller-wide swath of bright red blood. The porters curved toward the bank of plastic-covered window openings and parked the body on its side, facing the base of the wall.
Following the men back through the swinging yellow doors to the emergency area, he stepped into pandemonium. Men gestured animatedly, their voices raised by the adrenaline of danger, doubtless sharing the stories that brought them here. Away from them, shadow-eyed families and friends huddled together, intently watching the medical teams working behind the nurses’ station. Sitting silently on the short-legged canvas litters, leaning against the stained walls, pressing wadded gauze against bleeding injuries, the less critically-injured waited stoically for their turns.
Brenna moved through the chaos with feline grace, peering through the viewfinder with somber concentration.
The entry doors burst open. Two blood-sprayed men, hands locked together to form a seat, carried in a woman whose right foot dangled by ropes of dirt-encrusted tissue. The triage nurse led the men to Ma
riana. She spoke briefly to the patient, examined the foot, and called out in a loud voice. Porters appeared beside her and shook their heads in response to her questions. Her eyes scanned the room and landed on Daniel.
“Do you have a strong stomach for blood?”
He nodded, remembering Aya’s ravaged body after the fatal car crash.
“I need help.”
He pocketed his notepad. “Tell me what to do.”
Mariana wove through the crowded room, issuing orders and answering questions along the way. Reaching Daniel she said: “Follow me.”
He walked swiftly down the hallway, feeling the pain in his hip as he kept up with her.
“I have a thirty-five-year-old female who stepped on a land mine while she was picking dandelions for dinner. I need someone to hold her down while I amputate her foot.”
His mind raced. Why did the patient have to be held down? “Good God,” he said, horrified. “You’re cutting off her foot without anesthesia?”
“Have to,” she said, pushing open the staircase door. “She’s bleeding out.”
“Jesus.”
“Without electricity, there is no refrigeration. Without refrigeration, there is no blood bank. The best I can do for her is stop the flow. I’m hoping Brenna was able to get us the antibiotics. This woman’s got half the roadside in the wound.” At the basement landing, Mariana opened the door to a dark hallway lit by a single lantern hanging at the midpoint.
At the far end, he glimpsed extra-wide double doors. “The aid agencies say they’re moving tons of supplies into the city. Aren’t you receiving them?”
“Every crook, every blockade the supplies move past, shaves a percentage. We get maybe thirty percent of what we need. And often, what we get is unusable. Expired meds, unlabelled, labeled in a foreign language, spoiled during transit. We’re getting drugs dumped on us, old World War II stuff. Cases of plaster tapes from 1961. I got a shipment of Dapsone the other day. Dapsone. Leprosy treatment. Do I get anesthetics? Antibiotics? Insulin? Cardiac meds?”
She pushed open a door with the international symbol for Do Not Enter and walked ahead of him into the surgical area. He stopped, scarcely able to see through the gloom. Without natural light, the basement was pitch black. Only three small tea light candles combated complete obscurity. As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he made out two shadowed figures. OR Nurses.
Day Three Page 15
