WAR: Intrusion

by Vanessa Kier

  “We’ll skirt around this village,” Lachlan decided. “And aim for the next village.”

  “Okay.”

  “But first, I need to attach a tracking device to the rebel vehicle.” He glanced behind them. “You come with me and act as a guard.”

  Heart in her throat, Helen followed Lachlan to the edge of the jungle. The rebels had left just one guard at the truck. Helen watched in mingled dismay and cool detachment as Lachlan crept up behind the man. He stabbed the man in the lower back while his hand covered the man’s nose and mouth. Once the rebel went limp, Lachlan slit the man’s throat.

  After dragging the body into the jungle, Lachlan crawled underneath the vehicle. Helen remained hyper-alert, jumping at the slightest noise, gritting her teeth against the urge to call a warning every time the wind rustled the leaves. Just as she thought she was going to go out of her mind, Lachlan returned.

  She was so glad to have him close that she stepped toward him and had her arms around his waist before she even thought about it.

  “Success,” he breathed against her ear. “They won’t easily find the tracker.”

  Nodding, she pushed away, embarrassed that she’d needed the physical reassurance. “All right. I’m ready to go.”

  Lachlan brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. His eyes held pride. In her? Why? She’d nearly fallen apart.

  “Which way?” she asked.

  Lachlan studied her a moment more, then turned and slipped between the trees.

  The next several hours turned into a stop-and-start, cat-and-mouse game that further eroded Helen’s nerves. She found it difficult to tell direction. Sometimes she heard the sounds of the rebels tramping through the jungle and thought they were close behind, only to turn around and see nothing. Other times she heard gunshots or screams that seemed to come from all directions at once. Twice rebel soldiers almost discovered them, but Lachlan, with his quick reflexes, had pulled Helen deeper into cover just in time. Still, she wasn’t certain her heart could take many more of these spikes in adrenaline without giving out. This morning she’d been annoyed by Lachlan, but right now his calm, capable presence was the only thing holding back the fear threatening to overtake her.

  Not long after Lachlan had planted the tracker on the rebel truck, they’d circled near enough to the village closest to her clinic to see that it had been hit by a missile. David’s house and those surrounding it had been completely destroyed. Homes farther out had suffered less structural damage, but all the buildings still smoldered.

  In comparison, the other two villages had only been torched.

  What she and Lachlan didn’t find as they dodged rebel patrols was any sign that the villagers had escaped. But with fires still raging and the rebels close by, they didn’t dare enter the villages to check for survivors.

  Unfortunately, as the day wore on, more rebels joined the search. In fact, the jungle became so dangerous, that in a lull between rebel patrols, Lachlan asked, “Do you know of any large trees that we could climb to get up and away from the rebels?”

  She tried to figure out where they were, but the narrow trees and thick undergrowth all looked the same to her. “I’m sorry, I don’t. I never spent any time in the jungle. And honestly, even if I knew of such a tree I’d be no help. I haven’t got a clue where we are.”

  The look he gave her was loaded with sympathy. “No worries.”

  By the time the afternoon lengthened toward dusk, Helen was exhausted in both body and spirit. Rain had fallen on and off all day, quenching the fires at the villages and soaking her through to her skin. At least the rain and the air temperature were both warm. Leaning her back against a tree in the jungle outside of the farthest village, she took a grateful sip from Lachlan’s water bottle. They hadn’t seen any rebels for at least twenty minutes.

  “This design is brilliant,” she commented as she handed back the self-filtering water bottle. Because of the effectiveness of the attached filter, they’d been able to take the bottle to the stream throughout the day to fill it without fear of parasites or waterborne diseases.

  Lachlan opened his mouth to reply, then cocked his head to one side.

  She strained to hear what had caught his attention. “More trucks?”

  “Aye.” He motioned for her to follow as he walked closer to the road.

  “They’re leaving,” Helen breathed when they reached a safe position overlooking the road. She watched in relief as the rebels piled into their trucks and drove toward the main road.

  Lachlan insisted on waiting half an hour to make certain the rebels had truly gone. During that time, he called his boss to update him on the situation, and to request that he mobilize the helicopter.

  Helen waited impatiently until Lachlan ended his call. At last, he said, “Okay. Now, it should be safe to break cover.”

  “Finally.”

  Lachlan stopped her at the edge of the village. “Are you quite certain you want to accompany me, doctor?” he asked again. “I’ll bring any survivors to you.”

  She shook her head. “I need to see for myself what happened.”

  “All right. Brace yourself. I expect this will be difficult to view.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m used to locking away my empathy while I evaluate and treat critically injured patients.”

  The rain had reduced the temperature of the village, but the smoky ruins still exuded enough heat to make Helen uncomfortable. Keeping her emotions under tight rein, She picked her way across charred debris, recognizing the pedal of a child’s tricycle here, a cooking pot there. The first dead body they found was of a chicken with blackened feathers. More animal carcasses followed, mostly chickens, goats, and dogs. But there were no human bodies.

  “Maybe everyone made it safely away,” Helen murmured.

  Ahead of her, Lachlan halted abruptly in his tracks. Then he spun around. “Doctor, go back to the jungle. Now.”

  Over his shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a blackened, smoking pile that reached nearly to the height of a low roof. “What’s—” She spotted a human femur sticking out from the bottom of the pile. “No!” She rushed past Lachlan.

  “Bugger it all. Helen, come back.”

  Helen pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. The rebels had created a pile of human bodies in the center of the village. Those on the outside of the pile were little more than burnt skin and brittle bones. She tried to pull one of the bodies away, but the heat and the stench drove her back. So she glanced frantically around for something she could use to dig into the pile.

  “Helen! What are you doing?”

  “Trying to see inside the pile. What if someone is still alive? I have to know.”

  Lachlan cursed and snatched her back. “The chances of someone surviving this long, given the heat of the fire, are nil.”

  She wrenched out of his grasp and started tugging on the unburned end of a wooden pole that had probably held up the roof to a small shed. Oh, God. How horrible would it be to be suffocating under all of those bodies? She had to know. Had to find out if there were any survivors.

  The pole finally broke free and the momentum from her tug sent her reeling back until she nearly knocked into Lachlan.

  “Helen, stop.” He reached for her again.

  “Don’t touch me!” She scrambled out of his reach, then used the burnt end of the pole to pull away the exterior bodies from the pile.

  “Come on, doctor. Be reasonable. You need to think of your own safety.”

  “You might not care if anyone is alive, but I do,” she snarled. “I couldn’t live with myself if I left someone to die at the bottom of this pile.” She glared at him. “Could you?”

  “No,” he admitted. “Here, let me take over.” He nudged her out of the way.

  Helen held her breath as he uncovered burnt body after burnt body. “What—?” She shook her head. “I thought the interior bodies wouldn’t have burned as much.”

  “I think the rebels piled bodies here that had bee
n burnt in the building fires, then added fresh bodies to the top before setting them on fire,” Lachlan answered.

  Despite his initial reluctance, he continued digging until he reached the earth beneath the pile. “No survivors. I’m sorry, doctor.”

  Helen’s stomach churned with despair and anger and it took all of her self control not to vomit. “I… Can we check the rest of the village, just in case someone managed to hide?”

  “All right.”

  But all they found in the rest of the village were more dead bodies. Helen recited the local prayers for the dead over the pile of corpses, then she insisted on covering the bodies with scraps of blankets and tarps before she and Lachlan moved on to the next village. There they found the exact same situation.

  Finally, they reached the village closest to Helen’s clinic.

  The destruction was different here, due to the missile strike. Instead of a pile of bodies in the center of the village, there was a small crater. The dead were scattered around the remains of the buildings. Some bodies had bullet holes, others had machete cuts. All had been burned by the fire that consumed the entire village. David’s severed head had been jammed onto the hood ornament of his burned-out Mercedes sedan. The head of the potential bomber sat on the ground in front of the car. Their burned corpses lay several feet away. Many other bodies showed evidence of having been hacked at with machetes.

  “Why did the rebels act so viciously against this village as compared to the others?” Helen asked, barely able to force the words out through the anger and sorrow constricting her throat. Yet she couldn’t allow herself to cry. Not yet. She wasn’t certain she’d be able to function at all once she let her pain out.

  Lachlan’s gloved hands pulled the burnt corpse of a woman off a charred front yard, revealing a scrap of bright green fabric. Helen stepped closer and saw the partially burnt body of a little girl. Oh, God. The girl’s mother must have thrown herself over her child in a desperate attempt to shield the girl. Helen bent down to pick the body up, then dropped to her knees.

  “Sisi!” Helen gathered the child’s body against her. Sobs broke out of her as the dam holding back her grief exploded. “No. No.” She rocked back and forth. It wasn’t fair. How could anyone do this to a child? How could anyone justify killing such a sweet, sunny girl as Sisi?

  “Ah, lass. I’m terribly sorry.”

  Helen didn’t know how it happened, but somehow she ended up on her feet with her face pressed against Lachlan’s chest and his arms encasing her in a protective circle of strength while she cried and screamed and beat her fists against him.

  It took a long time, but eventually her tears dried up. Exhausted by her outburst, she rested against Lachlan for a bit.

  “All done then?” Lachlan’s cheek brushed against the side of her head. Or maybe it was his mouth.

  She nodded and stepped back, surprised to see an answering sadness in his eyes. As their eyes held, she felt a connection form between them. A connection that had nothing to do with the lingering physical attraction between them. No, despite being at loggerheads most of the time, today’s shared danger and sadness had bonded them in some way she didn’t fully understand yet.

  At the same time, she recognized that he had more experience dealing with situations like this. “How—” She shook her head, not certain exactly what she needed to hear from him.

  “No. It doesn’t get any better,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “Particularly not when women and children are involved. All we can do is move on and see that they receive justice. And I promise you this.” His expression hardened and she shuddered. This must be the face he wore when he killed.

  “Sisi and the others will receive justice,” Lachlan vowed, his tone promising violent retribution.

  Helen glanced at Sisi’s body, then nodded. “Thank you.” It wasn’t enough. Nothing could ever be enough to make up for today’s deaths. But punishing those responsible was a good start.

  In fact, if the killers walked past right now, Helen would be tempted to take a machete to them herself.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “HELEN.” LACHLAN SHOOK Helen’s shoulder. It was just before dawn and Helen was sleeping on one of the cots inside the clinic’s underground storage room. Kris had called yesterday to report that another storm had developed and lightning strikes near the airfield were preventing Marcus from taking off.

  Once they’d finished with the dead, Helen had led Lachlan to the jungle entrance to her escape tunnel and they’d joined Tony in this underground room. While Lachlan updated his teammate, Helen had wrapped a survival blanket around herself, peeled out of her wet, muddy clothes, then fallen fast asleep.

  He hated to wake her, but while he’d been on patrol up top just now he’d received a call saying that Marcus was finally on his way.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked groggily.

  “Nothing, lass. Our ride will be here soon. We need to get out to the airfield.”

  “Oh.” She glanced around the room as if reminding herself where she was. When she sat up the silver blanket slipped a bit, revealing the dirt-streaked skin of her shoulder.

  Overcome by a wave of unexpected tenderness, Lachlan reached out and gently pulled the blanket back into place. “Do you have a spare set of clothes?”

  She nodded. “In the emergency backpack by the door.” She started to get up, but he stopped her. He located the pack and handed it to her, then he and Tony turned their backs while she dressed.

  “The door into the clinic is blocked by debris,” Lachlan said. “We’ll have to exit via the tunnel. Sorry, mate.” Tony would never admit it, but crawling through the tunnel with his injured leg was going to hurt.

  “Okay. I’m decent,” Helen announced. “You can turn around now.”

  He did so, and saw that she’d dressed in a loose blue-green t-shirt of some synthetic material and olive cargo trousers. That tenderness surged back and he wished he could gather her close and chase away the shadows under her eyes and in her soul.

  “What about my bungalow?” Helen asked. “Were you over there as well?”

  “Aye. It suffered mostly fire and bullet damage. The walls and roof are intact. Although, the rebels did take most of your furniture.”

  “If there’s no debris on the floor in the bedroom, then we can exit that way. I’d…” She glanced down and pretended to be absorbed by the act of pulling on clean socks. “I’d like to see if there are any personal items worth salvaging. That’s if we can spare the time.” She shoved her feet into her boots. Flakes of mud fell to the floor and Helen brushed them aside without meeting Lachlan’s eyes.

  Lachlan looked over at Tony and saw the same sympathy reflected on his teammate’s face. Tony nodded at Lachlan.

  “Aye. We have the time, lass.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  With Lachlan leading the way, they entered the tunnel. The trip to the room under Helen’s bungalow took longer with the three of them than it had for Lachlan to reach the jungle exit an hour ago when he’d headed out on patrol. He kept the pace slow to allow Tony to keep up. Even Helen’s movements were a wee bit stiff today.

  But eventually they reached her bungalow and soon after were standing in the center of her soot-stained bedroom. Knowing from the pinched expression on her face that Helen probably wanted a good cry, he said, “We’ll…ah…be in the courtyard, lass. Call out if you need us.” Tony was already at the front door, leaning on just one crutch, having insisted he was doing better today. From his position to the rear, Lachlan took the opportunity to study his mate’s back. He didn’t see any fresh blood on Tony’s shirt or trousers. Excellent. Still, Lachlan had tied the second crutch to his rucksack, in case the long walk to the airfield along the muddy road did Tony in and he needed the extra support.

  Tony maneuvered the one step into the courtyard with ease, then the two of them discussed their plans until Helen joined them a few minutes later. She held a couple of sooty statues in her arms and
a partially burnt leather medallion on a braided cord dangled from her fist. When she spotted the the pile of charred clothes and personal items that had been placed on a bonfire in the middle of the courtyard, she dropped the items she carried and dashed across to the bathroom. The door had burned away, so as she fell to her knees beside the toilet, he and Tony walked to the far end of the courtyard to give her privacy.

  “The doctor has been through a lot, these past days,” Tony murmured.

  “Aye. But she’s a strong one. She held it together until she found the child. Sisi.” It hurt to say the girl’s name, but she deserved to be recognized. There was no one left from her village to do it.

  Remembering how trusting Sisi had been as he’d carried her into the clinic, and how the little boy whose name he didn’t know had thanked him for taking care of the festival day attackers, Lachlan’s hard-won battle calm threatened to break. Using techniques honed from when he’d been a terrified, hurt little boy, he once again fought to bury his emotions so deep, no one would find them.

  On the other side of the courtyard, Helen cursed loudly. When Lachlan turned around to see what had upset her, he found her staring at the dry faucet in the open air washing space. “The rebels either turned off or broke the water main.”

  “Here.” Lachlan held out his water bottle so she could rinse out her mouth.

  “Thanks.” She put her back to him while she rinsed and spit, then returned the bottle to him. After a moment’s hesitation, she squared her shoulders and faced the burnt pile of clothing, books, and mementos. Her chest rose on a sharp inhale before she marched over to the pile and toed through the ashes and scorched remains of her belongings.

  With a sad twist of her lips, she bent down and picked up a plastic bottle that was only slightly melted. She added it to the items she’d brought from inside and gathered them all against her chest. “Okay. I’m ready to leave.” She glanced down at the items in her arms. “It’s hard to believe that of all the possessions I’ve carried with me from post to post since I left medical school, all I’m left with are a few statues, three quarters of a necklace, and a bottle of shampoo.”