For a moment Bernice was going to tell the general that there were sixteen more bodies in the camp and they too were causing a great deal of sorrow. “Sorry, General, I think I just bit my tongue. What about the supplies that we were promised? We are running low on gas for the generators, water, saline, and food.”
“They are being delivered this afternoon. Please closely observe the transfer procedures we discussed earlier.”
“We will. Now for the hard one. When are we going to be able to speak to a representative of the United States government?”
“As I told you this morning, this is a matter for the Ministry of State. I have relayed your concerns and they insist they are trying to work out the …”
***
Amanda was listening closely, but something in her peripheral vision drew her attention. The bright tropical sunlight dimmed for an instant and then returned to its usual level of brilliance. Like some cheap special effect in a low-budget thriller, time seemed to slow and then stop, her perceptions reduced to still-frames. Stephen stepping into the tent and reaching for the microphone just as two soldiers slipped from the shadows with weapons raised. The next frame saw Stephen lurching forward, sparks flying from the radio and Bernice falling off her chair into the microscopes. The final frame, the briefest, was simply the Hondurans advancing shoulder to shoulder, a muzzle flash from each weapon frozen in time. The loud clicks from their empty clips moved time forward. For an instant the Hondurans vainly attempted to fire their empty weapons, their faces masks of insanity and their eyes filled with rage as they screamed like feral animals.
A blackness filled Amanda’s mind, and when it lifted she stood over two mutilated corpses, a smoking rifle in her hand. The body on the left twitched and instinctively she fired. It would never move again. Time seemed to slip off its rails again as two more soldiers came running around the old radio tent. She watched their knees pump through their khaki uniforms and the shock wave from each footfall pass up their legs. It took nearly an eternity for their facial expressions to turn from confusion to anger when they saw Amanda standing over their fallen friends, and then to alarm as they processed the fact that the weapon in her hand was aimed at their chests. It took the rest of their lifetimes to try and bring their weapons to bear and for Amanda’s bullets to tear through them.
The echoes faded and Amanda stood alone. She began to register the weight of the weapon and stared at it in complete confusion. She was terrified of guns; how did she manage to have one in her hands? She tried to decipher what had just happened, but her memory had large gaps. She was in there—her head turned to the destroyed medical tent—and then she was here. She swiveled her head between the two corpses at her feet and the dying men ten feet away. Without thinking, and still not certain how she had found herself in this situation, she walked over to the bleeding men and kicked away their weapons.
“Are they dead?” Bernice had crawled out of the medical tent.
Amanda reflexively swung the rifle in her direction but then lowered it. Her mind took a second to process the question and to formulate a suitable answer. “Yes.”
“Good. I only wish they could have died slower. They killed Stephen, and clipped me in the knee. Bastards.” She twisted into a semi-sitting position and dragged her bleeding leg from the fallen tent. “Blew up the only radio as well.” She shook her head. “I knew that they would come after Stephen. They were all sick and acting really strange, even worse than you. We should have disarmed or killed them after what happened earlier.”
Amanda stared at Bernice blankly. The older woman was speaking, but Amanda was capable of registering only a few of the words. She slung the rifle over her shoulder, its red-hot muzzle burning her arm briefly. The pain seemed to take a long time to reach her brain, and she languidly rubbed the red mark. She reached for the two fallen weapons and dragged them over to Bernice. “What just happened here?” she asked after helping Bernice up to a crate.
“You’re in shock, dear.” Bernice lovingly brushed the hair out of Amanda’s eyes.
“I don’t think so. I know I shot them, at least those two,” she pointed at the far pair. “But all I remember is seeing those two”—she pointed at the pair very near their feet—“firing into the tent and you and Stephen falling. The next thing I know, I’m out here with this in my hand, standing over them, and they’re dead.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine; just a little confused about the last few minutes.”
“You’re okay with this? You don’t feel bad about what you had to do?”
Amanda looked at Bernice as if she had just asked the most inane question ever. “Fuck no,” she said without emotion.
“Interesting choice of words,” Bernice said with concern.
“It’s my new favorite word. Here,” she handed Bernice a rifle. “I’m going to get some help.”
Amanda did the math as she walked through the camp looking like Rambo but feeling more like Rain Man. Their Red Cross team was now down to three nurses, two volunteers, Bernice, and herself. Half the team was dead and they had been here less than four days. The Hondurans were down to two, from their original seventeen. She peered into the few tents that remained standing, looking for any help, but everyone seemed to have scattered with the gunfire. She tried not to think about Bernice’s question but it kept bobbing to the surface. She had asked with such sincerity that Amanda felt perhaps she was missing something. Yes, she had killed those men—four of them to be exact—but they were going to kill her, and Bernice. They had already killed Stephen, although in fairness she didn’t know that at the time. Was she supposed to feel bad that they were dead? She walked towards the pavilion pondering the question. Yes, she admitted, she was sorry they were dead. It was a tragedy that they got sick and became murderous psychopaths, and their families would probably mourn them deeply. But should she feel sorry for having to put down murderous psychopaths bent on killing her? No, she concluded. She understood Bernice’s question and all its meanings and rejected the notion that she should feel guilt for doing something that any rational person would feel was right.
“Hello?” She called into the large tent. She heard rustling, and then a face appeared over the unpacked crates and boxes. It was the nurse with no name, and Amanda still couldn’t recall it. “I’m sorry, but for the life of me I can’t remember your name.”
The plump, round-faced brunette gave Amanda the same look that she had just given Bernice after being asked an inane question. “What are you doing out there? Didn’t you just hear that?”
“Everything is taken care of. I need some help with Bernice; she’s been shot.”
A dark cloud of suspicion covered her cherubic face. “You need to go; we have weapons.” There was more rustling behind the boxes and Amanda brought her weapon to bear.
“You need to calm down. I am no threat to you and I didn’t shoot Bernice, the soldiers did. They killed Stephen. I’m guessing it was in retaliation for him killing one of theirs.”
“Where are they now? The soldiers, I mean,” she asked with a little less suspicion, and not a trace of concern for their fallen colleague.
Apparently death is becoming all too common around here, Amanda thought. “They’ve been taken care of. Now, please, I would like to get Bernice over here so we can get her stabilized.”
There was more clattering of boxes and the plump unnamed brunette disappeared for a moment; then she, along with another nurse whose name Amanda couldn’t retrieve, appeared around the south end of the tent. The pair strolled up to Amanda and then put their hands on their hips. “Okay, we’re here.” Their sullen attitude reminded Amanda of spoiled teenage girls.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but you do realize that even with all that’s happened we still have a job to do?” Amanda stood face to face with the plump brunette, who simply rolled her eyes. “Oh, fuck it. Follow me,” Ama
nda ordered and turned back into the bright sun. It was like being in grade school all over again, with Amanda as the teacher’s pet. She had felt the poisonous attitude from the moment she had been introduced to the first unnamed nurse back in Dallas, and despite the fact that people were dying all around them, this middle-aged, insecure bitch continued to have a giant chip on her shoulder.
“Is that gun loaded?” Bitch Number Two asked.
“It wouldn’t be much good if it wasn’t,” she said without turning or missing a step. She smiled at her answer; it wasn’t hers of course—she just remembered it at the opportune time. It made her sound like a genuine bad-ass, a concept she was warming to.
“Do you know how to use it?” For a moment Amanda wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but the subtle undercurrent of disdain prompted a different approach.
She stopped and turned. The weapon swung casually outward. “Would you like me to show you?” Their eyes widened and their pupils dilated. “It’s not very smart to try and anger someone with a gun. However, if you have a genuine doubt”—she turned, walked a few paces, and pointed to a pair of corpses—“you can always ask these two, or perhaps the pair over there.” For the first time in her life, Amanda enjoyed intimidating someone.
It took the two women, Charlotte and Cami, ten minutes to carry Bernice back to the tent. Amanda walked behind them, happy to be the guard.
“Okay,” Bernice said to Amanda after being plugged into a saline IV with a morphine chaser. “What did you say to them?”
Amanda smirked. “I was just having a little fun. They have been rude from the first moment I met them, especially Charlotte.”
“You scared the hell out of them.” Bernice gave her a drunken smile. “We’ve got two more on the verge with the flu. I mean whatever this is. I am high as a kite.” She took Amanda’s hand. “The ranks are getting pretty thin around here. We can’t afford petty games and swabbles.”
“Squabbles,” Amanda corrected.
“That’s what I said.” She pulled Amanda down to her face. “I need something from you.” Her eyes had cleared momentarily. “I do not want to die like Mary Ecklers. If I start to go down that road I want you to give me some dignity.”
Amanda’s smile instantly disappeared. “You can’t ask me to do that.”
“Well I’m askin’. Not only that, I’m makin’ you a promise that I’ll do the same for you. This morphine is some fiiine stuff, full of dignity.” She smiled and winked, then her face became stern and serious. “I want you to promise me that right now.” Her voice was sharp and clear.
“Okay, if you go down that road …”
“Make sure I’m going down that road now child,” she sang as if she were in a Baptist revival.
“I will make sure that if you’re going down that road, I promise to give you some dignity.” Amanda had known Bernice Scott less than three weeks but felt closer to her than she had ever felt with her own mother. Morality aside, if Bernice was suffering she would end it. Maybe in the end, if it came to that, morality was the issue.
“Now turn the light off and let this old woman go to sleep.”
Amanda walked from the tent out into the field and stared at the muted sunlight. Her adrenaline high was beginning to fade and her body ached more than she could ever remember, but her mind was as clear as she could ever remember. The smoke from Tela cast a grey haze from horizon to horizon. She had expected some kind of ash or particulates from all the burning, but her outstretched hand caught nothing. She could see the Hondurans outside the fence, and they could see her. Someone was scanning her closely with binoculars, and she was fairly certain that it had nothing to do with the quarantine. She restrained herself from giving him the finger and simply began walking through the tall grass just outside the tent.
Hours of walking had helped to ease the pain in her joints and gave her legs a warm glow of soreness. She kept checking on Bernice, who snored loudly in the arms of intravenous morphine. There were two other Americans, one a nurse and one a volunteer, in their makeshift hospital, and both were barely clinging to life. Their rash had progressed to involve the entirety of their bodies and over the last few hours had begun to ooze plasma and blood. Neither was truly conscious, although it was impossible to be certain. Their breathing was ragged and at times intermittent. She paced the length of the tent and stopped just in front of their cots. Nothing could be done for them except make sure that they didn’t die alone. Charlotte and Cami were sitting in the shadows and she heard them talking quietly; she took a step into the shade and their conversation abruptly stopped. Their furtive glances and sudden rapid and secretive exchange told Amanda that her presence, no matter how remote, was not wanted. In a way, she understood; the dying nurse had been their friend and her death was a private affair, not to be shared with strangers.
Amanda walked once more around the tent and finally felt ready, both emotionally and physically, to deal with Stephen’s body. She retrieved her weapon and made her way to the medical tent. She skirted the bodies of the last two men she had shot—as well as the first two just in front of the fallen medical tent—without a thought. The tent had collapsed and she began to struggle with the unruly canvas when a second set of hands began to help.
“I’m glad to see you back,” Larry Hanford said, holding the flap of the fallen tent high enough for Amanda to walk under. “God damn it!” he said suddenly after recognizing the body of Stephen, the only other male volunteer, slumped in front of the shattered radio. “So this was the result of all that gunfire,” he said softly. Amanda had managed to find a portion of the center pole and propped enough of the canvas to allow Larry to enter. “Fuck!” he said as he ducked in and looked at Stephen. His glasses were askew and his eyes open. Larry closed them and straightened his glasses. “I shared a tent with this guy for three months when we were in Haiti. Worked his ass off there. An old guy digging through rubble, carrying boxes, carrying babies. Thought he was going to have a heart attack, but he didn’t.” Larry looked around the tent for something that would cover the large bloody wound in Stephen’s chest. He tore off a square piece of opaque plastic from a fume hood and tried to arrange it across Stephen’s chest. “He cheated in cards, but what do you expect from a lawyer? Damn thing isn’t big enough, but it will have to do.” He looked at Amanda with a confused and pained expression. “We’re here to help these people. This shit should never happen.” He pointed at Stephen’s body and balanced anger with grief. “Fuck!” he screamed again and then brushed by Amanda as he ducked out of the tent.
“Yep, that about sums it up,” she said, following him outside. “I need you to help me move him. We can’t leave him here.”
“I know; just give me a moment.” He had walked a few paces towards the fence and hung his head. “I had a heart attack a few years ago. I smoked too much, drank too much; I made millions off of people’s retirement funds. Money real people had earned through a lifetime of labor, and I would skim off the top ten percent, all for punching a few buttons. I was what was wrong with the face of capitalism. It was people like me who precipitated the banking crisis, the foreclosure crisis; if there was a crisis, just look behind the curtains and you’d find me or someone just like me. But I got out of that.” He turned back towards Amanda and straightened. “And now I am going to die in this shitty little field. I can accept that; in a lot of ways it’s appropriate and just.” He pointed back at the tent. “But that’s not just. That’s not something I can accept. He could have done anything with his life, but he chose to work for the UN to write charters on human rights. Instructions for assholes like me on how to live our lives. And he dies like that. Fuck!” He screamed and stamped his foot. Amanda could see that the perimeter guard was now on his feet, rifle in hand.
“Larry …”
“I know; we have to get him out of there.” He walked back into the tent, but not before kicking one of the dead Hondurans. “Wh
ere do we put him?”
“The old radio tent,” Amanda said, gathering Stephen’s feet.
It took a good five minutes to maneuver Stephen’s long frame out of one tent into another. “How many more do you …” Two nearby shots, fired almost simultaneously, made them both scramble to the ground. Amanda had shed her rifle just before Larry had arrived, and she could see it lying next to one of the dead soldiers. A wailing woman’s voice carried across the field and Amanda thought it was Cami, or perhaps the older Charlotte. Aside from her screaming, nothing moved or made a sound.
“Jesus, that woman needs to shut up,” Larry said, and it dawned on Amanda that it was Larry’s hand that had nearly smothered her earlier that morning.
“I’m going to try and reach that gun.” Amanda pointed at the weapon fifteen yards away.
“Are you insane? There are still two soldiers left in this camp. Special Operations Group! Do you know what that means? They’ll shoot you before you get five feet. Even if you did reach it, there are two of them.”
Amanda looked back at Larry and nearly smiled. “They’ll shoot us both in five minutes if someone doesn’t do something,” she said, turning her gaze back outside. She was waiting, almost hoping, for time to once again slip off its rails, but it kept ticking along at the standard pace. She waited a heartbeat and then sprinted for the gun, expecting either a bullet or some significant time compression, neither of which occurred. She snatched up the gun and rolled into the medical tent for cover; nothing followed, and as far as she could tell nothing was moving in the entire camp. Cami was screaming now, and she was certain that Larry was fuming over it, but there were no signs of the Hondurans or any other threat.
After a minute Larry risked a look out of the old radio tent, and Amanda waved back at him. She looked to her left and could see an edge of one of the three tents the soldiers had been using. She knew that they had converted one into a morgue and were unlikely to snipe from there, but didn’t know which of the three. Minutes passed and the only thing that happened was that Cami’s screaming died away. Amanda was bent into an awkward position, and her calves began to cramp. She tried to rub the cramps away, but the muscles knotted even tighter, forcing her to stand. Larry was frantically signaling her, but she ignored him. If the Hondurans were going to shoot her it would probably hurt less than her calves. But no one shot her. She limped back towards Larry, keeping an eye on the Hondurans’s tents, but nothing moved.
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