“We need to get in the trucks,” Marque told her quietly as she passed by, rounding up her troops, and Christianna was now counted among them. “They haven't told us, but I think they're going to go in, they want everyone as far away as we can get.” She had been moving among the locals and telling them the same thing. People were walking and running across a field behind newly formed riot police lines. It made the parents' hearts ache to put even more distance between them and their children trapped inside. But the soldiers were pushing the crowd back now with force, as though they were running out of time.
Christianna picked the toddler up, put an arm around her young pregnant friend, and helped her into one of the trucks. She was no longer in any condition to walk, or tolerate what was happening. She looked as though she was going to give birth at any moment. Christianna was no longer aware of it, but her bodyguards were watching her from close by. They were well aware that the local troops were about to go in, and if something dire happened, they wanted her within their reach. Marque had noticed them as well, and understood why they were keeping Christianna in their sights. No one wanted a dead princess on their hands as well as more dead children. The death toll was already far too high. It would have been a further victory for the terrorists to kill a royal even from a neutral country. Her anonymity as well as her safety were vital. And Marque was impressed by how hard Christianna had worked all night. She had been tireless, with the zeal, passion, energy, and caring of youth. Marque suspected that, if she had time to get to know her, Christianna was a young woman she would have liked. She seemed very down to earth and real.
Everyone waiting moved far back across the field, and within half an hour there were explosives, machine-gun fire, tear gas, and bombs going off, as commando squads and riot police stormed the building. It was impossible to determine who was in control, as the crowd watching from the distance just stood there and cried. It was hard to believe that there would be anyone left alive after it was over, on either side.
Christianna left her young pregnant friend lying down on a cot in one of the trucks, as she continued to ask what had happened, but no one knew yet. It was too soon to tell, as the battle raged on. Christianna joined the other Red Cross workers handing out blankets coffee, water, and food in the crowd. They had put small children, shivering in the early morning chill, in two of the trucks. It was hours later before the gunfire stopped. It was almost more frightening when it did than when it started. No one knew exactly what that meant, or who was in charge. They could still see troops moving in the distance, and then from an upstairs window, a white flag. The crowd at the far edge of the field shivered in the cold, and continued to wait for news.
It was another two hours before a group of soldiers crossed the field to bring them back. Tragically, there were hundreds of children's bodies to identify, and the screams of anguish all around them seemed to ebb and flow for hours, as families identified and mourned their dead. All but two of the terrorists had committed suicide. The bombs in the school had not been detonated, and were being disarmed by bomb squads. The remaining two terrorists had been taken away in armored cars, before the anguished crowd could tear them apart. Military intelligence wanted to interrogate them. And in all, there were five hundred children dead, and almost all of the adults. It was a hideous tragedy that no one would soon forget. And now that it was over, suddenly there was press everywhere. The police were trying in vain to hold them back.
Along with the other Red Cross workers, Christianna walked with parents, among the lifeless children, while they identified them, then helped the parents wrap them and place them in small wooden coffins that had appeared from somewhere. A sob caught in her throat for the thousandth time as she spotted her pregnant friend, clutching her son to her as she cried. The boy was nearly naked, but alive and covered with blood from a cut on his head. Christianna walked over to her and hugged both mother and child. There was no stopping the tears, and Christianna took off her own jacket and put it around him, as the young woman smiled at her through her tears, and thanked her in Russian. Christianna hugged her again and helped her get the boy to a paramedic to check him. In spite of the obvious trauma, and the cut on his head, surprisingly, he was all right. The scene had not gone unnoticed by Marque, working alongside the other workers herself, helping people to identify bodies, and closing coffins. It was a devastating day and night, even for the soldiers, and those who had seen scenes like this before. There had been few in the recent history of terrorism that had been quite this bad. And for Christianna, it was an initiation by fire. As she stooped to help someone else, she noticed that she was covered with blood. Everyone seemed to be covered with it from the children they had held, both dead and alive.
Throughout the afternoon and night, many more ambulances arrived, hearses, trucks, vehicles, and people came from neighboring towns and far away. It felt as though all of Russia had come to be with these people, help them bury their dead, and mourn. By late that night, they seemed to have a clear idea of who had been killed, and who had been saved. Almost all the missing children were accounted for, although a few had been rushed to hospitals while no one knew their names. It was midnight when Christianna and her two bodyguards helped Marque and the others load their trucks. The volunteers' work was done, the rest would be handled by the professional members of the Red Cross, who would help locate the children who had gone to hospitals in other locations. Christianna stayed till the bitter end. She stood outside the last truck, hugged Marque, and burst into tears of grief and exhaustion. They had all seen too much in the past few days. Christianna had only been there since the night before, and knew without question that her life had been forever changed. Everything she had seen or done or experienced before this seemed irrelevant to her now.
Marque knew better than anyone that that was how it worked. Her own two children had been killed in an uprising in Africa while she and her children were living there, and had stayed too long in a time of political unrest. It had cost her children's lives, something for which she had spent a lifetime trying to forgive herself, and eventually it had also cost her marriage. She had stayed in Africa after that, and started a Red Cross chapter to help the locals. She still went back often, had worked in the Middle East, during various wars and conflicts, and in Central America. She went wherever she was needed. She no longer had a country. She was a citizen of the world, her nationality was the Red Cross, her mission helping all those who needed her, in whatever situation, no matter how uncomfortable, debilitating, or dangerous. Marque feared nothing and loved all. And she stood with her arms around Christianna now, while the young woman cried like a child. They had all been through too much.
“I know,” Marque said gently, indifferent to her own exhaustion, as always. This was her life's blood, and she gladly shared it with others who needed it more than she did. She wasn't afraid of dying in the course of her work. This was her family now, and all that she loved. “I know how hard it is the first time. You did a wonderful job,” she praised her, as Christianna stayed buried in her arms. She was hardly bigger than a child. Her bodyguards had also cried many times that night and were no longer ashamed of it. It would have been stranger if they hadn't. Christianna loved them for it. Just as Marque had come to love her for all she'd done. It was a long time before Christianna wiped her eyes and emerged from the older woman's arms. She hadn't had a mother's embrace for most of her lifetime, and this felt the way she imagined it would have. Someone holding you until you felt ready to face life again. Christianna wasn't sure she was yet. She would never forget the tragedies she'd seen that night, or the pure rejoicing of parents who found their children alive and were reunited. She had cried just as hard at that. It had all been heart-wrenching beyond anything she could have imagined. She had expected to work hard, but not to have her heart torn from her body and ripped apart.