Still not recovered fully from the pain and his efforts to keep from yelling out at the top of his lungs, he merely nodded. He couldn't even open his eyes, still tightly shut. "Okay, soldier. I'm going to go over to the humvee and see if I can find an aid kit. Okay?"
Placing the soldier's left hand over the dressing in an effort to keep pressure on it, Cole looked at him one more time. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go over to your vehicle and look for a first aid kit. Is that okay?" Again there was no comment. Just another nod. Without waiting, Cole stood up and looked at the soldier one more time. Taking off her parka, she carefully laid it over him, turned, and hurried back to the humvee. There she got down on her hands and knees and crawled through the open door that both the dead female and the black soldier must have escaped through. As she searched the humvee for an aid kit, Cole worked her way around the lifeless legs of the machine gunner and a varied knot of personal gear, equipment, ammo boxes, maps, and sundry other items that made her search difficult. But Cole prevailed, finding not one but two aid kits. Pleased, she backed out of the vehicle, ignoring the dead machine gunner, got onto the road, and stood up.
Just as she did, a new voice from down the road shouted, "HALT!" Spinning about, she saw less than fifty meters away a pair of German soldiers, one of whom held his rifle up to his shoulder and pointed at Cole. It was the enemy. They had returned. Taking a step back, Cole glanced over at the black soldier.
Seeing Cole's action, the soldier had managed to turn his head enough to see that she was in trouble. With every ounce of strength he had left, he pushed away Cole's parka, grabbed the dressing with his left hand again and pushed it as tight against his abdomen as he could. With his right hand he reached down to his side, grabbed the M-16 rifle that had been lying there, and laid it across his lap.
The German who had been in the lead had also seen Cole's reaction and, looking over to where she had turned her head, saw the wounded black soldier, now preparing to bring his rifle to bear. The German, seeing that he himself was in danger, swung the muzzle of his rifle away from Cole, took a quick aim at the black soldier, and fired a short three-round burst.
At that range, the German's volley found its mark. Cole watched in horror as the first round struck the black soldier's left shoulder. The second round, due to the climb of the German's rifle muzzle, hit the soldier in the head. With the muzzle still climbing as the third round left the barrel, the bullet hit the tree just above the soldier's head. But Cole didn't see that. After watching his head jerk after being hit by the second round, his lifeless eyes rolling back into his head, Cole dropped the two aid kits she held, turned, and fled back into the woods followed by random shots from both Germans that missed her but kept her going.
When she finally stopped running, Cole found herself alone again, lost in the woods and more frightened than ever. What shreds of rationality she had managed to hold to until that morning were now gone. Dripping with sweat from her exertions but with no parka to protect her from the chilling winds that began to sweep through the woods, Cole slowly began to wander about without any thought, without any purpose. Only total physical exhaustion stopped her. At the end of her strength, Cole simply dropped onto the ground, curled up into the fetal position, and went to sleep.
It wouldn't be until the spring, when the forests shone in a wild blaze of lush greens and vibrant colors and the last of the melting snows had long disappeared, that Hilary Cole's body would be found.
"The chances of pulling this off, Madam President, are almost nonexistent. There's just no way in hell I can support you in this."
Peter Soares's reaction didn't surprise Abigail Wilson. For days, despite the fact that he was still her Secretary of State, Soares had been looking for a way to distance himself from Wilson's administration. That he was using her recent decisions as a pretext for leaving it was both logical and, after his recent lack of support for her, a relief. "Do you, Mr. Secretary, see any reasonable alternatives?"
Like a slap in the face, Wilson's response caused Soares to recoil. The expression on his face changed in an instant from one of anger to a blank, almost embarrassed look.
Without asking for an explanation or making even the slightest effort to pursue the subject with him, Wilson looked down at some papers before her. There was, as she began to speak, the slightest hint of satisfaction on her face. "I find it strange, Mr. Secretary, that the same man who less than a month ago came into this very room and campaigned vigorously for this administration to invade a sovereign nation in pursuit of a more ambitious objective should, in the throes of an international crisis, back away from an operation which is aimed at doing nothing more than saving the lives of our fellow countrymen. This just doesn't make sense to me."
Soares resented having Wilson turn on him like this. He had watched her treat other men of power as if they were children, embarrassing them and making them so angry that they reacted in a manner that made them look like fools. In the past he had enjoyed watching his political enemies squirm under Wilson's subtle and manipulative attacks. He had on many occasions engineered such scenes during Wilson's climb to power. Now that he had become the target of just such a setup, Soares couldn't deal with it. "Madam President, I will let the American voters be my judge."
That Soares at a time like this should put this issue into political terms was to her distasteful. How could someone, she wondered, even think about elections and politics when the lives of Americans and the role of the United States as the leader of the free world hung in the balance? There were times, Wilson believed, when leadership, true leadership, demanded that hard decisions be made, political consequences be damned. Leaning forward with her arms resting on the table and her hands joined before her, Wilson responded with a voice that was clear and confident. "I, Peter, will trust to God to be my judge."
From the end of the table, Ed Lewis, who had been watching this outbreak building up for several minutes, finally added his own fuel to the flames that Soares was fanning. "You do understand, Mr. Secretary, that both the British and the French, not to mention the rest of NATO, agreed to support our expanded operations in Germany only if we would go in and secure the nuclear weapons that we lost control of after your failed adventure. Though we would have preferred to wait until the Tenth Corps had made it to the coast, it was decided that"
With fire in his eyes, Soares leaned across the table and turned to face Lewis. "Who in the hell do you think you are, you little bastard, to come in here with these half-assed schemes and act as if you were the Secretary of State?"
Unable to resist the opportunity to take a slap at Soares, Lewis leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Well, it seemed to me, Mr. Secretary, that someone needed to act like the Secretary of State."
With that, Soares's face flushed with rage. Before Wilson could say anything, he was on his feet and shaking his fist at Lewis. "You bastard! You little slimy bastard!"
Wilson, upset by Soares's reaction, slammed the flat of her hand down on the table. "MR. SECRETARY! I will not have this meeting turned into a locker-room brawl. Now sit down and let's get on with this. There is much to do."
Eyes still wild, Soares turned on Wilson. "If there's more to be done here, you'll do it without me. My resignation will be on your desk within the hour."