I wondered what her intuition was telling her now.
Chapter 21
SABEENA AND I sat next to each other in the cargo bay of the huge helicopter. We took turns peering through a scratched Plexiglas window as the helicopter flew over the battlefield, the engine and the rotors providing the sound track to the hellish sight below.
I saw hundreds of bodies. Some were in heaps, and others lay like far-flung sticks as far as I could see.
As the helicopter descended, I identified the uniforms of the dead. Many wore the camouflage and red scarves of the Gray Army, but the BLM, in gray-and-green fatigues, outnumbered the Grays two to one.
I didn’t know many of the BLM soldiers personally, but I felt that I knew them all. Most were Americans my age, from small-town USA and from cities like Boston. They had come here to help these savagely victimized and disadvantaged people whose roots they shared.
Because of their selflessness, these brave kids had died not only terribly but anonymously. Not even their bodies would go home. There were no refrigerated trucks in South Sudan. The BLM dead might be photographed for later identification, or not. But for certain, the corpses of both armies would be bulldozed into mass graves.
Our helicopter touched down, rocking on its struts. The engine whined, and the pilot shut it down. Colin helped me out of the cargo bay, and for a moment, he held me above him and looked into my eyes.
I wanted to say something meaningful, but I was still annoyed with him. I couldn’t find the right words-and then, the moment was gone. My feet pounded the ground as I ran across the flat and stinking field, sending up flights of vultures as my colleagues and I looked among the bloated bodies for signs of life.
The immense number of bodies finally stopped me cold.
I stood on the flat, brown field that stretched from nowhere to nowhere else and took in a panoramic view. My first estimate had been wrong. There weren’t hundreds of corpses. There were thousands. The BLM soldiers had been shot, and many had also been hacked with machetes and decapitated.
A hot wind blew the stench of decomposition across the field. Tears sheeted down my face. No healing would be done today.
And then I heard Sabeena shout, “Over here!”
She was hunched over a body that seemed to be twitching. I ran with my kit in hand, sliding the last few yards on my knees to where the wounded soldier lay. His breathing was ragged, and I counted six bullet holes punched into his bloody uniform. Somehow, he still held on to his life.
“We need a stretcher!” Sabeena shouted out through cupped hands. “Stay here,” she said to me, and then she ran toward our chopper.
I lifted the young man’s head into my lap and gave him a sip of water from my canteen. He coughed and asked for more.
I gave him another sip, and I pinched his thigh.
“Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“Can you move your feet?”
His expression told me he thought that he had moved them, but I was sure he was paralyzed from the waist down.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Nick,” he said. “Givens. My parents live in Biloxi.” He gasped. He grabbed at the chain around his neck, pulled it over his head, and pushed it and his dog tags into my hands.
“Givens. Melba and Roy. They work. At the high school.”
I said, “Nick, you have to keep your ID with you,” but he shook his head and looked at me with huge, pleading eyes. He knew that he had very little time left.
I said, “I’ll find them.”
I was holding the young man’s hand when automatic gunfire sounded behind me.
I jerked around and saw one of the Gray soldiers weaving around the obstacle course of bodies, running erratically toward us. He had been injured. Blood soaked his uniform, but he wasn’t down and clearly had more killing in mind. He saw me staring at him, and he lifted his gun and screamed, “Zu-ber-i!”
Givens strong-armed me out of his way and raised his weapon, but before he could squeeze the trigger, he grunted and rolled onto his side.
I had no choice.
I seized the gun from Givens’s hand, sat with my back to him, and used my folded knees as a gun brace. I pointed the AK at the Gray soldier, who was closing in. I was looking him squarely in the eyes when I fired.
The burst of bullets was shockingly loud, and the kick of the gun threw me back onto Givens. I caught my balance even as the soldier staggered backward and dropped.
I didn’t need to check his pulse to know what I’d done.
Dear God. This is me. Brigid Fitzgerald.
I’ve just killed a man.
Chapter 22
THE ENTIRE field was in chaos. The helicopter chopped shouted words into strings of nonsense, and the whirling dust storms colored everyone and everything a dull yellow-brown.
Colin had been standing between the helicopter and where I sat with Givens. Now he was heading toward me, waving his hands wildly, frantically calling out to me, something like, “Brigid. Come to the helicopter. Come now.”
“I need help!” I shouted back.
Nick Givens was still alive, and as long as he was breathing, I was determined to save him.
I leaned close to the young man’s ear and said, “Nick, you hang on, okay? I’m getting help for you. You’re going home.”
A new sound washed over the field.
There was another helicopter high overhead. I felt a flash of hope. More help was coming in, and surely there were other people on this field who might be alive and, with medical assistance, could be saved.
I prayed for that.
And then another shock blasted the hope right out of me. As the helicopter descended we were sprayed with gunfire. We were under fire.
Our own helicopter was rocking and beginning to lift off, and now Colin was running toward me.
“Leave him,” he shouted over the roar of the engines. “Brigid, come with me, or I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you.”
I still didn’t understand-and then I did.
The logo on the tail section of the second aircraft was not the blue UN letters with the image of the globe.
The logo was the letter Z in black.
Other helicopters appeared overhead, joining this one. We were being attacked by Zuberi’s army.
Colin was only yards away. I shouted, “Colin, he can’t walk. But we’re taking him back with us. We must.”
Colin’s face contorted as bullets flew and the enemy helicopter landed a hundred feet away, sending up thick, stinging waves of dust.
I could hardly see, but I grabbed hold of Givens’s feet, and Colin, following my lead, lifted up the young man from under his arms. He was heavy, but I was damned well going to keep a grip on him. More bullets pinged into the dirt. We were making progress toward the UN airship-it was so close, I could see the pilot’s face-when Colin let go of Givens.
I screamed, “Colin! Pick him up!” when I saw the look of shock come over his face. He clutched at the bull’s-eye on the front of his T-shirt. I yelled his name, but he looked confused as he stared at his bloody palm.
He started to speak, but he couldn’t get air. His knees buckled, and he collapsed, falling onto his side.
I released Givens’s feet and ran over to Colin. A bullet had gone through the center of the target on his back and out the front. Maybe it missed his heart.
I rolled Colin onto his back, put an arm under his neck, and grabbed his dear face with my hand. His eyes were open, but he seemed to be looking past my shoulder.