Another salvo of bullets chattered, and someone grabbed my arm. I wrenched it away.
I heard, “Lady, it’s me.”
It was Kwame. It was Kwame.
He helped me to my feet, and we ran to the side of the post office. From there, I saw a truck swerve to avoid a pedestrian and collide with a car, which in turn skidded into another car. In the midst of the chaos, Zuberi had reached his Land Rover and had gotten in beside a driver.
Kwame yelled, “He’s going now!”
Zuberi’s Land Rover rammed into a parked car in front, then backed into a truck behind it. The driver was trying to make an opening, an avenue of escape, and, in fact, the nose of the vehicle now had a clear shot at the road to Torit.
But as the Land Rover lurched ahead, two U.S. Army Humvees roared up and blocked it.
American soldiers poured out of their Humvees. Bullets sprayed Zuberi’s ride, killing his driver. Zuberi stuck his hands up and shouted, “Stop shooting! I give up!”
Soldiers pulled open the doors and dragged Zuberi out of the Land Rover, then slammed him across the hood and stripped him of his weapons.
I heard Kwame saying, “Lady. Look here.”
He had taken off his long, boxy shirt, and after peeling off my raincoat, he stuck my numb arms through his shirtsleeves. I couldn’t manage buttonholes, so Kwame closed the shirt for me, picked up my raincoat, and draped it over my shoulders.
Someone called my name.
I looked up as a gray-haired U.S. Army officer bolted out of a junker parked on the same side of the street as the post office. Holstering his gun, he hurried over to where Kwame and I stood. I blinked stupidly as the officer said, “Dr. Fitzgerald? I’m Captain Jeff Gurney. We spoke last night. Are you hurt?”
I shook my head no, but my hand went to where the knife had sliced into my throat. I was bleeding, but the chain around my neck, the one Tori had given me with a crucifix, had stopped the blade from cutting into my artery.
I closed my hand around the crucifix.
Thank you, God.
Captain Gurney said, “I’m sorry for what those men did to you, Dr. Fitzgerald. We were watching you the whole time, but I’m no sniper. I was waiting for support, but this situation went critical so fast. Finally, I had to risk it.”
I got it now. It was Gurney who had shouted, “Drop the knife!” Then he had taken his shots. If his aim had been slightly off in any direction, he could have shot me.
I thanked him for saving my life, and he thanked me in turn. “Your courage is amazing, Dr. Fitzgerald. Because of you, Zuberi is out of the game.”
The captain introduced himself to Kwame, saying, “Good work connecting the dots, sir. First-class job.”
Kwame was smiling now, shaking the captain’s hand with both of his. He had been the perfect go-between. He had conspired with me. He had let Zuberi know that a package had arrived. He had contacted the army and made arrangements with Gurney. As Gurney had said, Kwame had done a first-class job.
My voice quavered when I said to Kwame, “I know what you risked for me. Thank you. I’m your friend for life.”
“You are the brave one, lady. You did this. You stood up to Zuberi. Only you.”
We hugged hard, both of us crying.
Is it over? Am I going to live?
And then, the noise on the street got even louder.
Chapter 44
A SOFT flutter overhead turned into a loud, choppy roar as helicopters settled down on the street. Tarps and umbrellas took flight, and people shrieked as they ran from the whirling blades.
While our soldiers looked on with guns in their hands, the onlookers who had fled the shooting returned, and now they circled Zuberi. They shouted into his face. They used stout sticks like baseball bats, swinging and connecting solidly with Zuberi’s back and thighs.
When I looked again, Zuberi was naked, lying facedown in the mud. He cried for help. He ordered people to leave him alone. He covered his head with his arms. But the blows kept coming.
Gurney shouted to me over the racket of helicopter engines, “Dr. Fitzgerald! We have to get you out of here. Stay with me!”
“You’ll take me to Magwi Clinic?” I shouted.
He looked at me with stark disbelief.
“You’re kidding, right? Doctor. You just baited the trap. If you don’t leave now, Zuberi’s troops will kill you, today. Tell me you understand.”
“Captain, I can’t just go. I have patients. I have people depending on me. Thank you, though. Be safe.”
I turned away and headed up the street to where I had tied the donkey. Gurney stopped me by grabbing my arm, and, you know, I’d had enough of being manhandled today.
“Let go of me.”
I pulled my arm free and began to run in my oversized boots. I was desperate. I had to get to Sabeena and tell her what had happened. I had to warn her to leave the clinic. Because of me, she might be the next target.
But Gurney wouldn’t take no from me. He chased me down, grabbed me by the shoulders, spun me around, and held on until I stopped fighting him.
He shouted, “You’re being crazy!”
“My friends could be in danger. Don’t you understand? I have to tell them to get out.”
Gurney held on to my shoulders and shook his head.
“You’re a kid, Brigid. Listen up, as if I were your father. If you don’t leave here now, you are going to die today.”
I glared at him and could almost hear Colin telling me to get into the helicopter, saying that it was time to go. If I had listened to Colin, he might still be alive. His death was on me.
I said to Gurney, “I’m not a kid. And you’re not my father. Don’t you understand that I’m responsible?”
“I have responsibility, too. Say I let you go. You walk about three hours or so to the clinic. You warn your friends. And then what? You have no backup, no escape plan. Picture it, okay? Really picture that.”
I got it. I saw a massacre. White coats spattered with blood. Bodies in heaps.
I said, “You have to evacuate the clinic. Promise me you’ll get the doctors out.”
“I promise.”
“You’ll do it now?”
“Yes. Now.”
Would he do it? Would he get to the clinic in time?
After Gurney released me, he walked me back to the helicopter and helped me into a seat. He buckled me in, then spoke to the pilot.
He shouted to me, “Good luck, Brigid!” Then he climbed back down.
The blades whirled, and the helicopter vibrated. In the moment before we left the ground, I looked down at the mob surrounding Zuberi. He was bloodied, and the crowd was still beating him, shouting and throwing rocks at him.
Just when I thought they had killed him, a man in a blue shirt turned Zuberi over so that he was lying faceup, then used the stock of Zuberi’s own gun to break his knees.
Zuberi was rolling from side to side in agony when two American soldiers jerked him up off the ground and dragged him toward another helicopter.
The chopper I was in lifted.
We were peeling off when a flickering movement on the side of the street caught my attention. It was Kwame.
He was waving good-bye.
Chapter 45
ONCE WE were airborne, I slipped into a kind of shock.
Within a ridiculously short period of time, I’d been terrified, humiliated, and bloodied, and now I had been officially kidnapped. I didn’t know where I was going or even if our military had the right to take me out of Magwi.
What now?
I shivered in Kwame’s shirt and the remains of my raincoat as the helicopter delivered me to the Juba airport. A jeep was waiting, and the chopper pilot handed me off to the driver, a U.S. Air Force lieutenant named Karen Triebel. She gave me a temporary American passport and a knapsack, and as she drove to the terminal, she told me that the knapsack contained a tracksuit, a bottle of Advil, bandages, and a tube of triple-antibiotic ointment.