With Creed’s arms draped over their shoulders, two monks half carried, half dragged him down a dark corridor. Gheronda followed, praying loudly. They approached another monk, who ushered them into a small room: water-stained plaster walls, the smell of candle wax, spartan in every way. They lowered him onto a bed-no more than a raised board covered with blankets-and immediately forced his head around so they could inspect the bloody bandages.
“I’m all right,” he said, weakly pushing at them.
Brother Ramon tugged the bandage up and off, taking with it a profusion of hair.
“Ahhh!” Creed complained, grabbing the back of his head and glaring at the monk.
Brother Ramon unclipped the strap from the duffel bag and pulled at it.
Creed yanked it back. “This stays with me!”
Ramon leaned in, grabbed Creed’s chin, and turned his head.
Creed said, “All right, all right,” and shifted to face the wall. Ramon pushed away clumps of bloody hair.
Leaning around Ramon, Gheronda saw the wound, and it wasn’t what he’d expected. It was several inches long, as though the bullet had struck at an angle, gouging up the flesh. Scar tissue appeared to be already forming along the edges, making it look like a mouth with leprous lips. Ramon touched the hair just below it; blood welled up and spilled out. Ramon snatched his finger away and looked back at Gheronda.
Gheronda smiled. “I’m sure he’ll be just fine.”
“I told you,” Creed said, turning to face his audience. He rubbed the back of his head, examined his bloody palm, and returned it to the wound. “Fierce headache, though.”
Gheronda pulled the monks away. He said, “Let’s give the man some room. Brother Ramon, I’ll leave it to you to keep the bandages fresh.”
Ramon nodded and walked to a writing desk, where he began rummaging through a satchel.
As if remembering an urgent task, Creek yanked the duffel up to his chest and unzipped it. He pulled out a mobile phone, ran his thumb across the screen, and squinted at it. “Oh, come on,” he said. He shook it, held it up high, then tossed it into the corner of the room, where bits of it shattered off.
“Shhh,” Gheronda said soothingly. “There’s time for everything you need to do.” He tugged a blanket up from the bottom of the bed, covering Creed, and gently pushed on his chest. “Lean back. What you need now is rest.”
Creed grabbed a handful of the monk’s cloak and pulled him close. He gazed into Gheronda’s eyes with a mixture of insistence and pleading. “What I need now, right now, is a phone.”
[30]
Owen Letois rushed along the dirt road, a teenaged girl draped over his arms. Her blood soaked his shirt, splattered his bearded face. He passed rickety houses pieced together with discarded scraps of wood and sheet metal, and huts of timber and straw-most of them long abandoned.
Gunfire behind him made him look. The heart of the village was beyond a rise in the road, out of sight. He saw no fighters, only a few civilians fleeing in his direction, ducking with each burst of gunfire. Dongo was barely a pinprick on Central Africa’s Oubangui River, but it was the current flashpoint in the hostilities between the Enyele and Munzaya tribes over farming and fishing rights. The clash had been going on for years, and Owen suspected none of the militiamen understood or cared about the reason they fought; they were in it to avenge old grudges and recent atrocities, and because man’s darkest demons were opportunistic creatures.
The girl groaned, and Owen tried to ease the jostling she received in his arms. The blade had gone deep, cutting through the muscles of her shoulder and upper chest; it had probably broken her clavicle. He angled off the road and started up a grassy slope, aiming for the cinderblock clinic of Medecins Sans Frontieres-Doctors Without Borders.
Roos Mertens came out of the building and ran toward him. She was the only nurse who’d remained when MSF had evacuated the other physicians and staff. Owen was glad someone had stayed, and especially that she had; she was competent, compassionate, and professional.
“Prep a table,” Owen called out in Flemish, the colloquial Dutch of Roos’s Belgian hometown. “Fentanyl, Hespan, a subcutaneous suture kit…”
Roos held something up, and Owen recognized his private satellite phone. “It kept ringing,” she said. “I found it in your backpack. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head: he wasn’t worried about her invasion of his privacy or the call or anything but getting the girl stabilized.
“A man on the line,” Roos continued. “He says he must speak to you, an emergency.”
“ This is an emergency,” Owen said, irritation making his words harsher than he had intended. He gave her a weak smile to convey this, but fully intended to trudge right past her if she insisted on not helping. His left foot squished against a blood-soaked sock, and he realized that his entire left side, from where the girl’s shoulder bumped against his chest on down, was drenched as well. He quickened his gait and began a mental checklist of the equipment, instruments, and supplies he’d need for her surgery, pausing on each item to curse its disrepair or shortage or absence. The escalating violence that had driven out MSF, along with its flow of supplies, also increased the need for both.
As he approached, Roos waved the phone. “Doctor, he was very insistent. He said to tell you…” She hesitated, looked puzzled.
Owen barreled on.
“ Agag? ” she said.
He stopped. “What?”
“Agag. I don’t know if that’s his name or-”
“Give me the phone. Put it here.” He shrugged a shoulder, then pinched the phone between it and his cheek. Still talking to her, he said, “Get the QuikClot out of my belt pack, see what you can do.” In the field, there was nothing better than QuikClot for stopping blood flow. The gauze was impregnated with kaolin, which absorbed blood and accelerated the coagulation cascade. “Got a packet of gloves in there too.”
Switching to English, he said into the phone, “Who is this?”
“Creed… You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
“How could I ever forget? Is it true-the Agag?”
“Do you think I’d say it if it weren’t?”
Even through the bad connection, Owen detected exhaustion, defeat, and fear. He glanced at Roos, packing the gauze into the girl’s wound. He dipped his arms, giving her better access, then he closed his eyes. “The Agag” meant a specific catastrophe that would make the horrors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo look like a Disney cartoon.
The man on the other end of the line said, “You told me you’d help. You said anytime. Are you still willing?”
“That depends,” Owen said. “You’ve… reconsidered?” He knew what the man was: just a man, cursed to be one forever. Several times Owen had tried to convince him to use his extraordinary lifespan and the wealth and knowledge that accompanied it for good instead of for the atrocities he’d been committing. He’d told him that when he changed his mind, Owen would help-whatever that entailed.
Creed explained his situation and why he needed Owen’s help.
“Are you all right?” Owen said.
“I took morphine for the pain. Knocked me out flat on the plane. Used to be like popping a couple aspirins, you know? I must be getting old.” He laughed, but it was cold and hard, like ice cubes dropped in an empty glass.
“Where are you now?”
“Sinai… St. Catherine’s monestary.”
Owen wasn’t surprised. He’d been tracking the Tribe for years, trying to convince all of them, not just Creed, to amend their ways. The Tribe maintained relationships with people, organizations, places around the globe, and Owen had gone to all of them-the ones he knew about-to appeal for their help in stopping the Tribe’s activities.
