“We are on a flight to New York at 6:10 in the morning. From there we fly to Rome. I know you won’t sleep but you must try. Everything is packed and the hotel has a reservation for us near the airport. If we leave now, we can be there by eleven and get some rest before we get up. I have some pills that will help you sleep.” Rocky was exhausted, having dealt with the news about Hanley while providing support to Elizabeth and arranging their travel. She was thankful she was able to call on Beverly, Hanley’s office manager to help her. She wanted to lie down and sleep but knew it was impossible. The worst had been dealing with Belinda, who was astonishingly uncaring. She did, however agree to keep Carrie while her daughter traveled to Africa. Elizabeth had refused to speak with her mother, leaving it to Rocky.
Having been a doctor’s wife gave Rocky an unfortunate ability to guess at the severity of Hanley’s condition, if the information the nun had delivered was anywhere near accurate. Who knew? Hanley’s survival would depend on how soon he had received medical treatment and how good that treatment was. Rocky knew that southern Sudan would not offer Hanley much hope, or her.
***
The red light on his answering machine was blinking in the dark as Michael Campbell walked past his den on the way to the kitchen. He was thirsty and needed a drink. Sophie had insisted they attend a small party thrown by their neighbors, even though he had resisted. Now, just home, he wanted a Scotch and water before bed. Stopping, he took two steps backward, walked to the phone in the den and punched the button. The voice was that of Sophie’s uncle Jean-Robert. The message made the Englishman sit heavily in the arm chair next to the phone. Hanley Martin had been shot during an attempt to rescue some children in a town in Sudan with a name Michael had never heard before now. “What the bloody fuck had he been thinking?” Campbell said aloud. It did not seem like something his friend would do. How did he get pulled into that, he wondered? Maybe it was the French nun; must have been. The message said that Hanley was in bad shape. Sophie’s uncle was back in France, near Paris. Jean-Robert said he had received a call from the diocese in Rumbek and called his niece when he had received the news. “Michael, are you in the kitchen?” Sophie called from the stairs. “If you are, will you bring me some water?” she asked.
He did not answer right away, thinking about the news and what he should do. “Michael, did you hear me?” his wife called to him.
“Yes, I heard you,” he yelled to her. “Come into the den, will you?”
As she entered the den, Sophie saw her husband slumped in the chair, his right hand cradling his forehead. “Michael, what is it?”
“It’s Hanley. He’s been caught up in some sort of botched rescue attempt and hurt, badly. Maybe fatally, who knows. The message is from you uncle. Listen to it while I get a drink.”
Sophie listened to her uncle’s voice, trying to picture what might have happened. Michael came back to the den saying, “There were no real details in the message. The nun, Sister Marie Claire, must have been involved. Your uncle was right, what he said in his letters. Hanley and the nun had grown close. Remember, he said she was not happy with the church’s lack of involvement in the conflict in Sudan. From his description of her, she would be very capable of trying something like a rescue and drawing Hanley into it.” He took a long sip from his drink before sitting in another wing back chair in the den. “Do you think I should go to Sudan?” he asked.
“No, I don’t want you going there. It is bad enough that Hanley has been hurt; I don’t want you hurt too. No, you won’t be going to Sudan,” she said emphatically. Sophie’s voice was tight and her tone irritable. She seemed mad and Michael suspected a bit shocked as well. For years Sophie had expected news of this sort to come to them about her uncle.
“I can be there as fast as anyone, especially if the head of the order helps arrange my transportation from Khartoum to wherever Hanley is being treated. Hanley will need someone with connections outside the church and his family will need someone with resources who can help them with the government if that is an issue. Airbus and the church together with the US government may be capable of getting Hanley out of the country and to decent medical care. Anyway, I will just be a friend coming to help with no affiliation to the church or America. I will call Alexandre Ganier right away and explain the situation. I’ll get his opinion and then we’ll talk.”
“There will be no talk. I don’t want you to go. That’s all I have to say and it should be enough.” She looked at the glass in his hand, rose and left the room. Michael picked up the phone and punched in the number for the president of Airbus. “I can at least get his opinion,” he told himself.
34
Waving her blue handkerchief about, Rocky tried to chase away the flies tormenting her. They were after the tears on her face. Damn you, she thought, get away from me. The wooden bench she sat on pinched the back of her legs. Wiping her tears, she stood and straightened her blouse. The evening was cool but not chilly, not in Kenya she thought. Since arriving that morning, she and Elizabeth had remained with Hanley until late afternoon when Elizabeth had given out. The
