Presley came around the side of hospital at a trot, breathing heavily. He stopped beside Doug, took a moment to get his breath, then started talking. “All the soldiers are gone. We’re on’r own, now. I checked t’ back. We’re good there.”
“Fine. Can you hold on here a moment while I…” His voice was drowned out by the roar of an approaching jet flying very low. It streaked overhead, the United States insignia plainly visible, and disappeared in the distance.
“I need to go inside for a moment,” Doug finished.
“I’ll hold the fort, old man, but ‘f you hear shots, hurry back.”
“Will do.” Doug adjusted the sling of his rifle even as he realized he was still holding his pistol in his other hand. He holstered it and went inside. He was sweating heavily, even through the lightweight fatigues he wore. As he stepped past the opened doors, the jet roared by again. He turned to look and spotted a rising pall of smoke coming from the direction of the airport. Curious, he thought. He hadn’t heard any explosions. Then faintly, from the same direction, he realized he was hearing gunfire. He went inside.
Amelia and June were standing together in the little office. Amelia was talking on the phone.
“Did everyone make it okay?” June asked him.
Doug shook his head. Hadn’t she seen? “No. The driver and guard in front are dead. Where’s Bob?”
“He’s sicker today. Amelia put him to bed.”
“The virus?”
She nodded, looking sad. Doug felt the same way. He had known Bob Handley for years, whereas the two men who had been shot were relatively new recruits.
Amelia secured her phone. “I certainly hope Gene has some helicopters on the way. We won’t be leaving from the airport. It’s under attack.”
“What did the embassy say?”
“They’re evacuating, too. The marines are coming in to try and secure the airport.”
“Well, all we can do now is wait. Did you take Bob upstairs?”
“No, I have someone with him, though.”
“Get him up. Carry him if you have to. The choppers will land on the roof when they come. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
The waiting was interminable. Doug kept his phone off so that the guard downstairs could call if they ran into problems he couldn’t see from the roof. In the meantime, he appropriated Amelia’s phone to find out how it was going at the embassy. So far they reported no violence, though some demonstrators were beginning to gather, the spokesperson said. Once he saw one of the American jets circling the city fire a rocket near where the airport was located, but it was impossible to see the target. More smoke was rising from the area, black and turgid, as if fuel was burning.
Shots sounded from somewhere inside the hospital. Almost immediately his phone rang.
“Doug, some of the ambulatory patients are trying to come up the stairwell! I need help! I had to shoot one of them!” That was the guard he had posted at the entrance to the stairwell leading to the roof.
“Marker, Guiterrez!” Doug shouted. “The main stairwell! Get there quick and disperse the patients!”
Captain Presley had been standing nearby. “I’ll give ‘em a hand,” He ran off, unslinging his rifle as he went.
Doug thumbed in the numbers of the guards at the main entrance, then those at the back, and ordered them to move inside and to the stairwell, and to shoot if it was necessary to get there. That was the only access to the roof. He thought that somehow the patients had learned that helicopters were coming for the Americans and either resentment over their leaving or a desire to go with them had spurred the agitation. Whatever, they had to be kept back.
A bullet spanged off the abutment of the old television aerial nearby. Doug ducked reflexively even as he heard an answering shot from one of his guards.
“Everyone down!” he yelled. “Get down! We’re taking fire!”
Some of the civilians appeared reluctant to stretch out in the trash and debris that layered the rooftop until another bullet chunked into the chest of one of the standing figures. The woman’s mouth opened in a wide
“O” of surprise, then she crumpled into a heap, blood geysering from the wound.
“Down!” Doug yelled again. This time, everyone obeyed. There was nothing to do for the woman. She had taken the bullet directly in the heart.
CHAPTER FOUR
By crawling to the edge of the roof and peeking around a decorative cornice, Doug could see that the crowd of supplicants and demonstrators they had dispersed were returning, this time with a sprinkling of soldiers among them—except that the soldiers were no longer under any kind of discipline. They were mingled with the growing throng in no particular order, distinguishable only by their uniforms. As before, some of the people were helping others too sick to stand or walk by themselves.
He felt sorry for the suffering that was plainly evident on many faces, even from this distance, but there was nothing he knew to do about it. There wasn’t a cure, nor did palliative measures help much. Amelia and June had told him that the only thing to be done for the patients was handing out pain killers—or injecting them once the oral analgesics were no longer effective.
Another jet came over but did nothing to reduce the number of Nigerians converging on the hospital.
Doug sprayed a full clip of warning shots into the dust in front of a group working their way around the shot- up truck, where the wire barrier had been broached. That halted them for a few minutes, but he knew it was only temporary. The soldiers who had been their guards only this morning knew exactly how thin his forces were.
Doug felt a hand on his leg and turned half sideways, careful not to bring his body into the line of fire from below. June Spencer had crawled up to him.
“Doug, are you going to have to shoot those poor people? Most of them are just scared.”
Doug thought she looked angry, perhaps concealing the fright she must be feeling. What did she expect him to do if that crowd out there rushed them? He bit back a pithy comment and simply said, “I know, June, but we’ll shoot to save our lives if we have to. It’s something you’re going to have to get used to if somebody doesn’t get this bug under control. When people feel threatened, they become irrational. Even back home, the blacks are blaming whites for starting this thing. Please go back, June; it’s dangerous here.”
She searched his face for signs of rancor, then seeing none, she nodded and retreated. He turned back to his duties. He could see that a lot of the ones in the crowd would be dead soon anyway. A bullet might be a merciful release, he thought grimly, though that would be small consolation if he had to order his men to fire on them. Doug began making the rounds of the guards. He had three of his men on the roof and the rest guarding the stairwell below. Whatever else happened, he couldn’t allow it to be overrun.
“Doug!”
He edged back toward the center of the roof to where he could stand up here and not be seen from the ground—though if the soldiers happened to think about it, they could simply climb up a few stories in the neighboring buildings and slaughter them all by firing from windows there. He walked over to where Amelia was standing.
“What is it?”
“The embassy is cursing at me because you diverted the first helicopters to us.”
“Are they on the way?”
“Yes, so they say.”
“Well, don’t feel bad about it. Your data and specimens are probably worth more than the whole bunch of them—and us too, for that matter.” He forced a grin. “But they have to rescue us to get them. How soon?”
“I don’t—” Both of them looked to the west as the unmistakable thwacking sound of a helicopter came to them.
“Help me clear everyone away from the landing pad! June! Martha! Get the folks away from the landing pad!”
