Page 56 of What Remains (John Worthy #3)

And then whatever track his mind had been on simply ran out.

No. A black, icy rose of horror unfurled in his chest. No, it can’t be.

But it could be—and it was.

She once saw a play, Curse of the Starving Class, by Sam Shepard. She’d been young, maybe nineteen, and didn’t remember much of the storyline. But she did remember this one scene in the third act.

There had been some quarrel; she couldn’t remember what, but this was Shepard. People were always arguing. Anyway, third act, the son walked through the kitchen. That wasn’t so amazing.

But what did grab everyone’s attention in that theater? That kid was naked as a jay and blood dripped from his hands. That son didn’t run across the stage either but took his time.

So, that was just downright shocking. She’d never seen a nude person on stage and certainly not a man. But then, in the play, the mother, who had been asleep at the table, opened her eyes and said, Nothing surprises me anymore .

Truer words, she thought now. Truer words.

She heard a woman shouting when she was still halfway from the entrance. All she could think was, oh brother . She knew what Sarbaz would want. When it came to mouthy women, Sarbaz always the same thing: to shut them up.

She flat-out refused. She’d known there was some poor woman his men was pumping full of crap.

Maybe she should’ve been there to supervise.

But she thought that would be a little like a doctor participating in an execution.

Back in the States, doctors refused. The AMA refused. Doctors didn’t kill people.

And I won’t drug them either.

Stepping across the entrance’s threshold and into the staging area, she blinked against wind-driven shards of icy snow. For a second, she simply inhaled. Fresh air was fresh air even if it was so cold, it made her chest hurt.

Now that she was out, she took in the situation at a glance—and just wasn’t surprised. Because this was the way her luck was running. Honestly, her life had devolved into that old joke: just when you thought things couldn’t get any darker, they went pitch-black.

Flowers and Meeks, both of them wounded and needing her help, told her about Shahida.

Mac and Driver, she’d not even seen. The shooting was over by the time she realized that the person coming into her cave wasn’t trying to kill her and, in all probability, she’d just given him a bath of her own piss and poo.

I was so sure that would work, too. In the few seconds before she’d brought that heavy pail of her own shit and piss whizzing through the darkness, she’d allowed herself that bright, brief flare of hope.

Because whoever had stumbled into her dark little cave at the back of the mine hadn’t bothered to seat his NVGs properly and he’d clicked off his red flashlight…

but not before he had shown her exactly where he was.

So, she had swung that pail with all her might, thinking of what she would do as soon as he was down and she got his weapon and set herself free because this was her chance, this was her best shot.

She took it. She won, too. Sort of.

The guy must have hearing like a bat or just be very experienced.

Whatever the case, she’d caught him on the helmet and then before she’d even recovered her balance, a hand had her by the throat and a fist whistled for her face and then it had been lights out.

Or maybe it had been his rifle butt that hit.

She didn’t know. Her jaw was still sore.

Later, though, when she was tending to Flowers, he said she’d probably tried taking out Mac.

Whom, she figured, was now dead. Sarbaz said as much.

Nothing surprised her anymore.

“I told you, Sarbaz,” she said now. She hadn’t known about Shahida until later, when she was tending to Meeks.

Meeks had not been quite so lucky as Flowers, who’d come off with only a black eye and a bad headache.

She was reasonably sure the bullet had fractured Meeks’ humerus as it blasted through his arm, and now he was running a fever—and that was on her, too.

“I told you that shooting her up was only going to make her worse coming down.”

Talking to him this way would probably earn her a smack, but maybe that was okay.

Maybe he’d pull that Glock as he had her predecessor, but she doubted that.

Until he was lucky enough to find another medic, she was it.

But he might just let her have it—and that would be okay because Flowers and Meeks and Shahida and Mac… all this was her fault.

Because they’d not known about her. Flowers told her as much. He and the others had been recruited to grab Shahida’s boys.

Man, Flowers said, we didn’t even know you were alive.

Flowers didn’t know what had happened to Driver. John was a different story and, if he’d survived the chopper flight to Kabul, should be alive. Maybe. Flowers only had the story up to the moment the PJs ferried John away.

She hoped John was alive. Somewhere.

Otherwise, wow, she’d messed things up for everyone, clocking Mac the way she did. So, fine, let Sarbaz knock her silly.

“You can’t go around shooting people up with antipsychotics” she said. “You’re not a doctor. Your guards aren’t doctors, but even a doctor is not stupid enough to believe that, eventually, this doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass.”

“Never mind what you told me.” Sarbaz’s English was excellent. Even before she’d mastered Pashto, they’d never had trouble communicating. Sarbaz’s fists spoke loud and clear. Theirs was a language any idiot could understand. “Can you do something for her now?”

“Yes, of course, I can.”

“Good. Then do it.” Sarbaz’s attention shifted to the boy. “You want a trade, Amu? We can arrange that once these men have identified the dead American, but I want to see what I’m getting.”

Dead? She struggled against a wave of emotion and something close to recrimination. The dead American must be Mac, with whom Meeks and Flowers said they were working now. Driver had been reassigned, given another team. At least Driver had gotten out of this mess.

A man, barking a command: “What are you waiting for?” Blinking away from her thoughts, she saw Sarbaz, who now stood over the boy because, of course, Sarbaz never missed an opportunity to add to his workforce.

The poor kid seemed to have drawn in on himself, tried to make himself smaller. “Give her the shot!” Sarbaz bellowed.

“I’m working on it.” At least her voice was firm. Eyes burning, she blinked back tears. Of course, this wasn’t on her. Stop beating up on yourself. No one had known she was alive. Flowers and Meeks both said so.

“Well, work faster.” Already dismissing her, Sarbaz turned back. “You know, Amu, I think I’ve seen this boy somewhere before. He’s not one of your clan. He looks nothing like your people?—”

She tuned Sarbaz out. Focus. She had no idea where the man had gotten the bright idea of using antipsychotics to make people pliable and tractable.

She’d only figured out what he was doing when one of the older boys went berserk and another had an acute dystonia.

After that, she nagged about keeping the appropriate antidotes around.

Maybe she couldn’t stop him, but she could at least try to reverse some of the damage he did.

Turning aside, she knelt, placed her candle on a flat boulder, eased her medic’s pack from her shoulder, unzipped it, and started rummaging amongst her vials and syringes.

Finding what she wanted, she pulled off her gloves with her teeth, then held the vial to the light, eyed the amount of fluid left, and said, to no one in particular, “Your guys need to go on a supply run. I’ll need more meds, alcohol swabs, and Meeks needs antibiotics.

” Meeks needed much more than that, as did many of the boys who were broken down from hard labor, bad food, the cold, a lack of vitamins.

Freedom would be nice, too, but if wishes were fishes.

She would do the best she could, but she could only do so much.

“Yes, yes.” Sarbaz might just as well have added, you stupid cow. “Just shut that woman up, will you? Unless you think you would like to be the reason I put a bullet through her skull.” Then, to the clansman again: “How did you come by him again?”

“Sarhad,” the clansman, Amu, said. “I bought him for?—”

Of course, he bought the kid. The men were still talking, but she tuned the rest out.

Tearing open an alcohol swab, she wiped the vial’s top.

Buying children for various reasons seemed to be par for the course in Afghanistan.

Holding the vial near the candle so she could see when she’d drawn up enough fluid, she jabbed in the needle?—

And then two things happened almost simultaneously.

First, there was a small, crisp sound that was the sound of hoar ice shattering on a cold winter’s morning.

And then her candle snuffed out.

For a stupefied moment, she felt only the smallest twinge of mingled surprise and puzzlement. What was that? Then her brain, so sluggish from years of being ground down and so hopeless that it was a wonder she was alive at all, churned and a memory bubbled up.

From the time when she and John had gone to Emery’s place to do a little shooting.

Emery wouldn’t let them pay for the ammo or stick around to clean the weapons.

“You two kids head on out, get yourselves something to eat. You know the barbecue place down south of Marshall? You go down there, say hi to Sophie and that I sent you.” He showed another wink of gold in a broad grin.

“She’ll give me half-price next time I walk in. ”