Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
KASAVOA – COMMAND ROOM
The storm radar began to change. Kieran stood in front of the large screen, arms folded, eyes fixed on the rotating bands moving slowly across the island chain. For hours, the radar had shown the same thing: solid walls of red and yellow wrapping both Kasavoa and Tevenne.
Now a faint thinning appeared in the outer bands. It wasn’t a clearing, but there was movement.
The satellite phone on the table rang. Kieran grabbed it immediately. “Ian.”
“I’ve been watching the radar,” Ian said.
Kieran glanced back at the storm display. “So have we.”
“My gut says the storm is shifting,” Ian continued.
“It is.”
“You’re still under winds.” Ian paused. “But you won’t be in three hours.”
Kieran blinked. “What?”
“My Nairobi teams are airborne.”
For the first time that night, Kieran turned away from the radar. “You launched? That’s a risk.”
Ian didn’t argue. “I know.”
Kieran rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “The runway’s still under heavy wind.”
“It won’t be when they arrive,” Ian said calmly.
Kieran looked back at the radar. The thin break in the storm band was widening.
“Clear the runway,” Ian continued.
Kieran sighed. “Alright.”
Ian asked, “How’s Eira?”
Kieran leaned against the edge of the table. “She’s recovering.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Kieran understood. “She’s worried about Ford.”
Ian didn’t speak for a moment. “They’re that serious?”
Kieran gave a small nod even though Ian couldn’t see him. “Yes. You know, the Chase flu.”
The brothers shared the inside joke. It seemed, one by one, the founders of Chase Security were finding their person.
“She’s attached to two of the kids here, Véronique and Kavi.”
Ian absorbed that. “And Ford?”
Kieran huffed. “They’re not hiding it anymore.”
Ian let out an audible breath. “Well. Take care of her.”
“I will.”
“And get me numbers.”
Kieran looked at the map covered in red markers. “You’ll have them.” The line went silent as he turned toward the hallway.
“Conference room,” he called out. “Ten minutes.”
The room filled quickly. The Eagles’ Talon executive officer stood beside the map board while the level-three team leader leaned over the patient tracking sheets.
Hunter arrived last, pulling off his gloves as he stepped inside.
Liana sat near the center of the table with a tablet.
Eira stood beside her, still pale but steady.
Flynn leaned against the wall, arms folded.
Kieran stepped to the front of the room. “We may have a weather window in three hours.”
The room straightened immediately.
“Aircraft are already airborne out of Nairobi.”
Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Bold move.”
“Very,” Kieran said. “You know Ian. So we need numbers.” He nodded toward Liana. “Start.”
She looked down at the tablet. “Kasavoa population currently under care.” She scrolled.
“Thirty-two adult men in respiratory treatment. Twenty-one adult women. Five pregnant women from Tevenne arrivals. Two newborns. Four in labor. One DOA. Fifty-one children in the orphanage.” She looked up at Eira briefly. “Fourteen currently sick. Only one requiring advanced care.”
“Véronique is critical but stable,” Eira shared.
Flynn stepped forward slightly. “What about the dock workers?”
Liana checked the chart again. “Eighteen with moderate respiratory symptoms. Four severe.”
Hunter rubbed his jaw. “So total medical load here?”
Liana finished, “One hundred thirty-three patients requiring monitoring or treatment.”
The room stilled as Kieran looked around the table. “And that’s before we even touch Tevenne.”
Eira shared, “There are sixty-five pregnant girls there. But the storm and the flu are putting them into labor. That number and the thirty-one babies already delivered keep changing.”
Hunter added, “Including the twins and C-section tonight.”
Flynn nodded. “And the postpartum moms plus staff.”
Kieran frowned. “Plus the eight security guards and pilot they have in custody.”
The Eagles’ Talon XO looked at the map. “We’re going to need multiple evacuation waves.”
“Right,” Kieran said.
Hunter crossed his arms. “And Ford has to keep them alive until we get there.”
Eira didn’t say anything, but everyone in the room knew she was thinking about him and the monumental task ahead of him.
Kieran looked at her, then back to the map. “Alright. Let’s bring them home.”
TEVENNE – MATERNITY WARD
The storm was beginning to move. The wind that screamed across the island for hours had dropped to heavy gusts instead of a constant roar. Rain still lashed the resort buildings, but the rhythm of it had changed.
Ford noticed it without looking up. He was moving slower now than earlier in the night. The adrenaline was gone, replaced by deep fatigue and careful concentration.
The C-section mother he was examining looked at him weakly. “My baby…?”
Ford nodded toward the nursery. “He’s loud. That’s a good sign. We’re keeping him in the nursery because we don’t want him to get the flu.”
Tears slid down her face as Aurelia squeezed her hand. “Thank you. Without you, we’d both be dead.”
Ford managed a smile. “Try to get some rest.” He stepped out into the hallway and pulled on fresh gloves again. Rourke stood near the glass doors at the end of the corridor, watching the courtyard outside.
Something in his posture made Ford walk toward him. “What is it?”
Rourke pointed. Ford stepped beside him and looked out. The storm surge had reached the lower courtyard. Dark water rolled across the stone paths, pushing palm debris and overturned chairs ahead of it. Each wave crept a little closer to the building.
Ford stared at the approaching water. “How high?”
“Another foot and it’s tapping the threshold,” Rourke said.
Ford ran a hand across his face. “Of course. A typhoon wasn’t enough.” Now the sea wanted the building too.
Rourke looked at him. “What’s the call?”
Ford glanced down the hallway. The newborns’ cries spilled through the open nursery door. Nurses moved between bassinets while Marino and Davis reconstituted the powder formula with bottled water, and Garcia delivered them to the nursery with receiving blankets.
He laughed as he heard Marino say, “I can field-strip my Glock with my eyes closed. But swaddling a baby and feeding one, I’m over my head.”
They were up to thirty-four babies and sixty-two pregnant girls. And a maternity ward sitting a few feet above the rising ocean.
Ford turned back to Rourke. “We start staging.”
“For evacuation?”
Ford nodded. “Either we move because we’re drowning…” he gestured toward the rising water, “…or we move because the exfil arrives.”
Rourke followed his gaze. “Exfil isn’t likely to come first.”
Ford looked back down the corridor. “Yeah.”
Wind pushed harder across the grounds of the Surrogate and Child Center, bending the palms and rattling anything that wasn’t bolted down. The sea beyond the trees turned violent, waves rolling in heavy and fast, each one slamming harder than the last against the shrinking strip of shoreline.
Ford now held on to the railing of the stone walkway leading to the center, staring out toward the water.
Rourke watched another swell rise out of the darkness and crash through what was left of the beach.
The water surged forward, chewing into the sand until it hit the exposed roots along the tree line.
Rourke let out a low breath. “Beach isn’t going to last.”
Ford didn’t answer immediately. He raised his wrist and checked his watch in the dim walkway light. “High tide in about two hours.”
Rourke followed his gaze back toward the ocean. “Storm’s pushing it faster than normal.”
Ford nodded slightly.
Behind them, the metal sign at the entrance to the walkway clanged softly as the wind rocked it back and forth. It read Surrogate and Child Center. Ford smirked faintly. “Well,” he said dryly, “they got the child part right.”
Rourke gave a tired half-laugh.
Ford scanned the grounds behind them, mentally mapping terrain. The lower courtyard. The maternity wing where they were. The patio overlooking the harbor. Everything sat lower than he liked. Another wave exploded against the rocks, spray shooting high enough that droplets flew over his head.
“Even the fastest boat coming out here will take at least an hour,” Ford said. “And they can’t leave until the wind dies down. It’ll be at least two hours from now.”
“And they won’t be big boats.”
“Nope,” Ford said. “Small boats first.”
Rourke looked back toward the building where the mothers and newborns were gathered inside. “That’s a lot of people to move with small boats.”
Ford nodded. “Which means staging will matter.”
Another heavy swell rolled through the shoreline, ripping more sand away from the trees. The waterline was creeping closer. Two hours until high tide. And the storm surge was already climbing. “We can’t stay down here.”
Rourke followed his gaze uphill. The administration building stood farther back from the shore on higher ground, its roof visible above the trees. “Admin building.”
Ford nodded. “Next high point.”
Another wave slammed into the shoreline with a deep boom.
Ford didn’t wait for the next one. “We better move now. We can get four to six in each golf cart. See if we can find a few more.”
Rourke pushed away from the railing immediately. “Alright. We need to talk to those security guards and the pilot, the ones without the flu. Maybe they’ll want to live up to the secure part of their title and redeem themselves.”
Even if the wind died down this minute and the boats launched, the first pickup wouldn’t arrive for at least two hours. They barely had two hours before the maternity ward flooded.