Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rylee
Tuesday
Rylee, with Tank at her side, went down the stairs and walked out to the pickup trucks.
Hand to her heart, she used the area's formal greetings, words of welcome, and friendship. The words that conformed to the requirements of hospitality.
She spread a blanket, and they sat.
Then she pulled out her meager offerings from her bag, pouches of water and packets of trail mix.
They were patient as they moved through the rituals.
But now it was time to break the news. Rylee opened her computer to the pictures she’d saved of the landslide on the tracks. She showed the leader and explained the delay.
“My people are dying for lack.”
“I’m sorry for your suffering.” Tank sat at her back, guarding her six.
Dakota was right. Tank knew what to do. “The people here are struggling, as well. This is a terrible disaster. I do not have the supplies that I wished to share with you. I do have this to offer.” She pulled out the cash, held it on the palms of her hands, and offered it with lowered eyes to convey the humility of her gesture.
She maintained the posture until she felt someone pick up the money.
“It is my hope,” Rylee said, sincerely, “that with U.S. currency, you will be able to purchase supplies from your neighbors. This strategy has proven useful in such circumstances. And that is why I have this available for such emergencies.” She hoped it sounded like all the money she had to give.
It was looking probable that her own team would need the rest to scrounge up food and potable water.
Their own supplies were dwindling quickly.
Rylee stood and put her hand over her heart. Then she extended her hand toward their trucks to signal it was time to go.
The leader called, Rylee turned to see the men coming out of the hangar and from the direction of the camp.
They’d been conducting reconnaissance.
Hopefully, they now realized, she was right; there was little here. And many to serve. They’d have to wait for the train to get through.
She went back up to the tower to watch the trucks head across the flat dirt, holding the binoculars steady until the last puff of dust disappeared over the horizon, then she called George to make her report. “I think you handled that as well as possible. It’s probably good.”
“Are you finding people?”
George’s voice was tight. “Right now we’re finding bodies.”
One of the benefits of being in the tower was that the keening was muffled. So much grief. So much pain. It was bad enough, man’s inhumanity to man. Why did it seem so much worse when it was Mother Earth who caused the destruction?
“Okay, George, I’m in the tower keeping an eye until the sun goes down.”
Her next call was to Ares, where she answered each question as precisely and dispassionately as she could.
And finally, she allowed herself to call Dakota and let the warmth of his voice blanket her and soothe her nerves.
“Stay in the tower. Keep Tank with you. We’ve started pulling out the last of the students.
We’ve got contact with all twenty-one now.
Three of the Bravo guys went after McLeod at his last known location.
I don’t think Bravo is going to wait on that rescue.
It sounds like they’ll take off as soon as the students are all on the plane, and come back for the team and McLeod if he hasn’t been found.
I’m going to go remind Ares that you need to be on that flight.
Make sure your phone is charged. I’ll call you when there’s movement. Stay safe.”
She almost heard it in his voice. Did he just hold back an “I love you?”
Rylee closed her eyes. She was mistaken. It wasn’t what she imagined of the vibrations in his tone. She remembered all the people and things that had connected them, all the physical exertion and intense feelings that she’d gone through, and when you do that with someone, you are cemented for life.
And just like she was thinking of Benny and Bean Counter, Briefcase, and even Jesus and his kayaks. She wished them well.
Dakota and Tank were now cemented to her, too.
And she was pretty sure that was true for Dakota as well.
And yet …
And yet.
“What are you thinking, girl?” Rylee muttered to herself. “A man takes you to bed, makes you see fireworks, and you start to swoon like you’re a character in one of Neesa’s bad romance books that she reads aloud so everyone can have a good laugh.”
With Tank lying at her feet, Rylee picked up the binoculars, made herself as comfortable as she could on the worn-out chair, and began her vigil.
***
Rylee’s first clue that there was a problem was a series of screams that cracked the night.
Her phone rang, and she snatched it up. “Here!”
“Rylee, take Tank, leave everything else except your pack with your passport, and run for the plane. You have to run.”
“Wilco. Out.”
Dakota’s words were rocket fuel. She snatched up her backpack and Tank’s lead, and she was thundering down the stairs.
“What in the world!” she shouted as she reached the open doors of the hangar.
The moon that night was round and full, and it hung low to the ground, reflecting off the pale, packed dirt. Not bright enough to read by, but certainly bright enough to see the old pickup truck parked in the front.
A man in his desert robe stood in the truck bed, his semi-automatic rifle aimed.
Rylee came to a screeching stop, dragging Tank with her as she shifted into a shadow.
The caregivers hovered protectively, using their bodies to shield their loved ones as the rifles swept the space.
No shots had been fired, but the menace was enough to cow the people.
Two other men, rifles at the ready, covered their comrades who pulled supply boxes from the back, running them forward and loading them into the back of their truck.
They yelled instructions to each other in Arabic.
Panic was contagious. It spread like oil on water, then caught fire.
As the men turned to the back of the hangar for more boxes, those who could were running into the night.
Rylee turned to see two other trucks parked by WorldCares' main supply tent, where one of her responders had been sleeping.
Had he escaped?
Already disoriented and traumatized by the recent earthquake, the villagers were now running across the wide expanse barefoot in their nightwear.
Fathers with children on their shoulders and elders on their backs.
Mothers with kids dangling from their hips, hunkered low so that their bodies shielded their children.
Shadows of people in terror.
Rylee hadn’t heard a single shot.
Bullets were unnecessary when people were exhausted and had no reason to fight. They’d escaped the tumbling buildings with their lives. Why would they risk that precious gift now?
Some children stood, sobbing, separated from their families in the tumult.
Rylee was lifting them and thrusting them in the arms of fleeing adults as she spun them and pointed them toward the rise of land to the north. Once over that incline, they’d be out of a bullet’s trajectory.
Rylee twisted toward the sound of a young woman screaming ‘no’ as one of the men with rifles dragged her toward the truck. She sat back on her heels, trying to use her body weight to break his grip.
Tank shot from Rylee’s side with his lead dragging behind him.
Rylee raced after Tank to protect the girl, shouting “Stop! Leave my sister alone!” in Arabic.
The man turned toward Rylee as Tank leaped into the air, biting down on the rifle hand.
This was one of four men at the hangar. All of them had rifles.
The three others were surely racing forward as their comrade screamed in agony.
Rylee got her hands on the man’s rifle and twisted it out of the man’s grip as Tank shook his arm viciously.
Lifting to her knee and planting a foot for stability, the rifle butt pressed to her cheekbone, Rylee swung the barrel from left to right, trying to spot the others. She lowered the rifle to one man’s chest; partially hidden behind the box he clutched.
“Come here and take your brother,” she called over the sound of the screaming man to her side.
Rylee didn’t know anything about combat-trained dogs, but she thought that if the kidnapper would lie still, Tank would stop the attack.
Though his screams dragged at her attention, she didn’t look their way. She was focused on the man with the box who was in her sights. If he dropped the box, he could swing his rifle to aim at her.
If the box dropped, she’d have to shoot.
Rylee curled her finger into the guard, letting the pad of her finger slide into the curve of the trigger. It was muscle memory.
There were so many people, a missed shot could hit an innocent.
She sniffed and steadied her nerves, slowed her breath. There could be no wobble despite her buzzing tingling fingertips.
If he dropped the box, she’d squeeze back on that trigger. One. Two.
“Come and get him before he’s ripped to shreds,” she called.
The man leaned forward as if he was going to set the box down.
One. Two. The command repeated in her mind as Rylee yelled, “No. You and that box, come here and get your brother. Come here.”
The man looked around for backup. Rylee didn’t shift her gaze.
The man beside her was begging for relief.
Still, injured villagers ran, and hobbled, and dragged themselves away.
The man with the box lifted his shoulder to protect his neck as he took a sidestep, and another.
As he reached them, he freed a hand to reach down.
His comrade clung on.
“Tank, let him go. Good job.” Rylee called down.
She could feel Tank’s eyes on her. She knew he registered the rifle at the ready.
Tank spun around and plastered himself to her side. Intense and solid.
The man balanced his box in one arm, holding it in place by his chin, and with the other hand, dragged his comrade, bleeding and whimpering, to the pickup.
Here was the danger point.
The moment when the box went down, and the man turned. If he lifted the rifle, she had to shoot. One. Two. Rifle lifts. She shoots. One. Two. Cause and consequence. One Two.
Out on the runway, the whine of the airplane engine intensified, the engines roared, and Rylee knew she’d missed the window that Dakota opened for her when he told her to run.
The plane was flying away without her.