Congo Dawn Read online

  He’d just told me my eyes were the exact shade of the water when one of the other Marines on that trip took that picture for him. When he asked me to walk with him down to the lake, I thought . . . No, I don’t want to remember what I thought!

  “That was the last picture Michael e-mailed us from Afghanistan just before . . . Well, to be honest, with the way things turned out, I’d have taken that down except that every picture it seems we’ve got of Michael over there has the same pair of redheads in it. He certainly wrote enough about you in his e-mails. And your brother. Said you were the best friends he’d made over there. The way he wrote about you in particular, I kind of got the idea that maybe he saw you as a little more than just a friend. I guess we were both wrong about that. When Michael told me he’d seen you earlier today right here in the Congo, I sure never figured I’d be meeting you for myself.”

  Robin turned to face Miriam. Across the room, her two sons were watching with solemn, dark eyes. The conversation had switched back to English. How much did they understand?

  Looking at her older son, Miriam said gently, again in French, “Benjamin, take your brother outside. Don’t go down to the airstrip, but perhaps you can watch the aircraft landing from the orchard.”

  As the two boys scampered out the door, the other woman straightened with a deeply inhaled breath, shifting back to English. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude. But if you didn’t come to make an apology, I hope you aren’t planning to stay long enough to see my brother. The last thing Michael needs is for you to walk in upsetting his life now that he’s finally managed to put it back together again.”

  Robin stared at Miriam. “You talk as though I somehow destroyed Michael’s life. If you know so much about me, then you must know it’s the other way around. Did Michael tell you how my brother, his so-called best friend, died? How Michael promised to save my brother, then just—”

  “Don’t even go there!” Miriam’s interruption was fierce, her expression once again hostile and cold. “Let me make one thing clear. You couldn’t destroy Michael if you tried. My brother’s too good, too strong a person for that. He survived you as he’s survived so much else he’s suffered. And become a stronger, better person for it. A person with so much compassion and courage and endurance. But that doesn’t mean as his sister I don’t sometimes daydream of just what I’d like to do to you for hurting him.

  “Yes, Michael did tell me what happened to your brother. And I understand your pain, of course. But how any intelligent, decent person could blame Michael—well, believe me, once you’d refused to see him, talk to him, even communicate by letter, we both got the point you felt Michael was somehow at fault for surviving when your brother didn’t. To be honest, I was glad you chose to disappear from his life. If that’s the kind of person you are, then the best thing for him was to forget whatever fantasy he had about you and move on with his life.”

  “Me choose to disappear!” Robin cried out as Miriam paused to draw a breath. “What are you talking about? And for your information, I didn’t blame Michael for my brother’s death. Not at first, anyway. I mean, mistakes happen. It was Michael’s first evac under fire. I could forgive that.”

  Robin swallowed hard. You will not shed tears in front of this woman! But the hot moisture she’d bottled up for years was again threatening to spill over. “And maybe Michael was too embarrassed or it was too much of an inconvenience for him to attend his so-called best friend’s funeral. Or offer his condolences in person. But a sympathy card at least might have been nice before he sailed off into the wild blue yonder. Or even the smallest explanation of exactly what did happen. That’s what I can’t forgive. Michael just disappearing like that without so much as a single expression of apology or grief.”

  This time it was Miriam who stared. “What are you talking about? Your brother was the first person Michael asked about when he came out of that coma and recovered enough to remember. You were the second, by the way. I should know. I was with him. When he learned what happened, he was so frantic I had to have his physician sedate him. He kept saying he had to speak to you. And he wouldn’t believe he’d been in a coma so long without any word from you. What was between the two of you that would give him that idea, I don’t know. But I tracked down the information myself and sent you a letter to let you know how much Michael needed to hear from you. When you never responded, I thought maybe I had the wrong address. But when I called, and you made it clear you wouldn’t so much as speak to him—”

  The other woman broke off as Robin swayed and groped for a chair back, the blood draining from her face making her so dizzy she could barely keep to her feet. Robin managed to get words out through dry lips. “I . . . I don’t understand. What coma? What happened to Michael?”

  “Then you didn’t know? But—how is that possible?” Again Miriam broke off. Grabbing Robin’s arm, she tugged her down into a wicker chair. “You’d better sit before you fall down.”

  The teakettle had begun to whistle. Miriam hurried to the kitchen counter and pulled the kettle away from the fire, then poured liquid from a plastic jug into an enamel cup. Carrying it over, she thrust the cup into Robin’s hands. “Here, drink this. Tea will be ready in a moment.”

  Robin’s first sip proved to be a refreshing combination of tropical fruit juices. She waved a negative gesture as the other woman turned back toward the kitchen area. “No, please, this is all I need. Just—tell me about Michael.”

  Miriam sank into another chair. “I’d assumed you of all people would know the details. From the incident report the Navy sent me as Michael’s next of kin, I understood there was some kind of explosion right when Michael’s team was evacuating the wounded.”

  “Yes, an ammo depot.” Robin managed a nod. “Some of those bullets caught me.”

  “Well, Michael caught two himself, both of them in the back because at the time he was bent over one of the wounded soldiers, trying to stabilize his bleeding.

  “From what I learned later,” Miriam went on, “the medivac chopper had already lifted off when the explosion happened. The other medic was busy with wounded. So he didn’t realize immediately Michael had been hit. That medic did his best, but by the time they made it back to the base, your brother was gone and Michael was barely alive. One bullet was actually removed from the base of his brain, the other near his spine. Because of the severity of the brain trauma, he was airlifted directly to the naval hospital in Sicily instead of Bagram Air Base there in Afghanistan, then once he was stabilized, back stateside.”

  The woman’s expression was accusing as she looked at Robin. “How could you not know all this, not even bother to find out, if you were such good friends as Michael made you out to be in his e-mails?”

  “Because I was wounded myself,” Robin whispered. “And by the time I could ask, I was told Michael had been transferred stateside. He was waiting for his transfer to medical school, so I assumed that was what they meant. And if there were any further official incident reports, I guess they went to my father as next of kin, not me. I looked up my brother’s death report later, and it said his injuries weren’t life-­threatening. He’d just bled out. I sent a letter and e-mails to Michael’s Navy unit but was told he’d been discharged. But Michael had my contact info. So when he never communicated, I finally assumed he’d chosen not to because he felt responsible for the circumstances of Chris’s death. In five whole years, why wouldn’t he have told me otherwise?”

  “Well, for the first three months,” Miriam answered dryly, “he couldn’t because he was in a coma. When the news finally filtered its way out here to me as Michael’s next of kin, I flew stateside. The doctors had removed the bullets, but they gave little hope he’d wake up from his coma or walk again. God was merciful—he did wake up, and though there was considerable nerve damage, he wasn’t paralyzed. But that bullet in his brain had scrambled some nerve endings, and at first he thought he was back in college and there’d been an accident. We didn’t want to tell him much
while he was still so weak. When he finally did remember Afghanistan, his first thought was finding out about your brother and you.

  “Michael still had difficulty speaking or writing. So I tracked you down for him. Found out you’d resigned from the Marines and were back living with your father, a Marine Colonel Christopher Duncan. I wrote you at the address I was given, asking you to come and see Michael—or at least call. When you never answered, I sent another letter certified mail. When that got no response, I tracked down Colonel Duncan’s unlisted phone number through a Navy buddy of Michael’s and called. Left a voice message.”

  A feeling of dread was rising in Robin as she shook her head. “I never got those letters or a phone call. I . . . I don’t understand—”

  Miriam’s gentle mouth straightened into a firm line. “Look, I get you were going through your own trauma and grieving then. And I wish I’d known you were injured yourself when I was having all those dark thoughts about you. But at this point there’s no reason not to be completely honest here. Or have you forgotten you called me back at the number I left? I was away from my phone, but you left a voice message, short but clear enough. You identified yourself as Chris’s sister. Said your brother was dead, thanks to Michael. The rest of your family was moving forward with their lives. Michael was part of the past. And he was never to contact your family again.”

  Miriam’s pretty, scarred features were suddenly bleak. “Letting Michael hear that message was the hardest thing I’d done for a while. But I knew he needed the closure. And he recognized your voice, so there’s no point in denying it now. He never mentioned your name again, not until he came in this afternoon to say he’d run into you down at the border. But I knew my brother well enough to see he was devastated. Especially when it came on top of a medical discharge from the Navy after he’d worked so hard to qualify for their study program to finish medical school.”

  The dread was rising higher in Robin even as she whispered, “But I didn’t call! I didn’t.”

  Miriam was still talking. “You know, even after our parents died . . . after this—” the other woman’s hand rose to touch the scar that pulled her right eyelid upward—“even when he had to drop out of medical school a couple years later because the scholarships ran dry, Michael could still always find a smile. Still urge me to hold on to God’s love. But after that voice message, the smile never came back. I’ve been taught we’re to forgive those who hurt us. And I thought I’d done pretty good at learning that lesson.”

  Again her hand brushed that scar. “But it’s one thing to forgive those who’ve hurt me. Michael is the person I love most in this world besides Ephraim and my children. He’s such a wonderful person, and he’s done so much for me. Forgiving you for taking away that smile has been harder than forgiving anything that’s ever happened to me.”

  The compressed line of Miriam’s mouth relented slightly. “Even so, as I said, my big brother’s the best, strongest, most courageous person I know excepting maybe my husband. He didn’t give up. It took almost a year of rehab before Michael was fit enough to return to school. He used his benefits and a disability settlement from the Navy, then took out every loan he could to get through medical school anyway. By then I’d returned here to my family, of course. When Michael finished his surgical residency six months back, he accepted a grant from Médecins Sans Frontières. Surgeons willing to work in war zones and fluent in French and Swahili are hard to come by, so if he stays with them long enough, they’ll help pay off his student loans. Being assigned to help us reopen Taraja is a bonus for both of us. All to say, I’m proud how far Michael’s come these last years. So I hope you’ll understand why I feel the last thing he needs is you of all people popping back into his life and turning it upside down again.”

  If Robin’s every cell cried out to defend herself, she made no retort. How could she when proclaiming her own innocence meant pointing fingers inexorably elsewhere? The rising dread had now enveloped her. She had no doubt what had happened, however urgently she wanted to deny it. For the woman whose fierce amber gaze glared at her, Robin felt no corresponding hostility but rather a reluctant admiration, even kinship.

  I once had a brother I loved like that! I fought for him like that! You think I don’t understand? Agree completely?

  But aloud she said stiffly, “Please believe I didn’t come here to turn Michael’s life upside down. And I can assure you I wasn’t important enough to your brother to be the reason for him to stop smiling. As for that voice message, I know you have no reason to trust me, but all I can say is that it wasn’t me who made that call. I . . . I think I know what happened, and I’m going to make it my business to find out. But that doesn’t matter right now.”

  As Robin drew in a breath, the momentary silence confirmed what had penetrated her subconscious. The renewed beat of double helicopter rotors. The two Mi-17s were lifting off for their scheduled return to Bunia. As an escalation in noise indicated their close approach overhead, the front door slammed open with a metal clang. Miriam’s two small sons raced in.

  “Maman, did you see them!” the older boy called out in French. “Two helicopters! Big ones with soldiers!”

  Robin pushed herself to her feet. “I need to get back to my team. I’ve interrupted your day far too long. But first please let me carry out my orders and pass on the intel that brought me here in the first place. Here’s what you can expect within the next twenty-four hours, then over the next few weeks.”

  As she recapped Trevor Mulroney’s earlier field briefing, Robin’s head still whirled with the reshuffling of all she’d believed these last five years. For misjudging Michael, Robin could be glad to be wrong. But for Michael’s sister to be telling the truth . . .

  Men were carrying the makeshift stretchers into the clinic as Robin headed back down the path. She reached the airstrip to find the C-130 cargo plane’s huge rear clam doors standing open, its cavernous interior already largely emptied. This was possible only because its cargo, a standard Ares Solutions field base package, had been preloaded for easy maneuvering on rolling pallets. While Wamba militiamen chopped halfheartedly to clear brush, Robin’s teammates were erecting camp on an abandoned field directly across the airstrip from the clinic compound with the speed and expertise of a circus operation.

  Which didn’t keep Pieter Krueger from snapping at Robin as she stepped into his line of vision. “Where have you been, Duncan? We’ve got an FOB to secure before dark, and we’ve been having to make do with sign language for Wamba’s men.”

  “Mr. Mulroney told me—”

  “Mulroney isn’t here,” Krueger cut in curtly. “He’s headed to Bunia with the choppers and a load of ore. Won’t be back till morning when Wamba’s contingent starts flying in. Meanwhile you work for me. Starting with explaining to these lazy idiots how to dig a latrine.”

  Robin would have liked to follow up with the patients first. But in this equatorial zone, where the sun rose and fell every twelve hours year-round, nightfall was no longer far away, and Krueger was right that getting the forward operating base up and functioning before dark took first priority. If Miriam’s husband was a doctor, he was far more capable than Robin of ensuring her charges’ well-being. Robin’s impulse to speed-dial 1 on her cell phone held even less priority.

  Instead she followed on Pieter Krueger’s heels, stretching her rusty Swahili to explain dimensions for a field latrine, then pitched in slashing pallets free from their plastic wrappings. The center of the forward operating base was a full-size trailer, winched into place by a four-wheel-drive jeep that had also been among the C-130’s contents. This would serve as combination field office/communications center, and Carl Jensen headed straight for it to begin setting up his equipment.

  A Quonset hut going up would serve as a supply depot while a smaller shed housed the generator that powered the base. By the time sleeping tents were pitched, latrines dug, and an electrified perimeter fence strung, the generator had purred to life and powerful
security beams positioned atop the communications trailer had blinked on. The C-130 had long since lumbered skyward. The dozen-plus Wamba soldiers already on-site were now clearing brush for their own tents.

  Outside the perimeter fencing, of course. First rule of thumb for a field mission. Nobody, but nobody, except Ares Solutions personnel set foot inside the FOB’s safe zone. Two of Wamba’s troops had already learned the hard way that Robin’s warning about those red circles slashed with diagonal lines posted along the electric fencing was no fiction.

  By now the setting sun had dropped below the rainforest canopy, leaving behind that oddly green paleness of a tropical twilight which would soon darken to full night with a swiftness unseen in latitudes more distant from the equator. So when a satellite dish unfurled on top of the trailer, Robin retrieved her knapsack from the small tent assigned exclusively to her as the team’s only female and headed over.

  Inside the trailer, packing boxes still littered the floor. But around the walls, viewing screens, computers, a satellite communications setup, and other office paraphernalia were already live and running. Carl Jensen scooted around the maze in a wheeled office chair, simultaneously talking into a Bluetooth headset, typing madly on a computer keyboard, and snatching up sheets of paper as they spit from a printer.

  “Yes, the package came through intact. We’ll have aerial surveillance gear ready to go up at first light. . . . Yes, I’ll send a full report, no problem. Tomorrow then.”

  Walking over, Robin saw that the printouts were copies of the photo Trevor Mulroney had shown the team back in that Bunia hangar. Picking one up to study the young, dark features, she asked casually, “That Mr. Mulroney? If so, I should give him an update on the mine casualties.”

  Carl looked annoyed as he pulled off the Bluetooth headset. “Actually, if it’s any of your business—which, of course, it isn’t—that was my boss making sure our surveillance package made it safely.”