Ghost Soldiers
Chapter Eight - Reunions and Rescues - Part 2
Author's Notes: This portion of the story is set, in part, in Haiti after the disaster struck and while relief efforts commenced. It is not meant in any way to sensationalize the human tragedy that has taken place, and is continuing to take place there. Nor is it meant to trivialize the incredible heroism and courage of those who are working night and day to rescue the injured. It is meant only to honor the courage of the ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances and somehow manage to work miracles.
Written for Germansoulmate in connection with the Help_Haiti pledge drive for Haiti Disaster Relief. This story is dedicated to Beatrix, with my thanks for her generous donation to UNICEF.
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(Setting: En Route to Haiti; Early January 13, 2010; POV/Peter Linton)
I walked back from the cockpit where I’d been checking on Doug and Red. It was a formality really; they were both excellent pilots and had everything well in control. Red was just keeping Doug company on the flight more than anything else – and keeping out of John’s way, perhaps. Once in a while, Steve surprised me with his sensitivity. Doug had never really gotten over Hank’s death. In the years since, at Red’s suggestion, Doug had devoted himself to flying. He was now the best pilot of them all. Luke assured me there was nothing Doug couldn’t fly under any conditions. He did not work for the Alliance directly, but Luke employed him as a consultant on an as needed basis for such tasks as flying and surveillance. Luke and Red never said as much but I got the impression that Doug had a drinking problem. It wasn’t an issue when he was on an assignment, but too much down time was not good for him.
Doug had been nursing a hangover when Red called on him to help with project “convince John to talk to Luke.” That was why he’d acted so incredibly stupidly, both on the plane and after. A taser! To think of one of Luke’s men needing to resort to such a device to subdue a subject. I tried talking to him about it, but the only explanation I could get was that he panicked when John disarmed him. That didn’t explain why he even carried a taser, but, as Red pointed out, it was better that he’d used that than if he’d shot John when he saw him getting away.
Red was assuming Doug kept a second gun on him, Luke had growled. Red had retorted that he could also assume that John would have gotten that off him as well, and from that point the two of them were off on one of their interminable arguments.
I found myself thankful for the presence of the two dozen doctors we were transporting to Haiti – not only because their services were desperately needed, but because the “boys” tended to behave better in front of company. John and Red had sniped at each other all the way to New York, which had made Luke unhappy. It kept up until Doug joined in, making a snide comment to John when Luke was out of earshot but Red wasn’t. I hadn’t heard exactly what he said but it was enough to make Red furious and he went for Doug – with fists instead of words. John was shocked by Red’s fierce defense and it took him a minute or so to react. I, of course, knew better than to pull them apart. Sometimes they just needed to slug it out but once John intervened I had to step in also, primarily to prevent him from being hurt by accident.
Since then, John had been staying clear of all three men, Red, Doug, and, unfortunately, Luke. But his expression seemed more thoughtful than hostile; at least, that was my read on him. He was as good at hiding his feelings as I was. He sat alone in the main passenger section of the plane, discouraging all efforts by the doctors to talk to him. Red and Doug were fine – the fight was what they needed to clear the air between them. Luke knew that but John had no way of understanding, and he wasn’t letting Luke close enough to explain their dynamics. All I could do was watch and wait for an opening. And hope for the best.
The doctors were nervous. The reports coming in from Haiti were sobering. I’d talked to them about the realities of field surgery. From what I could glean from our resources, conditions in Port-au-Prince were as bad as any war zone I’d ever been in, and I’ve been in more than my share. I’d noticed John moved closer in order to listen in on my impromptu prep sessions. He didn’t say a word, just listened carefully, taking notes at times. I nodded approvingly at the pad and pen he was using. Many of the doctors were using their Blackberrys and Iphones for their notes, devices that were likely to be out of their charges within the first day. I suggested they listen more to what I was saying and rely less on their note taking, but their habits were too ingrained. They could not conceive of a place where they would not have access to as much electricity as they needed. It was my experience that tired medical students got into the habit of taking notes unconsciously – they relied on being able to study them later to absorb the material. I hoped they had such leisure time when we landed, but I doubted it.
They would learn. They all looked so young to me. This was a great adventure to them. I admired their willingness to put their lives on hold in order to help others. I wondered how long their enthusiasm would last once it ran up against the reality of twenty hour shifts, field conditions, and the gut-twisting horror of too many patients and too little that could be done to alleviate their suffering. Red suggested that I hand out ear plugs so they could shut out the sound of the screaming – it was his usual black humor but in all honesty, the idea had merit. The screaming was the hardest thing to get used to in a MASH.
I sighed as I took my seat next to Luke. He was reading reports from the Alliance Central Command that were coming through over my notebook computer. Our seats were blocked from the main passenger compartment by a heavy curtain so he had no compunction about putting his arm around me and pulling me close. He kissed me, a lingering kiss that did more to restore my spirits and energy than a ten hour rest would have. I ran my fingers through his dark hair, glad that he hadn’t yet assumed the guise of Col. MacNeill. Which reminded me.
“What are you going to do about your nieces if,” I noted his quick frown and amended my question, “when John finds them? Aren’t you concerned that they will recognize you? It may well prove difficult, staying out of sight. You may also run into problems if....”
He touched his fingers gently to my lips to stop my flood of worried questions. “I’ll be wearing fatigues. You know how much men look alike to civilians when they wear them. And John’s going to have fatigues on too.” He grinned at me. “Remember the two really tall girls I pointed out to you during the church service last year?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that is like saying, did I notice the green-eyed girls. I don’t think there are any girls in your family who are not taller than I am.”
He laughed. “Probably not, at least not any in this current crop, among the teenagers. Danny’s little girl looks like she’ll be short though....”
No sooner had he said it than he looked like he wanted to swallow his tongue. His eyes looked positively stricken with remorse. I toyed with the idea of making him suffer a bit but he was really too sweet at times like this. Like a big Newfoundland puppy, I thought fondly, pulling his head down and kissing him again, before smoothly continuing the conversation.
“Perhaps Briana will still grow – her mother was quite tall, after all, though not as tall as Mary Frances, as I remember. She is over six feet, isn’t she?”
He wouldn’t let me get away with that unfortunately. He pressed his forehead against mine.
“I’m sorry, Peter. I can’t believe I forgot.”
“No, you should forget,” I said firmly. “Briana is Danny’s daughter in every way that matters and she is blessed to have him. Now, let’s discuss logistics.”
He paused, then nodded. He knew it was pointless to discuss it further. He reviewed with me the situation and where our team would fit in. There were times when Luke planned a mission down to the tiniest detail, and other times when he preferred to wing it. This looked to be a mix of the two, as he planned for as many contingencies as he could, given how uncertain our intelligence was. We truly did not know what we would be facing once we arrived in Haiti. Since we were authorized by multiple governments, we often functioned best in this type of situation, where there often developed turf battles. Everyone wanted to do good – but they wanted to do it their way. Luke was a wizard at getting disparate groups to cooperate.
As he began to review his plans with me for deployment of our people and supplies, I was struck anew at how brilliant he was at this type of work – and how much better suited he was for it than the business of war. He was a born builder, not a destroyer.
“Where are you putting Red and Doug?” I asked, seeing that he planned to remain near the airport where he could best coordinate arriving teams. His language skills were a plus in working with personnel from the various countries who would be responding. He had learned Creole from Red years ago, so he could speak with the natives and he was fluent in the languages of many of the countries expected to send teams. He told me that he’d received urgent word that diplomacy was needed as much as anything else to keep the rescue workers from fighting. Luke was good at securing cooperation from diverse groups of people. No doubt another skill learned in the O’Keefe home. He confirmed my suspicion with his next words.
“Doug is going to stay with you, Red with John,” he said, in the tone of a man who wouldn’t brook any argument. I didn’t argue but did raise an eyebrow.
He grinned. “You give me more grief with that eyebrow than Red can with a half hour of bitching. You’re wondering why I’m putting John with Red when they’re at each other’s throats,” he noted with an amused shake of his head.
“It does seem a bit...provocative,” I admitted. “Perhaps one of the Alliance men meeting us in Florida could accompany your brother.”
“Nah, I wouldn’t trust his safety to anyone but Red. Not that I don’t think Jack is plenty tough,” he added when I was about to say as much. “But it’s an old trick of my parents. Put the ones who are fighting in close contact – best way to resolve the fight. In a family our size, they couldn’t humor our squabbles and wait for them to blow over. They sped up the process by seeing that the two who were bickering were together practically 24/7. Bar shifts together, house chores together, you name it.”
“Sounds like a recipe for murder,” I commented, thinking about my own brother. We could go months without speaking after one of our disagreements. It was easy in an estate the size of Linton. Even Mainwaring was huge – and that was the “small” estate, with only one hundred and fifty rooms to the house and two hundred acres. When we got older, we were able to make sure that we holidayed at separate properties, and eventually William and I just stopped speaking altogether. When he died, I had not spoken to him in over five years.
Perhaps Rose and Patrick were wise to nip quarrels in the bud.
“Proximity led to understanding and peace?” I asked thoughtfully.
“Or to a knock down, drag out fight and then peace,” Luke said agreeably. “Either way, this sniping at each other shit has got to stop. You saw Red, he loves Doug but wouldn’t let him put Jack down. He’s known him since he was seventeen, taught him how to wrestle, how to throw a knife. I was the one to teach him how to shoot, of course,” Luke bragged, then added, “which reminds me, make sure I don’t forget to give him a gun when we get on the ground.”
“Do you think he still knows how to use one?”
Luke nodded. “John never likes to be bad at anything once he decides to do it, so once he learned to shoot, he’ll have stayed in practice. I bet he still holds a license and has a gun. He just wouldn’t have had any reason to have it with him.”
Just then a tremendous yawn caught me unaware and I practically gave Luke a view of my tonsils.
“You’re tired, I should be letting you sleep instead of keeping you up talking about family stuff.”
“No, I’m the one who took you from your work,” I assured him. “I still want to discuss the civilian members of our team with you.”
“Problems?” he asked, instantly concerned.
“No, more on the order of worries. They are all so young. I don’t think any one of them has seen anything like what we’re going into – Ruiz has inner city ER experience. That’s the closest comparable experience. We may have some real...adjustment shock to deal with. I tried to tell them but....”
Luke smiled faintly. “Were you prepared the first time you went into battle?”
I shook my head, thinking back to the first time I’d seen men blown up right next to me. “I threw up...a lot.”
He nodded. “They will too. Then, if they’re made of the right stuff, they’ll do what needs to be done, or get out of the way of those who can. Yeah, they’re young, but the plus side of that is that they’re strong. They’ll be putting in some long days, Peter. We’ve conditioned ourselves to go fifteen, twenty hours. But most middle-aged doctors and engineers, they can’t. There’s a reason soldiers go into these situations – it’s because they’ve the physical training and stamina to handle it. But these civilians, leaving their nice comfortable homes and hospitals – I’ve gotta give them credit. It’ll be the hardest thing they’ll ever do, and the most rewarding days of their lives.”
We sat quietly for a moment, then Luke said, “One of the reasons I want Red with John is that I’m not sure if he’ll have the toughness to handle what he’s going to see on the streets. I’m not getting full reports, it’s too soon, but what I’m getting is ugly. Body parts lying on the ground. Screaming people calling for help but no way of getting to them. He’s going to have to ignore people he can’t help, and even some that he can if he’s going to have any hope of finding Mary Fran’s girls. Red will keep him on task.”
I knew that Luke had kept track of his families activities over the years but knowing what they were doing and knowing what they were like as men were two different things. I’d fought side by side with John O’Keefe, and I had no doubt that John would handle whatever he had to in order to find his sister’s daughters.
“John is far tougher than you think. You might recall, he led the fight against my cousin’s professional hit men three years ago and he came out of the fight far better than anyone else in it, on either side. Both Miguel Martinez, a tough street fighter, and your brother Jamie, a younger, far bigger man, were the ones seriously injured. John fought more ruthlessly and more effectively against bigger, more deadly opponents. And, while I hesitate to bring up an event that upsets you, the truth is that he underwent grueling interrogation at the hands of experts the other year and despite everything they tried, they were unable to break him. He has a strength of character and will that may well be your equal, Luke.”
“I promised him we’d find Walter Curtis,” Luke said suddenly changing the subject. Or maybe he wasn’t. “He thinks he wants to kill him himself but I told him that I’d do that for him. He’s never killed a man, Peter.”
I placed my hand over Luke’s. My gentle giant still suffered for the lives he’d taken, and for those he feared he’d taken. Yet to save his brother such pain, he’d kill again.
“You will not have to do that,” I assured him. “If John truly does need to take the law into his own hands, we will respect that, but I suspect that deep down, despite his disillusion, your brother is still a man of law. But if he wants his remaining torturer killed, it will be because he needs to do it himself, Luke, and you doing it for him will not bring him peace.”
Luke looked uncertain but I was sure of myself. I knew that Red would agree with me on this. I shifted down and rested my head on his shoulder.
“There will be time to worry about that later. For now, I’m getting what rest I can. You and Red might be able to pull twenty hour days, but this is one man who feels every one of his years.”
Dropping a kiss on my head, Luke chuckled and put his arm around me again. “I’ll wake you up when we get close,” he promised.
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(Setting: Port-au-Prince, January 14th; POV/Colleen O’Keefe)
“Colette?” I hadn’t heard a sound from the other side of the cave-in for what seemed like forever but I guessed it was really only about an hour. It was getting dark again. The little bit of light that made it through the cracks was fading. There was no answer from my sister or little Miyole, but I tried not to let the terror that rose in me each time that happened show in my voice.
I was the happy go lucky twin. Everyone knew that, right?
Right.
“Letty! You there?” If that didn’t get an answer....
“No, I went out for a walk, my leg was cramping up, fuckwit. Where else would I be? And don’t call me Letty..Leenie.”
I almost sobbed with relief at hearing those sarcastic words. “Gogo must be asleep or you wouldn’t be using words like that,” I teased, happy beyond all reasonable measure now that I had reassured myself that my twin was still with me.
“Gogo is asleep. Miyole is asleep, thankfully. I was asleep but for some reason, I heard that hated nickname being called. Is the cavalry here yet?”
“Not yet,” I admitted sheepishly, sorry that I’d woken her up, knowing that she was in at least as much pain as I was. And I hurt like hell. But she had two living people on her side, and I had....well, no living people. We didn’t really know the older lady’s name. She was the little girl, Miyole’s grandmother, and we were calling her Gogo just as Miyole did. Formality left after the first few minutes, when we were all so glad to be alive.
“Want some water?” I asked, as a peace offering.
.
“Colleen, you can’t keep going over there. It isn’t safe.”
“It isn’t so bad,” I lied. The crawling wasn’t the bad part, even with what I was pretty sure was a broken leg. It was the bodies I had to crawl over to get to the area where the water was.
“Pass me your bottles. I’ll fill them up again.” I reached my arm out as far as I could into the dark crevasse that separated the two caved-in sections of the little market in the ground floor of the hotel. After another moment, Colette’s hand touched mine and held it for a second, her fingers closing around mine, giving silently the comfort that she knew I needed. I blinked fast. Tears were a waste of good bodily fluids, I told myself sternly.
“Come on, twin, give me the bottles,” I ordered. “I’m the oldest so you have to listen to me.”
My pulling rank always amused her. It was a running joke, mocking how Mom’s older sisters always acted so bossy. We told Mom she should tell them height makes right and kick their asses some time, especially Aunt Mary Kate. We’d help, we told her. It always made her laugh, which was the point, of course.
I could hear Colette’s hoarse chuckle. She pulled her hand back and then one by one, passed the three plastic bottles back to me. Tucking the bottles into my shirt, along with my own, I started the slow crawl over to the spigot that was low to the ground and probably had been used to fill the buckets for cleaning the floors. Couldn’t get into the refrigerators. They were blocked by a portion of the ceiling. The boys had been over there...before. Before the earthquake. I prayed that they’d gotten out. I’d called to them for the first day but finally gave up. There was no answer and Colette told me to save my energy for when the rescue people arrived.
If some rescue people arrived.
Rescue people had to arrive, right?
The trip to the spigot took over an hour, especially since I detoured around the two older men who were in the middle of the center area, their eyes staring glassily at the rubble that surrounded them. They were dressed really nice and I couldn’t help wondering, where had they been going? Was it a party? A funeral? That would have been really ironic. Or would it have been coincidental? I get the two confused.
Darkness was back. The sounds of the sirens never stopped. Occasionally the faint cry of someone penetrated our tomb, but for the most part, we were set apart from the world. Mom must be going crazy. She couldn’t stand it if we forgot to call her after an away game. I wonder if Dad even knew something had happened, I thought bitterly. I bet he didn’t. I bet Mom got Uncle Danny, or maybe Uncle John to come down here. I hope it isn’t a big expense. I bit my lip. I was so hungry, it was making me stupid, I decided. No one was going to be worried about the expense.
What the hell was taking the rescue people so long? They didn’t have a real sophisticated fire and ambulance system down here, but someone must have noticed that a fucking hotel fell down in the earthquake. Of course, there could be a couple of places affected, I realized with a sinking feeling. It might be a while longer before they got to this one. It wasn’t a very busy hotel.
This is what we got for letting the guys talk us into going away for a weekend when we were supposed to be working. The car breaks down and it isn’t until we storm out and switch to a separate hotel to stop their – shall we call it persistent admiration – that we finally got a call from the guys that it was ready. They had just arrived to pick us up and head back to the mission when someone just had to have chocolate and dragged everyone into the little coffeeshop in our new hotel’s ground floor. Just like Colette....
Oh wait, that was me. But Colette agreed, I argued to myself. Was it a sign of craziness to argue with yourself? My brother Keir would say it was just a sign of being an O’Keefe. We need to argue so badly that if there’s no one else around, we’ll pick a fight with ourselves.
Damn, I miss him. And Colm and Kristin, and Kiera.
I want to go home. Dear God, please keep Colette and Gogo and Miyole alive and please help us to be found. And if you could make this pain a little less, well, a lot less, that would be awesome, God. But in the meantime, thank you for the spigot.
“Colette? You there? I got the water....Colette?”
“Colette!”
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(Setting: Pot-au-Prince; January 15th; POV/John O’Keefe)
I rubbed my eyes, trying to get the grit out, a futile effort. Looking around at the chaos, it was hard not to fall into despair and believe that everything we were doing was futile. Going from site to site, asking after the girls and their college group. Checking through the injured and dead for a familiar face. It was a hopeless task and a gruesome one.
But, what other choice was there?
One of the worst parts was feeling glad every time I followed the lead on white girls who were found...dead...and after making my way through dozens of piled up bodies, getting to where the presumed Americans were and seeing some stranger’s face. Another family’s daughters. Not ours. I prayed for them even as I thanked God that they were not Colleen and Colette. Was that wrong? Who knew? Maybe somewhere else in this godforsaken city, some other man was saying a prayer over my girls as he thanked God that they were not his.
Did God sort out all the mixed-up prayers, and was he even listening? Or did he tune them out, just as Peter and the other doctors had to tune out the screams of the injured or they would go insane. I heard him telling Luke last night that he had to amputate the leg of a little girl without anesthesia. His voice shook in the retelling – this man I thought had unlimited control.
“I was so distraught, Luke, I couldn’t think. The poor girl, she...she was in such agony. I couldn’t think what to do at first...I could barely hold my instruments.”
“But then you did what only you know how to do and eased the wee lass’ pain,” Luke’s soft brogue praised him and comforted him at the same time. Their voices had grown softer then and I hadn’t heard any more.
I turned to Red. He had been my companion on this search and much as I hated to admit it, I couldn’t have made it this far without him. His knowledge of Creole was invaluable, since the natives knew much more about what had happened and where everyone was, and when, than anyone else. More than that, his seeming assumption that I was tough enough to handle this made me feel like I could do it too. I’d half expected I’d be arguing with him the whole time that a candy-ass lawyer from a city could hack roughing it and that he’d make it twice as hard for me, but the truth was, in little ways, he was making it easier. When our path was strewn with body parts, he tended to talk, providing some distraction even as I could see that he was scanning them carefully for clues.
I couldn’t have done that. Looked over the arms and legs for a sign that they belonged to my nieces. There were times he crouched down and looked more closely at the shoe on a leg, checking it for size I imagined, as he’d asked me early on if I knew what size the girls wore.
Chuck Taylors, men’s size 12. I knew because we wore the same size. I was a Saucony wearer but they loved their Chuck T’s. Matt and Mark couldn’t believe it when I told them how much those old Converse sneaks cost these days. But then again, back in the old days, they didn’t come in such wild designs. The twins got me a pair for my birthday last year. I laughed at them and they were a great joke. Now I wished I’d worn them for our pick-up games. The twins would have liked that.
Christ, I was thinking of them in the past tense.
“Red!”
“Yeah?”
“What did Peter do to help that little girl? The one whose leg needed to come off. I heard Luke say something about him doing something only he could do.”
Red gave me one of his stoic Indian stares for a minute or so, then he must have decided to answer because his face relaxed and he grinned, more to himself than at me though.
“You never got one of his Vulcan death grips? Lucky you.”
I had to grin. “Luke used to do something he called that. It hurt like fuck and ...”
“And could knock you out?”
I nodded. “He claimed it could, I never saw that.”
“He wasn’t doing it right. English always does it right – less pain, quick unconsciousness. Of course, there are times when he deliberately does it for maximum pain, and delayed unconsciousness, but that wouldn’t have been the goal with the little one. He was beating himself up because he didn’t think of it right away. It actually is one of the uses of that technique.”
“Could he teach it to the others?” A serious shortage of anesthesia was a serious problem, I’d heard. They were always running out. Doug had flown back to Florida for more.
“Not under these conditions. It takes practice and concentration. And guinea pigs. I don’t know about you, but my nerves aren’t up to some tampering by wannabe Spocks.”
I shuddered at the thought. I already hurt in every place that could hurt. Luke and Red had to be some kind of super-soldiers, I’d decided. They were both on the shady side of forty-five and yet they were built like...it was hard to come up with an analogy that did them justice. They were lean and cut and rock solid. Red had the larger muscles but Luke had phenomenal strength. Even in his role as coordinator, he couldn’t resist getting out there and putting his shoulder to any physical task that needed doing. When Red and I had returned to our tent yesterday after a full day of searching, he had joined Luke in erecting more tents, latrines and surgical areas. In the middle of the night, word had come of a man trapped in a building down an especially narrow street where they couldn’t get equipment. From what I’d heard this morning before leaving, Luke and Red had headed off with a team of soldiers from France and used their brute strength to lift boulder after boulder of debris from the collapsed building until the man was freed.
Neither one had slept yet. Neither had Peter, but he looked exhausted. When we’d headed out this morning, Luke had been yelling at him to get some rest or he would send him back on the next flight to Florida. To my surprise, Peter had meekly agreed.
We walked on, talking to those people who were in a condition to talk to us, avoiding most reporters. We were already linked to their information, since Luke was accessing, unbeknownst to them, all of their connections. The lawyer in me balked at that invasion of civil liberties but since he was only using the information to aid in the rescue effort and was not sharing anything he learned with the Alliance even, I kept my objections to myself. It was wrong but there were people keeping to themselves information that was vital for the saving of human lives – all for the sake of an exclusive. The Alliance broke rules, Peter told me, but Luke, Red and he tried to ensure that they did so conscientiously.
It was a concept I had trouble with but was trying to understand.
“Jack, get your ass over here.”
Repressing a grimace at the old nickname my brother’s gang insisted on using, I trudged over to where Red was talking to a younger man who looked like he could be local, but it was hard to tell as he had on clothes like my oldest son might wear – meaning expensive. I put his age in his early twenties.
“This here is Reggie. He says he met up with some young folk from the States on Saturday at a type of club. There were two girls there with two guys who were really tall.”
“As tall as I am?” Colleen and Colette were an inch shorter but close enough; if they were wearing heels, as they often did, they’d be as tall or taller.
Reggie was nodding. “Yes, they were that tall, sir. Taller, maybe. Very tall girls. Pretty. Look like you. Your daughters maybe? Black hair, green eyes.”
I looked at Red, grinning. A lead, finally. He just nodded at me, still looking grim. He spoke to Reggie rapidly in Creole. He answered him, shaking his head sadly.
“What? What is he saying?” I asked, getting frustrated.
Reggie looked back at me. “Others go back to mission house. Tall ones, four they were, two men, your girls, they went to the hotel. Stay there a couple days for fun time.” He looked at Red and said a word.
Red snapped, “Vacation. They just wanted a short vacation, is that what you mean?”
Reggie nodded. “They came to hotel for vacation. Guys, they pay me to say their car is broke and need longer vacation cos girls not play yet. You understand?”
I nodded grimly. I understood. A version of running out of gas. Reggie looked relieved he wasn’t going to have to explain it in any more detail.
“The hotel, it went down in the quake. No one make it outside. I look but no girls, no guys.”
I swallowed. “Take us to the hotel please.”
Red added his own request in Creole and slipped Reggie some money. Maybe I should have thought of that. I normally would have. The niceties shouldn’t be ignored simply because you were feeling gut-punched. If there was one thing my Dad insisted upon, it was always leave a tip.
We set off at a jog. I found it easy now to pass by the small children pleading for money, for food, for help finding Mere, or Pe. I now knew enough Creole to recognize the words, Annwe! Mwen grangou. Mwen swaf anpil. Help. I’m hungry. I’m very thirsty.
But we had no time to help, to give food or water. We needed to find our own. I prayed instead, that God helped those others, and worried that God was expecting me to help them if he were to send someone to help my girls in time.
You wash my back, I’ll wash yours. That’s how Mama Rose always taught us it went. I stopped and gave a little boy my last water bottle and some energy bars. He tugged on my arm.
“Annwe! Eske ou ka ede nou, souple?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know exactly what more he was asking for, but I knew I had to keeping going. Red and Reggie were getting too far ahead.
“I’m sorry. If I can, I’ll come back. Mwen regret sa.”
“Souple!” The little guy was insistent. He chased after me for several yards. I stopped and turned, crouching down to his level.
“No! I have nothing more for you now! I must look for my girls! I’ll come back and look for you later and help. I promise.” Desperate to catch up to Red, but hating the distraught look in the little guy’s face that mirrored my own emotions, I asked, “What is your name? So I can find you. Where do you live? Damn it, you probably don’t understand a word, do you?”
“Ask him, kote ou rete?” Red’s voice came from behind me. I sagged in relief. The little boy spoke with Red for several minutes, with Red asking several sharp questions after the first couple. Reggie, who’d come back also, got in on it after a bit, but Red soon told him to shut up, glaring at him. Something was up, obviously. I heard the boy speak of someone named Miyole. He paused to drink and eat, which gave me the chance to ask Red what was going on.
“Aren’t we going on to the hotel? What’s....”
“I don’t trust this guy,” he told me in Italian, nodding toward Reggie. “He’s made several offers to help me put together a team of workers to search the rubble for ‘bodies’ at the other site. Plus I’m naturally suspicious of a guy who helps guys scam girls. He might be able to lead us to where the mission is, but this boy says the girls left the guys. There were two ‘really big white girls, looked alike except one laughing one angry.’ That sound like your girls?”
“Where?”
“Down the block here, there’s a small hotel. Much cheaper and smaller than the one he was taking us to. Let’s go check it out. Luc here, and yeah, that’s his name, says the girls were in the coffeeshop with him and his sister before the quake. His grandparents were working inside, grandmother at the counter, grandfather in the kitchen. The girls were getting snacks, the boys talking to the grandfather. Luc here had run outside at the first sound. He didn’t see anyone else come out. He’s been trying to get someone to help him look since Tuesday.”
Reggie interrupted Red. “You not listening to that little boy? He’s just an orphan boy, runs around all the time, telling lies. Come with me now, maybe we can find your girls alive in the hotel if we hurry. I know men who will help us look.”
Reggie spoke to the little boy – Luc – and whatever he said made the child shrink back, behind me.
That was enough. I didn’t wait for Red to take care of it. I swung hard and connected with Reggie’s jaw.
“TKO, not bad,” Red commented. “And if you knew what he told our little pint-sized Luc here, you’d hit him a second time.”
“I could guess; that was enough,” I said grimly. “Let’s get over to this hotel.”
“I’m calling Luke and Peter too,” he told me, pulling out his radio as we followed small Luc. Our former guide left in the dust.
I had no argument to make, especially when Luc stopped in front of what once had been a two story building, but now was little more than a pile of rubble in one section, while the other parts leaned crazily against each other. They looked like they’d fall down in the next strong wind. Or with another after-shock. I ran my hand through my hair, careless of the dust and grime.
“Tell them to hurry,” I whispered.
**********************
(POV/Luke O’Keefe)
The call from Red came at a tough time – the French Prime Minister was pissed as hell at the U.S. and to tell the truth, there was a touch of legitimacy to his complaints. And a lot of bullshit too, in that, the U.S. military is perfectly capable of acting like a dick over an airport, but in this case, the officer in charge wasn’t. He just knew U.S. personnel and procedures better and his default setting, so to speak, was to let their planes and copters in first.
But, there were bigger problems on the horizon and I’d been working on those on the computer while I soothed the French on the phone in a conference call with the Rear Admiral in charge for the Navy. The pier needed to be rebuilt asap. There was a shortage of gas, and without gas, the workers wouldn’t be able to get the injured to the hospital tents. Doctors Without Borders was missing a huge percentage of their eight hundred person work force that had already been on the ground in Haiti when the quake hit. The police force was overwhelmed and horror stories were coming in of the homeless being robbed and raped.
I was short with Red. No need to be nice with him.
“What?”
“We have a good lead on where they are.”
“And?” I knew it would be bad before he said another word.
“I need you. And as much help as you can bring. English too.”
“Where.”
He told me. “Leaving in ten,” I told him and disengaged the radio. Peter was asleep. I hated to wake him but he would hate more if he weren’t there for this. I excused myself to the various people who presently had hold of a piece of me and walked quickly to our tent.
I’d insisted on a separate tent for the five of us. Doug wasn’t around much, flying back and forth as he was, and the rest of us didn’t get the chance to sleep too often or for too long, but it was a luxury I could swing so I did. It meant Peter and I had a place where we could zip our sleeping bags together for the rare hour when we grabbed a nap at the same time. It also gave John a sense of security. I’d keep him safe no matter what, but in a separate tent as opposed to a dormitory, he felt safer, and was actually able to sleep a few hours.
It was the least I could do. Leaving my duties and going to him now, if only to retrieve our nieces’ bodies – that was something else I had to do for him. That’s how I was feeling it, even more than for those two girls I saw at Christmas, or for little Mary Frances, the sister who used to be my favorite among the girls. Remembering Mary Fran as a girl, and how hard she used to try to please everyone, I knew that even without John, I’d do it for her. She’d had a harder life than she deserved and those two girls meant the world to her.
Damn, life dealt harsh cards to the best people. Now Mary Kate, a cold bitch if ever there was one. She’d not know if one of her kids was missing unless someone else in the family told her. And to be fair, she could be dead and gone and her two probably wouldn’t even send flowers to the funeral. She worked her ass off to give them every opportunity she thought they should have after she left their dad, who was a lost cause, though a handsome, charming one. Eventually she married a rich man old enough to be Dad’s father, which made her life easier but made her kids hate her. It was hard to feel sorry for Mary Kate; she made her choices in life and didn’t ask for anyone else’s pity any more than she’d give hers to another.
But Mary Frances? She loved her useless husband and every one of her overgrown kids with every cell in her body. Quick to anger, quick to remorseful tears, she was the same the last time I’d seen her, some ten years ago, as she’d been when she was thirteen. I wondered who her twins took after?
Peter looked so sound asleep, I hated to wake him. Before doing so, I changed into full fatigues and my heaviest boots despite the heat. I’d gathered some medical supplies before leaving the hospital tent and I added them to his black bag – the same one he’d been using since I first met him. He wasn’t usually sentimental about things but his old nanny had given it to him when he graduated medical school, and it was the only thing you could say was connected to his old life that he’d kept.
“Peter...Peter, love, wake up. We need to go to Red and John. They may have located where the girls are,” I said softly, shaking him gently. I bent closer and kissed him. His hands came around my neck and pulled me on top of him.
“Mmm, what time is it?” His voice was sleepy. He must be exhausted, I realized regretfully; Peter was always quick to wake up.
“I’m sorry to wake you up, love, but I thought you’d want to come in case....” In case they’re still alive, was my thought. His gray eyes were opening so there was no need to say it. Already they were getting their usual sharpness.
“Get me some water to splash on my face, please,” he asked, pushing me off him and sitting up. I sighed and did as he asked.
We left within the ten minutes I’d told Red. While Peter was getting ready I asked for volunteers from among the volunteers resting in the large dorm tent nearby. A group of firemen from California jumped up, eager to help. I told the others who offered that I’d send someone back if we needed more. We took off in two jeeps, men hanging off the backs of both.
Peter asked me what I knew but it was precious little. He frowned.
“That is perplexing. Red did say to bring a team, yes? I would not expect him to do that unless there were some reasonable expectation of....”
We saw Red in the distance down the road. He was moving back a crowd of on-lookers. There was no sign of John. No, I was wrong. Now that we were closer I could see John; he was stretched out along the edge of a partially collapsed roof.
“What the fuck is he doing?” I demanded of Peter.
“Being a hero, I suspect,” Peter said dryly. “I’d park quickly and start helping. That building does not look too steady.”
I looked at him as though he were insane. His comment was the equivalent of me saying his little girl patient, the one who needed her leg off to save her life, looked a bit under the weather. But I would never say that. The English understated. We Irish told it like it was – for all that he might say Red and I were “given to hyperbole.”
I swerved the jeep to the side of the road and stopped short, calling a quick apology to the guys in the back. I was out and running toward the building before they’d finished saying it was no problem.
“Jack! What the fuck are you doing up there! Get your ass down here!”
I could hear Red directing the firemen to some tasks, including crowd control. He came over to me about the same time Peter reached me–which was about the time I was getting ready to scale that deathtrap and drag my brother off it.
“He heard something inside. Shut up and let him listen,” Red said quietly. “I was just telling the crowd to pipe down when you showed up and started your racket.”
“But what if....”
Just then, it started, another aftershock.
“Move those people back,” I yelled to the firemen. They were already doing it, I saw, relieved. I knew that Peter and Red would know how to take care of themselves. That left only one person to worry about.
My crazy little brother on top of the unstable building.
I grabbed my hair, ready to pull it out. He was crouching, ready to jump if the part of the building where he was caved. That was something, I thought. Not much, but something. He was yelling something to me. It was hard to hear over the sounds of women screaming and the plaster and rock shifting. Sounded like he was calling my name.
“What?”
“Luc!”
“Not Luke,” Red suddenly said, “Luc! Where’d the kid go?”
Looking around, I saw a small dusty figure darting toward a crack that had opened up near the side of the area that had just shifted in the aftershock. I took off at a run, trying to get the child before he could escape into that deathtrap.
TBC in The Conclusion of Reunions and Rescues