Beyond Redemption
BEYOND REDEMPTION
India Masters
www.loose-id.com
Beyond Redemption
Copyright © October 2012 by India Masters
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eISBN 9781623000387
Editor: Rory Olsen
Cover Artist: Fiona Jayde
Published in the United States of America
Published by
Loose Id LLC
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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* * * *
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To Rory O, who is responsible for getting this story back on track when I completely lost my way. This was the book from hell that wouldn’t have gotten completed if not for you. You did what I was unable to do for the past three years and gave me the guidance I needed to take it from the scrap heap to publication. Thank you so much. And to Alvania, the best critique partner EVER, for reading it over and over again until you probably wanted to put your eyes out or at the very least, break my fingers. Thank you, my friend.
Paris, 2009
“
Janjaweed! They come!
”
Angelique Vernet bolted upright, looking wildly around the room, a scream lodged in her throat. “Fuck.” She muttered the curse as softly as possible so as not to wake her companion. Whoever he was. Arnaud something or other. She could never remember their names. He was just another in a line of pretty French boys meant to distract her from the nightmares. Nightmares that were almost as real as the actual atrocities she’d witnessed in that small village in northern Darfur. Before the expulsion of international aid organizations. Before the brutality of the refugee camps. She slid out of bed and crossed to the window looking out over the city, arms wrapped around her middle, and let the memories come flooding into her. Even now, she could still hear the screams of the children that died that awful day.
* * * *
They’d swarmed into the village on camels, on horseback, and in trucks with machine guns mounted on top, dust swirling around until a choking cloud hovered over everything. Screams continued to emanate from the village even as a battered truck rammed gates not meant to withstand a collision with a motor vehicle. Guttural cries filled the air as people waiting for medical attention scattered among shouts of, “Death to the Nuba!”
But the horror was just beginning. Babies were ripped from their mother’s arms, bayoneted before their eyes. The men screamed at the women and girls, laughing gleefully as they held them down. As dozens lined up. It was the same for the female teachers, for the nurses. Angelique had been dragged from the clinic, along with Carla Able. One of the militiamen grabbed the front of the nurse’s shirt, tore it. Before he could do more, Angelique screamed, “No!” and shoved him away. The savage lust of the conqueror shone in his eyes, and he likely would have killed her but for his commanding officer. She and Able were forced to witness the destruction of the villager’s lives. The commander grasped her jaw in his hand and backed her up against the hospital wall with a fierce growl. “Tell your American friends this is what is waiting for them if they continue to come to Darfur to help the black slaves. They will all die like dogs!”
The sounds and smells of that day were never far from her consciousness. The wailing of parents held at gunpoint, forced to listen as their children cried and begged for their lives. Shit and urine, semen and blood. Some of the younger girls wouldn’t survive the attacks. The focus of the militia soldiers changed, and the Janjaweed leader shouted new orders to his men.
And then more men arrived, American men dressed in civilian clothes carrying military weapons. Angelique recognized him from across the dusty courtyard. Mitch Acosta, and with him his friend, Seth Boudreaux. Older now but still looking very much like the young soldiers she’d spent a wild Mardi Gras with so many years ago. What the hell were they doing in Darfur? US participation in the country was supposedly limited to logistical and technical backup. Did they know she was here? She shook her head. No, not possible.
As dangerous as the situation was, a sense of calm enveloped her, and she pulled herself together and began to triage the injured, directing the able-bodied to get stretchers and start taking the most seriously injured into the field hospital. By the time the fighting wound down, much of the hospital had been wrecked and Angelique was up to her elbows in blood and despair.
Everywhere she looked dazed people were trying to clean up broken vials of valuable medication, the women were crying, some holding girls as young as five, who would be forever scarred by what transpired. Angelique was too busy to be angry. That would come later, in the privacy of her hut where no one could see her. Exhaustion would drag her into the depths of sleep where the dreams would come, along with the guilt—guilt that she’d been spared, that she was
relieved
to have been saved from the fate of so many of the women in the village.
Hours felt like days, but the last of the wounded were cleaned and stitched. Those who were able had taken picks and shovels and trudged outside the compound to bury the dead. Angelique was just stripping off a pair of bloody gloves when a young boy entered the room.
“Doctor Angel.” The boy looked up at her, an adoring smile on his face. “There is another here. A white man shot during the fighting. He say it is not anything, but his friend, he say that is…bullshit…and he must see the Angel doctor. He tells me, if her feet not dead, please may they come in.” He looked down at her to make sure her feet were still attached.
Angelique sighed, offered up a tired smile. “Still on my feet. Tell them it’s okay to come back.” She wasn’t surprised to see Mitch Acosta come into the exam room supporting a bloody Seth Boudreaux, followed by the boy. “How are we set for beds, Nijam?”
“No beds, Doctor Angel. We got the mattresses the churchman sends. You want Tahir and Nijam to open the schoolrooms?”
Angelique smiled. “That’s an excellent idea, Nijam. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.”
The boy shuffled his feet, smiling broadly. “You sew up American soldier; Nijam will see to the women and children.”
Angelique poured water into a clean basin and washed her hands. “Thank you, Nijam.” The boy scurried away, and she turned to Acosta. “Let’s get him up on the table.” While Mitch got Seth settled, Angelique went to a curtained doorway. “Able, I need you. We got a wounded American here.”
A loud groan emanated from the darkened room. “On my way.” Moments later the diminutive redhead bustled in from behind the curtain. “Nurse Ready Willing and Able reporting for duty, Angel Doctor.”
Angelique snorted. “Bite me, Tinker Bell.” She grinned as Able washed up and donned gloves. She gave her patient a wink. “We depend on Nurse Able to be a bright spot in an otherwise dull day.”
The elfin nurse stuck her tongue out at Angelique and grabbed a pair of scissors to cut the leg of Boudreaux’s cargo pants. With a snip and strong pull, the pants leg ripped up to the crotch.
“That’s some grip you got there, beb,” Boudreaux said, laying on the thick Cajun accent. “I do like a woman with strong hands.”
Angelique suppressed a smile and glanced up to meet Acosta’s gaze. She knew he was thinking about their time together in New Orleans when the two of them had gotten her so worked up that she’d all but ripped Boudreaux’s pants trying to get his zipper unstuck.
“I’ll just bet you do, soldier,” Able cooed as she examined his leg. She looked up at Angelique. “Didn’t quite go all the way through, but I think you can get it with a local.”
Angelique nodded. “Okay, let’s get him on his side and get the bullet out.” When Able grasped his arm to help him onto his side, he hissed in pain. That was when Angelique saw the blood seeping from his torso. “What the fuck, Boudreaux? You didn’t think you should tell me you were hit twice?”
Seth grimaced. “Aw hell, Ange, it’s just a little knife scratch. I stuck a bandana over it and kept fightin’.”
Angelique shook her finger at him. “Don’t you try that Cajun charm on me, Boudreaux. Let’s get this shirt off.”
Angelique moistened the bandana so she could get it off without causing him undue pain and cleaned the wound with saline solution before exploring the gash to make sure no tendons or large blood vessels were damaged. “I need more light,” she told Able, who adjusted the surgical light. “I need two percent lidocaine and skin prep solution.” Seth grunted when she probed deeper with a hemostat to remove a deeply embedded pebble. “Okay, I’ve got them all.” She gave Seth a disapproving look. “One would think you’d know better than to roll around in the dirt with an open wound.”
Seth grunted. “Seein’ as how some dude was on top of me tryin’ to pin me to the ground with his big-ass knife, I didn’t have much choice.” He cast his own disapproving look over his shoulder. “I seem to remember you had a better bedside manner stateside,
cher
.”
“Huh, is that right? Anything’s possible.” Able applied the surgical skin prep, then filled a syringe with lidocaine. “Had a tetanus booster in the last ten years, Boudreaux?”
“Hell yes,” he groused. He looked over his shoulder at Angelique. “Your buddy, Acosta, here took every opportunity he could to make sure my arm bumped into every doorway I passed through.” He grinned up at Acosta. “I still ain’t paid you back for that, dickweed.”
Mitch laughed. “You gonna be all right, man? The doc sent a couple of kids off to set up some mattresses in the schoolroom. I figured I’d go lend a hand. You know I can’t stand to see you cry when the needles come out.”
Seth snorted. “Asswipe, you’re the little girl when comes to needles. Fuck off and go help those boys.”
“All right, you two, that’ll be enough of that. Acosta, go make yourself useful.” The skin prep was dry, so she placed a sterile sheet with a precut hole over the wound and tucked it under Seth’s arm, then picked up the syringe. “You’re gonna feel some pinching, then it’ll go numb.”
Seth chuckled. “Yeah, I know the drill, Doc, but it’s more like somebody jabbing a steel spike in you than a pinch.”
“Uh-huh,” Angelique said, smiling at Able. “You want Able to hold your hand, big guy?”
Seth grinned, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Could she?”
Able rolled her eyes, but she took his hand anyway. “Anything for the troops.”
He grinned again. “Yeah? Anything? I sure could use a sponge bath.”
“Ah jeez.” Angelique groaned. “That’s original.”
“Hey,” Seth protested, “I’m not operating at full steam here, Doc. Give a guy a break.”