Night Must Wait (33 page)

Allingham said Wilton suffered from grief, as if it were like measles or a sore throat, and she would recover in supportive surroundings. To Gilman this sounded like false professional optimism. She remembered Sister Catherine's first shocked response to Wilton's condition and wondered if doctors tried to comfort by making breakdowns sound like a childhood disease.

Prostration was a Madison Avenue illness—the luxury of people who could afford it. Besides, in the Hieronymus Bosch landscape of Biafra, grief became like hunger, only a memory. She wished she knew exactly what Wilton saw, or what it had meant to her. That information would help a specialist diagnose Wilton's withdrawal and the terrifying fugues when she went into flashbacks.

They all had their bouts of the crazies, but hadn't Wilton gone off some deeper end? Jantor found the idea of shell shock credible, and God knew he'd seen enough of it in seventeen years of ceaseless war. She'd seen cases herself before Biafra, in a tour of a Veteran's Administration hospital in Boston. The World War II veterans shook her. What did boys see on the battlefield that left graying middle-aged men drooling in wheelchairs and staring at walls? What was so horrible it couldn't be forgotten in twenty years? What nightmare took over and overgrew minds like some metastasis?

In Biafra they called shell shocked men "artillery men." They danced down the sun-soaked roads, jesters without a court. She wondered if Allingham was right when he said they faked madness to avoid the front. But they had eyes that scared her.

Wilton couldn't really be that bad off. She was smart and tough and she'd spent her whole life translated between cultures. That argued flexibility.

God, what did she think she was doing? Flying into Lagos with Wilton and this crazy Biafran Paul, that the International Red Cross had decided she needed as an assistant? Gilman had to be on a wanted list. For all she knew Paul was too. In the long waits in various airports, Paul's conversation had proved him a hard-line Biafran freedom fighter. Obsessed, in fact. Well, weren't they all? She only hoped that he had enough control to keep his mouth shut in enemy territory, especially when contrasting conditions already grated on his sense of injustice. She had to remember it was his family, his own friends and children, who died by inches in Biafra.

Lindsey would have to protect them to allow the three to land and walk into Lagos International Airport without being arrested. Gilman fought down rising terror. She went into a trap now, if Lindsey chose to close it. She had to trust Lindsey, or gamble that Sandy would keep Lindsey's police mentality in check.

Too late anyhow. What she was doing was right. Nothing wrong with Wilton that a stay in Lagos with friends couldn't mend…Of course they were friends. Lindsey would find the best medical and psychiatric help. Her secluded house outside Lagos would soothe. Perfect servants, nutritious food, Lindsey's calm—all these must work. Once Wilton started her way to recovery, no devils could resist Sandy's comic exorcisms. Gilman turned to gaze out of the window. There came a tug on her seat and a black hand curved over the top of her headrest. A voice whispered in her ear.

"Do you see the sun shining on the silver wing, Doctor?" The English was textbook perfect.

"Yes, Paul."

"I am thinking this will not be like our ascent at Uli."

The name snapped Gilman's self-control. She rounded on the Igbo sitting behind her.

"Look, you goddamned idiot," she said, remembering to lower her voice despite her anger. "I don't know why someone in the charity hospital picked you for this trip, or how you got entrance papers, but I wish you'd remember that we are unwanted representatives of a suspect organization…"

"An international organization known for its compassion…" he said.

"You broadcasting our origin and your political sentiments all over the place will jeopardize negotiations and probably land us in jail."

Her voice softened when his face hardened and she realized how overbearing she sounded.

"Look, Paul, legitimizing the Red Cross relief flights depends on our convincing the Feds of the Red Cross's neutrality.
Neutrality
. Now drop it."

"Yes, Doctor."

The face seemed immovable, but Gilman thought she detected an undertone of sarcasm. He settled back in his seat. Damn the committees anyway, for saddling her with this character as a companion. Well, half damn them. They'd made her trip official at least. Handing her and Paul the authority to discuss relief flights with Nigerian bureaucrats might help her to get out again and back to Biafra once she'd delivered Wilton. But Paul was such a stiff-necked…

For her, the problem still had a few degrees of removal. She recalled her response to the airline dinner last night and how despite her almost frantic lust to eat everything and anything she was offered, she hadn't cleared her plate. How she used to sneer at airline food. Gilman heard the landing gear engage.

Chapter 70: Gilman

February 1969

Lagos, Western Region, Nigeria

They ducked off the seething street with its stench and noise, hurrying into the building, away from people quarreling, marketing and celebrating. The hall seemed a haven of shade and quiet after Gilman guided Wilton in, marveling how, in this moment, it seemed Wilton had regained some regularity of motion. Up the elevator, down the next corridor and to Lindsey's office. Maybe Wilton felt the order and sanity here where Lindsey's rationality ruled.

A man in a white shirt and pressed pants opened the doors, and they walked into Lindsey's office. Gilman eased Wilton onto the couch and helped her lean into the corner between back and arm before she turned to Lindsey with a deep breath of relief. Good old Lindsey with her ivory shirtwaist and gleaming chestnut hair, perfection unmarred, like the memory of their shared past.

For an instant the familiarity of Lindsey's calm face overwhelmed Gilman. She wanted to hold her friend close, as if this was the way she'd always felt, as if this was the secret way to move back in time. When she tightened her embrace, Lindsey stiffened. Lindsey's answering arms came about her a moment too late and Gilman disengaged.

"I got your message," Lindsey said. "Are you okay, Gilman? Can I get you anything—water, juice, bourbon?"

Gilman heard the shakiness in her own laugh. Not good.

"Nothing right now, thanks." She noted how Lindsey's fingers flexed at her sides as if she'd wanted something to do. "But I'll sit down."

Gilman felt immediately that she'd said the wrong thing. Was she too dirty to sit in Lindsey's office? Too crumpled? Or was it guilt by association—messengers from the rebels had to be unwelcome here. Official US government thinking. Never forget that whatever else she was, Lindsey had government and official written all over her. Gilman wavered.

"Unless you think it's a bad idea."

"What bee's in your bonnet?" Lindsey asked. "Sit. It's good to see you. Looks like we need to fatten you up a bit." Lindsey considered Wilton, then settled for a quiet pat on Wilton's unresponsive shoulder before retreating a few steps.

"Yeah, well, no kidding."

"I think Sandy's ordered you a steak from the embassy supply store. Not strictly legal, but who gives a…it's not like you're here in any official capacity."

That hurt. As if she wasn't worth entrusting.

"I am," Gilman said. "I have the letters right here. I'm to talk with whomever I need to see about allowing relief flights through to the Biafran children."

"God no, Gilman. Why'd you let them entangle you in politics?"

"Politics be damned. What's the matter? You think I'm too dumb to know how to negotiate? Or too stupid to know when I'm being manipulated?"

"Sit down, Gilman. Let me get you a drink."

"I don't want a drink. And I don't want to sit down."

She felt ridiculous. She knew she didn't have the option of walking out. Wilton needed to stay and Gilman couldn't leave without going over the necessary details. She had to impress Lindsey with the purpose behind keeping Wilton in Nigeria instead of shipping her back to the States.

"I'm sorry if I said something to offend," Lindsey said. She walked back behind her desk but didn't sit down either. "You've had a hell of a time. I can only imagine the horrors you've had to see—and now it's Wilton gone insane."

"Just temporary," Gilman said. Good, she'd swallowed her temper. Lindsey was trying too. Now she could talk about what she knew. "She needs to stay in Nigeria because shell shock gets unbelievably worse if you transport victims far away from where the trauma occurred. You need to take care of her for us." She followed Lindsey's somber gaze and noted Wilton had fallen asleep, or passed out, her mouth slack. "With a good psychiatric doctor she'll recover."

"She looks like she needs twenty-four-hour care," Lindsey said.

"Well, maybe in the beginning, yeah," Gilman said. "You'll find nurses here in Lagos or Ibadan, I'm sure. All those hospitals—there must be some good staff."

Lindsey didn't speak. Her expression gave nothing away. But she wasn't offering Wilton the friend's welcome Gilman had expected, the gentle embrace and soft voice. She hadn't touched Wilton after that pat on the shoulder. Hadn't tried. Was there something wrong Gilman hadn't seen—or was she accustomed to Wilton in this zombie state so that she no longer felt whatever Lindsey did when she looked at the sleeping, drugged woman? Woman? Wilton looked like a child.

"Tell me what I need to know," Lindsey said.

"I wrote out a lot of it." Gilman fished in her jacket for the long envelope. The letter from the ICRC committee with its unmistakable Red Cross logo fell out onto the carpet.

"I might as well see that too, don't you suppose?" Lindsey asked, extending a hand. Beautiful fingers, natural pink polished nails.

"Yes, you'd better." Gilman handed all the papers over, her neck stinging with a fresh prickle of sweat, fighting the urge to stuff both of her hands back into her pockets to hide the cracked stubby look of them. God, if she had this office she'd turn the air conditioning up to nine, if only to control the humidity.

Gilman remembered saying she wanted to sit down, but now she stood on aching legs, knowing she didn't want to make herself so vulnerable. She'd not sit unless Lindsey did first. Lindsey scanned the ICRC letter.

"What happened, Gilman, wouldn't they let you bring Wilton out unless you promised to represent this ridiculous proposal?"

"Excuse me?"

"Come on—this is old ground. We've offered relief corridors for the transport of humanitarian supplies and your Supreme Commander Ojukwu refused on the excuse that we'd poison the baby food. We've offered compromise after…"

"So now it's we? What happened to that American neutrality? You're not neutral any more because you know best, is that it, Lindsey?"

Chapter 71: Gilman

March 1969

Lagos, Nigeria

Gilman felt a haze of unreality. She couldn't shut her own mouth. She'd been here in Lagos less than three hours, brought into Lindsey's office like royalty with her patient and now she spoiled it all. Spilled it all.

"Compromises?" she heard herself say. "Shooting Red Cross personnel? Targeting marketplaces full of noncombatants at high noon, for God's sake? That's compromise? You're saying "we" about a jumped-up military dictatorship that in spite of all the odds in its favor, the arms, the population, the resources, can't stop a little band of ragged citizens whose crime is wanting to live?"

"Ojukwu telling them their Nigerian Federal Government wants to massacre them has your poor Biafrans terrified," Lindsey said, measuring the words out as if none of Gilman's passion could touch her. "Ojukwu feeds them lies and you, an American citizen, help maintain his illegitimate regime with every day you stay in Biafra. Do you ever open your mouth to contradict the official Biafran line? I doubt it. You know they'd deport you and then what would happen to your delusions of godhood? If you cared—"

"You bomb them. Children, civilians. In the marketplace. Lindsey, remember the Geneva Convention? Because I do. And I hope when this war's over, there'll be a Nuremberg to take care of all the damned Federals who forgot it."

The faintest flush colored Lindsey's cheeks.

"What the hell do you want, Gilman?" Lindsey said. "The civil war's an internal affair. Nigeria's a sovereign nation. America can't interfere."

"Yeah, you advise, supply and instruct, while the Federal juggernaut grinds up children and mothers…Crocodile tears, Lindsey."

"You claim Nigeria's Federal government is the aggressor because they have more territory and more people. Well, did you ever hear of a democracy? Because that's what this is, a Federal government run by and for the people, and
the people
have decided they don't want the country split up."

"Hell, it's no democracy. It's Gowon's fucking military dictatorship."

"A temporary arrangement under war conditions after the destabilizing coups."

Lindsey put her pen down on the blotter as though the gesture could restore her self-possession. Getting under her skin—Gilman smiled in triumph.

"Look," Lindsey said. "Have you ever heard of any country in a civil war letting succor reach rebels? Giving passage to the International Red Cross? That kind of humanitarian nonsense simply prolongs the war, raises the final death toll. And you want
more
?"

"Total shit. You shoot down our relief flights so they have to fly at night and you shoot them then too. I've stuck enough barbequed pilots into their graves to testify to any international tribunal on war crimes—"

"Gilman, those aren't relief flights. You must've left your brains back at Wellesley. Tell me what's in the crates that no one lets you open. Not stockfish, milk powder or medical supplies. Crates of goddamned gunpowder and machine guns and blasting gelatin. That's what's coming in under the name of "relief flights." You're blinded by your need to prove the Biafrans right, to prove the Feds wrong. To prove me wrong."