Shots sounded behind him. Tree branches and leaves disintegrated as bullets tore through. That at least explained why there hadn’t been any more mortars. The rebels, believing that the first volley had accomplished its intended purpose, had stopped firing and sent out a party to investigate. Bishop kept running, pushing through a tangle of vegetation that tore at his arms and legs and threatened to pull the human cargo off his shoulders, but he fought through, and after a moment, he found himself in the relative openness of the forest floor.
The tree branches were spaced widely enough for him to move unimpeded. High above, the foliage grew together to form a ceiling that shut out nearly all sunlight, leaving the jungle floor as dark as dusk. Bishop now understood why Africa, with a sun-scorched desert that was bigger than the entire United States, and endless miles of open grasslands, had earned the nickname ‘the dark continent.’
He could no longer hear the report of rebel guns behind him, but he didn’t mistake that for safety. They might have stopped shooting so they could chase him down. In the eternal night beneath the jungle canopy, it was difficult to tell whether he was being followed, but he had to assume that he was, so he kept running as if the hounds of Hell were biting at his heels.
He gradually became aware of an insistent pounding against his back. At first, he assumed that it was his M240B machine gun on its thick nylon web sling, swinging back and forth in time with his footsteps, and he tried to ignore it. Finally, when the beating grew more insistent, he stopped to shift his load, and that was when he realized the sensation wasn’t coming from his gear.
“Put me down.” The words were grunted, breathless and not at all familiar. It wasn’t Knight. Felice? “I can walk. Put me down.”
Bishop peered into the darkness behind them. There was no sign of pursuit. He knelt cautiously until the soles of Felice’s shoes brushed the ground, and then he released his hold on her legs. She kicked like a swimmer until her feet found purchase. She wobbled unsteadily and caught herself on his shoulder.
“You okay?” Bishop’s voice sounded strange in his own ears, as though his head had been stuffed with sawdust. It occurred to him that the exploding mortar shells might have rung his bell a little harder than he realized.
Felice looked herself over. Her dark skin was painted with a lighter-colored coating of sticky dust, and beneath her torn clothing were too many scrapes and abrasions to count, but the amount of blood staining the fabric suggested the injuries were only minor.
A fresh wave of realization washed over him. In his desperate panic to get away from the besieged camp, he hadn’t stopped to assess what damage he had taken. He wasn’t feeling much pain — just the ache of the exertion and a mild headache, but he knew that sometimes adrenaline had a way of masking serious injury. A glance up and down his extremities showed numerous small tears and scorch marks on his BDUs, and underneath a lot of bloody scratches, but as with Felice, none of it looked serious. Then he remembered. “Knight!”
Knight had been closer to the blast.
Bishop gently shifted his teammate off his shoulder and laid him on the ground. Knight didn’t stir.
A cold knot of fear clenched Bishop’s gut. He laid a hand on Knight’s chest, felt the faint rise and fall with each shallow breath.
Still alive.
Then he got a look at Knight’s face and the dread exploded into a horror like nothing Bishop had ever felt before. The emotion tore from his throat in a howl that startled birds and monkeys in the branches high overhead, and in an instant, the jungle descended into a cacophony of primal rage.
17
Felice let out a cry of her own and clapped her hands over her ears as the bestial roar reached a fever pitch. The big man that had rescued her from the attack looked like something from a movie — a human transforming into a werewolf before her very eyes.
She knew what that felt like.
Darting forward, she reached out and slapped him.
It was like hitting a skyscraper. Her palm cracked loudly against his skin, and pain shot all the way to her elbow. His howl became a snarl of animal fury as he turned on her, and in that instant, she knew he was going to kill her.
But he didn’t. He remained where he was, kneeling, hands raised and fingers curled like claws, teeth bared and chest heaving as he breathed.
“He needs you!” She tried to shout it, but the words clung to her throat like molasses. She searched her memory for something that would get through to him… a name. Knight. He called him Knight. “Knight needs you!”
A glimmer of humanity flashed in the man’s eyes, and with what seemed like a superhuman effort, he swallowed down his rage. His fingers straightened and then his hands fell to his side. For a few seconds, he remained that way, statue still except for his rapid breathing.
Felice was panting, too, but forced herself to move. She circled around so that the supine Knight lay between the big man and herself. She knelt and assessed the unconscious man’s injuries. She quickly saw why the bigger man had reacted the way he had.
The left side of Knight’s face was a mess of swollen and scorched flesh, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Something ragged and misshapen, a piece of metal, protruded from the place where his eye should have been.
Felice let out a gasp, but quickly got control of herself, lest her reaction push the big man back over the edge. She willed herself into a detached, meditative state, and bent over Knight, checking for other injuries that might be even more critical.
His left side had taken the brunt of the mortar blast. There were more chunks of metal embedded in his upper arm. The entire limb was swollen, but the wounds were only oozing blood. There didn’t appear to be any arterial bleeding or damage to his torso.
“I need some water. And a first aid kit if you have it. We have to clean and dress these wounds.”
The request seemed to pull the big man back from the precipice. He unslung his gear and weapons, and produced a small satchel. Inside was a collection of combat medical equipment, bandages and other supplies. He took out a plastic bag filled with clear liquid and passed it to her.
In the darkness, she could not read what was written on the bag, but she assumed it was a saline solution or perhaps Ringer’s lactate. Either one would work just fine for irrigating Knight’s wounds. She bit off a corner, careful not to spill too much of its contents, and then directed a stream of the liquid onto Knight’s ravaged face.
“By the way, I’m Felice.”
“I remember. I’m Bishop. This is Knight.”
Bishop and Knight. They were code names, obviously, like the callsigns that fighter pilots and military units sometimes used, but they were also the names of chess pieces, and that took her to a place in her memory she preferred not to visit. She shook her head and focused on what she was doing.
The simple act of getting out the medical kit seemed to have a calming effect on Bishop. He took out a pair of trauma shears and cut away Knight’s right sleeve, exposing the undamaged arm. It took him less than a minute to find and sterilize an injection site, and subsequently to insert a needle catheter into a vein and begin a rapid infusion of fluid into Knight’s bloodstream.
“What else do you have in there?” Felice asked. “We’re going to need to sew up these wounds.”
“Not yet. I don’t know if they’re still on our six, but we have to keep moving.”