Close Pursuit

“I am not married. I wear big clothes. I pretend to eat a lot and tell them I am gaining weight. But I really don’t eat much and try to stay thin.”

In this culture, of all cultures, Katie supposed it might be possible to hide a pregnancy if a woman was really careful. Then the rest of this girl’s dilemma hit her. An unmarried girl, pregnant. In a society where sex outside marriage was punishable by death. No wonder the girl had hidden the pregnancy.

“What will you do with your baby when it comes?”

Anger flared in the girl’s eyes. “Kill it.”

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT? KATIE’S JAW dropped at the hatred in the girl’s voice. What the hell? She opened her mouth to ask what in the world was going on when a dark figure materialized in the doorway. She reached hastily for the pistol before she recognized Alex’s familiar silhouette.

“We’ve got a problem,” he murmured.

“No kidding,” Katie replied, jerking her head toward the cot. “She wants to kill her baby.”

Alex went still for a moment. Then he asked quietly, “Was she raped?”

Of course. Young. Beautiful. Unmarried. “I hadn’t thought of that,” Katie confessed. She turned to the girl and murmured a quick question.

The girl shook her head in the negative. Hmmm.

“Regardless,” Alex interjected, “we may have to get out of here sooner rather than later. A line of rebel troops is advancing up the valley. If Karshan’s local militia doesn’t hold the road until daylight, we’ll be overrun.”

Katie frowned. “If the fight’s on the road, how are we going to drive out of here?”

“As always, you grasp the crux of the situation unerringly,” he muttered.

We’re trapped? “Where will we go?”

He shrugged. “Up.”

“Up the mountain?” she demanded in disbelief. “With her?” She jerked her head toward the laboring girl again.

“I scouted around a bit. Karshani tribesmen are entrenched in the village up the valley. Rebels have the road and the lower pass covered. Over the mountain will be the only safe retreat for us.”

“But the girl—”

“She’ll have to make do. I can’t stop the war for her to have a baby. I’ll do what I can for her.” He moved toward the rear of the tent and his patient. “Keep an eye outside. Watch the road down where the river bends. If you see any movement, tell me immediately.”

Katie nodded her understanding. The scene outside was surreal. Tracers streaked across the black sky like comets. Explosions peppered the hillsides, lighting up gun emplacements and clusters of shooters behind rocks and outcroppings.

The girl’s bouts of heavy panting inside the tent came closer together and longer in duration. Katie heard Alex demonstrating breathing techniques, exhaling in short hard bursts. The girl mimicked him obediently. It wouldn’t be long before the girl delivered. Thank God her labor was progressing quickly.

But not quickly enough. Headlights came into sight at the bend in the dirt road beside the river. “Vehicle’s coming up the road,” Katie announced.

“What kind?”

“Can’t see yet. It’s loud. Probably not civilian.”

Alex swore quietly, and the girl let out a groan from behind the towel she was biting into.

The vehicle came into sight. Crap. “Armored personnel carrier,” Katie reported urgently over her shoulder. It stopped halfway in view, and the front hatch opened.

“You’re kidding,” Alex muttered.

“I wouldn’t joke about something like that. And I know my military vehicles. It’s an APC. Late-model version with the wedge-shaped, anti-IED bottom.”

Alex swore quietly again.

“Special Forces troops exiting it now,” she mumbled. God knew, she recognized the gear and way of moving. Half her brothers were men just like that. She couldn’t count how many times she’d stood by her father during training exercises watching soldiers egress APCs into simulated combat.

“Special Forces?” Alex echoed in dismay from the back of the tent.

“Yes,” she answered with conviction. “They may be wearing civilian clothing and rebel colors, but no way are those regular soldiers.”

A barrage of machine-gun fire exploded from over her right shoulder, and she jumped violently. Where had that come from? She craned her head to the right and spotted the muzzle flash up the valley a little ways. A very little ways. The weapon rat-a-tatted loudly, and the soldiers at the river hit the deck, diving for cover.

This was nuts. She was standing in the freaking middle of a no-kidding combat zone. The unreality of it struck her forcefully. She might have wanted adventure, but she didn’t do combat. This was a bad dream. She was going to wake up any minute and it was all going to go away.

Alex joined her in the doorway, and she pointed out the action quickly. “Locals have the soldiers pinned down for the moment, but those troops will send out a patrol to flank the gunners and take out the position. The patrol will have to pass right by here to get to the gun,” she whispered frantically.

He nodded in quick agreement with her assessment and breathed, “Time to go.” He picked up a rucksack from the floor just inside the door and shouldered it. “Get the girl and follow me. I’ll find us a route up the mountain.”

Katie whirled and ran to the laboring girl. “We have to leave.”

The girl stared up at her in disbelief.

“I know. But we’re about to get overrun by soldiers who will shoot first and ask questions later. I’ll help you.”

Awkwardly, the patient sat up. Katie wedged a shoulder under her armpit and levered the unwieldy girl to her feet. A moan escaped her. Alex slipped outside and turned to the left, toward the advancing soldiers. Better them than the local gunners, Katie supposed, given that they had a laboring girl in tow. Although the soldiers would probably be inclined to shoot her and Alex for rendering medical aid to the locals anyway. Because it was such a huge crime to help innocent girls give birth to tiny, future terrorists, she thought bitterly.

Alex jumped up on the boulder beside their tent. The laboring girl reached up, and, with Katie hoisting from below and him pulling from above, they got her up onto the outcropping. What scrub there was up here was sparse and mostly dead. They had to rely on rocks and terrain for what little cover they could find.

Seeking cover and ways up the nearly impassable terrain, Alex doubled back to them often when one route dead-ended out and he had to find another. Katie put an arm around the girl’s shoulders to steady her as they moved a few dozen yards up the steep slope. Without warning, the girl bent over, breath hissing between her teeth as she grasped her swollen belly. She devolved into a fit of coughing interspersed with low moans of pain.

Alex looked over his shoulder impatiently as Katie and the girl fell behind. He slid back down the gravel-strewn slope to them, pistol in hand, to wait out the contraction. Finally, the girl exhaled and nodded. They resumed picking their way up the hill.

During the girl’s next contraction, Katie looked over her shoulder down the valley. She couldn’t see the unidentified, definitely military, patrol headed their way, but she could feel it as surely as she felt the girl’s fingers digging painfully into her forearm. A few more coughing breaths and the girl nodded once more.

They were able to go maybe thirty feet up the mountain between each contraction. It was agonizingly slow, particularly when the gun emplacement lit up once more. Sure enough, soldiers down the hill fired back. At least a half-dozen weapons returned fire in a wide arc that would roll right over their tent any second.

They were maybe a hundred yards from their shelter when another contraction gripped the girl. This one drove her to her knees, and she doubled over, grasping her belly. “I have to push,” the girl grunted.

“Not yet,” Alex snapped under his breath when Katie translated the girl’s words.

Katie relayed his order, but the girl shook her head. “You’ll die if we have to leave you out here,” Katie whispered frantically. “A few more minutes. We’ll find a place to hide and then you can push.”

“I can’t go any farther,” the girl moaned.