The Phoenix Encounter

She glared at him. “And what story would that be?”

“The one that explains what you’re still doing in this godforsaken country with an innocent child in tow.”

Because she was much more comfortable with anger than any of the other emotions boiling inside her, she held on to it with the desperation of a drowning woman hanging on to a float. “I got caught up in the movement,” she snapped. “Is that mysterious enough for you?”

“You were involved with the rebels before…I left the first time. Tell me something I don’t already know.”

Letting out a shuddery breath, she sank into the second chair and looked into the fire. “Nothing has changed.”

“Everything has changed, damn it. Don’t lie to me.”

Her eyes met his, and within their depths he saw the memories, felt them in his heart the way he had a thousand times in the months since he’d last seen her. A young doctor and an American journalist in a strange land surrounded by ugliness and danger. Two people longing for their homeland, but bound by their love of freedom and a responsibility to help those unable to help themselves. Robert and Lily had spent their days doing what they could to breathe life into a country dying a slow death of oppression. By day, Robert inoculated children, treating the innocent for disease and malnutrition and neglect. Lily wrote her articles, sending them to newspapers in London, New York and Frankfurt, and visited the orphans, the children whose parents had been killed in the war. The children no one cared about.

By night, Lily and Robert met in a smoky little pub, exchanging stories, decompressing, laughing on the outside because inside they felt like crying. For a few short hours they escaped the war, talking about all the things they wanted to do with their lives, their hopes and dreams and plans for the future. Surrounded by despair and destruction and hopelessness, they found peace and their own tiny slice of paradise. They fell in love in that dank little pub. The most unlikely of places that led them to something extraordinary and breathtaking….

Lily shoved the memories away with brutal precision, the way she’d done a thousand times in the last twenty-one months, but she wasn’t fast enough to keep them from cutting her. Instead of giving in to the hot burn of tears, or memories that had been seared into her brain like a brand, she took a deep breath and looked at Robert.

“Things were looking hopeless for the freedom fighters,” she began. “There had been so many good men killed. Families devastated by grief. All because they wanted to be free. DeBruzkya was putting out a lot of propaganda, telling the world how he was going to turn the country around. He’s a very charismatic man. A politician and dynamic speaker capable of rallying huge numbers of people and making them believe him. Facts were hard to come by. People wanted to believe him. They want to believe in the goodness of people. They wanted desperately to believe that he would rebuild their nation. They didn’t have a clue about his firing squads or that he didn’t have the slightest intention of turning Rebelia into a democracy.”

Realizing her hands had turned suddenly icy, she held them to the fire and continued. “Most people were so involved with just trying to survive, they didn’t know what was going on with the revolution. But having spent time with the freedom fighters, I knew exactly what was happening. I saw what DeBruzkya was doing. And I knew the single most powerful thing I could do was tell the truth to the people.” She shrugged. “I began putting out a monthly newsletter. At first it was just a way for me to get my thoughts down on paper and exchange ideas with others. But over the months that newsletter slowly evolved into a sort of underground newspaper.”

Sitting a few feet away, Robert listened intently. He didn’t look happy about what she was telling him. But Lily wasn’t going to let his disapproval influence her one way or another.

“My newspaper is called the Rebellion,” she said. “I put it out weekly, updating people on where to find medicine for their children, where DeBruzkya’s soldiers have been, where the bombing is expected to take place, where to find food, what the freedom fighters have been doing to save their country, where the secret rallies are being held. People want to be free. They want to know if the soldiers are going to come to their village.”

“How is the newspaper distributed?”

“Mostly through e-mail, but many don’t have access to computers, so several young men who aren’t yet old enough to fight, but still want to be involved, deliver the newspaper.”

Robert cursed mildly. “You know DeBruzkya will kill you if he finds out what you’re doing.”

She withheld the shiver that crept up her spine. Lily knew better than anyone what the general was capable of. “That’s why I’m concerned about taking Jack to the hospital. If DeBruzkya spots me…”

“Jack needs a blood test. If we can’t do it at the hospital in Rajalla, then we’ve got to go elsewhere.”

“The other hospitals have been destroyed.”

Robert swore under his breath.

“I’ll just have to…be careful. Robert, I can do it. I’m good at being careful.”

Robert cut her a hard look. “How well does DeBruzkya know your face?”

Lily stared at him, not wanting to answer because she knew he would overreact.

For several long minutes, the only sounds came from the rain pinging against the tin roof and the crackle of the fire. When the silence became unbearable, she rose and crossed to the kitchen. There, she removed a dusty bottle of French cognac and poured a small portion into two snifters.

In the living room, she handed one to Robert. “I think you’re going to need this.”

He accepted the snifter, swirled the golden liquid within. “That sounds distinctly ominous.”

“It is.” She took the chair and sipped the amber liquid, let it burn away some of the nerves. “Before Jack was born, I…met with General DeBruzkya. Several times. Under false pretenses.”

For an instant she thought Robert was going to come out of his chair. “You what?”

She glanced toward the bedroom. “Quiet, or you’ll wake Jack.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d react like this.”

“What were you thinking, meeting with DeBruzkya? Lily, are you crazy?”

“You’ve heard the term keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer….”

“I don’t think that means snuggling up with a viper.”

She would have smiled if the situation hadn’t been so dire. God, she missed American sarcasm. Robert’s dry humor had always made her laugh, even when things were bleak. She missed that, too. She didn’t want to admit it, but she missed a lot of things about this man. “I interviewed the general under the pretenses of my writing his autobiography.”

Robert shook his head. “Lily…”

“He has an ego.”

“He’s also a sociopath. I can’t believe you would put yourself at risk like that.”

“I was careful. We always met him in public places. The bistro over on Balboa Avenue near the bazaar. A café near the disco. We had a picnic at the park over on Salazar.”

“You met with him three times?” he asked incredulously. “Lily, what could you possibly have been thinking?”

“Something I should have been thinking about all along.”

“Yeah? What’s that? Suicide?”

“I’m going to expose DeBruzkya to the world for what he is.”

Robert glared at her. “Oh, so you’re going to take him down single-handedly, huh?”

“If I have to.”

“Why don’t you leave that to the trained agents and the freedom fighters? Lily, damn it, this isn’t your war.”

“I’m in the perfect position to do this.”

“Why?”

She changed tactics. “Because DeBruzkya is committing terrible human rights abuses. I’ve seen it, Robert. The mal-nourished children. Entire villages wiped out. Men and women and children.” She thought of the little girl she’d met at one of the orphanages, and to her horror, her voice broke with the last word. “I can’t stand by and do nothing.”

“You haven’t changed a bit, have you?” he growled. “You’re still as hardheaded as ever.”