Whatever Gods May Be Part 24

"I don't have much experience with this kind of thing," North Carolina said without raising her eyes from Jamie's hands. "But I'll give it a try." She gently stroked the edge of one hand, then the other, until Jamie's pulse decelerated. "It's going to be painful though, LT.

And we'll have to do it over and over. As much as you can stand."

"Then we should start now."

After a couple of minutes, they found their pace.

"How's that? Want me to keep going?"

"Yes." It hurt plenty, but Jamie wasn't ready to relax. Not as long as she remained in Saint Eh Mo's, in the place where Shoo Juh or the b.a.s.t.a.r.d could come for her anytime they wanted. "Do you-" Her eyes closed while she coped with a new slash of pain. Exhaling carefully when it diminished, Jamie opened her eyes and gave the corpsman a please-continue nod. "Do you mind me calling you North Carolina?"

"No, ma'am!" North Carolina blushed at her mistake, but Jamie gestured it away with a smile. "I like it," North Carolina said shyly, continuing to work on Jamie's hands. "n.o.body ever gave me a nickname before."

* 198 *

"What's your real name?"

"Cordelia Jones, Hospital Corpsman Third Cla.s.s. But, LT, ma'am?"

"Yes, Doc?"

"May I request that you keep calling me North Carolina?"

"I'd be honored to, North Carolina."

v Don't scream. Don't. Give 'em. That.

Maintaining unblemished silence made them hit her harder and took so much strength and effort that the fadeout came sooner.

Sometimes soon enough.

But this time Shoo Juh was on to her: The blows had been moderated so she'd last longer. The next one was carefully timed. She'd just inhaled, and now the pain streaking across her backside coerced an unwilling moan into her tremulous release of breath.

Jamie was stretched out hard and naked, like Da Vinci's Vitruvian man. Her feet, spread wide apart, scarcely reached the floor. Her hands clasped the ropes snaking from an invisible ceiling to encircle her wrists. She tried to comprehend how the interrogator signaled the men pummeling her, for she knew Shoo Juh ordered the when and what of each hit. But she could see only the woman's insatiate want, her tormentor's thrill in knowing no one could stop the beating, certainly not her.

The next strike, across her shoulder blades, came like all the others-unexpectedly-and it interrupted her attempt to take a breath, causing her to choke as her diaphragm spasmed.

"You have lied to me, hong mao."

Oh G.o.d oh G.o.d. It's starting.

With the next carefully modulated stroke, its first igneous pulse grabbed her. Jamie screamed then, deep and raw and angry, full of fear and objection. But there was no way out. Accompanied by the interrogator's pernicious laughter, the blackness spewed its cruel crimson reminder that this was and always would be her righteous punishment.

No please...

"LT ma'am, wake up."

* 199 *

North Carolina? What're you doing here?

"Wake up, LT."

Someone jostled Jamie's shoulder and her eyes opened to a dim, echoey s.p.a.ce with rough makeshift walls of concrete block and heavy metals bars. Oh yeah. Shoo Juh threw me back, like a fish not worth eating. Jamie rubbed her face to be sure.

"You okay, LT ma'am?" North Carolina looked worried.

"I was, uh, yelling and stuff, huh?"

"Nightmare?" North Carolina glanced into the shoulder bag she always carried. "I can give you someth-"

"No. No thanks. Only cure for me'll be to get the h.e.l.l out of here." And far, far away from that woman and her b.a.s.t.a.r.d. "But if I'm, you know, agitated in my sleep, you wake me up soon as you see it, okay?

I want you to wake me up."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'm no ma'am, Doc." Jamie edged her legs out of her hammock.

"G.o.d, I gotta get outta here."

"Soon, LT. Once there's a truce."

Jamie stood and paced the narrow s.p.a.ce between her hammock and North Carolina's. She stretched, reaching her arms up high, standing on her toes, lifting her chin to crane her neck. But it didn't help. "Ever think about escaping, North Carolina?"

"I did, but..." North Carolina shrugged.

"Cavanaugh."

"And now the truce talks."

"I don't know, Doc. You really think the talks are for real?" North Carolina frowned. "The major thinks so, ma'am. He got official word from the Zhong commandant, and they've eased up on security a lot. A whole lot. The Zhong wouldn't do that if the talks weren't real. And they let you out, LT ma'am, didn't they? You bet it's real. You just take it easy and get some sleep, okay?"

"Yeah, okay, North Carolina."

But Jamie didn't sleep-not until she decided to prepare for escape. Just in case.

* 200 *

Chapter tWenty-three.

she volunteers The instant she strode into the yard with the rest of the Red Cross team, Jamie noticed her, and noticed that she seemed to be a study in contradiction.

The clothes she wore-undyed linen bush shirt with its sleeves rolled up to her elbows, rumpled linen pants, well-worn light hikers- all belied her erect, formal bearing. A graceful, made-for-primetime sweep of her hand whisked both sungla.s.ses and a wide-brimmed hat from her head-only to expose the no-nonsense of bob-cropped hair, once a dirty blond, now abundantly streaked with white.

And her eyes-Jamie watched her eyes comprehend her surroundings even while she appeared to devote all her attention to the Zhong commandant who walked next to her. She positioned herself so she could both engage the commandant and direct an evanescent nod to the prisoners clumped at the far end of the yard. By the time she and the other Red Cross people disappeared into the old church building to inspect where the prisoners were locked up at night-part of the Red Cross visiting procedure-the Zhong commandant seemed almost eagerly deferential.

Could she possibly be who Jamie thought she was?

No. No, dammit, it's got to be just an eerie resemblance. Or I'm hallucinating again. h.e.l.l, it's only been nineteen days since Shoo Juh regurgitated me. I still wake up thinking I'm in that tomb, looking for Scorpion. No, no way. How could somebody like Lynn Hillinger ever even get to a place like Saint Eh Mo's?

But Jamie had to be sure. Several folding tables had already been set up in the yard for the next stage of the visit: Prisoner registration and interviews. Heavy habagat clouds threatened rain that could cut * 201 *

the interviewing short, but Jamie went straight to the back of the line that formed in front of the table where she-can't-really-be-Lynn-Hillinger sat. By the time Jamie stood before her, the clouds had thickened and her shoulders sagged a little. Jamie waited for her to look up from a small comlink screen, waited to see her face-to-face and make sure.

Just when she began to lift her eyes, a whiff of premonitory monsoonal wind danced filaments of almost-white hair across her forehead. Unadorned lips parted slightly, hinting the familiar smile.

In the same instant Jamie was sure, Lynn Hillinger's gray eyes flared and bucked, and Jamie saw what they saw, like looking at herself in a mirror: The malevolent red craters on the backs of her hands, the streaks of cruel bruises and scars circling her wrists. And thin. Way too thin. The sight caused Jamie to flinch.

But those gray eyes didn't flinch. Instead, they peered right through Jamie's wordless what-the-f.u.c.k endurance, right to the urgent, indigent yearning that no one was ever supposed to notice but that Jamie wanted noticed more than she wanted just about anything.

And then Jamie saw Lynn Hillinger's vehement ache to nourish, the rush of protective anger. The force of it made Jamie's eyes close; a humming warmth vibrated through her chest and a moan oozed up, up from some abyssal place inside her. Oh G.o.d.

Not far away, a couple of guards laughed. "Kong zhong," one said.

Jamie didn't know what the words meant, but she'd heard them before. During shing. She snapped open her eyes and glared at the woman seated before her. What are you doing here? Are you f.u.c.king crazy?

Lynn Hillinger's eyes flared again, then dove back down to her comlink screen.

Breathless, chest cramping, Jamie also looked down, overcome with an intense need to study her boots.

"Please, have a seat." A gentle voice, quite different than the last time Jamie heard it on TV more than two years ago.

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you." Jamie pulled her eyes from her boots, sat, and ticked off name, rank, military identification number, date of birth, date of capture.

* 202 *

"You said thirty-one October of what year?" Gray eyes glanced at the comlink screen before them. "So you're, uh, nineteen? "

"Jeez, Senator, it is that bad, huh?" Senator Hillinger rubbed the edge of a finger across her lips and the faint smile forming there; her head shifted back and forth almost imperceptibly. "I, um, did have the impression you were older."

"So how does a United States senator become a member of an International Red Cross delegation that's visiting prisoners in enemy territory?"

"She volunteers."

Jamie remembered the Hillinger senate run, remembered enjoying the blunt, take-no-s.h.i.t independent candidate, an unabashed lesbian who relished tweaking standard-fare politicians' tails. She was a master of the spontaneous sound bite, an entrepreneurial big shot too clean to browbeat or blackmail, and attractive, too-trim, energetic, a spirited smile the cartoonists loved to caricature. By the time she won the election and became Ma.s.sachusetts's newest senator, Jamie had been carried off by the aftermath of Alby's death. But for a few seconds that Tuesday night in November, Jamie watched her on TV surrounded by her cheering family and thought, What would it be like to have a mother like you?

"Why? Why the h.e.l.l would you volunteer?" But Jamie retreated when one of Senator Hillinger's eyebrows arched. "Uh, ma'am."

"Well, Lieutenant, somebody had to." The famous smile played at the corners of her mouth. "I pushed hard for an arrangement whereby each side has a representative on the Red Cross team visiting its prisoners of war. Seemed kind of gutless not to be willing to do the actual heavy lifting. Which is to make sure we bring home as many of you as we can as soon as we can."

"We're grateful, ma'am. But isn't that why we have a State Department?"

"Indeed, and they're working quite diligently between martinis.

However, as a rule they prefer consulates to POW camps." Undeflected, Jamie leaned forward. "This is a dangerous place.

Your life is at risk here. We call it Saint Eh Mo's-that means 'evil demon'-for a reason."

"Yes." Senator Hillinger almost seemed to blink back tears. "A * 203 *

reason that shows all over you. I'm hoping our presence has mitigated the worst of it."

Jamie could not sustain this woman's gaze. She looked down at her battered hands, perplexed to find them stiffly compressed into fists.

"Yes, ma'am, it has. More th-than you can imagine." Jamie had noticed the Zhong official hovering a few feet away.

He'd shadowed her ever since she'd stepped into line. Now he came closer, warning in his squinted eyes. He offered the senator a cursory bow and with excessive politeness pointed skyward, where looming monsoonal clouds darkened. This "private" interview would be shorter than most.

Senator Hillinger acknowledged his demand with a dip of her head, then looked despairingly at Jamie. "I'm so sorry. I should've-" She flipped her hands palms up, gesturing frustration and failure. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, ma'am, I am. Thanks to you."

Senator Hillinger stood and Jamie rose, too. "Stay strong," she said, leaning closer to Jamie and proffering her hand.

Her warm hand trembled. Jamie didn't want to let it go. Forgive me. I didn't mean to be rude or frighten you. "Please, ma'am," Jamie whispered, staring into gray eyes that seemed sad now, helpless. "Get out of here as fast as you can. Please."

The next afternoon, torrential rains swooped in from the southwest to inundate all of lower Palawan. The habagat's opening salvo triggered so many landslides and floods that Saint Eh Mo's prisoners heard about it because the Zhong guards b.i.t.c.hed even to them.

Most of the Red Cross team members departed just ahead of the inundation, having acquired what they came for: An authoritative list of the POWs in Malihud, an accounting of their condition, an inspection of the camp, and brief prisoner interviews. But four Red Cross people remained behind for a few more days to provide additional medical aid to the POWs and the citizens of Malihud.

To Jamie's dismay, Senator Hillinger was one of them.

* 204 *

Chapter tWenty-Four.

i Want to say Good-Bye Saint Eh Mo's sodden yard had filled with POWs using the day's monsoon torrent like a shower to clean themselves and their clothing, applying soap to skin and cammies alike, then rinsing in the rain.

"Sir." Jamie stepped alongside Major Donato as he walked the yard's perimeter. "I request permission to attempt an escape." His head swiveled. "You saw her, too?"

"Oh yeah. Staring right at me from the tower with that look, that ice-smile."