“It’d be nice to get back home to see Mom at some point.”
“Do you have a point?” Oscar asked him.
“Don’t snap my head off.”
Oscar tried to rein in his irritation. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“I’m just killing time,” Yankee said.
Yes, he missed their mom. He tried not to worry about her, since she’d moved out of Philadelphia, but it was hard not to worry about her. The last time they’d talked to her via sat-phone had been two months earlier, before they’d been sent on that waste of a mission to the little shithole post outside Hanoi.
Only to find out later from Q that they’d wasted their time and energy in the first place. Their target had moved on before they’d even come close to locating him.
Now they couldn’t risk their location being tracked back to them through contacting their mom. It sucked, and he hated it, but it was part of what they’d signed on for. They’d all understood the rules when they agreed to be on the SOTIF teams.
Team before self. Mission before team.
At all costs.
“I miss her, too,” Oscar muttered.
Yankee gently nudged him in the side. What passed for emotional expression between the brothers.
The only time they ever seemed able to totally let down their defenses around each other was when they had a woman between them.
When their little convoy reached the port, the Gramble-Goodley’s captain was waiting for them at the main gate with three of his men.
Papa glanced around. “Where are the MPs?”
“Getting laid with a couple of hot Hawaiian chicks I brought them as a token of my appreciation for how well they’ve treated us while we’ve been here.” He pointed to one of his guys, who jumped onto the running board of the lead truck and grabbed hold of the side mirror. “He’ll get you over to our berth. Go. We cast lines in thirty minutes.”
They raced through the otherwise still shipyard. In that rare time of quiet between the late-night activities winding down, and the morning shifts coming in to get started on their day, they were able to quickly offload all the equipment and personnel from the trucks and onto the neobattlecruiser.
They all knew their way around the ship from their earlier voyage on it from Australia to Hawaii. They were bunking in the same storeroom as before, with a little more room to spread out this time since Q’s family wasn’t with them.
As they all settled in to nap while waiting for the ship to clear harbor, Yankee poked him in the shoulder and pointed at a small, odd-shaped nook at the far end. As before, Doc, Tango, and Pandora had taken it over, a sheet draped across the opening as a makeshift door.
Yankee wore a lopsided grin.
“What?” Oscar asked him.
He shrugged. “Just thinking happy thoughts,” he said with a smirk. “Reliving the good ole days.”
Oscar closed his eyes, trying not to think like that. He didn’t want to make a trip to the head to rub one out. Yes, they’d had some hot times in the past sharing women, but now they were on a mission.
It wasn’t like the two of them would end up with someone the way Doc and Tango had. That was a special circumstance. They certainly couldn’t go dragging some civvie woman around the globe with them.
Pandora came with Bubba, and they needed Bubba’s help. If it hadn’t been for that, and the fact that Pandora likely would have been captured or killed before she ever set foot on US soil again, she wouldn’t even be with them now. The risks of letting her leave them had far outweighed the risks of having her join their team. They didn’t begrudge Papa the decision, or the two men their luck.
Didn’t mean they wanted to dwell upon it, either.
Oscar pulled his hat down over his eyes and tried not to listen to the sound of the lovebirds doing the funky monkey over the music someone else had put on to drown them out.
Chapter Six
India helped Mac clean out the other room and organize the storeroom to make space for the supplies. Then she helped him move into the space everything he had brought with him in an old, beat-up solar-hybrid Toyota pickup truck with Brazilian license plates.
She knew what most of his equipment was used for, but the sealed, padlocked metal cases, which likely contained specimens of some sort, concerned her.
She touched another piece of equipment. “You have a centrifuge? What the hell kind of research are you doing?” She could only perform basic lab tests there, although she had quick-test kits and strip tests for most of the common infections they saw in their region. Anyone who fell ill, if she couldn’t identify the cause, the padre helped transport them to a larger town with a hospital and a full lab for further treatment.
Red filled Mac’s cheeks again. “I wish I could tell you that. Perhaps someday I can. But as I said—”
She waved him off, too tired to verbally spar with him. “Yeah, yeah. Confidentiality agreement. Whatever. You want to go grab some chow? I’m starving.”
“Of course. Should we clean up first?”
She snorted. “The shower’s in back. Not the fanciest setup, but you’ll want to wait until after dinner anyway. We’ll just get dusty walking over and home again.”
“Oh. Right.”
After giving him copies of the keys to the clinic, including the rooms they were living in and the other storerooms, they headed out.
There were a couple of stores and restaurants in the area that India walked to on a regular basis. Her favorite was a small open-air eatery, tucked under a thatched roof overhang along the side of a family-owned produce store. They had their own farm, and they brought their merchandise in from there. The wife and mother also functioned as cook. The food was simple, good, and had not as of yet made her sick.
They sat on produce crates at an old wooden electric cable spool that was one of the five tables. A young boy, barefoot, ran up. Eduardo was six, the youngest of the Hernandez family’s five children.
“India!” He excitedly rattled off his day’s lessons from the padre as she listened, smiled, and nodded, offering him encouragement as he did.
Another way she’d been able to contribute to the locals, by convincing parents that their children not only needed at least a basic education, but that it would improve everyone’s lives in the town as a whole if they had it. It had been the padre’s uphill battle for years, but apparently hearing it from a woman had helped drive the point home to the mothers, who then made sure it happened.
The padre had told India just last week that their church-run school attendance was up like never before, and children were staying in school longer. Especially older children, teenagers who would usually drop out by now, were coming back to continue their education, even if only a couple of days a week, studying around their work schedules.
A small victory, but one she and the padre would gladly take.
Finally, a natural break in the boy’s story emerged and she was able to interrupt him long enough to place their orders. The little boy rose up on his toes and planted a kiss on her cheek before running back inside.
Mac watched him go. “I’m guessing he was extolling more than just the virtues of their daily specials?”
“Yeah. Telling me about his school day.” She cocked her head. “You don’t have kids, do you?”
“No. Perhaps one day, but with the state of the world, not right now. Besides, I’m single.”
“Never married?”
“Only to my work at this point.”
“Yeah, can’t blame you there. I’m surprised you don’t speak any Spanish. Usually CMI makes sure people have at least a basic grasp of the local lingo. I’d taken classes in high school and college and knew the basics when I got here. Enough to get by until my skills improved.”
He coughed, pink rising in his cheeks again. “It was rather last-minute, my arrival. Sorry about that.”
“Oh, no worries. I’m just glad to have you here, believe me. Mama, however, doesn’t speak any English. So you’re going to need to pick up
some basics really fast so you don’t frustrate the hell out of her.”
“Is she the clinic’s manager?”
“Sort of. Unofficially, but it’s not her title. She gets paid by CMI, but it started out more an honorary position than anything. About twenty years ago, one of the doctors saved one of her sons. She felt so grateful that she started working at the clinic, helping out, cleaning, stuff like that. Once one of the nurses realized she could read, they started working with her, training her. Now she’s a pretty decent medic and midwife in her own right. We couldn’t run this place without her.” She laughed. “Well, we could, but it would suck trying.”
He glanced around. The heat of the day had finally broken as the sun slid over the western horizon. Candles in old jars sitting on the tables provided light for them. A block away, a lone security light had flickered to anemic life over the street in front of the police station, and several children of both genders had started an impromptu game of soccer. A warm breeze blew through the dirt streets, kicking up small dust devils and bringing the faint scents of sage, cooking smoke, and cowshit from the dairy farm not far away.
Actually, she’d rather inhale those aromas than car exhaust and smog. These were honest, earthy smells, smells that belonged here.
“You are way out of your element, aren’t you?” she asked.
He slowly nodded. “The past several months have been…interesting. Not what I’m used to, for sure. But before that…” He looked down at his hands and didn’t finish. A deep grief seemed to swell behind his eyes.
She tried to lighten the mood and aimed for a playfully snarky tone. “Sworn to secrecy, huh?”
He nodded before looking up. “Sorry.”
Time to change the topic. “You staying only the four months?”
“I honestly hadn’t given it any thought yet. Why?”
“Well, most docs who do a rotation through here only stay the minimum four months. Nurses stay at least four years, usually. It’s difficult to get doctors to work here for longer than a few months at a time, unless they’re just out of med school.”
“Oh. Well, perhaps I’ll stay a little longer.”
“You’ll need to improve your Spanish for sure, then. Don’t worry. I’ve got a couple of books I can loan you to help you out. And there’s a language app on the clinic’s tablet. A few of the people do speak a little bit of English. The ones who have sat-links and get TV shows from the United States.”
Eduardo brought them cold bottles of water and a basket of guacamole and bread before running back inside.
She ripped off a piece from the still-warm loaf and dunked it into the guacamole. “She makes her bread fresh every day, all day. And the guac. Try it.”
He looked dubious, but gave it a shot. She nearly laughed at his cautious expression as he tentatively tasted it before a smile broke across his face. “It is rather tasty,” he admitted.
“She’s a good cook. This isn’t the kind of fast food crap you’ll get in the States or anywhere else. And I asked for her to take it easy on the spices for your sake tonight.”
“Appreciated.”
“Spicy is an acquired taste for some,” she said. “So what can you tell me about where you were before here?”
“I was actually in South America for several months. Brazil.”
“Oh. So you speak Portuguese?”
He chuckled. “About as well as I speak Spanish. I was fortunate that my assistant there spoke excellent English.”
“Lucky you. Was that a CMI posting, too?”
“Eh, no.” He ripped off another piece of bread and dipped it into the guac. “More a personal stay. It’s complicated.” The echoes of that darkness brushed across his features again.
And again she tried to steer him past it. “So what brought you to Mexico?”
He looked grim. “Unfortunately, there were some rather unsavory elements where I was. I felt it was time I left before I was unable to leave, if that makes sense? Plus, even though I wasn’t in a large city, there were already a few cases of Kite being reported at the airports and some port cities. I couldn’t afford to stay there for fear of a massive outbreak exploding and disrupting my research or preventing my departure.”
“You realize Mexico City is one sneeze away from a full-blown outbreak, right?”
Confusion filled his face as he shook his head.
She filled him in on the situation with the plane from Bogota. She hadn’t checked the latest news, but suspected the situation had deteriorated, unless the military had stepped in and taken control and simply executed everyone who tested blue.
Which would neither be surprising, nor the first time she’d heard of that happening.
He sat with his fingers laced together on the table in front of him, his head hung. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.
“Yeah. It’s bad. Hey, not like it’s your fault. It is what it is. We just have to deal with it.” She ripped off another piece of bread and dredged it through the guac. “Hopefully it won’t reach here when it finally gets bad. We’re far enough from there we might be safe. People here usually don’t have to go to Mexico City. But Guadalajara is different. There’s a regular hopper flight between there and Mexico City twice a day.”
“Isn’t there an airstrip here?”
“Used to be. Hasn’t been used in so long, it’s full of potholes. I wouldn’t want to try to land a plane there. Helos, yes. Sometimes the military guys fly in and do exercises there, but they don’t stay around long. They don’t need to have a presence here, and they’re more needed elsewhere.”
“It sounds rather safe here. Idyllic, one might say.”
She laughed. “Well, we have a small local police force. Five guys. Total, we’ve got maybe five thousand people in this area. The residents sort of take matters into their own hands. Everybody knows everybody. Well, maybe not everybody, but they know enough people that it’s not like someone can be anonymous.”
“I notice you’re not armed.”
“Oh, don’t let that fool you. I do wear a sidearm when I leave town.” She smiled. “In the town, I have a reputation.”
“Because you’re the nurse?”
She laughed and twisted the cap off her bottle of water. “Yes and no. I help dish out a special brand of justice.”
“What?”
This would either make or break their relationship, she knew. Some of the doctors didn’t have a problem with it. Some had, but hadn’t objected when she participated. Dr. Karsonnes had instilled India with a very pragmatic viewpoint when she’d first arrived and he’d told her about it.
“There is an extremely low percentage of sexual crimes in this region for one very simple reason,” she said. “When a sexual crime is committed and the perpetrator is arrested, we have the DNA sequencer in the clinic. It’s not the newest or fastest model, takes a couple of hours to process, but it works. It can process blood, semen, skin, saliva, and hair samples. When someone is positively identified as the attacker like that, they have two options—death, or castration.”
He looked a little green. “Castration?”
“Public castration. Well, or public execution.” She watched his face as she took another swig of water.
“Is that…legal?”
She shrugged. “Not my problem. Been public policy in Colima for over fifty years now. Apparently they had a huge problem before that. Sexual crime rate is practically zilch in this area. Don’t look so squeamish. If someone can’t be positively ID’d by DNA, they face trial and jail time like anyone else. Castration or death is only when DNA evidence conclusively proves it.”
“What about women perpetrators?”
“There haven’t been any, but same thing in theory, only female circumcision.”
“How many castrations have you, eh, performed?”
“Five. Before the doctors in the clinic would do it, a local vet would perform them. Pigs of the four-footed or two-footed kind, they didn’t care. We do shoot the bastards full
of local anesthesia, which is better than they deserve, but it’s effective. Hasn’t been a sexual crime in the area in over two years now. Last one, the guy was drunk when he raped the woman, but that doesn’t matter. Extenuating circumstances are not considered.”
“But what if it’s a false accusation?”
“Oh, they had that, too. Once. About twenty years ago. Woman felt guilty after the guy had been castrated. She confessed to the padre that she’d been upset because the guy was having an affair with her and wouldn’t leave his wife when he’d said he would. The padre convinced her to turn herself in to the police.”
“Wow. How’d he manage that?”
“The padre is a practical man. He was born and raised here, went to seminary, and returned after to serve here. These are his people. He’s related to some of them. And he’s all about righting wrongs. He has a lot of pull with the local residents and with the police.”
“What happened to her?”
“They let the victim decide. He came up with the option of her losing her left hand, or death.”
“And?”
“She ended up leaving town a few months later. One-handed.”
“I retract my earlier observation. Sounds like it’s rather brutal here.”
“Not really. I’ll take this town over the streets of any large city in the States. There are no gangs here, no cartels. The people ran them out decades ago, refused to grow the drugs, burned drug crops when the cartels tried to get a foothold here. Between that and the cartels’ henchmen being unwilling to commit sexual crimes here for intimidation purposes, it was easier for the cartels to go elsewhere. Here, justice matters to the residents. That’s why the clinic has succeeded for so long. The residents take pride in having it, know it helps them. They help look after it. They have a vested interest in it and the staff. Which, until today, was Mama and me.”
The boy brought out their food, two platters of beans and rice and chicken enchiladas. The doctor picked up his fork and tentatively poked at the food.
“It’s already dead, don’t worry,” India teased before she forked a bite into her mouth.