Page 53 of A Silent Reckoning

“He can do whatever the fuck he wants,” Havel growled. “Now shut the fuck up. Some of us are trying to get some rest.”

“What happened to lead by example?”

“This isn’t a fucking democracy. Now I suggest you do as I say, or you’ll be chewing on a bullet next. Don’t give a fuck if your team’s down a man.”

Jozef didn’t hear if there was more back and forth. He pulled his ball cap lower on his head, lifted his collar and headed out into the street. His minor efforts at disguise weren’t particularly useful. He was pale as fuck with tattoos covering every inch of skin except for his face. He would stand out like a beacon in the night, and if anyone was targeting him, he wouldn’t be hard to find. It didn’t matter. Jozef hated being cooped up, especially after his stint in prison. In his mind, the freedom to go outside was worth the risk for him. Not for his men though. He needed them to stay inside and stay hidden. He didn’t care if the rules weren’t fair. As Havel pointed out, he wasn’t running a democracy.

Jozef had always been a restless person. He hated sitting for too long. But much of their time in Mogadishu had been spent sitting and waiting. Seven days, so far.

Jozef walked, his feet taking him in the same direction he went every time he stepped foot outdoors in Mogadishu. When he arrived at his destination, he stayed to the shadows, standing just inside an alleyway across the street from the free clinic. As there had been every day prior, there was a long lineup of mostly women and children. Some were obviously sick, while others waited for things like vaccinations and birth control.

Prior to this trip, Jozef hadn’t paid any attention to the health care systems in the different parts of the world. But through his observations, it became clear that Somalia had a huge need for medicine and not enough clinics and doctors to fill that need.

The free clinic he was watching was run by Doctors Without Borders. Most of the doctors and nurses going inside were from different parts of the world. He knew Shaun had worked in the refugee camps on the Chad border. He wondered if the conditions were similar but knew in his gut, they were probably worse.

He felt a strange mix of emotions as he imagined her working in this part of the world. Anger and fear that she would put herself in so much danger. He had proved to her how much danger she was in by kidnapping her from a different but no less risky place than this one.

He was also proud of his girl for doing some of the hardest work on the planet. She had brains, guts and beauty. She was truly a rare gift, one he intended to treasure for the rest of his days. A chill ran through him as he thought about how close he’d come to extinguishing all of that greatness.

Shaun had once told him that when he took a life, he wasn’t just taking the person, he was taking away their potential. Everything they could’ve accomplished in their lives. Her words had stuck with him, changed him. Not significantly, he admitted, but enough that he was more careful now when dealing death.

In prison, he’d killed four people. One cellmate and three Vory. The first he’d sacrificed to show the other inmates not to fuck with the mute mobster. The other three were necessary deaths. Steppingstones in his bid to climb to the top. Shaun wouldn’t approve those choices, but it didn’t matter. Despite her influence over him, he was still the same guy; a born and bred assassin. A killing machine. And now, a mob boss.

Love didn’t blind him to who he was, just made him more aware of who he wasn’t. A lessor man might leave the woman he saw as greater than himself. Jozef would never let her go. He would keep her and use her as his conscience. She would remind him of the joys in life. Of the value of life.

He turned away from the clinic to make his way to the nearest market to buy some fresh food and sweets for his team. He might not run a democracy, but he still understood the value in team morale. Before he made it halfway down the alley an explosion rocked the ground beneath his feet and threw him off balance. He slammed into the side of a building and landed on his side. He covered his head as debris landed all around him.

He lay on the ground, his ears ringing from the blast and waited for some of the dust to clear. Finally, after several long minutes he unfurled his body and did a quick damage assessment. Scrapes and bruises, nothing more.

He stared up the alley to the spot where he’d been standing moments before. It was obliterated; taken out by a collapsing wall. He’d be dead if he hadn’t moved.

A siren rose up, piercing the fog that’d fallen over him. He tried to decipher the noise from the ringing in his ears, but he couldn’t place it. He stood, using the wall to drag himself up. He stretched his limbs and then turned away from the explosion, intending to walk back to the safe house.

He stopped.

He knew the target of the explosion was the free clinic. It was the only controversial building on the block. There were foreigners inside. Clinics like this were targeted in this part of the world by different factions intent on using them as an example to both their own governments and foreign governments. As he stood there, breathing in the dust and ash, rage hit him.

Shaun could’ve been inside that building. If things were different, she would’ve continued her work with Doctors Without Borders. She could have easily found her way to Mogadishu and gone to work in the clinic, vaccinating patients and providing medical assistance to locals.

The people who worked in that clinic were like her. Innocent victims. He wanted to look down on them as idiot do-gooders who got what they deserved for sticking their noses where they shouldn’t go, but he couldn’t. Not if they were anything like Shaun. Kind, compassionate, intelligent. In the wrong place at the wrong time, doing a job they knew could get them killed, but doing it anyway because it needed to be done.

He couldn’t walk away from them.

Fuck, he thought to himself.He was as much an idiot as they were.

He turned back toward the clinic, picking his way through the smoking debris. He had to climb over the pile of rubble, careful not to touch any of the hot stone. Jozef had seen a lot in his time, but he’d never seen anything quite like what was on the other side of the fallen wall.

Where there had once been a lineup of patients waiting to get into the clinic, there was now nothing but smoke and debris. At first his sluggish brain wondered where the people had gone, but then he realized they were most likely dead, killed in the blast. There was blood all over the street and a large hole in the side of the clinic where the doors had been.

People were starting to rush into the streets to help the ones caught up in the blast, but there wasn’t much for them to find. He realized what the siren sound was. A child standing in the road, covered in blood, screaming at the top of his lungs. He was so loud Jozef found himself wishing the kid had been caught in the blast, then immediately felt shame for the thought. For all he knew, the kid’s entire family had just been wiped off the planet.

Jozef didn’t know what he was going to do, didn’t know if he could help. Or if he even would. But he felt himself drawn to the clinic. As if he had to see inside, see if the doctors and nurses were safe. Do it for Shaun.

He picked his way down the rubble and was about to walk across the road when the sound of moaning caught his attention. He turned and saw a splash of colour next to one of the stones that had fallen from the building where he’d been standing.

He turned back and knelt down, shifting the rocks and cursing as they scraped his hands. After a moment he unveiled a woman. Still alive, but badly injured. She was Caucasian, brunette, wearing scrubs. She must’ve been on her way to the clinic when the bomb went off.

He could tell right away that her shoulder was broken, and she had a bloody head wound, probably from the fallen rock. She was barely conscious and though her eyes were open she wasn’t looking at him.

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