Page 43 of Viral Justice

Ali talked with Bull for a moment, then started off in the point position. The two Special Forces soldiers nodded at Max to follow, putting him in the protected position as they brought up the rear.

They headed perpendicular to the road until they got about one hundred feet away, then they paralleled it to avoid highwaymen, robbers or other armed bandits.

Ali set a good pace. Her head constantly moved from side to side as she looked for threats.

How did she define a threat? Was it anyone who saw them, or anyone with a weapon who saw them? One person or more than one?

He sometimes got the impression that she saw everyone as a threat, until you proved you weren’t. Until then, your continued existence was in question and your ability to keep breathing in doubt.

Was he a threat? Was that why she didn’t stay, sleep with him?

Ali suddenly stopped moving and crouched, giving a hand signal for him, Bull, and Tom to do the same.

Max tried to find what she was looking at. There it was. A boy sat on a rock about twenty feet away. A dog crouched near him, along with seven or eight goats.

The boy watched them graze with an unmoving face, like he couldn’t see them at all.

Tom rose and ambled over. He sat down near him and offered the child something. The boy accepted whatever it was, said a few words, then Tom got up and came back.

“Shepherd,” he reported. “His family lives in the village. What’s left of his family, anyway. His father and four brothers were killed when the first group came through. He’s the oldest man in his household now. His mother is sick and at the makeshift hospital in the village. I told him we had a doctor, so he’s going to tell anyone who might come this way he’s never seen us.”

The continued blankness on his young face said the boy had already seen far too much.

They marched on. The terrain got rockier and Max found himself following without really looking too far ahead. He was busy watching where he stepped and trying to avoid twisting his ankle.

Ali slowed, then came to a stop.

The village was in sight, but it wasn’t what he was expecting. Stone-and-wood houses dotted the opposite side of a small valley, and seemed to be organized mostly in a circle, perhaps surrounding a well. Most of the buildings and houses appeared intact, but a few looked damaged and others burned out.

It was the couple hundred or so tents set up around the buildings, extending down into the valley, that were the surprise. He’d been told there might be one or two hundred refugees from the neighboring town. This was no one or two hundred. If each tent represented one family, they were looking at several hundred extra people.

Ali glanced at him. “In and out, huh?”

“It appears my information was incomplete,” Max intoned as if he was James Bond.

Bull snickered.

“Very fucking funny,” Ali said in the voice all women used when frustrated by a man acting like an idiot.

Suddenly, he felt very, very tired. “This doesn’t change anything. It might even make it easier for us to get our job done without the wrong people being the wiser.”

Ali didn’t respond to that, just sighed and said, “Let’s go.”

The walk down into the valley took longer than he thought it would. Ali and the Special Forces soldiers adapted their pattern of walking from efficient and alert to tired and unobtrusive. Like four men who didn’t want anyone to pay too much attention to them because they didn’t have anything interesting.

Except they all had duffel bags slung over their backs.

As they came upon the first tent, a couple of men casually blocked their way.

Bull moved forward to look at them. All he did was stare.

Max wasn’t sure what the living roadblocks saw on Bull’s face, but they got out of the way within seconds.

No one else seemed interested in making it difficult for them after that.

Max looked for his contacts. Most of the aid groups that helped in these kinds of high volatility situations had interesting people on the ground. People who were quite capable of defending themselves, but were even better at blending in.

They cleared the tents and entered the village itself. Shortly after that a man came toward them. He looked like a local—bronzed skin, dark hair with a full beard—except for one major difference. He smiled and made direct eye contact. Something no local would do.

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