Page 50 of Viral Justice

Test the water from the well. If it was contaminated this was going to turn into one giant clusterfuck. She could understand why he asked her to do it—she looked less threatening than Bull or Tom—but could she leave Max and be reasonably sure he’d stay safe?

The house was solid. Tom was playing nurse and none of these sick people had the ability to attack anyone.

She said, “Okay, but under protest,” in a suitably quiet tone, and walked to the kitchen. She found a bucket tucked into a nook in the wall.

She picked it up and left.

There were a number of people walking around, old men and women, at least a dozen children, and some men, but no healthy young adults.

With all these new people arriving suddenly and throwing up tents, were they hiding in their homes?

She hoped so, because it wasn’t just the living that were making an appearance on the streets. There were bodies, wrapped in cloth, lying outside some of the houses.

Ali hurried past them, careful to keep her scarf up over her mask so no one realized she had medical supplies no one else in this place seemed to own.

The well wasn’t far from the house where Max and her team worked, about a three minute walk. It was busy. Two women waited in a short line behind a third who was already using the well. Ali got in line behind them.

They glanced at her, noted her rifle sticking out from under her poncho, and stepped back. The woman using the well waved Ali forward and instead of taking the water she’d scooped and hauled up, she put it in Ali’s bucket.

These women were used to putting men first, even young men. Was it the rifle that made them think she was a guy?

After a nod of thanks, she began her walk back to the house. There were only a few people out, a few kids, two women, and an old man. Not very many for midday. Had the news spread about the sickness? Were people staying home, hoping to avoid the sick?

She was two thirds of the way back to their quasi hospital when gunfire erupted behind her.

It had come from the area around the well. She hesitated. This wasn’t her fight, and she had a commitment to Max and her team. She’d taken a couple more steps when a man began yelling in Arabic, demanding to know where the Americans were.

Okay, maybe this was her fight.

A woman screamed, while another yelled back that they’d seen no Americans.

More shots echoed.

Extremists on the hunt for Americans were so not what they needed.

Ali set her bucket on the ground against the outer wall of a house and walked stealthily back to the well.

She crouched down behind a crumbling stone wall that might have been a small pen for chickens at one time, to take a good look at what was going on.

Was it a small, disorganized group or a larger, disciplined one?

A half-dozen men in traditional garb stood over the bodies of two women prone on the ground and one woman who was kneeling.

One of the men yelled at the kneeling woman, again demanding she tell him where the Americans were, specifically the American doctor.

Max.The bounty.

The extremist screamed at the woman again and she fell on her face, crying. The son of a bitch was going to murder her too. Ali could see it in the way he’d shifted his body weight forward, as if he were about to attack her with his bare hands.

Ali set the butt of her rifle into the hollow of her shoulder and settled into a kneeling shooting posture she could maintain for hours if she had to. She brought her head down and rested her chin on her knee.

The few people who had been between her and the well, blocking her shot, had disappeared. No one wanted to attract the attention of these men.

The woman wailed that she hadn’t seen any Americans, but that there were so many new people in the village, in the tents, that there could be foreigners anywhere.

The man punched the woman with a closed fist and she went down hard.

Ali sighted down her rifle, a clear shot to the man’s head.

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