Page 76 of Viral Justice

The first crate and parachute came out of the back of the airplane.

Another.

Another.

And another.

Six altogether.

The villagers and refugees poured out into the valley like someone had taken the plug out of a tub full of water. The few gunmen who weren’t racing toward a crate were overrun.

Ali smiled.

Off to the west, a group of men came out of the hills but weren’t heading toward the crates. They reached the edge of the tents and disappeared into the mob of people.

Seconds later she found them again, moving steadily toward the village proper at a fast walk. They didn’t maintain a formation, or specific order, more of a fluid movement of people. Most carried duffel bags, all had backpacks. They wore patched coats or ponchos, ratty looking hats, and their faces were obscured by a combination of facial hair and clothing.

A woman’s screams from closer by, inside the village, drew Ali’s attention.

She quickly located the source of the noise and found a couple of men wrestling with a woman. They hit her, threw her to the ground. One man fumbled with the front of his pants.

Not on her watch.

She didn’t think. She reacted. Found her target, waited for a clear shot and fired.

The man went down. The other man stared at his dead friend for a moment, then ran away.

The woman they had been assaulting scrambled to her feet and disappeared into a nearby house.

The whole thing had taken only a few seconds. A few seconds was all a catastrophe needed. She switched her attention back to the group of men working their way toward the old hospital building.

They were close enough now that she could see the expressions on their faces as they passed dead bodies left outside houses. Anger, fear, and horror.

It wasn’t until they were just twenty feet from the entrance to the old hospital that she noted anyone paying the team any attention. Maybe it was the number of men—fourteen was substantial—or perhaps it was the building they were headed to. Supposedly abandoned. Whatever the reason, two men watched the team from a few houses away. Watched them enter one by one.

The men followed and began yelling at the last couple of team members.

“Don’t go in there,” one man shouted in Arabic.

“You strangers must leave,” the other said.

One of the men turned and shouted back in the same language, “We’re all sick. Do you want us in your homes or here?” That was Tom’s voice.

The two men paused, engaged in an intense whispered conversation, then waved at Tom to go inside. They backed away, talking to each other before splitting up and going in different directions.

Great. The whole village was going to know a bunch of sick guys were in the old hospital. A bunch of guys who weren’t villagers.

Unfortunately, there was nothing she or they could do about it.

Off in the distance, there was the faint sound of gunfire. Rapid, repeating shots. The dropped supplies would have landed that way. The militants and anyone else in the vicinity must be fighting over them.

Had most of the militants gone after the supplies?

She looked over the village and found a knot of women at the well gathering water. Other people seemed to be taking advantage of the lack of armed men to do needed errands, as there were more people out and about than she’d seen since they’d arrived.

A head popped up over the edge of the roof. Bull. He looked around, but couldn’t see her, hidden as she was in the brush.

She slid out and he nodded in appreciation of her hiding spot.

---