Jack Terral - Seals (2005)

She saw her companions following after the trucks. "I have to get over there with my people. Oh m'God! We have to get together for a long, long talk, Chad. Really!" She kissed his cheek again and hurried after the other UN workers.

Senior Chief Dawkins and Connie walked up to him, grinning. Dawkins chuckled. "Man, Murchison, you work fast, don't you?"

Connie laughed. "She hadn't been off the plane a full minute before you made your moves. Way to go, guy!"

"Yeah," he said sadly. "I'm a regular Don Juan."

He walked away, wanting more than anything to be by himself. Seeing Penny again had stirred up old feelings of hurt and humiliation, of being rejected and unwanted. He was both sad and angry at the same time. He had pushed the girl into the far distant recesses of his heart, but now here she was back, all beautiful and desirable as she had always been.

Evidently the old maxim about women all being the same when they stood on their heads did not apply to Penelope Brubaker.

Chapter 21

UN RELIEF CAMP

3 SEPTEMBER

DR. Pierre Bouchier's medical and advisory teams were now into their second day of ministering to the Pashtuns living in and around Warlord Hassan Khamami's fortress. Even the people who belonged to the now defunct band of the late Ayyub Durtami were included in the program. Khamami had generously allowed them to take advantage of the UN offerings because of the martyrdom of their men in the final battles with the American SEALs. Another very important aspect he considered was the fact that their sons would reach adulthood someday to serve as his mujahideen. They would come in handy when he renounced the recent surrender to launch a campaign to renew his former glory. This future coup d'etat would be more than amply financed through opium poppy cultivation.

The UN's initial efforts in the fiefdom were a bit chaotic on the first day. The relief workers had not expected the five hundred people to show up all at once. But most of the staff had faced similar situations in Africa during civil wars that produced hordes of refugees. In only a short hour, using interpreters from the UN center in Kabul, the people were lined up in groups and pointed in the direction they should go.

The Pashtuns accepted the help offered them with a silent, dignified gratitude. Most of the attendees were women who brought their children in for treatment of such things as rashes, diarrhea and other conditions that would be considered minor in the more advanced areas of the world. The relief workers were aware that there must have been scores of little graves in the area that held babies who had quickly succumbed to more serious illnesses in the past. It was a pathetic situation, but there were no pharmacies out in the hinterlands of Afghanistan, and most remedies were homemade or derived from faulty folklore. The arid terrain offered little in the way of the healing herbs that were available in the jungles and forests of the globe's temperate and torrid zones.

Dr. Bouchier's plate was also full. Many surviving mujahideen had suffered debilitating wounds during their service. Without proper medical treatment and convalescence, a great majority of these fighters were either crippled up or suffered chronic pain from old injuries. The doctor employed his skills as an orthopedic surgeon to bring comfort and mobility to the suffering veterans.

One of the busiest places was the dental tent. It seemed that the majority of the people suffered from toothaches, diseased gums and other problems of the mouth. They would have been more than willing to accept the pulling, drilling and filling of teeth without anesthetic, but were happy to find out that the learned Western dentist and his hygienists had a magic needle that, although it pricked hotly when stuck into the gums, quickly produced a welcome numbness. Even the noisiest of their whirring instruments could be endured in great comfort. The whole program was turning out to be a pleasant experience for Khamami's people.

Then Khatib the Oracle made an appearance.

The wizened scarecrow, wearing a tattered and soiled chador as a serape, stalked into the area. "What are you miserable sinners doing?" he shrieked in his reedy voice at the Pashtuns. "Have you lost your minds? You are letting infidels examine your bodies and give you strange medicines and treatments that go against the holiest of Islamic laws! Their serums and elixirs are impure and unblessed."

The people, still fearful of the old faker, recoiled physically, causing their carefully formed lines to curl and buckle.

Khatib strode among them, waving his arms, his face contorted into a righteous rage. "Allah the merciful and beneficent will cure your ills in His own way! If you die, it is His will! Suppose your mortal life slips away while you are under the care of these unbelievers? Do you want to show up at the gates of Paradise bearing the curse of unholy therapy given to you by infidels? You will be turned away to join the heretics of the faith who have been doomed to hellfire forever!"

Warlord Khamami had anticipated an appearance by the old man, and sent Ahmet Kharani with a half dozen guards to put an end to his haranguing. The preaching of religious fervor no longer benefited Khamami and he was more than ready to get rid of Khatib the Oracle. He had become a source of great disturbance in the fiefdom.

The guards, under Kharani's supervision, simply grabbed the skinny oldster and hauled him out of the area, frogmarching him away. They were under orders to take him back to the mountains to renew the hermitage he had foisted upon himself for fifteen long years.

Kharani watched the old man's forced departure, then turned back to the crowd, raising his hands for attention. "Pay no attention to what the insane ancient has told you. Amir Khamami blesses the efforts of these good people who have come to help us. You may continue to receive their healings and medicines."

The lines quickly reformed.

.

UN CLASS TENT

1015 HOURS LOCAL

PENNY Brubaker's assignment in her relief team was the position of instructor in the diet, sanitation and hygiene program. Her training aids were posters, videotapes, pamphlets and one translator fluent in the Pashto language. No matter where she had gone in her short UN career, her classes were made up wholly of women who eagerly sought her counsel. Their knowledge of even the most rudimentary sanitation practices was severely limited, and the first lesson Penny imparted was the benefits of boiling water before use. From there she progressed through cooking, cleaning and the proper placement, construction and uses of latrines. When those basic subjects were mastered, she moved on to more complicated matters such as proper diet. This latter could be extremely difficult to teach in areas suffering from shortages of food due to famine, war or extreme poverty.

Penny and her interpreter had just finished the second lecture of the series, and had put a tape in the VCR. While the women in her class sat enthralled by this method of presenting instruction on maintaining healthful diets, she went outside the tent for some fresh air and some time to collect her thoughts.

The unexpected meeting with Chad Murchison had shaken Penny more than she realized. He was always a cute guy in a sort of awkward way, and his physical ineptness was charming. But he'd seemed so immature, even though he was a brilliant student who was always on the Dean's List. The rugged physical strength and manly handsomeness of Cliff Armbrewster had attracted her in a way that Chad never could.

But seeing him here in Afghanistan had shocked her to the point of giddiness. It wasn't so much from finding him in this isolated place, but seeing how much he had changed. He had been armed, wearing a battle vest complete with military equipment, and a camouflage-pattern uniform; but most of all, his once scrawny physique had blossomed into a sharp muscularity. His shoulders and chest filled the jacket, and his arms were corded with muscle. He still had long slender fingers, and they were a charming contrast to his ruggedness.