Xenophobia (2 page)

Bower couldn’t hear what was being said, but the exchange was heated, arms were flying as the two men went toe-to-toe, pointing, waving, yelling. Snippets floated on the breeze, barely audible above the whine of the idling engine.

“She’s a goddamn Limey. Let the Brits take care of her... You’re disobeying a direct order... We have no idea if there will even be anymore evacuation flights.”

Alile ran over to talk to Bower and Kowalski.

Alile was the senior nurse within the hospital. She was the only native Malawian Bower knew who had received formal medical training as a registered nurse, although Alile had to go to South Africa to get it. Bower knew Alile was concerned about the young woman with the premature baby.

For her part, Bower’s head was spinning. She was trying to gauge her own reaction, trying to detach herself from her emotional outrage and think clearly about the implications of her decision.

“Is everything OK?” Alile asked. Her dark skin glistened in the sunlight. Beads ran through her tightly plaited hair. Most of the African women kept their hair in plaits, with braids running in tight corn-rows woven hard against the skull. Alile’s hair looked pretty. Bower never had time for plaits and braids, they took hours to put in and only lasted a couple of weeks before they had to be painstakingly unpicked and taken out again. She didn’t see the point.

Bower couldn’t lie to Alile.

“We’ve been asked to leave, but don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere.”

“Did we at least get the powdered milk?”

Bower gestured to the empty ground around her, saying, “I’m sorry.”

They’d ordered milk powder to help the premature baby gain some weight. Caring for a prem-baby was no easy task in a Western hospital, let alone in the middle of a scorching, fly-blown African summer. Even with mosquito nets and fans, insects were a real problem and could cause complications with newborns.

Jameson jogged back over to his waiting troops.

Alile left them, walking back to join the other nurses. Bower wanted to tell her she didn’t have to go, that this wasn’t some exclusive foreigners-only club, but Bower understood her mindset. For Alile, there was always a sense of us and them, and having US soldiers around only accentuated that perception. Bower tried to treat Alile as an equal, but the very act of making that distinction reinforced the inequality between them.

Sixteen soldiers crouched down on the edge of the landing zone, half sitting on their heels, their elbows resting on their knees as they squatted before Jameson. The sergeant explained what little he knew as the two civilian doctors stood to one side.

“So I’m asking for volunteers,” Jameson added after walking the troops through the plan to evacuate by land to Ksaungu and then move on to the capital, Lilongwe. “You should know, the crew of the Osprey have radioed our intentions through to theatre command. They’re not happy about the decision, but they're deferring to our judgment on the ground. Command said the last flight out of Lilongwe is scheduled in two days. If we make that, we get a free ride. If we don’t, we’re on a forced march across the mountains.”

“I like it,” said Private Mathers.

O
ne of the other soldiers joked with him, saying,
“You would, you sadistic bastard."

“Finally, a chance for a little action. I’m in,” Bosco cried.

"Humping through two hundred miles of jungle. Sounds idyllic," Smithy added.

It was only on hearing Smithy’s voice that Bower realized Smithy was a woman. At first glance, Bower had assumed Smithy was simply a shorter, less muscular male soldier, but now she looked closer there was no doubt about Smithy’s gender. Strands of blonde hair protruded from beneath her helmet, while her baggy camouflage shirt barely obscured her breasts. Her hands were petite. Bower could not imagine violence being unleashed by such slender hands. Without make-up, Smithy’s face looked like that of a clean-shaven teen, but her thin lips spoke with a distinctly feminine pitch.

"It's a walk in the park,” Smithy continued. “An overgrown, bug-infested, leech-filled park. I love it."

“Hell, yes,” said Elvis, giving Smithy a high-five.

With his sideburns and diamond-rimmed sunglasses, Elvis looked out of place in army fatigues, and that was clearly the image he wanted to portray. Bower had no idea whether his southern accent was genuine or put on for show, but he sounded like The King. The Rangers all sported buzz-cuts, all except Elvis who had a mop of hair sitting over his short-back-and-sides. How he got away with that must have been quite a story, thought Bower, but he looked and sounded like his namesake, Elvis Presley, right down to his cheesy grin and his beautiful white teeth. Elvis looked completely out of place in Africa. He should have been on a movie set.

“I’m asking for two fire teams, eight men,” Jameson said.

Although all the hands went up, there were some that shot up like a pheasant being flushed by a golden retriever. Jameson called out those soldiers by name. Bower realized precisely why Jameson wanted these particular men with him, but why Smithy? Jameson had selected her among others, like Elvis and Bosco. Something within Bower objected to putting a woman in harm’s way. It was irrational, of course, and deep down Bower understood that, as putting anyone in danger of losing their life was morally dubious at best, but Elvis and Bosco seemed more robust, better suited to the risks. Smithy, though, grinned, and Bower could see she relished the opportunity.

Smithy slapped Elvis on the arm, saying, “Looks like you’re stuck with me, Big Guy.”

“Absolutely.”

The rest of the team was dismissed and grudgingly piled into the Osprey.

Jameson explained his decision to the loadmaster as Bosco scavenged a radio and extra munitions from the soldiers on the Osprey. Elvis and Smithy joked around with the other troops loading into the helicopter.

“It’s your funeral, buddy,” the loadmaster said to Jameson. He walked off and raised the tailgate.

Smithy jogged away from the Osprey, grinning like a little girl on Christmas Day as she rested a machine gun over her shoulder, the proud spoils of banter with several of the soldiers on board the aircraft. Elvis joked around with her, carrying two ammunition cans for the gun.

“Goddamn,” he cried. “It’s Combat Barbie, complete with a lightweight plastic SAW.”

Smithy cocked her head to one side, exaggerating her movements as she twisted from her hips, looking very much like a living, plastic doll. She posed for the remaining soldiers and waved with her hand, saying, “Look what’s new from MATTEL.”

The remaining soldiers laughed and whistled. Smithy hammed up her act with a fake smile as she said, “Ken. I want a divorce. Now, where did I leave my handbag?”

Bosco was grinning too. He had conned someone out of a civilian-band radio. He held it up as though it were a trophy and the soldiers cheered.

As the turboprops on the Osprey wound up to speed, a hail of fine stones again kicked out across the grassy plain. The remaining soldiers along with the two doctors moved back, catching the death-defying sight of the clumsy Osprey banking above the trees before the craft turned and flew over the village and out across the lake toward Tanzania.

As silence fell, Bower felt a tinge of regret. Even with Jameson standing beside her in his seemingly invincible US Army uniform, Bower felt abandoned. And yet she knew she’d have felt unbearable guilt if she’d boarded that flight. Watching the Osprey disappear into the distance, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d made a mistake, one she wouldn’t be able to take back, one that could cost them their lives.

Elvis put on his finest Mississippi accent, waving at the troop carrier as he called out, “Y’all come back now, ya hear.”

That brought a smile to her face.

Jameson, though, wasted no time.

“Bosco, get on the net and see if you can figure out what the hell’s got everyone so spooked.

“Elvis, take Mathers, Jones and Smithy and go get those trucks from Mzimba. Borrow, beg, steal. Do whatever it takes, but make sure there’s plenty of diesel.

“Chalmers, Davidson and Phelps, recon the area and start thinking about approaches, defensive positions, fields of fire.”

The soldiers dispersed as Jameson escorted Bower and Kowalski to the makeshift hospital, a series of three tents on the edge of the village with its grass-topped mud huts and low stone walls. He spoke as they walked, briefing the doctors in a formal tone.

“The rebels on the tableland are going to see our troops pulling out. The fox is going to assume the hen house is open. I doubt they’ll waste any time. If we can, I’d like to move out before nightfall.”

“We’ll get everyone ready,” Bower replied, brushing the dust out of her hair. “Mitch, if you work with the nurses, I’ll pack up the medicine and burn our records.”

Less than an hour later, while Jameson was helping to fold up cots and Bower was packing vials of malaria vaccine, Bosco came running in with the civilian radio. “You’ve got to hear this. There's some serious shit going down.”

Bower stared at him, surprised at his profanity, not that she was a prude, but that he'd so quickly normalized her as being one of the band.

The radio signal was weak, with static breaking up the words. Bosco turned up the volume as Jameson leaned on a box and Bower sat on the edge of a rickety desk.

“
...impeachment proceedings have begun in earnest within the House of Representatives
.”

A British reporter with a petite voice spoke over the top of a heated exchange between several distinctly American voices. Bower recognized the southern accent of the US President.

“
You have no right to sit here in judgment of my decisions. I do not recognize the legitimacy of these proceedings and will continue to press the Supreme Court to reinstate me as Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America.”

“
Response from Senator Johansen
,” the reporter said rapidly, trying to interject a sense of identity for the listeners while trying not to talk over the swell of anger and emotion growing within the argument.

“
Article Four of the Outer Space Treaty, a binding international agreement that has been in effect for over fifty years, outlaws the militarization of space and the deployment of nuclear weapons beyond Earth.”

The senator slowed down his speech, deliberately emphasizing his point as he spoke.

“Mr President, your lawless, reckless arrogance has plunged the United States into the abyss... never before... condemnation... Russia, China and...
”

The signal was breaking up, cutting into static as Bower strained to pick out fragments of each sentence. The President replied.

“
... will not be lectured ... Easy to sit there and criticize me without the weight of responsibility on your shoulders ... we have squandered our only opportunity to gain a strategic advantage in the event of hostilities ... there will be war, mark my words. History has shown time and again that war is the inevitable consequence of a clash of cultures ...”

Reception on the radio continued to fade.

“What the fuck?” Jameson cried as it became clear they’d lost the signal.

“Oh, it gets better,” Bosco added. “You think that’s fucked up, wait until you hear the rest of the story.”

He was fiddling with the radio, changing the station.

Another British voice broke through the static, which surprised Bower, as she assumed Bosco would have been hunting for local radio stations, or for something out of South Africa. She wasn’t sure, but both channels seemed to be BBC World Service broadcasts. Again, the reporter’s accent lent an air of authenticity to the commentary, one Bower found convincing.

“
The revelation of a secret government project concealing the existence ...”

Static tore the sentence in two. Bower strained to hear what was being said.

“... has shaken not only the US but the world. For seven months, the President and his cabinet presided over what can only be described as a conspiracy of silence.

“Rumors of intimidation, career assassination, physical assault, incarceration on false charges and even murder threaten to topple the presidency.

“The evidence is damning, with grainy video footage of President Addison and his security detail in a midnight meeting with David Alexander Wilson, ex-CIA chief of station for the United Kingdom and alleged ringmaster of the project.”

“I don’t get it,” Jameson said. “What the hell is all this about?”

“Wait for it,” Bosco replied, his words terse and abrupt. He clearly didn't want to talk over the broadcast.

“
NASA officials vetoed the launch of the Orion spacecraft two weeks ago, with NASA administrative director Philip Monroe citing technical concerns over the rocket booster, but insiders leaked telemetry readouts from the rocket, revealing a system purring like a Ferrari in pole position.

“
With the arrest of Wilson in Texas two days ago for the murder of NASA director
Philip
Monroe, the house of cards surrounding the President finally
came tumbling down
. FBI surveillance linked Wilson with the President as well as with Monroe, exposing the conspiracy.

“Yesterday, the veil of secrecy was lifted when Congress formally impeached the President as an accessory to murder, with a secondary charge for the unlawful deployment of nuclear weapons in space.

“
Ostensibly, the Orion was scheduled to explore Cruithne, an asteroid that’s erroneously referred to as Earth’s second moon. In reality, the Orion was tasked to intercept the alien spacecraft before it reached Earth’s orbit.

“NASA director Monroe had objected to the inclusion of a
15 megaton Plutonium warhead
onboard the Orion and had threatened to go public with the revelation when he was murdered by Wilson.
”