Be ready to shelter in the safe room.
“What is it, Miss Jenna?” Guli asked.
“My brother tells me a mullah has come to speak with Farzad about me.” The students stared at Jenna in stunned silence that was broken by the whoops and shouts of celebration that came from the waiting area. “He says I should be ready to shelter in the safe room.”
At those words, the students flew into action, apart from Lailoma, who was still tending to the woman and her newborn. The girls took Jenna’s hands, guiding her out of the hospital wing and toward the kitchen as if she didn’t know the way.
It was like being carried away on a tide.
“Get her to the safe room.”
“Come now. Hurry!”
“We will hide you there.”
But this wasn’t necessary, was it?
“He didn’t say I had to hide now. He just said to be ready.”
“If you’re already down there, that is the best kind of ready,” Chehrah said. “Then we can go about our work and not worry.”
Jenna couldn’t argue with that.
She was touched by their concern for her. This situation washerfault. If anything happened to them or Derek or Farzad or any of the men…
Then she remembered. “Someone needs to warn Marie and Delara.”
Marie and Delara were in the OR with Zari and Parwana in the middle of another C-section—a woman with twins who had arrived with precariously high blood pressure.
“I’ll go.” Guli turned and hurried back to the hospital wing.
Even before she reached the kitchen, Jenna could hear the squeaking of the refrigerator’s wheels as Mina and Mahnaz admonished each other to move it quickly and quietly.
In a blink, Jenna found herself staring at the safe room doorway. She had everything down there that she might need—light, food, water, blankets—but the idea of sitting down there for hours alone was unnerving.
This isyourfault. Deal with it.
She pushed on the panel, and the door popped open. She reached in and flicked on the light then turned back to the students. “Don’t risk anything for me. If anyone is to suffer for this, it should be me.”
She stepped inside and turned on the light, then locked the door behind her and walked down the stairs as the refrigerator was pushed back into place. She grabbed a blanket, wrapped it around her, and sat on a concrete bench.
There was nothing she could do but wait.
7
Derek was relieved when he got Jenna’s message that she was in the safe room. He kept to the background, let Farzad do the talking. As an Afghan and a Muslim, Farzad could do far more to help Jenna at this moment than he. That’s why one of the first jobs of a Green Beret—or a Cobra operative—was to cultivate local assets, allies who would knowingly or unknowingly aid the mission.
Farzad made the Mullah welcome in the barracks, the two making polite small talk over tea, dates, bread, and almonds before turning to the thorny subject of Jenna.
“I am told by a man from my village that a midwife here, a Westerner, violated the rules of modesty to speak in the hearing of unrelated men. I came to hear the truth of this. We cannot allow outsiders or Western women to corrupt our culture.”
Farzad’s men, who had not yet heard this news, reacted with outrage, the mood in the room turning ugly.
“Is this true?”
“She must be sent away!”
“No virtuous woman would do such a thing.”