This was a question Derek wanted to answer. He didn’t want rumors getting out that a U.S. soldier was hanging around the clinic. It might bring the Taliban or one of the provincial militias down on their heads.
“I’m not a soldier,” he told Dawar between bites. “I am a security guard like you.”
That wasn’t exactly true, but it was close enough.
“You came to take Miss Jenna home?” Dawar asked.
“Yes. Her father—my stepfather—wants her to come home. He is afraid for her safety if she stays here. He knows the Talibs have killed midwives.”
Dawar and a few of the others looked insulted by this, their protests overlapping.
“We would not let that happen!”
“We watch over her and the others!”
“The Talib scum are no match for The Lion and his men!”
Then Farzad told them that Jenna had refused to go, raising eyebrows.
“Can you not simply command her to go with you?” Dawar asked.
Derek wanted to laugh. He hadn’t spent more than a minute with Jenna, but years of covert operations had made him a good judge of people. No one commanded Jenna Hamilton. “Under our laws, women are as free as men to live as they please. My sister must decide for herself.”
“What will you do?” asked a guard who said his name was Hamzad.
“I have no choice but to stay here to watch over her and hope I can change her mind.” He let the men digest this bit of information while he finished his stew, mopping up the juices with another piece of naan.
That’s right. I’m not leaving. Get used to the idea.
“But there is no need,” said Farzad. “We are here.”
There were murmurs of agreement, and Derek knew he was risking offense to his hosts if he implied that they were incapable of keeping Jenna safe themselves.
“Her father is grateful to you and to The Lion for watching over her, but he is still a father. Is it not a father’s nature to worry?”
This earned Derek a few sympathetic smiles.
He went on. “I stay because if I return to my country without her, I will have to admit to her father that I failed.”
In truth, he could deal with Hamilton, but he knew his words would strike home for Farzad and his men. Admitting failure was something no Afghan man wanted to do.
The men’s smiles faded.
Farzad gestured at the room around them. “Miss Jenna has been good to our women and children. You can sleep here where it’s warm. We have a spare bunk.”
Derek managed another smile. “Tašakor.”Thanks.
Staying here in the barracks would put him right where he needed to be—close enough to Jenna to keep her safe and close enough to these men to make sure they were all who they seemed to be.
* * *
Jenna draggedherself out of bed at six, walked down the chilly hallway to the only shower in the dorm, and turned on the spray, washing quickly because the water was never truly warm. She tried to visualize the water rinsing away her exhaustion and the sadness that had followed her through the night, but it didn’t work.
Shima, a girl of only fourteen, had arrived at the clinic late last night after two days of labor with her second baby. Jenna had quickly confirmed that the baby was transverse, which made a vaginal birth impossible. With the girl’s mother-in-law acting as the go-between, she and Marie, the clinic’s French OB-GYN, had pleaded with Shima’s husband, a man in his forties, to allow a C-section, but he had refused. Jenna hadn’t been sure the mother-in-law was explaining things to him accurately, but custom forbade Jenna or any of the other women from talking with with Shima’s husband.
They had managed to turn the baby—an agonizing ordeal for Shima—but by then it was too late. The little boy had slipped lifeless into Jenna’s hands.
It was hardly the first stillbirth Jenna had attended here. Still, the senselessness of it ate at her. Shima was too young to be married, too young to give birth to hersecondchild, too young to endure so much suffering and loss.