Violated, blood oozing down her legs from her torture, Rebecca was dragged along the floor and thrown in a cell. She lay where they’d thrown her for an hour. She was shivering and sobbing uncontrollably. All she wanted to do was to sleep but she knew that if she did, it would all start again. She fought her tiredness with all of the strength she had left.
The floor was cold against her nakedness. She felt humiliated and degraded on an unimaginable scale. She sobbed quietly to herself, desperately trying to calm her screaming mind, filling it with images of Dominic and the life they could have had together. She was damned if that bastard Srisai was going to break her now.
Another half hour passed and then she heard the marching footsteps of soldiers. Her eyes had been closing and she was beginning to lose the battle with sleep. They probably had a camera in the cell somewhere she couldn’t see. They were coming back for her. She made the effort to raise herself from the filthy floor.
She crawled along to rest her grubby blood stained body back against the wall, vainly attempting to hide in the darkness of the room. She shielded herself from the rays of sunshine coming through the small high barred window to prevent it from revealing her presence and brought her knees up to her chest to hug herself. She rocked her body back and forth hoping to soothe the pulsing aching pain between her legs and buttocks.
She stared expectantly at the door. Her heart was thudding so fiercely she had a strange mental image of it bursting inside her. She found herself praying for the comfort of death as the footsteps grew louder. Maybe she would get lucky and die before they opened the door. Maybe the shock of seeing the men would give her a heart attack and she would die.
She heard Srisai’s voice as the key turned in the lock. She covered her mouth to stifle a cry of fear. The metal door squeaked as it was opened. Srisai appeared in the doorway. She pressed her back further against the wall, hoping somehow it would swallow her. Another figure came into the room. A figure she recognised.
The other man carried a blanket. He looked at her with horror. He swore violently at Srisai and was allowed to get away with it. The next thing she knew he was at her feet immediately covering her with the blanket he carried. It felt warm and cosy against her shivering skin. She felt a sense of relief that Srisai could no longer gloat over her naked body. She looked up at the man’s face.
She whispered, “Jonathan? Jonathan Taylor? Is that you?”
The man handed her a bottle of water and nodded. His voice was gentle and quiet, “Yes, Rebecca. It’s me. I’ve come to take you away from this awful place. Come on, wrap the blanket around you. Can you stand?”
“I don’t know. Are you really going to take me away? Are you going to take me home? Do you work for the British Embassy? No, you can’t. They all went home.”
“You are rambling Rebecca. What the hell has he done to you?”
He helped her to her feet and made sure the blanket was securely around her body. “That’s it, lean on me. Put your arm around my shoulder.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere you will be safe.”
She saw Jonathan glare at Srisai as they slowly passed. She was so weak with exhaustion, her feet felt as though they were dragging along the floor. Without Jonathan’s support around her waist, she would have collapsed. She flinched away from Srisai as he caught her arm.
He warned, “Where he is taking you is not safe Rebecca.” He got in her face. She strained away from him. “Where he is taking you to is worse than the hell of your Christian religion. Far worse than this place. If you had told me what I wanted to know I might have let you go.”
Jonathan pushed him away. “Get back in your cage Srisai”
He offered no reply. Whatever Jonathan was, in South Bundhara his authority carried more weight than an officer in the Elite guard. It made her suspicious that Srisai was speaking the truth.
* * * * *
Her eyes were in pained by the bright sunlight as she was ushered outside of the building to a waiting car. Jonathan took the top off the bottle of water for her and made her drink. But he only allowed her a few sips before taking it from her again. She was desperate for liquid after being denied food and drink for several hours and she didn’t understand as to why he would deny her it now. She constantly questioned Jonathan about where he was taking her. He would only answer that he was going to take her to the hospital and get her injuries taken care of then he would be able to explain everything.
She started to feel very tired. Everything swam in front of her eyes. She looked at Jonathan in confusion, then at the bottle of water he still held in his hand. Her eyes felt like they were rolling.
“Jonathan. The water? You’ve drugged me? What are you going to do to me Jonathan?”
She tried to grab hold of the handle of the door. She flicked it back and forth not able to make the co-ordinated movement. Her intention was to fall from the moving car and somehow make a break for freedom. She cried with frustration when she couldn’t make the handle move.
Jonathan caught her hand. She struggled furiously. What was happening? Was this one of Srisai’s games to try and make her talk? Was she dreaming? Still stuck in that room being beaten? Would she wake up buried alive?
Jonathan caught her head in his hands and tilted it towards him. He studied her eyes. She couldn’t focus on him. He peered into them critically. Then he shouted at the driver. “Hurry, another minute and she will be fully under. Call Quayle. Tell him to get the client prepped for surgery. He will be able to operate on Rebecca as soon as we bring her in and harvest the organ.”
Rebecca fought Jonathan as though for her life, lashing out at him with all of the strength she had but the drug was too strong. Darkness began to seep in from all sides, suffocating her world. It swallowed her whole. This was it; this was the death she craved. There was no peace in it. It had let her down.
* * * * *
Rebecca blinked her eyes, trying to focus in bright white light. The whole room seemed to be white. She hadn’t expected to wake up. Someone was leaning over her. He wore a white surgical mask over his mouth and nose. Other figures moved close to the walls. Their whole bodies seemed to be swathed in white from head to toe. Only their cold unfeeling eyes were visible. They almost melted into the background giving the appearance that their eyes floated disembodied. These were the phantoms Doctor Somwan had talked about. There were four of them but one loomed over her face.
Closer inspection told her that they wore protective clothing, some kind of a boiler suit. She guessed it was for hygiene reasons. Her eyes began to focus better and she glared up at the figure above her in defiance of the fear the whole spectacle created.
The figure spoke eloquently and with a hint of humour evident in his tone, despite the muffle of his voice against the mask. “Relax, Rebecca. Try not to move. You’ve had surgery.”
She recognised the voice. She’d heard it recently. But her mind could not provide her with the answer to his identity. She was tired, confused and felt threatened. She wanted to move but her limbs and body would not respond. She tried to lift her head but it was too much of an effort. She fell back defeated.
The man’s voice contained a stern warning when he spoke again but his humour remained, “I will have to sedate you again if you don’t stop your struggling, Rebecca. You had some bleeding and internal lacerations from being raped. You were lucky your torturers wore protection. Always ones for misplaced purity, the Bundenese. We don’t have to do an Aids test.”
The Ball. That’s where you’ve heard his voice... Has a name like a bird. Grouse? No. You eat their eggs. Quayle? Yes. Quinton Quayle. The man with bad breath and terrible name. The one that slobbered over Karen and you at the champagne fountain. Anna Harker’s surgeon. Thank God he’s got that mask over his bloody mouth.
“What the hell have you done to me?” she asked weakly.
When she tried to struggle for a third time, she felt some movement return to her limbs. But when she attempted to move her arms she found that her hands were restrained at either side of the bed. Suddenly fear began to get the better of her and it filled her body with a shot of adrenaline. In blind suffocated panic she tried to raise her body from the bed, testing the limits of the restraints as she tried to free herself.
She turned to him. His eyes betrayed humour once more as he watched her struggle.
“Why am I restrained?” she demanded. “Why was I drugged? What’s going on? What is this hospital?”
“It is exactly what Doctor Somwan told you it is. This is where we extract organs and living tissue for transplantation and experimentation.”
Angry and afraid she attempted to raise her body from the bed once again. That was when she felt the dull pain to her side. Surprised she stopped. Quayle put out his hand. It was covered in a clear surgical glove. He rested it on her shoulder and firmly pushed her back down onto the bed. He held her there.
She said, “I know you. You’re, Quinton Quayle. Anna Harker’s renal surgeon.”
“Very good. That’s right. But you forgot that I am also a colleague of your brother’s at The Weber Grey.”
“And you are the influential friend that Srisai told me about.”
“Full marks again.”
“What about my brother? Is he involved in your medical murder conspiracy?”
“I mean it Rebecca. If you move again I will get our nurse here to sedate you. I can’t have you bursting your stitches.”
Rebecca gritted her teeth together, “What about my brother?”
“Well that would be giving the game away. Let’s just say I had to apply some pressure to make him see things my way. He knows what he has to do to put it all right and then that nasty business that caused his suspension will instantly go away.”
Disbelief echoed through her tone. “You’re threatening him if he doesn’t join you? He wouldn’t do anything like that. He wouldn’t take organs from people. He’s noble. He cares about his work. He...”
Quayle chuckled. “Looks like your fan club is here Michael.”
Rebecca swung her head around to the opposite side, so fast it spun. Another figure stood next to her bed. His head bowed. She knew by his stance and his dark brooding eyes that it was Michael. Tears welled up inside her. They flowed out onto her cheeks. He pulled down his mask and revealed his face.
His voice betrayed his emotion and disgust with himself. “I am so sorry, Rebecca.”
Quayle continued. “Michael isn’t just involved, he is the principal architect of this whole scheme. He’s a genius. Without him none of this would have happened and this hospital and all of the others around the world wouldn’t exist. Of course he isn’t in charge any more. The whole operation has grown too large now. We are run by a board just like any other business.”
She couldn’t speak.
“But when we told him that we needed you and one of your kidneys, Michael wanted to leave. You will be pleased to know that he put you and your safety first. He threatened us that if we harmed you or attempted to take your kidney he would expose us. We could have simply killed him. But he’s a brilliant surgeon and his research on heart transplants is inspiring. He is far too clever for us to lose. So we did the next best thing. We threatened to expose him, ruin his precious career, have him blamed for the slip up at the Weber Grey and The Marsworth, not to mention his fraud. But that’s not the best bit, we told him we would make sure that somehow you were implicated along with him hence destroying your career and life with a heavy prison sentence.”
Rebecca’s voice was taut with tension. “Is this all true, Michael?”
“Yes... it is. But I didn’t want them touching you. You were never supposed to know about this. I was going to take you away, hide you from them. Just like you did for me that night when we were children. I was going to protect you. Kevin Boyle nearly ruined everything. The Board tipped him off just to prove what they could do. Please don’t be angry. I love you. I wanted to keep you safe.”
“Liar. You are a bloody liar.”
“Please listen to me Rebecca. Quayle told me that Srisai had caught you. He told me that he could get you out but the price would be your kidney.”
Quayle interrupted. “But that’s not all is it Michael?”
She watched Michael bend his head. He was quiet for a moment.
Quayle was impatient. He raised his voice at Michael, “Tell her.”
Michael gave her a sympathetic look that made her nervous. He leaned over her and cupped her face in his latex gloved hands. The smell of the rubber made her nauseous. His thumb wiped at her tears.
“Don’t be afraid Rebecca,” he whispered. “I will find a way to get you out and away from him.”
“I said, tell her.”
Michael looked up at Quayle and narrowed his eyes. “They won’t let you leave South Bundhara. They can’t. You will expose us. The Board want you eliminated but Quinton has persuaded them to agree to allow you to live but you have to stay here with him.”
“What do you mean, with him?”
Michael dipped his head again. She shouted at him, “What do you mean, with him?”
Quayle was impatient again. “He means that you will live with me. Well, that’s when I have need of you and your... affections.”
Michael’s face was twisting with anger as he listened to Quayle’s words. She stared back at him with revulsion.
Michael told her, “I’m sorry, Rebecca. This is the only way I can keep you alive. Do as he says and you will be safe. He won’t go back on his word. I will find a way to work this out. I promise.” He kissed her forehead. She wriggled and squirmed telling him to get away from her. She warned him that if she ever got free she would hunt him down and bring him to justice.
He moved away and looked at Quayle. She heard him say, “She’ll calm down. She will see this is the way it has to be.”
Quayle nodded. “You’d better get back to North Bundhara before anyone misses you. Keep playing the desperately worried brother for the media. We will give it a while before we give them a video statement from one of Somwan’s disgruntled ex-members saying that he has killed her. We’ll do a fake body shot.”
Michael nodded. He replaced his mask and gave her a last look. She turned away from him. He left quietly. Overcome, Rebecca cried to herself. Quayle patted her shoulder. He told her, “It’s never easy finding out the truth is it? Nurse, I want you to sedate Rebecca and make her comfortable.”
“No, I don’t want to sleep.”
“You need to. Your injuries were severe and it was touch and go on the operating table for a while there. I should have operated on you myself. Some of the doctors they give me in South Bundhara are barely medically trained. The tidying up of the injuries was dealt with reasonably well but they were pretty extensive. Sorry I wasn’t able to get you out sooner but I had to prove to your brother that I was serious with my threat.”
Rebecca tried to recover from her display of emotion. She didn’t want to give Quayle any more satisfaction at seeing her so helpless, degraded and defeated. “You’re all heart.”
She could tell by Quayle’s eyes that he was amused. “However the nephroureterectomy... That’s a rib extension op to take your kidney, was not as tidy as I would have hoped. I prefer a larascopy where we only make a small incision but we don’t have the equipment here for that.” He raised his eyebrows. “Low funds. So they had to open you up. They broke three of your ribs doing it. Sometimes happens. Although I think one of them might have actually been broken when you were beaten. We’ll never know I suppose.”
He walked around the bed. He walked like a vulture, his head bobbing forward as he slightly stooped. She eyed him with suspicion.
“They did a messy job. There was a slight intra-operative nick to your spleen but I intervened and it was sorted out very quickly. I’m good at that. You know, coming in and saving the day. You aren’t impressed? I guess you aren’t by your silence. Well there’s going to be pain. Be a good girl and do as you’re told and I will keep your medication topped up so you don’t feel it. But if you decide to be bad, then it all stops and you’ll find out just how much pain you are really in. Now get some rest.”
“Wait. Who needed my kidney? Why me?”
“I’ll just say you were compatible because you are related.”
“But I don’t have any other family apart from Michael.”
“Well, not even Michael. After all he isn’t really your family either. You were adopted as a baby. I know from Michael you are already aware of it. You weren’t the only one listening to those men who came to kill you as a child that night. He knows. But you do have family, your real family. Shame they don’t want to know you. They just want your kidney.”
She felt the prick of a needle in her arm again. Her world faded once more before she could challenge him any further.
* * * * *
Dominic had placed his arm around her shoulders as she narrated the memory. She was breathing hard, almost hyperventilating. His hand swept gently across her face and stroked soothingly. She couldn’t look at his eyes. She was frightened of what she might see. Anger, an anger that couldn’t be contained, just like her own. She strained to reach him over the arm of the seat, just wanting the safety of his arms that he was so eager to give her. He kissed the top of her head. He said, “God. I know this is killing you but we need to know. I’m here. Don’t be afraid. Michael and the rest of them can’t hurt you now. I’ll make damn sure they don’t. You’re safe, honey. You’re safe. I promise.”
She watched Stuart and Ramsay stare at him with a mixture of sympathy and horror. They appeared to be deliberately avoiding her eyes. They’d heard everything as her voice had risen with emotion. She didn’t care. Everyone would know soon enough. She didn’t see the look Dominic gave Stuart back but he nodded, his eyes betraying his disgust as he looked up the plane towards her brother. She calmed her breathing as much as she could. Funny, tears wouldn’t come now. She was numb, thank God. She continued with angry determination.
* * * * *
When she woke the second time she was in a different room. There was no window and the white walls were harshly bright in the hard electric light. She immediately tried to move again but her hands were still trapped in restraints. Someone was in the room with her. She turned her head to find Jonathan standing next to her. He was recognisable because he had taken his hood down on his white boiler suit and removed his mask. He looked human again.
It’s a good job I am in these restraints Jonathan or I would punch you out.
He looked sheepish. He said slowly, “You’re awake then.”
She didn’t speak and turned her head away from him in disgust.
“Okay, so you are giving me the famous Rebecca huff your brother always moaned about when we shared rooms at university. He said you always blanked him when you couldn’t get your own way on something. The only way to end it was to give in to you. It drove him nuts but he always did give in.” He raised his eyebrows with humour. “Nice to know things haven’t changed with you.” He leaned over her and began lifting her eyelids and shining a torch to check her pupils. She moved her head back and forth, trying to evade him.
He stopped and gave a sigh. He told her firmly. “I need to check you out after your surgery. Don’t make it difficult or I will have to get Quayle in here to help me. I really don’t want to do that. The man is an unfeeling monster but if I need to...”
Rebecca detected sympathy for her situation in Jonathan’s voice. She decided to try to manipulate it. Maybe she could talk her way out. Prick at his conscience and at the same time she may be able to uncover some more information on the organization.
Forever the bloody journalist even when you are cornered. Always looking for the personal angle. Damn right. It’s what keeps you going and it’s what is going to get you out of this mess if you box clever. Michael said Jonathan was always pliable.
She remained still and let him carry on with his examination. He lifted up her sheet and took a look at her surgical wound. She saw him frown.
“Your wound is red and swollen, infected. I’ve told Quayle about hygiene. Bloody amateurs. I am going to do some tests and get you on a strong course of antibiotics before this gets out of hand. There were complications in your surgery, we shouldn’t take any chances. We still need to hydrate you as well.”
He stood up from her and checked the drip in her arm. He barked some orders at a nurse in Bundenese and she quickly left the room. Rebecca seized her chance.
“Whom was my kidney given to?”
Jonathan looked at her. He was silent as though considering the propriety of giving her an answer. “I can’t say. That is confidential.”
“Great. My kidney is stolen and given to someone else, someone in my family - and I am not even entitled to know who it has gone to.”
Jonathan smiled. “Yeah bummer isn’t it. Look all I can say is that it went to someone worthwhile. A kid, someone you would approve of.”
“Really. Do they or their parents know what you did to get the kidney?”
“Yes they do. They were desperate enough not to care. That is what happens to these people. They spend years living with the threat of imminent death, waiting for a chance off the donor register and it never comes through. The end approaches and they will do whatever it takes. She was about to have renal failure and die. Her father did what was necessary to help her survive.”
“So that’s the gap you fill. When the donor register fails you offer an alternative. A criminal alternative. But a second chance to cheat death.”
“Yeah something like that.” He started to take her blood pressure. She felt the band he’d placed around her arm constrict.
“How many people have you operated on Jonathan?”
“Your blood pressure is up. I want to take your temperature. I’ve done more operations than I care to remember.”
“Do you do transplants or take organs?”
“The term is harvest. I harvest organs. I do both.”
She decided to push it and get a reaction. “You don’t feel guilty when they bring them in kicking and screaming and you rape their bodies. What about the children?”
He was silent again. He looked uncomfortable, guilty. Got you. He took her temperature via her ear. He told her, “Your temperature is high. I’ll get a fan brought in to help you cool down.”
“Aren’t you going to answer my question? You had such high hopes of being a good doctor and making a difference when you went to university with Michael. You were so political and passionate about medical care. You wanted to go to Africa and help the charities. You wanted to bring good medical care to all the poor of the world.”
“I was naive.” He sounded tired, weary. He didn’t look much different from how she remembered him apart from the grey on the sides of his dark brown hair. He was a tallish man but he looked bowed as though he carried a heavy weight on his shoulders. He studied her heart monitor.
He started to speak again. His tone sounded non-committal as though he were merely narrating events that he did not have any emotional opinion on. “I went to Africa for too long. I spent time in some of the worst deprived areas in Kenya, Botswana and Ethiopia. I became disillusioned. Nothing I did made any real difference. There were so many of them, all wanting help. We hardly had any funds. People died of basic disease that we could treat easily back home, and starvation. The number of children I treated that died. There was so much suffering. I began to think that it would be better if they didn’t exist.”
It was Rebecca’s turn to be silent and pensive. Then she said, “How did you get involved in all of this?”
Jonathan wrote something on her chart. He didn’t look up as he spoke. “How did I get involved with Quayle and your brother, Michael,” he corrected before continuing.
“You know the old, friend of a friend. I got drunk one night with a bunch of doctors at a conference in London. We were all talking about our experiences in Africa. I said how I felt. Your brother was there. The next morning Quinton and Michael approached me. Soon I was on a plane to South Bundhara and working in one of Blue Dove’s clinics until we got this place. The government built it for us.”
“That was then. You look tired Jonathan. What do you think about what you do now? Are you still as enthusiastic?”
He didn’t look at her as he started removing his latex gloves. His tone was sarcastic as was his smile when he eventually did look at her. “I do what I do for the benefit of mankind. There have to be sacrifices. It’s survival of the fittest out there. The people we take organs from have no purpose, no quality of life. They are better off dead.”
“You don’t sound so convinced about that. It sounds more like Quayle’s speech than yours. I asked you how you felt about the children?”
He stood looking at her from the end of her bed. His expression was harrowed. For just a moment his eyes glazed with a trace of moisture. He opened his mouth to speak and then paused. He smiled. “Always the journalist Rebecca. Always with the questions.”
“Indulge me.”
“Very well. You might not like what I tell you. The children we harvest organs from are orphans, strays, disabled or mentally impaired and unable to function as a proper human being. In South Bundhara the orphans are left to run wild in the streets without food and water to sustain them. They are forced to steal, to scavenge, just to stay alive. They sell their bodies to paedophiles for money.”
He leaned over the bed commanding her attention. His speech was more impassioned but he still didn’t sound as convinced as he was trying to impress upon her.
“There is a cult in North and South Bundhara of kidnapping orphans and mutilating them for witchcraft and other illegal religious purposes. Families won’t adopt orphans or take them in because they see them as a bad omen of death. The government won’t help them and there are so many of them. They are better off dead.”
Rebecca felt her heart beat faster with her anger. “So the end justifies the means? Everyone has a right to exist. You can’t make that choice. You are not God.”
He shouted at her making her jump. “No, but God doesn’t help. This is a solution.”
Still she had to have the last word. “I don’t know how you sleep at night.”
“You were always so forthright Rebecca. We are ensuring the survival of people who have more of a chance at life, who can look after themselves and benefit the world.”
“You mean to ensure the survival of those who can afford to pay!”
She hadn’t heard the door open. It was Quayle. He’d heard part of the conversation. Jonathan visibly tensed the moment he realised the man was in the room. He opened his mouth to speak with anger but he closed it quickly. He moved away clearly uncomfortable and distasteful of Quayle’s presence. He wasn’t the only one feeling tense.
Quayle stood over her and removed his mask and hood. He folded his arms behind his back and peered down at her. Yes, he still had that bad breath. His grey eyebrows tweaked with amusement when she turned away from him.
“Benefiting the world, sounds very quaint now doesn’t it? As you suggest, it’s nothing so grand. It really is about money. Isn’t everything these days? This is a fantastic money spinner. I leave the more noble sentiments to men like your brother Michael and Jonathan here.”
She reached out to Jonathan once more. He obviously had doubts about his role in Quayle and Michael’s organization. She wanted to exploit them further. Hopefully she could make him an ally against Quayle.
She made sure her voice was full of contempt, “I take it you are on a good salary Jonathan with added benefits of course. Maybe you get commission for the number of organs you harvest. What good does that do for the preservation of the human race? I don’t know how you work with men like Quayle? They must make you sick. I know he makes me feel that way.”
Quayle chuckled. Jonathan didn’t answer. He wouldn’t even look at her. He busied himself with a task. Quayle leaned over her further, coming closer to her face. One of his hands slipped under the covers. She struggled as she felt his ageing fingers find her breast and squeeze hard. She squirmed. She was taking a hell of a chance provoking him.
“You know Rebecca. I have been quite smitten on you since the ATM Ball. I am going to enjoy having you in my bed. I like feisty women. I like breaking them down to nothing.”
She squirmed as his other hand travelled under her hospital gown to between her thighs. When she started making it difficult for him to touch her there his hand gripped her throat to hold her still. It didn’t stop her fighting him as he pushed his fingers inside her damaged vagina. The pain was unbearable and he was constricting her air. He started to kiss her trying to force open her unwilling mouth. There was a varnish to his fading grey eyes that told her that he was getting off on her pain and distress.
She wasn’t sure but she thought she heard something, a bang. Then there was another noise, something blunt hitting bone. Quayle fell flat over her face. She felt the pressure around her throat relax. She started to cough and reach for air once more. She tried to move her body upwards to shake the slumped unconscious man off her. Somebody did it for her. Quayle’s body slid to the floor.
Rebecca looked to her side to see Jonathan standing there holding a small steel cylinder filled with oxygen in his hand. He had obviously struck Quayle with it hard across the back of his head. His face was white and he was shaking.
He said quickly, “I didn’t sign up for this. I wanted to help people not be party to sexual assault.”
He put the cylinder down and started to undo her restraints.
He helped her sit up. “Come on we don’t have much time before he comes round. I am getting you out of here.”
Rebecca rubbed her wrists as they were freed. Her eyes shot up to the corner of the room suddenly remembering the camera she’d seen there when she woke up. It was bashed in, twisted to one side and hanging precariously off the bracket that fixed it to the wall. Her relief sprung her into action. She pulled the drip from her arm and pulled the heart monitor pads off her chest.
Jonathan had put surgical tape over Quayle’s mouth and was tying his hands and feet. He dragged him to the bathroom and came out of it carrying some clothes. He locked the door from the outside. Rebecca swung her legs over the bed and tried to get off. Her hand flew to her side when she felt a sharp pain there. Jonathan rushed to help her.
He informed her, “The morphine you’ve been given is going to wear off soon and you are going to feel like hell. You need to get to a hospital as soon as you can. You are at risk from postoperative pneumonia and that infection is flaring. I wish I could take you but they will miss me.”
“What about when Quayle wakes up? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I will think of something. It’s time I got out. Hurry. Get dressed. These are the clothes they were going to give you. They probably won’t fit well but you will have to make do.”
He thrust the clothes at her nearly knocking her off balance. She could hardly stand. She started to dress grateful he’d turned his back. It was a task she managed with great difficulty.
He disappeared into an adjoining room and returned with a wheelchair. “We are going to have to make it look as though I am taking you into the camp. I will take you through it and then through the incineration room. There is a door in the electric fence there. It is never guarded. It should be but the army are lax. I will be able to turn the power off for a minute and make it look as though there has been a short in the system.”
She laid her hand on his arm. She had to ask. “Why are you helping me?”
He looked down at her hand. He said quietly, “It’s like I said. I didn’t sign up for sexual assault. I want to help people. Besides your brother and I have always been close friends. He doesn’t want you in here. He never wanted to hurt you and he will never be able to set you free. I am not just doing this for you.” He patted her arm. “Come on we have to be quick. Sit in the wheelchair.”
She sat in the chair. He went to a small safe situated on the opposite wall and turned the lock to the correct combination. He took out a handgun and checked it was loaded. He handed it out to her. She stared at him with confusion.
“The army make us keep one of these in here for protection from donors becoming violent. Take it. You will need it; it’s a dangerous road to the border. There are wild animals to contend with as well as the army and some of the local rebels and gangs. I wish I could do more.”
She did as she was told with a shaking hand.
“What’s the camp Jonathan?”
“The camp is where they put the people who they have harvested organs from and are still alive. They leave them to die. They starve them; people are killing each other to survive. It’s full of disease and many have infections and deformities from their surgery. The government insist they are used for work until they die. It’s nothing short of a concentration camp. Something else I didn’t sign up for.”
He covered her with a blanket and then covered his head again with his hood and his mouth with his mask.
He pushed her to the door and reached out for the handle and paused, his hand hovering there. “Listen. I’m not sure this is going to work but it’s the best I can do. You aren’t exactly fit enough to run off. You may die trying to escape. They might catch you before you even get very far...”
“I know. But it’s a chance. A chance I didn’t have before. I’d rather take it than be in here with Quayle. But you do know I am going to have to expose you if I make it back, don’t you?”
“You won’t get far. There are forces at work in England that will stop you. This is beyond even you. Even if you succeeded the Board would just set up somewhere else and start again. You can’t beat these people.
He opened the door and pushed her out. They hurried along the claustrophobic narrow white corridor. There were no windows. She lowered her head afraid to meet the eyes of the other men and women in white masks as they passed. She felt the cold metal of the handgun against her palm under the blanket. The last time she had shot anyone was in Afghanistan. It was an experience she had never wanted to repeat. Guns terrified her. She felt sick just having it in her hand. But her life was at stake and she needed to get out, get away, and expose what she had learnt. Bring this story to the attention of the public.
The corridor seemed to stretch for miles. Jonathan remained silent and she was reluctant to speak for fear of giving them away. They turned a corner and she could see glass doors ahead. Two soldiers stood guard in front of them. She stared in fear as they kept moving and headed straight for the guards. Jonathan leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Do exactly as I tell you. They will just think that you have been operated on and I am taking you to the camp. They won’t see anything unusual going on.” She nodded.
He stopped just short of the doors. The soldiers acknowledged him as he took her arm and roughly told her to stand. She spied the camera and kept her head averted as the glass doors automatically parted for them.
It was dark outside. Jonathan pulled her down the steps quickly. The pain in her side was beginning to pulse but the morphine kept its full force at bay. She was so hot, so weak; it was an effort to keep up with Jonathan. Once or twice she thought she was going to pass out on him.
Jonathan pulled her across a sandy courtyard to a large wooden gate with heavily armed guards. There was a tower next to it like the ones you saw on war movies or guarding violent prisons. They passed through the gate without being stopped and entered the area beyond. It was surrounded by a tall electrified fence. Soldiers paraded around a wide rectangular platform keeping watch over four rows of tents. Jonathan pulled her through the middle of them. He hissed, “Don’t touch anyone.”
The camp smelled of excrement and urine. A multitude of people milled around the tents. She could hear a female screaming somewhere and a baby crying. Jonathan hurried, half dragging her towards the rear of the camp.
The camp held people of all ages, races and colours. They watched her with suspicion as Jonathan pulled her along. Their faces were drawn, weary, battered. Quite a few of them had an eye missing.
Out of the blue one of them was up close and personal in her face. She reeled back in shock. He yammered at her in Bundenese, spitting in her face. But she couldn’t understand a word he said. He began punching at her shoulder. She could hear herself cry out from the brutal pain. He also had one eye missing. It was just a gaping bloody dark hole where his eye had been. The skin had vainly tried to grow back over it but infection had curtailed its progress. It was red and inflamed. There was pus oozing from a large sac inside the hole giving him a monstrous appearance.
Jonathan pushed him off and he backed away instantly. “They won’t touch me. They call us the angels of death. To touch one of us is to be cursed with death. No one wants to be anywhere near me.”
They headed for a large single storey white washed building in the far corner of the camp. It had no guard but they had to go through a locked door. Jonathan punched in a combination on a small keypad at the side. He made sure no one was watching them and dragged her through.
Jonathan said, “No one will follow us here, especially at the moment. The incinerator is broken. Not even the soldiers will guard it. They are suspicious of demons rising from the dead.”
The smell hit Rebecca the moment she stepped into the building. It was the smell of death, widespread death. The odour of decaying flesh assaulted her nostrils. She began retching. Jonathan ignored it and dragged her on. He said, “It will be over in a moment. I’ve learnt to lose my sense of smell. I’m sorry but I can’t prepare you for what you are about to see.”
He pulled her through a deserted office to another room and headed across it. Rebecca stopped dead and dug her heels in when Jonathan tried to keep dragging her. She looked all around her. She was standing amidst a sea of bodies, each one encased in a black body bag.
She noticed a pyramid of smaller bags. One of them was open a little way displaying the decaying remains of a child. Vomit rose and splattered through Rebecca’s mouth onto the ground in a torrent. Something inside made her move towards the bag. She reached out to touch the small boy unaware that she was sobbing with grief. Jonathan grabbed her hand.
“I told you not to touch. You have to go now.”
He pushed her through the door that led out to the back of the building and to the rear perimeter of the electric fence. There was a gate in the fence. Jonathan punched in another code into yet another keypad and the gate opened in front of them. He pushed her through and slammed it closed, shutting her out into the wilderness.
He shouted at her, “Go, before it is too late. I can give you an hour or two before the alarm will be raised. That’s all I can do for you. I’m sorry.”
She watched him through the fence and nodded. “Get out of here Jonathan. I will make them destroy this place. I’ll won’t rest until they bomb it to hell.”
He said softly. “You do that and they will just build another, somewhere else. I told you, you can’t win this one, Rebecca. The people that make these hospitals possible are more powerful than you can imagine. They will cut you down. Run and run far away and hide so they can’t find you. Be safe. Now go. Head for the trees and keep going north. You will hit the border sooner than you think. Go.”
“Thank you for saving my life.”
“Go”
He turned away from her and ran back into the building.
Rebecca could feel the pain from her wound begin to burn. She clutched her side and tried to move as quickly as possible. But her movement was hampered by the flat sandals that Jonathan had given her to wear. They were too big on her feet and slipped every time she moved. At least the shirt was a reasonable fit. She thought of where the clothes would have been taken from, no doubt a victim.
She headed for the trees and didn’t look back at the hospital once. She wouldn’t have the glare of the camp’s floodlights to light her way but she would be safe under the cover of the darkness. She would just have to feel her way through. She stopped suddenly hearing the call of a wild dog somewhere in the distance in front of her.
Jonathan had warned her that man wasn’t her only predator to be afraid of out here. She continued but making her way more cautiously and quietly this time. She stumbled and fell many times as she made her way through the trees. They seemed to stretch on forever. She felt so hot, so sick and weary. Pain throbbed and prodded her sides and between her legs. Even her bruises ached. It was an effort to move her heavy aching limbs. The more she did move the heavier they got.
She relied on the adrenaline from her fear of being caught and her determination to bring Quayle and her brother down to propel her on. She found herself still walking when the sun rose. She was hot, thirsty, and her mouth felt so dry and parched. Her vision was swimming, blurring. She knew she wouldn’t last much longer. She still clutched her side. How much further?
Then she heard it. It was a vehicle. It wasn’t far away. She tried to pick up speed but she tripped. Her movement was no longer co-ordinated. She fell face down into a large puddle of water. She lifted her head, ignoring the overwhelming feeling to just lie there. She spat the water out and forced herself with all of the strength she had left to stand. She’d made it this far. She couldn’t give up now. She had to help those people back in the hospital and save London from being bombed.
She could hear shouts and another vehicle. She heard movement in the undergrowth of the field she had walked through. They were coming to get her. The men in white masks were coming to get her. She realised she was delirious. It was the soldiers who were coming after her. They would kill her this time, for sure. She felt for the handgun in the back of her trousers and pulled it out.
She aimed it with shaking hands, looking all around her for signs of the soldiers. She crouched down and moved behind a bush in the grass. She could hear them getting closer. As she moved behind a tree a soldier appeared. She stayed behind the tree as he came her way aiming his assault rifle as he searched for her. She waited until he was closer and then moved out, surprising him. She shot without hesitation.
He went down. She made herself look. He was still alive, shot in the shoulder. He was picking up the rifle again. She gave a frightened cry knowing what she must do to save her life. She shot him again in the chest. He fell back, and this time he didn’t move. She shoved the gun back in her trousers and moved as quickly as she could before the others reached her. She could hear the vehicles pursuing her, hear the shouts of the soldiers but she was evading them by going under the cover of trees.
She was afraid she was now going in the wrong direction but something told her to keep moving. The South Bundenese soldiers strangely appeared to have called off the chase. Five minutes later she suddenly couldn’t remember who she was or what the hell she was doing or where she even was. She stumbled through the trees and slid down a bank to a road on her backside. There were lots of people on the road. She sat there watching them pass. They looked like refugees and they were wearing Asian dress. She stood up shaking, trying to focus on them with her fading vision. She looked down at her hand she’d placed on her side. It was covered in blood. She was bleeding. She decided to follow the people, see where they were going. She would have panicked but she didn’t seem to have any energy to do that. She moved behind a man and a woman with two children. They kept looking back at her with suspicion. It made her nervous. She found it hard to put one foot in front of the other. Maybe someone at the end of this road could tell her what was happening.
She could see some kind of roadblock up ahead. There were soldiers. She stopped. One of them was running towards her calling a name. Was it her name? His uniform made her frightened. She didn’t know why. She felt a sudden urge to flee. She turned back to make a run for it. Only she could hardly move. The soldier caught her up, caught her arm. She cried out. He called her Rebecca, said she was safe. Where had she been? What had happened to her? She’d been lost. She looked at him in confusion and then he’d caught her as she collapsed.