Ellie helped the boy onto the examination table despite his protests. His hand looked like a club, wrapped and rewrapped in a makeshift bandage. It was soaked dark red. Gajan exhaled deeply. She could see him swallowing the urge to cry out. The wound was a mess, but she wouldn’t be able to talk to him if she called in a doctor.
Arjuna took one look at it and left the tent, returning quickly with Bradfield.
‘Hold onto the side of the table with your other hand, kid,’ Bradfield instructed, ripping open a medi-kit. ‘And try not to kick me. This is going to hurt.’
‘What happened?’ Ellie asked.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Gajan muttered. He held onto the table, his knuckles white.
Bradfield peeled away the strips of torn t-shirt with efficient resolve. The translucent layer of new skin ripped away with it, blotches of fresh blood appearing underneath.
‘This flesh here,’ he said to Gajan. ‘This is infected. If you don’t look after it, it will get worse, and we’ll have to remove it.’
He gently pressed the perimeter of the wound where smelly pus oozed out. He wiped it and more returned. Arjuna opened three packets of gauze.
‘What happened?’ she asked again.
Gajan looked at her resentfully. ‘I was building an IED. The trigger switch caught. I disconnected it from the explosive, but I must have missed something. Could have been worse.’
‘The bombmaker’s creed,’ Arjuna commented.
‘Are you any use to the Tigers now, like this?’ She motioned to the deformed hand.
‘You mean, am I any use to you?’ Gajan asked.
She looked sharply up at the boy’s face. ‘Is that what you think—that you’re just being used by me?’
‘I am being used by you. At least with them, there is some reason, some purpose to it.’
‘There is no purpose to this war, there is only a brutal and tragic end. Look at me.’ She gripped his face. Arjuna and Bradfield stopped tending to his wounds, but stayed where they were, within restraining distance. ‘Think about your brother and your mother. They love you and they want you back. Follow the plan, and don’t give up hope.’
The boy laughed bitterly. ‘Hope. Nampukiren.’
Bradfield dressed the wound and wrapped it up again. ‘This is for the infection. It’s a double dose.’ He passed Gajan a packet of antibiotics and more dressings. ‘Keep the wound dry and clean if you can. If the infection gets worse, insist on medical help. You can’t serve their purpose if you’re dying of sepsis.’
He tried to help the boy off the table, but Gajan pulled away from him and walked out of the room without looking back.
•
Ellie brought her tray of food over and sat with the team. Sharkey and Bradfield spent their days with the mosquito units, spraying the open waterways with DDT. It gave them access to the small villages and settlements that cropped up around the region, where they could gather intel. They returned each evening for a quiet briefing in the WHO’s mess tent.
‘Boys.’ She took a seat opposite Arjuna. ‘Good day?’
‘Long day,’ Sharkey replied. ‘Bradfield and I were just talking about making a change.’
‘Oh?’ She mixed the usual daily ration of yellow dhal with rice. Yesterday they had gotten fried okra as a treat. ‘How so?’
‘There are more NGOs entering the field,’ Bradfield explained. ‘You know, because the new prime minister seems promising. The NGOs are building demountable healthcare clinics, toilets and water pumps. They need labour. Strong labour.’
‘You want to build toilets?’ She picked a small stone out of the dhal.
‘We want to be closer to you,’ Sharkey replied.
‘That’s sweet,’ Arjuna said.
‘Shut up. You know what we mean. We’re here on a protection detail, not a reconnaissance mission.’ Sharkey leaned forward so he wouldn’t be overheard. ‘You’ve got Scottie in the sky for that, and us on the ground to keep you safe.’
‘We are safe,’ Ellie replied. ‘You said so yourself. The NGOs think everything’s fine.’ She didn’t want to share her own doubts about it. She wanted Sharkey and Bradfield out in the field, crossing paths with Gajan as his unit moved through the region.
‘There’s nothing you can do for the kid, sir. I know you’re frustrated. Until he gives you real intel, you have to keep him in play. You know that,’ Bradfield muttered. ‘This is a long game, and you don’t control it. The kid does.’
She stared at her food. Gajan had no real control. He had to be in the right place at the right time, and recognise that he was learning something valuable. Something he could bring to Ellie, that she could use to release him.
‘He’s just a kid,’ she said.
‘A kid with a gun and a bomb-making skill set.’ Bradfield scraped the remnants of food on his plate into a pile and finished it. He pulled out a protein ration from his pack and squeezed the paste into his mouth, grimacing.
She slid her plate towards him and took the ration.
‘You’re sure?’ He didn’t wait for her answer and started eating.
She squeezed the paste onto her finger and licked it.
‘We’ve made a decision about your security, sir.’ Sharkey reached over and helped himself to a spoonful of Bradfield’s food. ‘It’s better served if we stay in close proximity to you. Our weapons are hidden in the base of a crate at the back of the tent, covered by humanitarian crap. We couldn’t even get to them fast in a firefight.’
That troubled all of them. The Tigers made regular checks on the clinics under the pretext of ensuring staff safety. Sharkey and Bradfield couldn’t even carry the few guns they had smuggled in.
‘There won’t be any firefights, guys. Come on. We’re the WHO,’ Ellie said with false bravado.
‘You obviously haven’t seen Black Hawk Down,’ Sharkey replied.
‘It’s a cinematic masterpiece and an important lesson for all of us.’ Bradfield said. ‘Those boys had no options, that’s why they died. If we stay with you, you’ve got options.’
‘And,’ Sharkey added, ‘if you watch the movie, you’ll get a better feel for what real combat is like, sir.’
‘Shut up,’ she replied. ‘That’s the last time I share my dhal with you.’
‘It’s decided then,’ Sharkey said. ‘Enough spraying mosquitoes. More building toilets.’ He took her plate from Bradfield and finished it.
•
Gajan’s infection had spread. Bradfield cut the bandages and pulled back the dressing, releasing a putrid odour into the room. The nub of the missing finger was swollen with pus. The tips of the remaining three fingers were black, the darkness creeping towards the knuckles. Where the black stopped, an angry red took over.
‘He’s going to lose the other fingers, sir,’ Bradfield said. He tenderly lifted the hand and turned it over. ‘I can do it, maybe at these joints here,’ he motioned to the knuckles. ‘But I’d prefer not to. We need to get a surgeon in here.’
Gajan pulled his hand away. ‘You’re not a doctor?’ He struggled to get off the table, tipping forward. Bradfield caught and steadied him.
‘Take it easy, kid,’ he soothed. ‘I’m a field medic, but a surgeon will make sure you can use that hand properly.’
Ellie placed a hand on Gajan’s forehead. He was burning. He growled and jerked away from her. Her hand came away damp.
Bradfield opened his bag and pulled out a vial. Both Bradfield and Sharkey carried enough morphine to get them through some field surgery, but not all. ‘This is the good stuff. Top shelf. I only use it on special occasions.’ He injected it into Gajan’s arm, then lifted the hand again and slowly dipped it into a metal bowl of warm saline. The boy clenched his jaw, his nostrils flared. He refused to make a sound. Tendrils of blood and pus drifted into the water like seaweed.
Arjuna refilled the boy’s empty water canister and handed it to him. ‘The morphine will kick in soon. Drink. It will help the fever. Take at least six of these a day if you can.’ He thrust a packet of morphine tablets into the boy’s other hand. ‘Keep it on you at all times. Get ahead of the pain and stay ahead of it.’
Gajan’s eyes started to glaze and his breathing slowed. He finally relaxed on the table.
‘How are things at the camp?’ Ellie asked.
He shrugged. ‘I’m training the others to make the bombs. Until I heal.’
‘What materials are they ordering?’
Gajan paused, remembering. ‘High explosives: nitroglycerin, C-4, Semtex, acetone peroxide and mercury fulminate. Also, ammonium nitrate. It improves the explosive yield.’
‘The explosive yield?’ she echoed.
‘Yes, it’s the—’
‘I know what it is, Gajan.’ It was unsettling to hear the words come out of a child’s mouth.
‘What else can you tell me? What about detonation?’ she asked.
‘Mostly remote detonation. Some self-detonation, victim-operated IEDs.’ He shifted on the examination table, gasping when he had to move his hand.
‘Remote detonation? Mobile phone?’
‘And others.’
‘This isn’t a word game, Gajan. What are the other triggers?’ she asked.
‘Key fobs, walkie-talkies and garage controllers. These are harder to engineer, but they give us more control. We need electronic parts from China. I give the spec list to Commander Seran and then he talks to his people.’
‘How long does it take for the parts to come?’
‘For the electronics, a week on eBay.’
She shook her head. Fucking eBay.
‘The explosives take longer. Two weeks, but if we plan ahead, it’s very efficient. No time to stop. Must keep building.’
‘Do you know who Seran uses for the explosives?’ She needed a name for Redmond. Even better, a name and a photo he could use to track the seller.
‘No.’
‘How does he make contact? Mobile phone, sat phone, email? How is he communicating the orders and setting up the meets?’
‘I don’t know. He’s always on his mobile. He’s planning something. He asked me what I would need to make ten suicide vests. He’s been pushing us, like there’s a deadline.’
‘Ten vests.’ Her heart raced.
‘Yes. He wants everything ready by August twenty-seventh.’ He was babbling now, words tumbling out fast, delirious with fever.
‘August twenty-seventh,’ she repeated. That was two weeks away. ‘Any idea of targets?’
‘No, just numbers and specs.’
‘Gajan.’ She put a hand carefully on his arm. ‘I need you to find out more for me. I need targets, locations and dates.’
He shook his head.
‘Innocent people like your father and sister will die,’ she persisted.
‘Innocent people always die. Here, we die with purpose,’ he repeated his indoctrination. ‘I’m not afraid to die.’
She tried again. ‘I am. I think you are, too. I think you’re a boy and you are being made to do a man’s work. Men are killers, not children.’
‘Men, women and children—we’re all capable of killing.’
‘Yes, we are all capable of killing. But you are not a killer, Gajan. Not yet.’
‘You don’t know me,’ he replied, tears in his eyes. ‘You don’t know what I’ve done.’