Slippery Slope

Bombing - Part 5

Bombing: Skiing recklessly without regard for the safety of others or oneself

As it turned out, Terry was right about Tom. After about thirty minutes, he showed. Their little group had moved onto the beach and Kristy stood on its periphery, the four men in line behind her. She watched as Tom approached, saw them and stopped short. He seemed to assess the situation, then with a brief look out over the ocean, continued to walk toward them, slowly and casually, as if on a Sunday stroll. Kristy gave him a warning look and shook her head as he came up closer but there was nothing she could do. Chuck and Jalen held her arms fast and her back was up against the chest of the big man behind her. To her right, Terry shuffled his feet back and forth in the sand. Tom walked right up to her as if there were no one else there and smiled. He put his hand to her cheek and looked into her eyes. "You never came back with breakfast," he said. "I know" was all she could say. The realization that they were virtual strangers hit her like a fist. He could have easily turned around and walked away from the obvious danger. She was so relieved he had not.

Jalen spoke first, "You are both coming with us."

Tom continued to look only at Kristy and then slowly turned his eyes to the man. As they turned, his face changed as well, completely foreign from the one that had just seconds before comforted her. It was hard, cold, menacing.

"Now why would we do that?" he asked.

Chuck smiled, and it was the smile she had seen the night before but it had lost its affability and entered into the bizarre. "Kristy," he said, "Why don't you tell Tom why?"

When she failed to answer he gave her a shake, causing Tom's eyes to darken even more. Kristy swallowed hard and found her voice, "The government is still trying to negotiate with the men who took over the airport. Chuck's mother is a local politician and because the men are young, Chuck has, has..." she faltered in her script, "has magnanimously offered to lend his assistance. Some of the men are hurt so they are bringing in two trained American medics to help and another two citizens to assist them." When Tom looked back at her, his eyes softened but when he looked back at Chuck they darkened once again. He nodded slowly.

"So you need me to fly these men out."

"You see?" Chuck laughed to the other men standing there. "He totally gets it! I told you he would."

"And if I refuse?" Tom asked.

Chuck's face abruptly changed, "Kristy?"

"They'll kill us, Tom," she whispered.

Tom nodded again and in his best Texan drawl said, "Well, boys, what's the plan?"

Jalen and the big man, Mike, took Kristy back to her room to get her things. She had with her a small first aid kit, the flashlight she had retreived at the bar, and she gathered some towels and sheets and what toiletries she could. It was true that there were some men hurt, mostly with burns from the Molotov cocktails they had thrown, one with a gunshot wound. She was unsure that she could do anything to help them, despite her emergency and first aid training but she realized that now was not the time to downplay her skills. They were all that were keeping her alive at the moment. The men were scrutinizing her movements. She desperately wanted to get her phone, but didn't want it confiscated. She saw her chance as she swept things into her backpack. Somehow, she found the nerve to throw her pack at the men and command them to get the shower curtain and liner from the bathroom.

"Why?" Mike asked suspiciously.

"First," she said, "I can't carry all this stuff by myself." She tried to sound as peevish and authoritative as she could, "Second, I have no scrubs and I don't know what's at the airport. If someone is going to bleed all over the place the shower curtain liner will make a decent tarp and I can make field dressings and bandages with the curtain." They both stared silently at her, not moving. She stamped her foot, "Come on!" In the five seconds that it took Mike to rip the rod from the wall and for Jalen to balance her bags and the towels she threw to him, she was able to swipe the phone and stick it in her underwear. The last time the phone had worked was at the airport and she hoped she would be able to get a message out to someone about what was happening.