The thought of the warlord made her hands tremble. Taking a deep breath to still her emotions, she turned on the ultrasound machine as the men left. Somewhere inside Sanders, a bullet had collapsed his lung. She needed to find it. Without risky exploratory surgery, which she didn’t even know if she could perform under these conditions, she thought using ultrasound technology was the next best thing.

In no time, she had the wand out and slowly ran it along Sanders’s skin. After several minutes, she spotted the bullet. It sat precariously near his heart.

“Tadeas,” she said, “come look at this.” Pointing to the screen, she showed him the bullet.

“Right next to the pericardium,” Tadeas said.

“Like a little bird egg in a nest.”

“You aren’t going to try to get that out, are you? There’s no way I’d play around with that thing.”

“I don’t see that I have a whole lot of choice. One shift and he dies.”

“Good to know, Doc,” Sanders said.

Cynthia met the gaze of her grinning patient. “Try not to shift. Sanders, right?”

“Bill. Call me Bill.” He nodded slowly. “I will abstain from even shifty thoughts.”

Cynthia printed several shots of the bullet at different angles before shutting down the machine. “Let’s get the operating room prepped.”

Tadeas nodded and started to walk away.

“When you move him, do it very gingerly,” she said. “Get McBride to help you so there is minimal movement.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Rick lifted his left hand in a fist, and Fisher froze. Soundlessly, the two men lowered to a crouch. A rustling in the bushes got closer, and Fisher silently raised his weapon. Snorting mixed in with the rustling. Rick signaled to wait just as a wild boar burst out of the brush. They sat perfectly still as the animal went by, never even glancing in their direction. Listening intently, Rick waited thirty seconds, then ninety, and finally rose to his feet and kept walking.

The constant diligence exhausted the mind. He would usually have two sets of men take turns on point, giving the group in the back an opportunity to give their brains a break. With only two of them, they had to be extra careful not to let their tired minds relax too much and put each other in danger.

By the time they made it back to the village, night had set in. The forest around them came to life with the sounds of croaks, screeches, humming, and rustling. Most of the buildings looked like blackened rectangles in the night, but they could see the flicker of candlelight in a few of the windows. Two women sitting in front of an outdoor oven stopped talking as they walked by, staring at them with dark eyes that reflected the hot coals smoldering in the oven.