She cleared her throat. “The bullet that punctured his lung entered through the armpit and was dangerously close to his heart. I had no choice but to operate on him and remove it.” She gestured to the end of the room, where double doors stood closed, guarding whatever lay beyond. “We have a sterile operating room. I went in, found the bullet, and closed him as quickly as I could. His lung will heal. He just needs a chest tube for a while.” She stuck her hands into the pockets of her jeans and rocked back on her heels.

He waited, processing the notion that his best friend in the world had just undergone open-heart surgery in the middle of the African jungle.

Finally, she said, “Again, I have no IV antibiotics. At this point, all we can do is pray.” She hesitated. “Hard.”

She didn’t speak again. He stared at her upturned face without really seeing her while he contemplated the facts, thinking of logistics, the mission, communications. “I guess we do that first.”

“What?” she asked.

“Pray.” Rick took a knee and folded his hands over it, then bowed his head and closed his eyes. He silently appealed to God to protect his men, to heal their bodies, and to keep the village safe from the enemy. “Amen,” he said out loud.

“Amen,” Doctor Myers echoed.

Rick looked at her sharply, searching for any hint she might be mocking him. When he didn’t detect any evidence of it, he asked, “When can we move him?”

“I’d be afraid to move him for at least a week. I don’t know if he could handle the pain of transport at any time in the next three or four days.”

“And Osbourne would do well to be still for a week too?”

She nodded. “I think I would be comfortable with that.”

He studied her, trying to read her body language and facial expression. “Are you willing to keep them here?”

He gave her credit for not immediately answering. Instead, he could see that she carefully considered his words and thought about her answer. “I’m fine with them here. I’m fine with you here. I am not fine with you walking down the center of the village brandishing your weapons.” When he opened his mouth, she cut off his sarcastic retort with a raised hand. “I get that you saved my life. But understand, I would have given my life and given it gladly. Instead, three men are dead, and you took two lives to save my one. Those statistics don’t add up.”

He took a breath and smiled. “Guess you took statistics at Berkeley?”

“Stanford, actually.”

He nodded. “I took statistics at the Citadel. By my count, I took two lives and saved this entire village. But I guess statistically it’s open to interpretation. New math and all.”

“Any loss of life is too much,” Doctor Myers said.