Which meant he had another problem: the woman he suspected he loved was in one of the most dangerous places on earth.
And now she was MIA.
“Christ, Maggie! Where are you?”
Footsteps in Quicksand
THE MOMENT THE RPG exploded, I dove for cover. I heard rather than saw my phone shattering on the hard packed dirt of the tent I shared with Marc Le Buin, a French-Swiss journalist that I’d met several times over the years.
As more grenades whined overhead, I crawled under a cot and rammed my helmet on my head, thanking the Powers That Be that I was already wearing my body armor.
I squeezed my eyes shut, cringing every time a shell exploded, wondering how much or how little protection the thin mattress and metal frame of the cot would give me. And with my eyes closed, I could picture the horror on Jack’s face, a second before we’d lost contact. His beautiful dark blue eyes had widened with shock, and I think he’d been about to say something to me, but now I didn’t know what it was . . . and I was beginning to be afraid that I’d never know.
Another explosion sounded even closer, and I could smell the harsh scent of burning fuel, the stench filling my nostrils, choking me. One of the RPGs must have hit a car. The ground shook as more explosions rained down, and it felt like I’d fallen into Hell.
I pushed my face into the dirt as tears pricked my eyes.
The people in this camp were no threat, they had no weapons, they were refugees! We were under UN protection, weren’t we? Why? Why!
The question pounded through my head in time to the shuddering earth, the concussion of compressed air crushing the breath from my lungs. And I knew there was no answer on earth or in heaven that I would ever understand.
The RPG attack went on and on, and my life seemed to flash past, year after year, until I finally heard the deep thurg-thurg of the heavy machine guns from the Jordanian Army returning fire.
Jet fighters streaked across the sky with an angry roar, and more distant explosions burned the air.
And then suddenly . . . nothing. It was the eerie silence of people too stunned to cry out. It was as if the tens of thousands of people living in the refugee camp were holding their breath. And then, like a wave crashing over a stony beach, the sound returned with the thin wail of a baby’s cry. Then the screams started, the howling and yelling, a thousand orders shouted in a dozen languages, the desperate pleas of the wounded, the shrill, pitiful ululations of the newly bereaved.
I ordered myself to sit up, my body stiff and weak as I peered past the heavy canvas flaps of my tent. I realized that my hands were shaking. I hadn’t known.
Then I forced myself to take a pace forward, kicking the shattered pieces of my useless phone under the bed.
I should have been doing my job, reporting on the scenes of carnage, but instead I went where I thought I was needed most.
The hospital tent was a scene from Hell. Men, women and children were milling around outside, their clothes spattered with blood, their screams of agony instantly ingrained in my mind, and something I could only pray I’d never hear again. The worst injured were silent, too weak to utter a sound, their bodies shutting down, their eyes draining of life even as I passed by unable to help.
A child, a boy of about four, sat in shocked silence, his clothes costed with dust, his tears streaking through the mask of dirt. His tears were silent too, his mouth open in an agonized ‘O’, but no sound came out. Even if his physical injuries were a few cuts and bruises, I knew that the damage would go far beyond that. I could only guess the horrors that he’d seen. I wondered if he still had a family. Maybe he’d find them later. Maybe.
A whole generation was growing up knowing only despair, death and destruction. How could there be lasting peace when children were encouraged to carry guns? How could life return to normal when these children had never experienced it? The problem seemed too big, too difficult, too impossible to solve.
And here and now, we were all suffering the effects of lives lived in hate.
Doctors and nurses worked with strained detachment as they attempted to triage a thousand people at once. Chaos was too polite a word for everything that I witnessed.
“Can I help?” I asked, a nurse rushing past.
She raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug, then pointed at a teenage girl who had a wound on her leg, bright red pooling around her.
“Apply pressure,” she shouted as she ran toward a child whose robes were dark with blood.
“Then what?” I yelled after her.
“Pray!” she shouted over her shoulder.
I turned to the girl whose jet-black eyes watched me without emotion. She’d wadded her dress, pressing it against the wound while blood soaked into the sand around us. I pressed down on her leg, trying not to gag as blood seeped between my fingers.
All around me, people were crying and begging for help, most of them young, so young. I knew that over half of the refugees at this camp were children, but seeing them like this . . .
I stayed with the girl, helpless to do anything except apply pressure to a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding. I pressed down, pressed down, and I talked to her—trivial nonsense that meant nothing, important things that meant everything. I told her about Jackson. I told her all about the man who’d stormed his way into my life, his eyes blazing. I told her my hopes and fears, and when I’d told her everything I could think of, I prayed, reciting Bible verses that I’d last heard at my father’s funeral.
She didn’t understand me, of course, but maybe she understood the tone. Maybe she knew that I was praying for her.
And finally the blood flow slowed and I stopped talking. There was nothing more to say because the girl was dead, her dark eyes open and accusing.
And what could I do? I wasn’t a doctor, I wasn’t a nurse. I wasn’t even a fighter. All I could do was write about what I’d seen and heard, said and done, and hope that somebody cared. Maybe even someone who cared enough to help end the madness.
But when hatred is your birthright, hope seems a very long way away, and I wondered if God had heard my prayers.
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just leave her. I wanted to close her eyes, but my hands were sticky with her blood. I wiped them on my jeans, and then, carefully, I pressed her eyelids shut.
I don’t know how long I sat there in the scorching sun. I do know that sweat had matted my hair under my helmet, and my body was soaked, salt marks staining my clothes, and my mouth was as dry as the desert that surrounded me. And I waited.
Eventually, a team of men came to claim her body, treating her with a weary respect.
“I didn’t leave you,” I whispered brokenly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
Once she was gone, her body tiny as they wound a cloth around her, a funeral shroud, I stepped into the clapboard hospital, walking among the wounded, looking for some small way to help, to give meaning to my presence in this pit of despair.
Hours flowed into night as I stumbled around, helping where I could, praying when I couldn’t. I don’t know why I prayed, because God or Allah had never seemed further away.
I thought about Jackson and how he must be feeling, hoping that he wasn’t worrying too much.
Thinking of him brought me a sense of calm in the sea of chaos, because if I had died today—yesterday—if his face had been the last that I’d seen in life, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But now that I was alive, all I wanted was to find my way back to him, one slow step at a time.
Finally, the hospital quietened, an air of desolation as the dead were removed, the worst wounded operated on and given painkilling medication. Many less badly injured still lined the corridors, but the weeping was softer now, as if exhaustion and hopelessness had replaced fear and anger.
On leaden feet, I staggered back to my tent.
Marc was sitting on his cot, typing furiously into his laptop. I stared at him tiredly, knowing that I should be doing the same, doing my job.
/> He glanced up, and I saw the unbearable defeat and misery on his face.
“Mon Dieu! I thought you had been hurt, ma belle! But you are safe I think.”
“I’m okay, I guess.”
He stood up to hug me, then stared at the blood on my clothes.
“I’ve been helping at the hospital.”
He nodded, his expression grim as he kissed my grimy cheek and squeezed my shoulder.
“Fifty dead so far, and there’ll be more by morning. I managed to send out one report. The MSF team let me use their satcomms to get out a short bulletin. I’m writing this in case I can get it on the wire later.” His eyes were red as he gazed at me. “You should rest, MJ.”
I shrugged.
“I need to take a shower.”
Marc grimaced.
“Those aren’t working either. One of the RPGs hit the water tower. They’re conserving everything they can.”
Sighing, I stripped off my helmet and armor, and Marc turned his back while I peeled off my bloody, sweat-soaked clothes.
It was nice of him to do that, not that I cared. I was too tired and I wasn’t his type.
Standing in my underwear, I used babywipes to clean myself as best I could. Then I sat on my cot, and typed out an impassioned report. Then I read it back and turned it into a proper journalistic piece, one with more facts and fewer tears. I’d learned from experience that my editor expected the truth, but truths that couldn’t be refuted at a later date. And besides, I owed it to these people, these suffering people, to do my job as professionally as I could.
By now, Marc was stretched out on his cot, but when I glanced up and saw his face illuminated by the blue light of my computer screen, his eyes were open. I didn’t think many people would be able to sleep well tonight.
Dawn was already breaking when I finally fell into an uneasy and fitful sleep, jagged dreams and ugly images torturing me for the hour that my eyelids were closed.
My eyes felt gritty when I peeled them open reluctantly, and my body was already sweating from the boiling heat in the airless tent.
Marc was sitting bare chested on his bed, typing rapidly.
“Chérie, the satcomms at MSF will be online in an hour if you want to file your story.”
His words were the spur I needed.
I re-read what I’d written the night before, corrected a few typos, then dressed quickly. I needed to speak to some of the people in charge of the camp to get a quote. I took my camera, too, snapping pictures of the RPG damage and the long lines that still snaked around the hospital.
It took 45 minutes of my precious hour to get the quote I needed from a harried Major in the Jordanian army. I’d hoped to get a short meeting with Kilian Kleinschmidt, the UNHCR’s Senior Field Coordinator, but he was too busy coordinating the arrival of water tankers to speak to me.
The Camp’s staff sometimes had an uneasy relationship with the Press. They needed us, needed us to tell the world about the enormous scale of suffering, but they also guarded against exploitative and voyeuristic stories. Plus, we were a drain on scant resources.
So I hurried to the MSF satcomms tent and filed my report and photographs. I also fired off a quick email to Allison, my PA, and to Jack, telling them both that I was okay and would be in touch when I could.
“Miss Buckman, I have a message for you,” said the French-Canadian woman who’d let me use her computer for a few precious minutes. “A Michael Gordon? From your newspaper.”
I knew Michael. Not well, but enough to like and respect him. He was our military correspondent and a seasoned veteran of more wars than he cared to count.
“What did he say?”
“He wanted to know if you were okay after the RPG attack. I told him that I didn’t know, but asked him to call back this morning.”
“Okay, thank you. He might not call back now seeing as I’ve filed my report. He’ll see it as soon as it lands with the desk editor and he’ll know that I’m . . . alive.”
I was touched that Michael had gone to so much trouble.
“I got the impression that he was asking on behalf of someone else,” said the woman. “Your husband, perhaps?” Then she glanced at my bare ring finger. “Or your boyfriend?”
In the midst of all the heat and horror, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. My boyfriend? My intense Marine who would move heaven and earth to protect the people he cared about? Yes, I could only imagine the strings that Jack had pulled to get all the way to Michael Gordon.
“Ah, look at that smile,” said the woman, her pleasure in my happiness wiping away her exhaustion for a second. “I’m happy for you.”
I thanked her again and walked away.
I spent the day interviewing as many people as I could, scribbling furiously, then typing up my notes into more reports. I watched the slow progress as the mobile phone mast was rebuilt, tied together with old pieces of wire and rope, and as soon as it was working, I borrowed Marc’s cell phone to call Jack.
His voice was terse when he answered the unknown number.
“Connor. Who is this?”
“Jack, it’s me.”
There was a long silence.
“Jack? Hello?”
“Maggie . . .”
His voice cracked, and suddenly all the effort of holding myself together, of being strong, was over, and I had tears in my eyes.
“Yes,” I whispered. “It’s me. I’m okay.”
“I thought . . .”
“I know, Jack. I know. But I’m okay, I promise. It was . . . rough here for a while.”
“I’ve read your article . . . Jesus, Maggie!”
“I’m okay,” I repeated weakly. “I’m coming home. The newspaper has pulled all personnel back to the capital, Amman. I’ve got one interview to do there, then I’m on the first flight out, the day after tomorrow.”
I’d be back in New York, but I didn’t know when I’d see Jack again. I knew he was visiting with his mother. I couldn’t expect him to jump on a plane just because I’d be back in the city.
“I know,” he said. “I spoke to your PA and bugged the hell out of her until she told me what was going on.”
I laughed.
“You must have really charmed her if you got her in a good mood in the office on a Sunday!”
“Yeah, um, don’t get mad, Maggie . . .”
He sounded uncharacteristically reticent.
“Why would I get mad?”
“So, I kind of got Allison to do another favor for me . . .”
“Go on.”
“I asked her to get you a connecting flight to Biloxi,” he said in a rush. “Allison agreed with me that you needed a vacation after . . . everything. You don’t have to stay here, I can reserve you a hotel room, but Mama would love to meet you.”
I blinked, overwhelmed by everything that he was saying.
“Slow down, Jack. Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. You asked Allison to get me a flight to Biloxi and you want me to meet your mother?”
He chuckled, and I imagined his dark blue eyes crinkling, his even white teeth flashing a grin at me.
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“You’ve got some fast moves there, Sarge.”
“Too fast?” he asked softly.
Perhaps I should have been irritated by his high-handed behavior, but I wasn’t. God, no. It felt so good to be cared for. I’d been alone long enough to know that independence can sometimes be very lonely.
“Thank you, Jack,” I said sincerely. “It sounds wonderful. And I’m sure your mother can’t wait to meet her only son’s Yankee g—friend.”
This time his laugh was deeper and carefree.
“You can say ‘girlfriend’, Maggie. She’ll love you,” he said.
And I wondered if he’d be prepared to say the same words to me one day.
Our relationship had been born from the most desperate of situations, warmed by friendship and respect, heightened by our physical attraction, and tempered
with the threat of losing it all in an explosion of dust and violence. I couldn’t help thinking that I’d be saying those special words to Jack soon, whether he was ready to hear them or not.
Being close to death, I knew that I wanted to live. I wanted to experience it all. With Jack.
“I expect you to meet me at the airport, Sarge,” I said, my voice husky with more tears.
“I’ll be there, Maggie,” he said gravely. “I’ll always be there.”
We talked for another minute before I had to hand the phone back to Marc, a warmth of happiness filled me.
It seemed almost obscene when I was surrounded by so much misery.
By the time I arrived at Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, I’d been traveling 29 hours. I was beyond exhausted and suffering from severe reverse culture shock. Flying into New York, we passed over the fields of upper New York State, the brilliant green a shocking contrast to the harsh, sunbaked plains and deserts of Jordan. The Atlantic seemed too blue, the people too colorfully dressed, and there was just so much of everything. Precious water was wasted on washing cars, and it was startling to see the vast amounts of consumer goods at both Amman’s Queen Alia Airport and JFK.
I felt sticky and dirty, wearing my comfortable old jeans and tennis shoes that were still stained a dull orange-brown from the Zaatari sand.
My laptop case was slung over one shoulder, and my carry-on bag on the other. I waited at the baggage carousel in a daze, almost missing my dun-colored duffel as it slowly circled around.
I managed to drag it off at the last second.
As I stumbled like a sleepwalker, trudging through the airport, I thought again how lucky I was to be born American and therefore, in theory, free. Despite the losses I’d weathered over my thirty-one years, I’d won life’s lottery. But seeing Jackson waiting for me, I felt like I’d won the greatest prize of all.
He was frowning, his intense gaze pinned on the passengers filtering past. I took a moment to drink him in.
He was wearing a plain white t-shirt that stretched over his broad shoulders, tightening on his biceps as he crossed his arms across a powerful chest. Khaki shorts hung from his narrow hips, held in place by a worn, leather belt.