And right now that was all he cared about.
The screen operator pulled up satellite images of the area surrounding the village. His face screwed up a little. “That looks like the outskirts, leading into the forest.”
A forest. Cover. It could mean only one thing.
Evan felt a pull at his heart. “Violet. That’s got to be Violet.”
There was only one person who would need to head into the forest during conflict. One person who would be easy to spot in the village. He only prayed that Violet had headed into the forest of her own volition and not under duress.
The thought that entered his mind horrified him.
He pressed the phone next to his ear. “Come back here, Jaja. Right now. Don’t stop. I need you to tell me everything you know.” He turned to someone else. “How far away is that village?”
One of the staff members signaled him and said, “Headquarters say you’ve to stay put. You’ve not to go to the village under any circumstances. They will try and find out more intel for us. In the meantime, all staff are to start packing. It’s likely they’ll pull us all out.”
Most of the faces in the room had paled. Imminent danger. That was the message from headquarters. They all knew what that meant.
You cleared out. You didn’t go back for team members. This wasn’t the military.
Evan let out a roar. His hand cleared the nearby desk of everything that was stacked on it. Several staff jumped out of their seats.
“I will not leave without Violet!” His voice filled the room, echoing in every corner.
He stormed out of the office into the corridor, his head pounding. No. No.
He couldn’t lose another team member. He couldn’t live with himself.
Not Violet. Not the one person in this world he couldn’t live without.
It didn’t matter if she hated him. It didn’t matter if she never forgave him. He could live with that. He could survive. As long as he knew that Violet was somewhere else in the world and safe.
That was all he could think about. That was all he could focus on.
Luke, one of the team members, approached him. “I’ve got the other truck ready. We’ll be ready to go in five minutes. We can meet Jaja en route. We can stop and get the intel we need from him before we get to the village.”
“What?” He tried to focus. Tried to see beyond the rage that was currently invading his head. He couldn’t believe his ears. Everyone had just been told to get ready to leave. The instruction had been clear. Everyone was to pack up and wait for the evacuation.
It didn’t matter to the haphazard plan that was currently igniting in his brain. He couldn’t ever ask any member of his team to do what he was about to do.
He could never let anyone risk their life for him, or for Violet. It was too much. Too much to ask of anyone.
He caught the dark arm next to him. “No, Luke. I can’t ask you to do that. I won’t ask you to do that. Pack up. Supervise the rest of the team. Wait for the call from Headquarters about the evacuation.”
Luke shook his head ever so slightly. There was no emotion in his voice. “You didn’t ask, Evan. You wouldn’t ask. But I won’t leave. I was in the military. I’m the right hand that you need. Now, let’s go get Violet.”
Evan couldn’t breathe. There was an iron fist gripped around his heart. He couldn’t let Luke do this with him. There was no way he’d be leaving without Violet, but the thought that another human being would knowingly walk into something they might not get back out of—for him, for Violet—was too much of a struggle.
His team leader instincts were screaming at him to keep everyone safe. He’d spent the past six years whispering that mantra to himself, ever since Helen’s death. Team safety meant everything to him. Sometimes to the detriment of the role of the DPA. Evan would never let team safety be compromised again.
This went against everything he believed in. It went against everything he lived for.
How could he accept help? Pictures of Helen’s weak body being held by her husband haunted his mind. His brain couldn’t even comprehend the risk.
He shouted some instructions to the other members of staff—to communicate with the villagers, to leave supplies of everything, to pack only essentials, to keep in constant contact with headquarters.
People were rushing past him. “Do you have a portable version of that?” He pointed to the GPS mapping system.
The analyst nodded and pulled a laptop out of the wall. “It’s fully charged. Press this and this. Refresh every five minutes.”
They were all the instructions he needed.
He strode back out toward the truck. Luke had positioned himself directly in front of it. Directly in Evan’s path. His large frame was blocking out the sunlight. “Ready?”
Evan hesitated. He was team leader. He should order Luke to pack and leave. But something was stopping him. Something was making him take stock.
And this wasn’t about Violet.
This was about all the things in life that couldn’t be controlled. That he couldn’t control. No matter how hard that was to accept.
Luke was making his own decision. A grown-up, adult decision to accompany a member of staff on a mission they might not return from. A mission to retrieve their colleagues.
He was an adult with his own free mind. Evan knew that if someone had told him he couldn’t try and rescue Violet, he wouldn’t have listened. Not for a heartbeat.
Why should Luke be any different? As a military man he probably understood the risks better than Evan ever could. But he was still here.
And in that instant Evan understood.
Understood that he had to accept the things he couldn’t control. He had to let Luke make his own decision. He wasn’t responsible for everything around him.
He was team leader. Not a ruler. Not a military commander.
He was one man. And there was only so much he could control. So much he could be in charge of. No matter how much he hated it.
And right now all of his thoughts were on Violet.
He extended his hand toward Luke. “Thank you. Thank you for your help.”
Luke shook his hand swiftly. “Let’s go.”
* * *
They’d been in the forest for just over an hour now. Violet tucked her watch back into her pocket.
She had no idea what was going on in the village right now. Was everyone safe? She couldn’t bear the thought that anyone from the village had been injured trying to protect and hide her and her team.
Urbi. What would have they done with her? Someone must have told them the midwife had been working with the American doctor. Would she be safe?
What about the men who had come into the village? Were they still there, waiting for her to reappear? Had they been able to identify her team among the villagers?
She didn’t even know what the men looked like. How many had there been? She’d only heard one voice. She’d heard the gunfire and the shrieks. Then the whispers that they were looking for her and wanted to kidnap her.
It was terrifying.
It didn’t matter that she’d had safety briefings. She hadn’t really believed they would be at risk. There had been no trouble in that area before and the truth was she’d always felt safe with the people in Natumba.
She hated that this had happened. She hated that this could put the polio program in jeopardy.
And she hated what this might be doing to Evan.
If it was possible, her blood would be running cold right now. He would be frantic—and in that state of mind there was possibility that he wouldn’t act rationally.
Evan could put himself in danger—for her, and for the rest of the team, and she couldn’t stand the thought of that.
She already knew that losing another
team member was his greatest fear. She couldn’t imagine the agony he was going through right now.
And he was the one person she wanted to talk to. It seemed almost ridiculous that she’d spent the past two weeks avoiding him. At any point she could have sat down with him and talked things out.
But no. She’d been too stubborn.
Her brain had still been mulling over what he’d told her. It had stung initially. That tiny second of deliberating whether he’d actually been to blame for Helen’s death.
Of course he hadn’t been. It was ridiculous.
But what was really obvious was that Evan had a way to go before he was ready to move on. She’d been deadly serious when she’d told him the first person he needed to forgive was himself.
She knew a lot about that.
She’d had a mountain to climb in order to forgive herself over her daughter’s death. There was no blame to apportion and sometimes that made it all the harder to move on. To take the step forward to a new life.
She really didn’t think she could handle someone else’s unjustified guilt when she’d just managed to walk away from her own.