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Part 14

To tell the truth, Harm was incredibly glad of the company. He didn't think he'd have been able to both drive and descend into panic. And there was no way he could keep from doing the latter, so it was a good thing that Mac had volunteered to both drive and keep him company on the way to Kim's school.

Once they found Kim's teacher, Harm explained that the family was going through some tough times and that he'd find Kim and speak to her. She'd be back in class the next day and she would not give any more problems.

Next, they went back to Harm's house, to look there. After they found nothing but the empty house, they went to their neighbour's house, because Kim's teacher had mentioned that Yan was also missing, so the two were most likely together.

Like Harm, Mrs. Patterson had also received a call from her son's teacher. However, since she did not drive, nor did she have transportation to the school, she had called and requested her husband to go down to speak to the teacher.

Harm let her know that they would drive around the area and bring Yan home with them, if they found the children.

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It seemed like forever that Yan had been hanging over the cliff, all around them was still silent, apart from the soft noise of gradually trickling dirt and their heavy breathing. He didn't know where the other kids had gone, but he hoped that it was for help. He didn't know how much longer his arms could hold out.

As he thought this, the muscles in his aching hands flexed within Kim's grip. Her other hand tightened, where it was wrapped around his left wrist.

"Please!" her voice sounded both fatigued yet frantic, at the same time, "Please don't let me go…promise me you won't let me go…"

"No," Yan looked her right in the eye, flinching slightly as he felt more ground collapsing beneath his chest and belly, "No, never…"

His shins now really began to burn, from digging the toes of his shoes into the ground as best as he could. But within just one second, he knew; he was not going to let Kim go, but that would not help either of them.

"Help is on the way," he lied, smoothly, saying what he had to for fear that she would be the one to let go of him, "They'll be here to rescue us, soon."

And just like that, there was no time for any more words, only screams, as Yan felt his body being dragged forward, over the cliff.

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Harm slammed on the breaks, as they passed the village fire station and saw two trucks with their lights flashing, preparing to pull out. Harm didn't know how, but he just knew this was it.

"Harm?" Mac didn't have the opportunity to say anymore, before Harm shoved the gear-shift into 'reverse' and pressed down hard on the gas, to let the vehicles out ahead of him.

Their sirens blaring, the fire trucks pulled out and sped along the main street towards their destination. They fared much better than Harm's beaten-up old car, along the long disused tracks leading to the old quarry. But neither Harm nor Mac said anything, hitting pothole after pothole in tense silence.

It was Yan's Uncle Made, the head of the fire service, who noticed them getting out of their car, after climbing out of the lead truck and beginning to issue orders to his men.

"Commander Rabb…Sir, you shouldn't be here…" the man stammered, when Harm reached him.

"Tell me, Made…Tell me it's not them…"

The man ineffectually tried to grab Harm by the arm and hold him back, but that proved useless, so he tried to get in front of the tall, broad-chested man and hold him back that way.

"Please, Made…Tell me…Is it them?"

By now, several police cars had turned up and the officers hurried over to see what the commotion was all about.

"I'm sorry, Sir…" Made tried to find the words, "It's is them…Please, I have to do my job…You have to stay back and let me go help them."

The clearing originally designated for construction equipment had now become a war-zone of screaming service vehicles; five more police cars and two ambulances had pulled up.

Harm sank to his knees at having his worst fear realized, now giving about as much resistance as a newborn lamb.

As the officers from the various branches of the community emergency services moved into action, Mac dropped beside Harm, holding him to her as he poured out his anguish.

OOOO

It seemed like eternity had passed in that hour and a half.

Harm's car had been left where he had skidded to a halt; he and Mac had been brought to the nearest major hospital in the back of a police vehicle.

The ambulances had left well before them, at almost break-neck speed, to get the critically injured children to the hospital as soon as possible.

As the fire trucks were packing up all of their equipment, Made had taken Harm aside, but Harm was in too much of a mess to understand anything that was being said to him, so Mac had listened to what the fire chief knew of the situation.

"They were up on the east face above the quarry. Then ground underneath them suddenly crumbled and they fell and tumbled nearly 10 storeys, before coming to rest on a ledge exposed by the landslide. They're both critically injured, but if that ledge hadn't caught them, they would have hit the water…"

Mac understood without him having to say it; Kim and Yan would have drowned, had it not been for this stroke of fortune…But critical condition was still a terrible thing, especially after a fall such as that…Mac couldn't bring herself to ask any more.

"She's alive," she told Harm, "She's a fighter; she's going to fight this…"

Harm was in such a mess, he couldn't have asked any questions, even if he wanted to. Right now he was only concerned about getting to his baby-girl.

Mac had first steered him to his car, but one of the police officers had offered to drive them in his cruiser. Mac had felt that was the best option, since she was still visibly shaking and Harm was far from being in any fit state to drive.

After the accompanying police officer had spoken to one of the nurses manning the ER reception desk, another nurse showed them to the waiting room.

"A doctor will come out to see you, once they've been able to assess your daughter's condition."

They were joined, not long later by Made and several other Fire officers, then Yan's parents.

Yan's Father, a Marine Corps Major, kept his composure, even as he asked his brother-in-law what had happened. His iron grip on his wife's hand, however, betrayed his mask of composure. Mrs. Patterson was vocally upset, quietly wailing in the manner that was custom to native Balinese.

Ignoring his wife's outpouring of despair, Doug Patterson requested his wife's older brother to tell him, without sugar-coating it, what the kids' condition was once they had been lifted up cliff-face, before they were transported here.

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