Thanks for waiting.
Chapter 16
"Amira is his saviour."
"What?"
"Without her, Harry would be dead."
"What are you talking about?"
"She's a Syrian refugee."
"You're not making any sense Nikki." Thomas wished he could look into her eyes, but she still had her head resting on his shoulder. "I'm not following Nikki. How could a young Syrian refugee possibly save Harry's life and why is she in New York?"
Nikki took a deep breath. "Harry started volunteering at the UN."
"Let me guess," Thomas interrupted. "Would this have begun about the time Leo was killed?"
"Yes, a couple of months afterwards. Why? Oh…"
She'd not really put the two together until now.
"He volunteered at the UN, did all sorts; fitted it in around his university work. He went out to all the nightmare hotspots as some kind of independent observer. One of the places he was sent to was Syria. He was taken to a site of a recent air strike. They were supposed to be gathering evidence about civilian and military targets. There was nothing left of the village. The story was that the villagers had been gathered in a house, holding a wake when the missile hit. The whole population of the village was annihilated by hitting that one house. It was carnage. Harry was there to document the evidence. Not that there was evidence, just a big pile of rubble and a bigger pile of bodies. The rescue operation was still in progress, but no one believed anyone had survived. He stopped to look at the row of bodies laid out on the ground. Something made Harry want to examine them, he says he can't explain it. It wasn't part of his UN remit. A remembrance of his past. Fate. Whatever you want to believe in."
"Go on," Thomas encouraged.
"He lifted the covering of one of the smallest bodies, only to discover that the girl wasn't actually dead. He tried to speak to the rescue workers, get someone to understand. Eventually when someone translated for him he was told that she'd been pulled out from under the rubble and she would be dead before they could get her to a hospital or to get her the help she needed. Her family were dead, her village was dead and she was probably bleeding internally. It was for the best." Nikki paused, and took a drink from the water bottle in front of her.
"I've not known him long, but I get the sense that Harry wouldn't have agreed with that."
"Not for a moment."
"So Harry stayed with her?"
"He did a bit more than that. He commandeered a vehicle, got her back to the field hospital; demanded treatment for her. Somehow or other Harry managed to procure the medicine she really needed, despite the lack of resources. He'd raided the supply meant for military personnel."
"You mean he stole it."
"Those weren't the exact words he used."
Thomas chuckled, "Did he ever follow the rules?"
"Harry?"
"When he worked at the Lyell?"
"He was brilliant at what he did." Nikki replied.
"That's not the question I asked." Thomas grinned and felt grateful that Harry had left long before he arrived.
"Harry likes to do things in his own way."
"I'm thinking that probably didn't go down well in Syria?"
"No! Not at all. What Syria didn't need was another sick orphan, but Harry didn't care, he was used to being in trouble. He just felt compelled to do all he could for her."
"It's beginning to sound familiar," Thomas muttered.
"The two of them became inseparable. She would scream the place down if anyone else came near her."
"But how did they communicate?" Thomas asked, focused as ever on the practicalities.
"They managed somehow, Harry always had a way with small children, and usually a pocketful of sweets. So Harry stayed with her and then to return the favour she saved his life."
"How?" asked Thomas incredulous. "She's not even five by the look of her."
"Hmm, I'm not sure they know exactly how old she is. Harry had to face a military disciplinary hearing, some wrist slapping exercise because of what he'd done, the UN officials weren't impressed either. At the last minute he decided to take Amira with him, she'd made a good recovery by this time and he'd made an agreement with the doctors to be allowed to take her. Visual evidence to prove his point and all that. While they were gone there were more air strikes. The hospital was hit. Had they stayed they would both have been killed. Some of his colleagues were."
"So he survived because he was out getting yelled at by some military high-up?"
"Yes."
"But if he'd been fired as a UN volunteer, didn't he have to go back to the US?"
"He refused to return, took leave of absence from NYU, stayed out there working with Medecins Sans Frontieres just to be with her. They made him take her to an orphanage when she'd fully recovered but Harry wouldn't leave her there. He said it was terrible, so he brought her back to the camp with him and consulted a lawyer, applied for guardianship. He'd fallen in love with her by then."
Nikki smiled.
"What?"
"I was just thinking; Harry always did prefer younger women."
Thomas looked aghast.
"No! Not like that. He had a long string of 20 somethings back in the day."
Thomas just raised an eyebrow and let Nikki go back to the story.
"Anyway he stayed in Syria for as long as he could, and managed to acquire refugee status for Amira, and got her back to the States. The adoption is just about to come through."
"He's a good man." Thomas agreed. So that solved the mystery of why Harry hadn't come to Mexico, Thomas thought. He wouldn't have the paperwork to take her out of the country and it was clear he would go nowhere without her. He'd done all he could for Nikki under the circumstances.
"He adores her. She's been good for him."
"And you?"
"He's good to me too." Nikki agreed."
"But?"
"It's complicated."
They settled into a companionable silence for a while.
"Nikki?"
"Your ability to count questions is rubbish." Nikki commented.
Thomas thought he heard a laugh from Jack, but flicking him a look, he was still in exactly the same position, his face impassive except for the cheek gnawing, the rest of his body motionless.
"I thought you were sleeping. I wanted you to rest."
"I'm not going to sleep. What did you want to say?"
Thomas took a deep breath. He'd thought hard about what he was about to say next.
"This plane, we're not flying straight to Heathrow. We've got a stop-over." He felt Nikki shift beside him, stiffen slightly and turn to look at Jack.
"Where do we stop?" Nikki asked. Her voice little more than a whisper.
Lots of you have known where this bit's been going for a long while! And Tigpop had me worried by worrying about how Jack was going to take it... She's much more caring than I am, so I've let him put a bit more in for you, just not yet. Also Harry's Syria story is fiction, I know air strikes on a hospital did happen in reality and I remember a JAG episode where a field doctor was prosecuted for using medication designated for military personnel on a civilian but I have no actual knowledge of what goes on, so just believe it in the context of fiction, I'm sure the reality is very different.
