From the Beginning Read Free Page A

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She walked for a long time—through the village and beyond, oblivious to the heat that was so much a part of Somalia. It was harvest time for the meager crops that this poverty- and drought-stricken nation could produce, and the men were few. Between the wars, the famine and the harvest, the village was almost a ghost town during the day. Many of the children were in the fields with their mothers; the others were in the hospital or at the government-run school that was built on the east side of the village. It was here that they learned math and history and how to read and speak English—at least until they had to give up their education to help feed the family.
She shook her head. Somalia had so many languages. Somali and Arabic were the two main ones, but each village in the line sweeping through the nation’s interior had a variation of its own. Her village, Massalu, spoke Chimbalazi, but most of the children who lived here were almost illiterate in the language of their parents. The language of their blood.
Her fatigue—a soul-deep weariness—caught up with her, and Amanda slumped onto a large rock. Her thinking rock. She’d used it so much in the past ten months that she could swear she’d worn a flat spot on it. Or maybe she wasn’t the only one who came to this desolate stretch of land to brood. God knew, there was more than enough to think about…
The sound of a faraway engine caught her attention and she looked up in time to see a Learjet coming into view. She watched it for a few minutes, until it passed over her, but she grew alarmed when the plane slowed as it approached the village.
Who could it be? Only the top government “officials”—Samatru and his crew—had access to planes like that. But even they usually arrived by car. Fuel and airplanes were hard to come by and saved for very special occasions.
The plane coasted in for a landing on the dusty road that ran about a thousand yards in front of the hospital, and though it was officially no longer her business, she couldn’t help worrying. Nor could she stop herself from running toward it as she tried to figure out what new threat the clinic was in for.
Despite the famine ravaging the country, it had been almost impossible for their organization, For the Children, to gain access to Somalia—the government frowned on outside interference. Even reporters and tourists had very restricted access to the small besieged nation—which made running a clinic here that much more difficult.
Add in the fact that the government had decided the doctors were ripe for exploitation, and it was a miracle that the hospital managed to hold on to any supplies to treat their patients.
As she ran, Amanda wondered what official had gotten a sudden “concern” about their presence here? And how much money it would take for his “attack of conscience” to be mollified.
How many people had to die so that he could wear his expensive suits and fly in his little plane? How many children had to starve?
Concern whipped through her, making her run faster despite the heat and the exhaustion. Making her incautious, when her life and the lives of the other doctors and patients at the clinic often depended on keeping a delicate balance with the current administration.
But what did she have to live for?
Gabby was gone.
Simon, the only man she had ever loved, had disappeared from her life, for good this time.
She had shut out everyone who cared about her until she was alone, isolated.
And now that Jack had stripped her of the only reason she had to get up in the morning, maybe she was better off dead.
Despair swamped her—black and overwhelming—but her long strides didn’t falter. Jack was a good doctor and a hell of an administrator, but even after ten years in these war-ravaged conditions, he had no tolerance for the way the country—and its corrupt officials—worked. If he lost his temper, he could bring everything they’d accomplished down around their heads.
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