So instead of just wandering about the capital city aimlessly, she started looking for a group of people, men or women with specific skills who could go out and find people who needed help. They would then combine their areas of expertise to make a difference, to help the people who couldn’t get help anywhere else.
Sometimes, it was just smuggling medicine across the border, paid for with her own money and never stolen, but medicine needed to go through so many official channels and so much of it was siphoned off by those who claimed to be officials. Those ‘officials’ would sell off the medicine on the black market whereas her way brought the medicine directly to the people who needed it the most.
She never dispersed medicine, only giving it to qualified doctors who were trustworthy and dedicated. She only performed minor medical attention. She was sort of like a paramedic who could help people just until she and her team could get the person trained medical treatment.
She wished she’d been allowed to attend medical school. But she didn’t dare ask for something so outrageous. Rashid would never allow it anyway, so she hadn’t wasted her breath.
She carefully moved the cover of shoes that hid the secret passageway. Not even the servants who cleaned her room knew of this opening and she was careful to maintain its secrecy. Opening the trap door, she slithered into the tunnel and down the ladder, careful to close the door as soon as she was through and make sure it was sealed shut with the lock bolted on her side.
Within five minutes of her leaving her bedroom, she was outside the palace walls and gave the signal – a small pen light flashed three times in the direction of the palace kitchens. A black van immediately pulled up and she quickly jumped in the side door. The van was already speeding up by the time she had both feet on the floorboards while someone else slammed the door shut.
There was a team of five people in the van but no time for greetings. As soon as she was seated, a map was pulled out and the information on the situation relayed to the team. They went through the details they knew about so far, questions asked, answers given. Meanwhile, they drove through the night towards the border to Silaria.
As they approached the target area, Isla picked up her pack and went through the contents, ensuring that she had everything she might need.
Tonight, it was a gang war that had started brewing a few days ago after the death of a member. One side accused the other of murder, the other side called back that the deceased had been on their turf. The battle lines had been drawn up years ago when Silaria was at war for power. El-Hamin still hadn’t used his formidable might to quell these kinds of problems in the border towns, and often the power vacuum manifested itself in these little fiefdoms where a cruel, petty tyrant claimed power.
This was one area in which she wished El-Hamin would just put his army down and get rid of the problem. She’d patched up several innocent bystanders in the dark of night because of these nasty bullies and she was sick of it. Women and children, farmers who were just trying to get their crops to market, small businessmen or women who wanted to make a living for their family, all of them were impacted by these turf battles. El-Hamin needed to get rid of these stupid fights and lay down a law of justice instead of a law of fear.
Her team stopped the van several blocks away and walked the rest of the way to where they’d been told the violence would be occurring. She was standing in the shadows while Dinan, the negotiator on the team stepped forward. They found the two gangs facing off in the middle of the street and Isla said a silent prayer of thanks that this was happening in the early morning hours instead of later in the day. This street was the main market place and more people would be hurt if anything happened while the vendors were set up and people doing their daily shopping.
Dinan and Loan, another medic, stepped forward, their hands raised high in an effort to get everyone’s attention. The men on both sides looked at the two, then turned back. Isla was too far back to hear what was being said, but she knew that things weren’t going well just by the body language.
Nazih, a large man with tactical and military knowledge and knew just about everyone no matter where they were, was beside her and she glanced in his direction. “Not good,” she whispered. The tall man silently agreed. Dinan was still talking, while Loan was getting into position. Personally, Isla thought they should both pull back because they were going to get hurt.
All of a sudden, there was movement on both sides of the street. Soldiers were moving in with guns drawn, shouting all sorts of orders for people to get down onto the ground. Dinan and Loan were already there, not willing to argue when guns were drawn. It was their policy to work with the local officials when possible, but only when they weren’t corrupt which was sometimes the case when dealing with the locals. Occasionally the local police officers were corrupt and other times, they were just trying to do their best with the limited resources they had. Nazih observed both and could quickly discern the good from the bad. The good received his help, the bad had some additional issues to deal with as he snuck around after the fact and caused mischief. It was his way of keeping the local population safe. He figured if the corrupt police officers were busy trying to find him, they wouldn’t bother the locals as often or as harshly.
As Isla watched the scene unfold, she realized that these men weren’t local officials. They were too disciplined…too well trained. And had better hardware, which was an additional worry.
She looked up at Nazih, trying to get a sense from him if these were the good guys or the bad guys.
Unfortunately, she was distracted by someone she thought never to see again. Out of the shadows, a large, dark, menacing form stepped out, his stride commanding, his voice filled with authority. He ordered the soldiers to round them all up. They were being arrested for distribution of weapons and various other violations. Isla couldn’t believe it! No violence, everyone rounded up. This rarely happened!
Most of the time, these bursts of violence occurred during the day time so the perpetrators could slip into the crowds. Isla and her team would move in later, under cover of the night and help those who were hurt or needed some sort of assistance. They also gathered information surreptitiously and slipped that information to the non-corrupt authorities.
Isla was just about to turn away and head back to the van when she caught a sudden movement. One of the gang members was pulling something from his pocket. The soldier by his side saw it at the same time, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop the gang member. The knife flew out of the man’s hand, burying itself in the larger man’s shoulder. The soldier had the gang member down on the ground and handcuffed in record time, but Isla was already moving in, her medic bag open so she could tend to the wound.