Girl at War(63)

Compared to Zagreb, Oto?ac was a squat town. The houses looked the same—the familiar tan and white fa?ades and clay roofs—but there were no tall buildings here, nothing more than a few stories, so it was hard to find the center of town. There weren’t many people on the street, and no one noticed me.

“Post office?” I said to a man slumped on the corner drinking rakija from the bottle.

“Doesn’t work,” he said.

“I know, but where is it?”

“What good is it if it’s closed?”

“Forget it.”

“Two streets up. Next to the closed bakery and the closed bank and the closed—”

“Thanks.” I ran the two blocks, but there was no one out in front of the post office and it looked dark inside. The air raid siren began to sound.

Through the alley and around the back, I found a woman in Peacekeeping uniform. She adjusted her ponytail beneath her helmet, looked at her watch. I tapped her on the arm.

“Well, what do we have here?” she said in English. She gestured to my blanket. “Are you Superwoman?” I was intimidated by her language and her uniform, but needed her to send help for Petar, so I concentrated on the words I’d learned in school and from my mother.

“Stanfeld,” I said.

“Yes, how did you—Ana?”

“Petar has trouble.”

“Where is he?”

“?etniks,” I said. “The big road.”

“Is he hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shit.” She spoke into a walkie-talkie strapped to her upper arm, a series of numbers and something I couldn’t understand. Then to me she said, “Don’t worry, they’ll take care of him. Now let’s get you on this plane.”

—

At the airport, Peacekeepers were guarding all entrances. I handed her the envelope Petar had given me.

“Money inside,” I said.

“Hopefully we won’t need it.” She squinted at the guard by the front. “No, not him.” I followed her to the next gate. “Nope.” Then, at the back gate, “That’ll work.” She pulled the elastic from her ponytail, and her hair came down around her shoulders in blond waves.

“Hey, you,” she said, and the guard looked up, startled.

“Oh, hey, Sharon.”

“Mind swiping me through? We’re gonna be late for transport.”

“Who’s the kid?”

“She’s my SFF…AF-6. I told you about her, remember?”

“SFF—” He looked confused. “Does she have a pass?”

“Of course she does,” Stanfeld said. “But I had a blond moment and left it in my luggage. If you swipe us through I could get it and show it to you.”

“Well—”

“You’re the best,” she said. She took another step toward him, too close. He slid his pass through the scanner and let us in.

“Idiot,” she said when we were out of earshot. We crouched behind a generator and she retied her hair. Before the war, the airport in Oto?ac had been recreational, and I could see where a chunk of runway, dirt-packed, had been added to accommodate larger aircraft. I studied the plane, a stubby green cargo transport. I’d never been on a plane before, and this one looked much too fat to take off. A Blue Helmet opened the cabin latch, a door with built-in stairs, then stepped off for a smoke. Ms. Stanfeld squeezed my hand, and we ran across the tarmac.

Inside it was not what I thought a plane would look like; there were no seats, only benches, green netting on the wall to hold on to, and stacks and stacks of boxes.

“Sit here.” Ms. Stanfeld led me behind an assembly of wooden crates.

“Will Petar be okay?”

“I sent some people for him. Now don’t make another sound until we’re in the air.”

“Then what?” But there were voices by the stairs, other Blue Helmets boarding, and she stood abruptly, not wanting to be seen conversing with munitions.

When the plane took off my stomach roiled and my ears popped, but I stayed hidden and unmoving, eyeing the rifle clips through the slatted crates. Eventually the turbulence evened out, and, bored and emboldened by the thrum of the engine, I slid my hand through an opening and grabbed one of the magazines. I rejigged my grip until I could pull the clip out through the hole, loading and unloading it unthinkingly. The repetitive motion calmed my stomach and my nerves.

“What’s that noise?” I heard someone say, and I froze.

“What noise?” Stanfeld said a little too fast.

“It sounds like it’s—” The voice was closer now. “What the f*ck?” I looked up at the Blue Helmet in terror, and he stared back at me with equal distress.

“It’s okay. She’s authorized,” Stanfeld said. “Come here, Ana. Come sit by me.” She dug my passport out of the envelope. “See? American visa.”

The other Peacekeepers stared at her. I sat down beside her and returned to my loading and unloading of the cartridge.

“Still, I trust that you all have the sense not to—Ana! What the hell are you doing?”

“She’s fast,” one of the Blue Helmets said.

“Where did you learn how to do that?”