The Power of Five Oblivion

kill Field Marshall el-Akkad by perhaps suffocating him or burning him or drowning him?”
    “Wait a minute…” Richard cut in.
    But Scarlett was already ahead of him. “I’ve never done anything like that before. I mean, I’ve never killed anyone.”
    “People died in Hong Kong.”
    “That wasn’t my fault. I’ve already told you. I didn’t start the typhoon and I wouldn’t have done it, even if it had helped us escape. I’m sorry, Mr Tarik. Of course I want to help you. But not that way.”
    Tarik nodded and although his face still gave nothing away, a sense of sadness had crept into the room. “You think perhaps that I am a monster for even suggesting it,” he said. “To ask a girl to kill a man is not easy. It is not pleasant. But the man himself is a monster. What he has done to this country is monstrous.” Tarik fell silent, then seemed to come to a decision. “Please, come with me.”
    He got up and went out of the room. Albert Rémy looked briefly at the two of them, as if warning them to be careful, and they all followed. Tarik’s two officers, neither of whom had spoken a word and who had given no indication that they even understood what was going on, came last. Tarik walked out into the compound, soldiers springing to attention and saluting as they saw him coming. There could be no doubting the effect he had on the men around him. Every one of them was delighted just to stand for a moment in his shadow. He continued into the hospital building, where Scarlett had been treated, and she wondered if he was going to reintroduce her to the surgeon who had saved her life. But instead he led her along a corridor on the ground floor and into a room at the very end, and she found herself in a long ward with sixty beds, stretching out in two lines, facing each other from wall to wall. The beds had been arranged with military precision. Each one had a small wardrobe and a side table. A nurse and a doctor were moving slowly along, checking the occupants, handing out pills.
    It took Scarlett a moment to realize that every single patient in the room was a child.
    Some of them were as young as nine or ten. They had all been injured in different ways, many of them swathed in bandages, some of them asleep, some staring rigidly at the ceiling as if they were afraid to move. What upset Scarlett perhaps more than anything was that there was nothing in the room to comfort them: no pictures, no toys, no teddy bears. It was as if being wounded had somehow turned them into miniature adults. And not a single one of them was complaining. The silence was almost unnerving.
    The doctor and the nurse had stopped, seeing them come in. Both of them bowed as Tarik approached. For his part, the rebel leader walked from bed to bed, speaking softly to one child, rearranging a sheet for a second, offering a glass of water to a third. The children smiled when they saw him or felt him nearby. For a brief moment, Scarlett saw them forget their pain. Tarik made sure he connected with every one of them. He spoke briefly to the doctor. Then, with Richard and Scarlett still following him, he left the ward through a door on the other side.
    They were glad to be back in the open air, even with the heat and the sand whipping around them. Richard was already wondering what point Tarik had been trying to make. He soon found out.
    “Those children were taken from the street,” he explained. “They had nothing to do with this war. Did you see their injuries, Scarlett? El-Akkad launched an attack on their neighbourhood, looking for insurgents, and they were caught in the crossfire. If we had not brought them here and looked after them, they would have been left to die. What sort of man, do you think, can behave like this? What sort of man wages war against his own people? I will tell you. He is vicious. He is ruthless. And nobody in Egypt will be able to live without fear until he is dead.”
    “What are you asking? Scarlett said.
    “You know what I am asking. You have this power – or so you claim.” He couldn’t keep the scorn out of his voice. “Use it! Help us! You can rain down fire from Heaven on this man and end his tyranny once and for all.”
    Richard stepped forward. “You’re asking her to commit murder,” he said.
    “This is not murder. This is war.”
    “She’s fifteen years old!”
    “The youngest child in that ward is eight and a half.”
    “I’m sorry, Mr Tarik.” Scarlett had never sounded so helpless.