The Island Sanctuary

CHAPTER ONE LEYLA I had to get the picture. It was the only thing that mattered to me. I knew what people thought. Leyla Priestly didn’t know when to quit. She was going to get herself killed with her recklessness and bravado. I didn’t care. This mattered. I was a photojournalist for the Boston Globe. My entire career had been spent chasing bigger and more explosive stories. Stories I didn’t tell in words. Words just never evoked the kind of emotions I was after. A single picture could spark change. Pictures altered lives, improving the deplorable conditions so many people lived in. I exposed inequalities and injustices. Now, I found myself in war torn Sierra Leone, surrounded by an elite military force whose number one job was to stay hidden. And that meant the photographer they’d allowed into their unit wasn’t supposed to run into danger to expose the ongoing diamond operations that covered more than seven thousand square miles near the eastern border. “Everyone, get ready to move out,” Sergeant Kline ordered. “We need to make it to the border by nightfall.” We were bailing out, as per our orders from the higher ups who’d never even set boots on the ground. The situation had grown too dangerous, and we were supposed to meet up with a patrol in Guinea for extraction. Then it was back to the U.S. for us. I flipped through the pictures on my camera and wiped the sweat from my dirt-smeared brow. These would be excellent for any number of pieces the newspaper might run. A few might even sell to one of the magazines I also freelanced for. But I was looking for the one. I didn’t have it yet. Nothing that would bring light to the shadows I’d seen over here. The war ended more than two decades ago, but they still lived with the consequences every day. One of those consequences—the conflict diamonds that kept opposition forces funded and working. Dirty boots stopped in front of me, and I looked up into the face of Captain Lauren Murati. She extended a hand down, and I accepted it, letting her pull me to my feet. My own exhaustion reflected back at me in her eyes. “Another day and we’ll get hot showers.” I raised an eyebrow, and she laughed. “Okay, we’ll get showers, probably not hot.” At this point, I’d take what I could get. We’d been in the jungles for a month now, searching for a missing American. We found him, but we were too late. “I’m just looking forward to eating something other than our rations.” I bumped her shoulder. There was a comradery I’d come to respect among these soldiers, and they included me in their bonds easily, making sure I knew they had my back. We all recognized in each other a desire to make a difference. “Preaching to the choir, Shutter.” It was the nickname they’d given me, and I didn’t hate it. It made me feel like I was one of them. Lauren, also called Quick Shot for her ability to aim and hit a combatant before anyone else even noticed they were there, slapped me on the back. “Yo, Quick Shot,” Lance called. We called him Bass because he hated sharing a name with the boy band member. “You ready for a real bed?” Trevor, “Straight Arrow,” smacked him on the back of the head. “Sure, she is, just not yours.” I laughed as I wound my tangled auburn hair into a braid to get it off my neck. I’d never been so hot as the last month, or so tired and hungry. It wasn’t my first time in a war zone, but the last one had been luxurious compared to this. At least there, we’d been on base. I pulled the shirt away from my sticky skin, trying to fan myself with the extra fabric. I wasn’t a small woman, never had been, and I took pride in the extra pounds I carried. I wasn’t one for diets or over-exercising just to fit society’s standards, but I’d lost quite a bit of weight lately. Living in a hot box did that to a person. We climbed into two well-equipped trucks. I wasn’t armed. When we first left base, no one had expected us to end up anywhere near the diamond mines. But here we were. We saw signs of them as we neared. The land became even more barren than before, with fewer and fewer trees. Roads cut through the bush, seemingly going nowhere. And then, I saw it. The village. Our road went straight through it, so I held my breath as I always did when we first entered any area that could contain hostiles. Our trucks didn’t indicate we were military, but that didn’t mean much. Ramshackle buildings lined the roads, their rotted wood looking as if they were more likely to fall down than provide adequate shelter. It was early morning, but the village was awake and buzzing with activity. People darted across the street in front of us. I lifted my camera, snapping shot after shot out the window, taking in the thin appearance of the locals, the way their threadbare clothes hung off bony shoulders and impossibly thin chests. A steady stream of people made their way down the road, and I knew instantly where they were going. “Can we follow them?” Sergeant Kline leveled me with a stare. “That’s not a good idea, Shutter. Our orders are to make it to the border safely.” “With all due respect, sir, screw the orders.” Three children, who couldn’t have been more than ten years old, passed my window. I knew what I was asking. We had too much ground to cover, but the world wouldn’t wake up and take notice of continued atrocities unless they saw for themselves. That was my job. “I didn’t come all the way here to ignore this.” I hated diamonds, refused to wear them because the fact was, most jewelers didn’t do enough research into where their gems came from. When I was a kid, I did a presentation to explain to my parents why my father needed to stop his tradition of anniversary diamonds for my mother. And he did. But now, here I was, right in the middle of it, right where I could have more of an impact than turning one man into a conscientious buyer. Kline didn’t have time to respond before the ground shook as an explosion rocked the world. Fire erupted from the truck in front of us. “IED!” Kline yelled. Quick Shot was out of the truck and firing before I could even comprehend what was happening. Half our unit had been hit. Bass shook my shoulder. “You okay, Shutter?” he shouted over the noise. I nodded. “We need to find out if any of them survived.” Straight Arrow jumped out and ran toward the first truck. He was steps away when he suddenly jerked back and crumpled to the ground. I gripped my camera as tightly as I could. Bass gripped my arm and pulled me from the truck to duck behind it as a bullet whirred past us. My breath came in shallow gasps. We’d known the risks of trying to get to the border. Opposition forces guarded the mines. But we’d grown confident the farther east we went. Quick Shot jumped behind the truck to reload, her chest heaving, a grin on her face. It was still there when a bullet struck her brow. A scream lodged in my throat as I stared at her in horror. The line of people heading for work in the mines hadn’t stopped. It was as if fighting in the streets was just a regular occurrence for them. Young children hurried in front of their parents as they made their way down the road. I knew what I had to do. If I was going to die here, it wasn’t going to be cowering in fear. Lifting my camera, I crept around toward the front of the truck while Bass and Kline engaged with the insurgents. Clicking as fast as I could, I photographed everything. Children going to work barefoot, the sparse living conditions, gunmen on rooftops and running across the streets fighting with the local authorities. I crept closer to the workers, who looked back over their shoulders nervously now. I saw her. A young girl with tears streaming down her dirty little face. She brought a hand up to her mouth, and her fingers looked raw, calloused, as if they were more used to hard work than any kind of play. Dark hair stuck to her forehead as she froze in fear. There was shouting behind me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her precious face, the vulnerability in her startling blue eyes. Positioning my camera, I clicked once. Only once. An arm wrapped around me, pulling me back behind the cover of our armored vehicle. “Time to go,” Kline said in my ear. Together, with Bass and two other survivors, we piled in and took off, our wheels kicking up dirt behind us as bullets continued to ping off the metal. My heart pounded in my chest until it was all I could hear. One beat. Two. One beat. Two. Kline steered us away from the village and off the road, our tires bumping along rough terrain. I knocked into Bass, but I didn’t hear anything he said. I barely felt his hand on my arm. Soldiers were trained for this. I was not a soldier. I looked down at the picture I’d taken, the little girl who would know no life other than one making poverty wages mining conflict diamonds—diamonds born of blood and war and human struggle. If she even survived this day. There were many ways to make a difference. I could only hope I’d done my job today.