Chapter 31

“Absolutely nothing until we have Kurt and know he’s safe. Afterward, we need to assemble every last shred of evidence and I suspect we need to go straight to the Secretary of the Navy.” 12

In the wake of the freeing of hostages in Hawija, factions sympathetic to the Islamic State were jumpy and dissenters were hyper-paranoid. Maggie stayed at Kurt’s bedside in the clinic almost nonstop from the moment he got out of surgery. They had patients of several nationalities in the clinic and Bill hinted that not all were uncaring that an American was there. There was another problem, too. Kurt had spiked a measurable fever within hours of arrival. As soon as surgery was done, he was placed on two different IV antibiotics and fluids were pushed to try to prevent full-blown sepsis. Heavy doses of pain medication on top of the antibiotics were needed to keep him even partially comfortable. Needless to say, Kurt drifted in and out of lucid awareness.