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The baili was dressed, though not shaven, and he looked uncharacteristically rumpled. "Sit. Tell us what happened." Other senior officials, including senior medical personnel, crowded in behind me; the baili's bat man gingerly took my cloak, and I looked around for a wooden chair that could be easily cleaned. One was brought for me without having to ask for it. I rubbed my face and sat right in front of the desk, pulling out my passport--damaged from the mud and wet--and the drive, then I turned away slightly and rooted around in my bra, finding the two additional drives I'd hidden in the underwire. The baili switched on a recording.

"You must know what the conditions were like before communication from Sevastopol was cut," I said. "The sailors were stealing from the civilians, beating them, raping them. One of our nurses was attacked, but the citizens came to her aid. After that, anybody going outside had to go in at least pairs. The resistance was hard at work.  In retrospect, the end started when a civic leader was arrested for being part of the resistance, tortured, and killed. His body was dumped outside the Panorama Museum. A mob formed, and and the navy authorized the use of weapons against them. The flow of patients increased dramatically, and we started to run out of things. Drugs, everything. We were cutting things up to at least have bandages, using bleach solutions, boiling the laundry outside. I think that the flash dryers and the autoclaves were the only things left running full; power was being throttled back, we didn't even have enough electricity to run the lights concurrent. The director sent me outside at night to get photos of what was happening.

"Then two sailors brought in another who had been badly wounded. It's our policy not to turn away anyone who asks for care, and anyway, it would have been dangerous to do it. As it was, all the civilians who could left when we agreed to treat him. The sailor died under the treatment of Marissa, one of our most experienced and capable nurses. The sailor's companions raised a fuss, but she did everything she could. The civilian patients didn't return, so we took the opportunity to clean and take stock. I was able to get some rest on one of the treatment tables.

"The director woke me up, asked me to accompany him for a summons sent by the Russian general. I don't know why they don't use traditional naval ranks, admiral, commander, whatever, but the general had questions and he asked me to go rather than Marissa, because hopefully my name and connections would save me from consequences. We went down to the Admiralty, spent the whole day there, most of it waiting. Finally, the Navy doctor we requested was brought in to look at our x-rays and treatment notes, compare it with what they observed in the corpse. She said that he couldn't have been saved even at a Navy hospital, then in an untranslated moment, said that the sailor had been accused of theft and linked through DNA to two rapes and it was perhaps better this way. The general wanted to know what photography I'd done, so I showed him the drive with the photos I'd taken in the hospital, before things got bad, the kind of things the Order uses in its materials." I held up one drive. "The other photographs were on drives I kept on my person, by the request of the director." I held up the other two. "So he saw the photos there, then he..." my voice trailed off.

"Nurse?" D'Isle-Adam asked crisply.

"He checked the time before he released us. It was dark and snowing. We went up the hill to the hospital, but the snow made things slippery and it took a little longer than usual. We were at the fence when they started shelling the town," I said slowly. "So maybe he was timing things so we could get back to the hospital. It was hit directly, one of the first targets. If we'd been there, we would have been killed too, eliminating witnesses, loose ends." I rubbed my face again, feeling tears form. "After that, I recorded and photographed using my communicator as we made our way to the marina. The director was hurt from the shockwave. We were a short way from the marina when the army came over the hill." I closed my eyes a moment and heard someone mutter a quick prayer. "They almost caught up with us there; we were shot but got into the tender. We got out of the marina and joined a flotilla of others escaping by sea, getting ahead of them but not going full speed until we passed the Navy. But then they started firing on the small boats and sent cutters out, who were shooting at the people. As you know, the cutters are faster than my tender, but we made Turkish waters first. Their guns blew up the cutters. We docked, the director went on shore to tell them what happened and receive medical treatment, and I assume, call you. The Turks gave me an escort into the Aegean. And here I am."