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“Okay. Not going into shock yet. My foot feels like its swelling though.”
Nate nodded, looking quickly at his watch. “You’re gonna walk away from this.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” came back Mace’s fading mutter.
Cale chuckled. “You’re too fuckin’ mean to die, Kilmer.”
“Cale, get that IV going. Find my morphine. And an antibiotic,” Nate told him in a low tone.
Mace knew what was coming. The first effect of the poison would be hellacious, mind-blowing pain. Nate would give him just enough morphine to take the edge off it so he could remain conscious and talk to him. The swelling no one could do anything about. Cale was digging like a madman through Nate’s huge medical ruck. He hauled out the IV and attached it to a bag of saline. Every Special Forces operator knew basic EMT skills, and they all knew how to push an IV.
Cale knelt, pulling on fresh latex gloves. His hands trembled a little.
“Steady,” Mace told him quietly. “It’s all right.” It wasn’t. His mind was whirling with so many thoughts. Mostly of Sierra. Of the fact he might not ever see he again. He felt pain in his heart, and it wasn’t a symptom of the venom. It was grief. Raw and hurting.
Cale slowed down, rubbed an alcohol swab over the hollow in the crook of Mace’s elbow and quickly inserted the IV needle, taping it into place. He attached the bag of saline to the branch of a nearby bush above Mace’s head. Grabbing the two antivenins, he stuck one and then the other syringe into the port. “How fast the drip, Nate?”
“Full bore. Open it all the way up. Get that antibiotic into him, too.”
“Got it,” Cale said, dropping syringes wherever they fell once finished with them.
“Any symptoms yet, Mace?” Nate asked.
“No.” He saw the worry in Nate’s sweaty face. Mace knew that it could take fifteen or more vials of antivenin to save someone who had been bitten by a Fer-de-lance. They only had three. His gut told him that wasn’t going to be nearly enough. He needed a hospital now. Not two hours from now. And that was about how long it was going to take the Black Hawk to get up here. Worse, he worried about Kushnir and his team. Were they nearby? No one knew.
“How much morphine?” Cale demanded, holding up the bottle and poking a fresh syringe into it.
Nate told him, continuing his work.
Mace began to feel a little woozy and knew it was the morphine kicking in. Soon, his head would clear. He sat with his hands flat on the muddy earth behind him.
“Want me to make a sat phone call to the hospital in Cusco?” Mace asked the medic.
“No, I’ll do it.” Nate glanced over at Cale. “Take his blood pressure and pulse. Also, get the pulse oximeter out of my ruck. Stick it on his index finger. Read me what his oxygen level says?”
Cale got up, went around Mace, digging into the ruck some more. He put the small oxcimeter on Mace’s large index finger. “Your fingers are dirty, Mace.”
“You think?” he asked dryly, grinning over at Cale. The pulse-ox beeped, and Cale removed it. His brows went down. “Eighty five percent.”
“Okay, he’s starting to slide,” Nate told him. “Get his blood pressure. And pulse.”
Mace didn’t feel anything yet. But he knew it was coming. And once the venom swam freely through his bloodstream, he knew it was going to be bad.
“190 over 60,” Cale told the medic. “Pulse is bounding at 120 like cannonballs.”
“Shit,” Nate muttered, giving Mace a quick glance. “You look fine to me.”
“I feel fine,” Mace said calmly.
“It’s going to hit you like a freight train,” Cale growled, throwing the loops of the stethoscope back around his neck. “What else can I do, Nate?”
“Not all that much… Well, you could grab me the sat phone.”
Cale instantly got to his feet and handed the phone over to Nate.
There wasn’t much for Mace to do except stay calm and still. The more he bought into the hysteria that he was going to die of the venom, the quicker it would flood his body. He knew from the stats he had studied, that the venom was acting swiftly. But no surprise there. He listened to Nate call the nearest hospital, the one in Cusco, and heard him talking to the head of their ER, giving back all the information.
Nate was making sure they had enough antivenin on hand when they arrived by the Nightstalker helo. Mace was grateful that these men were his comrades in arms. They were damn well trained. They were focused, not panicking. They knew their business.
