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As she peeked over the rock, she saw another Russian. He was racing from tree to tree, his rifle fixated on them. He was trying to get around to make them targets with the rock no longer a barrier between them. Lauren felt Morozov move. He was trying to sit up again, floundering weakly. She couldn’t help him now. Her gaze followed the Russian closing slowly in on them. Lifting the AK-47, she waited until he broke cover and sprinted for another tree. Then she fired.
The man screamed, tripped and fell. His rifle flew in cartwheels out of his hands.
Lauren sagged back against the rock, barely able to breathe. She heard Morozov moan. How many more of them? Her mind was spongy. Losing count. Pushing herself, she felt faint, lack of oxygen. Two rounds to her Dragon Vest across her chest. She’d been hit once before, three years ago in Afghanistan on a sniper op that went bad. One bullet had struck her in the chest. She’d passed out from the pain and lack of oxygen, her entire chest wall heavily bruised.
Have to get up. Have to guard.The words swirled around in her head. Lauren couldn’t feel her right hand, her fingers numb, barely responding to her command to hold the AK-47 up. She glanced to her right. Morozov had passed out, lying on his back, unmoving. Her gaze flew to his right arm that she’d put the tourniquet on. It was bleeding, slowly but surely. He would bleed to death. There was no help coming. None.
Rolling to her knees, she was gasping, trying to get enough breath into her pain-filled chest, looking up. Blinking, she saw two more men advancing upon her. Oh God! Where had they come from? Confused, she blinked, her mind tumbling. The one man. The one in the lead… His body; the way he moved. Lauren thought she was hallucinating from lack of oxygen, her mind loosing grasp of reality. It looked like Alex’s shape. She’d recognize him anywhere.
Her knee scraped against the rock as she slowly tried to position herself, lowering her rifle at him. Pain drifted up from her knee.
Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Her vision was fading. The men advancing on them wore balaclavas. But… she blinked unsurely as she tried to steady the barrel at the man advancing upon her, his AK-47 aimed at her. She recognized him. Or did she? Her mind spun and her vision grayed. Slowly, it felt like an eternity, Lauren felt the AK-47 slide out of her hand, and herself off the rockface. And she was falling… falling…
Alex saw the man hiding behind the rock fall backward, the AK-47 tumbling out of his hands. Alex was breathing hard, hearing Killmer order his team to fan out, check the Russians who were down. They were all accounted for. This was five and six. He kept in his crouch, advancing swiftly, silently, moving around the large rock. His eyes widened as he saw two men, both down, unconscious, behind it.
“Clear,” Killmer growled, checking the first downed Russian near where Alex stood. With a knife through his neck, there was no medical aid that would bring the bastard back.
“Clear, but we got a wounded tango,” Cunningham said. “Merrill, get your ass over here. I’m going to need help. Get your flex cuffs out.”
Alex pulled the sweaty balaclava off his face, dropping it. Neither five nor six were moving. As a combat corpsman, through his NVGs he rapidly accessed them. Both Russians. Same uniforms as the rest of Petrov’s team. What the hell had happened? He laid his AK-47 down nearby, hauling his medical ruck off his shoulders. The man nearest him had two holes blown into his chest, the fabric ripped and torn outward, indicating that he was shot at close range. Alex wiped his face, grabbing the man’s balaclava, pulling it off his face.
Lauren!
CHAPTER 18
Alex’s world fellapart as he hesitated for a split second, staring disbelievingly down at Lauren, who lay unconscious.
“Cunningham,” he called, his voice unsteady, “I need your help over here. Got two down. One is Lauren.” The Special Forces combat medic had gone through the vaunted 18 Delta program, the Army combat medicine training that produced the best field medics in the world.
He gently straightened Lauren out, tipping her head back to allow her air passageway to open so she wouldn’t suffocate. He quickly felt her slender neck. There was a pulse! A strong one. It gave him hope.
Nate Cunningham came on the run. He skidded to a stop.
“Take care of the other one,” Alex ordered him, jerking his head toward the unmoving, masked Russian soldier.
Lauren suddenly gasped as Alex cut open her Russian cammo jacket that had been chewed into by the two bullets. Her eyes went wide.
“Lauren, it is me, Alex. Let me help you,” he gasped, tearing the fabric aside, needing to see if the bullets had been stopped or if she was bleeding out. Her eyes were wild and shocky. Immediately, Alex saw she was wearing her Dragon Skin vest. Relief started to pour through him. He quickly lifted her into his arms, pulling her toward him, ridding her of the jacket. His heart was pounding with urgency. Had the bullets been stopped or not? As he pulled the Velcro on the sides of the Dragon Skin to one side and eased it upward, he could see her camisole beneath.NO BLOOD. Thank God…
Alex quickly hauled the vest up and over her head, throwing it aside. He had to see the damage to her chest. When a person took a bullet at close range, it could crack their sternum, break ribs, stop their heart from beating… She was gasping, choking, her hand flailing weakly, trying to reach up to her throat. He focused solely on the medical aid needed to save her life. He was vaguely aware of Nate working quickly over the other Russian.
“You’re going to be all right,malen ‘kaya,” he rasped unsteadily. He laid her on the ground, gently pulling her flailing arm aside. Her gasps indicated severe damage to her chest cavity by the bullets. He might have to intubate her so she could breathe. And there was no way he could get her to a hospital in any short amount of time, which is what she needed to survive over the long run.
Killmer came up, growling, “I’ve called the Night Stalker Black Hawk from Cusco. ETA one hour.”
The golden hour.If a person could get the necessary medical aid within an hour of their injury, it gave them a huge chance to survive their wounds. After that, Death took the greater percentage of possibility from the wounded person. Alex nodded. “Okay.” Terror rushed through him.
Killmer responded, “We’ve got the one Russian who’s still alive, flexed-cuffed and tied to a tree. He’s not going anywhere. Nate patched him up first and he’ll make it. I’m taking Merrill and we’re going to scout a landing area for the Hawk. We’ll be back,” he said, gripping Alex’s shoulder and then releasing it.
ONE HOUR.His hand shook as he took a pair of scissors, slitting Lauren’s camisole up the middle, revealing her chest. Wincing internally, he saw two huge bruises, swollen so badly that her flesh was raised like two hardballs, each as large as the palm of his hand. The bruises met at the center of her chest, over her sternum. She’d taken two bullets over her upper-lung region. He talked to her soothingly, swiftly examining her rib cage, aware that she was naked. It couldn’t be helped. He gently turned her toward him, brushing her back with his hand to see if there were exit wounds or bleeding. It was clear. Her gasping was hoarse and she was struggling, her eyes rolling in deep shock. He had to stabilize her but, as he slowly ran his hands to the side of her right breast, she cried out in pain, flinching, trying to pull away from his touch.Broken or cracked ribs. Two or three?His mouth thinned as he did the same to the left side of her torso. She cried out again. It hurt to hear and see her in such pain.
Grabbing her discarded jacket from the ground, Alex drew it across her and pulled a small reflective blanket out of his ruck. He tucked it beneath her head and shoulders, trying to get as much of her as he could risk moving off of the cold, wet ground. Swiftly, he reached into the ruck for a syringe and a bottle of morphine. He couldn’t give Lauren much of the opiate because then she’d fall asleep and her ability to breathe would be compromised. He stuck the needle into the bottle, drawing out just enough. Dropping the bottle back into his pack, he rubbed an area of her upper arm with a medicinal swab to clean it off.
“It’s going to be all right, Lauren. I’m giving you something to help ease the pain.” Because, God, every breath she took had to feel like sharp-pointed knives digging into her lungs, the pain excruciating, stopping her from being able to take even half a breath, never mind taking in a full breath of air. He had no oxygen tank, nor oxygen mask, to support her continuing, deteriorating condition. And that was what he needed the most to stabilize her.Pure oxygen.Lauren was waxen, pupils black and huge, telling him she was low on oxygen. The thing he needed the most, the oxygen, he didn’t have and it scared him. He gave her the shot, threw the syringe aside, drew Lauren gently toward his knees, spreading the reflective blanket beneath her from her hips to her head. Cold, wet ground would only suck the heat out of her body and, right now, she need to be as warm as possible to help her stabilize and stop the relentless shock that was overtaking all her organ functions.
He quickly ran his hands from her shoulders down each arm. He felt blood on her right hand and picked it up, looking at it more closely. Her long, beautiful fingers were swollen, deeply bruised. There was blood and bruising in the center of her palm. Manipulating each finger gently, Alex saw that Lauren moaned, telling him that there was a strong possibility all of them were broken. He quickly cleaned off that hand and wrapped it in a battle dressing. Continuing his examination of her, from her abdomen down to her feet, he found nothing else.
The real damage was to her chest, ribs and lungs. He worried that if a rib was badly enough broken, it could poke in through the side of her lung, deflating it or tearing it open, causing internal bleeding. Listening carefully with his stethoscope as he moved it beneath the jacket he’d pulled over her, Alex didn’t hear any signs of collapsed lungs. Yet. For that, he was grateful. But, for the time being, it also meant Lauren couldn’t be moved very much because a rib could still jab into one of her lungs. If a lung collapsed, it would mean a spiraling trauma going deeper. She’d have only one lung left to breathe with, half of her ability to get oxygen into her body gone. It would take major surgery at a hospital to repair the torn lung tissue so they could reinflate her lung. And there was nothing out here, in the middle of the jungle, they could do to help her.Nothing.
