Jack threw away his half-full paper cup of coffee and charged down the side stairs of the mobile command post now that the Army ambulance had arrived. Not that he would be able to do a damned thing for the injured private.
His boots pounded pavement toward the open ramp of the medivac plane-—fully equipped for surgery. Shouldering through the crowd at the base of the plane, he worked his way into sight of the mayhem inside. He didn't know who the page had found, Monica or one of the other deployed doctors. Either way, he hoped to find the physician doing nothing more than setting some bones or stitching up an arm.
Instead he found Monica covered in blood.
He didn't do blood well, odd thing for a military guy, but there it was. Since Tina's death, all he remembered about that night was blood from the emergency C-section as they worked to save the baby while trying to save her. All the while dragging him out of the room.
To this day he couldn't even get a vaccine without breaking into a cold sweat.
For the most part his job didn't involve a lot of blood, and that was fine by him. Monica's job was all about blood. But even as his head went a little light, he couldn't look away from her involved in something so much more intense than a routine flight physical.
IV bags dangled from poles, some with clear fluid, another two dripping blood into the tube. Even with the olive-green surgical drapes, Jack could still see enough—the young man's boots, his head with an oxygen mask over his nose. A medic stood to the side, suctioning out the soldier's mouth. And in the middle of the orders and bustles and suctioning noise he heard wheezing.
Gurgling.
Death sounds of a lung deflating.
The magnitude of what was happening hit him. A kid was in there dying. Someone he had brought here. Jack braced a hand on the side of the C-17. Constricted breaths pinched inside his chest.
Monica flipped up the field medical card and scanned the contents, face unemotional. Her fingers tightened momentarily around the card.
She spoke succinctly, her firm unshakable voice somehow piercing the echoing clatter of feet and jangling equipment. "ABCs, people. Airway. Breathing. Circulation."
Her gloved finger swiped his mouth, pulling free a J-shaped device that had secured his tongue flat. With quick efficiency, she slid a tube down his throat, setting up oxygen and suction into one system while the flight nurse took vitals and called out updates.
Monica peeled back the bandage.
"Damn." The word hissed from between her teeth, her only hint of emotion before she began to flush out the wound.
Monitors squawked a half second before the flight nurse called, "He's crashing."
"Paddles."
The cavernous aircraft filled with activity. Equipment rolled from offstage closer to the litter holding their patient. Medical staffers moved around each other at breakneck speed, all focused on the patient yet never impeding one another's momentum. An absurd ballet of life and death. Organized pandemonium.
"Switch to 300. Clear."
The body jolted.
Silence.
Twice more she repeated the routine until defeat slowly filtered onto every face. Except Monica's.
"Two minutes down, Doctor," the flight nurse called.
"Get me the rib spreaders," Monica called.
A brief hesitation.
"Spreaders." No shouting, just an irrefutable order that elicited instant results, her complete control essential when seconds counted. Her assertiveness, that bossiness he teased her about, took on a new complexion, a forgivable trait in light of what her job demanded.
She leaned over the private with the oversize tongs.
He would never forget the sound. Like cracking open a chicken carcass.
Blood splurted.
He heard gagging behind him, followed by retching fading with running feet heading to the side of the plane. He didn't turn, immobilized even as his own supper knocked around inside his gut.