Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
FOB AZZOUAGH FIELD HOSPITAL
The Black Hawk bucked in the crosswinds, the rotors fighting the hot updraft like a living thing. Shannon kept one hand on the cyclic, the other steady on the collective, jaw tight beneath her mic.
“Falcon Three-One, maintain heading two-one-zero,” her CO crackled over comms from the companion bird. “Convoy lost contact twenty minutes ago. You’re our fastest lift asset. Get that contractor to the field hospital alive. We’ll pick up his team.”
“Copy.” Shannon banked low over the ridge.
Wind slammed the helo sideways. She corrected instinctively. Behind her, boots scrambled, gear clattered, and voices were tight.
Shannon didn’t turn. She kept flying.
Keating’s voice cut through the storm inside the cabin. “He’s crashing again. Chandler, keep bagging him harder; he’s not ventilating!”
Shannon’s breath caught.
Chandler’s voice rose, rough and urgent. “Come on, hermano. Come on.”
“Line’s infiltrated. Get another line. NOW.”
Someone groaned. Low, broken. Then nothing.
The portable monitor shrieked.
Shannon swallowed, grip tightening so hard, her knuckles blanched. “Cabin, status?” she demanded, forcing her voice level.
No answer.
“Falcon—he’s in v-fib! Prepare for defibrillation,” Keating shouted. “Charging to 200!” The monitor whined as it built charge. “Clear!”
The shock cracked through the cabin. The vibration ran up the frame of the helo into Shannon’s palms. Her stomach turned. Her pulse hammered. But she flew.
A second shock fired. Another. Then compressions. Friend counted between grunts. “Twenty-one… twenty-two… come on, come on.”
Shannon kept the bird steady even as wind tore at them, even as sweat dripped from her brow into her eyes. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.
The headset crackled. “Falcon Three-One, you’re below BINGO, if your patient is stable, you divert.”
“I’m landing at the field hospital,” Shannon cut in, harsher than she meant. “Hold airspace.”
The pad appeared through blowing sand with dim floodlights and a cluster of medics waiting. Shannon flared, set the bird down smoother than she’d ever managed in training. “Cabin clear!”
Friend and Keating were already throwing the hatch doors open, hauling the stretcher to the skid.
Shannon unbuckled, swung out, her boots hitting the ground hard, and finally she saw the patient.
A man. Strapped in. Bloodied. A medic breathing for him.
IVs, chest seals, pressure dressings. Bruises on bruises. Burns. Her chest twisted.
The tent flaps slammed inward as the medics barreled through, canvas whipping in the dusty wind. The air inside was heavy with antiseptic and sweat. The lights were dim, powered by a whining generator that flickered every few seconds.
Shannon jogged behind the stretcher, boots slipping in the reddish dust trampled into the dirt floor. Her pulse still hammered from the fight to keep the patient alive.
Her CO’s crew chief barked orders as they pushed the gurney toward the center cot. “Nurses! We need room!”
Three nurses were already there with tired eyes, but they froze when they saw the incoming mess. The patient was covered in blood-soaked bandages, weeping chest wounds, with an intubation tube.
The green surgeon, barely past his fellowship, met them halfway. “Oh God… put him here,” he said, voice cracking. “We need…” The monitor between Dante’s legs shrieked. “Start compressions.” He went pale at the sight of the wounds, becoming relatively useless.
Shannon opened her mouth to help, to explain what happened in flight, but then someone shouted, “JOHNSON!”
She turned and saw Ford, covered in dust, blood smeared down his sleeves. His eyes were wild and hollow.
Why is he here? She didn’t understand.
Not until her gaze snapped to the gurney again. Not until the medics rolled the patient onto the central cot and the monitors crackled awake. Not until she saw the face under the oxygen bag and dried blood.
Dante.
Her throat closed. “No. No… no… nonono…”
The surgeon fumbled with gloves, hands trembling so badly, he dropped the first pair.
Crew Chief Jackson pushed past him. “Move, you’re in the way.”
Chandler was right behind him, ripping open trauma kits. “Nurse, I need suction and O-neg now!”
The young surgeon sputtered, “You… you can’t… This is my—”
“DO SOMETHING OR MOVE!” Chandler snarled.
The surgeon stepped back, white as a ghost.
Shannon staggered toward the cot, but Ford caught her arm. “Don’t,” he choked. “You can’t be in the line. Shannon, listen—”
“THAT’S DANTE!” she screamed. “LET ME GO!”
The heart monitor spiked. Then stuttered.
Keating snapped, “Charging pads!”
A nurse slapped them onto Dante’s slick chest after trying to dry it. The ones from the helicopter had slid off.
Shannon’s entire world narrowed to the sound of the monitor.
The green surgeon whispered, horrified, “Oh God… oh God… he’s coding. Someone take the line…someone.”
Ford’s hands tightened around her waist as she lurched forward. “SHANNON, STOP,” he rasped. “We’ve got him; let Chandler work.”
She punched at his chest, blind with terror. “LET ME GO! DANTE!”
He held on, his voice breaking. “If you go in there now, you’ll make it worse.”
Inside the chaos, Chandler vaulted over a supply crate like a man possessed. “Starting compressions!” He dropped his hands to Dante’s sternum and began pushing hard, counting under his breath.
Keating shoved meds into the nurse’s hands. “Push epi now!”
The surgeon finally staggered back, hands shaking too badly to be of any help.
Ford grabbed a satellite radio off a tray near the entrance.
He barked into it, “This is Ford Cox at Forward Surgical Two—repeat—Ford Cox—Chase Security asset down, critical code blue. I need every available resource en route NOW. We need trauma backup, blood, antibiotics, everything you can move. Surgeon on site is incapacitated. Do you copy?!”
“Team en route from London. ETA five hours.”
Shannon’s breath came in broken bursts. Her vision blurred. Her whole body trembled.
From inside the tent, she heard, “Clear!” A jolt. “Clear again!” Another jolt.
Shannon pressed her forehead into Ford’s chest, sobbing into the dust and fabric. “Please… God… please…”
Chandler kept compressions. Harder. Faster. “Come on, brother. Come on. COME ON.”
Ford’s voice cracked against her hair. “They’re not giving up. Shannon, they’re not giving up.”
The monitor noise flickered. Skipped. Then, faintly, a beat. Then another. “WE HAVE A PULSE!” Chandler shouted. “Squeeze more blood and fluid in.”
Shannon sagged against Ford, knees buckling. The air inside the tent felt too thin and too hot. Sweat dripped from the canvas ceiling, landing on the dirt floor in uneven plinks.
She hovered at the edge of the room, one hand pressed over her mouth. Dante’s heartbeat was a faint blip on the portable monitor, the line trembling every few seconds like it might quit again.
Chandler didn’t stop moving. “His sats are collapsing. Lung’s gone. We need a chest tube NOW.”
The green surgeon blanched. “I-I’ve only done a few… in my fellowship. I always got my resident to do them.”
Keating snapped, “Then you’re not doing this one.”
The surgeon froze, eyes wide with shame and fear. Ford shoved a satellite phone toward Chandler. “Chase Command on the line. Dr. Patrick Hedges, trauma lead out of Denver.”
Chandler grabbed it with one hand, still bagging Dante with the other and the help of a nurse. “Hedges, this is Chandler. I have a male combatant, thirty-two, polytrauma, chest tube indicated, but we’ve got minimal equipment and no imaging.”
The speaker crackled. “Chandler, I’m with you. Tell me what you see.”
He leaned over Dante’s chest, sweeping away blood with a towel. “Patient is hypoxic. Sat at 82. Right lung… breath sounds diminished. Flail right chest. Trachea midline for now, but pressure’s climbing. He’s gonna tension.”
“Then we’re not waiting. You’re going in.” Pat paused. “Do you have lidocaine?”
“Negative,” Chandler said. “We’re raw.”
There was a pause—a single, heavy breath over the satellite connection. “All right. He won’t feel it anyway. Landmarks?”
“Fifth intercostal, mid-axillary line. It’s part of the flail segment.” Chandler was already prepping the area with iodine. “Scalpel, Kellys, chest tube thirty French, if we can find one.”
A nurse scrambled through the supply crate. “We’ve got a twenty and a twenty-eight. Nothing larger.”
Chandler swore.
“Use the twenty-eight. If he survives, Hunt can yell at me. Go nipple line. That’s the fourth ICS. Better than the moving one.”
Shannon swayed as her vision dimmed. Ford steadied her with a hand at her elbow. “Shannon, stay with me. You can’t go down too.”
Chandler positioned the scalpel. Keating and Jackson held Dante steady.
Hedges’ voice sharpened. “Deep breath. Make your incision on your exhale. Don’t hesitate.”
Chandler cut. Dante didn’t react. He was too far under, too far gone. Blood welled instantly.
“Spreading.” Chandler inserted the Kelly clamps, twisting them open to separate muscle and tissue. Shannon winced at the wet, hollow sound. A young nurse gagged in the corner.
“Tube,” Chandler commanded.
The head nurse slapped it into his free hand. “Advance on his exhale,” Hedges said. “Angle posterior. Air will vent first. You’re looking for fluid or air return.”
Chandler pushed the tube inward. For a moment, nothing happened. Then WHOOSH. A violent rush of trapped air exploded through the tube, followed by a wave of blood, spattering the ground. “Doc, we have air and blood. A lot of blood.”
Dante’s chest rose. The monitor beeped stronger.
Keating exhaled in relief. “We’ve got chest expansion. Pressure in the chest is dropping.”
“Good,” Hedges exhaled. “Secure the tube.”
Nurses taped it down. A makeshift Heimlich valve was attached, improvised from a cut glove finger and medical tape. Chandler sagged back on his heels.
Hedges’ voice softened over the sat phone. “Good work, Chandler. You just saved him. For now.”
Chandler scrubbed a bloody hand over his face. “Surgeon better get here fast.”
“ETA five hours,” Hedges said. “Hold the line. I’ll stay with you as long as the signal holds. How much blood do you have?”
Ford pressed the phone to his ear. “Command, confirm you heard? He’s still alive.”
“Copy,” Command replied. “Dr. Roe is inbound with two trauma nurses, equipment and blood. Evac plan in progress.”
Shannon staggered forward a step. Keating turned to block her gently. “Not yet, Falcon. He’s critical. We have to stabilize him before anyone goes near.”
Her voice cracked. “He can hear me.”
Chandler looked up, his eyes gentle for the first time all night. “He knows you’re here. Trust me. He knows. Doc, we have five more units of O-neg.”
“Then that has to be enough.”
Shannon swallowed hard and nodded, tears burning behind her eyes but refusing to fall. She wasn’t collapsing again.
For the next five hours, they used every resource to keep Dante alive. But they were meager at best.
The distant thump of rotor blades hit the base before the med tent heard it.
Chandler looked up, exhausted eyes narrowing. “That’s him.”
Ford was already on his feet. Shannon stood beside Dante’s gurney, one hand fisted in the sheet, the other braced on the tent pole to stay upright.
The tent flap snapped open as a medic shouted, “Incoming! Dr. Roe on approach!”
The third Black Hawk dipped into view through the open side of the tent with sand blasting across the ground in a blinding wave. The med flight team hit the dirt, shielding their faces.
Shannon didn’t flinch. She couldn’t take her eyes off the doorway.
A silhouette dropped from the helo before the skids even fully touched down. He was tall, fast-moving, with an enormous medical bag slung over one shoulder, his trauma coat whipping behind him like a flag.
Dr. Alistair Roe moved like a man who didn’t believe in wasted seconds. Two trauma nurses followed on his heels, carrying coolers marked O negative and sealed kits labeled Critical Resuscitation.
Roe reached the tent in six long strides, barking, “Where is he?”
Chandler stepped aside, chest rising and falling hard. “Inside. We stabilized him, but it’s bad.”
Roe swept past, ripping his gloves from his coat pocket as he walked. “Define bad.”
“Septic, hypotensive, had two arrests,” Chandler said. “Right lung decompressed, chest tube placed. Temp spiked to 106 before blood and fluids dropped it. It’s holding at 104.”
Roe froze for half a heartbeat, then he pushed through the curtain. Dante lay flushed, waxen, his chest rising only because the vent forced it to. Hedges was still on the sat phone.
Roe didn’t bother with introductions. “Give me the rest of the status.”
Keating added details, voice hoarse. The nurse handed Roe the chart that wasn’t really a chart, just vitals taped to cardboard.
Roe took one look. “Prep for surgery. Ten minutes.”
The green surgeon blinked. “But the OR tent— We don’t have—”
“We do now,” Roe snapped. “Move. Clear it. Boil instruments if you have to.”
Shannon swayed closer.
Roe noticed her for the first time. His tone softened by a fraction. “You must be Shannon.”
She nodded.
“I worked with your parents,” he said. “You’ve got their eyes.”
Her throat tightened as Roe stepped toward her. “But right now, I need you to step back. We cannot risk you falling apart in here.”
“I’m not…” Her voice cracked. Damn it. She straightened. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Roe nodded, respecting that. He turned to the team. “Someone get her water. And a chair. If she passes out on my patient, I’ll operate on her next.”
As Roe scrubbed in at a folding basin, Ford pulled out his phone. “Chase Command, this is Cox. Roe is onsite. Surgery imminent. We need Shannon off active roster before sunrise, or her CO will drag her back into a bird.”
Ian’s voice came through, sharp and awake despite the hour. “We’re already on it. Shannon is on emergency family leave as of five minutes ago.”
Ford exhaled in relief.
“And, Ford?” Ian added.
“Yeah?”
“Bring him home alive. That’s an order.”
Ford looked back toward the tent where Roe’s shoulders were squared like he was walking into a war he intended to win.
“We will,” Ford said.