by Toby Neal
Chapter Twenty-Three
Raveaux
Raveaux and Agno pulled on the rope moments later when Nine signaled them, but Connor wasn’t coming up—they simply didn’t have the strength. “There’s a winch on the bird,” the pilot panted. “Let me move the chopper closer and we’ll use it to haul him up.”
“Wish we’d used that from the beginning.” Raveaux’s lungs were burning, his hands bloody, and his back, legs, and arms trembled. “Let me tie him off on this rock protrusion while you move the helicopter closer to us.”
“Gotcha.”
Raveaux used his bodyweight and the rope looped around his back to get some leverage, dropping the rope around a knurl of lava and sagging to his knees in relief as the weight came off. The pilot let go of his end of the rope, scrambled to his feet, and ran back to the helicopter. Moments later, he had bunny-hopped the craft to within a few feet of Raveaux. By then, Raveaux had his breath back enough to feed the rope to Agno through the open door and into the floor-mounted winch.
The pilot cranked Connor up within minutes.
The blond man had passed out, but was breathing. His color was good, though his O2 canister appeared to be empty. The pilot brought out another canister and put it on him as Raveaux quickly untied the rope and tossed it back down into the pit. “Nine! Tie this around yourself. We have a winch and we’ll get you out in no time!” he hollered into the foul-smelling darkness.
No answer from the enigmatic Thai man.
Sophie, sitting up in the chopper, emitted a hoarse croak at the sight of Connor’s body, sprawled on the lip of the pit. Raveaux frowned at her fiercely. “Lie down, before you collapse!” he barked.
Sophie lay back down beside Jake. She took her partner’s hand and turned toward him.
Raveaux wrenched his attention back to the current crisis.
Nine had not reappeared.
“Nine!” he bellowed, feeling his heart thunder. “Merde!”
There was no help for it—he’d have to go get the man. He spoke to Agno. “I’m going in after Nine. You’re going to have to use the winch to lower me, and pull both of us back up at the same time.”
“Do it,” The pilot said. “Signal me by pulling on the rope when you’re ready.” Agno glanced at Raveaux’s bleeding hands. “Here, take my gloves.” He stripped them off and handed them to Raveaux.
“Merci.” There were no more O2 cans; they’d have to make do with what Raveaux and Nine were currently using.
Raveaux lashed the rope around his waist and stepped toward the narrow opening. It had been many years since his early training in the French army, but necessity would bring back his skill. His hands were in terrible shape, but at least they were covered now, and they would also do what they needed to.
He took a deep breath of supportive oxygen, and rappelled carefully down into the murk.
Raveaux’s eyes stung from the foul gases, but the plastic mask over his nose and mouth kept providing what he needed most to breathe. He braced his feet on the crumbling stone and dirt wall until suddenly it fell away, and he spun downward into a darkness lit by a terrifyingly hot red glow at one edge of the cave—magma!
The cavern was filling with lava, bubbling in from a side tunnel in fierce red glowing streams. Raveaux spun gently down as the winch lowered him, and finally spotted Nine.
The man had collapsed on one of the ledges near the ceiling, right where he must have tied the rope onto Connor.
“Quel désastre,” Raveaux murmured. “Like a relay race gone bad.” He shook his head briefly at the ridiculousness of this deadly adventure—but at least he wore proper clothing and boots, and still had oxygen. Nine and Connor’s canisters hadn’t been full—they must have been used. And the two had been wearing nothing but martial arts robes and rubber soled sandals, the fools.
The rope dropped him onto a boulder on the floor. Raveaux hurried across the cracked stony surface, jumping over a fingerling of lava, and reached the ledges leading up the side of the cavern. He climbed rapidly to where Nine had passed out and lifted the solidly-built Thai man into his arms. He draped Nine’s arms over his shoulders and ran the rope between the man’s legs, wrapping his arms around his torso. He tugged on the rope with both hands to signal Agno to pull them up.
Unless he let go of the rope, he wouldn’t drop Nine. This modified fireman’s carry was the best he could come up with, though bound to be damned uncomfortable by the time they got to the top.
The winch began trundling up, pulling in slack rope that had sagged.
Only then did Raveaux suck a deep breath in, and cover Nine’s nose and mouth with his own plastic mask. He pinched Nine on the arm, hard. “Wake up and breathe, man. Breathe,” he entreated in French, then English. He shook and joggled Nine in his arms. The man groaned—and breathed. Raveaux quickly moved the mask over his own nose and mouth and drew a breath of the oxygen, then put it back on Nine’s face as the man’s short, thick eyelashes fluttered. “Breathe,” he said again. “Wake up, Nine!”
The rope went taut all of a sudden, lifting Raveaux and Nine off the ledge. The full weight of the other man in his arms and the rough rope running through his torn hands and between their legs hit Raveaux at once. He gave a low cry of agony and made the mistake of inhaling. The foul sulfur gas burned his lungs. He couldn’t decide what hurt worse: his hands, his chest where the rope cut in, or his abused throat and streaming eyes.
Suddenly he felt the mask over his face, and he breathed blessed fresh air as Nine held it on him, patting his back in silent thanks. Raveaux kept his eyes shut, but inhaled as deeply as he could without coughing. Seconds later, the mask disappeared as Nine used it to take a breath.
The painful ascent felt endless until they reached the lip. Agno paused the winch, came to the edge, and helped haul the two men up onto level ground. The three of them collapsed for a moment in exhaustion; then Raveaux roused himself.
Raveaux staggered to his feet with Nine in his arms. “Get us out of here!” he yelled to Agno through the plastic mask. “The lava’s coming up from below at any minute!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Raveaux
Raveaux turned his head to look into the back of the chopper as they arrowed at top speed across the desolate lava plain.
Nine and Connor, still out of it, but awake and breathing, sat in the seats behind Raveaux and the pilot. Lying on the floor in the cargo area were Sophie and Jake, covered by emergency thermal blankets and both still on O2. Jake was still unconscious, and though fading, the bright red skin color caused by excessive sulfur dioxide inhalation and hypoxia were worrisome.
The man might have sustained brain damage. He might never wake up.
“Stay positive,” Connor said in Raveaux’s ear through the comm, his voice a thready rasp. Raveaux met the man’s sea-blue eyes and nodded briefly—he hadn’t realized he’d spoken his fears aloud.
He glanced behind again, and his gaze fastened on Sophie. She was lying on her side facing Jake, stroking his face, his arm. The gesture was filled with longing, with love, with fear.
Raveaux, suddenly nauseous, turned and faced forward. Agno, steady at the controls, glanced at him. “Keep your eyes on the horizon line. Looking down or backward really makes people get airsick fast.”
“Vraiment,” Raveaux murmured. “I am feeling it. Perhaps too much of that bad gas, as well.”
“It’s amazing you are all doing as well as you are.” Agno sounded downright cheerful now that they were headed for the hospital and he’d soon be rid of them. “I’ve radioed ahead that we have sulfur dioxide inhalation victims to treat. They will want to check all of you out.”
“We’re on a tight schedule,” Connor said. “I’m afraid Nine and I won’t be joining Jake and Sophie for medical care.”
Nine held up his cruel little blade alongside Agno’s sight line. The pilot groaned aloud. “You gotta be shittin’ me. Not this again. Put that pig sticker away and I’ll take you wherever you want to go�
�so long as I never have to see any of you again.”
Connor’s eyes crinkled with humor as he leaned forward between the seats. “Nine and I just need to return to the airport after we let our people off at the hospital. To sweeten the deal and make sure you don’t tell anyone about this little adventure, we’ll throw in something toward your retirement.” He named a figure that made the pilot’s eyes widen and his Adam’s apple bob.
“That’ll do,” the man said.
Soon, the chopper was lowering to the parking lot outside the entrance marked Emergency on a big red sign. Raveaux clutched the door’s handle, gulping down bile.
Medical personnel ran out to meet them with a gurney; Raveaux flung aside his harness and leaped out of the front seat. “We need two stretchers,” he told a nurse as he opened the side door of the helicopter. “The male victim, Jake Dunn, has never regained consciousness, though he’s breathing and on oxygen.”
The staff fired questions at Raveaux as they loaded Sophie and Jake onto gurneys and hooked up IVs. Connor and Nine stayed seated in the chopper throughout. Moments later, the helicopter was rising in the air, with its roar and blast of stinging prop wash, pushing the medical team to run into the building. Raveaux looked back, and Connor, visible in the side window, raised his hand in goodbye.
Would he ever see that enigmatic man and his Thai sidekick again? No way to tell. He hurried into the building in the wake of the team ferrying Sophie and Jake.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sophie
Sophie woke up gradually from a terrible dream. It evaded her grasp as such things do, dissipating in a foul-smelling mist that was gone even as she tried to remember it. But as she lay in bed, her eyelids twitching, she tried to bring it back. The dream had felt urgent, important, as if there were some information hidden in it that she needed to act upon.
She moved, and everything hurt. Her lips parted to let out a sound of distress, but no sound came out.
“Easy.” Raveaux’s accented voice. She felt a straw at her lips. “Drink.”
She drank.
Room temperature water tasted like ambrosia and felt like heaven as it flowed across her mouth and down her scratchy, sore throat.
Jake.
Her eyes flew open, searching for him, but all she could see was Raveaux, looking disheveled in the same combat clothing and dark stubble he’d worn for the rescue. He’d pulled his chair close to the bed where he held the plastic cup with its straw, and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “He is being treated. He is alive,” Raveaux said. “Drink some more water.”
Sophie shut her eyes in relief. They felt gritty and dry as dusty desert stones. She must have been dehydrated, or worse. She drank until she could hold no more, then waved the straw away.
Jake was alive. That’s all that mattered.
She slept again.
The next time she woke, it was to feel her father’s hand stroking her arm, and hear his deep, resonant voice. “Sophie. My beautiful girl. Wake up, honey.”
She opened her eyes. “Dad.” Her voice was a croak, but at least she could speak now. “You came.”
“Of course, I came.” Ambassador Francis Smithson’s face looked haggard; there were more white strands than she remembered in his close-cropped hair. “You used up another of your nine lives, my girl.”
Sophie lifted a hand to cup his cheek, enjoying the way her golden-brown fingers looked against his darker skin tone. “I love you, Daddy.”
“And I love you. I thought you promised never to put me through spending a night next to you in a hospital bed, again.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “I did try. Where’s . . .” She looked around. “Raveaux was here.”
“He went to get some needed shut-eye and update the folks at Security Solutions when I arrived last night. Haven’t seen him today.”
“And Jake? How is he?” Her voice trailed off as her father held up the familiar plastic cup and straw. “I can’t drink any more until I get to the bathroom. Can you help me?” It suddenly seemed like her bladder was going to burst.
Her father helped her get out of bed and wheel along the IV as she held her gown shut and barely made it to the toilet in time. “They seem to have pumped me full of fluids,” she said.
“Making up for all you lost.” Frank’s expression was serious as he helped her settle back into bed. “I called Alika and Armita to let them know what happened to you. They want to know if they should bring Momi and come.”
Sophie’s eyes filled, and she shook her head. “No. I don’t want Momi to be frightened by seeing me in the hospital. In this kind of shape.” She gestured to the bruises and cuts decorating her body.
“When you’re home, then. I’ll text Armita now, since your phone is missing,” her father said.
Sophie took a moment to gather her resources as Frank worked his phone with his thumbs. The nurse entered and took Sophie’s blood pressure. “You’re looking much better, young lady,” she said. “The doctor will want to meet with you in the next few hours and go over a few things, then we plan to discharge you.”
“Oh, good. I didn’t think there was anything really wrong with me except for inhaling too much of the volcano gas,” Sophie said. “But the man I came in with—my partner, Jake Dunn. How is he doing?”
“I can’t tell you about that,” the nurse said, adjusting the IV drip. “HIPAA regulations. Family only.”
“But—” Sophie frowned in frustration. “He’s my boyfriend. Ask anyone. I’m the closest thing he has to family in Hawaii.”
“I’m sorry. Regulations.” The woman adjusted a few more things, made a few more notes. “Your father can help you gather your personal items. We should have you out of here soon.”
She left.
Sophie aimed her frustration at her father. “I have to see Jake.”
Frank shrugged. “They won’t tell me anything either. Maybe Raveaux knows? He brought you two in, had to make a report to your headquarters.”
“Where is he?” Sophie scanned the room. “And where is Connor? I could swear he was part of the rescue effort.”
“Like I said, I don’t know. Who do you want me to call?”
“I don’t know Raveaux’s number. It’s in my phone, and the meth gang took it before they threw us in the pit. I’ll have to try to get an update from Bix at Security Solutions.” She directed her father on how to find the primary contact number, and soon the phone was ringing through to Bix’s office.
Sophie drank more water to lubricate her throat as Bix’s crisp voice picked up. “Sophie. I was wondering when I’d hear from you.”
“It’s hard to communicate without a phone.” Sophie coughed. “Or much of a voice. It appears I will be discharged soon—they were treating me for dehydration and gas inhalation. But I can’t find out anything about Jake. Is he all right?”
Bix cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but he isn’t. He’s in a coma and on a ventilator. They’re worried about a lack of brain activity that may have to do with being deprived of oxygen for too long.”
Sophie’s eyes widened and her throat seized up. She tried to speak, but nothing would come out.
Her father snatched the phone and put it on speaker. “Bix? This is Ambassador Smithson. Back up the bus and tell us everything you know.”
“I don’t know much.” Bix’s voice had slowed; he sounded genuinely regretful. “I’m sorry, Sophie, and I hope I’m wrong, but the doctor that spoke to me and Raveaux said he’d been deprived of oxygen for too long to recover normally. He was on the ledge four or five feet below you with less oxygen available; and he exerted himself strenuously getting you up onto the shelf above him. He’s no longer breathing on his own—that’s why they put him on a ventilator. He has not regained consciousness, and he’s not expected to.”
Sophie gasped, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to breathe, but the air wouldn’t come in. She was smothering. Her damaged lungs labored and she coughed uncontroll
ably, curling on her side.
Her father ended the call and pulled Sophie into his arms. “Breathe, honey. Just breathe. It’s all you have to do.”
But how could she, when Jake couldn’t even do that? She coughed and coughed, and then she wept.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Raveaux
Raveaux stared through the glass window of the Intensive Care Unit at what remained of Jake Dunn. After responding to CPR out in the field, his breathing function had failed, and now he was on a ventilator, propped up in bed. Tubes and wires surrounded him in a nest of beeping, blinking activity, but the man himself lay still. He’d been thoroughly cleaned of the ash and dirt he and Sophie had been so liberally coated in, and the many cuts and abrasions he’d sustained from falling debris were covered with bandages. The red flush had faded from his skin, but his tan was a sickly yellow, and purplish circles hung beneath his puffy eyes, barely visible behind the ventilator’s mask.
Jake looked like hell. Close to death.
And he’d probably wish he’d died rather than be a vegetable like this . . . Sophie’s heart was going to be broken. Raveaux’s belly lurched with compassionate pain.
“Excuse me, sir.” A nurse approached. “Are you Pierre Raveaux?”
“I am.”
“A patient we are discharging, Sophie Smithson, is asking for you.”
“All right.” Raveaux sighed heavily. He dreaded breaking the news to her. “Is Jake Dunn’s family on their way?”
“Yes. They’ve been apprised of his condition.” The woman turned to look at the broken form on the bed. “Such a shame. He was in the prime of life.”
“Yes, he was.” Raveaux felt ancient, far from that prime of life—as if he’d always been too old. “I’ll go to Sophie’s room. No need to show me the way—I know where it is.”