Tested by Fire

by Pat Patterson

  “Sir!” Lance shouted. “Look out!”

  Lance shoved him. He fell down striking his shoulder against the wall and dropping his pistol. Sharp pain shot down his arm. His hand went partially numb. His eyes blurred with pain, but not so much that he couldn’t see what happened next. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lance grab the angry woman by the hair and fling her like a bag of dirty garbage. She tumbled down the hallway, cursing and screaming. Rico heard heavy footsteps. He turned his head and saw a large form appear from around the hallway corner and start toward them.

  “Stop,” Lance shouted. “Police!”

  Rico scrambled to pick up the pistol. His tingling fingers would barely respond. He gripped the stock as tight as he could and tried to squeeze the trigger, but before he could level his weapon a tongue of sharp orange flame leapt from the end of the hall. Then another. And another.

  The percussion waves pounded against Rico’s ears and chest. He heard a loud grunt. He saw Lance wildly jerk. The barrel of the MP5 jumped toward the ceiling, spraying a volley of useless rounds into the cinderblock walls and showering Rico with small chunks of concrete and dust.

  Rico could hardly see. He fought to breathe. The man was moving again—he could hear his running feet. He raised his pistol and aimed at the large form lumbering toward him. His fingers felt tingly and cold, his right arm dumb and weak. He squeezed the trigger three times. His .45 barked and jumped and almost leapt from his hand.

  Rico heard a deep groan. He fired three more times.

  His enemy stopped in his tracks, and then, ever so slowly, like a heavy oak deciding which way to fall, he teetered forward and fell to the floor.

  “Lance!”

  Rico heard deep gargled moans. His glanced at his downed partner.

  “Lance!” he shouted. “Hang on!”

  He heard more commotion in the front of the building. He rose to a kneeling position and steadied his pistol against his knee. He was ready to fire at anything, his right hand shaking as he made a mental count.

  Two more rounds! Two rounds left! Lance!

  Rico’s eyes were wild with rage.

  “Lance!” he shouted. “Hang on! Hang on!”

  Rico searched for another target as he reached for a spare ammo clip. His thoughts were racing, his mind berserk with fear. He tried to focus as he slammed the new clip into the pistol stock, but his dust-filled eyes couldn’t see. He shifted his gaze back and forth between his partner and the hallway door. He heard another burst of gunfire ring from the front of the building. His heart pounded. He fingered the trigger and waited. And waited. And waited. And then there was silence and all he could hear was his own deep breathing, and the sound of his partner gargling, fighting to stay alive.

  “Officer down!” Rico shouted. “Officer down! Report!”

  “Alpha,” his headset sounded. “Clear!”

  “Bravo, clear!”

  “Back hallway!” Rico shouted. “Lance is down! Hurry! Oh, no, no, no,” Rico cried.

  He threw down his weapon and wiped his eyes. He knelt beside his partner. He placed his hand over a spurting wound on the side of Lance’s neck. A wet pulsing sensation beat against his palm. He watched helplessly as a steady stream of blood flowed down his own arm and dripped onto the dirty tile floor. Lance’s eyes looked wide with shock. His face began to pale.

  “Hang on,” Rico cried. “Help’s on the way.”

  “Rico!” Jimmy Little rushed around the corner with his weapon raised. “Rico!”

  “Jimmy,” Rico shouted. “It’s Lance! He’s shot!”

  “EMS!” Jimmy shouted. “Get EMS!”

  Chapter 28

  Jim was still wrestling with his feelings, trying to understand what had happened, how a little boy could go without breathing for more than fifteen minutes and end up just fine, when he and Sharon walked into Patrone’s Italian Pizzeria. He quickly put the call behind him as he felt his mouth begin to water. The combined aromas of garlicky tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese practically made his head swim. He couldn’t wait to eat. He turned his radio volume down and followed Sharon through the maze of checkered tablecloths to the back of the restaurant where a short bald man with muscular arms tossed rounded pizza dough into the air high above his head. His apron, covered with red sauce and sweat, fit tightly about a barrel-shaped chest made even broader by his tight wife-beater shirt. Luigi Patrone caught the dough, gave it a quick spin around his hands and then tossed it onto a waiting pizza pan. He winked at Jim and leaned over the counter. Gave Sharon a playful pinch.

  “She smells good, huh?”

  Like a peppermint, Jim thought. Luigi pecked Sharon on the cheek and went back to work. Sharon giggled and bobbled the way a plum would if it could. Jim picked up a menu and chuckled silently.

  “So?” Luigi said. “My dear friends, what will it be tonight? Pepperoni? Sausage?”

  “Pepperoni,” Jim said tossing the menu aside. “Two.”

  Sharon ordered four. Luigi took their money then leaned back over the counter and whispered something into Sharon’s ear.

  Another giggle.

  Jim had had enough. He left Sharon flirting and found a table next to the door. He thought of Valerie as he waited. Wondered what she was doing and where she was. He pulled out his cell and punched in her number. It rang four times before the recording began. Jim hung up, pocketed the phone, and massaged the new goose egg on the back of his head. He thought of their last EMS call…the attentive look on the young boy’s face as they were leaving the ER…the joyful look in his parents’ eyes. Maybe Jesus really does hear prayers. He heard a siren and glanced outside. A police car screamed past. Then another. Hmm. He didn’t give it too much thought until a third traced by. Jim turned up the radio volume and rotated the frequency switch to SCAN. The police channel came alive with activity.

  “…ervoir Street…I repeat, officer down! Send an ambulance fast!”

  “Sharon,” Jim shouted. “We need to go—”

  Sharon glanced at him, obviously annoyed. “What?”

  “Now,” Jim said running for the door. “A cop’s been shot.”

  Jim hurried out the door and ran for the truck. The dispatcher’s voice came over the EMS channel, her tone a full octave higher than usual, her rapid-fire delivery as precisely punctuated as Jim had ever heard.

  “EMS report for medic-three…officer down! I repeat, officer down! Police requesting assistance on Lakeland Avenue from Reservoir to the dead-end. Medic-three, respond code-three.”

  Sharon climbed into the passenger’s seat and buckled in. “Where?”

  “Lakeland.”

  “Lakeland? We’re almost on top of that.”

  “I know.”

  Jim had the truck in gear and moving before the dispatcher had a chance to finish repeating the call. Medic-3 responded, placing themselves en route from the corner of 5th and Evans. Sharon shook her head, but before she could key her mike the dispatcher came back with an update. “Correction, we have two subjects shot. Medic-five, respond with medic-three to a subject shot on Lakeland Avenue, Reservoir to the dead-end.”

  Sharon keyed up immediately.

  “Medic-seven to East Beach, cancel five. We’ll be en route from The Commons. ETA, two minutes.”

  Jim switched his radio to the OPS channel and keyed the mike. “Medic-seven to PD on Lakeland.”

  No response.

  “Seven to PD on the scene at Lakeland.”

  Still nothing.

  “Please no,” Jim said, “don’t let it be Rico.”

  “Two twenty-two to medic-seven.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.”

  “Go ahead, Rico.”

  “My partner’s down! Gunshot wound to the neck. Heavy blood loss. What’s your ETA?”

  “One minute.”

  “We’re in the back of the building! Hurry!”

  Jim grabbed his stethoscope from the dash and threw it around his neck as he rounded the corner from Sound Avenue onto Lakeland. Half
a dozen red and blue strobes flashed at the other end. He stopped behind the gauntlet of squad cars and set the brake.

  “Sharon, I’m going in. Bring the trauma box.”

  Jim didn’t wait for his partner to respond. He jumped from the truck and ran inside the building. The smell of burnt gunpowder and the strange, sharp, mixed aromas of acetone and ammonia immediately assaulted him. He glanced around the room. A number of tables were set up in its center loaded with camp stoves and stained with white and orange residues as if from boiled-over pots. He spotted a cop standing on the other side of the room.

  “Where to?” he said.

  “Follow me.”

  Jim followed the cop to an adjacent room where a heavily tattooed male lay on the floor. Two small black holes punctured his bare chest and abdomen. He looked bad, Jim thought, but at that moment he couldn’t have cared less.

  “No,” he said. “Take me to Rico! His partner’s down.”

  “Jim,” Sharon said rushing up behind him. “I’ll get this one. Go.”

  Sharon dropped to a knee and began to examine the injured biker. Jim followed the officer down a long hallway to the back of the building. He found Rico sitting in a pool of blood cradling the other victim, a tall, blond-haired man in the black jumpsuit and Kevlar of a Special-Ops police officer. He had his hand pressed against the cop’s neck. He had a terrified look on his face.

  “Jim!”

  “Oh, no, Rico, is that Lance?”

  “Jim,” Rico said, “he’s bad! Real bad!”

  “How many times was he shot?”

  “I don’t know. Once, maybe twice.”

  “Okay. Keep pressing hard. Don’t let go.”

  Jim felt Lance’s wrist for a pulse. There wasn’t one. He grabbed his trauma scissors, cut away the left sleeve, and reached higher to feel the inside of Lance’s elbow. The brachial pulse felt palpable but weak.

  “Other truck’s here,” Sharon said rushing into the room and opening the trauma box. “What do you have?”

  “Not good. Large caliber gunshot wound to the neck, and—” Jim located a second finger-sized hole on the front of Lance’s upper leg. “Another one in his hip. Let’s get this bleeding under control first, then we can get him intubated and out of here.”

  “Here,” Sharon said, folding an 8x10 trauma dressing into a tight wad and handing it to Rico. “Put this over the wound. “Keep pressure on it.”

  Rico grabbed the dressing and placed it over the bleeding wound. Jim ripped away Lance’s bulletproof vest and cut his shirt up the middle to expose his chest. The skin looked pale but clean. No sign of further trauma. But Lance’s breathing, he noticed, had become increasingly labored. His chest muscles heaved with each attempted breath. Jim placed his stethoscope against his ribcage and moved it around. Breath sounds were rapid and shallow on the right side. Absent on the left.

  “Rico?” Jim removed the stethoscope from his ears and glanced at Rico. He’d never seen such a look of desperation—teeth tightly clinched eyes wide with horror. “I need you to do something for me.”

  “I’ll…I’ll try.”

  “Okay, first—” Jim nudged Rico and forced him to the side. “Let me have that.” He pressed his fingers over the neck wound. The bandage was sticky, saturated with blood. “Now take one of your men out to the truck and get the stretcher. Sharon and I have a couple of things to do before we can get out of here.”

  Rico nodded and took off.

  “This,” Jim said, placing a piece of tape over the dressing and snapping his fingers for another, “…does not look good.”

  “Maybe you should say another prayer.” Sharon tore off a six-inch piece of tape. “The last one sure worked.”

  “Tell you what,” Jim said, cutting away the remainder of Lance’s tee shirt. “You intubate him. I’ll decompress and pray. His left lung just collapsed.”

  Jim grabbed a fourteen-gauge IV catheter from the med-box and placed the razor sharp point against Lance’s left ribcage. He felt the characteristic “pop” as he thrust the needle through the chest wall, then he withdrew the needle to leave behind the hollow catheter. A fine, red spray spewed from the end. Jim sighed and checked again for a radial pulse. There still wasn’t one. He double-checked the brachial and realized that it, too, was gone.

  “He’s crashing.”

  “I know,” Sharon said. “Help me.”

  Jim grabbed the Ambu-bag and started ventilating while Sharon assembled her equipment. On her command he squeezed the bag two more times and moved aside. He watched her insert the laryngoscope blade, and then the tube. He waited until she had inflated the cuff then attached the Ambu-bag to the end of the tube and resumed ventilations. Sharon placed her stethoscope over Lance’s chest, moved it around for a quick check, and then held up one thumb.

  “Tube’s good,” she said, tapping the left chest, “but I hear a lot of blood and junk in there.”

  “Where’s the stretcher?”

  Jim glanced over his shoulder and saw the screen door fly open. Rico came in leading the stretcher, followed by a couple of firefighters and a bunch of cops.

  “How is he?” Rico exclaimed. “How bad is it?”

  “Rico, he’s still with us. Don’t give up.”

  “But what can I…Jim, you gotta I—”

  “Rico!” Jim saw Rico back down. He turned to the firefighters. “Can ya’ll help us get him immobilized please?”

  Jim worked with Sharon, Rico, two firefighters, and about a half-dozen cops to get Lance Albright’s inert body logrolled and secured by heavy straps to a yellow spine-board. A minute later they transferred him to the stretcher and strapped him down. Two minutes later they had him in the back of the ambulance. Jim climbed in. Sharon climbed in right behind him. Rico stepped onto the bumper and tried to climb inside.

  “Hold on,” Jim said. “What’re you doing?”

  “I’m coming with you!”

  “No, Rico,” Jim said. “Listen, man, let us do our job.” Rico gazed at him, his face awash with uncertainty. Jim nodded at him and gave a hopeful smile. “Rico, it’s all right. We’ve got him, pal.”

  Rico backed out of the truck shaking his head. “Jim! You take care of him!”

  “We will.”

  “Jim…”

  “Rico. I’ve got him.”

  Jim gave Rico a reassuring wink and pulled the back doors closed. He turned and faced his partner. He shook his head. “We can’t lose him, Sharon.”

  “I know,” she responded with a grimace. “Let’s get to work.”

  Chapter 29

  The next five minutes went by like one. Jim wrapped a rubber tourniquet around Lance’s right bicep and spiked two 1000-cc bags of lactated Ringers. He selected a blue antecubital vein, prepped it with Betadine, and jabbed it with a 14-gauge IV catheter. The clear chamber behind the needle immediately filled with dark red blood. He advanced the catheter into the vein, withdrew the needle, and attached the trauma line. With a twist of the flow-meter wheel, fresh IV solution began to pour into Lance’s vein.

  “Line’s good,” Sharon. “How’s compliance?”

  Sharon shook her head as she squeezed the Ambu-bag. “Bad. I think he’s filling up.”

  “I wish we could put in a chest tube and drain him.” Jim ripped open a fresh trauma pad and applied it over the saturated neck dressing, then attached the cardiac monitor and ran a strip. “I guarantee they’ll be doing one in the ER.”

  “Speaking of the ER, you better go ahead and call them, we’re getting close.”

  Jim pulled his radio from his back pocket and keyed the mike. “Regional ER, Regional ER, medic-seven with emergency traffic.”

  Jim used the brief pause that followed to drop his radio and rip open another IV setup. He had the line jabbed into the bottom of the bag and flushed by the time anyone responded. The voice on the other end sounded cool. Disinterested. Jim hung the bag on a ceiling clip and picked up the radio.

  “Regional, heads-up. We’re five minut
es out with a RED-TAG trauma. I repeat, RED-TAG. We’ve got an unconscious police officer shot two times with a large caliber weapon, once each in the neck and hip. Severe blood loss…most of it appears to be in his left chest cavity. We’ve intubated, decompressed, and currently have two IV’s running wide open by trauma line. Bradycardia on the monitor but we’re losing pulses rapidly. Do you have a room? Over.”

  The ER staff person responded immediately. She gave Jim a room assignment and double-checked his ETA.

  “Four minutes.”

  Jim wrapped a tourniquet around Lance’s left bicep and started another IV. Sharon continued to ventilate. Jim started the line and set it to run wide open.

  “Sharon, what else can we do?”

  “Elevate his feet.”

  Jim adjusted the foot of the stretcher and looked at Sharon. “Anything else?”

  “No, I think that’s about it.”

  Jim noticed a sudden change in the beeping of the cardiac monitor. He glanced at the screen and held his breath as he watched the heart rate drop.

  40…36…30…

  “Uh oh.” Jim grimaced and reached for the med-box. “How’s his pulse?”

  Sharon placed her fingertips on Lance’s neck and shook her head. “I’ve got nothing.”

  “No?”

  Jim glanced at the screen and watched the ECG complexes disappear into a flat line. He quickly attached an ampoule of epinephrine to the IV stopcock, pushed the contents into the line, and then placed his hands over Lance’s sternum and started chest compressions.

  “Jesus,” he whispered the memory of the grape miracle fresh in his mind, “help us again now. Please save this man.”

  Jim continued compressions for one minute and then stopped and stared at the ECG monitor. A procession of small green complexes grew out of the flat line and began to march steadily across the screen. He felt Lance’s wrist for a pulse, then his neck, but the steady thumping sensation he had hoped to feel beneath the pads of his fingertips wasn’t there. Lance’s eyes contained no life, just the dull, glazed over film of recent death. Jim felt his heart sink. He thought of Rico.