Honor Courage Commitment
Page 18
“You’ll go with him on the next available flight now,” Wallace said. It was more a statement than a question.
“Yes. Jan’s done a great job, Vern,” Gant said, “but we need to get him to Kandahar for an MRI ASAP.”
“Right,” Tanaka said, “so, let’s get an X-ray, see if there’s anything else in there I didn’t spot.”
A technician positioned the portable X-ray machine at Angel’s head.
Gant addressed Mason and O’Malley. “You guys can stay with him when he goes into the Recovery Room if you like.”
They nodded their thanks.
“May I go too?” Amanda asked in a small voice.
Gant nodded. “I need to go sort out the paperwork. I’ll have some food sent over. It’s going to be a long night on the MEDEVAC flight.”
* * *
Angel’s X-rays—and follow-up MRI scan at Kandahar—had shown no further injuries to his head. Now, with favorable weather conditions, they were looking at a seven-hour flight into Ramstein Airbase, Germany, for the stopover at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Settling into the seat next to her, Gant suggested Amanda get some sleep, but that was the last thing on her mind. Before the plane finished taxiing to the end of the runway, Gant’s chin was sagging to his chest.
There were twelve patients aboard the leviathan U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster and Angel was one of the three needing intensive care. He was attached to a ventilator, but every so often she would go talk to him, taking his limp hand in hers and filling him in on how close he was getting to home. Gant, another medical officer, and Amanda herself, regularly monitored his vital stats, oxygen levels and breathing, and the drug intake.
Despite Gant’s exhortations to rest, sleep would not come. Amanda read, fidgeted, helped monitor the other patients, and now she was, once again, sitting across from Angel; her mind wandering, her eyelids drooping.
She jerked awake at the sound of a commotion.
“He’s in V-fib! Starting CPR. Someone bag him—and get the defib.”
Gant was already out of his seat attending to the man whose heart was arresting. Someone called, “Normal sinus,” and a pang of guilt swept through Amanda at her reaction to it not being Angel who coded.
Gant sat back down with a sigh. “You want to take over monitoring Angel? That other patient needs someone in attendance now too.”
Amanda stood. “Would Angel be here if he hadn’t pulled that lump of metal out of his head himself?”
“It had to be removed eventually and the outcome would have been the same. Fortuitous that he did it in front of the FST though.”
“What’s his prognosis, Will?”
“We won’t know until he’s out of the coma.”
23
In the hospital garden, Zanna and Raul sat on a picnic table with their feet resting on the seat and watched Rivera, who was lying on the grass, pumping out crunch after crunch. He was up to over one hundred in two minutes now.
Raul cracked a yawn.
Zanna laughed. “Watching Rivera do all this work is so tiring, huh?” She nudged him with her knee. “But seriously, my bubbling fount of knowledge, what does passing this upcoming Medical Evaluation Board entail?”
“How long you got?”
She placed both hands over her heart. “I could listen to you expound all day . . . and, no, that is not a euphemism!”
Raul made an obscene gesture with his hand and Zanna punched him on the thigh.
“It’s a big deal, Zee. The Board could finish his career as an Operator if they sense the merest suggestion of doubt that he isn’t back to his former ability.”
“Wow, I knew it was important but I didn’t realize how much was at stake. No wonder he’s been so obsessed throughout his rehab.” I see now why he’s had no time for distractions.
Raul nodded. “Sí. Make or break time.”
“He told me about the three-mile run in under eighteen minutes. What else does he have to do?”
“One hundred crunches in two minutes and complete twenty pull-ups for a first class score. But he won’t just do the PFT, which he can do in his sleep. They’ll have him perform the CFT—the Combat Fitness Test—too.”
“What does he do in that?”
“It’s made up of tasks similar to those found on the battlefield and designed to measure a Marine’s ability to perform those combat-related tasks under stress. He’ll have to do things like an 880-yard sprint in combat boots and trousers, lift a thirty-pound ammo can over his head as many times as possible in two minutes—plus a ‘Maneuver under Fire’ exercise, which is a rapid cycle of different challenges including carrying a simulated casualty sixty-five yards. The PFT is a walk in the park by comparison.”
“It’s all been about getting to this point.”
“It’s always about getting to this point—and then going beyond it; about being a better man today than you were yesterday. To which end, I suspect they’ll give him a buncha SOF-specific tasks to accomplish as well.”
Rivera finished the crunches and lay with his knees still bent and his arms stretched out over his head.
“Someone once told me,” Zanna said, “you should ‘Train hard. Fight easy’.”
“Yeah, the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.” Raul bumped Zanna’s knee with his own to draw her attention to Lieutenant Tchibowsky who was approaching from the side.
She jumped down from the table to intercept him. They spoke for a moment, then with a curt nod, Tchibowsky left. Zanna squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and went to Rivera. In a fluid movement, he sat upright placing his forearms on his knees.
“Who is it this time?” he asked, keeping his gaze directed at the ground between his legs.
She hunkered down next to him. “It’s Angel.”
He snapped his head around to Zanna, his eyes searing her soul.
Her gut wrenched. “I’m so sorry, Domingo! I didn’t mean to imply that. He’s not dead. He’s on a MEDEVAC flight from Germany and Gant and Amanda are with him. He should arrive around ten tonight.”
He closed his eyes, swallowed, and his chin sagged. “How bad?”
Once again, Zanna felt an overwhelming desire to wrap him in a comforting embrace, but she restrained herself to the softest of squeezes on his forearm. “I don’t know any details, other than it’s a head wound,” she said softly.
This time he did not withdraw from her touch. He moved his head a little in her direction and murmured, “Thank you, Zanna,” then returned to inspecting the grass between his legs.
Zanna stood and brushed his shoulder with her fingertips. He rose and without looking at her strode away.
Once Rivera was out of earshot, Raul asked, “More bad news?”
Zanna nodded. “Angel is inbound with a TBI.”
“Shit!” Raul lit a cigarette. “How bad is it? Does Amanda know?”
“She’s with him, but I don’t know any more about the injury.”
“Did you stop Tchibo from telling him?”
“No. Tchibo said Commander Gant thought I should be the one to deliver the news.” Zanna thumbed in the direction Rivera took. “Looks like he’s headed back to the gym. Maybe he’s going to use the pool like last time. Finish your smoke and I’ll catch up with you later.”
On her way to the Wet Room, Raul’s obvious signs of fatigue of late played on Zanna’s mind. It didn’t seem to be affecting his work, but she felt she ought to speak with him about it.
* * *
Zanna leaned on the wall and watched him. No one was allowed to use the Wet Room alone. They had a buddy system even among the staff, who were permitted to use the facilities once the day’s activities were done. On reaching the end nearest her, Rivera took a break and even though with his height of six feet he could have easily stood on the bottom, he chose to tread water, using his arms more than his legs to stay afloat.
“What’s that stroke you use?” she asked. “It looks so effortless.”
“You swim?” He indicated that she join him in the water.
She opened her mouth to say she needed to go change. Ah, sod it! She slipped off her sneakers and socks and jumped into the pool next to him. After all, it never bothers him swimming in clothes.
“It’s called the Combat Side Stroke,” he said. “You pull yourself through the water in a top arm, bottom arm, kick and glide motion. Reach out and grab as much water as you can when you use your arms. Breathe when you rotate your head and body. Don’t try to hold your breath, just get into the rhythm.”
Zanna gave it a go.
“No, not like that.” He wiped the water—and smirk—off his face with a forearm. “Here, let me show you.” He came up behind Zanna, took her right arm and demonstrated the motion it needed to make. Then he took her left arm and described the completely different action it required.
Zanna’s insides burned. My God, if it feels like this to be held by him in an instructional pose; what the hell would it feel like in a passionate one!
“Are you paying attention?”
“Yes, sorry. Show me again.” She made another attempt at the stroke, which was marginally better. When she stopped and turned around, Rivera was sitting on the end of the pool, his arms folded across his chest—and he was laughing.
Bloody hell, but you look magnificent like that! She splashed water at him. “You make it look so easy.”
“I’ve been doing it a helluva lot longer than you. Like any skill, it takes practice.” He stood, bent, and offered her his left hand. She reached up with her right. He grasped her around the wrist and pulled her out of the water to land beside him as though she were weightless. He let go and took a couple of towels from the rack on the wall. He threw one to her and toweled himself off.
Zanna ran her gaze slowly down from his head. She pointed to his chest. “What on earth is that? A brand?”
Above the two small pinning scars was a neat row of four letters, each just under an inch tall. They spelled out USMC—and they were not a tattoo.
She leaned in closer and moved her hand as if to touch them. He moved his chest from the impending contact. The letters were several days old, but still a raw pink against the brown of his suntanned chest.
“Are you insane? No, don’t answer that, it’s pretty clear you’re out of your mind.”
He struck a body-building pose that flexed his pectoral muscles.
“But why? ”
“The guys in Afghanistan heard about my . . . promotion and thought I needed a little surprise something to mark it.”
“That certainly marked it, all right. What are they going to do for your next one, tar and feather you?”
He rubbed his eyes with a middle finger and thumb.
Oh, those eyelashes. They’re so thick and dark it almost looks like he’s wearing eyeliner. Does he have any idea how sexy those eyes are? Girls would kill to have lashes like that! Zanna grounded herself and pointed to his chest again. “Is it sore?”
“Kinda.”
“If that’s ‘kinda’ sore what did you say when you broke your leg? ‘That’s a tad inconvenient’?”
He gave a little shrug.
Zanna shook her head. “I’ve got something that will help with that. Wait here.”
She’d convinced herself he wouldn’t be there on her return only a few minutes later and was overjoyed to find that he still was. Unscrewing the lid of a small pot, she took a fingertip of the opaque gel and with a featherlike touch smoothed it into his scarred flesh.
He not only looks good, he smells amazing; sort of like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Sultry and spicy, just like him. Blimey, I’ll throw myself on him in a minute. Behave!
“That feels good. What is it?”
Snapping back to reality, she showed him the pot. “Aloe vera. Best used fresh, straight off the plant. I always have a plant on my kitchen windowsill. I find it’s the best treatment for minor burns. You can keep the pot.”
He read the label “For animal use only?”
“Rather appropriate, I’d have thought.”
He stifled a grin.
That stupid (but terribly cute) lop-sided grin he does when he finds amusement in something that isn’t meant to be funny, or when he’s thinking something he shouldn’t. “I pinched it off my sister. She uses it for sunburn and minor wounds on her horses.”
“Oh, so I’m not just an animal, I’m a horse.”
Without thinking, Zanna replied. “A very noble creature.”
Rivera turned away and pulled on his t-shirt. “Angel gets in around twenty-two hundred, you said?”
“Yes.” Well, you managed to kill that bit of flirty banter stone dead, didn’t you, you arse! That had been the longest piece of sustained conversation she’d ever held with him.
24
While Angel was being admitted into The Hacienda’s ICU, Amanda took the opportunity to bathe and change clothes. On her return, she found an attractive woman around her own age standing at his bedside, her long black hair contained in a loose bun.
“Hello, I’m Amanda Wilks.”
“Good evening,” the woman said in a serene voice, “I’m Galena Torres.”
The metaphorical ice water shower left Amanda numb and she was unable to meet Galena’s gaze when they shook hands. She glanced at Angel, lying motionless in his induced coma. Is that what he meant that night, when he said he couldn’t do this? Because he’s bloody married! She squared her shoulders and fixed a smile. “I’m a Critical Care Nurse. Have you spoken with the doctors?”
“Yes, they said they will look at bringing him around the day after tomorrow, and that I should not expect too much.” She clasped her hands together. “They said they won’t know for a few days how . . . impaired . . . he is likely to be.”
Impaired! Amanda’s breath caught. Will didn’t say anything about that! Yes, he did. You just didn’t want to hear it.
“Are you OK?” Galena asked.
“Yes. Yes, thank you. I met him a couple of times in Afghanistan. He was always so nice to me when I was there, and such a live wire. To see him here, like this . . . he’s such a fine man.”
Galena studied Amanda. “He is a very fine man.”
Rivera stuck his head around the door. “I’ll come back later.”
“No, Ding, come in, please. He’d love to know you’re here,” Galena said, holding out her hands to him.
He entered the room and kissed Galena on both cheeks. She enveloped him in a bear hug and he returned the gesture.
“How is he?” he asked.
“We won’t know until Friday,” Galena replied.
Rivera sat at Angel’s side, held his friend’s hand and spoke to him in Spanish, then turning to Amanda asked, “Can he hear me?”
“I’m not sure,” Amanda said. But it didn’t stop me talking to him all the way home on the plane. “He’s in a sort of suspended animation, but I always talk to them, just in case they can hear, or are aware of something. I would think it awful if people just came and went without talking to me, if I were in that situation.”