Tangled Pursuit (30 page)

Where
was
she? Where?

“Tal!” he yelled, his voice cracking. “Where are you?” He lurched to his bruised, bleeding knees, clawing at the rocks to remain upright. The rain was so heavy, he couldn’t see anywhere around him. Momentarily disoriented, Wyatt forced himself to his feet, half-crawling up the slope, hoping he was going in the right direction, disoriented.

More snapping sounds rocketed into the storm. Wyatt jerked his chin up toward the cliff above them, where the sounds were coming from.

Sonofabitch!
Was the whole overburden coming down on them? He couldn’t see that far, and frustration consumed him as he scrambled like a mountain goat upward. Wyatt didn’t even know where their destroyed hide was at this point. The wind was howling like a banshee, gusting at up to a hundred miles an hour, repeatedly knocking him off his unsteady feet.

Nothing would stop him from finding Tal. Wyatt fought and got back up, trying desperately to orient himself. He used his shoulder radio, trying to call her. Why wasn’t she answering it? Was she trapped? Hurt? Unable to get her bearings?

More snapping occurred above him. It sounded ominous. He knew it meant trees were being washed away above the overburden. They were falling and breaking as they were hurled across the slope where he and Tal were. The broken trunks then became projectiles, hundred-foot spears capable of instantly killing either of them. Breath exploded from Wyatt’s opened mouth and he pushed himself upward, his gloved hands clawing, slipping, and making scant progress against the slick rocks. He cursed continuously, feeling a sense of urgency.

Why the hell wasn’t Tal answering him? He blinked, trying to see through the gray veil of heavily falling rain.

“Tal! Answer me!” he yelled hoarsely into his mic. Wyatt knew these radios were waterproof and prayed,
God, let her be smart and reach that ridge and scramble up on it to save herself
. If she wasn’t hurt, she’d be looking for him in this violent storm. Fear ripped through him as he struggled up the slope. The icy hand of dread clutched his gut until he gasped.

Tal was in trouble! He could damn well feel it! Adrenaline surged through Wyatt. The earth beneath his feet began to shudder. He heard more of the overburden giving way above him. This time, the sound was low, rumbling, and ominous, like an earthquake.

Completely disoriented, with no way to tell where the hell he was on this damned slope, he followed his gut and turned right and scrambled up the slope as water streamed down his face and pelted him, his body bruised and bloodied from his near-death encounter with that tree.

He kept fighting to get to higher ground, hearing a dull, forbidding roar coming his way.
Jesus!
The entire cliff above them must have dropped away!

Tal! Where was Tal? Panic ripped through Wyatt as a huge moving wall of mud, rock, and trees, six feet high, appeared out of the rain. It was racing toward him at frightening speed! Could he get out of the way in time?

He crouched, springing upward, hurling himself to the right and out of the path of the debris racing down toward him. Wyatt struck brush as he landed with a grunt, rolling into it, the leaves and twigs tearing at his face and body. Panic seized him.

Just as Wyatt gripped a branch, hauling himself up on shaky legs, the rain suddenly eased, giving him an instant view of his immediate surroundings. His eyes widened as he saw a dozen tree trunks that had been snapped off and were now a pile of giant toothpicks jammed up along the side of the ridge.

“Tal!” he roared, cupping his hands to his mouth. Wyatt didn’t give a shit about anyone hearing him now. His voice was muted by the thunder and the continuing gusts of wind. As he surged toward the pile of trees near their destroyed hide, he looked up.

The entire cliff that had once been above them was gone. Wyatt saw fifty or so pine trees sticking out at odd angles within the mud avalanche that had created this wall of debris. Breathing hard, he reached the trees jammed together on the ridge.

“Tal!” he yelled, starting to climb up on the unstable pile, searching for her.
Oh, God, let her be alive!
Wyatt yanked his attention toward the slope. Their hide had been completely buried beneath a six-foot wall of mud. Thank God they had gotten out in time, but where the hell was she?

Where are you, Tal?

Slipping on the bark of a trunk, Wyatt fell, skinning his legs as he was hurled down into the logs. And then he saw her. She was lying, unmoving, one leg trapped beneath the broken trunk of the smallest tree.

Oh, God! No!

Scrambling, Wyatt leaped over the other two tree trunks, landing on the soft, muddy ridge.

Wyatt raced around the end of the group of trees, dropping to his knees next to Tal. Her flesh was colorless, her lips parted, mud splattered across her body, face, and hair. Instantly, he tore off his gloves, pressing two fingers against her carotid artery on the side of her slender neck.

There was a pulse!

She was alive! Her pulse was unsteady, his gaze took in her leg, trapped beneath the tree. His mouth tightened as he moved swiftly, trying to lift the trunk off her leg. Even a man as strong as he was could recognize the superior power of the fallen trunk. He didn’t have a chance.

Wyatt’s mind raced and he grabbed his sat phone. It wasn’t waterproof, and he kept it in a huge Ziploc bag to protect it. His hand was shaking so hard he had trouble dialing the number to connect him with SEAL HQ at Bagram. When the phone connected, he bent over, protecting it from the rain, putting it to his ear. The OIC answered. Trying to keep his voice calm, Wyatt gave his CO a quick picture of what had happened. “I need a QRF and medevac right now,” Wyatt told him, his voice shaking as he gave him Tal’s present medical status.

“On its way,” his CO said, his voice grim.

Wyatt gave him their GPS. He knew what would happen. There were always six SEALs sitting in a CH-47 helicopter idling on the runway at Bagram, ready to take off. They were a quick reaction force. They’d find two Apaches—God, he hoped there were two available—that would fly with them to protect them as they raced to this mountainside. With them would be a medevac Black Hawk.

He put the sat phone away, returning to digging out the soft mud beneath Tal’s leg. Wyatt knew it was broken and his mind raced over horrifying possibilities as he dug. There were two major bones in the lower leg. There was a major artery, too. If either or both bones were broken, it could tear into the artery and Tal could bleed out in a matter of minutes and die.

He dug hard and quickly, mud flying in all directions behind him. Wyatt measured the length of the tree trunk that had trapped Tal. There was no way anyone, not even a group of SEALs, could move that log. Tears filled his eyes as he removed the debris around her leg.

Now Wyatt’s heart dropped. He saw that her right ankle was twisted outward at an odd angle. Worse, he saw her calf had become swollen. It meant the artery had been torn. How badly, Wyatt didn’t know, but it wasn’t good.

The rain began to ease. The thunder was rumbling to the east of the mountain now. The wind had stopped gusting. Wyatt could smell the earth, the scent of pines strong around him as he completely exposed Tal’s leg. Taking his SOF knife, he slit her cammie trouser from her ankle to up above her knee.

Gently pulling the flaps aside, Wyatt got his first good look at her injury. The best news was that her skin was scraped and bruised but not broken. He ran his hand down across her calf, feeling the spongy swelling caused by blood leaking from the broken artery.

Because Tal was unconscious, he could probe a little more deeply. Damn! Both her bones were fully fractured, the ends separated from one another. Why one or both had not ripped through her skin, he’d never know. But it was a miracle.

Wyatt knew if she’d sustained an open fracture, she could have bled out quickly, but fortunately, the pressure of the blood swelling inside her calf was actually slowing down the flow of blood out of her artery and into the surrounding muscle tissue.

Had Tal been struck in the head by a log and knocked out? He needed to do a quick head-to-toe exam on her and try to see what other injuries she might have sustained. Shakily getting to his feet, he looked around, peering through the light rain for any signs of the enemy. Wyatt doubted there would be anyone around. But they were in the badlands, and anything could happen.

Dropping to his knees near her right shoulder, Wyatt began to quickly assess Tal’s full injuries. When he finished with his exam, Wyatt retrieved his ruck and brought it back to where Tal lay unconscious. The good news was Tal had a bump on her head, indicating she’d probably been knocked unconscious and fallen. That was when the logs had crashed down into the area, pinning her leg.

Wyatt quickly pulled on latex gloves, grabbed a syrette of morphine, and pushed up her damp, muddy sleeve. He wiped the area clean with an alcohol swab and pushed the painkilling drug into her body. He knew that when she woke up, she’d be in horrific pain. Wyatt worried about her being cold and wet with her leg so badly broken; shock could kill her outright. But for now, the morphine would stop her spiral into pain, which automatically kept the shock from deepening.

He dropped the emptied syrette into his ruck and pulled out a rolled-up, dry blanket, quickly putting it across her to try to stop the loss of her body heat. He knew it was impossible under the circumstances. The ground was soaked beneath her, the wet mud leaching out her precious heat resources. That could drive her into deeper shock, adding to the cascade of problems she was under.

His mind raced over what needed to be done to stabilize her. He prayed silently as he began to work with her twisted, broken lower leg. Wyatt wrapped it in a removable plastic cast to stabilize the injury. If he so much as moved her foot the wrong way, those crushed bones could end up fully cutting the main artery, and she’d bleed to death in less than three minutes.

Right now, he could tell the artery was nicked, but not torn apart, by how slowly the swelling was occurring in her calf. That was another piece of hopeful news, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

Wyatt retrieved the second dry blanket from his ruck, rolled it up, and placed it beneath Tal’s neck, keeping her head slightly tilted back so her airway remained clear and open.

Tal moaned softly, her lashes quivering.

Wyatt anxiously crouched down, knowing she was starting to regain consciousness. He took the metallic silver blanket from his ruck. It was waterproof and could stop hypothermia. He gently raised her just enough to slide the protective blanket beneath her shoulders and torso in order to prevent further heat loss.

What did her eyes look like? Wyatt was desperate to see if her pupils were equal sizes and responsive once she opened them. If they were not, or if one pupil was fixed and unresponsive to the small flashlight he held ready, they were in more trouble. It meant that Tal had sustained a brain injury. How bad would be anyone’s guess.

All Wyatt could do at this point was keep her stabilized, warm, and safe while he waited for the QRF to arrive. Glancing at his watch, he saw thirty minutes had passed. It would be another hour at the most before they could get Tal back to Bagram’s hospital for emergency treatment.

Her dark lashes were long and thick, fluttering against her pale cheeks. Wyatt held his breath as her eyes barely opened and a moan drifted from her, the corners of her mouth lined with pain.

“Tal? It’s Wyatt. Do you see me?” Her once-glorious forest-green eyes were murky-looking and confused. Anxiously, he waited, wanting her eyes to open more so he could get a look at her pupils.

“Tal?” he called, touching her muddy cheek. “Darlin’, it’s me. Wyatt.” He saw her frown slightly, her eyes slowly drifting up . . . up . . . up . . . to him, looking at him as if she didn’t recognize him.

But Wyatt knew she did. He saw her pupils, which were large and black, green crescents surrounding them. “Tal? I’m going to bring my light across your eyes. Can you stare at my nose? Hold your stare right there for just a moment for me?”

Wyatt knew people with head trauma often didn’t hear words distinctly, that they ran together in a jumble. He saw Tal’s frown deepen and she fixed on his face. “That’s it,” he crooned. “Hold your focus right there . . .”

Relief shot through him as he saw each of her pupils respond to the bright light. She moaned again, eyes jamming shut, her breath ragged.

“Okay,” he said soothingly, sliding his hand in a caressing gesture along her jaw, “you’re good, sugar. How much pain are you in? Can you tell me?” He reached down, gripping her muddy hand, squeezing it gently.

Tal barely opened her eyes. Her breathing was ragged and shallow.

Wyatt took a large dressing and carefully wiped the mud away from her brow, eyes, and mouth, trying to clean her up a little. “Talk to me, Tal. Where are you hurting?”

She grimaced and barely lifted her right hand. “L-leg . . . sonofabitch, it hurts . . .” She grunted, tensing, cursing more.

Wyatt could see she needed more morphine. Since she didn’t have a head injury, he could give her more. “Hang on, I’ll get the pain under control.” He reached into his ruck and gave her a second syrette. Looking around, he saw that the world was now back to normal, the storm centered over the border area beyond them.

Wyatt still kept a wary watch for any nearby enemy. Taliban could be in a cave anywhere below or around them. There were so many damn caves nearby!

As Wyatt caressed her shoulder, he saw her clench her teeth, her hands curling into fists, sweat popping out on her face. That second syrette of morphine would do the trick for sure. It would soon put her into an opium cloud, erasing the pain, but she wouldn’t be able to communicate.

Wyatt tucked the green wool blanket in around her more tightly. “Tal? Can you open your eyes? Look at me, darlin’.” He placed his hand against her cool cheek and was rewarded with her opening her eyes. Already, they were starting to look drowsy with morphine. “Can you understand me, Tal?” he asked, enunciating his words very slowly and clearly so she could understand him.