Down Range (Shadow Warriors - Book 2) (17 page)

Everything slowed down to a crawl. The man’s eyes widened in surprise as her bullets struck him three times in the chest. The AK-47 he was firing arced upward, spewing bullets up past her and into the sky. Then came his scream of rage. But her focus, her entire life, was zeroed in on the man coming right behind him. It was Khogani.
Bastard!
Morgan’s lips drew away from her clenched teeth. Burning pain consumed her torso where she’d taken a bullet to her Kevlar vest.

Morgan leaped to her feet, crouched and aimed. Khogani screamed at her, raising his AK-47, firing at her at the same time. Morgan didn’t move. Her whole life was through the scope of the M-4. She had his head in the sights, and she pulled the trigger. As she did, her left leg suddenly became unstable. Surprised, she watched as her bullet went an inch left of the Taliban leader’s head. He was no more than ten feet away when her left leg collapsed beneath her.

Grunting, the M-4 slamming into the rocks, her hand still gripping it, Morgan saw Khogani suddenly give her a feral grin. He had glee written across his bearded face as he pulled his scimitar from the sheath and held it in his left hand. He was going to decapitate her.

She’d been hit and hit bad. Her eyesight started graying. Morgan felt herself bleeding out. The last thing she was going to do before she lost consciousness was kill Khogani. He’d killed Mark. He’d murdered Reza’s village of a hundred and fifty Shinwari people.

Her gaze held his baleful one. He was triumphant now as he slowed down, seeing she was lying on her back, helpless. He didn’t think she had the physical strength to pick up the M-4 lying useless in her right hand. He moved the scimitar, slinging the AK-47 over his shoulder, wrapping his hands around the handle of the curved blade. His eyes gleamed with excitement as he approached her.

Morgan felt her heart pounding in her chest. Felt the warmth of blood spurting out of her thigh. Her fingers closed around the M-4. Khogani was six feet away, smiling down at her, his eyes filled with malice.

No doubt, he didn’t think she had any fight left in her, and she was counting on this. She used every ounce of her hatred to lift that M-4 and aim it at Khogani. With superhuman effort, black dots dancing across her vision, Morgan hauled the M-4 up, aimed and pulled the trigger. She watched the bullet strike Khogani in the face.

The Taliban leader was thrown backward six feet. He landed in a heap, the scimitar flying out of his hand, falling on the nearby rocks.

Gasping for breath, Morgan tried to listen for more Taliban. It was suddenly quiet except for the Apaches thunking heavily overhead, watching through their avionics the carnage and bloodbath below.

“Jake!” she yelled. “Jake!”

“I’m here. Where are you?”

Morgan sank to the ground, breathing hard, feeling pain starting to move up her leg and into her gut. “Eleven o’clock. I’m hit….”

“Hold on….”

The M-4 slid uselessly out of Morgan’s fingers. She blinked, trying to hold on to consciousness. Jake appeared, limping badly, his face hard and unreadable. A lot of blood oozed from his lower leg. His eyes widened as he stared down at her. That look told her everything. Morgan suddenly felt very weak, no matter how hard she battled against it.

Jake fell to her side, holstering his SIG. He ignored the pain of his leg wound and quickly jerked the tourniquet off the position it was held on her left shoulder. Her left leg had been trapped beneath her body.

He gently moved her so that he could carefully straighten out her leg. It worried him how pasty Morgan’s face was.

“Lie still, babe,” he rasped, opening the tourniquet and quickly placing it high, around her left thigh.

Morgan had taken a bullet, and it had not only hit the flesh of her thigh, but it had shattered her femur. The white bone stuck up out of the raw flesh and scared him as little else ever would. Gulping, Jake quickly tightened the tourniquet down so hard that she screamed and lost consciousness. The blood spurting out of the torn area stopped. He called on his radio for medevac. They had to get out of here! A medevac would never be able to land near this ravine.

Jake looked down at Morgan, her eyes shut, her mouth slack. With shaking fingers, he pressed them against the carotid artery located on the side of her slender neck. There was a pulse. But very weak and slow, indicating just how much blood she’d already lost. The tourniquet would slow down most of the bleeding. Did he have a chance to get her out of here alive or not? He didn’t know.

Turning, Jake grabbed some green duct tape out of his gear and quickly wrapped it around his lower leg and knee. A bullet had passed through the meat of his calf. If he could just use the duct tape to support that leg, he could carry Morgan out of the wadi and to help. He heard the Apaches circling. They’d heard his desperate request for the medevac to land on the goat path, just clear of the wadi.

Had they killed all the Taliban soldiers? Jake didn’t know. He thought so, but he couldn’t be sure. It was a terrible risk. Leave Morgan here, alone and unprotected, and go see if there were any more bad guys left alive in the wadi hunting them down, or not?

His mind moved through how many were killed. Pain was affecting his thought processes. Jake savagely willed himself to think clearly and gut through his pain. Yes, all seventeen were accounted for. There was no one left.

Jake heaved to his feet, testing the duct tape around his wound. Looking down, he realized he could never put Morgan in a fireman’s carry. Not with the bone of her femur sticking out like that. He’d cause her more injury, probably kill her by ripping another artery open. Breathing hard, shaking with adrenaline from the battle, Jake leaned down, sliding his arms beneath her shoulders and her knees.
God, help me get her out of here. Just give me the strength….

Chapter Eighteen

Jake shielded Morgan
in his arms, turning his back toward the Black Hawk medevac landing on the goat path south of the wadi. Rocks, dirt and dust exploded around him as the rotors tore up the area and the helo landed. He fell to his knees, leaned over as far as he could, pulling Morgan close, trying to protect her from the flying debris kicked up by eighty-miles-an-hour gusts.

Gasping for breath, Jake wasn’t sure he could rise out of the kneeling position due to loss of blood. The helo was less than a hundred feet away. Every time he looked down at Morgan, her head tipped back, throat exposed and her lips parted, her flesh whitened a little more with every passing minute. Jake desperately willed his life back into hers.

The two combat medics leaped out of the helo, running hard down the goat path toward them. The aircrew chief, Jackson, a man in his forties, looked grimly down at her wounded leg. The white femur stuck out of Morgan’s bloodied trousers, stark and jolting.

“We got her,” he yelled to Jake over the roar of the rotor wash. Jackson gripped Jake’s shoulder and then barked orders over at the younger combat medic, Tennison.

“She’s critical, a nine liner!” Jake yelled, his voice cracking. He looked up into the man’s eyes. Jake knew what he knew: Morgan could die in transit. His mind whirled, he felt dizzy, and he held on tightly to her limp body.

“Let her go,” Jackson ordered, gripping his hand and prying Jake’s fingers away from beneath her bloodied thigh.

“He’s wounded, too,” Tennison called, spotting blood on the SEAL’s lower leg.

“Goddammit!” Jake yelled at the younger blond medic. “You take care of
her!
”

In moments, the medics had lifted Morgan carefully between them. Jake fell to his hands and knees, gasping for air. He wasn’t sure he could make that torturous climb out of the wadi. His legs felt like jelly. Even as toughened as he was as a SEAL, he’d pushed far beyond his own physical limits. Terrified for Morgan, he gritted his teeth, pushed up to his knees and, somehow, staggered to his feet.

Jake picked up the M-4 and his ruck that had the sniper rifle strapped to the back of it. Turning, he forced his cramping legs to move into a trot. Ahead, the rotor wash violently buffeted him, flinging up dirt and pebbles. Jake shielded his eyes with one hand and bowed his head against his chest, weaving at a run toward the opened door of the Black Hawk.

It was Tennison who hauled him on board, gripping his shoulder, helping him in the rest of the way. Jake spun down past the medics, avoiding the litter strapped to the deck where Jackson was feverishly working over Morgan.

Sinking to his knees, Jake twisted around and shrugged off his ruck. He brought the two weapons down between him and the wall of the chopper. He squeezed into a corner, sitting down and drawing up his legs against his body so both medics had as much room as they needed in order to help Morgan.

The Black Hawk spooled up, broke earth, the thunking blades pulling strongly, heading straight up. Jake felt woozy but shook it off. He watched as Tennison fitted an oxygen mask over Morgan’s face. Jackson ripped open several packages of Celox, a blood coagulant, and poured it into her torn thigh to stop all the bleeding. He quickly cut off the left sleeve around Morgan’s arm, inserted an IV. The other medic pulled out the whole blood from a nearby cooler, handing it to Jackson. The life-giving blood would flood her cardiovascular system. It would start to make up for the loss of blood, and it
could
make a difference by getting enough fluids into her body. It would stop her heart from going into cardiac arrest.

Jake felt helpless. All he could do was sit there as a witness. The medics quickly placed a large field dressing over her leg, carefully covering the exposed bone. And then they drew on a set of trauma pants. The LSP air trauma trousers fitted from her ankles to halfway up Morgan’s torso. They pumped air into the pants to force blood from her lower extremities back into the center of her body so her heart had enough blood to keep it working. The pants would also stabilize the open fracture and slow down the shock eating away at her.

Jackson was pushing one syringe after another of drugs into the IV line, dropping them wherever they landed around him on the deck. He was snapping orders to Tennison, who appeared shaken. His eyes had gone huge when he’d realized Morgan was a woman, not a man.

Pushing the sweat out of his eyes, Jake saw a nearby crew helmet, grabbed it and pulled it on. Above his head, he inserted the jack into an outlet that would allow him to hear inter-cabin communications.

“Lieutenant,” Jackson snapped, looking up toward the cockpit, “you get this bird red lined. This patient isn’t gonna make it. Fly straight to Bagram. I want to be switched over to the E.R. trauma surgery channel at the hospital, stat.”

Jake’s heart raced with dread. The older combat medic’s mouth was flattened, his eyes narrowed and focused solely on Morgan. Pulling the mic closer to his lips, Jake said, “She’s type O positive blood. She’s lost close to two and a half pints from what I can estimate.”

“Dammit!” Jackson barked, grabbing another IV. He thrust it across Morgan to Tennison, ordering him to cut off her other sleeve and insert the second IV of saline fluid in her other arm. It would give Morgan twice the amount of fluids as before. It was a desperate rush to stabilize her.

The helo was roaring, shaking and shuddering as it climbed over the twelve-thousand-foot mountain, straining at the highest possible forward speed in the thin air. Jake sat tensely, his eyes never leaving Morgan’s face. Once the IVs were inserted, Jackson, as gently as he could, removed her Kevlar vest. He threw it across the helo, and it landed at Jake’s feet. He pulled the vest next to the weapons at his side.

“Any other wounds?” Jackson demanded of Jake.

“I don’t know,” he said, swallowing hard. “We got separated.” Jackson nodded and with a pair of scissors quickly cut open the front of her shirt. There were no bloodstains on her tan T-shirt. But when Jackson cut the fabric in half and pulled it open, Jake gasped. Morgan had sustained a bullet to her Kevlar. The huge purple bruise appeared below her right breast.

My God, how had she managed to fight on? And she hadn’t let the hit stop her from returning fire. Jake had seen her bring down Khogani. There had been nothing he could have done directly to help Morgan, as he’d been killing the last Taliban soldier coming up at the same time behind her to shoot her in the head.

Jackson, despite his size and his large hands, was gentle as he and Tennison worked to pull off Morgan’s clothing and inspect her back to examine it for bullet exit wounds. They handled her as if she were a fragile, broken doll.

Jake couldn’t believe what he saw as they eased her over just enough to inspect the back of her body. Morgan had sustained a second hit to her Kevlar vest. Another purple bruise just beneath her left shoulder blade stared back at him. Tears jammed into Jake’s eyes as he sat there, realizing what she’d done. Morgan had exposed herself on both flanks, trying to protect him after he’d been wounded and gone down. He’d tried to get up, but his leg had kept buckling beneath him. The Taliban had fired at her repeatedly. The vest had saved her life twice. How could she have continued to fight with two hits to her Kevlar like that?

Jackson pulled a dark green wool blanket across Morgan’s upper body and gently placed each of her arms outside of it. He put the stethoscope to her heart, head bent, listening…listening….

Jake struggled to take a deep breath. He kept praying they’d get enough fluids into Morgan soon enough to stop her heart from cavitating. The monitors hanging on the back of the copilot’s seat showed that her blood pressure was in the basement and her pulse was dropping. She was borderline. Any second, Morgan could go into arrest.

The expression on Jackson’s face was tense as he was patched through to Bagram air base near Kabul. The man wasted no time in telling them to have a surgical team with a gurney waiting for them. He described Morgan’s medical state in stark detail, giving them the stats and ordering an ortho surgeon to be heading up the surgical team because of her broken femur.

Jake’s gaze moved to Morgan’s face. Her lips were slack, her skin translucent, dark purple crescents beneath her closed eyes. Rubbing his face savagely, all Jake could do was wait. He loved Morgan. He loved her so damn much, and she was lying critical on the deck of a Black Hawk. He could do nothing else to help her. Her life was measured by the amount of fluids flowing into her arteries. And her will to live.

He prayed as he’d never prayed before. He’d trade his soul to the devil if Morgan would be allowed to live.

Eventually, Tennison crawled over to him.

“Sir? Will you let me look at your wound?”

“Take care of
her,
” Jake ground out, glaring up at the young medic.

The combat medic reared back, as if struck. SEALs had a bad reputation out in the field. And most combat medics knew a lesser wounded SEAL would ignore their own injury in favor of another teammate’s more serious wound.

“Tennison, get over here,” Jackson ordered tightly.

Jake looked out the window. There was blue sky. It was morning. He pulled the cover off his watch, his fingers trembling. They’d been in the air for almost an hour.

“ETA to Bagram?” he asked Jackson.

Jackson was checking Morgan’s blood pressure, which had finally stabilized at a very low setting. “Another twenty minutes.”

“What’s her status?”

“Past critical.”

The way Jackson said the word scared Jake even more.

“What’s a woman doing out here?” Tennison asked, turning to Jake.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jake snarled.

“But…you’re a SEAL.”

Jake wanted to scream. Why the hell did it matter at all? Morgan was as close to death as anyone could get without outright dying. “Keep your head in the game,” Jake yelled. He jabbed his index finger down at Morgan. “Focus on
her!
” Breathing raggedly, Jake almost wanted to get up and put a fist into the kid’s face. He was young. This was probably his first tour in a medevac. Thank God Jackson was here. The older man was fighting every mile to stabilize Morgan against all kinds of odds stacked against her.

“Tennison, strap her in,” Jackson ordered him sharply. “We’ll be landing shortly.”

The aircrew chief nodded slightly to Jake, as if to apologize for the kid’s badly timed questions. Jake drew up his knees and rested his head against his arms, exhausted.

They couldn’t land too soon. Jake breathed a sigh of relief as the Black Hawk landed at the hospital, cutting the engines, the shaking and shuddering slowing down. Jackson unhooked the inter-cabin connection, ordered Tennison to slide the door open on the helo. Jake remained where he was. Four men came forward with a gurney, the blades whipping their green scrubs and hair. It was Jackson who was in charge, and he barked orders at the doctors and nurses who assisted. Together, they gently moved Morgan out of the helo and onto the gurney. In moments, they had her strapped in and were trotting toward the open doors that led directly into the surgery unit.

Jackson leaped back on board, his eyes boring into Jake’s bloodshot gaze. He reached out, gripping the SEAL’s arm, pulling him forward toward the door. All the life, the urgency, bled out of Jake. He looked down to see the huge pool of blood that had leaked out of his duct-taped leg wound. Jackson was strong and guiding. Jake moved slowly, every effort draining him more and more.

As the second gurney was moved to the lip of the open door, Jake hesitated. He grabbed the combat medic’s arm. “Thank you…”

“Any time, sir. Good luck. Godspeed.”

It was the last thing Jake remembered as he fainted from blood loss.

Jake snapped awake
in the E.R. A team was prepping him for surgery. An orthopedic surgeon came over.

“I’m Dr. Jonas. I’m going to be operating on Captain Morgan Boland. You were with her, right?”

Jake shook off his dizziness. “Yes, sir, I was.” He saw the surgeon frown. “Why?” His heart sped up with fear.

“Her leg wound is very bad, Lieutenant. I’m probably going to have to amputate it.”

Hissing a curse, Jake willed himself up on his elbows, grabbing the surgeon’s green scrubs. “Like hell, you will! You do whatever you can, Doctor, to save her and her leg!” His glare burned into the doctor’s widening eyes. “Don’t you dare take her leg!” His voice cracked. “Give her a chance! You hear me?” His fingers tightened into the material at the surgeon’s throat. Desperation, grief, soared through him as he saw the ortho surgeon tense.

“Okay, Lieutenant.” He pried Jake’s fingers off his scrubs. “I’ll do what I can.”

Breathing hard, Jake snarled, “You’ll do better than that. I’ll hunt you down if you don’t save her leg.”

The surgeon scowled. “At ease, Lieutenant. You’re wounded and you’re going into surgery here in a few minutes yourself.”

There was anger in the surgeon’s eyes, and, somehow, Jake didn’t feel he could trust him. Maybe it was his own weakness that caused this paranoia, but he had to do something. When the surgeon left, Jake struggled off the gurney, much to the chagrin of the nurse who was trying to help him.

“Get me to a phone,” he growled, drilling a hard look into her eyes.
“Now.”
He pulled the IV out of his arm, dropping it on the gurney.

The nurse nodded. “Come with me, sir.” She led him to an office just off of E.R. Opening the door, she pointed to a phone on a desk. “Do me a favor? Once you finish your call, come back to the cubical so I can prep you for surgery?”

“I will,” Jake grunted, limping heavily. He ignored the pain, closed the door and went to the desk. Grabbing the landline, he called General Maya Stevenson at the Pentagon. Jake was going to move heaven and hell to get Morgan’s leg saved. If anyone could help, he knew the General would.

Jake jerked awake.
He sat straight up, gasping for breath. Looking around, his heart pounding, he realized he was in a drug haze. He was in a private room. Perspiration rolled off him, dampening the material of his blue hospital gown.